Showing posts with label vietnam. Show all posts
Showing posts with label vietnam. Show all posts

Monday, February 1, 2021

February, 2021, Part 2, Political Class Insanity: Facebook Screws Free Speech In Vietnam, John Kerry's Climate Hypocrisy, and Biden's Failed Choice To Operate the Department of Energy

It is the beginning of another month which means it is time again to review the latest political class insanity from the American political class. Each month it takes us multiple posts to cover the wasteful spending, incompetent government organizations and employees, government programs that usually make a problem worse than resolving it, inane and idiotic politician comments, etc.

To review past posts on this insanity and idiocy, just click on the first few posts in each month listed to the right of this page. After reviewing just a handful of these insanity posts we think you will agree that we are currently being served by the worst set of American politicians ever to hold office in our entire history.

1) Far too often we talk about how politicians are masters at, “Do as I say, not as I do” behavior:
  • They want us to wear masks because of the pandemic but they do not wear theirs.
  • They want to take away our Second Amendment rights but increase their security forces to protect themselves.
  • They subject us to rules and laws but often exempt themselves from those same rules and laws. 
The latest such hypocrisy comes for a long time member of the American political class, John Kerry:

  • Biden has appointed Kerry as his so-called “climate czar.”
  • Which means he will be involved in our lives regarding the likely myth of manmade global warming and climate change.
  • As readers of this blog know, we have refuted and dispelled these two myths many, many times in this blog using real science from real scientists, not faux science from non-scientists like Kerry.
  • To review those past myth-busting posts just enter “I am a global warming doubter” in the search box above.
  • Kerry is sure to push the country to use less carbon based fuels which in turn will make our lives more expensive and more uncomfortable.
  • But while he is doing that to us he will likely continue flying around the world in his private jet that his family uses, throwing much more carbon into the air than if he had used a commercial airline for his travels.
  • According to the Daily Wire, “The Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) “registry shows a Gulfstream Aerospace jet owned by Flying Squirrel LLC, the name previously reported for Teresa Heinz-Kerry’s private charter jet company. The company’s listed address matches that of the Heinz Family Foundation,” Fox News reported. “According to FAA records, the jet’s registration certificate was issued in July of 2005 and expires in October of 2023.””
  • According to research by Honeywell Aerospace, private jets like Kerry’s “burn 40 times as much carbon per passenger as regular commercial flights.”
If Kerry really wanted to show us how much he believed in man made climate change, he would junk or at least sell his family’s private jet and fly commercial jets like the rest of America. That would make a strong statement that he really believed the guff he was feeding us. 

But he won't do it. Only ordinary citizens will have to bear the burden of any negative climate regulations that Biden puts forth since in this country, politicians are exempt from the rules that they impose on the rest of us. Kerry is surely going to continue to burn carbon at the 40 times the rate that his private jet does, inconvenience is only for the peons like us, not the political elite like him.

2) Let’s stay with the likely myth of manmade global warming and review what happened during the Obama years. He and his Democratic friends in Congress spend billions and billions of dollars, to the benefit of his financial and political backers, to try and jump start a green economy under the lie or false reality that mankind was going to burn up the earth with its use of carbon based fuels.

The end result is that the American taxpayer gave billions of dollars to companies like the following listed below and got NOTHING in return: Solyndra, A123, Spectra, Fisker and many, many other failures.

Remember those names? They were all operated or owned by Democratic operatives and financial donors, they all got taxpayer money for nothing, and produced the exact same thing, nothing. Adding insult to injury, Fisker was not even an American company.

All of which brings us to the person that Biden wants to run the Energy Department in his administration:
  • According to a recent USA Today article, former Michigan governor, Jennifer Granholm, is Biden’s choice to run the Energy Department.
  • According to the article, “A big part of her job will be to dole out taxpayer dollars to “green” companies and industries favored by the Biden administration — a strategy she deployed in Michigan, but with little to show for it.”
  • During her time as governor, she spent billions of Michigan taxpayer dollars on “politically favored companies” in a chance of creating green jobs to counteract global warming.
  • She did this while promising her state taxpayers that, “In five years, you’re going to be blown away.” 
  • Apparently the taxpayers were blown away years later but not in a good way. 
  • Her green government organization, the Michigan Economic Growth Authority, gave out billions of dollars in tax credits to a whopping 434 green projects.
  • But according to an analysis by the Mackinac Center, years later only 10 of those 434 projects yielded any positive results, a dismal success record of only 2.3%.
  • So much for being blown away in five years.
Some of her more notable failures included the following disasters:
  • A123 Systems was supposed to create hundreds if not thousands of jobs in Michigan making electric car batteries. The company received millions of state taxpayer dollars but ended up going bankrupt and created zero jobs in the state.
  • Another battery company, LG Chem, received $125 million and was supposed to make Michigan “the world capital for advanced batteries.” But the demand for the company batteries never materialized and it was documented that employees ended up getting paid to watch movies and play games in order to stay on the payroll so that the company could continue to draw Federal taxpayer dollars. The company eventually started making batteries but came nowhere close to being the world capital for advanced batteries. It produced no batteries while Granholm was governor.
  • She also directed taxpayer dollars to other battery companies and promised that the state would have “up to 40,000 great new (battery) jobs by 2020.” Well, we just got through 2020, and none of the battery companies who received state taxpayer dollars met their job projections with many going through bankruptcy. Rather than having 40,000 battery jobs, there are currently less than 2,000 state battery jobs.
  • Michigan gave Mascoma a $20 million grant to convert biomass into ethanol. The company also received $100 million of Federal taxpayer wealth. The company’s biomass factory was never built, no ethanol was ever produced, and the intellectual property of the company was sold off.
  • A closed Ford production property, Wixom, was supposed to become a $725 million renewable energy industrial park. Granholm boasted it would be “symbolic for Michigan in what we’re going to become.” That is not a good thing for Michigan since even though it got a $100 million tax credit in exchange for promising 4,000 new jobs, the whole concept was scrapped two years later.
  • Suniva got $250 million, promised 500 green jobs, produced no jobs or anything else of value.
  • United Solar Ovonics got both state and Federal government subsidies, pledged 1,00 jobs, produced no jobs and parts of the company were sold off in 2012.
  • Evergreen Solar got state money but went bankrupt.
  • GlobalWatt got $42 million in state taxpayer money but also went bankrupt.
  • The “RASCO Fiasco'' was probably the worst embarrassment of Granholm’s ill fated green job spending spree. She appeared at a press conference with Richard Short to promote the $9 million in tax credits she gave him to produce jobs in Flint, Michigan. But Short’s parole officer actually saw the press conference. You see, Short was a convicted embezzler with a long history of running financial scams. He lived in a borrowed trailer when Granholm gave him the tax credits. He eventually went back to prison. How do you not do at least a simple background check if you are the governor before making a fool of yourself and forking over $9 million in taxpayer wealth to a known embezzler?
Just a small fraction of the over 400 green energy projects that failed during her term in office. And yet Biden wants her to be the head of his energy Department and continue the failed strategies that Biden and Obama had during the Obama administration.

In what real world job can you be successful only 2.3% of the time in your job and get promoted? It pays to be an American politician where failure is not viewed as an impediment to advancing your career….even if you do waste billions of dollars of taxpayer wealth in the process.

The article summed this insanity best: “Now Jennifer Granholm is set to bring her record to the national stage. She’ll try to make good on Biden’s promise to “accelerat[e] cutting-edge technologies” in the “green” space. With her at the helm, you can expect the Biden administration to repeat Michigan’s corporate welfare failure, but on a much grander and costlier scale.”

3) A little political class insanity from around the world. Facebook has agreed to censor any material that shows up on its social media platform in Vietnam if that material is critical of the government or those that operate the government. Thus, Facebook has no problem abridging the freedom of speech rights of citizens in order to maintain its revenue and profit flow, at least in Vietnam. 

How long before it does the same thing elsewhere such as in this country? Given that it has already taken down Facebook groups and posts that are not consistent with Zuckerberg’s political leanings in this country, that may be happening already.

That will do it for today’s insanity: an ominous sign from Vietnam when it comes to free speech, another incompetent politician lands on her feet despite having a failed track record of performance and John Kerry’s hypocrisy lives on.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

Please visit the following sites for freedom:


Tuesday, January 2, 2018

January, 2018, Part 2, Political Class Insanity: A Senator Votes For The Opposite Of What He Believes, Another Politician Gets Indicted and More

It is the beginning of another month which means it is again time to review the latest political class insanity from Washington and around the world. Political class insanity takes many forms including the wasting of taxpayer wealth, criminal fraud within government programs, inane and stupid political quotes and actions, the inability to create and implement effective and efficient government programs, stupid and ill performing economic policies and strategies, and other forms of insanity that continue to evolve and surprise and shock us.

Let's get started:

1) We have often pointed out how confused, dazed, and lost most politicians are. We once reported that a Georgia Congressman thought the island of Guam could tip over in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. We reported on a Texas Congresswoman who thought that there were still two Vietnams with North Vietnam ruling over South Vietnam. That same Congresswoman once declared that her own Congressional district was 50 feet below sea level which, of course, it was not. We once had a Speaker of the House proclaim that a piece legislation (Obama Care) had to be passed BEFORE we could see what was in it.

Which brings us to the latest piece of politician confusion. As most of you know, Washington recently enacted some far reaching tax reform legislation that will reduce and simplify the Federal tax process. It is estimated that over 140 America tax filers will see a reduction in their taxes going forward as a result. The tax legislation will also make filing one’s taxes easier and quicker. And the legislation has already resulted in companies taking important steps to reward themselves, their employees, their stockholders, and the charities they support with their tax savings.

Which brings us to our latest confused politician. Joe Manchin is a Democratic Senator from the state of West Virginia. He voted against the tax reform legislation as did every other Democrat in Congress. In a recent radio interview, Manchin acknowledged there was a lot of good in the legislation that he voted against: “There’s some good in this bill. I acknowledge that. The things that you mention are correct. Initially people will benefit and see some changes in their taxes.” He went on to say that, “I think there is going to be benefit from the get-go, which is called the sugar high.”

Now, he did try, vainly, to justify his no vote on the legislation. He said that taxes could go up in ten years if Congress does not renew the tax cuts. Well, that gives Americans ten years of tax reductions, Joe, and in ten years all Congress has to do is renew the tax cuts, that simple. Another way to say the same thing is a line I found describing Manchin’s idiotic position: “Which is like saying you’re going to pass on this delicious chocolate cake right now because there might not be any left in 2027.” 

Obviously, Manchin voted against his conscience and voted along party lines because his handlers in the upper end of the Democratic Party dictated his vote. Which is just another example of what is wrong with our political class in America today: doing the right thing always takes a back seat to doing the things that benefit only politicians and the two major political parties.

2) It is not only politicians that are confused, dazed, and lost. Often celebrities are the same way. For some reason they think that because they are good at show business stuff that they have deep insights into life and politics that they need to share, and impose, on the rest of us who do not have their brains or knowledge.

Third tier comedian Rosie O’Donnell is one of those show business types. She has been a vocal, often hysterical critic, of Trump ever since he decided to run for the Presidency, somehow thinking that her ranting and raving will make some kind of positive difference in the state of the union.

Unfortunately, her out of control ranting and raving may have exposed her to some serious felony possibilities:

  • Tim Brown, writing for the Freedom Outpost website recently, reported that O’Donnell could face a $12 million fine and 15 years in prison for attempted bribery.
  • In the run up to the vote to reduce taxes, O’Donnell went on Twitter and publicly offered to pay two Republican Senators $2 million if they voted against the tax reduction legislation.
  • Unfortunately, selling your vote to the highest bidder is not the way our republic and government processes are supposed to work which makes offering a sitting member of Congress money to vote a certain way a crime.
  • According to the article: “18 U.S. Code § 201 criminalizes the attempted bribery of federal officials by whoever “directly or indirectly, corruptly gives, offers or promises anything of value to any public official … with intent to influence any official act.””...”The fine to be imposed would be “not more than three times the monetary equivalent of the thing of value, whichever is greater, or imprisoned for not more than fifteen years, or both, and may be disqualified from holding any office of honor, trust, or profit under the United States.””
  • While some people initially thought her bribery tweet was in jest or to make a symbolic point, she followed up with another tweet, insisting she was serious, making her even more susceptible to prosecution.
Still no cure for stupid...or show business people who think they are smarter than the rest of us when it comes to politics, government, and the world.

3) Probably the second most mentioned topic in this blog behind stupidity of politicians is the crookedness of politicians. Which brings us to the latest instance of a crooked politician:

  • Virginia Democratic Congressional candidate Shaun Brown was recently indicted by a Federal grand jury.
  • The indictment includes two counts of wire fraud and one count of theft of government property.
  • Specifically, the indictment claims that Brown and others filed bogus claims with the Federal government’s Summer Food Service Program in excess of $439,000 via a non-profit group that Brown founded in 1995.
  • Her non-profit was supposed to provide meals to children of low income households during the months when those kids could not get meals via school lunches.
  • The indictment claims that Brown defrauded the Federal government, and American taxpayers, by submitting for compensation for more meals than she actually served.
If true, and a Federal grand jury indictment is serious stuff, then how low is this potential member of Congress, using hungry kids as a front to defraud the American taxpayer. And she wanted to be a member of Congress. So sad and pathetic.

That will do it for today’s insanity: Another potential greedy and pathetic politician, this one feasting off of low income kids, an idiotic show business celebrity whose big mouth might land her in prison, and a Senator who voted how others in his political sphere dictated how he was to vote rather than voting for the best interests of his constituents. More insanity to follow.


Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:


www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

Term Limits Now: http://www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com
http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.bankruptingamerica.org

http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w






Friday, February 13, 2015

Part Two: Are Today's Washington Politicians The Worst Ever?

Today is thew second of a two part series where we have a philosophical discussion revolving around the following hypothesis: In America today, are we suffering through the worst, most incompetent set of Washington politicians to ever hold office? Before getting into the details, let’s consider the state of the country today, most of which was caused by our current crop of politicians:
  • Due to lax government oversight, government meddling in the market, and crony capitalism we just lived through the worse economic downturn since the Great Depression and the worst economic recovery in the past 100 years. 
  • We have a national debt of $18 TRILLION, a debt burden of about $155,000 for every U.S. household.
  • Our public schools due a lousy job of educating our kids vs. the rest of the world despite an $18 TRILLION national debt.
  • Our borders our not secure, endangering the lives of every American, despite an $18 TRILLION national debt.
  • We have no comprehensive, overall national energy strategy despite an $18 TRILLION national debt.
  • Our nation’s roads, bridges, and other infrastructure are crumbling despite an $18 TRILLION national debt.
  • The Federal government has spent taxpayer dollars on inane studies to study why the same college basketball teams always dominate March Madness, how quickly parents respond to trendy baby names, on whether online dating site users are racist, and when dog’s became man’s best friend despite an $18 TRILLION national debt.
  • The Federal government’s agencies and departments lose hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars every year to criminal fraud and wasteful spending.
  • No Federal government agency or department delivers value added service effectively and efficiently.
  • The Federal government’s answer to skyrocketing healthcare costs has been to implement legislation that made health care even more expensive while reducing the quality of healthcare.
  • Terrorism threats are growing, from Yemen to Syria to Iraq to the streets of Paris to the streets of Boston despite the Federal government spending over a TRILLION dollars fighting terrorism over the past 14 years.
  • Our foreign relations and diplomacy failures have actually made our enemies not fear us and our friends not trust us.
  • Race relations have deteriorated over the past six years, reversing a decades long trend of improving race relations and the election of the first ever African-American President.
Economic woes, foreign relations woes, race relations woes, dysfunctional government operations, and more, this is what the current political class in Washington has bestowed upon us. These are the end results, let’s see how we got to this dreadful situation.

1) Yesterday we discussed statistics that show we think we are being served by the worst Congressional members of all time,with one study showing only 7% of Americans have a good opinion of Congress. But this is the overall view of Congress. What about the abilities of individual Congressional members? Take a look at some examples of their recent behavior and you will probably agree that the 7% confidence finding above might actually be too high:

- Consider the opinion that Congressman Hank Johnson expressed in a live Congressional committee hearing when he worried out loud that the island of Guam might actually tip over if too many U.S. military resources were deployed on the island:


- Remember when Nancy Pelosi was Speaker of the House and actually said that the Obama Care legislation had to be passed so that we all could see what was in it, kind of like legislating using the Jack in The Box principle:


- Remember when Joe Biden, once a long term member of Congress, explained how FDR went on television to reassure the nation when the Depression started? Two problems: television did not existing commercially when the Depression started and FDR was not President when the Depression started:


- Remember when a sitting member of Congress expressed the very pleasant wish that a large segment of Americans can go straight to hell for simply expressing their thoughts and exercising their First Amendment rights:


- Remember when a sitting member of Congress failed utterly in understanding that the nation of South Vietnam disappeared about forty years ago when North Vietnam won the Vietnam war and united North and South Vietnam as one country named simply Vietnam:


- Remember when that same Congresswoman who failed the Vietnam geography test went onto flunk the U.S.history test by stating that the Constitution was 400 years old, missing the true age by about 150 years: “Maybe I should offer a good thanks to the distinguished members of the majority, the Republicans, my chairman and others, for giving us an opportunity to have a deliberative constitutional discussion that reinforces the sanctity of this nation and how well it is that we have lasted some 400 years, operating under a Constitution that clearly defines what is constitutional and what is not.”

It there any doubt that current Congressional representatives are likely the worst ever when one of them thinks an island can actually tip over, another thinks that passing legislation BEFORE knowing what is in it is okay, at least two have no idea about American history, and another thinks a large segment of Americans can go to hell? 

2) While yesterday we discussed the poll finding that Obama was voted the worst President since World War II by a Gallup survey, his bad news and performance evaluation does not end there. Another Gallup survey recently determined that he was one of the most polarizing Presidents of all time.

Gallup found that the gap in Obama’s approval rating midway through his second term in office between those that like him, namely Democrats, and those that do not, namely Republicans, is a whopping 70%, with 79% of Democrats voicing approval and only 9% of Republicans doing the same. 

Since 1953, only one other President, as measured by Gallup, was as polarizing in their sixth year in office and that was George W. Bush. However, the difference with Bush is that Obama has been at 70% longer than any other President, putting him on track to be the most polarizing President ever.

Which is difficult to do since he came into office proclaiming many different times that he would unite the country: 

"I don't want to pit red America against blue America. I want to be president of the United States of America." 

In 2008 that he intended to fix a political system which is "stuck in this deeply polarized pattern."

"Let us resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for so long."

Others in the media have made their own commentary on the polarizing effect of the Obama Presidency:

- CNN: "His tenure has been one of the most polarizing overall of any modern president. Each of his six years in office have ranked in the top 10 most polarized since 1953, with President George W. Bush taking the other four slots.” 

- The Boston Globe: "Yet far from resisting that temptation, Obama has rarely bypassed the chance to indulge it. The would-be uniter whips up envy and resentment, demonizing those who disagree with him, and aggravating the nation’s racial, class, and party."

- Gallup: "Obama is on pace to be the president with the most polarized approval ratings in Gallup's polling history, surpassing Bush."

So either President Obama was not sincere when he said he was going to unite the country or he is one of the most inept President’s of all times in keeping his promises, at least according to this measure of dividing the country from Gallup.

But it is not surprising that he has divided the country along so many different perspectives, his actions and words speak for themselves:
  • When his political allies were calling his political opponents and ordinary American citizens racists, terrorists, members of the Klan, etc. when they logically opposed his failed Obama Care legislation based on the realities of what it would do, he was silent.
  • When a California Congresswoman said a large number of Americans should go to hell for daring to have a valid, if different, opinion on the issues, he was silent.
  • He denigrated a large number of Americans when he cynically claimed they continued to “cling” to their guns and religion.
  • He fostered class war by constantly pitting the wealthy against the poor in his rhetoric and political actions.
  • He harped about white on black and police on black violence while ignoring black on black and black on white crime and violence.
  • He took better care of a deserter (Bergdahl) and terrorist prisoners in Guantanamo than he took care of American veterans.
  • He recently tried to equate Christianity and Christians with the barbaric terrorists of ISIS.
Thus, the current resident of the White House has failed miserably in his promise to unite the country, A country united is much easier to lead and make better than when that has become as divided as we are today, due to a large part of the actions, silence, words, and attitudes of President Obama.

3) The third area today we will explore to determine if we are being served by the worst set of Washington politicians ever is the area of government services and duties. In theory, the actions of government entities and Federal employees should be guided by the Constitution and by the laws passed by the executive and legislative branches of government and executed by the executive branch. If Washington politicians were competent and doing their jobs as overseers of government operations, they would be viewed as competent and able elected officials.

But that does not appear to be the case:
  • The IRS went rogue and denied the First Amendment right of free speech to conservative and tea party political groups and millions of individual Americans.
  • THE NSA went rogue and denied the Fourth Amendment rights of protection from unreasonable searches via their eavesdropping on the electronic communications of almost every American.
  • The IRS readily admits that it is a failure by failing to collect almost $400 billion a year from tax dodgers and being unable to provide even basic taxpayer support at income tax filing time.
  • The TSA is bureaucratic failure and body groping embarrassment to innocent Americans who dare to travel in this country.
  • The Fast and Furious gun running scheme violated any number of domestic and international weapons laws and treaties.
  • No government entity or organizations delivers top notch service to Americans at a reasonable cost.
  • Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and other government welfare programs are hurtling towards financial insolvency with no plans in place to avoid such a financial disaster in addition to easily losing over $200 billion a year to waste and outright criminal fraud.
  • The Defense Department accounting procedures are so screwed up that even professional auditors found it impossible to audit the financial and accounting processes of the Department.
We could do on but you get the idea. The Washington political class has allowed the Federal bureaucracy to get so out of control and unmanageable that no one outside of the Beltway is seeing any value added, or much value at all, from their tax dollars. Thus, when it comes to managing the functions of government, current Washington politicians are a failure there also.

But none of this should surprise us. I would like to think that at one time, it was an honor and privilege to serve the country in an elected office. Getting elected was once a means to an end, a way to improve the lives and freedoms of every American.

With the current set of politicians, that is sadly not the case. Getting elected is now both the means and the ends. Self enrichment and perpetual reelection is the focus, not serving the country. The day after an election is held, plans for getting reelected start. The need to trade billions of taxpayer dollars for millions in campaign contributions takes over and perverts the political process. 

As a result, decades go by and the war on drugs, failing public schools, leaky borders, escalating health care costs, skyrocketing national debt, and a myriad of other major issues rarely get addressed never mind getting resolved. And any attempt to problem solve usually leaves the original problem worse off than when the Washington politicians came up with their solution.

The data we have reviewed over the past two days and the realities we live with everyday prove that we have recently been served by the worst Secretaries of State, the worst Presidents, and worst Congressional members of all time who have presided over the most dysfunctional government operations ever. And all of this has happened on the watch of many Washington politicians who have been in office for ten, twenty, thirty, or more years, which makes it impossible for them to blame anyone else but themselves.

Many changes need to be made to fix what these politicians have broken in our democracy. But the first, most basic step is the need to institute term limits immediately, one and done. Because if are being served by the worst set of politicians ever, how much worse could it get if we threw them all out of office and started over? You can take that first step at:


Fifty other steps for fixing the country and the broken political processes we live with each day can be found at:


It does not get any worse than “worst.”


Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

www.loathemygovernmobama,washington post,politifactent.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

Term Limits Now: http://www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com
http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.bankruptingamerica.org

http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w






Wednesday, September 4, 2013

Part 4, September, 2013, Political Class Insanity: Still Ruining The Economy, Still Wasting Taxpayer Wealth and Still No Transparency

This is the fourth post in the blog this month on the latest lunacy, idiocy, and insanity from the American political class. We do this at the beginning of every month just to check in to see what chaos, heartburn, and stress the politicians in this country are dumping on the nation and its citizens. The frequency, intensity, and depth of their antics and insanity has gotten larger and larger over time, requiring more and more days to cover their behavior every month.

So let’s pick up where we ended yesterday, a day where we covered how politician’s seem to almost take delight in closing down food banks that safely serve the hungry and homeless in this country, how they seem to not care that they continue to waste billions of dollars in Afghanistan for nothing in return, and how their ineptness when it comes to economics has resulted in a substantial drop in median household income AFTER the Great Recession ended:

1) Many times in this blog we have cited government sources and investigators who have estimated how much money major Federal government programs lose to waste and outright criminal fraud every year:

  • Mediciad: $30-40 billion every year.
  • Medciare: $70-90 billion every year
  • Social Security: At least $100 billion every year.

Thus, in just one typical year, the ineptness of the Federal government results in at least $200 billion a year not fulfilling what the political class promised it would fulfill.

I bring these numbers up after reading an interview of Bill Gates in the recent interview issue of Business Week magazine. Mr. Gates and his wife are active philanthropists whose charitable foundation is doing wonderful things around the world. One of their biggest objectives is to wipe out the disease of polio in the near term and malaria in the longer term timeframe. Fabulous and worthwhile work serving all of humanity around the world.

What caught my eye was some background numbers on their foundation which indicated that since the foundation was up and operational, it has handed out $26.1 billion in grants to help fight worthy causes like these. It gave out $3.4 billion in grants in 2012. 

Thus, they are able to invest about $3.4 billion a year in great initiatives as compared to the Federal government who wastes over $200 billion a year. This is almost 60 times more wasted and lost to fraud than what the Gates’ foundation is able to provide to the world. I was just thinking what a shame it is that we cannot reverse these numbers, spend over $200 billion to wipe out diseases and fix other major problems while wasting only $3.4 billion in the process. The Gates do it right, our Washington politicians obviously do it way wrong.

3) One of the bigger political jokes over the past four years or so is the claim that Obama operates one of the most transparent administrations of all times.  We have previously reported on a Bloomberg report that tried to get simple travel records of high level administration officials but were blocked at every turn in their Freedom of Information  Act (FOIA) requests by the Obama administration, in violation of the FOIA law.

We reported on how the Department of Labor demanded a million dollar payment/ransom when the Associated Press submitted a FOIA request for a simple list of administration email addresses.

We reported on how this administration has gone after more than twice the number of government whistle blowers than ALL previous administrations combined.

Congressional committees have been blocked dozens and dozens of times as they try to get documents and information to get to the bottom of the many Obama scandals including Fast and Furious, Benghazi, IRS misdeeds, spying on reporters, etc. 

Bottom line: this is not even close to being the most transparent administration of all time. But the most insulting and silliest violation of this claim was pointed out in the August, 2013 issue of Reason magazine. The American Civil Liberties Union wanted to find out how the FBI was applying court ordered guidelines to accessing the text messages of American citizens. Thus, they filed a FOIA act request with the Justice Department.

The good news is that the Department complied with the letter, if not the spirit of the law. They sent the ACLU a copy of the memo that the ACLU was looking for entitled, “Guidance For The Minimization of Text Messages Over Dual Function Cellular Telephones.” This cover letter was attached to a 15 page document that supposedly had the guidelines that the ACLU was looking for.

I say supposedly because the Justice Department had taken a black magic marker function and had blackened out the contents on ALL 15 pages. Every page looked like a black hole with a white border around it. Reason magazine’s article illustrated two of the pages to show how useless the Justice Department had been in providing the information. They provided the memo just none of the information in the memo. Pathetic.

So that is why when Obama states anything, numerical, policy, or practice, I assume it is false until proven otherwise. His track record of integrity when discussing anything is wobbly at best, and if the Justice Department action relative to the ACLU request is typical, his administration is the least transparent and most devious of any I can remember.

4) I do pick on the current set of Washington politicians a lot but I do it out of respect since I believe they are the most inept and incapable set of politicians we have ever had to live through in the history of our nation. But that is not to say past politicians were not also devious and underhanded. Newly declassified audio tapes from the Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon era show again how Nixon would fit right into today’s Washington crowd, according to an article in the March 29, 2013 issue of The Week Magazine. 

The recordings show that Nixon intervened with the government of South Vietnam and convinced them not to accept any peace plans from Johnson or North Vietnam to end the war, promising South Vietnam they could get a better deal if he was elected President. Nixon apparently thought if the war dragged on until after the election he ran against Hubert Humphrey, he would be more likely to win. He did this despite the fact that North Vietnam was willing to make some major concessions at Johnson’s urging to bring the war to a quick end.

Well the South Vietnamese bought his sales pitch, the war continued on for another five years, 22,000 more American servicemen lost their lives, billions and billions more taxpayer wealth was unnecessarily spent, and North Vietnam ended up winning the war and taking over South Vietnam. All because a Washington politician wanted to win an election. Nixon would have fit right into today’s political class. 

As a side note, Johnson thought that Nixon had indeed committed treason but did not say anything since it would reveal that his administration was illegally wiretapping South Vietnamese leaders. Given Obama and the NSA’s massive wiretapping of every American’s electronic communications, looks like Johnson also would have fit right into today’s political class and its scheming and illegalities in Washington.

5) One last piece of depressing bit of news courtesy of the political class before we wrap up today, assuring you that there is more idiocy and hi-jinks from our politicians to be reviewed tomorrow. According to a Wall Street Journal report that was summarized in the August 30, 2013 issue of The Week magazine, less than a third of American teenagers between the ages of 16 and 19 had jobs this past summer, as reported by the Labor Department. Before the recession, more than 40% of teenagers in this age bracket had summer jobs.

Just another indication that this set of politicians in Washington has no economic planning and instincts at all. More than three years after the Great Recession ended, household income is down and teenagers are still a forgotten segment in the unemployment department, not able to get a job in the summer. Pathetic.

Four insanity posts and we are still not close to being done, more of their antics and incompetence tomorrow. In the meantime, please visit our sister website where you can join our effort to institute term limits on all current Washington politicians because, really, how much worse could it get than what we have today:

www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com


Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

Term Limits Now:http://www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com
http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w