September, 2016, Part 7, Political Class Insanity: Giving Away Taxpayer Money To Stupid Causes, Another Delusionsal Politician, 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.

The current monthly record for the number of days needed to cover one month's worth of insanity is ten. We almost equaled that record last month when we needed nine days to cover one month’s worth of political class insanity. There is a very good chance that the ten day record could fall this month since as we get closer and closer to the election, the volume of ineptness grows almost exponentially. 

But today and for all of the posts this month, let’s start off with a welcome piece of honest political dialog. It comes from a State Department spokesperson.Mark Toner, who is about to start the daily State Department press briefing. In a joking matter, he makes the following quote: "Welcome to the State Department. I think we have some interns in the back. Welcome. Good to see you in this exercise in transparency and democracy." 

He then burst out laughing at his own quote, indicating he also knew what a joke the Obama administration has been, especially Mr. Toner’s State Department, when it comes to cover ups, lack of transparency, denial of Freedom of Information Act requests, the prosecution of whistleblowers, etc. But at least it was a little refreshing to finally hear some actual honesty out of Washington as we see from the actual clip of the news conference:

http://www.againstcronycapitalism.org/2016/08/when-even-the-state-department-spokesperson-cant-keep-a-straight-face-about-things-anymore-video/

With that context of honesty, let’s see what other insanity has been going down: 

1) A few years ago it seemed we could not write fast enough to discuss the many solar energy companies Obama was giving taxpayer dollars out to, all of which eventually or suddenly went bankrupt. At last count, if memory serves me correctly, almost $40 billion had been flushed with no societal benefit in return.

But it has been all quiet on that front recently. I assumed that Obama had simply run out of money to waste. But the Daily Caller website recently recounted how badly that taxpayer wealth was invested. Chris White, writing for the website on August 12, 2016, pointed out that one of the solar energy companies that the Obama administration had backed was “hopelessly insolvent.” Details of this latest alternative energy disaster includes:

• SunEdison recently declared bankruptcy since its liabilities are at least $1 billion greater than its assets.
• It was the judge overseeing the bankruptcy, Judge Stuart Bernstein, who called the company “hopelessly insolvent.”
• Things are so bad that the judge said that shareholders of the company will see no value coming back to them since you cannot “create value where it does not exist.”
• The company has debts that could be as high as $1 to $2.5 billion larger than its assets.
• Its stock price has dropped an amazing 95% in just the past year as confidence in the company waned.
• At one point in time the company was valued at $10 billion but is valued at less than $500 million now.
• The Washington political class has given the company almost $650 million in direct Federal subsidies and tax credits since 2000.
• Even though the company was crashing, the Obama administration gave it another $4.6 million in 2015, an investment that is obviously lost.

Not a single alternative energy company that received taxpayer subsidies from the Obama administration seems to have survived, a record of futility that is insane. Solyndra, A123, and dozens of others took taxpayer wealth, usually because they were political cronies of the Democratic Party, and gave back no benefit to the economy society.

2) Most politicians are very bad at doing just about everything including making predictions. But one foreign politician got at least one prediction very right back in 2007. 

Back in February, 2007, when Obama was campaigning for President, before he took office, Australian Prime Minister at that time, John Howard, predicted if Obama became President, Iraq and the Middle East would descend into chaos and become the mess it is today: “I think that would just encourage those who wanted completely to destabilize and destroy Iraq, and create chaos and victory for the terrorists to hang on and hope for (an) Obama victory...If I was running Al Qaeda in Iraq, I would … pray, as many times as possible, for a victory not only for Obama, but also for the Democrats. And, if America is defeated in Iraq, the hope of ever getting a Palestinian settlement will be gone.” 

Looks like the Prime Minister nailed that forecast. As we all know, with the premature withdrawal of American troops out of Iraq, a move that was opposed by professional military and diplomatic government experts in order for Obama to have a political talking point, Iraq has been split into three parts, Shiite, Sunni, and Kurdish, with a barely functioning central government. This facilitated the rise of ISIS in neighboring Syria and the spillover of that terror group into Iraq.

ISIS is now the most horrific and richest terrorist group in the history of the world and it is sowing terror and death around the world. The Middle East is in far worse shape than when Obama took office. Seems everyone saw the insanity of withdrawing all U.S. troops, his military advisors, his diplomatic staff, and at least one foreign leader except Obama, a community organizer politician that thought getting a political talking point was more important than preserving peace.

3) Debbie Wasserman is a Florida Democratic Congresswoman who up until the Democratic national convention was chairwoman of their national committee. At that time, the Democrats’ computers got hacked by someone who published a lot of secret party documents, many of which showed that Wasserman was actively working against the Bernie Sanders campaign even though as chairwoman of the national committee she was supposed to stay neutral.

As a result of the nefarious goings on of her and others, as uncovered by the computer hacks, she was forced to resign as a result of Sanders’ supporters relentlessly going after her and blaming her for their candidate’s loss to Clinton. Despite this embarrassment, Wasserman is still in denial as she claims she was never booed while in public at the convention. 

Which gets us to to the perennial question when it comes to politicians misspeaking: are they so out of touch with reality that what say has no basis in reality or do they think we are so stupid that we will not check what they tell us?

Look at the following tape where she is literally heckled and booed off of a stage at a convention meeting and then ask yourself: how can she be that delusion to think she was never booed at the convention:

http://trumpinsurrection.com/archives/3458

Not only does she not think she was heckled and booed off of the stage, listen to her version of what happened: “There were about 300 people at that breakfast, and the overwhelming majority of people in that room were enthusiastic supporters of me and my message.”

Insanely delusional.

4) Let’s finish off today’s insanity with some really stupid government spending. MRCTV recently posted a short video describing this insane waste of money. The Federal government recently awarded Cornell University a $2 million grant to to develop a new hybrid type of broccoli that can be grown on the east coast. 

So many problems with this waste of taxpayer money:

• What is wrong with the broccoli being grown today elsewhere in the country, is there somehow a pressing need to have an east coast grown broccoli crop?
• If there somehow a need, doubtful, why aren’t broccoli farmers paying for this research at Cornell, they are the obvious benefactors of a new breed of broccoli, assuming there are benefits from a new type of broccoli?
• Since I hate the taste of broccoli, regardless of where it is grown, why are some of my taxes being spent to develop a new type of broccoli that I will never, ever even consider eating?

Rather than just read my reasons for this stupidity, consider the following videotape where this insanity is pointed out in a much more effective and entertaining manner:

http://www.mrctv.org/blog/reality-check-feds-just-spent-2m-broccoli-farm

That will do it for today’s insanity: giving taxpayer wealth to to industries that should be using their own money and resources rather than taxpayer resources, another delusional member of Congress, and one politician correctly predicts the future. More insanity tomorrow.

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:


http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.bankruptingamerica.org
http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

September, 2016, Part 6, Political Class Insanity: Funding A Billionaire's Dream, Joe Biden Misspeaks Again, 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.

The current monthly record for the number of days needed to cover one month's worth of insanity is ten. We almost equaled that record last month when we needed nine days to cover one month’s worth of political class insanity. There is a very good chance that the ten day record could fall this month since as we get closer and closer to the election, the volume of ineptness grows almost exponentially. 

But today and for all of the posts this month, let’s start off with a welcome piece of honest political dialog. It comes from a State Department spokesperson.Mark Toner, who is about to start the daily State Department press briefing. In a joking matter, he makes the following quote: "Welcome to the State Department. I think we have some interns in the back. Welcome. Good to see you in this exercise in transparency and democracy." 

He then burst out laughing at his own quote, indicating he also knew what a joke the Obama administration has been, especially Mr. Toner’s State Department, when it comes to cover ups, lack of transparency, denial of Freedom of Information Act requests, the prosecution of whistleblowers, etc. But at least it was a little refreshing to finally hear some actual honesty out of Washington as we see from the actual clip of the news conference:

http://www.againstcronycapitalism.org/2016/08/when-even-the-state-department-spokesperson-cant-keep-a-straight-face-about-things-anymore-video/

With that context of honesty, let’s see what other insanity has been going down:

1) The Freedom Daily website recently discussed a story on a CBS TV Baltimore affiliate story that found 14 people had been arrested for defrauding the Federal government of $16 million in a welfare scam, specifically food stamp/food assistance fraud. 

More than a dozen retail locations were involved in the fraud in the greater Baltimore area. The retailers allegedly received more than $16 million in Federal government payments for ghost transactions in which they did not provide any food. 

Since the American taxpayer pays out more than $74 billion a year on this food assistance program for 45 million Americans who still receive food assistance every month despite Obama’s economic “recovery,” even a small percentage of fraud quickly adds up to billions and billions of dollars across the country. This criminal fraud robs the taxpayers and prevents much support to go to Americans who are truly in need vs. criminal elements who are ripping off the system.

But this crime operation had an additional twist that is unexpected. Scan the names of those arrested and see if you can spot a trend:

• Walayat Khan, 36, of Reisterstown
• Shaheen Tasewar Hussain, 60, of Ellicott City
• Mulazam Hussain, 54, of Windsor Mill
• Mahmood Hussain Shah, 57, of Catonsville
• Muhammad Rafiq, 58, of Reisterstown
• Mohammad Shafiq, 50, of Gwynn Oak, Maryland; and his daughter,
• Alia Shaheen, 24, of Baltimore
• Mohammad Irfan, 59, of Nottingham
• Muhammad Sarmad, 40, of Nottingham
• Kassem Mohammad Hafeed, a/k/a Kassam Mohammad Hafeed, 51, of Baltimore

Is it just me or do the vast majority of these alleged criminals have Muslim names? Are they purely criminals, in it for their own greed, or is some of this money being sent to more nefarious/terrorist elements around the world? In either case, this is not a good situation for taxpayers wallets or possibly their safety.

And by the way, before anyone starts, that Muslim comment above is not racist, it is purely an observation. A criminal and terrorist is a criminal or terrorist, regardless what their name appears to be.

2) Hillary Clinton claimed that she turned over all of her emails to the government but it turns out she did not. 

Hillary Clinton claimed that the 30,000 emails that were erased were private communications between her and her family friends but we now know that they were not. 

Hillary Clinton claimed that she used only one device for emails while Secretary of State but we now know she may have used up to thirteen different devices. 

Hillary Clinton claimed that the Benghazi attack was the result of a YouTube video but we now know she lied about that cause. 

HIllary Clinton claims she had nothing to hide relative to her email history but she used a very sophisticated software program to destroy them and make them untraceable. 

Hillary Clinton had a private email server installed in her home but never told anyone she was using it.

Surely a track record of cover ups and suspicions. And yet, there are still people inside and outside of the political class that claim she is pure as the driven snow when it comes to transparency and honesty. 

The latest person to try this nonsense, according to a Washington Free Beacon article, is Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel who recently called hillary Clinton on of the “most transparent” Presidential candidates in history. Emanuel was considered one of the main architects of the Obama Care legislation: “It’s always crazy in this campaign where Donald Trump asks Hillary Clinton to release more information and she’s been one of the most transparent candidates in history, including on the medical history, and you do have to wonder a little bit about what Donald Trump, why he won’t get the same kind of letter and if there’s anything we need to be concerned about.” 

Seriously? Most transparent in history? Has he not been reading the news? But again, maybe he should be excused since in cahoots with MIT economist, Jonathan Gruber, who said that Obama Care was written in the most confusing way possible to ensure that it passed without proper vetting, I would say that Mr. Emanuel has a warped definition of what transparency is. Remember, Nancy Pelosi’s famous Obama Care quote where she said we have to pass the legislation to see what is in it. That is a lack of transparency that did not bother Mr. Emanuel back a few years ago. Insanity.

3) One of famous idiotic quote machines in the political class has always been Vice President Joe Biden. Biden has given us a bunch of head slaps over the years:

• “President Obama's top priority right now is a 3 letter word...JOBS.” 
• "His mom lived in Long Island for ten years or so. God rest her soul. And- although, she's- wait- your mom's still- your mom's still alive. Your dad passed. God bless her soul.'' 
• "When the stock market crashed, Franklin D. Roosevelt got on the television and didn't just talk about the, you know, the princes of greed. He said, Look, here's what happened.'' Note: the stock market crashed before FDR became President and there was no TV back then.
• "In Delaware, the largest growth of population is Indian-Americans, moving from India. You cannot go to a 7-11 or a Dunkin' Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent. I'm not joking.” Now, tell me that wasn’t a racist comment.

Biden was up to his old tricks again recently during a speech he was given at a Hillary Clinton rally. While speaking at the rally, he turned around and pointed to a Secret Service agent standing behind him and stated that the agent held the nuclear weapon launch codes for the country: “There’s a guy that follows me — right back here — has the nuclear codes [as he’s pointing to the man], so God forbid anything happened to the president and I had to make a decision, the codes are with me…he [Trump] is not qualified to know the codes!”

So many things insane here:

• Why would you publicly tell the world and our enemies which guy in his security detail had the nuclear launch codes?
• How is this not a national security screw up or even a treasonous act to tell the world exactly where our nuclear launch codes are?
• Wouldn’t that stupid assertion in public put that agent’s life and his family’s lives in mortal danger from a murder and blackmail perspective?
• Is Biden actually saying that a single agent is walking around in public with the launch codes on him?
• If this agent has the launch codes on his physical body, how is he being protected, he is much more vital and important to the country at that moment than a lame duck Vice President?

Very scary to me to think that we are one heartbeat away from Biden being President of the United States. Very scary.

4) The October, 2016 issue of Reason magazine reminded us that wasteful spending and bad politicians’ priorities are not restricted to Washington. Back 2008, residents of Cobb County, Georgia overwhelming approved the funding of a $40 million bond issue that was to be used to build public parks. Nice idea, properly voted on and approved by the taxpayers who would have to eventually pay off the bond. No problem so far.

But Cobb County is in the greater Atlanta area, home of Major League Baseball’s Atlanta Braves team. The team plays at Turner field, a stadium that is only twenty years old and against most measures is a perfectly fine and modern facility. 

However, billionaire owner, John Malone, wanted a new, cooler stadium. Rather than paying it for himself or raise the funds himself for the stadium, county politicians decided that they would fund the stadium’s construction with taxpayer funds. They made this decision without allowing citizens to vote on it.

The cost of the this decision is a whopping $400 million in public taxpayer funding. Adding insult to injury, one county politician claimed that spending $300,000 to allow democracy to work and see if the county's citizens wanted to fund a billionaire’s new stadium via an election was too expensive. But when the county’s citizens wanted to fund some parks, the county politicians went ahead with a “too expensive” election. 

And now county residents will have to pay more in taxes since the money that would have been used to fund those parks has been depleted by being spent general tax funds on a private enterprise, the Atlanta Braves and their billionaire owner’s new stadium.

Thus, as often happens when politicians act, the middle class and poor in this country ended up getting screwed while the politicians take care of their rich, crony friends. The Atlanta Braves’ new stadium will serve as an ugly symbol of that reality.

Another day, another creative set of political class insanity. Paying the bills and dreams of billionaires, Joe Biden saying more nonsense that endangers national security, a gross misunderstanding of the word “transparency,” and more welfare fraud that continues to cost taxpayers untold billions of dollars every year. More insanity tomorrow.

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

September, 2016, Part 5, Political Class Insanity: Sexual Harassment at the EPA, Taxpayer Wealth to Morocco, A Guilty Politician 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.

The current monthly record for the number of days needed to cover one month's worth of insanity is ten. We almost equaled that record last month when we needed nine days to cover one month’s worth of political class insanity. There is a very good chance that the ten day record could fall this month since as we get closer and closer to the election, the volume of ineptness grows almost exponentially. 

But today and for all of the posts this month, let’s start off with a welcome piece of honest political dialog. It comes from a State Department spokesperson. Mark Toner, who is about to start the daily State Department press briefing. In a joking matter, he makes the following quote: "Welcome to the State Department. I think we have some interns in the back. Welcome. Good to see you in this exercise in transparency and democracy."

He then burst out laughing at his own quote, indicating he also knew what a joke the Obama administration has been, especially Mr. Toner’s State Department, when it comes to cover ups, lack of transparency, denial of Freedom of Information Act requests, the prosecution of whistleblowers, etc. But at least it was a little refreshing to finally hear some actual honesty out of Washington as we see from the actual clip of the news conference:

http://www.againstcronycapitalism.org/2016/08/when-even-the-state-department-spokesperson-cant-keep-a-straight-face-about-things-anymore-video/

With that context of honesty, let’s see what other insanity has been going down:

1) We have often discussed what a sorry state the Pentagon accounting processes are. Just this week we discussed the scandal where Pentagon government credit cards had been used at strip joints and casinos. We have often reported on the reality that the accounting practices are so bad at the Defense Department that auditors have declared that the Pentagon books are so bad that cannot even be audited to find the problems. All of this incompetence probably leads to massive wasting of taxpayer wealth and outright fraud.

Thomas Phippen, writing for the Daily Caller on August 16, 29016, uncovered yet another Pentagon financial screw up:

• Over a six year period, the Defense Department improperly moved $146 billion from its war readiness account to pay for its basic military operations.
• The General Accountability Office (GAO) uncovered the accounting shenanigans: “GAO found that DOD used its authorities to realign about $146.9 billion of its funding from fiscal years 2009 through 2015.” 
• The war readiness funds, the Overseas Contingency Operations, is supposed to be used to give the Pentagon operations flexibility to deal with emergency situations that require immediate attention before approval is obtained from Congress.
• This fund is not subject to budget cuts and Congressional oversight, it is supposed to be used only to immediately neutralize foreign military threats.

Thus, it appears that the Defense Department was gerry rigging the budget process to counter the will of Congress and the American people by funneling money to basic operations that had seen budget cuts by Congress. Another example of a government bureaucracy that is out of control.

2) Government is supposed to be honest and pure and an example of integrity for Americans. Of course, any reader of this blog knows that this ideal is far from the truth. And recent sexual harassment charges at the EPA prove that this Federal organization has some serious behavior problems.

Lachlan Markay, writing for the Washington Free Beacon on August 15, 2016, reported that:

• The EPA inspector general’s office announced that it was opening an investigation into serial sexual sexual harassment and retaliation at the EPA.
• Specifically, a Congressional committee found that: “Senior EPA leadership systematically pursued retaliatory actions against employees involved in investigating sexual harassment cases. These investigators allege that Susan Hedman, the Region 5 Administrator, was personally involved in retaliation against them.”
• The committee heard testimony “from multiple former employees in EPA’s Great Lakes National Program Office who said they had either witnessed or been informed of repeated instances of sexual harassment by an EPA scientist.” and that an official at the EPA “found that multiple female employees had been involved and that such harassment by this scientist and it had been ongoing for the better part of a decade with the full knowledge of the managers of the division and involved many young female interns in their early to mid twenties.” 
• The EPA managers involved are also accused of retaliation against those that brought the harassment charges: “That punishment has included having my primary duties stripped away from me, effectively being marginalized and ignored by the managers who had permitted the sexual harassment to occur until they were confronted by the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) through an investigation in which I was instrumental in initiating.” 

Nice place to work, get sexually harassed and then find your career sabotaged by those who harassed you. As usual with politicians and bureaucrats, nowhere does it appear that anyone who harassed women and broke the law faced any kind of disciplinary action or were fired. That only occurs to regular Americans who break the law.

3) While it appears no one as of yet has been punished for the EPA sexual harassment, there is some good news from a justice perspective that recently came out of Pennsylvania. This type of good news is so rare that it should be celebrated: a politician who broke the law is actually going to pay the price for her law breaking. How refreshing!

The CBS TV affiliate in Philadelphia recently reported that Kathleen Lane, the state attorney general, was found guilty of all nine counts brought against her in a perjury and obstruction of justice case. As a result of the guilty findings, she resigned her post as the state’s top law enforcement official. 

The charges included leaking a 2009 grand jury probe results and then lying about her actions in an effort to discredit a rival prosecutor. At least two of the guilty counts were felonies. Two state Supreme Court justices also lost their jobs as a result of these criminal activities.

I guess there is hope if judges and state attorney generals can be found guilty of breaking the law and face the required and necessary consequences. It is just that it happens so infrequently that one often loses hope that we are living in a fair and just society.

4) Here is a depressing little statistic that was just announced by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS): the number of government employees at all levels of government in this country far outnumber the number of Americans working in the manufacturing sector of the economy. The BLS announced that 12,281,000 people work in manufacturing jobs in this country today while 22,213,000 work for some level of government across the country. This is a whopping difference of almost 10,000,000 people.

But this is part of a long term trend that has been going on for decades:

Since government employees do not create wealth, they are supported by the wealth created and paid for (taxes) by those working in the private sector, the above chart is not a good economic trend. As more and more people end up working in jobs that do not create wealth, they need to tax those that do create wealth more and more to keep government viable. This reduces overall economic growth and makes us all poorer.

5) We run a monthly series of posts along the theme. “I am a global warming doubter and a believer in science.” Every month we present research, scientific analysis, and basic climate realities that prove that the concept of man made global warming is very likely nothing more than a myth perpetrated by scientists and politicians that are using this myth to improve their own careers and well being. Thus, we have continually asked for an adult dialog that considers ALL of the available science and data before embarking on government policies that will make all Americans poorer.

Given all of these realities, you can see how we think the following government expenditure is insane and useless. According to Michael Bastasch, writing for the Daily Caller on August 12, 2016, the State Department is handing out almost $400,000 for ideas on how to fight global warming….in Morocco: “Morocco and the U.S. share a strong commitment to combating climate change which they are tackling aggressively at the international, national, and local levels.” 

Seriously, we are sending $400,000 to a third world country to work on a potential myth of global warming when Americans are going homeless, hungry, drug addicted, etc.? Even if Morocco converted its entire economy to clean energy it would not make a nit of difference in humanity’s carbon footprint. So why do it? Insane waste of money for no benefit in return.

Another day, another varied set of political class insanity and idiocy: wasting money on nothing in Morocco, way too many government workers who do nothing to expand the economy, sexual harassment at the EPA misappropriating budget at the Pentagon, and finally a criminal politician gets what she deserves. More insanity tomorrow.

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

September, 2016, Part 4, Political Class Insanity: Moldy Government Buildings, More Chciago Violence, 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.

The current monthly record for the number of days needed to cover one month's worth of insanity is ten. We almost equaled that record last month when we needed nine days to cover one month’s worth of political class insanity. There is a very good chance that the ten day record could fall this month since as we get closer and closer to the election, the volume of ineptness grows almost exponentially. 

But today and for all of the posts this month, let’s start off with a welcome piece of honest political dialog. It comes from a State Department spokesperson.Mark Toner, who is about to start the daily State Department press briefing. In a joking matter, he makes the following quote: "Welcome to the State Department. I think we have some interns in the back. Welcome. Good to see you in this exercise in transparency and democracy." 

He then burst out laughing at his own quote, indicating he also knew what a joke the Obama administration has been, especially Mr. Toner’s State Department, when it comes to cover ups, lack of transparency, denial of Freedom of Information Act requests, the prosecution of whistleblowers, etc. But at least it was a little refreshing to finally hear some actual honesty out of Washington as we see from the actual clip of the news conference:

http://www.againstcronycapitalism.org/2016/08/when-even-the-state-department-spokesperson-cant-keep-a-straight-face-about-things-anymore-video/

With that context of honesty, let’s see what other insanity has been going down:

1) Unfortunately, every month we have to check in on the gun violence insanity of Chicago. Chicago, which has some of the strictest gun control laws in the country, also has one of the highest gun violence rates in the country, violence that happens at a high rate every day of every month. 

This month is no exception. According to a Breitbart article on August 29, 2016 by Awe Hawkins, 57 people were shot and wounded and 10 were killed during the previous weekend in Chicago. One of the dead was 32-year-old Nykea Aldridge, a mother of four and cousin of Chicago Bulls’ star Dwayne Wade. She was shot and killed Friday while pushing one of her children in a stroller. And these shootings were not over an entire week, they all occurred between 4 pm Friday and 1 am Monday.

The Chicago Tribune reported that with the latest shootings, the year to date total of Chicago gunshot victims is 2,818 and the number who have died as a result of these shootings is 464. For all of 2015, the number of shooting victims was 2,988 and the number who have died was 490. Needless to say, this year’s violence will overwhelm last year’s total year totals.

And as always, the political class has no solution or creativity in resolving this horrific situation. They cannot call for much more gun control because they have already maxed out that failed strategy. 

Any successful strategy has to involve a re-examination of our lost war on drugs since we have previously reported that at least two Mexican drug cartels are violently operating in the city and nothing about the violence will be resolved until the war on drugs is stopped and replaced with something that works. This approach would require a multi-dimensional thought process from Washington, something that has never happened.

2) How dissatisfied are Americans with the current set of American politicians, a set that we assert are the worst set of politicians to ever serve this country? According to the latest Quinnipiac public opinion poll, 62% of Americans want the Presidential debates to include Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson in addition to Clinton and Trump. And even more amazing, 82% American millenials want Johnson to be allowed into the debates.

Obviously, Americans, especially younger Americans, are searching for alternatives to the same tired ideas and people that the two major parties have continually served up. Unfortunately, these same two tired parties have made the bar for getting into the debates quite high. Johnson would have to attain at least a 15% rating in a set of opinion polls to be considered, which creates a catch-22: he cannot get enough exposure to attain the needed poll ratings to get into the debates and by not getting into the debates he cannot get enough exposure to get the higher poll ratings.

But as the poll results show, hopefully America is finally waking up and realizing that something radically different needs to be done to destroy the current political class elitists who are in the business of politics for themselves, not the people they are supposed to represent.

3) Here are another set of depressing numbers from the political class. Hillary Clinton, who wants to be President of the United States, has given only one interview to the New York Times political reporting staff during her ENTIRE campaign. Donald Trump has given over 70 interviews to the Times.

Which raises the obvious question: what is she scared of or what is she hiding? The New York Times is more than likely going to give her favorable treatment despite whatever she says, given the paper’s heavy liberal leaning so what gives? Shouldn’t she be more accessible to the press in order for Americans to find out what she is really all about? Again, what is she hiding or afraid of, democracy?

4) Another interesting and depressing statistic comes to us from the website:

www.fivethirtyeight.com

According to the site, only 37 out of 435 House Of Representative seats are considered to be competitive, i.e. both Republicans and Democrats have a decent chance of winning them. Which means that a whopping 398 House seats are a sure lock to be won by either a sitting Republican or a sitting Democrat. This is because current politicians have rigged the electoral process by gerrymandering Congressional districts and setting themselves up to receive overwhelming financial support as a result of their incumbency, drowning out any alternative options.

Thus, if you are a Republican in a Congressional district that has a Democrat representing that district, your vote likely has no value, given how rigged the system is. Conversely, if you are a Democrat in a Congressional district that has a Republican representing that district, your vote likely has no value. And thus, democracy dies because of the rigging of the system.

We had a number of solutions for this idiocy and disgrace in our book, “Love My Country, Loathe My Government,” which would fix the gerrymandering problem and the problem of incumbents getting too much money from outside interests which overwhelms alternative voices. Visit our website for purchase details or buy it on Amazon:

www.loathemygovernment.com

5) The following insanity and wasteful spending comes to us from the Convention of States website:

• In 1997, the Federal government paid a Pensacola builder $10 million to build a courthouse for the U.S. Court of the Northern District of Florida.
• From the beginning, the building has been plagued with a toxic mold problem that made the building uninhabitable.
• As a result, the General Services Administration (GSA) of the Federal government has had to spend almost $11 million to relocate Federal employees to other locations who would have normally been quartered in this moldy courthouse.
• This extra relocation expense is expected to exceed $20 million before the problem is fixed.
• To fix the mold problem, the GSA says it expects to spend $31 million to fix what is a $10 million building, i.e. it will take three times the amount of money to fix a building than what it cost to build it in the first place.
• Pensacola Congressman Jeff Miller summed up this ineptness quite nicely: “This is a situation where the facility itself has had problems from the very beginning. Poor design problem, poor construction, and GSA, unfortunately, has been trying to sweep the problem under the rug.” 
• This court’s top judge, Chief Judge M. Casey Rogers, also chimed in: “Incredibly, GSA has never answered to anyone, much less its tenants, for its failure to properly address, and competently resolve, the situation.” 

But do you want to bet that no one in the GSA or anywhere else got fired for such incompetence.? This is what happens when government spends our money: it is not their money so they do not take care to be efficient and effective with it, there are no ramifications for not safeguarding taxpayer wealth. And as the Federal government and associated bureaucracy gets bigger and bigger and more bloated, the wasteful and careless spending expands exponentially. And no one is accountable.

That will do it for today’s insanity: paying for moldy buildings, destroying democracy via gerrymandering and too much money in elections, preventing alternative voices to debate, and more death and violence in Chicago. No wonder people are looking for alternatives to what we are stuck with now in office. More insanity tomorrow.

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:

http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.bankruptingamerica.org
http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w