This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: “The Floggings Will Continue Until Morale Improves”

  • Speechless. Just Speechless.

    You know how they say “lightning never strikes twice”? Well, they’re wrong.

    Apparently another cabinet-level official in the current      clown krewe running the show in DC       Administration has been using a private email account to conduct official government business.  Word is that they’ve now quit.

    Who was it, you ask? A guy named “Ashton Carter”.

    Yeah – that Ashton Carter.  The SECDEF.

    Apparently for a few months after his appointment, Carter continued using a private email address vice his government email account to conduct at least some official business.  Reportedly copies of any such emails were also forwarded to his government account for record purposes – though how one would verify that without examining ALL of his personal email from the time frame in question is a good question.

    Carter reportedly continued to use his private account for about two months after the fact that a certain former SECSTATE had done the same was publicly revealed.  Further, Carter’s use of his personal account was often enough that at least some “members of his staff feared he would be hacked and worried about his not following the rules”.  But of course, that’s a misplaced concern – no foreign intelligence service would ever take an interest in a US cabinet secretary’s personal communications, right?

    (I do hope the sarcasm in the last sentence above was obvious.)

    Fox News as well as the New York Times have articles with more info (the NYT broke the story).  IMO they’re worth a few minutes to read.

    Sheesh.  Do these people simply quit freaking thinking when they take office?

  • Did Someone Say, “YGBSM?!?!” Unfortunately . . . They’re Not.

    Remember the other day when it was revealed that the female San Bernardino jihadi terrorist bastard passed three background checks before being admitted to the US on a spousal visa? Remember when it looked like that at was at least partly due to her social media postings – where she’d expressed support for violent jihad, and indicated she wanted to be a part of same – not being screened during those investigations?

    Well, that’s indeed the case. But now we know why such social media screening was never performed.

    Doing that was against policy.

    It seems that DHS investigators were forbidden by DHS policy from  reviewing social media posts made by foreigners applying for a US visa..  Apparently DHS leadership was worried about about a possible “civil liberties backlash” and “bad public relations” – or some other similarly nebulous libidiot bullsh!t.

    Concerns about “civil liberties” regarding someone (1) who is not a US citizen or resident; (2) who isn’t even physically located in the US; and (3) who is voluntarily asking permission to come to the US to live.  Plus, worries over “bad public relations”.  Yeah, letting those concerns outweigh conducting thorough background checks on foreigners seeking to enter the US during a period of high terrorist threat really passes the freaking common sense test.

    But wait, it gets even better. Nearly two years ago, multiple senior DHS officials recommended to the DHS Secretary, Jeh Johnson, that the policy be changed.  They recommended that DHS change policy to allow screening of social media posts made by visa applicants. Wanna guess what the decision was – and who made it?

    No, the POTUS didn’t make the decision; reportedly DHS Secretary Johnson did.  He turned down the recommendation – in early 2014.

    The jihadi terrorist bastard in question entered the US in mid-2014.  You do the math.

    Yes, Mr. Secretary, I’d say you certainly “have some ‘splainin’ to do””  I only wish now you could end up doing it in a court of law, while on trial for dereliction of duty.

  • “Somebody’s Got Some ‘Splainin’ to Do”

    Remember that recent shooting in California? You know, the one where a US citizen went abroad; married a foreign national from a nation known for having a high level of terrorist activity; brought their spouse back to the US – and less than 18 months later the two murdered 14 and wounded 20+ in a terrorist attack? The terrorist attack that recently occurred in San Bernardino?

    Well, guess what? It turns out that the foreign national involved apparently had a history of making social media posts supporting violent jihad – and saying they wanted to be a part of same. But it also turns out that the foreign national passed three separate background checks during the process of being granted entry into the US.

    Yep, you read that right. Apparently no one involved in the visa approval investigation process checked social media to see what the individual in question may have said there in the past. Those social media posts were only recently found by US LE agencies.

    Plus, the screening also missed the fact that the foreign national had used a false address on their visa application. Yeah, all of that all really gives me the proverbial “warm and fuzzy” regarding our ability to screen thousands of “Syrian refugees” (and others from countries with known terrorist issues) who might attempt to enter the US in the future. I mean, we did such a “bang-up job” of screening out someone with terrorist inclinations in this case.

    But rest assured, we’re “thoroughly vetting” all those thousands of Syrian refugees. None of them will pose a threat – even if they’re using a Syrian passport forged by Da’esh using captured official Syrian passport making equipment and blanks. Or a bogus Syrian passport from another source.

    Yeah, right. And I’m the Crown Prince of Siam.

    Predictably, the US DHS Secretary, Jeh Johnson, says that the K-1 visa problem is being reviewed. However, regarding the screening process having missed something in this case that should have raised a concern, Johnson said, “. . . I am not prepared to say that and I’m not prepared to make that declaration”.

    You see, it turns out DHS doesn’t review social media when making visa decisions in cases similar to this. In fact, there appears to be an ongoing debate within DHS regarding whether it is “appropriate” to do that.

    Well, Mr. Secretary – you might not be prepared to say that the process screwed up here, and needs to be changed dramatically – but I certainly am. Your agency screwed up royally here. This all should have been found prior to the individual being granted or denied entry into the US. It should have been considered while making that decision.

    In my book, to paraphrase the late Desi Arnaz (in his Rickey Ricardo persona): “Somebody’s got some ‘splainin’ to do”. And that “somebody” would be you, Mr. Secretary. Along with your boss.

    You can both explain it to the surviving family of those 14 killed in San Bernardino. And to those recovering after being wounded.

  • Great. Just Freaking Great.

    Remember when the current       DC clown krewe        Administration told us that it planned to admit thousands of “Syrian refugees”? Remember when it told us “don’t worry, be happy” – because any such referees would be “thoroughly” investigated and vetted and would therefore pose no threat to US security?

    Remember when people raised objections? You know, when numerous people – noting that a large number of fake Syrian passports had been observed among alleged Syrian refugees, and also noting that the Syrian government wasn’t exactly cooperative with the US these days – worried that terrorists might infiltrate the US by claiming to be refugees?

    Well, “riddle me this, Batman”.  Just how are we going to vet those “Syrian refugees” when the Syrian government is uncooperative – and if Da’esh not only has an authentic Syrian passport machine but also has “boxes of blank (Syrian) passports”?

    The question isn’t hypothetical.  Apparently Da’esh acquired both an actual Syrian passport printing machine and a supply of blank Syrian passports  when they captured the city of Deir ez-Zour this past summer.

    Yeah, it looks like this is gonna turn out great.  Just freaking great.

  • Yet Another ObamaCare “Success” . . .

    . . . this time, courtesy of the CBO.

    The CBO has analyzed the economic impact of ObamaCare over the next decade. And the results are in.

    Obviously, it’s a rousing success.

    I mean, we all know just how “overheated” the economy has been the past few years, right?  Isn’t pretty much every employer out there attempting to hire more employees – and failing because they can’t find them?  Isn’t the US civilian labor participation rate at an all-time high?  Isn’t underemployment virtually unknown?   Isn’t inflation threatening to spiral out of control?

    But it’s ObamaCare to the rescue!  By 2025, the effects of ObamaCare are projected to remove the equivalent of 2 million jobs from the US economy!   That will certainly cool things down,won’t it? Hurrah! We’re saved.

    Yes, the above was sarcasm.  All of it is bullsh!t.

    Well, all of it was bullsh!t except the “remove the equivalent of 2 million jobs” part.  Because that’s exactly what the CBO is now projecting ObamaCare will do by 2025 – remove the equivalent in labor hours of 2 million jobs from the US workforce.

    It’s pretty much what everyone with two or three working brain cells predicted a priori.  The law gives employers a disincentive to hire full-time workers; ObamaCare subsidies gives people an incentive to quit working or reduce their hours.  The results are entirely predictable – and were indeed predicted ahead of time by many.

    And for that “wonderful” outcome, we can thank the       clueless fools and tools running the show in DC in 2009       majority in Congress and the Administration in power in 2009.  Anyone remember who those were?

  • “Your Tax Dollars At Work”

    Some in Congress do seem to care about our taxes being wasted. This year, a number of US Senators have documented ways in which the US government wastes our tax revenues. Two of them are Senators Jeff Flake of Arizona and James Lankford of Oklahoma.

    Senators Flake and Lansford have each published lists showing how the US government wastes money out the wazoo. Each list documents approximately 100 real “winners” funded by the Federal government.

    Some examples?

    • Organizing craft festivals in Russia.

    • Handing out “tailgating” packages before the Nebraska-Wisconsin football game.

    • A different “DRC” – the DARPA Robotics Challenge – that absolutely cratered. (This quote from Senator Flake’s blurb about the event should raise a chuckle from TAH readers: “If the DRC hadn’t been so rife with slapstick, it would have put everyone to sleep.”)

    • Funding the construction of a building at a cosmetology college.

    • Producing and distributing bar coasters.

    • DoD’s adventures with gas stations and empty buildings in Afghanistan.

    These are just a few of the 100 “winners” listed by Senator Flake.  Some are repeated in Senator Lankford’s list; but the overlap between the two lists doesn’t seem to be total.

    Yeah, this is funny – in a “laughing to keep from crying” kinda way. It’s our freaking tax money being wasted.

    Senator Flake documents around $133.6 BILLION  in apparent waste. (It wasn’t as easy to extract costs from Senator Lankford’s list, so I passed on trying to do that.) That’s approaching the budget of the entire Department of Veterans Affairs.

    As the late Senator Everett Dirksen reputedly said: “A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon, you’re talking real money.” And since Uncle Sam’s as broke as an E3 with 3 kids and a stay-at-home spouse a week after payday, well . . . every dollar counts.

    Senator Flake’s list can be found here; Senator Lankford’s can be found here. If you have the time reading them is worth your while – for as long as you can stand to read either.

    But maybe give them a pass if you’re having a bad day, or are having blood pressure issues. Punching a wall or computer screen kinda smarts, and raising your blood pressure too high can be bad news indeed.

  • Time for Our Next Dose of Economic Castor Oil

    The Federal government released economic data for September late last week.   So, happy days are here again, right? The US economy is going great guns, yes?

    Two words:  um, no.   As has been the case for the last 7 years, the economy . . . remains in the freaking toilet.

    There was one change, though.  The US labor participation rate did not remain at 62.6% last month.  Rather, it declined further:  to 62.4%. Once again, that’s the lowest the US labor participation rate has been since October 1977 – or early in the Carter Administration. It also marks the 18th consecutive month that the labor participation rate has been at Carter-esque sub-63% levels.

    This means only 62.4% of the US civilian labor force is actually working or actively looking for work. As noted above, it’s also a 38-year low – which now has been the case for four straight months (July, August, and September’s labor participation rate of 62.6% were all previously tied for the lowest since October 1977).

    As noted above, the US labor participation rate has also been at or below 63% for a full   two years   18 months now.  We never saw that during Carter’s catastrophic economic mismanagement.

    And on top of that, job creation was far less than expected.  Meanwhile, the US “official unemployment rate” remained at 5.1%.

    That last is not good news.  The “official unemployment rate” remaining steady at 5.1% is not, as some might claim, in and of itself an indicator of economic progress. By itself, the “official unemployment rate” is absolutely worthless as a measure of the economy’s actual performance; it tells you virtually nothing about the underlying economic reality.

    That’s because the “official unemployment rate” – U3 – is calculated using only those who are “actively looking for work” but who are unable to find employment.  “Actively looking for work” is defined as looking for work within the last 4 weeks.  However, if someone has gotten completely discouraged and has quit even trying to find work, they’re not counted at all for U3 purposes.  The labor participation rate, in contrast, accounts for them.

    So, when the “official unemployment rate” stays steady at the same time job creation is too weak to keep up with new entrants, that means more people left the workforce than entered.  With a growing population, that implies a rather sick economy.

    Those who quit looking for work still exist, of course.  And at some point in the future, they’ll almost certainly start looking for work again.

    U3 is such a p!ss-poor measure of actual economic performance that it’s even possible for the “official” unemployment rate to decline at the same time the economy is actually losing jobs.  I’ve provided a short, simplified example showing how this can occur in this past article.

    That’s essentially what’s been happening over the past several years.  The US labor participation rate has gone down by 3.3% since January 2009.  Since there are roughly 251 million individuals in the US civilian labor force today, that means a huge number of Americans who should be out looking for a job have become so discouraged they simply aren’t even bothering to try.  However, if and when conditions actually show some real improvement many of them will start looking again – and the unemployment rate will jump.  That is when you’ll know a recovery has really started.

    One last bit of “good news”:  remember those “excellent” job creation numbers for August and September we heard so much about?  That were higher than projected?  For some reason, they were revised downward last month – substantially. Due to either error or design, the original numbers apparently were not even close to being correct.  And it gets even “better”:  those revisions now seem to indicate a possible 3-month downward trend in monthly job creation by the economy.  If that’s really the case, that’s NOT good news.

    Recovery?  The correct response to anyone who talks about any “current economic recovery” is exactly the same as it’s been for the past 7 years: “What freaking economic recovery?  So far, there hasn’t been an economic recovery.

    All we’ve seen is economic stagnation, along with people becoming discouraged to the point of giving up on even looking.  And on top of that, wages have been generally declining in real terms the whole time – and in current-dollar terms last month as well, though only slightly.

    It’s been almost 6 years and 9 months, Mr. President.  Are we ever going to see any real economic progress under your     group of feckless fools and clueless tools     Administration?

    Eh, don’t bother to answer.  I think we already know the score.

  • And In the “YGBSM!” Department . . .

    . . . it looks like the “best and brightest” working for the VA were at it again.

    It seems that some VA medical facilities recently distributed a flyer indicating prohibited items.  Bring them to an exam, and you would not be seen.

    The fliers were apparently mailed to some vets with appointment letters. The VA also posted similar signs at some medical facilities depicting those prohibited items.

    Here are some pictures of the flier and signs:


    No, you’re eyes aren’t playing tricks on you.  For a while, in part of the US the VA actually was telling people that if they brought a smartphone or backpack to an appointment, they would not be seen.  (The flier and signs actually depicted an iPhone, but presumably any smartphone – and probably, any cell phone – would have been similarly banned.)

    The VA has since backpedaled, and has announced the policy was “ill advised” .  The VA has also apparently cancelled the policy – though they did not explain why the policy was ever instituted in the first place.

    Now, why might the VA do something like this?  Well, it seems that at least one vet has used a recording device at a VA appointment – likely a cell or smart phone – to obtain a personal record of what was actually said at that appointment.  They did so in Minnesota, which is a “one party” consent state regarding the recording of conversations (Federal law and 38 states require one-party-consent regarding the recording of conversations).

    One plausible explanation is that the VA doesn’t want anyone else to have a separate record of what’s actually said in their appointments, so they tried to prevent that by banning cell phones. If so, that was indeed “ill advised”.

    Now, I’m sure there are other plausible explanations.  I just wish I could think of what one of those other plausible explanations might be.

    The really sad part about all this?  This whole idea was obviously utter and complete idiocy.  Any one with enough common sense to p!ss in the toilet vice the bathroom’s wastebasket would have seen that immediately.

    But coming from VA administrators? This doesn’t surprise me one bit.

    I’m seriously beginning to wonder if the VA is salvageable.

     

    AUTHOR’S NOTES (IMPORTANT):

    1.  If you’re thinking about taking a smartphone/MP3 player/other recording device to your next VA appointment and recording it, please CHECK YOUR LOCAL LAWS FIRST.  A number of states (11) appear to require the consent of ALL parties to a conversation before it may be legally recorded.  If you live in one of those states, you cannot legally record your appointment unless you get the permission of all present to record.

    2.  While I believe the last link to the PDF document listing state recording laws (last link above) to be accurate, the document appears to be from 2013 – and laws change from time to time.  I strongly recommend that you double check it against Lexis or another up-to-date source of state and local laws if you’re thinking about recording an appointment based on assumed one-party consent law in your state.  It’s possible your state’s law has changed since that document was prepared in 2013.