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

Category: “Your Tax Dollars At Work”

  • Meanwhile, Back At the State Department . . .

    . . . we have the case of Bryan Pagliano,

    You might remember him. He’s the guy who was the Clintoon campaign’s 2008 IT director. He later set up her “personal email server”.

    He also was hired by the State Department as an IT specialist. He left in Feb 2013, sometime after Clintoon resigned as Secretary of State.

    Well, Senator Chuck Grassley – Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee – asked State to provide his committee copies of the guy’s official emails from when he worked for State.  Seems that ol’ Bryan had been called to testify before Congress this past fall (probably the reason you remember the name) – and refused to answer questions, invoking the Fifth Amendment.  Sen. Grassley is trying to determine whether to grant the fella immunity.

    From the time after Clintoon resigned, apparently State can find Pagliano’s email archives.  But regarding the period while time he worked for State while she was SECSTATE, well . . . do you really need me to tell you what they’re telling Sen. Grassley?

    Yep. Department spokesmen have said that State’s “investigators have not yet located a .pst that covers the time period of Secretary’s Clinton tenure”.

    Are you surprised?  Nah.  Me neither.

    However, the FBI has seized the man’s former government computer.  So if FBI forensic technicians are allowed to do their jobs, there’s a fair chance they might find something.

    Given the track record of this “most transparent administration in history”, however . . . well, I don’t plan to hold my breath waiting.

  • 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.

  • At DHS, $1+ Billion and a Decade’s Work Equals . . . One Electronic Form Online

    Over a decade ago, DHS decided to modernize its immigration processing.  So DHS decided to initiate a project that would make many of the required forms available online, and to allow them to be filled out online as well – with answers stored digitally.  Associated fees were also to be payable online.

    The system was originally projected to cost around $500 million, and to have been completed two years ago. The reality? Well, that’s a bit different.

    Today, the system DHS commissioned has one form that can be filled out online. (Two other forms briefly were available online, but were pulled due to technical issues.) DHS’s system also will accept a single fee online. The remaining nearly 100 forms and their associated fees (if any) today remain paper only.

    The system is now expected to be ready in four years – maybe – after having taken close to twice the amount of time originally estimated. And the total cost is expected to be approximately $3.1 billion – or around 6 times the original estimated cost.

    The Washington Post yesterday had a longish article describing this debacle. You won’t enjoy reading it. But IMO you should read it anyway.

    Why?  Well, after all . . . you and I are paying for this abomination.  It literally is “our tax dollars at work” – loosely speaking, of course, since not much real “work” seems to be getting done here.

  • Throwing Good Money After Bad?

    Stripes today has an article  indicating the US Deputy SECSTATE has announced US pledges of another nearly $100M to support “Syria’s opposition”.  Presumably, that’s the “non ISIS”, moderate Syrian opposition – assuming any of those creatures still exist today.  The aid will go to “support local and provincial councils, civil society activists, emergency services and other needs on the ground inside Syria.”

    Well, whatever isn’t stolen or diverted theoretically will, anyway.  I’m guessing a fair chunk will end up used for other purposes – and possibly even in ISIS’s coffers.  But maybe I’m wrong.

    The article goes on to say that Saudi Arabia “wants Assad gone”, and that the timing of his departure – along with the departure of “foreign fighters” – are major sticking points in ending the Syrian civil war.  Gee, ya think?  I’d have never guessed.  How about we file that bit of wisdom in the “No Sh!t” category?

    Of course Assad’s departure is a sticking point – he has no intention of departing, and he’s currently running part of Syria.  Further, both Assad and those “foreign fighters” have their own interests in being there, and in preventing an ISIS takeover of Syria – kinda like we do, actually.  So that’s obviously a “sticking point”, too.  Sheesh.

    This new pledge brings to $500M the amount the US will have spent supporting the Syrian opposition since 2012.   Now it seems to me we could have spent all that money far more effectively, given the results we’ve gotten to date.  But maybe that’s just me.

    “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”  I said that years ago, and I see no reason to change my mind now.

    Sometimes the devil you know is indeed better than the one you don’t.  If you don’t believe that . . . think back 3 years, then look at ISIS today.

  • Political Connections? You Decide.

    I’ll just leave this here, followed by  some brief comments.

    Watchdog: Feds sold horses for slaughter to rancher with reported political ties

    First comment:  this type of corrupt behavior is disgusting.  Second:  since the government apparently lost money on the deal – but the marketing specialist who approved the sales nonetheless got superior reviews (and bonuses) for several years while this was going on – I’m not sure I believe the “this matter did not warrant further investigation” finding.

    The full IG report can be found here.

    I guess this was just another bit of honest, above-board dealing from “the most transparent Administration in history”.

  • Gee, What A Surprise

    Well, Clintoon’s private email is in the news again. And not for good reasons.

    1.  It seems that, well . . . some people in other countries were interested in Clintoon’s private email server. Seriously interested.

    As in, “people who appear to be linked to the People’s Republic of China”. That private email server was apparently targeted by malware operating from locations in China, South Korea, and Germany. The malware executing these attacks is reportedly linked to China.

    Other attacks, for which more information has not been made public, apparently also occurred.

    These attacks occurred during late 2013 and 2014. Those attacks were detected (and apparently blocked) by anti-malware software installed to protect the server in October 2013.

    No such anti-malware software was installed on the server prior to 2013. It’s thus unknown if the server was targeted prior to October 2013.

    However, were I a betting man, well . . . yeah, I’d guess it was. Some of our adversaries seem pretty damn competent when it comes to this kind of stuff.

    2.  Remember Platte River Networks and their lack of backups for Clintoon’s mail server? Well, it looks like maybe there’s an explanation for that after all.  Apparently, a Clintoon family firm – Clinton Executive Service Corporation – reportedly asked Platte River to reduce the amount of time for which backups of the server were held on-file.

    It appears Platte River originally had backups of the server from day one.  Clinton Executive Service Corporation seems to have asked them to reduce that to 30 days – apparently after the FBI began looking into the matter. Don’t know about you, but that makes me wonder.

    3.  However, it’s not only Clintoon’s private server that’s an issue. Apparently the FBI recently impounded four servers from the Department of State in conjunction with the matter.  Interesting.

    4.  And, finally: remember those claims by Clintoon that she never saw anything marked as classified in her private email?  Well, apparently the lady has rather poor eyesight – or has either very poor reading comprehension or memory.  At least 3 of the emails that the FBI received from her lawyer do indeed appear to be marked as being classified.  And the total number of emails found to contain classified information – whether marked or unmarked – is now up to around 400.

    Oh, and did I mention that one of those emails found to be marked as classified discussed the Iranian nuclear program?

    . . .

    But hey – what’s the problem?  No foreign governments could possibly have any interest in Clintoon’s chit-chat with her aides.  I mean, she was only the US SECSTATE.  She couldn’t possibly discuss anything in those emails of interest to foreign nations, right?

    Yeah, right.  And I’m the rightful Emperor of China, too.

  • 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.