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

Category: “Your Tax Dollars At Work”

  • More Secret Service News

    Well, it looks like the Secret Service Director Joseph Clancy will be testifying in Congress again tomorrow about the latest Secret Service troubles.  Since his last appearance went just oh so “swimmingly” that was pretty much a foregone conclusion.

    But it also looks like he’ll be going alone.  That’s in spite of the fact that the Congressional Committee before which he’ll be giving testimony has requested that four other individuals also testify.

    Predictably, neither ranking member of the Committee is exactly happy about this.  I can’t say that I really blame them, either.

    I said earlier when surveillance footage possibly related to the incident couldn’t be located that this looked pretty bad.  Now I’m really scratching my head and wondering what’s going on.

    With this stunt, IMO Clancy has just made this thing look a whole lot worse.  A cynic might even start muttering about the possibility of a cover-up.

  • About That Recent Secret Service Incident . . . .

    The new Director for the US Secret Service, Joe Clancy, was questioned by members of the House  recently at a closed-door hearing.  The subject:  the recent late-night incident where two senior agents, apparently after having been out drinking, who may have been drinking earlier that evening, reportedly nearly ran over a suspicious package at one entrance to the White House with a government vehicle after arriving on-scene.  That incident is now under investigation by the DHS Office of the Inspector General.

    Two surveillance videos were provided to Congress.  One showed little of the incident.

    When asked, Mr. Clancy told the Representatives was that additional surveillance video of the incident may not be available.  Secret Service policy apparently is to erase surveillance video after 72 hours.

    Now, I’m going to ignore the question of why White House surveillance video isn’t archived to digital video and retained for far longer than 72 hours (storage is really pretty cheap these days).  But it seems to me that if you had an incident at the White House involving a possible bomb and/or potential agent misconduct, you’d flag all surveillance video showing anything that might be related to that incident and keep copies until all actions relating to the incident and its investigation had been completed.

    The fact that any available video of an incident like this – which is under investigation – may have been erased IMO smells. Badly.

    But maybe that’s just me.

     

    (Note:  first paragraph above has been reworded to more accurately reflect what is publicly known regarding the circumstances of the incident in question.)

  • Oh, the First Lady is Gonna Love This!

    We all know the First Lady is big on “nutrition”.  She’s been a driving force behind many new Federal policies regarding food choices, particularly in schools.

    Well, the FLOTUS isn’t gonna like the results of a recent study done by the Rand Corporation.

    It seems that out in the in La-La land – AKA Los Angeles, in the Left Coast’s Granola State – they got ahead of the FLOTUS.  LA passed zoning a zoning ordinance in 2008 which banned new fast-food outlets and the expansion of existing ones (those located in strip malls were an exception) in a 32 square mile section of South LA.

    This part of LA had historically had high obesity rates.  The thought was that limiting people’s freedom (via making it harder to choose to eat fast food) would improve that “public health problem”.

    The Rand Corporation recently studied the effect of that law. Here’s what they found:

    “It had no meaningful effect,” Rand senior economist Roland Sturm said. “There’s no evidence that diets have improved more in South LA. Obesity and overweight rates have not fallen.”

    Gee – people simply continued doing what they wanted to do, in spite of a well-intended but ineffectual law to the contrary.  Who’d have ever expected that people would continue to, you know, exercise that little thing called “freedom of choice” in their daily lives?

    Changing human behavior of this type can’t generally be done simply by decree.  You first have to convince people to change their attitudes and habits.

    Perhaps one day our leftist “brethren” will figure that out.

  • Keystone Secret Service

    Keystone Secret Service

    Earlier this month, on March 4th at about 10:30 PM, according to the Washington Post, a woman hopped out of her car on 15th Street, near the White House, and approached some Secret Service guards carrying a package wrapped in a shirt and she yelled that she was holding a bomb. Then she dropped it and ran back to her car and tried to escape, hitting an officer a few times until she was successful.

    Pretty exciting, huh? But, that’s not the end of it. At about 11PM, two senior agents drove onto the scene from their night out down in Chinatown, a few blocks away;

    [The senior agents] drove their government car through the crime scene. According to people familiar with the incident, they drove through police tape and then hit a temporary barricade, using the car to push aside some barrels. An agency official said Thursday that the car was not damaged.

    The episode was caught on surveillance video. Investigators who reviewed the tape of the incident initially said they couldn’t be sure if the pair drove very close to or over the suspicious item wrapped in the shirt, one law enforcement official said. But after reviewing more tape later on Thursday afternoon, the official said, they concluded the agents’ government car drove directly next to the package.

    Secret Service officers…wanted to arrest the agents — but a more senior supervisor at the complex told them to let the agents go, the officials said.

    Of course, alcohol was involved. The woman was known to the Secret Service and it looks like she might end up in court answering for her assault on the officer with her car. But, it wasn’t until 3/4 of an hour later, after the two inebriated agents drove through the crime scene that it was determined that there was no bomb. One of the agents was Marc Connolly who is second in command of the president’s security detail.

    I understand that when the agents are off duty, they have a right to blow off steam, but these fellows were partying in a government vehicle, you know one of the vehicles we bought for protection of the president and his family, not for joy riding around the middle of the District. And if they were off-duty, what were they doing at a crime scene?

  • Wow – Talk About Longevity!

    OK, take a guess.  How many people in the US are over 112 years old?

    C’mon – guess.  100?  1,000?  5,000?  maybe even 10,000?

    Nope.  You’re way low.

    According to the Social Security Administration, there are 6.5 million.  Well, at least that’s how many active Social Security “accounts” exist for with birth dates of 16 June 1901 or earlier – indicating the individual has a current age of 113 or older.

    Gee, that’s odd.  In 2010, there were less than 53,500 persons in the USA that were documented to be even 100 years old.  They sure got a lot older in only 5 years – and they multiplied, too!

    I wish I was joking about the SSA being so out-to-lunch here.  But I’m not.

    The reason for this bit of idiocy?  Those conducting the audit – from the SSA’s Officer of the Inspector General – “concluded that SSA lacks the controls necessary to annote death information on the records of number-holders who exceed ‘maximum reasonable life expectancies.’ ” 

    And, yes – as you might have guessed, some of those “account numbers” do indeed appear to be being used for unlawful purposes.

    Apu the Hindu was right.  We are truly screwed.

  • Still Fudgin’ Numbers All These Years

    Jonn’s article yesterday got me thinking.  And that’s sometimes not such a good thing – as regular TAH readers know all too well.  (smile)

    So, with appropriate apologies to Paul Simon:  an ode to today’s VA.

    Still Fudgin’ Numbers All These Years

    That VA manager
    In his office, right
    He seemed indiff’rent and
    Petty (though he smiled)
    As he grabbed for more resources
    To build his empire dear
    Been fudgin’ numbers many years
    Been fudgin’ numbers many years

    He’s not the kind of man
    Who enjoys making waves
    He loves to live by
    His rulebook
    And he ain’t no fan of changes
    Or reporting bad news clear
    Just fudges numbers every year
    Just fudges numbers every year

    Four in the PM
    Nodding, and
    Yawning
    Droning his life away
    He’ll never worry
    Why should he?
    It’s all gonna fade

    Now he’s got that corner office
    Plays God every day
    He swears he’ll clear that backlog
    Some damn way
    But he will not be replaced, no
    By a more competent peer
    Still fudgin’
    Yes, fudgin’
    Still fudgin’ numbers all these years

    I wish I could in good conscience say the above is satire.  But after Jonn’s article yesterday – and the recent “secret waiting list” scandals, plus the VA’s longtime covering for hundreds of fake POWs that Jonn’s written about repeatedly – I’m not really sure it is.

  • More “Global Warming” News

    According to NOAA, today and tomorrow the 14th major impact snowstorm of the 2010s will hit the NE USA. That makes the 2010s – in terms of such major impact snowstorm events – the snowiest decade on record.

    The previous record-holding decades were the 1960s and 2000s. Each of those decades had 10 such .

    Since it’s only January 2015, I don’t suppose I need to remind our readers that the 2010s are not even yet half over.

    Oh, yeah: in case you were wondering, the      pointy-headed idiots      global warming advocates are already blaming this latest blizzard on global warming, too.

    Global warming? More like “glow-bull” warming if you ask me. Yet they persist in blaming everything that happens on “global warming”.  Hmm.

    Why? Well, I think we should just follow the money. IMO that will answer a helluva lot of questions – including why.

  • More on David Gregory and His “Magazine Incident”

    Remember David Gregory?  You know, that “Meet the Press” host who flouted DC’s gun laws a couple of years ago and got away with it?

    Well, turns out that’s not the fault of the DC police.  It seems the DC police wanted to arrest Gregory for that stunt, and recommended he be charged.  The DC Attorney General, Irvin B. Nathan, ignored their request for an arrest warrant.  The linked story paraphrases the reason as being because the prosecutor thought Gregory “was just too nice a guy and had no other criminal intent”.

    Yeah, right.  How about not p!ssing on our legs and telling us it’s raining, Nathan?

    This has all the indications of having been nothing but a blatant quid pro quo to ensure continued good press and public support from Gregory and NBC on gun control issues.  You cut Gregory a break because you agree with him politically and he could help you in the future – plain and simple.  Had it been an ordinary Joe or Jane vice someone you agreed with politically and found useful, you’d have nailed them to the wall.

    But hey – that’s the DC city government for ya.  Crap like that shouldn’t surprise anyone.  It’s just business as usual.