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

Category: “Your Tax Dollars At Work”

  • O’Keefe’s Latest

    Remember James O’Keefe?  The journalist who nailed  ANSWER  ACORN?

    Well, he’s at it again.  And this one is just about as good.

    Here ya go.  It’s rather eye-opening.

    One last parting thought.  From the linked article:

    In a 2011 speech at the border, President Obama claimed that his policies had ‘strengthened border security beyond what many thought possible.’

    ‘The fence is now basically complete,’ the president claimed.

    Really? Well, if that’s the case  – looks like someone’s got some ‘splainin’ to do . . . .

  • Limousine Liberal Sightings

    Liberals are “friends of the little guy”, right? I mean, they’re always speaking out against the rich as being “greedy, evil bastards”.

    Well, let’s look at one such guy.

    Law Prof Who Specializes in Poverty Makes $205,400 – Teaching One Class Per Semester

    A couple of comments. First: the guy consistently blames one political party (I’ll let you guess which) for waging an “unforgivable war on poor people”. But he does this while making more than $200k annually, and owning real estate worth around $1.5M. And while married to a lady who pulls down over $400k annually in salary.   I’d love to know how much he gives to charity annually – you know, to “help the poor”.

    And second: the guy (and his wife) both “work” in academia – at state-supported public universities, so tax dollars pay their salaries.  But he’s so liberal (and so controversially outspoken in support of liberal causes) that his employer reportedly asks that any op-eds he publishes include the disclaimer that “He doesn’t speak for (name of university)”.

    But the tool above is not alone. After all: who could forget Robert Reich, that “good   Marxist   liberal” and former Labor Secretary currently teaching one class at UC-Berkeley – at a salary of about $240k a year.

    The subject of his classes? Income inequality.

    I sh!t you not.

    Freaking hypocrites.

  • Ever Wondered How Much Uncle Sam is Paying Out in Benefits?

     

    Well, I’ll tell you. Or you can go to the source here.

    But if you just ate, you might want to think twice about following that link, or reading any further.

    Here’s the “bad news” chart:

     

     

    Yep, that’s right: last year, the total was over $2,007,500,000,000.  For those not used to looking at numbers that large – i.e., damn near everyone – I’ll put that into words for easier comprehension at a glance.

    That’s $2.007 trillion. In 2013 alone.

    Of that amount, just under 70% – or approximately $1.399 trillion – are benefits that are not means tested whatsoever.  The remainder – approximately $608 billion – is at least sort-of means tested.  I say “sort-of means tested” because means testing for Federal benefits excludes so much income (and items provided in kind) and has so many exceptions that you wonder sometimes why they bother.

    Of the $1.4 trillion in non-means-tested benefits that Uncle Sam gives away, IMO only about $65.1 billion appears to be a true earned benefit.  Those would be VA disability compensation and VA educational assistance. Eligibility for the rest seems to require little more than paying taxes and breathing – and I’m not really sure about the “paying taxes” part in many cases.

    So, if you ever wondered where all your Federal tax dollars go – this is where about $2.007 trillion of them went last year.

    If you’re wondering how much the Federal government spent last year – the Heritage Foundation puts that at approximately $3.455 trillion.  That means that spending for entitlement and income security programs is now eating more than $0.58 of each Federal dollar spent.

    So, how much for national defense and vets?  Together, those two consume less than $0.23 out of each Federal dollar spent.

  • Yer Periodic ObamaCare Update

    A quick look at recent news for ObamaCare (AKA the  Putrid Pile of Awful, Crappy Asininity   Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act) :

    And, finally:

    Yeah, that ObamaCare is just the shizz, ain’t it?

    Time to put it out of its misery, then burn the remains.  Then bury the ashes and cover them with quicklime.

  • UN: Israel Not Sharing Iron Dome with Hamas? War Crime!

    No, I’m not kidding.  And remember:  the US taxpayer is footing around 20% of the bill for this kind of bullsh!t.

    Tell me again why the US doesn’t give that clown carnival the heave-ho?

  • So, What Do Montana Teachers Have to Say About Plagiarism?

    They’re obviously against it, right?  I mean, it’s one of Academia’s cardinal sins.

    So they must be aghast at the prospect of a plagiarist being elected to the US Senate, right?

    Not so fast.  According to Eric Fever, president of the Montana Education Association-Montana Federation of Teachers, it’s no big deal:

    Husband, father, soldier, straight talking, no bullshit Democrat, Walsh is in his own words “no academic.” His bout with plagiarism proves that. But his bout with plagiarism has harmed no one but himself.

    I can’t wait to see how Montana teachers react to the “it didn’t hurt anyone else” excuse when they catch someone using an obviously-plagiarized paper for their classwork.  Based on the above, I guess they’ll give the perp a pass – as well as a passing grade.

    And Fever is hardly alone.  Here’s a quote from an article posted by Montana teacher Don Pogreba on his blog Intelligent Discontent:

    Let’s get one thing out of the way: it was plagiarism. Some, eager to defend Senator Walsh, have suggested that because he cited the material in footnotes, he wasn’t plagiarizing, but that’s a too-generous, and incorrect assessment….

    A person’s ethics are hardly defined by one error in judgment.

    I guess Pogreba hasn’t gotten around to reading the 9-page DAIG 2010 Report of Investigation concerning Walsh’s other little bit of “interesting” conduct while serving in the MT ARNG.   That report substantiates different misconduct on Walsh’s part that IMO also calls his ethics into question.

    Or perhaps Pogreba is simply OK with politicians using public resources improperly, and using their public position for for private gain.  As long as he agrees with their politics, of course.

    Ya know, for some reason I keep hearing an old Randy Newman tune playing in the background when I read those articles:   “It’s Money That Matters”.   But then again, I tend to hear that every time a union flack opens his or her mouth these days.

     

  • This IRS Crap Just Keeps Getting “Better and Better”

    Well, it seems as if the IRS realizes it has a problem. And it released a solicitation recently – apparently this week – for contractor assistance in getting the problem fixed.

    No, it’s not for help in finding Lois Lerner’s missing email.

    The problem the IRS is seeking contractor assistance to solve? Destroying magnetic computer storage media and devices – including “. . . . at least 65,464 magnetic tapes, 3,225 hard drives, 5,856 floppy disks and 708 reels . . . .”

    Yeah, you read that correctly.  The IRS wants a contractor to help them destroy magnetic tapes and hard drives.  Those are exactly the kinds of storage media on which missing email relating to the current IRS scandal was located before the items holding those missing emails supposedly “crashed” or “were reused”.

    I’m not joking.

    Oh, and it gets even better.  Remember Lerner’s hard drive?  The one that was supposedly “destroyed”, was “unrecoverable” – and took all her archived 2009-2011 email with it?

    Well, it appears that IRS IT experts have indicated to House Ways and Means Committee investigators that Lerner’s hard drive was found to be only scratched, not “destroyed” – and that data from the device should have been recoverable.

    House investigators found this out during recent conversations with IRS IT experts.  The IRS initially refused to make these in-house experts available to the House Ways and Means Committee.

    The IRS also refused to use outside experts to attempt to recover data related to this matter.  Use of an outside data recovery expert was something the IRS’s own IT staff recommended.

    Gee.  Now, why wouldn’t the IRS want an outside expert in data recovery looking into the matter?  It couldn’t be because that would be someone whose livelihood they didn’t control and might not be able to muzzle – could it?

    Don’t forget:  IRS officials also initially told the House Ways and Means Committee, under oath, that the device was toast.  They further said that data from said device was “unrecoverable”, and that the device had been “recycled”.

    But it also turns out that the agency isn’t sure precisely what happened to Lerner’s hard drive, either.  And an internal memo has now come to light which appears to describe her computer as having been “recovered”.

    Hmm.  That’s . . . interesting.

    This whole mess is now far past ridiculous and well into disgusting.  “Transparent”?  Well, if you mean that as a synonym for “obvious” – as in “transparent and shameless dissembling” – that certainly IMO looks like it’s the case here.

    I’m thinking it’s about time to subpoena a few folks from the IRS to testify before the House Ways and Means Committee, maybe some for the second or third time.  And if and when they try to plead the fifth, the committee’s lead counsel should tell the first couple of them who do that the following:  “Use immunity.  Now spill – or you’re going to jail tonight for contempt instead of home.”

  • I Think I’ve Figured Out What’s Wrong With the EPA

    Well, it’s really fairly obvious.  They’re fans of Kimmy-poo Kardashian.  And they’re apparently spending lots of time playing her new online game.

    Don’t believe me?  Read this.

    And remember:  that little “oops” (and its cleanup) was funded by your tax dollars.