So Lance Armstrong Used Drugs

Lance Armstrong told Oprah Winfrey on her TV show last week, after years of bitter public denials, that he used performance-enhancing drugs during his legendary cycling career.

Yawn …

So what?

Big deal!

Ask me if I care.

Armstrong admitted to using a variety of performance enhancing substances starting sometime in the "mid-90s." The powers that be in the cycling business had already stripped him of his seven Tour de France titles and banned him for life from participating in future professional cycling events.

But as far as I’m concerned he crossed the line first; he won all seven of those titles; and its way too damn late now to take them away from him. It’s a bit like the NFL calling a clipping penalty during a game winning touchdown run ten years after the game is over and declaring the losing team the winner.

How many games in baseball’s major leagues have been won by a batter hitting a home run using a corked bat in the bottom of the ninth inning? We’ll never know. But if some player admits to doing just that many years ago, should the game be awarded to the team that lost? Should the offender be punished today?

It’s ridiculous.

Had he been caught violating the rules during a race that would be different; he could have been disqualified then without any complaint from me.

There really should be something like a statute of limitations on this kind of thing. You know; if someone admits to stealing $10million in a train robbery that happened seven years ago, he can’t be prosecuted. It’s too late.

If O.J. Simpson goes on Oprah tomorrow to admit that he murdered his ex-wife and Ronald Goldman, too bad; his trial is over; he can’t be touched for that; it would constitute double jeopardy.

O.J. Simpson and train robbers clearly did something wrong. But as a hard core libertarian I don’t believe that Mr. Armstrong did anything wrong until he lied and bullied others about his conduct in order to keep it a secret.

Yes, those things were wrong.

Maybe he’s a jerk; I suppose he is, but the only reason he felt compelled to lie and bully was because he had to keep it secret. He had to keep it secret because the statist bastards controlling those events think they have the right to tell the participants what they can and can’t do with their own bodies.

He wanted to enhance his performance. Who wouldn’t want that, especially with the huge rewards out there now in professional sports? He could not have won the race seven times without the drugs, Armstrong admitted with a small smile. Surely there were many others who were doing exactly the same thing.

Men have been trying to enhance their performance since the dawn of time. Sales of male enhancement drugs are booming everywhere these days. I’ll bet money that the toads that stripped Lance of his titles go home at night regularly and pop a Viagra before hopping into bed with their wives.

It’s that kind of hypocrisy about the use of drugs that disgusts me. There is an illogical hysteria about drugs which has been embedded in our culture only relatively recently. Babe Ruth would have gotten away with what Lance Armstrong did with no one thinking twice about it or batting an eye.

The public today expects its athletes to all be angels, pure as the driven snow, and honest to the core. That is never going to happen with the millions of dollars at stake now on the playing fields. Nice guys finish last and that fact of life has never been truer than in the gritty, dirty and fiercely competitive world of pro sports.

"At the time it did not feel wrong?" Winfrey asked.

"No," Armstrong replied. "Scary."

"Did you feel bad about it?" she pressed him.

"No," he said; "Even scarier."

"Did you feel in any way that you were cheating?"

"No," Armstrong paused. "Scariest."

"I went and looked up the definition of cheat," he added. "And the definition is to gain an advantage on a rival or foe. I didn't view it that way. I viewed it as a level playing field."

I hate this never ending War on Drugs. It’s downright disgusting, demeaning and dehumanizing to insist randomly that free people must allow their blood to be drawn or have to pee in a jar so that some sanctimonious martinet can test it.

It’s none of their business.

Now it has come to the point where public schools are insisting on drug tests for any student who wishes to participate in any extra-curricular activity, including the debate team and marching band. Soon it will be all the kids rounded up and being randomly tested like cattle just for showing up for their compulsory education.  

So Lance Armstrong used performance enhancing drugs almost 20 years ago – yawn!

Mr. President for Life

We have heard a lot of serious talk lately from the parasite politician class about how entitlement spending is driving America into bankruptcy, and how Social Security, Medicare, and other government programs which provide financial benefits to the little guy will have to be trimmed back in order to save money, lower the annual deficit, and decrease the national debt.

That is all well and good. Perhaps the scale of each of these programs should properly be revised downward along with all other categories of government spending, especially military expenditures and the overall costs of government. I’m all for that.

But you can rest assured that the very last people who will ever be forced to tighten their belts in order to resolve the current financial crisis will be the parasite politicians themselves, their wives and their families. They have feathered their nests nicely, thank you, and no one is going to talk about, much less mess with, their financial perks, prerogatives and benefits.

Entitlement spending on politicians – including former politicians -- is going to keep going up.

Case in point:

President Barack Obama on Thursday signed into a law a measure giving him, George W. Bush and future former presidents and their spouse’s lifetime Secret Service protection.

Never mind the fact that President Obama, George W. Bush, and every other living former U.S. president, are multi-millionaires, well able to afford their own lifetime protection, the Congress has seen fit to pad their benefits at the expense of the American taxpayers at a time when the nation is teetering on the edge of financial ruin.

Of course, the real and lasting financial benefit of being a former president these days is the fame, clout and influence they retain after leaving office. Most of them command millions of dollars every year just in speaker’s fees alone.

Not surprisingly, the new law had bipartisan support from politicians on both sides of the aisle. It passed the House of Representatives by voice vote and raced through the Senate unopposed. It scuttles a 1990’s cost saving law which imposed a 10-year limit on Secret Service protection for former presidents, starting with George W. Bush.

Those who supported the former law said it would save the government millions of dollars because former presidents could hire private security firms (as Richard Nixon did after he decided to forgo Secret Service protection in 1985).

So much for saving any money; the 1990’s cost cutting measure has and will never affect a single former president. It was a total waste of time and effort. Politicians today just don’t care about saving the taxpayers millions of dollars, especially when it comes to increasing their own entitlement benefits.

It wasn’t always that way. Long before, and even after Social Security became law in the 1930’s to benefit the little people of America, the U.S. federal government provided no pension or other retirement benefits at all to former United States presidents. They were on their own and most of them got along fine with no problems.

Legislation introduced in 1912 to establish a presidential pension failed. The Secret Service didn’t even begin to protect current presidents until 1901 after the assassination of William McKinley. It wasn’t until 1958 that the Former Presidents Act took effect because former President Harry S. Truman was having trouble financing an office staff, which prompted the legislation.

Now former presidents under the FPA are entitled to a pension, staff and office expenses, medical care or health insurance, and Secret Service protection for life. The measure was enacted to “maintain the dignity” of the Office of the President by providing financial benefits so that they would not have to enter unsuitable occupations after leaving office.

You see, we have to have a law passed in order to maintain the dignity of the presidency. Without it, both current and former presidents would have no dignity. They might otherwise have to become used car salesmen.

Former Presidents currently receive a pension immediately upon leaving office that is equal to pay for the head of an executive department (Executive Level I), which was $191,300 as of January 1, 2008. They don’t have to wait until old age like the rest of us peasants.

But that’s not all. Transition funding for the expenses of leaving office is available for seven months. It covers office space, staff compensation, communications services, and printing and postage associated with the transition. Private office staff provided by the Administrator of General Services and funds. Persons employed under this subsection are selected by and responsible only to the former president for the performance of their duties.

On top of that they receive an office staff with full benefits, travel expenses, office rental expenses, telephone, postage, printing, supplies and equipment expenses for the rest of their lives. The former president’s budget just for the year 2009 requested $8,520,000 for those types of expenses and the amounts are growing by leaps and bounds every year.  

Today, former presidents have the expensive distinction of being called and treated like Mr. President for life.

First Amendment Establishment Clause: Is it Hostile Toward Christianity?

Many evangelical Christians in America simply cannot shake the conclusion in their minds that the First Amendment Establishment Clause is downright hostile toward Christianity.

This is a story which repeats itself over and over again: If it’s not about Ten Commandment displays in courtrooms, it’s about Christian nativity scenes on courthouse lawns.

If the government and its agents are required to exercise in the course if their duties strict neutrality in matters of religion and prohibited from promoting Christianity over other religions or non-religion, they call it hostility toward Christianity.

They describe it as a war on Christianity

If a public school teacher, for example, is advised by her superintendent not to proselytize Christianity to the captive audience of children in her classroom, well that means to them that she is being denied her First Amendment Freedom of Speech rights.  

Neutrality equals hostility in the mind of the evangelical Christian. They do not understand much less accept the Establishment Clause. They hate it with every fiber of their being. They fervently believe that they have the right to use our government to spread the Christian gospel.

The latest chapter in this saga is about Joelle Silver, a veteran a New York State public school teacher, devout Christian, and advisor to the school’s Bible Study club, whose been unlawfully decorating her classroom with biblical inspirational verses as a shrine to Christianity.

Now she’s filing a civil rights lawsuit against her school district after she was forced against her will by the superintendent to remove all religious content from her classroom — including a prayer request box, and this quote from former President Ronald Reagan:

“If we ever forget that we are One Nation Under God, then we will be a Nation gone under.”

She claims her freedoms of speech rights have been violated. In short, she and her lawyer actually believe that she has the right to proselytize Christianity to a captive audience of students in a public school.

Robert Muise, co-founder of the American Freedom Law Center and Silver’s attorney, says he’s never seen such an egregious example of religious hostility in a public school. “It’s like they’re treating those posters and inspirational sticky notes like it’s some sort of pornography … I find that offensive.”

Muise claims that the sole reason they are attacking his client is because she is a devout Christian. “When they launched the investigation, they literally went through her classroom with a fine-tooth comb and removed anything that had anything to do with Christianity,” he whined. “I’ve never seen anything like that. Ms. Silver does not cease being a Christian nor does she shed her constitutional rights at the schoolhouse gate.”

He added that the district also forbade his client from any form of communication with students “that would conflict with your duty to show complete neutrality toward religion and to refrain from promoting religion or entangling yourself in religious matters.”

 “Our nation was founded to promote religious liberty,” AFLC co-founder David Yerushalmi said. “Yet, for years our public schools have been bastions of religious hostility.”

But this public school teacher and her lawyers conveniently forget that, when she is in her classroom teaching students, she is exercising government speech, not private speech.

She is an agent of the government, she represents the government to her students, and government agents are required under the First Amendment Establishment Clause to maintain neutrality in matters pertaining to religion while performing their official duties.

Why is that simple concept so difficult for intelligent people to understand?

Neutrality does not equate to hostility.

And just because a former President has uttered a religious statement does not mean that a public school teacher is at liberty to display it prominently on her classroom wall.

If she were at liberty to do so under the First Amendment, then nothing should prevent an atheist teacher from displaying this famous quote from our nation’s founding father and former President, Thomas Jefferson:

“The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as his father in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter.”

That’s right. Our third President, Thomas Jefferson, was certain that the supposed divinity of Jesus Christ is a myth.

What about this masterful gem from another of our nation’s founding fathers and former President, John Adams?

"The question before the human race is, whether the God of Nature shall govern the world by his own laws, or whether priests and kings shall rule it by fictitious miracles?"

Perhaps this famous line from another founding father, James Madison:

"Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise."

Should these famous quotes be taught to public school children?

I seriously doubt that Ms. Silvers and her lawyers would agree with that, because if these quotes were fair game, then we really would have government hostility toward Christianity.

Manning Abuse Trivialized

Now it is official that former Army intelligence analyst, Pfc. Bradley E. Manning, facing a potential life sentence, has been serially abused and tortured while in the brig awaiting trial on 22 charges for allegedly providing military and diplomatic documents to WikiLeaks.

Prosecutors are pursuing charges, including aiding the enemy and violating the Espionage Act, that could result in a life sentence if he is convicted. His court-martial is scheduled to begin on March 6.

Col. Denise Lind, a military judge ruled recently that brig officials had admittedly mistreated and improperly kept Private Manning under unduly and unlawfully harsh conditions for excessive periods while being held at the Marines’ brig at Quantico, Va.

But instead of dismissing the case against the accused as provided in the military code of justice, or punishing his serial abusers, she granted the prisoner a paltry 112 days of credit against any eventual prison sentence.

This means that Manning’s abusers are free to continue punishing and abusing him before his trial as they like without fear of any substantial consequences – one day of credit on his sentence for each one day of serial abuse.

After all, what is the benefit to the prisoner of a few days credit against his sentence when that sentence is likely to be life in a military prison without the possibility of parole?

“There was no intent to punish the accused by anyone in the Marine Corps brig staff or chain of command,” said the judge. “The intent was to make sure the accused was safe, did not hurt himself and was available for the trial.”

Right!

The recognition that pre-trial punishment did occur during the nine months that he was held in Quantico supports Manning’s long-held complaint that he was singled out by the US government for excessively harsh treatment.

Private Manning is the most hated soldier in the U.S. military, he was improperly mistreated under unlawfully harsh conditions, but the court found no intent to punish. That’s absurd.

Allowing the prisoner just 20 minutes of exercise a day, instead of the full hour other prisoners were granted sounds an awful lot like punishment to me. He’s supposed to be considered innocent until proven guilty.

Later the judge began hearing arguments on a pair of motions by prosecutors seeking to restrict the ability of Private Manning’s defense team to call witnesses and introduce other testimony related to his motivation and whether the documents were over classified.

She might as well order a gag on his defense lawyers as this soldier defendant is not going to be allowed a proper defense. It’s already shaping up to be a kangaroo court, which is just another form of institutionalized abuse. The government wants this guy convicted and that is what the government is going to get.

And there won’t be any constitutionally guaranteed speedy trial either. At the request of prosecutors the judge has agreed to delay his trial from March to June, 2013 to allow them extra time to deal with classified information.

Manning has offered to plead guilty to some of the lesser charges in exchange for a reduced sentence. The most serious accusation is that by passing information to WikiLeaks, he effectively made it available to al-Qaida and its affiliate terrorist organizations – the “aiding the enemy” charge which carries the punitive life sentence.

So it is admitted that he didn’t pass the information to the enemy. He gave it to WikiLeaks. That indicates to me that he did not have criminal intent; he was merely acting as a whistle blower regarding inappropriate conduct on the part of the United States government, a laudable purpose in my opinion.

The military judge in this case predictably went out of her way to trivialize the serial abuse of prisoner Private Bradley E. Manning.

Statist Public Schools USA

Life in America’s public school’s nowadays is based largely on the North Korean model. The captive charges have no rights and their overlords control both thoughts and actions. Creative thinking is never encouraged. Humor is prohibited. Absolute conformity to the correct government line is the norm.

Witness, for example, the case of Oklahoma Prague High School valedictorian Kaitlin Nootbaar, who was arbitrarily denied her diploma by the school’s statist principal for using the word “hell” instead of "heck" in her graduation speech.

This was her heinous speech “crime”:

“When I first started school I wanted to be a nurse, then a veterinarian and now that I was getting closer to graduation, people would ask me, what do you want to do and I said ‘How the hell do I know? I’ve changed my mind so many times,'"

According to the girl’s father, her speech was met with a warm reception by the audience, but when she went to pick up her official diploma, the principal told her she would have to submit a written apology before she could receive it.

"We went to the office and asked for the diploma and the principal said, 'Your diploma is right here but you’re not getting it. Close the door, we have a problem,'" said dad.

I’d be willing to bet money that there are several books in the Prague High School library that contain the word ‘hell,’ including no doubt the Holy Bible, which mentions the place numerous times, but never-mind that – statist school administrators do what they are programmed to do and students have no First Amendment rights as far as public school statists are concerned.

Did you know that at least 50 percent of the grains served in U.S. public school lunches must now be whole grains, according to new statist legislation that went into effect last July?

School lunches are now squarely within the statist lawmakers’ cross hairs. By July 1, 2014, all grains will have to be whole.

It’s the statist food police mandate of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, which includes limits on fat and salt and heftier servings of fruits and veggies for the captive children.

Real fruit is replacing frozen fruit bars, pizza is being made with whole wheat crust and sweet potato fries are being substituted for tater tots — all part of first lady Michelle Obama’s campaign effort aimed at lowering rates of childhood obesity.

Ugh!

Now we have the likes of professional statist, Michelle Obama, dictating the kind of slop kids have to eat for lunch at public schools.

I’ll bet she doesn’t eat that crap.

Meanwhile, an innocent little 6-year-old boy was suspended from his Montgomery Maryland elementary school for making a gun gesture with his finger, pointing it at a female first-grader classmate, and saying "pow."

“We always make sure there is clear conversation with the student and parents about any behaviors that have to change and what the consequences are if that behavior doesn’t change,” a statist school spokesman told The Washington Post.

She characterized the incident as a "threat" to shoot another student

What threat? With is finger? His finger is a threat?

“He’s skinny and meek," explained the family’s attorney of the boy. "In his words, he was playing.”

He filed an appeal, asking that the incident be expunged from the child's record and arguing the boy never had the intention of shooting anyone.

What could be more obvious?

But don’t try to explain that to the administrators in charge of Statist Public Schools USA.

The Resurrection of Tricky Dick

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Tricky Dick Nixon, that scandalous lying presidential criminal, who should by all rights have served time in prison right along with his thoroughly corrupt inner circle of political sycophants, was fondly remembered this week with full military honors, a flyover by a squadron of U.S. fighter jets, musical presentations by a U.S. Marine band, and a 21-gun salute, followed by the laying of a White House wreath from current President Barack Obama.at his tomb. 

It was all part of a planned yearlong centennial celebration of the late 37th U.S. president Richard Nixon's birth 100 years ago run by the Richard Nixon Foundation and the National Archives which kicked off on Sunday at his presidential library in Yorba Linda, California - his birthplace.

Nixon holds the dubious distinction as the only American president to resign from office.  Facing almost certain impeachment and conviction in the Senate, he left the White House in humiliating disgrace in 1974 over the infamous Watergate scandal and cover-up for which he was criminally responsible.

His political campaign operatives were caught red handed burglarizing his Democratic opponents' offices at the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C., during the tumultuous 1972 presidential election campaign, attempting to dig up dirt and bug their headquarters. He personally orchestrated the cover-up which followed and successfully stonewalled the resulting investigation until after his re-election.  

It was during this investigation when he publicly uttered this famous line in a campaign speech to the American people: “I am not a crook.”

But he most definitely was a crook. He violated his oath of office. He covered up evidence of crimes. He committed his own crimes, and had it not been for the magnanimous gesture of a full pardon for those crimes by his successor, President Gerald Ford, only one month after the resignation, Nixon might have been serving hard time with the likes of his equally guilty co-conspirators, White House counsel, John Dean, Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman, and number two advisor, John Ehrlichman.

The national outrage generated by the Watergate scandal was widely seen as undermining the American public's trust in the White House and in government in general. It was proof that American citizens should never place their trust in politicians and the government. Honesty and integrity in American politics and government is a rare commodity indeed. 

Nixon campaigned on a promise to achieve "peace with honor" in Vietnam. Instead, after his election, he escalated the conflict by approving a secret bombing campaign against communist North Vietnamese positions in Cambodia. Finally, when it became obvious that Americans had had enough of the Vietnam War, he ended it abruptly allowing South Vietnam to go to the communist North.

Fifty-eight-thousand Americans were killed in Vietnam and Richard M. Nixon was responsible for many of those unnecessary deaths. When I think of Tricky Dick Nixon, those deaths are the first things that come to my mind, closely followed by the criminal means he employed to keep himself in office.

But today we are all forced by our government to commemorate Tricky Dick for his so-called greatest achievement -- his dramatic 1972 visit to China, which ushered in a new era of U.S. engagement with Beijing after decades of Cold War hostility. Now we are encouraged to remember this criminal as an underappreciated president and a foreign policy genius.

Of course, there never should have been any Cold War hostility in the first place, but never-mind that. When a President of the United States pays any kind visit to a foreign country, hobnobbing with government leaders, touring the countryside, and drinking toasts, he automatically becomes a foreign policy genius in the minds of the American sheep.

Naturally, during Sunday's elaborate ceremony at the taxpayer’s expense, the Watergate scandal was not even once mentioned. "To me, there's nothing to mention," Bruce Herschensohn, a friend and speech writer for Nixon, said after the delivering the keynote address. “That doesn't make (the Watergate scandal) right, but that's the way Washington operated," he added.

Right, don’t blame it on the crook; blame it on the environment in which he operated.

Thusly we now witness the resurrection of Tricky Dick.

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Sandy Raging

Parasite politicians in New York and New Jersey, Republicans and Democrats alike, went ballistic with unrestrained rage last week when they found out that House Speaker John Boehner and the Republican leadership decided to allow the current term of Congress to expire without holding a vote on the $60.4 billion Senate giveaway bill originally proposed by President Obama as financial aid for those affected by Hurricane Sandy.

Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., called the decision "absolutely inexcusable, absolutely indefensible. We cannot just walk away from our responsibilities… I would say the Republican Party has said it is the party of family values,… Last night it turned its back on the most essential value of all, and that is to provide food, shelter, clothing and relief for people who have been hit by a natural disaster. And I would say that the Republican Party has turned its back on those people."

"This is an absolute disgrace and the speaker should hang his head in shame," said Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y.

"I'm here tonight saying to myself for the first time that I'm not proud of the decision my team has made," said Rep. Michael Grimm, R-N.Y. "It is the wrong decision, and I' m going to be respectful and ask that the speaker reconsider his decision. Because it's not about politics, it's about human lives."

"I truly feel betrayed this evening," said Rep. Nita Lowey, D-N.Y.

"We need to be there for all those in need now after Hurricane Sandy," said Rep. Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y.

"We cannot leave here doing nothing. That would be a disgrace." moaned House Democratic leader, Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California.

New Jersey governor, Chris Christie whined: "Last night, the House majority failed a most basic test of leadership and they did so with callous disregard to the people of my state. ... It was disappointing and disgusting to watch… There's only one group to blame ... the House majority, and their Speaker, John Boehner."

Now, of course, I do indeed sympathize a great deal with all the folks affected adversely by Sandy. I sympathize with anyone who has experienced a devastating loss through no fault of their own. I have nothing against the government helping people who are the victims of a disaster.

But helping out is one thing. Simply giving away $64.4 billion in taxpayer dollars is another. These craven parasite politicians are actually demanding that the government reimburse all the states and their populations for all the losses caused by the storm without any provisions what-so-ever for paying any of the money back.

Rep. Frank A. LoBiondo, R-N.J., said Obama's request was not enough. "I disagree with President Obama's decision to not fully request the funding the states of New Jersey, New York and Connecticut say they need to recover and rebuild from the unimaginable, widespread damage caused by Hurricane Sandy," he cried.

If they want to whine and moan about disgraces – that is the disgrace.

We see this kind of thing time and time again after a natural disaster which affects a large number of a politician’s constituents. Large numbers of constituents amount to large numbers of potential votes, and it’s those votes that the politicians are concerned about – not the individuals who have suffered financial losses.

"Our Nation has an obligation to assist those who suffered losses and who lack adequate resources to rebuild their lives," acting Office of Management and Budget Director Jeffrey Zients said in a letter to Republican House Speaker John Boehner and Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

Oh, yeah? Well, what about an obligation to individuals?

If John Q. Individual suffers a devastating financial loss through no fault of his own you can be absolutely certain that no politician will be demanding taxpayer dollars to cover the damage free of charge from the government treasury. Mr. Individual is simply shit-out-of-luck unless he has full coverage insurance paid for by expensive premiums to make him financially whole. There is no free lunch for him.

But if thousands of folks in his state or community suffer the same loss from the same kind of cause, well, they’re all of a sudden entitled to free money from the taxpayers in order to bail them out, courtesy of their local parasite politician.

If that money isn’t forthcoming right away, it’s a: “disgrace,” "absolutely inexcusable, absolutely indefensible,” “disgusting,” “a shameful betrayal,” “because it's not about politics, it's about human lives." Individual human lives can go suck on lemons, but if a multitude of potential voters is affected, that’s a different story entirely.

And we know for sure that much of the requested $64.4 billion is pork. That’s right, pure pork loin which has nothing to do with disaster relief to the poor victims of the storm. Rep. Paul Ryan, the 2012 GOP vice presidential nominee, for example, has criticized the Democratic bill as "packed with funding for unrelated items, such as commercial fisheries in American Samoa and roof repair of museums in Washington, D.C."

Senate Republicans observed that $150 million would go to places in Alaska, the Gulf Coast and New England states for things like funding for fisheries, $2 million for roof repairs at Smithsonian Institution museums and $58 million in subsidies for tree planting on private properties.

We also know for certain that the government is totally incompetent when it comes to spending money wisely. Usually it simply doesn’t know what the Hell its doing. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), for example, told a group of first responders to the Sandy disaster to go “sightseeing” while the storm’s victims suffered and the agency decided how to deploy them.

One worker described a chaotic scene at New Jersey's Fort Dix, where emergency workers arrived as the storm bore down on the Atlantic Coast. He said that government officials at the staging area were unprepared and told the incoming responders there was nothing for them to do for nearly four days.

“They told us to hurry, hurry, hurry," he recalled. "We rushed to Fort Dix, only to find out that our liaison didn’t even know we were coming… The regional coordinator even said to us, ‘I don’t know why you were rushed here because we don’t need you,'… They told us to go to the Walmart nearby or to check out the area but told us to stay out of the areas affected by the storm… If our boss back at headquarters had not been alerted and didn’t make a push to get us assignments, the people running the show on the ground level would have just kept us sitting in the barracks.”

A FEMA administrator in Washington urged the regional team to get his people into the field after learning they were idled. "My people are being told to go sightseeing," he said in an e-mail.

So while Sandy was raging, and thousands were suffering, the government with all the taxpayer money bulging in its pockets was essentially doing nothing. But now the same parasites are raging about not getting all the money they requested from the taxpayers right away.

Sandy is still raging.