Priority spending during the Obama recession

[ivanm]

"If you eat an unhealthy bad-for-you delicious hamburger, you are an asshole."  ~Michelle Obama~

Yeh, like the IIC. He can  down more slop than a garbage truck.  

I'll bet she gave him a Big Mac gift card for Christmas.

Do as I say, not as I do.  Role model my ass.

[Mornac]

Middle Class Warriors Dine Out for $260

by Keith Koffler
December 29, 2011

President Obama and Michelle had dinner last night at Honolulu’s famed foodie paradise, Alan Wong’s.

The middle class was not invited.

I realize the Obamas are wealthy people, and that wealthy people have the right to drop $260 of their disposable income on chow. But if you’re going to invite Associated Press photographers along to capture your trip to Target and stage photo ops at PetSmart and Best Buy, then I’m going to write about your unpublicized excursion to Alan Wong’s.

The press pool was not invited in to take photos this time. In fact, others were discouraged from doing so too. From the pool report:


Diners have been trying to takes pictures of POTUS, only to be chased off by advance staffers.

Since when are people not allowed to take pictures?

According to the pool report, the Obamas and their friends dined on the five-course “tasting menu” that was tasty to the tune of $75 a person, $105 with wine. Among the highlights were “Sassey Salad” and bacon wrapped pork loin.

Here’s something they might have eaten, from Alan Wong’s website:

Whatever. Maybe that’s the Sassey Salad. The top part, anyway. Looks sassy.

I’m going to go out on a pretty firm limb here and say they had wine. That brings the bill for two to $210. Add in Hawaii’s 4 percent sales tax and we’re at $219.40. Let’s assume a 20 percent tip at the very least and the total comes to just over $260.

Not counting gas. For a motorcade.

http://www.whitehousedossier.com/2011/12/29/middle-class-warriors-dine-260/

[Pepsi]

to the tune of $75 a person, $105 with wine.

 

[Mornac]

Hooking Kids on Sex

[johnhp]

Hooking Kids on Sex

Well if someone gets knocked up they can use the handy dandy home abortion directions YOU posted on newsrake.

[johnhp]

Mornac.

[notoc]

Hooking Kids on Sex

A childhood at the hands of the Catholic clergy being the best 'cure' for a lifetime of sex addiction.

[johnhp]

A childhood at the hands of the Catholic clergy being the best 'cure' for a lifetime of sex addiction.

Well, now we know why some of these people are against contraception.  Truly disgusting.

However, notoc, i hope you would join me in condemning Mornac for attempting to practice medicine without a license for giving out a DIY recipe for abortion.

[ImAnMT]

As usual Mornac's got this wrong. This is the Bush recession. It will remain the Bush recession until it gets fixed. After all the recession stared before Obama became president. If the economy had been stable and then a recession started during Obamas time, then it could accurately be said that this is Obamas recession.

Then when did the Jimmy Carter recession end?  As I recall interest rate was 13% back then.

[dagon]

Then when did the Jimmy Carter recession end?  As I recall interest rate was 13% back then.

what?  is your point?

peace

[Case_Closed]

Speaking of Jimmy Carter, has Obama done anything to get the hostages back?

No?

[Mornac]

Rats on cocaine love Miles Davis, and other dumb animal research paid for with tax dollars 
In Defense of Animals group spotlights inquiry into the sex habits of hamsters
Co

By Lindsay Goldwert / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Taxpayers may feel kind of blue when they discover their dollars went to fund a study to determine rats like to bop to the music of Miles Davis while hopped up on cocaine.
 
The study, which was performed at Albany Medical College, drew jeers from the animal rights group In Defense of Animals and landed it on its top ten list of Real Ridiculous Research.
 
The research found that sober rats don’t really like music that much. After the silence, the rats liked Beethoven’s “Fur Elise” more than Miles Davis’s iconic jazz tune “Four.”
 
But when the rats were given doses of cocaine, their tasted shifted and they gravitated toward the jazz.

MOST AMAZING CHIMPS!

The studies, which were funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, were aimed at analyzing the links between pharmacology and neurology in drug abuse.
 
“These experiments... show that your tax dollars and animals’ lives are frivolously wasted on research that adds nothing to medical progress and tells us nothing we care to know — or didn't know already,” In Defense of Animals wrote in its introduction to the list.
 
Albany Medical College protested its spot on the list of ridiculous research.
 
“The ultimate goal of this research is to find medications that can help diminish drug cravings in humans,” Jeffrey R. Gordon, spokesman for the medical school, told The Pulse.
 
The group, which only focused its ire on National Institutes of Health experiments that involved research on animals, had issues with a few other studies, including one about the sex habits of hamsters.
 
Lehigh and University of Minnesota researchers found that putting hamsters on a diet didn’t increase their appetite for the opposite sex.
 
The animal rights group dubbed the study another example of wasteful tax dollars spending and “white-coated welfare.”
 
A Lehigh University spokesperson begged to differ.
 
"This study is part of a line of research that seeks better understanding of behaviors essential to survival, including seeking food and reproduction,” university spokesman Jordan Reese told Lehighvalleylive.com. “How the brain regulates these behaviors is relevant, for example, to understanding the effects of commonly prescribed drugs, including those used to treat attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder and related drugs used to control appetite.”

Other studies that made the group’s list included the effect of lemon scent on monkey erections, contagious yawning in chimpanzees and the role of single mothers in the prairie vole community.

http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/health/rats-cocaine-love-miles-davis-dumb-animal-research-paid-tax-dollars-article-1.1063528#ixzz1sXzamuCl

[Mornac]

Fired Secret Service agent remains eligible for up to $2.1 million in taxpayer-funded pension payout

Bill McMorris - April 20, 2012


The disgraced Secret Service supervisors accused of engaging in a cocaine-fueled hooker party on the taxpayer dime will still cash in on lucrative taxpayer-funded pensions.
 
Three Secret Service agents tasked with protecting President Barack Obama have been terminated since it was revealed that they reportedly caroused with prostitutes and drugs in Colombia.
 
The Washington Post Thursday identified the two supervisors who have been forced out of the agency. Supervisor David Randall Chaney, 48, has been allowed to retire, while Greg Stokes, the assistant special agent in charge of the K-9 division, has been fired with cause. A third low-level officer has resigned his post.
 
Chaney will soon be cashing in on a pension worth between $47,000 and $61,000 per year, according to a Washington Free Beacon analysis.
 
Despite the scandal, it will be nearly impossible to prevent him from collecting on the lucrative sum, according to Michael Spekter, an attorney specializing in defending federal benefit packages.
 
“Even if you’re fired for misconduct, unless you are found guilty of treason, you can get your retirement benefits that you’ve earned through your years of public service,” he said. “They don’t dock your pensions.”
 
Spekter has represented hundreds of federal employees during his 30-year career and has never seen a worker lose his pension.
 
Lawyers for the two agents told the Washington Post each man has between 17 and 18 years of service with the agency.
 
The Secret Service refused to comment on additional personnel matters. However, several federal law enforcement sources say that agents must have at least GS-14 seniority to qualify as supervisors—standards that also apply to the Secret Service.
 
Federal law enforcement supervisors working out of the D.C. metro area earn between $105,211 and $136,771. The positions qualify for pensions worth 2.5 percent of average highest salary over a period of three consecutive years, multiplied by years of service.
 
GS-14 supervisors receive pensions worth between $47,000 and $61,000 annually.
 
Since Chaney is retiring, he can collect on his pension almost immediately and could collect until age 83—the most recent average lifespan estimates for federal law enforcement officers, according to the Office of Personnel Management.
 
Over his lifetime, he could receive between $1.65 and $2.15 million in retirement.
 
Stokes, the fired agent, also qualifies for his pension and will begin collecting at age 62, which would earn him up to $1.3 million over his expected lifetime.
 
The Washington Free Beacon estimate could be on the low end of the spectrum.
 
Once in retirement, the agents will continue to enjoy a Cadillac health insurance plan while paying minimal premiums. They will also enjoy annual cost of living adjustments, which increase pensions based upon the consumer price index. Retirees enjoyed a 3.6 percent pay bump in 2012.
 
Scandals involving government or political employees often raise questions about whether they are entitled to such generous taxpayer-funded benefits.
 
The debate last surfaced when former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky was charged with more than 50 criminal counts of sexually abusing 10 boys over 15 years. Public outcry led the state pension board to review his benefits, though Sandusky will continue to collect state checks until his trial is complete.
 
Andrew G. Biggs, a former principal deputy commissioner of the Social Security Administration, said pension benefits are viewed as money in the bank, regardless of who is holding the money.
 
“At some point you have to consider whether the employee earns this money or the employer does,” said Biggs, a scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. “If you get fired in the private sector, you get to keep the money that’s in your 401(k).”
 
Frank Keegan, a pension expert at State Budget Solutions, said the employer-employee debate is complicated in the public sector.
 
“It’s the taxpayer’s money, not the government’s,” he said. “If people violate the public trust, taxpayers shouldn’t have to pay the pension costs for the rest of [the employee’s] life.”
 
Some state and local governments have passed laws that strip public officials and employees of their pensions if they are convicted of felonies or otherwise violate the public trust.
 
The most notable case to date has been that of the imprisoned former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich. State Attorney General Lisa Madigan, whom the Democratic governor considered appointing to Barack Obama’s Senate seat, stripped Blagojevich of his $65,000 pension following his corruption conviction in 2011.
 
Beginning in 2019, however, Blagojevich will begin cashing $13,000 checks from the federal government for his congressional pension. He will also be halfway through his 14-year prison term.
 
The Secret Service is reviewing the conduct of nearly a dozen agents, as well as forcing those allegedly involved to undergo polygraph tests.
 
Biggs said the government’s exhaustive investigation digs at the root of the problem: office culture. He said the extensive guest list at the wild party—up to 20 military and Secret Service personnel and an equal number of prostitutes—demonstrates an agency culture akin to the General Service Administration’s lavish Las Vegas trip.
 
“If you want recourse, you don’t go after their pensions; you make it easier to fire federal employees,” he said. “I don’t know what happened over there, but if we give everybody their due process, we are going to get people paying attention.”
 
Agency officials have told congressional committees in the House and Senate that more heads are likely to roll—and take their lucrative pensions with them.

http://freebeacon.com/pley-money-2/

[Mornac]

U.S. agents' vice girl scandal to cost taxpayers $1.5m as team of investigators are flown to Colombia
•Investigation is launched into allegations that agents and servicemen cavorted with up to 20 prostitutes

By Sharon Churcher
22 April 2012


The sex scandal involving call girls and President Obama’s bodyguards will cost US taxpayers $1.5 million, it was revealed.

A team of U.S. investigators flew to Cartagena, Colombia, to launch a sweeping probe that has already cost tens of thousands of dollars.

The team is investigating allegations that a dozen U.S. Secret Service agents and 11 military security men cavorted with as many as 20 prostitutes while they were preparing for the President to attend a trade summit last weekend.

One of the two Colombian women at the centre of the furore, which has so far cost six bodyguards their jobs, broke down in tears when she gave her account of the weekend.

Maria Camila, 22, who describes herself as a student, insisted that she is not a prostitute and was not paid by the bodyguard, who was staying at a beachfront resort, the Hotel Caribe.

‘I didn’t talk with him about money,’ said Miss Camila. ‘My guy never touched me. He never gave me a kiss or anything.’

She said she struck up a conversation with  24-year-old Dania Suarez, who was with another Obama agent at a Cartagena disco. After ordering two bottles of vodka, the man agreed to pay Dania for sex, Miss Camila said.
She admitted going back to the hotel with a second agent for what she described as ‘a platonic evening’.

The next morning, a row erupted in the hotel corridors after Miss Suarez shouted that she was supposed to receive £500 for her services, including a pack of condoms. The agent paid her only £20, she claimed.

It is said Miss Suarez has admitted she was working as a prostitute to earn money for her nine-year-old son and a course at beauty school.
 Experts have told The Mail on Sunday that the inquiry began because of fears that the two women may have been part of a large ring of prostitutes with ties to ‘terrorists’ attempting to infiltrate and sabotage President Obama’s security.

‘The lowest price tag for the investigation will be well over $1.6 million [£1 million],’ a Washington insider said.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2133338/U-S-agents-vice-girl-scandal-cost-taxpayers-1m-team-investigators-flown-Colombia.html?printingPage=true

[johnhp]

Mornac demanding nothing happen to those Secret Service guys?