Figure this one out. The U.S. government uses classified information to arrest, detain and even kill individuals linked to the insurgency in Afghanistan, but continues to allow them to obtain lucrative government contracts. The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) is protesting.

Illegal voters could tip the scales in favor of Democrats in at least two close U.S. Senate races. In North Carolina, where incumbent Kay Hagan is neck-and-neck with Republican challenger Thom Tillis, state officials found at least 145 non-citizens registered to vote. Credible reports of illegal immigrant registrations also have turned up in Colorado, site of a tight contest between Sen. Mark Udall and GOP rival Cory Gardner.

Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., trailing in polls, might have sealed her fate with her comments implying Louisiana voters are racist and sexist. Referring to President Obama's deep unpopularity in an NBC interview, Landrieu said the South "has not always been the friendliest place for African-Americans." She added, "It's not always been a good place for women to present ourselves."

What goes on behind closed doors in the Obama administration? If you can believe Atlantic Magazine, a "senior official" called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a "chicken****" and another one agree with the assessment. Neither were identified. This was one embarrassing international incident not attributed to Vice President Joe Biden.


Secretary of State John Kerry is the butt of jokes by President Obama's staff, according to the New York Times. They say he often seems "out of sync with the White House in his public statements, like an astronaut "somersaulting through space."




Hogs might help Republicans wrest control of the U.S. Senate from Democrats. Joni Ernst, GOP candidate for an open seat in Iowa, gained widespread attention by saying in a campaign ad, "I grew up castrating hogs on an Iowa farm, so when I get to Washington, I'll know how to cut pork." Ernst, a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom, was endorsed by former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice and former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton.

President Obama told Bill O'Reilly of Fox News there wasn't a "smidgen" of corruption in the IRS scandal about targeting of conservative groups, but the Washington Post's Bob Woodward (of Watergate fame) takes exception. "The reality now in my view is that in the Obama administration, there are lots of unanswered questions about the IRS," he says.
 
Baby-kissing may be out of style for politicians but President Obama isn't shy about showing affection to certain adults. He admitted he "hugged and kissed" nurses treating Ebola patients in Atlanta's Emory University Hospital. And during a visit to the Oval Office by Nina Pham, a Dallas nurse recovering from Ebola, he was heard to tell her, "Let's give a hug for the cameras," and they shared a full embrace.
 
Is there anything scarier than the killer disease Ebola or the ISIS terrorist organization? Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the loose cannon at the top of the Democratic National Committee, and CNN's Candy Crowley think so. When Crowley suggested the Democrats' message is "Republicans are a lot scarier", Schultz agreed, saying, "Well, that's right."

An Islamic terrorist attack on Canada's Parliament, a U.S. Marine imprisoned for more than six months in Mexico, and within our borders individual acts of terrorism and breaches of security at the highest levels of government. The result is a nervous electorate going into the mid-term elections.

The Obama administration has been caught in a lie again. When 2,200 detained illegal immigrants were released from jail to save money last year, officials gave assurances to Congress and the public they had only minor criminal records. But records obtained by USA TODAY under the Freedom of Information Act revealed those set free included people charged with kidnapping, sexual assault, drug trafficking and homicide -- definitely not low-level offenders.

"As America transformed from fledgling nation to world power, one element remained constant: alcohol." - Mark Will-Weber, author of a new book on the history of presidential drinking.

How Your Taxes Are Spent
Researchers used $387,000 to study the effect on a dozen rabbits that were given Swedish massages four times a day. That's just one of a hundred examples of ridiculous and outrageous government spending identified by Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., in his annual Wastebook.

A cache of weapons intended for use against ISIS fighters was dropped by a U.S.-led coalition ... and intercepted by ISIS fighters. Supporters of the terrorist group used Twitter to say thanks for the supply of hand grenades, rocket-propelled grenade launchers and ammunition.

"It's like Obama has Ebola." - MSNBC Hardball anchor Chris Matthews, commenting on Democratic Senate candidates running away from the unpopular president.

It has to be the height of conceit for an unpopular president shunned by his own party to say it doesn't bother him for Democrats in Congress who are candidates in the upcoming elections to keep him out of their states because "these are all folks who vote with me." That's what President Obama said on Al Sharpton's radio show.

Democrats in general are opposed to identification cards for voting. Yet the Obama administration has plans to order as many as 34 million ID cards for illegal immigrants.

Eric Holder's departure as attorney general doesn't mean the end of radicalizing the country's laws. President Obama's new acting head of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, Vanita Gupta, advocates decriminalizing possession of all drugs -- not just marijuana.

While U.S. air strikes are being conducted against Islamic State (ISIS) militants in Iraq and Syria, those same jihadists are receiving large amounts of humanitarian aid from the U.S. Agency for International Development and the United Nations, according to The Daily Beast. The aid is primarily intended for displaced Syrians but ISIS leaders control the distribution and are exacting bribes, which feed their income stream.

A graphic example of President Obama's plunging popularity was seen in Maryland when several members of a rally crowd walked out in a steady stream after he began speaking. Obama was urging voters to support Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown, who is running for governor -- one of few Democrats who welcomed the president to campaign in their states.

President Obama projected a sense of urgency when he announced the appointment of Ron Klain, a longtime Democratic operative, as "Ebola Czar" to coordinate efforts to prevent the dread disease from spreading. But Klain didn't report to work immediately and missed two White House meetings on the crisis. Meanwhile, the president spent almost five hours on the golf course on Saturday.

Nurses have had it with bureaucratic bungling in the Ebola crisis.  They are outraged that the Centers for Disease Control blamed two Dallas medical care workers for contracting the disease. And nurses are also angry about lack of adequate protection for themselves.

Puzzling logic of CDC Director Thomas Frieden: He said you can't get Ebola on a bus ... but you can give it. Does that apply to airplanes and other forms of public transportation?

The United States has set a new record ... but one we can't be proud of. For the first time tax revenues (adjusted for inflation) hit a high of $3 trillion in fiscal 2014. But the federal government still ran a $483.3 billion deficit during that time.

Allison Lundergan (Alice in Wonderland) Grimes foolishly created a negative issue for herself by firmly refusing to say whether she voted for President Obama. Her attempt to put distance between her Senate race and the unpopular president made her the butt of jokes by White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest.

Republicans gained a major victory in their bid to wrest control of the U.S. Senate when the

Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee decided not to spend any more money on television in Kentucky. The Hill reporter Alexander Bolton said this amounts to Democrats "throwing in the towel on their fight to oust Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell."

Air strikes haven't done much "degrade and destroy" the Islamic State, as President Obama had promised. Time for a different strategy and the Pentagon has acted. The operation by the U.S.-led coalition forces now has a name: "Inherent Resolve", which will become part of history, like "Desert Storm" and "Desert Shield." This should put a damper on the terrorists' recruiting efforts. Although Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson would like to see some "Shock and Awe." http://tinyurl.com/mv97btd

"Breach in protocol" -- that's the newest example of government gobbledygook. Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control, used the phrase in response to the infection of a Texas nurse who had treated a Liberian man for Ebola, who later died. Frieden was widely criticized for "scapegoating" the nurse, who was wearing protective clothing. The CDC needs to face up to its failure instead of hiding behind bureaucratic jargon as a CYA defense.

 Dr. Nancy Snyderman, chief medical editor for NBC News, set a shamefully bad example in the ongoing battle against Ebola. Snyderman and other members of a crew that had been working in Liberia had been under quarantine since a cameraman they were working with contracted the disease. But the TV doctor wanted some soup from a favorite New Jersey restaurant, so she violated the quarantine and went out and about. A Daily Caller columnist acidly observed: "I always thought doctors were supposed to treat diseases, not spread them."
 
The Washington Post is not known for being friendly to Republicans so some eyebrows were raised when the paper's Election Lab gave the GOP a 95 percent chance of winning the Senate majority. Other polls project a Republican victory, but only in the 50-plus percent range. What's up? Is the Post trying to fire up Democrats or make Republicans overconfident - or both?

The mortgage market is so tight (how tight is it?) that even Ben Bernanke couldn't refinance his own home loan. As former Federal Reserve chairman, Bernanke was influential in controlling interest rates and the supply of money in the American economy.


Preview of Obamacare? Britain's National Health Service funded a sex-change operation (allowed since 1999) and this one is causing controversy because ... it was for an 81-year-old man. The procedure cost 4,000 pounds ($6,429). But why? Maybe James decided he'd rather be Ruth after reading that women live longer than men.

President Benjamin Harrison in 1892 proclaimed the second Monday in October as Columbus Day, although 16 states don't recognize is as a public holiday. And Berkeley, Calif., along with Seattle, Minneapolis, Portland, Ore., and several other cities, chose to observe it as Indigenous People's Day, focusing on the people Christopher Columbus encountered in the New World.

"We are swimming in a cesspool of politically correct crap." - Duck Dynasty patriarch Phil Robertson.

"You cannot get it (Ebola) through casual contact like sitting next to someone on a bus." - President Obama.
"...avoid public transportation." - Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

Campaigning for reelection, Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., decried the influence of outside money. The very next day he attended two fundraising events to solicit outside donations.

High school students were bribed with promises of extra credit to go to a rally with Vice President Joe Biden in Portland, Ore. Adults attending were asked for their views about Biden's accomplishments and most of them struggled to respond. About the best anyone could come up with was, "he's got a great grin."


Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee has just about had it with his fellow Republicans. Following the Supreme Court's decision not to take up same-sex marriage, Huckabee said if the GOP abandons opposition on this issue and abortion, "you lose me. I'm gone. I'll become an independent."

How Your Taxes Are Spent
Taxpayers paid for 20 airplanes costing $486 million in 2008 for transporting troops and equipment in Afghanistan, but they were not put to use. Five years later they were taken out of service and the Defense Department sold them for scrap at a price of six cents per pound. An Afghan company bought them for $32,000.

Despite denials that anyone from the White House was involved in the 2012 Secret Service prostitution scandal in Colombia, the Washington Post, in a front-page exclusive story, published information pointing to a hooker in the hotel room of a presidential advance-team member. Was he fired? No. He's now a policy adviser in the Office of Global Women's Issues at the State Department.

Your Government at Work
Regardless of the fact that U.S. senators draw a comfortable salary of $174,000 a year, Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., was signed up for Medicaid, a welfare health program for low-income Americans, by Oregon's Obamacare exchange.
 
Did you know Vice President Joe Biden, who keeps making international gaffes, has a national security adviser? The Washington Free Beacon identifies him as Colin Kahl, who moonlights as a disc jockey under the nickname "Ph DJ."

Former cabinet members who write "tell all" books can be a liability to a lame duck president. Example: Leon Panetta, who served as defense secretary and CIA chief for Barack Obama, is laying bare some disagreements he had with his boss. What he's saying is good for the American people to know.



Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., is being candid about his party's leader in the Senate, Harry Reid, D-Nev. In response to a question during a campaign debate Warner said the Senate "could perhaps do better" than the ultra-partisan Reid.




"... our economy is telling a remarkable story." - President Obama.
"... a lot of folks are hurting ... the middle-class has been clobbered." - Vice President Joe Biden.

A federal worker was on the take. He didn't get rich, but he didn't go hungry. The U.S. Attorney's office in Los Angeles said immigration official Mai Nhu Nguyen solicited and took bribes from illegal immigrants seeking citizenship from 2011 to 2013. In one instance he accepted $1,000 and 200 egg rolls for gtting an immigrant  green card.

During his career, Mitt Romney's political opponents have given a lot of people the wrong idea about the successful businessman and former governor. But a masseuse in a San Francisco hotel came up with a whopper. Romney said after he received a massage for a kink in his back, the woman asked his aide, "is he a dancer?" Why? "Strong legs," he supposed. "That was the best compliment I have ever had."

How Not to Win Reelection
The Hill newspaper passes along a story from a Honolulu newspaper saying Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, missed a hearing on veterans issues in August because she was surfing with a reporter who was producing a video profile of the freshman member. She later used the video as part of a fundraising appeal.

It seems the Supreme Court led by Chief Justice John Roberts is not so conservative after all. The court handed down a surprise decision to reject appeals from five states seeking to prohibit same-sex marriages, paving the way for making them legal in 30 dates.



"Our allies in the region were our largest problem." - Vice President Joe Biden, referring to the oil-rich Arab Emirates, which he accused of supporting al Qaida and other Jihadist groups in Syria's internal war. Required another apology.

Joe Biden's not the only member of the Obama administration tossing insults about other countries. On 60 Minutes, FBI Director James Comey, talking about Chinese hacking, compared their style to a "drunk burglar." "They're kicking in the front door, knocking over the vase, while they're walking out with your television set." There must be a better way than name-calling for our government to attack this cyberspace problem.