Taxpayers may have the impression that government agencies just throw money around -- and with good reason. The Washington Examiner reports the Treasury Department "has rebuffed a request by House Ways and Means Chairman Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., to explain $3 billion in payments that were made to health insurers even though Congress never authorized the spending through annual appropriations."

"I think almost everybody I know cannot live without having a paycheck one time -- members of Congress, even." - House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, arguing against a partial shutdown of the Homeland Security department. Pelosi has a net worth of $58 million.

"When the final accounting is done, 2014 will have been the most lethal year for global terrorism in the 45 years such data has been compiled." - Director of National Intelligence James Clapper.
"We are actually living in a period of less daily threat to Americans and to people in the world than normally." - Secretary of State John Kerry.

Abraham Lincoln is known for freeing the slaves. Joe Biden is calling for "emancipation" of people's wealth. Biden said the wealthy control 1 percent of the economy and "this cannot stand." Does the vice president believe anyone takes him seriously?

Remember Howard Hughes, the shadowy eccentric figure of the last century? Someone at the Wall Street Journal did and wrote an editorial comparing President Obama to him. The editorial said Obama's veto of the Keystone pipeline bill puts him on a course of isolation and "he'll finish out his tenure as a Howard Hughes-like penthouse recluse who is ever more withdrawn from the political and economic center." Who thought the left-wing president was ever in the center?

The Conservative Political Action Conference is being held in Washington and some inventive minds have created a "Cocktail Caucus" in which attendees can "vote with your drink" on the field of 2016 presidential contenders. The so-called "swizzle stick poll" is a sobering thought.

What's wrong with this picture? President Obama heaped praise on the emir of Qatar for that country's partnership against terrorism. Yet Qatar is the number one state sponsor of Hamas, the militant Palestinian group whose goal is to destroy Israel. Also, the Qatari government is supporting extremist groups operating in Syria.

Has Senate minority leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., gone Hollywood? He appeared in an indoor news conference sporting a pair of sunglasses like those worn by the Blues Brothers. Reid is recovering from eye surgery and is hiding a bruised face behind the shades.

It was Tuesday so Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., headed to the Senate Caucus lunch. The Republican takeover of the Senate must have slipped his memory. Wyden walked in on a GOP group -- now lunching in the room formerly used by the Democrats.

Jeh Johnson is busy poormouthing his Department of Homeland Security while Congress tries to reach agreement over funding. Ironic, since spending for the agency has continued to rise under the Obama administration. Nearly $150 million of taxpayers' money went to pay for furniture and office makeovers.

Who does Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert McDonald think he is -- Brian Williams? On camera, he told a homeless veteran he was in Army special forces. Later he admitted lying about his military record and apologized. The president gave McDonald a pass. NBC suspended Williams for six months without pay for telling tall tales.

Who is writing ISIS' material? A message from a Twitter account linked to the group said terrorists were going to take over Rome and "use your leaning tower of pizza to throw off homosexuals." 

Oscar winner Patricia Arquette used her acceptance speech to call for equal pay for women. She should aim her remarks at Hollywood favorite Hillary Clinton. During her time as a U.S. senator, she paid women 72 cents on the dollar for every man she employed.

Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson monopolized the Sunday TV talk shows, making a valiant effort to sell the Obama administration party line that ISIS has nothing to do with Islam. Heh, Jeh, the first word of ISIS is "Islamic."

Congress is still widely disliked by the public, but not quite as much since Republicans took complete charge. In a recent Gallup poll members of the House and Senate got an approval rating of 20 percent.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., has won a title that she probably won't use if she decides to run for president. She was named the 2014 Porker of the Year by Citizens Against Government Waste. The group specifically cited her "preposterous suggestion" that the U.S. Postal Service expand into banking services.

Seldom is anything bad about Democrats said by the liberal media, but The New York Times and CNN have joined a chorus of critics blasting Bill and Hillary Clinton for taking foreign contributions. Their foundation has raised at least $48 million from overseas governments since 2001. The Times called on the Clintons to reinstate a ban on foreign donors.

The Obama administration's revelation of a plan to retake Mosul, Iraq's second largest city, from Islamic terrorists in the spring using 25,000 U.S. troops is being called "mystifying" and "bewildering" by congressional and retired military sources. They roundly criticized the decision "to announce war plans in advance."

"I am my own man," declared Jeb Bush, but as he prepares to launch a campaign to become the Republican nominee for president in 2016 he'll rely on advice from 21 veteran foreign policy experts from the administrations of his father, George H. W. Bush, and his brother, George W. Bush.

In the heavily Democratic state of California, conventional wisdom makes Attorney General Kamala Harris the logical successor to retiring Sen. Barbara Boxer. But The Field Poll, a respected public opinion firm, surveyed California voters and found that a Republican, former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, was favored over Harris by 49 percent to 45 percent. The pollsters conceded a Rice candidacy was "a dubious prospect."

You don't have to go any farther than the U.S. Department of Energy to find a horrible example of reckless government spending. Official reports say that despite receiving around $39 billion in annual government subsidies over the past five years, the solar energy industry accounted for just 0.5 percent of all the electricity generated in the U.S. in the first 10 months of 2014.

President Obama still hasn't done anything about controlling the level of the seas, but he's taking credit for wiping out Ebola. In remarks at the White House, he said, "we have risen to the challenge." But blogger Keith Koffler said the disease had already drastically subsided before U.S. efforts in West Africa were in place.  "... our leader and his white horse rode up to save the day after the day had already been saved," Koffler said.


Defense Secretary Ash Carter's first task is to develop a strategy to defend his wife from Joe Biden, a proven "hands-on" vice president.


First Lady Michelle Obama and the two Obama daughters did not accompany the president on his California golfing mini-vacation. Instead they made an unpublicized trip to Aspen to go skiing. Cost to taxpayers for the separate weekend getaways: an estimated $2.5 million.

Everyone from Pope Francis to MSNBC host Chris Matthews expressed horror at the
 beheading of 21 Coptic Christians in Libya by ISIS terrorists. The Pope said, "They were executed for nothing more than the fact that they were Christian." Matthews railed against the U.S. being "morally humiliated" and said "we need a plan" to combat the terror group. A White House statement called on Libyans to unite and a State Department spokesperson blamed the terrorist acts on "lack of opportunity for jobs."

State Department flack Marie Harf
Absolutely makes me want to barf.
Those terrorist mobs
Don't care about jobs,
They're faith-driven killers, Ms. Harf.

"Finally, my biggest failure of 2014: Once again not securing the disclosure of the UFO files." - Tweet by outgoing White House adviser John Podesta.


While residents of Washington, D.C. and northern Virginia shivered in bitter cold winds and braced for another snowstorm, President Obama enjoyed a California getaway including a weekend in Palm Springs and golf at two different courses under blue skies in 80-degree weather.


How Your Taxes Are Spent
A little known federal agency, the Federal Transit Authority, is buying 60 electric buses, paying nearly $1 million each, for local transit authorities in six selected states. A diesel bus costs about $300,000.

Maybe it's too cold to be on the golf course. That might explain the videos of President Obama taking a selfie stick photo of himself and performing other goofy antics in the White House.

Now we know why Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was caught on camera apparently snoozing during President Obama's State of the Union address in January. She admitted sharing some wine with her colleagues before the speech and said, "I wasn't 100 percent sober."

Meanwhile, Vice President Joe Biden, first in the line of succession to the presidency, was speaking in Iowa, where he called out: "Neal Smith, an old butt buddy. Are you here, Neal?" Did they use to smoke cigarettes together or something worse?

Despite having "strong, better-than-average" incomes, American farmers will rely more heavily on federal aid in 2015. The U.S Department of Agriculture forecast shows the government will dole out $12.4 billion in federal aid to farmers this year, a five-year high.

"We need to be in a place where people feel free to express themselves and not to be intimidated by political correctness. It's  destroying our nation." -- Dr. Ben Carson, who was labeled an "extremist" by the Southern Poverty Law Center for his view that marriage should be reserved for a man and a woman exclusively.

How Your Taxes Are Spent
A special exhibit at the Library of Congress, timed for Valentine's Day, is devoted to promoting romance novels. The National Endowment of the Humanities spent $914,000 on this project to raise the profile of "bodice-rippers."

First Lady Michelle Obama doesn't give up easily. She stubbornly stands by her crusade to make school children eat foods they don't like. She told Cooking Light magazine she is confident that by indoctrinating today's kids they will have adapted to a "whole new set of habits and taste buds" by the time they enter college.

Another "tell-all" book by a former member of the Obama administration is creating a buzz. David Axelrod, who was Barack Obama's top political aide, wrote that Obama lied about opposing same-sex marriage for political expediency in his first campaign for president. Axelrod said Obama actually had supported gay marriage for years. The president retorted that his former aide was "mixing up my personal feelings with my position on the issue."

President Obama's new deportation amnesty is going to have a heavy impact at both the federal and local levels. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services agency is bracing for more than 800,000 applications from illegal immigrants in just the first two-and-a-half months -- a 70 percent surge compared to last year's total intake. The Washington Examiner reports that D.C. area schools are facing budget crises as a result of the influx of immigrant students.

Is there a "Department of the Internet" in the future? Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., who suggested the name, seems to think so. And he has good reason. Ajit Pai, Republican member of the Federal Communications Commission, displayed a secret 332-page "Net Neutrality" plan by President Obama to regulate the Internet.

If anyone could distract attention from NBC Nightly News host Brian Williams' sensational lying it's MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry. In an interview with Attorney General Eric Holder she told him fans of her show call him "The Duck." Then she blurted out "Would you quack for us?" Holder politely declined the request.

"It is entirely legitimate for the American people to be deeply concerned when you've ot a bunch of violent, vicious zealots who behead people or randomly shoot a bunch of folks in a deli in Paris." - President Obama. Wrong. Not a random shooting A kosher deli run by Jewish "folks" was targeted by Islamist terrorists.

Three women on the Supreme Court aren't enough for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. She told law students at Georgetown University there will be enough "when there are nine."

If beheadings and other grisly killings by Islamic extremists who vow to bring their coldblooded terrorist tactics to the U.S. homeland isn't a threat to national security, what is? According to White House National Security Adviser Susan Rice, key components of President Obama's national security strategy are "the very real threat of climate change" and promoting gay rights. 

How Your Taxes Are Spent
The Department of Defense spent more than half a million dollars on the male enhancement drug Viagra last year, according to government contracts (filed under "Troop Support").

"The earth is round, the sky is blue, and vaccines work." - Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign slogan?


If you thought Hillary Clinton was the worst secretary of state in the last 50 years, guess again. The current holder of the office, John Kerry, ranked last in Foreign Policy magazine's Ivory Tower survey of international relations scholars. Henry Kissinger topped the list as the most effective secretary of state.

Only in Washington
A serial workplace porn watcher, a "poop bandit" and a fake CIA spy have been on the federal payroll. An inspector general's audit said these people were employed by the Environmental Protection Agency, which is not required to verify the employment history of its hires.

Maybe Brian Williams should leave NBC and become Hillary Clinton's campaign spokesperson. After all, they both lied about being under enemy fire.

Is Ashton Carter looking to get fired even before he becomes Secretary of Defense? In his Senate confirmation hearing Carter aired his differences with President Obama on such issues as Guantanamo, Ukraine and putting U.S. troops on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan. His comments drew fire from the White House.

How Your Taxes Are Spent
The National Science Foundation is spending $374,351 to study whether children will talk to robots about bullying.

While President Obama has turned a deaf ear to demands for a security fence on the U.S. border, he wants to spend $243 million for a "space fence" -- a system to track bits of space debris and objects orbiting the Earth.

Another far out proposal from the Obama administration is to encourage commercial development of the moon. And, of course, a system of regulations of U.S. companies doing business on lunar territory will inevitably follow.

A measure of American "ig'nance": According to mediaite.com, "In today's edition of 'The Youths Is Ig'nant,' a recent poll revealed that 77% of all Millennials between ages 18 and 34 cannot name the senators from their home state."

With the release of President Obama's $4 trillion budget, Washington Times columnist Jennifer Harper says it's time to remember that old bumper sticker: "Don't tell Obama what comes after a trillion."


Just when you thought you'd heard the last of Obamacare adviser Jonathan "Stupid Voters" Gruber, it is revealed that in April 2010 he proposed the White House consider a tax on fat people. "What may be needed to address the obesity problem are direct taxes on body weight," he wrote.

When constituents walk into the office of Rep. Aaron Schock, R-Ill., they might think they're on the set of "Downton Abbey." That' s because he hired an interior designer to transform the space to resemble the ornate dining room of the British period drama. Schock is quick to assure taxpayers he used his money, not theirs, for the fancy makeover.

Always seeking to expand his legacy, President Obama, in an interview with NBC's Savannah Guthrie, boasted that he is the "first president since George Washington to make some booze in the White House."  Facts: Washington had a whiskey distillery built at his Mount Vernon home. Obama bought a home brewing kit for the White House kitchen and the chef developed recipes for a "honey ale."

Jeb Bush, whose father and brother served as president, is emerging as the frontrunner for the 2016 Republican nomination, which automatically makes him a natural target for jokes. At the annual Alfalfa Club dinner, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., cracked: "Jeb Bush looks like he's running for president. So now we know what the Bush family means by 'no child left behind.'"

Another potential presidential contender, Gov. Chris Christie, R-N.J., vacillating on vaccinations for measles: "(we) have had our children vaccinated" but "...parents need to have some measure of choice ... so that's the balance that the government has to decide."