Author: Randall Reeder

You may have read in the newspaper lately, unless your newspaper folded, that Americans are facing starvation. What? Did a famine strike the Midwest? Were crops and cattle decimated by floods and pestilence of Biblical proportions? Will relief agencies in Congo and Ethiopia and China start collecting food to send to America?

Well, no. But it looks like a catastrophe when you see that 47 million Americans are eating on food stamps, almost double from five years ago. And one in every four children.

Now before you jump me for being cruel and uncaring, I have no doubt probably 20 million are truly deserving. They are temporarily on hard times and need a lift for a few months till they get back on their feet. And many are not able to work and deserve all the charity and assistance we can offer.

I happened to catch a program about food stamps (actually called Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, or SNAP) on Fox News. Yes, even a taxpaying Democrat can learn a little from watching something besides NBC, CBS and CNN.

These news folks investigated the recent doubling of food stamps, to dig up a cause.
Well, it turns out there’s two big reasons, besides more people being out of work. First, there’s more able bodied people who see the government dole as a way to get out of work and still eat 3 meals a day. They spend their days (and nights) doing whatever they please. Surfing, fishing, drinking, chasing girls. That last one leads, unfortunately, to more babies on food stamps.

Second, there’s a whole boatload of people working for the USDA’s Nutrition division, which is 80 percent of the entire Agriculture budget, who spend their time rounding up unsuspecting folks and foisting food stamps on ‘em. These employees have replaced life insurance salesmen as civilization’s top annoyers. You accidently sit down beside one of them on a bus, before you can get off at the next stop he’ll have your signature on the dotted line, applying for nutritional assistance. You would think they was getting a commission.

An interview with one might go like this: How many people did you help find a job and get off SNAP? “None. That’s not my job. ”
Do you ask people about their assets? “No, they could own a nice house, and drive a new car, but if their income is low, they deserve free food.”
Do you think SNAP use will double again in five years? “I hope so. If I go over my quota, I can earn free trips and a plaque. And if I double my quota, wahoo, I might get promoted. ”

Well, I got carried away. But that’s what happens when the Congress (the joke factory) is off for the month, and the President goes to Martha’s Vineyard. Bet they’re eating well.

Historic quotes by Will Rogers:
“Folks don’t like to be told they are living off the government…  When I (talked on the radio) about taking government money about a dozen people sent me the following article. It’s from Fort Gay, West Virginia: ‘Mose Maynard, 84 years old, and his wife, 90, and a widowed daughter and her four children are living in a cave. They were removed to a house in town and given government relief. $3.50 a week for food was supplied them, but they went back to the hills. Said he wouldent live on government money, they always lived without it, and they would continue it.’  We haven’t got enough with that spirit. We talk more independence than we practice.” WA #647, May 19, 1935

 “Our President left for a quiet vacation with twelve carloads of cameramen, reporters, cooks, valets, maids, butlers, doctors, military and naval attaches. I saw King George when he left Buckingham Palace in London last summer for vacation, and you could have put all he and Mary both had in a Ford truck.” DT#281, June 15, 1927

President Obama announced a “grand bargain.” The White House switchboard lit up with calls from women, “Where’s the sale?”  They were disappointed to hear that no prices have been reduced, only tax rates for big companies.

The President wants more Americans to find work. Republicans want more Americans to find work. But they don’t agree on how it should happen. The economy is crawling along with only a few people finding work, and most of those new jobs are part time.

The Keystone pipeline is still being debated. Republicans want it because it would add about a million barrels a day of North American oil. President Obama and most Democrats oppose it, saying it would only add 50 permanent jobs to the oil industry. “That’s not a jobs plan,” says the president. Well, of course it’s not a jobs plan, it’s an energy plan.

If the goal is to add jobs, forget about the pipeline. Set up a bucket brigade. Can you picture a million people standing next to each other from Canada to Houston? They would need a whole lot of 5-gal buckets, but the oil would get there. Except for what spilled. You would say, that’s stupid. Well, how about hauling the oil in 55-gal barrels in Ford pickup trucks? That would take more people than a pipeline. And it might give work to a bunch of former bank tellers who were replaced by ATMs.

Back to that 50 jobs. Our oil refineries currently handle about 18 million barrels a day. Here’s a math problem for you: if 50 workers can refine 1 million barrels, how many does it take to refine 18 million? 900? Does the President really believe that only 900 are employed in our oil refineries?

Congress has left town and the President is heading out soon for vacation. Congress will be out for five weeks. The President is always off somewhere speaking, so what difference does it make if he’s in Martha’s Vineyard, or Chattanooga or Warrensburg, Missouri? He had better follow his own advice and avoid travel to any Muslim country. We don’t want to risk getting the President kidnapped by al-Qaeda. To get him back might take more than a grand bargain.

 Historic quotes by Will Rogers:
“Our President (Coolidge) left for a quiet vacation with twelve carloads of cameramen, reporters, cooks, valets, maids, butlers, doctors, military and naval attaches. I saw King George when he left Buckingham Palace in London last summer for his vacation, and you could have put all he and Mary both had in a Ford truck.” DT #281, June 15, 1927

“Congress adjourned last Monday, and business jumped up like it’s been shot. Honest, the whole thing… everything went up. Everybody’s feeling better. If they had adjourned before they’d met, I expect we’d have been the most prosperous nation in the world.” Radio, June 24, 1934

Washington DC says they don’t want Sam Walton to open any stores in our national capital. It seems the city council is concerned that unless Wal-Mart offers to pay everyone twelve dollars an hour, they won’t find anyone willing to work there. Wal-Mart figures they can get enough good workers signed up at eight dollars an hour, but the councilmen say they know their city better than a company in Arkansas.

I wonder if Detroit would welcome a new Wal-Mart.

Detroit is bankrupt. It’s been bankrupt for several years, but is just now admitting it. Detroit was a fine city, a regular boomtown that ranked right up there with Chicago, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Boston and Baltimore. You hate to see it go under. If he was still around, I would turn the whole city over to Henry Ford. Or maybe Donald Trump. He knows all about bankruptcy and how to get out of it.

If Detroit was good farmland, it might sell for $10,000 an acre, or about $1 Billion total. But as is, even China with all their spare cash wouldn’t be interested at a dollar an acre. Maybe Canada would take it off our hands if we promised to build a new bridge. You know, when you have a mortgage of $18 Billion, and your income before expenses is only $1 Billion, there aren’t many suitors.

The Affordable Care Act is being delayed, partly. The President has asked our famous pro football, basketball and baseball players to brag about how good the new healthcare plan is for them and the country. I’m not sure the average worker is going to be persuaded by young men who make over a million a year and have all their injuries and illnesses taken care of by their teams. What some of those athletes need is coverage of bail and lawyer fees.

We are still in a recession. Yes, the stock market is back up where it was five years ago. But the unemployment and underemployment numbers are hardly budging.  More people than ever are on food stamps and other welfare programs. In fact for the first time there are more people receiving assistance than there are working in business and industry. That never happened during the Great Depression, although plenty of people needed help.

William Wilkins, one of the President’s men at the IRS in Washington, seems to be the one causing headaches for non-profit Conservative organizations, not just a couple of IRS agents in Cincinnati. Like an old time college basketball team with a 2-point lead and 5 minutes to go, Wilkins figured he could win the game by dribbling out the clock. And he did; he froze the ball until the election was over. Now he’s hoping the referees don’t show up and admit they saw him hide the ball under his shirt.

The aftermath of the Zimmerman trial and the anticipation of Queen Elizabeth’s new great-grandchild are battling for time on TV. President Obama stepped in with heartfelt personal comments about Trayvon Martin. Everyone is eager for continued progress in relations among all the races. And Kate is eager to please the Queen.

Historic quotes by Will Rogers:
“Every time Detroit outgrows Henry Ford he has to go in and save ‘em again.” DT #2051, March 1, 1933
 “See this morning where the Supreme Court says Negroes in Texas have the right to vote at Democratic primaries. Certainly will seem funny to see Negroes and the whites voting the same ticket. First thing you know they will be allowing a white Republican to associate with a white Democrat in the South… (I’m) for quality in politics regardless of quantity and color.” DT #191, March 8, 1927

You may remember that I have a friend in Egypt who gave us great insight on the 2011 “Arab Spring” in Cairo. Last week he emailed me valuable details on the ouster of President Morsi by the Army Generals. If you still question the justification of forced removal of a “freely elected president,” the actions of that president in the past year will be enlightening. Just imagine, if you can, if a U.S. President took similar actions described below within a year of being elected.

Here are my friend’s comments: For the election after Mubarak was ousted, the Moslem Brotherhood (MB) nominated Mohamed Morsi, an Islamist activist, who ran on a platform centered on a massive development project of Egypt called the Renaissance Project. Among 20 candidates, Morsi came in first in the first round, and before the second and final round he identified several sources of corruption in government spending and promised to correct them if elected. Based largely on those promises Morsi won the presidency by a narrow margin (51.7%) and took office June 30, 2012. He proceeded to ignore his promised changes and dropped the Renaissance Project.

After Morsi was installed, a House of Representatives was elected and functioned. Morsi appointed an Assembly (70 percent Islamists) to draft a new Constitution. It was only a matter of time when the liberal and secular members of the Assembly walked out because they were outvoted on every single issue and felt useless.

Five weeks after Morsi took office, Islamist terrorists killed 16 Egyptian soldiers on the border with the Gaza strip. Morsi promptly dismissed the former army leadership and promoted Gen. Abdel Al-Sisi, head of military intelligence, to Defense Minister and General Commander of the Armed Forces. A campaign was hastily arranged in the Sinai to weed out the terrorists. In a few days, it killed and captured dozens of terrorists and destroyed hundreds of illegal tunnels between Egypt and Gaza. Then, without explanation, Morsi stopped the campaign.

It is reported that, as former head of military intelligence, Al-Sisi uncovered evidence that the Moslem Brotherhood (MB) planned the attack on the soldiers in order to get rid of the former army leadership. He also uncovered evidence that during the 2011 revolution against Mubarak, Hamas of Gaza, Hezballah of Lebanon and those same Sinai terrorists attacked an Egyptian prison with bulldozers to knock the walls and heavy machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades, killed prison guards and inmates, and freed 33 MB leaders, including Morsi.

When Morsi stopped the Sinai campaign, he was simply protecting those who freed him and was keeping the illegal tunnels open to Gaza to serve Hamas, at the expense of all Egyptians.
The constitutionality of the Assembly and House of Representatives was challenged in the Egyptian Supreme Court; it ruled that both were unconstitutional. Morsi appointed another Assembly and the Senate started functioning. Learning that the Supreme Court was about to rule the Senate and the Assembly unconstitutional, he issued a decree on November 22 giving himself unlimited powers and “protecting” the Senate from the court. That was when Morsi lost his legitimacy!

While violating the constitution left and right, Morsi dismissed the Attorney General in a flagrant violation of the Egyptian Constitution, both old and new, and appointed a new Attorney General ready to do the MB dirty work.

Egyptians poured into the streets around the presidential palace protesting the decree. He ignored them and sent the MB militia to blockade the Supreme Court and prevent the judges from entering, blockade the Broadcasting Media studios and prevent “unfriendly” talk shows hosts and guests from entering, and to break the protests around the palace. The militia tortured and killed many protestors around the palace. His Attorney General refused to intervene. In the mean time, the Assembly produced a “tailored” constitution overnight that gave Morsi unprecedented powers, rendered his decisions immune from review by the parliament or the courts, and deleted any mention of accountability, let alone impeachment.

Egyptians screamed that this was not going to work but he ignored that and concentrated on appointing MB Islamists in key government positions. He appointed a governor for Luxor who was the leader of the terrorist group that committed the 1997 massacre of about 64 European tourists in Luxor! His Minister of Tourism resigned over this. By hook and crook, Morsi jammed this down our throats. We had a dictator second to none.

Al-Sisi uncovered evidence and has documents proving that Morsi plus three other top MB leaders conceded 40 percent of the Sinai to the Palestinians in return for 8 billion dollars, which the US is paying them and/or the Moslem Brotherhood over four years. There is a public inquiry into these secret documents. No Egyptian can concede a square centimeter of Egyptian soil to any other country. If the story is true, it is treason.

That’s a view from Egypt. My friend closed by asking if I knew whether Congress is investigating the $8 billion land-for-Palestinians deal. With all the media attention on the Zimmerman trial, I have not heard anything about this deal. Have you?

Historic quote by Will Rogers:

“Hitler must have got his information about (running) Germany from Mussolini. He didn’t seem to know much about what was going on till he went down to (Italy) to see the old ‘daddy’ of all the dictators.” DT #2469, July 2, 1934

One thing we’ve learned about this Egypt uprising: you can’t blame it on John Kerry.  No sir, he has an alibi. He was on his yacht in Nantucket Sound.

With all the diplomatic problems over there, including Syria, Iran, Lebanon, Libya, Gaza and Israel, he should sail his boat to the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea and drop anchor. Save a bundle on air travel from DC. Of course, our Secretaries of State have been wrestling with the Middle East problems for decades, and what have we got to show for it? Mainly, trillions in new debt. Considering where our efforts have got us, maybe Kerry should just plop that yacht down in the Dead Sea. (After writing this, I learned that Mrs. Teresa Heinz Kerry is in critical condition in a Boston hospital. I wish her a rapid recovery.)

I saw a headline, “12 killed, 55 injured.” No, it wasn’t the airplane crash at San Francisco, and it wasn’t the runaway railcars in Quebec. Do you know what it was? Last week in Chicago that’s how many was shot to death, and shot but not killed. The story never said how many dozens more was shot at and missed.

Boeing sure knows how to build an airplane. When that 777 bounced on the runway the tail tore off, but the fuselage and wings held together pretty much in one piece. Yes, two died and a few more are critically injured, but three hundred got out alive. I’ll take those odds over a Chicago gunfight.

In Egypt we don’t seem to know exactly what we want. We pay 70% of the Army budget, so we expect the Generals to be looking out for our interests. Mubarak was tossed out, then the Islamists voted in Morsi who acted more like an Ayatollah than a President and he got the boot. I think the majority in Egypt would like a leader who can democratically and intelligently govern a country with advice and consent from local representatives and a fair judicial system. But that ain’t easy when a loud minority insists on Islamic Sharia law that most of us consider barbaric.

In case you missed the news, part of Obamacare was postponed and won’t take effect until after the 2014 election. Interest rates on student loans went up, which likely will cause students to pay off the loan first rather than letting them drag on for years. That change might even cause new college students to pick a field of study with good prospects of solid employment rather than moving back with parents.

I could give you an update on the George Zimmerman – Trayvon Martin trial, but I know the airwaves are filled with that news. A couple of so-called TV news networks are insisting that the investigation into the plane crash be concluded quickly so they can get back to uninterrupted trial coverage at 9:00 a.m. Monday. That, my friends, is why I read a newspaper.

Historic quotes by Will Rogers:
“If there is a safer mode of transportation (than aviation), I never found it. If your time is worth anything, travel by air. If not, you might just as well walk.” DT #389, Oct. 20, 1927.

I’m back home after a week in Ukraine. I was one of three American speakers at a no-till conference hosted and sponsored by a large agriculture business/farming company, Agro-Soyuz. The farm has 50,000 acres of crop land, plus hogs and a dairy.  The operation is located near Dnipropetrovsk, a city of a million people.

Ukraine is slightly bigger than Texas. It is a major player in global agriculture, and positioned to become more important. This country is the largest entirely in Europe and has 17% of the best soil in the world (USA and Russia each have just over 20%). They have a high potential for increased food production: huge farms, deep topsoil, good climate. Rainfall is limiting (20 inches at Agro-Soyuz) but continuous no-till with crop rotation and cover crops can probably double crop yields (wheat, corn, sunflowers, canola and more).

Politically, it is in our best interest to totally support Ukraine and keep them independent of Russia’s influence. Putin would like nothing better than to take over Ukraine, which until 1991 was part of the USSR.

I read that President Obama is committing $7 Billion to improve the electric power system. With concerns about blackouts and brownouts during this record heat wave, it sure makes sense to invest in the electric grid and construction and expansion of power generating plants. But then I read further. He doesn’t want to want to invest $7 Billion here, he wants to invest it in Africa.

The President announced that he wants to shut down the coal industry, both here and around the world. More than 40% of electricity is generated from coal, and I doubt you want to cut back 40% to help the President. If we can’t even persuade China and Russia to return an American spy, do you think we can convince them to quit burning coal?

Back to Africa. I’m glad the President is visiting three countries there. We need to stay on friendly terms and help them develop. But the big question is, will he let them burn coal? If they can only spend that $7 Billion on solar panels and wind machines they will be sorely disappointed. Already Europe refuses to let hungry Africans eat genetically modified foods, so these Africans may be on the verge of telling us outsiders to go home and leave them alone.

In other news, the Senate passed a 5-year “Free Food Bill,” but the House turned it down. You may know it as the “Farm Bill”, but when 80% of the money is for food stamps, it deserves a different name. And free food is the part of the bill they are arguing over. Democrats want to hand out more of it to people who aren’t working; Republicans want to put ‘em to work and let them buy their own food.

Historic quotes by Will Rogers:
“Who hasn’t pictured Odessa on the Black Sea? Russia and Turkey have been fighting over this for a thousand years.” DT #2520, Sept. 2, 1934
“I run my ranch, you run your ranch. What you do with yours has nothing to do with me.” WA #552, July 23, 1933

COLUMBUS: Last week a bunch of students at a high-priced college wrote an article complaining about having to work as interns this summer without getting paid for it.  And our local newspaper published it.

It seems they (or their parents) invested 2 or 3 years in a college education that has reached the point where someone figures it is safe to let ‘em hold a job, but that’s all. No salary. They can work for the “experience.” And if they don’t want the job, there’ll be ten other students ready to take it.

These students took all their classes in things like anthropology, sociology, fashion, and music appreciation, then they wonder why they can’t land high paying internships like their fellow students in engineering and computer science. Now, instead of kicking themselves for choosing the wrong college or the wrong major, they have decided do what many red-blooded Americans do today: hire a lawyer and sue the employers.

A lawsuit will sure go a long way toward getting them really good job offers after graduation, won’t it. Well, it will give some work for the lawyers, even if they aren’t paid either.

I heard a successful businessman named Jim Rogers (no relation) on television last month. He said young folks today need to learn how to produce something, real goods like lumber, wheat, cotton, oil. Learn how to drive a tractor. Learn how to weld. He was not advising against college, far from it. But learn how to do something you can make a living at.

Historic quotes by Will Rogers:

 “This modern education gag sure got me licked. All the kids I know, either mine or anybody’s, none of ‘em can write so you can read it, none of ‘em can spell. They can’t figure and they don’t know geography, but they are always taking some of the darndest things: drama, dancing, sociology, Latin, Greek art. The things they go in for runs on by the hour. Everybody has swimming pools, but nobody has a plain old geography….
They got another gag called credits. If you do anything thirty minutes twice a week, why you get some certain credit. Maybe it’s lamp shade tinting, maybe it’s singing, or a thing called music appreciation…. Some of ‘em you get more credits than for others. If a thing is particularly useless, why it gives you more credits….
Of course you can’t go out and get a job on it, but these old professors value it mighty highly. Some day we will find that we can educate our broods for about one-tenth the price and learn ‘em something they might accidently use after they escaped.” WA #501, July 31, 1932

 “In our days, the young folks that were fortunate enough to go to college looked forward to graduation with a great expectancy. They felt they would step out into the world and that there was a definite notch awaiting them. There was jobs, there was positions, and all things being equal, you were given a little edge…. That was what might be called the Golden Period.” WA #624, Dec. 9, 1934

COLUMBUS: Over the years, state legislatures have been known to pass bills that defy science and common sense. Well, last week the Connecticut legislature took a swipe at History.

They passed a bill that says: forget the Wright Brothers, this is the home of the first airplane. It was piloted in 1901 by a fellow named Gustave Whitehead. They said, “Don’t be misled by history or any other unreliable source. Here’s the place where the first airplane took off.” This is by unanimous vote of the state legislature of Connecticut. Connecticut has been made the official site of the first airplane flight. Any airplane taking off from any other site was not official.

So the Connecticut legislature has booted Orville and Wilbur out of the history books in favor of Gus. Don’t be surprised if next week they pass another bill claiming that old Gus also flew across the Atlantic two years before Lindbergh. Connecticut has historically been known as the Nutmeg State. From now on, we can leave off the meg.

A young fellow with the National Security Agency said today that the NSA knows exactly who we talk to on the phone and for how long, and a lot of folks are shocked. But it’s no surprise; back in the old days of party line phones there was always one nosy neighbor who did the same thing. In fact, if the NSA is serious about preventing terrorist attacks, they should require that all phones be on a party line. That way there are no secret attacks. Think of the Boston Marathon bombers. No sooner would an Islamic terrorist hang up the phone and go out the front door than he would be clobbered over the head by a rolling pin and a broom.

These revelations about the NSA keeping phone records and emails can come in handy for us men the next time a wife or teenager complains, “Nobody ever listens to me!”

President Obama has named Susan Rice the new head of the NSA. Do we really want a person in charge of protecting our security who asks no questions and spouts whatever words are put in front of her? I guess when the leaders of Iran and North Korea tell her, “We don’t have any nuclear weapons,” she’ll take their word for it.

Our President met with the president of China this weekend in Santa Monica. Computer hacking and cyber stealing was a major topic for Obama. As he began to read aloud from his prepared script, the Chinese president interrupted, “Don’t bother, I already saw it. All 7 drafts.”

The government announced they will sell the General Motors stock purchased four years ago. In that time, the stock market has almost doubled. But being a typical government operation, us taxpayers will lose $10 Billion on the deal.

Historic quote by Will Rogers:
“You could transfer Congress over to run Standard Oil or General Motors, and they would have both things bankrupt in two years.” WA #307, Nov. 11, 1928

President Obama visited Oklahoma to tour the tornado devastation. He paid tribute especially to the dedicated teachers at two destroyed schools in Moore who managed to save all but seven of their students. Oklahoma is in the middle of what some folks call “Tornado Alley” and they wonder why anyone would be crazy enough to want to live there. Well, it’s not that bad. I bet if you checked out all the houses and barns that are, say, 50 or more years old, not one in a hundred has been damaged by a tornado.

Our Columbus Dispatch printed an editorial cartoon that was unfair to Oklahoma Senator Inhofe by claiming he was against aid for victims of Hurricane Sandy but would like aid for the tornado victims. He (and fellow Senator Coburn) voted against the $60 Billion relief for Hurricane Sandy victims because only about $15 Billion was actually for the victims. If Congress decides to allocate a Billion dollars or so to Oklahoma tornado relief, Oklahoma folks will appreciate it. But if an extra 3 or 4 Billion gets tacked on to a so-called relief bill, Oklahoma will say, “Sorry, no thanks. We’ll just take care of ourselves.”

On Friday the President gave a speech to the country.  He asked us to forget about the IRS and Benghazi, forget about bugging the Fox and AP reporters, and instead celebrate the end of the war on terror. It’s over. Nothing left but small skirmishes.

That’s what he said. Right after the speech he got a call from England, “Sorry, Islamic terrorists just beheaded a man in London.” Then France called…  I guess Obama never heard the story Abraham Lincoln told, “If you call a tail a leg, how many legs does a dog have? Five? No, calling a tail a leg doesn’t make it a leg.”

I was invited to attend a “March on Monsanto” protest, but I didn’t go. It seems shortsighted to be against using plant genetics to produce more food with less water, less chemicals and less soil loss. The world population will likely increase to 9 billion in 40 years and we can’t feed ‘em all with only the genetics of 40 years ago when we fed 4 billion. All these protesters have one thing  in common, at least the ones in the U.S. and Europe: they’re well fed. None of ‘em are starving, except maybe by choice in order to fit into last summer’s swimsuit.

Historic quotes by Will Rogers:
“There is certain things nature can do to you (earthquakes, floods, tornados, drought)… When nature enters into it, don’t criticize.” DT #2081, April 5, 1933
“I am only an ignorant cowpuncher, but there ain’t nobody on earth, I don’t care how smart they are, ever going to make me believe they will ever stop wars.”  WA #32, July 22, 1923
 “A sure certainty about our Memorial days is as fast as the ranks from one war thin out, the ranks of another take their place… People talk peace, but men give their life’s work to war. It won’t stop till there is as much brains and scientific study put to aid peace as there is to promote war.” DT #888, May 31, 1929

Ignorance has been around for a long time, but never before has it been openly listed as a qualification for a high government job. Currently, it seems to rank above honesty, competence, and common horse sense. I said one time that “we’re all ignorant, just on different subjects.”  But I never expected that a subject you’re ignorant of is one they would put you in charge of.

It’s been a rough week for the President, what with Benghazi, IRS and the hassling of AP reporters. He was kinda hoping the murder trials of Jodi Arias and the baby-killing Philadelphia abortionist would last a while longer.

Now, we hear that key folks in the federal government claim they were ignorant, ignorant of any wrongdoing by the employees under their management. President Obama said he was ignorant of the IRS targeting Tea Party folks. The head of the IRS said he knew nothing, went before Congress, and proved that he knows absolutely nothing. Sarah Hall Ingram, in charge of the Cincinnati IRS office, said she was ignorant or incompetent, I’m not sure which. Maybe both.

Do you know what happens to a manager at the IRS who claims ignorance or incompetence? In Mrs. Ingram’s case you get a raise, bonuses and a promotion out of Cincinnati to run a new program with even more opportunities for ignorance to prevail.

The President says he is shocked that IRS agents in Cincinnati would throw up roadblocks against conservative organizations just because he was attacking them in campaign speeches. Those agents live in John Boehner’s back yard, belong to a union, and work in an agency the Republicans want to eliminate by instituting a flat tax. It’s no surprise they opposed the election of Republicans who would jeopardize their jobs, bonuses and promotions.

President Obama wants Congress to look forward, not backward. He told ‘em, “Disregard everything we covered up and ignored to get reelected in 2012, and we’ll work with you to see that it never happens again.”  After all, that was months ago. What difference does it make now.

You might say, why not have ignorant people running the government; voter’s ignorance is how many of them got elected.

It’s a shame. This claim of ignorance and incompetence by a few is making the majority of good honest folks working for the government look bad. Like I said about lawyers one time, the main goal should be to rid their ranks of the shysters.

Historic quotes by Will Rogers:
“An awful lot of boys and girls graduate this week all over the country. Ignorance is just about obliterated.” DT #907, June 23, 1929
 “All I know is just what I read in the papers, and that’s an alibi for my ignorance.” DT #1263, Aug. 12, 1930
 “We got a murder trial (dominating news coverage), and we don’t know a thing in the world that is happening outside of that, so pardon my ignorance.” DT #2203, Aug. 25, 1930
 “It’s not really intention on the government’s part that they don’t do better, it’s ignorance.” WA #428, March 8, 1931