Unfathomable Hubris

Most amazingly lame and self-serving comment of the day comes from this Senate staffer who writes in to Talking Points Memo:

My background is like probably the majority of staffers I know. I came to DC, from a far superior climate and quality of life, because I wanted to save the world.

If only they had been given more money to dole out than the $787B in the stimulus monstrosity (which was too small of course), we could have really recognized how the new aristocracy in Washington had our best interests at heart.

Crazy Dictator Says Crazy Shit

Criticizing Ahmadinejad is about as intellectually taxing as calling Tiger Woods a lousy husband, but this statement needs to be repeated to permanently assure his mentally deranged status. From Fox News:

“We have documented proof that they believe that a descendant of the prophet of Islam will raise in these parts and he will dry the roots of all injustice in the world,” Ahmadinejad said during a speech on Monday, according to Al Arabiya.

"They have devised all these plans to prevent the coming of the Hidden Imam because they know that the Iranian nation is the one that will prepare the grounds for his coming and will be the supporters of his rule," Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying.

Supposedly, the 12th Imam (Mahdi) will rid the world of injustice alongside Jesus and Xenu, but I'm not a religious scholar or anything. However, it is painfully obvious that Ahmadinejad is dishing out another ridiculous statement to distract the public from the regime's domestic woes. Previous whoppers Ahmadinejad has told the public include holocaust denial and an assassination plot against him involving X-Rays at the airport.

Sarah Palin: Master of Karate and Friendship

Well, this is where the conservative movement is at. Sarah Palin, who has strong approval amongst the right, has descended into the incredibly ridiculous. She has suggested that the Obama Birth certificate is fair game. No need to comment on the birth certificate issue for the same reason there is no need to comment on President Obama being from the Klendathu galaxy: there's zero evidence of either. Hot Air is definitely feeling a bit squeamish about the whole affair, and you know David Weigel (best political journalist out there, I just wish he was on our side) is going to have a field day when he wakes up.

I'm just finishing watching the John Adams mini-series, and, even though I despise elitism, it makes you sort of wish for when politicians were well-educated, well-spoken, and took the task of governing the country seriously. After 230+ years of our republic, we are sort of left with this celebrity nonsense.

In Defense of Populism

Generally, Christopher Hitchens has some pretty interesting things to say, but I thought this dull criticism of Sarah Palin was a bit routine with the same tired attempts to summarize the "teabaggers" as imbeciles who can't think for themselves. And I'm not Pro-Palin either. From Newsweek:

The United States has to stand or fall by being the preeminent nation of science, modernity, technology, and higher education. Some of these needful phenomena, for historical reasons, will just happen to concentrate in big cities and in secular institutions and even—yes—on the dreaded East Coast. Modernity can be wrenching, as indeed can capitalism, and there will always be "out" groups who feel themselves disrespected or left behind. The task and duty of a serious politician, as Edmund Burke emphasized so well, is to reason with such people and not to act as their megaphone or ventriloquist.

It's not a bad thing that there are well-educated people on the East Coast. What's a bad thing is the same boneheads that fucked up the economy are the ones trying to establish new policies that will benefit a group of our "betters" in Wall Street and Washington. That and a dollar falling into post-Soviet Union ruble status is enough to create a large group of pissed-off Americans.

President Obama told a group of Chinese students that the free-flow of information is an important way to hold the government accountable. It's certainly allowed a lot of ordinary people to realize how awful everything is in Washington and Wall Street.

Robbing Peter to Pay Goldman Sachs, Big Government is Back

Awesomely Awesome Graphic From Rapture Ready Radio

So, I was sent to this luncheon for work hosted by the UN and the speaker was talking about sustainable agricultural practices and how to improve the environment in rural areas of developing countries. He stated that the development sector needed to stop acting on a "Soviet Union-type central planning" model and start thinking more about markets (i.e. making environmentally-friendly ag practices beneficial to consumers and what not). If the motherfuckin' United Nations recognizes that central planning might not always be the way to go, why is the United States reverting to a cross between the WPA and Mao's Great Leap Forward? Matt Welch has an article in the NY Post about the new era of big gummint started with Bush's TARP fiasco:

This isn't about liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican. A majority oppose Obama's policies because they fly in the face of this country's bedrock values of personal liberty and limited government. Robbing Peter to pay Goldman Sachs does violence to that fundamentally American ethos.

And increasingly, Obama administration policy does violence to European values, as well. The continent has for the last two decades been systematically disengaging national governments from domestic industries. Top officials from Sweden, of all places, complained about Washington's auto bailout, tersely announcing that "The Swedish state is not prepared to own car factories."

It's complete arrogance that any politician can manipulate the economy as efficiently and productively of the free market. John Stossel makes the point with health care that the free market is a representation of the wills, needs, and capacities of billions of people around the world, and what centrally-planned bureaucracy is going to be able to do that more efficiently? Certainly, I would argue that there needs to be government-run, central-planning models for institutions like the military (because of its unique purpose), but this whole concept that governments need to intervene in failing markets has proved a colossal dud these last 10 months.

The Problem With Freedom of Speech

pic from WaPo

Seeing how it's a day ending in Y this month, intellectual elites with unresolved emotional issues stemming from getting wedgied by the football team in high school are taking to the dead tree media to chastise the NASCAR-loving rubes in flyover country for not supporting Obamacare. Rick Perlstein is the latest person to call folks concerned about adding a trillion bucks to the deficit crazy birther/rednecks who bear more resemblance to Ed Gein than hard-working Americans. From WaPo:

It used to be different. You never heard the late Walter Cronkite taking time on the evening news to "debunk" claims that a proposed mental health clinic in Alaska is actually a dumping ground for right-wing critics of the president's program, or giving the people who made those claims time to explain themselves on the air. The media didn't adjudicate the ever-present underbrush of American paranoia as a set of "conservative claims" to weigh, horse-race-style, against liberal claims. Back then, a more confident media unequivocally labeled the civic outrage represented by such discourse as "extremist" -- out of bounds.

Yes, it's such a shame for the powerful elite that us little people have things like blogs and cable news alternatives instead of 3 crummy TV stations to voice our opinion. Perlstein also attacks right-wing paranoia of communism in America's past and certainly there is some legitimacy to that claim. But, if there's anything that the tragedies of the 20th century taught us (the Cultural Revolution, Gulags, Pol Pot, etc.), it's that the grand experiment of Marxism led to a very high number of stiffs. Maybe it wasn't completely irrational to be concerned about the spread of communism.

The more I see the progressives in charge of the country, the more I believe that it's being led by power-hungry politicians who to seek to continuously win elections by coercing constituents to be dependent on government charity. If they are so true to their "power to the people" principles, then why is there so much opposition to average people speaking their mind?

Update: Forgot to mention that there has been no increase in security threats for the President during all this town hall hoopla.

Big Banks To Start Some Weird Astroturf Campaign

Due to your 401K going poof and a potential worldwide economic collapse, large banking conglomerates are rightfully concerned about that you don't feel enough sympathy for them. That's why they've hired a bunch of skeezy politico types to boost their public image. Bloomberg has the scoop:

The internal papers call for using regional securities firms, many of which have escaped notoriety in the financial crisis, to push the industry’s message with their local members of Congress. The plan notes that brokers across the country can also be used.

“The foot power of the private client group has proven to be effective in blunting populist messages in the past,” said board member Paul Purcell, chief executive officer of Milwaukee investment firm Robert W. Baird & Co., according to the minutes of one meeting.

Not sure why they feel like they have to lobby congress to be on their side, because both a Democrat and a Republican administration have printed enough money to make Mugabe blush in order to save these bumbling boneheads... and we just sat back and took it! Maybe they're trying for a more aggressive approach whereby anyone who speaks ill of the cronyism between DC and Wall Street gets put on some DHS watchlist.

Gov. Palin Continues Her Foray Into Serious Schnoozer Issues

Zzzzzzzz....

Have you been following the latest controversial outrage about how the Prez is giving a commencement speech at some university?!? Uh, me neither. But, just so you know, it has something to do with fetus-vacuuming and how pro-choice perverts are infesting our Catholic institutions. If you are anxious, Fox News has been covering it with as much frequency as a missing white girl in a tutu.

With loose nukes in Pakistan and a bullshit worldwide economy, it may be prudent to blow off the abortion issue in order of political importance between the color theme on Obama's Blackberry and who will be appointed Assistant Postmaster General. But, Sarah Palin comes out of hiding in Alaska with a zinger at Obama. From Boston Herald:

“My favorite grandpa, Clem James Sheeran, was Catholic. Irish to the core, his favorite place (other than church) was Notre Dame. I can’t imagine what he would think as the university recognizes someone who contradicts the core values of the Catholic faith by promoting an anti-life agenda. As we learned today, our nation is more pro-life than ever before; it is a very important time to strengthen the message that every baby is created for good purpose and has the potential to make this world a better place.”

She's really stressing those "conservative values" that wooed the religious right 30 years ago but have sent young people running for the hills ever since. This is after her knocked-up daughter suddenly became an abstinence advocate and she jumped on the anti-gay marriage bandwagon. Is this narrow-minded mentality of popping up with drive-by commentary on wedge issues capable of propelling the GOP to a win in 2012? The SarahPac website doesn't offer any specifics.

Maybe it's time to resurrect a Goldwater quote on the religious Right:

I'm frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in 'A,' 'B,' 'C,' and 'D.' Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me?

Scumbag NY Fed Chairman Resigns

Wow! Who would've thought that billions in no-accountability funny money being dished out to Wall Street banks would produce any corruption? The NY Fed Chairman (who also has large ownership in Goldman and was a former senior partner) continued to buy shares in Goldman Sachs even though the NY Fed is supposed to be regulating the company. After being asked a few questions by the media, he abruptly resigned. From CNN:

The chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York resigned Thursday, days after coming under attack for his continuing involvement in a company regulated by the institution.

Stephen Friedman received a waiver to remain on the board of Goldman Sachs (GS, Fortune 500), the Wall Street firm that became a bank holding company amid September's financial frenzy, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal on Monday. He also holds a substantial amount of shares in the company and continued to buy more even after Goldman came under the Fed's supervision.

It should also be noted that Bush's Treasury Secretary (Paulson) was once the CEO of Goldman Sachs, Obama's economic adviser (Summers) received 6-figure speaking engagements from Goldman Sachs, and Obama's Treasury Secretary (Tax Cheat Geithner) helped push the AIG bailout which benefited Goldman Sachs. It's obvious to the most casual observer that there's a good ole boy network going on here, and the cronyism is comical. I'm half expecting Boss Hogg to take over as the new Chief Financial Officer of this plutocratic company.

For those interested in the collusion between the banks and Washington and are in the Ron Paul wing of politics, I highly recommend Alex Jones' The Obama Deception. I know the guy is a bit of a conspiracy nut and once threatened Michelle Malkin for no reason. But, the links in the documentary between DC and the banks are somewhat interesting, just skip over the crazytown shit about the Bilderberg group.

Ed Morrissey Calls For Napolitano Resignation After DHS Looks To Put Vets' Heads on Pikes

The Perils of Trusting the Government

The blogs are a-buzzin' regarding the leaked DHS document on "Right-Wing Extremism" (#1 item on Memeorandum). A few highlights:

• Malkin contacted the press office of the DHS and has confirmed the FOUO document is not a hoax.
  
• One of my favorite political reporters, David Weigel, has a very dissapointing post where he condones this type of activity by the federal government (even though he once wrote for the libertarian Reason). His time at Washington Independent has mostly been spent criticizing far-right rhetoric as asinine, but it's a pretty big step to go from Stewart-style ridiculing to saying that his fellow countrymen need to be part of a federal dragnet. What a shame.
  
• Other progressive blogs like Think Progress, who get up in arms when 9/11 masterminds have their legal rights violated, see no problem with citizens in flyover land being the target of misleading characterizations as "domestic terrorists". I'm sure you all didn't see that hypocrisy coming.

But, Ed Morrissey has the best post on the subject when he cites that the DHS has virtually no data and how this document is huge embarrassment for Napolitano:

This gets repeated over and over again during the report. They have no threat information. In fact, the report can’t even say definitively whether “extremists” are gaining “new recruits”. In order to find that, they’d have to identify the actual groups, note the recruiting patterns, and determine whether in fact they’re gaining recruits or losing members. Bottom line: DHS has no actual data. They’re pulling threats out of their collective arse and publishing them without any supporting research whatsoever.

I have no idea why an intelligence assessment would be written if there was no data. I used to have the pleasure of writing documents like this in Iraq and anyone (military or civilian) would look at you like an asshole if you tried to pass off something that was based on hypothesis and no reliable sources of information/trends. It sounds more like left-wing jabber about Tea Parties being secret white supremacy gatherings than a useful assessment for intelligence officials. What an embarrassment. I feel bad for my Coastie friends who are part of this bungling bureaucracy.

Update: Famous DC Gaddabout TSO has the letter sent to the DHS by the American Legion.

Dept of Homeland Security Sez To Be on the Lookout For "Disgruntled Military Veterans"

The hits just keep on coming as they say if you fall into the right-wing veteran demographic. After recently getting profiled by the Missouri Highway Patrol and staff being warned about the "crazy vet" during thespian remakes at Penn State, the Department of Homeland Security drops an intelligence assessment that says radicalized veterans compromise the greatest potential for a domestic terrorist threat. Pow, right in the kissah!

The DHS document is classified "For Official Use Only", which means it's not supposed to be available on the internet to likes of me and TSO, but it's a leak that should be discussed because it is disturbing for a lot of reasons. From pg. 7 of the assessment (pdf):

DHS/I&A assesses that rightwing extremists will attempt to recruit and radicalize returning veterans in order to exploit their skills and knowledge derived from military training and combat. These skills and knowledge have the potential to boost the capabilities of extremists—including lone wolves or small terrorist cells—to carry out violence. The willingness of a small percentage of military personnel to join extremist groups during the 1990s because they were disgruntled, disillusioned, or suffering from the psychological effects of war is being replicated today.

First off, I disagree with the DHS assessment that supporting the 2nd Amendment right to bear arms to protect against government tyranny is now "extremist ideology". Second, this assessment suggests that cells of disheveled veterans are somehow plotting to attack government infrastructure. I haven't heard about any in the last decade, but I'm sure curious as to what incidents the DHS is referring to when they say "replicated today".

TSO points out that the information of the great white supremacist/McVeigh-style threat that supposedly underscores returning vets comes from an outfit like the SPLC, who has a history of accusing anyone who doesn't support their progressive agenda as a "hate group" (see the case of the American Legion).

Why is the DHS using this heavily politicized information as basis for an intelligence assessment? Is the DHS going to start using David Neiwert's mouth-breathing post about a Timothy McVeigh finishing school as basis to start arresting anyone with a VFW sticker on their car? Paranoid delusion from the left about everyone in flyover Red states being a deranged gun nut is generally rhetoric to denigrate the conservative opposition. It's about as credible as a right-winger like myself saying we needed to round up liberals because their failure to bathe constituted a public health risk. I can't believe the Department of Homeland Security fell for it as a serious threat to national security.

If their was an OKC-style atrocity on the horizon from disillusioned veterans, I would certainly change my tune. But reality suggests that no threat is imminent.

Wacko Vets Storm Poli Sci 101 Classes at Penn State!

AllahPundit got tipped off about a strange video as part of the "Worrisome Student Behaviors: Minimizing Risk" web resources available to faculty at Penn State. The montage includes some meth'd out chick who screams at her professors, tips on how to find out who the crazed gunmen sitting in the back of the room is, and this crazy vet (video above) who warns his professor to give him a better grade "or else". It's totally hilarious, and about as fact-based as the 50s educational video on homosexuals touching young boys in the bathing suit area.

The real question is whether or not Penn State will still use this video as part of their faculty training after The Obama was welcomed with cheers by the military recently in Iraq.

Rebuild and Renew: Progressive Campaign to Further America's Decline into Irrelevancy

Ben Smith of the Politico has the scoop on a new group of "Grass Roots" outfits such as SEIU, NEA, and MoveOn.org that have put up $25K a piece to form some creepy campaign called "Rebuild and Renew". It's your regular rabble of progressive/liberal/whatever mainstays like unions, trial lawyers, and environmental groups, but this level of consolidation is unprecedented and certainly deserves some scrutiny. Looking to secure their piece of the federal budget pie, their stated mission is as follows:

President Obama’s Fiscal Year 2010 budget provides a visionary blueprint that turns away from the failed economic policies of the past and seeks to invest in our future by expanding opportunities for all. His budget commits major investments in health care reform, education, and clean energy, while restoring fairness to our tax system and reducing military expenditures over time in a responsible manner...

...We can extend opportunity and security for families in all walks of life by expanding health care coverage, making college more affordable, supporting the financial and nutritional needs of low income families, expanding affordable housing, investing in a far-reaching policy that will develop clean sources of energy and protect the planet by reducing global warming pollution, and generate good jobs to rebuild our middle class.

More swell ideas that involve spending your money to keep wide swaths of citizens dependent on the dole (thereby securing favorable voting patterns down the road). The group's media spokesman, a Mr. Jeremy Funk, is the same guy behind the Hush Rush campaign a few weeks, so you can expect public shaming and ad hominem attacks will be the norm for anyone who dares to criticize The Obama's budget.

But the strangest thing was the imagery they choose on the header of their newly developed website (pictured below):

Not sure what the pair of grubby hands on the right is supposed to represent, but I presume it's how the rest of America, not affiliated with these special interests, will be living under the catastrophic debt Obama has promised. Foraging for scraps of food in the dirt, and some hope and change too.

The "Modern Militia" is Neither Modern Nor a Militia. Discuss.

Could the U.S. Navy Be Slack-Jawed, Militia Wingnuts?

While the so-called "militia movement" had a bit of influence in the 90s during the fallout of Ruby Ridge and Waco, it certainly has been on the wane ever since the whole Y2K apocalypse never happened. As a matter of fact, the entire concept of survivalists taking down the New World Order is more an image conjured by the left to publicize negative stereotypes of rural conservatives than an actual political philosophy. The copies of The Turner Diaries updated for an Obama administration aren't exactly flying off the shelves. But it appears politically-motivated attacks on citizens unsupportive of current policy are going to be revamped by our government. Recall that Bill Clinton blamed talk radio ("hate radio" were his words) for the OKC bombing back in 1995, which goes to show that politicians are like buzzards waiting for human tragedy to strike in order to fulfill their opportunistic agendas.

Now, Missouri's Finest are using an ill-contrived study from February 2009 called "The Modern Militia Movement" to be on the lookout for potential thugs. The probable cause indications for law enforcement are completely ridiculous [see pg. 7 of the study]. They include "political paraphernalia" like "Ron Paul" and "Bob Barr" bumper stickers plus the "Don't Tread on Me" Flag. It should be noted that Ron Paul is an elected congressman, Bob Barr used to be an elected congressman, and the Don't Tread on Me flag was originally conceived by that wild-eyed McVeigh-incarnate: Benjamin Franklin. This type of profiling is foolish considering the security threat now posed by so-called "militias" is marginal at best, and this study represents a major distraction to serious law enforcement. The Missouri State Highway Patrol is trying to do some damage control over the leak of this document to the press [Columbia Tribune]:

Hotz said using those or similar factors to determine whether someone could be a terrorist is not profiling. He said people who display signs or bumper stickers from such groups are not in danger of harassment from police.

“It’s giving the makeup of militia members and their political beliefs,” Hotz said of the report. “It’s not saying that everybody who supports these candidates is involved in a militia. It’s not even saying that all militias are bad.”

Hopefully, the men and women of the Missouri State Highway Patrol aren't gullible enough to fall for a paradigm ginned up by Media Matters types to denigrate the opposition while performing their law enforcement duties. (h/t Sith By Sithwest)

That Was $45B Well Spent by the Feds

Bread and Circuses for a Bailed-out Bank

Sharpshooting corporate excess might be a intellectually lazy endeavor, but it should piss you the fuck off if they got bailed out! ABC has the dirt on Bank of America, who received $45B in bailout funds, but decided to spend an obscene amount on some meathead monument at the Super Bowl:

The bank refused to tell ABC News how much it is spending as an NFL corporate sponsor, but insiders have put the figure at close to $10 million. The NFL Experience was on top of that and was inked last summer, according to the bank.

The NFL said it was a "multi-million dollar" event and that it was also spending money to put on the event. A Super Bowl insider said the tents alone cost over $800,000.

No surprise considering most of the bailout money was unaccountable in the first place. Does anyone still think Bush's TARP scam was a good idea?

Ford's Inferno: Communist Propaganda From the 50s

Another item of interest located in my mother's basement (no, I don't live there!), that I felt was worth sharing. My Great-Grandmother had some McCarthy-era leaflet from 1957 designed to warn Michiganders about the insipid communist threat, and it was an actual excerpt from a Soviet textbook discussing America. It talked about how the auto plants in Michigan were soul-sucking capitalist machines hell-bent on the destruction of the American proletariat. Michael Moore, eat your heart out, because this propaganda is way more professional. Click to enlarge:

Some money quotes include:

"America is supposed to be the land of individualism. But Fordism is the thing that capitalists have established in many parts of the country, and want to make universal. They want a land of robots, who will work themselves out by the time they are forty and then go off somewhere and die."

"The Soviet workers get vacations of a month with full pay; they have no fear of unemployment or accident"

"Here you pass through an inferno of fear. You can see it in the eyes of these men. They know that any minute they may find themselves in the streets without any work."

The quality of life for the American autoworker was far better than any Soviet, as people from the impoverished South and overseas (like my ancestors) flocked to Detroit to earn a decent wage in the auto factories. It's odd how leftist propaganda during the cold war was incredibly analogous to official Soviet propaganda. Just saying.

LT Nixon Gets Ripped Off...Again!

So, I went to put gas in my truck this morning and noticed that my credit card wasn't working. Naturally, I thought it was a liberal conspiracy to fund abortions for Code Pink members or something, but I called the credit card company just to be sure. Turns out someone in Queens, NYC tried to take out two large cash advances with my credit card number and the company blocked the second transaction. The call center gentleman from India was very helpful in getting this sorted out and I'm not going to be charged a dime. Not sure if this has to do with the Koobface virus on Facebook, but somehow they got my info. A co-worker who serves part-time in law enforcement advised not making online purchases in the future, but I dunno how else I could get hard-to-find movies like Vice Versa. I suppose it's a risk worth taking. The same type of thing happened to me last year while I was in Iraq.

So do yourself a favor and check your credit statement before you have to file bankruptcy or go on the lam.

Change.Gov Agenda is Gone

Like the crafty Keyser Soze, no one knows what the hell happened to the Office of the President Elect's Agenda. Like my sense of self-respect, it's just not there anymore! Ridiculous tin-foil hat speculation about government cover-ups and purging political enemies can be found at The Obacalypse.

Great FAIL Moments in Presidential Assassination History

Manson Family Wacko, Squeaky Fromme, Really Leveled the Gender Playing Field for Presidential Assassinations

Everyone knows about angry, hillbilly southerner John Wilkes Booth waxing Lincoln (our favorite gay president) at Ford's Theater , but what about all the loser assassins who couldn't get the job done. Cracked has a pretty interesting piece on six botched attempts throughout our violent American history. They highlight the first attempt on JFK's life, which was totally lame:

This bought time for the good guys to work through the diabolical clues he mailed out. And by that we mean the postmaster glanced at the dates and postmarks and told the Secret Service where he was. By the time he was working on his second attempt on Kennedy's life, the cops were closing in.

When they pulled him over, the cops found seven sticks of dynamite wired in the vehicle. Pavlick originally had much more, but when he became nervous about getting caught he removed most of it, apparently under the impression that it's ok to have just a few explosives in your trunk at any given time.

Although, I was bit disappointed in Cracked that they didn't include the assassination attempt on America's best alternate universe president, Lyndon Larouche. He explains that he was targeted for extermination by the U.S. Justice Department working with former Soviet Premier Gorbachev because of his involvement with the SDI program. Also, because Larouche wanted to round up every gay person in California to put in camps during the 80s, he was targeted for assassination as well. I can't make this shit up.

The Real Reason I'm in the Service

So, I didn't really join the military out of patriotism, to make my granddaddy proud, or to meet the ladies with my dorky dress whites. It was actually a clever ruse so that I could obtain a security clearance and thereby get the inside scoop on all the shadowy government conspiracies that "teh internets" led me to believe were existent. You know what I'm talking about. The monkeys that came back from space super-intelligent, the secret alien treaties with the CIA to get super-sweet technology, the experiment on the USS Philadelphia in the 40s where everyone got teleported through the space-time continuum, and of course the Trilateral commission who controls all the banks and oil prices.

Unfortunately, I came to realize that the internet took advantage of me like a nerdy chick on prom night, because it was all bullshit...and I still had 4.5 years left on my contract. If only I had heard from Mike Baker, former CIA spook and Fox News contributor, earlier in life (h/t OleGreyDog7):

I would insist that all Americans, at some point between their 18th and 28th birthdays, work for the federal government for one year.
Eventually, over a period of a couple of generations, this shared experience and peak behind the curtain would completely extinguish all conspiracy theories regarding how the government does any of the following:
• Secretly controls the entire planet
• Runs a secret cabal dedicated to the extermination of civil liberties
• Manipulates the price of oil to serve American political interests
• Maintains a warehouse stacked to the ceiling with captured aliens

Damnit! Another life lesson learned way too late...just like when I heard huffing gasoline causes brain damage at the age of 24.

Being in the inner circle: Not as cool as the internet told me