We are in the age of the bread and circus Roman routine

Only it is in our White House.  This is from Gateway Pundit:

Conga-Lines… Bare-Chested Beer Pong… Super Soaker Fights… The Good Times Keep Rolling Along For Obama White House Officials

Posted by Jim Hoft

Back in January 2009, Barack Obama told Americans that,

“Everyone must sacrifice… Everyone must have some skin in the game.”

Well… Everyone but Barack and Michelle Obama. See here for the videos

Guests gather for the entertainment segment of a state dinner in honor of President of Mexico Felipe Calderon inside a party tent on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, May 19, 2010. (Reuters)

In 2009 the Obamas spent over $10 million of taxpayer money on drunken White House parties.

And, it doesn’t look like things are going to slow down anytime soon.

The New York Post reported, via Free Republic.

Last week’s jobs report tanked the stock market; the president took weeks to assert control of the oil spill that threatens doom on the Gulf Coast — but at the White House the Gatsby-like parties roll on as if happy days were here again.

Just yesterday, President Obama held another fun-filled White House event, a picnic for Congress members, complete with hot dogs, cold beverages and a fire pit.

All told, during the last seven weeks of spewing oil and rampant unemployment, he has frolicked and danced through three major White House music parties.

* The black-tie tent bash on the White House South Lawn after the state dinner for Mexico’s President Felipe Calderón, which featured singer Beyoncé.

* The Paul McCartney hootenanny — a night of tributes to the former Beatle, which featured the president himself scooting onto the dance floor to join the Jonas Brothers in the long “la-la-la” closing refrain of “Hey Jude.” (Plus, of course, McCartney serenading the first lady with “Michelle.”)

* The Ford Theater event — in which the president, taking a break from “kicking ass” on the oil spill, kicked back and relaxed to the song stylings of one-time “American Idol” winner Kelly Clarkson, among other B-listers.

It was one thing when the president launched his White House days with a round of Martini Wednesdays, Stevie Wonder concerts, conga-line dancing and Super Bowl parties. That was before the gushing oil and before the employment picture defied the Obama hope-and-change cures.

Now it’s different. Now the president’s fascination with fun and parties in the midst of crisis has not only reinforced a feeling he’s out of touch, but has migrated down the chain of command.

Last weekend, Vice President Joe Biden and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel held a “super soaker” squirt-gun party at the veep’s residence. Everybody ran around giggling and shooting squirt guns at each other. Members of the press covering Biden joined in, to their shame.

And last Sunday, presidential spokesman Tommy Vietor and Obama speechwriter extraordinaire Jon Favreau, both 29 years old, were spotted at a Georgetown bar, stripped to the waist, playing a game of beer pong with a gang of bare-chested buddies. (This game involves throwing a ping-pong ball into cups of beer — loser drinks beer, winner drinks beer, everybody drinks beer.

If any heads roll under the bus how much do you want to bet it will be the last mentioned, the least powerful Vietor and Favreau? The original article in the New York Post was by John Gibson.

An Alternative Universe, our surreal government

Four or five years ago when I first considered writing a blog the name I was planning to use was Surrealities.  Little did I know how surreal it would become.
This is how surreal it is:

Inspector General’s Memo: Census Says It Hired More Workers Than It Needed As a ‘Cost-Saving Measure’

By Terence P. Jeffrey, Editor-in-Chief CNSNews

The U.S. Census purposefully hired more workers than it needed, telling the Office of the Inspector General of the Commerce Department that it did so as a “cost-saving measure,” according to a memorandum that Todd J. Zinser of the inspector general’s office sent to Census Bureau Director Robert Groves last week. 

“According to Census,” said Zinser’s May 26 memo to Groves, “‘frontloading’ its workforce (i.e. hiring and training more enumerators than necessary to offset turnover) is a cost-saving measure.” The inspector general’s memo, however, suggested that in at least one Census Bureau operation excessive staff had increased the “cost of operations” and that in another operation deployment of an unnecessarily large number of workers "increased the operation’s direct labor and travel costs." (ed. note: gee, ya think?)

It is bad enough to know of  this one specific instance, but when you multiply that by everything else going on in our government you may think you have entered the twilight zone. It is definitely a surreal time.

We are all feeling alienated from our government

There are good reasons why. Here are some links:

The House Divided (Andrew McCarthy in National Review)
How long can a people remain a People when its leaders side with its foes?

Getting Lectured on Human Rights by Mexico (Mona Charen, National Review)

Krauthammer's Take (the Corner from National Review)

The Privileged Call for Limited Dictatorships (The Anchoress, First Things Magazine)
be sure you read this one if you don't read any of the others.

The New International Order (Richard Fernandez from Belmont Club, Pajama media)
another one of the "must reads."

This Gives Me NO Confidence in Homeland Security

UPDATED
From Volokh Conspiracy:
Two Homeland Security agencies lost almost thousand computers in one year

by David Kopel
As detailed in an investigation by the Independence Institute’s Todd Shepherd. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) lost at least 985 computers in the 2008 fiscal year. ICE also lost 13 automobiles, while CBP lost 235 night vision scopes.
I guess I can understand some of the losses, night vision scopes can't be seen after you drop them in the dark, but this is ridiculous. Just kidding on the scope thing.
Update  Feb 25
Instapundit has this update:
ANOTHER UPDATE: A reader emails: “I once worked for a school district where a large number of laptops were reported stolen. It was later discovered that a good portion of these were instances of teachers viewing porn and not knowing how to remove it from the computer. Instead of facing the embarrassment of admitting it, they just reported their laptop as stolen.”

A Non-conservative Conservative

This case would be one of those referred to in the former post. (link or see below).
Mr. Hastert’s perks

"Just like families must live within their budgets, the federal government must live within its means. We have passed appropriations bills that have been fiscally responsible while recognizing our national priorities."

That was then-House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, congratulating himself and other Republican leaders in the 109th Congress for being frugal.
Such talk of smart spending was a staple of Hastert's rhetoric when he was in office. So why is he still spending taxpayers' money more than two years after leaving office?
Federal law allows a little-known perk for former speakers — a taxpayer-funded office anywhere in the country for up to five years. Taxpayers fund the rent, utilities, staff, travel expenses and other incidentals related to the office, which are intended to "facilitate the … conclusion of matters pertaining to or arising out of" the former speaker's duties in the House.
So, Mr. Former Speaker, conclude already.
The Tribune reported last week that Hastert has taken advantage of that quirky perk to the tune of more than $1 million in taxpayer money. He pays three assistant-type staffers more than $100,000 a year, rents an office for $6,300 per month and travels — staffers in tow — in an $860-per-month SUV....
....One reason Hastert's no longer speaker: People grew tired of Republican talk that wasn't matched by reality. When Republicans controlled Congress, they spent and spent and spent. They preserved Washington's gross sense of entitlement....
...Hastert, who is well into a new career as a lobbyist and business consultant, still believes he's entitled to an office and a car and three staffers, all provided by taxpayers.
He spent years telling us he was opposed to wasteful government spending. It's never too late to make good on his word.

As I said before, it is this one of things referred to by the president of the Libertarian Party in the post below.