Happy Tax Day: Taxpayers Pick Up $300,000 State Department Bar Tab

Nancy Pelosi and her crew of drunks look like teetotalers next to this pack of lushes.

Months after President Obama urged federal agencies last year to cut wasteful spending, the U.S. Department of State paid $3,814 to fill an order of Jack Daniel's whiskey for gratuities at one of its many overseas embassies.

The booze buy wasn't unusual.

Last year alone, the State Department sent taxpayers tabs totaling nearly $300,000 for alcoholic beverages — about twice as much compared to the previous year, according to an analysis of spending records by The Washington Times.

The purchases, small and large, included $2,483 to pay for "assorted spirits for gratuities to vendors" at the U.S. mission to the United Nations in New York, and $9,501 in "Christmas gratuities" of whiskey and wine at the U.S. Embassy in South Korea.

Taxpayer watchdogs say while accounting for a small fraction of the State Department's overall budget, some of the liquor expenditures reflect larger concerns about stewardship of federal tax dollars at a time when many recession-weary Americans find themselves struggling to hold onto jobs and pay mortgages.

"It's indicative of the disconnect that bureaucrats have when they spend our money," said David Williams, vice president of policy at the nonpartisan Citizens Against Government Waste.

But we shouldn't complain about this or we'll be called angry extremists or something.

Maybe we should start a Long Island Iced Tea Party.

Former State Department Official and Wife Charged With Spying For Cuba

Execution would suffice. Oh, OK, that's too harsh. If found guilty, then execute them.

A former U.S. State Department official and his wife have been arrested for spying for the Cuban government for nearly 30 years, the Justice Department said on Friday.

Walter Myers, 72, and his wife Gwendolyn Myers, 71, were charged with conspiracy to act as illegal agents of the Cuban government and with communicating classified information to the Cuban government, the Justice Department said.

More here.

The indictment handed down by the attorney general's office in Washington says Walter Kendall Myers and his wife, Gwendolyn Steingraber Myers, have been clandestine agents for Cuba for 30 years.

The indictment says the pair met with Cuban President Fidel Castro in Cuba in 1995, traveling through Mexico under false names. They allegedly made several other trips to Latin America and the Caribbean to meet with Cuban agents.

Kendall Myers worked at the State Department's Foreign Service Institute, where he specialized in European matters, before retiring in 2007. The indictment says in his last year of employment, Kendall Myers viewed more than 200 intelligence reports related to Cuba.

More details.

According to this site, Myers began at State in 1977. Another fine Jimmy Carter legacy.

Update: It should come as no surprise this scumbag Myers is a Communist sympathizer.

Myers apparently sympathized with the Cuban ideology and revolution that put Castro into power. Court documents say he wrote in a personal journal in 1978: "I can see nothing of value that has been lost by the revolution. ... The revolution has released enormous potential and liberated the Cuban spirit."

He praised Castro as a "brilliant and charismatic leader" who is "one of the great political leaders of our time." And he called the United States "exploiters" who regularly murdered Cuban revolutionary leaders.

Must be a big fan of leftwing blogs who no doubt will remain silent about this story. Look for the media to bury this as quickly as possible.