{"id":57748,"date":"2024-12-23T13:55:52","date_gmt":"2024-12-23T18:55:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=57748"},"modified":"2024-12-23T13:55:52","modified_gmt":"2024-12-23T18:55:52","slug":"rand-pauls-2024-festivus-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=57748","title":{"rendered":"Rand Paul\u2019s 2024 \u2018Festivus Report\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

On December 23rd, Rand Paul released his 2024 ‘Festivus Report,’ his list of ridiculous things that the government spends American taxpayers’ money on. The Washington Examiner<\/a> posted some of the highlights.<\/p>\n

The first item listed:<\/p>\n

Ice-skating drag queens for climate change<\/h2>\n

Paul revealed that the government provided funds for a drag queen ice-skating performance warning about the dangers of climate change. The National Endowment for the Arts gave the Bearded Ladies Cabaret<\/a> in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, $10,000 for its\u00a0 \u201cBeard on Ice\u201d performance to promote climate change alarmism. The artistic director for the self-described \u201cqueer cabaret arts organization\u201d provided the following statement<\/a> regarding the performance:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s so impossible, the issue of climate change and climate anxiety right now\u2014almost as impossible as drag queens learning how to ice skate. So if we can get these drag queens to ice skate, maybe, just maybe, we can solve the climate crisis.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Incidentally, the production was forced to cancel its opening-night performance due to poor ice conditions at the outdoor ice rink in which it was held, according to reports.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Followed by:<\/p>\n

Millions of dollars on border security \u2013 for Paraguay<\/h2>\n

The \u201cFestivus Report\u201d also found that the State Department spent $2.1 million on border security\u2014for Paraguay. This is particularly troubling because it meant that the U.S. government gave millions of dollars to another country for border security while ignoring the many failures and problems along the U.S. border. Millions of dollars in taxpayer money was sent to a South American country to help ensure people were not entering it illegally\u2014while a record number of people were doing so in the U.S.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Rats, cocaine, and loneliness<\/h2>\n

Cocaine is a terrible drug and the country has devoted a significant amount of resources in trying to prevent people from using the narcotic. Yet, apparently, more work was needed on the topic.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Festivus Report identified a government study in which researchers injected rats with cocaine to analyze the impact of the drug\u2019s addiction. The Department of Health and Human Services \u201cspent $419,470 to determine if lonely rats\u201d sought cocaine at a greater frequency than happy rats. These funds were used by researchers to observe and \u201csee if rats placed in positive environments would be more likely to abstain from cocaine than rats in negative and isolating environments.\u201d Hundreds of thousands of dollars later, the results were predictable and as what one might suspect.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Using pandemic relief funds to buy an island<\/h2>\n

The report identified the misdeeds of a Florida businessman who reportedly used COVID-19 relief funds to purchase Sweetheart Island off the coast of Florida. An investigation into the purchase found that the swindler used funds obtained from pandemic assistance to \u201chelp finance the island purchase,\u201d according to reports<\/a>.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

The person who tried to buy the island fraudulently received $7.8 million in emergency pandemic aid by submitting over 30 deceitful applications. He was eventually busted, convicted for his crimes, and sentenced to over five and a half years in federal prison, and agreed to return the $7.8 million in aid he received.\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Please follow the link above to read the rest of the list.<\/p>\n

I agree with Warren Buffett’s solution to balancing the budget. He has suggested that he could end the deficit by passing “a law that says anytime there is a deficit of more than 3% of GDP, all sitting members of Congress are ineligible for re-election. I could vote for that!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On December 23rd, Rand Paul released his 2024 ‘Festivus Report,’ his list of ridiculous things that the government spends American taxpayers’ money on. The Washington Examiner posted some of the highlights. The first item listed: Ice-skating drag queens for climate … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[13276,13277,2720,1610],"class_list":["post-57748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-festivus-report","tag-senator-rand-paul","tag-the-washington-examiner","tag-wasteful-government-spending"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57748","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=57748"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57748\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57749,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57748\/revisions\/57749"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=57748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=57748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=57748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}