Federal Fumbles Volume 5: Ways the Government Dropped the BallUS Senator James Lankford Thank you for taking the time to read through Volume 5 of Federal Fumbles. This year I want to focus on something specific: Article 1, Section 9 of the Constitution, which grants Congress the power of the purse. It is Congress's duty-my duty-to set spending caps and ultimately appropriate those dollars to fund our federal government. This is a more than $1 trillion annual task that I do not take lightly. It should be done wisely and on time. As you may recall from Volume 4 of Federal Fumbles, I have been engaged with a bipartisan working group to offer real and practical solutions to fix our budget process-one that has worked only four times since 1974. Part of reforming our budget process also involves how and when Congress actually funds the government. To that end my primary focus has been on my bipartisan solution to end government shutdowns once and for all. This solution is headed toward the end zone, and you can learn more on page 7. This volume of Federal Fumbles does not stop with our broken budget process. In fact, that is just thebeginning. In the pages ahead, you'll read some shocking information about the money different agencies spend on researching various aspects of Russian life (including their sea lions), a $445.9 million annual Fumble at our southern border, and billions of dollars wasted in so-called tax extenders. What do you think of that Tesla next to you at the stoplight? Glad you like it since you helped purchase it. You'll also learn how commonsense proposals to fund our inland ports and public lands are actuallycomplicated ploys that take massive advantage of your tax dollars-to the tune of billions of dollars eachyear. I will continue to press for other government reform solutions, including the Taxpayers Right-to-KnowAct and the Grant Reporting Efficiency and Agreements Transparency (GREAT) Act. These two bills willoffer unprecedented transparency into the way your tax dollars are actually spent. We need to maintain a spotlight on federal spending no matter what's making headlines in Washington.Regardless of the political noise of the day, we cannot forget about the $23 trillion national debt. I continue to fight against that debt each and every day, and I will continue to work through practical solutions for the sake of our country and future generations.

Federal Fumbles: 100 Ways the Government Dropped the Ball Volume 2 2016 To address America's outrageous $19 trillion federal debt, we need a growing economy and responsible spending reductions in the federal budget. Senator Lankford's "Federal Fumbles: 100 ways the government dropped the ball" report is an annual collection of specific examples of wasteful federal spending, as well as negative regulatory impact to the economy. Lankford believes he has an obligation to solve the troubles of our nation, not just complain, which is why for every problem identified there is a recommended solution. There is a way to eliminate wasteful, ineffective, or duplicative program spending; develop oversight methods to prevent future waste; and find ways to get us back on track. In his second annual "Federal Fumbles" report, U.S. Sen. James Lankford details 100 examples of what he and his staff feel are inefficient uses of federal tax dollars, or ways that Washington has "dropped the ball." Some examples of alleged waste in the report: NIH spent $2 million studying how children perceive food, and specifically whether 5-year-olds will still eat food that has been sneezed on. A $200,000 grant to study fish consumption in Tanzania, and $500,000 to help locate ancient church cemeteries in Iceland. The U.S. Embassy in Britain spent $75,000 to have British citizens travel to America to watch volunteers. The U.S. wind energy industry still received $6 billion in annual federal subsidies. Three federal agencies combined to spend almost $500,000 on a medieval smells exhibit at a museum.

The first “engrossing”(Entertainment Weekly) legal thriller in the New York Times bestselling Paul Madriani series! Defense attorney Paul Madriani was on the rise with the California law firm of Potter, Skarpellos—until a short-lived affair with Potter's wife, Talia, cost him his job. A year later, when Talia is accused of Potter’s murder Paul is thrust back into the big time—and he soon uncovers secrets that may end his career...and his life.

As President Trump’s National Security Advisor, John Bolton spent many of his 453 days in the room where it happened, and the facts speak for themselves. The result is a White House memoir that is the most comprehensive and substantial account of the Trump Administration, and one of the few to date by a top-level official. With almost daily access to the President, John Bolton has produced a precise rendering of his days in and around the Oval Office. What Bolton saw astonished him: a President for whom getting reelected was the only thing that mattered, even if it meant endangering or weakening the nation. “I am hard-pressed to identify any significant Trump decision during my tenure that wasn’t driven by reelection calculations,” he writes. In fact, he argues that the House committed impeachment malpractice by keeping its prosecution focused narrowly on Ukraine when Trump’s Ukraine-like transgressions existed across the full range of his foreign policy—and Bolton documents exactly what those were, and attempts by him and others in the Administration to raise alarms about them. He shows a President addicted to chaos, who embraced our enemies and spurned our friends, and was deeply suspicious of his own government. In Bolton’s telling, all this helped put Trump on the bizarre road to impeachment. “The differences between this presidency and previous ones I had served were stunning,” writes Bolton, who worked for Reagan, Bush 41, and Bush 43. He discovered a President who thought foreign policy is like closing a real estate deal—about personal relationships, made-for-TV showmanship, and advancing his own interests. As a result, the US lost an opportunity to confront its deepening threats, and in cases like China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea ended up in a more vulnerable place. Bolton’s account starts with his long march to the West Wing as Trump and others woo him for the National Security job. The minute he lands, he has to deal with Syria’s chemical attack on the city of Douma, and the crises after that never stop. As he writes in the opening pages, “If you don’t like turmoil, uncertainty, and risk—all the while being constantly overwhelmed with information, decisions to be made, and sheer amount of work—and enlivened by international and domestic personality and ego conflicts beyond description, try something else.” The turmoil, conflicts, and egos are all there—from the upheaval in Venezuela, to the erratic and manipulative moves of North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, to the showdowns at the G7 summits, the calculated warmongering by Iran, the crazy plan to bring the Taliban to Camp David, and the placating of an authoritarian China that ultimately exposed the world to its lethal lies. But this seasoned public servant also has a great eye for the Washington inside game, and his story is full of wit and wry humor about how he saw it played.

In 1976, a small group of soldiers at Fort Dix were infected with a swine flu virus that was deemed similar to the virus responsible for the great 1918-19 world-wide flu pandemic. The U.S. government initiated an unprecedented effort to immunize every American against the disease. While a qualified success in terms of numbers reached-more than 40 million Americans received the vaccine-the disease never reappeared. The program was marked by controversy, delay, administrative troubles, legal complications, unforeseen side effects and a progressive loss of credibility for public health authorities. In the waning days of the flu season, the incoming Secretary of what was then the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, Joseph Califano, asked Richard Neustadt and Harvey Fineberg to examine what happened and to extract lessons to help cope with similar situations in the future.

"Thanks to Connor, Lev, and Risa, and their high-profile revolt at Happy Jack Harvest Camp, people can no longer turn a blind eye to unwinding. Ridding society of troublesome teens and, in the same stroke, providing much-needed tissues for transplant might be convenient, but its morality has finally been brought into question. However, unwinding has become big business, and there are powerful political and corporate interests that want to see it not only continue, but expand, allowing the unwinding of prisoners and the impoverished. Cam is a teen who does not exist. He is made entirely out of the parts of other unwinds. Cam, a 21st century Frankenstein, struggles with a search for identity and meaning, as well as the concept of his own soul, if indeed a rewound being can have one. When a sadistic bounty hunter who takes "trophies" from the unwinds he captures starts to pursue Connor, Risa and Lev, Cam finds his fate inextricably bound with theirs"--