Hey, Come On. They're Just Regular Folks.

Okay, when's the last time you enjoyed a really good muffin for $16.80 or a great cup of coffee for $8.24. Well how about a tasty Swedish meatball for $5.00? Been a while, has it? Well, our Federal Justice Department seems to be doing it fairly often. During the Bush presidency, it was happening and the Inspector General did an audit that exposed it. So when President Obama took office, there was an oath given by Deputy Atty General David Ogden that stated there would be no more such over-indulgences. But then three months later came the muffins and coffee. Oh, and 300 cookies and pieces of brownie for $2,880. What irks me is that I wasn't invited. Well, I sure hope those were "bran" muffins they served. All in all, there were 1832 conferences that cost $121 million for 2008 and 2009 that were covered in the audit. So when you hear talk about cutting expenses in government, just remember, without muffins, cookies, meatballs and coffee, how will some of these agencies operate? And imagine, how in the world would you pull off a successful conference without a successful event planner. They spent $600,000 on five events for planners. Look. If you're going to have an event and spend $16.80 for a bran muffin, you'd better get a good planner to put the whole thing together. Otherwise, you could wind up with a flop. And nobody likes a floppy muffin. Even if it will keep you regular. Well anyway, when the politicians heard about this, they were enraged. They hadn't been invited. Can you imagine the oversight? Where were the event planners in this?