A lavish General Services Administration Las Vegas conference, which occurred back in 2010, continues to simmer with controversy, with yesterday’s release of a number of videos shot at the event. The above is just one of many. The event has become something of a delayed-effect black eye for the Obama administration, at odds as it clearly is with a message of fiscal restraint. While the total price tag ($820,000) is a pittance in terms of federal spending figures, it’s a staggering amount to any normal human being, and the needlessness of it is laid pretty bare. Incidentally, President Obama himself decried this sort of behaviour back in 2010, though not about the GSA — he scolded corporate retreats to Las Vegas, made by companies who had received taxpayer bailouts.