Obama And Campaign Fundraising - No Different Than The Rest Of The Political Class

As most Americans probably know, we are in the midst of a major political election campaign season that has and will seem like it stretches out forever. We are and will be bombarded by political messages, both via news outlets and paid political commercials. And those paid political messages will have to be paid somehow, which brings us to today's discussion.

Many of my Democrat friends like to point out that President Obama is somehow different than past Presidential candidates. That his campaign in 2008 was mostly funded by average, everyday Americans donating small amounts of money to help him get elected.

That his campaign reflected the way America should be run politically, average Americans having their voice heard above the special interests that manipulate our politicians and political processes. That the President is a man of the people, not of the lobbyists, PACs, and other moneyed interests. According to a recent Associated Press (AP) report, in 2008 President Obama had always been a big critic of "Washington's pay-for-access privileges."

Of course, we know that is more fluff than fact. Although he probably did get a lot of money from small time donations from individual Americans in 2008, campaign donation records also show that large banks like Goldman Sachs, large companies like Google and Microsoft, and a myriad of other large special interest groups donated millions and millions of dollars to his campaign in order to win favor and have a say in any Presidential decisions, policies, and strategies.

And his thirst for big time bucks and the influence it buys continues unabated as we lead up to the November, 2012 Presidential election. According to recent Associated Press reports:

• A March 28, 2012 AP article, "Obama Rolls Out White House Red Carpet for Big Donors," described how wealthy individuals that contribute to Obama election campaigns get privileged access to White House events and personnel.
• The article documented how more than 60 of Obama's biggest campaign donors have visited the White House hundreds of times for meetings with Obama top advisers, holiday parties or state dinners.
• Thirty of his biggest donors were invited to the recent state dinner for Britain's Prime Minister.
• According to the AP, "the President (has) embraced the big-money, fundraising groups he once assailed as a "threat to democracy" on grounds they corrode elections by permitting unlimited and effectively anonymous donations from billionaires and corporations. Obama was once so vocal about super PACs that, during his 2010 State of the Union speech, he accused the Supreme Court in its 2010 decision in the Citizens United case of reversing a century of law that would 'open the floodgates for special interests.'"
• Top donors to the Obama Super PAC include Chicago investment manager John W. Rogers Jr. and Hollywood director Steven Spielberg, who each gave more than $150,000.
• Spielberg has gotten White House access many times including an invitation to a Rose Garden event and a private movie showing with the First Family in the White House.
• Rogers' donations are also interesting and point out a severe conflict of interest since the AP reports: "Rogers was selected by the administration in October 2010 to head a financial advisory council, and visited the White House more than two dozen times since Obama took office, including one-on-one meetings with former chief of staff William Daley and Jarrett, Obama's senior adviser. Two weeks before Rogers' contribution in January, Obama's campaign paid his firm, Ariel Investments, $600 for "event site rental." Quid pro quo?
• Lenny Mendonca, a director of consulting firm McKinsey & Co., gave $50,000 to an Obama Super PAC and received access to top Obama advisors.
• Bill Maher has donated a million dollars to an Obama Super PAC, money that the President has not asked to be returned despite Maher's public, disgraceful and border line pornographic public comments about Republicans that contribute heavily to the sour political class divisions in this country.
• One of the richest men in the world, Warren Buffet, has hosted at least one fund raising dinner for Obama where the cost of attending was in the tens of thousands of dollars, certainly out of the financial reach of "average" Americans.
• These "dinners for access" events for the President's campaign have occurred many times in the past year with one of them costing attendees a whopping $70,000 to attend.
• In early March, First Lady Michelle Obama attended a fundraiser in North Carolina that cost $100,000 per couple to get access.The fundraising event included a dinner with the First Lady, a performance by singer James Taylor, and a photo with the First Lady, reports www.newsobserver.com.

If the typical American household has an average household income of under $60,000, how many "average" Americans do you think got invited to the recent White House state dinner?

How many "average" Americans ever got access and a briefing from top Obama's White House advisors?

How many "average" Americans were invited to the Warren Buffet's dinner for the President?

How many "average" Americans got invited to the the First Lady's fundraising event in North Carolina?

How many "average" Americans get appointed to a White House financial advisory council after making a campaign donation?

How many "average" Americans get to a Rose Garden event or share a movie with the First Family?

I think we know the answers to all of the above questions and that answer is none. This President, despite the hype and fluff, is just as bad and just as corrupted by big money as any other American politician. He has and will receive campaign money from corporations, unions, PACs, Super PACs, lobbyists, and wealthy Americans just like any other politician.

Which is why several steps from "Love my Country, Loathe My Government" are urgently needed to fix this pervasive and perverted problem of money in politics:

1. Step 6 would allow only individual Americans to contribute to election campaigns. When the Founding Fathers granted us freedom of speech, I do not believe that they had corporations, unions, PACs, and lobbyists in mind, only individual Americans. This step would restore freedom and democracy to "average" Americans and remove the overwhelming influence of organizational money form our politics.
2. Step 7 would allow individuals to contribute money only to politicians that serve them, e.g. someone in Kansas could not contribute to a New Jersey politician's campaign.
3. Step 39 would impose term limits on all Federal politicians, "one and done," to eliminate the influence peddling and buying that politicians do with wealthy campaign donors in order to continue their incumbency.

As this campaign season progresses, and the President and other candidates proclaim they are the candidate of the "average" American, remember that you probably have not been invited to the White House for being average, you have not had meetings with White House personnel for being average, and you have not been invited to a $30,000 political dinner for being average.

Until the country implements the three steps listed above, you and I are nothing but a vote to Obama and the rest of the political class, a vote that means little after the election when it comes to resolving the issues we "average" people face everyday.


We invite all readers of this blog to visit our new website, "The United States Of Purple," at:




http://www.unitedstatesofpurple.com

The United States of Purple is a new grass roots approach to filling the office of President of The United States by focusing on the restoration of freedom in the United States, focusing on problem solving skills and results vs. personal political enrichment, and imposing term limits on all future Federal politicians. No more red states, no more blue states, just one United States Of America under the banner of Purple.

The United States Of Purple's website also provides you the formal opportunity to sign a petition to begin the process of implementing a Constitutional amendment to impose fixed term limits on all Federally elected politicians. Only by turning out the existing political class can we have a chance of addressing and finally resolving the major issues of or times.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at www.loathemygovernment.com. It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.
Please visit the following sites for freedom:

http://www.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com/
http://www.flipcongress2010.com/
http://www.reason.com/
http://www.repealamendment/

California Mass Transit and Politicians' Deficient Math Skills

We have discussed the severe math deficiencies of our politicians many times in this blog:

- When the Federal government offered the state of New Jersey several billion dollars to build a new mass transit rail tunnel from New Jersey to Manhattan, the deal looked too good to be true. The construction of such a tunnel would create many short term construction jobs, long term tunnel-related jobs, and facilitate the local New York/New Jersey economy. Since the original cost of the entire construction job was only about $5 billion, with more than half of that being paid for by all American taxpayers via the Federal government, it looked like a great opportunity.

However, very shortly, that $5 billion estimate became an $8 billion estimate. That $8 billion estimate shortly became a $10 billion estimate. The current governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie, then pulled the plug on the project when his staff estimated the cost could be between $11 billion and $14 billion, with all of that expanded cost being picked up by the New Jersey taxpayer. Given that New Jersey has been hard hit by the recession, like most of the rest of the county, the Governor correctly realized that limited state funding should not be wasted on a tunnel whose cost continued to escalate, even before significant construction had begun.

Obviously, someone in the Federal political class and the government the political class operates had some pretty poor math skills if the original estimate was off by an order of magnitude between two and three times as much within five short years, going from $5 billion to over $10 billion.

- Governor Christie may have been drawing on the horrendous experiences of the Boston and Massachusetts taxpayers relative to the infamous "Big Dig" tunnel program in Boston. The objective of the Big Dig was to take down an ugly elevated highway through the center of Boston and reroute the roadway under the city via the digging of traffic tunnels.

The original cost estimate was supposed to be around $2 billion if my memory is correct. However, many years past the deadline, the final cost was well over $20 billion, for an end piece of construction that is shoddy and fatal, given the infamous event when one of the faulty ceiling panels came lose and crushed a passing motorist to death.

In this case, the political class's original math estimate was off by a factor of tenfold relative to the final cost. You wonder if the voters in Massachusetts would have tolerated a $20 billion construction burden if the politicians' math skills had been a little sharper at the start of the project?

- Two years ago, the political class, namely the Democrats and President Obama, told us that the gross cost of Obama Care in the first ten years would be $940 billion, no Americans would lose their current health care insurance from their employer if they chose not to, and the national debt would be reduced by about $130 billion in the first ten years.

Last week, we found out the the ten year gross cost is really closer to $1.76 TRILLION (about double what the estimate was just two years ago), between three and five million Americans will likely lose their current health care insurance from their employer (about three to five million more than the zero estimate from just two years ago), and that Obama Care will likely increase the national debt by over $300 billion in the first ten years (versus reducing it by about $130 billion, a missed forecast of $430 billion, about $4,000 more for every American household).

Talk about bad math skills. From $940 billion to $1.76 TRILLION in just two years. From zero to possibly five million in just two years. From a gain of $130 billion to a loss of over $300 billion in just two years. Bad political class math skills do not get any worse than this.

- A couple of years ago,  Hillsborough County and its Tampa metro area were considering putting in a light rail system to serve the area. Such a system would require additional taxation and voter approval. It was looking like it might get approved under the original estimate which said it would cost about $70 million a mile to construct the rail line. However, as the vote got closer, the original estimate was revised upwards to $85 to $120 million per mile, a 21% to 72% potential increase in cost.

Fortunately, for the Tampa area voters, unlike the Boston and Massachusetts voters, this bad political class estimation process was brought forth before the vote, which was defeated in light of the more realistic math estimates.

Which brings us to the latest example of politicians' bad math skills, which in this case, is combined with pure stubbornness. A short article in the latest edition of Reason magazine, lays out the problems that the California High Speed Rail Authority is having, of which bad math is a major part:

• California is rushing to start building in-state high speed rail route in order to qualify for Federal funding to support the construction.
• In January, 2012, its CEO resigned.
• Then the Chairman of the Board resigned.
• The local newspapers are calling the project the "train to nowhere."
• The California state government auditor and the Authority's own inspector general have concluded that the project has unrealistic cost estimates (sound familiar?), has a lack of oversight, and inadequate research on eventual ridership, i.e. they really do not know how many people would actually ride this train to nowhere.
• All of the analyses from the state and the Authority recommended that the project not go forward until it was substantially revised.
• What has already been substantially revised is the original cost estimate of $40 billion, which is now obsolete with current cost estimates ranging between $98 billion and $118 billion (i.e. off by a factor of up to three times as much).
• A recent opinion poll showed that 64% of Californians would vote against the project now, probably given it out of control costs, 11 percentage point higher than the number of citizens that voted for the project just four years ago.

But this is where bad math and stubbornness get really dangerous. Governor Jerry Brown wants to forge ahead with a project that is behind schedule, poorly managed, without veteran leadership, and most importantly, has a set of underlying math that is slippery at best, deceitful at worst.

An interesting, philosophical question that should be answered is: "Are the math skills of the political class and those in government really that bad that they can be off a factor of two, three, or ten in their original estimates vs. the final costs or is there some deliberate deceit going on in their dealing with us, the American taxpayer?"

If they are really that bad in math, they should not be in office. The inability to develop credible and realistic estimates of any government project should be a prerequisite for being in office. Otherwise, the taxpayer gets screwed for actually believing in politicians' math skills, we never get the value for the money that was promised, and we end up with over $15 TRILLION worth of national debt.

If the answer to the philosophical question is that they are good at math but intentionally lie to get their ways and get their favorite projects approved, than they should not be in office either. Lying to one's constituents should not be a prerequisite or a characteristic of holding elected office. It is destructive to taxpayer wealth and weakens the foundations of our democracy when the leadership of our government becomes a lying sham.

Three steps form "Love my Country, Loathe My Government," would help address this bad math syndrome, whatever the underlying causes are (i.e. they are actually bad at math or they lie):

• Step 34 would hold members of Congressional committees accountable for their math estimates and performance, removing them from their committee posts for bad math skills. For example, any Congressional member who sat on the committees and subcommittees that developed and approved the Obama Care numbers would be removed from those committee posts for incompetence. You cannot say you are doing your job when your math estimates are so wrong so soon after you espoused them.
• Step 38 would require all elected officials to sign a shared values oath every year of which integrity was a primary part of that oath. At least if they have to think of the word "integrity" every year they might finally have some in their math skills and estimates.
• Step 39 would impose term limits on all politicians so that the focus is only on finally getting good, high potential problem solvers in office that will develop some long term strategies with solid math underpinnings rather than short term vanity projects with no math underpinnings.

Without these steps, the bad political math and the heavy waste of taxpayer wealth will continue. Its as simple as 1-2-3.




We invite all readers of this blog to visit our new website, "The United States Of Purple," at:

http://www.unitedstatesofpurple.com/

The United States of Purple is a new grass roots approach to filling the office of President of The United States by focusing on the restoration of freedom in the United States, focusing on problem solving skills and results vs. personal political enrichment, and imposing term limits on all future Federal politicians. No more red states, no more blue states, just one United States Of America under the banner of Purple.

The United States Of Purple's website also provides you the formal opportunity to sign a petition to begin the process of implementing a Constitutional amendment to impose fixed term limits on all Federally elected politicians. Only by turning out the existing political class can we have a chance of addressing and finally resolving the major issues of or times.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at www.loathemygovernment.com. It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

http://www.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com/
http://www.flipcongress2010.com/
http://www.reason.com/
http://www.repealamendment/

What Is An American?

It has been very depressing times for ordinary Americans over the past few years. High and stubborn unemployment levels, incompetent and self serving politicians, a bloated and ineffective government bureaucracy, national problems that go unresolved for decades (lost war on drugs, failing public schools, the continued lack of a national energy strategy, escalating health care costs, just to name a few), a national debt that might crash our economy and our democracy, overwhelming tax burdens for underwhelming government services, and the steady deterioration in our freedoms and liberty. 

We are saddled with a set of politicians that divide us whenever possible only to further their political aims and gains. We are saddled with a set of politicians that have hijacked our election processes so that the voice of ordinary Americans is drowned out and washed away by big money from unions, corporations, lobbyists, and PACs.  We are saddled with a set of politicians that view our current laws, government processes, and the Constitution as merely a set of suggestions that can be followed or ignored at their whimsy.

However, I still maintain, as I did in "Love My Country, Loathe My Government," that America is still the best country on earth with the best citizens, the best history of democracy, and the greatest guidelines for government every written, as laid out in the Constitution and the Bill Of Rights. Unfortunately, America cannot attain its optimal state of prosperity and liberty since it is currently served by an inferior political class that believe they are more important than these concepts of America.

This situation was graphically and effectively laid out in one of our most popular blog posts of all time from November 18, 2010, "The Freedom Pyramid: Where it Should Be Vs. Where It Is Today" (http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2010/11/american-freedom-pyramid-where-it.html). Although these graphics laid out the deterioration of our democracy vs. what our democracy should look like, I thought some words that I came across recently might do a better job of picking up our spirits today in the face of the the major problems we face. 

Please read the following observations from an Australian dentist. Hopefully these words will renew your faith that we can get through our problems together, with or without the help of our current set of politicians:

Written by an Australian Dentist

To Kill an American

You probably missed this in the rush of news, but there was actually a report that someone in Pakistan had published in a newspaper, an offer of a reward to anyone who killed an American, any American.

So an Australian dentist wrote an editorial the following day to let everyone know what an American is. So they would know when they found one. (Good one, mate!!!!)

An American is English, or French, or Italian, Irish, German, Spanish, Polish, Russian or Greek. An American may also be Canadian, Mexican, African, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Australian, Iranian, Asian, or Arab, or Pakistani or Afghan.

An American may also be a Comanche, Cherokee, Osage, Blackfoot, Navaho, Apache, Seminole or one of the many other tribes known as native Americans.

An American is Christian, or he could be Jewish, or Buddhist, or Muslim. In fact, there are more Muslims in America than in Afghanistan. The only difference is that in America they are free to worship as each of them chooses.

An American is also free to believe in no religion. For that he will answer only to God, not to the government, or to armed thugs claiming to speak for the government and for God.

An American lives in the most prosperous land in the history of the world.

The root of that prosperity can be found in the Declaration of Independence, which recognizes the God given right of each person to the pursuit of happiness.

An American is generous. Americans have helped out just about every other nation in the world in their time of need, never asking a thing in return.

When Afghanistan was over-run by the Soviet army 20 years ago, Americans came with arms and supplies to enable the people to win back their country!

As of the morning of September 11, Americans had given more than any other nation to the poor in Afghanistan ...

The national symbol of America, The Statue of Liberty, welcomes your tired and your poor, the wretched refuse of your teeming shores, the homeless, tempest tossed. These in fact are the people who built America.

Some of them were working in the Twin Towers the morning of September 1, 2001 earning a better life for their families. It's been told that the World Trade Center victims were from at least 30 different countries, cultures, and first languages, including those that aided and abetted the terrorists.

So you can try to kill an American if you must. Hitler did. So did General Tojo, and Stalin, and Mao Tse-Tung, and other blood-thirsty tyrants in the world. But, in doing so you would just be killing yourself. Because Americans are not a particular people from a particular place. They are the embodiment of the human spirit of freedom. Everyone who holds to that spirit, everywhere, is an American.

Great words and an inspiring tribute to America and Americans. Notice in the words above, there is no mention of politicians, Democrats, Republicans, government agencies, government bureaucracies, and government organizations. There is no mention because they are not what makes America great. They are supposed to support the concept and virtue of America but they have all done a very poor job of that over the past few decades.

In fact, these entities have done their darnest, especially the political class, to undermine the very concepts that make this country the best hope of humanity. Rather than lead and unite, our politicians divide and conquer.

Rather than support the concept of diversity and freedom of speech, our politicians demean and slander those with a different viewpoint of the world. American citizens have recently been labeled racists, un-American, Neanderthals, barbarians, terrorists, gerbils, Nazis, a__h___s, sluts, and Klan members by current politicians, simply for having a different viewpoint. That is not leadership, that is destructive and subhuman behavior.

So, heed the words from Australia. We are still a great people with a great country, and a great heritage of freedom... that are being poorly served by the politicians that are currently in charge. Rather than feel sorry for ourselves, may I suggest that each of us undertake the following steps in our lives to live up to the high expectations in Australia, around the world, and here in the United States:

1) Respect different opinions of others in our nation. Respect the diversity of experience, expertise, and viewpoints that they can bring to a problem's solution. No one has all of the answers to the great issues of our times. No one knows where an answer might come from. By disrespecting and shutting out the opinions and viewpoints of others, we dramatically reduce our chances of resolving an issue.

2) Be passionate about your viewpoints, not emotional.A passionate person will usually promote their positions and the reasons for their positions in a positive, coherent, and logical manner. An emotional person will usually negatively and loudly promote their positions not by stressing their views but by denigrating both the other person and the other person's contrary views.

Yelling at each other in a highly emotional state will never bring us together to solve the problems of our times. All that does is play into the selfish aims of the politicians, as they use our emotional outbursts against each other to "energize their base," not solve our problems.

3) Please join us to impose term limits on all Federal politicians, as proposed by Step 39 in "Love My Country, Loathe My Government." That effort has already started with an online petition effort at the following website page:

http://www.unitedstatesofpurple.com/united_states_of_purple_015.htm

4) Dante once said: "The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in times of great moral crises maintain their neutrality." If you see another American being attacked for simply having an opinion, even if you disagree with their opinion, I believe it is your duty as an American to defend that person's right to have a contrary opinion.

It is a fundamental right of our democracy and if we allow personal attacks on other Americans for simply having an opinion, at some point in time those attacks will surely come around and be aimed at us. For example, even if you are a Democrat and a Democratic politician calls a Republican an a__h___, a slut, a Neanderthal, or other slur, it is your responsibility as an American to call that Democratic politician to task for the attack.

5) Finally, we ask that you consider helping to fix our broken political processes that we have allowed our political class to control and abuse. Many of these fixes were laid out in "Love My Country, Loathe My Government," and include such fixes as term limits, election campaign money restrictions, stopping the gerrymandering of Congressional districts, higher moral standards for elected officials, the strengthening of election campaign laws and enforcement, etc. By not getting involved in these fixes, we end up abdicating our citizen responbilities and the associated democracy and liberty that comes with these responsibilities.

What is an American? An American is generally a great person, a compassionate person, living in a great country with a great heritage of freedom that is so poorly served by its politicians and those that live off of those politicians. We can be great again but it requires us all to be more respectful, kinder, hard working and great listeners while being ever suspicious of anything a politician tells us, especially when that politician's message is one of hate and fear against those Americans with a different opinion.



We invite all readers of this blog to visit our new website, "The United States Of Purple," at:

http://www.unitedstatesofpurple.com/

The United States of Purple is a new grass roots approach to filling the office of President of The United States by focusing on the restoration of freedom in the United States, focusing on problem solving skills and results vs. personal political enrichment, and imposing term limits on all future Federal politicians. No more red states, no more blue states, just one United States Of America under the banner of Purple.

The United States Of Purple's website also provides you the formal opportunity to sign a petition to begin the process of implementing a Constitutional amendment to impose fixed term limits on all Federally elected politicians. Only by turning out the existing political class can we have a chance of addressing and finally resolving the major issues of or times.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at www.loathemygovernment.com. It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.
Please visit the following sites for freedom

http://www.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com/
http://www.flipcongress2010.com/
http://www.reason.com/
http://www.repealamendment/
 

Thud, Another Obama Care Program Crashes To Earth

It does get tiring reporting on the constant failures of Obama Care, a piece of legislation that is turning out to be one of the worst laws ever passed by the political class in Washington. On the heels of the two year anniversary of the passage of the legislation, we know for fact the following atrocities that have occurred as a result of this law:

1. The original, ten year gross cost of the legislation, as estimated by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), was pegged at around $940 billion. The two year update review estimate of the cost has been revised upwards almost 100%, with the latest ten year view of costs coming in at just over $1.76 TRILLION.
2. The CBO has stated that this cost will likely go higher when it reviews its estimates again since that annual estimate will contain ten years of costs/expenses and ten years of government revenue/taxes. The original estimate was intentionally deceptive since it included only six years of costs/expenses and ten years worth of government revenue/taxes.
3. Rather than reduce the Federal deficit by $130 billion or so in the first ten years like President Obama promised, Obama Care, according to a credible and detailed analysis done by the head actuary of Medicare and Medicaid, estimates that the national debt will increase by over $300 billion in the first ten years as a result of the passage of Obama Care.
4. President Obama also promised that those Americans who liked their current health care insurance coverage from their employers could keep it. The latest CBO report now estimates that this promise is also starting to collapse. It estimates that possibly 4 million Americans will lose their existing coverage, even if they like it. Other credible sources estimate that tens of millions of Americans could lose their employer provided health care coverage, given how poorly this legislation was written.
5. Obama Care is suppressing economic growth since it is well documented that many businesses are holding off hiring new workers until they figure out what the financial implications of expanding their employee base is under the law. Others are intentionally keeping the number of employees under 50 or are turning some permanent employees into temporary employees in order to stay under 50 permanent employees to avoid the steep penalties laid out by Obama Care. All of these actions suppress hiring, reduce economic growth, and help keep unemployment high.
6. We have documented the many ways in which Obama Care will significantly impact and control personal life decisions of Americans when it comes to marriage, retirement, health care coverage, and job selection. These impacts and controls on our life decisions are not consistent with living in a democracy.
7. Obama Care has or will intrude in two major facets of many lives when it forces all Americans to purchase health care insurance (turning ordinary Americans into criminals if they do not purchase) and when it imposes secular requirements on religious tenets and beliefs, truly not the characteristic of an enlightened government and political class within a democracy.
8. We also know that Obama Care was written so poorly  that some Americans that could easily afford to pay for their own health care insurance will get free, taxpayer-subsidized financial support since the law screwed up how it classifies certain types of income.
9. The CLASS component of the law was 1) supposed to provide reasonable and quality long term care support for older Americans and 2) offset the cost of Obama Care by upwards of $85 billion in the first ten years. The legislation was written so poorly that the CLASS market offerings were deemed to be more expensive and less beneficial than existing private market long term care plans. As a result, within two years of touting its profitability potential, the Obama administration has shut down the program, theoretically wiping out a lot of its supposed positive financial impacts.
10. The legislation was written so poorly that in less than the first two years of its existence, the Federal government had to grant over 1,500 waivers to companies, unions, and other organizations, exempting them from the early impacts of the law. Thus, on average, three waivers were granted every business day since the law was enacted. You cannot claim you enacted effective legislation when you exempt three American organizations EVERY DAY from complying with the legislation.
11. It is also obvious that this legislation will not work because it did not understand the root causes of our escalating health care costs. Americans eat too much (leading to obesity and heart related diseases), Americans eat too much of the wrong kind of food, Americans do not exercise enough, Americans smoke too much, and Americans on average are getting older (leading to more age-related diseases). These are public health related root causes that Obama Care barely addresses while trying to solve the overall problem, and its root causes, with ineffective  taxation/government bureaucracy/criminal actions.

And the latest thud from Obama Care, a thud that will get us to a "dirty dozen" of reasons why this is the worst legislation ever imposed on Americans, turns out to be the "Early Retirement Reinsurance Program (EERP)." EERP was a short term Federal program to help employers pay for health insurance for early retirees age 55 and older until they’re eligible for Medicare. It was designed to be a bridge until Obama Care's health insurance exchanges begin operating in 2014. It was budgeted for $5 billion and was put in place in mid-2010.

I use the past tense to describe the program since by the end of 2011, a mere 18 months or so after it began and at least 24 months before it was supposed to end, the program ran out of money. By mid-December, 2011, 95% of the money had been paid out to unions, companies, non-profits, and other government entities, and the Federal government had to stop taking claims as of December 31, 2011.

Some observations:

• The United Workers Union received the largest payout from the $5 billion fund, $387 million, according to a Bloomberg article. Could this be a further bailout of the auto industry, another political favor from the Obama administration to union voters?
• Two of America's largest and more profitable companies, AT&T and Verizon, both received over a quarter of a billion dollars from the fund. Is this the best use of tax payer money or just another corporate welfare benefit at the expense of the American taxpayer?
• If you read a recent government document that describes why the program is being shut down, it shows that almost half of the $5 billion went to state and local governments. Shouldn't those government entities tax their own constituents to cover their misspending and not get bailed out by all taxpayers?
• What happens to the smaller companies and unions that were counting on this program as promised by the political class and probably did not have the resources and lobbyists to get their share of the $5 billion? I would bet many of them made personnel decisions based on the promises of Obama Care and this support program. Now, given the incompetence of the writers of the Obama Care, companies, and more importantly, their early retirees, are out of luck and maybe out of health insurance coverage.

As with the other components of Obama Care, this ill fated program did not address and resolve the root causes of high health care costs. It just redistributed wealth within the country to pay certain parties for a rising expense. It did not fundamentally reduce the root causes of escalating costs in the industry, keeping it consistent with every other component of this law.

This is just another example of how poorly Obama Care was conceived and written, how pathetic its time and cost estimates are, and how out of touch with reality those in Washington are. This is a support program that falls flat on its face less than half way through its expected life. A support program that will leave plenty of Americans without health care insurance that was promised. A support program that may have been a union vote generator for the political class. A support program that was just another form of corporate welfare. A support program that subsidizes poor fiscal management by certain government organizations.

Just another Obama Care program that does nothing to address the real causes of our health care problems. It just swooshes around, via taxes and bureaucracy, the current health care expenditures in this country without fundamentally reducing those expenditures. Pathetic problem solving skills and remedies.

Time to start over with a real problem solving approach as laid out in Step 28 of "Love My Country, Loathe My Government." Root causes will continue to be out of control, now and if and when Obama Care is implemented. You cannot solve lung cancer by taking more aspirin, you have to address the underlying root causes. You cannot solve our health care problems without addressing the underlying public health and aging issues facing the country.

Thud.


We invite all readers of this blog to visit our new website, "The United States Of Purple," at:

http://www.unitedstatesofpurple.com/

The United States of Purple is a new grass roots approach to filling the office of President of The United States by focusing on the restoration of freedom in the United States, focusing on problem solving skills and results vs. personal political enrichment, and imposing term limits on all future Federal politicians. No more red states, no more blue states, just one United States Of America under the banner of Purple.

The United States Of Purple's website also provides you the formal opportunity to sign a petition to begin the process of implementing a Constitutional amendment to impose fixed term limits on all Federally elected politicians. Only by turning out the existing political class can we have a chance of addressing and finally resolving the major issues of or times.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at www.loathemygovernment.com. It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

http://www.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com/
http://www.flipcongress2010.com/
http://www.reason.com/
http://www.repealamendment/

DOPES: Democrats Offering Preposterous, Empty Statements, In Their Own Words

Our friend Nancy Pelosi was at it again this past week, with public comments that make you shake your head at their stupidity. This week Ms. Pelosi tried to convince the world that Obama Care was consistent with our  Founding Fathers' dream of creating a nation where "the life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" was a central tenet of our democracy (details and her actual statements can be found at http://www.theblaze.com/stories/pelosi-defends-obamacare-using-declaration-of-independence/).

Disregarding the massive and evolving economic fallacies and failures of Obama Care, this position seems to also fail on every dimension of our Founding Fathers' intentions:

• Life - Obama Care will set up an independent, unaccountable panel of currently unnamed bureaucrats that will determine what treatments Medicare will and will not fund for senior citizens. The potential for these 15 people to focus only on costs and not life could very easily result in the so-called "death panel" mentality that many of us worried about in the past. Thus, surrendering your ability to choose what treatments you want and may need later in life, just to hit an overall Medicare cost target, is potentially dangerous to your life.
• Liberty - forcing any American to purchase a product or service, like Obama Care does in its requirement that every American purchase health care insurance, is not consistent with the Founding Fathers' concept of liberty. Forcing any American or American organization to forego their religious freedom and freedom of speech, like Obama Care does to Catholic religious organizations with regard to birth control, is not consistent with our Declaration of Independence and Constitution. Whenever the words government and force are used in the same sentence, freedom usually suffers.
• Pursuit Of Happiness - Obama Care is written so poorly that it could have serious financial implications on Americans' decisions when it comes to marriage, retirement, health care availability, and other life changing situations. The "pursuit of happiness" in this country should not be driven by a massive government bureaucracy's rules and regulations.

But such preposterous, empty statements should not be unexpected from Ms. Pelosi. Recall during the Obama Care debate how she boldly explained how "we need to pass the bill [Obama Care] so you find out what is in it." (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoE1R-xH5To). This is the Speaker of The House, one of the most powerful and influential people in the country, telling the American public that the legislation has to be enacted BEFORE we know what is in it.

This statement left me with the impression that not only should the bill be passed so that Americans could see what is in it but it needed to be passed so that those in Congress could actually see what was in a 2,500 page piece of legislative monstrosity. Very scary stuff that our elected representatives need to pass legislation before they can explain it to their constituents.

But scary statements from our political class are not confined to Ms. Pelosi. Numerous times over the past few years, Democratic politicians have gone on record with some of the most preposterous, empty, inane, and just plain stupid statements and positions imaginable. It makes you wonder how did out political processes get so broken that we ended up with the current set of Washington politicians and their less than stellar views and abilities.

Staying with Obama Care, consider the words of Congressman John Conyers explaining why he did not bother reading the legislation before he voted on it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACbwND52rrw

His arrogance, and ignorance, is quite unbelievable. What else do members of Congress do in Washington except to research, write, READ, and vote on legislation? One would have hoped that READING any legislation BEFORE voting on that legislation would be a basic requirement of the job. Given how poorly Obama Care is turning out, this condescending attitude of Conyers and probably many other members of congress is not surprising, as is the many failures of the Obama Care legislation that they did not read.

If you think it is unbelievable that a long term Congressman finds it below himself to read a major piece of legislation that will impact most Americans, consider the lack of understanding that Congressman Hank Johnson has on geology. The following video is real, it was not a joke or a mock up fake.

The Congressman, speaking at a Congressional hearing concerning the U.S. Navy's presence on the island of Guam, actually worries that the island of Guam could tip over if too many more Navy resources are stationed on it. Yes, that is a correct statement, you cannot make this stuff up, as the Congressman explains his concern of the island tipping over in the middle of the Pacific Ocean:

http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=congressman+htnks+guam+could+tip+over&view=detail&mid=C7FF551F39BE3D728B81C7FF551F39BE3D728B81&first=0&qpvt=congressman+htnks+guam+could+tip+over


 If you look at the expression on the admiral's face, you can see that he is trying to figure out if the Congressman's concerns are real or this is a Candid Camera-like stunt. The sad part of this affair, is that it is my understanding that this Congressman actually got reelected even though he obviously is very out of touch with reality and the basic tenets of geology. Again, you cannot make this stuff up when it comes to dopey political class statements.

Sometimes the timing of politicians' statements make them look dopey. Case in point: in late February, 2012 President Obama gave a speech where he talked glowingly about sitting in a Chevy Volt, GM's highly touted electric car:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOoUwJV8WY8

Seems he really likes the car, if only to help justify wasting tens of billions of dollars of taxpayer money to bail out GM.

The bad part for the President is that within days after he made these complimentary comments about the Volt, GM decided to shut down production of the car, likely due to fire problems and the fact that most other people in America had decided against buying the car, it is a dud. Sort of makes the President look out of touch with reality. One would have thought his press and PR people would have been sure that the Volt was going to continue to be made BEFORE the President went on about how great the car is three days or so before production was halted.

This would have been the equivalent of President Eisenhower extolling the virtues of Ford's Edsel just days before Ford cancelled its production. The word "Edsel" has gone on to become synonymous with failure, a potential fate of the Volt and what turned out to be a dopey Presidential statement.

Moving on, let's talk about the failed attempt to pass a massive cap and trade energy bill a few years ago that would have been a disaster for the American economy and consumer without solving either the global warming or energy problems. The chairman of the committee writing the bill at the time was Congressman Henry Waxman. Waxman was one of the main sponsors and primary writers of the legislation.

However, much like John Conyers admitting that he had not read the Obama Care legislation, in the following clip we find out that Waxman had not read his OWN piece of legislation when he seems stunned that something was in the proposed law that he did not know about, requiring him to turn to his legal advisor for clarification:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3zIoiJc3Xc

Again, one would think that a veteran Congressman like Waxman would know what is actually in a piece of legislation he supposedly wrote. Unbelievable, what do these people do with their time and our money while in office if they do not write or read their proposed new laws?

Let's talk about my home state of new Jersey. There had been Federal plans to built a new rail tunnel between New Jersey and Manhattan to help make it easier for commuters and visitors to get into New York City from New Jersey and would theoretically produce a lot of construction and permanent jobs for the state.


However, despite getting a lot of Federal funding for the project, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie killed the project, citing escalating construction costs that would have been the responsibility of the state's taxpayers. According to an Associated Press article at the time, the project's cost started at $5 billion in 2005 and grew to $8.7 billion by 2008.


By 2010, Federal Transit Administrator Peter Rogoff has made public statements that put the price tag between $9 billion and $10 billion. Christie said his advisers put the costs at $11 billion to $14 billion. Thus, within five years, the projected cost had grown between two and three times what the original cost estimate had been, BEFORE substantial work had even begun. This process is reminiscent of Boston's "Big Dig" transportation project where the initial cost had been a mere $2 billion or so but the final cost had been well over $20 billion.

U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J. viewed Christie’s cancellation of the project as “one of the biggest policy blunders in New Jersey’s history.”  Lautenberg had helped secure federal funding for the project. However, according to the AP report, his dopey statement followed when "Lautenberg acknowledged that cost overruns on a project of the tunnel’s size were inevitable, but said Christie’s numbers are inflated."


Think about how stupid that view is: cost overruns are inevitable. Why, then, should a taxpayer trust any politicians' estimate of a major program when the chance of taxpayers paying more for what they sign up for is "inevitable?" Even if you believe this, why would a politician openly state that we cannot believe what they tell us a project or program will intially cost?


When it comes to joe Biden we could probably devote several days of posts to his dopey statements. My favorite is when he talks about leadership and how FDR was a leader when he went on television to explain why the stock market crashed in 1929:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Jf17Yo7hBM


Two problems here from this leader. First, FDR was not President of the United States when the stock market crashed in 1929. Second, television did not exist in 1929, no one in the country owned a TV, they all owned radios. Makes you feel kind of uneasy that the second in line to lead this country is so ignorant when it comes to our country's history.

Again, we could go on and on about dopey statements form the Vice president. Many of these include dropping the f-bomb in public, certainly not a very mature or leadership-like trait to have. If you access the above YouTube link to see his FDR/television comment, you should be able to access other inane comments from the Vice President.

However, the queen of all dopey statements from the political class has to be Nancy Pelosi. Consider:

1) According to Ms. Pelosi's understanding of basic economic theory, the more people that are unemployed in this country and the more people that collect unemployment benefits, the more jobs will be created. Thus, in her world, if everyone was unemployed, more and more jobs would be created. But everyone would be unemployed so who would fill the newly created jobs? Dopey economic reasoning certainly not of this world.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdAj8zui6ss&feature=related

2) The former Speaker also believes that food stamps are a better economic stimulus than tax cuts. Thus, why not give everyone food stamps, not just the unemployed, doesn't it seem to reason that the economy would be so much better off?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omxQuDtF1ZM&feature=related


3) Ms. Pelosi was so funny when she said that she would not allow any extraneous or nonessential programs to be loaded onto the economic stimulus legislation. Either she was not able to attain that objective or she considers funding research of insects on an island off the coast of Africa as essential for job creation, she considers replacing windows in a closed and extinct visitor's center at Mt. Saint Helen's essential for job creation, she considers the replacing of windows in a Wyoming Catholic church as essential for job creation (I never knew window replacement could be such a great economic stimulus), and she considers replacing a heating system in an Indiana Methodist church as essential for job creation, etc. You get the message. It was a ludicrous statement to make, given the hundreds of billions of dollars of waste that unfolded from the stimulus program:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwMHH2ONtbw&feature=related


4) In Ms. Pelosi's world, the counting system is entirely different, if you believe her numbers. In the following YouTube clip, the frantic Speaker boldly states that every week, 500 million more Americans lose their jobs. In our world, there are only about 310 million total Americans in the country, including kids and infants, making it impossible for 500 million Americans to lose their jobs in one week, never mind many weeks. However, in her world, the counting process must be different in order to count 500 million job losses a week.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UR5M5teyQ0


If people like these Democrats did not have such wide control over our lives, our freedoms and our wealth, they would be prime material for a Comedy Central sitcom show. Unfortunately, they have way too much control. Maybe that is why the country is in such sad shape.


When our so-called leaders from the Democratic Party do not know how to count, they do not know basic facts about our nation's history, the f-bomb is a normal part of their everyday vocabulary, they do not read the laws the enact, they endorse products that the rest of the country knows are modern day Edsels, they have bizarre and inaccurate understandings of basic economics and basic geology, and most importantly, do not even realize how dopey their statements are, it should not surprise us that the economy is in shatters, the country is divided, and major problems go unresolved for decades.


In light of these statements from Democrats in Washington, the case for Step 39 from "Love My Country, Loathe My Government" has never stronger.  Step 39 would impose strict term limits on any politician running for national office. Allowing these long term politicians to stay in office (Biden, Pelosi, Conyers, Waxman, etc.) results in not only these dopey statements but their dopey non-solutions to our problems. How much dopier could it be if we required term limits on all Washington politicians? (please visit the following site to actually sign a petition in favor of term limits for all Federal politicians: http://www.unitedstatesofpurple.com/united_states_of_purple_015.htm)


Note: I would be happy to do a ROPES post in the future where it covered Republicans Offering Preposterous, Empty Statements if enough episodes of Republican dopiness are identified. However, dopey statements from people such as Sarah Palin, George W. Bush, and Dick Cheney would not be included since these people have no impact on our lives anymore, unlike Pelosi, Obama, Conyers, Johnson, Waxman, and Biden.

We invite all readers of this blog to visit our new website, "The United States Of Purple," at:

http://www.unitedstatesofpurple.com/

The United States of Purple is a new grass roots approach to filling the office of President of The United States by focusing on the restoration of freedom in the United States, focusing on problem solving skills and results vs. personal political enrichment, and imposing term limits on all future Federal politicians. No more red states, no more blue states, just one United States Of America under the banner of Purple.

The United States Of Purple's website also provides you the formal opportunity to sign a petition to begin the process of implementing a Constitutional amendment to impose fixed term limits on all Federally elected politicians. Only by turning out the existing political class can we have a chance of addressing and finally resolving the major issues of or times.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at www.loathemygovernment.com. It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.
Please visit the following sites for freedom:

http://www.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com/
http://www.flipcongress2010.com/
http://www.reason.com/
http://www.repealamendment/

In Case You Were Starting To Feel Good About The Economy...More Bad News

Earlier this week we discussed how the economy was still in very bad shape even though there had been a smattering of good economic news recently (http://www.loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2012/03/in-case-you-were-feeling-good-about.html). Unfortunately, it appears that we did not cover all of the bad news, trends, and economic scenarios that are going on right now:


1) Federal reserve Board Charmian Ben Bernanke spoke recently at George Washington University. Highlights/low lights of his perspectives include the following:

• According to Bernanke, there is still not enough spending and investment to sustain the economic recovery.
• He said consumer demand still remains weak relative to its level before the Great Recession.
• He also noted that major contributors to economic growth, borrowing and trade, have declined.
• He feels that consumer spending, the major driver in our economy, has not recovered and is still very weak relative to where it was before the Great Recession. As a result,  "We lack a source of demand to keep the economy growing."
• In his view, household income growth is barely keeping up with inflation and that trend is being aggravated by high gas prices.
• And finally, he owned up to the fact that the Fed was a major enabler of the Great Recession, stating he believes the central bank made mistakes in supervision and regulation that did play a role in banks making unsound mortgage loans.

Oh boy. Bad news on the horizon from what is supposed to be the head of the biggest and most powerful government organization the world, the Fed. Demand is weak, trade is down, spending is down, income growth anemic. This from the person with the most power to make the economy strong but who just admitted the Fed was a contributor to the situation we are in today. Nice job, Mr.Chairman.

2) Yesterday, the government announced that just under 350,000 Americans filed for unemployment benefits last WEEK, a typical volume over the past six months or so. Since the economy has averaged only about 245,000 jobs created per MONTH over the past few months, the math for an economic recovery is still looking bad.

3) According to David Rosenberg, an economist at Gluskin Sheff, this post recession recovery is the weakest recovery ever. Among his other conclusions:

• The current recovery is being driven by warm weather, not by fundamental improvements taking place in the economy.
• In his view, deficit spending and the Fed's loose monetary policies have propped up the economy, which is much weaker than otherwise improving economic indicators would suggest: "We've got four years of trillion-dollar-plus deficits, we have a Fed balance sheet that's tripled in size, zero policy rates for three years. Of course you're going to get some growth."
• As with other analysts, he believes it is an artificial or illusion of economic growth, not real, sustainable economic growth.
• His analysis shows that a lot of the recent favorable economic statistics are due solely to the good weather enjoyed across the country this winter since construction jobs started up sooner rather than later and consumer spending on heating fuel was less than average, which provided more disposable income for other economic activity.

4) Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago President Charles Evans recently told Bloomberg News that the Fed "needs to further ease monetary policy to fuel the U.S. economic expansion." In other words, keeping interest rates at record lows for years and adding about a TRILLION dollars into the banking system via two previous "quantitative easing" programs, (i.e. also known as printing money) did not work. This would seem to indicate that the Fed really has no clue on how to get the economy moving again, not very reassuring.

5) Famed international investor Jim Rogers warns that investors should enjoy 2012, as economic stimulus measures and illusions will prop up markets for this election year. However, he believes that world economies will tank in 2013 and in 2014 when they can no longer grow on ultra-loose monetary policies and government borrowing and government debt burdens will weigh heavily on economic growth.

6) The February 27, 2012 issue of Business Week magazine had a depressing article regarding student loans. Apparently recent college graduate are coming into the workforce, assuming they can find a job, with very high student loan balances, averaging about $25,000.

This debt load makes it difficult for them to attain a home mortgage which in turn depresses the already depressed real estate market which depresses the already depressed economy. According to the article, a Federal Reserve Board study found that only about 9% of 29-34 year olds obtained a home mortgage from 2009 to 2011. This compares to 17% who had obtained a mortgage by this age ten years earlier.

Also depressing, the article reports that 25 to 34 year olds made up 27% of all home buyers in 2011, the lowest share in the past ten years. This 27% is six percentage points less than the same measure in 2001, according to the National Association of Realtors.

Without a higher influx of first time, younger buyers into the home ownership market, those families that currently own a home but want to move into a bigger home cannot since they are having a harder time selling their smaller, current home which normally would have been easier to sell to younger workers. A vicious cycle that will not go away until the current crop of college graduates significantly work down their student loan debt in order to qualify for a mortgage. Since this cycle will not be broken soon, help for the housing market will not be immediate.

7) The average price for a gallon of gas this past week was still very high $3.88, double what it was at the start of the Obama administration.

Not a pretty picture, esepcially when you combine this new bad news with the old bad news from our post earlier this week. Our economic hole is even deeper than we thought just a few days ago. However, the recommendations on how to fix this mess are still the same:

1. This November, vote out all incumbents. They are only as good as their lousy fiscal and economic record and it is time to start anew with fresh people in Washington. New faces could at least give us a hope of true economic change, a reality we will not get with the incumbents who are "only as good as their abysmal record."


2. Longer term, we need to implement Step 39 from "Love My Country, Loathe My Government." Step 39 would implement term limits for all Federal politicians. Allowing our current politicians to stay in Washington ten, twenty, thirty years or more is obviously not working. (note: please visit the following site and sign our petition demanding term limits for all Federally elected politicians:
http://www.unitedstatesofpurple.com/united_states_of_purple_015.htm)


3. We also need to implement Step 1 from "Love My Country, Loathe My Government." This step would reduce government spending by 10% a year for five years in order to quickly reduce out of control government spending in an orderly way. We have previously shown how to get $9 TRILLION (see the following link for the details: http://www.loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2012/02/united-states-of-purple-presidency-plan.html) of debt out of our lives so 10% reduction a year is very doable. Unless we get our economic and fiscal affairs in order and reduce our debt, the country's demise is all but determined. (what could happen under this plan already happened after World War II and it was prosperity, details at http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2012/03/why-obamas-economic-policies-are-dead.html)


4. And finally, we need to implement an independent audit of the Federal Reserve Board. The Fed is basically accountable to no one, a situation that could certainly be abusive to the concept of freedom, a government agency answerable to no one. We need to more fully understand the workings and secrets of the Fed since their actions probably have the most potential for disaster, especially in the area of inflation.

Have a nice weekend.

We invite all readers of this blog to visit our new website, "The United States Of Purple," at:

http://www.unitedstatesofpurple.com/

The United States of Purple is a new grass roots approach to filling the office of President of The United States by focusing on the restoration of freedom in the United States, focusing on problem solving skills and results vs. personal political enrichment, and imposing term limits on all future Federal politicians. No more red states, no more blue states, just one United States Of America under the banner of Purple.

The United States Of Purple's website also provides you the formal opportunity to sign a petition to begin the process of implementing a Constitutional amendment to impose fixed term limits on all Federally elected politicians. Only by turning out the existing political class can we have a chance of addressing and finally resolving the major issues of or times.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at www.loathemygovernment.com. It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom

http://www.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com/
http://www.flipcongress2010.com/
http://www.reason.com/
http://www.repealamendment/

Should Stupid Priorities Be An Impeachable Offense? Exhibit A: Senator Dick Durbin

Before we discuss whether stupid political priorities should be an impeachable offense for any politician in Congress or the White House, two sets of background information:

1) Earlier this week, the NFL commissioner and league office handed down some very severe penalties for the National Football League's New Orleans Saints. Apparently, the Saints and their coaches had been practicing a "bounty" system over the past few years that rewarded defensive players on the Saints for physically and intentionally injuring players on the opposing teams. Those that inflicted injuries were provided monetary bonuses for their injury producing play.

Now, while football in the NFL is a violent game and many injuries do occur throughout a season, most people, fans, players, and NFL executives alike, all thought this was just a random part of the game. However, when the Saints implemented a system that intentionally meant to maim and injury, and then lied to try and cover up the process, the NFL came down hard on them.

Their head coach was suspended for a year without pay (an action that will cost him millions of salary dollars and possibly end his coaching career), the defensive coach was suspended from the NFL indefinitely, the team lost two second round draft choices, the general manager was suspended, and fines were imposed on the team itself. Very severe, and appropriate punishment, for heinous behavior.

2) Think about where the country is today:

• Gas prices have doubled since President Obama took office.
• Over $5 TRILLION has been added to our crushing national debt in just the past few years.
• We are losing a war in Afghanistan that is costing us lives and money.
• Unemployment and under employment remain stubbornly high.
• The U.S. government received its first ever credit downgrade last year.
• The number of Americans on food stamps is at an all time high.
• We continue to lose the war on drugs and enrich and empower the violent drug cartels of Central and South America.
• Our borders still leak and we still do not have a coherent, fair, and compassionate illegal immigration strategy and policy.
• Iran and North Korea continue to push headlong to having nuclear weapon capabilities.
• We still do not have a coherent and strategic national energy policy.
• Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid continue to lose more than $200 billion a year of taxpayer wealth to fraud, waste, and criminal activity.
• The IRS continues to be so incompetent that it fails to collect over $300 billion a year in taxes owed every year.
• Our 70,000 page tax code is cumbersome, expensive, unfair, and inefficient.
• Obama Care has turned out to be an atrocity that will not curb escalating health care costs, will not provide heath care insurance for tens of millions of Americans, will not solve the root causes of high health care costs, and according to a recent analysis by the head actuary of Medicare and Medicaid, Obama Care will add over $300 billion to the national debt in the next ten years.
• Our nation's infrastructure of roads, bridges, and tunnels is crumbling.
• Recent government economic programs have almost always been abject failures relative to their promises and results (e.g. Economic Stimulus Program, Cash For Clunkers, Cash For Caulkers, Cash For Appliances, HAMP, etc.)
• Recent government alternative energy programs have almost always been abject failures, rife with cronyism, relative to their promises and results ( e.g. Solyndra, Beacon, Spectra, Evergreen, E.ON, Terra-Gen, Iberdrola, etc.)
• Our Washington politicians are more interested in their personal enrichment and furthering their political careers than solving the nation's problems.
• Our overall economic growth has been sluggish, at best, over the past few years.
• Our trade deficit with China and the rest of the world is still sky high.
• Our kids continue to be under educated vs. most of the kids in other countries around the world.

Pretty depressing stuff. The country is really facing some tough issues, many of which have been with us for decades.

Which gets us to the question of the day: should there be a process in place that would allow us to impeach and remove from office any politician that has priorities that are screwed up beyond belief? Exhibit A in this discussion is the recent actions by Illinois Senator Dick Durbin.

Apparently, the above list of daunting issues and priorities, problems that probably touch just about every American in one way or another,  are not important enough in Senator Durbin's view. According to a recent Associated Press report (http://www.courier-journal.com/usatoday/article/38865793?odyssey=mod%7Cnewswell%7Ctext%7CSports%7Cs):

Sen. Dick Durbin is setting up a Judiciary Committee hearing about bounties in the NFL and other major sports in the wake of news that New Orleans Saints players received extra cash for hits that hurt particular opponents. The assistant Senate majority leader, an Illinois Democrat, says he wants to examine whether federal law should make such bounty systems a crime.

Never mind that the NFL has already harshly and appropriately handled the situation.

Never mind that gas per gallon prices are rapidly approaching $4.00 a gallon.

Never mind that the government wastes hundreds of billions of dollars a year either through criminal activity, fraud, waste, tax evasion, inefficiency, or ill run and ill thought out programs.

Never mind that our kids are under educated, our debt is over the top, and our border leaks like a sieve.

Never mind that millions of Americans cannot get a job and millions of them need food stamps to survive.

Never mind that the country's fiscal house is in disarray and the financial viability of the country and our democracy is in danger of collapsing.

Never mind that the nuclear arms club is about to expand to include two of the most unstable countries in the world.

No, rather than deal with and address the right priorities, the good Senator would rather expend government and taxpayer resources, time, and money on an issue that affects just about no American outside of the New Orleans Saints organization. There is absolutely no chance at all this bounty behavior will occur again since the league has proven that it will cost future offenders money, time, and their careers.

But no, the Senator wants to have Congressional hearings on something as trivial as this. I am not sure it is because the Senator and his peers do not know how bad life is outside of the Beltway or it is because they really have no clue how to solve our truly serious problems and waste their time on this type of trivial nonsense.

In either case, there should be a process put in place that would remove such politicians in office for wasting our time and our resources and for not focusing on the highest priorities challenging us all. I would suggest that every year when we file our tax returns, we be allowed vote out of office any Washington politician that spent time on trivial matters such as what Senator Durbin is planning to do.

If two thirds of those filing their taxes feel that any politician wasted the country's time on idiotic priorities (like NFL bounties), that politician would be banned from any future Federal political office and would step down when their current term was over. Longer term, implementing Step 39 from "Love My Country, Loathe My Government" would be the better solution since it would impose term limits on every Federal politician.  If a politician knew that he or she had only a limited time to make an impact on Ameircans' lives, hopefully they would not waste that time on NFL bounties and other types of silliness. 

I do not mean to single out Senator Durbin. We have previously reported on other acts of stupidity such as when the Federal political class passed a law that regulated the sound volume of television commercials, or when Congress held hearings the process for determining the national champion in Division I college football, or when a Congressman wanted to establish a tax deduction for house pets.

The idiocy is not confined to one politician, it is rampant across many. That is why the answer to the question posed in today's title is a definite "Yes." I bet if you removed just one from office by the process proposed above, you would never have to remove another since finally, we would have a process in place that focused politicians on real issues and not nonsense.


We invite all readers of this blog to visit our new website, "The United States Of Purple," at:


http://www.unitedstatesofpurple.com/


The United States of Purple is a new grass roots approach to filling the office of President of The United States by focusing on the restoration of freedom in the United States, focusing on problem solving skills and results vs. personal political enrichment, and imposing term limits on all future Federal politicians. No more red states, no more blue states, just one United States Of America under the banner of Purple.


The United States Of Purple's website also provides you the formal opportunity to sign a petition to begin the process of implementing a Constitutional amendment to impose fixed term limits on all Federally elected politicians. Only by turning out the existing political class can we have a chance of addressing and finally resolving the major issues of or times.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at www.loathemygovernment.com. It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

http://www.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com/
http://www.flipcongress2010.com/
http://www.reason.com/
http://www.repealamendment/