The Transparent Failure Of Obama's Transparency Promise

One of President Obama’s greatest assets is that he makes grandiose, bold commitments of what his administration is going to do for the American people and the nation. When he came into office, he promised to “usher in a new era of open government” and “act promptly” to make information public.

One of President Obama’s greatest liabilities is that he rarely, if ever, fulfills those promises. Consider his track record:

• One of the first acts he was going to do when elected in 2008 was to shut down the prison facility at Guantanamo since it was a symbol of U.S. repression. As of today, nearly four years later, the prison is still open with no sign it will be shut down any time soon.
• He promised, that unlike George Bush, he would not go around Congress and appoint any high ranking government bureaucrat without Congressional approval and hearings, a promise that he has broken numerous times.
• He promised that his economic stimulus program would get unemployment well below 6% and prevent it from ever going over 8%. Unfortunately, his administration oversaw an all time record for consecutive months having an unemployment rate over 8%.
• He promised that he would slash the annual Federal government spending deficit in half by the end of his first term but ended up setting sky high record deficits every year of his first term, incurring a total national debt of over $5 TRILLION in just four short years.
• He promised that he would never raise taxes in a weak economy on any American, something he canot wait to do now.
• He promised he would quickly disengage U.S. forces in Iraq and ended up taking three years to do it and using the existing Bush exit plan.
• He promised to slash earmarks, thinly disguised misuses of taxpayer wealth by incumbent politicians to finance their reelection campaigns, but was unable or unwilling to do so.
• At his swearing in ceremony, he swore to uphold the Constitution and laws of the land and then ignored both during his first four years in office by engaging our military in the Libyan civil war without Congressional approval, ignoring court orders by a Federal judge relative to the Gulf oil drilling moratorium, unilaterally declining to enforce the tenets of the DOMA law (a law that should have never been passed but was the law of the land, requiring the administration to enforce it), and sanctioned the first official government assassination of an American citizen without due process of law.

We could go on with other broken promises but you get the idea. Great at promising, pitiful in delivering on those promises. But probably his biggest lie/disappointment has been the promise to operate the most transparent Presidential administration ever. No secrets, open government, high transparency. Not surprising, this is also a failed promise, a very large failure across all Federal entities:

1) Lisa Jackson, head of the EPA, is involved in the latest Obama administration embarrassment over transparency when it came to light that she has been conducting EPA business using two email accounts. One account is a publicly known and used, official email account.
Another email account that she has been reportedly using for private EPA business is listed under the Richard Windsor, a moniker that very few people knew was actually Ms. Jackson. Richard Windsor is a family dog from Ms. Jackson’s childhood. Obviously, at least on the surface, this appears to be a way for a top Obama administration official to bypass those nasty laws on transparency, freedom of information requests, and Congress.

According to a recent article on the same topic from the Washington Times on November 17, 2012, government open-records laws are supposed to make information available to the public now and for posterity at the National Archives, the government agency that gathers official correspondence. There are strict rules on the use of email addresses, and the rules prohibit using private emails to try to bypass open-records laws.

The EPA claims nothing was amiss here, just an EPA official doing business like many of her predecessors that also may have had alternative, secretive emails. Obviously, there are two problems with this excuse. First, just because previous people had secret email accounts does not make it right, legal, or transparent, as promised by Obama.

And second, experts in this area of governance are not buying this somewhat lame excuse, quoting from a recent article from Politico:

• “I don’t know any other agency that does this,” said Anne Weismann, chief counsel of the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which asked EPA’s inspector general on Tuesday to investigate the matter. Even if Jackson needs a separate email account, Weismann asked, “why would you pick a fictitious name of someone of different gender? To me it smacks of ... trying to hide.”
• Another expert, Bradley Blakeman, a former senior Bush aide who later Freedom's Watch, stated in a broadcast interview that the EPA arrangement “smells.”
• “What good reason, if we use common sense, would there be for a high government official to have a fictitious email account?” he asked.

Good question, Mr. Blakeman. Congress is investigating, as are some government inspector generals, to see if this was an actually attempt to undermine and undercut government transparency rules, regulations, and promises.

2) But the intrigue of hidden emails to possibly avoid transparency does not stop at the EPA. The Washington Times article cited above reported on similar hanky-panky at the Department of Energy. According to the article, a Congressional committee, the Science committee, investigating this hidden email scandal found that Jonathan Silver, the Energy Department’s loan officer, “explicitly directed others to keep loan guarantee communications secret by not linking public and private email accounts, and sent emails detailing official government business using his private email account.”

One instance of using hidden emails to conduct secret business might be an accident. However, two departments using hidden emails to conduct secret business is a trend. If we find another department doing the same shenanigans, we have a scandal and a confirmed broken promise of the Obama administration.

3) A November 21, 2012 article on the Info Wars website cited a Washington Post story which reported the Obama administration had secretly signed off on a secret cyber security Presidential directive that would allow intelligence agencies, like the National Security Agency (NSA), to secretly operate on the networks of private companies, such as Google and Facebook.

This directive would greatly expand the NSA’s authority and ability to spy on citizens and companies. In response to this obvious direct hit on freedom and privacy, lawyers from the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request demanding that the Obama administration release the text of the directive for review.

Unfortunately, for liberty and transparency, the NSA denied the FOIA request. The NSA contends that it does not have to release the directive since it is a confidential Presidential communication and it is classified. So much for transparency.

The EPIC plans to continue the legal battle for transparency on this issue, which we wish them luck on. However, this is not the first time that the EPIC and this not-so-transparent administration have clashed over the release of government information:

• In testimony to Congress earlier this year, EPIC explained that the NSA has been a “black hole for public information about cybersecurity.”
• EPIC is also currently involved in an ongoing lawsuits involving the secret nature of the NSA’s secretive relationship with Google
• Another EPIC lawsuit, this one four years old dating back to in 2008, is also being pursued relative the NSA’s cybersecurity authority.

Again, so much for transparency, a concept that is critically important when it comes to freedom and the authority of government to spy on its own citizens without debate, without judicial overview, and without consent.

4) If you are like most Americans, you are probably not aware of what the government calls “fusion centers. These “centers” are regional government centers that collect information on American citizens. Quite simply, they are domestic spying operations, as defined by Wikipedia: “A fusion center is an information sharing center, many of which were created under a joint project between the Department of Homeland Security and the US Department of Justice‘s Office of Justice Programs between 2003 and 2007."

They are designed to promote information sharing at the Federal level between agencies such as the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Department of Justice, US Military, and state and local level government. As of July 2009, the Department of Homeland Security recognized at least seventy-two fusion centers.
In other words, fusion centers are domestic spying and analysis centers located around the country. Now, I understand there are reasons for secrecy and security when it comes to protecting citizens. However, not unexpected, given what we have already discussed, earlier this year the Department of Homeland Security has more or less unilaterally decided that fusion centers will be exempt from Freedom Of Information request and other inquiries.

Thus, most, if not all, Americans will never know if they are under investigation or if their names and personal information have somehow gotten identified and stored by one of these fusion centers, making them a perennial suspect in the government’s eyes. The concept of freedom of information was to ensure that these types of domestic spying activities were open to the air and sunshine of disclosure and discussion in our democracy.

To unilaterally decide not to share the processes and information that the government is collecting on innocent Americans (remember the quaint concept of “innocent until proven guilty”) is not consistent with the concept of liberty. It is certainly not consistent with the concept of government transparency.

  5) But apparently this lack of transparency in the Obama administration is not related to just national security and spying. Bloomberg ran an investigation that they ran in an article in late September regarding the utter failure of the Obama administration of fulfill a simple FOIA request:

• Nineteen of 20 cabinet-level agencies disobeyed the law requiring the simple disclosure of public information unrelated to national security.
• The request was the travel cost of top government officials.
• Bloomberg found that just eight of the 57 Federal agencies met Bloomberg’s request for those documents within the 20-day window required by the Act.
• Nineteen of the twenty Cabinet level requests were not fulfilled in time to be in compliance with Federal disclosure laws.
• In an ironic twist of government incompetence and secrecy, the Department of Justice, which is charged with monitoring how well Federal entities react to FOIA requests, also failed to release the travel details of top officials at three of its affiliated agencies, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, in according to the legal requirements and law.
• Some agencies tried to minimize FOIA compliance by illegally trying to charging requestors of information thousands of dollars for the information.
• According to the article, the Obama administration claimed almost half a million exemptions to the FOIA laws and guidelines in 2009, about 50% more exemptions claimed than in the final year of the Bush administration.

According to experts on government disclosure compliance:

• “When it comes to implementation of Obama’s wonderful transparency policy goals, especially FOIA policy in particular, there has been far more ‘talk the talk’ rather than ‘walk the walk,’” said Daniel Metcalfe, director of the Department of Justice’s office monitoring the government’s compliance with FOIA requests from 1981 to 2007.
• “I don’t think the administration has been very good at all on open-government issues,” said Katherine Meyer, a Washington attorney who has been filing open records requests since the late 1970s. “The Obama administration is as bad as any of them, and to some extent worse.”
• “In a 24/7 world, it should take two days, it should take two hours. If it’s public, it should be just there,” according to Eric Newton, senior adviser at the Knight Foundation, a Miami-based group that promotes citizen engagement, said agencies have no excuse not to rapidly disclose travel costs.

So it is not just national security that the Obama administration officials think should be shielded form the daylight of disclosure. Hardly the behavior you could have expected form a Presidential administration that claimed it would be the most transparent ever. Given these five sets of examples, it is clear that this group of politicians and bureaucrats, from Obama on down to most government agencies, will never receive an award for their transparency.

But wait...the Obama administration did get recognized for his transparency back in March of 2011:

(http://www.politico.com/politico44/perm/0311/not_a_secret_anymore_a00ccd98-0d9e-4822-8936-168f3a51b959.html).

But we do not know anything about the transparency award since the ceremony was closed to the press and the public, totally consistent with Obama‘s transparency failures. Another promise broken, to the detriment of freedom and liberty.

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.reason.com/
http://www.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

The Voter Bill Of Rights - Taking Back Our Demcoracy

Last week was spent reviewing the incompetence, negligence, and disastrous behavior and lack of accountability that our politicians have displayed over recent history. Their disgraceful behavior has resulted in the dire economic mess the country and every American finds themselves in today. Skyrocketing national debt, high unemployment, broken budget processes in the Senate, etc. are the consequences of their inaction, dereliction of their Constitutional and legal responsibilities, and focus on their own self enrichment.

We also reviewed two methods that could be used, via our judicial system, to fix Washington. The first method is already underway with a massive Federal law suit having been filed in Brooklyn to expose and bring down the cronyism relationship between Washington politicians and Wall Street bankers (”banksters”).

The second method is a proposal to sue the Federal government from a citizen’s perspective for running annual TRILLION dollar deficits as a result of not executing their required budget making processes. That method, proposed in last Wednesday’s post, asked for legal aid and advice from any reader who might be able to support this effort.

Today’s post is centered on other steps that could and should be initiated in order to enforce accountability on Washington politicians. We will call them a “Voter Bill Of Rights.” These steps involve forcing accountability on these politicians who seem to think that getting elected is the end game, not the beginning of their work.

Additionally, there are other proposed steps on how to retake control of our election processes from the political class and their big money supporters (e.g. unions, corporations, PACs, etc.). It is the money of these supporters which now drown out the desires of average Americans.

Many of these action items/voter rights come from an Internet effort previously discussed in this blog to reform Congress (the so-called “Congressional Reform Act Of 2011”) and also includes some of the steps originally laid out in “Love my Country , Loathe My Government:”

1. Washington politicians will receive no tenure and no traditional pension for serving in Congress or being the President or Vice President, i.e. all Washington politicians collect a salary while in office but receive no pay, pension, benefits, etc. once they're out of office.
2. All former Washington politicians would immediately forfeit their current pension benefits and payouts if their personal wealth exceeds one million dollars. Since the vast majority of  American citizens no longer can obtain a traditional pension, there is no reason why these same Americans should be funding a traditional pension benefit revenue stream for current and former politicians.
3. Washington politicians are to be limited to one Congressional term only and one Presidential term only, no exceptions, “one and done.” As a result of this term limit rule, a Presidential term would now be six years long, a Senate term would be five years long, and a House Of Representatives term would be four years long. (Step 39 from “Love my Country, Loathe My Government.”)
4. As a result of this new term limits rule, current politicians would serve out their current term and no longer be eligible for a Washington politically elected office, i.e. no “grandfathering” of current politicians currently in office.
5. Congress will no longer be able to vote themselves a pay raise. Future pay raises would be based on well they execute their jobs, either via economic benchmarks (I.e. unemployment rate, deficit reduction goals, etc.) and/or via an annual citizen satisfaction survey to be conducted by an independent source. (Step 37)
6. In no cases would Congressional pay rise by more than the lower of the CPI or 3%.
7. The President, Vice President, and all members of Congress would lose their current, taxpayer supported, gold plated health care plan and benefits and would have their health care covered by the health care exchanges that were established by Obama Care. If Obama Care is such a great program, than those who voted for it and those who wrote the legislation should have to abide by the same rules it established for a typical American family.
8. Congress must equally abide by all laws they impose on the American people. These laws include, but are not limited to, all insider stock trading laws, equal opportunity and affirmative action rules and quotas (Step 45), etc. Failure to do so would result in the same penalties that typical Americans are subjected to including fines, imprisonment or both.
9. Failure of the executive branch or either branch of Congress to meet their Constitutional and lawful budget development dates will immediately result in a suspension of all compensation for those people who were responsible for missing those dates and associated deadlines. Pay and benefits would not be restored until the proper budget processes were completed and no back pay or benefits would be paid out, what is lost is lost forever.
10. Corporations, unions, and PACs of any flavor would no longer be allowed to contribute money or resources to any Presidential or Congressional campaign. It is assumed that when the nation’s Founders established freedom of speech as an essential part of liberty they were referring to an individual citizen’s freedom of speech, not the freedom of speech of a PAC for example. Thus, in the future, the only campaign contributions that will be allowed is a contribution and donation from individual citizens directly into an official candidate’s campaign. (Step 6)
11. Future political campaigns would only be allowed to accept and use contributions from citizens who are voting in that particular political campaign/race. For example, a Kansas citizen could not funnel a campaign donation into a New Jersey Congressional race. In fact, a New Jersey citizen could not contribute to a House of Representatives political campaign that was outside of that citizen’s Congressional district. (Step 7)
12. The Federal Election Commission (FEC) would be totally revamped so that it was no longer a toothless election watchdog, staffed by political cronies of existing politicians. The head of a revamped FEC would be a nationally elected position, preferably being staffed by an experienced criminal prosecutor than the current political lapdogs. (Step 8)
13. The personal financial assets of each elected Washington politician would be put into an ironclad, personal blind trust while they are serving in office so that they are not tempted to take advantage of insider government and insider trading information while in office. This rule would extend down into the top members of Presidential and Congressional staffs.
14. Given the widespread voter fraud that likely occurred in this past Presidential election, future voter fraud should be considered a treasonable illegal act, given that it robs honest Americans of their right to vote in a democracy, punishable in court as a top felony.
15. Given the widespread voter fraud that likely occurred in this past Presidential election, in future Presidential and Congressional elections, four selected states will have their votes counted by two independent vote counting organizations to ensure that critical states and critical elections are indeed honest. The Republican Party would get to select two of the four states and the Democratic Party would get to select the other two states.
16. In the short term, divvy Electoral College votes in each state on a proportion of vote basis rather than a winner take all basis to reestablish the principle that everyone's vote counts the same. Longer term, scrap the Electoral College process all together and elect President's on popular vote only (Step 16).
17. Stop gerrymandering Congressional districts, a process which usually ensures the reelection of incumbent candidates and their political parties (Step 14).
18. Stop funding Republican and Demcoratic Party conventions with taxpayer money, all convention expenses including security should be borne by the parties themselves (Step 13).

Why are these “Voters Bill Of Rights” required? Consider what the current state of our political processes and political class:

• Persistently high unemployment and under employment.
• Skyrocketing national debt.
• Skyrocketing health care costs.
• Burdensome tax levels and burdens while the Federal government and the politicians that operate it waste hundreds of billions of dollars every year.
• Crony capitalism that grows more disgraceful, wasteful, and inefficient every day.
• Major issues of our times that never get resolved, issues that include a lost war on drugs, failing public schools, no national energy policy, no coherent or compassionate illegal immigration plan, etc.
• The American people did not make this contract with Congressmen/women, Congress made all these contracts for themselves.
• Serving in Congress should be an honor, not a career or a path to self enrichment.
• The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, so ours should serve their term in office and then go home and back to work.

This is what is needed to take back and restore our democracy from our politicians, the “banksters,” the moneyed interests, and the failed political processes. Anything short of this Voter Bill Of Rights is an eventual abdication of our democracy.

We will operationalize this effort in the coming months and will let you know how you get involved before it is too late. Until then, please consider reviewing one of the most popular blog posts we have ever done, a post that clearly defines how fall we have fallen away from our concept of freedom and liberty:

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2010/11/american-freedom-pyramid-where-it.html

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, andrespect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

http://www.reason.com/
http://www.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

Another 1,900 Reasons Why No American, Rich Or Poor, Should Pay An Additional Penny In Taxes

Many times in this blog we have successfully, forcefully, and mathematically made the case that no American, rich or poor, should be an extra penny in Federal taxes because of the rampant waste inefficiency, and criminal fraud currently going on in every Federal entity:

• Medicare and Medicaid lose anywhere from $110 to $150 billion a year to waste and criminal activity.
• Social Security loses about $125 billion a year to waste and criminal activity.
• The IRS admits that it fails to collect about $385 billion a year from tax evaders who do not pay their fair share of taxes.
• Federal unemployment and food stamp programs lose about $25 billion a year to waste and criminal activity.
• Multiple, overlapping, and inefficient Federal programs in a wide range of areas (job training, teacher training, food safety, etc.) wastes tens of billions of dollars every year without any discernible taxpayer benefits.
• Over staffed, over paid, and excessive benefits to Federal workers and politicians waste tens of billions of dollars every year.
• Unnecessary and expensive deployments of U.S. troops around the world waste tens of billions of dollars every year.

The list goes on and on, with the following examples of other government waste just a small sample:

• http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2012/09/now-it-is-huds-turn-to-waste-taxpayer.html
• http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2012/10/now-veterans-affairs-bureaucracy-gets.html
• http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2012/10/wastebook-2012-wasteful-federal.html

That is why no American should be forced to give up any more of their wealth, the Federal government and the politicians that operate it will just end up wasting the additional tax revenue like they do with the current tax revenue they collect.

In addition, according to a recent, October 22, 2012 article from the Washington Guardian, there are at least another 1,900 reasons why American should not pay any more in taxes than they currently do:

• According to the article, the Federal government has about 1,900 investigations underway into the misspending and criminal fraud involved with the Economic Stimulus program.
• These 1,900 investigations have already resulted in the arrest of over 600 people according to an online Federal government Internet post in September.
• Since that online blog post, several Federal inspectors generals have announced new convictions, prosecutions, or audits, a sign that some of the investigations are growing closer to decisions and actions.
• Federal investigators have already identified over $11 billion of waste taxpayer money and with 1,900 investigations underway, that number is expected “to balloon in the coming months.”
• For example, the Energy Department inspector general announced in mid-October that it had found that the California energy commission collected two duplicate payments under the stimulus program that cost taxpayers $678,000.
• The Health and Human Services inspector general recently found that a Louisiana group which had gotten funds for Head Start programs for children had inappropriately spent nearly $1.2 million in Federal funds to constrict a new building that was not approved by Federal officials, a conclusion the group is contesting.
• The Energy Department inspector general warned in its recent semiannual report that the Western Area Power Administration, which received $3.25 billion in borrowing authority to help build transmission lines under the stimulus program, is at risk of losing significant money on a transmission project for wind power in Montana that it funded.
• A former superintendent of a Montana construction company was charged last month with making false statements regarding the quality of work his firm performed on a Federal bridge project in Idaho, a project that was funded with $21.6 million in stimulus money.
• Federal inspectors and auditors discovered that veterans seeking stimulus related benefits had claimed more than 16,000 dependents with Social Security numbers matching those of dead people.
• Other audits found more than 150 potential shell companies may have improperly received Recovery funds set aside just for the Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business program.
• The audits also identified more than four hundred recipients of stimulus funds, from 15 different Federal agencies, who had previously been terminated for default, most getting the money after falsely certifying they had not been terminated for default.

There are about 1,900 more cases of potential fraud and waste that inspector generals, auditors, and eventually prosecutors will be going through in the coming months and years. Given that the Economic Stimulus failed miserably in attaining its stated goal of reducing unemployment to well under 6% and never allowing it to exceed 8%, these examples of fraud and wasteful, criminal spending just add insult to injury when it comes to taxpayer wealth.

But wait, there’s more! Recent government waste is not restricted only to stimulus funding. Consider these recently reported, totally unnecessary, wasteful expenditures of taxpayer money that went to vain, selfish top level government bureaucrats. Keep in mind that these expenses were incurred while 23 million Americans are unemployed or under employed and our national debt is now well over $16 TRILLION (these findings were posted at the Against Crony Capitalism website as reported by the Washington Times):

• The Environmental Protection Agency recently spent nearly $40,000 on a portrait of EPA top administrator Lisa P. Jackson.
• A painting of Air Force Secretary Michael B. Donley will cost $41,200, according to Federal purchasing records.
• The price tag for a 3-by-4-foot oil portrait of Agriculture Department Secretary Thomas J. Vilsack will cost taxpayers $22,500. A 3 feet by 4 feet portrait, really? Talk about excessive spending and vanity.
• In total, the government has paid out at least $180,000 for official portraits just in the past year, based on an analysis of Federal expense records by The Washington Times of Federal agencies and military offices across government.

These are Federal bureaucrats. They have not saved people’s lives by running into a burning building. They have not heroically saved their fellow comrades lives in combat. They have not come up with a cure for cancer. They are not outstanding teachers making life long positive impacts on kids’ lives. Given how ineffective every Federal entity is, they have obviously not turned their respective organizations into a finely tuned, efficient government organization.

They are hum drum, short term, Federal bureaucrats who will be in their current jobs for only a few years. But that does not stop them from using taxpayer money to feed their egos and vanity to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars a year just to get their portrait painted.

Wasteful spending. Criminal fraud. Vanity expenses. Yes, no American, rich or poor, should have to pay another penny in taxes until these and a myriad of other atrocities of wasted taxpayer wealth are addressed and eliminated.

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.reason.com/
http://www.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

Two More Failing Taxpayer Aided Alternative Energy Companies Bound To The Forefront

Just when you think that the financial carnage is done relative to the Obama administration's disastrous waste of taxpayer wealth on failed alternative energy companies, two more fiascoes pop up. We have extensively covered these other failures in previous posts, most recently:

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2012/10/obama-energy-disasters-still-abound.html

which used Abound Solar as the lead story on that post. That write-up also included a list of what companies had failed up to that date in time.

But according to a recent Heritage Foundation report, two more taxpayer funded/aided companies are now also facing difficult markets and financial times:

• A pair of foreign-owned solar companies, both of whom received a combined $84 million in Energy Department tax credits, have announced they will lay off U.S. employees.
• Why foreign owned companies were granted U.S. taxpayer money is a question and scandal for another day’s discussion.
• Both companies got their funding under the Energy Department’s Advanced Energy Manufacturing (48C) Tax Credit, a credit which is worth up to 30% of the cost of manufacturing qualifying green energy projects.
• Solar World received an $82 million credit and SunTech received a $2.1 million credit.
• Solar World announced a 47% revenue decline in the third quarter and will potentially execute 37 layoffs at its Oregon plant.
• SunTech said it will likely layoff 50 employees at its Arizona production facilities.

The ironic thing about both companies is that Solar World claimed it had to lay off its employees because the Chinese government is subsidizing the sale of cheap solar panels in the U.S., which the U.S. International Trade Commission is fighting by imposing a 35.95% tariff on each imported Chinese solar panel. Meanwhile, SunTech is claiming it is laying off people because of the 35.95% tariff that is being imposed by the Commission.

Thus, the Federal government’s priorities are so screwed up that is funding two U.S. companies that have diametrically opposed business models relative to Chinese subsidies and U.S. tariffs, one gets hurt and the other gets helped depending on what the Federal government does.

More wasted taxpayer dollars for little benefit in return, in this case fewer jobs despite millions of dollars in aid. But this should not surprise anyone, given that the Federal government has thrown billions of dollars away on alternative energy companies that are either bankrupt and out of business, going bankrupt and will soon be out of business, have laid off a significant number of workers, and businesses that still exist but have failed miserably to attain their business and financial goals (the company names with an asterisk next to them indicate they have filed for or have completed bankruptcy proceedings):

1. Evergreen Solar ($25 million)*
2. SpectraWatt ($500,000)*
3. Solyndra ($535 million)*
4. Beacon Power ($43 million)*
5. Nevada Geothermal ($98.5 million)
6. SunPower ($1.2 billion)
7. First Solar ($1.46 billion)
8. Babcock and Brown ($178 million)
9. EnerDel’s subsidiary Ener1 ($118.5 million)*
10. Amonix ($5.9 million)
11. Fisker Automotive ($529 million)
12. Abound Solar ($400 million)*
13. A123 Systems ($279 million)*
14. Willard and Kelsey Solar Group ($700,981)*
15. Johnson Controls ($299 million)
16. Brightsource ($1.6 billion)
17. ECOtality ($126.2 million)
18. Raser Technologies ($33 million)*
19. Energy Conversion Devices ($13.3 million)*
20. Mountain Plaza, Inc. ($2 million)*
21. Olsen’s Crop Service and Olsen’s Mills Acquisition Company ($10 million)*
22. Range Fuels ($80 million)*
23. Thompson River Power ($6.5 million)*
24. Stirling Energy Systems ($7 million)*
25. Azure Dynamics ($5.4 million)*
26. GreenVolts ($500,000)
27. Vestas ($50 million)
28. LG Chem’s subsidiary Compact Power ($151 million)
29. Nordic Windpower ($16 million)*
30. Navistar ($39 million)
31. Satcon ($3 million)*
32. Konarka Technologies Inc. ($20 million)*
33. Mascoma Corp. ($100 million)

I have never found a list of an Obama-backed alternative energy companies that have been successful. If that list exists, I would be more than happy to publish it.

Billions of dollars down the drain with no discernible taxpayer benefit in return. As we have discussed many times in this blog, the only Americans who made out on these deals are the many Obama administration political cronies who bankrolled many of these companies to begin with and received taxpayer money from this administration and political class in exchange for political financial support. Disgracefully wasteful spending.

As a side note, these billions do no include the additional wasted billions given to other alternative transportation companies and options such as Tesla Motors and the Chevy Volt, both of which either make cars that an average American taxpayer will never be able to afford or who make cars that have proven mostly uncompetitive in the marketplace.

But it gets worse. Not only do we have SunTech and Solar World laying off employees despite burning through government and taxpayer funds, not only to we have these 33 listed companies above providing no benefit back to taxpayers, we also have found out from the Washington Guardian,

http://www.washingtonguardian.com/stimulating-investigation

that there almost 2,000 investigations underway into fraud and criminal activity relative to the huge and fruitless economic stimulus program that was passed in 2009.

These nearly 2,000 investigations and the resultant 600 arrests include many Department of Energy programs that are related to the stimulus funds that were apportioned out to many of the above listed, failed companies. Thus, not only were these bad companies given taxpayer money for no benefit, that money may have also been taken under criminal circumstances.

The Federal government 1) does very, very few things well and 2) it does not employ trained venture capitalists. Both of these facts should have prevented the Federal government bureaucracy from handing out taxpayer money to almost three dozen failed companies, it does not know how to it well. If any of these listed companies had valid market and business plans, trained bankers and venture capitalists would have been more than happy to fund their business endeavors. The Federal government never should have been involved.

An old rule business goes something like the following: If a new product or service fills a market need (right price, right features, right style, right sales channels, etc.), no government support is needed. If a new product or service does not fit a market need, no amount of government support and financing will make it successful.

At least 33 companies had alternative energy products and services that did not fill a current market need. But the Federal government went and funded them anyway, much to the expense and chagrin of the American taxpayer. The only question left is if 33 is the end of the waste or there is more to come. Given that a week ago I had never heard of Solar World and SunTech, I doubt we have heard the end of the “Abounding” number alternative energy failures from the Obama administration.

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.reason.com/
http://www.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

The David Patraeus Scandal: A Case Study In Shallow Political Class Thinking and Inane Problem Solving

Many times in this blog we have made the case that the current people of our political class are not the sharpest knives when it comes to problem definition, identifying the root causes of the identified problems, and implementing the correct solutions to eliminate those root causes. The fact that major problems such as our failing public education system, our lost war on drugs, our skyrocketing health care costs, an overwhelming national debt, etc. have been with us for what seems forever, and just keep getting worse, are just a few obvious examples of this problem solving deficiency in Washington.

More recently, the current and expected failures of Obamacare, the nonsensical economic stimulus programs such as Cash For Clunkers and Cash For Appliances, the fatal Fast and Furious drug running fiasco, and other such short term problems make one wonder how inept can Washington be, both short term and long term, to not be able to seemingly resolve any challenge. The Federal government has been around for over two hundred years, many of our current politicians have been in office for decades. You would think and hope that once in a while, given this experience, a problem, any problem would get resolved.

But then you hear a politician speak and examine their thought patterns and you realize why nothing has ever been solved. The latest example of such a case is relative to the ongoing sex scandal regarding former CIA Director David Petraeus. As you probably already know from a recent post,

http://www.loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2012/11/the-latest-inductees-into-political.html)

and ongoing news reports and Congressional investigations and hearings, Petraeus had to resign his CIA Director post when it came to light that he had been involved in adulteress affair with his biographer for a long period of time.

This affair had the potential to put national and military security at risk since such behavior opened up Patraeus to the threat of blackmail since 1) he had been entrusted with the most top secret information and plans of our national security establishment and 2) he had been married for decades. Congressional hearings need to find out if any secrets were compromised or any intelligence or military operations (e.g. the terrorist attack at the U.S. Libyan consulate in Benghazi) were sub optimized as a result of the affair.

Before we talk about the dearth of politicians problem solving skills, let’s try to establish how much money Petraeus has made and was making as a result of his government service. Believe it or not, I could not find out online how much salary a CIA Director annually. I do not know if it is classified or just hard to find.

However, given that the President earns about $400,000 a year, members of Congress and top White House staff earn about $170,000 a year, it is probably a safe bet that the Director of the CIA is making several hundred thousand dollars a year. This would place him well within the top 3-4% of earners in the U.S. today.

This CIA salary is in addition to the money he made as a top general and how much money he will earn as a result of his Federal retirement benefits, as described by the Celebrity Net Worth website:

A four star Army General earns the military pay grade of “0-10″. The 0-10 base salary for someone with 38 cumulative years of service is $19,566.97 per month, or $234,803.64 annually. In 2010, at the peak of his Army career, Petraeus’s salary was $290,000 per year because he was serving as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Chief of Navy Operations, Commandant of the Marine Corps and Army/Air Force Chief of Staff. As a retired four star General, David Petraeus is entitled to an annual pension of $220,000 for the rest of his life. He’s also free to get a new job in retirement and therefore earn two incomes. On the other hand, if Petraeus loses his security clearance from this scandal, it may limit the types of jobs he would be able to take. Petraeus may also have cost himself the ability to join the lucrative speaking engagement circuit, which could have earned him $100,000 – $200,000 per event.

I review all of this to establish that Petraeus is probably not hurting for money, both short term and long term.

Which brings us to California Senator Diane Feinstein. The good Senator was recently questioned on the Sunday television talk show, “Meet The Press,” and was asked about the Petraeus adultery affair. Her answers make you really want to shake your head relative to her problem identification and root cause analysis abilities:

“Here’s a man, and you see Time Magazine, and you see the medals he has. You see the stars. One day, he takes all of that off. He’s in a plain blue suit like this. He looks no different from you or you or you. Having said that, there’s no entourage. There’s no driver. He gives an order at the CIA. There’s discussion. There’s flak. People don’t like this. And then he goes home to wash dishes. It is a major adjustment. I think we need to look at this transitioning of people. I think we need to look at our tours.”

Her actual video discussion can be accessed at:

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/feinstein-petraeus-cheated-because-he-had-no-entourage-no-driver-had-wash-own-dishes

So let me get this straight, as analyzed by Ms. Feinstein:

• The CIA Director gave in to his sexual urges, endangering the national and military security of the nation by opening himself up to the potential of blackmail, all because he now has to do the dishes.
• The CIA Director gave in to his sexual urges, endangering the national and military security of the nation by opening himself up to the potential of blackmail, all because he no longer had a driver to drive him around.
• Even though the CIA Director had made, was making, and will make enough money off of the American taxpayer to put himself in the top 3-4% all American wage earners, he could not afford to hire someone to do the dishes or drive himself around and thus, gave in to his sexual urges.
• Even though the CIA Director had made, was making, and will make enough money off of the American taxpayer to put himself in the top 3-4% all American wage earners, we need to spend more taxpayer money to ease his “transition” from a military life to a civilian life. This use of taxpayer wealth is apparently more important than helping the 23 million Americans who are currently unemployed or under employed, in Ms. Feinstein’s view.

Where do these political people live? The lack of a chauffeur or a dish washer is the cause for a potential national security breach? If that is the case, it is not Petraeus’ fault, it is the fault of whoever submitted him for the vital position of CIA Director and the fault of those in Congress who approved his appointment if washing dishes was enough to set the man off on the road to adultery.

Is it any wonder then that no problem facing the American public ever gets resolved? The really worrisome fact is that Senator Feinstein is the actual head of the important Senate Intelligence committee. If this is the depth of her problem solving skills, washing dishes causes adultery, then be scared, be very scared.

This is just another example of why Step 39 from “Love my Country, Loathe my Government" is so important. Step 39 would impose term limits on all Federal politicians, “one and done.” Letting current politicians stay in office for decades has not resolved any of our major issues. If we impose term limits, at least we have a chance to get some different people into Congress and the White House on a regular basis and hopefully, some of them might actually be able to resolve a problem or two.

Lord knows the current set of politicians sitting in Washington are unable to do any real problem analysis and solving, as witnessed by the latest from the head of the Senate Intelligence committee. Dish washing and chauffeurs, I am pretty that these were not the root causes of the adultery problems and resultant national security problems of David Petraeus. At least not in our world and our reality, a world and reality that I increasingly believe many of our politicians do not inhabit.

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.reason.com/
http://www.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

Help Wanted, Lawyers and Legal Resources, To Fight The Invisible Empire, Part 3: Suing The Political Class To Save Our Democracy

Three previous posts this week were focused on how ordinary Americans might be able to retake control of our democracy since the Washington political class seems to be very uninterested in protecting our democracy and doing their Constitutionally required jobs:

• On Monday we reviewed the massive $46 TRILLION lawsuit that has been filed in Brooklyn Federal court in an attempt to reverse the banking cronyism that has resulted in the political class redistributing taxpayer wealth to Wall Street bankers and others (“banksters”) in return for campaign donations and political support.
• On Tuesday we reviewed how delinquent and inept our politicians in Washington have been in carrying out their Constitutional and legal mandates when it comes to putting together coherent and detailed budgets on time.
• On Wednesday, we reviewed the dire financial situation we are in as a nation, mostly as a result of our politicians being unwilling or unable to do their jobs, most notably implementing coherent and rational budgets as required in the timeframes required.

These three posts lead us up to today’s proposal. Since it is obvious that our needs and priorities are not compatible with the election and personal enrichment priorities of the politicians in Washington, we need a new approach to reclaiming our democracy. The political class controls the country’s election processes via gerrymandering of Congressional districts, using taxpayer funded earmarks to buy support for their continual reelections, controlling the membership and activities of the toothless Federal Election Commission, allowing billions of dollars from organized entities (unions, corporations, PACs) to overwhelm individual citizen needs and priorities, etc.

This control does not mean we should not take steps to continue to regain control and get back to election processes that actually reflect the desires of ordinary Americans. Many of these steps are outlined in “Love My Country, Loathe My Government” and also include the critical step of instituting term limits so that all Washington politicians are “one and done.”

However, using the $43 TRILLION lawsuit as a new paradigm, we need to go to court to reduce the power, corruption, cronyism, and liberty reduction activities of our political class. This post proposes two approaches. After reviewing them below, we will ask for support and guidance on how to move forward on this track.

Before going into the two judicial processes, let’s review some recent Federal government budget results and disasters:

• Recall from our posts earlier this week that the U.S. Senate, and consequently the entire Federal government, has not passed a comprehensive, coherent, and Constitutionally mandated Federal budget since April, 2009.
• Thus, for fiscal years, 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013, the American political class has failed miserably in accomplishing one of the basic requirements of their job description.
• If we go to the official White House budget website, (http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/Historicals), we see that from 2010 through the expected results of 2013, the Federal government will have spent $14.658 TRILLION.
• In that same timeframe, the Federal government collected $9.837 TRILLION in taxes/revenue, incurring a spending deficit of $4.821 TRILLION.
• I contend that this $4.821 TRILLION deficit would not have occurred if there had been actual budgets passed and adhered to, like what is supposed to happen in our democracy.
• There are about 315 million Americans living in the U.S. today.
• If we divide the deficit spending over the past four years by the number of Americans, I contend that because of the lack of a formal budget, the political class has illegally overspent its revenue stream and wasted taxpayer wealth to the tune of about $15,000 per American ($4.8 TRILLION deficit divided by 315 million Americans.)
• We recognize that Congress has the power, as laid out in the Constitution, Article 1, Section 8, Clause 1, to collect taxes: The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United State.
• However, under the Constitution’s Appropriation Clause, Article I, Section 9, Clause 7 and the laws on budget processes that have been implemented to support the Appropriations Clause, Congress and the Federal government are required to pass and adhere to timely budgets: No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law; and a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time.
• The Heritage Foundation provides a coherent definition of what is required as a result of this clause: The Appropriations Clause is the cornerstone of Congress's "power of the purse." It assigns to Congress the role of final arbiter of the use of public funds. The source of Congress's power to spend derives from Article I, Section 8, Clause 1. The Appropriations Clause provides Congress with a mechanism to control or to limit spending by the federal government. The Framers chose the particular language of limitation, not authorization, for the first part of the clause and placed it in Section 9 of Article I, along with other restrictions on governmental actions to limit, most notably, executive action.
• Given these two clauses from the Constitution and the Heritage Foundation’s interpretation that the Constitution requires Congress have a mechanism to control or limit spending, we contend that by not passing detailed budgets in any year since 2009 that Congress, specifically the Senate, has failed to implement the mandated mechanisms to control or limit spending, resulting in catastrophic and unnecessary deficit spending.

This deficit spending has resulted in every American being burdened with an unnecessary $15,000 of national debt. Thus, we intend to sue Congress, specifically Harry Reid and the Senate, for damages to the tune of $15,000. This $15,000 could be paid in any number of ways:

• Harry Reid, as Senate Majority Leader, and the reason for the failure to produce a Federal budget for the past several years, could write us a personal check for $15,000.
• The members of the Senate Finance Committee and Budget Committee, all of whom bear some responsibility for not doing their jobs and building annual Federal budgets, could all chip in individually to come up with the $15,000 total.
• The least attractive option, but one that we could accept, is for the $15,000 to come out of Federal tax streams. The unattractiveness of this option is that those responsible for the budget and deficit crises do not feel the pain of their negligence.

However, we would consider an alternative settlement in lieu of the $15,000:

• As a result of his inability to lead the Senate to the completion of one of its most basic duties, producing a coherent annual budget, Harry Reid would step down as the Senate Majority Leader and never chair another Senate committee as long as he was in Congress.
• The Congress and President would agree to a new law that would suspend the salary payment and all benefits of the President, members of the House of Representatives, or members of the Senate whenever a mandated budget deadline is missed. Their salary payment would commence again once they fulfilled their budget development responsibilities but they would never regain the salary that was loss because of their tardiness. Its called accountability in the real world and accountability comes with consequences.
• If two consecutive annual budget deadlines are missed in either the House or the Senate, the Speaker of the House and the Senate majority Leader would be permanently removed form those positions.

That’s the situation and that’s the strategy. There has to be another way to levy accountability on these Washington politicians who are failing to execute a primary responsibility of their position, developing and adhering to a responsible budget. By making them accountable, either by writing a $15,000 check or suspending their pay, we hope to finally make them do their job.

However, I am certainly not a lawyer, legal expert, or have any idea how to start and operate this process. Thus, if there are any readers, with any kind of legal expertise, out there that feel this might be a worthwhile effort to finally make politicians subservient to the needs of Americans and not to their own self enrichment and political careers, please consider helping us out.

I believe that there are two options available:

1. Sue the Federal government locally in my home area of Tampa Bay, either in small claims court or any other local venue.
2. Sue the Federal government in Federal court and make this effort a class action suit on behave of every American whose family will eventually have to pay upwards of $15,000 for the government’s wild, budgetless spending.

I am pretty sure if this is done properly that media and press attention would be quite wide. It is a novel approach to make government efficient and effective as opposed to what we have been living with over the past several years. I believe that the last thing politicians want is to be called out into the sunshine of accountability and this approach would hopefully do just that, with the resultant media coverage and pressure.

Is this a pipe dream and just a flight of whimsy? Possibly, but I know of very few other ways that we could use to finally get the Federal government under control, get its spending under control, make the politicians in Congress actually do their job, and save our fiscal future for our kids and grandkids. Can anybody out there help get this approach launched?

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.reason.com/
http://www.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

A Thanksgiving Wish: Helping Each Other and Undoing The Damage and Hatred That Washington Politicians Have Wrought

I hope that today finds you, your family and your friends healthy and well and hopefully together, sharing this Thanksgiving with each other in the way you see fit. I hope that there is good cheer around your dinner table, lots of laughs, and plenty of food.

However, if you are fortunate enough to be in such a situation, may I suggest that you take a minute out of your Thanksgiving day to think about others that may not be so fortunate as yourselves. As you may or may not know, there are about 12 million Americans who are currently unable to find work and may not be having as wonderful a Thanksgiving as you.

There are about 23 million Americans who are unemployed or under employed, including many young Americans who are struggling to find a job and establishing a career for themselves.

Every week, hundreds of thousands of Americans find the need to apply for first time unemployment benefits as the economy continues to struggle and economic growth is not enough to provide employment to all those who need it.

News stories have been circulating the past few days on how these hard economic times and high travel costs are keeping families apart this holiday season, something that should never happen in America.

As you sit down to eat, remember that almost 50 million Americans are eating today, through no fault of their own, only because they are receiving food aid from the Federal government.

May I suggest that as a result of the above economic hardships that you take a little time or a little money, only what you can afford, and make the upcoming Christmas holidays a little easier, a little brighter for these million of fellow citizens.

Throw some change into the Salvation Army bell ringer on the street corner. Next time you go shopping, buy a few extra things for the local food bank. Or better yet, volunteer your time in whatever way possible.

Write a check to your favorite charity or buy that gift for the child that may not get one this holiday season. If you see a member of our armed forces waiting in line for a coffee or a lunch, step up up and treat him or her, thanking them for their sacrifices and service.

You see, unless we help each other, it is unlikely the political class will help them. Many of the economic hardships these folks are going through are a direct result of the inability or unwillingness of our Washington politicians to do the right thing. If they were willing or had the ability to do the right thing, 23 million Americans would not be hurting for employment this Thanksgiving day.

Thus, we need to each individually step forward and help our neighbors, waiting for Washington to do the right thing is a no win proposition. These overpaid, under performing politicians have left us and our neighbors with the following dire economic situation today (data and commentary courtesy of the Bankrupting America website):

This season, we are thankful for our friends, and family, and that we live in a nation that can endure a contentious election and still have peace. (Even if the discussion around your Thanksgiving table is not always so serene.) While we are grateful for the things we have, we are mindful of the work we – especially our federal government – has ahead, especially when it comes to repairing the nation’s balance sheet and economy. To that end, here are the five budget- and economic-related events that we are not thankful for this year:

1) No Budget. Congress failed to pass a budget once again this year. The House passed an outline, but the Senate did not. It looks like this trend could continue: according to Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), who is likely to take over the Senate Budget Committee, her panel may not even consider one for next year. Disgraceful.

2) $1 Trillion Deficit. For the fourth year in a row the federal government spent $1 trillion more than it took in. Deficits over the last four years totaled nearly $5.1 trillion.

3) Nearly $16.3 Trillion Debt. As of Nov. 15, the national debt totaled $16.278 trillion, about $142,300 for every household in the country. That figure is nearly triple the average household income in 2011 ($50,054).

4) Overspending, High Unemployment, Low Growth. On average since World War II, federal government spending has totaled 19.8 percent of the economy. In FY 2011, it was 24.1 percent and for FY 2012 it was estimated to come in at 24.3 percent. What have been the results? An unemployment rate of 7.9 percent (average since 1948: 5.8 percent) and a two percent economic growth rate in the third quarter(quarterly average since World War II: 3.1 percent).

5) Coming Fiscal Cliff. After last year’s debt supercommittee failed to agree on a long-term plan to tackle the nation’s persistent deficits, billions of dollars of spending cuts kicked in. Congress is now trying to undo many of these cuts and figure out how to deal with trillions of coming tax increases. Together these policies have led to great uncertainty.

A Reuters survey found 42 of 50 economists believe there is a significant chance fiscal cliff negotiations would reduce consumer and investor confidence. Additionally, The Wall Street Journal revealed at least 40 of the nation’s top companies are planning to cut capital spending because of fiscal uncertainty. Reduced spending by the private sector, combined with lower confidence from consumers and investors, will eventually result in even higher unemployment and worsening growth.

So yes, be thankful for what you have today, whether it is a job, a healthy family, good friends, the ability to come together, and have enough to eat. But also be thankful if you can help others also get through these tough economic times. Our politicians, the ones who created these tough economic times, are seemingly incapable of doing such a noble deed.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is available direclty online 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.reason.com/
http://www.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

Help Wanted, Lawyers and Legal Resources, To Fight The Invisible Empire, Part 2: The Havoc That Washington Has Wrought

Yesterday we reviewed how incompetently the Washington political class has been doing their jobs, neglecting their duties as demanded by the Constitution and current laws and statutes. It was the second in a four part series, which concludes on Friday, of what we called “suing the government to make the government accountable” week.

This series started with a Monday post which reviewed a massive, $43 TRILLION law suit that has been filed in the Brooklyn Federal court by the Spire Law group. The suit contends that entities and people within the Federal government and large banks conspired together for the benefit of both the banks and certain political elements.

Today we will review what major problems and challenges this invisible empire and lack of execution of basic government obligations has heaped upon the American public and our democracy. The basis of the following realities is from a Heritage Foundation analysis from January, 2012. Where appropriate, we have updated the information, based on how life has unfolded since that time:

- As of January 24. 2012, the U.S. Senate had gone exactly 1,000 days since it had lasted passed a formal, Constitutionally required national budget.

- Since no Senate budget has been passed since that date, we are now well beyond 1,250 days a real budget has been passed.

- The Heritage Foundation called this inaction “an egregious dereliction of duty on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D–NV) watch.”

- By enacting continuing resolution upon continuing resolution (short-term measures to keep the government running, spending money at the current rate), the Senate has taken a pass on leading the nation to some sort of fiscal sanity, which the Heritage Foundation claims is all to the detriment of the poor and middle class.

- The budget process is supposed to force Congress to set priorities to protect the people’s money and wealth and put it to its appropriate, optimal use.

- Instead, according to the Hertigage Foundation's conclusions and probably the conclusions of most rather human beings, “the Democrat-controlled Senate has abdicated its responsibility.”

- As a result of this abdication, the deficit is soaring, causing a looming tax burden and injecting uncertainty into the economy, leaving jobs and economic growth on the table.

- As the 1,000th day neared, here were some facts about America’s budget and why the Senate must take action to be stewards of the people’s money as the Constitution requires:

• The last time the Senate passed a formal, detailed budget was on April 29, 2009.
• Since that date, the Federal government has spent $9.4 trillion, adding $4.1 trillion in debt.
• As of January 20, 2012, the outstanding public debt stands at $15,240,174,635,409. That number is now well over $16.2 TRILLION less than one year later.
• Interest payments on the debt are now more than $200 billion per year and growing.
• President Obama proposed a fiscal year 2012 budget last year, and the Senate voted it down 97–0.
• Which may have actually been a good thing since that proposal never had an annual deficit of less than $748 billion, would have doubled the national debt in 10 years, and would have seen just annual interest payments approach $1 trillion per year.
• $1 TRILLION in interest payments a year works out to about $8,700 per family per year, just to pay the Federal govenrment's interest.
• In fiscal year 2011, the Obama administration and the Federal government in Washington spent $3.6 trillion. Compare that to the last time the budget was balanced in 2001, when Washington spent $1.8 trillion ($2.1 trillion when you adjust for inflation). Thus, in ten short years, the Federal government has almost doubled in size without anywhere close to the doubling of benefits for the citizens of this country. In fact, it acutally seems like we get less positive impacts in a less efficient manner than ever before despite the high costs.
• Entitlement spending will more than double by 2050 if nothing is done. That includes spending on Medicare, Medicaid and the Obamacare subsidy program, and Social Security. Total spending on Federal health care programs will triple.
• If this does not change, by 2050, the national debt is set to hit an unsustainable 344% of GDP.
• Taxes per household have risen dramatically, hitting about $18,400 in 2010 (compared with $11,295 in 1965).
• If the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts expire and more middle-class Americans are required to pay the alternative minimum tax (AMT), taxes will reach unprecedented levels.
• Federal spending per household is skyrocketing. Since 1965, Federal spending per household has skyrocketed by nearly 162 percent, from $11,431 in 1965 to $29,401 in 2010. From 2010 to 2021, it is projected to rise to $35,773, a 22 percent increase.

- Despite all of these distressing trends and out of control growth and spending, the Senate has utterly failed to execute the most basic, fundamental function of governance at the worst possible time, passing a government budget as mandated by the Constitution —when the country’s fiscal house is in disarray, the U.S. credit rating is in continual jeopardy, entitlement spending is ballooning, economic growth is historically low, high unemployment and under employment is stubbornly high, our ability to compete in the global economy is falling, etc.

The Heritage Foundation concludes:

“One thousand days without a budget is an embarrassing number, but the level of spending, deficits, and taxation that results from the Senate’s failure to exact even a modicum of fiscal discipline is terrifying. Senator Reid has said it would be “foolish” to pass a budget, but failing to pass it is proving to be beyond irresponsible. The middle class will be left holding the bag, paying for the Senate’s reckless negligence with soaring deficits, higher taxes, and a weak economy as far as the eye can see.”

Certainly discouraging news:

1. Monday’s post: politicians and government officials conspire with high ranking bankers (“banksters”) to satisfy each other’s political needs and enrichment needs to the detriment of the average American taxpayer who is not a member of the "invisible empire.”
2. Tuesday’s post: not only have Congress and the political class not meet their legal and Constitutional requirements in putting together the plans for leading the country, they rarely even do their day-to-day jobs with committee meetings, output, and legislative efforts minimal and in some cases, close to non-existent.
3. Today’s post - the Senate’s inability or unwillingness to do one of its basic jobs, develop and pass a comprehensive, detailed budget, has been going on for over 1,250 days, a timeframe in which Federal government spending, national debt, and despair over the future has grown exponentially out of control.

Disgraceful performance by probably the most disgraceful set of politicians in the history of this country. Low productivity, high debt, low accountability, high wasteful spending levels, low approval ratings, high probability for financial disaster. That is why we were so encouraged by the Federal lawsuit we reviewed in the Monday post, at least some U.S. citizens are usings one of the last avenues available to constraining political class insanity, the judicial system. Lord know that the concept of reprehensive government is not working.

But that lawsuit attacked only the crony capitalism and banker incest that has wasted TRILLIONS of dollars of taxpayer wealth. On Friday we will ask for your help in attacking the fiscal irresponsibility of the entire Federal government bureaucracy using the judicial system. I agree that our proposal might be a little whimsical, it may have little or no chance of success. However, I am reminded of a quote by Dante that fits our dire situation:

“The hottest place in Hell is reserved for those who remain neutral in times of great moral conflict.”

The financial collapse of our economy and democracy, the burdening of our children’s and grandchildren’s generations with unsustainable debt and taxation levels to me is a great moral conflict. This conflict will happen unless we step out of neutral and hold those in Washington accountable as if THEY were in the hottest place in hell.

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.reason.com/
http://www.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w