Yesterday, we examined how the city of Oahu was likely to become one of the next “Detroits” from a municipal bankruptcy perspective, with its politicians running up high expense with no way to pay for them. We learned that a former mayor of New Orleans was recently indicted, having taken advantage to growth his personal wealth as a consequence of Hurricane Katrina rather than focus on helping his city’s suffering citizens. And finally, we learned how a military weapons program refused to die even thought the Air Force, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the White House wanted to kill it but corporate lobbying and its money kept it alive.
Well, today prepare for more of the same incompetence, wasted spending, and other lunacy from our current set of politicians.
1) According to the United Liberty website on July 30, 2013, Congressman Justin Amash was able to cross party lines and combine an impressive number of supporters, from both parties in Congress, to support his amendment to keep the NSA from collecting data from innocent Americans. As you probably know, the Obama administration has been using the NSA to collect just about every piece of electronic communications of every American even though the vast majority of us are doing nothing illegal or wrong. This is a gross violation of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution.
In spite of the impressive cross party effort, Congressman Amash’s amendment failed when voted on by just a handful of votes. However, once United Liberty’s researchers, via an organization called MapLight, took a closer look at the election campaign donation data from the top defense contractors in the country, those companies that get rich helping the Obama administration execute these government spying plans, they found that House members who voted to continue the controversial NSA spy programs and defeat the Amash amendment, reportedly received $41,635 each on average from defense and intelligence firms, $12.97 million in total form these companies over a 2-year period ending in December 31, 2012.
Not surprisingly the analysis also showed House members who voted in support of the amendment that addresses the NSA’s illegal, immoral, and despicable citizen spying programs received a little over $18,700 on average from the same contractors. Thus, just another example where money talks and citizens have either their taxpayer wealth wasted or their freedom and privacy eroded, all for campaign dollars. Disgusting, and another good reason for term limits, an idea that would make reelection campaign funding irrelevant and unnecessary, freeing up politicians to vote for the good of the country and our liberty and not their own careers.
2) A quote from outspoken Texas Senator Ted Cruz that was documented in the August, 2013 issue of Reason magazine is truly amazing when it comes to politicians not acting within integrity: “We’ve had probably five or six luncheons with a bunch of Republican Senators standing up and looking at Rand [Paul] and me and yelling at the top of their lungs - I mean really upset. And they say: ‘Why did you do this? As a result of what you did, when I go home, my constituents are yelling at me that I have to stand on principle.”
What a novel thought! A politician that stands on principle rather than self serving politics. A politician that tries to do the right thing to help the country rather than the things that are most likely to get them reelected. A politician that stands in integrity rather than one that stands in the shadow of people that financially support his perpetual reelection campaign.
Is it no wonder there is never any progress on problem resolution, that politicians are always caught with their pants down (literally) rather than putting down a major problem. When principled behavior is the exception and not the norm, what we get today in the political class is all that is possible. And that is not much.
I guess nothing has changed since 2009 when Senator Joseph Lieberman, as quoted in the November 9, 2009 issue of the San Francisco Examiner stated: "I may be at a point in my career that I am going to do what is right and what makes sense." Does this mean that for all of the decades he served in the Washington political class he was only doing stuff that did not make any sense or that was not right? Is only at the end of career he starts to act with principle? Disgusting.
3) Speaking of a lack of principles, consider the actions and words of a Hawaiian politician. I am always amused when politicians, the most divisive set of people in the country when it comes to dividing groups of Americans and pitting them against each other, lectures us on how to behave and not be racist, prejudiced, or hateful. And when they have the opportunity to not divide and not be prejudiced, they turn out to be the biggest culprits.
According to a short article in the August, 2013 issue of Reason magazine, Hawaiian state politician Faye Hanohano decreed that when state government workers were hanging pieces of artwork in her office, she did not want any art made by “Haoles, Japs, or Pakes.” These are derogatory words used to describe whites, Japanese, and Chinese. Way to go Ms/ Hanohano, setting the bar for compassion and understanding among different groups of citizens that you serve. Pathetic.
4) We are constantly making our case, quite strongly if I do say so myself, that we are currently be served by the worst and most incompetent set of politicians this country has ever experienced. They waste our wealth, they insult our intelligence with their incompetent and immoral behavior, and they fail to resolve any problem of any magnitude, with their actions usually making existing problems even worse.
Data from an article, also in the August, 2013 issue of Reason magazine, shows how poorly they are managing our economy and our freedom relative to the rest of the world. According to latest Economic Freedom Index, and multivariate measure of how free a country’s economic policies are, the United States index of economic freedom, based on a scale of zero to ten, was 8.65 in 2000, 8.21 in 2005 and has plummeted down to 7.70 in 2010.
Where the United States used to constantly have the third best economic freedom performance in the world, the latest analysis puts our economic freedom at a disappointing 18th in the world. Maybe, just maybe, as the American political class has gone about reducing our freedom, raising our taxes, spending our children’s and grandchildren’s future wealth by running up $17 trillion in national debt, and over regulating the economy, contributing to our 18th place ranking, that is why our unemployment stays so high and over 20 million Americans are unemployed or underemployed.
And this performance and ranking helps reinforce our theory that these politicians currently in office, against any standard or benchmark, are quite possibly the worst our nation has ever endured.
5) The good news that is not really good news. The good news is that America is no longer the fattest country in the world. According to a blurb in the July 19, 2013 issue of The Week magazine, Mexico now has the fattest citizens in the world, with 32.8% of its citizens being classified as obese.
Unfortunately, Americans have not gotten skinny all of a sudden. The same blurb pointed out that an unacceptable 31. 8% of American adults are classified as obese. This is a main driver of our high health care costs in this country since obesity leads to all kinds of unnecessary health care maladies and the associated costs including diabetes and heart disease.
Despite its heavy influence on high health care costs, Obama Care does virtually nothing to attack and minimize this root cause, a piece of insanity we relive and review every month in the coming disaster known as Obama Care.
6) And finally for today, one last little fib from the Obama administration. An article in the May 31, 2013 issue of The Week magazine pointed out again how President Obama had promised in 2008 that his administration would be the most transparent administration ever, according to the article his administration has prosecuted twice as many whistle blowers and secret leakers than ALL other Presidential administrations COMBINED.
I would hate to se how bad it would be if his was not the most transparent administration ever (sarcasm implied).
That does it for today but not for this month’s political class insanity. More to follow at least for a couple of more days as we try to identify all of the lunacy and idiocy flowing out from our politicians. Until then, if you agree with us that we are currently living under the worst set of politicians of all time, please visit our term limits website and join our cause to rid the country of career politicians and replace them with concerned citizens:
www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com
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:
Term Limits Now: http://www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com
http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w
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