The Latest Perversion and Ineptness From The Poltiical Class

We have often discussed the stupid things that politicians all too often say and do. Who can forget some of the classics we have previously brought to your attention:

• Remember when the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, said that Congress had to pass the Obama Care legislation in order to see what was in it, never mind actually reading the proposed legislation BEFORE passing it.
• Remember when Congressman Hank Johnson publicly thought that it was actually possible for the Pacific island of Guam to physically tip over?
• Remember when Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee wanted to know if the Mars Rover vehicle would be driving anywhere close to where Neil Armstrong landed on the moon?

If these and other actions of the political class were not so pathetic they would be funny. But today, let’s look at the latest inane actions from the political class that are not funny by any stretch of imagination. They are just disgusting and pathetic:

1) Anthony Weiner is a former member of Congress. He resigned after he was caught sending pornographic like photos of himself to a series of women. He indulged in this perversion even though he was married and his wife was pregnant. He lied and initially tried to say that his Twitter account was hacked. That lie did not work and he was eventually forced out of Congress.

Now, according to the Huffington Post, he is back in the news for doing the same type of perverted stuff he did before but now he allegedly did it with an underage girl. An article by Mollie Reilly on September 22, 2016 provided the following details:

• Weiner exchanged sexual text messages with a 15 year old girl.
• The alleged exchange was confirmed to being investigated by law enforcement and that Weiner’s phone records have been subpoenaed.
• According to the article, Weiner confirmed the exchange but claimed he was “the subject of a hoax.”
• To add a little more perversion to this story, in August, the New York Post reported that Weiner had sent sexual messages to a woman including one where he posed next to his four year old son. 

Alleged liar, confirmed liar, alleged perversion, proven perversion, yes, a member of the American political class.

2) Let’s take the political class perversion up a notch, and that is not easy considering the latest from Weiner. Kristine Guerra, writing for the Washington Post on September 14, 2016, reported that the former mayor of Hubbard, Ohio has been charged with the repeated raping of a 4 year old girl. Richard Keenan was indicted last month on eight counts of gross sexual imposition, eight counts of rape and four counts of attempted rape. The rapes took place over a two year period, beginning when the girl was 4 years old.

In a really perverted sense of decency, Hubbard claimed that the 4 year old was a willing participant. Disgusting. Hubbard had previously served as mayor and a council member in Hubbard. Another outstanding member, in a very bad way, of the American political class.

3) Liam Deacon, writing for the Breitbart website on September 19, 2016, reported on how the Muslim mayor of London recently told Americans that we should get used to terrorism in our big cities, that this is just a way of live today. Speaking during his recent trip to the United States, mayor Sadiq Khan said: “It is a reality I’m afraid that London, New York, other major cities around the world have got to be prepared for these sorts of things [terrorist attacks].”

So rather than do something about the root causes of terrorism to minimize or eliminate the resulting attacks and murders of innocent civilians in our cities, this politician basically says get over it and face the reality that politicians and diplomats cannot save your life. In his view, terrorism is just “part and parcel” of urban life so get used to it.

In a great piece of irony, hours after stating this view of impotence of our so-called leaders, terrorist bombs exploded across the metro New York area. Given that no American politician spoke up to rebut Khan’s assertion that terrorism is now just a simple fact of life, one must assume that they agree with him that they are also incapable of protecting us from terror. Since protecting citizens should be a prime responsibility and duty of those elected to office, one must assume that our current crop of politicians are also inept when it comes to this part of their job.

So there you have it. Idiotic statements, perverted sexual actions, and declarations of incompetence from those that are responsible for our safety, our lives, and those of our children. Sad, oh so sad.

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.bankruptingamerica.org
http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

The Perversion and Death Of An Unbiased Press In this Country. Part 2

Record numbers of Americans are pretty disgusted with both candidates for president this year. Between the out of control quality of Trump to the lying and greedy Clinton, we are not faced with anywhere close to good choices from the Democrats and Republicans for President this year.

But we have faced incompetence before in Jimmy Carter. We have faced criminality in Richard Nixon. And we survived as a nation. But we have likely never faced in any Presidential campaign is the corruption and biased reporting of the press in this country. Rather than providing the facts and realities of life, we are now faced with press and journalism outlets that have a point of view to push rather than the truth. 

And that is what scares me more than the incompetence of Trump and Clinton. Without the truth that the press has previously been relied on in the past, we are forced to question everything and adjust our views not based on the realities but on the historical reporting bias of each news outlet.

To show you how biased, crooked, and dangerous news reporting is today, consider the following recent instances where journalism has the distinct color of yellow:

1) Before giving actual examples of bad journalism, let’s consider what a recent Gallup poll says about how much Americans trust what the press media tells us today. According to their recent opinion poll, only 32% of respondents said they have a great deal or fair amount of trust in the media today:

While the trend in trust has been slowly declining over time, Gallup thinks that the dramatic one year drop from 40% in 2015 to only 32% in 2016 is because of the misreporting and bias going on for the 2016 Presidential election. 32% is the lowest level of trust since at least 1997 and the 8 point drop in one year from 2015 to 2016 is the second largest drop since 1997. It is the highest percentage drop since 1997.

Trust among Republicans has dropped especially fast, from 32% in 2015 to only 14% in 2016. Trust among younger Americans dropped 10 points in one year.

Our democracy can survive bad Presidents, it has done so in the past. Not sure it can survive a perverted and corrupt press and media industry where truth is secondary to ratings and the political leanings of high ranking media executives and owners.

2) ABC News recently got into the biased reporting act when it abruptly cut the live feed of a Trump speech after he said something that ABC News did not like relative to the ABC favored candidate, Hillary Clinton. Trump was making a speech in Daytona Beach, Florida and said that Hillary Clinton “should get an award as the founder of ISIS.” Typical campaign rhetoric, making an accusation that has at least some credibility. However, immediately after those words came out of his mouth, the ABC News feed went blank and then returned with only the ABC News logo and some background music.

Now, it could be that ABC simply had technical problems. However, since it does not appear that they apologized for the technical difficulties and I am a member of the 68% that Gallup found does not trust the media, I am going with the theory that Trump dared to accuse Hillary Clinton of some bad things that ABC decided to censor on the spot by cutting the Trump speech feed. 

The whole censoring thing can be viewed at the following link:

http://conservativetribune.com/censored-abc-cuts/?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=TPNN&utm_content=2016-08-08&utm_campaign=manualpost

2) Yesterday, we had a couple of examples of CNN, the Clinton News Network, misbehaving when something happened that did not fit their prejudiced view of what they wanted to report. In one instant they inserted a word into a Donald Trump quote that he did not say and in another instance they cut out a Hillary Clinton statement that they did not want the public to hear. 

Today, let’s examine a CNN host that cut to a commercial break when an interview he was doing did not go according to the pre-conceived and biased manner he wanted to go:

• The host of a CNN news show, Don Lemon, was doing a live interview of Milwaukee Sheriff David Clarke, focused on the riots in Charlotte, North Carolina.
• Clarke has been very anti-Black Lives Matter activities and philosophies even though he is an African-American himself.
• During the interview, it is clear that Lemon keeps on wanting to promote a dialog that shows Black Lives Matter in a far more favorable light than how Sheriff Clarke holds that organization.
• Every time that Clarke tries to make a point about how bad Black Livers Matter is, Lemon tries to justify the organization in some way, only to be further rebuked by Clarke.
• Thus, rather than let a valid, expert opinion be stated, Lemon eventually gets so frustrated that he cannot get the answer he obviously wants from the sheriff that he just cuts the discussion short and goes to a commercial break.
• Things do not get any better when the come back off of commercial break, with the sheriff stating facts and realities about police and African Americans’ relationships and Lemon denying the facts that this subject matter expert is expected to bring to Lemon’s show.
• Lemon goes on to claim that he is just an unbiased reporter, that he simply reports realities which is pretty obvious he is not if you view the whole interview. The African American sheriff shuts down the interview with a very powerful statement that I am sure was not consistent with the biased message Lemon wanted to get: “There is no place in American discourse for that sort of vile, vitriolic hate coming out of this ideology. This has fueled and fanned the flames of this anger toward the American police officer. There’s only one group in America—one, Don—that cares about the lives of black people in these urban ghettos. It’s the American police officer, who goes out on a daily basis and puts their life on the line to protect who? Black people.”

Just another way that CNN remains a very biased and untrustworthy news sort, cutting off debate and discussion that is counter to their own skewed views and objectives. The entire discussion can be accessed at:

http://twitchy.com/twitchys-3839/2016/07/18/cnns-don-lemon-cuts-feed-when-sheriff-clarke-starts-making-sense/?utm_content=bufferf73b6&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer

3) One last piece of reporting bias and, surprise, surprise, it also comes from CNN. This one is particularly interesting in that the CNN producers actually cut off one of their own reporters who dared to say something, anything even vaguely critical of Hillary Clinton. 

CNN reporter, Brianna Keilar, was on the road reporting on a speech that Clinton had just given in Springfield, Illinois as she filed the following report: “Largely Hillary Clinton’s comments here today, John, were based around the recent violence that we have seen. The police-involved shootings of black men in Minnesota, in Louisiana, and the killing of white police officers by a black gunman in Dallas. That was really what she based her comments on around today.

And remember Hillary Clinton has some vulnerabilities herself. Even as she calls for criminal justice reform because of her support in the 1990s for anti-crime legislation that ultimately helped contribute to this era of mass incarceration that she now speaks out again–.”

Uh-oh, just as Keilar was starting to report on a very valid and historically accurate point that would show Hillary in a potentially bad light, her live feed went dead and the CNN producers threw up a silent black screen with some minimal graphics that referred to Donald Trump as “dangerous.”

Studio host John Berman then came back on with the following quote before the show moved on to another, totally different topic: “We just lost Brianna Keilar who was in Springfield, Illinois where Hillary Clinton just spoke.” 

Did they lose her, which of course is possible due to technical difficulties, and it was just a coincidence that they lost her just as she was pointing out some Clinton downside issues, or were they continuing their recent history of protecting the Hillary Clinton image? Given that I am part of the 68% discussed by Gallup above and the history of CNN’s biased reporting, it is my humble opinion that they cut away intentionally in a true Pravda like manner. 

The whole biased disaster can be seen at:

http://americanlookout.com/cnn-cuts-off-reporter-for-telling-the-truth-about-hillary-clinton-video/

That will do it for the second part of our two part review review of dishonest and skewed news reporting in America today. From misquoting to trying to force an answer out of a TV guest to creative editing and lying to “technical difficulties,” more than two thirds of us out in the country do not believe that we can trust anything the media and press tells us today.

Remember, once the politicians and the press unite to protect and further each other’s interests, you are no longer living in democracy, you are living in a version of the Soviet Union where the government controls the news vs. the news controlling the government and today’s news reporters and journalists are nothing more than modern day Pravda workers.

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.bankruptingamerica.org
http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

The Perversion and Death Of An Unbiased Press In this Country. Part 1

Record numbers of Americans are pretty disgusted with both candidates for President this year. Between the out of control quality of Trump to the lying and greedy Clinton, we are not faced with anywhere close to good choices from the Democrats and Republicans for President this year.

But we have faced incompetence before in Jimmy Carter. We have faced criminality in Richard Nixon. And we survived as a nation. But what we have likely never faced in any Presidential campaign is high degree of corruption and biased reporting of the press in this country. Rather than providing the facts and realities of life, we are now faced with press and journalism outlets that have a point of view to push rather than the truth.

And that is what scares me more than the incompetence of Trump and Clinton. Without truth, that the press has previously been relied on in the past to provide, we are forced to question everything and adjust our views not based on the realities but on the historical reporting bias of each news outlet.

To show you how biased, crooked, and dangerous news reporting is today, consider the following recent instances where journalism has had the distinct color of yellow:

1)Before giving actual examples of bad journalism, let’s consider what a recent Gallup poll says about how much Americans trust what the press and media tells us today. According to their recent opinion poll, only 32% of respondents said they have a great deal or fair amount of trust in the media today:

While the trend in trust has been slowly declining over time, Gallup thinks that the dramatic one year drop from 40% in 2015 to only 32% in 2016 is because of the misreporting and bias going on for the 2016 Presidential election. 32% is the lowest level of trust since at least 1997 and the 8 point drop in one year from 2015 to 2016 is the second largest drop since 1997. It is the highest percentage drop since 1997.

Trust among Republicans has dropped especially fast, from 32% in 2015 to only 14% in 2016. Trust among younger Americans dropped 10 points in one year.

Our democracy can survive bad Presidents, it has done so in the past. Not sure it can survive a perverted and corrupt press and media industry where truth is secondary to ratings and the political leanings of high ranking media executives and owners.

2) Let’s take a look at some real life examples of faulty and biased reporting that supports the ever lower trust levels Americans have for news purveyors today. Victoria Taft, recently writing for the Independent Journal Review website, told the story of how CNN, cynically known as the Clinton News Network for constantly fawning over and making Hillary Clinton look better than she actually was, was got caught trying to make Trump look like a racist by inserting a word Trump never said into a Trump quote.

Specifically, Trump has always called for better screening and vetting processes before letting Middle East refugees into this country, This seems like a valid thing to do because it has become apparent that ISIS has already used the refugee stream into Europe to embed terrorists into that refugee stream, terrorists who have gone on to instigate terrorist attacks across Europe.

Given that the FBI Director has publicly said that our screening processes are not where they should be, Trump’s position seems reasonable and common sense.

Trump explained his position on Fox News: "You know in Israel, they profile. They've done an unbelievable job — as good as you can do. But Israel has done an unbelievable job. And they'll profile. They profile. They see somebody that's suspicious. They will profile. They will take that person in. They will check out."

Those are his actual words but look what CNN did to those words, according to reporting by The Hill: "CNN has been running headlines throughout the day that specifically quotes Trump as using the words 'racial profiling.' CNN.com also is using the term 'racial profiling' in its headlines."

Image Credit: Screenshot/Fox News

But Trump never called for racial profiling in this interview, as his words above show. CNN inserted the word “racial” based on nothing he said, their actions were unethical and pathetic and intended to show Trump in an unfavorable light. As Ms. Taft correctly points out: “There are many kinds of criminal profiling, including observing behavior, background and psychological characteristics, but someone at CNN assumed the 2016 Republican nominee meant racial profiling.”

If Trump said racial profiling, then CNN would be proper to report that he said racial profiling. But to say he said racial profiling when he did not is a prime example of why over two thirds of Americans think that the press media in this country is corrupted and not to be trusted.

3) Let’s stay with CNN for another trick they recently did to make their favored candidate, Hillary Clinton look better than she was, while at the same time making Trump look worse than he was. The Hill recently reported that not only was CNN busy inserting words into Trump quotes that he never said, at the same time they were busy deleting quotes from Hillary Clinton that were actually said.

The Hill: "The decision by CNN to add 'racial' to Trump's comments comes in the wake of intense criticism this weekend after the network edited out a key portion of Hillary Clinton's Saturday night statement following the terror attacks in New York and New Jersey."

In an ad hoc press conference on her plane after the Chelsea, NYC and Seaside Heights, N.J. terror bombings, Clinton referred to the incidents as bombings, much like Trump had done earlier in the day. However, CNN had criticized Trump for saying the explosions were bombs too soon in the investigation.

Even though Clinton had also used the word bombs, when CNN showed her interview on the plane, they edited out here reference to bombs, which enabled them to criticize Trump and ignore the reality that Clinton had reached the same conclusion as Trump had.

So we now see how a corrupted press can alter reality by adding or deleting words or phrases to suit their biased views, the truth be damned.

4) Let’s leave the pathetic journalism practices of CNN and report on another attempt to prejudice the news by famous news reporter, Katie Couric. Couric’s infraction of bad journalism is so grievous that she is facing a multi-million dollar defamation lawsuit because of her corruptible actions.

Here’s how this news bias unfolded:

• Couric recently put together an in-depth news piece on guns and gun control.
• Apparently, she is not a fan of the Second Amendment.
• While interviewing a set of gun rights activists, she and her producer asked the activists to sit very still for ten seconds or so under the pretense of testing equipment.
• During the real interview, she asked them a question about gun violence, to which they promptly answered. 
• However, during final production and editing, when that question was asked, Couric and her producer spliced in the the ten seconds of silence to make it look like the activists were unable to answer the violence question, that they were dumbfounded and had no suitable answer when in reality they had an answer and it was immediate.

The bottom line was that Couric tried to manipulate the reality to her biased views on gun control, and would have gotten away with it if a viewer only looked at the final, skewed edited version of the interview. Fortunately, truth won out in this case and she and her producer may be facing a very costly payday for their fake journalism.

That will do it for the first part of our review of dishonest and skewed news reporting in America today, we will finish up the discussion tomorrow. Remember, once the politicians and the press unite to protect and further each other’s interests, you are no longer living in democracy, you are living in a version of the Soviet Union where the government controls the news vs. the news controlling the government. 

And today’s news reporters and journalists are nothing more than modern day Pravda workers.

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.bankruptingamerica.org
http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

No Mr.President, It Is Actualy Quite Easy To Find Areas Where We are Not Better Off,Thanks To You

We often have asked the question whether politicians are intentionally always lying to us because they think we are too stupid to figure out that they are lying or they really do believe some of the fantasies and lies that constantly come out of their mouths. It is probably a question that will never be answered since I doubt these same politicians will ever admit to lying or being deep in a fantasy world where their sense of reality does not match up with the realities of most Americans.

This question raised itself again when Obama recently made this statement to light of his administration finally coming to an end: “It’s very hard to find an area where we’re not better off than we were before.” Really, does he really believe this or does he think we are too stupid to see the difference in this country across many perspectives between when he took office in early 2009 and today?

Let’s see if we can find a just a few areas where the country and its citizens might not be better off:

• Obama’s budgets and out of control spending doubled the national debt in eight short years to a whoppoing $20 TRILLION, a reality that theoretically added another $32,000 to the debt burden of every man, woman, and child living in the country today. Verdict - not better off.
• The Obama economic recovery has failed to attain the long term historical annual economic growth average in even a single year, making his economic recovery the worst in at least the past hundred years and leaving us extremely vulnerable when the next recession hits. Verdict: not better off.
• There are 13 million more Americans on food stamps/food assistance now than when Obama took office despite being six years removed from the recession and six years into the Obama recovery. Verdict - not better off.
• The labor participation rate is at a four decades low despite being six years into the Obama economic recovery. Verdict - not better off.
• For most of the Obama economic recovery, wages and household income growth have been anemic, both on a real basis and compared to previous economic recoveries. Verdict - not better off.
• African American unemployment rates are still substantially higher than the unemployment rate of any other sector of the work force despite having the first African American President in charge for the past eight years. Verdict - not better off.
• After a two decade downward trend in violent crime and overall crime rates, we are now seeing the trend start to reverse itself in the latter stages of the Obama Presidency. Verdict - not better off.
• The political divisions within this country are much worse than they were just eight years ago with Obama offering no leadership to unite the country around common goals and purposes. Verdict - not better off.
• Heroin addiction and deaths have skyrocketed in the second half of the Obama administration with no proposals or strategies proposed or in place to reverse the trend. Verdict - not better off.
• Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are much closer to fiscal insolvency than when Obama took office since his administration has proposed no solutions for the coming financial crises of these massive government programs. Verdict - not better off.
• Despite spending hundreds of billions of Federal tax dollars over the past eight years to educate our kids, the test performance of our kids against the test performance of kids from other countries continues to be abysmal. Verdict - not better off.
• Despite throwing tens of billions of dollars at crony infested alternative energy companies during this Presidency, we are still looking for some type of economic and societal payback from those same companies, the vast majority of which have gone out of business, taking our tax dollars with them. Verdict - not better off.
• Despite spending hundreds of billions of dollars trying to resolve the chaos in Afghanistan, the Taliban now control more of the country than at any time since we we went in 15 years ago. Verdict - not better off.
• Two of our international opponents, Iran and North Korea, are eight years closer to owning nuclear weapons. Verdict - not better off.
• While Islamic terrorist attacks within our borders have not been as devastating in this country since the 9-11 attacks, the frequency of attacks has picked up dramatically which has resulted in many American deaths and casualties from attacks such as the Fort Hood attacks, the Boston Marathon bombers, the Tennessee military recruiting center attack, the Orlando night club siege and massacre, the San Bernardino workplace attack, the recent Minnesota knife attack, the recent related bombings in Chelsea in New York City and Seaside Heights in New Jersey, and many others, both those that have been successful and those that have been thwarted. Verdict - not better off.
• Many of our Constitutional and Bill of Rights rights have been under heavy siege by the political class and this administration in the past eight years including freedom of speech (First Amendment), freedom of religion (First Amendment), freedom of the press (First Amendment), freedom from unnecessary and illegal search (Fourth Amendment), privacy, and the right to bear arms (Second Amendment). Verdict - not better off.
• The Federal government has taken in more taxes than any other government entity in the history of the world and yet Washington politicians still cannot operate a balanced budget. Verdict - not better off.
• Russia and China, two global competitors both militarily and economically, have so much less respect for the will, strength, and standing of the United States since Obama took office that they are actively pursuing military advances around the world without fear of American reprisal. Verdict - not better off.
• The Middle East is in far worse shape than eight years ago with United States’ intrusion into the Syrian civil war making conditions there far worse and Obama’s un-Constitutional declaration of war on Libya has resulted in another broken country that has become a haven for ISIS and other terrorist groups. Verdict - not better off.
• In 2014, as he was removing all U.S., troops from Iraq, Obama claimed that we were leaving behind “an Iraq that is sovereign, stable, and self-reliant” but which today has been broken into three distinct regions, (Shiite, Sunni/ISIS, and Kurds), which is anything but stable with regular terror attacks and ISIS occupying wide swaths of land, and obviously not self reliant as we have had to send in thousands of U.S. troops to save what remained of the central government. Verdict - not better off.
• After improving slowly but steadily over the past forty years, most Americans, when polled, feel that race relations have deteriorated under the first African American President in our history. Verdict - not better off. 
• Over 20 million Americans now have health insurance vs. prior to the passing of the Obama Care legislation. Verdict - better off if you just measure this top line number. However, if you get underneath this number you find that Obama Care policy premium costs continually go up dramatically, Obama Care deductible costs continually go up dramatically, the vast majority of Obama Care co-ops have already failed with more likely to follow, the majority of those 20 million additionally insured fell into the Medicaid pool that provides low quality, limited access health care and which is riddled with criminal fraud and unsustainable financials, the cost of the entire Obama Care operations has more than doubled from the original estimate with its ten year expected cost is now close $2 TRILLION, health insurance companies are fleeing from the Obama Care policy market since they are losing hundreds of millions of dollars every year from those policies, and the whole Obama Care environment has stifled hiring and economic growth.

With possibly the weak exception of Obama Care, it is actually quite easy to find areas where we are not better off since Obama took office back in January, 2009, despite what ever illusions and fantasies he entertains in his own mind. Quite easy and that is why this administration, which came into being with such high approval ratings, has been such an abysmal failure along just about any dimension imaginable. The end cannot come soon enough.

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.bankruptingamerica.org
http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

The Unfolding Disaster That is The Obama Foreign Policy Performance

While we have spent the past four posts reviewing the unfolding disasters that continue to come out of the Obama Care legislation, let’s not forget the unfolding disasters that continue to come out of Obama’s foreign affairs missteps and failures. As a result of his Presidency, I doubt that the United States’ standing and effectiveness on the world stage has fallen so low or so quickly. As the saying goes relative to this administration: “Our enemies don’t fear us and our friends don’t trust us.” As a result, our economic, military and safety interests have all taken a pounding over the past seven plus years.

How bad is it? Let’s review:

1) Bruce Klingner, writing for the Heritage Foundation on September 9, 2016, reported on how North Korea recently conducted its fifth nuclear bomb test:

• This was the country’s second nuclear bomb test in 2016. 
• The North Korean government bragged that they now have “a variety of smaller, lighter, and diversified nuclear warheads of higher strike power … standardized [to be] mounted on strategic ballistic rockets.”
• Measurements by the U.S. Geological Survey estimate the power of the blast is about equivalent to the atomic bomb we dropped on Hiroshima in World War II.
• Klingner also reports that in addition to the two nuclear bomb tests, North Korea ”has engaged in a rapid-fire series of nuclear and missile tests. In addition to the two nuclear tests, Kim Jong Un has successfully tested an intercontinental ballistic missile, a road-mobile intermediate-range missile, a submarine-launched ballistic missile, upgraded medium- and short-range missiles, re-entry vehicle technology, a new solid-fuel rocket engine, and an improved liquid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile engine.”
• This is not surprising since in the past four years, the North Koreans have conducted at least 37 missile tests.
• This missile capability allows the North Koreans to easily hit South Korea and Japan and U.S.military bases in the Pacific Ocean, with the final goal likely to have a missile that can reach the U.S. mainland.

Nasty stuff, considering the nut job that is running North Korea. But it is obvious that the Obama administration has been powerless in stopping the march of North Korea to nuclear arms capability. 

The article points out that the administration has done nothing to enact new sanctions that would at least slow down the North Koreans development of nuclear weapons and missiles to deliver those weapons. Obama has had to rely solely on the Chinese to keep North Korea in line, something that China either does not want to do or will not do. Nothing the Obama administration has done or threatened to do has had any effect on North Korea, resulting in our country and the world being a less safe to be relative to nuclear weapons than it was seven and a half years ago when Obama was sworn in.

2) Apparently, the Philippines has a major problem with drug addiction, drug cartels, and drug violence. As a result, the current President of the Philippines, has launched a widespread and aggressive campaign to rid the country of drug trafficking and drug cartels, perhaps often crossing the line of legality when it comes to punishing/killing drug pushers and traffickers.

Obviously, this is a big domestic problem in that country and a problem that is best addressed and resolved by the people of the Philippines. But along comes the American President on a recent trip to Southeast Asia who decided to stick his nose into this country’s internal crisis. Obama more or less lectured the President and leaders of the Philippines that they should not treat drug traffickers so harsh and they should stay within the bounds of their legal system. 

Well, the President of the Philippines did not take too kindly to an outsider telling him how to run his country as well he should. I am sure we would not be happy if he came to this country and admonished us for what we might be doing. In fact, he kind of went off the deep end and called Obama “a son of a whore,” as reported by many news outlets including the New York Post in a September 5, 2016 article by Jamie Schram.

Specifically, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said: “You must be respectful. Do not just throw away questions and statements. Son of a whore, I will curse you in that forum. We will be wallowing in the mud like pigs if you do that to me.” Some of the other news outlets translated his remarks to mean “son of a bitch,” not “son of a whore,” as if there is a big difference.

In fact despite Obama’s intrusion and view that Duarte calm down his anti-drug crusade, Duarte seemed to double down in defiance of Obama: “More people will be killed, plenty will be killed until the last pusher is out of the streets. Until the (last) drug manufacturer is killed, we will continue and I will continue. I don’t give a s—t about anybody observing my behavior.” 

As a result of this exchange of “opinions” between the two leaders, a scheduled meeting between them in China at a meeting of world leaders was, not surprisingly, cancelled. 

But in a historical context, can you recall at any time in our history during any Presidency when a President of the United States was called a “son of a whore” or “son of a bitch” by a leader of supposedly of a friendly country? Or for that matter, by an enemy state? This is certainly a real example of how much this President and the United States is held in so little esteem by a friendly country’s leader.

3) You would think that Iran would be thankful to the Obama administration., Obama gave them a great deal on the so-called nuclear arms agreement last year. This deal allowed the Iranians to quickly become nuclear weapons capable in about ten years, if not sooner, and it gave the Iranians sanctions relief. In addition, the administration secretly paid them $400 million in cash for the release of four American hostages that were being held by the Iranians. 

So much for gratitude. Lucas Tomlinson, writing for Fox News on September 12, 2016, reported that Iran threatened to shoot down US spy planes operating in the Persian Gulf. This threat happened as a result of two Navy planes flying close to, but not violating, the twelve mile international boundary line. Last month small Iranian Navy boats harassed U.S. Navy ships operating in international waters. 

Nothing says no respect for a US President than some piss ant little country harassing the most powerful armed forces in the country and the President and commander in chief of those armed forces doing nothing. Pathetic.

4) But these are just the latest insults and failures of the Obama administration’s foreign policy ineptness, consider the other failures over the years:

• Remember when the President of Brazil turned the opportunity to have a state dinner at the White House sponsored by Obama because his administration had spied on Brazilian President’s phone calls?
• Remember when Obama called ISIS a JV terrorist organization and then the world watched as ISIS grew into the most terrifying, gruesome, and richest terror organization of all time?
• Remember when Obama threatened the Syrian government and strongman Assad not to cross the “red line” of using chemical weapons on Syrian citizens and then did nothing when Assad ignored Obama’s warning and crossed that red line?
• Remember when Putin and Russia invaded the Ukraine and Obama did relatively little to oppose that hostile move, a strategy that was so ineffective that Russia still controls vast swaths of the Ukraine?
• Remember when Obama pulled off one of the lamest foreign affairs stunts of all time when he refused to join other world leaders when Paris and France suffered terrible terror attacks by ISIS but a week or so later sent John Kerry and singer James Taylor to France where he sang his four decade old hit song, “You’ve Got A Friend?”
• Remember when Obama prematurely withdrew the last US troops from Iraq, against the advice of his diplomatic and military advisors, in order to make a trite political point in his reelection campaign, which directly led to the rise of ISIS and the unnecessary deaths of hundreds of Iraqi citizens from terrorism?
• Remember when Obama injected himself into the whole BREXIT discussion in Great Britian and not only was he told by any number of British polticians to butt out of their inernal affairs but there is some evidence that his intrusion with his opinion that Britain should reject the BREXIT option resulted in a backlash that actually allowed the BREXIT option to win?
• Remember when China decided to build artificial islands all over the Pacific Ocean, likely for military purposes, and faced no effective counter strategy or counter balance from the Obama administration?

Does any of this smack of a foreign affairs diplomatic success story?Teddyh Roosevelt once said the being "weak invites contmept." Being called a son of a whore by an ally, being stood up at a White House state dinner, and being ignored by small countries and large countries alike? All of these instances look like weakness and the resultant contempt to me.

Maybe Obama Care has a mirror image of failure of itself in the Obama Presidency’s foreign affairs disasters. The world is certainly less secure, less safe, and more hostile since Obama took office and he apparently has done little, if anything, to make the world more secure, safer, and less hostile.

September,2016, Part 4, The Unfolding Disaster That Is Obama Care: Less Choice, Higher Costs, and Less Doctor Time

Every month for years now we have had to discuss how bad Obama Care is turning out to be under the continuing theme, “the unfolding disaster that is Obama Care.” This month is no different. As the legislation continues to march through America, driving up health care and health insurance prices as it serves as dead weight on economic growth, it cements its rightful place as the worst piece of legislation Washington has ever produced.

It never had a chance to be successful since it really never addressed the underlying root causes of our ever increasing health costs in the country:

• Americans eat too much of the wrong kind of food, resulting in obscenely high obesity rates for the country.
• Our food chain is infested with overdoses of high fructose corn syrup, salt, and other unhealthy additives.
• Americans smoke too much.
• Americans do not exercise enough.
• The country is in serious need of health care tort reform.
• Barriers to insurance company competition across state lines need to come down.
• Obama Care never “followed the money” to find out who is actually profiting from the ever escalating healthcare costs in this country and how to get those factors under control.
• Obama Care never got the immense amount of fraud and abuse in current government healthcare programs, Medicare and Medicaid, under control in order to save money to efficiently fund other government health care initiatives.
• Obama Care never put serious research money towards curing the major diseases that drive high healthcare costs such as high frequency cancers and dementia type diseases.

You cannot resolve any problem unless you understand and address the underlying root causes. No difference here: Obama Care legislation never addressed these listed root causes and thus, has no chance of ever being successful.

But it is not just missing the root causes of our healthcare costs that makes Obama Care so horrible. It resulted in millions of Americans losing access to their favored doctors, hospitals, and insurance policies. It has caused insurance premiums, deductibles and co-pays to escalate substantially. It will likely add trillions of dollars to the national debt. It has exposed millions of Americans to higher than necessary identity theft chances. It has created government bureaucracies that are wastefully spending taxpayer wealth and being exploited by criminal elements. It has stifled economic growth and job creation.

These are just a sample of the types of idiocy that we have been reviewing for the past several years in this blog relative to Obama Care., To read those past posts, just enter the phrase, “the unfolding disaster,” in the search box above.

I thought yesterday would be our last discussion on the unfolding disasters that is Obama Care for this month but by the time I write a post, more disasters show up, requiring another day of disaster discussions:

1) The Americans For Prosperity website recently had a short article which reported on the Obama Care reality that doctors now spend more time on government bureaucracy paperwork than with their sick patients. Details of their reporting include the following realities:

• The findings are based on a recent research study that was published in the publication, “Annals Of Internal Medicine.”
• It found that, on average, for every hour that a doctor spends with a patient, they spend two hours doing paperwork.
• Obama Care was supposed to make reporting paperwork much easier since everything would be mechanized but the government design and requirements has had the opposite effect, taking valuable healing and patient time away from doctors and replaced it with with burdensome paperwork.
• And even when doctors are in an examination room with their patients, they spend only 52.9% of the exam room time doing doctor-like work and the rest of the time doing paperwork and reporting.

No wonder that doctors retirement rates have accelerated under Obama Care, they are serving the government bureaucracy more and more and their patients less and less, much of it as a result of Obama Care’s rules, regulations, and nonsense.

2) Warner Todd, writing for the Breitbart website on September 16, 2016, reported on a new study that concluded that health insurance premiums rose faster this year than at any time over the past 32 years:

• Research by Kaiser/HRET Employer Health Benefits reported on September 14 that the average American family’s health insurance plan is now over $18,000 a year.
• This is up 3.5% from 2015 and is substantially higher than the growth in household wages over that same time period.
• CNN MOney reported that: “Employees are paying a whole lot more for health insurance than they did a decade ago. The average family plan cost $11,480 in 2006, of which workers had to pay $2,973.” 
• And it is not only health insurance premiums that are going up quickly, deductibles are also rising rapidly since over half of American workers now have at least a $1,000 deductible, a number that is up 31% since just 2011.
• Employees of small businesses, according to the New York Times, now average an even higher deductible, $1,800 a year, and 20% of workers pay over $2,000 a year in deductibles.

So much for the constant Obama promise that American families could see up to a $2,500 DECREASE in their annual health insurance costs. Instead, costs have risen quicker and quicker rather than decreasing. And as we have reported previously, 2017 is likely to see another massive increase in health insurance costs.

3) We have often reported on how Obama lied to the country when he promised that if you liked your current insurance policy, doctors, or hospitals, you could keep your current insurance policy, doctors, and hospitals. This, of course, was a lie from day one, since at no time in the development and rollout of Obama Care was that promise valid. In fact, millions and millions of Americans lost access to their preferred, current plans, doctors, and hospitals explicitly as a result of Obama Care.

In case you forgot about those broken promises/lies, go to the following link where in a mere 95 seconds you will hear Obama make the same faux promise about two dozen times in different settings: if you like your current plan, you can keep your current plan:

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/09/16/ddespite-obama-promises-health-care-costs-have-risen-the-most-in-32-years/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social

4) Beverly Hallberg is a small business owner and she recently wrote a short piece for the Heritage Foundation that laid out some of the problems with Obama Care from a small business perspective:

• As a small business owner, she has to purchase her own health insurance plan.
• Her annual premiums tripled since the onset of Obama Care even though her health and her use of her insurance has not changed.
• She claims that other small business owners she knows have face similar increases and challenges.
• Her writing also reviews the other broken promises of Obama Care including the vow that you can keep your current plan if you like it, families making less than $250,000 would not see any tax increases, Obama Care would not add to the national debt, and insurance premiums would decrease, all of which never came to pass.
• Instead, we got stuck with higher premiums, dropped plans, possibly over a trillion dollars added to the national debt, more narrow doctor and hospital networks, higher taxes, and less overall choice in every aspect of our health care.

Another voice checking in from real America, not the fantasyland America that the Washington political class lives in.

5) We have previously reported that with major and minor insurance companies pulling out of the Obama Care program, many counties across the country have fewer and fewer choices for healthcare insurance for county residents. In fact, residents of Pinal County in Arizona now have NO choices since all of the Obama Care insurers have pulled out, leaving no insurance company available to write policies for those folks.

Adding insult to injury is the reality that not only do these folks have any choices for health insurance, according to the Obama Care legislation they still have to pay an Obama Care penalty for not having insurance even though they cannot buy insurance. So much for Obama Care increasing choice for Americans relative to their health insurance.

But in one of the few instances where there is a little bit of good news in the Obama Care world, some Republican Senators are trying to fix this problem that Obama Care created. An article for the Daily Caller website by Julie Grace Brufke on September 7, 2016 reported that Senate legislation is being proposed that would void the mandate that citizens have to pay a fine for not having health insurance if they live in an area with minimal health insurance company options. Minimal options is being defined as areas with no or only one insurance company serving that county or area.

The legislation is entitled, “Protection From Obamacare Monopolies Act,” and would not require citizens in those counties with minimal options to pay the $685 per person fine or 2.5% of a household’s income fine, whichever is higher, as required by the Obama Care tenets. 

Not surprisingly, Arizona’s two Senators, Senators McCain and Flake, are sponsors of the legislation since the article reports that 13 out of 15 counties in Arizona either have only one insurer serving that county or none. 

Senator Flake: “Obamacare is an unmitigated disaster in Arizona. The administration continues to defend this failed law, we will not wait around for them to fix its mess, which is why we have introduced this legislation to help protect those in Arizona and across the country from unjustifiable financial penalties when they are left without healthcare options.”

Want to bet that Arizona is not the last state to find itself in this sort of Obama Care hell: little or no insurance competition which will eventually drive up costs, the exact opposite of what Obama promised?

That will definitely do it for this month: higher costs, broken promises, less competition, less choice, etc., etc., etc. It seems to never end, the unfolding disaster that is Obama Care. More disasters for sure next month.

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