My State Of The Union Message To My Senator, Bill Nelson of Florida

Readers of this blog know that I have very little regard for most American politicians today, both Republicans and Democrats. But as a result of the despicable behavior Congressional Democrats displayed regarding the Office of the Presidency last night at Trump's State of the Union message, I fired off the following piece of my opinion and disgust to Florida Senator Bill Nelson:

Senator Nelson: 

Let me start off by saying that I have never voted for a Republican for President in my life (I am 64 years old), I did not vote for Trump, and I rarely have voted for a Republican for national office in my life. 

However, having said all of that, I was very disgusted with Congressional Democrats behavior last night at the State of The Union Message. No matter how much Democrats hate Trump, the office of the Presidency should still be respected. By not attending the meeting, by not applauding Trump's, and America's accomplishments over the past year (robust economic growth, low unemployment among all races, a wonderful tax cut that is giving middle and lower class Americans bonuses and lower tax levels, defeat of ISIS, etc.), by checking their emails in the middle of the speech, by looking like sour puss five years old that did not get their way, I can only assume that Democrats are more worried about themselves and their petty, childlike behaviors and temper tantrums than they are of working together to make America a better place. 

You people, Democrats, are being left behind, and unless you and the rest of your party start acting like mature adults rather than petulant toddlers, people like me will basically say screw you in November. I want to work with people that want to make real progress on real issues rather than people that roadblock EVERYTHING, the idiotic, non-productive, and immature tactic that people like Schumer and Pelosi are doing. Ignore at your own reelection risk

February, 2018, Part 1, Political Class Insanity: California's Massive Plastic Straw Problem, Hillary Protects a Sexual Predator,and More

Note: I know it is not February yet but we have a lot of political class insanity to get through this month so I started this month's series a few days early.

It is the beginning of another month which means it is again time to review the latest political class insanity from Washington and around the world. Political class insanity takes many forms including the wasting of taxpayer wealth, criminal fraud within government programs, inane and stupid political quotes and actions, the inability to create and implement effective and efficient government programs, stupid and ill performing economic policies and strategies, and other forms of insanity that continue to evolve and surprise and shock us.

Let's get started:

1) Before we get into days and days of politicians behaving badly and stupidly, let’s review some good news out of Washington. Over the past week or so we have reviewed over 100 instances of good stuff that has happened during Trump’s first year. The final post in that series can be accessed at the following link which also contains three other links to the 100+ good things that have happened:

XXXX

Today’s let’s add one more good thing from Trump’s first year of being President:

• Starbucks recently announced that as a consequence of the Trump tax cuts, it is giving its employees pay raises AND stock grants.
• In addition, employees will be able to earn paid sick time off and the company’s parental leave benefits will include non-birth parents.
• The changes will affect 150,000 Starbucks employees.

It does not happen often but when the political class finally does something good, something to benefit Americans, it is worth noting.

2) Okay, back to the sad reality of American politicians. According to a recent Daily Wire article by Ryan Saavedra on January 26, 2018:

• Hallandale Beach, Florida Mayor Joy Cooper was recently arrested by Federal law enforcement officials.
• The charges include money laundering and corruption activities that were identified by an FBI sting.
• According to the officials in charge, the crimes include "money laundering, official misconduct and exceeding limits on campaign contributions, all of which are third-degree felonies. Prosecutors also charged her with soliciting contributions in a government building, which is a first-degree misdemeanor."
• The Florida governor immediately suspended Cooper as mayor of Hallandale Beach.
• It is alleged that Cooper asked for campaign contributions from a developer that was higher than the legal limit, she accepted money she thought was from an unlawful activity, and falsified campaign treasury reports.
• Cooper could face up to five years in jail for each of the felonies she is accused of and one year for the misdemeanor she is accused of.

Again, in this country Cooper is assumed innocent until proven guilty. But really, do we really think the FBI and Federal prosecutors would bring a case against a sitting politician if they were not pretty confident in their work?

3) As everyone probably knows by now, the country has finally awakened to the rampant sexual predator behavior of powerful men that has been going on for a very long time in politics, the mainstream media, and show business. Fortunately, the problem is being recognized and addressed legally and professionally.

Which brings us to our next piece of political class insanity from an article by the New York Times, written by Maggie Haberman and Amy Chozick, on January 26, 2018:

• When Hillary Clinton first ran for President back in 2008, she had a senior advisor on her staff named Burns Strider.
• Mr. Strider was Clinton's faith advisor, a title that I have no idea what it means. 
• But the bottom line is that Strider was accused during that 2008 campaign run of repeatedly sexually harassing a young woman on his staff.
• Given the multiple witnesses to the harassment, the Times article claims there were four witnesses, Clinton’s campaign manager suggested that Strider be fired.
• However, even given the seriousness of the alleged actions, Clinton instead docked him a few weeks pay, ordered him to undergo counseling and moved the woman being harassed to a new job.
• In fact, Strider was hired five years later by Clinton to lead an organization that supported her 2016 Presidential run.
• He was fired from the group several months later for harassing a young female aide.

Given that the press crucified Trump for his known and alleged sexual harassment and grossness, you wonder if that same press and Hillary followers would have been as vocal if they knew that their favorite candidate knew about a sexual predator in her midst and did nothing about it. Note: Strider never did attend the counseling that was requested of him. 

Hypocrisy and another sad commentary on the leadership in this country.

4) Let’s finish up today’s insanity with some really inane and wacked out priorities out in the crazy state of California. Before we get to the latest idiocy, remember some of the things about California that we have recently written about:

• California public schools stink at educating their kids.
• The California state government is facing a mountain of unfunded future financial liabilities that it has little chance of ever fixing.
• California is now the poorest state in the nation when cost of living adjustments are made to income levels and costs of living in the state.
• 40% of Los Angeles residents are so poor that they qualify for Medicaid.
• Like the rest of the country, the state infrastructure is also falling apart.
• It has a massive and growing homelessness problem.

It is a state and a set of state residents that are in very dire straits. But rather than focus on fixing and alleviating these problems that probably touch just about every state resident, the state political class has been working on the following effort:

• According to January 30, 2018 USA Today article, the state government has proposed a law that makes it a crime for a restaurant waiter or waitress to give a customer plastic straw unless that customer requested it.
• If that waiter or waitress did give a customer a plastic straw that was not explicitly requested, that server would then have committed crime and face a $1,000 fine and possibly jail time.
• Ian Calderon is the Democratic assemblyman who wrote the proposed law: “We need to create awareness around the issue of one-time use plastic straws and its detrimental effects on our landfills, waterways, and oceans.”
• And Calderon is not some first time inexperienced legislator, he is the majority leader in California’s lower house.

Sometimes you cannot make up such insanity. And the insanity gets worse because of the following conditions that Calderon put into the proposed legislation:

• He claimed that amendments would be added to the final bill’s wording to remove the threat of a fine or jail time, which begs the question why put the fine and jail time in the bill at all if you are going to negate it with amendments?
• Second, the bill would only apply to sit down restaurants, not fast food businesses or bars, which begs the question what kind of environmental impact are you going to have by reducing the use of plastic straws in restaurants if you eliminate a major chunk of restaurants, besides eliminating the fine and jail time threat? 

So rather than work on fixing failing schools, repairing crumbling infrastructure, reducing the massive homeless problem, fixing the state’s fiscal crisis, this political leader is going to work on passing a law that would fine or jail restaurant servers for giving out unsolicited plastic straws to restaurant patrons….but he was just kidding with the fine and jail time since he would negate those provisions of his law in the law’s amendments...and he was just kidding about the term “restaurants” since he would exempt probably tens of thousands of restaurants, bars and fast food joints, from the law. Wow, one of the most insane pieces of political action we have ever covered.

That will do it for today’s insanity: bad plastic straws priorities, a sexual predator within Hillary’s inner sanctum (wow, that sounds familiar), another potential crooked and corrupt politician, and a little good news for Starbucks workers courtesy of Trump’s tax cuts. Much more insanity to follow in the following days.

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 Onrushing State Government Pension Fiscal Crisis and Tsunami

Several days ago we posted a post that discussed the impending fiscal collapse of the state governments in New Jersey and California. These impending collapses are due to the reality that state politicians in those states continued to cater to state government union members in order to get their votes at election time. As a result, we have a system in many states that has a ton of unfunded liabilities based on the promises of robust retirement pensions and health care for retired state government employees and union members. That post can be accessed at:

https://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2018/01/california-and-new-jerseys-impending.html

But according to a National Review article by Lewis M. Andrews on January 26, 2018, these two states are not the only states that have been led to the brink of insolvency by state politicians and that brink is not that far away:

• In Illinois, a recent law went into effect that allows the state Comptroller to seize any Illinois town or country’s share of sales, excise, or other taxes if that town or county does not keep up its pensions payments and contributions.
• This obviously will result in other budget lines of a town or county to go down which will result in less government services to those citizens in those towns and counties.
• For example, Mattoon city officials have already said that they will get rid of ambulance services in order to make up for the lost tax revenue going into pension funding, funding that is half a million dollars more this year than last year.
• Normal, Illinois is going to raise property taxes to make up its pension contribution shortfall.
• East St. Louis, Illinois may see its ENTIRE tax money confiscated by the state to fulfill its pension requirements, leaving it nothing at all for ANY other government service, police, fire, ambulance, schools, etc.
• But the problem of unfunded pension and retirement liabilities, estimated by some to be as high as $6 TRILLION, is not restricted to Illinois, New Jersey and California.
• Florida towns and cities will have to pony up an incremental $178.5 million in the their upcoming budgets to cover their pension liabilities for government retirees.
• The San Diego school district is asking parents of its kids which services they would prefer to get cut in order to make up their contributions to California’s deeply indebted pension system.
• Fulton, Kentucky has already cut back its hospital and ambulance services and still faces an annual $114,000 annual pension shortfall.
• To cover the current deficits, Connecticut would have to raise overall taxes by 14% and New Jersey would have to raise taxes a whopping 26%.

Seriously bad financial conditions and yet rather than fix the root causes of the pension problem, as always, politicians have resorted to tricks, gimmicks, and lies to cover up the impending disasters:

• In 2016, San Francisco’s Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) subway system sought voter approval to bond $3.5 billion in infrastructure improvements even though the needed upgrade was already covered by an ongoing capital fund, causing speculation that the $3.5 billion would be secretly diverted to cover pension expenses.
• Former New Jersey Governor Christie Christie and General Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto agreed to a shell game that made the state lottery an asset of the pension fund which, while it would help reduce the pension fund deficit, it would rob other state government functions of the funds it currently gets from lottery proceeds.
• California Sonoma County voters recently shot down a proposal to increase the sales tax increase because it was suspected the increase would be only funneled into the local pension fund deficit.

And keep in mind these deficits and funding shortfalls have occurred during a record stretch of positive economic results, we have not had a recession in almost ten years. You can imagine what is going to happen when the economy eventually dips into a recession.

Politicians making bad promises that they cannot fulfill just to ensure their careers and cushy pay checks, pensions and benefits are protected and prolonged. It is going to be a rocky ride, probably sooner than later, when it comes to government's reckoning of its fiscal condition and insanity. And not a politician, or leader, in sight, who has the gumption and courage to do the right thing. 

Term limits anyone?

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

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

The Horrors and Destruction that Donald Trump Has Imposed On America...Just Kidding! Part 4

Before we start today’s discussion, let’s review my voting history:

• I have never voted for a Republican for President in my life.
• Thus, I did not vote for Trump.
• I have rarely voted for a Republican for national office in my life.

A year ago, many liberals, Democrats, and millenials were besides themselves with grief and fear because their pre-ordained queen, Hillary Clinton, was not elected President. Instead, Donald Trump was elected, an individual that these same people despised, hated, and feared, an individual that felt would endanger and possibly destroy the country and/or our democracy. For the past year they fretted, and worried and lashed out at anything or anyone that even remotely smelled of Donald Trump.

Given that Trump has been in office for a year and we are at the end of that calendar year, I thought, that as someone who did not vote for him, it would be a good idea to review the horror, trauma, and terrible things that Trump has subjected the country to in just one short. Of course, this previous statement is dripping in sarcasm. Over the past month or so we have listed out over 100 good things that have happened to America and Americans as a result of the Trump Presidency. Those good things can be read at the following three links:

https://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2017/12/the-horrors-and-destruction-that-donald.html

https://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2017/12/the-horrors-and-destruction-that-donald_31.html

https://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2018/01/the-horrors-and-destruction-that-donald.html

So for those of you that feared the end of the world with Trump’s election, here are 9 additional accomplishments, in addition to that previous list of 53 accomplishments, he has imposed on the country. Let’s be honest Trump haters, he has done a pretty good job in just the first twelve months of his term.

1) Home Depot has decided to put its tax savings as a result of the Trump tax cuts to help its employees:

• According to CNBC, Home Depot’s hourly employees will get a one time cash bonus as high as $1,000 as a result of the Trump tax changes.
• The amount of the bonus will be based on length of employment service with new employees getting $200 and more tenured employees getting $1,000.
• According to Home Depot CEO, Craig Menear: "This incremental investment in our associates was made possible by the new tax reform bill. We are pleased to be able to provide this additional reward to our associates."

2) According to another CNBC report:

• 125,000 Disney employees will get $1,000 bonus payments as a result of the Trump tax cut.
• The company will also donate $50 million into a new employee education program.
• According to CEO Bob Iger: “"We are directing approximately $125 million to our cast members and employees across the country and making higher education more accessible with the launch of this new program." 
• The bonus applies to both full time and part time employees but excludes executive level employees.

3)According to a recent report on the American Liberty Report website:

• CNBC reported that Apple will make a $350 billion “contribution” to the U.S. economy over the next five years.
• $30 billion will be invested into capital expenditures which would result in 20,000 new domestic jobs and a new headquarters building and campus.
• According to Apple CEO Tim Cook: “We have a deep sense of responsibility to give back to our country and the people who help make our success possible.”
• Apple released the following good news press release: “Combining new investments and Apple’s current pace of spending with domestic suppliers and manufacturers — an estimated $55 billion for 2018 — Apple’s direct contribution to the US economy will be more than $350 billion over the next five years, not including Apple’s ongoing tax payments, the tax revenues generated from employees’ wages and the sale of Apple products… Planned capital expenditures in the US, investments in American manufacturing over five years and a record tax payment upon repatriation of overseas profits will account for approximately $75 billion of Apple’s direct contribution …Apple, already the largest US taxpayer, anticipates repatriation tax payments of approximately $38 billion as required by recent changes to the tax law. A payment of that size would likely be the largest of its kind ever made.”

4) Let’s move away from the employees across the country are are seeing great initial benefits from the Trump tax cuts to how the entire economy is doing at a macros level:

• According to Reuters, the national economy added 2.1 million jobs in Trump’s first year as President.
• The 2.1 million jobs created is more than enough to cover the growth in the working age population.
• Average hourly earnings were up 9 cents/.3% in December, 2017, after rising only .1% the month before, bringing the entire year’s increase to a healthy 2.5%.
• Unemployment finished the year at 4.1%, close to what economists would call full employment.
• The economy grew a health 2.6% in the fourth quarter of 12017 despite trying to recover from massive disruptions caused by major hurricanes Harvey and Irma.

5) Much like its main competitor, AT&T, Verizon has decided to share its tax savings with its employees. Every employee will receive about $2,500 in Verizon stock, the company will increase its contributions to charities by $200 to $300 million, and pay down some of its debt with the windfall from the Trump tax cuts.

6) New home sales in the country were up almost 9% in 2017, Trump's first year, hitting an annual level of 608,000. This is the highest level since 2007.

7) And one last point of success for today, consider the following video that lists out dozens and dozens of other companies that are giving their employees hefty bonuses as a result of the Trump tax cuts:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YW5AHGYaAPA&feature=youtu.be&utm_source=IWV+Opens&utm_campaign=7fa3d2c73c-House_Tax_Bill_CTA12_11_2017&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_57fb36a6ae-7fa3d2c73c-55284199

So for those of you that feared the end of the world with Trump’s election, here is a list of more 49 Trump benefits and accomplishments to go with the list of 62 accomplishments we published a few days ago. Let’s be honest Trump haters, he has done a pretty good job in just the first twelve months of his term.

Given your gross error in judgment relative to Trump, let me ask that you to do us all a favor by implementing the following changes in your behavior and attitude:

• Chill out, tamp down your TDS affliction. No matter how much you hate Trump on a sexist, personal basis, get over it. He is the legally and duly elected President, he will be around for a while so refocus your hatred on more constructive issues and matters. You will live a lot longer if you take your hatred out of your heart and soul and devote it to something positive.
• I would really appreciate it if some of you would apologize to the Trump voters you have disrespected in some of the grossest terms possible over the past year. You have called millions of voters racists, ignorant, stupid, Nazis, KKK members, and other horrible names simply because you disagreed with their voting choice. No American should be called such disgusting names simply because they exercised their Constitutional rights to the best of their abilities. Plus, slandering over 60 million Americans is no way to unite the country and get it focused on the real issues facing us all.
• More personally, I would like, no I am demanding, an apology from some of you for your slanderous and disgusting name calling because in doing so, you insulted and disrespected my sister, my family members, my friends, and my co-workers who simply voted their conscience. I will defend their right to vote anyway they wanted and will no put up with your childish and vicious venom and bile directed at them, very important people in my life
• And finally, I challenge you to read the following blog post, a post that shows quite clearly that it was hateful people like some of you and your silence during the Obama years that actually caused Trump to be elected. Thus, the people you hate for voting for Trump are actually looking back at you in the mirror:

https://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2016/03/how-american-liberals-and-washington.html

If you were silent in the dozens of instances listed in this post then you were responsible for the very thing you hate: a Trump Presidency. Or put another way, a so far successful and productive Trump Presidency. Over 100 accomplishments in less than a year is not too shabby despite many of wanting both Trump and the country to fail.

P.S. After this post was first published, it has come to our attention that 54,000 Ford workers will receive bonuses of about $7,500 this year based on the great sales year that Ford had in 2017. Another instance where at the very least, Trump did not screw things up.

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

California and New Jersey's Impending Fiscal Disasters

If it is one thing that American politicians do well it is to mismanage and waste taxpayer money and wealth. We have previously discussed many examples of this dubious skill:

• The National Science Foundation spent over half a million dollars to develop a video game that simulated promo week.
• The National Institutes Of Health did a study that found, in general, men hanging out in bars prefer thinner and younger women.
• The U.S. Navy spent about $300 million building two ships almost to completion and then spent tens of millions of dollars to turn them into salvage when they decided they did not need them in the first place.
• The Pentagon’s financial systems are so bad that even professional auditors have thrown up their hands and declared that the financial processes of the Defense Department are so screwed up that they cannot be audited.

These types of gross mismanagement and wasteful spending exists in the tens of thousands ways over the years that American politicians have wasted our wealth.

But nowhere have American politicians shone as brightly in their ineptitude as in managing the long term health and financial future of Americans. They have allowed the Social Security system to get so fiscally out of whack that the system has been and will continue to pay out more in benefits than it collects in Social Security taxes forever unless changes are made to the system. Failure to do so has saddled the entire system with well over $44 TRILLION in unfunded liabilities and will eventually cause the collapse for what many Americans is their retirement financial lifeline.

Medicare and Medicaid are not much better. Both programs are consuming more and more of government budgets, both at the Federal and state level and are growing so fast that without some type of bold and effective changes both processes will collapse the medical safety net of tens of millions of retired and poor Americans.

But the problem of systemic mismanagement of critical retirement processes for every American is not restricted to the U.S. Federal government:

1) According to a January 13, 2018 article by the New York Post:

• The New Jersey government employee retirement system is so underfunded that the incoming New Jersey governor has to either earmark ALL new state government tax dollars to the retirement funds or “sit back and watch the fund head to collapse.”
• According to a recent Manhattan Institute report by Steven Malanga and Josh McGee, despite a healthy economy, lower unemployment, a skyrocketing stock market, and recent state resident tax hikes, it may still be too late to save the retirement system and its funding from collapse: “New Jersey’s pension system may have already reached an unfixable tipping point.” 
• But this dire situation should not come as surprise since a financial analyst warmed back in 2015 that: “You can’t grow your way” out of so vast a hole, even with higher investments. “It’s almost mathematically impossible to close the [funding] gap.”
• The Manhattan Institute attributed this failure to fiscally manage the retirement funding for state employees to a “tale of elected officials willing to grant retirement benefits to workers without having the money to pay for them” and labor groups pushing for (and getting) “enhancements” even when there was no funding for them.”
• Things have been so mismanaged that New Jersey is in the worst shape from a retirement system perspective with an unbelievable $124 billion in debt.
• It has only 30% to cover what’s needed for future state employee retiree benefits, well below the 40% funding level that the Rockefeller Institute of Government considers the crisis level, i.e. New Jersey is well beyond the crisis level.
• It is obvious that a situation like this was a long time coming, it is not like it sprung up last Tuesday. But despite this easy to recognize day of reckoning, New Jersey politicians were too timid, too arrogant, too stupid, or too lazy to actually confront the problem long ago when it was more manageable.

And by waiting so long, you eventually get into a “tax more, spend more” death spiral. The incoming governor is a strongly supported by the labor unions that represent current and retired New Jersey state employees so he is unlikely to try anything that would reduce benefits that might tick off his political supporters. Which means he will have to raise taxes, something he has promised to do to the tune of $1.3 billion. 

Given that New Jersey residents are already some of the most highly taxed people in the country, the out migration of taxpayer residents from states like New Jersey will accelerate which will reduce the tax base which will reduce the tax revenue stream,etc. And the death spiral is in action. And sadly, even if the new governor gave all of the incremental tax dollars to the retirement systems, it would hardly make a debt in the over $100 billion that are needed.

2) But New Jersey is not alone when it comes to state politicians not being able or not wanting to run a fiscally sound government, accro\ording to a recent Bloomberg report:

• As we have reported many times in this blog, California is a fiscal basket case with far more pension and state government employee medical liabilities then it will ever be able to cover.
• Up until recently, Governor Jerry Brown and the rest of the liberal California political class have insisted that they can dish out overly generous benefits to state government employees regardless of how high they raise taxes.
• But the unthinkable recently happened in that because of recent court rulings, Brown can actually reduce those overly generous benefits.
• Brown said that in the next recession, the governor “will have the option of considering pension cutbacks for the first time.”
• But just because they may have some legal flexibility that does not mean they can fix what the fiscally broke since the California Public Pension fund can cover only about 68% of its future liabilities.
• California is only one of many states with a an impending fiscal meltdown since combined all state governments are about $1.7 TRILLION short of what is needed to meet their promised benefits.

Bottom line is it looks like all of this recent teeth gnashing is too little too late. As we have always said, American politicians have no clue when it comes to being economically and fiscally wise in protecting taxpayer assets. They have dug a hole with the promises they made to state government employees and it should be interesting to see how they are going to pay for those promises either politically or financially. Going to get interesting.

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

January, 2018, Part 4, I Am A Global Warming Doubter and a Believer In Science: Threatening Those With Words and Actions Who Are Non-Believers

Every month we have enough material to return to a continuing theme in this blog, namely that “I am a global warming doubter AND a believer in science.” This became of interest because of people like Al Gore who fanatically and verbosely claimed that you had to be an idiot to not believe in manmade global warming. It has been my life belief that anyone that is that loud and that obnoxious is hiding something, that rather than argue facts and reality it is better to beat down and insult anyone who disagrees.

As we have dove into the whole issue of manmade global warming, or its new rebranded title of climate change, we found that Al Gore and people like him were guilty of a number of things:

• Ignoring science and realities that did not support their opinions and positions.
• Rather than have an adult conversation about climate, these types of advocates like Gore sank to the level of insulting those who dared look at ALL science by calling them a variety of names including racists, homophobes, terrorists, flat earth believers, and other slanderous names.
• Continuing to insist that politicians step up their intrusions into our lives with higher taxes, more regulations, and more control of our freedoms and standards of living based on a shaky theory at best.

To see the past posts and the multitude of evidence that we have compiled that showed it is perfectly okay to be a global warming doubter and a believer in science, enter the phrase "global warming doubter” in the search box above or go through the monthly historical posts listed on the right side of this page.

Thus, let’s see the latest facts and science that prove you can be a global warming doubter and a believer in science, regardless of what Al Gore proclaims. Before we do that though, take a look at the previous three posts we have done on this theme this month at the following links:

https://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2018/01/january-2018-part-1-i-am-global-warming.html

https://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2018/01/january-2018-part-2m-i-am-global.html

https://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2018/01/january-2018-part-3-i-am-global-warming.html

By looking at real data from real scientists who did real research we now know that:

1. The global warming trend stopped about 20 years ago.
2. We know that the severity and number of hurricanes and cyclones worldwide is declining.
3. We know that the severity and number of wildfires worldwide is declining.
4. We know that the severity and number of droughts worldwide is declining.
5. We know that the severity and number of major floods worldwide is declining.
6. We know that rather than disappearing, the ice caps are still there and are still wide ranging and very cold.
7. We know that global sea levels have risen very little compared to what was predicted.
8. And most of all, we now know that EVERY major man made global warming/climate change forecast regarding temperatures, hurricanes, wildfires, droughts, floods, the ice caps and sea levels has been very wrong, embarrassingly wrong.

Given the realities of the failure of global warming advocates in the face of real data, real, science, real research and basic reality, you would have hoped they would have packed up their bags and moved on to other, hopefully real issues facing humanity. 

But alas, rather than admit they were wrong and go away, consider what some global warming advocates are saying, threatening, slandering, and generally acting like two year olds who did not get their way. In the process of the rants and threats you will read below, consider what a disservice they have done to the world of science by cherry picking only select data and research that satisfy their own biased views rather than looking at all the data and research:

• Two years ago, then Secretary of State John Kerry took a swipe at those of us that are global warming doubters but believers in science: “The science tells us unequivocally, those who continue to make climate change a political fight put us all at risk. And we cannot sit idly by and allow them to do that.”
• Mr. Kerry: the science is not unequivocal, see the three links above and is that a veiled threat of violence, “we cannot stand idly by and let them do that?”
• Kerry went on to again try and assert that “science” tells us that global warming is real when we know a ton of scientists that would vehemently disagree: ”So when science tells us that our climate is changing and human beings are largely causing that change, by what right do people stand up and just say, ‘well, I dispute that, or I deny that elementary truth?’”
• But this is what some people do when they cannot argue facts, they either threaten and name call or they try to assert they are on the right side of the facts when they are not but stating things like “when science tells us.”
• In a direct attack on the First Amendment, somehow a U.S. Senator, Sheldon Whitehouse, actually declared that those who are global warming doubters but believers in science should be arrested and prosecuted under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), you know the law used to prosecute real gangsters and real criminals. 
• This is a real dangerous, freedom restricting idea to have, declaring that Americans should be thrown in jail for voicing an opinion.
• The Talking Points Memo website once published an article (that apparently has since been removed,) that had the ominous title, “At what point do we jail or execute global warming deniers.”
• This article actually promoted violence against fellow human beings that dared to not be a global warming advocate: “What is so frustrating about these fools is that they are the politicians and greedy bastards who don’t want a cut in their profits who use bogus science or the lowest scientists in the gene pool who will distort data for a few bucks. The vast majority of the scientific minds in the World agree and understand it’s a very serious problem that can do an untold amount of damage to life on Earth.So when the right wing f***tards have caused it to be too late to fix the problem, and we start seeing the devastating consequences and we start seeing end of the World type events — how will we punish those responsible. It will be too late. So shouldn’t we start punishing them now?”
• James Hansen, a famous man made global warming advocate, called for prosecution of global warming doubters for “high crimes against humanity.”
• Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., famous for his irrational environmental extremism, has said of global warming doubters: “This is treason, and we need to start treating them as traitors.”
• Joe Romm, a former Clinton administration official who now operates the global warming advocate website Climate Progress, once published a commenter who threatened climate skeptics: “It is not my wrath you need fear when there’s an entire generation that will soon be ready to strangle you and your kind while you sleep in your beds.” 
• Bill Nye, the famous “The Science Guy” and someone who I believe has a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering, which has virtually nothing to do with climate science, has publicly stated: “Part of the solution to this problem or this set of problems associated with climate change is getting the deniers out of our discourse. You know, we can’t have these people — they’re absolutely toxic.”
• Nye actually signed a letter along with others that was sent to major media companies that advocated those media companies identify global warming advocates as deniers, that somehow people like myself who are global warming doubters but believers in science are somehow too stupid to recognize the obvious, that we are not skeptics we are flat out deniers. 
• Two of the signers of the letter were the two people that published the ludicrous study that “97%” of climate scientists agree that man made global warming is real and substantial, a statistic that we and many others have shown to be horse manure:

https://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2017/06/june-2017-part-3-i-am-global-warming.html

So when you cannot defend your position with science and facts it is pretty obvious that global warming advocates will sink to really disgusting levels including shredding the First Amendment, threatening violence, and insulting others with name calling and slurs. In doing so, they degrade and insult science.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

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

January, 2018, Part 3, I Am A Global Warming Doubter and a Believer In Science: How Science Continues To Dispel The Global Warming Myth

Every month we have enough material to return to a continuing theme in this blog, namely that “I am a global warming doubter AND a believer in science.” This became of interest because of people like Al Gore who fanatically and verbosely claimed that you had to be an idiot to not believe in manmade global warming. It has been my life belief that anyone that is that loud and that obnoxious is hiding something, that rather than argue facts and reality it is better to beat down and insult anyone who disagrees.

As we have dove into the whole issue of manmade global warming, or its new rebranded title of climate change, we found that Al Gore and people like him were guilty of a number of things:

• Ignoring science and realities that did not support their opinions and positions.
• Rather than have an adult conversation about climate, these types of advocates like Gore sank to the level of insulting those who dared look at ALL science by calling them a variety of names including racists, homophobes, terrorists, flat earth believers, and other slanderous names.
• Continuing to insist that politicians step up their intrusions into our lives with higher taxes, more regulations, and more control of our freedoms and standards of living based on a shaky theory at best.

To see the past posts and the multitude of evidence that we have compiled that showed it is perfectly okay to be a global warming doubter and a believer in science, enter the phrase "global warming doubter” in the search box above or go through the monthly historical posts listed on the right side of this page.

Thus, let’s see the latest facts and science that prove you can be a global warming doubter and a believer in science, regardless of what Al Gore proclaims.

1) The most important reason why we should not take people like Al Gore and his ilk seriously is that they have always been wrong. Over the past two decades global warming advocates have forecasted major, extensive climate disasters. Al Gore even predicted that there would be an excellent chance that within five years the North Pole ice cap would be totally melted. Those five years expired about four years ago and the ice cap is still there and still very cold, as witnessed by the recent arctic weather. 

Other forecasts predicted that coastal city streets would be flooded by the melting ice caps (they are not), that the number and severity of hurricanes would increase significantly (they have not), etc. But none of that happened and there is a good reason for that: the warming trend unexpectedly stopped about twenty years, a reality that every global warming scientist and forecast model totally and embarrassingly never saw coming:

• According to an article on the Conservative Tribune website on September 17, 2017 by John Falkenberg, real scientists compared actual, real Earth temperatures over the past 15 years and compared the realities to the predicted temperatures form the major global warming forecast models.
• What they found is that the Earth’s temperature basically stopped rising after the year 2000, contrary to everything Al Gore told us would happen, severely crippling his and other global warming advocates’ credibility.
• The study results were published in the publication nature Geoscience.
• The study results came about as researchers analyzed satellite data over the years.
• Michael Grubb, a professor of international energy and climate change at University College London, an original global warming advocate and scientist, and one of the authors of the study, even admitted that his initial belief in man made global warming was wrong: “When the facts change, I change my mind, as (John Maynard) Keynes said.” 
• Myles Allen, professor of geosystem science at the University of Oxford, and another author of the study: “We haven’t seen that rapid acceleration in warming after 2000 that we see in the models. We haven’t seen that in the observations.”
• A previous article in Nature Geoscience in May, 2017 came to the same conclusion: “In the early twenty-first century, satellite-derived tropospheric warming trends were generally smaller than trends estimated from a large multi-model ensemble.”

Real scientists looking at realdata to prove that manmade global warming forecasts were REALLY bad, REALLY wrong, and REALLY useless. And still, non-scientists like Al Gore continue to try to contort, manipulate, and deny that they were wrong and that it is highly likely that manmade global warming is a myth.

2) Let’s continue looking at real climate data via a recent article in the Wall Street Journal on January 13, 2018 by Benny Peiser and Matt Ridley:

• Although the U.S. got hit with some really bad weather in 2017, e.g. Hurricane Irma, leading global warming advocates hysterically like to claim that this is what happens when manmade global warming occurs, from a total Earth perspective, 2017 was a very calm climate and weather year.
• On average, the Earth experiences 325 catastrophic natural disasters annually but through November of 2017 only about 250 occured, about 25% below normal, something that global warming advocates would not expect or predict.
• These real numbers come from research done by the Centre For Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters at the University of Leuven in Belgium.
• Not only were there about 25% fewer natural disasters last year but one third fewer people died on average as a result of them.
• Although a lot of record high temperatures were set around the world the past three years, much of that was due to a huge El Nino warm weather cycle that had established itself in the Pacific Ocean.
• As the El Nino dissipated so did the high temperatures and with the weather cycle gone, temperatures have returned to pre El Nino levels.
• Now, although global warming advocates could make a case that man made global warming caused the higher than average intensity of the El Nino, they never predicted that situation, further damaging their credibility that they understand climate and according to historical records, there have similar intense El Ninos throughout history, long before Al Gore claims that manmade global warming started. You cannot say "I told you so" after the fact.
• Back in 1990, the global warming advocates predicted that the Earth’s average temperature would rise 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit but it has risen only a fraction of that forecast and since 2000 has risen very little if at all.
• When Hurricane Harvey hit the Texas coast in 2017, it ended a 12 year period with no major hurricane hitting the U.S., a drought of major hurricanes that was not supposed to happen according to manmade global warming forecasts and hysteria.
• In fact, global hurricane/cyclone activity as measured by the Accumulated Cyclone Energy index, which combines intensity and number of hurricanes, is running at about 20% below its long term average. 
• In 2017, that index was at less than half of its long term average for the Southern hemisphere.
• Although California suffered through some terrible wildfires in 2017, long term, the trend of wildfires is down, contrary to global warming advocates’ predictions.
• According to expert Jon Kelley at UCLA, the number of wildfires has been trending down for forty years.
• In 2016, the Britain's Royal Society showed research that the global area burned by wildfires has also trended downwards over the past few decades.
• From a drought perspective, data compiled by the scientific journal, Science, found that the the proportion of the world suffering from lower than average rainfall is down slightly since the 1980s, something that should not have happened according to global warming advocates since manmade global warming should have parched a lot more of the Earth.
• A 2017 study published by Glenn. Hodges of the U.S. Geological Society found that the number of major floods in Europe and the U.S. has not increased in 80 years while worldwide flooding instances have decreased over time.
• While global warming advocates have forecasted that Asia's monsoon seasons would get dryer and dryer over time, inreality, according to a study by MIT scientists Qinjian Jin and Chien Wang, monsoons have actually gotten stronger over the past 15 years and since the 2012 monsoon season, monsoon has increased significantly.
• Since the most recent El Nino ended, the U.S. National Snow and Ice Center reports that the North and South poles have recovered almost all of their shrunken ice volume, increasing to 21.2 million square kilometers, up from 19. 65 square kilometers in just a few years.
• The Center does report that while the South Pole has been adding ice coverage over the years, the North Pole has been losing ice coverage but that the North Pole ice erosion has been so small that it has had no effect on sea levels.
• And finally, according to NASA, global sea levels have hardly changed at all since 2015, not a situation predicted by global warming models.
• The rise since 1998 has been 3.2 millimeters per year but the rate has not accelerated over time despite predictions by global warming advocates and as we just said, the rise has stopped since 2015.
• And even if the 3.2 rate should start again, that would result in only a one foot rise over the next 100 years, more than enough cushion to fix shore lines if needed.

A great article featuring real data from real research from real scientists and scientific institutions. So who do you believe: these scientific results or former politician Al Gore? More realities that reinforce my stance that I am a global warming doubter and a believer in science.

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