Our Horribly Broken Election Process, Part 1 - An Example

We have never been big fans of any American politician in this blog. We find them either cowardly, stupid, or greedy and often criminals. The list of their transgressions in each of these categories probably numbers in the hundreds when you go back through our previous posts.

Probably their worst trait of all is that they rig the system to make themselves rich, comfortable, and often above the law. They give themselves high pay and great benefits. They are in session in Congress for less than half the year. They are given multi-week vacations that they try to call “recesses.” They find ways to do insider trading on stocks and companies based on non-public information relative to potential and real legislation. And they spend so much time doing this stuff for themselves that they never get around to resolving the major issues facing the American public.

The Tampa Bay times recently did a nice job researching and reporting on a very devious way that American politicians misuse and corrupt our political processes for their own good:

• When an American politician runs for office, he or she establishes a campaign staff and funding process to collect campaign funds to be spent trying to get that politician elected to office.
• Once the election is over, the campaign has to pay off any remaining debts incurred by the campaign using that donated money.
• But what often happens that even after the debts are paid off, there is still campaign cash leftover.
• Now in an honest and ethical political process, the politician should either have to give back, say on a prorated basis, any leftover donated funds that were no longer needed, or possibly donate those leftover funds to a worthy and recognized charity.
• But we do not have either an honest and ethical political process or honest and ethical politicians since it appears they have written the game rules that allows them to keep using unused campaign money for their own good long after they are no longer in office, or in some case, after they have died.
• That is the bottom line finding of the Tampa Bay Times report that was replete with many examples of this greed.
• Although former Florida Congressman Mark Foley was drummed out of Congress over ten years ago for sending explicit sex text messages to teenage boys, in 2017 he used money from his old Congressional campaign fund to fund four dinners for himself in Palm Beach including a luncheon that cost his campaign fund $450.
• Former Senator Jim Bunning paid his daughter $94,800 from his campaign fund in the fours years after he left office, stopping only when there were no longer any funds left to give to her.
• Over the past year and a half, political consultant Dylan Beesley paid his consulting firm $100,000 from the campaign fund of Hawaiian Congressman Mark Takai for “consulting services” even though Congressman Takai has been dead for those past months.
• Former Ohio Congressman Steve LaTourette has been out of Congress for over three years but he still treated himself to $4,555 worth of Ohio State football tickets using his leftover campaign funds.
• In the six years since former Texas Congressman Jim Turner left office, he has paid his wife over $30,000 to handle his paperwork in addition to paying his father’s hardware company $9,600 to rent office space from his father with leftover campaign money.
• Former South Carolina Congressman Robin Tallon left Congress in 1993, took his leftover $400,000 campaign slush fund and invested it so well that he grew it to $1 million; he then paid himself more than $31,000, paid his son $20,000 who was listed as his campaign manager even though Tallon was not running for office, he bought a $4,000 computer in 2007 (14 years after leaving Congress, a $2,300 computer in 2014, and a $900 iPad in 2017, all with money from that initial leftover $400,000 campaign fund.
• But Tallon’s shenanigans get better since between 2007 and 2011 he paid $8,200 to an organization identified as only CCSC, which coincidentally looks very familiar to the housing development where he owns a 4,400 square foot home, Country Club of South Carolina, or CCSC.
• According to the report, almost 40 former Congress people kept aides or campaign staff on payroll long after the person left office with a dozen of those 40 paying a politician's family members to stay on staff.
• In fact, Bunning paid his daughter over $2,100 a month until the slush fund ran dry.
• The former treasurer of New York Congressman Thomas Manton was still being paid two years after Manton died, not just two years after he left office.
• Former Georgia Congressman Saxby Chambliss left office in January, 2015 but used leftover campaign funds to treat himself to five nights at the five star Williamsburg Inn six months later at a cost of $1,979.
• The article reports, using actual FEC data, that about 100 former members of Congress have allowed their former campaign treasure chest to spend over $20 million after they left office over the past 23 years or so.
• Other dubious expenses uncovered by the research included money spent on airline tickets, club memberships, cell phones, computers and other expenses.

Nasty, greedy stuff. And unnecessary since the Times report also singled out two good guys among this sea of selfish and greedy politicians. It cited former Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman and former Georgia Congressman Charlie Norwood both donated over 90% of their leftover campaign money to charity and shut down their campaign offices and operations within six months after leaving office. So it can be done. It just isn’t done.

The Times article did interview election experts and former FEC personnel. They were in general agreement that many for these expense fall outside of the law. But since the FEC is basically a toothless overlord, no one ever gets accused or prosecuted for abusing this leftover cash.

Again, just a symptom of a broken election process that allows useless, greedy, selfish people to not only get elected to office but profit handsomely from getting elected, both during their terms and long afterwards. And as we mentioned above all of this happens while no major issue facing the country EVER gets resolved.

We will follow up this discussion within a few days with a plan to rid the election process of embarrassments and affronts like this. The Founding Fathers never envisioned running for office as a self enrichment activity and that is the objective we should all be working on, getting people elected that want to fix what is broken rather than enrich their personal lives at the expense of taxpayers and the country.

In the meantime, we suggest you go to the following link where we previously discussed this topic relative to Evan Bayh, a former Indiana Senator who left office with $10 million left his campaign treasure chest:

https://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2014/06/june-2014-political-class-insanity-part_8.html

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

www.loathemygovernment.com

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

\

February, 2018, Part 3, The Unfolding Disaster That Is Obama Care: Real Americans Being Really Screwed by Obama Care

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, sugar, 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 copays 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.

As we often do each month, we finish our latest discussions about the unfolding disasters of Obama Care with real life stories and tragedies of real life America families. Higher premiums, higher deductibles, more narrow networks, etc. The source of these heartbreaking stories and realities can be found at:

www.ourhealthcarestories.com

RON, MONTANA: Ron Cole, Montana Peterbilt Controller, doesn’t see the benefits outlined in the PPACA. "I see it as increasing costs than more than helping from an employer's standpoint,” says Cole. With new provisions from the IRS taking effect in 2014, including a ban on pre-existing condition exclusions, Montana Peterbilt isn’t sure it will keep offering health care, if costs rise. "All that stuff is going to cost money and all that is going to drive up the insurance costs and it may get to where it’s going to price insurance companies out of the market,” says Cole.

STACIE. GEORGIA: From Kaiser Health News:

Even some people who qualify for federal assistance, such as Stacie Brown, owner of a pottery shop, are balking. The cheapest "bronze" plan for Brown, her husband and son would cost the family $300 a month but not begin paying medical bills until they exceeded the $6,300 individual deductible. The cheapest silver plan would cost $508 a month but not start paying until a $3,000 individual deductible was met. Her son's pediatrician was not in any of the networks and that was the one medical service she felt sure her family would use. 

Brown ultimately bought a $256-a-month Assurant Health plan for her son, sold outside the marketplace, which covers his pediatrician and unlimited office visits. She and her husband have decided to forgo coverage for themselves, even though they may face a tax penalty of $700.

"I can’t afford the affordable health care," she said. "I don't know anyone in this area who can afford it, and I do pretty well in life."

ROBERT, TEXAS:” Policies bought before the law was passed were “grandfathered in” and can remain in place, she said.

But that apparently doesn’t lock in the cost of premiums or deductibles, said Robert Kecseg, an investment adviser in Lewisville. Kecseg, 61, said he bought a plan before Obamacare took effect. But the insurer that provided the coverage went out of business.

When he went to buy new insurance, he found that the cost was much higher. He had paid an annual $10,000 deductible before 2012. Now he pays double.

“It’s pretty spectacular,” he said.

The Kecsegs also faced a medical emergency this year that proved expensive, he said. In May, he suffered facial paralysis and had to be rushed to a hospital during a family reunion in Las Vegas. The emergency room care cost more than $3,000, he said.

“We’re paying it off over time,” he said.

Kecseg says, for example, that his wife is being charged for birth control. “My wife says she’s had her uterus removed, so we’re not really likely to have need for that,” he said. “But we’re going to pay for it.”

JOHN, PENNSYLVANIA: I pay for my family's insurance and had a plan that fit the family well. $2,500 deductible and $533 a month. Last year, I tried really hard to get on the Obamacare site and after probably 10 hours of trying finally got a quote. The results weren't good. $1433 a MONTH for bronze coverage with a $5000 deductible. I continued with my $533 a month plan this year because I renewed it last December, but just got a letter saying my plan could not be renewed. I'm now facing coverage that will likely cost almost 3X as much with a deductible twice as big. How is this affordable coverage? The President's promise of being able to "keep your plan" is just not true for me and never has been. I continue to be happy with my pre-Obama plan but bureaucrats claim to know what's best for me and my family. I strongly disagree.

FRED, CALIFORNIA: I am self-employed and had a modest but workable policy for my wife and two kids paying $350 a month or $4200 a year. The best we found this year under Obamacare was a Cigna policy at $1200 a month with a huge deductible. I have a small business and don't qualify for any subsidies [As if I would want them], so our premium went from $4200 to $14,400 or an increase of 342%, hardly affordable. So, we're part of a medical sharing program and we're paying the FIRST $5000 of our own medical expenses.

We've been knocked in the teeth by OBAMACARE.............not to mention the loss of freedom and the government coercion.

CAROLYN, KANSAS - CBS News has confirmed millions nationwide will be losing their current insurance coverage. That's because it doesn't meet the new minimum requirements under the Affordable Care Act. There could be thousands of Kansans in that total.

The letters started going out last month, telling Kansans their insurance policies will be discontinued at the end of the year.

"I'm self-employed," said Carolyn Perry. She runs a day care out of her home. "So I need the coverage cause anything can happen at any given time."

She's among those the Affordable Care Act was meant to help."But the premium that I'm paying now is twice as much as what it was when I first started paying it," she said. Perry buys her own health insurance. So far, she's keeping it.

The top line numbers of Obama Care have all been a disaster. But it is the personal stress and burdens on real Americans which really drives home the many unfolding disasters of Obama Care.

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

Februrary, 2018, Part 2, the Unfolding Disaster That Is Obama Care: The Death of the Obama Care Cousin In England

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, sugar, 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 copays 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.

1) The failures of Obama Care have become so rampant and bad that even some of its original supporters are reluctantly admitting that it was a failure. But rather than learn from its failures, these folks want to double down and give the Federal government even more control over our lives, our health, and our freedom by implementing a so-called “single payer” healthcare system in this country. 

In a single payer system, Federal bureaucrats and politicians would control every aspect of your healthcare, from diagnosis to treatment, to cost to the massive amount of tax increases required to implement such a system. This type of system has almost always been a failure both around the world and in this country:

• In England, we have often discussed the reality that recovery times and mortality rates under their single payer system is always higher than in this country.
• In Canada, tens of thousands of their citizens come to this country every year for treatment since they have such long waiting times for even an appointment with a medical specialist that they give up and pay out of pocket costs for treatment in this country.
• When the Federal bureaucrats and politicians do have almost complete control of medical care in this country, e.g. the Veterans administration, Medicare, Medicaid, the costs are often out of control, the medical treatment is often delayed and inadequate, and the long term fiscal viability of these government health care systems are doubtful.

Let’s continue the British single payer discussion today using a recent Freedom Outpost website article by Mac Slavo on January 24, 2018:

• According to a recent BBC broadcast, hospital patients are dying in British hospital hallways according to 68 British doctors.
• These 68 doctors sent out an open letter that was addressed to the British Prime Minister which detailed what they called inhuman conditions that are occurring in the nation’s socialized National Health Services (NHS) hospitals.
• In addition, the doctors cited statistics that show that just in December, 2017 alone, over 300,000 British patients were forced to wait for more than four hours in hospital waiting rooms before being seen by medical personnel.
• And those folks did not include the thousands of others that were forced to wait hours in ambulances since they could not even fit into emergency rooms.
• The letter further noted that it was now routine for patients to be left on gurneys in hospital hallways for as long as 12 hours before getting a regular hospital bed.
• In further disgusting details the doctors showed that around 120 patients a day actually receive medical treatment while in public hallways and waiting rooms, and are “made to undergo humiliating treatments in the public areas of hospitals, and some even dying prematurely as a result….One patient reported having gone to the emergency room with a gynecological problem which had left her in severe pain and bleeding, a lack of treatment rooms led hospital staff to examine her in a busy corridor, in full view of other patients. “
• In the first week of 2018, over 97% of the National Health Service facilities were operating at levels deemed overcrowded which made them “unsafe.”

Pretty disgusting and discouraging stuff. Now, many people claim that if only more taxpayer money was spent, the single payer system in England would be great. But the article points out that funding for the single payer system in England has been quite robust and yet medical care is still atrocious. Funding for the system has gone up year after year since the turn of the century and yet failure is pervasive. 

Giving more and more money to a failed system run by failed politicians and bureaucrats is a formula for disaster. Obama Care, the Veterans Administration, Medicare, and Medicaid have proven this theory in the U.S. every day for decades.

2) Let’s get another view of the British single payer system from a recent Businessweek article:

• The NHS is currently being overwhelmed by patients and complaints while complaining about being underfunded.
• One driving force for all of this is that under their single payer system, everyone gets any medical treatment they can get to, no questions asked, even if those treatments are highly likely to be unnecessary.
• A year ago, the British Red Cross said the British single payer system was on the verge of a humanitarian crisis.
• And this observation/finding was before the current flu epidemic hit the NHS system.
• There are currently too many patients, whose overall average age is increasing along with the medical needs of an older population, and not enough medical staff.
• Britain has fewer doctors, CT scanners, and MRI units per capita than most European nations.
• It ranks near the bottom of European countries when it comes to infant mortality.
• Many other European countries score better when it comes to avoidable deaths, cancer survival, innovation, consistency of service, and other medical and health measurements.

What a mess. The article does try to make the case that more money might solve a lot, but not all, of these problems. But then it turns around and quotes a former government official who calls the NHS a “bottomless pit” when it comes to funding, implying that shoveling money at the problem will not resolve the lousy healthcare that the British people currently get for their tax dollars.

As always, in none of these articles do we see the simple truth that if you do not attack the root causes of high health care listed above, e.g. obesity, smoking, lack of exercise, etc., you will never get health care spending under control no matter how much money you throw at it. We learned that lesson under Obama Care, a program that was not supposed to not “add a single dime” to the national debt but according to the Congressional Budget Office will add almost $2 trillion to the national debt WITHOUT reducing the long term trend of ever higher health care costs.

One more post this month on the unfolding disaster that is Obama Care to follow in the next few 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

February, 2018, Part 1, The Unfolding Disaster That Is Obama Care: Medicaid Disasters and Obesity As A Root Cause

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, sugar, 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 copays 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.

Two disasters today to be discussed:

1) One of the disasters of Obama Care was the reality that it loaded up and overwhelmed the Medicaid system with far more people than was expected. We have previously made the analogy that Medicaid was like a thirty year old pickup truck that was designed to haul two tons and Obama Care forced it to haul four tons without doing any improvements to the pickup’s engines, tires, or shocks. As a result, it does not work like one was promised it would work.

We have also previously reported on these three realities:

1. At the state level, the annual cost of the Medicaid program is accelerating much faster than expected, stripping state government budgets of funding that is needed elsewhere for schools, infrastructure, law enforcement, etc. In fact, we have already reported that in at least four states, the annual state government Medicaid budget is now over 30% of the entire state budget with no end insight of how high that percentage could go. Furthermore, according to research from Pew Research, the number of states that were dedicating a higher proportion of their state budgets in 2013 vs. the year 2000 was 49 states, i.e. only one state was spending less on a percentage basis in 2013 vs. 2000.
2. At the Federal level, the national cost of Medicaid is also growing much faster than inflation and the economy putting a significant burden on the out of control national debt levels. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, one out of every six dollars spent on healthcare in this country falls under the Medicaid program, a trend that is getting worse, not better.
3. Since only about two thirds of the doctors in this country accept Medicaid patients, quite often Medicaid patients have Medicaid coverage in theory but are nowhere close to or have access to a doctor, especially a specialist, that will accept them as a patient.

It is a bad program going fiscally bankrupt that delivers inferior care. Wow, cannot get much worse than that. But an aspect of Medicaid that is quite distressing is that much of its costs and resources are used by immigrants to this country, quite often in a much higher proportion that what is being by citizens. The following is not a discussion on national immigration policy but a rendering of the facts that underlie a lot of the financial strains that Medicaid is under, a program that Obama Care stressed even more:

• According to an article by Frank Vernuccio, writing for the Townhall website on January 31, 2018, a 2014 report by the Center For Immigration studies found that 42% of the growth in Medicaid enrollment from 2011 to 2013 was from immigrants and their children.
• The number of immigrants and their U.S. born kids on Medicaid grew twice as fast as the number of U.S. citizens and their kids on Medicaid from 2011 to 2013, 11% vs. 5%.
• The rise in Medicaid enrollment among immigrants and their kids now cost the American taxpayer $4.6 billion on an annual basis.
• By 2013, 25% of immigrants and their kids were on Medicaid while only 16% of native Americans and their kids were on Medicaid.
• A 2007 Congressional Budget Office research study found that: “State and local governments incur costs for providing services to unauthorized immigrants and have limited options for avoiding or minimizing those costs […] Rules governing many federal programs, as well as decisions handed down by various courts, limit the authority of state and local governments to avoid or constrain the costs of providing services to unauthorized immigrants […] The tax revenues that unauthorized immigrants generate for state and local governments do not offset the total cost of services provided to those immigrants.” In other words, immigrants are a newt negative when it comes to tax revenue and the costs of their Medicaid treatment.

Again, this is not meant to be a debate on immigration policy. But Obama Care took a shaky program that delivered inferior care at a very high cost, partly because of the higher than proportional care and costs being spent on immigrants, both legal and illegal, and dumped millions of more Americans onto the Medicaid failing pickup truck. All of which resulted in just another unfolding disaster that is Obama Care.

2) One of the main root causes of higher and higher healthcare costs in this country is listed above, namely that Americans are overweight and in many cases, obese. This extra weight being carried around by the majority of Americans directly causes a ton of health ailments including respiratory diseases, diabetes, failing joints, etc. 

These overweight/obesity related ailments require more and more healthcare resources to be used, i.e. it drives up demand, which in turn drives up the prices and costs of healthcare. It is a simple outcome of basic supply and demand economic theory. As we have always preached about Obama Care, it never attacked the root causes of our high healthcare costs in this country, a root cause like being overweight. And in any endeavor if you do not address and attack the root causes you will likely never resolve the problem you are facing.

But according to an article in the October 20, 2017 issue of The Week magazine, you can now add another costly ailment that being overweight causes: cancer:

• The Centers For Disease Control (CDC) analysed data from the U.S. Cancer Statistics database.
• They found that “cancers related to being overweight now account more than a third of diagnoses for this disease [cancer] in the U.S.”
• From 2005 to 2014, obesity related cancers increased 7% while cancers with no link to obesity decreased 13%.
• There are currently 13 types of cancers associated with “excess body fat” including cancers of the brain, breasts, ovaries, uterus, thyroid, and other organs.

Imagine how much healthcare costs, specifically expensive cancer healthcare costs would go down, if you could reduce the number of cancer patients by one third by eliminating the obesity problem in this country? Again, the law of supply and demand comes into play: reduce the demand for cancer healthcare and the cost for cancer health care, and overall health care, would go down. 

Obama Care never understood how better off the country would from a health, cancer, and cost perspective if they had attacked just this single root cause. Instead, they concocted a Rube Goldberg insurance solution to what is truly a public health problem, which of course, led to its failure.

So, two Obama Care failures today: the failure to fix a failing Medicaid system, especially its higher than proportionate costs going to immigrants vs. U.S. citizens and its failure to recognize the root causes of high healthcare costs in this country. More unfolding disasters to follow.

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

February, 2018, Part 2, I Am A Global Warming Doubter and a Believer In Science: Stupid In Washington State and Censoring Those that Disagree

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) Despite the fact that global warming by any measure stopped about twenty years ago, global warming advocates refuse to give up. Despite the fact that every global warming forecast model over the years, from a wide variety of entities, were so wrong in predicting the earth's temperatures, global warming advocates refuse to give up. Given that wildfires, hurricanes, droughts, and other natural phenomena show no distressful climate changes, global warming advocates refuse to give up.

A perfect example of this refusal to believe science, data, and realities, is the current set of politicians in the state of Washington, led by its governor, Jay Inslee. The governor is pushing state global warming legislation that would in theory counteract manmade global warming and climate change, a problem that is becoming more and more of a myth everyday. The legislation would impose a carbon tax on carbon based fuels in the state.

But a February 1, 2018 article by Benjamin Zycher, writing for the National Review, showed that this inane plan is, “A Washington State Carbon Tax: All Pain, No Gain Washington Governor Jay Inslee:”

• Even with very optimistic assumptions, the Governor’s plan would reduce the state’s greenhouse emissions enough to drop the overall temperature of the Earth by 2/1000 of a degree.
• Thus, Washington state taxpayers would be more heavily taxed for a potential, best case impact on the Earth’s temperature of, again, 2/1000 of a degree.
• Oh, and by the way, this reduction is not accomplished in a year, or two years, or a dozen years, it would not be accomplished until the year 2100, 82 years from now, 82 years in which Washington state taxpayers would be paying more in taxes for virtually no positive impact.
• These estimates come from the EPA’s climate model, using very favorable assumptions, certainly not an entity famous for being a global warming doubter.
• The article goes on to point out that two other famous efforts efforts to reduce carbon emissions, Obama’s strategies on climate control, which would have reduced the Earth’s temps by a whopping 25/1000 of a degree, and the Paris climate agreement that would have reduce the Earth’s temps by only 17/100 of a degree, according to the EPA models.
• This assumes that numbers this small can be accurately read within in statistical variation, i.e. the noise of the measurement process might make any accurate reading that is so small impossible.
• And replacing current fuel sources with so-called renewable fuel sources is not nearly as “clean” and Earth friendly as people like Inslee would claim if you look at the whole renewable energy provisioning process: there is heavy metal pollution from mining and the production of wind turbines and solar panels, there are negative impacts in nature on bird populations and land use, etc.
• And the article correctly pointed out, as we have often in this blog, that despite the increase in greenhouse emissions over the past century, the impact on sea levels, polar ice caps, tornado activity, hurricane frequency and intensity, wildfires, droughts, and flooding has been consistent with long term trends over the centuries and the models that forecasted dire environmental impacts because of global warming have all proven to be wrong.

But these realities continue to elude the minds of politicians like Inslee. He wants to subject his constituents to higher taxes, upheavals in their lifestyles, and less freedom in their lives for what might be, under the most optimistic assumption set possible, an eight decade gain of 2/1000 of a degree benefit. Insanity.

Maybe Mr. Zycher, the author of the article sums up this political insanity best: “Climate change caused by GHG [greenhouse gas] emissions might prove to be a serious problem. It might prove to be a minor problem, and it might prove to be beneficial on net. We simply do not know, and the argument that very large costs ought to be imposed by climate policies upon the economy — that is, upon actual people — with trivial or unmeasurable benefits is deeply problematic. More research, more technological advance, and adaptation over time are likely to prove far wiser.”

But as we all know, associating the term “wiser” with any American politician is usually a fool’s bet.

2) Despite massive doses of reality (e.g. there have NOT been massive increases in the intensity and frequency of tornadoes, droughts, hurricanes, wildfires despite what global warming advocates claimed would happen) and massive failures of global warming forecasts to ever be correct, manmade global warming/climate change advocates still refuse to believe the reality in front of their faces and computer models.

Thus, rather than having open minds and admitting that maybe, just maybe they were wrong, they often go on the attack and try to suppress the freedom of speech rights of others and the sources of other statistical and scientific evidence that refute what they have spent their lives and careers on falsely defending. 

Such was the case when they threatened and demanded that the American Museum of Natural reject funding and donations from people that dare not blindly believe what they believe. They would rather censor the opinions of others than engage in an adult conversation that considers all of the available climate data and research, as the following letter illustrates:

“The American Museum of Natural History in New York (AMNH) is a treasured and influential institution. Museums must be protected as sites that build understanding, help the public make meaning, and serve the common good. We are concerned that the vital role of science education institutions will be eroded by a loss of public trust if museums are associated with individuals and organizations known for rejecting climate science, opposing environmental regulation and clean energy initiatives, and blocking efforts to reduce pollutants and greenhouse gases.

Rebekah Mercer and the Mercer Family Foundation, political kingmakers and the financiers behind Breitbart News, are major funders of climate science denial projects such as the Heartland Institute, where they have donated nearly $6 million since 2008. The Mercer Family Foundation is also a top donor to the C02 Coalition and the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, institutions that assert that an increase in C02 emissions from fossil fuels will be a great benefit to plant and animal life on Earth. The renewed attention to Mercer Family Foundation chair Rebekah Mercer, who sits on the AMNH Board of Trustees (since 2013), spurs us to reissue a statement that scientists first co-signed in 2015:

“When some of the biggest contributors to climate change and funders of misinformation on climate science sponsor exhibitions in museums of science and natural history, they undermine public confidence in the validity of the institutions responsible for transmitting scientific knowledge.”

Since that original letter, we have seen welcome changes as many museums updated their policies related to fossil fuel financial interests; the American Museum of Natural History increased its focus on climate change concerns and global sustainability in its investments and business plans. But given the prior AMNH funding and board membership associated with Exxon Corporation and David Koch, the prominence of Rebekah Mercer and the Mercer Family Foundation as current AMNH donors and on the Board of Trustees can prompt skepticism and hunts for signs of corruption, no matter the quality of the museum priorities and exhibits overall.

Last week thousands of people shared a Twitter comment by environmental economist Jonah Busch, PhD, who pointed out misleading information on climate science in an Exxon-funded exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History. To its credit, the AMNH’s response was swift: it committed to updating the outdated information to reflect the best available science. But the initial online public anger showed that trust in the museum is undermined by the museum’s association with climate science opponents.

The most important asset any museum has is its credibility. This can be damaged by ties to donors and board members who are publicly known for investing in climate science obfuscation and opposing environmental solutions.

We ask the American Museum of Natural History, and all public science museums, to end ties to anti-science propagandists and funders of climate science misinformation, and to have Rebekah Mercer leave the American Museum of Natural History Board of Trustees.”

Typical global warming advocate strategy: if challenged on a statistical and scientific level, look to just shut up the opposition rather than continue to look for the scientific truth, as practiced by non-scientists like Al Gore and Barack Obama. To these people, the truth is secondary to not being proven wrong.

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

February, 2018, Part 1, I Am A Believer In Science and A Global Warming Doubter: Sandwiches Are Bad, The Sun Is Bad, and Hillary is Just Plain Zany

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) I always find it interesting that people that have no science background think they are valid scientists. The most obvious examples are people like Al Gore and Barack Obama. To that list I would like to add Hillary Clinton who recently had some really, really bizarre words when it comes to the her views on climate change:

• She was recently on a panel discussion at a university where a question on climate change came up.
• Someone either intentionally, most likely, or unintentionally, gave her the ridiculous set up question is whether or not women would suffer more when the climate changes.
• She responded that it is absolutely, not conditionally, not maybe, not probably but ABSOLUTELY true that women will “bear the brunt” of climate change:“Women around will be looking for the the food, the firewood, the place to migrate to when all of the grass is finally gone...and will be primary ones burdened with climate change.”

If this was not so sexist it would be hilarious. Yep, Ma’s out moving the cattle, foraging for food, chopping the firewood, churning the butter, etc. while the guys are just drinking beer and watching the game. Seriously, are you kidding me? Of course, she offers no rationale, research, or anything of value to support her claim that women around the world will have to handle most of the “burden” of climate change. Ridiculous.

Of course during the course of the interview she has to get in her opinion that global warming, a phrase that most climate change advocates dumped years ago when all of their climate models failed miserably, when she mentions how the soaring temperatures in northern Africa are causing something she called “desertification.” Again, no data presented to justify her claims that mankind’s activities are causing either climate change or global warming.

The interview clip can be viewed for yourself at:

http://patrioticviralnews.com/articles/hillary-explains-climate-change-is-sexist-against-women/

2) Let’s review an article on the Constitution website by Andrew West on January 19, 2018 where we find out that both NASA and Einstein agree that the long term future of the Earth is not global warming but global cooling. But before we get to NASA and Einstein, let’s review and add to some realities that global warming/climate change advocates always seem to be bouncing off of:

• Extra wet winter? Must be climate change.
• Extra dry winter? Must be climate change.
• Extra cold winter? Must be climate change.
• Fewer, calmer hurricane seasons? Must be climate change.
• More, less calm hurricane seasons? Must be climate change.

You get the idea. It must be great to believe in a theory that you can change whenever realities do not work out to your current theory.

Okay, let’s get back to NASA and Einstein:

• NASA recently released a press release that claimed that research, and Einstein’s theories prove that the Earth is facing a long time global cooling trend.
• According to the press release: “As our sun gets older, it’s losing mass, and so its gravitational pull becomes weaker. As a result, the orbits of all the planets in our solar system are expanding, not unlike ‘the waistband of a couch potato in midlife. A team of researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Maryland and the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center has shown that the aging sun is behaving according to Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity. The key to testing his theory? The planet Mercury.”
• The release went on to say: “Einstein’s famous theory accounts for the fact that the gravitational fields of huge objects—like the sun—warp the space-time continuum around them, according to Gizmodo. Because Mercury is the planet in our solar system closest to the sun, its orbit is the tightest.”

So long term, the sun will be giving off less heat and the Earth will be moving away from the sun, making it even colder. Another reality to contemplate in the total global warming/climate change discussion, a discussion that we now have to add global cooling if Einstein and NASA are to be believed.

3) Let’s wrap up today’s discussion with another loony theory from a global warming source. In the past we have reviewed any number of wacky theories about what is causing global warming including, but not limited to, the theory that beavers building dams are a significant source of global warming. But possibly a more inane theory was covered by writer David Szondy, writing for The New Atlas on January 25, 2018:

• Believe or not, scientists from the University of Manchester have blamed, wait for it, sandwiches, for helping cause global warming.
• According to the article, “The researchers carried out an in-depth audit of various sandwiches throughout their life cycles and found the triangular meals could be responsible for the equivalent annual carbon emissions of 8.6 million cars in Britain alone.”
• Yes, quite possibly the most popular meal in the world is an evil global warming creator!
• The researchers studied 40 different sandwich types and analyzed such factors as how these 40 sandwiches are made, packaged, transported, and stored.
• The researchers found that different types of sandwiches have “different carbon footprints” depending on what goes into them and how they are stored.
• The researchers estimated that changing recipes and packaging while could reduce sandwich carbon emissions by 50%, as if anyone really cares about the carbon footprint of sandwiches.

It gets crazier and crazier. Imagine how much lower the carbon footprint could go if we ate NO sandwiches! Or if beavers did not build dams! How can one have an adult conversation with these folks when everything in their perception and world causes global warming and climate change.

So what did our global warming climate/change discussion teach us today: sandwiches are bad, the sun is bad, and Hillary is just zany.

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