April, 2018, Part 3,Political Class Insanity: The Failure Of Government In Education and the Failure Of The New York Times To Be Unbiased

It is 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) We have often talked about one of the biggest recent failings of the Federal government and Washington political class, the failure that is known as Common Core. Common Core was an attempt by Washington to impose a standardized educational system across the entire country with the objective of improving the education of our kids in this country. It is no secret that we severely under educate our kids despite spending untold amounts of money to attain such a failure.

Places that have implemented many of the components of the Common Core curriculum have seen education results get worse, not better. Massachusetts, which once had the best track record in educating kids relative to the other 49 states, has fallen to seventh best after implementing Common Core tenets. The state of Maryland saw its educational attainment levels DROP after implementing Common Core principles: 

https://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2014/10/will-center-hold-october-2014-part-2.html

So it is refreshing when a Washington bureaucrat actually agrees, finally, that Common Core has failed miserably:

• The Heritage Foundation's Daily Signal website recently ran an article that was an interview with Betsy DeVos, the current Secretary of Education,.
• DeVos recently spoke exclusively to The Daily Signal’s Rob Bluey after her Department of Education released what’s known as the “nation’s report card” which again showed the failure of the Federal Government to improve education in this country.
• DeVos talked about how the the National Assessment of Educational Progress report showed that that there had been only minimal gains in education effectiveness.
• She said that if anything, our education processes are worse than than they were 35 years ago when Reagan first focused on our educational deficiencies.
• Despite Common Core and spending probably trillions of dollars on education, the latest results show that only 37% of our fourth graders and only 36% of eighth graders are proficient in reading.
• Only 40% of fourth graders and 34% of eighth graders are proficient in math.
• According to DeVos: “We have invested billions and billions and billions of dollars to try to focus on the lowest-performing schools, and the lowest-income students. And yet the results for those students continue to, in most cases, decline.”

Pretty depressing stuff. Trillions of Federal dollars spent with nothing in return. But DeVos did show a positive sign, pointing to the state of Florida and what could happen when Washington bureaucrats and politicians get out of the education business and let the more local forms of government decide how to educate their local kids:

• Twenty years ago, the state of Florida was one of the worst, if not the worst state, in educating its kids.
• It then set about putting in place local educational reforms that it felt served its kids better.
• Today, Florida kids have the fourth best state ratings when it comes to fourth grade math and reading and fifth best state ratings when it comes to eighth grade reading and eighth best state ratings when it comes to eighth grade math. 

It can be done, it just cannot be done by the overarching and overreaching Federal Government. Or as DeVos says: “The last thing we want to see is another mandate from the federal level.” 

Well said, and probably true in many other areas, not just education.

2) It is not just the American political class that is broken, our freedom of the press is threatened by a news and journalism industry in this country that for the most part has lost any sense of impartiality. News outlets now have well deserved reputations for favoring one side of the political spectrum vs. others. Fox News favors the right side, just about every other national news outlet favors the left side, e.g. CNN, MSNBC, New York Times, Washington Post, etc.

A quick bias example was pointed out in a recent blog post we did. The New York Times pretended that they had done a comprehensive analysis which showed that Barack Obama had lied less than twenty times during his eight years as President while Donald Trump had lied over 800 times in his first year in office. 

We easily showed this was total garbage, easily doing a quick Internet search which came up with a single YouTube video that showed Obama himself lying three dozen times on a single Obama Care issue. We then found a second video that showed Obama himself lying another three dozen times about another facet of Obama Care. Thus, within two minutes our “research” showed that Obama had lied at least six dozen times on only two different topics while the “extensive” New York Times research turned up only a handful of lies:

https://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2017/12/december-2017-part-5-political-class.html

Now, according to sa recent NewsMax article, we have another blatant bias of the New York Times:

• On a regular basis, the New York Times publishes a top selling book list, something it has been dong for a very long time.
• Author Jerome Corsi current has a new book out that is a runaway bestseller, “Killing The Deep State: The Fight To Save President Trump."
• The book debuted as number 10 in the market in the non-fiction hardcover category as reported by Nielsen BookScan, a premier national book sales tracking process.
• Despite this hot selling book’s national numbers, the New York Times has decided to not even list the book in its book tracking process despite selling more copies than other books that the Times did list.
• For example, according to Nielsen, Corsi’s book should have held the number four spot on the Times bestselling list.
• It has sold more copies than ten other books that the Times did list.
• The number four spot on the Times is held by "I'll Be Gone in the Dark," by Michelle McNamara, even though it sold hundreds of copies less than "Deep State" did according to Nielsen tracking.
• In fact, Corsi’s book has sold more than twice as many copies than many of the top 15 books on the Times list and was in the top ten on Amazon’s best seller list earlier this month.
• Corsi had the following reaction: "They don't want any book that will support President Trump, who they detest, to be on The New York Times bestseller list. Even if the book legitimately outsells most of the other books. It's completely disgraceful and dishonest. But again, The New York Times is disgraceful and dishonest these days."

So given that the New York Times is so blatantly left wing in these few instances, how can anyone trust that the serious news they report is not biases, slanted, ignoring facts and realities, and generally not honest? And this trait makes them just as big a threat to our freedoms and liberties as the dishonest and useless politicians that are in office today.

Failure of the Department of Education and the failure of the New York Times, two very serious problems that face our country today. More insanity 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

April, 2018, Part 2, Political Class Insanity: State Pensions Going Bankrupt and Secession Efforts in California

It is 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) We have often reported on how the Federal government’s spending habits have been out of control for decades, a reality that now presents the country with over $20 TRILLION in national debt and a burden that will likely crash both our economy and our democracy, taking our freedoms with it. 

Nowhere was this lunacy more present than during the Obama administration. His Presidency oversaw the near doubling of the national debt from about $10 TRILLION to almost $20 TRILLION in short eight years. And unfortunately, despite outspending the government’s tax revenue by almost $10 TRILLION, we have nothing to show for it. Our roads, dams, and bridges are crumbling, our public schools continue to under educate our kids, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are still hurtling towards fiscal insolvency, etc.

But it appears that Washington politicians are not the only ones who cannot manage a budget process, according to a recent Reuters article that appeared on the Newsmax website:

• State government pension systems are now showing a funding deficit of $1.4 trillion, an all time record deficit.
• This financial hole was highlighted in an analysis recently completed by Pew Charitable Trusts.
• This deficit has kept rising despite us being in an economic growth mode for about nine years.
• The states now have only $2.6 trillion in assets but are facing pension liabilities for government workers of about $4 trillion.
• According to Pew: "Many state retirement systems are on an unsustainable course, coming up short on their investment targets and having failed to set aside enough money to fund the pension promises made to public employees." 
• Which means that either local and state taxpayers are going to have to pay a lot more to cover the promises their politicians made to government employees and unions or pensioners from government work are going to see a sizable reduction in their benefits, or both, two very unpleasant outcomes, courtesy of your American political class.
• While some states are not in too bad shape, having funding levels at least 90% or more of their liabilities, some states are in horrid shape.
• At least 22 states had less than two thirds of what they need to fund pensions with Kentucky and New Jersey at an amazing 31% level, i.e. they need more than three times in assets than they have to cover pension liabilities.

Now you know that this problem did not crop up overnight. You cannot not know that you are 69% short of the liabilities you have from a pension perspective in New Jersey for example. Either through neglect or lack of courage, politicians in most states have run away from this problem, which just makes it worse and worse over time. Which means the ordinary citizen is going to get hit very, very hard because of the incompetence and cowardness of their state politicians.

2) Let’s stay at the state political class levels for this next topic. We have previously reported how there was a movement afoot in California to split the state into two separate states. Apparently, a lot of the suburban and rural residents in California are sick and tired of paying high taxes to support liberal and Democratic Party programs in urban areas that have no possible positive impact on them. Thus, the movement to create a new state, “New California.”

Well, apparently this movement is growing as more and more people in California get more and more fed up with the ineptness of the state’s political class. In fact, according to a recent article by Mac Slavo on the Freedom Outpost website:

• Some Californians do not want to stop at two states, they want the state to break up into three separate states.
• An effort to such an effect has garnered enough signatures to qualify for a place on the ballot in California in November.
• The leader of this three state solution, Tim Draper, says that his backers have enough signatures, over 600,000, to submit the petition for three states to election officials.
• Only 365,880 signatures were required so his effort far exceeded the minimum number of people needed to sign on for the ballot access process.
• According to Draper: “This is an unprecedented show of support on behalf of every corner of California to create three state governments that emphasize representation, responsiveness, reliability, and regional identity.”
• One new state would consist of Los Angeles, Ventura, Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, Monterey and San Benito counties, a second state would consist of Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego, Imperial, Kern, Kings, Fresno, Tulare, Inyo, Madera and Mono counties, and the third state would include the the remaining 40 counties in northern California.

Unfortunately, even though this effort at freedom will be on the ballot, it is unlikely to pass since the areas that many rural and suburban Californians want to get away from, the urban centers of LA and San Francisco, have more voters than the suburban and rural areas that will likely defeat this effort at freedom. Which is a shame when a small geographic area can dictate freedom restrictions and confiscate large amounts of taxes for no benefit to the rural and suburban taxpayers in return. 

The effort, however, illustrates quite clearly how out of touch our politicians are with many/most of Americans today. So out of touch that Americans are willing to break up centuries old political boundaries to get the freedom they want...and deserve.

That will do it for today’s insanity. Only two pieces of insanity today but important ones: Americans going to extra lengths to stay free and remove themselves from political tyranny and state politicians leading their states down the fiscal hole of bankruptcy. More insanity 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

April, 20178, Part 1, Political Class Insanity: A Judge Who Gets Paid For Nothing, A Congresswoman Who Did Nothing and Gun Control Doing Nothing In London

It is 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) It is not just politicians that do no good for the world or society but continue to draw huge salaries and huge benefits. Consider the situation up in Rochester county, New York:

• Rochester City Court Judge Leticia Astacio apparently has shown up for work exactly one day in the past 214 days.
• But on April 1 she somehow received a taxpayer funded raise of $11,000, raising her annual salary to $187,200 despite showing up for only one day in the past seven months or so.
• Apparently, she has been dubbed the “drunk judge” by local media outlets.
• As reported by local TV station, Wham News 13: "Astacio did report for work on Tuesday, February 27 for one day – and has not been back since." 
• Prior to that February 27, 2018 workday, she had not shown up for work since August 31, 2017.
• Although her boss, Chief Administrative Judge Craig Doran has formally ordered Astacio back to work, she has ignored the decree.
• Of course, it did not take long for African-American Astacio to claim racism is involved with efforts for her to show up to work, claiming that she had a doctor’s note to not report to work.
• Back in August, 2016, she was convicted of DWI and later found guilty of violating her probation on at least two occasions relative to her DWI conviction.While in jail for violating her probation, she continued to receive what was then an annual $175,500 salary.

Nice work if you can get it.

2) One great thing about tracking political class insanity is that you are never short of unique material to write about. Consider the case of a Connecticut Congresswoman who has decided not to run for reelection based on a major screw up she did relative to members of her staff:

• Congresswoman Elizabeth Esty announced she will not run for reelection.
• The reason given is that she failed to fire her chief of staff, Tony Baker, after he threatened to kill a female staffer of the Congresswoman after the staffer complained that Baker had mistreated her.
• Baker left the Congresswoman’s staff three months later and he left with a letter of recommendation and a severance payment.
• A little late but the Congresswoman finally admitted that she screwed up: “Too many women have been harmed by harassment in the workplace. In the terrible situation in my office, I could have and should have done better. To the survivor, I want to express my strongest apology for letting you down. … In my final months in Congress, I will use my power to fight for action and meaningful change.”

You decide : where are sexual predators and sexual abuse more prevalent, in Washington DC or Hollywood, California? In either case, it is way too much.

3) U.S. Democrat politicians and liberals never miss an opportunity to try and stop ordinary Americans from exercising their Second Amendment rights in defense of their families, their lives, and their assets. 

They live in a fantasy world where they falsely and foolishly believe that if they can strip law abiding Americans of their guns and gun rights, then miraculously there will be no more violence or brutal attacks. Of course, we have shown how stupid this fantasy is when we often report on the rampant gun violence in Chicago, a place in the U.S. that has some of the most stringent gun control laws in the world.

Rather than talk about the failure of gun control in Chicago today, let’s talk about the failure of gun control in London, as reported by the Daily Mail newspaper. Before getting into the details, keep in mind that it is basically illegal to own a gun in London:

• The murder rate in London is now higher than New York City.
• London attained this distinction and higher murder rate due to 12 murders in the just the past 19 days.
• But interestingly, none of these murders were via gun fire, the victims were all stabbed to death.
• This is the first time ever that London has had a higher murder rate than New York City despite strict gun controls.
• New York’s murder rate has dropped about 87% since the 1990s while London’s murder rate has gone up 40% in just the past three years.
• The vast majority of the London stabbing murders have been young adults.

So I guess gun control does not control violence in London any more than it controlled violence and murders in Chicago. Think maybe it is time to relook why gun control is a failure wherever it is deployed and that there are other, deeper causes of violence, something that U.S. Democratic politicians refuse or unable to comprehend?

That will do it for today’s insanity: a judge who cries racism to cover up the reality that she is paid three times the average household income for showing up for one days worth of work, a Congresswoman who supported violence on a female staff member, and another failure of gun control. More insanity 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

The Horrors and Destruction that Donald Trump Has Imposed On America...Just Kidding! Part 7

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 little over a year ago, many liberals, Democrats, and millennials 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 they felt would endanger and possibly destroy the country and our democracy. For the past year they fretted, worried and lashed out at anything or anyone that even remotely smelled of Donald Trump.

Given that Trump has been in office for just over a 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 year. This obviously a very sarcastic comment when you take an unbiased look at what has happened during the Trump Presidency. The six previous posts we did on this topic identified over 100 good things that have happened to America and Americans since Trump became President:

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

https://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2018/01/the-horrors-and-destruction-that-donald_27.html

https://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2018/02/the-horrors-and-destruction-that-donald.html

https://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2018/03/the-horrors-and-destruction-that-donald.html

But those six posts were not enough to cover the good things that have happened since the election. Already I found another set of ways why the country is better off since Trump came into office and thus, today we add to that list:

1. National consumer confidence jumped up in February to the second highest level since 2004, 14 years ago, according to the most recent University of Michigan survey.
2. In that same survey, Americans' perceptions of their own finances rose over 4% over the previous month.
3. In that same survey, 35% of respondents gave favorable references to government policies (likely as a result of the Trump tax cuts and bonus payments), the highest level of favorability in half a century.
4. Most automakers reported great sales in March with General Motors sales up 16% from the previous March, Chrysler saw a 14% year over year gain, the Jeep brand sales were up 45% and experienced their best sales month EVER, and most other car makers also saw year over year sales increases.
5. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos recently and correctly announced that the Federal education failure known as Common Core was basically a relic from the past: “I agree — and have always agreed — with President Trump on this: ‘Common Core is a disaster. And at the U.S. Department of Education, Common Core is dead.”

Another five reasons to add to the previous 120 or so reasons why the first year and a few months of the Trump Presidency has not wrought disaster on the country.

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 120 accomplishments in less than a year is not too shabby despite many of wanting both Trump and the country to fail.

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

www.loathemygovernment.com

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

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

Term Limits Now: http://www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com
http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.bankruptingamerica.org
http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w