November, 2019, Part 5, Political Class Insanity: The Tragedy Of The Minimum Wage, The Delusions Of California Politicians,and The Failure Of Common Core

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 discussed the fallacy that raising the minimum wage rate results in better lives for those affected by that raise. Our latest expose’ was in the following post:

https://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2019/11/november-2019-part-3political-class.html

Donald J. Boudreaux, writing for the Mercatus Center on October 31, 2019, showed, again, how bad it can become when politicians do not know the consequences of raising the minimum wage too fast:

• He starts off by stating what we have always said: “Minimum-wage legislation artificially raises firms’ costs of employing low-skilled workers. In consequence, some workers who would have jobs in the absence of the minimum wage are cast by the minimum wage into the ranks of the unemployed.”
• In other words, the good news is that you got a pay raise. The bad news is that you no longer have a job.
• The majority of economic studies on the topic of politicians raising the minimum wage arbitrarily support the reality that for the most part, raising the minimum wage results in less economic prosperity, especially for those at the lower end of the wage scale.
• And that lessening of economic prosperity is not just the reduction in the number of jobs available or the number of hours available to work.
• Many times to make up for the increase in the wage expense line, in order to survive, employers reduce other expenses to stay in business.
• Depending on the industry, employees end losing fringe benefits that have economic value to both the employer and employee including free meals, free employer supplied uniforms, employee discounts, overtime work, company picnics, comfortable break rooms, employee recognition programs, reduction in leaving early or coming in late to work opportunities, Friday happy hours, etc.
• According to Mr. Boudreaux: “When government raises the minimum wage, employers can reduce the amount of nonwage benefits paid to employees. And so even workers who keep their jobs at the higher minimum wage might nevertheless be made worse off because of reductions in the value of their nonwage benefits.”
• Thus, to offset the arbitrary increase in wages from economically ignorant politicians, employers will make up to five business operations adjustments: employ fewer workers, reduce the number of workers’ hours, cut the value of workers’ fringe benefits, work employees harder or mechanize workers’ processes.

And yet, politicians continue to think they know best, i.e. raise the minimum wage, and they always ending hurting the ones they think they are helping, the low income workers in the economy.

2) We have recently discussed the reality that California Democrats/liberals/socialists have turned the state into a stinking (literally) mess:

• There is widespread homelessness across the state with almost 90,000 homeless Americans in just the two cities of Los Angeles and San Francisco.
• The large homeless population and resultant garbage issues in Los Angeles have led to the resurrection of the Medieval disease, typhus, and a real concern that the bubonic plague might be next.
• The pipe dream to build a high speed rail line the length of the state resulted in the wasting of untold millions of dollars before it failed miserably.
• The state is about $200 billion short of what it will need to pay future unfunded state government financial liabilities.
• Due to the state’s politicians allowing homeless folks to defecate and urinate in the streets of the state’s major cities without consequences, this has resulted in severe environmental crises as the cities power wash away the feces and urine into storm sewers which washes into rivers which is in turn used for irrigation.
• And finally, due to mismanagement of the state’s forests, the state is being ravaged by wildfires, killing people and destroying homes and businesses, wildfires that have caused utilities to intentionally cause blackouts to minimize the chance of wildfires.

Thus, it is pretty obvious that the state’s politicians, and the government bureaucracies it oversees and manages, is not only useless in California but actually dangerous. New diseases, wildfires, wasted taxpayer wealth, homelessness, they have failed at everything they have touched.

And yet the state’s politicians still do not get it:

• A lot of the wildfires in the state have been caused by sparking malfunctions of the Pacific Gas and Electric’s electric grid, sparks that have caused the wildfires.
• As a result, the state’s governor, said that changes have to be made, changes that may include having the state government take over the utility.
• Governor Gavin Newsom said the objective goal of any changes was to transform, Pacific Gas & Electric, into “one that better reflects our California values and will advance massive safety transformations beginning before next fire season.”
• Newsom has appointed an energy czar to figure out what to do including taking over the utility.
• Given the inability of the state’s politicians to get anything right, as illustrated by the list of failures above, does anyone really think that the state government and the politicians who operate it could efficiently, effectively, and safely operate an electric utility? Keep in mind that Pacific Gas and Electric is a regulated utility which means that the state government has always had oversight of the utility’s operation. 

And thus, the state, and indirectly the state’s politicians, have been a major factor in the failure of the utility to modernize and minimize wildfires. Yet, the governor thinks that he and the state government can get the job done. 

He and the state’s politicians have resurrected extinct diseases, have not resolved any aspect of the homeless problem and could not build a single track railroad system and yet then think they can operate a utility: State government representative Ro Khanna recently said in an interview that the state should nonetheless consider a takeover. “This is a case where public ownership would be much better.” Much better than what? Talk about being disillusioned and insane.

3) Common Core was a major Federal government undertaking that was supposed to make the U.S. public education system one of the best in the world. It is certainly not close to that today. Our kids usually do miserable on standardized tests when measured against kids around the world despite us spending so much more on education than other countries.

We have shown over the years what a failure Common Core has been when deployed around the country:

• Within a year or so of deployment in Maryland, the test scores of kids in every county plummeted rather than get better.
• Prior to being deployed in the state of Massachusetts, the schools in that state were ranked the best in the nation when it came to educating its kids.
• However, once Common Core was deployed it dropped to seventh best in a very short timeframe.
• Damning evidence that this approach to education was a failure despite spending billions and billions of dollars on it. 

And the latest results do nothing to disprove this failure:

• According to a recent article on the Western Journal website, the latest national standardized test scores were only marginally better than the results in 1992, 27 years ago despite spending untold billions and billions of dollars to improve those results.
• Math test results were trending upwards nicely until 2015 when that upward trend stopped suddenly.
• Not coincidentally, 2015 was about when Common Core was quite well established in our public schools.
• Results actually started going negative with fourth graders latest standardized test scores, just a little above previous scores.
• Eighth grade math scores were actually below where their scores were two years ago.

So, the Federal government, the bureaucrats that operate it, and the politicians that fund it and oversee it have been a complete failure when it comes to public education for at least the past 27 years. Common Core made our education processes worse, not better. We spent billions and billions of dollars to achieve this result. In the bigger picture, over the past three decades I would venture a guess that have spent trillion(s) of dollars to maintain a mediocre education system in this country. Insanity.

Okay, we learned today that: politicians continue to be ignorant when it comes to raising the minimum wage and the negative impacts it has on lower earning American workers, politicians continue to be arrogant, thinking they can run a utility company when the have proven they cannot operate anything else effectively or efficiently, and politicians continue to prove they have no idea how to improve education despite having and spending trillions of dollars to do so.

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:

https://www.amazon.com/Walter-Bruno-Korschek/e/B002KYU08Q/ref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share

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, 2019, Part 4, Polticial CLass Insanity: A Cowardly Viriginia Politcian, Common Core;s Death In Florida, and Pelosi's Continued Abuse Of Taxpayer Wealth

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) The state government of Virginia recently put together an abhorrent, repugnant abortion bill. That is my opinion but this is not the time to discuss the proposed legislation or abortion in general. This discussion is about a cowardly state legislator who made a fool out of herself once the heat came fast and hard from those that also found the legislation to be...abhorrent and repugnant:

• Keep in mind that this state politician CO-SPONSORED the legislation.
• She did not just vote for it or just support it, she CO-SPONSORED it.
• Once the heat came, she came up with the lame excuse that she would not have co-sponsored the abortion bill if she had read it more closely.
• Politician Dawn Adams sent out an email to her voters that she “did not exercise due diligence.”

So Ms. Adams, you are either a terrible legislator that goes around co-sponsoring legislation that you never really read or understood, especially legislation like this that is sure to be controversial, or you are a coward and a hypocrite who refuses to stand up for what you believe. In either case, lazy or cowardly, you are not worthy to represent your voters.

2) Common Core has been a disaster across the country, one that we have discussed many times. We showed that when Maryland implemented the Common Core curriculum, its test scores that were trending upwards took an almost immediately downward turn. Massachusetts, which traditionally had the top rated public schools in the country, soon found its ranking fall to seventh best almost immediately after implementing Common Core.

Which brings us to a rare positive, good piece of political class insanity:

• According to the Shark Tank website, the new governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, asserted that he will issue an executive order to terminate Common Core in Florida.
• DeSantis said that, “Let’s get this right. We want high quality (education), we want to demand excellence, but we want to do that (reform) in a way that’s responsive to the concerns we’ve had over the years.”
• Rather than rely on the Federal government, a thousand miles away to force standardized and bad education standards on every kid in the country, an effort that has failed miserably, De Santis claims that all state citizens will have the opportunity to provide input to the Education Commissioner for developing the state’s education standards, i.e. bottoms up participation in education vs. the Federal government top down dictate process.
• As a first step to fixing what Washington broke, DeSantis also stressed that he wants to identify ways to make civics education a priority in Florida: “Civics education was something that I promised during the campaign….and it will pay dividends for us far into the future.” 

The real political class insanity is that the Federal government, mostly via the Obama administration, probably wasted billions and billions of taxpayer dollars on a failed education process. At least DeSantis is finally fixing what the Feds broke.

3) Nancy Pelosi has always been, in our eyes, the prototypical useless politician. She somehow manages to get herself reelected time and time again without ever producing anything worthwhile, be it as a regular Congress person or as Speaker of The House. Her verbal gaffes have been classic, showing her to be out of touch and useless when it comes to resolving the major issues of our times.

But her gaffes and inabilities have never slowed her down when it comes to abusing and using taxpayer wealth to her own benefit:

• Judicial Watch, a Washington watchdog group, recently came across a bunch of government documents under the Freedom Of Information Act relative to Pelosi.
• Apparently, she has some expensive tastes when it comes to flying around the world.
• In 2015, she took a group of people, including politicians and their spouses, on a trip to Milan, Rome, and Naples.
• There they enjoyed private tours of the Vatican Museum, Sistine Chapel, a viewing of Vinci’s “Last Supper” and other private tours/viewings.
• They then took a flight over to Kiev in the Ukraine.
• And no fast food for them on the trip since trip their included a meal at the high end James Beard American Restaurant restaurant in Milan, where “more than 30 award-winning chefs from across America will take turns, on a rotational basis, to prepare dinners,” the Milan City Guide reported at the time.
• The average price for a meal at this place: $200 per person, taxpayer funded of course.
• Cost to the taxpayers for this junket: almost $185,000.

Fortunately, Trump shut down another of her planned boondoggle trips, this time to Belgium, Egypt, and Afghanistan in order to get her to focus on the government shutdown.

But this type of ego boosting waste is not new to Pelosi. When she was Speaker under Obama she used military planes often for her vacation like excursions, racking up over $2 million in travel expenses, expenses that included $101,429 in in flight expenses for food and alcohol. 

During just a single trip, Judicial Watch found documents that showed she and her travel partners drank “Johnny Walker Red scotch, Grey Goose vodka, E&J brandy, Baileys Irish Cream, Maker’s Mark whisky, Courvoisier cognac, Bacardi Light rum, Jim Beam whiskey, Beefeater gin, Dewar’s scotch, Bombay Sapphire gin, Jack Daniels whiskey, Corona beer and several bottles of wine.”

So, whenever Pelosi pulls the holier than thou act on us, keep in mind that she has been living high and mighty non taxpayer dollars for a long, long time.

That will do it for today’s insanity: Pelosi abusing taxpayer wealth (nothing new here), hopefully the death spiral of an expensive and failed Federal program Common Core, and a cowardly or lazy Virginia politician that does not know what she it sponsoring when it comes to legislation. 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 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

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

July, 2016, Part 7, Political Class Insanity: Political Hypocrisy, Common Core Fails Again, and The Bank Bailouts Illustrated

It is the beginning of another month which means it is time again to review the latest political class insanity from the American political class. Each month it takes us multiple posts to cover the wasteful spending, incompetent government organizations and employees, government programs that usually make a problem worse than resolving it, inane and idiotic politician comments, etc. In fact, last month we set a record, needing ten full posts to cover it all.

To review past posts on this insanity and idiocy, just click on the first few posts in each month listed to the right of this page. After reviewing just a handful of these insanity posts we think you will agree that we are currently being served by the worst set of American politicians ever to hold office in our entire history.

It looks like our politicians have been especially insane over the past month or so let’s continue with the latest insanity from today’s American politicians:

1) Common Core is a proposed education process and strategy that we have discussed many times in past posts. Common Core was an attempt by the Federal government to force top down educational standards on every school kid in the country. 

As with most top down Federal programs, Common Core has been resisted and a failure across the country. Many state politicians and state educational officials have decided to opt out of many, if not most, of Common Core’s standards. Even worse, the educational results have not raised the education attainment levels of kids subjected to Common Core standards. A nice graphic presentation of how Common Core has depressed educational attainment can be checked out at the following link along with a detailed discussion of Common Core’s failures:

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

As if these past discussions and failing educational results were not enough to convince people how bad Common Core is, consider a recent review by Mary Clare Reim of the Heritage Foundation that found college professors are lamenting the decline in educational proficiency of kids that were subjected to Common Core standards. An analysis by ACT, the organization that produces one of the two primary college entrance exams standardized tests found that:

• “While secondary teachers may be focusing on source-based writing [essays written about source-based documents], as emphasized in the Common Core, college instructors appear to value the ability to generate sound ideas more than some key features of source-based writing.
• “Some early elementary teachers are still teaching certain math topics omitted from the Common Core standards, perhaps based on the needs—real or perceived—of students entering their classrooms.
• “In addition, many mathematics teachers in grades 4–7 report including certain topics relevant in STEM coursework in their curricula at grades earlier than they appear in the Common Core.”
• “The Common Core math standards do not adequately provide a child with the skills needed to succeed in the classroom, forcing teachers to add on extra material to their limited instruction time.”
• “High school English teachers must now emphasize material that leaves students lacking in original thought and analytical skills, according to many college professors. For example, only 18 percent of college professors surveyed rated their students as prepared to distinguish between opinion, fact, and reasoned judgement—a skill determined to be important for college-level work.

Federal government dictating the same educational standards across 50 states and tens of thousands of schools has failed to educate our kids to the level attained by other kids around the world. Not surprising, given that every other thing that the Washington political class touches turns into a disaster it should not surprise us that the educational field is any different.

2) With the FBI allowing Hillary Clinton to get away with no penalties for breaking Federal laws and guidelines as it pertains to sensitive government information, it has reinforced the notion that the majority of Americans hold that the political class and elitists play by a different and better set of rules, laws, and behavior than the rest of us ordinary Americans.

A recent article in the St. Helena Star newspaper in St. Helena, California illustrated just a small example where today’s politicians think they are more important, more entitled than the rest of us, as reported by an eyewitness:

“Last Saturday afternoon (June 4) I’m standing on the west side of Main Street directly across from the Hunt Avenue intersection chatting with friends. Of course, traffic was heavy in both directions.

A large perfectly polished and gleaming black SUV is attempting a left turn from Hunt onto southbound Main (not easy). Suddenly blue/red lights are flashing from the windshield area of the SUV (like you would see in an official fire/police vehicle). I said to my friends, I’ve never seen that before on a “regular” vehicle and I’d think that’s illegal and dangerous. They agreed.

The big black SUV then darts out across both lanes of traffic with lights flashing in both front and rear windows. It goes directly into the red zone/fire hydrant area in front of Padis and Footcandy.

A St. Helena police car happens to be going northbound and pulls into the center lane and the officer starts shaking his arm and hollering at the driver of the SUV. While this goes on a man exits the SUV assisting a woman from the vehicle. She dashes off to Footcandy while he waits by the SUV in the red zone.

The SHPD car leaves and proceeds northbound.

My friends and I are puzzled, say goodbye and I walk south on Main. As I approach Footcandy, Nancy Pelosi comes out with her shopping bags and the man assists her into the awaiting SUV. The SUV, with lights flashing, bursts back into southbound traffic."

Yes, it is nice to be a politician. Driven around in a car with a personal driver that was no doubt paid for by taxpayers, able to intrude into traffic with police like lights flashing so as to not be inconvenienced. All to pick up some shoes more easily. Abuse of power and ego out of control. Insanity.

Note: The local police chief did acknowledge that the incident happened and his acknowledgement was also published in the paper.

3) I have never been a fan of hypocrisy which makes such a critic of the American political class. General Petraeus was forced out of government service because he shared a little bit of classified information with his mistress. At that time, Obama declared there would be ZERO tolerance for playing loose with classified information. 

However, when Hillary Clinton incurs orders of magnitude more in classified information atrocities, he goes campaigning with her. Pathetic hypocrites. And the Against Crony Capitalism website recently exposed another gross political hypocrisy, this one with a state politician in California. 

Former California State Senator Leland Yee, a voracious gun control advocate, is now heading off to prison for, wait for it, weapons trafficking. Yee received a five year sentence of accepting bribes and trafficking in weapons. Apparently, he had received thousands of dollars in campaign contributions in exchange for political favors in addition to him and two associates being involved in a weapons transportation plot.

So, here we have a politician who advocates against Americans owning guns and then goes out and profits by running guns. Great hypocrisy if it was not so sad. But we should not expect anything less. Consider a summary from the Washington Post that was in the same article that captures the current status in this country of the political elite vs. ordinary Americans, or in the Post’s words. “The managers vs. the managed”:

“A key part of the crony system is the idea that there are the managers and the managed. That there are those who are wise and benevolent enough to rule and then there is the great unwashed rabble which at best should be tolerated and farmed for tax revenue. The unwashed rabble need to be told what to do. The unwashed rabble doesn’t know what’s best for it. And hey, if the political class can get rich while telling the rabble what to do, then that’s just. Doing well while doing “good” is what being in the political class is all about after all.”

Kind of says it relative to the American political class today.

4) With this theme of the managed vs. the managers, the elite vs. the ordinary, take a look at the following illustrative video from the Against Crony Capitalism website. It illustrates in a very entertaining and straightforward, easy to understand manner how the political class took care of itself and its cronies in the financial and banking industries during the last recession. All of this was paid for by what the Washington Post just called the ”unwashed rabble.” 

Again, default on your mortgage, tough luck. Be a bank and default on your investments and business decisions, just throw some campaign money at our politicians and they will arrange for your bad decisions to paid for, at an astronomical cost by the American taxpayer:

http://www.againstcronycapitalism.org/2016/06/this-video-may-blow-your-mind-the-best-illustration-of-the-post-crash-bailouts-ive-ever-seen/

That will do it for today’s insanity: bailing out the bankers with American taxpayer money, political hypocrisy at both the state and Federal government level, and more evidence that Common Core is still a major failure. More insanity tomorrow and probably for several more days to come, all courtesy of the worst set of politicians we have ever experienced in this nation.

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

Februrary, 2016, Part 1, Political Class Insanity: Immigration Follies, DHS Incompetence, and More

It is the beginning of another month which means it is time again to review the latest political class insanity from the American political class. Each month it takes us multiple posts to cover the wasteful spending, incompetent government organizations and employees, government programs that usually make a problem worse than resolving it, inane and idiotic politician comments, etc.

To review past posts on this insanity and idiocy, just click on the first few posts in each month listed to the right of this page. After reviewing just a handful of these insanity posts we think you will agree that we are currently being served by the worst set of American politicians ever to hold office in our entire history.

So let’s get started with the latest insanity:

1) We often have a debate during these insanity reviews trying to figure out what is the most incompetent Federal government entity. Is it the Veterans Administration that despite Congressional and public scrutiny still does a horrid job at serving our veterans? Is it the IRS that somehow fails to collect untold hundreds of billions of dollars a year from tax evaders and pays out billions of dollars a year to criminals? Is it the Department of Homeland Security whose TSA organization failed to detect fake bombs and weapons passing through airport security 95% of the time?

The candidates for ineptness are wide but this month the award for incompetence probably goes to the the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the organization tasked with protecting us from terrorists. DHS inventory reports obtained by the news website, Complete Colorado, via a Freedom of Information Act request, found that hundreds of DHS security badges, credentials, cell phones, and guns have been lost or stolen in recent years from DHS employees. Obviously, this raises very serious security issues if these items fell into terrorists’ hands.

The reports show that between 2012 and 2015, a 31 month period, DHS employees somehow managed to lose or have stolen over 1,300 DHS badges, 165 guns, and 589 cell phones. This comes out to roughly 40 badges a month, 5 guns a month, and almost 20 cell phones a month. Tom Miller, a retired Secret Service special agent told FoxNews.com: “It’s scary that you’d have that number of credentials out there that someone could manipulate.” Miller went on to say that the badges and credentials could allow access to high security areas at airports.

The DHS did not deny that the reports were accurate when contacted by Complete Colorado but did tell FoxNews.com that they were working to improve their procedures when DHS assets are stolen. But the fact that the thefts were going on for at least 31 months does not give one a warm feeling that the DHS was on top of the problem. 

2) One does not have to be an immigration expert to know that the Obama administration has done a horrible job of securing our borders. Last summer thousands and thousands of Central and South American kids stormed our borders. Every week or so it seems like Border Patrol officers are apprehending young males from Middle Eastern countries trying to sneak into the country. The flow of drugs continues unimpeded with recent reports saying that the cartels are now using drones to transport illegal drugs literally “over the border.” The story of “rape trees” has emerged, which are trees that are used to display the undergarments of women who were sexually assaulted by human traffickers as the women tried to sneak into the country. Illegal immigrants are involved in almost daily reported violent crimes across the country, e.g. the Kate Steinle murder.

Anyone with a lick of common sense and who reads the papers or news reports knows that the border is far from secure. Which has not stopped a Texas Congresswoman from denying this reality. Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee recently proclaimed that Obama had already fixed the border: “The president has spent $108 billion on border security, and we have been successful,” Jackson Lee said in a recent Homeland Security committee meeting. “Oh we’ve had our moments, but we have been successful.”

Huh? Widespread rape, drug running, human smuggling, etc. and this is viewed as a success? At a cost of $108 billion? Note: I question where she got the $108 billion estimate from but if it is correct, we certainly did not get our money’s worth. But we should not be surprised since this is the same multi-term Congresswoman who wondered out loud if a Mars rover would be driving near the spot where Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, who thought the Constitution was 400 years old, who thinks there are still two Vietnams, and who wanted Congress to formally honor Michael Jackson for being a “global humanitarian.” 

Did I mention that she is a multi-term member of Congress? Insanity.

3) Continuing on the illegal immigration line from the previous point, The Eagle Rising website recently ran a news article that described how a Texas city councilman was caught smuggling illegal immigrants into the country. Yes, an elected political official has gotten into the act of human trafficking. 

Crystal City, Texas councilman Marco Rodiguez was pulled over by a Border Patrol agent and after a brief discussion allegedly tried to run away. He was eventually taken into custody along with three illegal immigrants he had with him. In the eventual criminal complaint filed on the incident, Rodriguez admitted to being hired to transport the three illegal immigrants. 

He also reportedly told a Federal agent involved with the case that on two other occasions he had also transported illegal immigrants to San Antonio. He told authorities that he had been paid a total of $1,900 for these two previous endeavors.

To put a cherry on top of this whole sordid affair, the vehicle that Rodiguez was driving when caught was a stolen truck.

Now, the good councilman is innocent until proven guilty but it seems he has already confessed to a number of immigration crimes. Tough to respect these types of people in public office who continually act as if the laws of this country do not apply to them, from the White House to Congress to Crystal City, Texas. Does not sound like this councilman got the memo from the Congresswoman that the immigration problem has been resolved successfully.

4) Onan Coca, writing for the Eagle Rising website on January 28, 2016, reported how someone named Ali Muhammad Brown was recently given a 36 year prison sentence after being found guilty of armed robbery in New Jersey. He has also been accused of committing four murders to protest the U.S.’s foreign policy and being involved in terrorism.

What is even worse than these brutal crimes is the reality that Brown was on a Federal government terror watch list. If the government and the political class that operate it already are suspicious about a person but that person still goes on to kill four Americans, how is that government and political class going to protect us when the Obama administration allows thousands of unvetted Middle East refugees into the country? The FBI and Department of Homeland Security are already on record of saying they cannot possibly totally screen out violent refugees and this case just proves them right. 

5) Liberals and Democrats in Washington’s political class are always trying to divide and conquer America along different dimensions but their most popular, and tired tactics, involved trying to divide Americans by income level, their so-called income inequality approach. But Paul Bedard, writing for the Washington Examiner on January 25, 2016, showed the high level of hypocrisy of these politicians:

• According to research done by the Corporation for Enterprise Development, Washington D.C., the locale of these politicians harping about income inequality, has the worst ratio of income equality in the entire nation. 
• The ever growing size of the Federal government and its high priced employees, give the city the highest annual wage level in the country at $72,963, more than 40% higher than the overall national annual wage level.
• The research found that the richest 20% of people living in Washington D.C. make 7.3 times more money than the poorest 20%.
• The top 20% average $161,348 while the poorest 20% earn only $22,185.
• Adding insult to injury, D.C. has the highest unemployment rate according to the research....and you can bet it is not the highest 20% of earners that are unemployed.

And despite having the first African American President living within the district: "The situation is most dire for households of color. African-American and Latino households in D.C. are significantly more likely to live below the federal poverty line compared to white households. Even more startling, new data show that businesses owned by whites in D.C. are valued almost seven times higher than businesses owned by African-American residents."

In addition, while Washington liberals and Democrats are trying to force flawed Common Core education standards on the rest of the country, D.C. reading proficiency ranks at the bottom in the country. "The District's 8th-grade math and reading proficiency rates (19.1 percent and 18.6 percent, respectively) are the worst in the nation." said the report.

Insanely hypocritical and pathetic. Telling us how to behave when the capital of the country is setting a terrible example of income inequality, suppressing the success of minority residents, and running inept schools and education processes. 

That will do it for this month’s initial political class insanity. Hypocrisy in Washington, incompetence at the DHS, and political immigration embarrassments. More insanity tomorrow.

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