January, 2017, Part 8, Political Class Insanity: Obama Gives HImself A Trophy, Pelosi Still Out of This World,and More

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

Today and for all of the insanity posts this month, let’s start off with a welcome piece of honest political dialog. It comes from a State Department spokesperson. Mark Toner, who is about to start the daily State Department press briefing. In a joking matter, he makes the following quote: "Welcome to the State Department. I think we have some interns in the back. Welcome. Good to see you in this exercise in transparency and democracy." 

He then burst out laughing at his own quote, indicating he also knew what a joke the Obama administration has been, especially Mr. Toner’s State Department, when it comes to cover ups, lack of transparency, denial of Freedom of Information Act requests, the prosecution of whistleblowers, etc. But at least it was a little refreshing to finally hear some actual honesty out of Washington as we see from the actual clip of the news conference:

http://www.againstcronycapitalism.org/2016/08/when-even-the-state-department-spokesperson-cant-keep-a-straight-face-about-things-anymore-video/

With that context of honesty, let’s see what other insanity has been going down:

1) Obama promised to operate the “most transparent” Presidency ever. He then proceeded to delay Freedom Of Information Act requests at every turn, hound and spy on journalists, lie about any topic under the sun and look to prosecute more whistleblowers than all previous Presidents combined.

Consider the case of Department of Homeland Security special agent Taylor Johnson:

• Back in 2013, Johnson found that certain visa applicants from countries like China, Russian, and Pakistan were gaining entry into the country even though there had been no or minimal attempts by the Feds to verify the intent and background of these applicants.
• Johnson appears to have been a model agent with many awards and no disciplinary problems on her record and thus, she tried to do her job and address this potentially dicey applicant issue.
• But she got in trouble with this endeavor when she held up a visa for a foreign investor in a Las Vegas casino that was represented by the son of former Senate Majority leader, Harry Reid, his son, Cory Reid.
• The agent then complained to her supervisors who, according to Johnson, began hassling her and downgrading her position and responsibilities.
• She ended up going to Congress to voice her complaints when she did not get satisfaction from her supervisors.
• For her honesty, she was eventually fired and offered a $100,000 severance package if she would keep her mouth shut, which she refused.

Another example of the “most transparent” Presidency ever. Insane.

2) We have often shown how the American political class has very little basic economic sense or basic business sense. Politicians are always interfering in the economy with stupid, useless, and burdensome regulations, that increase business operating costs or divert business owners attention so much as to take away from their ability to grow and sustain their businesses.

Such was the case with a recent article by Chris White, writing for the Daily Caller website on January 9, 2017:

• A popular NYC restaurant, China Fun,” announced that it is closing its doors after 25 years because of what the owners called a “stifling regulatory environment” that treated the restaurant as a “cash machine.”
• According to Albert Wu, a representative of the restaurant and son of the owners: “The climate for small businesses like ours in New York have become such that it’s difficult to justify taking risks and running — never mind starting — a legitimate mom-and-pop business,” reading from a letter posted by the owners in the Chinese restaurant’s front door.
• The owners complained about the city’s endless amount of paperwork that had worn them down over the years: “When we started out in 1991, the lunch special was $4 a plate,” Wu said. “Now it’s $10, $12. The cost of doing business is just too onerous.”
• One of the regulations that helped kill the restaurant was that the restaurant had to have a break room for employees even though their space was very limited.

So as a result of boneheaded regulations, China Fun employees not only no longer have a break room, they no longer have jobs.

3) What would a batch of political class examples be every month without an inane Nancy Pelosi quote? During a recent CNN interview, Pelosi claimed that the Obama Care legislation had been passed with bipartisan support: “But by and large the whole process was done with the 60 votes – hundreds of hearings, bipartisan, over and over again.”

Which means that she and I have a very different definition of “bipartisan:”

• Every Democratic Senator in the Senate voted for the legislation. 
• Not a single Republican Senator in the Senate voted for the legislation.
• Just about every Democrat in the House of Representatives voted for the Legislation.
• Not a single Republican in the House of Representatives voted for the legislation.

I do not think you can get any more non-partisan than that which again raises the question: what color is the sky in Nancy Pelosi’s world since she is not living in the world that I know.

4) President Obama did not serve in our armed forces. According to a recent Military Times survey or our armed forces, 51.5% view him very or somewhat unfavorably while only 36% view him very or somewhat favorably. But neither of these realities prevented him from recently being awarded the Department of Defense Medal For Distinguished Public Service.

He received the medal from his Defense Secretary Ash Carter on January 4, 2017 during the Armed Forces Full Honor Farewell Review for the President held at Conmy Hall, Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall in Virginia. At that time, Carter stated that the medal was a token of appreciation for Obama’s time as commander in chief.

Which raises a semantic question in my mind: is it “distinguished” or a “token?” Those are two different things in my mind. Or was it just a “participation trophy” award because he just happened to be in the commander in chief?

That will do it for today’s insanity: a President giving himself a trophy, Nancy Pelosi still living in another world, over regulations still killing restaurants and the economy alike, and the Obama administration still tracking down whistleblowers. 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:


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

December, 2015, Part 3, Political Class Insanity: America On The Wrong Track, Over Regulation, 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 post 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 have often maintained that the government has gotten so large that many Federal entities are in the business of looking busy, i.e. continually imposing expensive, unneeded new regulations on Americans and the American economy. This helps these government entities and the people employed by them look important and needed rather than over paid, under needed and wasteful expenses. 

The Federal government has been around for well over two hundred years so logically one would think that the need for more regulations is minimal at best. How many needed regulations could have been missed over the centuries?

But never underestimate a politician’s ability or government bureaucrat’s desire to come up with needless burdens on America to prove they are important and necessary. According to a recent Daily Caller article, the Obama administration planned on releasing a whopping 2,244 new regulations the day after Thanksgiving. 2,244 new regulations. Obviously, the administration wants to draw as little attention possible, given the timing of releasing the regulations when most of America is either shopping or trying to get over their Thanksgiving feast.

But it is far worse than these 2,244 new regulations. In May of this year, the administration put over 2,300 regulations in place and in the fall of 2014, this Presidency put another 3,400 new regulations in place. This comes out to almost 8,000 new regulations put in place in about a 12 month time frame. 

Does any sane person believe that previous Presidencies were so inept that this administration absolutely has to impose 8,000 new regulations on the country? Absurd, this is a case of government employees and executives trying to prove their value, not enhancing the lives of Americans.

And each regulation either removes money from businesses they could better use to grow their business and their job opportunities and the economic growth that come with it or forces businesses and business owners to waste time complying with the paperwork and not working at growing their business. No way 8,000 new regulations are not having a detrimental effect on the economy to the tune of billions and billions of dollars a year. For very little, if any, societal benefit in return.

2) Although most if not all politicians may be blind to their incompetence, much of America is not. A recent Reuters public opinion poll shows that 62% of the country feels that the U.S. is headed in the wrong direction and is on the “wrong track.” Only 23% believe that the country is on the right track. Thus, by an almost three to one ratio more Americans are not happy with where the Obama years are leading us.

Maybe the reality that this administration and Washington political class has increased the national debt by 80% and $8 trillion, 45 million Americans are getting Federal food assistance every month, 14 million Americans are either unemployed or underemployed because they cannot find a full time job, the labor participation rate is at a four decade low, terrorism is marching across the world, and Washington politicians, from the White House to Congress, are viewed as ineffective and corrupt might have something to do with this malaise uncovered by Reuters.

3) Speaking of public opinion polls and being out of touch with reality, consider a recent Rasmussen poll regarding radical Islamic terrorism. Keep in mind that our President refuses to even speak the words "radical Islam" in any form despite the reality that radical Islamic terrorists are causing a whole lot of concern, violence, and death around the world. While the President might not get it, Americans certainly do, according to the Rasmussen findings:

• 60% of likely voters believe that the United States is at war with radical Islamic terrorism. 
• Only 24% agree with Obama that we are not at war with radical Islamic terrorism.
• Thus, two and half times more Americans disagree with Obama than agree with him.
• Even 56% of Democrats in the poll agreed that we are at war with radical Islamic terrorism and disagree with the President.
• A whopping 92% of those polled regard radical Islamic terrorism as a serious threat to the U.S.
• 68% consider ISIS a serious threat even though Obama once called ISIS a JV organization and claimed ISIS was “contained” the day that ISIS struck in six different locations in Paris.

Has any President been more out of touch with the realities of the world and the views of American citizens? Insanity.

4) The Secret Service has had a rough few years. The White House perimeter has been breached a number of times, one intruder actually got into the White House proper, someone else got close enough to shoot out some White House windows, and a number of agents got caught using prostitutes in Columbia just prior to a Presidential visit.

And now they have another scandal to deal with regarding one of their agents. According to a recent CNN report, a White House Secret Service agent was arrested after getting caught in a sting when he sent naked pictures of himself to someone he thought was a 14 year old girl but was really a Delaware State Police detective.

Makes you wonder how well the Feds are screening the agents they are assigning to protect the President. One would have hoped that they got the screening process up to speed, given how long they have been in operation. But hope is always squashed when dealing with the politicians and bureaucrats of Washington.

And Obama thinks that he can screen terrorists out of the Syrian refugee stream from thousands of miles away when his administration cannot even screen a potential child pornography user from his own protection detail. Pathetic.

5) Tom Fitton of Judicial Watch recently put together a nice summary of the major scandals of the Obama administration. When taken in total, it is amazing that this President has not been impeached and removed from office by now, his lawlessness is unreal. Fitton makes a great point that when compared to other corrupt and scandal riddled Presidencies, e.g. Harding, Nixon, Grant, all of which had one major scandal during their years, this President has had multiple scandals:

1. This administration has illegally stymied and blocked numerous and important Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.
2. This administration deliberately lied and misled the country and the world by telling all that the cause of the Benghazi terror attack was the result of some obscure video when they knew right away that the attack was a well conceived and well executed terror attack from the beginning. Judicial Watch Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuits prove that (1) White House and State Department (i.e. Hillary Clinton) operatives manufactured the video story from the beginning, and (2) Obama and Clinton knew from the onset it was a planned terrorist attack tied to al-Qaeda.
3. During the Obama administration the IRS deliberately targeted conservative political groups, denying millions of Americans their First Amendment rights. Rather than become outraged of this Constitutional infringement, the President tried to cover up the scandal by blaming “two lower level employees in Cincinnati.”
4. Operation Fast and Furious was an illegal gun running operation by the Obama administration that failed in its alleged purpose but put thousands of high powered weapons in the hands of the Mexican drug cartels. This screw up resulting in at least one U.S. border agent being killed by these weapons and dozens, if not hundreds of Mexican citizens, also being slain by these weapons. It also violated both domestic and international laws. Despite these atrocities, Obama had the nerve to claim executive privilege to protect members of his administration, e.g. Attorney General Eric Holder.
5. Obama Care might have been the greatest scandal of this administration. The President blatantly lied when he claimed the law would reduce the annual healthcare costs of an average American family by up to $2,500. Instead, millions of people lost access to their preferred doctors, healthcare plans, insurance plans, and hospitals. Their premium and deductible costs went up dramatically. Untold millions of dollars were wasted on a computer system that absolutely failed and which subjected millions of Americans to identity theft risks.
6. Obama used or tried to use executive orders to bypass laws and the will of Americans and Congress by severely abusing the executive order process. When he did not get his way via the Constitution, like a petulant child he stamped his executive order feet to try and get his way.

These are just six of Obama’s scandals. It does not include the crony capitalism of giving billions of dollars of taxpayer wealth to Democratic cronies in the alternative energy sector, all of which provided no societal benefit in return. It does not include the fact that this President allowed his Secretary of State to illegally conduct classified government business on unsecured computer systems and illegally delete tens of thousands of email messages. It does not include his pathetic response to the Gulf oil spill. It does not include the over 250 rounds of golf he has played during his tenure or the over 700 political fund raisers he has attended since 2009.

Nothing says political class insanity like this scandal ridden administration. 

That will do it for this today’s insanity. As always, the ways that politicians can waste taxpayer wealth, screw up government operations, and destroy our freedoms continues to amaze and depress those that observe the havoc these people cause in our lives. More insanity for days to come.

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

October, 2015, Part 3, Political Class Insanity: We Mostly Think That Congress Is Corrupt, Hillary Ignores the Rules, 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 post 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

Let’s continue with the latest insanity review that we started two days ago:

1) While it is pretty obvious to anyone who reads our monthly updates on political class insanity that we are being served by horrible politicians, maybe, just maybe, the country is coming to that same conclusion as a whole. According to a recent Gallup poll:

• 52% of those polled believe that most members of Congress are corrupt.
• 79% of those polled believe that 79% of Congress is out of touch with the issues of the day.
• Unfortunately, many of those polled feel that their particular representatives in Congress are not as bad as others with 59% claiming that their elected member of Congress is not corrupt and that 47% (still a bad number) are in touch with the issues of the day.

Seems like we all know that people in Congress stink at their jobs and the results or non-results they generate. The question now is what do we do about it so that I no longer have enough material every month to write about the latest political class insanity.

2) Anyone remotely in touch with today’s politicians knows that Hillary Clinton is in a ton of political and legal trouble. This all relates to her nonchalant handling of classified material and bypassing government security protocols to have a non-secure email server in her private residence and also have her email capabilities running in a bathroom in an unsecure data system vendor’s facility. 

We now know that there have been serious hacking attempts from inside Russia to get at her highly classified Secretary of State files and communications. And you know if the Russians were hacking her, at least the Chinese were also hacking her, putting national security in danger. 

Why was this allowed to happen against the law and security requirements of the Federal government? Well, according to recent inspector general findings, the State Department higher officials during the Clinton tenure routinely and callously ignored the legal requirement that they attend data security training. This casual attitude to protecting state secrets permeated up to and including Hillary Clinton herself who also blew off data security training.

Details of the inspector general’s findings include the following:

• State Department Inspector General Harold W. Geisel produced six scathing reports that found top Hillary Clinton State Department managers did not submit themselves to mandatory “security awareness training” during Clinton’s tenure. 
• That training covers procedures for properly handling of sensitive and classified government documents and how to secure computer information, something one cannot do from their private home.
• This refusal to submit to the training is a violation of the requirement set out by the department itself and government-wide data security standards.
• And Hillary cannot claim ignorance in this area since Geisel had been warning of this security laxity since November, 2010, stating that the State Department “should improve methods to identify individuals with significant security responsibilities, ensure that they take the required training every 3 years, record the training records in the Office of Personnel Management-approved centralized system, and provide management with tools to monitor compliance with the training requirement.”
• A random audit in November, 2012 found that 46 out of 46 State Department employees “had not taken the recommended role-based security-related training course in the time-frame (that is, 6 months) as recommended in the Information Assurance Training Plan.”
• According to official government requirements and standards: “A strong IT security program cannot be put in place without significant attention given to training agency IT users on security policy, procedures, and techniques, as well as the various management, operational, and technical controls necessary and available to secure IT resources. Failure to give attention to the area of security training puts an enterprise at great risk because security of agency resources is as much a human issue as it is a technology issue.” 
• “There was a corporate culture among the highest echelons of State Department that she perhaps deliberately chose to ignore these security protocols. And consequently, they just were not enforced,” said James Williamson, a former Special Forces and counter-terrorism officer who is now president and CEO of Global Executive Management. “I would hold Mrs. Clinton directly responsible for inculcation of this culture within her organization,” Williamson said.

But alas, as often happens with people in Washington, not following the rules or breaking the law holds no ramifications for those that do so, they are special when it comes to rules. Could it be that the Obama administration’s Middle East performance and screw ups are because the rest of the world, including our enemies, knew exactly what was going on because they had access to an unsecured email computer server in someone’s house, a server that was accessed and maintained by people that decided to ignore data security training. 

Just saying, but in any case, the lack of accountability and punishment for such idiocy is insane.

3) One of Obama’s biggest campaign promises was that he was going to operate the most transparent Presidential administration in the history of the country. Sounds great in the heat of the political campaign. Right after he was sworn in, he issued the following statement:

I direct the Attorney General to issue new guidelines governing the FOIA to the heads of executive departments and agencies, reaffirming the commitment to accountability and transparency, and to publish such guidelines in the Federal Register. In doing so, the Attorney General should review FOIA reports produced by the agencies under Executive Order 13392 of December 14, 2005. I also direct the Director of the Office of Management and Budget to update guidance to the agencies to increase and improve information dissemination to the public, including through the use of new technologies, and to publish such guidance in the Federal Register.

But as we saw with dozens of other Obama promises this one also turned out to be a massive lie or massive incompetence. He has in actuality operated one of the most opaque and secretive administration ever. His administration has lost Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, it has failed to comply with requests in a timely manner or at all as required by law, it has tried to charge money for the execution of FOIA requests, a clear violation of the law, and many documents that were eventually produced for a FOIA request was so redacted as to be useless.

To see how many times Obama has fallen short on this promise, enter “freedom of information act” in the search box above or go to the following link for a comprehensive summary of abuses:

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2012/11/the-transparent-failure-of-obamas.html

How insane has this whole transparency issue become within this most secretive Presidential administration? Well, Cause of Action, an independent government accountability entity has gone to court with a Freedom Of Information Act complaint about….Freedom of Information Act complaints:

“Cause of Action a government accountability organization, sued 10 cabinet agencies, the Office of Management and Budget, and the Internal Revenue Service today for refusing to disclose communications concerning documents the agencies shared with the White House. The records would reveal whether and how the White House politicizes records requests sent to federal agencies.

“Accountable and transparent government does not involve instructing agencies to send politically sensitive records to the White House for review. The bureaucracy has violated the law by stonewalling the public’s access to documents for political reasons. Cause of Action’s own investigation reveals that the White House is actually demanding access from agencies to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests and Congressional document requests, as well as the documents subject to those requests, in a manner that may obstruct congressional oversight and violate the spirit of FOIA,” stated Dan Epstein, Cause of Action’s executive director.

Yes, we have fallen so far down the corruption rabbit hole that Freedom Of Information Act requests are needed to be made about Freedom of Information Act requests. You cannot make this stuff up.

That’s enough for today relative to political class insanity. We have a Secretary of State who thinks her and her organization are not bound by government rules and laws, a promised transparent Presidency that needs to be investigated for not being transparent, and a citizenry who overwhelming appears to believe, with good reason, that members of Congress are all corrupt, with the possible exception of their representative. 

More insanity in the coming days, with an emphasis of how insane our economic plight has become under this administration and this Congress.

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

Washington D.C.: The Land Of Do As I Say, Not As I Do

It has always been a nagging question for me that why do the politicians that make laws and the associated penalties in this country often never have to abide by the very laws they make:

• For example, annual Federal budgets are supposed to be turned in on time but under the Obama administration that deadline has been missed all but one year but no one ever paid the criminal price for missing that deadline. 
• The President is not supposed to be able to start wars without Congressional approval but our military intervention into the Libyan civil war went unpenalized by anyone in the administration. 
• Washington politicians made a grand showing when they passed a law to ban insider trading on stock picks by Washington types and then snuck in a counter law to make it almost impossible to be caught doing insider trading by Washington types. Overall, though, they still made it illegal for you and I do do insider trading.
• The Washington politicians passed OBamaCare legislation that required them and their staffs to be bound by the law and then successfully appealed to Obama to get them illegally exempted by the law they passed.

Other examples abound of “do as I say but not as I do” but you get the idea. This theme popped up after reading a recent article in Reason magazine. In light of the scandal of Hillary Clinton illegally and unethically using a private email process while Secretary Of State, so far without criminal penalties, the article pointed out that she was not the only member of the farcical “most transparent administration ever” to have broken the law...without paying the criminal price:

• On March 17, 2015, the administration quietly deleted the part of the Federal register requiring the White House Office of Administration to be subjected to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.
• This past March 18, 2015, the Associated Press reported that the Obama administration had established a new record for having the most FOIA requests denied, with one third of those denials being overturned when appealed.
• Prior to the Obama administration, over half of all speedy processing requests for FOIA claims were granted but by last year only one in eight speedy claims were granted.
• Back in early 2013 EPA head Lisa Jackson resigned after it was discovered she was using a secret, illegal webmail address named “Richard Windsor.”
• Afterwards it was discovered that Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Attorney General Eric Holder also used illegal email addresses to hide their actions and communications.
• Adding insult to injury, the Justice Department, the organization led by Holder, had the audacity to claim that these secret hidden email accounts did not “in any way impact compliance with FOIA requests.” Yeah, right, then why did Holder and others think it was a good idea to have those hidden accounts? I hate it when Washington types think we are that stupid.
• Given that Holder fought hard to keep his official communications secret in the botched and deadly Fast and Furious program, one can only imagine the scandals lurking in the emails he tried to keep hidden and secret.
• After five years of trying, The Associated Press finally got FOIA access after it filed a lawsuit against Hillary Clinton’s State Department for Clinton’s emails.
• Let’s not forget the fact that tens of thousands of IRS email messages were “lost” after it was discovered that the IRS and possibly the Obama administration used the IRS to hassle political opponents and deny them their First Amendment rights.
• Staying with the First Amendment abuse theme, the administration hassled and spied on journalists including, but not limited to: twenty Associated Press writers and editors, Fox News national security reporter James Rosen, and the prosecution of more whistle blowers than all previous Presidential administrations combined.
• This First Amendment abuse led New York Times reporter James Risen to declare that the Obama Presidency is “the greatest enemy of press freedom in a generation.”

Let’s be honest. If we did not file our taxes on time like the Washington politicians failed to file a budget on time, we would be prosecuted and fined and/or in jail. 

If we lied to the IRS about personal documents or hid evidence from law enforcement like Washington types hid their emails from legal and justifiable requests, we would be in jail. 

If we abused others First Amendment rights by denying them freedom of speech or aggressively went after people that told on us like the Obama officials went after whistle blowers, we would be in jail.

We would be in jail but those in Washington that write the laws that would put us in jail somehow always avoid jail or any kind of penalty for breaking the law and violating the Constitution. Which, is often the case, we end up again confronting the need for term limits for all Washington politicians. 

We need to clean house and finally put some honest people into office that actually do and act as they say like the rest of America is required to do. You can help start that process by visiting our term limit website at:

www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com

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.comlhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

The Failed Presidency of Barack Obama, Part 4: Abusing The Constitution and The Rule Of Law

We are spending week or so reviewing the performance and results of the Obama administration from a number of different perspectives. We will be covering some new ground besides reposting some previous reviews in different areas that we have done on this administration.

I will be honest upfront and tell you that I see very little positive coming out of this administration. I believe, based on the discussion that we will have over the next week or so, that this is the most inept, corrupt, illegal, and dysfunctional Presidential administration in my lifetime, worse even than the Carter administration. General categories of incompetence include the following broad categories:

• Promises not kept or that were originally never meant to be kept and were just deceptions from the start.
• Government functions that are dysfunctional, obese, inefficient, and ineffective but very expensive from a taxpayer perspective.
• Constitutional violations that are widespread and destructive.
• Law breaking by many different members of this administration that are widespread and destructive.
• Government spending that is out of control, threatening the fundamental existence of this country; economy and democracy.
• Major issues that have not been addressed in any strategic or tactical way, e.g. failing public education, leaky borders, a lots war on drugs, crumbling infrastructure, etc.
• A Presidential leadership team that would rather play golf, attend political fund raisers, appear in nonsensical videos, host athletic teams, and take worldwide and expensive vacations but not resolve ANY issue facing the country.

Now, before any readers get crazy partisan and start accusing me of a hatchet job, consider the following:

• I have never voted for a Republican for President in my life.
• Up until 2010, I had never voted for a Republican for national office in my life (I am over 60 years old). 
• Most of my votes through the decades for local, county, and state offices have not been Republican.

Thus, by no stretch of the imagination am I anti-Obama because I am a Republican. I am an American who has looked at the facts and realities of this Presidency, facts and realities that we will lay out over the next week, and have come to the conclusion that this has been the worst, most secretive, most ineffective, most destructive, and most illegal Presidential administration my lifetime and possibly in the country’s lifetime. As someone recently said, the Obama Presidency is a Presidency that Nixon aspired to from a corruption and illegality perspective, certainly not a compliment.

Yesterday we looked at the many email scandals of this administration where high ranking members of the government blatantly violated Federal law to conceal their activities from America. Two days ago we looked at the many,many broken promises,lies, and deceptions of this Presidency, rendering its integrity and ability to lead useless.

Over yesterday, today, and tomorrow we will be revisiting previous posts from early 2014 where we laid out over a hundred reasons why this Presidency is a failure and quite possibly impeachable. Even after these first five posts we will have more material and proof that this is likely the worst Presidential administration of all time, criminal, inept, and vindictive.

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 2014

Grounds For Impeachment, Part 2: The Obama Administration's Fire, Smoke, and Kindling Abuse Of The Constitution and the Rule of Law

Yesterday, we presented the first set of potential impeachment charges against President Obama for alleged crimes and violations of existing laws, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. That first set of allegations can be accessed at:

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2014/01/grounds-for-impeachment-part-1-obama.html

That post followed three other posts where we laid out over 60 reasons and failures that do not rise to the levels worthy of impeachment and removal from office. The first post in that three part series can be accessed at:

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2014/01/part-1-first-twenty-failures-of-obama.html

We reminded readers in those three posts that you cannot remove a President from office:

• For having ineffective and/or stupid policies. 
• For being ineffective in executing his duties of office. 
• For being arrogant, narcissistic, and pompous.
• For waging class warfare and dividing the nation into voting blocs.
• For lying about his past or his promises.
• For presiding over an economy where over 20 million Americans are under employed or unemployed and where almost 50 million Americans receive Federal government food assistance are not grounds for impeachment.
• For running up astronomical national debt levels so that the debt burden in the country is over $50,000 per person is not grounds for impeachment.
• For having an effective foreign policy strategy is not grounds for impeachment.
• For failing to rein in wasteful government spending is not grounds for impeachment.
• For lying about how things are or will be in the Presidential administration are not grounds for impeachment.
• For dissing our veterans in so many ways are not grounds for impeachment.

However, while those 60 or so failures are not grounds for impeachment and removal from office, there are numerous breeches of laws, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights that have emanated out of this Presidential administration. And it is those actions that we started reviewing yesterday and we will continue to review, discuss, and present today and tomorrow, actions that we believe warrant and require the Congress to institute impeachment proceedings against this President.

Our grounds for impeachment are to be presented in three categories:

1. Fire: obvious grounds for impeachment that require very little additional research and analysis before being presented to the Senate as articles of impeachment.
2. Smoke: probably grounds for impeachment that require some additional research and analysis before being presented to the Senate as articles of impeachment.
3. Kindling: possibly grounds for impeachment that require a lot of additional research and analysis before being presented to the Senate as articles of impeachment but if true, would easily end the current Presidential administration.

Today we continue with potential impeachable offenses in each of the “Fire” category and tomorrow we will conclude our impeachment discussion with the “Smoke” and “Kindling” categories:

The “Fire” reasons why President Obama should face impeachment proceedings, a continuing discussion that was started yesterday with the first five "fire" reasons:

6) He unilaterally delayed the small business (SHOP) mandates from his own Obama Care legislation, without Congressional approval, violating Article II, Sections 3 and 4 of the Constitution.

7) He unilaterally delayed the employer mandates, without Congressional approval, from his own Obama Care legislation without Congressional, violating Article II, Sections 3 and 4 of the Constitution.

8) He unilaterally decided, without Congressional approval, that Obama Care enrollees in states using only the Federal health care exchange, i.e. those states that did not set up their own Obama Care exchange, would also be eligible for Obama Care subsidies, violating his own Obama Care legislation and violating Article II, Sections 3 and 4 of the Constitution.

9) He unilaterally decided, without Congressional approval, that those personal insurance policies that insurance companies had to legally terminate as a result of Obama Care could indeed stay in effect, violating Article II, Sections 3 and 4 of the Constitution.

10) He unilaterally decided, without Congressional approval, to change out many more tenets and deadlines of the Obama Care legislation (e.g. delaying the caps on out of pocket medical expenses, waiving the income proof requirement for subsidies, waiving the criminal background checks on Obama Care navigators, etc.), violating Article II, Sections 3 and 4 of the Constitution.

11) His administration has hassled, spied on, harassed, and threatened a multitude of journalists including, but not likely limited to, Bob Woodward, Lanny Davis, Fox News employees James Rosen and Mike Levine, Sheryl Atkinson, Audrey Hudson (whose home was ransacked by Department of homeland Security armed personnel who confiscated her journalistic files despite serving a court order that was restricted to only looking for guns), Associated Press reporters, and others, violating their First Amendment rights.

12) When a the Egyptian military staged an coup and overturned a democratically elected government, he refused to cut off aid to that military ruling junta as required by U.S. law, violating Article II, Sections 3 and 4 of the Constitution.

13) His administration allowed lucrative taxpayer funded financial credits to Congressional members and their staffs to pay for Obama Care policies in violation of the Obama Care legislation, violating Article II, Sections 3 and 4 of the Constitution.

14) His Obama Care legislation forced individuals, companies, and charities to violate their own religious beliefs relative to contraception and birth control, violating those citizens’ and organizations’ First Amendment rights.

15) He illegally made government appointments to high level government positions while the Senate was still in session, violating Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution.

16) He ignored the ruling of a Federal judge in Louisiana regarding the administration’s illegal moratorium on Gulf oil drilling, resulting in the following stinging rebuke from the judge:

“Each step the government took following the court’s imposition of a preliminary injunction showcases its defiance, Such dismissive conduct, viewed in tandem with the re-imposition of a second blanket and substantively identical moratorium, and in light of the national importance of this case, provide this court with clear and convincing evidence of the government’s contempt.”

17) His administration’s unparalleled invasion of citizens’ privacy via the warrantless and groundless interception and storage of just about every citizens’ electronic and other communications via the National Security agency and other government entities is a gross violation and insult to every citizens’ First and Fourth Amendment rights.

18) He unilaterally decided not to enforce the DOMA law, without Congressional approval, violating Article II, Sections 3 and 4 of the Constitution.

19) He illegally violated immigration laws by forbidding the deportation of illegal aliens, without the approval of Congress, violating Article II, Sections 3 and 4 of the Constitution.

20) His administration illegally used the IRS to harass and minimize the impact and activities of conservative and other contrary political action organizations, violating those citizens’ First Amendment rights.

21) He illegally created a “shadow government” by establishing a so-call “czar” system in order to bypass the Constitutionally required Congressional approvals of high ranking government positions, violating Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution. 

22) His administration violated existing laws by failing to produce a Federal budget proposal on time in four of the first five years of this administration, violating Article II, Sections 3 and 4 of the Constitution.

23) His administration illegally demanded monetary kickbacks (often exuberant kickbacks) from American organizations requesting government documents under the Freedom of Information Act, (FOIA), requests that by law have to be provided for free or for a very small processing cost, violating Article II, Sections 3 and 4 of the Constitution.

24) His administration demanded that the Ford Motor company stop showing a Ford television commercial that mentioned that its competitors, General Motors and Chrysler, had received Federal bailout money, a violation of the company’s First Amendment rights.

25) His administration coldly ignored the request for military help, help that was readily available, when the U.S. Benghazi consulate and nearby adjacent annex were under siege by terrorists, a siege that endangered the lives of about 24 American citizens and resulted in the unnecessary death of four of those brave citizens violating their pursuit of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

26) His administration illegally used resources of the Federal government to inhibit and harass companies (e.g. Gibson Guitar, Boeing’s planned move of jobs to South Carolina, etc.) whose political agenda did not line up with the President’s political agenda, abusing the power of his office and the executive branch for political gain, violating Section 2, Articles 3 and 4 of the Constitution.

27) His administration intentionally violated the WARN act by telling companies to not announce layoffs that were in compliance with the WARN Act prior to the 2012 Presidential election, promising to pay any fines Act in the future with taxpayer money those companies may incur as a result of violating the WARN as requested by the Obama administration.

28) His administration violated the Welfare Reform Act of 1996 by illegally allowing able bodied welfare recipients not to fulfill the weekly work requirements of that legislation.

That's enough for today, 28 pretty good slam dunk reasons why impeachment proceedings and eventually removal from office proceedings should commence for this Presidential administration. 

But we are not done. Tomorrow we will present dozens of other likely reasons for impeachment, reasons that may not be quite as strong as these 28 but strong enough to warrant investigation and probable inclusion in the eventual final list of charges. As you will see both today and tomorrow, we are witnessing the most lawless Presidential administration in the history of our nation, an administration that needs to be stopped.

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

September, 2014 Political Class Insanity, Part 1: The Non-Tranparency Of Obama, The Incompetence of the IRS, The Fraud in Medicare, and The Nothing of John Kerry

The start of a new month means it is time to check in on the latest political class insanity from the American political class. Every month since this blog began in 2009, we have conducted monthly reviews of stupid government programs, inane political comments, wasteful government spending, and other burdens and insanity that the politicians in this country constantly rain down on us and our families.

Unfortunately, what used to take a day to cover has now morphed into multiple posts every month just to keep up with the ineptness and craziness of today’s politicians. This month will be no different. If anything, the insanity seems to be increasing and intensifying as we continue to sense that we are being served by the worst set of politicians in the history of this country.

The proof to this theory continues below and for the next week or so:

1) One of Obama’s big selling points when he was first running for president is that he was going to operate the most transparent Presidential administration in the history of this country. There would be no secrets during his time in office, citizens would know just about everything that was going on in the Federal government.

Unfortunately, we have shown many times in previous posts how this became just another failure of this Presidency. Information request under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) have been stymied a record number of times by this administration. Journalists have been spied on and investigated for negative reporting by this administration as they try to keep secrets that should be put out in public.

Well, according to a short article recently published by Reason magazine's website, this secrecy and lack of transparency should come as no surprise. The article discusses and shows an official government letter received from a Mr. Taylor D. August. Apparently Mr. August’s official job title at the Department of Education is "FOIA Denial Officer." 

Yes, apparently in at least one Federal department under the Obama administration, there is an “officer” whose job title apparently puts him in charge of actually finding ways of denying FOIA requests. Makes you wonder if every Federal department now has a similar “officer” whose job is to deny lawfully requested documents and information from the Federal government.

Hardly seems like Obama is living up to his promise to be the most transparent President of all time when he has formalized personnel in the Federal government to do just the opposite, stifle and deny request for information and government transparency. Another lie, another deception, another failure.

2) The IRS has been around a long time. Given its longevity, one would have hoped that it had is methods and procedures down pat from a long trail of experience. One would have hope that but as usual when it comes to government bureaucracies, you would be wrong.

According to a new report from IRS’ Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, or TIGTA, some of the IRS’s outside contract employees had access to taxpayer data despite not having undergone required background checks. Obviously, this opens up the possibility of massive identify theft of millions of Americans:

“TIGTA found that taxpayer data and other [Sensitive But Unclassified] information may be at risk due to a lack of background investigation requirements in five contracts for courier, printing, document recovery and sign language interpreter services.” 

Instances of failed security included:

• The Inspector General cited on instance where the IRS gave an outside contractor a CD disc containing 1.4 million taxpayer names, addresses and Social Security numbers. None of the contractor personnel who worked on this contract were subjected to a background investigation.
• The TIGTA found 12 service contracts for which employee background checks were required by the contract but some contractor personnel did not have background investigations done prior to working on the contracts. 
• The TIGTA also found 20 contracts for which some contractor personnel did not sign nondisclosure agreements. 

So, it is not just criminal identity theft thieves we need to worry about. We also have to worry about our own government who is endangering the very personal financial information they are entrusted to protect, despite decades of experience handling such information.

3) Many times in past insanity posts we have shown how wasteful and negligent the Federal government and the Washington politicians who operate it are with taxpayer wealth. Inefficiencies, fraud, and other wastes of tax payer dollars are widespread throughout every single government entity. 

A recent article from the CATO Institute, written by Nicole Kaeding, confirmed nothing has changed as it relates to wasteful spending, at least within the Medicare program. She lists out some of the current wasteful Medicare spending:

• She first cites a Washington Post article that exposed the fact that 80% of motorized Medicare wheelchair claims are “improper," leading to billions and billons of dollars spent unnecessarily every year. 
• Government Accountability Office (GAO) research estimates that Medicare’s “improper payments” amount to $44 billion, or 8% of total expenditures.
• Additionally, the GAO found Medicare to be a “high risk” program for its “vulnerabilities to fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement.” 
• GAO chastised the program for its inability to control the wasteful spending problem and declared that Medicare “has yet to demonstrate sustained progress in lowering the rates [of improper payments].”
• But the CATO article goes on to say that the GAO might be kind in its criticism since other experts such as Malcolm Sparrow of Harvard University estimate the wasteful spending closer to 20% of claims or $120 billion annually.
• Although the Federal government’s Medicare Fraud Strike Force “has charged nearly 1,900 defendants who have collectively billed the Medicare program for more than $6 billion” since 2007, $6 billion is next to nothing when the program spends hundreds of billions of dollars every single year, illustrating just how widespread the issue is.

If the $120 billion Medicare wasteful spending estimate is accurate, that is equivalent to every U.S. household spending and wasting about a $1,000 a year and getting nothing in return. A situation that I find disgraceful, that just one government program unnecessarily costs every household $1,000.

Much like the IRS, the Medicare program has been around for decades and the political class and government bureaucracy still have not figured out how to run it efficiently and effectively and fraud free. No wonder the Federal government has run up an almost $18 TRILLION national debt when it possibly loses over $100 billion every year for no societal benefit in return from just Medicare. 

And the sad thing, those who operate this program and others that also waste taxpayer dollars, seem to have no concept or plan on how to fix what they have severely broken.

4) One last piece of insanity for today. As most informed people know, the following international crises are going on today around the world:

• An American journalist was beheaded on video by terrorists in Iraq.
• Libya continues to disintegrate into a civil war.
• Russia and the Ukraine are fighting each other in Europe.
• Israel and the Palestinians are fighting each other in Gaza.
• Syria is still in the midst of a terrible civil war.
• Islamic terrorists are rampaging through Africa.
• North Korea and Iran are still working diligently on becoming nuclear weapons powers.
• Refugees are flooding our borders from Central and South America.

There are international crises going on everywhere, crises that should have the attention of our top international diplomat, Secretary of State John Kerry. But in a sad comparison to the children’s game, “Where’s Waldo?,” one would have to ask, in the face of all of these international trouble spots, “Where’s Kerry?”

Well, two weeks ago, of all places, Mr. Kerry was in the Solomon Islands in the Pacific. Why was he there in the face of all the international turmoil cited above? He was there to lay a wreath at the Guadalcanal American Memorial to honor American soldiers killed in the Solomons in World War II. While this was a nice gesture and honor to those who fought there, you really have to question whether this was the right priority for him in these trying times.

And to add insult to injury, he did not talk about international affairs in his public comments. Instead, he focused on….wait for it…. Climate change: “But more importantly, we have $25 million in Asia Pacific climate change adaptation. We have another $25 million in mitigation programs. I know it’s of great concern to you. And in addition to that, we have huge historical ties that we respect enormously.” 

While the Middle East, Africa, Eastern Europe, and Central America are disintegrating, Kerry is handing out American taxpayer money to the Solomon Islands to fix “climate change,” even though the planet has not warmed in over 19 years. And besides, how is climate change the overriding priority of the Secretary of State?

This is just another example of our politicians not having the will, intelligence, or ability to address and fix real problems, forcing them to address trivial things like climate change in the Solomon Islands, the name of an NFL football team, etc.

That will do it for today. More insanity, more wasteful spending, and more horrible priorities from the worst set of politicians ever to serve in office. More of the same 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:

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