September, 2015, Political Class Insanity, Part 4: VA Gutting Whistleblowers, Cartels Taking Over Phoenix Area, and Americans Fed Up With the Status Qupo

It is the start of another month which means it is time for our monthly review of the latest political class insanity that continually spews forth from America’s politicians. Their actions, words, quotes, incompetency, and general ineptness continue to reinforce our theory that we are currently being served by the worst set of politicians in the history of the nation.

As you read about the latest shenanigans and ineptness of the political class, keep in mind what should be their priorities in these difficult times and compare this list to what they are actually working on:

• NBC recently reported that ISIS forces are getting larger and stronger despite the Obama administration spending billions of dollars on a failed air campaign and military strategy.
• The stock market is in free fall.
• Job creation is barely keeping up with population growth.
• Wage growth is anemic, growing just .2% in the second quarter, the lowest quarterly growth since 1982.
• The labor participation rate is at the lowest level in decades because the Obama economy cannot generate enough jobs.
• Thousands of veterans are still not getting the medical care they were promised by the Federal government.
• 45 million Americans are still receiving monthly Federal food assistance.
• Our borders still leak and thousands of illegal immigrant criminals continue to walk our streets
• A record number of police officers have been assassinated in the past week.
• Major programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security are hurtling towards insolvency and lose hundreds of billions of dollars every year to fraud and mismanagement.
• Our kids are still getting lousy public educations at most public schools.
• The IRS and other government functions seem to be getting their computer systems hacked on a regular basis, exposing tens of millions of Americans to identity theft potential.
• Obama Care is a failure along so many dimensions as health care costs continue to soar despite the Obama promise that they would decrease.
• Annual Federal deficits, while down, are still about half a TRILLION a year meaning that even though the Federal government is collecting more in taxes than ever before, it still cannot run a balanced budget.

Again, keep these real crises in mind as you read what our politicians are actually doing.

1) Apparently all of the crises and problems we listed above are not figments of our imagination. According to a recent opinion poll by Quinnipiac University, that was reviewed in the September 11, 2015 issue of The Week magazine, 71% of American voters are dissatisfied with the ways things are going in the country today. Even worse, 41% are “very dissatisfied” with the way things are going in the country.

Thus, we should not be surprised that people like Donald Trump, Ben Carson, Carly Fiorini, and other non-politicians are doing well in the early Presidential running. People are tired with the current members of the American political class who have done nothing as far as making live better and more secure for most Americans.

Which makes visiting the term limits website, 

www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com

all the more important since really, how much worse could it get if we replaced every Washington politician with a new person today? At least 71% of Americans would probably support such a move.

2) We have previously reported on how inept the Veterans Administration (VA) is. A recent study showed that almost 300,000 military veterans died while waiting for treatment. At the same time, high ranking VA executives were getting large bonuses for being such screw-ups.

Turns out these these executives are also pretty vindictive. According to an article that was in the August, 2015 issue of Reason magazine:

• VA employees that complained and blew the whistle on VA incompetence have been the target of retaliation by VA executives.
• In some cases, the medical records of alleged whistleblowers were accessed and information on those records were used to try to discredit the whistleblowers.
• One of those whistleblowers, Brandon Coleman, was placed on administrative leave after he publicly complained that veterans were receiving dangerously poor medical treatment.
• He presented evidence to both Senator John McCain and the head of the VA that his medical records had been accessed illegally prior to being forced onto leave.

So much for a transparent Presidential administration, as promised by Obama. Do the right thing and point out government incompetence and then get your private medical records thrown in your face in retaliation and to protect those that are not doing their jobs.

3) Brandon Coleman was only placed on leave for doing the right thing in his VA job. VA whistleblower and Army veteran Vanessa Lech claims she lost her job when her superior retaliated against her when she called attention to safety issues and sexual harassment at a New Mexico VA facility.

Within a month of being hired in October, 2014 she filed a grievance through her union for being retaliated against by her harassing supervisor. She also publicly pointed out the many safety issues at the facility where she worked including lack of security and VA autos that were dangerously maintained. While an investigation of her complaints substantiated many of her allegations, she still lost her job as a result of speaking up.
According to Ms. Lech: “A culture of fear, retaliation and toxic leadership plagues Veterans Affairs, an organization, which is supposed to consistently provide high quality services for our military Veterans. VA management is more focused on bonus money, bad press and doubling down on the status quo instead of being concerned about the well being of Veterans and VA employees.”

Besides the sad stories of brave people like Mr. Coleman and Ms. Lech is that the Obama administration has been aware of the incompetence and scandal of the VA over the years. But it has still been unsuccessful in providing the promised medical care to veterans and protecting those whistleblowers that would actually help Obama clean up the mess and disgrace that is the VA. Pathetic.

4) Let’s stay in the southwest U.S. for the next piece of insanity but move over to the state of Arizona. According to Pinal County, Arizona Sheriff Paul Babeu, Mexican drug cartels who are armed with AK-47 automatic weapons “control many areas on American soil” in areas that are only 30 miles from the Phoenix metro area.

The Sheriff stated on TV: “This is literally an unsecured border. We have cartels that think they own the place. They control many areas on American soil and this how they freely move billions of dollars of drugs and hundreds of thousands of illegals into our country.” 

“They control many areas on American soil.” This is scary stuff if true. This is just one other reason why the Obama administration has been just a total failure relative to immigration policy and reality, we have an unsecured border that is now controlled by foreign interests. And these foreign interests are violent, organized crime types that apparently are operating without danger of being arrested or stopped.

That will do it for today’s insanity, all very depressing. We have drug cartels taking over U.S. territory, we have a VA that has not changed its ways of ineptness despite being aware of the problems for years, we have an Obama administration that is not protecting whistleblowers despite its vow to have all time high transparency, and we have proof that American citizens are fed up with those that are in political office today. Insanity across the board.

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

Part 1: Are Today's Washington Politicians The Worst Ever?

Today and tomorrow will be a philosophical discussion revolving around the following hypothesis: In America today are we suffering through the worst, most incompetent set of Washington politicians to ever hold office? Before getting into the details, let’s consider the state of the country today, most of which was caused by our current crop of politicians, many of whom have in office for decades:

• Due to lax government oversight, government meddling in the market, and crony capitalism we just lived through the worse economic downturn since the Great Depression and the worst economic recovery in the past 100 years. 
• We have a national debt of $18 TRILLION, a debt burden of about $155,000 for every U.S. household.
• Our public schools due a lousy job of educating our kids vs. the rest of the world despite an $18 TRILLION national debt.
• Our borders our not secure, endangering the lives of every American, despite an $18 TRILLION national debt.
• We have no comprehensive, overall national energy strategy despite an $18 TRILLION national debt.
• Our nation’s roads, bridges, and other infrastructure are crumbling despite an $18 TRILLION national debt.
• The Federal government has spent taxpayer dollars on inane studies to study why the same college basketball teams always dominate March Madness, how quickly parents respond to trendy baby names, on whether online dating site users are racist, and when dogs became man’s best friend despite an $18 TRILLION national debt.
• The Federal government’s agencies and departments lose hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars every year to outright criminal fraud and wasteful spending.
• No Federal government agency or department delivers any value added service effectively and efficiently.
• The Federal government’s answer to skyrocketing health care costs has been to implement legislation that made health care even more expensive while reducing the quality of health care.
• Terrorism threats are growing, from Yemen to Syria to Iraq to the streets of Paris and the streets of Boston despite the Federal government spending over a TRILLION dollars fighting terrorism over the past 14 years.
• Our foreign relations and diplomacy failures have actually made our enemies not fear us and our friends not trust us.
• Race relations have deteriorated over the past six years, reversing a decades long trend of improving race relations despite the election of the first ever African-American President.

Economic woes, foreign relations woes, race relations woes, dysfunctional government operations, and more, this is what the current political class in Washington has bestowed upon us. These are the end results, let’s see how we got to this dreadful situation.

1) Foreign Policy magazine recently announced the results of its 2014 Ivory Tower survey. This survey polled 1,615 international relations scholars from 1,375 U.S. colleges, of which 660 responded. Thus, the results are based on people that are experts in the international relations field, not ordinary Americans walking down the street.

One of the primary questions of the survey was: “Who was the most effective U.S. Secretary of State over the past 50 years?” Despite being in that position over four decades ago, Nobel Peace Prize winner Henry A. Kissinger of the Nixon administration was the leading vote getter. He was the clear winner with an outstanding 32.2% of those polled.

If Kissinger got the most positive votes, who got the least? It was none other than the current Secretary of State John Kerry who got only 2 votes out of the 660 responses. Additionally, Condoleeza Rice got only three votes out of the 660 cast to finish one place above Kerry. 

Thus, two out of the past three Secretary of States garnered less than one percent of the experts’ votes on who was the most effective Secretary of State. The third Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton got less than 9% of the votes, much more than Kerry and Rice but still less than half of those polled who answered  the question with “Don’t Know.” Maybe this explains why our foreign relations and diplomacy efforts over the past decade or so have been so bad, we just do not have effective people in a the most important Federal government position.

2) A mid-2014 national Quinnipiac University Poll found that ordinary Americans consider Barack Obama the worst President since World War II, with a majority of those polled believing that at time that Romney would have been a better winner of the 2012 Presidential campaign than Obama. Obama received this dubious “worst” distinction with about 33% of the vote.

But George W. Bush, Obama’s predecessor, was viewed as the second worst President since the end of World War II. Thus, America thinks that over the past 14 years, we have been led by the worst Presidents since the end of the second world war. If these Americans are correct, a lot crises on the list above starts to make more sense.

3) But it is not only Presidents and Secretaries of States that America blames for our problems. According to a post on the Rasmussen website in February, 2012 concerning one of its public opinion studies, 43% of likely American voters believe that a group of citizens randomly selected from the phone book would do a better governing job in Congress than the current members of the Congress. 38% of those polled disagreed with this hypothesis while another 19% were not sure.

When more people think random people off the street can do a better job than those that spent billions of dollars to get elected, Congress at best has a PR problem, at worst they are a major part of the nation’s problems.

4) A June, 2014 Gallup poll reinforces the previous notion that Congress is held in very low esteem by Americans. As of last June, only 7% of Americans felt they had a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in Congress as an American institution. This is the lowest level of confidence ever during the time Gallup measured this view (since 1973) and is down 30% from the previous low of 10% in 2013:



Americans' current confidence in Congress is not only the lowest on record, but also the lowest Gallup has recorded for any institution in the 41-year trend. This is also the first time ever Gallup has measured confidence in a major U.S. institution in the single digits. As you can see from the above chart, the trend of Congress is downward, leaving little confidence that the perception of Congress will improve anytime soon.

This concludes the first half of our discussion on whether or not we are being served by the worst set of politicians ever to serve in Washington. Given that we have presented evidence today that we have been recently served by a few of the worst Secretary of States ever, the worst two Presidents recently, and the lowest ranked Congressional sessions recently, the early indications are that we have and are being served by the worst Washington politicians ever. 

We will complete our analysis and discussion tomorrow but odds are "worst" is the leading adjective after day one.

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.loathemygovernmobama,washington post,politifactent.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

Part 5, Why The Obama Administration Deserves Its Ranking As The Worst Presidency Since 1945

A recent public opinion poll conducted by Quinnipiac University, a traditional and unbiased source of public opinion, asked a sample of Americans who they thought operated the worst Presidency since 1945. Barack Obama won a plurality of votes in that poll for being the worst U.S. President since 1945. 33% of respondents named him as the worst President over the past seven decades with George W, Bush finishing second at 28%. 

Both of them far outpolled who I generally consider the two worst Presidents of the past hundred years, Jimmy Carter (8%) for being a President who was clueless and totally ineffective, and Richard Nixon (13%) for simply being a vindictive crook. America has to be pretty disgusted with your Presidential administration when you are mentioned 2-4 more times than either Carter or Nixon as the worst President since 1945.

During this week, we are exploring the overwhelming number of reasons while this result for President Obama is not only rational but is well deserved. Before anyone starts with their counter arguments or disputing my list of Obama policy failures, criminal acts, economic ignorance, violations of the Constitution, and broken promises, keep in mind the following facts:

• I have never voted for a Republican for President in my life and I am over 60 years old
• Up until November, 2010, I had never voted for a Republican for national office
• In the first two years of his Presidency, Obama’s party was in control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate with filibuster proof majorities in both places, I.e. he could have done anything he wanted politically and legislatively without any assist from any Republican
• I am not saying that anyone else would have resolved all of the issues listed below but it is difficult to think that at least some of these issues would have been resolved by people such as Truman, Kennedy, or Reagan. The Obama Presidency has been so bad that just about every issue and problem listed below is actually far WORST rather than BETTER since the onset of the Obama administration.
• Consider an old saying: “Don’t tell me how rough the seas were, just tell me you brought the boat safely into the harbor.” In other words, a true leader takes the blame and gives the credit. No one forced Obama to become President, he knew the situation he was getting into. He should be judged on how well he managed the situation he inherited going forward. Unfortunately, instead of leadership and looking forward, he chose instead to whine, look backwards, and to blame others for his failures rather than focusing on moving forward from whatever adverse situation he inherited.

Okay, so that sets out the preliminaries: I am not a conservative, a Republican, or a neocon trying to tear down this President. This President could have done anything he wanted in the first two years of his tenure, he cannot blame the Republicans for blocking anything he failed at since he had a historic window of political opportunity. Instead of leveraging the window and leading the country, he chose to blame the previous President, the Japanese tsunami, ATM machines, and a whole host of other factors in the absence of Presidential leadership.

Thus, without any further delay and in no particular order, consider the twenty reasons why the Quinnipiac public opinion poll is probably an accurate view of why America rates the Obama administration as the worst Presidential administration in the past 70 years or so:

85) 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. 
86) 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. 

87) 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. 

88) 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. 

89) 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.”

90) 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. 

91) 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. 

92) 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.

93) He refused to fire Eric Holder, the Attorney General of the United States, after Holder testified before Congress that he was unaware that the Justice Department was harassing journalist James Rosen even though Holder had signed off on the harassing investigation, becoming an accessory after the fact of the crime. 

94) His administration directly harassed and pressured insurance companies and insurance company executives not to publish or discuss the very disappointing number of people that had signed up for Obama Care insurance policies, violating their First Amendment rights. 

95) His administration asked and/or forced contractors to disclose their political contributions be fore being allowed to bid on Federal contracts and projects, violating those contractors’ First Amendment rights. 

96) He refused to fire 15 IRS agents who illegally stole the medical records of 10 million American citizens, becoming an accessory after the fact of the crime. 

97) Failed to fire Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius after she allegedly pressured insurance companies to contribute to the promotion and advancement of Obama Care, becoming an accessory after the fact of the crime

98) Failed to fire Kathleen Sebelius after she violated the Hatch Law when she campaigned/endorsed a Democrat for office in North Carolina, becoming an accessory after the fact after the fact of the crime. 

99) He allegedly told the EPA to unilaterally set emissions standards and bypass Congress, violating Article II, Sections 3 and 4 of the Constitution. 

100) His destruction of citizens’ privacy via the massive and illegal spying of the National Security Agency and other government entities destroys the underpinnings of the Roe Vs. Wade Supreme Court ruling which was based on the principle of privacy. If this concept of privacy is destroyed by NSA and other government spying, i.e. if there is no privacy now in this country given that the government spies on every citizens’ electronic and other forms of communication, there is not right to an abortion in this country.

101) His administration violated the Federal Information Security Information Act (FISMA) by giving the Obama Care information systems infrastructure “authority to operate” even though it failed the required FISMA’s security control assessment. 

102) According to a Federal judge’s ruling, his administration illegally tried to avoid disclosure of a foreign aid directive. 

103) His administration illegally intruded into the General Motors bankruptcy proceedings to illegally rob General Motors bond holders of their due while protecting his politically friendly union interests. 

104) His administration violated the Solyndra loan agreement and illegally moved an Obama financial political backer ahead of the Federal government and American taxpayer in the Solyndra bankruptcy proceedings, resulting in the American taxpayer getting less out of those proceedings than legally permissible.

We will wrap up this extensive topic in tomorrow's post where we will review the last set of reasons why the Obama Presidency is the worst since 1945. We will also summary all 114 reasons in the context of what an abject failure we have had to live thtough via the Obama adminsitraiton, a Presidency that will leave the ocuntry far worse off after it en ds than when it began.

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

Part 1: Why The Obama Administration Deserves Its Rating As The Worst Presidency Since 1945

A recent public opinion poll conducted by Quinnipiac University, a traditional and unbiased source of public opinion, asked a sample of Americans who they thought operated the worst Presidency since 1945. Barack Obama won a plurality of votes in that poll for being the worst U.S. President since 1945. 33% of respondents named him as the worst President over the past seven decades with George W, Bush finishing second at 28%. 

Both of them far outpolled who I generally consider the two worst Presidents of the past hundred years, Jimmy Carter (8%) for being a President who was clueless and totally ineffective, and Richard Nixon (13%) for simply being a vindictive crook. America has to be pretty disgusted with your Presidential administration when you are mentioned 2-4 more times than either Carter or Nixon as the worst President since 1945.

Over the next few days we are going to explore the overwhelming number of reasons while this result for President Obama is not only rational but is well deserved. Before anyone starts with their counter arguments or disputing my list of Obama policy failures, criminal acts, economic ignorance, violations of the Constitution, and broken promises, keep in mind the following facts:

• I have never voted for a Republican for President in my life and I am over 60 years old.
• Up until November, 2010, I had never voted for a Republican for national office.
• In the first two years of his Presidency, Obama’s party was in control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate with filibuster proof majorities in both places, i.e. he could have done anything he wanted politically and legislatively without any assist from any Republican.
• I am not saying that anyone else would have resolved all of the issues listed below but it is difficult to think that at least some of these issues would have been resolved by people and real leaders such as Truman, Kennedy, or Reagan. The Obama Presidency has been so bad that just about every issue and problem listed below is actually far WORST rather than BETTER since the onset of the Obama administration.
• Consider an old saying: “Don’t tell me how rough the seas were, just tell me you brought the boat safely into the harbor.” In other words, a true leader takes the blame and gives the credit. No one forced Obama to become President, he knew the situation he was getting into. He should be judged on how well he managed the situation he inherited going forward. Unfortunately, instead of leadership and looking forward, he chose instead to whine, look backwards, and to blame others for his failures rather than focusing on moving forward from whatever adverse situation he inherited.

Okay, so that sets out the preliminaries: I am not a conservative, a Republican, or a neocon trying to tear down this President. This President could have done anything he wanted in the first two years of his tenure, he cannot blame the Republicans for blocking anything he failed at since he had a historic window of political opportunity. Instead of leveraging the window and leading the country, he chose to blame the previous President, the Japanese tsunami, ATM machines, and a whole host of other factors in the absence of Presidential leadership.

Thus, without any further delay and in no particular order, consider the following 122 reasons why the Quinnipiac public opinion poll is probably an accurate view of why America rates the Obama administration as the worst Presidential administration in the past 70 years or so:

1) President Obama promised to quickly shut down the oppressive detention center at Guantanamo Bay shortly after being elected but failed to do. This has resulted in the American taxpayer paying out almost half a billion dollars a year to keep the detention facility up and running. 

Relevant Obama quote: "We will close the detention camp in Guantanamo Bay, the location of so many of the worst constitutional abuses in recent years." 

2) President Obama promised to cut the annual deficit in half but instead ran up record setting TRILLION dollar deficits for four years in a row. 

Relevant Obama quote: “What my budget does is…by the middle of this decade our annual spending will match our annual revenues. We will not be adding more to the national debt.” 

Relevant Obama quote: “When George Bush came into office, our debt—national debt—was around $5 trillion. It’s now over $10 trillion. We’ve almost doubled it… But actually I’m cutting more than I’m spending, so it will be a net spending cut.” \

3) He promised that if his economic stimulus program was not implemented, unemployment could go as high as 8% and not come down to 5% until 2014. The program was implemented and unemployment skyrocketed well beyond 8% and stayed there for a record number of consecutive months and the rate is still more than a percentage point above his 2014 target of 5%.

4) He promised that economic programs such as Cash For Clunkers would stimulate the economy but subsequent analysis has shown that all those programs did was waste billions of dollars for no economic benefit. Analysis by the Brookings Institute shows conclusively that Cash For Clunkers involved about 380,000 vehicles, none of which were incremental, economic stimulating sales. They were sales that would have happened anyway but without taxpayer support. 

Relevant Obama quote: “Now, more American consumers will have the chance to purchase newer, more fuel efficient cars and the American economy will continue to get a much-needed boost."

5) He has abused and disrespected our armed forces’ veterans by allowing veterans’ benefits and medical requests turnaround time to skyrocket, resulting in untold number of unnecessary veterans’ deaths, he coldly and unnecessarily shut down veteran memorials during the sequester, and agreed to Federal legislation that reduces veterans’ benefits. 

Relevant Obama quote: “When you take off the uniform, we will serve you as well as you've served us - because no one who fights for this country should have to fight for a job, or a roof over their head, or the care that they need when they come home.” 

6) He has presided over economic polices that has seen about a 50% increase in the number of Americans that are receiving government food assistance, a total of about 47 million Americans.

7) He has presided over economic polices that have left well over 20 million Americans either unemployed or under employed.

Relevant Obama quote (Associated Press, July, 2013): "Four out of 5 U.S. adults struggle with joblessness, near poverty or reliance on welfare for at least parts of their lives, a sign of deteriorating economic security and an elusive American dream." 

8) He has presided over economic policies that have resulted in large numbers of college graduates unable to land a job in their preferred profession, assuming they can find a job at all, resulting in an all time high number of young Americans that have to live with their parents or other relatives due to their economic situation

9) He presided over economic polices that have kept minority unemployment levels substantially higher than the overall unemployment rates in America. 

10) He has presided over an $833 billion economic stimulus program that was so inefficient that it conservatively cost over $300,000 per job created or saved, an unsustainable and failed economic policy. 

11) He has failed to rein in wasteful spending in the Medicare program which loses about $60-70 billion a year through waste, inefficiencies, and outright criminal fraud. 

Relevant Obama quote: “It's time to fundamentally change the way that we do business in Washington. To help build a new foundation for the 21st century, we need to reform our government so that it is more efficient, more transparent, and more creative. That will demand new thinking and a new sense of responsibility for every dollar that is spent.” 

12) He has failed to rein in wasteful spending in the Medicaid program which loses about $30-40 billion a year through waste, inefficiencies, and outright criminal fraud. 

13) He has failed to rein wasteful spending in the Social Security program which loses over $100 billion a year through waste, inefficiencies, and outright criminal fraud. 

14) He has failed to eliminate the tens of billions of dollars lost every year via unemployment insurance, disability programs, food assistance programs, Obama phones, and government housing programs to waste, inefficiencies, and outright criminal fraud. 

15) He has failed to operate an efficient IRS process, an organization which readily admits that it fails to collect over $380 billion a year from tax evaders. 

That will do it for today, the first 15 reasons why the Obama administration deserves its latest rating as the worst Presidential administration since 1945, even worse than Carter and Nixon, a truly dubious achievement. Many, many more reasons and justifications for this dubious distinction (107 to be exact) will be discussed over the next few days, including a set of reasons why this is not only the most underperforming Presidency but also the most illegal, unlawful, unConstitutional, and most impeachable of all time.

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

April, 2014 Poltiical Class Insanity, Part 6: A Foreign Policy Failure, A Photo Op Disaster, A Unite Nations Disaster and more

This post starts the second week of posts this month that covers the never ending political class insanity, idiocy, and wasteful spending of our politicians. Their insanity has been dramatically increasing over the past year or so, an increase that will probably result in a record number of posts this month to cover just the past thirty days or so of their antics.

This post starts the second week of posts this month that covers the never ending political class insanity, idiocy, and wasteful spending of our politicians. Their insanity has been dramatically increasing over the past year or so, an increase that will probably result in a record number of posts this month to cover just the past thirty days or so of their antics.

As you go through their actions that waste our wealth and reduce our freedoms you will probably come to the same conclusion that I have: we are currently governed by the most corrupt and inept set of politicians in the history of our country.

1) In previous posts we have frequently reviewed how Obama’s promise to have the most transparent administration of all time has become a joke. He has tried to prosecute more government whistleblowers than all previous President’s combined, he has delayed or ignored Congressional requests for documents and information, he has delayed or ignored citizens requests for information under the Freedom of Information Act, he holds fewer open ended press conferences than just about every previous President, etc.

An Associated Press analysis put them figures to verify that this is truly a very non-transparent administration, despite Obama’s promise:

• In 2013, the Obama administration denied 6,689 out of 7,818 requests for so-called expedited information requests processing, a process that moves an urgent request for newsworthy records to the front of the line for a speedy answer, or about 86%.
• For comparison purposes, the Bush administration denied only 53% of such requests in 2008.
• Obama’s EPA denied 458 out of 468 expediting requests, a whopping 98%.
• The State Department under Hillary Clinton was not much better, denying 332 of 344 such requests or more than 96%.
• The Homeland Security Department denied 94% of expediting requests.
• The Justice Department, which denied AP’s request for video its investigators obtained days after the Navy Yard shooting, denied 900 out of 1,017 such requests.
• The AP analysis showed that the delay time in fulfilling request for information was getting worse over time, not better.
• In addition to denying the request for expedited requests and denying regular requests for government information, the Obama administration and the Federal government it operates, has many times also simply claimed that they couldn’t find any records or documents being requested.

You cannot claim to be running a transparent administration when the levels of delaying, denying, and claiming ignorance when it comes to Freedom Of Information Act requests is so high. Another Obama deception and/or Obama administration incompetence. In either case, pathetic leadership and dishonesty to the max.

2) I have often made the observation that this President seems more in love with athletic team photo ops than any other President. Over the years, Obama has had White House photo ops with every possible professional baseball, football, hockey, and basketball championship team along with numerous photo ops with college championship teams including a college shooting team. Oh, and let’s not forget Olympic teams and who knows what other kinds of athletic teams and competitors he has taken time to have a photo op with.

This fact was driven home when he recently had another athletic photo op, this one with the reigning Major League baseball champs, the Boston Red Sox. Which raises a good question: how come this President always seems to have enough spare time to meet and greet with these athletic teams but never seems to have the time, or the will, to meet with our wounded soldiers in hospitals?

How come he never seems to have the time, or the will, to meet with the parents and families of those he left for dead at our consulate at Benghazi to update them on his promise to track down those responsible for the murders of their family members?

How come he never seems to have the time, or the will, to visit a food bank or a homeless shelter to see how millions of Americans are still suffering as a result of his failing economic policies long after the recession ended?

How come he never has the time, or the will, to host a White House photo op with an outstanding teacher, a heroic fireman or policeman, or an ordinary citizen that is giving back to their community?

How come?

3) A recent national poll shows that even Americans have doubt about the foreign policy strategies and abilities of this current Presidential administration. A new Quinnipiac University national poll shows that the American public is divided whether President Barack Obama or Russian president Vladimir Putin is the stronger leader: “It’s a tossup on who is a tougher leader, President Barack Obama or President Vladimir Putin, as Americans weigh the heavyweight standoff over Ukraine,” said Tim Malloy, assistant director of the poll that conducts research in several states, in a release.

The poll of 1,578 registered U.S. voters nationwide between March 26 to 31 found that:

• Americans give Obama low marks for his handling of foreign policy issues.
• 55% say they disapprove and 39% say they approve of his foreign policy actions.
• Regarding the situation in the Ukraine, 47% of those polled disapproved of Obama’s actions while 41% supported him.
• Approximately 80 percent of those surveyed in the new Quinnipiac poll said they are “very concerned” or “somewhat concerned” that the Ukraine situation could lead to a larger crisis that would require U.S. military action.
• In a related foreign affairs poll, an Economist/YouGov poll in March of 1,000 adults found three out of four Americans viewed Russia’s Putin as a strong leader while less than half regarded Obama as a strong leader.

Thus, not only is the current President seeing his overall approval ratings slipping, these two polls show that he is also showing consider inability to put together and execute a sound foreign policy, especially if Americans view Putin more favorably than Obama and the vast majority of Americans have concerns about the Ukraine situation getting further out of control. More political class ineptness, this time a perceived ineptness and weakness on the global stage.

4) Sometimes you have to wonder how the political class thinks since logically, many of their actions and policies have no basis in the realities of the real world. Consider the United Nations. According to a recent article by Tom Rogan writing for the national Review, in the relatively recent past, the United Nations:

• Had no ability to punish or sanction the Russia invasion and land grabbing of Crimea.
• It had no impact on the genocide in Rwanda
• It was incapable of stopping the genocide and mass murders in Bosnia.
• The article correctly concludes that the United Nations now exists only to “promote empty handshakes, photo opportunities, and polite conversation.”

Not mentioned in the article is the additional failures of the United Nations:

• It failed to end the mass starvation in the Sudan over the past decade or so.
• It failed to curtail the growing nuclear weapons threats of North Korea and Iran.
• After sixty years it has failed to bring peace to the Israeli and Palestinian situation.
• It has failed to end the piracy issues of Somali pirates.

Truly a dysfunctional organization, similar to the American political class and its similar ability to only succeed in empty handshakes and photo opportunities. However, given this reality of incompetence, the Obama administration is proposing a thirty percent increase in American taxpayer wealth being sent to the United Nations and other failing international groups. Talk about throwing good money after bad money.

After almost seventy years of United Nations bungling, the American political class should either be demanding massive changes to the United Nations operations to make it more effective or just quick the organization and save the taxpayer money that has been aimlessly and uselessly send to it over the decades. Sending the United Nations more money before fixing is dysfunctional is just pure insanity.

So let’s review: the Obama administration has not found time to fulfill legal and necessary Freedom of Information Act requests but the President has more than enough time to get his photo taken with rich athletes, the majority of Americans view this President as weak and his foreign policies as ineffective, and the political class wants to give even more taxpayer wealth to an ineffective and corrupt United Nations. Insane.

And more insanity to follow over the next few days.

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

www.loathemygovernment.com

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

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

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