March, 2019, Part 4, Political Class Insanity: Elizabeth Warren Goes Repugnant, Bernie Sanders' Sexual Harassing Campaign Staff, and More

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

Let’s get started:

1) Liberals and Democrats like to imagine themselves as the protector of all and comforter of all population minority segments that they define anyway they want to suit the current outrage moment. A recent hero of such outrage was Senator Bernie Sanders who had a decent run at the Democratic Presidential nomination in 2016. 

But according to a recent National Review article by Jack Crowe, Sanders’ campaign fell far short of protecting and respecting the rights, feelings, and respect of women:

• Women who worked on his staff and campaign have gone public with the accusations that they were subjected to sexual harassment and discrimination from their bosses on the job.
• The accusations were strong enough for Sanders to publicly apologize for this predator behavior: “I certainly apologize to any woman who felt that she was not treated appropriately, and of course if I run, we will do better next time,” Sanders said when asked by CNN’s Anderson Cooper about a Wednesday New York Times report that alleged systemic gender pay disparities and sexual harassment on his campaign.
• Furthermore: “I am not going to sit here and tell you that we did everything right in terms of human resources, in terms of addressing the needs that I’m hearing from now, that women felt disrespected, that there was sexual harassment which was not dealt with as effectively as possible.” 
• A number of women on staff say there was sexual harassment which, when they reported it, they were mocked and had their accusations ignored.
• They are said they were paid less for comparable work, a standard rallying point of liberals and Democrats, a rallying point that Sanders failed to respect.
• Sanders tried to make the excuse that he was too busy running for President to know what was going on: “Yes, I was little bit busy running around the country trying to make the case.” 

More hypocrisy from just another plain old politician. It was not his fault, he was not aware what was going on, blah, blah, blah. As always, a member of the American political class is incapable of taking responsibility, not an attractive trait for someone who wants to lead the country. A great leader gives credit and takes responsibility, something that Sanders does not know how to do.

2) I am not looking to get into a discussion of abortion here, pro choice vs. pro life. I just want to point out one of the most callous, heartless, and despicable statements a politician has made at anytime on any subject. Democrat Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Presidential candidate, is the culprit.

This statement goes back a few months when Democrats were out of their minds during the Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court confirmation hearings. Warren was besides herself with the panicked thought that if Kavanagh was confirmed then the right to an abortion would be destroyed and back alley abortions would become prevalent again. 

But what was really repulsive was her statement that: “Today, thanks to Roe, getting an abortion is safer than getting your tonsils out. Before Roe v. Wade, many women turned to back-alley butchers to end their pregnancies.” So in essence, Warren is equating the killing of an unborn human soul to getting rid of an unneeded bodily organ. Again, this discussion is not about the validity of abortion but let’s have a little compassion for killing an unborn infant then comparing it to getting your tonsils out. Repugnant and insane.

3) And following up on Warren’s inhumane rant, she is basically wrong about thinking that the reversal of Roe vs.Wade would result in a return to untold millions of back alley abortions because….there never really was an epidemic of back alley abortions prior to Roe. Consider a history of abortion based on facts and reality, not Warren’s scare tactics and rhetoric:

• Back in In 1960, Dr. Mary Calderone, the medical director of Planned Parenthood, wrote in the American Journal of Public Health: “… about 90 percent of all illegal abortions are presently being done by physicians…Whatever trouble arises usually arises from self-induced abortions, which comprise approximately 8 percent, or with the very small percentage that go to some kind of non-medical abortionist…So remember…abortion, whether therapeutic or illegal, is in the main no longer dangerous, because it is being done well by physicians.”
• Once upon a time Dr. Bernard Nathanson, a former abortionist and abortion activist, claimed that between 5,000 and 10,000 women died every year from back alley abortions and that legalizing abortion was a way to ensure their safety.
• Except that those numbers were imaginary as he later admitted: “I confess that I knew that the figures were totally false and I suppose that others did too if they stopped to think of it. But in the ‘morality’ of our revolution, it was a useful figure, widely accepted … The overriding concern was to get the laws eliminated, and anything within reason that had to be done was permissible.”
• And even the government admits that thousands and thousand of women did not die annually from back alley abortions since a Center For Disease Control study found that in the year prior to the Roe decision 39 people died from abortion procedures in the country, not 390, note 3,900, not 39,000 just 39, less than one per state.
• And the fact that Roe is the law of the land does not mean that abortion is as safe as getting one’s tonsils out since Roe became law, hundreds of women have died from legal abortion complications.

Again this is not a debate on the pros and cons of abortion but the reality that politicians will lie and exaggerate reality and facts to make a false talking point even when it comes to killing unborn souls.

4) Speaking of lying politicians, let’s look at a recent article by the Heritage Foundation on lying politicians when it comes to the border wall that Trump wants to build to protect Americans from criminal and terrorist elements coming across our southern border:

• Cal Thomas, writing on January 10, 2019, found that politicians change their views and values based on the political winds of the times.
• Consider what Senator Barack Obama had to say about illegal immigration back in 2006: “Those who enter our country illegally and those who employ them disrespect the rule of law. And because we live in an age where terrorists are challenging our borders, we simply cannot allow people to pour into the United States undetected, undocumented, and unchecked. Americans are right to demand better border security and better enforcement of our immigration laws.”
• Hillary Clinton in 2015: “I voted, when I was a senator, to build a barrier to try to prevent illegal immigrants from coming in.”
• According to the Washington Post,back 2013 a bipartisan group of Senators “which included current Democratic leaders Sens. Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.) and Richard J. Durbin (Ill.), declared that “not later than 180 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary [of Homeland Security] shall establish . . . the ‘Southern Border Fencing Strategy,’ to identify where 700 miles of fencing (including double-layer fencing) . . . should be deployed along the Southern border.””
• Nancy Pelosi at the time stated that the proposed Senate legislation had the characterization that “every piece of this legislation has had bipartisan support”

But now that Trump is President and these people hate Trump, the concept of securing our border and protecting Americans is despicable to these hypocrites and liars.

5) One last piece of insanity about the wall concept, a concept that was once a good idea among Democrats and now is a bad idea. One tack that they now take is to say that the wall is either not needed or is ineffective. But consider some realities that Cal Thomas included in his article cited above: “Since San Diego built its wall in 1992, the statement notes, apprehensions of illegal aliens have declined by 92 percent; El Paso, Texas, erected a wall in 1993 and illegal border crossings dropped 72 percent the first year and 95 percent over 22 years; Tucson, Arizona, built its wall in 2000 and apprehensions dropped 90 percent over 15 years; the Yuma, Arizona, wall went up in 2005, contributing to a decline in crossings of 95 percent over nine years.”

But as always with a lying American politician, never let reality get in the way of a good talking point.

That will do it for this month’s political class insanity, a sad state of affairs for every American. Today we covered how politicians lie about walls and abortion, how insensitive and repugnant a politician can be when it comes to killing a soul and equating it to having your tonsils out and how a politician was just another male sexist leader. More insanity next month.

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

Supreme Court Rewrites Obama Care Legislation, Destroys the Consitution and Rule Of Law In the Process

Democracy in America died today when the Supreme Court ruled that although an existing  law explicitly states something cannot be done, the executive branch can act like it can be done without first obtaining Congressional approval. Today the Supreme Court decided that it somehow had the authority to rewrite current law without the approval of the Congressional or Executive branches of government, a clear violation of the Constitution. 

So in the future, when a future President unilaterally decides that an unborn child takes precedent over that silly Roe vs. Wade decision or unilaterally decides that “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” needs to be reinstated or unilaterally decides that the  Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act are too old to be relevant anymore, understand that the path for these unilateral actions was forged today when the Supreme Court, in concert with the present administration, arbitrarily changed standing law without input from the people or their elected representatives. In the process, this country’s  rule of law and the Constitutional separation of powers has been crushed. 

As Judge Scalia wrote in the dissenting opinion, “Words no longer have meaning if an Exchange that is not established by a State is ‘established by the State.’” Or to put it in Orwellian terms, we have fallen down the rabbit hole of Big Brother where, “War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength.” God help us.


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

June, 2015, Part 4, The Unfolding Disaster That Is Obama Care: The Supreme Court Implications, The Economic Implications,and The Human Suffering Implications

Every month for the past three years or so we have had to take time out and review the latest insanity and disasters from the Obama Care legislation. Long ago it only took a day or so to cover it all. But then the law starting taking effect and the “unfolding disaster that is Obama Care” made it impossible to contain the bad news, the heartache, the rising costs, and the stress put on American families to just a day or two.

To review the past discussions on this horrid piece of legislation, enter the term "unfolding disaster" in the search box above or just page through previous month's posts on the right side of this page and click on the various references to Obama Care. Very quickly, as your read the past posts, you will see that this is easily the worst piece of legislation ever passed by Washington.

Not only has it disrupted lives, stymied the economy, and increased healthcare costs in this country, it never addressed the various root causes of high healthcare costs. Thus, by never addressing some of the root causes listed below, the legislation has virtually no chance of actually reducing healthcare costs in this country:

• Americans eat too much of the wrong kind of food.
• Americans smoke too much.
• Americans do not exercise enough.
• The healthcare industry in this country needs serious tort reform.
• Federal government crop subsidies lead to our food chain being infested with unhealthy sugar and high fructose corn syrup.
• Current government healthcare programs, Medicare and Medicaid, lose upwards of $100 billion a year to waste and criminal fraud, billions of dollars that could be used to reduce other healthcare costs in this country.
• Cross state line insurance competition needs to be made easier to do.
• The Obama effort never “followed the money” to actually map out where the high costs paid by Americans for healthcare actually end up.

Since Obama Care never addressed these root causes, we are still going to have those root causes resulting in higher and higher healthcare costs regardless of how well Obama Care is implemented. And since the prime objective of Obama Care was to reduce costs, the legislation will end up being a failure.

So with that gloomy set up, let’s see what Obama Care disasters unfolded in the past month or so.

1) One of my favorite TV shows is “The Big Bang Theory.” Penny is a character on the show, she is a full time waitress and a part time actress. She is constantly verbally sparring with another character on the show, Sheldon, who is a condescending academic genius. There is a running gag where Penny tells Sheldon never to tick off the people who can spit on your food before it is served.

Which brings us to a quote from the President this past week, a taunt directed at the Supreme Court which is about to hand down a ruling that could collapse the entire Obama Care legislation: "This should be an easy case. Frankly, it probably shouldn't even have been taken up." In other words, you dummies on the Supreme Court, why did you even waste your time on this situation?

Which tells me three things:

• The President is really scared that the Supreme Court will come down with a negative ruling for the law and help it self-destruct and is trying one last desperate attempt to sway the judges.
• Or, the ruling has already been made, it is not good, the President knows it is not good, and is trying to rally public support to make the Supreme Court out as the bad guys.
• Finally, he is really the Sheldon character, calling the Supreme Court (Penny) dumb for even considering the case, in which case the Supreme Court, being comprised of human beings who probably do not like being called dumb, just spit on his food (the Obama Care legislation) to get the final say.

In any case, calling someone dumb while they still control the fate of something you value makes that person the real dummy.

2) The Supreme Court case we are talking about is called King Vs. Burwell. It challenges the administration’s contention that it did not mean what it said in the legislation, namely that only people who get Obama Care policies through state exchanges are entitled to Federal subsidies to pay for those policies. Those people who got their Obama Care policies from the Federal exchange, are not entitled to Federal subsidies, as clearly spelled out in the legislation that Democrats in Congress approved and Obama signed off on.

The writing and intention of this condition is clear in the actual reading of the law. Obama is trying to convince the judges that this is a mere typo and that from a compassion perspective, the judges should ignore was enacted and let his administration does whatever it wants, regardless of what the law says. The reason for the panic is that if the Court cuts off subsidies to about two thirds of Obama Care policy holders, the costs go up, the policyholders cancel their now much more expensive policies and the whole house of cards collapses.

If somehow the judges rule for Obama, then democracy as we know it is over. Any President in the future could then interpret any law anyway he or she wanted, Congress be damned. Obama Care legislation clearly states that only policies obtained via the state exchanges can get subsidies. That was debated, that was what was written into the law, that was what was enacted but is not what the reality is. The administration said, we will ignore that part of the law and do what we want, rule of law be damned.

Theoretically, in the future a Republican President could come into office and say that Roe Vs, Wade is outdated, I will ignore it. He or she could say that “don’t ask, don’t tell” is not what it means,I will ignore it. He or she could say that the Clean Air Act does not apply to clean air,I will ignore it. When the law says “no” and a President wants it to say “yes,” and acts as if it does say “yes,” democracy is over and dictatorship has taken its place.

3) But what it be such a bad thing if the Supreme Court did deal a death blow to Obama Care? From an economic perspective, one recent analysis and research effort says the economy would enjoy a revitalization if Obama Care went away.

The American Action Forum (AAF), a conservative leaning think tank, thinks that would be the case, economically. Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of the American Action Forum recently told reporters his organization’s research sees many upsides for the downfall of Obama Care. For background, Holtz-Eakin does have some formidable credentials since he is a former director of the Congressional Budget Office and former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers.

His reasoning goes as follows:

• The majority of Obama Care policyholders previously had insurance policies that were cheaper and better fitted to those policyholders needs so many of the current Obama Care policy hodlers could eventually find their way back to more favorable, less expensive policies.In other words, not every Obama Care polciy holder would then be without health insurance.
• As many policyholders went back to cheaper yet better insurance policies, they would be paying less for insurance, leaving more disposable income to spend in other parts of the economy.
• The downfall of Obama Care would also free up millions of Americans who prefer not to have health insurance and hundreds of thousands of businesses who do not have to pay Obama Care penalties, freeing up untold billions of dollars to expand the economy.
• This analysis estimates that this situation would add 1.2 million workers to the U.S. labor force and increase the hours for 3.3 million part time workers.
• These workers would see wages go up between $830 and $940 a year, putting $13.6 billion back into economic growth.
• “There will be fewer administrative burdens when employers offer full-time employment to qualified employees who will have the opportunity to become specialized and therefore more efficient in their work,” the study says. “We might also expect to see more job growth in these states as employers expand their businesses and offer more hours without the cost of complying with the ACA.”
• Brittany La Couture, the health policy counsel at the AAF, agrees with the studies findings: “Because they will not be subject to the mandate, small to medium size employers may expand employment to more people, or allow their employees to work more than 30 hours per week.” 
• Also, “AAF estimates that there are currently about 3.3 million part-time workers in the states affected by the ruling who are seeking but are unable to find full-time employment.”
• And while the AAF leans conservative, the New York Times recently credited the organization with “following the numbers” and not being swayed purely by ideology.

Economic forecasting like this is often not much more than a stab in the dark. However, it does provide a rational and logical approach to considering the upside of terminating Obama Care, a solution that has no chance of ever fulfilling its goals and promises. 

4) While the AAF study shows that Obama Care has killed job creation and restricted economic growth, which could be reversed if Obama Care was killed, another study, this one by the American Health Policy Institute also concluded that the legislation is shrinking the labor force since it reduces incentives to work. Why? The more a person earns from working at a job, the less they get in Obama Care subsidies to pay for health insurance.

Thus, some people have and will decide the effort of working is not worth it given the decrease in Federal Obama Care subsidies. These people then become net takers from the Federal government, and the American taxpayer, than net contributors to the country and the economy. Eventually, these people become long term, chronic unemployed and their chances of ever finding full time, fulfilling work will approach zero over time. Nice law, incenting people to become idle, lazy and wards of the state.

5) As we often do in this series,m let's finish up today with some heart wrenching stories of how ordinary Americans have gotten screwed by this legislation, courtesy of the website:

www.ourhealthcarestories.com

We can argue economic theories and economic forecasts all day but these stories are the realities of Obama Care and they are not pretty:

ANGELLA - NEVADA: “Housekeeping is a tough job—many of us suffer serious injuries doing this work. And ObamaCare would cause my husband and I even more pain. The Obamacare website says we would have to pay $8,057.04 a year more to keep the great insurance we have now. That’s a $3.87 per hour pay cut. We work hard for our insurance. Why should we have to take a cut in pay for it?”

LIONEL - LOUISIANA: Baton Rouge public relations consultant Lionel Rainey said Wednesday the price of his health insurance will double even though he rarely makes a doctor’s appointment.

His policy is among the 92,793 individual insurance plans that Louisiana Commissioner of Insurance Jim Donelon reported would be discontinued because the coverage does not meet the coverage standards set by the federal Affordable Care Act.

Rainey’s plan didn’t meet the minimum standards but he was happy with it. “I don’t go to the doctor much. This was the plan that fit me and fit my lifestyle,” the 35-year-old said.

Rainey declined to name his insurer, but he said the new policy will cost him nearly $600 a month. He said he also will get coverage he does not need, such as a maternity plan. Rainey put plans to expand his business on hold when he got the letter from his insurance company.

He wanted to hire an additional person but is unsure whether he can afford it. As a newlywed, he also must buy insurance coverage for his wife, a full-time graduate student. He does not qualify for subsidies for the exchange.

MARY - CONNECTICUT: My husband & I are self-employed. We own a small retail business and pay for our own health insurance. When ObamaCare was introduced with all the hype of saving money and better coverage, we checked it out. The least expensive premium would triple our cost and increase our deductible from $5000 to $12,500. We then received a letter from our insurance carrier saying we could keep our current policy for another year, but after that, our premium will triple. We may have to close our business if something isn't done about this outrageous plan.

That will do it for today but we still have more unfolding Obama Care stories for tomorrow. Today we learned that the Supreme Court might,and should, render all of the unfolding Obama Care disasters moot when they rule alter this month. Killing off Obama Care might actually improve the economy beyond its tepid and weak performance since Obama Care was enacted. And individual Americans and their families continue to live through the horror of the law’s restrictions, requirements, and higher costs.

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