September, 2015, Political Class Insanity, Part 1: Bad Presidential Priorities, An Inept IRS, An Inept EPA, and More

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.
• A record number of police officers have been assassinated in the past week.
• 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.
• 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) The Obama administration recently announced that the President has decided to rename Mount McKinley in Alaska to its original name, Denali, which means “the great one.” He will personally make this announcement during a three day trip to Alaska. 

If you asked any American to name the top 100 issues and problems facing America today, do you think that anyone of them would say, “We need to rename Mount McKinley?” Doubtful, yet this Presidential administration thinks that this is news worthy and worthy of the President’s time in the face of all of the above listed crises. Pathetic.

2) According to a story in the June 12, 2015 issue of The Week magazine, the FBI has secretly and probably illegally been operating a small fleet of low flying planes that circle above U.S. cities while they conduct video and cell phone surveillance. According to the article, 11 cities have been targets of the FBI’s secret air force and the surveillance usually was done without a judge or court order of permission.

Given that the FBI tried to hide the existence of the planes by creating 13 fake companies, one has to be suspicious that what they were doing was illegal. The FBI defended the program by claiming that the planes and their surveillance equipment only tracked specific individuals and there was no mass surveillance. Right, we are supposed to trust you when you set up 13 fake companies to cover your tracks. Smacks of Orwell’s 1984. Lying government officials and politicians allowing them to get away with it, breaking of laws, and possible violations of the Fourth Amendment.

3) According to a blurb in the July 24, 2015 issue of The Week magazine, the Federal government actually spent $2 million on a program whose purpose was to encourage wives to nag their husbands to give up chewing tobacco. The cynic in me would say that American wives do not need $2 million to nag their husbands about a disgusting habit. The realist in me says that maybe that $2 million could have been better spent treating our armed forces veterans who are not getting the medical care they need rather than wasting it on an inane idea like this.

4) If the EPA ever found out that you threw a partially filled paint can in the garbage you would probably be fined for pollution. However, when the EPA’s incompetence results in its employees accidentally spilling 3 million gallons of toxic wastewater, wastewater containing arsenic, lead, and other pollutants, into a major river, there are no consequences, no employee gets fired, no employee pays a fine, etc. 

This is what happened out west when 3 million gallons of mustard colored pollution ended up in the Animas River that flows in Colorado and New Mexico. Just another Federal agency that is so inept that they make any existing situation worse or in this case, actually create a brand new problem.

5) What kind of country are we creating for our kids? The current set of Washington politicians have never been able to create economic policies and strategies that create a robust, growing economy and as a result, this is what they are doing to our young adults according to an article in the August 21, 2015 issue of The Week magazine:

• The percentage of young adults, aged 18 to 34, that are living with their parents at home has increased to 26% from 24% in 2010 despite what Obama called a successful economic recovery.
• The unemployment rate for these folks is now 7.7%, more than two percentage points higher than the overall national unemployment rate.
• A whopping 56% of these young adults say they have had to delay a major life event, e.g. buying a house, getting married, etc., due to their high level of student debt and the lack of well paying jobs.

This is not the American dream, this is American survival, all courtesy of a political class that is inept and ignorant when it comes to managing for a robust and growing economy. And it is our kids and the next generation of Americans that are paying the price with living standards and expectations that are not growing like they have done historically from one generation to the next.

5) In the August 28, 2015 issue of The Week magazine, we find out that the IRS has admitted that a hack attack of its computer systems back in May is far worse than what the IRS originally reported. Apparently, identity thieves accessed 334,000 personal files, not the 114,000 files that the IRS admitted to in May. 

According to the article the hack occurred back in November, 2014 but the IRS did not realize what had happened until seven months or so later. In one of the great understatements of the year, Congressman Peter Roskam stated: “The revelation that the IRS didn’t understand this security breach for months is not confidence inspiring.” Ya think? No word on whether anyone in the IRS lost their job for this level of incompetence. Probably not, if history is any guide.

That will do it for today, we are just getting warmed up. But today we learned that IRS is still clueless when it gets its records robbed and hacked, finding out months after the fact that it screwed up. Our young adults are getting screwed by an Obama economy that is neither robust nor conducive to hiring recent college graduates. The Feds spent $2 million to encourage wives to nag their husbands. We have the FBI operating its own private, and probably illegal, air force. And finally, we have a President who thinks renaming a mountain is more important than anything else in our list of real problems listed above. 

Months change, the insanity changes, but the politicians that create the insanity remain the same. Unfortunately.

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

www.loathemygovernment.com

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

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

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

July,2015, Part 3, Politicians Say The Darndest Things: Obama and a Nuclear Deal With Iran Edition

Ever so often we run a series of posts under the theme, “Politicians say the darndest things.” It is a parody of an old television show, “House Party,” where host Art Linkletter would ask simple questions of young kids and wait for their often funny responses. This segment of his show was called “Kids Say The Darndest Things.” 

Unfortunately when kids say silly or dumb things, it is funny. When politicians say silly or dumb things, there are usually serious ramifications across the land that often involve stupid laws, wasteful spending, self delusion of a politician’s intelligence or abilities, or a continued lack of faith that today’s politicians are smart enough to get anything right.

The past two days we have discussed general idiocy that has come out of several politicians' mouths lately. Today, will be the final update to our series, "politicians say the darndest things," and we will focus on the proposed nuclear arms deal that the Obama administration has put together with several other countries and the main protagonist, Iran.

The intent of the deal was to prevent the country of Iran from becoming a nuclear power. By promising to give up their pursuit of nuclear weapons, Iran is to be granted a number of benefits including the release of over $100 billion worth of assets frozen around the world.

There are a number of concerns about this deal:

• Will Iran use these now unfrozen assets to help make the lives of their citizens better or will they use these assets to continue to spread terrorism around the Middle East and around the world?
• Will this Iran deal cause others in the Middle East to move toward becoming nuclear weapon ready also since they do not trust Iran to not continue to pursue nuclear weapons or to increase their conventional weapon aggression against them, resulting in a nuclear arms race because of an agreement that was supposed to contain the spread of nuclear weapons?
• Will Iran actually live up to the terms of the agreement and not pursue nuclear weapons as promised in the text of the deal?

All very serious questions but today we will focus on politicians' quotes as it relates to the last point. You see, the world and the U.S. have been down this path before with a renegade country known as North Korea. Twenty years or so ago, the President of the U.S., Bill Clinton, thought he had a nuclear arms containment deal with the North Koreans, much like Barack Obama thinks he has a nuclear containment deal with the Iranians today.

As we look and compare the quotes from the two Presidents, their promises and bold predictions seem eerily similar. The question arises is that given that North Korea completely blew off the deal, using it as cover to develop its nuclear weapons development and capability, are the similarity in Presidential quotes a precursor to the Iranians doing the exact same thing, i.e. taking a President of the United States for a fallacy ride? 

You decide, starting with a press release from Congressman Peter Roskam  who introduced a Congressional resolution that has been backed by 176 House members expressing their disapproval of the deal with Iran. The press release than goes on to categorize and compare the quotes of Clinton and Obama relative to North Korea and Iran's race for nuclear weapons and the supposed deal that would stop both of them. According to the Congressman:

"In 1994, President Bill Clinton similarly argued that his nuclear agreement with North Korea would reduce “the threat of nuclear spreading in the region.” However, that deal stumbled out of the gate. In 2003, Pyongyang withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. In 2005, it announced completion of a nuclear weapon. And in 2006, North Korea successfully completed its first nuclear test.

A closer comparison between President Clinton’s North Korea agreement in 1994 and President Obama’s Iran deal in 2015 reveal stark, foreboding similarities. Should we take this Administration’s assurances seriously? You decide:"

***********

CLINTON: “Today, after 16 months of intense and difficult negotiations with North Korea, we have completed an agreement [my emphasis] that will make the United States, the Korean Peninsula, and the world safer…This agreement will help to achieve a longstanding and vital American objective: an end to the threat of nuclear proliferation on the Korean Peninsula.”

OBAMA: “Today, after two years of negotiations, the United States, together with our international partners, has achieve something that decades of animosity has not—a comprehensive, long-term deal with Iran that will prevent it from obtaining a nuclear weapon.”

***********

CLINTON: “The United States has been concerned about the possibility that North Korea was developing nuclear weapons since the 1980s.”

OBAMA: “[W]e’re dealing with a country—Iran—that has been a sworn adversary of the United States for over 35 years.”
***********

CLINTON: “This agreement represents the first step on the road to a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula. It does not rely on trust. Compliance will be certified by the International Atomic Energy Agency [(IAEA]].”

OBAMA: “Because of this deal, we will, for the first time, be in a position to verify all of these commitments. That means this deal is not built on trust: it is built on verification…Put simply, the organization responsible for the inspections, the IAEA, will have access where necessary, when necessary.”
***********

CLINTON: “And the United States has an unshakeable commitment to protect our ally and our fellow democracy South Korea. Thirty-eight thousand American troops stationed on the Peninsula are the guarantors of that commitment.”

OBAMA: “We will continue our unprecedented efforts to strengthen Israel’s security—efforts that go beyond what any American administration has done before.”
***********

CLINTON: “This agreement is good for the United States, good for our allies, and good for the safety of the entire world.”

OBAMA: “I am confident this deal will meet the national security interest of the United States and our allies.”
***********

CLINTON: “Today all Americans should know that as a result of this achievement on Korea, our Nation will be safer and the future of our people more secure.”

OBAMA: “Today’s announcement marks one more chapter in the pursuit of a safer and more helpful and more hopeful world.”
***********

Now, the fact that North Korea ignored the deal back during the Clinton administration does not mean that the Iranians will ignore this deal. For all I know, they may be giving up their pursuit of nuclear weapons, will stop promoting terrorism, stop hating Israel and the United States, and behave well going forward. The fact that Clinton said the darndest things over twenty years ago does not mean that Obama words will end up looking as sad and pathetic twenty years from now.

But let's be honest, even after the deal was signed between the U.S., other nations, and Iran, leaders and protesters on the streets in Iran were still calling for death to Israel and death to the U.S. I would bet that the odds of Iran following the lead of North Korea are far higher than the odds that Iran will behave.

Let's look at another set of quotes relative to Clinton and Obama that was put together by the website, www.wnd.com, and is in the same vein as the Congressman's listing above:

***********

Clinton: This agreement will help to achieve a longstanding and vital American objective: an end to the threat of nuclear proliferation on the Korean Peninsula.

Obama: …Iran will never be permitted to develop a nuclear weapon.
***********

Clinton: It does not rely on trust.

Obama: So this deal is not based on trust, it’s based on unprecedented verification.
***********

Clinton: Compliance will be certified by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Obama: …what we’re going to be doing is setting up a mechanism whereby, yes, I.A.E.A. (International Atomic Energy Agency) inspectors can go anyplace.
***********

Clinton: Under the agreement, North Korea has agreed to freeze its existing nuclear program and to accept international inspection of all existing facilities.

Obama: …a deal to stop the progress of Iran’s nuclear program and roll it back in key areas.
***********

Clinton: This agreement represents the first step on the road to a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula.

Obama: This framework would cut off every pathway that Iran could take to develop a nuclear weapon.
***********

Clinton: …we have completed an agreement that will make the United States, the Korean Peninsula, and the world safer.

Obama: …if this framework leads to a final, comprehensive deal, it will make our country, our allies, and our world safer.
***********

Clinton: The United States and North Korea have also agreed to ease trade restrictions and to move toward establishing liaison offices in each other’s capitals.

Obama: In return for Iran’s actions, the international community has agreed to provide Iran with relief from certain sanctions — our own sanctions, and international sanctions imposed by the United Nations Security Council.
***********

Clinton: These offices will ease North Korea’s isolation.

Obama: …if Iran complies with its international obligations, then it can fully rejoin the community of nations…
***********

Clinton: This agreement is good for the United States, good for our allies, and good for the safety of the entire world.

Obama: And it is a good deal, a deal that meets our core objectives … we are more likely to be safe, more likely to be secure, in a better position to protect our allies.
***********

Clinton: It’s a crucial step toward drawing North Korea into the global community.

Obama: …there was an appetite among the Iranian people for a rejoining with the international community.
***********

Clinton: And the United States has an unshakable commitment to protect our ally and our fellow democracy South Korea.

Obama: …a very clear message to the Iranians and to the entire region that if anybody messes with Israel, America will be there.
***********

Clinton: We will continue to work closely with our allies and with the Congress as our relationship with North Korea develops.

Obama: But I say that hoping that we can conclude this diplomatic arrangement — and that it ushers a new era in U.S.-Iranian relations — and, just as importantly, over time, a new era in Iranian relations with its neighbors

If you want to see how these quotes from Clinton and Obama sound in their own voices, go to the follwing link:

https://www.facebook.com/StandWithUs/videos/10153076816647689/

Given the devious nature of North Korea and the similar nature of Iran and its leaders, does anyone really think that giving the Iranians a deal like Clinton gave the North Koreans is going to end any differently? Again, twenty years from now, I would be willing to bet that we will look back at Obama and say he said the darndest, and most incorrect things, when he went shopping for a self-serving legacy with this deal with Iran, at any cost. 

As a result, he further endangered the world and this country while achieving to look as silly and ransacked as Clinton and his quotes now look relative to the nuclear deal with North Korea.

Yes, politicians say the darndest things and many times they are both naive and dangerous as their rhetoric fails to match the reality of the tyrants they capitulate to.

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