Hillary and Barack: Liar, Liar, Pants (suit) On Fire, A Historical Perspective, Part 2

"The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie — deliberate, contrived and dishonest, but the myth, persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Belief in myths allows the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought." John F. Kennedy

I was originally going to write a post on the amazing number of outright lies that Hillary Clinton has put forth, both recently and historically. And there are a lot of them, making her no different than every other Washington politician. However, in researching her lies, I continued to come across the dozens and dozens of lies and deceptions of the current White House president, Barack Obama. Thus, as a warm up to today’s Hillary Clinton’s parade of lies, yesterday we reviewed the over seven years worth of lies and deceptions from the Obama administration.

Today, we will get to the original intent, reviewing the lies of Hillary Clinton over the years. The first and longest set of lies is based on the work of the Politifact website. The purpose of this website is to research and grade whether a politician's statement is true or false. It leans Democratic and liberal so when I find that it rates a Democrat’s statement as false it is usually REALLY false. Thus, the following review of Clinton lies is based on the fact finding and opinions of Politifact, not me:

Hillary Clinton: “The Clean Power Plan is something that Senator Sanders has said he would delay implementing.” 

Politifact: False. Sanders has said he supports the Clean Power Plan.

Hillary Clinton: “You are three times more likely to be able to get a mortgage if you’re a white applicant than if you’re black or Hispanic, even if you have the same credentials.”

Politifact: False

Hillary Clinton: “We now have more jobs in solar than we do in oil.”

Politifact: False

Hillary Clinton: "I am the only candidate on either side who has laid out a specific plan about what I would do to defeat ISIS.”

Politifact: False. While she may have the longest and most detailed plan, she is hardly the only candidate with a plan and no one knows if it is a good plan.

Hillary Clinton: “Every piece of legislation, just about, that I have ever introduced (in the Senate) had a Republican co-sponsor.”

Politifact: False

Hillary Clinton: “We now have driven (healthcare) costs to the lowest they've been in 50 years.”

Politifact: False. And anyone who reads our monthly series of posts under the theme, “The Unfolding Disaster That Is Obama Care” knows that this is nowhere close to being true in any which way.

Hillary Clinton: “ISIS is going to people showing videos of Donald Trump insulting Islam and Muslims in order to recruit more radical jihadists.”

Politifact: False. No evidence had emerged or was provided when she issued that statement. However, terrorist recruiting videos featuring her husband have emerged.

Hillary Clinton: “The gun industry is the only business in America that is wholly protected from any kind of liability.”

Politifact: False

Hillary Clinton: “The Benghazi probe is the longest running Congressional investigation ever.”

Politifact: False. With Politifact’s added commentary, “not by a long shot.”

Hillary Clinton: She stated that Wisconsin governor Scott Walker rejected state legislation to make college loan payments tax deductible and the result was “to raise taxes on students.” 

Politifact: False. The proposed legislation never even made it to the governor’s desk to sign never mind him vetoing.

Hillary Clinton: “Not one of the 17 GOP candidates has discussed how the’d address the rising cost of college.”

Politifact: False. Politifact specifically cited Rubio as having a plan.

Hillary Clinton: "Hedge fund managers pay less in taxes than nurses and truck drivers.”

Politifact: False. Politifact commented that even given extreme leeway in interpreting her comments that it is not true.

Hillary Clinton: “All of my grandparents immigrated to America.”

Politifact: False. Close, if you assume that one out of her four grandparents is “all.” 

Hillary Clinton: "The number of jobs created and people lifted out of poverty during Bill Clinton’s Presidency was a hundred times what it was under president Ronald Reagan."

Politifact: False. Not even close.

Hillary Clinton: “[Senator] McCain still thinks it’s okay when women don’t earn equal pay for equal work.”

Politifact: False. McCain never said any such thing, he just disagreed with a proposed bill on the subject.

Hillary Clinton: “If you are driving on average in America this summer you’ll save - according to Department of Energy figures, about $70.”

Politifact: False

Hillary Clinton: "I actually started criticizing the war in Iraq before [Obama] did."

Politifact: False. Clinton actually voted to go to war in Iraq while Obama voted against the move.

Hillary Clinton: “Obama only wants your children to have health insurance.”

Politifact: False. All of Obama's failed health insurance plans include adults also.

Hillary Clinton: She claimed that the difference between her and Barack Obama is “about 35 years of experience.”

Politifact: False. Which they sarcastically described Hillary with experience but not at math.

Hillary Clinton: “It’s just outrageous that under President Bush, the National Institutes of Health have been basically decreased in funding.”

Politifact: False. NIH funding was up under Bush.

There you have it, twenty blatant Hillary Clinton lies. The troubling thing about these twenty lies is that they are easily researched to see if they are false, something that the Politifact folks did. What other things has she falsely said or asserted that have not been checked out or which are difficult to check out? I am pretty sure that these are not the only twenty false deceptions she has uttered over the years.

The other troubling aspect of these lies and the lies and deceptions of all politicians is this: do they actually believe the lies themselves or do they hold us in such contempt that they think that we are too stupid to see through the lies? If they actually believe their own lies, than we as a nation are in big trouble since if they do not understand reality, their chances of being successful in reality are next to nothing.

And if they think we are too stupid to see through their lies than we have really devolved into a two part society: the elite and condescending political class and the rest of us, mistrusting each other so much that no issues ever get resolved as we play the cat and mouse game of who’s lying and who’s too stupid to understand they are being lied to.

But twenty lies is just the beginning. Consider the other lies she has spewed and have proven to be false:

• Long ago when she landed in Bosnia, she claimed that her entourage came under sniper fire and they had to hurry into waiting vehicles to get safely away. However, actual video of her landing shows that sniper fire was not present or close to being present.
• She claimed that the emails she deleted off of her private server when she was Secretary of State included a multitude of emails that she and her husband had exchanged. However, video proof shows her husband claiming that he had used the Internet only twice in his life and that was to order something from Amazon, not communicate with his wife as she asserted.
• Hillary recently claimed that she had always been in favor of gay marriage. But again, actual video of her shows her claiming that marriage is a sacred vow between a man and a woman. She did not even try to use the Obama flip flop defense when his attitude on gay marriage “evolved,’ she just outright lied.
• Hillary has recently claimed that she was against the NAFTA treaty, but as always, historical video shows that she was a big advocate of NAFTA long ago.
• Andf who can forget her assertion long ago that she and her husband were the victims of a vast right wing conspiracy, a conspiracy that was never proven to exist.
• And most recently, and most atrociously, she recently asserted that: "Now, is Libya perfect? It isn’t. Libya was a different kind of calculation and we didn’t lose a single person … We didn’t have a problem in supporting our European and Arab allies in working with NATO.” - Seems to me that we lost four brave Americans in Libya, Benghazi specifically. All because her and this administration did not take dozens of security warnings seriously and who refused to send help to save the lives of dozens of trapped Americans, four of whom who died.

Pathetic excuse for a leader, pathetic excuse for someone trying to be President. Lies, deceptions, and denial, lord help us. 

To see some of Hillary lies being rebutted by her own video clips go to:

http://ihavethetruth.com/2015/12/19/this-video-of-hillary-is-going-viral-when-you-see-it-youll-know-why/

Why Today's Democratic Politicians Suck - Part 2

Before my liberal and Democratic friends and readers go crazy about the title of this post, take a breath and read the following realities:

• I am over 60 years old and have never voted for a Republican for President in my life.
• Up until 2010, I had never voted for a Republican for national office in my life.
• I wrote and published my book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government," based on my disgust and frustrations with the Bush administration.
• Thus, I am not a diehard, or even lukewarm, Republican, conservative, or neocon.

I also have great respect for the accomplishments of previous Democratic Presidents and politicians:

• Democrat FDR led the country through the worse economic downturn in our history in addition to leading the country through the second World War and eventual victory over the Nazis and Japanese.
• Democrat Harry Truman finished up the work of FDR by successfully bringing the war to a close and leading the country into a prosperous post war economy.
• Democrat John Kennedy energized the country with his youth, vision, and energy and prevented the next world war by leading the country through the Cuban missile crisis. Democrat Lyndon Baines Johnson guided the country into a new age of racial equality by leading the country with the passage of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts.

The commonality of these Democrats is that they all had leadership skills that applied to ALL Americans and just not their voting blocs or political supporters and financiers. There are none of that leadership traits or skills with today's Democrats, a hypothesis we intend to prove over the next two days. 

Today, we will re-present the dozens of examples of Democrats dividing the country vs. leading and uniting the country that we have discussed in previous blogs. These examples are not pretty. Democratic politicians today call their political opponents or anyone who dares to disagree with their views a whole host of childish and obscene names and then wonder why those people have hard feelings against them. 

This is not leadership, this is rank immaturity on the part of the Washington political class, especially Democrats, that has never been experienced in this country before. It divides the country, decimates freedoms, and reduces the quality of life of every American.

And the most immature, leadership deficient politician today is President Obama. As we go through the obscenities and insults that people in his party and his supporters have said to slander and demean other Americans, keep in mind that at no time did this President speak up and object to the vilification of these Americans. By remaining silent, he condoned and encouraged the verbal attacks, attacks that divide the country to no one's benefit.

So decide for yourself. Do the following Democratic quotes, and the dozens of quotes we reviewed yesterday, foster understanding, joint resolution of problems, and the celebration of diversity within our society or are they blatant attempts to slander and demean political opponents in the most crass and despicable manner:

-  "We don't have time for a meeting of the flat-Earth society. Sticking your head in the sand might make you feel safer, but it's not going to protect you from the coming storm...The planet is warming. Human activity is contributing to it." Obama said. So, if you do not believe what he believes, you are a fool, much like those ignorant types long ago who thought the earth was flat. 

But the earth has not been warming, has not gotten any warmer for over 18 years. The Arctic Ice Cap is growing because of global warming, not shrinking as global warming advocate would tell you. Some of the coldest winters in the country have occurred in the past few years. The number of extreme weather events, hurricanes, and wildfires are less than average, contrary to what global alarmists might say. We have documented hundreds of examples of realities, statistics, and research that debunk man made global warming theories. To review them, just enter “global warming doubter” in the search box above.

But rather than engage for a serious discussion on ALL aspect of climate science, this Democratic President would rather demean and name call the millions of Americans who have looked at ALL of the science and have seen that there is probably more science and reality to debunk global warming theory than there is to prove it.

Calling people ignorant is no way to bring them around to your way of thinking.

- Republican Candidate for President, Scott Walker, is “tightening the noose, literally, around African Americans” necks, according to Congresswoman Gwen Moore, invoking the image of lynching. 

Why does she have this opinion? Apparently, Walker is opposed to raising the minimum wage, an action that would suppress job creation for the very constituents that Ms. Noore represents, he thinks that voters should actually be required to present an id to vote, and that welfare recipients should be drug tested, much like most taxpayers who pay for the welfare checks of welfare recipients. And for these common sense positions, this Democratic Congresswoman likens him to the Klan lynchings of long ago. Yes, this will certainly foster understanding, calling someone a lynch mob leader.

- Those that oppose Obama;s nuclear deal with Iran are, in his words, “the crazies.” This is how he described the opponents to his negotiated treaty with Iran in a Democratic fund raising event in Nevada recently. As always, even if you have a cogent argument against his position on an issue, you must be a “crazy.” 

Which means that since the majority of Americans that have an opinion on the deal oppose it, the majority of Americans must be crazy. 

Which means that leading Democratic New York Senator Chuck Schumer who opposes the deal must be crazy. 

Which means that Democratic Congressman Eliot Engel, ranking Democrat on the House Foreign Relations Committee who opposes the deal must be a crazy. 

Which means that a recent letter signed by almost 200 former and current military leaders proves they are crazy.

Which means that 900 rabbis which recently announced their opposition to the deal must be crazy. 

Which means the Saudis which have threatened to go nuclear if the deal is approved must be crazy.

At some point you wonder if Obama will ever look around and notice that the majority of the Congress, the majority of the American people, the majority of world are not the crazy ones when comes to this deal, that maybe he and Kerry are the crazy ones for thinking this is actually a good deal. Probably not since it would require him to apologize for slandering those with a different opinion and admitting he is wrong.

- “2010 was just so different, with Obama just having come in and a lot of the tea party people just kind of coming out of the woodwork —coming out of the trailer parks, essentially. There was a different mix of people at the polls.” JIm Carney, Democratic party chairman for Pierce County, Wisconsin, trying to explain why his candidate for the U.S. Senate in Wisconsin, Democrat Russ Feingold, was not elected in 2010. 

That’s right, it is that white trash trailer park crowd that defeated ny candidate. Imagine how crazy Democrats would have been if a Republican county chairman had said that obama had been elected because “a lot of the black people just kind of coming out of the woodwork - coming out of the ghetto slums.” There would have been an uproar from Democrats across the country. But it is okay to associate your opponents with trailer parks and infer they are white trash if you are a Democrat. Pathetic.

- “Every time a little thing like this happens, they use the most extreme example to say it must be eliminated.” Congressman Luis Gutierrez on the mnurder of American Kate Steinle in San Francisco by an illegal immigrant who had seven felony convictions and and who had beendeported five times. 

Yes, an innocent American woman is gunned down because Democrats and others in Washington like Gutierrez do not enforce the existing immigrastion laws and it is just "a little thing" that "they" use for their own polticial agenda. I would bet that Ms. Steinle's friends and family members do not view her death and murder as a "little thing." But to Democrat Gutierrez it is just a speed bump along the road to his political ambitions. Despicable.

There you have it, the latest hateful, despicable and slanderous quotes from Democrats directed towards others in America who dare to have a different opinion. If you do not agree with this President and his Democratic party cohorts, you are ignorant, crazy, lynch mob loving, trailer park trash or just a little thing. And all along, this President has either remained silent as the name calling and mudslinging from his own party has grown unabated or he has joined into the fray.

As we stated yesterday, we are not saying that Obama should have responded to all of these degradations that we went through yesterday and today. However, it would be nice if once in a while he would publicly reprimand a liberal or fellow Democrat for calling other Americans a**h***s, Neanderthals, terrorists, racists, Nazis, etc.

Also, he certainly cannot claim he is working hard for all of the women in the country when he allows half of them, those with a differing political view, to be called sluts, whores, worthy of hate rapes, and other terms too graphic too repeat here.

And it would also be nice if he did not participate in the mudslinging and showed a little leadership. Calling American citizens and political opponents ignorant flat earth believer-types and crazy is NOT Presidential.

He should be a leader, he should be setting the tone of civil political dialog, not remaining silent. He is not a leader or a defender of women's rights when he does not represent the good name and integrity of women who are not Democrats. I cannot remember any time in my life when politicians had such a low regard for law abiding American citizens of a different political stripe, a time when citizens have been so degraded by those in government and their political supporters.

You cannot expect to have a united nation, one that attacks the current set of problems facing Americans, when one side of the political spectrum is mudslinging and cursing out the other side of the political spectrum. And when the mudslinging is led by and committed by those elected to public office, then is there any wonder why not a single major, or minor issue, has been resolved in the past decade or so? 

Democrats are no longer the leadership, trailblazing party of FDR, Truman, Kennedy, or LBJ. They are the party of haters, childish name calling and temper tantrums when they do not get their way, with their words and actions leaving the country divided and bitter.

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

August, 2015, Part 4, Political Class Insanity: Death Of The Export-Import Bank,CIA Spies On Congress and More

At the beginning of each month we take a week or so to review the latest insanity from the American political class. Insanity from them includes a wide range of very depressing actions which can include wasteful spending, idiotic quotes, an inefficient and ineffective government bureaucracy, failed economic policies, etc. Every month we continue to prove that we are being served by the worst set of politicians ever.

And as you will see, this month’s review and discussions do nothing to prove that this thesis is wrong in any way:

1) In past posts we have always supported the termination of the Export-Import Bank. This is a Federal government entity that takes American taxpayer money and gives it out as loans to foreigners to purchase American made products. There are a number of things wrong with this type of government operation:

• Why are we giving and risking taxpayer wealth with foreign companies, let them buy American goods with their own money or their governments’ own money.
• Contrary to what Export-Import fans say, most of the money and loans go to supporting very large American companies such a GE, Boeing, etc. We should let those companies’ stockholders finance purchases of their companies' products, not taxpayers since it is the stockholders that will see any advantage of doing so, not the taxpayer.
• Giving U.S. taxpayer-backed loans to foreign companies to purchase American products disadvantages American companies that compete with those foreign companies since domestic companies cannot get Export-Import loans.

Fortunately, the bank's charter recently expired and hopefully it will stay dead in future Congressional sessions. As an example of why it should stay dead, consider the highlights from the following Washington Examiner story by Timothy Carney from June 18, 2015:

• Apparently, the bank has given a $650 million, U.S. taxpayer backed loan to the richest woman in Australia.
• Gina Rinehart owns Roy HIll mining in Australia and is also the richest woman in that country. Despite that wealth status, the Export-Import bank loaned her company $650 million to purchase equipment made by GE and Caterpillar.
• But a U.S.mining company, Cliff’s Natural Resources, an American company that competes with Roy HIll, does not get any financial support and taxpayer backed plans from the Export-Import bank, putting it at a competitive disadvantage.
• The loan also disadvantages the U.S. domestic steel industry since Roy HIll sends a lot of its mined ore to China which turns it into steel which impacts worod wide steel prices. 

How perverted has Washington become where we send U.S. taxpayer money half way around the world to support foreign companies owned by very rich people but do not extend that opportunity to domestic companies? If selling equipment to Roy Hill is so important, than let the stockholders at Caterpillar and GE finance the purchases.

Hopefully, with the recent death of the program, this type of financial insanity will stop and that the Export-Import Bank will not rise from the dead. But zombie people do rise fom the dead as do zombie govenrment programs so who knows.

2) Recently released CIA reports from the CIA inspector general now show that the White House is possibly involved with the CIA’s spying on personnel in the U.S. Senate. The reports show that CIA Director John Brennan met with White House chief of staff Denis McDonough and discussed the intention to search the computers being used by Senate staffers working for Senator Dianne Feinstein to investigate the use of torture by the CIA on suspected terrorists.

The report said that Brennan had ordered CIA investigators to use “whatever means necessary” to ascertain how Senate investigators had obtained “certain sensitive internal documents.” At that time, Feinstein’s Senate committee was conducting its own investigation into the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques.

While the CIA spying on Congress is bad enough, the inspector general analysis shows that White House personnel knew that the spying was going on and did nothing to stop it. Obviously, if this is true, than Feinstein’s argument that the CIA had “likely violated the constitutional separation of powers,” is a very valid and very serious Constitutional violation, a violation that the White House might also be guilty of.

The inspector general concluded that the five CIA employees who conducted the search had “engaged in wrongdoing,” according to the Huffington Post, but, as always with government lawbreakers, that their actions were not punishable. At about the same time the inspector general report was made public, a CIA Accountability Review Board report asserted that Brennan, who denied telling CIA employees to use “whatever means necessary,” failed to “appreciate what forensic techniques were necessary to answer his questions.”

Violate the Constitution, very bad, but no punishment. Smoke a cigarette in your own home in NYC, and you could soon be a criminal. Down the rabbit hole of political class insanity we fall.

3) The Government Accountability Office is kind of like the Federal government’s auditor function, going around and identifying and fixing what is wrong with government functions. Someone in that entity was recently caught doing their job well when they identified thousands of Medicaid beneficiaries and hundreds of medical providers that were involved in ripping off the American taxpayer during 2012, the last year complete data is available:

• The ripoffs included receiving improper and fraudulent payments.
• The fraud amounted to $18.3 million in just four states, New Jersey, Michigan, Florida, and Arizona.
• About 8,600 Medicaid beneficiaries had improperly collected benefits from more than one state.
• 200 dead Medicaid beneficiaries had received upwards of $9.6 million AFTER they had died.

Makes you wonder who is watching the taxpayer money since in just a few paragraphs we saw that the Federal government is sending hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer wealth to the richest woman in Australia, millions of taxpayer dollars to dead people, and millions of dollars to live people who are double dipping. Pathetic fiscal management.

4) But it is not just the Federal government that gives taxpayer money to rich people. Wisconsin Governor and Republican candidate for President, Scott Walker, wants to give some Wisconsin state taxpayer money to rich, billionaire basketball team owners. Apparently, according to a recent Washington Examiner article, Walker and other state politicians want to give a quarter-billion dollars in taxpayer money to the billionaire owners of the NBA’s Milwaukee Bucks, who are threatening to leave Wisconsin unless they get a new, subsidized basketball arena.

According to the article, the owners do not even live in the state but state politicians have negotiated a financial deal where state and local taxpayers would pay for half the cost of a new $500 million arena for the NBA team. The state would borrow $55 million to fund the arena, costing the state taxpayers $80 million over 20 years when interest is included. City and county governments would cover the rest.

Walker is claiming that this is a good $250 million investment and good use of taxpayer money for the local and state economies. But the article points out that it is nearly unanimous among economists that stadium subsidies do not pay for themselves, and the research suggests that losing a sports team doesn't hurt a city's economy:

• Economists Dennis Coates and Brad Humphreys: "Our conclusion, and that of nearly all academic economists studying this issue, is that professional sports generally have little, if any, positive effect on a city's economy."
• Economist Ray Keating: "The lone beneficiaries of sports subsidies are team owners and players."
• Examiner article: “One reason is the substitution effect: Milwaukeeans who have a basketball team will spend less money on other types of leisure. The money spent in and around the fancy new arena wouldn't have just sat under mattresses.”

If it is one thing American politicians like to do is give away our money, in this case to billionaire out of state basketball team owners. That will do it for today’s insanity, but more insanity sure to follow in the next few days, can hardly wait to see who our politicians give our taxpayer money to 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.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

Will The Center Hold, October, 2014 Part 2: Common Core Getting Shredded

Every month or so we revisit the theme and interesting question of whether or not “the center will hold?” In other words, given the rebellion and push back that state and local governments along with individual citizens have been giving to Federal government dictates and laws, do we get to at point in this country where the Washington political class and machine issue a law or edict and the rest of the country simply ignores it?

It certainly seems like we have never seen so much objection and hostile to Washington. As Washington and its politicians overreach and over demand relative to Constitutional limitations, the rest of the country has pushed back on a number of major issues:

• Obama Care
• Medicaid Expansion
• Gun Control
• Common Core
• Spying on Citizens

These are just a few of the various issues that have the rest of the country looking for ways to escape out from under Federal mandates and laws. To see past examples of how extensive this push back has become, enter the search term “will the center hold” in the search box above.

Let’s take an inventory of the latest rebellious acts underway around the country, following up on the first half of our update from yesterday:

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2014/10/will-center-holdseptember-2014-update.html

1) Across the country, school boards and states are dropping out of all or some of the components of Washington’s Common Core curriculum. Common Core thinks that every kid in every school in every part of the country has to be taught the exact same way, the way that bureaucrats in Washington dictate. That top down approach never works and is forcing some school districts and states to push back and say thanks but no thanks to Common Core

Earlier this month, Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett issued a press release that called for “continued public review” of Common Core’s standards and ordering the state’s education department to carry out just such a review. Previously, Corbett had defended Pennsylvania’s educational independence by implementing a modified Pennsylvania Core rather than the standard Common Core.

The press release positioned Corbett’s decision as “the final phase in his nearly three year effort to permanently roll back the national Common Core plan implemented by his predecessor, Gov. Ed Rendell.” Corbett characterized Common Core as “nothing more than Obama Care for education.” Given how poorly Obama Care has operated, I can think of no bigger insult of any government program than to compare it to the pitifully designed, implemented, and operated Obama Care processes. 

But Corbett is not blazing new ground in telling Washington to pound sand when it comes to educating our kids. Several state governors and legislature including Mary Fallin of Oklahoma, Nikki Haley of South Carolina and Pat McCrory of North Carolina have already signed legislation that repealed or significantly modified Common Core in their states.

Additionally, Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana has implemented several lawsuits against the Federal government and his own state school board seeking to abolish Common Core standards in his state. Scott Walker of Wisconsin and Gary Herbert of Utah have called for a reexamination of the standards as well.

Thus, you have at least a half dozen states pushing back on the dictates of the Federal government as it applies to our kids' education. One of the reasons for such rebellion could be the fact that the curriculum is not that good. Consider what happened to test scores in the state of Maryland, which has been operating under Common Core guidelines and tenets for several years:



This chart from the Washington Post shows that in the first several years after Maryland went to Common Core standards, fewer and fewer Maryland kids passed the assessment test for math and reading vs. prior to Common Core. In fact, prior to Common Core’s introduction year of 2012, test results were actually improving over time for Maryland kids. Common Core hits, and test results dramatically plummet within two years.

I am not an education expert. I am not a Common Core expert. But I can read a chart and this chart is not good news for Common Core and that is why many states are pushing back and ignoring another Washington program, not for political reasons, but for common sense reasons and the downwards trends in this chart.

Life lesson: just because Washington thinks it is good, does not make it good. 

2) Back in late June, 2014, the Heritage Foundation website reported on the fact that the state of Tennessee had dropped out of the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) testing consortium aligned to the Common Core national education standards. At that time, Heritage reported that Tennessee was joining the ranks of 18 other states pushing back against at least some aspects of Common Core.

In June, Governor Bill Haslam, Commissioner of Education Kevin Huffman and the chair of the state board of education, Fielding Rolston, sent a letter to PARCC CEO Laura Slover announcing the state’s decision to drop PARCC and re-adopt the old state exam, the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program. This letter was done in conjunction with legislation passed by the state legislature and signed by Haslam in May, 2014.

Never have so many states said no to Washington in just two programs, Common Core and Obama Care. And given what we have discussed many times in this blog, these states are probably doing the best thing for their constituents and residents since Obama Care is shaping up as the worst piece of legislation ever enacted by Washington and early results, at least in Maryland, show that Common Core makes kids dumber, not smarter.

That will do it for this month. School lunches, school curriculums, gun control, spying on citizens, Obama Care, the rebellion and push back against an over reaching Federal government and Washington political class is wide and deep and growing. Which always brings us back to the same interesting philosophical discussion: what happens when Washington says do something and the rest of the country simply ignores the demand? Interesting times.

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

Will The Center Hold, April, 2014, Part 1: Common Core Under Fire, Seceding States, and More

After ten days worth of posts looking at various forms of political class insanity, it is time to move on to other topics. For the next several days, we will be taking another look at a question we have posed in previous posts: Given the overreaching, illegal, and un-Constitutional actions of the Federal government and the Washington political class, and the push back from citizens and state governments, will the center hold? Or will the various issues and conflicts eventually result in the breaking apart of the republic and the dissolution of Federal government authority and effectiveness? 

Never before in our history have we been so close to the center of the nation not holding steady and solid. Through wars and depressions and recessions and civil rights movements and other crises, in my opinion we have never been closer to such a splitting of the nation. The fact that we are now closer than ever to such a center implosion speaks volumes of how power hungry, illegal, and incompetent the political class has become. 

The first set of posts on this topic can be accessed starting at: 

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2014/03/will-center-hold-part-1-americans-and.html

1) In one sign of the growing disgust with Washington and this Presidency, news report indicate the Wisconsin Republican Resolutions Committee voted earlier this month to support a proposal establishing a state’s right, “under extreme circumstances, to secede” from the union. The resolution is gaining acceptance among many of the state’s disillusioned residents, many of whom are expected to weigh in on the matter during the state Republican Party convention next month. 

Not all of the state’s Republicans are excited about the idea, including the current state governor, Scott Walker: “I don’t think that one [the resolution] aligns with where most Republican officials are in the state of Wisconsin – certainly not with me.” 

But even if the governor is not interested, there is enough interest and frustration in this state for some of its political actors taking the radical step of thinking and discussing the pros and cons of secession. 

2) Common Core is a Washington effort to put in place a single Federal government curriculum for the nation’s schools. A lot of Americans are against such a domination of local teaching and schools from a faraway Federal government bureaucracy for a number of reasons: 

• Trying to impose a single teaching and education approach on all Americans will likely never work and will end up dumbing down the education process. 
• Early results from states and districts using Common Core materials have resulted in disappointing educational results.
•  Ceding control of local educational processes to a Federal government that has shown the inability to successfully operate any program is not attractive to parents and school districts that prefer to manage their own education processes that are tailored to their local needs. 

As a result of these concerns and others, many states are beginning to opt out of all or some of the Common Core’s components. Recently, South Carolina’s top education administrator announced that South Carolina is pulling out of the Common Core standardized testing group, Smarter Balanced. 

Superintendent of Education Mick Zais sent a letter to state Board of Education members informing them of the move. Zais was sprung to action on this issue as a result of pending legislation in the state legislature that would prevent South Carolina from using the Smarter Balanced tests in schools: “My recommendation was to get ahead of these actions of the General Assembly and show the members of the General Assembly that we believe exploring assessment options is the most prudent course of action for South Carolina.” 

Furthermore, Zais stated in a letter to the state board of education Suth Carolina: “I want to have a high quality assessment that meets the specific needs of South Carolina, at a competitive price. If we continue to focus only on Smarter Balanced, we lose any opportunity to consider alternatives… In consideration of the foregoing, and the discovery that I have the authority to withdraw South Carolina from its status as a governing state of the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium, and after full consultation with the Governor’s Office and appropriate members of the General Assembly, I am informing you that I am exercising that authority." 

The “most prudent course of action for South Carolina.” In other words, thanks but no thanks to Washington and the Common Core bureaucracy for his state. Just another example of a state treating Washington’s dictates as a suggestion and not a requirement. One of many states doing the same thing on many different issues. 

3) According to a recent article by the Heritage Foundation, South Carolina is not the only state of in the union actively working against the forced implementation of Common Core in their states:

• In Oklahoma, the state senate passed legislation early in April reducing the state’s involvement with Common Core’s national standards, although there is some dispute as to whether it would fully remove Oklahoma from the standards, or merely change the name of the standards. Governor Mary Fallin , a supporter of Common Core said in a statement that she “support[s] passing legislation that increases classroom rigor and accountability while guaranteeing that Oklahoma public education is protected from federal interference…” 
• The Missouri House of Representatives recently passed legislation to find a Common Core replacement. State Representative Kurt Bahr stated: “We’re going to create the process to have Missouri standards and Missouri assessments.” The Missouri legislation requires that by October 1, 2014, the state board of education must develop new academic standards by the following October 2015, in place of the Common Core, and adopt and implement these standards by the 2016-17 school year.
• The New Orleans Advocate recently reported that in Louisiana, Governor Bobby Jindal, who once was a Common Core supporter, is now encouraging the Louisiana legislature to formally remove the state from the Common Core aligned Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for Colleges and Careers (PARCC) test. This position was announced on the heals of him receiving a letter from eight members of the Louisiana State House of Representatives informing Jindal of his ability to opt out of the standards and encouraging him to do so. 

The Heritage report concludes with the following summary of state government push backs on Common Core and the Federal government: “Fifteen states have now made strides in halting or downgrading their involvement in the standards. Last month, Indiana became the first state to exit Common Core. This is promising momentum in the effort of states to reclaim their educational decision-making authority.” 

When was the last time anyone can remember 30% of the states telling the Federal government to take a hike relative to a Federal program? Will the center hold, at least relative to Common Core? 

4) In early April, Missouri’s House passed veto proof gun rights  legislation that allows Missouri to refuse to enforce past, present and future Federal gun control laws that are viewed to be infringements on gun rights, and state residents would have the right to sue law enforcement for enforcing such laws. The legislation is expected to also pass the state senate. 

The veto proof component of the legislation is important since the state’s Governor indicated that he opposes such legislation, having vetoed a similar bill last year that also sought to nullify some Federal laws. Despite the governor’s resistance, Missouri becomes one of nearly ten other states have passed some form of legislation attempting to limit federal regulation of firearms within their border. 

The Missouri effort also contains several other gun rights components including lowering the minimum age to get a concealed weapons permit and allowing designated school personnel to carry firearms in buildings. 

So let’s review. A growing number of states do not want Washington’s Common Core shaky education standards and tenets and the attached bureaucracy and restrictions, a growing number of states have more respect for the Second Amendment than the Federal government and the Obama Presidency, taking actions to protect the rights of their citizens, and some citizens in at least one state (Wisconsin) are seriously fed up with everything coming out of Washington, so much so that they are willing to split off and form their own country. 

Which raises two interesting questions, questions that we have posed in the past and questions that are becoming closer and closer to a reality everyday: 1) What happens if Washington passes a law and very few states and citizens obey that law? 2) With such widespread disrespect and ignoring of Washington directions, will the center hold? More disobedience and push back on an overreaching Federal government 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.robertringer.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

Why California Is Failing While Wisconsin Is Succeeding

Last week we compared the relative economic situations of three states: Florida, New Jersey, and California (http://www.loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2012/07/state-level-economic-musings-california.html). Florida fared the best in our analysis, with unnecessary government costs being cut, funding for education being increased, no taxes being raised, but essential government functions still operating. This has resulted in Florida making some of the best improvements in its economy and unemployment rate in the country.

We concluded that New jersey Governor Chris Christie was making all of the right moves to get that state economy moving again but was facing a long tradition of the state overspending its tax stream and raising taxes to cover the shortfall. Its economy has been slow to recover but at least the governor is doing the right things.

The basket case of the three was California. Tax shortfalls, underperfoming schools, budget overruns, good sized cities declaring bankruptcy (San Bernadino and Stockton), an out migration of better off citizens and business, a general malaise throughout the state and its population. However, we did present a rather radical plan from famed economist Arthur Laffer to help pull the state's economy and state government out of the ditch. However, it is doubtful the state's political class is willing or able to accomplish such a feat.

If we had waited a few days, we could have included some other worthwhile advice on how to fix this broken state, courtesy of an article and analysis in the L.A. Times:

 (http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-malanga-wisconsin-california-bankruptcies-20120717,0,5879241.story).

It has been my experience that the L.A. Times is a left leaning, Democratic Party preferring publication. So when it sings high praise for the economic progress and approach of a REPUBLICAN governor from another state, I sit up and take notice since complimenting a Republican anything is rather rare in a main stream media publication like the Times.

The Republican being complimented is Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin. As you may know, Walker just prevailed in a bitter recall election that was headed by state government unions in the state. The unions were against many of the changes that Walker had pushed through the state legislature that would have reduced the power of state government workers in the state.

The Times article, "California, Look To Wisconsin," made the following points:

• Walker argued that the biggest beneficiaries of his budget reform plans would be cities, towns and school districts, which would gain the ability to cut costs without having to negotiate every change in compensation or work rules with local unions.
• This legislation specifically eliminated collective bargaining by government workers for benefits and required greater contributions from them towards their pensions.
• Once his plan was enacted into law, Wisconsin citizens quickly found out that state employee unions had used its power to force local school districts to provide health care insurance coverage only through a nonprofit insurer affiliated with the union.
• Once the state allowed bargaining on health care contracts, school boards began competitively bidding out their health insurance, which hopefully would reduce costs.
• According to the Times' article, just two months after Walker's reforms took effect, 23 Wisconsin school districts had redone their insurance contracts, saving $16 million, or an average of $211 per student.
• The MacIver Institute in Wisconsin estimated that if all the state's districts were able to negotiate similar deals once their contracts with the union-affiliated insurer expired, schools, and Wisconsin taxpayers, could save $186 million.
• The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that the city of Milwaukee would save as much as $36 million in its next budget by using the new bargaining leverage the Walker reforms provided.
• This flexibility allowed the city to avoid having to implement layoffs of city workers.
• However, the Milwaukee school system was not so lucky since it had agreed to a contract with its teachers' union just before the reforms took effect and thus, were locked into an existing contract. The school board asked for concessions from the union, the union refused, and the school board was forced to layoff 519 people which included 334 teachers. The Times article estimates that if the union had made the concessions, 200 teacher jobs could have been saved.

Great success story. Government employees still get a robust set of benefits, state and local governments and school districts get financial relief, teachers stay on the job, and the strain of ever increasing taxes on residents is eased. Walker has successfully bent the so-called "cost curve" downward with minimal pain and maximum benefits to a wide range of constituencies.

California, not so much. According to the Times' article:

• Average annual pay for a California local government employee rose 60% between 1999 and 2008, far higher than the inflation rate over that time.
• For a perspective, that rise is about 70% more than the increase in private sector pay levels in California over the same frame.
• The annual cost of funding pensions in California's 20 largest cities has gone from $1.3 billion in 1999 to $5.1 billion 2011, according to a study by Stanford University professor Joe Nathan, an annual growth rate of more than 11%.
• No city government's revenue stream is increasing anywhere near that much, meaning that at some point something in the current process has to snap.
• The article points out that cities like San Jose, California do not have the flexibility that Wisconsin local governments have. In San Jose, the average annual cost of employing a city worker, including benefits, has risen to an unbelievable cost of $142,000, resulting in San Jose laying off 2,000 employees and cutting back on parks, libraries and other services over the past three years.
• The city of Stockton, California has already declared bankruptcy, driven by the fact that for every wage dollar it spends, it now has to spend another dollar to cover city employee benefits. This has required the city to layoff 25% of its fire and police force over the past few years but even that was not enough to avoid going bankrupt.

The Times article concludes with this appraisal of California's budget problem: "Without pension reform in Sacramento, and with local contracts that make it impossible to cut costs without concessions from unions, cities and school districts in the Golden State are left with few good choices to balance their budgets." Not a good situation to be in because at some point, California local and city governments end up being little more than collection agencies for bad union contracts while schools, teachers, parks, and other important government functions get emasculated.


Florida figured it out, Wisconsin figured it out. Any human organization, whether it is a nonprofit, a small business, an international conglomerate, a family household, or a government entity, has to live within its budget and available resources. If it does not, the ever escalating cost curve and ever present economic reality and limits will eventually lead to the collapse of that human organization.


How soon will it take California, and more importantly Washington D.C., to understand that "economies cannot tax themselves to prosperity." At some point, and hopefully before it is too late, both California and Washington need to wake up to the fact that spending has to match up with revenue, that is simply a fact of life.




We invite all readers of this blog to visit our new website, "The United States Of Purple," at:


http://www.unitedstatesofpurple.com/


The United States of Purple is a new grass roots approach to filling the office of President of The United States by focusing on the restoration of freedom in the United States, focusing on problem solving skills and results vs. personal political enrichment, and imposing term limits on all future Federal politicians. No more red states, no more blue states, just one United States Of America under the banner of Purple.


The United States Of Purple's website also provides you the formal opportunity to sign a petition to begin the process of implementing a Constitutional amendment to impose fixed term limits on all Federally elected politicians. Only by turning out the existing political class can we have a chance of addressing and finally resolving the major issues of or times.


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 http://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.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com/
http://www.flipcongress2010.com/
http://www.reason.com/
http://www.repealamendment/