August, 2019, Part 5, The Unfolding Disaster That Is Obama Care: The Failure of Single Payer Health Care Systems Around the World, Continued

Every month for years now we have had to discuss how bad Obama Care is turning out to be under the continuing theme, “the unfolding disaster that is Obama Care.” This month is no different. As the legislation continues to march through America, driving up health care and health insurance prices as it serves as dead weight on economic growth, it cements its rightful place as the worst piece of legislation Washington has ever produced.

It never had a chance to be successful since it really never addressed the underlying root causes of our ever increasing health costs in the country:

• Americans eat too much of the wrong kind of food, resulting in obscenely high obesity rates for the country.
• Our food chain is infested with overdoses of high fructose corn syrup, salt, sugar, and other unhealthy additives. 
• Americans smoke too much. 
• Americans do not exercise enough. 
• The country is in serious need of health care tort reform. 
• Barriers to insurance company competition across state lines need to come down. 
• Obama Care never “followed the money” to find out who is actually profiting from the ever escalating healthcare costs in this country and how to get those factors under control. 
• Obama Care never got the immense amount of fraud and abuse in current government healthcare programs, Medicare and Medicaid, under control in order to save money to efficiently fund other government health care initiatives. 
• Obama Care never put serious research money towards curing the major diseases that drive high healthcare costs such as high frequency cancers and dementia type diseases. 

You cannot resolve any problem unless you understand and address the underlying root causes. No difference here: Obama Care legislation never addressed these listed root causes and thus, has no chance of ever being successful.

But it is not just missing the root causes of our healthcare costs that makes Obama Care so horrible. It resulted in millions of Americans losing access to their favored doctors, hospitals, and insurance policies. It has caused insurance premiums, deductibles and copays to escalate substantially. It will likely add trillions of dollars to the national debt. It has exposed millions of Americans to higher than necessary identity theft chances. It has created government bureaucracies that are wastefully spending taxpayer wealth and being exploited by criminal elements. It has stifled economic growth and job creation.

These are just a sample of the types of idiocy that we have been reviewing for the past several years in this blog relative to Obama Care. To read those past posts, just enter the phrase, “the unfolding disaster,” in the search box above.

Two posts ago we reviewed the many, many failures and disasters of Obama Care, probably the worst piece of legislation ever passed when it comes to comparing it to its objectives and its promises. This was the Federal government’s most recent and deepest attempt to try and control the healthcare of Americans and it has ended badly. 

In our previous two posts, we showed the numbers and realities around the world of how single payer healthcare systems always fail to provide effective and efficient health care to its citizens. Despite these realities, many Democratic candidates for President want to implement a failed system like this in this country. Today we will continue that discussion of failed single payer healthcare systems from other countries, further proof that this approach to healthcare is a bad, bad idea.

We continue that discussion today, the failures of the single payer healthcare model:

1) Again, let’s start up Canada , today with an example of how bad wait times are in that country under their single payer healthcare system, as described in a Reason magazine article:

• Joy Hataley, a doctor up in Ontario, Canada, recently had to refer a patient to a neurologist at Kingston General Hospital.
• Obviously a referral to a neurologist likely represents a potentially grave and dangerous situation. 
• When the patient went to make the appointment on the doctor’s referral he was told it would be four and half YEARS before he could even get an appointment, never mind whatever treatment might be necessary. 
• The doctor was told that if this inane four and a half year waiting period was not acceptable the hospital would try to get their patient in to see a neurologist in another city altogether. 
• But if the wait time was four and half years Kingston General Hospital, what are the odds that the wait time in a different city would be much shorter? 

Single payer systems always result in the rationing and the delaying of receiving medical attention. If someone needs to see a neurologist, it is doubtful that a four and a half year wait is an acceptable time frame to wait from a life and death perspective. The more government intervenes in the healthcare industry, be it Obama Care or a single payer system, the worse the health care that will be provided becomes.

2) People like Bernie Sanders who advocate for a single payer system like to point to Nordic countries who Sanders claims has found the single payer health care model to be the best thing ever. However, people in Finland might have a problem with this false assertion:

• The Washington Free Beacon recently reported: The government of Finland collapsed Friday “due to the rising cost of universal health care and the prime minister’s failure to enact reforms to the system.”
• This caused Prime Minister Juha Sipila and his entire cabinet to resign after his governing coalition could pass the necessary laws to reform the government’s single payer health care system.Much like the U.S., Finland has an aging population with 26% of its citizens expected to be over the age of 65 by 2030.An aging population almost always means higher and higher healthcare costs. 
• To head off financial disaster, Finland has tried to cut costs and boost health care efficiency for years but has been unsuccessful in doing so, resulting in more and more financial distress for the government. 
• And according to Reuters, Finland is not alone in this crisis: “Nordic countries, where comprehensive welfare is the cornerstone of the social model, have been among the most affected. But reform has been controversial and, in Finland, plans to cut costs and boost efficiency have stalled for years.” 
• Other Nordic countries with single payer systems such as Sweden and Norway are facing similar health care financial stress. 

Nasty stuff, people getting older and their government likely not going to be able to fulfill its commitment of health care. And yet, liberals and Democrats in Washington continue to champion a losing approach to healthcare with a recent tweet by Bernie Sanders showing just how ignorant he is of reality and finance: “In the United States it costs on average $12,000 to have a baby. In Finland it costs $60.”

So Sanders thinks that for $60 you can give birth to a baby in Finland and that $60 will cover hospital, doctor, nurse, and medicine costs for the birth. It does not cost $60, Bernie. It costs much more, it is just that the couple having the baby pay less while the rest of Finland society and taxpayers pay much more than $60.

Are you that ignorant of finance or are you just a flat out liar? In either case, single payer systems are not efficient, effective, or healthy for sick citizens. Obama Care proved that and the Scandinavian countries, along with England and Canada, prove that every day.

That will do it for today’s single payer failure review: single payer failures in places where it was promised not to fail such as Finland and Sweden and another example where vital healthcare treatment is delayed for years, not days, under the Canadian single payer system. More failures to come.

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

https://www.amazon.com/Walter-Bruno-Korschek/e/B002KYU08Q/ref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share

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

The Swedish Experience With Open Borders and the Lack Of A Wall

In the previous post we showed how wrong that American socialist politicians like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren are when it comes to saying that they can turn the U.S. into a socialistic paradise like Sweden. But in reality, Sweden is not a socialist country, it is less socialistic than the U.S. is today as that post discussed:

https://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2019/01/venezuela-vs-sweden-why-ocasio-cortez.html

As the post showed, Sweden and its citizens turned away from socialism decades ago. They got tired of less freedom, more taxation, and worse economic conditions. Our conclusion was that American socialists are more likely to lead us to destruction that socialism brought to Venezuela than the economic revival that Sweden experienced when it turned away from socialism and towards freedom, political, educational, and economic freedom, a reality that Ocasio-Cortez and others of her ilk either realize but are lying to us or are that ignorant of reality.

But Sweden made a different kind of socialism mistake that is not working out so well. Rather than have an orderly immigration process, they opened their borders to just about anyone immigrant from the Middle East. This policy is much like American socialists who want to open America’s borders to anyone and everyone who want to come here, drug cartels, human traffickers, international criminals gangs included. Which raises a basic question: could American socialism politicians be as wrong about open borders as they were about Sweden being a socialism country? 

If they are, than America could be in for the same experiences that Sweden is suffering through now:

• The Swedish National Council For Crime Prevention (Bra) recently released their latest crime statistics for Sweden.
• Bra found that Sweden has experienced a 33% increase in the number of reported rape cases in the past ten years.
• The number of rape cases increased 8% in just the past year.
• More disgusting, rape reports that allege attacks against Swedish children went up 13% in just the past year.
• According to Bra researcher Stina Söderman: “We have seen a clear increase in reported rape in recent years.” Ya think?!
• Almost 8,000 rapes were reported in the country last year, an increase of 614 over the previous year.
• In 2018, rape reports against children of both genders under the age of 18 rose to 3,420 incidents.
• According to SVT, Sweden’s public news network, 85% of the rapes in the country committed by strangers were committed by immigrants.
• While rape statistics have jumped over the past few years, overall crime is up only a small percentage and crimes against property actually declined.
• Crimes against Swedish women are the highest in decades and according to Politico, crimes against citizens are becoming commonplace: “Social unrest, with car torchings, attacks on first responders and even riots, is a recurring phenomenon,” Politico reported.

Look, I am all for a vibrant,robust immigration policy and philosophy. I am not for a wide open border that let’s all and everyone one in regardless of their intentions, legal and criminal alike. Ellis Island allowed millions of immigrants to come live in this country but turned away those that were criminals, penniless, and disease ridden. Sweden did not do that and American political socialists do not want us to this either, allowing open borders on our border with Mexico. 

Given that American socialists were so wrong about Sweden being a socialism heaven, I would wager they are also wrong that Sweden did the right thing by allowing everyone to come into their country without methods and procedures to screen them. Increased rape incidents of Swedish women and children has been the result and yet American politicians on the left again do not want to learn from the Swedish experience.

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

March, 2018, Part 3, Political Class Insanity: Reducing our Economic and Personal Freedom and Wasting our Time and Tax Dollars

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

Let's get started:

1) As Americans, we like to think that we live in a free country. We know that this is usually a false assumption, given how large and intrusive all level of governments have become in this country especially at the Federal level. We have often made the assertion that personal freedom is tightly tied to economic freedom. If we were allowed to keep more and more of our hard earned wealth, we could:

• Expand our kids’ education options.
• We could start a business that was more in line with our life’s desires and preferences.
• We could contribute more to charitable efforts that we have special feelings for.
• We could spend more money on products and services that satisfy our physical, mental, and emotional needs and wants.

Thus, the more we enjoy economic freedom the more personal freedom will come our way.

Every year the Heritage Foundation does an extensive analysis and develops a single index number that ranks and orders every country according to its economic freedom. Their process combines measurements along numerous dimensions including regulatory burden, taxation levels, property rights, etc.

At one time the United States was ranked as one of the top nations in the world when it came to economic freedom. This was not surprising since living in such a free society and nation helped produce the highest level of wealth for our citizens in the history of the world.

Unfortunately, over time that high ranking has taken a beating as our economic freedom has ebbed which has in turn depressed our personal freedoms:

• While the U.S. was once one of the freest countries in the world from an economic perspective, it now ranks as only the 18th freest economic country in the latest analysis.
• Our index has slipped from an index value of about 81 back in 2007-2009 time period, since then, i.e. during the Obama administration, our freedom index as slipped about 7% to 75.7.
• During that time the world’s total economic freedom index value has risen slightly from 59.5 to 61.1, the opposite trend of what our economic freedom index has been.
• If the U.S. had just maintained its index level of 81 or so it would be ranked about the 4th or 5th most free country in the world today, a level that would have vastly improved our economic and personal freedom.
• We are less free from the index’s perspective than two former parts of the Soviet Union, Georgia and Estonia.
• We are less free from the index’s perspective than two Scandinavian countries, Sweden and Denmark, two countries that we usually associate with socialist countries, i.e. countries with suppressive economies and governments.

In other words, the Washington political class in general and the Obama Presidency specifically have repressed both our economic freedom and personal freedom over the past eight years or so, resulting in lower standards of living and freedom for us all.

2) It is not only the Federal government that does insane things and places restrictions on our freedoms and violates common sense. Often it is more local levels of government and politicians that just do stupid things, wasting our time, freedom, and wealth in the process. Consider some recent examples from Reason magazine:

• In 2017 in Lycoming County, Pennsylvania, a government probation officer ripped a pair of pants chasing a perp. He asked his department to pay to replace those pants that were damaged while he was performing his government job, a cost to the county of about $60. When the county refused to pony up the $60, he took his case to court where a judge ordered the county to pay the $60 but only after the county government spent and wasted $4,285 of taxpayer wealth fighting the issue.
• In theory, government is supposed to help its citizens. But apparently that is not the case with government and politicians in the city of Malibu, California. There town officials are pressuring a local United Methodist church to stop its twice weekly free meal program for homeless people since it thinks that such a program will attract more homeless Americans to the city. Guess it is better to let the local homeless go hungry than to alleviate at least some of the despair in their lives.
• Crime has gotten so bad in some Philadelphia neighborhoods that local store owners have been putting up bullet proof glass between their cashiers and customers to protect their employees from criminal violence. Rather than address the underlying causes of the criminal violence in the city, Councilwoman Cindy Bass is ticked off at the business owners who are just protecting themselves and their employees,claiming that the glass is an insult to the local residents. She is so upset she is sponsoring a law that would prohibit store owners from protecting their assets via bulletproof glass while not addressing the root causes of the bulletproof glass. In her mind it is better to place local residents in danger of violence in their jobs than possibly hurt a local resident’s feelings.
• We have often written about how badly the Veterans Administration serves veterans. There have been numerous confirmed instances where the long waiting lines and poor medical support of our veterans probably contributed to their early deaths. Well, apparently the VA, according to USA Today, has repeatedly hired healthcare workers who have lost malpractice claims, indicating that possibly many doctors within the VA would not be allowed to practice medicine anywhere else as a result of incompetence but are welcomed at the VA. This practice that not only endangers veterans’ health but is also a violation of existing Federal law.
• Americans spent a lot of taxpayer money to help Puerto Rico get back on its feet after being devastated by a hurricane. But apparently the local political class and government bureaucracy is so corrupt on the island that armed Federal agents found it necessary to raid a local warehouse. There they found taxpayer funded materials and equipment that was meant to restore power throughout the island but instead was being hoarded by the local Puerto Rico Electric Power authority.
• Sometimes government gets so big and so incompetent that it cannot get out of its own way. A bicycle owner in Clearwater, Florida was cited and fined for installing an illegal bike rack outside of his bicycle shop. The sad thing is that the very government that cited him for this violation was the actual entity that had installed the bike rack to begin with, the local store owner had nothing to do with it’s installation.
• Up in Vermont, the Green Mountain Care Board, which I am assuming is some type of government entity, ordered the Copley Hospital’s orthopedic division to stop doing so many surgeries since it does too many operations and generates too much revenue. Apparently there was no issue with the quality of the operations or the necessity of the operations, it is just that some government agency arbitrarily decided that a private business was too successful and in this case, relieving the pain and agony of too many patients, and had to stop the two grievous acts of helping people in need and making money in the process. Horrors.

Restricting our economic freedom and personal freedom, wasting our taxpayer dollars, and doing just stupid stuff to the people it is supposed to serve. Yep, just another day of political class ineptness and shenanigans. More to follow.

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

www.loathemygovernment.com

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

Please visit the following sites for freedom:


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

October, 2015, Part 4, By The Numbers: What Americans Want Is Not What Politicians Deliver (Or Really Care About)

This is the fourth post among a few days worth of discussion of “by the numbers.” We do this theme occasionally where we look at the reality of the numbers in the world and not the lies, deceptions, and spin of the American political class. I used to work for a boss whose favorite quote was: “There is nothing more devastating to an opinion than the correct number.” By looking at the statistics, trends, and numbers in our world we can cut through the politicians’ smoke screen to truly understand what is going on and hopefully, remedy the issues of the day.

The numbers we will look at this week will often have a common thread running almost through all of them: the views, positions, and opinions of the majority of Americans are often the exact opposite of the views and related actions that our politicians own. Since we are supposed to be living in a representative government system one would hope that the laws, rules, and government functions that our politicians oversee reflect the thinking, hopes, and views of the American citizenry.

As the numbers will usually show, that is nowhere close to reality, which I think reflects two underlying negative trends:

1. American politicians vote and act for their own personal interests first, Americans’ interests and well being being of secondary consideration. If a politician’s actions can get them more votes or more campaign cash for their perpetual reelection campaigns, than that is their priority, usually not the priorities of their constituents.
2. Second, I personally believe that today’s American politicians take care of their special interest friends and financiers first and foremost, and the interests of those special interest friends (e.g.unions, corporations, lobbyists, etc.) are usually not in alignment with what the majority of Americans have as their priorities.

Keep these two possibilities in mind as we go “by the numbers” for the next few days and try to show the major disconnect between what Americans want and what politicians are doing:

1) Despite what the Obama administration might try to tell us about how much safer we are from a terrorist attack because of their anti-terror efforts, the numbers show that we are not buying their lies and spin. According to a September 8, 2015 Washington Examiner report by Paul Bedard:

• 72% of respondents to a recent survey by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs say that they still fear an Islamic based terror attack.
• This is the highest level of fear since the 9-11 attacks fourteen years ago.
• 73% of respondents are so concerned that they support the targeted assassination of terrorist leaders.
• Americans are more in favor of aggressive anti-terror measures more in 2015 than they were in 2014 (click on the chart for a larger view):

One reason for the growing pessimism and concern, as measured by these poll numbers, is that Obama's strategy to degrade and defeat the larger terror groups around the world has been an absolute failure. Despite spending billions of dollars, groups like ISIS continue to grow, enrich themselves, and attract more recruits than ever. 2) And while the above numbers show that Americans are more and more concerned about terrorism, a recent Gallup poll shows that they are also more and more concerned and convinced that corruption is widespread within our government:- In 2014, according to Gallup, 75% of those polled said that corruption is widespread in this country’s government structure.

- While this level of perceived corruption was down from the perceived level in 2013, our disgust with our politicians and their corruption is still trending upwards over time, up from 66% in 2009 when Obama took office:

Not a good thing when three out of four citizens think that their government is corrupt. It creates a layer of pessimism over the whole country that no problem or issue will ever get resolved because those in office who should be resolving those problems for the good of the citizenry are too busy lining their own pockets and taking care of the interests of their friends and cronies.And the reality that this perceived corruption has increased dramatically during the Obama administration shows that those who had our doubts about Obama have been proven correct.  The past seven years of increasing corruption during his administration bring to mind the old Who song lyrics: “meet the new boss, same as the old boss.” Those who thought that Obama was a breath of fresh air to lead the country to new heights failed to realize, as these numbers show, that he was just another shallow, corrupt politician from Chicago.

3) But perhaps all governments and the politicians that operate them are considered corrupt. Maybe the U.S. is not any different from the rest of the world and we should not be concerned. There actually is a set of numbers to explore that theory.Freedom House’s Press Freedom surveys ask the following questions of citizens around the world: is corruption widespread throughout the government in this country?The 2014 survey results are fascinating:

• Even in this survey, 75% of Americans polled think our government is corrupt.
• This level of perceived corruption places us as the 12th most corrupt government among the 37 nations considered in the survey, putting our government in the top 25% relative to perceived corruption.
• Only 14% of Sweden’s citizens considered their government to be corrupt, less than one fifth of what U.S. citizens considered their government to be corrupt.

The entire list of countries, including the 25 nations as whose citizens have a better perception of their government from a corruption perspective are listed below:



No matter what Obama thinks about his Presidency, the numbers show how poorly Americans perceive the job he has done. We are more fearful than ever of an Islamic terrorists attack, so much so that we want the government and this administration to take stronger actions to combat terrorism. But at the same time we are pretty disgusted with the corruption that is rampant in this administration in particular and our government in general, with three out of four of us thinking that our government is basically corrupt. The numbers do not lie even if politicians do. More numbers tomorrow.Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

www.loathemygovernment.com

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

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

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

Part 4: Why Gay Marriage And The Confederate Flag Are Meaningless Issues Relative To The Lobbyist Behind The Curtain

Over the past three days we have been discussing a theme that goes as follows: “Why Gay Marriage and The Confederate Flag Are Meaningless Issues Relative To The Lobbyist Behind the Curtain.” The purpose of the posts was to do a reality check in that even though the issues of gay marriage and the Confederate flag are hot and “trending” this week, they are minor nits on a fly’s butt compared to the three other issues we discussed in those blog posts:

1. Monday we discussed the writings of Gary Hart, a former liberal U.S. Senator and Presidential candidate and his correct conclusions that we are being overrun by the most corrupt political class of all time and the lobbyists that drive their corruptness.
2. Two days ago, we discussed the fact that when the whole economy and financial viability of the U.S., collapses due to political class overspending and fiscal insanity, whether or not one has a new type of marriage license or a flag will be totally insignificant in the economic downfall of the country.
3. Yesterday we discussed a whole range of issues that will affect most Americans, not just a small percentage like gay marriage and the flag.

Today, in our final post under this theme, we will review an outstanding piece of journalism from the www.vox.com website, an article that paints a picture and probability of World War III, starting in the Baltic states, that is terrifying.

But before we do that, I am going to run the explanatory paragraphs we used the past three days to set up the reason why we find “Why Gay Marriage and The Confederate Flag Are Meaningless Issues Relative To The Lobbyist Behind the Curtain.”

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Later this week we will post our monthly series of political class insanity posts. Every month we gather and discussed the latest insanity, ineptness, wasteful spending, and corruption of the American political class. Unfortunately for us, over the years we have been doing this feature, every month we have needed more and more time just to cover one month’s worth of insanity.

Before we do that for July’s insanity, let’s look at some bigger picture issues that dwarf the wasteful spending, idiotic programs and laws, stupid quotes, and overall inept performance of the American class. Yes, it is important to point out how wasteful spending goes on in Washington, how government and political class programs never efficiently or effectively implement their goals, how stupid our politicians often sound when they open their mouths.

But the two topics we will discuss yesterday and today dwarf these issues. In fact, the top two social and political issues being hotly debated these days are also nits relative to the two overarching issues we will be discussing this week. It really does not matter what you think about gay marriage and the Supreme Court’s recent decision on it. It really does not matter what you think about the Confederate flag and what it stands for. 

Talking about them in the context of the bigger issues is a total waste of time since both issues pale in comparison to the two bigger issues. The gay and lesbian community consists of less than 5% of the nation’s population. Confederate flag supporters are probably comparable in numbers, small minorities in the country. 

But unless we address the major issue of political corruption in Washington (yesterday’s topic) and the unrelenting build up of the national debt (today’s issue) and the wasteful spending that goes with it, then who can get married and who can fly a flag of their choice will become totally, totally irrelevant in our near future since these two bigger issues affect EVERY American, not just a small minority of them.

Yesterday’s post is based on the writings of liberal former Senator and Presidential candidate Gary Hart. He is the author of 21 books and the following quotes come from his recent book, “The Republic Of Conscience.” While I have pulled out only a subset of quotes from his book that was discussed in a recent Time magazine article, I encourage everyone to go to that online Time article at:

http://time.com/3937860/gary-hart-america-corruption/

Mr. Hart eloquently and precisely points out how our democratic processes have been thoroughly corrupted by the American political class and the media, lobbyists, and organized political entities that feast on those processes and American tax dollars and freedoms. We have discussed this corruption of the democratic processes before,both in this blog and our book, “Love My Country, Loathe My Government.”

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Today we will focus on a wonderful piece of journalism from the website, www.vox.com. Upfront, let me tell you that I am not a big fan of most of Vox’s work. They are like the MSNBC of the Internet, strictly Obama and very liberal fan wavers. However, Max Fisher in his June 29, 2015 article, “How World War III Became Possible - A Nuclear Conflict With Russia Is Likelier Than You Think," is well written, thoroughly researched and scary as hell. I would suggest that those interested in the future of America and the human race read the entire article at:

http://www.vox.com/2015/6/29/8845913/russia-war

Below we will contain some highlights of his findings, using the original sub-topics he used in the entire article.

Introduction

- "Moscow is convinced the West is bent on isolating, subjugating, or outright destroying Russia. One in three Russians now believe the US may invade. Western nations worry, with reason, that Russia could use the threat of war, or provoke an actual conflict, to fracture NATO and its commitment to defend Eastern Europe. This would break the status quo order that has peacefully unified Europe under Western leadership, and kept out Russian influence, for 25 years.”

- "If you take a walk around Washington or a Western European capital today, there is no feeling of looming catastrophe. The threats are too complex, with many moving pieces and overlapping layers of risk adding up to a larger danger that is less obvious. People can be forgiven for not seeing the cloud hanging over them, for feeling that all is well — even as in Eastern Europe they are digging in for war. But this complacency is itself part of the problem, making the threat more difficult to foresee, to manage, or, potentially, to avert.”

- "There is a growing chorus of political analysts, arms control experts, and government officials who are sounding the alarm, trying to call the world's attention to its drift toward disaster. The prospect of a major war, even a nuclear war, in Europe has become thinkable, they warn, even plausible.”

I. The warnings: "War is not something that's impossible anymore"

- "A question that was absolutely impossible a couple of years ago, whether there might be a war, a real war, is back," Fyodor Lukyanov, head of an influential Russian think tank. "People ask it. The perception is that somebody would try to undermine Russia as a country that opposes the United States, and then we will need to defend ourselves by military means. Such fears, vague but existential, are everywhere in Moscow. Even liberal opposition leaders I met with, pro-Western types who oppose Putin, expressed fears that the US posed an imminent threat to Russia's security."

- "One can hear eerie echoes of the events a century ago that produced the catastrophe known as World War I," Harvard professor and longtime Pentagon adviser Graham Allison wrote in a May cover story for the National Interest, co-authored with Russia analyst Dimitri Simes. 

- Their article, "Russia and America: Stumbling To War," warned that an unwanted, full-scale conflict between the US and Russia was increasingly plausible.

- Seems Europeans are more aware of these realities than Americans:

• A Swedish military security official stated in March that there are Russian intelligence operations already going on in Sweden.
• In May, the defense minister of Finland sent letters to 900,000 Finns, one sixth of the total population, telling them to prepare to be drafted in case of a “crisis situation.”
• Lithuania has already instituted a military draft.
• Poland has already identified a specific general who will take over as military commander in case a war breaks out.
• In April, NATO and other Western officials gathered in Estonia, a former Soviet republic and NATO member on Russia's border that Western analysts most worry could become ground zero for a major war with Russia, one that might include a limited Russian nuclear strike in Europe.

II. The gamble: Putin's plan to make Russia great again

- According to Mr. Fisher, the root cause of all this anxiety is Russia’s Putin: “That problem is this: Putin's Russia is weak. It can no longer stand toe to toe with the US. It no longer has Europe divided in a stalemate; rather, it sees the continent as dominated by an ever-encroaching anti-Russian alliance. In the Russian view, the country's weakness leaves it at imminent risk, vulnerable to a hostile West bent on subjugating or outright destroying Russia as it did to Iraq and Libya.”

- This paranoia is driven by Putin’s domestic problems of civil unrest, hard economic times, and a repressive regime.

- Thus, to divert attention from these failings he looks for someone outside of Russia to blame for that country’s problems.

- Mr. Fisher: “Unable to cross America's red lines, Putin is doing his best to muddy them — and, to deter the Americans, muddying his own. Turning otherwise routine diplomatic and military incidents into games of high-stakes chicken favors Russia, he believes, as the West will ultimately yield to his superior will.”

- RAND's F. Stephen Larrabee wrote in one of his urgent warning pieces: "The Russia that the United States faces today is more assertive and more unpredictable — and thus, in many ways, more dangerous — than the Russia that the United States confronted during the latter part of the Cold War."

- Joseph Nye, the dean of Harvard University's school of government and one of America's most respected international relations scholars, compared the current situation to the conditions that set off World War I: "Russia seems doomed to continue its decline — an outcome that should be no cause for celebration in the West. States in decline — think of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1914 — tend to become less risk-averse and thus much more dangerous."

III. The drift: How the unthinkable became possible

- Mr. Fisher: “During the Cold War, the comparably matched Western and Soviet blocs prepared for war but also made sure that war never came. They locked Europe in a tense but stable balance of power; that balance is gone. They set clear red lines and vowed to defend them at all costs. Today, those red lines are murky and ill-defined. Neither side is sure where they lie or what really happens if they are crossed. No one can say for sure what would trigger war.”

- “That is why, analysts will tell you, today's tensions bear far more similarity to the period before World War I: an unstable power balance, belligerence over peripheral conflicts, entangling military commitments, disputes over the future of the European order, and dangerous uncertainty about what actions will and will not force the other party into conflict.”

- However, the wild card difference between today and the conditions before World War is the presence of nuclear weapons, weapons that could cause substantial damage to everything that the Europeans armies one hundred years ago could never accomplish: "It’s not just a difference in rhetoric. It’s a whole different world," Bruce G. Blair, a nuclear weapons scholar at Princeton, told the Wall Street Journal. He called Putin's decisions more dangerous than those of any Soviet leader since 1962. "There’s a low nuclear threshold now that didn’t exist during the Cold War."

- The article points out that even limited use of nuclear weapons in a conflict with Russia would make use of bombs that were significantly more powerful than the World War II bombs, bombs that would kill up to a billion people as a result of a “decade of winter,” causing massive crop failures.

We are going to stop our discussion of the article here and just include the sub-topics that Mr. Fisher covers. We cannot do justice to the fine piece of journalism he has here so we strongly recommend you read his entire analysis at the link above.

IV. How it would happen: The Baltics scenario

V. How it would happen: A plot to break NATO

VI. How it would happen: The fog of hybrid war

VII. How it would happen: The Ukraine scenario

VIII. The nuclear dangers: The red line is closer than you think

IX. The nuclear dangers: How Putin is pushing us back to the brink

X. The nuclear dangers: An atomic gun to the world's head

XI. The nuclear dangers: Does Putin believe nuclear war can be "won"?

XII. The nuclear dangers: End games

Let us leave today’s topic with the following quote: "You just can't have this kind of [nuclear] war," Eisenhower said in 1957. "There aren't enough bulldozers to scrape the bodies off the streets."

This concludes our four part series that discussed the reality that there are a lot more important topics, issues, and crises to talk about than gay marriage, which is now settled by the Supreme Court, and the Confederate flag. Because a new piece of marriage license paper or a piece of cloth are nits compared to the financial collapse of the country, the total and thorough corruption of Washington, a much higher than expected potential of nuclear war with Russia in Europe and a myriad of other things we have discussed this week.

Because really, a flag and a piece of paper really kind of mean nothing when we cannot find “enough bulldozers to scrape the bodies off the streets.”

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

The American Political Class - "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly" Today: The Bad, Part 1

This week we are going through a number of posts under the theme of “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly,” stealing a title from an old Clint Eastwood movie. Yesterday, we looked at some of the good things going on in the country. 

When you write a blog like this, it can get kind of depressing as we watch our political class operate government in such a way that incompetence is rampant and rewarded, taxpayer wealth is abused and wasted, and the politicians in office have neither the will or the ability to truly resolve the major issues facing Americans. They are more intent on personal self-enrichment and staying in office.

Thus, it was good yesterday to get away from the disaster that is the American political class and talk about some good things going on in the country ("The Good"), all being executed and put forth for the betterment of Americans by private citizens doing the right thing. This is opposed to waiting for the politicians to do the wrong thing or do nothing but costing us a lot for their non-productive efforts.

However, today and probably tomorrow, we have to dive into the “The Bad” part of our theme. “The Bad” items discussed below are mostly concerned on how Americans feel about the state of the country, the state of their lives, and their attitudes towards the people causing most of the problems in this country, namely the current set of politicians. Never has a set of politicians been so ineffective or so demoralizing to the citizens of Americas, as we review “The Bad” conditions and feelings prevalent in America today:

1) According to a recent survey by Pew Research:

• The opinion that the United States is No. 1 in the world has dropped significantly in just the last three years.
• Pew found that only 28% believe that the U.S. “stands above all other countries in the world.” 
• 58% say it is “one of the greatest countries in the world, along with some others.” 
• 12% said that there are other countries “that are better.”
• Just three years ago, well within the current Presidential administration and current members of Congress, 38% said the U.S. was No. 1 compared to only 28% today, a whopping 26% decrease.
• 52% of Republicans said America stood above the others but that feeling has decreased has dropped to only 37%, a decrease of 28% in just three years.
• In 2011, 33% of Democrats said America “stands above” others while today only 25% believe that, a decrease of about 24%.
• And most depressing for the future of this country, Americans ages 18-29, are at the bottom of those who view the nation as standing alone in greatness with only 15% of those under 30 express that view today, down from 27% three years ago, a whopping decrease of 44%.
• Even senior citizens, the most optimistic about America, have seen a 20% decline in three years in their attitudes, shrinking their optimism about the country to 40%, down from 50% in 2011.

Thus, we seem to be a nation suffering a crisis of confidence, and nothing that I have seen from the current set of American politicians give me any indication or hope that these negatively trending attitudes and emotions will get reversed any time soon. 

2) Maybe one reason we are feeling so bad about our current environment is that a recent opinion poll from Gallup found that from a freedom perspective, we see ourselves as no better than 33rd in the world vs. other countries. Yes, we are no longer number one, we are number 33! This is out of 135 countries that were polled.

Other findings from this poll include:

• Only 79% of Americans say they’re satisfied with their freedom to choose what to do with their lives, down from 87% in 2008. 
• The top five nations where people feel most satisfied with their freedoms are New Zealand, Australia, Cambodia, Sweden and the United Arab Emirates. 
• At No. 33, the United States is shamefully stuck between Bahrain and Cameroon, from a perception of freedom perspective.
• And not only are we an embarrassing number 33, stuck between two countries that most Americans could not find on a map, we are trending lower over time, of the 100 countries where Gallup measured changes in freedom during the past five years, 75 of those coountries registered an improvement in freedom, 21 registered a decline in freedom, and four stayed the same. 
• Besides the United States, consider some of the other nations within the group of 21 who also suffered declines in freedom, just like us: Syria and Afghanistan are in the midst of wide spread armed conflicts, Tajikistan and Thailand are suffering through major political turmoil, and Luxembourg, the most prosperous of the decliners, has become a target of U.S. and European authorities going after tax evaders with foreign accounts. Nice company to be with.

The historic feeling and pride of living in “the land of the free” seems to have taken a beating relative to most of the rest of the world, a world that seems to be gaining freedom while we continue to lose ours.

But this should not be a surprise since the Washington political class, and especially this Presidential administration, has crushed freedom in so many ways including:

• Assassinating American citizens without due process of laws and trials.
• We have a Presidential administration that views the IRS as a political tool and oppressor rather than a tax collection agency.
• Spying on just about every American’s private electronic communications under the false premise of “national security.”
• Passing such onerous laws including the Patriot Act and the NDAA legislation that allows our government to hold citizens without trial or due process in jail or prison for an indefinite amount of time.
• Piling on so many tax burdens that freedom of choice is significantly curtailed when we have to spend about half of working lives just to pay for all of the taxes at every level of government in this country.

I am not surprised that we think our freedom is declining when we look at what the political class is doing to our Constitutionally guaranteed freedom, our lives, and our wealth.

3) But bad things are not just happening to our freedoms and confidence. Consider some bad economic trends that are probably also hammering at and causing our declining attitudes:

• Median household wealth is still substantially lower than it was before the Great Recession. 
• While there has been recent small improvements in the jobs data, many of the new jobs for American workers come with pay that is lower than it used to be, assuming they can find a job at all. 
• Lower pay impacts economic freedom which has probably leaked into the feeling of declining political freedom that Gallup measured above. A loss of economic freedom impacts our realm and spectrum of life choices in other areas of our lives.
• A recent article by USA Today found that the American Dream, loosely defined, costs a typical family of four roughly $130,000 per year. 
• Given that the median US household income is only about $50,000, and declining, at least 50% of American households are probably making less than half of the income needed to live the “American Dream,” according to USA Today. 
• Living the “American Dream” used to be attainable by just about anyone in the country with the will to work hard to attain it. Maybe not so much any more. 
• The supposed economic recovery that followed the Great Recession and began in 2009 has been the weakest economic recovery since the Great Depression years of the 1930s and history tells us how depressing and bad those economic times were.

4) A recent article in the Against Crony Capitalism website, written by Nick Sorrentino reported on recent government data that found the weak and badly limping economy has resulted in only 47.7% of adult Americans working full time. Mr. Sorrentino put forth the following opinions and data:

• Loads of Americans people are just barely getting by economically.
• Americans are going into debt to buy food with more than 46 million Americans relying on government food assistance or ripping off the program. 
• With such a bad job situation, many Americans have tried to make a living off of government disability programs, with those programs seeing record applications.
• Workers’ overall wages have been declining in a serious way since 2008 when they are adjusted for inflation. 
• The average American household brings in 7% less in real terms than it did 6 years ago. 
• Many recent college graduates still can’t find jobs and those who do find jobs are often underemployed from either the number of working hours or working in jobs that do not require their college education.

As the number of people working at jobs they like and at wages they can live comfortably with continue to decline, at what point does the economy and society collapse? Since we have already crossed over the 50% threshold, i.e. there are more people not working than who are working, we may be closer to that default and collapse than we think. 

Things are bad and getting worse so ask yourself: do you really think that the fools in Washington, the very same people that got us into this fix with faulty economic policies and economic ignorance, have any chance of somehow miraculously getting smart and wise in our lifetimes? 

More "Bad" tomorrow followed by two days of "Ugly" so hold on.

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

November, 2012 Political Class Insanity, Part 3: More TSA Theft, Lost Money In DC Schools, Congress Getting Richer, And More

This is the final set of political class activities that the political class has imposed on us as we have identified over the past month or so. It is such a shame that we are cursed with a set of politicians that continually waste our wealth on inane programs and projects, waste valuable national resources through incompetent management of these same programs and projects, and erode our democracy with oppressive regulations. They incur all of this damage as they continue to focus more on their political careers and self enrichment. Pitiful.

The final set of insults we have identified from our politicians this month:

1) According to a Washington Post article that was summarized in the October 19, 2012 issue of The Week magazine, during years from 2007 to 2010 Americans’ median household net worth slipped down by 39%. However, the median net worth of all members of Congress increased almost 5% during the same time period.

Even more insulting, the median household income of the wealthiest one third of Congress saw their median net worth rise 14%. Well, at least some Americans are surviving and actually thriving quite well in these hard economic times. As always, our politicians take care of themselves first and leave the rest of us to fend for ourselves.

2) Despite a crushing national debt of over $16 TRILLION and growing, according to a blurb in the October 12, 2012 issue of The Week magazine, the Congressional Research Service found that 2,362 Americans legally collected unemployment benefits in 2009 despite residing in households with incomes of at least $1 million.

Unemployment benefit programs should be designed and implemented to provide short term to help those Americans who have lost their jobs and need financial assistance to get over their rough spot. If your household income is over $1 million, you have no chance of hitting a “rough spot” and should not be entitled to taxpayer wealth, period.

3) What’s is a political class insanity update without extensive TSA participation? According to an ABC news report, as highlighted in the October 12, 2012 issue of The Week magazine, a culture of theft exists throughout the TSA employee base. Pythias Brown, a convicted thief of airline passenger luggage items, said that he had stolen more than $800,000 worth of passenger valuables over just a four year period when he was a TSA employee.

He stated he was part of a culture that:

• Was really a massive “crime wave” which “preyed upon passenger luggage and personal belongings.”
• There was a culture of “indifference” within the TSA organization.
• There was lax oversight and extensive sharing of potential targets among crooked colleagues.
• His observation was that extensive theft was commonplace, not the exception, at TSA checkpoints.

Disgraceful behavior and culture that never seems to get any better even though this type of nonsense has been going on for years with no sustainable outrage or corrections form our political class.

4) According to a Reason magazine article form earlier this year, the American taxpayer via the Washington political class had given the Washington D.C. school district an extra $190 million for its school district. Unfortunately, a government audit found that no one n the D.C. school system was able to provide a credible accounting or paper trial of what actually happened to this extra money.

A General Accountability Office (GAO) audit found:

• The records of the expenditures of this money were incomplete or non-existent.
• The school district received $37.4 million for literacy improvement but the school district could not provide even basic information to describe the program’s objectives and goals or provide any outcomes as a result of the money.
• A grant of $85 million to expand charter schools was also unmonitored.
• The administration office of the school system could not even locate three of the seventeen files that the audit team wanted to review.

The head of the GAO was quoted in the article as saying: “They have longstanding problems,” when referring to the school district. You think? More waste, no accountability either within the school district, the Federal government entity that granted the money, or the Congressional committee responsible for overseeing the expenditures.

5) Prior to being elected, President Obama repeatedly condemned excessively long prison sentences, particularly in the cases of non-violent offenders, according to an article in the November, 2012 issue of reason magazine. Unfortunately, along with reducing the deficit, closing Guantanamo, not hiring lobbyists for his administration, etc., this seems to be another political campaign promise going unfulfilled since he was sworn into office the President has approve one sentence commutation out of 5,500 case that have been presented to him. So much for his campaign condemnation.

6) If it is any consolation, politicians and governments around the world have very similar problems to us, wasteful political class spending and high taxation. According to an article in the September 7, 2012 issue of The Week magazine, Sapo, the Swedish government’s spy agency, is trying to explain how it spent about $800,000 on a James Bond themed party for its staff.

The party included casino tables, a swing band, and extensive gourmet food spread. The only reason the secret and expensive party came to light was because of an accounting error. The head of the spy agency said that his staff had been under tremendous pressure and deserved a party. However, there is a difference between an office party and an $800,000 taxpayer-funded gala bash.

Enough insanity, waste, and lunacy for this month, it was a bad thirty days or so if you are a taxpayer or a citizen supposedly living in a democracy. This month’s political class antics continue to prove that at least the following three steps from “Love My Country,Loathe my Government” are needed to stop the pain and waste:

1. Step 34 would remove politicians from their political committees when they continue to allow the insanity and wasteful spending that we continually cover every month. The members of the committee or subcommittee that lost track of the $190 million that went down the drain at the D.C. school district should be removed form their post. EVERY politician that has any oversight for the disgraceful and corrupt TSA entity should have been removed from their committee posts long ago. Until the politicians overseeing these malfunctioning government actions are held accountable, nothing will improve.
2. Step 39 would impose term limit on all Federal politicians. These types of shenanigans and insanity have been going on for a very long time. Those politicians that have been along for this wasteful ride are now part of the problem since they have not been able or willing to fix these problems. They need to have their political careers terminated.
3. Step 44 would not allow any Federal taxpayer money to be spent on any project or program that did not substantially impact a substantial number of residences in at least five states. Federal money is for national programs and projects, not state and local ones. This would eliminate the earmarks and pontifical payback schemes that sacrifice taxpayer money for campaign election favors and funding.

I would like to say that this is the last post regarding political class insanity. Unfortunately, I am pretty sure we will be back in December with more of the same.

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.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blgspot.com/
http://www.flipcongres2010.com/
http://www.reason.com/
http://www.repealamendment/