July, 2018, Part 1, Political Class Insanity: Obama Still Screwing Taxpayers and Idiotic Analogies For Trump's Travel Ban

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

Let’s get started:

1) We have previously discussed the disgraceful reality of the Obama Presidential Library:

• While the George W. Bush library had the obscene price tag of about half a billion dollars, for which it was rightly and soundly criticized for, the Obama Presidential library is likely to cost around three times that much, or $1.5 billion.
• This for a Presidency that was a failure totally across the board with no redeeming, financial, economic, historical, foreign relations, or any other type of lasting positive impact.
• Alex Griswold of the Washington Free Beacon newspaper said the Obama Presidential library a “giant toenail.”
• A group of University of Chicago professors also gave a bad review: "This is a socially regressive plan . . . We also note that the Obama Center has abandoned its original plans to be a presidential library. It will be a private entity with no official connection to the National Archives." 
• Ron Grossman of the Chicago Tribune said: "To me, it evokes a soft-boiled egg in a teacup."
• To add to this disaster, it now appears that the library to be built in Chicago will not have any of Obama’s original documents, just copies of them. In other words, it will not be a library, more like a media center or museum to Obama himself.

The good news out of all of this is that no taxpayer, Federal, state, or local, was to pay for this center. Well, not directly. You see, the local and state politicians in Illinois and Chicago have agreed to spend almost a quarter billion dollars of taxpayer money to make road and other infrastructure improvements to the area to accommodate this Obama media center. Yes, a quarter billion dollars, almost half of what Bush spent on his whole library and people were outraged at that expense figure.

And given that the state and city pension funds are vastly underfunded, given that Chicago schools are a massive failure, and given the violence in Chicago from drug cartel gangs, one would think that this quarter of a billion dollars would be better spent on these pressing, humanitarian issues. Let Obama reduce his $1.5 billion monstrosity by a quarter billion dollars and fund those local costs himself. Yeah, not going to happen.

And this figure does not include the amount of parkland that will be confiscated to build the center, parkland that neighborhood residents strongly objected to losing within their urban environment. Thus, a lawsuit has been brought to prevent the parkland, officially called Jackson Park, one of the oldest parks in the city, to be stolen and given to the Obama project. 

Current laws on the books should prevent this confiscation and the eradication of the parkland. But we are talking about Chicago and Illinois politicians here, politicians more so than anywhere else in the country view existing laws as suggestions, not requirements. It should be interesting to see if the rule of law wins out or the rule of political favoritism wins out.

And it does not look like Obama has any sensitivity to the needs and wants of the local who are not only losing their parks but also may lose their homes, according to recent reporting by the American Liberty website: “Last month, the former president gave a talk in which he heard the concerns of local Chicago residents who feared the project would drive poor renters out of the neighborhood. Obama’s callow reply suggested that there would be more economic activity in the area, that the people there would “have more money,” so higher rents would not be a problem.

Obviously, Obama—like all liberals—has an inability to think on the individual level. It isn’t the current residents of the area who would have more money- it’s the people who replace them after the gentrification of the area.”

As usual, want to bet that the political desires outweigh the humanity needs at the end?

2) Before we move on to the next set of political class insanity, let’s review some background information:

• ISIS “soldier” Sayfullo Salpov murdered eight Americans in NYC late last year when he drove a truck down a bike path.
• During his trial he ridiculed the U.S. and our way of life: “The judgments that are made here are not important for me. They are not Allah’s judgments. The Islamic State [ISIS], in order to impose sharia on Earth, is leading a war.”
• Obama authorized U.S. bombing raids on seven countries in six years, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen and Libya, all Muslim countries.
• In 2016 alone, Obama allowed over 20,000 bombs to be dropped on these Muslim countries, killing lord knows how many Muslim adults and kids in their home countries.
• The Bureau Of Investigative Journalism estimates that Obama launched almost 400 drone strikes in five years across Pakistan, Yemen,and Somalia, again, all Muslim countries.
• This total number of Obama strikes is eight times as many that Bush approved.
• Jane Stein,Green Party candidate for President in 2016, agreed that the Obama administration had attack seven different Muslim countries: "They don’t have a solution to the expanding wars except more wars. We are already bombing seven countries and now we do appear to be engaging in this war crime in Yemen where we have been partnering with the Saudis in this war crime for the past year. They do not want to talk about that."
• Fact checking organization, Politifact, found that Bush bombed four countries while Obama bombed seven, Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, Libya and Syria, all Muslim countries.

The bottom line to all of the above facts is that Bush bombed Muslim countries and Obama bombed a lot more Muslim countries. Which brings us to a second set of facts:

• According to the New York Times, Trump finally got his travel ban approved by the Supreme Court so that the Federal government can TEMPORARILY restrict entrance to this country from seven nations that Trump has felt would expose Americans to terrorism and violence.
• Those countries include Syria, Iran, Yemen, North Korea, Venezuela, Libya, and Somalia.
• As you can see this list includes many of the same countries that Obama bombed incessantly over his term, PERMANENTLY killing a lot of Muslim adults and kids: Syria, Yemen, Somalia, and Libya.
• These four Muslim countries plus Iran include about 143 million Muslims which represent only about 8% of Muslims wordwide and only 10% of the nations that are predominantly Muslim.
• In other words, Trump’s travel ban is not against all Muslims and all Muslim countries, it is not even against a significant minority of Muslims and Muslim nations. 

Okay, we go through all of this to get to two of the latest idiotic statements from two Washington politicians. Congressman Joaquin Castro of Texas feels that Trump’s travel ban is “the closest that we’ve come” to the Chinese Exclusion Act: “[A]s I looked at it, as it was being developed, and even as the decision was announced today, I couldn’t help but think that this is the closest that we’ve come to the Chinese Exclusion Act, which kept Chinese from coming to this country for about 60 years, until, in the early 1940s, the Congress had to pass a law to overturn that. This, in a sense, is Donald Trump’s Chinese Exclusion Act.”

No Congressman, this is not even close. The Chinese travel ban excluded ALL Chinese, Trump’s travel ban temporarily inconveniences some people who are coming from very dangerous places. Iran’s government has publicly called for the destruction of the United States, why would we want to take the chance of letting Iranian elements into this country until that threat is neutralized? Libya and Syria are overrun with Islamic extremist terrorists who have also publicly stated their goal of overthrowing the U.S. and killing as many Americans as possible. And again, we are talking about a small minority of countries and a small minority of Muslims, get over this stupid and inane comparison.

But the idiocy does not stop with this member of Congress. Congressman Keith Ellison took this a step further and compared the travel ban to slavery, belittling the whole concept and the suffering of African Americans in the process relative to slavery: “Let me tell you this, Our country has gone through some ugly days. I mean, the Supreme Court in 1850 said it was okay to own a black person. That’s the Dred Scott decision . That decision hit the dustbin of history, so did Plessy v. Ferguson, so did Korematsu. I’m telling you, discrimination and racism will never win in the end. So we’re just — we’re fired up and pushing forward.”

He continues on to show his ignorance: “It is not within the president’s authority to discrimination on the basis of religion.” The travel ban has nothing to do with religion. Yes, the ban affects a number of countries that have a Muslim majority. But the ban excludes people of other religions from those countries from TEMPORARILY coming here. Plus, no one can come close to claiming that North Korea is a Muslim nation as is Venezuela. 

To claim that this travel ban, recently approved by the Supreme Court is comparable to the Chinese Exclusion Act or American slavery does a disservice to history and the competence of those making the comparisons. This is nothing more than political posturing and empty rhetoric, completely ignorant of facts. 

And by the way, both of these Democrats ignore the reality that Obama PERMANENTLY killed untold numbers of Muslims in the countries that Trump wants to TEMPORARILY slap travel bans on, killing or maiming no one in the process. That is the height of hypocrisy.

That will do it for today’s insanity: taxpayers still getting screwed by politicians and politicians making silly, stupid analogies ignorant of the reality and truth of which they distort. More insanity 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:

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

May, 2017, Part 7, Political Class Insanity: Bad Chicago Priorities and The Height Hypocrisy In California

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.

Today and for all of the insanity posts this month, let’s start off with a welcome piece of honest political dialog. It comes from a State Department spokesperson. Mark Toner, who is about to start the daily State Department press briefing. In a joking matter, he makes the following quote: "Welcome to the State Department. I think we have some interns in the back. Welcome. Good to see you in this exercise in transparency and democracy."

He then burst out laughing at his own quote, indicating he also knew what a joke the Obama administration has been, especially Mr. Toner’s State Department, when it comes to cover ups, lack of transparency, denial of Freedom of Information Act requests, the prosecution of whistleblowers, etc. But at least it was a little refreshing to finally hear some actual honesty out of Washington as we see from the actual clip of the news conference:

http://www.againstcronycapitalism.org/2016/08/when-even-the-state-department-spokesperson-cant-keep-a-straight-face-about-things-anymore-video/

With that context of honesty, let’s see what other insanity has been going down:

1) Political class insanity is not restricted to Washington politicians. Local politicians can also be insane, idiotic, and have wacked out priorities. Such is the case in Chicago and their mayor, Rahm Emanuel. 

Apparently, several pages were recently removed from the EPA’s website that were related to climate change. This is obviously the prerogative of the Trump administration after their election victory last year and the fact that many, many Americans, including myself, are global warming doubters and believers in science. We do want to have unproven theories shoved down our throat when those that advocate for manmade global warming and climate change only consider science, research, and statistics that favor their position, ignoring all information and science to the contrary.

But according to a recent report on the Independent Journal Review website written by Mike Miller, the good mayor of Chicago took it upon himself to resurrect those deleted website pages of the EPA website and reinstate them on the Chicago city website. Now, this is certainly his prerogative to do so, being elected by the good people of Chicago but one has to question his priorities. Given the horrendous crime and violence conditions in his city, shouldn’t the good mayor be focused on the day to day conditions that affect his citizens that he is supposed to represent rather than spending time and city resources on a climate theory that gets weaker and weaker as more and more science shows that massive man made global warming and climate change is closer to a myth than a reality? 

The reaction to this misplaced set of priorities was swift and ruthless onTwitter: 

• Vinnie Nilsen reminded Emanuel that in 2016 that Chicago had 3,550 shootings, 4,331 shooting victims, and 726 murders and that “2017 isn’t looking any better.”
• ABC News in Chicago reminded the mayor that in April, 2017 alone there were 45 killed in Chicago.
• The Chicago Sun Times reminded the mayor that 4 residents were killed and 17 wounded during just a single recent weekend.
• “Jack” reminded the mayor that there have been over 200 murders in Chicago already this year.
• Actor James Woods sarcastically asked if the new climate change web pages were listed before the Chicago murder rate page?
• Duckwacker also got sarcastic and claimed that people are killed by global warming in Chicago every day.
• Chuck Flynn suggested that “Maybe Rahm should change the climate of The Southside of Chicago. Maybe he'd see a reduction in murders.”
• According to the Hey Jackass website, in a recent weekend 38 Chicago residents were shot, three were killed and as of the first week in May, the year-to-date carnage has been 195 people killed and 907 wounded in the city.

Does anyone really think that the majority of Chicago residents, if asked, would approve of the mayor using his time and city resources worrying about global warming and climate change when they themselves and their kids are in such mortal danger every single day of their lives? This is nothing more than the rearranging of the chairs on the Titanic syndrome. The mayor is in his second term and if anything, the murder rate, crime, and violence has gotten worse as his administration has progressed.

Obviously, he has no clue on how to fix the real, immediate problems of the city so he wastes his time and attention span on a silly website and climate statement, actions that will not protect the next set of hundreds of Chicago residents that will die at the hand of gun violence in the remainder of the year. In this case, the political class insanity is fatal and dangerous for an entire city of people.

2) Let’s move from local political class insanity to state level political class insanity in California. It is no secret that the current governor and most of the current state politicians in California are so upset because Trump is enforcing existing immigration laws relative to illegal immigrants, a group of people that California politicians seem to idolize and coddle, often at the expense of the welfare and taxpayer dollars of tax paying California residents.

They certainly object to the fact that Trump promised to build a wall to restrict illegal immigration, and a lot of the crime that comes with it, and putting in place temporary travel bans on people traveling from a few terrorist infected countries, ticking off the California political class to no end. As with Rahm Emanuel in Chicago, that is certainly the prerogative of California politicians since they are duly elected representatives of the citizens of that state.

But consider what the governor and others in California are doing against their own citizens and then try to convince me that they are not hypocrites, taking the same type of actions that Trump is taking but perpetrating them on their own citizens and Americans:

• According to a recent article on the American Daily Patriot website, California is imposing its own travel ban on its own citizens.
• According to Samantha Roberts, writing on May 1, 2017, a new state law bans universities from sending students to states that oppose gay rights including California university students who travel to such states to present their research or participate in athletic contests.
• Specifically, “The athletes have been told not to be too excited about competitions with teams from states like Kansas, Tennessee or North Carolina.”
• The law applies to all California university students and staff regardless of their personalities or beliefs on gay rights.
• “The LA Times reported that the new the new California law bans state-funded travel specifically to any state that the California attorney general lists as discriminating against the LGBT community.”
• The law, for instance, has already scuttled the plans for the UC Berkeley and University of Kansas men's basketball teams to meet in a series of basketball games in future seasons.

Insanity? Has does punishing current California students and faculty in academics and athletics open up adult, mature conversations about the issues of our times? Do California politicians actually think that other states are going to change their laws and attitudes because a California professor cannot present his findings and research or an athletic team is banned from traveling to that state? 

How is this not the height of hypocrisy, complaining about a temporary travel ban that Trump might place on the travel of non-citizens from a few countries that have known terrorist ties to a permanent law that bans innocent Americans from enriching themselves and others with travels to other states simply because those states and the residents of those states have a different opinion that an California politicians? 

Disgusting and repugnant to affect innocent researchers, professors, and student athletes in a futile attempt to be holier than thou.

That will do it for today’s insanity but we still have a lot more to get through for this month’s dose of insanity over the next week or so so stay tuned.

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