When Did The Term "Racist" Turn Into A Political Election Tactic?

I had always thought that being a racist was a bad thing. The website, http://www.dictionary.com/ defines a racist as someone who expresses "hatred or intolerance of another race or races." In my understanding, a racist considered a certain set of people to ALL have the same negative or undesirable characteristics, without exception. Hate, intolerance, stereotyping some people as being all the same without considering, respecting, and celebrating the individual, all very nasty stuff.

But now I am not so sure my understanding of what constitutes a racist is correct any more. These days, it seems you are a racist by simply disagreeing with someone, especially if you disagree with a politician. Consider the following examples:

• In early April, 2010, New York Congressman Charles Rangel, during the debate leading up to the passing of Obama's health care reform legislation, said: "The group that were in Washington fighting against the health bill and fighting against the President, they looked just like and sounded just like those groups that attacked the civil rights movement in the South."
• Around the same time, also in relation to the opposition to Obama's health care legislation, Texas Congresswoman Shelia Jackson Lee said: "All those who wore sheets a long time ago lifted them off to wear tea party clothing." (an obvious reference to the virulent racism exhibited by the Ku Klux Klan)
• According to an Orlando Sentinel online article, Florida Congressman Alan Grayson recently said on a radio show that: "These are people who were wearing sheets over their heads 25 years ago." (another reference to the Klan and in response to the questioner stating that those attending the Glen Beck rally were" mostly old, white, mostly McCain-Palin leftovers.")
• When Arizona passed its illegal immigration law in the spring, there were numerous accusations that those supporting the toughened enforcement requirements of the law were racists and against Latinos.
• Just this past week, there were two dueling rallies in southern Manhattan, one supporting the construction of the Muslim mosque on the current site and one calling for it to be moved some distance away from the Ground Zero 9-11 site. The Associated Press article covering the events quoted one of the people at the rally supporting the mosque at the current site. In her opinion, those against building the mosque on its current site were racists.

So let me see if I get this right. In this new world:

• You are a racist if you honestly disagree with the passing of a piece of legislation such as Obama Care even though you have serious doubts of whether it will work or not since it never addressed the underlying core problems of rising health care costs, it is becoming even more obvious that it will increase the Federal deficit, and it will criminalize millions of Americans if they do not purchase health care insurance as mandated by the political class. In this case, you can be a racist without expressing hate or intolerance of another race or races, you just have to disagree with a piece of legislation.
• You are a racist if you attend a political rally whose ideals and principles are in conflict with a politicians' view of the world. In this case, you can be a racist without expressing hate or intolerance of another race or races, you just have to attend the "wrong" political rally.
• You are a racist if you are old or if you are white. Not only did the talk show host above make this insinuation, but many on the left side of main stream media have made that same assertion. In this case, you can be a racist without expressing hatred or intolerance of another race or races, you just have to be light skinned and a senior citizen.
• You are a racist if you are concerned about the human trafficking and drug smuggling going on across the Mexico border with the U.S. and the potential for violence and crime that comes with it. In this case, you can be a racist without expressing hatred and intolerance of another race or races, you just have to be concerned about your safety and the safety of your family from illegal immigration.
• You are a racist if you are against a state law that is trying to protect the safety of its citizens in light of the inability of the Federal government to both control illegal immigration or come up with a coherent, rational immigration plan. In this case, you can be a racist without expressing hatred and intolerance of another race or races, you just have to object that the Federal government is not doing its job in the illegal immigration arena.
• You are a racist if you are a relative of someone who died in the 9-11 attacks and have asked for a little compassion and understanding that building the mosque close to Ground Zero would be very difficult for these relatives to cope with, given what they experienced on that Tuesday nine years ago and would appreciate it if the mosque was moved a little further away. In this case you can be a racist without expressing hatred and intolerance of another race or races, you just have to ask for a little compassion and understanding of what Ground Zero means to you personally.

Wow, I think I got it now. Objecting to government policy, attending a political rally, being old, being light skinned, and asking for some compassion now make you a racist. My, how the world has changed.

Dr. Martin Luther King would be so out of place today. He thought, as did I, that a racist actually was an individual that displayed irrational hate and intolerance of another race or races, that a racist stereotyped all members of a race as having the same negative traits, that a racist could never view an individual for their personal traits and assets. Back in 1963, Dr. King said: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will be judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." Dr. King felt that once content of character was the only judgment of an individual, we would emerge from the abyss of racism.

Today's politicians would disagree with Dr. King. We have allowed our politicians to define anyone or any group of Americans as racists who disagree with their view of the world. Consider some more words from Dr. King's speech and how far we have strayed from his advice by naming anyone with a different opinion as a racist: "In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline." Our current politicians do not drink from the mere cup of bitterness and hatred, they drink directly from the keg of bitterness and hatred. If any of them achieved a high plane of dignity and discipline, most would probably faint from attaining such lofty principles for the first time in their political lives.

Why do politicians act like this, using whatever despicable descriptions and accusations they can to divide America along racial, religious, political, sexual orientation, wealth, and other demarcation lines? They do it to get elected over and over, without concern as to what it is doing to the fabric of the country. It is more important to "energize their base" then it is to solve the problems facing the country. If the other side gets branded as a racists, that's fine, as long as they get elected. There is no dignity, there is no discipline, only the breeding of hatred and intolerance, which really makes them the present day racists, not the American citizens honestly voicing their concerns on issues that affect them and their families.

Before closing out, please take the following quiz to test your ability to identify the racist:

Who stated that President Obama was "a light skinned African American...with no Negro dialect unless he wanted to have one." Was it:

a) Sarah Palin
b) Rush Limbaugh
c) Sean Hannity
d) Glen Beck
e) Bill O'Reilly
f) None of the above.

If you selected f), you are correct. The statement was actually made by Nevada Democratic Senator Harry Reid. Talk about a racist comment, attributing a man's skin color and his way of speaking to his race. Thus, the people we have in office even stoop so low to degrade and debase their fellow politicians along racial lines, imagine what they think of those that have a different opinion from their positions.

There is only one way to get out of this rut and elevate the political discussion to the levels Dr. King pined for back in the 1960s. Come November, all incumbents must go and be replaced with individuals that celebrate diversity, recognize the individual, and will focus on solving our problems and not "energizing their bases." Longer term, we must institute Step 39 from "Love My Country, Loathe My Government," a step that would institute term limits on all Federal politicians. Only then will be able to return the word racists to its former despicable place in the world and remove it as an election and campaign tactic.


Our new 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.

Also visit the following sites for freedom:

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

Politicians' Deficient Math Skills - Ignorance or Arrogance?

I often wondered if politicians are really that ignorant and deficient when it comes to math skills or are they really good at math but arrogant enough to think that they can tell us anything, math wise, and we are too deficient to understand the math lies we are being told. Consider the following examples and then you decide, ignorant or arrogant:

• It seems forever that politicians have been telling us what a great financial idea the Social Security program is and why it is stupid to allow mere mortal citizens to handle their retirement affairs by, gasp, investing their retirement funds in the stock market. Well, I did a little math work in this area and put together some elementary math models to determine if this myth was true. I got my historical Social Security salary history from the Social Security Administration, I researched the historical Social Security tax rates which enabled me to compute how much money was sent to the government for my retirement based on my wages, I found the historical S&P 500 annual returns for the stock market over the years, and put all of these numbers into a simple spreadsheet. The basic assumption of the model is that I would have been allowed many decades ago to keep all of that money that was being sent to the government (and political class) and invested it in an S&P 500 taxfree/IRA-like, low fee mutual fund. The results indicated that if the world had been like my spreadsheet, I would have been able to retire with a monthly check that was about two and half times what I will get from the Social Security Administration. This estimates takes into account the drastic reduction in stock market values from the "Great Recession." If I had played it more conservatively and invested in one year Treasury notes over that time I would have been able to retire with 50% more that what I will get from Social Security. Thus, I am tired of the political class telling me how great their program is and how dangerous it would have been if I had managed my retirement wealth, the math proves them wrong.
• Of course, we have constantly heard how the Obama stimulus package saved the economy and how many jobs it saved and created. Forget the fact, that unemployment is much higher than anyone in the Obama administration said it would be if the stimulus package was passed, let's do some simple math using only the administration's numbers. In a series of articles in late October, 2009, the Associated Press took a look at what effect the stimulus package was having. At that time, the Obama administration was claiming that 650,000 jobs had been created or saved. The AP and Reason magazine were relatively close in their estimates of how much of the stimulus package had been spent up to that point, about $180 billion. If you do the simple math of dividing the number of jobs created and saved, Obama's own numbers, and divide that into how much was spent to create and save them, you come out to about $277,000 per job. You cannot solve a recession when your policies cost over a quarter million per job. Didn't anyone do the math at the White House, these are not good numbers.
• Forget math, how about basic counting skills. The 650,000 jobs at that time should have been considered a best case estimate. Subsequent Associated Press reports found that in many, many cases, jobs saved/created were double counted, in some cases stimulus money was given to people as raises but those people were counted as saved jobs, and it the best example of bad math skills, a Georgia day care center said its stimulus money saved 129 jobs - that is one big day care center. If the political class cannot even count, how can we expect them to fix anything and fix it efficiently and with integrity?
• Back to math skills. The Obama administration has claimed from day one that it must incur large spending deficits and higher national debt in order to drag the country out of the recession. So far, results have certainly been lack luster with high unemployment persisting and GDP down to less than 2% a year. Apparently, no one in the administration took a look at what happened to the economy during the 1940s or if they did, they did not understand the math of the U.S. economy during that time. Between 1945 and 1948, the budget of the Federal government shrank by almost 68%, unemployment never got above 4% and the size of the U.S. economy grew by almost 21%. These are official U.S. Government figures. These good economic things happened despite the fact that over ten million Americans came home from the war and assimilated into the domestic U.S. economy. Thus, relative to the 1940s, the Obama administration is doing the exact opposite of everything that worked to transition the U.S. economy from a war time footing to a peace time economy. Just look at the math.
• In the first two years of the Obama administration, 2009 and 2010, and likely for 2011 also, his administration will incur a Federal deficit in these three years of over four TRILLION dollars, running an annual deficit of between $1.4 and $1.5 TRILLION. Now for the silly math. The President has this irrational obsession of raising the taxes on those Americans that make more than $250,000 a year by 4%, the levels before the Bush tax cuts, insistently saying that these people need to pay more in taxes to get the deficit under control. Good math or silly math? I went to the IRS website where I was able to get the official income levels by income bands for 2008. Using some simple, elementary math, I was able to construct a spreadsheet model that accurately predicts what the incremental tax hike would generate in additional taxes and the impact it would have on the deficit. The result is less than Mr. Obama would have you believe. The math shows that raising the taxes on these American would generate an additional $70 billion a year in tax revenue, or reduce the annual Federal deficit by a whopping 5%. The math just does not support Obama's deficit reduction assertion: ignorance of the math or arrogant in his assumptions that we are too dumb to figure it out? The problem with the deficit is that this administration spends too much, not that the rich are not taxed enough. [Note: this $70 billion estimate is a solid estimate, at least in the government's mind. According to a recent Associated Press article, Congressional analysts estimate that that the incremental amount of tax revenue from raising taxes on the rich would be about $700 billion over the next decade or... $70 billion a year, our estimate.]
• Another Federal deficit/tax the rich exercise. About six months ago, Fortune magazine estimated the total wealth, not the income, of the richest 400 Americans. If you added up their total wealth, you found that the richest 400 Americans were worth just under $3 TRILLION. Thus, if the government could somehow confiscate the wealth of these richest Americans as a one time tax levy, their total wealth would not even cover the Federal budget deficit that Obama will ring up during just his first two years in office, never mind the deficit already in place or predicted for the future. Do the math, you cannot tax the rich enough to eliminate the deficit even if you took everything they owned, the math just does not work. Given that the rich pay the vast amount of the government's budget anyway, once you took their wealth, you would still have to raise taxes on everyone else to cover the shortfall from the rich who are unlikely to try and become rich again if the government is just going to take it. The Federal deficit is a spending problem, not a government income problem, the math does not lie.
• More about deficit spending math. An Associated Press article form September 13, 2010, quoted Congressional analysts' estimates that if the Bush tax credits were allowed to expire for ALL Americans, an additional $400 billion a year would flow to the Federal government. However, even if everyone paid more in taxes, we would still be a TRILLION short relative to the Obama administration's annual spending history and plans. Thus, even this math proves we have a spending problem, not a taxing and income problem.
• Earlier this year, the President publicly claimed that for every dollar the government spent on pre-school education, the country gets back $10 in value. I wondered at the time how anyone could come up with that kind of math calculating how a dollar spent today will turn into $10 worth of benefit decades later. Before I went too crazy trying to figure out that math, the President's own HHS Cabinet Secretary released a report that showed the benefits from the Headstart pre-school program and other similar Federal programs had no lasting effect at all on the children involved with the programs. Thus, the 10-to-1 ratio the President talked about was obviously faulty or deliberately deceiving math. In either case, the administration's own people proved his math to be wrong.
• Talk about ridiculous math, consider a September 12, 2010 Associated Press article about the earthquake clean up process going on in Haiti. According to the article, the United States has spent $98.5 million of U.S. taxpayer money to clear out 1.2 million cubic yards of ruble. Now, to the math deficient, 1.2 million yards seems like a lot. To the math capable, if you divide the cost ($98.5 million) by the amount of rubble removed (1.2 million cubic yards) you quickly find out that the American taxpayer spent about $82 to move each cubic yard of rubble, or about $3 to move each cubic foot. Two shovelfuls would probably move a cubic foot, how in the world does it cost us $3 to do that? Just do the math.
• One last tax the rich scenario. The President recently tried to sell his tax the rich (those making over $250,000 a year) by claiming that if you allow these Americans to keep their earning they will not spend it and stimulate the economy. The example he gave is that Warren Buffet will not spend his saved taxes and stimulate the economy. But from a math perspective, how many Warren Buffets are there in the country? This is a pathetic example of politicians demonizing a group of Americans, which in this case really do not even exist. 76% of the taxpayers that would be affected by the Obama "tax the rich by 4% more plan" make less than $500,000 a year, hardly Warren Buffet territory. On average, these Americans will retain just $5,000 more in taxes if the Bush tax cuts are kept in place. They are likely to spend it and stimulate the economy if allowed to keep it. 91% of the people affected make less than a million dollars a year, again, hardly Warren Buffet territory. And finally, if you look at the 2008 IRS data, only about 630,000 Americans made over a million dollars that year. If you do the math and divide these 630,000 tax filers with the number of U.S.households, about 115 million, you find that the people most affected by the Obama obsession is about .5% of the country. Contrary to Mr. Obama's position, the math shows that you cannot balance the budget on about .5% of the population.

Getting back to the original question. are politicians that deficient in math that they cannot see what their policies and programs are really worth or are they so arrogant that they know their programs do not work but assume we are too ignorant to understand the basic math of their reality? When you think about it, it does not matter. By denying the reality of the math, the political class continues to under serve or misserve the country with programs that are incoherent with the reality of our times, as defined by simple math concepts.

Until we can elect competent math people for Washington, we will continue to be fed lies and wrong information which is no way to run any entity, especially one that controls what happens to our tax dollars. Two steps from "Love My Country, Loathe My government" come into play here. First, Step 1 would reduce the size of the Federal government by 10% a year for the next five years. Given that the political class does not know how to accurately count or does not want to accurately count how our tax dollars are spent, the only real solution is to give them less tax dollars to deal with. Step 39 would institute term limits, preventing the currently math deficient political class from staying in office longer than necessary.

Mark Twain popularized the saying: "there are lies, damn lies and statistics." If that was updated for our current day government it would probably read like: "there are lies, damn lies and politicians." In any case, keeping our current politicians in office does not add up.

Our new 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.

Also visit the following sites for freedom:

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

What Good Is Your Blackberry, Mr. President, If You Never Use It?

Just days after becoming President, I recall a picture of President Obama at the White House, using his Blackberry smart phone. The accompanying article swooned over how tech savvy this President was. Great, but it seems that the President rarely uses his Blackberry when it comes to governing and, more importantly, leadership. How much different would life be if he had picked up his Blackberry and made the following calls:

• Several months ago, a flotilla of ships headed for the Gaza Strip from Turkish ports, supposedly carrying only non-military, humanitarian cargo to relieve the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza. This flotilla would be in violation of the naval blockade that Israel has imposed on the Gaza Strip and had all of the potential for an ugly confrontation. And this is exactly what happened, Israeli ships and commandos attempted to stop the flotilla and violence erupted, resulting in numerous deaths. I would have hoped that the President would have made a few calls on his Blackberry (or whatever the President uses to call foreign leaders) to the leaders of both Israel and Turkey and tried to personally work out some way for the non-military goods to reach those in need and avoid a fatal confrontation. Apparently those calls were never made and many people lost their lives as a result.
• As most of you know, there is a highly volatile debate going on in New York City about whether or not a Muslim mosque should be allowed to be built in the same neighborhood of the World Trade Center footprint. Some Americans who had lost loved ones on September 11, 2001 felt that since they had lost their loved ones because of attacks by Muslim radicals that it would be better and more sensitive to their feelings if the mosque was moved a little further away from Ground Zero, even though the mosque supporters were well within their rights to build where they want to build. If he had any foresight, the President could have made a few calls and tried to mediate a viable solution before the entire matter got politicized. He did not make that call and now the debate rages on and extends into areas (e.g. freedom of religion) that never should have been reached to begin with. In fact, the President added to the firestorm by throwing a verbal grenade into the issue at a dinner he was speaking at and then spent the following few days trying to put the grenade back together. He reached out and conducted the "beer summit" to smooth over hurt feelings between one of his friends and a Boston area policeman, why not take the initiative early on, make a few calls, and smooth over hurt feelings in this case? It's called leadership and his Blackberry would have served him well in this regard.
• Now we have a small time, small town, and small minded minister in Florida that has been threatening to burn copies of the Quran on the anniversary of 9-11 to protest the Muslim religion. Rightly so, just about everyone in public office, both Democrats and Republicans, find this concept repugnant and are worried how it will affect the safety of our troops and ordinary American citizens overseas. Although this minister has the freedom to do this under the Constitution, shouldn't the President gotten on his Blackberry and maybe made a call to this gentleman and appraise him of the danger he could be causing and ask him to stop the burning? He made the call when his friend got entangled with a police matter, a matter that affected very few people? Why could he not make a call on a matter that has world wide repercussions? The press crucified Bush when he refused to talk to Cindy Sheehan, whose son was killed in fighting in Iraq. By not talking to this minister on this critical matter, Obama looks just like Bush on Sheehan, make the call, have the discussion. [On a side note, what does it say about the country's foreign policy when a small time minister in Florida can come up with a screw ball stunt like this and possibly upset the entire foreign policy strategy?]
• When Charles Rangel likened Americans opposed to Obama Care to the racists who opposed the civil rights movement of the 1960s or when a Texas Congresswoman did the same analogy or when Florida Congressman Grayson likened those Americans opposed to Obama's policies to terrorists, knuckle dragging Neanderthals in white sheets or when Pelosi called those opposed to Obama Care as being unpatriotic or when one of his czars called Republicans a__h___ s, the President, in my opinion, should have whipped out that Blackberry and told all of these Democrats to knock it off for a few reasons. First, he is the President of the entire country and allowing Americans citizens to be called these degrading names for expressing their opinions serves no constructive purpose and further divides the country. Second, from a political strength perspective, he has weakened himself since you cannot allow citizens to be called racist, Neanderthal, unpatriotic, white sheet wearing a__h___s and expect those same people to take you seriously on anything going forward. He should have made a few calls and told these people to cool the wild rhetoric, for the good of the country and the good of his Presidency. Alas, it does not appear any of these called were ever made.
• When the BP oil rig blew up in the spring, the President should have burned up that Blackberry on both domestic and overseas calls. Domestically, he should have made a call to every domestic oil industry company and immediately called them together in a search for the best ideas for stopping the runaway well. Overseas calls should have included calls to foreign governments and foreign companies that had any kind of expertise that we could have used to stop the well. It does not appear any of those calls were made since it took months and months to cap the darn well. We also now know that some foreign entities did offer their help only to have their calls symbolically not returned.

Imagine if the President had made those calls and how much better the world might be today. Humanitarian aid might be reaching the Gaza Strip in the absence of any deaths, Israel and Turkey might be on better speaking terms if they were brought together to work on a peaceful flotilla, we might be talking about the opening of the NFL season rather than a religious book burning or a controversial mosque in NYC, Obama's foreign policy relative to the Muslim world might still be intact rather than in imminent danger, the President might be governing a more united country if he had reigned in the name calling of ordinary American citizens, and the Gulf and the Gulf states might have incurred far less damage than they did from the BP well. Technology, no matter how up-to-date does not matter if you do not use it, Mr. President.



Our new 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.

Also visit the following sites for freedom:

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

Just When You Thought It Was Safe To Go Back Into The Water... Another Czar Shows Up

On what I thought would be a slow blog day, the Obama administration comes to the rescue again, this time in the wonderful world of Obama's Czar world. Just when you thought we had gone to the most outrageous extremes relative to assigning White House Czars, the administration does itself one better: it recently announced the appointment of a so-called "fish Czar" to battle the bighead and silver carp that are threatening to enter the Great Lakes. Yes, we now have an official government entity focused solely (get it, sole, a fish?) on two invasive species of carp fish.

Before we throw our line into this story, let me make a few comments. I do not mean to belittle or minimize the problem of these invasive species of carp. They have been heading up the Mississippi for many, many years and have left a path of destruction in their wake. They can grow to over a hundred pounds, they crowd out native species, they can destroy the local ecosystem, they are difficult to catch, and they can be dangerous to boaters, given their ability to jump high out of the water at the sound of an approaching motor boat. Most experts expect a serious ecological problem if they are successful in establishing themselves in the Great Lakes. Thus, I am not trying to minimize the magnitude of the problem, it is a problem that must be dealt with.

However, it is the way that this government and political class are dealing with it that is a major concern. The creation of another department within this administration, and the budget and resources that goes with it raises a number of troubling issues:

• Shouldn't, and couldn't, this matter been handled by experts in the Federal government's Interior Department? One would think that this is their responsibility, especially since they have a bureau within the Department titled Bureau of Fish and Wildlife? If they are not up to the task and this inability caused additional resources and taxpayer money to be expended and a new czar department to be created, shouldn't the people that operate these related parts of the Interior Department be fired for incompetence?
• Shouldn't, and couldn't, this matter been handled by an existing czar, the Great Lakes Czar? If the concern is that the invasive species will cause great damage to the Great Lakes, who better to handle the problem than Obama's Great Lakes Czar? What else could this czar be working on that is so important that we had to create another czar department focused on the same bodies of water? If the Great Lakes czar and his staff are not up to the task, then they need to be fired for incompetence.
• Shouldn't, and couldn't, this matter been handled by the EPA since we are talking about environmental protection of the Great Lakes? If you go to the EPA's website, you see that this organization has been working on this issue for over ten years. Could it be that they have no clue on how to fix the problem, given what little success they have had over the past decade? Maybe they should be fired for incompetence?
• Given that the Federal government and several state governments have been working on this issue for a very long time, why was this czar appointed now, many, many months after the original czars were appointed? Could it have something to do with a lawsuit against the Army Corp. of Engineers and a water agency in the Chicago city government by the state of Michigan? Given that Obama has shown himself to be mostly a political animal rather than a national leader, one cannot help but think the appointment at this point in time has something to do with bailing out the Federal government (Corp. Of Engineers) and his friends back in his home city of Chicago from this state government lawsuit and his little to do with the invasive species problem.
• What will be different once this new czar is in place? Other attempts to slow down the spread of these fish by the government have been ineffective, whether it has been trying to electrocute them or poison them. In fact, in a well documented story, one attempt to poison the carp resulted in thousands of native fish being killed and one, yes one, carp being killed. It is unclear what this newly appointed czar will bring to the table that some other Federal bureaucrat cannot bring to the table. The only good news in this area is that the gentleman appointed appears to have good credentials for the job, it was not like Obama appointed someone who had no experience or talent for the assignment.

The whole thing sounds fishy to me. Why yet another czar (an appointment that, of course, bypasses the Constitutional responsibility of Congress to review high ranking people in the executive branch and thus, undermining the Constitution), why haven't Federal employees in the EPA, Interior Department, or the Great Lakes Czar office been fired for incompetence if another czar had to be named and why now? As with everything else, this administration does not have any strategic and overall plans for anything. It seems they just dash from problem to problem, naming czars or implementing unrelated tactics, hoping something will work. Well, hoping is not a strategy, and just because the political class has taken action, does not mean that anything will get done. We have covered many instances where laws and programs were passed or instituted but never actually solved the core problem (see a recent post, "Bad Laws Behaving Badly" for a detailed set of examples).

Step 34 from "Love My Country, Loathe My Government" might be a worthwhile step to have had in place in this situation. Step 34 would remove all politicians from Congressional committee posts for not performing up to a minimum standard of performance. Since this problem has been around for over a decade, those Congressional members sitting on the committees responsible for this matter should have been removed from those posts. If you cannot solve a problem like this in ten years, it is unlikely you will ever solve it. Thus, you should be removed and give someone else a chance to fix the invasive fish problem. It's called accountability and should apply to politicians and federal employees alike who have failed us in this matter.

My prediction: you can kiss the Great Lakes ecosystem good bye. The courts are involved, overlapping Federal jurisdictions and departments are involved, and after many, many years, the fish are still winning and getting might close to the Great Lakes. There is no plan for fighting this battle. If there was, I would have thought it would already be in place and working, it is not like this problem just popped up yesterday.

Again, I am not trying to minimize the magnitude of the threat, it appears to be a genuine one. However, attacking the problem like the politicians attack and fail at all other problems, great amount of fanfare at the onset, followed by bureaucratic bungling immediately afterward with no accountability for results, gives me little hope that this battle will be won. As with most government programs, everyone is in charge (EPA, Army Corp. Of Engineers, Interior Department, Great Lakes Czar, Fish Czar, state governments) but no one will be held responsible for failed results. That's where I net out.



Our new 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.

Also visit the following sites for freedom:

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