Political Class Insanity - December, 2011, Part 2

Yesterday we reviewed the latest insanity, idiocy and wastefulness recently perpetrated on us by the American political class. Unfortunately, so much of their antics have occurred recently that we could not complete the list yesterday. Thus, part 2 of December political class insanity:

- A recent USA Today article by Julie Schmit reported on the Federal government's failed attempt to help out American home owners who were facing the threat of foreclosure. The name of the program was called the Emergency Homeowner Loan Program and it was terminated in September after helping less than half of its projected number of households.

Also, according to the article, almost half of the taxpayer funds that were spend aside for the program went to just three states: Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Connecticut. This fact is another indication of failure and how inefficient this government program (and most others) was when you consider the state by state foreclosure rates (as reported by Realty Track for the Month of June, 2011):

• Nevada - one foreclosed home for every 114 homes in the state - rank = 1
• Arizona - one foreclosed home for every 205 homes in the state - rank =2
• California - one foreclosed home for every 244 homes in the state - rank = 3
• Maryland - one foreclosed home for every 1,358 homes in the state - rank = 31
• Pennsylvania - one foreclosed home for every 1,509 homes in the state - rank = 37
• Connecticut - one foreclosed home for every 1,525 homes in the state - rank = 1,525

How inefficient can you get. Half of the set aside  money went to homeowners in states that were in much less distress than the housing industries in Nevada, California, and Connecticut. Since I am assuming that one of the main objectives of the program was to help the local economies recover from the recession, the local economies in Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Connecticut were much better off from a housing perspective, orders of magnitude better off, than the top three home foreclosure states of Nevada, California, and Arizona.

Even worse, according to the article, only 12,000 applicants were approved for the program, at a cost of about half a billion dollars. This was 60% short of the objective and works out to about about $42,000 per applicant. Given that there are millions and millions of homes in the country that are in foreclosure or that are likely to shortly be in foreclosure, saving 12,000 homes will make nary a dent in the problem. And at $42,000 per successful applicant, even if the program reached millions of foreclosed homeowners, the country never would have been able to afford the cost.

Typical political class insanity. Pitiful results at a high cost of a program that never would have made a dent in the problem even it it reached its objective. So, just like Solyndra, another half a billion dollars worth of taxpayer wealth down the drain of waste.

- In 2007, the political class made it illegal for Americans to own regular, good old fashioned incandescent light bulbs. I remember being so disgusted with the politicians at that time, wasting time and resources on what should be a consumer choice issue, not a government issue, when so many other major issues needed to be addressed.

Now, that same political class, according to an article in the November 14, 2011 issue of Business Week, is hotly debating the same issue again and whether or not that 2007 ban should be lifted. Now, I thought the original legislation was ridiculous and unneeded but it is now being propagated again with politicians wanting to undo what they never should have done in 2007.

What a waste of time and energy when the same issues that went unaddressed in 2007, (failing schools, lack of a national energy policy, escalating national debt, etc.) are still not being addressed today, replaced by idiotic light bulb efforts. 

- According to an article by Matt Welch in the November, 2011 issue of Reason magazine, according to Environmental Protection Agency statistics cited in an article in the August, 2011 issue of Investor's Business Daily, the Obama's economic stimulus program set aside $7.2 billion to invest in green/clean technologies. These billions were set aside to create a broad new category of "green jobs," five million new jobs in the next ten years according to President Obama himself.

According to the EPA numbers, those billions of dollars have created or retained a grand total of 7,140 green jobs at a cost of about $1,000,000 per job. Not quite an efficient way to create jobs or expand the economy. Billions of taxpayer dollars wasted with no discernible and long term positive effect.

- The New York Times ran an article on August 2, 2011 that described the activities of artist Erika Nelson from Lucas, Kansas. For ten years, Ms. Nelson has made miniature models of giant pieces of Americana (e.g. models of the World's Largest Ball of Twine and the World's Largest Can of Fruit Cocktail) as part of her mobile miniature museum and has toured around the state with her pieces.

Nice hobby until you realize that this hobby has been subsidized by the Kansas taxpayers to the tune of $2,000 a year. Talk about non-essential government spending. Finally, however, budget constraints are forcing the state to get out this ridiculous subsidy this year, about ten years and $20,000 too late.

- According to an article the Miami Herald that was summarized in the November 25, 2011 issue of The Week magazine, taxpayers spend $800,000 a year to house each prisoner at Guantanamo Bay. This is 30 times more expensive what it costs to keep a prisoner on U.S. soil.

Thus, is you believe that about 172 prisoners are still at the prison camp, based on various news reports, then the Federal government could save about $130,000,000 a year if only Obama had executed his major campaign promise to shut down the facility if he was elected President. His failure to do so and the political class failure to make/allow him to fulfill that promise will unnecessarily cost the American taxpayer over $1 billion of the next ten years.

Waste, insanity, idiocy, and more, your American political class.





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.blogspot.com/
http://www.flipcongress2010.com/
http://www.reason.com/
http://www.repealamendment/

Political Class Insanity - December, 2011 Part 1

Every month or so we do a detailed review of the insanity, idiocy, and wastefulness of the American political class across a wide range of areas. Unfortunately, this month we we have seen so much insanity that we will have to cover it over two days, today and tomorrow to get it all in. Growing insanity is not a good trend from your political leaders when the nation faces so many critical crises:

- According to a Wall Street Journal report that was summarized in the November 18, 2011 issue of The Week magazine, the White House formally denied any knowledge of extraterrestrial life. This action came as a result of an online, White House petition signed by over 12,000 Americans. The Obama administration formally responded that the Federal government has "no credible evidence extraterrestrials have visited earth" or that "life exists outside our planet."

Let's review: we have about 14 million Americans currently unemployed, we have a runaway national debt of $15 TRILLION, our schools continue to under educate our kids, we have no national energy program, national health care costs went up another 9% last year, and the Federal government is responding and using taxpayer resources to address the issue of alien life. I am not sure which is worst: this wasting of government time and resources or the 12,000 people who took the time to sign the petition and who actually thought the government would give them an honest answer even if there was contact with extraterrestrial life.

- That same issue of The Week magazine also discussed how the House of Representatives took time out from not addressing the critical issues listed above to debate and vote on a resolution to affirm that the United States' national motto is "In God We Trust." The resolution passed by a vote of 396 to 9.

In a survey to find out the top issues facing American families today, do we really think that affirming this motto would make the top 100 issues and problems in America today? And if that is the case, why are our politicians worrying about this issue? Could it be they do not know how to solve the real, top 100 issues facing American families today and waste time and resources debating this motto instead?

- As the nation's national debt skyrockets to gruesome, fearful levels, the political class continues to fail in its feeble attempts to come up with an effective, decisive, and rational way to cut Federal spending. With the failure of the so-called Congressional Super Committee to come up with a spending reduction plan, the Federal budget will be subject to across-the-board cuts in 2013 as a result of the debt ceiling agreement reached this past summer. These spending cuts will affect all departments including the Department of Defense.

Now, many politicians, including the Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta, are claiming that ANY cuts to the Defense Department budget will weaken our nation's defense. Maybe these folks should have read an article in the September 23, 2011 issue of The Week magazine that reviewed what has happened since the 9-11 attacks. The article claims that "the U.S. now spends more (on national defense) than all other countries in the world put together."

One has to think that, given this outrageous amount of money and resources that have been diverted to the military-industrial complex in this country, there has to be a significant amount of waste that can be cut out of the Defense budget without endangering our national security. If there isn't any such waste, than the political class has failed diplomatically to secure our national safety, with massive defense budgets and massive national debt levels threatening the freedom and liberty the Defense Department is supposed to be protecting.

- According to a Time magazine article that was summarized in the October 14, 2011 issue of The Week magazine, in 1950, the average U.S. household spent 3% of its income on health care and 22% of its income on food. In 2010, food costs have sunk to only 7% of household income but health care costs had risen to 16% of income.

And this trend is unlikely to be stopped by Obama Care and the current set of politicians in Washington since the article preceding  the Time article reviewed how family health insurance premiums had risen 9% in 2010 alone. This 9%, one year increase brought the cost of health care insurance in this country to double what it was in 2001. This article, which was also based on New York Times reporting, attributes the big increase to certain provisions of Obama Care.

Thank goodness "In God We Trust" since trusting the political class to solve the problem of escalating health care costs is not looking like an effective approach.

- To comprehend how poorly our public school education has failed, consider a New York Times article that was summarized in the November 11, 2011 issue of The Week magazine. According to the Times article, Indian, Chinese, and other foreign nationals earn 70% of the doctorates in electrical engineering and half of the master's degrees in electrical engineering from U.S. universities every year. This results in non-U.S. citizens launching half of all Silicon Valley start up, high tech companies.

How embarrassing that in this vital field, the U.S. education system takes a back seat foreign students studying in our own universities. I do mind or want to stop the foreign students from using our schools, I want the political class to figure out how to change and improve our own school system to increase the percentage of U.S. kids getting their masters and PhD.s in this important field. This would certainly be a better use of their time than debating the national motto.

- The New York Times, in a September 22, 2011 article reviewed how the California solar panel company, Solyndra, receive a $535 million Federal loan guarantee, hosted a Presidential photo op in May, 2011 by President Obama, and was totally bankrupt about 17 months later. However, if you listen to the President's remarks from that photo op, you would never have thought this rapid descent into a financial wasteland was possible:

"It's here that companies like Solyndra are leading the way toward a brighter and more prosperous future."

It certainly was not so prosperous for the American taxpayer since if you divide the taxpayer financed loan guarantee by the number of days it took Solyndra to burn through over half a billion dollars of taxpayer wealth, you find that Solyndra burned through over a million dollars a day from the time the President spoke until the company collapsed. Now that is truly political class insanity, a million dollars a day down the drain with nothing to show for it.

That's enough for today, if you get too close to political class insanity and idiocy, you run the risk of becoming one of them yourself, insane and idiotic.




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.blogspot.com/
http://www.flipcongress2010.com/
http://www.reason.com/
http://www.repealamendment/

Government Favors And Politicians For Sale! Election Year Specials! Act Now! Goldman Sachs

On Wednesday we discussed the basic approaches our political class in Washington use to gain favors and enrichment for their careers and their net worth. Yesterday, we looked at the institutional approaches the political class has used to establish rules, laws, and exemptions so that they are not affected by felonious behavior that would put most every other American in jail.

Today, we will look at the curious relationship between the premier banking establishment in this country, Goldman Sachs and the Federal government. You decide at the end of this post whether this is all only a coincidence or it is incestuous corruption.

The genesis of this discussion comes from a recent Bloomberg Markets Magazine story from November 29, 2011, written by Richard Teitelbaum and entitled: "How Paulson Gave Hedge Funds Advance Word." As review, recall that Henry Paulson was Treasury Secretary when the economy and financial markets collapsed towards the end of the Bush administration. According to the article and Mr. Teitelbaum:

• On July 21, 2008, Mr. Paulson was meeting with members of the hedge fund, Eton Park Capital Management LP in New York City.
• Bear Sterns had collapsed four months earlier and its remaining assets had been sold at rock bottom prices to JP Morgan. The stock and financial markets were in turmoil.
• At the same time, home prices had been crashing, foreclosures were approaching record levels, and the stock market was getting real antsy about the mortgage giants, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
• A New York Times article July 22, 2008 said that the Fed and Office of The Comptroller were looking into the finances of Fannie and Freddie and quoted Paulson as saying he believed this examination would give "a signal of confidence to the market."
• Attending the Eton Park meeting were about a dozen hedge fund managers and other Wall Street executives, and at least five of them were Goldman Sachs alumni. These included Eric Mindich, the founder of Eton Park, was a former chief strategy officer at Goldman Sachs,  Dinakar Singh who was the former head of the Goldman Sachs proprietary trading desk, Daniel Och who once was the co-head of the Goldman Sachs equity trading organization, Stephen Mandel who worked as a retail analyst at Goldman Sachs, and Frank Brosens who worked at Goldman Sachs as an arbitrageur. However, an official list of those attending the meeting is not available, this list being unofficially obtained from someone who was in the meeting themselves.
• Paulson was chief executive officer chairman of Goldman Sachs from 1999 to 2006.
• Paulson's book about the financial crisis, "On The Brink," makes no mention of the Eton Park meeting despite the  high powered hedge fund managers and others who attended.
• Despite his "signal of confidence"public quote in the Times article, Paulson told the assembled group of a scenario where Fannie and Freddie would be taken over by the Federal government and placed into "conservatorship," wiping out the common and preferred stock value of Fannie and Freddie stockholders. According to a witness at the meeting, no one in the room had any doubt that this was the actual federal government plan that was going to be implemented.

The article states that there is no evidence that those attending the meeting traded on this sensitive, valuable, and non-public information or shorted the stock of Fannie and Freddie. However, the article also does state it is impossible to track company specific short stock sales since this information is not available through public documents. Also, this does not mean those attending the meeting did not pass the information along to family and friends.

Obviously, this type of behavior just screams of insider trading violations and abuses. Consider the quotes from outside experts on Paulson's behavior:

1. William Black, associate professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City: "You just never ever do that as a government regulator - transmit nonpublic market information to market participants."
2. Janet Tavakoli, founder of the Chicago consulting firm Tavakoli Structured Finance: "What is this but crony capitalism?" Most people have had their fill of it."
3. Larry Ribstein, professor of law at the University of Illinois: "The optics are awful, there's no doubt about it. Everyone knows that insider trading is a huge issue."
4. Adam Zagorin, senior fellow at the Project on Government Oversight: "The bottom line is that senior level people in Washington, in the name of keeping in touch with their stakeholders, are tipping their hands. You can't prosecute them for insider trading if they didn't trade shares. You may not be able to even reprimand them. What the hell are the rules?"

Thus, although most knowledgeable people know this was atrocious insider trading behavior by the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, it apparently happened anyway, according to the article. And what is the most common thread through all of the points discussed above? There is an obviously cozy Goldman Sachs connection between the highest levels of government and the highest levels of Goldman Sachs and those that used to work for Goldman Sachs.

Now, no one has been arrested or convicted relative to this meeting. However, as we have said many times in this blog, the appearance of conflict of interest is just as bad as the actual act of conflict of interest. Given everything else we have discussed over the past few days relative to corruption, this type of behavior just adds to the wretched smell of the political class.

But the Goldman Sachs/political class connection does not end with this disaster:

• Robert Rubin, who was also once the Secretary of the Treasury, worked at Goldman Sachs for 26 years, eventually serving as a member of the Board, and Co-Chairman from 1990-1992.
• Rajat Gupta, who was once a member of the Goldman Sachs board of directors, was indicted on October 26, 2011 for disclosing nonpublic information on Goldman Sachs and other companies.
• Goldman Sachs donated almost a million dollars to President Obama's 2008 Presidential election campaign, making it one of the biggest contributors to the campaign.
• According to the Center For Responsive Politics, Goldman Sachs employees have contributed almost $32 million to politicians' campaigns since 1989.
• Although the current Secretary of the Treasury, Timothy Geithner, never worked for Goldman Sachs, his chief of staff did.
• Jon Corzine is a former Goldman Sachs chairman, a former U.S. Senator, a former governor of New Jersey, and has recently presided over one of the biggest financial institution collapses in recent history, MF Global.
• Johusa Bolten is an ex-Goldman Sachs employee, he was the chief of staff for George W. Bush, and he was the one who recommended Henry Paulson, a former chairman of Goldman Sachs, be Secretary of the Treasury.
• According to the New American website, ex-Goldman Sachs employees Robert Hermats, Mark Petterson, Adam Storch, and Gary Gensler all hold high ranking positions in the Obama administration.

Again, I am not saying any of these people, Goldman Sachs, or any of these situations resulted in unethical or unlawful behavior. But I am also not saying that they did not. Given everything else we know, it just seems like there are too many coincidences and too many relationships for conflict of interest situations not to be going on left and right.

Adding insult to injury, the Goldman Sachs-related people have not performed in a stellar manner. As we discussed above, Corzine helped crash his company, MF Global, and there are several investigations underway into criminal activity at the firm. Henry Paulson apparently never foresaw the Great Recession until it was almost on top of him and the country, too late for any corrective action to be taken. I could not find an examples of an outstanding job being done by anyone from Goldman Sachs who worked for the Federal government (I would be more than happy to print one if anyone knows of such a case).


And why seemingly only Goldman Sachs? Aren't there competent people from JP Morgan, Bank Of America, Morgan  Stanley, Wells Fargo, or other big financial institutions, or anywhere else, that could serve the American people through the Federal government? Why does it seem that Goldman Sachs has a monopoly hold on the relationship on the American political class and the Federal government?

The answer to all of these questions is likely the same as the answer to all of the other corruption issues we discussed. Just follow the money and the campaigns for reelection that our politicians continually run. Money funds the campaigns and I would bet that Goldman Sachs is the best at leveraging the money it puts towards those reelection campaigns and leveraging the people it has gotten placed in the halls of government. Just ask the people at the Eton Park meeting.


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.blogspot.com/
http://www.flipcongress2010.com/
http://www.reason.com/
http://www.repealamendment/

Government Favors And Politicians For Sale! Election Year Specials! Act Now! Institutional Corruption

Yesterday we covered some of the election year specials on political class corruption. That post covered basic government and politicians' corruption, usually corruption where there is a basic relationship between a politician and an entity or special interest buying a favor: the special interest donates money to a politician's reelection campaign and the politician ensures that government and American taxpayer wealth is diverted to the special interest. These are basic, one-on-one value exchanges.

Today we will look at what I call institutional corruption. This is when our Federal politicians have exempted their entire institution of Congress from illegal behavior that the rest of us cannot partake in. A recent Wall Street Journal editorial called this type of behavior "entrenched corruption." These institutional, formalized forms of entrenched corruption include, but are not limited to, the following, according to the article:

1. Insider Trading – this entrenched corruption is when politicians and their staffs use government information not available to the public to predict which companies’ stocks will rise or fall. They then adjust their own personal investment portfolios accordingly to profitably take advantage of this insider information. This type of behavior is a felony everywhere but in the U.S. Congress since Congressional politicians have exempted themselves from felony prosecution.
2. IPO Gifts – this type of entrenched corruption really surprised me. It appears that it is legal for our Congressional politicians to partake in these types of lucrative financial transactions. While it is illegal for members of Congress to accept cash or other physical gifts from special interests, there is nothing illegal or wrong on them being offered and participating in initial public offerings (IPOs) of firms. These offerings can be very profitable. For example, if I understand these perverted rules, General Motors could not offer a Congressional politician a free Cadillac. However, those same politicians could participate in a General Motors IPO offering that could result in IPO profits that dwarf the value of a single, silly Cadillac.
3. Self-Serving Earmarks –historically, members of Congress have created and implemented infrastructure earmark requests for their Congressional districts that have resulted in increases to the value of their real estate holdings. This is in addition to the classic, basic use of earmarks when politicians arrange for government money to be directed to special interests' advantage in return for election campaign donations.
4. Negatively Encouraging Campaign Donations – the Wall Street Journal editorial calls this “subtly extorting campaign donations through the threat of legislation unfavorable to an industry.” In the reality of most Americans' lives, this is called blackmail and it is a criminal felony, punishable by hard jail time. This is not a felony in Congress, it is called reelection campaigning.
5. Whistle Blower Law Exemption - unlike the rest of the Federal government and the rest of the country, politicians in Congress can punish staff members who expose these politicians' abuses without fear of breaking any law, since Congressional members are not subject to Federal whistle blower laws.
6. Equal Employment/Affirmative Action Law exemption - as pointed out by Step 45 in "Love My Country, Loathe My Government," if you look at the profile of the House of Representatives and U.S. Senate you see that the overwhelming composition of both bodies is older, white guys. The proportion of minorities and women in both parts of Congress is embarrassingly lower than the proportions' of minorities and women in the general U.S. population. If Congress was a typical, large American company, the Federal government would likely be going after them for such a dysfunctional and likely illegal employee profile. However, as a result of it being Congress, the employment laws do not apply.

This type of behavior was the underlying premise for "Love My Country, Loathe My Government." We have allowed a special class of people to coagulate in this country called the political class. Common sense and fairness relative to integrity, rules, laws, punishments, and rewards do not apply to these political people, largely because they have exempted themselves from the behavior the rest of America has to live by.

Since common sense and fairness do not exist in this class of people, replaced by self interest and self enrichment, the business of America is not the top priority of the political class. This results in wasted taxpayer resources, distractions from the real problems facing Americans, and the destruction of liberty and freedom in this country.

Now I would be remiss if I did not discuss recent political class activity to curb these abuses. Since a major "corruption in Congress" story ran on the "60 Minutes" television show on November 13, 2011, the following has been happening in the halls of Congress according to a November 30, 2011 Associated Press story:

• The House Ethics committee has published memos and advisories reminding members of what is legal and illegal.
• Different House committees will be holding meetings in the next few weeks to look into the practices described in the "60 Minutes" piece and the ones we have been talking about.
• New York Congresswoman Louise Slaughter has tried to get legislation passed since 2006 that would address some of these corrupt practices. The legislation is known as the STOCK Act, "Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge." Up until recently, the legislation never went anywhere since she could only round up a half dozen sponsors or so. In a matter of weeks, since the "60 Minutes" piece ran, all of a sudden, she now has 118 sponsors.
• Many of the principals in Congress who were named in the "60 Minutes" piece, including John Boehner, Spencer Bachus, and Nancy Pelosi, have issued press releases avowing their honesty and allegiance to ethical behavior and denying they did anything wrong.
• Pelosi's press release claimed that she had always supported the STOCK Act legislation. However, she could not have supported it that much if she never signed on as sponsor, never scheduled it for House review and voting when she was Speaker of the House, and certainly did not abide by its letter or spirit if the "60 Minutes" piece is to be believed.

They are really all pathetic and selfish. The abusers in the political class do not get excited until they are outed, allowing the abusive behavior we have described for the past two days to exist for years. It should be interesting to see what comes out of the latest excitement, whether we get true reforms or the politicians do what the normally which is pass legislation with so many loopholes that the final law is useless.

This is what they should do:

1. Pass the STOCK Act immediately with no watering down of its intentions and tenets.
2. Prohibit any Federal politician from participating in any IPO while in office and for ten years after they leave office. The vast majority of Americans never get to participate in an IPO so waiting ten years after leaving office is not an unfair, onerous requirement.
3. Require all sitting politicians that participated in an IPO while in office to turn over any profits they garnered as a result of being involved in the IPO, either to the Treasury to reduce the national debt or to an independent charity of their choice. This includes the nine or so IPOs Nancy Pelosi has participated in, as outlined in the "60 Minutes" piece, as well as other members of Congress.
4. While in office, require all politicians to place their entire fortunes and all of their investments into an independent blind trust until they leave office.
5. Change the whistle blower laws so that the laws and their penalties, including jail time, also apply to all Federal politicians.
6. Change the Affirmative Action laws so that the laws and their penalties, including jail time, also apply to all Federal politicians.
7. Change insider trading laws so that the laws and their penalties, including jail time, also apply to all federal politicians.
8. Implement Step 39 from "Love My Country, Loathe My Government," a step that would impose term limits on all Federal politicians so that they are "one and done." This would certainly reduce the amount of money and corruption that is based on the perpetual reelection campaigns of incumbent politicians.

I am sure that I missed something that would reduce corruption at the Federal level but the above eight steps would be a good start. Consider a quote from David Brin:

"It is said that power corrupts, but actually it's more true that power attracts the corruptible. The sane are usually attracted by other things than power."

We need to desperately change our political processes so that we begin to attract people to Washington that have integrity, sanity, and a focus on problem solving, and who are not corruptible and who are not selfish. Especially during an election year.





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.blogspot.com/
http://www.flipcongress2010.com/
http://www.reason.com/
http://www.repealamendment/