Love My Country, Loathe My Government

Wednesday, November 4, 2015

November, 2015, Part 2, Political Class Insanity: Stupid Water Idea From California, Stupid Wage Idea From Seattle,and Stupid Syria PLans From the White House

It is the start of another month which means it is time for our monthly review of the latest political class insanity that continually spews forth from America’s politicians. Their actions, words, quotes, incompetency, and general ineptness continue to reinforce our theory that we are currently being served by the worst set of politicians in the history of the nation.

As you read about the latest shenanigans and ineptness of the political class, keep in mind what should be their priorities in these difficult times and compare this list to what they are actually working on:

NBC recently reported that ISIS forces are getting larger and stronger despite the Obama administration spending billions of dollars on a failed air campaign and military strategy.
The stock market is stalling.
Job creation is barely keeping up with population growth.
Wage growth is anemic, growing just .2% in the second quarter, the lowest quarterly growth since 1982.
The labor participation rate is at the lowest level in decades because the Obama economy cannot generate enough jobs.
Thousands of veterans are still not getting the medical care they were promised by the Federal government.
A record number of police officers have been assassinated in the past week.
45 million Americans are still receiving monthly Federal food assistance.
Our borders still leak and thousands of illegal immigrant criminals continue to walk our streets.
Major programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security are hurtling towards insolvency and lose hundreds of billions of dollars every year to fraud and mismanagement.
Our kids are still getting lousy public educations at most public schools.
The IRS and other government functions seem to be getting their computer systems hacked on a regular basis, exposing tens of millions of Americans to identity theft potential.
Obama Care is a failure along so many dimensions as health care costs continue to soar despite the Obama promise that they would decrease.
Annual Federal deficits, while down, are still about half a TRILLION a year meaning that even though the Federal government is collecting more in taxes than ever before, it still cannot run a balanced budget.

Again, keep these real crises in mind as you read what our politicians are actually doing, saying and wasting.

1) California has been suffering through an epic drought for a number of years now. I will not talk about what caused the drought today, although many feel it was the ineptness of the California political class on a number of fronts that at least made the water shortage far worse, if not caused it, to begin with.

Today’s water shortage insanity comes from an LA area Congresswoman who thinks she has a solution to the drought. Her idea is to ship water from Alaska to the LA port for use by California water users. Congresswoman Janice Hahn wants to ship water from the Blue Sitka lake in Alaska via ships. Back in the 1960s there was a proposal to build a pipeline to move the water to California but it was never built.

On first glance there is a big problem with the Congresswoman’s. Even if the Congresswoman can get the water to the LA port, there is no infrastructure or pipeline to transport it. No problem, Hahn’s concept is to put the water in giant plastic bags that would then be put into shipping containers.

But the problems do not end there. Even if the water could be gathered, put into plastic bags and somehow delivered hundreds of miles, across land and water, to California water users, the cost would be about 12 times the cost of water California users are paying today.

And the final piece of insanity in this watery problem:

According to the U.S. Geological Survey, in 2010 California users consumed 38 billion gallons of water every day.
Wikipedia estimates that the average oil tanker can hold 2 million barrels of oil or 84 million gallons.
Thus, if California used oil supertankers to transport that Alaskan water, it would take 45 supertankers a DAY to supply just 10% of that 38 million gallons of water used everyday.

Thus, her solution is one of impossible logistics, high costs, and numbers that simply do not add up. Typical non-solution from the American political class.

2) Many politicians incorrectly think that significantly raising the minimum wage is a good idea. We have already discussed the reality that this is not a good idea in previous posts with the most obvious outcome is that higher wages depress job growth. Businesses generally have fixed or semi-fixed budgets for salaries and forcing businesses to increase how much they pay their employees reduces the number of employees that the business can carry.

That is exactly what is happening in the Seattle metro area which has decided that substantially raising the minimum wage is a good idea:

An analysis from the American Enterprise Institute, using metro level Census data, found that the Seattle Metropolitan Statistical Area lost 700 restaurant jobs in the first three quarters of 2015.
In the rest of the state of Washington, where the minimum wage was not raised significantly if at all, 5,800 restaurant jobs were added to the state economy.
Over the past three years, prior to the minimum wage increase, the Seattle metro area averaged the creation of 4,000 restaurant jobs a year in the first three quarters each year.
Overall job growth in the Seattle has been positive despite the loss of the 700 restaurant jobs.

Now, these coincidences, while they imply a high degree of correlation, they do not necessarily prove that higher minimum wages depressed job growth. But, logically and these “coincidences”, along with elementary economic theory proves that many politicians have no idea what they are doing when it comes in their dabbling in the economy. The insanity is that they continue to think they are economic wizards.

3) More than a few times we have shown that President Obama has lied and deceived the American public dozens of times on various topics during his tenure in the White House. Many of us that have followed his pathological lying now assume that any public pronouncement he makes is false until proven true.

The position’s validity has been proven again with a recent article in USAToday on October 31, 2015 by Gregory Korte. For those of you who did not get the news, the President recently announced that he would be deploying 50 U.S. special forces ground troops into Syria itself. One would say that as commander-in-chief he has the prerogative to protect Americans and American interests.

Which is a true statement but for the past few years, according to the article, he has told us over and over and over (at least 16 times) that he would never put U.S. troops “boots on the ground” in Syria (my emphasis added below):

August. 30, 2013: "In no event are we considering any kind of military action that would involve boots on the ground, that would involve a long-term campaign. But we are looking at the possibility of a limited, narrow act that would help make sure that not only Syria, but others around the world, understand that the international community cares about maintaining this chemical weapons ban and norm. So again, I repeat, we're not considering any open-ended commitment. We're not considering any boots-on-the-ground approach."

August 31, 2013 - "After careful deliberation, I have decided that the United States should take military action against Syrian regime targets. This would not be an open-ended intervention. We would not put boots on the ground. Instead, our action would be designed to be limited in duration and scope."

September 3, 2013: "So the key point that I want to emphasize to the American people: The military plan that has been developed by our Joint Chiefs — and that I believe is appropriate — is proportional. It is limited. It does not involve boots on the ground. This is not Iraq, and this is not Afghanistan."

September 4, 2013: "I think America recognizes that, as difficult as it is to take any military action — even one as limited as we're talking about, even one without boots on the ground — that's a sober decision."

September 6, 2013: "The question for the American people is, is that responsibility that we'll be willing to bear? And I believe that when you have a limited, proportional strike like this — not Iraq, not putting boots on the ground; not some long, drawn-out affair; not without any risks, but with manageable risks — that we should be willing to bear that responsibility."

September 7, 2013: "What we're not talking about is an open-ended intervention. This would not be another Iraq or Afghanistan. There would be no American boots on the ground. Any action we take would be limited, both in time and scope, designed to deter the Syrian Government from gassing its own people again and degrade its ability to do so."

September. 9, 2013: "Tomorrow I'll speak to the American people. I'll explain this is not Iraq; this is not Afghanistan; this is not even Libya. We're not talking about — not boots on the ground. We're not talking about sustained airstrikes. We're talking about a very specific set of strikes to degrade his chemical weapons capabilities in terms of delivery."

September 9, 2013: "What I'm going to try to propose is that we have a very specific objective, a very narrow military option, and one that will not lead into some large-scale invasion of Syria or involvement or boots on the ground; nothing like that. This isn't like Iraq. It's not like Afghanistan. It's not even like Libya. Then hopefully people will recognize why I think this is so important."

September 10, 2013: "Many of you have asked, won't this put us on a slippery slope to another war? One man wrote to me that we are 'still recovering from our involvement in Iraq.' A veteran put it more bluntly: 'This nation is sick and tired of war.' My answer is simple: I will not put American boots on the ground in Syria. I will not pursue an open-ended action like Iraq or Afghanistan. I will not pursue a prolonged air campaign like Libya or Kosovo. This would be a targeted strike to achieve a clear objective: deterring the use of chemical weapons and degrading Assad's capabilities."

February, 27, 2014: "We are doing everything we can to see how we can do that and how we can resource it. But I've looked at a whole lot of game plans, a whole lot of war plans, a whole bunch of scenarios, and nobody has been able to persuade me that us taking large-scale military action even absent boots on the ground, would actually solve the problem."

September 5, 2014: "With respect to the situation on the ground in Syria, we will not be placing U.S. ground troops to try to control the areas that are part of the conflict inside of Syria. I don't think that's necessary for us to accomplish our goal. We are going to have to find effective partners on the ground to push back against ISIL."

September 7, 2014: "(You) cannot, over the long term or even the medium term, deal with this problem by having the United States serially occupy various countries all around the Middle East. We don't have the resources. It puts enormous strains on our military. And at some point, we leave. And then things blow up again. So we've got to have a more sustainable strategy, which means the boots on the ground have to be Iraqi. And in Syria, the boots on the ground have to be Syrian. ... I will reserve the right to always protect the American people and go after folks who are trying to hurt us wherever they are. But in terms of controlling territory, we're going to have to develop a moderate Sunni opposition that can control territory and that we can work with. The notion that the United States should be putting boots on the ground, I think would be a profound mistake. And I want to be very clear and very explicit about that."

September 10, 2014: "I want the American people to understand how this effort will be different from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It will not involve American combat troops fighting on foreign soil. This counterterrorism campaign will be waged through a steady, relentless effort to take out ISIL wherever they exist, using our air power and our support for partner forces on the ground."

November 16, 2014: "Yes, there are always circumstances in which the United States might need to deploy U.S. ground troops. If we discovered that ISIL had gotten possession of a nuclear weapon, and we had to run an operation to get it out of their hands, then, yes, you can anticipate that not only would Chairman Dempsey recommend me sending U.S. ground troops to get that weapon out of their hands, but I would order it. So the question just ends up being, what are those circumstances? I'm not going speculate on those. Right now we're moving forward in conjunction with outstanding allies like Australia in training Iraqi security forces to do their job on the ground."

February 11, 2015: "The resolution we've submitted today does not call for the deployment of U.S. ground combat forces to Iraq or Syria. It is not the authorization of another ground war, like Afghanistan or Iraq. ... As I've said before, I'm convinced that the United States should not get dragged back into another prolonged ground war in the Middle East. That's not in our national security interest, and it's not necessary for us to defeat ISIL. Local forces on the ground who know their countries best are best positioned to take the ground fight to ISIL, and that's what they're doing."

July 6, 2015: "There are no current plans to do so. That's not something that we currently discussed. I've always said that I'm going to do what's necessary to protect the homeland. One of the principles that we all agree on, though, and I pressed folks pretty hard because in these conversations with my military advisers I want to make sure I'm getting blunt and unadulterated, uncensored advice. But in every one of the conversations that we've had, the strong consensus is that in order for us to succeed long-term in this fight against ISIL, we have to develop local security forces that can sustain progress. It is not enough for us to simply send in American troops to temporarily set back organizations like ISIL, but to then, as soon as we leave, see that void filled once again with extremists."

Sixteen times Obama said he would not deploy American ground forces within the country of Syria. He made these strong pronouncements within the United States and in foreign countries. He made them publicly to American press people and to foreign press people and foreign leaders.

And yet he has done the exact opposite of what he told us sixteen times, in no uncertain terms, what he would not do. Why would anyone believe anything he says on any topic when after sixteen times in this situation he does a complete reversal of what he said he would not do? Complete insanity to believe anything this man says.

And even worse insanity, what in the world are deploying 50 ground troops into the hellhole that is Syria going to accomplish from a military perspective? Thus, he killed his credibility even further with what appears to be a stupid military strategy. You cannot make this stuff up, it is that inane.

More insanity tomorrow.

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

www.loathemygovernment.com

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

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

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

November, 2015, Part 1, Political Class Insanity: Lack Of Integrity Everywhere in Washington

NBC recently reported that ISIS forces are getting larger and stronger despite the Obama administration spending billions of dollars on a failed air campaign and military strategy.
The stock market is stalling.
Job creation is barely keeping up with population growth.
Wage growth is anemic, growing just .2% in the second quarter, the lowest quarterly growth since 1982.
The labor participation rate is at the lowest level in decades because the Obama economy cannot generate enough jobs.
Thousands of veterans are still not getting the medical care they were promised by the Federal government.
A record number of police officers have been assassinated in the past week.
45 million Americans are still receiving monthly Federal food assistance.
Our borders still leak and thousands of illegal immigrant criminals continue to walk our streets.
Major programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security are hurtling towards insolvency and lose hundreds of billions of dollars every year to fraud and mismanagement.
Our kids are still getting lousy public educations at most public schools.
The IRS and other government functions seem to be getting their computer systems hacked on a regular basis, exposing tens of millions of Americans to identity theft potential.
Obama Care is a failure along so many dimensions as health care costs continue to soar despite the Obama promise that they would decrease.
Annual Federal deficits, while down, are still about half a TRILLION a year meaning that even though the Federal government is collecting more in taxes than ever before, it still cannot run a balanced budget.

Again, keep these real crises in mind as you read what our politicians are actually doing, saying and wasting.

1) Given all of the problems listed above, given the number of homeless and hungry in this country, given how underserved our veterans are, given how poorly our schools educate our kids, one would hope that the Federal government would be prudent with our tax dollars and efficient in using those dollars to help struggling Americans. But prudence is never a good assumption when talking about American politicians.

Consider how the Feds are spending $70 million of our taxpayer wealth….overseas:

Michelle Obama is sponsoring a $70 million program called Let Girls Learn.
Nice concept except for the fact that the $70 million is not being spent to better educate American girls, it is being spent on educating girls around the world in such places as Pakistan.
According to the program’s website: “We know that countries with more girls in secondary school tend to have lower maternal mortality rates, lower infant mortality rates, lower rates of HIV/AIDS, and better child nutrition. But too often, a girl who could change her world for the better is locked out of that future by the circumstances of her birth or the customs of her community.”
Which raises the obvious question: couldn’t that description also apply to millions of American kids, especially African-American kids living in poor households across THIS country?

If American schools were flush with money and doing an excellent job of educating all American kids, than there might be a chance that spending an extraneous $70 million overseas might somehow make sense. But given the lousy education many poorer American kids are receiving, given the low graduation rate of our kids in inner city schools, given overcrowded classrooms, etc., it is difficult to believe that sending $70 million overseas where it MIGHT be used to educate other countries’ kids is anywhere close to being a good idea. In fact, it is an insane idea.

2) Integrity has never been an overriding attribute of American politicians, especially the current set in Congress, the White House, and the Federal bureaucracy. The current President has put forth more deceptions and broken more promises than we would have time to discuss in multiple posts.

The latest spin or deception also concerns the First Lady and her kids’ obesity program, “Let’s Move.” Her school lunch program has generally been a disaster with kids going hungry because the food provided under the program under nourishes and is ghastly to taste and eat. As a result, kids go hungry, food gets wasted, and school budgets are devastated as kids stop buying school lunches.

These disasters and failures have not stopped the Federal government from trying to make this wasteful, failed program look good. Government documents obtained via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request show that the White House was doing everything possible to misrepresent a 2014 American Medical Association (AMA) study about obesity rates in kids. The basis of the misrepresentation was to show that the First Lady’s obesity reduction efforts were working.

The FOIA request came across the following statement in an email from a Centers For Disease Control official, senior press officer Karen Hunter: “Well, our press release is skewed to highlight the good news per HHS request.” In another email she wrote: “This release will have a first lady quote and they are mainly wanting to focus on the decline among 2 to 5 year olds during the current administration.”

So, there is the smoking gun proof that the Feds are intentionally trying to “skew” the analysis’ results to make Michelle Obama’s efforts look better than they are. This disconnect is proven by a press release by the AMA which read as follows: “Obesity Prevalence Remains High In U.S.” No Significant Change In Recent Years.”

No wonder Americans view government and government officials as corrupt. Lies are their language of the day.

3) Harry Truman is known for the following famous quote: “The buck stops here.” What he means is that as President, whatever goes wrong, he is ultimately responsible. He is the leader, he is in charge, he should take the blame for anything that goes wrong.

Which is a great characteristic of any leader. They should be setting the tone of their organization, setting the guidelines of behavior for all who serve under them, accepting the consequences of anything that goes awry within their scope of leadership.

This is a characteristic that is certainly not a trait of the Obama administration. This President has always pointed fingers at others whenever anything went wrong. During his tenure in office, Obama has blamed Bush, ATMs, Republicans, the Japanese tsunami, Israel, and a whole host of other entities, people, and events rather than accept the Truman doctrine that the responsibility for success and failure starts and stops with the President.

And now we know that this lack of integrity and acceptance of responsibility also extends to his former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. In her recent Benghazi testimony, it was revealed that over 600 requests for increased security at the U.S. Benghazi consulate were made prior to the deadly attacks that killed four Americans including a U.S. ambassador. It appears that all 600 requests were ignored, resulting in the fatal consequences.

When questioned why she did not respond to the requests, she arrogantly and insensitively responded that it was not her fault since she never saw those requests. Not her fault. Certainly not very Truman-like. Certainly not a leadership trait. Not her fault even though she was responsible for the entire State Department operation.

Unfortunately for those who lost loved ones in the Benghazi terror attack, Clinton’s email history shows that she did receive and respond to over 150 emails from a friend, Sidney Blumenthal, someone who was not connected to the State Department or Federal government in any capacity. She did receive and respond to at least one email from actor Ben Affleck regarding his political interests. But somehow she did not receive or respond to over 600 request for increased security from her own experts and apparently, does not think that is a problem despite the loss of four American lives. Insanely pathetic example of leadership.

Her arrogance is on display at the link below:

http://www.mrctv.org/blog/watch-clinton-claims-she-never-got-security-requests-libya#.tqggic:oc5N

5) Fortunately, even if Clinton does not recognize her lack of integrity and leadership, much of America does. According to a recent Rasmussen poll, 52% of those polled do not think she has been honest in her responses and position on the Benghazi attacks. Only 27% think she has been honest. In addition, the poll also found that only 37% of voters say they trust Clinton.

The real insanity her is in two areas:

First, why is she even in the running to be President when over half the country does not trust her?
In a country of over 300 million people, is there know one out there that has the integrity to be President and a true leader as opposed to one that refuses to take responsibility for their actions?

No integrity when it comes to wasting taxpayer wealth overseas, no integrity when it comes to lying about failed government programs, and no integrity when running for high office. A sad, sad commentary on today’s American political class. And that sad commentary will continue for the next week or so as the failures of today's politicians continue to far out number their success.

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:

Tuesday, November 3, 2015

October, 2015, Part 5, By the Numbers: What Americans Want and What Politicians Deliver (Or Really Care About)

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

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

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

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

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

1) Stephen Moore, writing for the Heritage Foundation, put together a fascinating set of numbers in a recent article titled, “Nearly 1,000 People Move From Blue States to Red States Every Day. Here’s Why.” His numbers include the following:

According to new Census data, the top seven states that recently had the biggest percentage increase in in-migration from other states were, in order: North Dakota, Nevada, South Carolina, Colorado, Florida, Arizona, and Texas.
All of these states are considered “red states” that lean conservatively politically, except Colorado, which is considered purple, somewhere between red conservative and blue liberal.
The seven states with the highest exodus of citizens in percentage terms were: Alaska, New York, Illinois, Connecticut, New Mexico, New Jersey, and Kansas. Five of these states are blue, except Alaska and Kansas.
The latest Rich States, Poor States document published by ALEC, the state legislative organization, estimates that nearly 1,000 people each day on net are leaving blue states and entering red states.
Nine states have no state income tax at present and those states are creating jobs at twice the pace of states that have a relatively high income tax rate.
According to IRS data from 2013, in that year Florida gained $8.2 billion in adjusted gross income from out-of-staters.
That same IRS analysis showed that Texas gained $5.9 billion in only one year.
Five of the seven states with the biggest gains in income have no income tax at all: Florida, Texas, Arizona, Washington, and Nevada.
Conversely, New York, a state with high state income tax rates, was again the big loser in 2013, with another New York 112,236 tax filers leaving and taking $5.2 billion with them.
Illinois lost nearly 67,000 tax filers and $3.7 billion of income it can no longer tax.
In 2013, 1.4 million more citizens left California than moved into the state, killing the theory of some that Americans are moving to red states for the weather rather than for economic reasons. In the same vein it does explain why colder than hell North Dakota is seeing a healthy percentage increase in migration into that state.

As always, the numbers do not lie. Human beings want to be free, they want to keep their hard earned dollars and to do so they are willing to uproot themselves from where they live now to take advantage of better economic conditions elsewhere. In his book “How Money Walks,” Travis Brown showed this to be true when he theorized that the two main factors driving this migration are: 1) whether a state has a right to work law (half of the states do) and 2) how high the top income tax rate is in the state. Nine states have no income tax today, and they are creating twice the pace of jobs as are high-income tax states.

Stephen Moore summed it up nicely in his article: “I’ve never met a Democrat who could come up with even a semi-plausible explanation for why families and businesses are hightailing it out of blue states. They are leaving states with high minimum wages, pro-union work rules, high taxes on the rich, generous welfare benefits, expansive regulations to “help” workers, green energy policies, etc. People are voting with their feet against these liberal policies.”

The numbers do not lie.

2) According to a Suffolk University/USA Today survey that was done back in late June, 2015, 70% of respondents said they do not want the federal government imposing a ban on the sale or manufacture of the Confederate flag. Contrast this with the temper tantrums and pontificating some liberals were ranting about back then when a young white adult shot up a black church in Charleston, South Carolina. Certainly a horrific event but the flag did not kill anyone, a deranged young adult did.

But that did not stop some politicians from trying to make points and a name for themselves by calling for a ban on the sale and displaying of the Confederate flag, something that 70% of Americans were against. Another numerical example of politicians being out of step with what America wants.

3) Lets go back to gun control, a favorite political topic of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. According to them, they know best when it comes to guns and they want to protect us from guns by shredding the Second Amendment and the right to bear arms.

But as we have often shown this past week, the numbers and reality between what politicians want to do to us and how we feel are diametrically opposed. According to a recent Gallup poll:

A record high percentage (63%) of Americans say guns make homes safer.
The number of Americans having a gun at home is up slightly over the past two years.
Only 30% of those polled said having a gun in the home makes it less safe, less than half that say having a gun in the home makes it safer.
Those feeling that having a gun in the home makes it safer has been trending upwards over time, from only 35% in 2000 to 63% in 2014.
From 2006 to 2014, the number has risen from 47% in 2006 to 63% in 2014.

Another example of where today's politicians are so out of step with the wishes and feelings of the majority of Americans.4) And the last set of numbers for this update to our “by the numbers” discussion. Most of the country probably thought and hope that the election of the first African-American President would help bring the races together and help eliminate racism in the country. But, alas, hoping that any good ever comes out of the American political class is usually a fruitless endeavor and the election of Obama and the reduction in racial tensions is no exception.Consider a recent Rasmussen poll on the topic of race relations and the election of Obama:
- A mere 20% of likely voters polled by Rasmussen feel that Obama has brought Americans of different races closer together.

- More than double feel that he has driven the races further apart.
27% say his election has had no difference on race relations.

- On a racial breakdown, 44% of African-Americans feel he has brought the races closer together but only 16% of whites and 21% of other races agree that he has brought the races closer together.

- In the same survey, a strong majority of those polled, 58%, feel that there is a war on police in this country today with 66% saying that comments that criticize police officers by politicians make it more dangerous for police officers to do their jobs.

- 70% of those polled say that politicians only discuss race to get elected and not to resolve racial issues.

So much hope and so much disappointment, according to Rasmussen’s numbers. Just another fail on the part of the Obama administration.That will do it for this month’s discussion on the topic, “by the numbers.” As we have emphasized this month, it is always critical to look at the reality of the numbers in our world because we cannot rely on politicians to tell us what is really going on, they have their own agendas and the agendas of the political cronies to protect. The numbers do not lie, our politicians do.

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:

Sunday, November 1, 2015

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Even in this survey, 75% of Americans polled think our government is corrupt.

This level of perceived corruption places us as the 12th most corrupt government among the 37 nations considered in the survey, putting our government in the top 25% relative to perceived corruption.

Only 14% of Sweden’s citizens considered their government to be corrupt, less than one fifth of what U.S. citizens considered their government to be corrupt.

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

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