October, 2017, Part 3, The Unfolding Disaster That Is Obama Care: Five Obama Care Policies In Five Years and Doctors Not Being Doctors

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

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

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

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

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

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

1) We have often discussed the reality that America does not have enough doctors to adequately satisfy the needs of sick Americans. That shortage was made more dramatic once Obama Care was implemented since its' hassles and idiocy led to many doctors retiring earlier, deciding that they did not want to deal with the hassles of dealing with government red tape and bureaucracy associated with Obama Care’s intrusion into the healthcare market.

Well, according to an article in the September 11, 2017 issue of Businessweek, now it appears that the front of the pipeline for doctors in this country is also getting smaller, which will make the number of doctors in this country even tighter in years to come:

• A 2016 survey of 17,000 medical school graduates by the Physicians Foundation found that 13.5% of them stated they planned to be in non-doctor/patient or non-clinical jobs within three years, with many of them going into business or research.
• This is up from 9.9% in 2012.
• Another study of doctors from Merritt Hawkins asked doctors if they were to begin their educations again, would they enter the medical profession and 25% said they would enter another field.
• This 25% is up threefold from the 8% that answered the same question in 2006.
• The Association of American Medical Colleges estimates that by 2030, the country will be short 100,000 doctors or about 2,000 per state on average, with rural areas being hit especially bad.
• These medically trained but non-practicing doctors are being hired by consulting companies, going back to get their MBA degrees, or starting their own businesses but are not seeing sick patients, often because of the hassles of actually treating patients or the desire for bigger dollars not treating patients.

Thus, Obama Care’s impact and the administrative headaches and rules/regulations it brought with it at best is not helping resolve the current doctor shortage and at worse (more likely) has made and is making the doctors shortage worse with no solution in sight.

2) Michelle Malkin is a well known political commentator, blogger, and writer. One of her latest pieces shows a real life example of how one American family, her own, has been raked over the coals by Obama Care. In her case, she has had four different insurance carriers since Obama Care went into effect:

• She and her husband just got the fourth cancellation notice of their health insurance policy since 2013.
• Their first cancellation came from Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield in 2013 since Obama Care tenets made their preferred and then current policy from Anthem invalid.
• It did not matter that they liked their then current high deductible policy since it fit their family needs and included a wide ranging network of doctors that their family needed and liked.
• Their second plan from Rocky Mountain Health Plans died in August, 2015 which in a way was a good thing since they did not like it since it did not cover their kids’ health needs and was not accepted at their local urgent care clinic.
• This second plan died since the insurer pulled out of their market area because they could not make money.
• Their third plan was cancelled in August, 2016 since the insurer claimed that it was pulling out of their Colorado market because it would “no longer offer your current health plan in the State of Colorado,” i.e. it could not make a profit in Colorado. 
• The Malkin family then enrolled in the Bronze HSA EPO plan offered by the Minneapolis startup, Bright Health.
• Less than a year later, Bright Health told them that their plan would be discontinued on January 1, 2018.
• When they went looking for a new policy for the fifth time since 2013, they found that the cheapest plan they could get would raise their monthly premium cost from $944.86 to over $1,300, and this is a high deductible plan which means that they will have to satisfy an annual deductible that is likely to be over $13,000 a year.
• Malkin goes on to point out that her home state of Colorado is not the only state experiencing the disaster that is Obama Care: “Premiums for individual health plans in Virginia are set to skyrocket nearly 60 percent in 2018. In New Hampshire, those rates will rise 52 percent. In South Carolina, individual market consumers will face an average 31.3 percent hike. In Tennessee, they’ll see rates jump between 20-40 percent.”

So it is not only the unknown average Americans family that is getting slammed every day by Obama Care, it is famous, higher earning Americans like Malkin that also are getting whipsawed by a terrible piece of legislation. And yet, Washington politicians have no clue or energy or will to fix what is a horrible situation. 

Malkin concludes her piece by summing up the frustration that her and millions of other Americans have experienced as a result of the unfolding disaster that is Obama Care: “There are an estimated 450,000 consumers like us in Colorado and 17 million of us nationwide — small-business owners, independent contractors and others who don’t get their plans through group coverage, big companies or government employers. The costs, headaches and disruption in our lives caused by Obamacare’s meddling meddlers are real and massive.

But we’re puzzles to corporate media journalists who’ve never had to meet a payroll and don’t even know what is the individual market.

We’re invisible to late-night TV clowns who get their Obamacare-at-all-costs talking points from Chuck Schumer.

We’re pariahs to social justice health care activists and Democrats who want us to just shut up and subsidize everyone else’s insurance.

And we’re expendables to establishment Republicans who hoovered up campaign donations on the empty promise to repeal Obamacare — and now consider amnesty for immigrants here illegally and gun control higher legislative priorities than keeping their damned word.

We’re the canaries in the Obamacare coal mine. Ignore us at your peril, America. You’re next.”

And idiots like Senator Bernie Sanders and others want Washington to control everyone’s healthcare needs via a single payer system, not just those in the individual insurance market. One look at what Washington did to the individual health insurance market, and families like Malkin’s via Obama Care, should be enough proof that Washington and a single payer system are both insanity and the height of idiocy. More disasters to follow.

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

www.loathemygovernment.com

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

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

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

October, 2017, Part 2, The Unfolding Disaster Of Obama Care: Bernie Sanders' Hypocrisy and Lies and Obama Care's Contribution To The Opioid Addiction Plague

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

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

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

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

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

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

1) Although Congressional Democrats and Obama were solely for the unfolding disasters of Obama Care, some of these same Democrats have what they think is a better idea now that Obama Care is failing faster and faster everyday. People like Senator Bernie Sanders want the U.S. to adopt the so-called single payer plan for health insurance for this country, a plan where the government and the politicians that operate it are in total control of your entire health care needs.

Never mind that this idea has failed miserably around the world when put into place, never mind that some states have already tried to implement it but stopped because of the outrageous cost, and never mind that the Federal government and the Washington political class have failed miserably at any kind of health care program they are in charge of: Medicaid, Medicare, Veterans Administration and Obama Care. Which makes one wonder why Bernie Sanders thinks that a single payer system administered by Washington is such a good idea.

Or does he think it is a good idea? Mike Vance, writing for the Think Americana website on September 14, 2017, actually found an old interview that Sanders gave a number of years ago when he asserted that a single payer system in this country is not possible since it would be too expensive. He explained why a single payer system, he called it “Medicaid For All,” would be so expensive that it would “bankrupt the country”: “One of the points that we understand and I think was reinforced when we went to Canada. Number one, you want to guarantee that all people have access to healthcare as you do in Canada. I think what we understand is that unless we change the funding system and the control mechanism in this country to do that. For example, if we expanded Medicaid [to] everybody. Give everybody a Medicaid card – we would be spending such an astronomical sum of money that, you know, we would bankrupt the nation.”

So a couple of years ago Sanders said a single payer system would bankrupt the country but today he thinks it is a great idea. Makes no sense. Preliminary estimates of his current single payer system is an astronomical $16 TRILLION over the first ten years. And you know that this number is far too low since everything Washington does costs far more in reality than when it is being proposed. Obama promised that Obama Care “would not add a single dime to the national debt” but the Congressional Budget Office estimate now says that it will add at least $1.2 TRILLION to the national debt. 

$16 TRILLION over a decade or $1.6 TRILLION a year would increase the annual Federal budget by 40% overnight. The tax hikes needed to pay for this would be economically devastating, as Vermont and California found out when they priced out a single payer system for their states. And yet the two faced Sanders is still pushing it although he himself had previously concluded that it was a fiscally stupid idea. Plus, such a system would still not attack the root causes of our high and rising health care costs. Doubly stupid.

To see Sanders being stupid in his own words go to the following link:

http://thinkamericana.com/2017/09/14/tbt-bernie-sanders-says-medicaid-bankrupt-nation-video/

2) There is a very bad drug addiction problem going on in America today and that is the large and growing addiction that many Americans have to opioid painkillers. Most estimates put the annual death toll from the addiction to almost 40,000 a year. Trump has begun to address the problem and even the Chairwoman of the Federal Reserve, Janet Yellen, has stated that so many people are addicted that it is dampening the nation’s economic growth.

Keep that thought in mind while we remind you that many, many times that when Washington addresses a problem they actually make it worse. Which may be the case here relative to the intersection of the growing opioid addiction and Obama Care. Consider an article from Allysia Finley, writing for the Wall Street Journal on September 25, 2017:

• Medicaid is one of the biggest suppliers of opioid painkillers in the entire country.
• Obama Care resulted in an additional 11 million Americans being signed onto the Medicaid rolls in many states.
• Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson recently pointed out a strong correlation between this Medicaid expansion and opioid overdoses.
• His source of data: the Centers of Disease Control found that: “[opioid] overdose deaths per capita rose twice as much on average between 2013 and 2015 in states that expanded Medicaid than those that didn’t.”
• As an example of two similar states, opioid deaths rose 205% in North Dakota which expanded Medicaid rolls vs. only an 18% rise in South Dakota which did not expand Medicaid.
• Between 2013 and 2015, the opioid deaths in Ohio, which did expand Medicaid, went up 38% while the addiction in nearby Wisconsin, which did not expand Medicaid, went up only 2%.
• According to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Medicaid funded hospital stays for opioid addiction went up 40% between 2012 and 2014, four times the growth rate of Medicaid enrollment, while opioid addiction hospital stays for those covered by private insurance went up a tenth of that rate, only 4%.
• The article points out similar trends in hospital visits of Medicaid patients, with hospital visits going up dramatically in states where Medicaid was expanded.

Now, while these are strong correlations, they might be causations. However, the realities behind Medicaid patients and the treatment they get would seem to point to causation:

• Since many doctors across the country to not accept Medicaid patients, many times Medicaid patients go to the emergency room for pain control since they cannot get access to a doctor.
• The overwhelmed emergency rooms want to relieve the pain so prescribing an opioid pain killer satisfies the short term problem of pain relief because of non-doctor access but sets up a patient for a longer term problem, addiction, since getting into see a Medicaid-friendly doctor or specialist might take months, if ever, to correctly fix the root cause of the pain problem.
• A study found by Express Scripts Holding found that Medicaid patients are twice as likely to get prescribed opioids than non-Medicaid patients.
• In the meantime, the Medicaid patient is still in pain, still looking for relief, and thus, an addiction is born since the root cause of the pain is not being treated.

Great, another government program that does the exact opposite of what it set out to do, resulting in possibly thousands of Americans dying every year from opioid addiction as a result of Obama Care’s foolish expansion of Medicaid. Medicaid was not designed for what Obama Care wanted it to do so this is really no surprise. 

Add in Sanders’ about face on the single payer system, and it becomes clear that those in Washington still have no clue on how to fix our broken health care processes and costs. More disasters to follow in the coming days.

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

October, 2017, Part 1, The Unfolding Disaster That Is Obama Care: McCain Lies, Premiums Rise, and Nothing Ever Gets Fixed

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

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

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

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

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

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

1) Many times we have written and discussed how the monthly premiums for Obama Care policies continued to skyrocket over the years despite Obama’s claim that some American families would see upwards of a $2,500 REDUCTION in their annual premiums as a result of the legislation. Double digit percent increases have been the norm every year, not the exception.

The bad news continued in the area of ever rising Obama Care health insurance premium increases in a September 17, 2017 article by Aaron Bandler on the Daily Wire website:

• Citing the Washington Free Beacon as his source, Mr. Bandler reports that the Congressional Budget Office estimates that the average increase in Obama Care premiums will be 15% in 2018, about seven times higher than the current rate of inflation.
• As a result of this large increase, the CBO expects 2 million people to drop their Obama Care coverage and go uninsured in 2018.
• Specifically, the Beacon reported: "The budget office projects that average premiums will total $3,400 for a 21-year-old, $4,800 for a 45-year-old, and $9,800 for a 64-year-old this year." 
• While some of the current Obama Care customers will feel the total impact of the increases because of taxpayer subsidies, millions who do not get subsidies will see large increases.
• Plus, those increase premiums have to be paid by someone and in many cases that will be the American taxpayer via Obama Care subsidies.
• According to another Free Beacon report, in 2018 there will be 63 counties throughout the country with NO Obama Care insurers available to them.
• Even though there will be no insurers to get coverage from in those counties, the residents of those counties will still have to pay penalties to the Federal government for not having insurance.
• Almost as bad, 1,472 counties, 45% of all U.S. counties, will have only one carrier to get an Obama Care policy from.

So much for Obama’s promise that the legislation would spur competition across the country and give Americans a wider choice of insurance companies.

And Washington does nothing to fix what is becoming worse and worse every day. The Democrats who wrought this disaster refuse to help fix it and Republicans who promised to fix it cannot get out of their own way. The ineptness and idiocy of these politicians is mind boggling when such a pressing issue confronts the country and they are incapable of doing anything to fix it.

2) The previous information came from a mid-September article. A more recent article on the NewsMax website by Andrew Harrer on October 4, 2017 shows that the aforementioned 15% increase in 2018 might have been premature and too conservative:

• The article cites a New York Times report that stated some Obama Care insurance policies may see their premiums increase by over 50% in 2018.
• It stated that some insurance regulators at the state level are raising rates very aggressively in order to avoid insurance companies abandoning their state’s Obama Care exchanges altogether.
• According to Georgia insurance commissioner Ralph Hudgens, some rates could go up 57.% in 2018: "Obamacare has become even more unaffordable for Georgia's middle class. I am disappointed by reports that the latest Obamacare repeal has stalled once again and urge Congress to take action to end this failed health insurance experiment."
• The average Obama Care premium increase will be 45% in Florida and 30% in New Mexico.
• The Times story cites experts that estimate the rates will go up from 10% to almost 60% next year.

Again, not quite the promised $2,500 annual decrease that Obama promised time and time again. And again, while many Obama Care policy holders will not see much if any increase because of Federal subsidies, the American taxpayer will be paying for those increase as will millions of Obama Care policy holders who do not get any subsidies at all. 

3) One of the reasons that Republicans could not get any positive changes made to the Obama Care disaster is because Senate Republican John McCain stopped the one effort that his party members in the Senate almost got passed. Which is strange since at least 13 times McCain publicly came out strongly on not fixing Obama Care but repealing it and replacing it. 

But yet when the time comes to actually do what he said he wanted to do, McCain sinks the whole effort. Talk about a blatant hypocrite that is contributing to the ongoing disaster that is Obama Care. 

One example of his hypocrisy was the following statement he made: “It is clear that any serious attempt to improve our health care system must begin with a full repeal and replacement of Obamacare, and I will continue fighting on behalf of the people of Arizona to achieve it”

His 13 public declarations wanting to repeal Obama Care can be seen at:

http://godfatherpolitics.com/boom-trump-tweets-video-13-times-mccain-promised-repeal/

That will do it for today’s review of the unfolding disaster that is Obama Care: McCain lies, premiums rise, and the Washington political class is useless in fixing a major problem facing the country and millions and millions of Americans. More disasters to follow.

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

www.loathemygovernment.com

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

Please visit the following sites for freedom:


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

October, 2017, Part 5, Political Class Insanity: Poiitical Insanity Around The World, The Equifax Hypocrisy, and More

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

1) While it is usually the insanity of American politicians that we focus on in this blog, that does not mean that politicians at all levels of government, both in this country and around the world, are not insane also. These politicians often focus on stuff that is of very little importance relative to the bigger issues of the day that affect millions and millions of voters and constituents. The November, 2017 issue of Reason magazine had a few such examples of political class insanity in different places:

• Local politicians tried to stop musician Roger Waters from giving a concert at Long Island’s Nassau Coliseum since he advocates for a boycott of Israel. I guess the First Amendment is just a suggestion in Nassau County.
• Davino Watson was arrested by Federal immigration officers, denied a lawyer, and held in custody for almost three and a half years under suspicion that he was an illegal immigrant. Eventually, the government figured out he was NOT an illegal immigrant, set him free but they released him half a country away from his home. When he tried to sue the Federal government for his illegal detention a court ruled he could not sue since he filed the lawsuit after the statute of limitations ran out and was not eligible for compensation. The irony is that the statute of limitations ran out while he was falsely imprisoned and was unable to sue.
• Andre Spicer’s daughter set up a lemonade stand outside his home in London, England. It just so happened that a festival was taking place that day and the stand was doing a brisk business. Unfortunately, 30 minutes after the stand opened, not one, not two, not three but four government code enforcers showed up, forced his daughter to shut down the stand, and fined her 150 pounds for not having a trading permit. Talk about a waste of government and taxpayer resources, four people needed to shut down one little girl’s temporary lemonade stand.
• The country of Venezuela is collapsing right in front of the world’s eyes. Military and dictatorial rule has collapsed the economy making living day to day a violent and desperate struggle as food supplies and other household items are in short supply. The government recently released pictures of various government soldiers being rewarded and honored for their service. What was their reward? A couple of rolls of real toilet paper, highly valued in a country where access to sufficient toilet paper is virtually impossible, given the ineptness of the ruling political class.

Politicians are the same the world over, generally useless and inept.

2) Equifax, the credit bureau giant, had its computer systems hacked a little while ago which exposed possibly 140 million people to identity theft and fraud since the hackers made away with names, Social Security numbers, and other personal information. It is a very serious breach of confidential information that is likely going to have serious fraud repercussions for millions of Americans. 

Not unsurprisingly, different members of Congress were shocked and outraged by such a terrible lack of data security by Equifax and were very focal that this should not have happened. However, I do not remember these same people being outraged at all in recent incidents where members of their political class allowed similar problems:

• A few years ago, foreign hackers got into government systems and made off with millions of records containing the personal information of millions of current and former Federal government employees, exposing those millions to potential identity fraud and theft. I don't remember these same politicians being as outraged by this atrocity, that they were partially responsible for given their Constitutional duties, as they publicly were about Equifax.
• Over the years, foreign hackers got into Hillary Clinton’s unsecured computer servers in her house to make away with Federal government and State Department secret documents. I don't remember these same politicians being as outraged by this atrocity, that they were partially responsible for given their Constitutional duties, as they publicly were about Equifax

And now it turns out, according to a recent wall Street Journal article, that Russian hackers stole National Security Agency (NSA) spy secrets. The secrets included information on how the U.S. hacks foreign computer networks and how the NSA defends against cyberattacks on the U.S. Apparently, an idiotic NSA contractor put this highly secret information on his home computer which was easily accessed and hacked by the Russians. Even worse, the hack occurred in 2015 and was just realized this past spring.

And as above, I have not seen the same outrage from the same politicians that grandstanded the Equifax crisis even though this NSA hack is very serious stuff. Perhaps these politicians should be paying a little more attention to their jobs so that the Federal government they oversee is not so horrible at keeping secrets before going on TV and radio to crucify Equifax.

3) Let’s finish off today’s and this month’s political class insanity with some wise words from Gary Johnson, the Libertarian candidate for President in 2016. Mr. Johnson and the Libertarian party are great advocates for freedom and minimal government interference in our lives. The recent tragedy in Las Vegas where a deranged sniper killed dozens and wounded hundreds is the basis for his essay.

His essay captures the idiocy and pettiness of the current major parties and how they are incapable of reason, negotiation, problem solving, and empathy for Americans:
58 innocent people were massacred Sunday night in Las Vegas. And more than 500 were injured, many of them seriously.

All because a deranged maniac decided to get a corner suite at the Mandalay Bay Resort, assemble an arsenal, and open fire from above on thousands gathered to simply enjoy a concert.

It is an unspeakable act causing unspeakable pain. As we would expect in this great country, the stories of horror and death are accompanied by inspiring stories of Americans doing what Americans do: Strangers saving the lives of strangers. First responders going into harm’s way. Thousands lining up for hours to donate blood, and millions of dollars pouring into funds for the victims and their families.

But sadly and predictably, the partisans on each side have already retreated to their respective trenches. Some laying blame on gun rights activists, and some of my fellow supporters of the 2nd Amendment refusing to even engage in a conversation.

On Sunday night and in the days since, the people of Las Vegas and beyond have shown us what civility, respect for one another, and simple human kindness can accomplish. It’s time for the politicians to take off their partisan blinders, stop making every decision a calculation of votes and money, and have the tough conversations we need to have in this country -- about health care, race relations, taxes, and yes, if necessary, guns.

I am headed to the Supreme Court on October 26th for this very reason: we need a presidential debate that breaks out of the two-sided narrative.

I’m not running for anything.

I’m just tired of watching the politicians shut down meaningful, common sense discussions of the real issues we face. I believe the presidential debates is a good place to start if we are going to change that.

Just as they have shown again this week, Americans know what needs to be done. They just deserve elected officials who care.

I hope you will join me at the Supreme Court.

Sincerely,

Gary E. Johnson

“...civility, respect for one another, and simple human kindness.” These are certainly human qualities that are in short supply in the Washington political class. As a result, their yelling and temper tantrums never result in the resolution of any major issue facing Americans today, as Mr. Johnson so vividly points out. We wish him luck at the Supreme Court that hopefully FINALLY results in an alternative to the current political class. 

Unfortunately, I am sure that there will be more political class insanity next month.

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

www.loathemygovernment.com

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

Please visit the following sites for freedom:


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