Love My Country, Loathe My Government

Friday, November 20, 2015

An Open Letter To President Obama: Why Syrian Refugees Over Struggling Americans?

Dear Mr President:

Obviously, the topic of Syria is on everyone’s mind these days including yours. This conflict has caused an unprecedented refugee problem and crisis as untold thousands of people flee the civil war and fighting in Syria.

You have made a commitment of bringing at least 10,000 of these refugees into the United States for settlement. Your passion for doing this deed has led you to insult millions of Americans who are insisting, through their elected officials, that this resettlement be delayed only until America can be convinced that no ISIS terrorists will be embedded in the refugee stream.

Estimates have been published that the American taxpayer will have to put forth billions of dollars to accomplish this resettlement because of the associated housing, feeding, transportation and other costs of the refugees. You are obviously passionate about this issue. But do you mind if I ask you why you are not as passionate about Americans that are in need and why you are willing to spend billions of dollars for 10,000 foreign strangers while:

More than 3.5 million Americans experience homelessness each year.
On a typical night in 2014, more than 578,000 Americans were homeless.
Nearly 2.3 million American children experienced homelessness in 2013.
One out of every 30 American children experienced homelessness in 2013.

http://www.studentsagainsthunger.org/page/hhp/overview-homelessness-america

Between 130,000 and 200,000 armed forces American veterans are homeless at any time.

http://www.nationalhomeless.org/factsheets/veterans.html

The Department of Veterans Affair’s inspector general found that out of about 800,000 records backlogged in the agency's system for managing veterans’ health care needs, there were more than 307,000 records that belonged to American veterans who had died months or years in the past before their health care needs were addressed.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/02/politics/va-inspector-general-report/

397,122 orphaned American children are living without permanent families in the U.S. foster care system.
101,666 of these American children are eligible for adoption.
Nearly 32% of these American children will wait over three years in foster care before being adopted.

http://ccainstitute.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&id=25&layout=blog&Itemid=43

According National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System data, 50 States reported a total of 1,484 American children abuse fatalities in 2013.
This translates to a rate of 2.04 American children per 100,000 children in the general population and an average of four children dying every day from abuse or neglect.

https://www.childwelfare.gov/pubPDFs/fatality.pdf

About 45 million Americans are receiving Federal food assistance every month.

http://frac.org/reports-and-resources/snapfood-stamp-monthly-participation-data/#aug

2 million injuries and 1,300 American deaths are caused each year as a result of domestic violence.

http://www.clicktoempower.org/domestic-violence-facts

Over 40,000 Americans die from a drug overdose every year

http://www.drugwarfacts.org/cms/Causes_of_Death#sthash.kPd7mzR6.dpbs

Almost 14 million Americans are currently unemployed because they cannot find a job or are forced to work part time because they cannot find a full time job.

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf

Where was your passion when these millions of Americans were suffering from homelessness, food shortage, domestic violence, and other dangers? How are you able to find money in the Federal budget for 10,000 foreigners and not for these Americans?

And for once, please do not blame someone else for this suffering within our borders. During your administration, easily hundreds of billions of dollars were wasted every year due to government redundancies, wasteful government spending and inefficiencies, and outright criminal fraud of government programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.

Maybe if you had spent less time on over 200 golf outings, over 700 political fund raisers and many, many vacations, you could have found the time to tighten up government functions, spending, and operations, and had enough money not only for these refugees but for the rest of those in America that need a helping hand.

Senator Ted Cruz has dared you to return to this country and debate him face-to-face on the issue of increasing security scrutiny and screening. I dare you to look a hungry American child in the face, the widow of a veteran who died waiting for healthcare in the face, a homeless American family in the face and tell them why 10,000 foreigners get more attention, compassion, and monetary support from you than these struggling Americans do. I dare you.

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

Thursday, November 19, 2015

November, 2015, Part 4, By The Numbers: The Economy Stinks and These Federal Reserve Charts Prove It (Continued)

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 this week and try to show the major disconnect between what Americans want and what politicians are doing:

Yesterday, we reviewed the latest monthly economic statistics from the Federal government. Although there were a few glimmers of economic hope, for the most part those glimmers are still being overwhelmed by the overall economic situation:

The labor participation rate is still bouncing around at the same low levels not seen for the past four decades.
Almost 14 million Americans are either unemployed or are working at part time jobs even though they would prefer full time jobs.
Minority unemployment rates are still much higher than the total national unemployment rate.
Over 45 million Americans are still receiving Federal food assistance every month.

Yesterday, we looked at five of the nine long term trend charts that the Federal Reserve recently published. Today, we will look at the final four charts but the results, numbers, and conclusions are still the same: Washington politicians probably could not have screwed things up worse if they had tried to.

6) As we discussed yesterday, and many times previoulsy, the number of people and the amount of taxpayer wealth spent on food assistance every month, while down slightly, is still more than double higher than what it was prior to the recession and six years AFTER the recession ended (click on chart for a larger view):

7) Student debt is rapidly approaching a whopping $1 TRILLION, is about nine times higher than what it was prior to the recession and has skyrocketed since the recession ended. And since a lot of this debt is guaranteed and backed by the Federal government, there is a good chance that American taxpayers are going to get caught with this bad debt and investment at some point in time.

8) Twenty five years ago, the Democrats in Congress and the White House decided it was worth risking trillions of dollars via taxpayer backed loans to credit risky home owners in order to increase the homeownership level of American families. Twenty five years later, and hundreds of billions of dollars spent to bail out Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and other financial institutions, the home ownership rates for American families is actually lower than where it was back then. As with the other Fed measurements, the rate of homeownership decline has accelerated AFTER the recession ended.

9) And finally, this last Fed chart shows that not only have wages stagnated during the Obama years but American median family income is less than it was was in 1998. While bouncing back somewhat since the recession ended, the median is still below where it was prior to the recession and lately its improvement trend has been flattening out.

That will do it for today. But the results and conclusions from the nine Federal Reserve charts we have reviewed over the past two days charts definitely prove three things: the Obama administration, the current Congressional members, and Federal bureaucrats have saddled us with tremendous amounts of debt, stagnant wages, and tepid job creation. Seems you could not do a worse job managing the economy if you were trying.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

Wednesday, November 18, 2015

November, 2015, Part 3, By The Numbers - Obama's Death Knell For Democrats, Vacationing On Taxpayer Wealth and Golf,Golf, Golf

This is the third post this month as we continue our periodic 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.

1) Remember how the media proclaimed that when Obama was elected President that the Republican party would wither away and die off? Obama was the young vibrant leader, the first African American President while the Republicans were a bunch of old white guys from a different, past generation of America?

Well, as Mark Twain once said, “The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.” Consider the political numbers that have occurred since Obama became President:

With the recent election of a Republican to be governor of Kentucky, Republicans now control the governor’s seat in 32, 64%, of the states.
Republicans control 30, 60%, of the country’s state legislatures and have total or split control of 38 out of 50, 76%.
There are 13 fewer Democrats in the U.S. Senate since Obama was elected.
There are 69 fewer Congressional Democrats in the House of Representatives since Obama was elected.
There are 11 fewer Democratic governors since Obama was elected.
There are 913 fewer Democrats in state legislatures since Obama was elected.
Maryland, Illinois ,and Kentucky now have Republican governors, a rarity in those states throughout history.

The Washington Post mapped out this Republican dominance in the following map (click on the graph for a larger view):

Image credit: Washington Post

2) A recent article by Derrick Wilburn on the Allen B. West website continued to review the carnage that the Obama Presidency has wrought on Democrats across the country:

The 2014 elections gave the Republicans their biggest Congressional majority in both houses in almost 99 years, 54 seats in the Senate and 247 seats in the house.
They achieved their biggest control of state legislative bodies, 68, since 1928.
In the 2014 elections, the Republicans won 24 out of 36 open U.S. Senate seats.
50% of the U.S. Senators who voted for Obama Care are no longer in the Senate.

While Obama in his own mind might think he is legendary the only thing the numbers show is that his policies and attitude has had a legendary bad impact on Democrats across the country.

3) Maybe one of the issues people have with Democrats is that their political leader, Barack Obama, seems to think that he and his family can use and waste taxpayer dollars on their many expensive vacations. According to recent findings via Freedom of Information Act requests, Judicial Watch published its expense findings on three Obama family vacations regarding just the cost of transportation:

• Obama's June 20, 2015 golf outing to Palm Springs required 10.6 hours of flying time at $206,337 per hour, costing taxpayers $2,187,172.20.

• Obama's July 18, 2015 trip to New York City with his daughters required 1.5 hours of flying time at $206,337 per hour, costing taxpayers $309,505.50.

• Obama's August 7, 2015 family trip to Martha's Vineyard required 3 hours of flying time at $206,337 per hour, costing taxpayers $619,011.

Thus, just the flying costs to the American taxpayer for just these three Obama family vacations cost over $3 million. Judicial Watch is still waiting for the cost of Secret Service costs for these trips.

The additional details from Judicial Watch were also provided:

While in Palm Springs, the President played golf at the private golf course of billionaire Oracle founder Larry Ellison. This was his fifth golf outing to Palm Springs in just the past two years.
In New York he told ABC TV News that he was in the city “hanging out with his girls.” He, his two daughters and their friends flew to New York on Air Force One.
After one day they all flew home but the President flew back to New York just two days later to appear on TV’s “The Daily Show.”

He still made the trip to New York even though four Armed Forces recruiters had recently been killed in a terrorist attack in Tennessee.

His trip to Martha’s Vineyard including many rounds of golf on many private course. The house the First Family stayed at was 8,100 square feet in size, it sat on a 10 acre lot, it had 17 rooms, and usually rents for $50,000 a WEEK.

The numbers show that Obama and his family are certainly living the good live, all on taxpayer wealth.

4) Speaking of Obama and golf, as of this past August, the President had played 248 rounds of golf. This is the most rounds of golf played by a President since the 1950s. This comes out to about one round of golf every ten days, a rate that the vast majority of Americans and vast majority of American golfers fail to attain.

This is a President who promised he “would not rest” until every problem the country was facing was resolved, as witnessed by his promises, all of which have been broken, in the following video:

http://obamagolfcounter.com/

I foolishly assumed that he meant he would not be golfing every ten days or so until every problem was resolved, that is how I interpreted his continual “will not rest” promises.

But I should have known better. Remember, this is the same Presidential candidate that said he would not take vacations if elected since there were so many issues facing the country:

http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/Obama-vacation-video-golf/2014/08/12/id/588289/

Over 248 rounds of golf prove that this is another broken promise, the golf numbers do not lie.

That will do it for this month’s “by the numbers” update. Do not believe political spin, believe the numbers if you want to know what reality is.

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 17, 2015

November, 2015, Part 2, By The Numbers: The Ecoomy Stinks and These Federal Reserve Charts Prove It

This is the second 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:Yesterday, we reviewed the latest monthly economic statistics from the Federal government. Although there were a few glimmers of economic hope, for the most part those glimmers are still being overwhelmed by the overall economic situation:

The labor participation rate is still bouncing around at the same low levels not seen for the past four decades.

Almost 14 million Americans are either unemployed or are working at part time jobs even though they would prefer full time jobs.

Minority unemployment rates are still much higher than the total national unemployment rate.

Over 45 million Americans are still receiving Federal food assistance every month.

These are the short term economic results and numbers. They are not good. But the Daily Caller recently published some long term trend data from the Federal Reserve Board and guess what: the long term economic results and numbers are just as bad. Let’s see what they are telling us:1) We have already pointed out that the Obama administration’s mishandling of the Federal government’s budget has already increased the national debt level by about 80% and will likely at least double it by the time Obama leaves office. In other words, Obama will add more to the national debt than ALL previous Presidencies combined.And not only is the total debt increasing, but the debt load as a percentage of annual GDP has also skyrocketed, according to the Federal Reserve. The sad news is that not only did it jump during the recession, but it kept going up once the recession ended (click on the graph for a larger view):

2) The Federal Reserve pumped fake, printed money into the economy to try and get the recovery underway. Unfortunately they kept pumping money into the economy even when the recession ended, increasing the money in the economy by ten fold. At some point, that much paper money will come back on an inflation tear:

3) Somehow, and this is probably not easy, the Obama administration’s economic policies have somehow managed to reduce the median weekly earnings of average Americans AFTER the recession ended, dropping so far down that today’s median average wages are about where they were thirteen years ago in 2002.

4) As we discussed yesterday, the Civilian Labor Force Participation Rate is at levels not since the dark economic days of the Carter administration. And even worse, the Obama administration’s economic policies have accelerated the drop in the participation rate AFTER the recession ended.

5) Although workers’ portion of the economy has been slowly declining over time, that trend accelerated during the Bush administration, paused during the recession, and then plunged again during the Obama administration AFTER the recession ended.

That will do it for today. We will finish the remaining Fed trend charts tomorrow. But the results and conclusions from those charts will not reach a different conclusion than this: the Obama administration, the current Congressional members, and Federal bureaucrats have saddled us with tremendous amounts of debt, stagnant wages, and tepid job creation. Seems you could not do a worse job managing the economy if you were trying to scew things up.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: