June, 2017, Part 5, Political Class Insanity: Medical Ripoffs, NATO Ripoffs and Education Taxpayer Ripoffs

As we do every month, we review the latest idiocy, lunacy, ineptness, and general insanity from the American political class. We are getting started as little late this month since we needed to review the latest global warming.climate change insanity from the likes of Al Gore, culminating in our review of the 26 reasons why it was appropriate and necessary for Trump to pull us out of the Paris Climate Agreement:

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2017/06/june-2017-part-4-i-am-global-warming.html

But let’s quickly get into this month’s political class insanity because over the past month or so there has been a lot of it was Washington implodes into a useless pile of incompetence:

1) We have often pointed out how horribly most public schools educate our kids these days. Despite spending trillions of dollars at every level of government over the past few decades to educate our kids, the results have almost always been abysmal. Our kids usually rank behind the kids of dozens of other countries whenever scores on standardized tests are compiled despite the trillions of dollars spent, and wasted, on education in this country.

And apparently things do not get much better for many of our college graduates either. Consider a recent report by Douglas Belkin, writing for the Wall Street Journal:

• The College Learning Assessment Plus test (CLA+) is administered to freshmen and seniors at about 200 U.SA. college across the country.
• After four years, the test results are compared between the freshmen test results and the senior year test results.
• The test is meant to determine the critical thinking skills of our college graduates, not what they think or know but how they think and reason.
• The latest results show that at more than half of the 200 schools using the test, more than a third of college graduates “were unable to make a cohesive argument, assess the quality of evidence in a document and interpret data in a table.”
• At some of the most prestigious, and expensive colleges, in the testing program, the ability to improve thinking skills from freshman year to senior year showed little or no improvement.

As the world and technology change more and more rapidly, those college graduates that have no ability to think clearly, reasonably, and logically will not only leave themselves behind but also help the country remain more and more uncompetitive vs. the rest of the world. All of this despite trillions and trillions of dollars wasted in this country on educating our kids.

And when an outsider comes into the picture, someone like Betsy DeVos, to try and change what is obviously a failed approach to education, from Head Start through college, the political establishment players go crazy. They would prefer the failed, expensive and current policies then even try to do something different.

What did Einstein say once: “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” We are truly insane then when it comes to education.

2) Some people both in this country and in Europe got really upset when Trump dared to suggest that most members of NATO were not living up to their commitment to defend themselves and the NATO alliance. Given that Obama allowed these European allies to slide by for eight years without doing what they committed to do trained the Europeans to lash out when someone actually told them the truth.

But Trump was right when you consider the numbers and realities. As the U.S. continues to spend more than half a trillion dollars a year to defend itself and NATO allies during the Obama regime, consider what the Europeans were doing, as reported in a recent Wall Street Journal article:

• Although during the Cold War the Netherlands maintained a tank force of 445 tanks, by 2015 they had put its last 60 tanks up for sale and had sold off all of its helicopters and most of its minesweepers.
• During the Cold War, Germany had over 2,100 tanks but now has only 244 of which about half actually work.
• As of last year on average, 9 of German’s 48 NH-90 transport helicopters and 40 of its just 123 jet fighters were usable at any one time.
• Today, European NATO forces have less than half of the number of soldiers today vs. 1983 and less than half the number of tanks.
• The European NATO forces had 84 destroyers in 1983 but only 54 today, it had 2,672 fighter planes in 1983 but only 1,897 today, and it had 173 frigates but only 92 today.

This the reality that Trump was talking about and why he was looking out for the American taxpayer: why should we continue to pay for a defense of Europe when Europe is not willing to pay for a defense of itself. Trump was doing what all American Presidents should be doing: looking out for the welfare of Americans and America.

3) We recently reviewed the reality that the Federal government wastes or criminally loses at least $144 billion a YEAR from its government programs with Medicare and Medicaid, the main Federal health insurance programs, wasting the vast majority of that $144 billion. 

A recent article in the AARP magazine described a medical scam that was going on in California and illustrated that it is not always seedy street criminals who are stealing money via health care scams, those stealing of money from insurance companies and Medicare and Medicaid are often doctors themselves. 

While the article’s details, highlighted below, are not directly connected to Medicare and Medicaid and taxpayer ripoffs, it does illustrate what is likely going on within the criminal activities relative to those programs also:

• California state officials recently announced that a group of doctors, pharmacists, and others were arrested for ripping off $40 million from state insurance companies.
• Twenty six people were arrested in the fraud investigation.
• 13,000 victims were ripped off as were 27 insurance companies.
• A husband and wife couple who owned a medical billing and medical management companies allegedly recruited doctors and pharmacists to provide unnecessary treatments and medicine that were illegally billed through insurance companies.
• Part of the scheme involved pharmacists creating medicinal and unnecessary ointments, ointments that had no medical value, that cost very little to produce but were billed anywhere from $200 to $750 per ointment tube.
• Another part of the scheme had doctors prescribing unnecessary urine tests that were, of course, criminally billed to insurance companies.

You get the idea. If the insurance companies could not catch the criminals before $40 million was ripped off, you can imagine how many billions of dollars are currently be ripped off by doctors and pharmacists via Medicare and Medicaid using similar scams. That is how easily inept Federal government programs can lose tens of billions of dollars over the years.

That will do it for today’s insanity: medical and insurance ripoffs, European nations using American taxpayers to fund their defense, and trillions of taxpayer dollars spent but our kids are still massively under educated. More insanity 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

June, 2017, Part 4, Political Class Insanity: Massive Government Spending Waste and Massive California Common Sense Waste

As we do every month, we review the latest idiocy, lunacy, ineptness, and general insanity from the American political class. We are getting started as little late this month since we needed to review the latest global warming.climate change insanity from the likes of Al Gore, culminating in our review of the 26 reasons why it was appropriate and necessary for Trump to pull us out of the Paris Climate Agreement:

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2017/06/june-2017-part-4-i-am-global-warming.html

But let’s quickly get into this month’s political class insanity because over the past month or so there has been a lot of it was Washington implodes into a useless pile of incompetence:

1) Susan Jones, writing for the CNS website on May 18, 2017, pointed out the vast amount of fraud and waste that goes on everyday within the Federal government, based on the latest investigation into such waste, this one done by the Comptroller General:

• The report and research from the Comptroller General found that the Federal government made a whopping $144 billion in improper payments just in 2016.
• The Comptroller told a Senate Budget Committee hearing that improper payments over the years easily added up to more than a trillion dollars.
• In his opening statement Inspector General Dodaro stated that, “These are payments that should not have been made or were made in the wrong amounts.” 
• And the problem is getting worse since he found that improper payments in 2014 were $125 billion, $137 billion in 20915, and now $144 billion in 2016.
• These improper payments occurred in 112 Federal government programs across 22 Federal government organizations.
• The worst news is that these 112 programs and 22 organizations do not cover the entire Federal government, meaning that more than $144 billion was likely wasted just in 2016.
• His findings did not include the food stamp program,which we know is infected with criminal fraud and wasteful spending, the Defense Department which we also know is so screwed up that trained auditors cannot figure out the accounting mess that the Pentagon operates, and other Federal agencies and programs.
• Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security account for about 75% of the $144 billion.

What a disgraceful waste of taxpayer wealth. We have previously reported that every year about 140 million American file an income tax return. If the Washington political class and Federal government bureaucrats were doing their job, than each one of those taxpayer would theoretically get an additional $1,000 a year tax refund. What would you do if someone gave you a tax free $1,000 every year? 

2) Speaking of Medicare screwups, consider a recent Wall Street Journal article by Melanie Evans:

• A recent inspector general report found that Medicare improperly paid out $729 million to doctors and others over a three year period.
• The bad payments went to people who claimed they deserved bonus Medicare payments under a Medicare program but who lacked proof or failed to meet the criteria for the bonus payments.
• The audit estimated that a whopping 12% of the payments paid out under the specified bonus program were done in error, an unacceptable level of ineptness.
• Medicare officials said that they would try to recoup the misspent funds.

Just one example where hundreds of millions of dollars are improperly spent by the Feds, how many other dozens or hundreds of programs are doing the same thing that have not been uncovered yet?

3) How about a little state political class insanity? And of course, what is the best state for political class insanity? California. Earlier this month we reported on how millions of people have been leaving California over the years to get away from the high taxes,onerous regulations, stupid laws, and destruction of personal freedom in that state. 

Despite the growing evidence that they are not doing a good job, given the ever growing and huge state government debt load and the millions of people leaving the state, two state politicians have decided they want healthcare in California to be a single payer system where the government controls every aspect of health care. No insurance companies involved at all, just the state government trying to administer to the health care needs of every resident.

Consider the many insanity angles of this stupidity:

• The initial estimate of the cost of a state run single payer system is $400 billion a year.
• Given that not a single government program has ever come in under the initial estimate and budget, I think we can safely assume that the $400 billion annual cost is a lowball estimate.
• But let’s stay with that estimate and the reality that there are over 39 million people living in California today.
• Thus, if we simply divide the annual cost by the number of people in the state, the average cost every year for health care for every California, men, women, and children, would be a whopping $10,000+ per person.
• Thus, a typical four person family would be paying over $40,000 a year for health care and insurance, which, remember is a low ball estimate.

Now, a liberal would probably claim that the rich and businesses should have their taxes raised to pay for such high state sponsored healthcare costs but you can be sure that very quickly businesses and the wealthy would be leaving California in droves, not wanting to spend hundreds of billions of dollars a year to support a massive and likely ineffective state government bureaucracy.

Furthermore, as costs spiraled upwards and out of control, I am sure that the state bureaucrats and politicians would try to save this disaster by continually reducing the amount of money that is paid out to doctors and other health professionals, which would likely result in more and more doctors leaving the state for other parts of the country where they can make a better living.

Thus, the outward migration of people, doctors, and businesses would accelerate under such a stupid plan, a plan that is likely to cost more than $400 billion a year. You cannot fix stupid, especially California political stupid.

That will do it for today’s political class insanity: the Federal government continues to lose billions and billions of dollars every year to incompetence and criminal fraud and California state politicians cannot do simple math or exhibit any common sense. More insanity 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

June, 2017, Part 3, Political Class Insanity: Fraud And Taxpayer Waste In The Education Department, Nancy Pelosi Hypocrisy, and Millions Flee From California

As we do every month, we review the latest idiocy, lunacy, ineptness, and general insanity from the American political class. We are getting started as little late this month since we needed to review the latest global warming.climate change insanity from the likes of Al Gore, culminating in our review of the 26 reasons why it was appropriate and necessary for Trump to pull us out of the Paris Climate Agreement:

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2017/06/june-2017-part-4-i-am-global-warming.html

But let’s quickly get into this month’s political class insanity because over the past month or so there has been a lot of it was Washington implodes into a useless pile of incompetence:

1) It is not only Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid that waste and lose hundreds of billions of dollars over the years to criminals. According to Nick Bolger, writing for the Washington Free Beacon on June 2, 2017:

• An executive in the Federal Education Department allegedly received secret bonuses worth $432,000 over the past seven years.
• James Runcie was the chief operating office of the Student Aid office during the Obama administration and he apparently received secret five figure bonuses each year while his department erroneously was giving out billions of dollars in improper payments, according to an Education Department report.
• His department ran the Pell Grant program whose payments went from $562 million in 2015 to $2.21 billion in 2016 and the Federal Direct Loan Program which saw its expenses go from $1.28 billion in 2015 to $3.86 billion in 2016, certainly suspicious and likely bogus increases in just a single year.
• According to Judicial Watch, which uncovered the corruption and incompetence: "These are disbursements that either shouldn't have been made, went to the wrong recipient, were for an incorrect amount, or were not properly documented," and that "under Runcie's leadership there was pervasive fraud and corruption at the FSA."
• While Runcie received $432,885 dollars in bonuses in seven years, none of those payments appear on his official government salary records.
• Runcie suddenly resigned when the Education Secretary, Betsy DeVos, told him to testify in front of Congress about the rising rate of improper payments, certainly a suspicious move on his part.

Hopefully Mr. Runcie gets what he deserves if criminal actions happen and someone, somehow plugs the dramatic wasting of taxpayer money in the student loan programs. But again, as we always say, while Runcie may have been caught for criminal and incompetence actions, how many other dozens, hundreds or thousands of Federal government employees are getting away with the same disgraceful performance? Insanity.

2) This blog would not be nearly as much fun to write if it was not for Nancy Pelosi. This is the Congressional leader who once said that we needed to pass the Obama Care bill in order to see what was in it. Yes, let’s blindly vote on legislation and then be surprised when we see what happens after it is enacted. She also ranted that 500 million Americans were applying for unemployment benefits every week, which is a pretty good trick since at the time there were only about 300 million people in the country.

Lately, she has seemed disjointed and confused when speaking publicly. Any number of times, as we recently pointed out, she seems to be in a time warp, continually referring to Donald Trump as George W. Bush, as if Bush was still President. Crazy times.

She recently hit a new low as far as ranting, according to an article by V. Saxena, writing for the Conservative Tribune website on June 10, 2017:

• Apparently, Pelosi is calling for taxpayer funds to be used to launch another investigation into the Trump Presidency.
• The reason: apparently the fact that Trump recently began his recent world trip in Saudi Arabia is enough to justify an investigation.
• Her words: “I just think it was a very strange choice to go there,” the California Democrat said when interviewed on MSNBC, according to The Washington Times. “Especially in light of having served on the committee that investigated 9/11, and knowing the suspicions that exist in our country, and among his people.”
• Her warped reasoning continued:“I thought it was unusual for the president of the United States to go to Saudi Arabia first. Saudi Arabia? It wasn’t even alphabetical. I mean, what, Saudi Arabia?” Yes, every Presidential trip out of the country should be planned alphabetically, is she crazy?

What Ms. Pelosi seems to forget that back in early June, 2009, about the same time of year that Trump visited Saudi Arabia, Barack Obama visited…..yes, Saudi Arabia. She did not seem to have any trouble with that visit so early in Obama’s reign, she did not question why Obama’s trip was not arranged alphabetically. The hypocrisy and insanity of this woman are amazing.

3) An old rock and roll song contains the lyrics, “shout it from the mountain tops, shout it from the trees, people just want to be free.” Free from being forced to do things they do not want to do, free from government overreaching into their lives and their businesses, free from onerous taxes and government regulations, etc. Freedom takes many forms and people want to be free.

Which might explain the trend going on in California recently. Keep in mind that California was very often where many, many Americans aspired to live in and move to. Great weather, great variety of geography, mountains to beaches, etc. But apparently not many people are California Dreaming as much as they used to:

• According to Michael Snyder, writing for the Infowars website on June 12, 2017, over five million California residents have migrated OUT of the state over the past few years.
• The top out of state destination for these Californians is Texas, a state famous for lower taxes and business regulations, much more permissive gun laws that allow citizens to more easily defend themselves and their freedoms, i.e. more freedom.
• Over 25% of new Idaho residents are from California.
• Adrien Koch, a retired Californian, moved to Idaho with her husband because it reminded them of “the California she knew in the 1970s.”

Why the mass migration? Well the article reminds us that:

• California has some of the the highest state income tax rates in the country.
• California has been ranked the worst state for business for 12 straight years.
• Many California cities have the worst traffic in the country.
• California sanctuary cities and that kind of attitude is sucking up taxpayer resources to provide all types of welfare support to illegal immigrants and to fight the gangs and crime that come with illegal immigration.
• Insane and stupid government regulations (e.g. the recent state law that requires farmers to force their cows to fart less methane by 80%) stifle economic growth and new business formations.
• Now some California politicians want to pass through a so called single payer health care system in the state that will cost state taxpayers an estimated $400 billion a year.
• This previous piece of insanity is especially laughable since if the true number is $400 billion a year (and we all know that every government cost estimate has always been way under estimated), than every man, woman, and child in the state would be paying, on average, $10,000 a year in healthcare costs...every year.

As we have always claimed, there cannot be personal freedom if there is not economic freedom. High income taxes, costly business regulations, insane healthcare program actions, etc. all rob state residents of their economic freedom and thus, their personal freedom. And thus, millions of them are leaving, looking for that essential thing called freedom elsewhere since they cannot find it form the political class and the burdensome government in California.

That will do it for today’s insanity: people freedom political oppression in one state to find freedom in other states, Nancy Pelosi’s blatant hypocrisy, and fraud and corruption in yet another Federal government operation. More insanity sure 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

June, 2017, Part 2, Political Class Insanity: Crushing Small Business Dreams, The Failure To Beat Terrorism, and One Politician Gets Caught...Felony Wise

As we do every month, we review the latest idiocy, lunacy, ineptness, and general insanity from the American political class. We are getting started as little late this month since we needed to review the latest global warming.climate change insanity from the likes of Al Gore, culminating in our review of the 26 reasons why it was appropriate and necessary for Trump to pull us out of the Paris Climate Agreement:

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2017/06/june-2017-part-4-i-am-global-warming.html

But let’s quickly get into this month’s political class insanity because over the past month or so there has been a lot of it was Washington implodes into a useless pile of incompetence:

1) It is not often when a crooked politician actually gets caught so it is very refreshing when it does happen. Consider what recently happened to a New jersey mayor when he ran afoul of the law:

• The Department of Justice in New Jersey recently reported that a former New Jersey mayor was going to jail for 27 months for taking $110,000 worth of bribes from developers working in his city.
• Alex D. Bianco pleaded guilty to a U.S. judge for one charge of soliciting and accepting corrupt payments regarding business related to the town he was once mayor of, Passaic, New Jersey.
• Acting U.S. Attorney Fitzpatrick commented that, “Mayor Blanco admitted to aggressively soliciting and accepting illegal payments from developers, taking for himself federal money that was intended to help provide housing for some of the city’s poorest residents. This case demonstrates that public officials who exploit their office for personal gain can expect to be thoroughly investigated and aggressively prosecuted.”
• Special Agent in charge of the case, Brian A. Michael of Homeland Security Investigations in Newark, New Jersey offered his views as well: “The mayor’s sentencing sends a message that no one is above the law. It is a testament to the hard work and dedication of our special agents and their law enforcement colleagues—job well done.” 
• The former mayor apparently asked a third party to approach two building developers in the town and suggest they make a sizable donation to the mayor if they expected to see a low income residential building project go forth in the town that the developers wanted to build.
• In addition to prison, Blanco will be under three years of supervised parole and must pay back $110,000.

As always, we are so glad when corrupt politicians get caught and punished. As always, we wonder and fear how many more get away with their criminal activities under the cover of their elected office.

2) If you have the gut feeling that the war on terrorism continued to be a lost battle under the Obama regime, well it appears you are right. The Institute for Economics and Peace recently released its annual “Global Peace Index” report for 2017 and the results are not good:

• The index considers the “state of peace” in 163 countries around the world.
• The study found that the rate of world terrorism had tripled in the past six years, years in which Obama was President.
• This put the rate of terrorism at an all time high.
• It says that world peace has been declining over that period of time with actions and situations in the Middle East and North Africa driving the skyrocketing terrorism rate.
• Terrorism related deaths have risen more than 900% since 2007 just in the 35 countries that are members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a platform for governments to work together to solve common problems, including terrorism.
• Twenty three of those 35 nations had suffered terrorism deaths over that period of time including France, Turkey, Denmark, and Sweden.
• Just in the past year, terrorism was up 80% with 11 countries suffering more than 500 terrorism related deaths in 2016 compared to only five countries in 2015.
• Terrorism increases in the Middle East caused terrorism deaths to reach a 25 year high and the number of refugees is at a level not seen in 60 years.
• The cost to fight terrorism in 2016 is estimated to have been a mind boggling $14.3 TRILLION dollars.

And while Obama will never admit it, his action or inactions were a large contributing factor to the increase in terrorism. His illegal and un-Constitutional use of U.S. armed forces in Libya turned a once modern society into a haven for all types of terrorist organizations. His under estimation of ISIS, the so-call “JV team” in Obama administration lingo, now terrorizes the world. During his watch, the Taliban now control more territory in Afghanistan than it has in a very long time.

Given these specific failures and the overall failure to control terrorism, it is pretty clear that the Obama administration, Congress, and the Federal government failed to accomplish anything during its run relative to terrorism threats around the world. As a result of this incompetence, a lot of people die, a lot of money is spent, and very little seems to get accomplished.

3) If Obama did not do well on the global stage relative to terrorism as we just discussed, he also did not do to well relative to economic growth and health on the domestic stage during his eight years in office.According to P .Gardner Goldsmith, writing for the MRCTV website, wrote on how Obama’s economic policies resulted in fewer self employed Americans, fewer business start ups, and decreased entrepreneurship:

• According to Mr. Goldsmith: “A new report by Michael Snyder for The Economic Collapse reveals what many free market economists have been warning for years: that the growth of the federal regulatory state has diminished the ability of, and interest in, individual business entrepreneurs to operate.”
• Snyder reports that the number of self employed Americans today (8.4 million) is lower than it was in 1990 (8.7 million) even though the population has grown significantly since then, up over 70 million people.
• Snyder cites one study that show the percentage of self employed people is down 20% and another study found that number of new entrepreneurs and business owners was down 53% between 1977 and 2010.
• Tax policy, over taxation, over regulations, and over litigation are some of the main factors that Obama and the rest of Washington have heaped on the marketplace which has restricted, prevented and discouraged people to start their own business.
• The article points out the idiocy of some of Obama's business strategies and tactics, citing a study by Elizabeth Harrington in 2016 that found that the Obama administration issued a new business regulation every three days during the Obama regime, regulations that stifled creativity, resources, and the desire to start a business.

No wonder the economic recovery and history of the Obama administration was so weak. You cannot keep growing a robust economy unless new businesses are constantly being formed and such is not the case under the heavier tax burden, the heavier regulations burden, and the insensitivity to the needs of small time business owners and dreamers.

That will do it for today’s insanity: crushing the dreams of people who want to start a business, fighting and losing the battle against terrorism, and at least one crooked politician is going to jail. More insanity 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