September, 2019, Part 7, Political Class Insanity: A Stupid Choice For The Supreme Court, Stupid Use Of Taxpayer Wealth, and An Out Of Touch Congressional Wife

It is 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.

Let’s get started:

1) It is sad that Joe Biden continues to get more and more play in our political class insanity posts. Sad because he continues to be the leading candidate to be nominated by the Democrats to run for President even though his gaffes, mistakes, and ineptness continue to bubble to the surface.

Consider his latest insanity:

• Barack Obama is no longer a practicing lawyer.
• Barack Obama never served as a judge anywhere, any time.
• According to the LA Times: “Obama arrived in Chicago in 1993 with a degree from Harvard Law School and was hired as a junior lawyer at the firm then known as Davis, Miner, Barnhill & Gallard. He helped represent clients in civil and voting rights matters and wrongful firings, argued a case before a federal appellate court, and took the lead in writing a suit to expand voter registration. But the firm also handled routine legal matters and real estate. Obama spent about 70% of his time on voting rights, civil rights and employment, generally as a junior associate. The rest of his time was spent on matters related to real estate transactions, filing incorporation papers and defending clients against minor lawsuits.”
• At least according to the LA Times Obama’s lawyer track record is quite unremarkable.
• When Barack Obama was President, he trampled on the Bill of Rights, shredded the Constitution, and broke many laws:

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2016/10/part-2-obama-presidency-end-of-error.html

And yet, according to an interview Biden gave to Steven Colbert, he thinks that Obama would make a great Supreme Court justice. Yes, a non-practicing lawyer with only non-distinguished lawyer experience who was never a judge in anyway and who disrespected the rule of law for eight years as President would make a great Supreme Court justice. It does not get much more insane than this.

2) It is no secret that ex-Presidents become fabulously and obscenely rich once they leave office. And yet, the American taxpayer still shells out tens of millions of dollars every year for their protection and comfort despite them being able to easily pick up those expenses themselves. 

Consider these unnecessary taxpayer expenses that are paid each year to former Presidents: 

• According to the New York Post, Obama is the most expensive ex-President today with the American taxpayer shelling out over $1.1 million in 2018 to cover his daily expenses.
• This estimate comes from the Congressional Research Service.
• This taxpayer expense is spent on Obama despite the fact that he just bought a $15 million mansion up at Martha’s Vineyard.
• This $1.1 million is $100,000 more than what Bush will get next year and $200,000 more than what Clinton will get.
• Jimmy Carter will get less than half of what Obama is getting.
• I do not believe that these figures include the cost of their Secret Service protection, that the expenditures are for office space, staff, and other such expenses.
• According to the Post article: “By far the biggest cost for ex-presidents is renting office space. Mr. Obama’s office — 8,198 square feet in D.C. — will cost taxpayers $536,000 next year, the most of any ex-president. Mr. Clinton’s New York office is bigger, at 8,300 square feet, but slightly cheaper at $518,000. The younger Mr. Bush’s office in Dallas is $497,000, while his father’s space in Houston is $286,000. Mr. Carter’s Atlanta office is just $115,000.”

Why does an ex-President need over 8,000 of office space in prime real estate locations, at a cost of a whopping half a million dollars a year each?! 8,000 square feet is four times the size of my house and I rarely use most of that space. If they want that much space than they should put their offices in their massive Presidential libraries and let the American taxpayer keep the taxes spent on their oversized, probably under used stand alone offices.

Look, I understand that in the Federal budget several million dollars is not a big deal. But on the other hand, why spend it if you do not have to spend it, that is how we got to having a national debt of $22 TRILLION. If you do not want to give the money back to the taxpayers, how about redirecting that money to some Americans in need? 

How many meals for the homeless could be bought if Obama did not spend over half a million dollars on an unneeded vanity office in Washington DC? According to the organization Feeding America, it costs homeless shelters an average of $2.94 to feed a homeless American a meal. 

If Obama did not insist on having a $536,000 DC office every year, than that money could, in theory, could fund over 180,000 meals for the homeless. If we did the same thing with the Bush and Clinton office spaces we could annually provide over half a million meals for homeless Americans. This seems like a much better use of our taxpayer dollars, especially when 1) these Presidents are rich beyond most Americans’ dreams and 2) they could easily put their offices in their massive Presidential libraries.

3) Sometimes it is not just politicians who are insane, greedy, and inept, once in a while we find out their a member of their family is just as bad. Consider the recent ravings of a Congressman’s wife, keeping in mind that a member of Congress is paid over $170,000 a year, about three times what the average American household earns:

• According to the Washington Free Beacon, the wife of Congressman Joe Cunningham is upset because taxpayers are not paying for her “mental health therapy sessions.”
• Keep in mind that the American taxpayer foots the bill for about 75% of her family’s health care costs.
• As a Congressional family, Cunningham’s family has an Obama Care Gold Insurance Program from Blue Cross Blue Shield for which the Congressman only has to pay for a quarter of the costs, courtesy of the American taxpayer.
• But this sweet deal is apparently not good enough for the Congressman’s wife, Amanda, who had the nerve to post a rant on Instagram on how her health plan declined to pay for her therapy sessions.
• According to her Instagram rant: “I’m gonna have a little bit of a rant here on social media because I think this is important. I’ve been going over my not-a-bill bill here from Blue Cross Blue Shield, and realizing that once again, all of my mental health therapy sessions are denied, in addition to all of our marriage counseling sessions. It’s just mind-blowing to me that these basic well-known needs, that mental health is health care, are still being denied, that we’re still fighting for these absolutely basic things, it’s unbelievable to me. So I’m reaching out to my congressman—yes, also my husband—but saying, like, hey, what can we do about this? Let’s go to the House floor, let’s write a bill, I don’t know what you do, but let’s do it because this is ridiculous.”

So this Congressional wife is upset because she can't get free mental health counseling even though the American taxpayer is relieving her of 75% of her health insurance premium costs? So she is upset because she cannot get free marriage counseling even though the American taxpayer is relieving of 75% of her health insurance premium costs? So she is upset even though her family’s income,both hers and her husband’s Congressional salary, is three times higher than the average American family?

Does she not know that over 25 million American have NO health insurance at all, never mind subsidized Gold insurance plans? Does she not know that over 25 million Americans have NO health insurance at all and because of that they often cannot take their sick kids to the doctors because they cannot afford the medical costs? Does she not know that over 25 million Americans have NO insurance at all so the concept of free marriage counseling is not even a dream in their world?

Talk about a vain, greedy member of the political class. But just another example of how those in politics feel so entitled that the needs of the vast number of Americans living outside of the Beltway are secondary to their greed and selfishness. Be it wanting free healthcare to wanting lavish useless and expensive office space, it is all part of the same gene of entitlement that pervades Washington DC, at the expense and health of the rest of us.

That will do it for today: wanting a totally unqualified politician to be a Supreme Court justice to greedy ex-Presidents to vain Congressional wives, the insanity never ends.

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:

https://www.amazon.com/Walter-Bruno-Korschek/e/B002KYU08Q/ref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share

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

August, 2016, Part 1, Poltiical Class Insanity: Veterns Still Getting Short Changed, Lobbyists INfest the Demcorats, and a Throwback Obama Lie

It is the beginning of another month which means it is time again to review the latest political class insanity from the American political class. Each month it takes us multiple posts to cover the wasteful spending, incompetent government organizations and employees, government programs that usually make a problem worse than resolving it, inane and idiotic politician comments, etc. In fact, last month we set a record, needing ten full posts to cover it all.

To review past posts on this insanity and idiocy, just click on the first few posts in each month listed to the right of this page. After reviewing just a handful of these insanity posts we think you will agree that we are currently being served by the worst set of American politicians ever to hold office in our entire history.

It looks like our politicians have been especially insane over the past month or so let’s get started with the latest insanity from today’s American politicians:

1) We have often reported on the horrible, horrible job that the Veterans Administration has been doing during the Obama administration in taking care of the medical health needs of our veterans. Scandals at various VA facilities across the country have left our veterans without care, put them on long waiting lists and then destroyed the long waiting lists and other personnel records to enhance the financial aspects of VA executives’ job performance. Although Obama made a change to the leadership of the operation a while ago, persistent reports and evidence showing little improvement have previously been reported in this blog.

One of the reasons why our veterans have not been given the care promised was reviewed in a recent article on the Breitbart website. According to a report by the organization, Open the Books:

• The Veterans Administration spent $20 million on an art collection while veterans' medical needs were going unserved.
• Included in the $20 million was the cost of a whopping 27 foot artificial Christmas tree that cost $21,500 and two sculptures that cost $670,000 that were installed at a California VA facility that, get this, serves blind veterans.
• $483,000 was spent on a decorative rock for the VA facility in Palo Alto which does not include the $807,000 that was spent to prepare the area to receive and display the decorative rock.
• At the same VA facility, the government spent $330,000 for something called a half arc that was placed in the lobby, another $365,000 was spent on a sculpture that was placed near the pool, and $285,000 that went to paste dozens of rocks to a wall that spelled out quotes by famous Americans... in Morse Code.
• In a San Francisco Veterans Administration building, $32,000 was spent to hang 62 framed photographs, not paintings, photographs from the local geographic area, a whopping cost of $500 framed per photo.
• A VA facility in Puerto Rico spent $610,000 on artwork and a facility in Alaska spent $100,000 on a single piece of sculpture.
• To add insult to injury, a letter from Senator Mark Kirk pointed out to the head of the VA that even though the VA issued a moratorium on all art purchases a year ago, the VA went forward and spent $1.8 million despite the so-called moratorium.

Such bad priorities, such bad judgement, such a waste of taxpayer money. Veterans get sick and die without the promised care yet the VA continues to purchase useless and unneeded pieces of likely overpriced artwork even though they promised NOT to do it. 

And Hillary Clinton wants to raise our taxes and give the Federal government even more of our wealth even though the Federal government and the bureaucrats that operate it obviously do not know how to spend it on what is needed and critical to serve the citizens of this country. Pathetically insane.

2) If someone claims that the political system in this country today is not rigged to serve the political class and those that fund them, then maybe a recent article from the Washington Examiner would help convince them. We have previously pointed out, both in this blog and in our book, “Love My Country, Loathe My Government,” that the Democrats rig their Presidential primary processes with so-called super delegates. These are about 700 Democratic Party hacks that have a big say in who gets the Presidential nomination regardless of what Democratic voters want.

An example of their power was shown a few times during this year’s Democratic primaries where Bernie Sanders got a large majority of the primary voters' votes but ended up getting a far smaller percentage of that state’s delegates since the super delegates of that state favored Hillary Clinton. In such places, the voters spoke and the super delegates said “never mind, we know what is best for you."

Well, it gets worse. According to a recent Washington Examiner report by Daniel Chaitin on July 30, 2016, almost 10% of the Democratic Party superdelegates were actually registered lobbyists. Research by the Sunlight Foundation found that:

• 63 out of the 712 super delegates were registered at some point in time as lobbyists at the state or Federal government level.
• These super delegates/lobbyists represented banks, health care insurers, the telecom industry, labor unions, Goldman Sachs, and Planned Parenthood.
• Specifically, super delegate and former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle is currently registered for the healthcare insurance company Aetna, former House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt is a registered lobbyist with the Gephardt Group and former DNC General Chairman and Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell was registered for Ballard Spahr LLP as recently as 2012.
• Sunlight also found an additional 32 individuals it called "shadow lobbyists," which it describes as super delegates who "aren't officially registered as lobbyists, but are heavily involved in the influence industry."

Given that over 86% of the super delegates voted for Hillary Clinton, a far higher percentage than the percentage of Democratic voters that voted for her during the primaries, you can see how rigged the system is and how alive crony capitalism is with the Democrats. The very people that usually arrange for government bailouts, favorable tax treatment, lucrative government contracts, etc., for their industry employers are the same people who pick who gets to run for office. 

And to think that they are not expecting pay back, after delivering 86% of the super delegate vote, is naive. Pathetic and an insult to democracy and freedom.

3) This last piece of insanity for today is a throwback, retro look at another preposterous Obama promise/claim that he made back when he first ran for the Presidency. In 2008, Obama said Bush was unpatriotic for increasing the national debt by $4 TRILLION during Bush’s eight years as President. But if you go to the actual White House budget website at:

chrome-extension://bpmcpldpdmajfigpchkicefoigmkfalc/views/app.html

you will find some incredible lies and hypocrisy of Obama:

• This website contains a detailed historical compilation of the Federal government’s budget performance since the country’s formation over two hundred years ago.
• If you look down Column D to the Bush years, you will see that Bush had budget deficits that exceeded $400 billion for only two years, making it mathematically impossible for Obama’s $4 TRILLION statement to be correct.
• Obama never had a budget deficit under $500 billion until his sixth year in office and even that year was higher than any annual budget deficit of Bush.
• Obama had four consecutive years of running a budget deficit over $1 TRILLION a year, two to three times higher than the highest Bush budget deficit.
• And while Obama’s lowest budget deficit in 2015 did finally get under Bush’s HIGHEST budget deficit, by a mere $20 billion, his White House budget website currently shows the 2016 deficit to be over $600 billion, the sixth highest budget deficit ever for the country, with Obama possessing the five higher budget deficits.
• And finally as we all know, the combined budget deficit of ALL previous Presidencies will be equal to the the budget deficit created by the Obama administration by itself:

So if Bush is unpatriotic for running up a $4 TRILLION deficit number over eight years, which Obama’s own spreadsheet shows he did not, than Obama should be tried for treason given his many $1 TRILLION annual budget deficits. 

I am against all budget deficits, I am not defending Bush. We now have a national debt that has exceed 100% of the country’s GDP, a financial warning sign if there ever was one. But Obama's claim is just one of dozens of false claims and lies he has put forth over the past eight years, claims and lies that do not stand even the simplest efforts to research the truth. 

I cannot figure out if he and other politicians like them actually believe the lies they spew out or they think we are too dumb to understand when they are lying to us. In either case, they are an insult to integrity and truth.

To hear Obama actually speak these words, go to:

http://www.youngcons.com/2008-obama-said-bush-raising-debt-4-trillion-was-unpatriotic-fox-news-tweet-slays/

That will do it for today’s insanity. A Veterans Administration that wastes gobs of money on artwork while veterans die and get sick because they cannot get the healthcare they were promised, how the lobbyists and vested interests infest the Democratic Party’s political processes, and a throwback Obama lie that the test of time shows was a joke. More insanity for many days to come.

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

January, 2016, Part 4, By The Numbers: Muslims Do Most of the Suicide Bombings, Chicago is the Wild West, and More

This is the next post this month in our continuing theme 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.

And there will be a lot of smoke to cut through in the next few posts. Always believe the numbers before you believe our politicians, numbers do not lie but politicians do.

1) In his recent state of the union message, Obama tried to convince the country, and probably himself, that he did a great job managing the economy over the past seven years. However, as we have pointed out many, many times in this blog, that delusion could not be further from the truth:

• The number of American receiving Federal food assistance is about 50% higher than at the beginning of the recession despite us having seen the end of the recession years ago.
• The economy’s annual growth rate under Obama has not ever come close to the historical average annual growth rate of just over 3%. Obama’s economy has never grown any where close to 3%, never mind exceeding it.
• There are about 14 million unemployed or underemployed Americans who cannot find full time work even though they desire it.
• The labor participation rate is at low levels not seen since the stagflation days of the Carter administration.
• By the time he leaves office, Obama would have added about the same amount of debt to our national debt than ALL previous Presidents COMBINED, leaving the country with a national debt burden of over $20 TRILLION.

And he accomplished these pathetic results despite spending over $800 billion on a (failed) economic stimulus plan, enjoying record low energy costs, and having the Fed pump trillions of paper dollars into the economy.

And the latest economic numbers from the Federal government do not show much of any kind of improvement:

• The number of adults Americans not participating in the work force exceeded an amazing 94 million people for the fifth month in a row.
• The labor force participation rate improved by 0.1% in the month of December vs. November but still remained at a low 62.6%, continuing the trend of low participation levels not seen since the Carter administration in the 1970s.
• While the official U3 unemployment rate stayed unchanged at 5%, we have previously discussed how this is now a bogus number, given how low the labor participation rate is. The U6 rate is a much better gauge of true unemployment and that was at a depressing 9.9%, almost double the now defunct but still reported U3 rate.
• While the economy added about 500,000 jobs in the past two months, a run rate of about 3 million annually, the annual growth in the population adds about 1.84 million adults to the population every year. Thus, over 60% of the job growth under the Obama administration this past year would theoretically be taken up by normal population growth, leaving only about 1.2 million new jobs to be used to hit against the 14 million people discussed above. 
• At this rate, assuming nobody else lost their jobs or got downgraded to part time, it would take a whopping 14 years for the Obama economy growth rate to get everyone a full time job who wanted one.

The numbers do not lie, economic times in this country are not good for many, many Americans. We had previously pointed out this past week several sources of data that showed the majority of Americans either have less than a $1,000 in savings or have no savings. Thus, either Obama is lying to protect his ego or he is delusional since the numbers show the economy he has had oversight of is not in good shape at all.

2) Although the numbers are not good for the entire economy, it is especially difficult for American millennials (aged 35 and younger), according the a recent study by PricewaterhouseCoopers: 

• 40% have used a payday loan, pawnshop, or other unconventional financing option to cover expenses, options that are usually more expensive than conventional options.
• Only 36% have put money away in a 401k account to save for retirement.
• 20% of those had done withdrawals from their retirement accounts, turning their retirement accounts into savings account, savings accounts that come with a stiff tax penalty for withdrawals.

Lay heavy student debt on top of this reality, and we see that the Washington political class has really not made it easy for our kids to have high potential for attaining the American dream.

3) Given the total mismanagement of the economy over the recent years by the President and Congress, the administration’s failed foreign policy and anti-terrorism efforts, and the broken down Federal government operations, it should not be a surprise that Gallup recently found that an amazing 69% of Americans think that big government is the biggest threat to the United States. The other choices were big business and big labor but they were no match for big government.

Think about that number. Almost seven out of ten Americans fear that their biggest problem and threat is the very government that is supposed to protect their lives, their families, and their freedoms. And this fear exists across the political spectrum with 88% of Republicans, 67% of Independents, and 53% of Democrats holding this view. This is especially interesting since we have been living under a Democrat in the White House for seven years and even fellow Democrats think that big government is the biggest threat.

For a historical perspective, this is the second highest level of mistrust of big government in the fifty years that Gallup has been doing the study, with the highest level coming just two years ago in 2013 at 72%. The mistrust of big government during the Obama years averaged out at 64% which is about 15% higher than the average during Bush’s term in office, 56%, but close to the average mistrust level of the Clinton administration of 65%.

Obviously, these results are compatible with other recent poll data that we have discussed, data that found 75% of Americans believe that corruption is widespread throughout the government in this country. This is up from 67% in 2007. Thus, during the Obama administration the corruption perception has gone up 8 percentage points in just eight years.

4) It is no secret that this President seems to have a soft spot for everything Islamic, going so far to refuse to state that radical Islam even exists. This delusions could fill any number of posts but let’s look at a few numbers to prove that radical Islam is a major terrorism problem despite what Obama wants us to believe.

A new research study by Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University found that 452 suicide attacks occurred in 2015. Of the 452 suicide attacks 450 were done by Muslims. 450. One of the remaining two attacks was carried out by the Kurdish underground. The other was perpetrated by a woman supporter of a leftist group in Turkey. And according to the study that latter attack might have been Islamic based also. 

As outrageous these numbers are, both the total number and the fact that almost all of them were done by Muslims, consider the following reality: have you ever heard of a Christian suicide bomber or a Jewish or Hindu suicide bomber? Given that setting, maybe the President ought to reconsider the true danger that radical Islam is to the country and the world, the numbers are pretty convincing. 

5) As we have discussed many times in this blog, Chicago has the strictest gun control laws in the country but somehow manages to have some of the highest crime and homicide rates in the world. Despite this reality, Obama and other liberals insist that gun control laws across the country need to be toughened and more like Chicago’s.

From a logic perspective and numbers perspective, why would we want the rest of the country to look like Chicago, especially when you look at what happened in the first few days of 2016 in Chicago, toughest gun control city in the country:

• In the first 10 days of 2016, 101 citizens of Chicago have been shot and 19 have been killed.
• At this rate over 700 Chicago citizens will be killed in 2016 and over 3,500 will be wounded.
• According to the Chicago Tribune, in the first ten days of 2015, 31 had been wounded and 9 had been killed, obviously much lower rate of violence than in 2016.
• One of the shooting incidents occurred within blocks of Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s home.

If the mayor cannot live in a safe neighborhood and the murder and wounded rate is going up dramatically DESPITE the strong gun control laws, why would anyone want the rest of the country to look like Chicago? Insanity.

So what did the numbers tell us today:

1. The economy still stinks.
2. The economy really stinks for young Americans.
3. We currently fear and do not trust our government.
4. Muslims execute a lot of suicide bombings, in fact, committing almost all of them, despite the President’s apparent blind spot to this reality and numbers.
5. Chicago is going wild in the face of the strongest gun laws in the country.

Those are numbers for today. Remember until the next time we review the numbers, whenever the choice is between a politician’s word and the numbers, trust the numbers.

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

The Obama Era, Part 1 - Memories From The Worst Presidency Ever?

We are coming up on the end of another year so I thought it might be a good time to review everything that I remember about the Obama administration. He has been in office for seven years, seven long years that in my opinion have been horrific in so many ways. This was someone who entered office with approval ratings that were above 70% and who represented the so-called “hope and change” that many Americans were seeking.

Seven years later hope has become very scarce and change has almost always been for the worst. Now, before someone says that I am just a sour grapes Republican, conservative, or neo-con, understand that I have never voted for a Republican for President in my life (I started voting in the 1970s). Up until 2010, I had never voted for Republican for national office in my life. I fully support gay rights and respect a woman’s legal right to an abortion. Thus, none of what you are about to read over the next few days comes from a Republican sour grapes perspective.

But unless you have had completely had your head in the sand or elsewhere, this has been the worst Presidency that I have experienced in my lifetime. From horrid legislation (e.g. Obama Care) to a failed foreign policy (e.g. Syria) to daily lawlessness on the part of this administration (e.g. use of unsecured email accounts by high ranking administration members), the ineptness and ineffectiveness of this administration is mind boggling.

Thus, given this set up, in no particular order, this is what I will remember about the Obama Presidency:

- I will remember that the major issues facing the country when he was sworn in as President are no better and perhaps have gotten worst seven years later:

• Our public schools still fail to properly education our kids despite the trillions of dollars we have spent on their poor education.
• Our borders still leak.
• Our “war on drugs” is still failing with no alternative proposed or deployed.
• Our nation still lacks a comprehensive energy strategy and plan to deliver clean, inexpensive energy to the American economy.

- I will remember that this administration severely violated the First Amendment rights of millions of Americans by using the IRS to hinder their political organizing and fundraising activities.

- I will remember that this administration severely violated the Fourth Amendment rights of all Americans by collecting just about any form or communications of Americans without warrants or just cause.

- I will remember that this President attended hundreds of fund raising events, setting Presidential records, and played over 250 rounds of golf after promising that he would devote every waking moment of his life, if elected, to serving the people of the country and addressing their needs.

- I will remember that this President had no idea on how to cope with the Gulf oil spill and how he took two vacations, golfed, and attended a number of fund raising events while people in the Gulf coast states were fighting for their lands and livelihoods.

- I will remember that this President refused to attend a memorial service in France for the vicitms of the Charlie Hebdo terrorist assassinations even though every other major world leader attended. Instead, a week later he lamely sent Secretary of State John Kerry to France along with James Taylor to sing a song.

- I will remember how this President told so many lies about Obama Care:

• If you like your current health insurance policy, you can keep it.
• If you like your current doctors and hospitals you can keep them.
• You could save up to $2,500 a year in your family’s health insurance costs.
• Using the Obama Care online website exchanges will be easy and simple.
• Obama Care will not add a single dime to the national debt.
• Over 20 million uninsured Americans will have health insurance by 2016.

- I will remember how this President illegally and unConstitutionally made upwards of twenty changes to the Obama Care legislation without the consent of Congress.

- I will remember how this President lied when he promised to go through the Federal budget “line-by-line” to eliminate wasteful and redundant Federal government spending.

- I will remember how this President lied when he promised to unify the country and heal its racial and political divisions but instead helped widen existing divisions and create new ones.

- I will remember how this President illegally swapped out five high ranking captured terrorists for a sole Army deserter.

- I will remember how this President honored this deserter by inviting his parents to the White House for a meeting and press event but ignored the families of the soldiers who died searching for the the deserter in the wilds of Afghanistan.

- I will remember how this President allowed many high ranking members of his administration to blatantly violate Federal law when they used deceptive, secret, unsecured, likely hacked and criminal private email accounts to conduct government business.

- I will remember how this administration abandoned upwards of two dozen Americans to die in Benghazi by denying them the necessary military help that was ready and willing to go and rescue them.

- I will remember how this administration lied about the root cause of the Benghazi attack in order to preserve their precious political speaking points about curtailing terrorism and how it is not a factor in our lives anymore.

- I will remember how this President failed to live up to the Iraq troop withdrawal timetable that he promised while campaigning.

- I will remember how this President focused on the theory of man made climate change, that may or may not be a reality, vs. focusing on Islamic terrorism that is a real and fatal issue today.

- I will remember how this administration racked up four straight fiscal years of trillion dollar deficits, endangering the future economic health and viability of the country.

- I will remember how this administration violated the law four years in a row by not providing a detailed Federal government budget on time.

- I will remember how this administration has incurred MONTHLY budget deficits that often exceeded the ANNUAL budget deficits of the Bush administration.

- I will remember how this administration will likely incur a national debt level equal to the debt level incurred by all previous Presidential administrations COMBINED.

- I will remember how this President stood by silently, given his tacit approval, when his political allies called Americans a**h***s, Nazis, knuckle dragging Neanderthals, terrorists, racists, whores, sluts, and other vulgar names.

- I will remember how this President failed to come up with any plans to fix Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security, three major government programs that are hurtling towards financial insolvency.

- I will remember how George W.Bush always left for Washington for his Christmas holiday the day after Christmas so that people associated with Presidential travel could spend Christmas with their families while Obama always left for his Christmas vacation, always to Hawaii, prior to Christmas day, denying those people associated with Presidential travel the opportunity to spend Christmas with their families.

- I will remember that despite free lodging, a massive staff, free food, free Presidential perks, free healthcare, and free Secret Service security protection, President Obama griped that his wife, First Lady Michelle Obama, should be treated special and be paid just for being the First Lady even though every preivous First Lady did not get paid.

I will remember a lot about this Presidency, almost all of it very forgettable, regrettable and often disgusting. And unfortunately, I will still have more bad memories to review tomorrow.

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

www.loathemygovernment.com

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

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

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

November, 2015, Part 3, Political Class Insanity: A $20 TRILLION Naitonal Debt, Msimanaging the Economy, and Giving The Iranians All That They Want

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

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

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

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

1) Since we started writing this blog, we have sounded the alarm of how dangerously high the Federal government’s debt level has grown over time. In less than seven years, from the start of the Obama Presidency, the national debt has risen about 80% from around $10 TRILLION to over $18 TRILLION. 

With the enactment of the latest Federal budget that Obama signed this week, it is highly likely that the national debt will hit an amazing $20 TRILLION when he leaves office in early 2017. Consider the insanity of this $20 TRILLION debt level and the ineptness of the Obama administration that got us to this dangerous place:

• $20 TRILLION has 13 zeros in it.
• The $20 TRILLION debt level comes out to a per household debt burden of over $170,000.
• In other words, every American family would have to write a check for $170,000 to eliminate that debt burden.
• At $20 TRILLION, the Obama administration would have overspent Federal revenue levels by the same amount that EVERY President cumulatively did before him. EVERY President.
• The increased spending might have made some sense if it fulfilled Obama’s economic predictions back in 2009 but his promises of returning us to robust economic growth and reducing unemployment to 5.5% by 2012 were typical Obama promises, unfulfilled.
• Another fulfilled economic promise was made in February 2009 when he promised: “And that’s why today I’m pledging to cut the deficit we inherited by half by the end of my first term in office. This will not be easy. It will require us to make difficult decisions and face challenges we’ve long neglected. But I refuse to leave our children with a debt that they cannot repay–and that means taking responsibility right now, in this administration, for getting our spending under control”
• For the next four fiscal years his administration caused the national debt to grow by over $4 TRILLION when his budgets ran trillion dollars deficits for four straight years.
• Federal government spending increased over 18% in the first four years of his administration, from $2.98 TRILLION in 2008 under Bush to an annual average of $3.53 TRILLION under Obama.
• The national debt was 47% of the annual GDP of the country when Obama came into office to a point where the national debt will likely be a whopping 94% of the annual GDP number when he leaves office.
• Despite spending so much money, incurring so much debt, Obama’s economic stewardship of the economy has left over 45 million Americans needing Federal food assistance every month, record low labor participation rates as Americans get too discouraged to find a good job, stagnant wages, stagnant household wealth levels, crippling student loan burdens, and anemic and record setting low economic growth. 

As always when talking about politicians and economics, difficult to see how much worse it could be if they tried to screw up when putting $10 TRILLION onto the national debt load. Insane.

2) Obama and John Kerry have been extolling the fine work they think they did in crafting a treaty with the Iranians regarding sanctions and the Iranians' desire to get their hands on nuclear weapons. We have previously discussed the reality of how stupid this agreement is for any number of reasons, reasons we will not rehash today. 

What we will review today is the insane letter that the supreme leader of Iran, Ayatollah Khamenei, sent out demanding changes to the agreement. Before reading the changes listed below, keep in mind that Obama and Kerry thought that they already had worked out the details of the agreement months ago and that the negotiating was done. Now, the Iranian leadership comes back and says to Obama and Kerry, not so fast, we have questions and demand changes to the what Obama tried to sell the country as a done deal:

1. The U.S. and European nations must draft a letter promising to end all possibility of "sanctions snapback."
2. The West must lift -- not "suspend" -- all sanctions immediately and permanently.
3. The International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA) must issue an irreversible declaration ending any future investigation into alleged military dimensions of Iran's nuclear programs.
4. Iran will postpone any renovations at its heavy water (plutonium) reactor at Arak until the signatories of the JCPOA produce an alternative usage plan.
5. Iran will not begin shipping out of country any of its enriched uranium unless the signatories agree to deliver uranium to Iran (albeit at a lower level of enrichment).
6. Iran demands right to implement a phased plan of centrifuge expansion to 150,000 over a period of 15 years.
7. No sanctions are to be leveled against Iran because of alleged support for terrorism or human rights violations.
8. Iran must be free to explore all future advances in nuclear enrichment technology.
9. No way that Obama can claim he has an agreement with Iran when they want to make eight major, major changes to the deal. We were led to believe that the details of the agreement had already been worked out. Apparently, the Iranians do not think so.

So what does Obama do? Walk away without a deal and in his mind dent his legacy? Or buckle under and let the Iranians have everything they want? I once worked for a boss whose favorite quote was: ”Never be so in love with a deal that you cannot walk away from it.” The Iranians know that Obama is desperate for a foreign affairs legacy and will not walk away from any deal, no matter how bad it is. 

Given the insanity of this Presidency, I would bet that the supreme leader gets everything he wants and then some. 

3) One more small piece of insanity for today, more insanity to follow tomorrow and beyond. During the Obama Presidency, this administration had three very strong tailwinds that should have made managing to a robust economy very easy:

1. He spent well over $800 billion on a so-called economic stimulus program.
2. Record low energy costs for consumers and businesses should have diverted billions of dollars into the economy, helping its rate of growth.
3. The Federal Reserve pumped trillions of paper dollars into the economy.

All three of these factors should have resulted in robust economic growth. But alas, they did not. The Obama administration and the rest of Washington took these tailwinds and incredibly created one of the worst economic recoveries in the history of the country. 

And the latest government estimates on economic growth confirm that this ineptness continued into the third quarter of this year. The third quarter GDP annual growth rate was estimated to be 1.5%, less than half of the average historical growth rate.

That will do it for today’s political class insanity. Mismanagement of the economy, mismanagement of the Iranian nuclear weapons deal, and mismanagement of the country’s fiscal affairs. Three strikes. More insanity tomorrow including how to work for the DEA, throw wild sex parties on the taxpayer dime, and still get bonus pay.

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