Retro 5, Part 5, The Obama Presidency, The End Of An Error - The Unidstinguished List Of Obama Presidency's "Firsts"

We originally ran this post back in October at around the 100 day mark of the final days of the Obama Presidency. We ended up running about seven blog posts which did a deep dive into the activities, acomplishmentsand failures of this Presidency. We found very little in the way of accomplishments but dozens and dozens of cases of falures and disasters, from the economy to foreign affairs to the basic concept of integrity. We are going to rerun those post over the next week or so as we close in on an end of an error, the Obama Presidency.

Part 5, The Obama Presidency, The End Of An Error - THe Undistinguished List Of Obama Presidency's "Firsts"

As we near the end of the Obama Presidency, I thought it would be a good idea at the 100 day mark to review what he has done to and for this country over the past eight years. Before we do that, though, let me repeat my previous background statements on my past political actions:

• I have never voted for a Republican Presidential candidate in my life and I have been voting since the the Nixon era.
• Until 2010, I have never voted for a Republican for national office in my life.
• I am not affiliated with nor do I associate myself with the Republican Party, conservatives or people like Donald Trump.

Okay, now that we understand where I am coming from, let me just say that in my opinion Barack Obama has been the most inept, most divisive, most narcissist and worst diplomat in my lifetime to reside in the White House. From the economy, to race relations, to the national debt, to foreign relations to government operations, to blatant disregard for existing laws and the Constitution, in just about any measure we are far worse off as a nation than prior to him coming into office.

We will breaking down the failures and disappointments of this administration into some broad categories that will take us a number of days to cover as we analyze “The Obama Presidency - The End Of An Error.” Three days ago we reviewed the dozens of lies and broken promises of this President and two days we talked about the dozens of times that the Obama administration violated laws, the Constitution, and judicial rulings. 

Yesterday, we focused on how Obama and his administration has actively and aggressively divided Americans along sexual, racial, economic, and political lines. Specifically, rather than bringing people together, Obama stood silent and watched his political allies slander, degrade, insult, and divide the country to suit his needs, not the needs of the country and its citizens.

Today, we will focus on the many "firsts" of Obama and his administration, firsts that are often undistinguished, embarrassing, and a disaster:

Obama's Historical Firsts:

First President to apply for college aid as a foreign student, then deny he was a foreigner.

First President to have a social security number from a state he has never lived in.

First President to preside over a cut to the credit-rating quality of the United States.

First President to violate the War Powers Act. 

First President to be held in contempt of court for illegally obstructing oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.

First President to force all Americans to purchase a product from a third party, via Obama Care.

First President to spend and waste over $800 billion on “shovel-ready” jobs when there was no such thing as “shovel-ready” jobs.

First President to bypass Congress and implement the immigration Dream Act through executive decree.

First President to order a secret amnesty program that stopped the deportation of illegal immigrants across the U.S., including those with criminal convictions.

First President to authorize and commit the assassination of an American citizen without due process of law.

First President to terminate America’s ability to put a man in space.

First President to have a law signed by an auto-pen without being present.

First President to unilaterally and illegally declare an existing law unconstitutional and refuse to enforce it.

First President to threaten insurance companies if they publicly spoke out on the reasons for their rate increases.

First President try to tell a major manufacturing company in which state it is allowed to locate a factory.

First President to withdraw an existing coal permit that had been properly issued years ago.

First President to actively try to bankrupt an American industry (coal).

First President to appoint 45 czars to replace elected officials in his office.

First President in sixty years or so to golf more than 300 separate times while in office.

First President to win a Nobel Peace Prize for doing NOTHING to earn it.

First President to keep a dog trainer on taxpayer funded retainer for $102,000 a year.

First President to incur a trillion dollar annual Federal budget deficit.

First President to incur trillion dollar annual budget deficits more than one time (four budget years).

First President to not meet the Presidency's annual budget deadline and schedule four out of five years.

First President to stand in front of the world, via the United Nations, and tell an outright lie, i.e. the Benghazi terror attack was caused by an obscure YouTube video.

Now, an Obama supporter may claim that the following firsts are positives in the face of the above disappointing firsts:

First President to win a Nobel Peace prize, which is a falsehood since he is the fourth, not the first.

First African-American American President - absolutely true.

Not a great list to leave behind as a legacy and as we approach the end of an error. Tomorrow we will discuss the many economic financial failures of this administration.

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

www.loathemygovernment.com

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

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

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

February, 2016, Part 3, Will The Center Hold: Welfare Reform, State Takeover of Federal Land and Suing Over Amnesty

We occasionally do a review of the theme, “will the center hold.” Given the ever growing reach and encroachment of the Federal government and Obama administration into state matters and citizens’ lives, we have often reported on the increasing pushback against that overreach. From everything from Obama Care to Common Core to gun control to NSA spying, Americans are reasserting their right to tell the Federal government and Washington politicians that citizens in this country hold the power, not them.

Which has led us more than once to contemplate what would happen if Washington enacted a law or the President executed an executive order and the rest of the country simply ignored it? Would the center hold or would we be looking at serious fissures within the country? 

For a few days we have been reviewing where the rest of the country is telling Obama and the Washington political class to stop their power grab and overreaching into our lives: 

1) As you or may not know, in many western states, the Federal government owns/controls more than half of the entire ground area of the state. This has ticked off state citizens and politicians for a long time since they feel that they should be in control of their local areas, forests, parks, etc. and not be forced to deal with dictates from far away Washington. Up until recently, this was not a front burner issue with anyone.

But as the Obama administration has continued its overreach into the lives and freedoms of every American, the states are starting to get feisty when it comes to controlling their own state’s territories. The one state actually being proactive in potentially taking its state’s lands back from the Federal government is Utah. Utah’s state government recently completed a study that shows that there is legal reasoning and precedent that would allow it to challenge the Federal government’s control of Utah’s lands and turn control of those lands over to the state of Utah. 

If successful, states and their citizens across much of the west will be able to take far more control over their lands, their homes, and their economic future and not live under the dictates of a Washington political class that does what is right for themselves and not what is right for states’ citizens.

2) One of the biggest push backs that citizens and states have had to do against an overreaching Federal government is in the area of gun control. The Obama administration has been especially persistent in stripping the Constitutional gun rights of ordinary American citizens with a stupid public stance of protecting Americans from themselves. He and others of his ilk are oblivious to the reality that gun control measures do nothing to take the guns out of the hands of criminals and only end up making it more difficult for law abiding citizens to protect themselves. 

According to an article written by Teresa Monroe-Hamilton for the I Have The Truth website on January 31, 2016, two Tennessee state government politicians are really sticking to Obama and the other gun grabbers. They are putting forth legislation that states if a location insists on being a gun free zone and someone who has a valid, licensed and legal concealed carry permit gets hurt at the location, they can sue that location for not allowing themselves to protect themselves. 

This of course assumes that you survived the violent crime that got you hurt in the gun free zone. But such a law, if passed, might give a gun free zone advocate second thoughts about that status if they knew they would be sued for denying Second Amendment rights to someone. 

The logic of the legislation as explained by one of the politicians, state representative Jeremy Faison, goes as follows: “I believe in the Second Amendment; I don’t believe a person should be held back from having a gun. However, I also believe in property rights. If you have a business, and you don’t want guns there, you certainly have a right to do that. That being said, if you’re going to deny me protecting myself, then you should protect me. If you haven’t protected me, and you don’t allow me to protect myself, then I’m going to say it’s your fault if something happens.” 

I am sure that Obama would fume if he heard this logical, cogent argument. Consider this pending legislation in light of a recent tragic shooting where two police officers actually died responding to a call at a Panera Bread location. Panera Bread locations are official gun free zones, as proclaimed by the Panera management. Despite Panera being a gun free zone, a Panera customer brought a gun into the restaurant and ended up killing two police officers. 

As we have said many times before, criminals do not follow rules and laws, that is why they are criminals. That did not stop this criminal from ignoring Panera’s policy and the results were tragic. Gun free zones make it that much easier for violent criminals. In Tennessee, a more coherent gun free zone could be in the offing, regardless of what Obama thinks.

3) According to recent reporting by The Hill, 25 states are now part of a lawsuit that challenges Obama’s amnesty plans, claiming that his administration overstepped its limits by issuing work permits to illegal immigrants and promising them they will not be deported. The states who filed their opposition are: Texas, Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, West Virginia and Wisconsin. As you can see, many of the states that are part of the suit are in the southern part of the country where many of the illegal immigrants and the problems they bring are likely most intense.

What is interesting is that 12 states filed a legal brief to defend Obama's overreach and override of existing laws. Every one of those states are far away from most of the illegal immigrant problems with the exception of California, the land of fruits and nuts: California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Vermont, Washington state and the District of Columbia.

Whatever, this promises to be a major lawsuit and one that pits states against the Federal government and states against states. Will the center hold? 

4) Utah is not the only people interesting in wresting control of their state’s lands back from the Federal government. Some people in Congress are also getting interested in curbing Federal government overreach into states land management:

• Oregon Congressman Greg Walden recently weighed in: “More than half of my [Congressional] district is under Federal management. They have come out with these proposals to close roads into the forests. The have ignored public input.”
• In 2014, Senator Ted Cruz proposed legislation that would prohibit the Federal government from owning more than 50% of the land in any one state.
• Nevada Congressman Cresent Hardy has introduced legislation that would prohibit the Federal government from buying any new land unless it could pass a balanced budget.

Unless something is done, there is a real chance that bloodshed is a potential outcome as the tensions over Federal use and dictatorship of western state lands become more intense. We had the Bundy/Fed standoff in Nevada a few years ago. We recently had the armed standoff in Oregon where there was a fatality. 

Last summer, citizens rallied around mine owners at the owners’ request to provide security at mines in Oregon and Montana after complaints about Federal land managers. In December, 2015, Phil Lyman, an elected official in Utah, got a 10 day jail sentence after he led a protest ride of all terrain vehicles through Federal land that had been closed to local access. Dangerous times.

The frustration of Federal bureaucracy encroaching on states’ lands is summed up by Erin and Jeff Maupin, cattle ranchers in Oregon that pay the Feds to allow their cattle to graze on Federal lands. They have tried to work with the Federal government representatives but come away frustrated by the overwhelming regulations on grazing and environmental issues: “We want somebody to make sure we’re doing it right. But it’s got to the point where there’s no common sense in it.”

Similar frustration come from Leland Pollock, a commissioner in Garfield County, Utah: “The land policies now are, basically, lock it up and throw away the key. It’s land with no use. The local economy’s really suffered as a result. Grazing has been reduced. We used to have a thriving timber industry — that’s all but gone.”

Will the center hold and more importantly, will someone else get killed as Americans push back on the meddling of the Federal government in their lives and homelands out west?

5) One last topic for this month’s edition on “will the center hold?” Starting in early 2016, all able bodied welfare recipients in 23 North Carolina counties will receive government checks only if they work. Specifically, in order to get food assistance, food stamps, under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, these people must work, volunteer, or train at least 20 hours per week in order to continue to get food assistance.

Welfare recipients have 90 days to find a job after the rules take effect. When the state of Maine did a similar program, it found that its welfare roles dropped by 80%, saving state taxpayers a bundle of money. I would assume the same effect will happen here with North Carolina taxpayers feeling the benefit. If only the Federal government would do the same types of common sense things would every American taxpayer get the benefit.

So today we learned that another state is showing the Federal government how to save on welfare costs, a number of states and their citizens and politicians are in the process of trying to figure out how to get the Federal government out of controlling their states’ lands, and half the states are suing the Federal government over amnesty to protect the interests and safety of their own citizens,

Never have so many pushed back so hard on Washington which raises the scenario: what happens when Washington issues an edict and the rest of the country ignores it and yawns in its face? Interesting, and increasingly dangerous times, we live in.

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

January, 2015 Update, Will the Center Hold: Common Core, Horrid School Lunches, Gun Control, and More

On a semi-regular basis, we run a discussion on whether or not “the center will hold?” In other words, what happens if and when Washington issues a law or a decree and the rest of the country simply ignores it, will the center hold? Never in my life have I seen the country so divided and struggling to push back on the over reaching politicians in Washington.

From gun control to school lunches to warrantless spying on citizens to Common Core education standards to health care to many other issues, states and individual citizens are more and more taking formal and informal action and telling Washington types to butt out of our lives, our wallets, and our freedoms. We have gotten to the point where state legislatures are actually passing legislation saying that they will not abide by certain Federal decrees and laws and making such compliance a crime within their state borders.

To review the many previous posts we have done on this question, enter “will the center hold” in the search box above to see the widespread resistance that is building up across the country. For the latest push backs against Washington, continue reading below and you decide: will the center hold?

1) One of the biggest issues that the rest of the country is resisting from Washington is the so-called Common Core education standards. Common Core seeks to impose one set of educational standards on every state and every child in the country, standards that are written by Washington bureaucrats. Needless to say, given Washington’s poor record of getting anything right, many states are having second thoughts of surrendering their education principles to Washington. 

The second major reason for resisting Common Core is that in states where it has already been deployed, test scores of kids in those states have declining substantially compared to test scores prior to the Common Core standards. Thus, logic says, why surrender to a set of standards that fail to accomplish what they promised and are substandard relative to the status quo?

The latest state to consider dumping Common Core is Mississippi. Recently, Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant attended a stop Common Core rally in his state.

Bryant spoke at the rally: “We’re not here today to say take away those academic challenges. We’re here to say make them better but take them away from the control of the federal government.” 

He and other state politicians were present at the rally to try and pressure the rest of the state legislature to act and formally withdrawal the state from the Common Core program. Another state that might tell Washington to pound sand, this time as it applies to Federal educational guidelines.

2) One of the biggest rebellions against the Federal government has been against the new school lunch program guidelines that Washington implemented, and which were vigorously supported by First Lady Michelle Obama. These guidelines were supposed to make kids eat healthier lunches at school in order to combat childhood obesity.

Unfortunately, as we have reported many times, the program has largely been a failure since the kids are not eating the supposedly healthier meals that schools must provide under the Washington guidelines. While the food might be healthier, it does not matter if the kids do not eat it. Horror stories have been reported around the country of how putrid and/or tasteless the new lunches are and how they are just not being eaten. You can lead a kid to a healthy lunch but that does not mean he will eat it.

So much “healthy” food was being thrown out at one school district we reported on that they cut a deal with local hog farmers to use the thrown out food as hog feed at the farms. According to the Education Action Group website, at Rogers High School in Gers, Arkansas, much of the “healthier food was also being thrown out: “We’re feeding trash cans a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables,” Robin Kinder, president of the Arkansas School Nutrition Association and assistant child nutrition director for Springdale Public Schools, told NWAonline.com.

This high school had the following experiences with the new guidelines:

• The school forced students to take healthy food options when going through the cafeteria line but even forcing them to put the health food on their trays did not result in it being eaten, it usually just got dumped in the trash can: “It would just go straight to the trash sometimes,” Estefany Corleto, a junior at Rogers High School, says of the foods students are required to take. “I think it was just a waste of food.”
• According to Kinder, low-sodium and low-fat foods were not developed with kids’ tastes in mind.
• The low-sodium mashed potatoes, for example, were roundly rejected: “I have never seen children throw mashed potatoes away,” she says.
• Pickles can only be served with “certain meals.”
• As a result, the school managers found that food costs and garbage volumes were going up while sales were going down.

Another top down Washington program that made a current issue worse. Rather than kids eating more of less healthy meals, they are now eating far less of healthy meals, getting far less calories than they need to grow and thrive in school rooms and school activities. Healthy eating habits needs to be addressed by a nationwide, long term public health campaign and education effort. That is how you resolve the problem. Washington mandating a non-solution will never work.

This problem, like most problems, will not be solved by having faraway Washington bureaucrats and politicians trying to dictate what is on a kid’s lunch tray.

3) One of the more hotly contested issues that the country is pushing back against Washington is the effort President Obama has undertaken to bypass Congress and the American people and to unilaterally give amnesty and government benefits to millions of illegal aliens. Since the states are going to have to absorb the costs and burden of many of these illegal aliens, they are now pushing back, through the judicial processes to block this unConstitutional and illegal Presidential dictate.

According to a Heritage Foundation article written by Hans von Spakovsky on December 31, 2014, 25 states, half of the states in the union, have filed a Federal lawsuit to block his unilateral plan to grant amnesty. The lawsuit claims that Obama has “unilaterally suspend[ed] the immigration laws as applied to 4 million of the 11 million” illegal aliens in the United States.

The states are requesting that a judge find that Department of Homeland Security directives implementing Obama’s plan violate the "take care that the laws be faithfully executed" cause  of the Constitution, as well as various provisions of the Administrative Procedures Act because they are arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion and were issued without regulatory authority or the required notice and opportunity for public comment.

Here are the 25 states involved in the lawsuit:

Alabama

Arizona

Arkansas

Florida

Georgia

Idaho

Indiana

Kansas

Louisiana

Maine

Michigan

Mississippi

Montana

Nebraska

North Carolina

South Carolina

North Dakota

Ohio

Oklahoma

South Dakota

Tennessee

Texas

Utah

West Virginia

Wisconsin

Half of the country thinks Obama and his administration are wrong when it comes to this action and are spending money and resources to push back on this clearly illegal action. Makes you wonder what will happen if Obama tries to force his will through anyway, regardless of what the courts say: will the center hold if half the country tells Washington no on amnesty? What would Washington do if half the states do not do what Washington wants them to do on this issue? Interesting times we live in.

4) One last piece of resistance for today. Earlier in 2014, the Idaho governor signed state government legislation would ignore and nullify all future Federal government gun laws. The legislation was passed unanimously in both the house and senate of the state legislature.

Erich Pratt, Director of Communications for Gun Owners of America, cheered the governor’s action. “By signing this nullification bill into law, Idaho has joined an elite class of states that are telling the feds to ‘get lost’ — especially when it comes to unconstitutional gun control infringements.” 

Specifically, the law will: “protect Idaho law enforcement officers from being directed, through federal executive orders, agency orders, statutes, laws, rules, or regulations enacted or promulgated on or after the effective date of this act, to violate their oath of office and Idaho citizens’ rights under Section 11, Article I, of the Constitution of the State of Idaho.”

The legislation continues to establish: “Any official, agent or employee of the state of Idaho or a political subdivision thereof who knowingly and willfully orders an official, agent or employee of the state of Idaho or a political subdivision of the state to enforce any executive order, agency order, law, rule or regulation of the United States government as provided in subsection (2) of this section upon a personal firearm, a firearm accessory or ammunition shall, on a first violation, be liable for a civil penalty not to exceed one thousand dollars ($1,000) which shall be paid into the general fund of the state…”

As a result of this action in Idaho, but related to the bigger issue of states and citizens fighting back against Washington overreach, Tenth Amendment Center executive director Michael Boldin said that the new Idaho law has opened Pandora’s box even wider: “People are beginning to realize that this practice is completely constitutional and legal. In the near future, you will see a wave of states passing even broader legislation to fight the federal government on everything ranging from more traditionally liberal issues like hemp and marijuana, to more conservative issues like Obamacare. Nullification isn’t a left vs. right issue. It destroys the fallacy of the left right paradigm and is the remedy for all unconstitutional laws.”

Just another day in the country's desire to get out from under the repressive and aggressive actions of an out of touch and incompetent Washington political class. Today we learned that Mississippi is just the next state to fight back against Common Core, the Michelle Obama dictatorial healthy school lunch plans are still failing across the country, half the country is formally fighting Obama and his forced and illegal unilateral amnesty program, and Idaho has joined several other states to proclaim they will not obey Washington gun control laws. Will the center hold?

Check back on a regular basis as we will continue to review this fascinating, if somewhat scary potential future, a future that may see the rest of the country decide what, if any, Washington actions it will obey or ignore.

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

December, 2013 Political Class Insanity, Part 5: Developing a Martian Menu, The St. Louis Trolley To Nowhere, Third Party Desires and More

This is our fifth post for this month’s monthly series, “Political Class Insanity.” The first post from this month can be viewed at:

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2013/12/december-2013-political-class-insanity.html

We do this feature at the start of each month in order to keep tabs on the lunacy, idiocy, and wasteful spending of the American political class. We are up to five posts this month because the insanity they create with useless and stupid programs continues to grow exponentially over time, requiring more and more blog space to cover it all it each and every month.

1) The following six stupid spending programs come courtesy of government spending tracking done by the Heritage Foundation and posted on their website on February 11, 2013:

• Lost green energy equipment. A 2012 Department of Energy Inspector General audit found that the Department cannot locate $500,000 worth of green energy manufacturing equipment it purchased with stimulus money. 
• $2 million internship program. From 2010 through 2011, the Department of Agriculture’s Office of the Chief Information Officer funded a $2 million intern program intended to enhance the agency’s IT security workforce. Only one intern was hired full time. 
• Extravagant Las Vegas conference. The General Services Administration (GSA), which is responsible for managing federal buildings and helping cut government spending and costs, held a 2010 conference in Las Vegas that cost $822,751, or more than $2,500 per employee. GSA paid for $44-per-person breakfasts and commemorative coins that cost $6,325.
• Mars menu. The U.S. has not sent a man to Mars and has no immediate plan in the next few decades to do so. However, NASA spends nearly $1 million every year to create hypothetical menu options if humans one day live on Mars. In 2012, Cornell University and the University of Hawaii received $947,000 from NASA’s Advanced Food Technology Project to develop creative Mars menus. How many homeless and unemployed Americans could be fed with non-Mars food and $947,000 every year?
• Greek yogurt factory for New York. PepsiCo, a multi billion dollar company, and Theo Müller Group are joining forces to build a Greek yogurt factory in Genesee County, New York. The Departments of Agriculture and Commerce granted them $1.3 million to jump-start the project. Hey, if it such a good idea, let Pepsi pay to jump start the project.
• Trolley system in St. Louis. The Federal government is giving $35 million to St. Louis, Missouri, to construct an “old-fashioned style-trolley system.” Great, mass transit, right? No, the trolley will only cover the 2.2-mile span between the Missouri History Museum and the University City Library, duplicating nearby bus and light-rail service…at a cost of roughly $17 million per mile!

And some politicians, the President included, think that we need to pay more taxes to support the Federal government spending, spending that subsidizes big business, builds unneeded and overly expensive trolley lines, etc. No wonder we have a $17 TRILLION national debt with nothing to show in return except for theoretical Mars food menus, million dollar interns, etc. Pathetic protection of taxpayer assets.

2) The Heritage Foundation also reported on another government insult to fiscal integrity when it reported on a Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) smartphone app that uses temperature and humidity data to warn workers if it is too hot outside.

According to OSHA’s website, the “Heat Safety Tool”—available for Android, Blackberry and iPhone—“allows workers and supervisors to calculate the heat index for their work site and, based on the heat index, displays a risk level to outdoor workers.” The app also outlines protective measures that workers can take to mitigate the risks of overexposure to heat.

So much wrong with this wasteful spending:

• According to government documents found under a Freedom of Information Act request, the app cost a whopping $643,997.60 to develop. Really, over $600,000 to develop a smartphone thermometer?
• Taxpayers have no chance of ever recuperating this investment since the app is given out freely to whoever wants it.
• The same information already exists via the Weather channel app and the smartphone app of thousands of local and regional weather outlets.
• Rather than fire up the old smartphone, why not step outside and see, using common sense, and not over $600,000 of taxpayer wealth, to determine if it is too hot to work outside?
• And finally, does anyone really think that most construction and other outdoor industries are going to bother with such a silly app?

And to add insult to injury, according to the report, the app is very poorly rated by those iTunes users who downloaded it, receiving only 1.5 stars out of a possible five. Pathetic, totally unnecessary, and laughable waste of taxpayer wealth.

3) Let’s stay with wasteful government spending and do some simple math based on the latest government debt numbers from the wonderful website, Bankrupting America:

• Most educated and informed people know that the Federal government national debt is about $17 TRILLION.
• However, what people do not know is that we as a country are paying $359.8 billion a year just to service that debt.
• This means that we are spending just under a BILLION DOLLARS A DAY to pay for our ill gotten national debt.
• If spread evenly across the country, every U.S. household is paying about $3,100 a year to service that debt, wealth that cannot be used for better schools, better vacations, new cars, and other economy enhancing activities.
• This debt load comes out to about $8.60 per household per day.
• Bankrupting America estimates that the debt load will grow to an almost unfathomable $21.7 TRILLION by 2018, increasing the household debt load of every U.S. household to almost $4,000 a year.

Unbelievable numbers, especially insulting when you put this debt load next to the idiotic spending of the Washington political class on useless two mile long trolleys, useless weather apps, etc. Now, we may never reach a national debt over $20 TRILLION because the government and economy may collapse long before that level is attained, which obviously would also be bad news caused as a result of the ineptness of the Washington politicians.

4) Given the growing incompetence of the current political class, it should come as not much of a surprise that according to an October, 2013 Gallup survey, 60% of Americans say the Democratic and Republicans parties do such a lousy job of governing the American people that a third major party is needed. This is the highest Gallup has measured the desire for a viable third political party in the 10-year history of this question. Additionally, a new low of only 26% believe the two major parties adequately represent Americans.

Among those that identify themselves as Independent voters, a whopping 71% want a third party to come along. 52% of Republicans and 49% of Democrats feel the same way, indicating that pretty much the majority of Americans, regardless of their political leanings, are fed up with the current clowns in office. One way around that problem and to start the process of cleaning house in Washington is via term limits, an effort that you can become a part of at:

www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com

5) And finally for today, how would you like it if a lowly government worker had easy access to your medical history? And with that access made a decision that had a major impact on your life? 

Well, that recently happened to a Canadian citizen named Ellen Richardson. Keep in mind that this incident involved a United States Customs and Border Protection agent and a Canadian citizen. 

Ms. Richardson has been denied entry into the United States by a Customs and Border Protection agent because she was hospitalizedonce for depression, in Canada in 2012. Ms. Richardson, who is paraplegic, had gone to Pearson airport in Canada to fly to New York City, where she was to embark on a Caribbean cruise. The cruise cost her $6,000 and the fee was nonrefundable.

The agent who refused Richardson entry cited the U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act, Section 212, which denies entry to people who have had a physical or mental disorder that may pose a 'threat to the property, safety or welfare' of themselves or others. According to news reports, Ms. Richardson, from her wheelchair, had never been a threat to others, had never attacked others, had never made threats against others, had no criminal record, etc. However, a U.S. lowly border agent, with no apparent psychiatric background or education, who somehow had easy access to her medical records, made the call not to allow her to proceed to her vacation because she had failed at a suicide attempt a few years ago. Suicide, not homicide.

Additional facts include:

• According to news reports, in order for her to be cleared to travel into the U.S., Ms. Richardson would have to pay to be examined by one of only three doctors in her native Toronto whose assessments are accepted by U.S. Homeland Security and pass that assessment that she was not a threat.
• She has traveled to the United States on three separate previous occasions since 2001 without any hassles.
• The Star newspaper reports that Richardson, who has a master's degree in counseling, is on medication that has helped her depression and she sees a psychiatrist regularly.

The main piece of insanity here, besides the stupidity of the agent and the scary fact that this agent somehow had access to her medical records, is that the political class and inept Federal government has allowed millions of illegal immigrants to enter and settle in this country and now those same politicians want to provide them with amnesty. 

But a single woman, in a wheelchair who is just passing through the U.S., who has done so before, gets stopped and refused entry. Insanity.

I am hoping that this is the end of this month’s insanity. Five posts chock full of politicians wasting money on silly programs and projects, operating stupid government program inefficiently, hassling innocent visitors to our shores, the list goes on and on. However, I will not promise this is the end of the insanity for this month because by the time this post goes live in a few days, more insanity is likely to have cropped up.

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