A Final Look At The Many Accomplishments of The Trump Presidency, The Most Successful Presidency in Generations

Disclosures up front:

• I have never voted for a Republican for President in my life.
• Thus, I did not vote for Trump either time.
• For a while when I lived in New Jersey I was a registered Democrat.

Thus, I am not biased Republican and conservative when it comes to assessing the accomplishments of any politician. And I agree that Trump is rude, crude, brash, obnoxious, etc. 

However, I am a bottom line sort of guy. I worked in the corporate world for some bosses that were not very nice, that they insisted on results first and niceties later. But they got positive results year in and year out and I grew to appreciate that they were focused on doing the right things and if people's feelings got hurt because they were not doing their own job then so be it.

Thus, as the Trump administration unfolded, I started to document the accomplishments of the Trump Presidency as they piled up despite his abrasive personality. This effort ended up covering about 20 different posts and documenting over 200 substantial accomplishments of his administration. Those previous listings of accomplishment posts can be accessed by typing “horrors and destruction” in the search box above. You can also go to the 11th post directly which has links to the first ten Trump accomplishment posts embedded in it:

https://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2018/08/the-horrors-and-destruction-that-donald.html

“Successful” is where I kind of land on Trump. He is obnoxious but he got results. Off the top of my head, I can present the following successes of his administration:

1. The overall unemployment rate dropped below 4% and stayed there for a while, a feat that was once thought economically impossible.
2. The African-American unemployment rate dropped down to record low levels.
3. The Hispanic-American unemployment rate dropped down to record low levels.
4. The women unemployment rate dropped down to record low levels.
5. The non-college educated unemployment rate dropped down to record low levels.
6. More women entered the worked force than any other time in history.
7. His tax cut efforts gave well over 110 million Americans a major tax break, increasing their personal freedom in the process.
8. GDP grew to levels never seen during the Obama years.
9. Average household income grew substantially during his term after years of no or minimal annual growth.
10. His tax breaks for business resulting in hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of manufacturing jobs being created in the country, a reality that Obama once proclaimed would be impossible, that those manufacturing jobs were lost forever.
11. His tax breaks for business brought back $300 billion in wealth that was stranded overseas due to the high domestic business tax level, resulting in economic growth in this country.
12. The year after his tax break program was implemented, charitable giving hit an all time high, over $400 billion, as taxpayers were able to be more generous with their charitable donations.
13. These economic successes were attained in the context of a low inflation rate.
14. He forced NATO members to finally honor their commitment from a military budget perspective in support of the coalition.
15. He facilitated multiple peace accords between Israel and Arab countries, something once thought impossible.
16. He imposed stiff economic sanctions on the leading terrorist country in the World, Iran, which helped protect not only Israel but also the rest of the world.
17. He cut off foreign aid to the PLO which had been using foreign aid to attack Israel.
18. He helped keep North Korea under control, coming closer than any other President to get their maniac leader to idle back his weapons programs.
19. He did succeed in getting the North Koreans to return the remains of U.S. soldiers that died in North Korean territory during the Korean War, a gesture that means the world to families who never reached closure with the loss of their loved ones, an important issue to my family.
20. If people have not noticed, Russia had been relatively quiet during his term, a reality not present under Obama, see Ukranian invasion by the Russians.
21. He helped fix the dysfunctional Veterans Administration by firing inept administrators and changing some of the rules so that veterans could get better medical attention.
22. He negotiated a much better trade treaty with Canada and Mexico, replacing the NAFTA treaty, a feat that even organized labor applauded.
23. He initiated programs to protect religious and sexual preference freedom around the world.
24. He withdrew us out of the ridiculous Paris Climate Accords but still led the U.S. to reduce its carbon footprint by about 140 million metric tons a year, according to a United Nations report, by far the most successful carbon footprint reduction in the world.
25. He defeated ISIS in a matter of months, a feat that Obama said would take generations.

These are major, major accomplishments that far out distance the accomplishments of his predecessor, Obama, and other recent Presidencies. I dare anyone to list out Obama’s accomplishments, Bush’s accomplishments, etc. and try to match up not just to these listed 25 accomplishments of Trump but the 175 or so other ones that I have previously documented but not listed above.

Do not believe me? Consider a recent article Victoria Taft from the American Patriots United website where she also tried to document the success of the Trump administration:

1. He helped generate a booming economy for three years and then guided the economy to a soft landing and quick turnaround as a result of the devastating pandemic.
2. He implemented “Operation Warp Speed” which got covid vaccines developed, produced and distributed in record, unprecedented time.
3. He got pandemic resources deployed quickly and efficiently, e.g. Navy hospital ship to NYC.
4. He donated his entire quarterly Presidential salary to worthy causes for four years.
5. He played far, far fewer rounds of golf than his 300+ golf rounds his predecessor played, focusing on the issues facing the country instead.
6. He slashed the use of funding for abortions via the UN Commission on Population Control due its funding of “coercive abortions and forced sterilizations.”
7. He signed an executive order that did not allow the Treasury Department to go after the First Amendment rights of political speech of pastors.
8. He renegotiated trade deals with Canada and Mexico that improved on the then current NAFTA trade agreement.
9. He got the country out of New World Order Davos-inspired trade agreements that put the U.S. at a trade disadvantage.
10. He greatly reduced Federal government regulations to the tune of 25,000 pages being lopped out of the Federal Register, which freed up the economy and is estimated to save every American about $3,100 a year by reducing business regulations.
11. The country saw its lowest unemployment rate in 50 years as African-American and Hispanic unemployment rates got down near record lows.
12. The nation’s labor participation rate was at its highest level in years.
13. Trump signed the First Step Act which was a criminal justice reform act that released prisoners from jail because of excessively long sentences as a result of Joe Biden’s sponsored legislation.
14. Trump reformed the Veterans Administration by getting rid of deadwood high ranking officials and allowing veterans to pick their own doctors, improving the overall health care of all veterans.
15. Trump positioned the country to be energy independent and a net exporter of energy, the first time this was attained in 75 years.
16. He started no wars and did not militarily attack any other country, something that had not been done over the most recent administrations.
17. In fact, he began bringing U.S. troops home from Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq after Bush and Obama had placed troops in each of those countries.
18. He defeated ISIS in a matter of months, something once thought impossible.
19. His sanctions crippled the Iranians’ terrorism activites while taking out the world’s number one terrorist who was a part of the Iranian terror machine.
20. His son-in-law brokered peace deals between Israel and several Arab countries once thought impossible.
21. Trump withdrew the U.S. out of the sham United Nations “Human Rights Council” which was often overseen by dictators who oppressed their own people while constantly condemning Israel.
22. Unlike the Obama administration and the incoming Biden administration, Trump supported law enforcement officers across the country, offering Federal support whenever a local police force was under attack and duress, e.g. Portland, Chicago, and Seattle.

These are just another person’s view to mine that Trump was one of the more successful Presidents of our time despite being, as we stated above, rude, crude, obnoxious, uncouth, etc. And again, I would rather have a horse’s rear end as a leader who got things done to the betterment of us all than a smooth talking, coddling, smiling, leader who got nothing done. 

Biden has a big mountain ahead of him if he thinks he can accomplish as much as Trump. And as someone who did not vote for Trump, it is my opinion that Biden has no chance to be anywhere close as effective as Trump was. The lists of accomplishments above are way beyond anything that Biden will be capable of following up on.

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/Love-My-Country-Loathe-Government/dp/1604942789/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=love+my+country%2C+loathe+my+government&qid=1607716020&sr=8-1

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

 

 

The Horrors And Destruction That Donald Trump Has Imposed On America...Just Kidding! Part 20

Before we start today’s discussion, let’s review my voting history: 

• I have never voted for a Republican for President in my life. 
• Thus, I did not vote for Trump. 
• I have rarely voted for a Republican for national office in my life. 

About 2 years ago, many liberals, Democrats, and millennials were besides themselves with grief and fear because their pre-ordained queen, Hillary Clinton, was not elected President. Instead, Donald Trump was elected, an individual that these same people despised, hated, and feared, an individual they felt would endanger and possibly destroy the country and our democracy. For the past year and a half they fretted, worried and lashed out at anything or anyone that even remotely smelled of Donald Trump.

Given that Trump has been in office for almost two years, I thought, that as someone who did not vote for him, it would be a good idea to review the horror, trauma, and terrible things that Trump has subjected the country to in just eighteen month’s time. This is obviously a very sarcastic comment when you take an unbiased look at what has happened during the Trump Presidency. 

The many previous posts we did on this topic identified over 200 good things that have happened to America and Americans since Trump became President can found by entering the phrase “the horrors and destruction” in the search box above. Today, let’s add another dozen or so good things that are going on in the country even though the doubters hate the reality that Trump is President:

- The dollar is at its strongest level in 30 years, indicating great confidence in the U.S.economy.

- U.S. steelmakers made more than 95 million tons of steel in 2018, the most since 2007 and 6.5% higher than in 2017.

- The economy added a whopping 312,000 jobs in December, 2018.

- Manufacturing jobs are growing at a 714% faster clip under Trump than over a similar time under Obama.

- Under Obama, federal state and local government employment grew 6 times faster than did manufacturing jobs, while under Trump, that ratio has been reversed, with manufacturing jobs growing 5 times faster than government jobs, a much healthier mix of economic results.

- The labor force participation rate increased two-tenths of a point to 63.1 percent in December, 2018, the highest it's been since Trump took office.

- At the end of 2018 there were 156,945,000 Americans with a job, a gain of 4,869,000 in two years, and a record high for the U.S. economy.

- The national unemployment rate continues to be under 4.0%, an 18 year low.

- Trump has convinced China to open up its markets to the importing of U.S. grown rice for the first time ever.

- According to a recent poll, Thirty-eight percent of respondents said the national economy is getting better, the biggest amount since March 2002.

- Last week the number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits fell to a near 45-year low last week.

- Retail gasoline prices continue to bump along at lower levels not since in a very long time, with the price of unleaded gas less than two dollars a gallon in many places across the country.

- Despite a growing economy, the U.S. reduced its carbon emissions in 2017, leading the world in reduction of carbon usage and continuing the long term trend of reducing the nation's carbon footprint while China and India (and the rest of the world) continue to significantly increase their carbon footprint.

- Trump has started pulling U.S. troops out of Syria, hopefully a first move to get all U.S. troops out of this hell hole region

For those of you that have hated on Trump since day one, and given your obvious gross error in judgment relative to Trump given the well 200 accomplishments we have previously listed and the dozen or so of the newest accomplishments listed above, let me ask that you to do us all a favor by implementing the following changes in your behavior and attitude:

• Chill out, tamp down your TDS affliction. No matter how much you hate Trump on a sexist, personal basis, get over it. He is the legally and duly elected President, he will be around for a while so refocus your hatred on more constructive issues and matters. You will live a lot longer if you take your hatred out of your heart and soul and devote it to something positive.
• I would really appreciate it if some of you would apologize to the Trump voters you have disrespected in some of the grossest terms possible over the past year. You have called millions of voters racists, ignorant, stupid, Nazis, KKK members, and other horrible names simply because you disagreed with their voting choice. No American should be called such disgusting names simply because they exercised their Constitutional rights to the best of their abilities. Plus, slandering over 60 million Americans is no way to unite the country and get it focused on the real issues facing us all.
• More personally, I would like, no I am demanding, an apology from some of you for your slanderous and disgusting name calling because in doing so, you insulted and disrespected my sister, my family members, my friends, and my co-workers who simply voted their conscience. I will defend their right to vote anyway they wanted and will no put up with your childish and vicious venom and bile directed at them, very important people in my life.
• And finally, I challenge you to read the following blog post, a post that shows quite clearly that it was hateful people like some of you and your silence during the Obama years that actually caused Trump to be elected. Thus, the people you hate for voting for Trump are actually looking back at you in the mirror:

https://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2016/03/how-american-liberals-and-washington.html

If you were silent in the dozens of instances listed in this post then you were responsible for the very thing you hate: a Trump Presidency. Or put another way, a so far successful and productive Trump Presidency. Over 200 accomplishments in a little less than two years is not too shabby despite many of you wanting both Trump and the country to fail.

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

November, 2016, Part 3, Political Class Insanity: Washington Despises Americans, The Fed Shows How Screwed Up The Country Is And Bribery at the FBI

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

The current monthly record for the number of posts that were needed to cover one month's worth of insanity is ten. We equaled that record last month when we needed ten days to cover one month’s worth of political class insanity. There is a very good chance that the ten day record could fall this month since as we get closer and closer to the election, the volume of ineptness grows almost exponentially. 

But today and for all of the insanity posts this month, let’s start off with a welcome piece of honest political dialog. It comes from a State Department spokesperson. Mark Toner, who is about to start the daily State Department press briefing. In a joking matter, he makes the following quote: "Welcome to the State Department. I think we have some interns in the back. Welcome. Good to see you in this exercise in transparency and democracy." 

He then burst out laughing at his own quote, indicating he also knew what a joke the Obama administration has been, especially Mr. Toner’s State Department, when it comes to cover ups, lack of transparency, denial of Freedom of Information Act requests, the prosecution of whistleblowers, etc. But at least it was a little refreshing to finally hear some actual honesty out of Washington as we see from the actual clip of the news conference:

http://www.againstcronycapitalism.org/2016/08/when-even-the-state-department-spokesperson-cant-keep-a-straight-face-about-things-anymore-video/

With that context of honesty, let’s see what other insanity has been going down:

1) Most Americans, according to unbiased polling, have a very low opinion of the government and politicians. Which should not be a surprise, given how much the American political class has screwed up the country, the economy, and the provisioning of even basic government services. But what do those in Washington think about us, the taxpayers that pay their high salaries and rich benefit packages? Well, according to the Convention of States website, there actually has been a survey done to find out what Washington thinks of us:

• Professor Benjamin and Senior Lecturer Jennifer Bachner of Johns Hopkins University actually did a survey of government bureaucrats, Congressional staff members, and think tank leaders to find out what they thought of Americans.
• 72% of those surveyed believe that the American public has no knowledge about policies to aid the poor.
• 71% believe that Americans do not understand science and technology.
• Of the 8 different policy areas addressed, no more than 6% of those surveyed believe that the public has “a great deal” of knowledge in those areas.
• At least 78% of those surveyed thought that government actions in all eight policy areas should not always or even mostly heed popular sentiment.
• Ginsberg concluded that those surveyed, "have no idea what Americans think and they don't care. They think Americans are stupid and should do what they are told."
• But these results should not be a surprise to anyone, given that we saw a prime example of this condescension and elitism a few years ago when Obama Care architect Jonathan Gruber explained that "the stupidity of the American voter or whatever ... was really, really critical for [Obamacare] to pass." Most lawmakers and voters, he suggested, did not really understand the law and that "lack of transparency is a huge political advantage."

How pathetic are these people? They live the good life because of our tax dollars and this is their pathetic opinion of us. Which is really funny in a way, given how badly they have screwed up the country:

• Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are hurtling towards fiscal insolvency.
• A doubling of the national debt in eight short years, $10 TRILLION, that will eventually crash the economy and the country.
• Involving the country in winless wars across the Middle East and Africa, costing us blood and money.
• Operating an economy that has seen sub-historical growth rates for the past seven years, that has seen epic low labor participation rates, that has seen wages and household income stagnate, and that has seen the need for monthly Federal food assistance stay above an astounding 43 million Americans for the past several years with no indication it will drop down significantly any time soon.
• An Obama Care program that is imploding as we speak, a program that has restricted economic growth, will add over a trillion dollars to the national debt and which has not reduced overall healthcare costs in this country.
• Government operations that are inefficient, ineffective, and infested with criminal fraud.

Given their track record, I would day they are the more ignorant, the less capable vs. the very people they accuse and hold in contempt for being uninformed.

2) Following up on the previous point, consider nine charts which pretty much summarize how poorly the Washington political class has operated the country over the past eight years or so. The following nine charts have been presented in this blog before but I thought it would be a good idea to present them again, given the survey we just reviewed in the previous point. If it is the American public that is ignorant and the Washington bureaucrats, politicians, and Congressional staff that are so smart, why do the Federal Reserve charts below show that:

• Student loan levels are skyrocketing.
• Federal food assistance is still sky high.
• The national debt is so high that the debt to GDP ratio is now over 1.00, putting us in a Greek-like fiscal basket case area.
• The Federal Reserve money supply/”money printing” is sky high.
• Health insurance costs are going up.
• The labor participation rate is going down.
• The workers share of the economy is down.
• Median family income is cratering. 
• Home ownership is down.

And those of us outside of the Beltway are the inept and incompetent ones? I do not think so.

3) We have not said much about the Clinton/Trump Presidential race in this blog for the simple reason that the insanity, idiocy, law breaking, and general incompetence would take up multiple blogs posting multiple posts every day. Never have the American people had such a miserable choice from the two major parties than what we have this year. Of the 300 million people in this country, the fact that we are stuck with these two speaks volumes about how screwed up our political processes are today.

With that said, let me hit on a tangential part of the Presidential campaign, a situation that speaks to the corruption and the broken political processes in this country today. According to the Wall Street Journal:

• The current governor of Virginia, Terry McAuliffe, a long time operative and close friend of the Clintons, helped to direct $675,288 to the Virginia state senate campaign of Dr. Jill McCabe.
• Why is this so bad? Well, it turns ot that Dr. McCabe is married to Andrew McCabe who is a very senior FBI official and who was a primary member of the FBI team that investigated Hillary Clinton’s illegal use of a private email system and abuse of classified material.
• The money started flowing from McAuliffe’s connections to the senate campaign in July, 2015, coincidentally about the same time that Dr. McCabe’s husband was promoted to the number three position at the FBI.
• Soon after, he was promoted to the number two position, a prime position to lead activities related to the Clinton investigation.
• The money that Mcauliffe got for the campaign represented a whopping one third of the entire amount of money that Dr. McCabe raised for her campaign, making the money critical to her success.

We have always said that the appearance of a conflict of interest is just as bad as an actual conflict of interest. I do not know where this probable bribery effort falls but it does not matter: this is the level of corruption that now infests our political processes in this country.

That will do it for today's insanity: bribing the FBI in Virginia, the mess that Washingotn has made of the country as measured by the Fed, and Washington types depise us, just as we hate them. More insanity 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:


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

June, 2016, Part 1, By The Numbers: More Bad Economic Numbers. Bad Criminal Illegal Immigrant Numbers, and Bad First Lady Numbers

On a periodic basis we do some posts that fall under the theme of “by the numbers.” Rather than trust what the American political tells us about reality, we like to examine the real numbers and the real reality in the world to understand what is actually going on. Relying on politicians, and their cohorts in the media, to tell us what is reality is always a sucker bet. They have their own agendas and goals, usually centering around their needs and self-enrichment. So we need to look at the reality of the numbers to determine what is really going on.

Previous analyses of “by the numbers” can be accessed by entering the phrase in the search box above. This is the first post this month where we look at the numbers to truly find out how good, not likely, or bad, most likely, the American political class is doing in managing our tax dollars, protecting our freedoms, and resolving major issues that affect all of us. 

1) Obama continues to insist that he has done miracles in reviving the U.S. economy. But six years or so after the recession ended, has he really performed miracles? We have often discussed the reality that the Obama administration has done a terrible job from an economic strategy perspective despite the following tail winds:

• Implementing a failed and massive $800 billion economic stimulus plan.
• Getting the benefit of a long term drop in energy prices.
• Having the advantage of the Fed infusing trillions of paper dollars into the economy.

In the face of these favorable economic conditions, James Sherk, writing for the Heritage Foundation on June 3, 2016, pointed out how anemic Obama’s economic policies have been, as proven by the numbers:

• The economy created only 38,000 jobs in May, far below the 150,000 jobs that economists had more or less forecasted.
• Hundreds of thousands of people (664,000) left the workforce because they have given up hope of finding a job.
• Job estimates from April and March were also revised downward by 59,000.
• These job creation estimates are not even high enough to cover population growth.
• The combination of low job creation and hundreds of thousands leaving the workforce reduced the standard unemployment rate to 4.7%, showing how out of date and out of touch this measure (U3) is today.
• The labor participation rate dropped another .2 percentage points in May and occurred in many different age groups, not just retiring Baby Boomers as the labor participation rate for prime age workers, aged 25 to 34, also dropped .2%.
• The number of Americans employed part time for economic reasons, i.e. they could not find a full time job, jumped up by almost 500,000.
• The only bright spot in May in the face of low job creation, lower labor participation rates, and more people settling for part time work was that wage growth has now risen 2.5% over the past twelve months and continued to grow in May.

Another month and another set of numbers that prove Obama has overseen and managed the weakest economic recovery in a very, very long time, despite the economic tailwinds with listed above.

2) Adam Kredo, writing for the Washington Free Beacon on June 3, 2016, discussed some dangerous immigration numbers that are being suppressed by the Obama administration:

• Congressman Brian Babin told the Free Beacon that the Obama administration is trying to hide information related to 86,000 known criminal illegal immigrants that the administration has released or will release onto the streets of America.
• These 86,000 criminal illegal immigrants have committed at least 231,000 crimes already before they have been released.
• These 231,000 crimes have been committed in just the past two and a half years.
• This comes out to about 250 crimes a DAY on average.
• But this type of behavior is not unexpected from the Obama administration’s Department Of Homeland Security has deported less than 1% of foreigners who illegally overstayed their travel visas in this country despite having their budget increased over the years.
• According to the Congressman, these criminal illegal immigrants are being released into American towns but the authorities in those towns are not being told who is being sent to their towns and cities.

More endangering of American civilians, e.g. Kate Steinle, while taking better care of criminal illegal immigrants than they deserve. 

3) Susan Jones, writing for CNS News on June 3, 2016, followed up on the numbers from the latest economic results:

• In May, there was a record 94,708,000 adult Americans not in the labor force.
• This was in increase in 664,000 just one month over April.
• For perspective, consider that 664,000 is larger than the city of Seattle.
• The labor participation rate is at 62.6%, a 38 year low.
• When Obama took office in January, 2009, 80,529,000 were not in the workforce, a number that has grown by 14,179,000 in just seven years despite the view of Obama who says that he has created economic miracles: "By almost every economic measure, America is better off than when I came here at the beginning of my presidency. We cut unemployment in half, years before a lot of economists thought we would."
• The U3 unemployment rate has indeed been cut in half but that measure is no longer valid as the number of Americans dropping out of the labor force from discouragement renders it an ineffective measure of economic health.
• The 62.6% labor participation rate in May 2015 compares with 62.8% in April and 63.0% in March. 
• The creation of only 38,000 jobs in May beings the three month monthly average of jobs creation down to 116,000 a month.
• This is almost half of the average monthly job creation over the past 12 months which was 219,000.
• African-American workers have an unemployment rate that is about 80% than the national average.
• The number of persons employed part time for economic reasons increased by 468,000 to 6.4 million in May, after showing little movement since November. 
• These 6.4 million Americans would have preferred full-time employment but were forced to work part time because their hours had been cut back or because they were unable to find a full-time job.
• Outside of healthcare and government jobs, other industries showed minimal job growth or net drop losses.
• As reported above, there was some good news on the wage growth component but people with jobs seeing wage growth does not help the millions of Americans who have no full time job at all.

Different source, same sad economic story of this administration.

4) We have never talked about numbers when it comes to the First lady, Michelle Obama, since she usually stays out of the spotlight relative to numbers. However, it would be remiss of us if we did not point out some numbers that she royally screwed up recently, making one wonder if she ever took a U.S. history test or she has anyone on her staff that can fact check any numbers she puts forth before she embarrasses herself.

She was recently the featured speaker at the National Archives in D.C. when she spoke in front of a gathering of 50 newly naturalized American citizens: “It’s amazing that just a few feet from here where I’m standing are the signatures of the 56 Founders who put their names on a Declaration that changed the course of history, and like the 50 of you, none of them were born American – they became America.”

Hold on their Michelle. Thomas Jefferson, certainly a founding father, was born in Virginia. Jefferson was a chief writer and a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Ben Franklin was born in Pennsylvania. John Adams was born in Massachusetts. In reality, only 8 of the 56 people who signed the Declaration of Independence were NOT born in this country. So not even close, 48 out of 56 were native born vs. the zero who were native born the the First Lady seriously gets wrong.

But we should not be surprised by this misrepresentation of facts and numbers. Her husband does it all the time. As an aside, the First Lady also claimed in her speech that the Constitution was signed in D.C. when it was really signed in Philadelphia. So sad when those pesky facts get in the way of political speech.

Those are the numbers for today. Continued bad economic numbers, continued bad criminal illegal immigrant numbers, and obviously bad and incorrect historical numbers from a former lawyer and Princeton graduate and current First Lady. More by the numbers 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

April, 2016, Part 1, By The Numbers: Hillary's Speech Numbers, Bad Economic Numbers, and Bad Crime Numbers.

On a periodic basis we do some posts that fall under the theme of “by the numbers.” Rather than trust what the American political tells us about reality, we like to examine the real numbers and the real reality in the world to understand what is actually going on. Relying on politicians, and their cohorts in the media, to tell us what is reality is always a sucker bet. They have their own agendas and goals, usually centering around their needs and self-enrichment. So we need to look at the reality of the numbers to determine what is really going on.

Previous analyses of “by the numbers” can be accessed by entering the phrase in the search box above. This is the third and final post this month where we look at the numbers to truly find out how good, not likely, or bad, most likely, the American political class is doing in managing our tax dollars, protecting our freedoms, and resolving major issues that affect all of us. 

1) It is no secret to anyone who has read previous posts in this blog that the Obama administration has presided over and managed the worst recovery from a recession in over a century. Despite spending over $800 billion on a failed economic stimulus program, getting the advantage of cratering energy costs that pumped trillions of dollars into the economy, and having the Federal Reserve pump trillions of more dollars into the economy, this administration still created economic policies and strategies that resulted in the following dismal results:

• Record low labor participation rates.
• Annual national economic growth rates that were never anywhere close to the historical annual trend.
• Over 14 million Americans that cannot find a find a full time job or who have settled for a part time job since they could not find a full time job.
• Increased taxes and thousands of new government regulations, e.g. Obama Care, have depressed job and business formation.
• Household wages and incomes have been stagnant for the entire Obama administration.
• For the first time ever, business deaths are outnumbering business creations in this country.
• The jobs that have been created in the Obama economy have tended to be in the lower paying industries.

And according to recent reporting by the Investors Business Daily, the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics reports are not showing any deviation from this historically bad economic performance:

• Only 215,000 new jobs were created in March, a long way from the 14 million Americans who are still looking for a full time job.
• At this rate, it would take 6-7 years to handle those 14 million Americans, assuming that no other American lost their jobs during those years.
• The labor participation rate actually increased a little in March, good news, but is still stuck at forty year lows, around 63%.
• While Obama claims that the unemployment rate is 5%, the real unemployment rate, the rate that includes discouraged workers and part time workers that want full time work, is almost double at 9.8%.
• If the Obama recovery was comparable to the Reagan recovery, the country would have created five million more jobs.
• Two of the industries who had the biggest job gains in March were retail (48,000 jobs created) and restaurants (25,000 jobs created), two industries that usually have low wages for jobholders.
• Annualized national economic growth was 2% in the third quarter of 2015, 1.4% in the fourth quarter of 2015, and according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, who just released its prediction for the first quarter of 2016, a paltry .7%.
• According to the article, businesses are cutting back on their capital spending levels and they are not building new factories or research facilities.

The economic numbers are in for March, 2016 and they are not good. In fact they are basically the same, lame numbers the Obama administration has generated for the past seven years.

2)  2014, Hillary Clinton gave a speech to employees of wireless manufacturer Qualcomm. Since then,the Securities and Exchange Commission has sued the company, claiming that the business often bribed foreign officials in order to get better deals in country for their products and thus, gain a distinct business advantage. Qualcomm eventually paid a $7.5 million fine to end the suit.

I bring this up not because of any laws that Qualcomm broke but because the company paid Hillary clinton a whopping $335,000 to give ONE speech. I an sorry, no speech from any human being is worth $335,000…..unless that company expected something in return. Which is how Bill and Hill have gotten so rich, running the racket of trading public favors for private, severely overpaid speeches.

Oh, and by the way, according to news reports covering this story, the one time $335,000 speech fee is larger than Bernie Sanders net worth.

3) Warner Todd Huston, writing for the Breitbart website on April 12, 2016, reviewed the alarming Gallup poll results on rising crime levels (keep in mind that prior to the Obama administration, violent crime had been decreasing steadily over the past two decades):

• According to Gallup, a growing majority of lower income Americans, especially African-Americans, are more worried about rising crime levels in their neighborhoods.
• 53% of those polled said they are worried a “great deal” about rising crime and violence rates, up from 39% in 2014.
• This 53% level was pretty consistent across independent voters, Republican voters, and Democratic voters.
• 70% of respondents with high school degrees said they worry a great deal of the time while only 32% with college degrees say they worry a great deal of the time.
• Crime and violence concerns of middle class Americans has risen 20 points, up to 57%, in just the past two years while concern among upper income people is up only 8 points to 36% in the past two years.
• While 46% white respondents worried a great deal of time about crime and violence, a whopping 68% of African-Americans worried a great deal, despite having Al Sharpton and Barack Obama on their side.
• The Breitbart article cites a recent Washington Post piece that stated homicides in the country’s largest 50 cities is up 17% in the past year, the largest increase in 25 years.
• In 2015, violent crime in some areas of the nation’s capital jumped up by about 20%.
• The Gallup poll also asked about rising drug use and found that 41% of whites say they are worried a great deal about drug use, up from just 27% in 2014 while 49% of non-whites say they are worried a great deal about drug use.

Pretty pathetic results of this Presidential administration. The perception of rising crime, violence and drug use seems rampant across all segments of society, a nice part of Obama’s failed legacy, the numbers do not lie.

So today the numbers showed us that the perception of crime is marching upwards, Hillary must give a heck of a speech to get paid so much for giving a speech, and our economic performance and results under the Obama administration continue to be abysmal. More numbers 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

April, 2016, Part 8, Poltiical Class Insanity: The Death of The U.S. Economy, More NSF Stupidity, Obama's Racist Comments, and More

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.

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) Despite running an astronomical national debt of over $19 TRILLION, the bureaucrats in the Federal government continue to waste epic amounts of money in absolutely absurd ways. Today’s stupid waste of taxpayer money comes to us courtesy of the National Science Foundation, NSF. Which should not be a surprise since we have often referred to the insanely stupid ways the NSF has wasted taxpayer wealth over the years. Consider just one of our previous posts that chronicled their obscene wasteful spending:

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2012/12/day-3-seven-days-of-logic-and-sanity.html

Today’s waste of wealth comes to us from a recent Washington Free Beacon article by Elizabeth Harrington. According to Ms. Harrington, the NSF gave out a grant of over $400,000 to study how glaciers can shape “religious beliefs and cultural values.” I will let that sink in for a minute…. Yes, as a taxpayer, your government took some of your tax money, gave it to a university professor who proceeded to analyze how a very large chunk of ice somewhere where it is very cold and tried to correlate it to religious and cultural values.

Details from the article include the following absurdities:

• The final research paper was entitled, “Glaciers, gender, and science” and concluded that “ice is not just ice.”
• According to professor Mark Carey of the University of Oregon, the leader of the research: “Glaciers are key icons of climate change and global environmental change. However, the relationships among gender, science, and glaciers–particularly related to epistemological questions about the production of glaciological knowledge – remain understudied.”
• The final research paper concluded that, “Merging feminist postcolonial science studies and feminist political ecology, the feminist glaciology framework generates robust analysis of gender, power, and epistemologies in dynamic social-ecological systems, thereby leading to more just and equitable science and human-ice interactions.” 
• The research asserts that glaciers can shape “religious beliefs and cultural values,” and that climate change can lead to the “breakdown of stereotypical gender roles and even ‘gender renegotiation.’”
• More hogwash from the study: “A critical but overlooked aspect of the human dimensions of glaciers and global change research is the relationship between gender and glaciers,” the paper said. “While there has been relatively little research on gender and global environmental change in general there is even less from a feminist perspective that focuses on gender (understood here not as a male/female binary, but as a range of personal and social possibilities) and also on power, justice, inequality, and knowledge production in the context of ice, glacier change, and glaciology.”
• The exact cost of this study for taxpayers was $412,930.
• A student working with Carey on the study pushed to expand the scope of the study to include gender impacts of glaciers, justifying this nonsense as follows: “I wanted to know more about the relationship between women and ice, so we pursued the topic from climate-change vulnerability to knowledge,” said the student, Jaclyn Rushing, an environmental studies and romance languages major.

I’m sorry and maybe I am insensitive to the topic of glaciers and gender impacts but really - over $400,000 for this garbage? Millions of Americans go hungry every day, millions are homeless at any time during a year, thousands of veterans cannot get the medical treatment they were promised, almost 50,000 Americans die from drug overdoses every year because they did not get addiction treatment in time and the Federal bureaucracy just spent $400,000 on this study. Pathetically and tragically insane.

3) Liberals and Democrats are always trying to be politically correct, often taking it to the absurd. They are always so critical of others that do not match their passion for saying things that are not insensitive to others, no matter to what ridiculous heights they take it.

But they often do not carry that standard of correctness over to their own vocabulary. Consider the recent remarks Obama made in a question and answer session in Chicago when discussing his latest nominee to the Supreme Court, Merrick Garland: “And so, when I look at Merrick Garland, that was the person that… you know, the difference between the Supreme Court is that it’s just a handful of seats come up at any given time. Now, I appointed a Latino woman, and another woman right before that, so…You know, yeah, he’s a white guy. But he’s a really outstanding jurist. Sorry! You know, he is. I think that’s important.” 

So here we have the first African-American President joking and apologizing for nominating a “white guy” to the Supreme Court. Imagine the uproar if Bush had said the same thing but he had nominated a “black guy” to the Supreme Court, “You know, yeah, he’s a black guy. But he’s a really outstanding jurist. Sorry!”? Liberals and Democrats would have been besides themselves in outrage. 

Which is just another example of the hypocrisy of the American political class. When someone in the other party says something like this we get outraged. Someone in our party says something like this, and they joke about it. Very, very small minded people in so many ways.

4) The Washington Free Beacon had a recent example that shows how cozy Washington politicians have become with the power brokers in this country, being accountable to their constituents be damned. According to writer Joe Schoffstall, former Congressman Jim Moran of Virginia is now a registered lobbyist, representing companies who were among his top campaign fundraisers when he was in Congress.

He is now employed by DC located law firm McDermott Will & Emery and has filed to lobby for General Dynamics and Boeing. While in office, Moran took in $4,600 in campaign donations from General Dynamics employees and another $71,000 from General Dynamics related PACs. Boeing employees gave him $99,000 and Boeing PACs chipped in another $57,000.

See how it works. Washington politicians take money while in office from organizations looking to gain advantages from legislative action and those same politicians get more money as reward, after leaving Congress, for the favors they did for those same organizations while in office. Nowhere in this cycle are the interests of ordinary Americans taken into account. This is what our country has become, money buys influence, and then it buys a job for those in office.

Oh, by the way, according to the article, six other former Congressional members made the same decision as Moran this year relative to their post-Congress career.

5) Let’s finish today’s insanity with some really depressing economic news. It is no surprise that the U.S. economy, under Obama, has been performing very pathetically and substantialy below the long term trend. Wages and household incomes are stagnant, over 14 million Americans are either unemployed or working at part time jobs because they cannot find full time work, the labor participation rate is at all time lows, annual overall economic growth has been limping along at anemic levels, never attaining the long average long term growth rate of over 3%, and the ever growing level of taxation and regulations under Obama has resulted in terrible economic performance.

And this poor showing under Obama was attained even though:

• Obama spent over $800 billion on a failed economic stimulus program.
• Record low energy costs in the past few years should have fueled over economic growth.
• The Federal Reserve pumped TRILLIONs of dollars into the economy.

And yet, Obama still could not put together a credible economic growth program. So what could be so depressing, given this context of depressing economic news? According to a recent study by Gallup, 1) for the first time EVER in this country, more businesses are dying in this country than new businesses being created and 2) the U.S. is no longer the most entrepreneurial country and economy in the world.

Jim Clifton, Gallup Chairman and CEO, speaking of the latest Gallup findings: “The U.S. Census Bureau reports that the total number of new business startups and business closures per year — the birth and death rates of American companies — have crossed for the first time since the measurement began. I am referring to employer businesses, those with one or more employees, the real engines of economic growth. Four hundred thousand new businesses are being born annually nationwide, while 470,000 per year are dying.” 

This negative economic trend of business creation and death has been deteriorating every year during the Obama presidency: “Until 2008, startups outpaced business failures by about 100,000 per year. But in the past six years, that number suddenly turned upside-down. There has been an underground earthquake. As you read this, we are at minus 70,000 in terms of business survival,” writes Clifton.

How bad is this fiasco relative to the rest of the world? According to Clifton: “The U.S. now ranks not first, not second, not third, but 12th among developed nations in terms of business startup activity.” Denmark, Finland, Hungary, and even financially strapped Italy is starting up more businesses than the U.S.

Clifton concludes with some dire warnings: “Let’s get one thing clear: This economy is never truly coming back unless we reverse the birth and death trends of American businesses. It is catastrophic to be dead wrong on the biggest issue of the last 50 years — the issue of where jobs come from…when small and medium-sized businesses are dying faster than they’re being born, so is free enterprise. And when free enterprise dies, America dies with it.” 

In the meantime, President Obama is going to baseball games in Cuba, taking tango lessons in Argentina, playing golf in D.C., filming video tribute clips on the demise of “American Idol,” working on his choices for the 2016 NCAA March Madness tournament, and jetting off to Chicago to pal around with some law students. All the while while the economic conditions he created are destroying the job creation machine in this country, a machine that was once the envy of the whole world and which is now lagging behind elven other countries. Pathetic economy management.

Another depressing day as the American class continues to destroy the country and the economy while looking out for themselves. This was our eight post this month on political class insanity and we are not close to being done yet. Which is the real insanity. More idiocy 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