61 Reasons Why Jimmy Carter Is Off The Hook, Part 1: The Legacy Of Failure Of The Obama Administration

Before I get into my conclusions on why Jimmy Carter is now off the hook as the worst President I have ever seen, replaced by the failed legacy of President Obama, let me set the stage:

• Until the midterm elections in November, 2010 I had never voted for a Republican for national office, President or Congress, in my life.
• I have voted for very few Republicans for local, county, and state elections in my life.
• Thus, I am not a long term Republican voter or conservative.
• The reason I wrote and published my book, “Love My Country, Loathe My Government” was because of the insanity I witnessed during the Republican Bush administration. The waste, stupidity, and corruption of that era was something I found unacceptable in a democracy and wanted to do my part to fix our ailing democracy. It had nothing to do with the Obama administration and its failures.
• Thus, I am not out to do a hatchet job on President Obama, I would do a similar assessment on any other person with the same dismal track record.
• I am not saying that John McCain would have been more effective than Obama has been. We will never know, given McCain did not get elected.
• I am not enthusiastic about Romney by any stretch of the imagination and I am not saying that Romney would be more effective than Obama has been.
• The information sources for my writings, analyses, conclusions almost never include Fox News and never include conservative/Republican blogs or forums. Most of the time my sources are unbiased or liberal leaning organizations that tend to portray the Obama administration in a more favorable light than it deserves.
• I believe that in sports, politics, and life, the old saying that “you are only as good as your record” should be the only guide to reality. Saying you tried hard or claiming the failure was not your fault are easy to do. But results are the only things that count in the final assessment. Excuses are a sign of weakness and immaturity when it comes to leadership in life. However, they are an ongoing trait of this administration.
• Some of the points of failure listed below might be viewed as petty and unimportant in the big picture. However, this assessment is meant as a comprehensive view of the Obama Presidency and one person’s view of pettiness and unimportance might be viewed as a failed opportunity at leadership by someone else. That is why everything was included
• Harry Truman once eloquently stated: “The buck stops here.” He realized he was the overall boss so that anything that went wrong on his watch ultimately was his responsibility, a responsibility he was willing to accept. The Obama administration should not be held to any lower standard of excellence.
• For the first two years of his Presidency, Obama’s Democratic party held a majority in the House of Representatives and a filibuster proof majority in the Senate. His approval ratings were sky high. He could have done anything he wanted. He wasted that historic opportunity and as a result, he does not now get to blame Bush, the Arab Spring, the Iranians, the Japanese tsunami, ATM machines, Congress, the Republicans, or anything else for his failures. The buck stops at his desk, he accepted the job and both the glory and the blame that goes with it.

Okay, let’s get started. Today, I will review the first thirty reasons why Jimmy Carter's Presidential administration is no longer the worst administration in my lifetime and possibly the past century. Tomorrow, I will review the final thirty one reasons along with some final observations and summaries to validate my claim that the Obama administration is so bad that Jimmy Carter is off the hook as the worst President of the past century or so.

I am 59 years old and have always viewed the Carter administration as one of the most inept and ineffective presidencies of all time. With the exception of the Israeli/Egyptian peace accords, I cannot remember anything else positive from those years but I do remember long gas lines, high gas prices, the Iranian hostage crisis and the timid response to it, high unemployment, and sky high inflation and interest rates. Not a legacy of success or hope.

But along comes the Obama administration and the following failures across just about every dimension, in no particular order:

1) Failure to implement an economic stimulus program that lived up to its objectives, the President predicting that unless the Federal government spent about $800 billion, the unemployment rate could go as high as 8%. Over $800 billion was spent, and wasted, and the unemployment rate remained above 8% for a record 42 straight months.

2) Failure to implement to an effective overall economic strategy, instead relying on petty, tactical, short term, and unsuccessful economic programs that accomplished nothing but wasted billions of dollars. The short list of failures includes Cash For Clunkers, Cash For Appliances, Cash For Caulkers, HAMP, General Motors bailout (currently billions of taxpayer dollars still unpaid), and a small business tax credit package.

3) Failure to reduce this high unemployment rate, with almost 13 million Americans still unemployed, millions of other Americans who are underemployed or have become to discouraged to look for work, resulting in a total unemployment/underemployment rate of an unacceptable 14.9% in September which translate into about 23 million Americans who are unemployed or under employed. As a result, we have record high welfare payments and record high food stamp recipients.

4) Failure to provide a healthy, growing economic climate, with about half of this year’s college graduates not able to find a position in their preferred field and more than 80% of them moving back in with their parents or relatives since they cannot afford to strike out on their own.

5) Failure to protect the nation’s AAA bond rating, resulting in a major credit rating agency downgrading the credit worthiness of the United States for the first time in our history and other major credit agencies warning that they could follow suit unless the Federal government gets its spending under control.

6) Failure to reduce the Federal government’s annual spending deficit by 50% as promised in his 2008 Presidential campaign.

7) Failure to get Federal government spending under control, creating record annual TRILLION dollar deficits for the entire time of his Presidency, adding about $5 TRILLION to our national debt to bring it to over $16 TRILLION.

8) Failure to even consider forcing Congress to consider implementing the fine work of his deficit reduction commission, a commission he himself put together but ended up completely ignoring.

9) Failure to pressure a fellow Democrat, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, to do the Majority Leader’s job and produce an annual detailed Federal budget plan, a failure that has resulting in the Senate not producing a formal budget in over 1,200 days, a performance by Reid that has to be un-Constitutional and impeachable on some level

10) Failure to rein in waste, corruption, inefficiency, and criminal fraud in the Medicare and Medicaid programs, all of which cost the American taxpayer anywhere from $110 to $150 billion a year.

11) Failure to rein in waste, corruption, inefficiency, and criminal fraud in the Social Security program, which costs the American taxpayer at least $100 billion a year.

12) Failure to rein in waste, corruption, inefficiency, and criminal fraud in the food stamp and unemployment benefit programs, which cost the American taxpayer about $25 billion a year.

13) Failure to streamline government functions and operations, which would save tax payers tens of billions of dollars a year, as witnessed by the fact that after three and a half years of this Presidency we are still burdened with 15 different agencies overseeing food safety laws, more than 20 independent programs helping the homeless, 80 different programs to help economic development, 82 different government agencies working on improving teacher quality, 47 different government agencies working on job training, and 18 different programs working on food and nutrition assistance.

14) Failure to improve tax collection at the Internal Revenue service which estimates that it fails to collect about $380 billion a year from tax evaders, putting additional tax burdens on honest taxpayers who actually pay their taxes.

15) Failure to live up to his campaign promise to close the prison facility at Guantanamo Bay, a facility that annually costs the American taxpayer about $160 million to operate.

16) Failure to live up to his campaign promise to not allow lobbyists to serve in high ranking positions in his administration, an administration that currently has several dozen ex-lobbyists high up in the administration

17) Failure to live up to his campaign promise of significantly reducing budget earmarks which are only thinly disguised schemes for incumbent politicians to finance their reelection campaigns.

18) Failure to live up to his campaign promise of not using executive privilege when he invoked executive privilege to hamper and cover up a legitimate Congressional investigation into misconduct and illegal activity relative to the fatal Fast and Furious gun walking operation.

19) Failure to live up to his statement several years ago when as Senator he boldly asserted that raising the nation’s debt limit was a Presidential failure of leadership, a statement he contradicted the first time he was confronted with out of control spending bumping up against the nation’s debt limit level.

20) Failure to lead the country to a comprehensive and effective strategy for educating our kids, who currently rank behind dozens of other countries around the world in the quality of their education despite the U.S. spending more than every other country in the world. At the Federal level, the continuing failure of the Department of Education has cost us over $200 billion since the Obama inauguration.

21) Failure to lead the country to a comprehensive and effective strategy for cost effective energy independence, with no strategy in place to reduce our dependence on foreign energy sources and our carbon footprint. At the Federal level, the continuing failure of the Department of Energy has cost us over $100 billion since Obama’s inauguration.

22) Failure to lead the country to a comprehensive and effective health care reform strategy to rein in our escalating health care costs, with Obama Care likely to cost well over $2 TRILLION to execute, likely to drain wealth out of the economy with dozens of new taxes, likely curtail economic growth, likely result in tens of millions of Americans losing their current health care insurance protection, likely to have millions of Americans have their working hours reduced, will definitely leave at least twenty million Americans without health care insurance ten years after the legislation was passed and likely have no chance to succeed since the legislation never addressed the root causes of our higher and higher health care costs.

23) Failure to lead the country to a comprehensive and effective restart of our strategy relative to our illegal drug usage problems, resulting in the enrichment of violent Mexican drug cartels, the continuing imprisonment of non-violent drug users, the continuing emphasis on law enforcement vs. drug treatment, and the continuing lost “war on drugs.”

24) Failure to lead the country to a comprehensive and effective restructuring of our Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid programs, all of which are hurdling towards fiscal insolvency.

25) Failure to lead the country to a comprehensive overhaul of our 70,000 page, cumbersome, inefficient, and economy inhibiting Federal tax code, a tax code that results in hundreds of billions of dollars every year not being collected and a tax code that results in American companies keeping over a TRILLION dollars in profits overseas, sitting idly, not helping the U.S. economy to grow.

26) Failure to lead the country to an overhaul or termination of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two main culprits in the creation and collapse of the housing bubble, leading directly to the Great Recession and a taxpayer bailout of the two government housing entities that has already cost the American taxpayer over $180 billion (and growing).

27) Failure to lead the country to an overhaul of the country’s financial regulation processes, claiming responsibility for the Dodd-Frank legislation that has already missed three major financial industry disasters, the collapse of MF Global, the dangerous investing and reckless style of JP Morgan, and the collapse of Peregrine Financial Group, three situations that were supposed to be impossible with the new regulations.

28) Failure to eliminate the “too big to fail” syndrome of America’s largest banks, with the five largest banks now larger on every banking measure than they were prior to the Great Recession.

29) Failure to terminate the ill-fated Fast and Furious gun walking campaign, a campaign that broke numerous laws and at least one international treaty while resulting in the unnecessary death of a U.S. agent and dozens of innocent Mexican civilians.

30) Failure to have his administration prepared and act promptly when the Gulf oil spill occurred, with himself taking several vacations, playing numerous rounds of golf, and making several long campaign fund raising trips while the Gulf environment and economy suffered the ravages of the multi-month oil spill.

Tomorrow we will review the final 31 reasons why this Presidential administration is the worst this country has seen in a very long time and why Jimmy Carter is now off the hook, given the failed legacy of the Obama administration.

We invite all readers of this blog to visit our new website, "The United States Of Purple," at

http://www.unitedstatesofpurple.com/

The United States of Purple is a new grass roots approach to filling the office of President of The United States by focusing on the restoration of freedom in the United States, focusing on problem solving skills and results vs. personal political enrichment, and imposing term limits on all future Federal politicians. No more red states, no more blue states, just one United States Of America under the banner of Purple

The United States Of Purple's website also provides you the formal opportunity to sign a petition to begin the process of implementing a Constitutional amendment to impose fixed term limits on all Federally elected politicians. Only by turning out the existing political class can we have a chance of addressing and finally resolving the major issues of or times.

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.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com/
http://www.flipcongress2010.com/
http://www.reason.com/
http://www.repealamendment/

I"m Tired... And That Is Why I Voted Republican For The First Time In My Life

Earlier this week I submitted my mail-in ballot for the pertinent Florida political races that affect me. Up until that time, I took pride in truthfully stating that I had never voted for a Republican for national office in my life (I am 57 years old). However, that all changed this time around, it was Republican straight down the line from U.S. Senator down to county offices. Why the change. One reason: I'm tired:

• I'm tired of looking at the almost $5 TRILLION that the Federal government has run up in national debt since Democrat Nancy Pelosi became Speaker of the House.
• I'm tired of looking at the almost $44,000 per U.S. household in national debt that the Federal government has run up since Harry Reid was Senate Majority Leader.
• I'm tired at looking at the 10% unemployment rate that we have faced for much of the time that the Democrats controlled Congress over the past few years and the White House for the past two years.
• I'm tired of being called a racist by Democratic politicians like Charles Rangel and Shelia Lee Jackson simply because I had serious and legitimate concerns and disagreements with the health care reform bill that the Democrats forced through the back door of reconciliation.
• I'm tired of being called un-American by Democrats like Nancy Pelosi for having legitimate concerns and opposition to the Democrats' ill conceived health care reform legislation.
• I'm tired of being called names like knuckle dragging Neanderthal, Ku Klux Klan member, terrorist, and ass#!$* by people like Democratic Congressman Alan Grayson and Democratic czar Van Jones simply because as a United States citizen I dare to have valid and legitimate differences of opinion with politicians' ideas and plans.
• I'm tired of President Obama as he stands mute and allows U.S. citizens that legitimately and honestly disagree with his policies and to be called racists, Neanderthals, terrorists, ass#!$*s, and Klan members
• I'm tired of Democratic President Obama not standing up against some of the disgusting names that have been used to describe female Republican candidates, names that I will not repeat here, but include what a member of Jerry Brown's staff called his opponent, Meg Whitman, in the California governor's race, the name of a concert a rapper held to fight Republican Michele Bachman's Minnesota Senate campaign, what Joy Behar called Nevada Republican Candidate Sharron Angle, and what an online Playboy article said should be done to ten Republican political candidates; disgusting and debasing and the President did nothing to civilize the discussion.
• I'm tired of Joy Behar.
• I'm tired of Democrats telling me that they saved the economy from going into a ditch while they controlled both houses of Congress for the past four years and the White House for the past two years or so, i.e. they are just as responsible, if not more so, for driving the car into the ditch as the Republicans.
• I'm tired of President Obama still refusing to man up to his responsibilities and failures, still trying to blame the Bush administration for things that go wrong.
• I'm tired of Democrat Bill Clinton and other high powered national Democratic leaders going into local election processes and trying to usurp the will and decisions of the people for the good of the Democratic national party, re: Sestak in Pennsylvania and Meeks in Florida.
• I'm tired of the broken promises of Democratic candidate Barack Obama, from not getting ALL U.S. troops out of Iraq to not closing down Guantanamo to not dumping the Don't Ask/Don't Tell military policy (it took a law suit from a Republican organization to get a ruling against the policy) to rubber stamping the renewal the Patriot Act and continuing other Bush administration secrecy policies to not getting wasteful earmarks under control to facilitating the further divisions within the country.
• I'm tired of the condescending attitudes of Democratic politicians with the best example being Harry Reid's contempt for American tourists visiting D.C. in the summer since, in his opinion, those that pay the taxes that support his life style, physically smell.
• I'm tired of President Obama not acting for the good of all Americans and for the uniting of America but rather stooping to the lowest and basest of political tactics, including the latest where he addressed a Hispanic audience and slandered those citizens that honestly disagree with his policies, calling  them the "enemy." Very, very un-Presidential.
• I'm tired of Democratic economic programs that have been a total failure including Cash For Clunkers, Cash For Appliances, Cash For Caulkers, mortgage relief, economic stimulus and TARP.
• I'm tired of Democrats telling me that their economic programs were a success including Cash For Clunkers, Cash For Appliances, Cash For Caulkers, mortgage, economic stimulus and TARP despite the fact that second grade math can prove them all failures.
• I'm tired of Democrats telling me that the recently passed financial regulation reform act is a great bill when a third grader knows that if you do not include car loans, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac in any kind of financial reform you have reformed nothing of consequence.
• I'm tired of Democratic President Obama circumventing the Constitutional checks and balance system via Congressional review of major government appointments by establishing his own politburo of czars.
• I'm still tired of Joy Behar.
• I'm tired of the campaign costs being expended to execute this latest election cycle with the most current estimates calculating that approximately $4 million will be spent per open Congressional seat.
• I'm tired of election campaigns dedicated to  childish personal attacks and not issue debate and analysis.
• I'm tired of having to decide what "side" each news outlet is on and then try to filter their prejudices appropriately in order to get to two things I like to call the truth and reality.
• I'm already tired of the talk about the President's plans and positioning for the next Presidential election in 2012, as if we do not have enough problems to address in this country today and tomorrow, why would any true leader and statesman be already worried about his or her political future two years down the road?
• I'm tired of this Democratic run administration and Democratic Congress being as incompetent as all other administrations and Congresses with this one unable to stop the flow of oil in the Gulf for months, unable to fix the economy, allowing government program fraud and corruption to waste hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars every year, and running up record spending deficits while critical issues like failing public schools, rising health care costs, illegal immigration, the rapidly insolvency of Social Security and Medicare, the lost war on drugs, and the lack of a national energy strategy go unaddressed and unsolved.
• I'm tired of Democratic President Obama being nothing more than a typical Chicago/Cook County/Illinois politician and not the great hope and national unifier he originally presented himself as.

As you can see, I am plenty tired. I am also plenty ticked off and disappointed. The country has never been more divided and more in debt, two aspects of life that I put firmly at the feet of Democratic President Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and the rest of the Democrats. As I stated above, they have actually been driving the car for the past four years. If Bush had it going in the wrong direction, they certainly have turned it in a worse direction.

I know my Democratic friends that have not already seen the light and gotten tired of where this country is today will not be happy with my voting decision. To them, I ask them to carefully reread the points above and consider a professional Brazilian clown who recently got elected to the Brazilian National Congress. His platform: how much worse could it get if he was elected. Same principle applies here: how much worse could it get? Record national debt, a bitterly divided country, no issues addressed or solved, name calling that borders on disgusting and pornographic, respect for diversity of opinions and other ideas out the window.

Republicans, your turn, but I will tire very quickly of you also unless you heed the reasons for my malaise above.

P.S. I am still very tired of Joy Behar.



Our new 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.robertringer.com/
http://www.realpolichick.blogspot.com/
http://www.flipcongress2010.com/
http://www.reason.com/

How Well Would Have The American Political Class Handled The Chilean Mine Crisis?

The rescuing of the 33 Chilean miners, who had been trapped thousands of feet underground for the past two months or so, was certainly the feel good story of the year so far. Kudos to the miners, their families, and everyone involved in this dramatic and extremely difficult rescue. According to an October 15, 2010 article, there had never been another situation where the rescuers had to drill so far down to reach trapped miners, never mind the fact that at the onset of the crisis, no one even knew whether they were alive or where they were located. Nevertheless, the rescue mission was a success.

As I read the article, I was struck by a number of things: 

1. Within days after the crisis began, the Chilean President appointed an engineer, Andre Sougarrett, to be in charge of getting the miners out alive. In other words, there was a clear cut leader from the start of the rescue, a leader who had the expertise to do the job.
2. Sougarrett immediately flew to the mine where he quickly eliminated the "nest of confusion" that awaited him on his arrival. He quickly put a team together to start the process. In other words, he got the effort focused properly and right away.
3. They drove into the mine and assessed where the cave in had occurred and determined that drilling through the debris might cause another cave-in, leading them to conclude that the only safe way to get to the miners was to drill a new shaft. In other words, they assessed the situation and worked out contingency plans.
4. In addition to looking at maps, they talked to those  miners that had gotten out of the mine before the cave-in in order to more accurately determine where the survivors below the cave in might be located. Also, the Chilean President had asked for help from anyone around the world who had the expertise to help in the rescue. In other words, they quickly utilized all possible resources that were available to them.
5. Once the men were found alive, Sougarrett started three more drill holes called Plan A, Plan B, and Plan C. Why three plans? According to the article, Sougarrett said: "The only way to minimize risks is to have alternatives." In other words, more contingency planning.
6. Sougarrett talked to the miners every day, first using phones and then via a video link. He talked to them about what they were doing and accepted the advice and suggestions from the miners themselves. In other words, he was open to all possible answers.

 Now compare this approach with the way the American political class handled the Gulf Oil Spill:

1. Clear cut leadership - there was never anyone one person who had clear cut responsibility and authority to coordinate the oil spill situation. Parties involved in getting the oil spill under control included President Obama, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, the Coast Guard, the EPA, BP, state government officials, etc. but as always with our political class, everyone was in charge but no one was responsible.
2. Got the effort focused properly and right away - was there ever any focus to the Gulf spill situation? Seems like the events just kind of happened randomly with no one in charge and very little direction or focus on how to stop the leak. Seems like days and weeks went by with no one developing a plan of attack for ending the crisis.
3. Assessed the situation and worked out contingency plans - it was pretty clear from the start of the Gulf crisis that neither BP, the government, or our politicians had any contingency plans for stopping or plugging the leak. They were making up the process haphazardly as they went along. It was clear that the Interior Department had not required anyone, inside or outside of government, to have a well thought out and executable contingency plan process to stem the flow of oil into the Gulf. Attempts to stop the leak were all linear, i.e. try something and if that did not work, stop and try to think up a new approach. There was no parallel action plans (like Sougarrett's Plans A, B, and C), simply because no one in the political class and specific government agencies had taken the time and effort to develop them. Weeks and weeks after the spill began, the government started talking to a movie director, James Cameron, to see what help he might provide, based on his experience of filming underwater. Seriously, you are clueless when a movie director becomes your subject matter expert. And even if Cameron was helpful, why did it take so long to bring him in for a discussion? Again, grasping for straws in belatedly turning to a Hollywood director because they had not contingency plans.
4. Quickly utilized all resources available to them - there were numerous reports that President Obama turned down offers of help from some European countries who had expertise in dealing with and cleaning up spills in the deep waters of Scandinavia. It is still unknown why these offers of help were refused, international expertise was essential in the Chilean coal mine rescue.
5. More contingency planning - besides lacking an contingency planning for plugging the leak, there were no contingency plans for capturing the oil once it was into the Gulf's waters. When states asked for permission to do their own clean ups they had to wait weeks to get an answer back from the government. In the meantime, oil slicks and the such started fouling the states' beaches.

Besides the above article's points, consider the following observations:

• The Chilean rescue mission looked to be seamless, at least to the outside world. You did not see the bickering like we saw between the states' politicians and the Federal political class and bureaucrats in the oil spill crisis, bickering that probably delayed the clean up effort and the plugging the well effort.
• The rescue mission seems to have taken into account not only the physical well being of the miners but also their mental well being of the miners and their families waiting for them above. We seem to forget that 11 oil rig employees were killed when the BP rig exploded, I never got the feeling that the government or political class gave those that died or their family members the proper respect and support, they were to busy covering up their shortcomings or grappling with the fact that they never put together a contingency plan.
• Everyone in Chile seemed to be laser focused on getting the miners out alive.  I did not see or hear of any bickering of who was at fault and who was to blame during the rescue process. The focus was on the task at hand, sorting out blame for the cave in could wait. Compare that to our political class, that was holding Congressional hearings and diverting attention from the immediate tasks at hand, plugging the well and cleaning up the oil. Instead, BP personnel were called to Washington hearings to testify while the oil was still flowing out of the busted well. Do not think for a minute that facing accusing politicians and facing the possiblity of criminal charges did not divert attention and focus from the immediate needs to handle the oil spill. The hearings to sort out blame could have waited, I guess the political grandstanding could not.
• Everyone in Chile seemed to be genuinely supportive of the rescue mission. In the United States, it seemed our politicians and voters were more concerned in determining what impact the spill would have on the November elections rather than pulling together to stop the flow of oil and clean up the oil that had gotten into the Gulf.
• I also got the feeling that the Chilean President Sebastian Pinera was fully engaged in the rescue process while allowing the experts to do their jobs. I never got the feeling that President Obama took that same type of approach, to me he seemed to treat the oil spill as a distraction. Since the President took two vacations during the crisis, played seven rounds of golf, and took two cross country trips soley to campaign for California Democrats, these actions may account for my feeling that he was not fully engaged in an event that killed 11 Americans and affected the lives of millions of others.

I applaud the entire Chilean relief effort. It was blessed with able leadership and organization, was quickly implemented, it was well planned out, it considered and acted on all contingencies, and it considered the human needs including the mental well being of the trapped miners. Our political class reaction to the oil spill was not well led or organized, the effort was long and drawn out,  it was not planned out at all,  had not considered any contingency planning ahead of time or during the crisis, and disrespected the workers who perished in the explosion.

Fortunately for the miners, they did not work in an American mine, especially this time of year, a year of mid term elections. Our politicians would have left them in order to go home and campaign for their re-election, possibly getting back to the hypothetical trapped miners during their lame duck session after the elections.


Our new 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.

Visti these other sites for freedom:
 
www.cato.org
www.robertringer.com
www.realpolichick.blogspot.com
www.reason.com
www.flipcongress2010.com
 

The BP Oil Spill, Our Political Class, and Pollution of The World

Consider the following examples of pollution that were presented in an article by Ronald Bailey that appeared in the October, 2010 issue of Reason magazine (after reading the four examples, figure out what they have in common):

• The Nigerian government owns all of that country's petroleum resources. Since 1966, over 456 million gallons of that state-owned oil has been spilled which is comparable to having an Exxon Valdes disaster every year since 1966. Although oil accounts for 90% of Nigeria's exports and 80% of the government's revenues, the Nigeria political class has handled the industry so poorly that thew national petroleum company is now insolvent from a financial perspective. The risk of more pollution from spills is likely to increase as the Nigeria government starts drilling in more remote and dangerous terrain. Mr. Bailey notes that the Wall Street Journal's ranking of countries in order of economic freedom, places Nigeria at 106 out of 183 countries that were ranked, describing Nigeria as "mostly unfree," i.e. the government runs most of the operations in the country.
• In China, a country that ranks 140th out of 183 in economic freedom (another "mostly unfree" nation), 62 underground coal fires have been burning since the 1960s. These fires started when the country's communist government ran the entire coal industry in the country. The underground coal fires burn more than 20 million tons of coal annually, contributing 2-3% of the entire world's total fossil fuel greenhouse gases.
• Haiti is ranked 141, just after China on the economic freedom scale, and is also designated as "mostly unfree." According to Mr. Bailey's article, Haiti is currently 98% deforested, making it highly susceptible to storm and hurricane damage. 95% of Haiti's real estate property is owned by the government, giving private Haitian citizens no reason to protect their own property since they own virtually none of the property in Haiti. Haiti shares the same island with the Dominican Republic where virtually no large scale deforestation has occurred so it must be something in how each country manages it's assets that result in the dramatic difference from an environmental perspective.
• In central Asia, the Aral Sea, the fourth largest lake in the world in 1960, it has shrunk by almost 70% in size since then. Throughout that time, the central communist government in Moscow had repeatedly diverted feeding rivers away from the Aral to support large scale irrigation projects in the Asian deserts of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. These now independent countries get poor economic freedom ratings of 82 and 158, respectively.

As you probably guessed it, in every example, the source of the pollution was caused by each country's political class, who rule in a strongly undemocratic manner, where property rights and personal freedom is minimized. The point Mr. Bailey is making is that when faceless government bureaucrats manage their country's' problems, they are unlikely to have a personal stake in the how things are done, just how to get the desired or demanded results. Since these bureaucrats and politicians do not personally own their country's property, they have no stake in protecting them. As a result, four of the world's worst environmental disasters can directly track their source to government actions.

Unfortunately, dictatorships do not have a monopoly on the pollution of their countries. Consider a few examples what the United States government has done to Mother Nature in our nation:

• The Department of Defense generates 400,000 tons of hazardous waste a year, which is more then the waste generated by the five largest chemical companies in the country combined, and this mountain of waste is outside the enforcement capability of the Environmental Protection Agency. In other words, the biggest potential polluter in the country, the Federal government, does not have to abide by the same rules that the rest of us have to abide by.
• The Tinker, Oklahoma Air Force base was supposed to recycle all of its hazardous waste byproducts but until recently decided to sell it, not recycle it. Tests have found higher than expected pollution levels from these materials in the underground water sources close to the surface.
• The U.S. Army's Rocky Mountain Arsenal is only six miles outside of Denver, Colorado. One source I found called the arsenal the "most polluted piece of ground in America." It cost $40 million to clean up the arsenal's 600,000 cubic yards of contaminated soil, soil that was identified as contaminated back in the early 1950s.
• The Federal government runs the 59 Tennessee Valley Authority power plants. While these power plants expels large amounts of greenhouse gases every year, they too are exempt from Federal environmental regulation.

The same effect is going on in these Federal government examples as the examples pointed out by Mr. Bailey throughout the world. These properties are owned by the government and run by the politicians, they have no personal stake in preserving the properties since they do not personally own them. As a result, the biggest pollution source in this country is the very government that is supposed to prevent the pollution and which has exempted itself from its own regulation and oversight.

Which brings us to the government's role in the BP oil spill:

• No one seemed to care that those government employees that were supposed to safeguard the Gulf from an oil spill were either busy surfing the Net for pornography, accepting vacation trips and gifts from the same companies they were supposed to be regulating, were busy setting up career changes to move to the same companies they were supposed to be monitoring for safety, or were neglecting to do the required number of rig inspections. These employees had no personal stake in the safety of the Gulf, they did not own it (the United States government owns it), and the political class obviously gave them no incentive or direction to take a personal ownership stake in its safety.
• The political class legislated a trivial $75 million cap on liability for environmental and economic damages from an oil spill. This released the oil companies operating in the Gulf from having any kind of corporate stake in the environmental condition of the Gulf, they could just buy their way out of a oil spill for a relatively nominal amount of money.
• And the most atrocious piece of political class legislation, the Energy Policy Act of 2005 encouraged and incented the oil companies to go further and further out in the Gulf for oil drilling. The further out they went, the less and less they had to pay the Federal government in royalties. The chance for making billions in profits at the risk of millions in fines made the safety of the Gulf environment secondary.

We trusted environmental safety to our politicians, all of which all over the world caused some of the greatest environmental disasters the earth has ever seen. These politicians were in charge but were not responsible for the ensuing disasters. In all cases, they had no personal stake or ownership of the resources they were supposed to be safeguarding. The scary thing about this phenomenon in America is that the Federal government owns almost two thirds of the physical land in this country. Imagine the potential for widespread ecological damage like Rocky Mt. Arsenal, Tinker Air Force Base, and the Tennessee Valley Authority coal plants.

Several steps from "Love My Country, Loathe My Government" would address these issues:

• Step 1 would downsize the size of government by 10% a year for five years. Included in this downsizing would be the selling of the 70,000 or so government buildings that no longer serve a purpose (as we discussed in a previous post) and should also include the sell off of government land, with proceeds going to reduce our national debt. If the right conditions and laws for private ownership were put in place, people, companies (oil and mineral exploration companies), and organizations (e.g. the Sierra Club, the Audubon Society) could own Federal land, have a personal stake in keeping that land safe, and would be placed under the enforcement authority of the EPA.
• Step 34 would replace Congressional members sitting on Congressional committees that are responsible for the Federal departments and agencies that end up polluting public lands, i.e. they would have a personal stake, if not a property ownership stake, in protecting the earth. In the BP oil spill case, any Congressional person sitting on those committees that oversaw the Interior Department's operations, those operations that were negligent in safeguarding the Gulf, wold be removed from their committee post. Before these politicians are removed form their post, they would remove those federal employees from the posts which they failed at. This would put a federal employee's career stake in play regarding public land, air, and water when a personal ownership stake is not possible.
• While Step 7 would prevent any politician from accepting campaign donations from anyone or any organization except a private citizen, a short term solution in the spirit of this step would not allow any politician to accept campaign donations from any industry that the politician has Congressional committee oversight responsibility for. In the BP case, no politician sitting on any committee responsible for oil exploration and safety would be allowed to accept campaign donations form that industry.

The main point to take away from Mr. Bailey's article and this post is destroy the myth that government and politicians are caretakers of the earth. They are not trusted caretakers, mainly because they have no actual or administrative stake in keeping the earth whole. Another example where "I'm from the government and I'm here to help you" is not the case. Make them accountable by dumping the incumbents in the fall elections and making sure that the three steps above are implemented to ensure that accountability is instituted, from the lowest Federal employee to the highest ranking Federal department heads and Congressional members.

Our new 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.

Also visit the following sites for freedom:

http://www.cato.org/
http://www.reason.com/
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://www.realpolichick.blogspot.com/
http://www.flipcongress2010.com/

Exposing The Myth: "I'm from the government and I am here to help you."

I am assuming that at some point in our nation's past, this was a true statement. That was when government was much smaller and more focused on a limited set of functions. So limited, in fact, that it was actually good at getting problems solved. However, given the behavior of today's government functions, personnel, and the American political class these past few years, it is probably true that this statement is not longer a fact, it is just a myth. Consider the following myth busting behaviors:

1. The Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) is responsible for overseeing the integrity of the accounting processes and accuracy of public companies financials. They were obviously asleep at the wheel when many of Wall Street's largest financial firms either went bankrupt or dove into deep financial stress at the onset of the greatest financial collapse in this country since the Great Depression. How did this economic and financial fiasco occur with almost no advance warning by the SEC? A possible answer was published in an April 23, 2010 Associated Press article which reported on the findings of an SEC Inspector General analysis. The analysis found that more than two and half dozen SEC employees were found to have used their government issued computers to search the Internet for pornography during the time they should have been hard at work protecting the interest of Americans who invest in public companies. As examples of their findings, one SEC attorney spent up to eight hours a day downloading pornography, burning his findings to CDs and DVD discs once his hard drive filled up with the pornographic material. An SEC accountant was blocked over 16,000 times in one month (or about 800 times a day, 10 times an hour) from visiting pornographic websites yet he was able to eventually collect a collection of pornographic material on his government computer by using a method to bypass the SEC filters. Seventeen of the pornography seekers at the SEC were considered "senior level" employees, earning salaries up to $222,000 a year. These government employees were obviously too busy to help protect the interests of the American investors, people who lost untold billions of dollars as a result of the financial crisis that the SEC staff never saw coming.
2. In January of this year, the Department of Health and Human Services issued a report that concluded the $150 billion that the Federal government had spent on the Head Start program since 1965 has no long lasting benefits to the children that had been enrolled in the program. Another analysis, this one conducted by the Heritage Foundation found similar results: "Head Start has little to no effect on cognitive, socio-emotional, health, and parenting outcomes of children participating in the program." Thus, rather than delivering the benefits that Head Start is supposed to deliver, we are left with an annual multi billion set of early education government programs that are little more than a government subsidized baby sitting service.
3. In the April 26, 2010 issue of Newweek magazine, an article by Dan Stockman exposed the fact that the Environment Protection Agency (EPA) is not doing a lot of protecting, at least relative to the Clean Air Act. According to research done by Mr. Stockman, his analysis of the EPA's public database of enforcement records showed that on a national basis, more than 750 companies have been in continuous violation of clean air laws since 2007. Included in these 750 companies were over two hundred companies defined as high priority because of the severity of their offenses. What good is having a law and identifying offenders if there are no consequences or changes in behavior? Not very helpful.
4. In the April 9, 2010 issue of The Week magazine, there was a short article about how shoddy the work at the Energy Department is relative to classifying products as deserving of a high energy saving appliance rating within the EnergyStar program. A company who gets an EnergyStar rating can market the energy efficiency of their product, as approved by the government, and theoretically sell more products and/or sell them at a higher price. Consumers would look for the EnergyStar designation with the false assumption being that these are good deals from a cost of energy perspective. One problem though. The article reported on a sting operation by Federal regulators that sent bogus designs to the people running the EnergyStar testing program. These bogus products included a gasoline powered alarm clock (certainly not a very efficient way to tell time) and a feather duster attached to a space heater that had been called an "air filter" by the regulators. Unfortunately, both of these bogus products and most of the others were awarded the EnergyStar status by the Energy Department. Obviously, the Energy Department is not here to help you distinguish energy efficient products from those that are not if these somewhat outrageous fake products can pass muster with the inspection process.
5. Most people probably know that Toyota has been having a spate of safety problems with it's cars over the past few months, with accusations that these safety problems have resulted in traffic fatalities. What most people do not know, as reported in the March 1, 2010 issue of Businessweek, the government had opened, and shortly thereafter closed, eight inquiries into the problem with Toyota products, starting back in 2003. In all eight cases they found no significant problems and closed all probes with no action taken. It was not until the past year or so that the government finally recognized that maybe there is a problem and Toyota was finally forced to take remedial action on its vehicles. The article points out the fact that the two government interface executives at Toyota used to work for the very government agency responsible for automobile safety, implying that the government might have gone easy on their former co-workers. Given that upwards of a hundred Americans may have died as a result of faulty Toyota products, it does not look like the government is helping anyone here either.
6. Several years ago the government belatedly pulled a series of imported toy products from China off of the shelf because the products were made using lead based materials that could seriously hurt a child if the the child put a toy in their mouths and the lead entered their systems. While the good news is the government safety organization finally got the products off of the shelves, it would have been much better if they had never entered the country in the first place, Even worse, according to a May 20, 2010 Associated Press article, the overseas producers simply replaced their lead laced products with cadmium laced products which are just as dangerous. One would have thought the government would have been a little more alert to these types of products since they had just gone through the lead based experience. Alas, they were no better the second time around as the cadmium products came ashore.
7. A May 17, 2010 Associated Press article reported on the many oversights and incompetence that Federal employees of the Minerals Management Service (MMS) Federal agency, the agency responsible for overseeing the safety of oil rigs in the Gulf Of Mexico. According to the article and an internal report, not as many inspections were done as required, many MMS employees received hunting and fishing vacations along with other gifts from the same companies they were supposed to keep in line from a safety perspective, some MMS employees were inspecting oil rigs of companies at the same time they were in negotiations for employment by those companies, and some MMS employees admitted being addicted to illegal drugs while being responsible for safety inspections and compliance. These Federal employees were obviously little help in preventing the devastating Gulf oil spill.
8. The Department Of Homeland Security has certainly not been helpful. This past December, a would be terrorist traveled from Somalia to the skies over Detroit and would have blown up the airliner he was in if his underwear bomb had not malfunctioned. In the spring, another would be terrorist almost blew up a car bomb on the streets of Time Square which failed to explode only because of a defective bomb. Unknown numbers of illegal aliens and drugs continue to flood over our southern border with Mexico. Are we feeling secure yet?
9. In a related non-helpful effort, an article in the June 11, 2010 issue of The Week magazine recalled a resolution from the House of Representatives in 1986. At that time, the House demanded that the Pentagon seal our borders within 45 days against illegal drugs. Looks like they missed that deadline.
10. The No Children Left Behind legislation from the Bush administration has proven to be unsuccessful in raising the lower than expected learning levels of American children relative to the education of children in many other countries. Thus, nothing has changed since the Reagan administration issued its scathing report on American public schools in 1982, "A Nation At Risk." Thus, the American political class and its government processes have been unhelpful in at least twenty eight years in raising education standards and output of the country.
11. Finally, the biggest non-help in the past sixty years was obviously related to the financial crash and economic downturn of the past few years. Numerous government agencies were absolutely no help in foreseeing and managing the housing and banking crisis that caused the so-called "Great Depression." These Federal government entities include Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, SEC, Treasury Department, Federal Reserve, House of Representatives housing and banking committees, Senate housing and banking committees, the FDIC, the Bush administration, the Obama administration, and any number of other unhelpful government organizations.

Did we leave anyone out? We need to get over the myth that government is somehow an efficient and effective ally in our lives. The above examples should be proof of that. Many Americans still think that once a law is passed or a program established that the battle is over and everything will be great: government workers and agencies taking care of things in a super efficient manner at a reasonable cost. Given the above list of incompetencies and the record, sky high national debt levels we have, we are getting the worst of all possible combinations - high cost, low quality.

That is why Step 1 of "Love my Country, Loathe My Government" is so important. Step 1 would start a five year systematic downsizing of government in order to reduce our national debt and get government smaller and more focused on just the important, major issues of our times. The logic is if the political class and government agencies have less to worry about, they may actually get good at a few things. It makes no sense to continue to support a government bureaucracy when all we get is the low performance or non-performance described above. Drastically downsize and focus, that is what must be done to get us out of the high cost/low quality zone into the low cost/high quality zone. Then, and only then, might the myth "I'm from the government and I am here to help you" might actually become a reality again.

Our new 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.

Also visit the following sites for freedom:
http://www.cato.org/
http://www.reason.com/
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://www.realpolichick.blogspot.com/

Screwed Up Government Priorities, Case #2 - "Meanwhile, oil continues to spew into the Gulf.."

Yesterday we discussed the first in a series of posts regarding how screwed up our government's priorities are. We saw that while the political class spends almost $16 billion a year in local earmarks for their local states and districts and to generate campaign funds for their re-election, the same political class spends only about $2 billion a year on cancer research, a set of diseases that kill hundreds of thousands of Americans every year. How screwed up is that priority: better to get re-elected then save American lives.

Meanwhile, oil continues to spew into the Gulf...

Today we will look at a second set of screwed up priorities, namely the whole situation with the BP oil spill disaster in the Gulf Of Mexico. As an upfront disclaimer, let me state that I find the actions of BP leading up to, during, and after the explosion on their oil rig to be shortsighted, despicable, and inadequate. They took short cuts and probably violated a number of Federal safety statues and laws. Over 60 days later they still have not plugged the leak and really have no other plan in place to stop it for at least another couple of months. They should be held accountable for the damage and safety violations to the fullest extent of current law.

Meanwhile, oil continues to spew into the Gulf...

Unfortunately, over the past week or so, the political class has gotten itself and their egos involved in the process. A White House meeting was held with Obama and his staff and the Chairman and CEO of BP. CEO Tony Hayward later went over to get beat up at Congressional hearings by Congress people that probably had no idea of what they were talking about except that it made them feel good in front of the cameras. And, there is no doubt that Hayward probably deserved some of the beat down since it is obvious that under his watch, BP was not prepared for what happened. However, rather than beat up the head of the cleanup, could we have not waited a little while to crucify him in public? Would not his time have been better spent working on the problem, the continuing spill, rather than jetting to DC? There is plenty of time to get a pound of flesh after the hole is plugged.

Meanwhile, the oil continues to spew into the Gulf...

Anyway, Mr. Hayward is not the only one who should be crucified because of this disaster. What about Interior Secretary Salazar. I would like to get him on the stand and ask him the following questions:

• Mr. Secretary, the Associated Press has reported that an internal investigation has uncovered at least one of your employees responsible for oil rig safety has admitted that he used crystal meth and may have been under the influence the next day at work and that others have admitted to being users of illegal drugs. Did that have anything to do with safety laxity on your watch?
• Mr. Secretary, the Associated Press has reported that an internal investigation has uncovered numerous occurrences where your employees received hunting and fishing trips and other gifts from the same companies that your department was supposed to be regulating and inspecting. Did that have anything to do with safety laxity on your watch?
• Mr. Secretary, the Associated Press has reported that an internal investigation has uncovered numerous occurrences where your inspectors were actively inspecting oil company sites for safety at the same time they were negotiating for jobs at those very companies. Did that have anything to do with safety laxity on your watch?
• Mr. Secretary, an Associated Press report mentions a 2008 report by the Interior department's inspector general that "decried a culture of ethical failure" and conflicts of interest at the responsible Interior agency. Did this culture have anything to do with the safety laxity on your watch and how have you addressed this problem?
• Mr. Secretary, the Associated Press has reported that an internal investigation found that some local employees in your Lake Charles, La. office had a significant amount of pornography on their government computers. Did that have anything to do with safety laxity on your watch?
• Mr. Secretary, the Associated Press has reported that your department conducted sixteen fewer safety inspections at the BP oil rig than it should have. Did that have anything to do with the safety laxity on your watch?
• Mr.Secretary, the Associated Press has reported that safety regulation of the Gulf wells is so lax that "some key safety aspects on rigs are decided almost entirely by the companies doing the work." Did that have anything to do with the safety laxity on your watch?
• Mr. Secretary, the Associated Press has reported that the overall BP safety plan and the safety plan specifically for the rig that exploded never had a chance of being successful, even on paper, and was riddled with inaccuracies, falsehoods, and inadequate preparation for the disaster. Who is responsible for such a lousy plan and document and will there be repercussions for those responsible?

Meanwhile, oil continues to spew into the Gulf...

Secretary Salazar is not he only person I would want to grill as an American citizen. I would allow Congressman Henry Waxman and Senator Jeff Bingaman, the chairman in Congress who chair committees on energy, to be put on the stand together for the following questions:

• Gentlemen, given the myriad of failures discussed with Mr. Salazar above, how come your committees were so lax in their oversight of the energy safety issues on Gulf drilling rigs?
• Gentlemen, given that your committees are responsible for Gulf drilling rigs, have either of you ever been on an oil rig?
• Gentlemen, given that your committees are responsible for Gulf drilling rigs, are either of you familiar with the Federal safety regulations? I particularly address this to you, Mr. Waxman, since you have already admitted you have not read the entire Cap And Trade legislation even though you are a co-sponsor. Have either of you read the safety regulations of oil rigs?
• Gentlemen, according to a recent Washington Post article that was summarized in the June 25, 2010 issue of The Week magazine, there are currently only 62 inspectors assigned to oversee 4,000 oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico, or about one inspector for every 64 wells or so while in 1985 there were 55 inspectors for about 400 oil rigs or about one inspector for every seven or eight rigs. Do you accept some of this responsibility for underfunding the need to have more inspectors?
• Gentlemen, Washington has been abuzz about energy and climate change legislation lately. Wouldn't it be wiser in the short term to worry about the continued leak than to focus on a long term energy/climate bill?

Meanwhile, oil continued to spill into the Gulf...

And finally, I would like to sit with President Obama and ask him a few questions:

• Mr. President, you have proclaimed that you and your administration are on top of the situation but since the spill began it has been reported that you traveled to California three times for political fundraisers, played at least seven rounds of golf, took two vacations, participated in several photo ops with athletic teams, and did not meet with Hayward until about the eighth week of the crisis. Is that your definition of being on top of the situation?
• Mr. President, Tony Hayward has taken a lot of heat this weekend because he took time off to attend a yacht race back in Europe. Should you have taken the same amount of heat for taking time off to go to a baseball game Friday night even though the oil leak continues?
• Mr. President, will you prosecute, fine, fire, or take an disciplinary action against government employees who failed in their assigned duties to oversee and regulate the drilling activities in the Gulf?
• Mr. President, why is it taking so long for local governments to get help and permission to stem the tide of oil that is washing over their shores? Why didn't the Army Corp. of Engineers have a contingency plan ready rather than deny permission for sand berms and other actions until they "studied" the implications? Shouldn't that study have been done prior to the disaster?
• Mr. President, why have you not asked for a waiver of the Jones Act so that willing countries can donate their equipment to help with the clean up? Could it be you want to delay the clean up and prolong the problem in order to get the legislation passed that you want?
• Rather than publicly browbeat the very people technically and logistically responsible for stopping the leak last week, would it have not been a better approach to lay off for just a little while and let them focus on stopping the leak and then bring them to Washington for your photo op and thrashing of BP, after the leak was stopped?

Meanwhile, oil continues to spew into the Gulf...

Let's face, this is a disaster of epic proportions. From BP's shortcuts to save a little money and time and flaunting of standard safety protocols to the inadequate Federal oversight and focus on not stopping the leak the leak at all costs, we have never seen anything so disgusting in our lives. And where are the government's priorities? Congressmen and women anxious to show their indignation on television when it was obvious most of them did not know what they a were talking about. Other politicians trying to get their favorite energy and environmental legislation passed while losing focus on the core problem: stop the darn leak. That should be the only priority right now. The TV grandstanding, the press conferences, the feigned indignation, working for passage of legislation, that can all wait under we stop the leak.

Meanwhile, oil continues to spew into the Gulf...

This is just another reason why term limits (Step 39 in "Love My Country, Loathe My Government") and ousting the incumbents in November is so important. Long time politicians get to comfortable in their positions and allow laxity to enter into their administering and governing. Regulations are passed but not enforced. Employees are hired but no trained or supervised properly. A crisis occurs and the political class looks at a way to leverage the disaster rather than fixing the disaster. Not only should the top management at BP be replaced but Salazar, Waxman, Bingaman, and all politicians sitting on the committees responsible for oversight of the Gulf drilling need to be removed from their committee and subcommittee posts (Step 34). In real life, if you screw up, there are consequences. Should be the same way in government. Allow an epic environmental disaster to occur on your watch, a disaster that was totally preventable, get removed from your committee post.

Meanwhile, oil continues to spew into the Gulf...



Our new 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.

Also visit the following sites for freedom:
http://www.cato.org/
http://www.reason.com/
http://www.robertringer.com
/http://www.realpolichick.blogspot.com/

More BP and Government Screw Ups In The Gulf

Here we are over 50 days into the Gulf oil spill disaster and the incompetency of BP and Federal government continue to pile up. The most glaring problem, obviously, is the fact that neither BP or the government have figured out how to totally cap the well and stop the flow of crude into the waters of the Gulf. While disastrous, what is done is done. What is just as disastrous, is what is not being done to contain the damage.

Consider two articles from the the Tampa Tribune today, Sunday, June 13, 2010. The first was written by Richard Mullins and was titled "Helping Hands Tied On Oil Spill." Some of the highlights (or lowlights):

• According to Mr. Mullins, there does not appear to be any single organization, private sector, charitable, or government, coordinating donations and volunteers wanting to help out.
• As an example, the article cites Peter Demarie of Delaware who wants to contribute both money and his personal time to help out. He has spent days calling different entities and cannot find anyone who will accept his offers of help. He has called BP many times, the Coast Guard, local Gulf mayors, Greenpeace and others but no one can find any opportunity for him to help out.
• According to an expert, Jeff Capanigro, a crisis communications specialist in Tampa, the whole volunteer situation is a mess. And this mess is still in place more than 50 days after the well blew up. It is not like it just happened yesterday and the recovery effort has not yet begun, it should have begun over seven weeks ago.
• BP will only use trained personnel for the cleanup but training takes only four hours. The bigger problem is the lack of direction for people on how to volunteer for cleanup duty, partly because a lot of the cleanup work has been outsourced to contractors. Further complicating that situation is that in some states, by law, the subcontractors are required to only hire the unemployed or a local resident directly affected by the spill.

Consider another article, this one by Conn Carroll of the Heritage Foundation. He writes:

• Five weeks ago, officials from a Florida Gulf county, Escambia, asked for permission to use a sand skimmer which is a device pulled behind a tractor that collects tar and oil from the top three feet of sand. The officials have not heard back yet because they sent the request to the Unified Command Center in Alabama, the request was then reviewed by BP and then reviewed by the Federal government and then reviewed by the Army Corps Of Engineers and then reviewed by the Coast Guard.
• This sad tale of not being kept in the loop by many of the state, county, and local governments along the Gulf has apparently been repeated many times over the past weeks, according to Mr. Carroll.
• Thirteen countries have offered to help with the oil spill, many of whom are experienced in dealing with this type of disaster. The Obama administration has turned them all down.
• According to one Dutch newspaper, the European companies experienced in this type of disaster could clean up the Gulf in just four months while the Obama administration has estimated it will take the Federal government nine months by doing it themselves (and we all know how bad government estimates can be.)
• Even if the Obama administration wanted to use foreign resources to help in the cleanup, an old law on the books would prohibit such help unless the waiver portion of the law was put into effect, like it was done for the Katrina cleanup. So far, Obama and the Democrats controlling Congress have not moved to put the waiver in place. Thus, even if the administration should reverse itself and accept foreign help, more time would be lost waiting for the waiver to go into effect.

The list of incompetence goes on and on. Both BP and the Federal government still have no plan in place on how to deal with the destruction form the spill. Turning down help, from both Americans and foreign experts, makes no sense. This is further proof that the American political class is really not good at anything except getting themselves re-elected. The scary part is that this is a very tangible, a very identifiable problem and the government cannot even handle this one finite problem. You can imagine how poorly they handle the more nebulous, open ended issues like health care, public education failures, drug addiction, etc., problems that are much more wide spread and less clearly defined.

As I read the papers and other news sources, I still see no evidence that politicians sitting on Congressional committees responsible for all aspects of this disaster have visited the Gulf, except for those whose home districts and states are affected. Much like the military hospital embarrassment several years ago when returning wounded soldiers were forced to stay in very substandard military medical facilities, it does not appear that those Congressional representatives supposedly guiding both the Gulf activities or the hospital situation are really engaged in finding solutions, having never visited the Gulf since the spill disaster began or stepped inside an armed forces hospital before that crisis arose. Otherwise, maybe a Congressional committee by now would have stepped up and started coordinating recovery plans.

These Congressional members would be removed from their committee posts if Step 34 from "Love My Country, Loathe My Government" was in effect. Somebody in Congress needs to be held accountable, whether it is for the lack of contingency planning for the disaster, the lax oversight of the Federal employees in the Interior Department responsible for drilling safety, or the lack of emergency coordination after the spill.

One last note, also from Mr. Carroll's article. According to his research, as provided by the Center For Responsive Politics, President Obama "was the largest recipient of campaign contributions from BP and its employees over the past 20 years." Can you imagine if the preceding statement had "George Bush" as the subject of the sentence and not "President Obama." The Democrats and liberal mainstream press would have gone ballistic. However, Bush has not been the largest single recipient of BP-related campaign funds, Obama has. Proving my theory in "Love My Country, Loathe My Government" that there really is no difference between Democrats and Republicans, the labels they choose may be different but they all belong to the exclusive club known as the American political class. And we all suffer because of it.


Our new 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.

Also visit the following sites for freedom:

www.cato.org
www.reason.com
www.robertringer.com
www.realpolichick.blogspot.com

"I Love It When A Plan Comes Together" - Words You Will Never Hear From BP or The Obama Adminstration

Given that a new movie about the television show "The A-Team" is coming out this summer, I thought it might be appropriate to recall this famous line ("I love it when a plan comes together.") from the TV show and apply it to the oil spill in the Gulf, which is now more than 50 days old. According to an Associated Press report from June 9, 2010 by Holdbrook Mohr, the BP contingency plan for dealing with a runaway well and oil spill did not quite come together:

• The contingency plan listed Professor Peter Lutz, a national wildlife expert, as a person to contact in case of a well disaster but..... he died in 2005.
• The contingency plan listed Professor Lutz's university as the University of Miami but.. the professor left the University of Miami almost 20 years ago.
• The contingency plan listed several names of Texas A&M professors who were marine life experts but.... their names and phone numbers were wrong.
• The contingency plan listed "sensitive biological resources" in the Gulf including walruses, sea otters, sea lions and seals but.... none of these species exist in the Gulf.
• The contingency plan stated that BP had the "capability to respond, to the maximum extent practicable, to a worst case discharge but.... that is obviously not the case as we are now in the eighth week and oil is still discharging and hitting the beaches in the Gulf.
• The contingency plan assumed that fish, animals, and birds would escape damage in a spill but.... that is obviously not the case if you follow the images from the Gulf.
• The contingency plan listed a company that BP uses for spill cleanups but.... the listed website for that company in the plan links to a defunct Japanese language website page.
• The contingency plan made no mention of the Gulf's Loop Current but... that current is expected, by all experts, to carry the remnants for the spill out into the Atlantic and possibly over to Europe.
• The contingency plan assumed that BP would be able to put together enough resources to block off the beaches but... within a few weeks of the spill, beaches were being fouled from Louisiana to Florida.
• The contingency plan and its underlying model estimated only a 21% chance that a spill would reach the Louisiana beaches within a month but.... those beaches were hit hard within nine days.
• The contingency plan did consider different orders of magnitude of the spill since they said they were planning for the worst case scenario but.... they could not handle this worst case scenario.
• The contingency plan states there would be no shortage of resources to fight a spill but.... there were not enough booms (floating lines of plastic to hold in oil on the surface); Alabama claims its beaches were fouled because of the limited number of booms that were deployed elsewhere.
• The contingency plan assumed that the booms would be properly deployed but.... out-of-state contractors hired by BP deployed the booms in the wrong places, relative to currents and tides, and those that were installed were not installed correctly.

It is obvious, that unlike the A-Team, BP had a contingency plan that did not come together and apparently had no chance of ever coming together, given how bad it was and how little it was thought through. One has to assume they never did a test run or a complete shakedown of the plan. Such a drill, if conducted properly, would have easily uncovered the above shortcomings.

The Obama administration, and the Washington political class, are no better than BP since they obviously did not have a plan either:

• according to the Associated Press report, this 582-page BP contingency plan was approved by the Federal government last year before BP started drilling this well.
• BP had a 52 page sub-contingency plan just for this specific well that was also approved in 2009. Note that both of these plans were approved on Obama's watch, Bush was no longer President.
• In a previous post and in other Associated Press reports, it was uncovered that those Federal employees responsible for regulating and oversight of the wells were very often provided hunting and fishing trips, parties, gifts, and employment which may account for the lax oversight and regulation that resulted in a 582-page contingency plan abomination.
• Given that the head of the Federal agency responsible for regulation and oversight in this area has already been removed from her job as has a high ranking Coast Guard officer in charge of the mission indicates a lack of planning and competence on the Federal government's part.
• It was reported today that President Obama has not even met the Chairman of BP face-to-face since the disaster started over 50 days ago. How can you say you have a plan and are on top of the situation, like Obama has said, if you have not met with your counterpart at BP?
• Following along that theme, since the disaster began, Obama has played six rounds of golf, has taken two vacations, has made three fund raising trips to California (he has only visited the Gulf three times which logically would say that fund raising is just as critical as the Gulf situation), has hosted a photo session with the New York Yankees, has hosted a photo session with the Duke University basketball team, has hosted a photo session with the United States' World Cup Team, and has played at least several games of basketball besides being interviewed about basketball by Marv Albert. While I understand that he has other concerns and priorities as President in addition to the Gulf oil spill, he cannot claim that he is ticked off and has been on top of the situation since day one when he allows his time to be taken up by these superficial other activities. Could he have at least canceled one round of golf to work out a plan with the chairman of BP?
• Congress is no better in being out in front of this situation. Senator Bill Nelson (Florida) and Senator Barbara Boxer (California) have asked that a criminal investigation be launched. The source of Nelson's information? The AP report listed above. Thus, Senators Nelson and Boxer, are you telling me that you get the big bucks as U.S Senators to sit back and react only after you read an AP report? Does not look like very good planning to me.
• While Obama has been to the Gulf only three times (Bush went to New Orleans four times within 18 days of Katrina), I have seen no reports of other Congressional members from outside of the Gulf states going on scene. I am assuming there are politicians, from outside the Gulf states, sitting on Congressional committees that are responsible for the whole situation, including drilling, energy, Department of The Interior, wildlife, etc. How can you plan for the clean up when you have not visited the disaster site?

Thus, both entities, the Federal government and BP, did not have any semblance of a plan that could have come together to prevent or mitigate the situation. Disgusting. This is a perfect example of why should no longer believe in the fallacy, and fund that fallacy with taxpayer dollars, that government is here to help you. The SEC (and a myriad of other Federal agencies) did not protect us from the biggest economic disaster since the Great Depression, the Interior Department and the Minerals Management Services did not protect us from this oil spill disaster, the Federal consumer safety organizations did not protect our kids from lead laced products and toys several years ago or cadmium laced products this year, the Federal automotive agencies did not protect us from fatal Toyota auto designs (89 dead Americans so far and counting), and no Federal agency has protected us from the flood of illicit drugs that comes across our unprotected borders.

Step 1 in "love My Country, Loathe My Government" would start the process of redefining government, downsizing it so that it finally gets something right by focusing on a much smaller set of higher priorities. Now, the Federal government focuses on nothing but gets involved in everything. As a result, it fails at everything while wasting TRILLIONS of taxpayer dollars. Step 34 would immediately eject all of those politicians sitting on any committee that was responsible for keeping us safe from drilling, they have failed miserably at that task. Step 39 would get rid of all of the current members of Washington since it would institute term limits. Given the above list of grievances and failures to protect us from disaster, it is apparent that long term politicians cannot do the job they are supposed to do. Lets get rid of them after one term, how much worse could it be?

I hope the A-Team movie has a happier ending than what we are experiencing today, both in the Gulf and in Washington. For once this summer and during this administration, I would like to see at least see one plan come together, even if it is only in the movie theater.

One last note: while I have referred to Bush above, I am not endorsing his reaction and effectiveness in the face of Katrina. It also was a disaster. For the most part, it is a waste of time to compare the two, Bush/Katrina and Obama/Oil Spill. Both were failures and saying one was better than another is no better than being queen of the pigs. You may be a queen but you are still a pig. Continuing to bring up the Bush presidency does nothing to solve our current problems.

Our new 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.