November, 2016, Part 6, The Unfolding Disaster That Is Obama Care: Obama Is Still Delusional, Young Americans Ignoring The Law, and Who Is Stupid Now Jonathan Gruber?6

Every month for years now we have had to discuss how bad Obama Care is turning out to be under the continuing theme, “the unfolding disaster that is Obama Care.” This month is no different. As the legislation continues to march through America, driving up health care and health insurance prices as it serves as dead weight on economic growth, it cements its rightful place as the worst piece of legislation Washington has ever produced.

It never had a chance to be successful since it really never addressed the underlying root causes of our ever increasing health costs in the country:

• Americans eat too much of the wrong kind of food, resulting in obscenely high obesity rates for the country.
• Our food chain is infested with overdoses of high fructose corn syrup, salt, and other unhealthy additives.
• Americans smoke too much.
• Americans do not exercise enough.
• The country is in serious need of health care tort reform.
• Barriers to insurance company competition across state lines need to come down.
• Obama Care never “followed the money” to find out who is actually profiting from the ever escalating healthcare costs in this country and how to get those factors under control.
• Obama Care never got the immense amount of fraud and abuse in current government healthcare programs, Medicare and Medicaid, under control in order to save money to efficiently fund other government health care initiatives.
• Obama Care never put serious research money towards curing the major diseases that drive high healthcare costs such as high frequency cancers and dementia type diseases.

You cannot resolve any problem unless you understand and address the underlying root causes. No difference here: Obama Care legislation never addressed these listed root causes and thus, has no chance of ever being successful.

But it is not just missing the root causes of our healthcare costs that makes Obama Care so horrible. It resulted in millions of Americans losing access to their favored doctors, hospitals, and insurance policies. It has caused insurance premiums, deductibles and co-pays to escalate substantially. It will likely add trillions of dollars to the national debt. It has exposed millions of Americans to higher than necessary identity theft chances. It has created government bureaucracies that are wastefully spending taxpayer wealth and being exploited by criminal elements. It has stifled economic growth and job creation.

These are just a sample of the types of idiocy that we have been reviewing for the past several years in this blog relative to Obama Care., To read those past posts, just enter the phrase, “the unfolding disaster,” in the search box above.

This week we will be reviewing the latest unfolding disasters from the worst piece of legislation ever written by Washington:

1) We have already discussed the reality that Obama is living in a different world when it comes to Obama Care. He recently proclaimed that only a handful of Americans will be affected by the rampaging increases in Obama Care policy costs but we showed that his handful of Americans is at least 2.3 million people, bigger than all but three cities in the country.

Well, according to the Washington Free Beacon newspaper and an article by Andrew Kugle on November 7, 2016, he is back at the delusional business. At a recent political rally in Florida, Obama claimed that: “The parade of horribles that Republicans have talked about haven’t happened." Obama told a crowd of supporters in Florida on Thursday.

The parade of horribles that Republicans predicted years ago included increased costs of health insurance for Americans, the loss of insurance policies for people that currently had health insurance coverage, and increased costs, regulations, and hassles for small businesses. Specifically:

1. Congressman Paul Ryan said that, “This bill does not control costs.”
2. Senator Lamar Alexander said that, “Premiums will increase in the individual (insurance) market.”
3. Congressman Eric Cantor said that, “Between eight million and nine million people might very well lose the coverage they have.” 

And what actually happened? Premium and deductible costs will skyrocket in 2017 for Obama Care policies with premiums costs going up a national average of over 20%, with some state premium costs going up much higher in different states. Millions of Americans, who were happy with their existing insurance policies, were forced to find new insurance policies that were almost always substantially higher than the policies they were happy with but were forced to give up because of Obama Care. 

President Obama, still living in alternative reality when it comes to the unfolding disaster that is Obama Care. In fact, the fact checking organization, Politifact, rated Obama;’s claim that “If you like your health care plan, you can keep it” as the “lie of the year.”

2) Jamie Gregora, writing for the Heritage Foundation, talked about the major problem with Obama Care, namely that younger healthier Americans did not sign up for Obama Care problems, quite possibly because they did not want to be the Obama Care stooges that would subsidize healthcare costs for older Americans:

• Given that younger Americans mostly feel that they are young and healthy and will not need health insurance and that paying the Obama Care fine for not having insurance is far less than the cost of Obama Care insurance policies, the decision to not get insurance is a no brainer.
• This is especially true since younger people usually have lower incomes than the rest of America and they have other, more important expenses to worry about.
• American adults aged 18 to 34 represented 40% of the uninsured in the country but accounted for only 24% of the Obama Care policy holders in 2014, perfectly illustrating why Obama Care is failing, younger and healthier Americans are not signing up for Obama Care at the same rate that they exist in the population.
• The Obama Care legislation also forbids insurance companies from charging more for insurance for older Americans who are more likely to need health insurance coverage which means that the insurance companies have to charge younger Americans more, who are less likely to need health insurance coverage, which puts health insurance costs out of the reach of younger Americans.

Is this flaw of the legislation fixable? Probably not, according to Ed Haismaier, a senior research fellow in health policy studies at the Heritage Foundation: “Without changing a lot of the basic design of the [Affordable Care Act], there’s no way to really bring down the cost … for young, healthy people. Young, healthy people tend to have lower incomes and would rather spend their money on something else, so it’s difficult to give them a value proposition where they would instead spend money on [health insurance].”

3) Let’s finish up today with an oldie but goodie from the disastrous history of Obama Care. Remember when Obama Care architect, MIT economist Jonathan Gruber, proudly bragged that the law was intentionally written in a contorted way to make it impossible to figure out exactly what was in it and that the supporters of the legislation relied on the stupidity of Americans to get it passed? Relive this idiot’s comments at:

http://politicaloutcast.com/obamacare-architect-confesses-lying-elitist-garbage/

Who is stupid now, Mr. Gruber? Americans you so despise or the law you helped write that has increased premiums and deductibles to unheard of levels, repressed the number of insurance companies competing in the Obama Care market, has limited choices in the doctors and hospitals that can be used, and robbed millions of Americans of the insurance policies they had and who were happy with what they had? 

One last set of Obama Care failures 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

November, 2016, Part 5, The Unfolding Disaster That Is Obama Care: Obama Is Still Delusional, Young Americans Ignoring The Law, and Who Is Stupid Now Jonathan Gruber?

Every month for years now we have had to discuss how bad Obama Care is turning out to be under the continuing theme, “the unfolding disaster that is Obama Care.” This month is no different. As the legislation continues to march through America, driving up health care and health insurance prices as it serves as dead weight on economic growth, it cements its rightful place as the worst piece of legislation Washington has ever produced.

It never had a chance to be successful since it really never addressed the underlying root causes of our ever increasing health costs in the country:

• Americans eat too much of the wrong kind of food, resulting in obscenely high obesity rates for the country.
• Our food chain is infested with overdoses of high fructose corn syrup, salt, and other unhealthy additives.
• Americans smoke too much.
• Americans do not exercise enough.
• The country is in serious need of health care tort reform.
• Barriers to insurance company competition across state lines need to come down.
• Obama Care never “followed the money” to find out who is actually profiting from the ever escalating healthcare costs in this country and how to get those factors under control.
• Obama Care never got the immense amount of fraud and abuse in current government healthcare programs, Medicare and Medicaid, under control in order to save money to efficiently fund other government health care initiatives.
• Obama Care never put serious research money towards curing the major diseases that drive high healthcare costs such as high frequency cancers and dementia type diseases.

You cannot resolve any problem unless you understand and address the underlying root causes. No difference here: Obama Care legislation never addressed these listed root causes and thus, has no chance of ever being successful.

But it is not just missing the root causes of our healthcare costs that makes Obama Care so horrible. It resulted in millions of Americans losing access to their favored doctors, hospitals, and insurance policies. It has caused insurance premiums, deductibles and co-pays to escalate substantially. It will likely add trillions of dollars to the national debt. It has exposed millions of Americans to higher than necessary identity theft chances. It has created government bureaucracies that are wastefully spending taxpayer wealth and being exploited by criminal elements. It has stifled economic growth and job creation.

These are just a sample of the types of idiocy that we have been reviewing for the past several years in this blog relative to Obama Care., To read those past posts, just enter the phrase, “the unfolding disaster,” in the search box above.

This week we will be reviewing the latest unfolding disasters from the worst piece of legislation ever written by Washington:

1) We have already discussed the reality that Obama is living in a different world when it comes to Obama Care. He recently proclaimed that only a handful of Americans will be affected by the rampaging increases in Obama Care policy costs but we showed that his handful of Americans is at least 2.3 million people, bigger than all but three cities in the country.

Well, according to the Washington Free Beacon newspaper and an article by Andrew Kugle on November 7, 2016, he is back at the delusional business. At a recent political rally in Florida, Obama claimed that: “The parade of horribles that Republicans have talked about haven’t happened." Obama told a crowd of supporters in Florida on Thursday.

The parade of horribles that Republicans predicted years ago included increased costs of health insurance for Americans, the loss of insurance policies for people that currently had health insurance coverage, and increased costs, regulations, and hassles for small businesses. Specifically:

1. Congressman Paul Ryan said that, “This bill does not control costs.”
2. Senator Lamar Alexander said that, “Premiums will increase in the individual (insurance) market.”
3. Congressman Eric Cantor said that, “Between eight million and nine million people might very well lose the coverage they have.” 

And what actually happened? Premium and deductible costs will skyrocket in 2017 for Obama Care policies with premiums costs going up a national average of over 20%, with some state premium costs going up much higher in different states. Millions of Americans, who were happy with their existing insurance policies, were forced to find new insurance policies that were almost always substantially higher than the policies they were happy with but were forced to give up because of Obama Care. 

President Obama, still living in alternative reality when it comes to the unfolding disaster that is Obama Care. In fact, the fact checking organization, Politifact, rated Obama;’s claim that “If you like your health care plan, you can keep it” as the “lie of the year.”

2) Jamie Gregora, writing for the Heritage Foundation, talked about the major problem with Obama Care, namely that younger healthier Americans did not sign up for Obama Care problems, quite possibly because they did not want to be the Obama Care stooges that would subsidize healthcare costs for older Americans:

• Given that younger Americans mostly feel that they are young and healthy and will not need health insurance and that paying the Obama Care fine for not having insurance is far less than the cost of Obama Care insurance policies, the decision to not get insurance is a no brainer.
• This is especially true since younger people usually have lower incomes than the rest of America and they have other, more important expenses to worry about.
• American adults aged 18 to 34 represented 40% of the uninsured in the country but accounted for only 24% of the Obama Care policy holders in 2014, perfectly illustrating why Obama Care is failing, younger and healthier Americans are not signing up for Obama Care at the same rate that they exist in the population.
• The Obama Care legislation also forbids insurance companies from charging more for insurance for older Americans who are more likely to need health insurance coverage which means that the insurance companies have to charge younger Americans more, who are less likely to need health insurance coverage, which puts health insurance costs out of the reach of younger Americans.

Is this flaw of the legislation fixable? Probably not, according to Ed Haismaier, a senior research fellow in health policy studies at the Heritage Foundation: “Without changing a lot of the basic design of the [Affordable Care Act], there’s no way to really bring down the cost … for young, healthy people. Young, healthy people tend to have lower incomes and would rather spend their money on something else, so it’s difficult to give them a value proposition where they would instead spend money on [health insurance].”

3) Let’s finish up today with an oldie but goodie from the disastrous history of Obama Care. Remember when Obama Care architect, MIT economist Jonathan Gruber, proudly bragged that the law was intentionally written in a contorted way to make it impossible to figure out exactly what was in it and that the supporters of the legislation relied on the stupidity of Americans to get it passed? Relive this idiot’s comments at:

http://politicaloutcast.com/obamacare-architect-confesses-lying-elitist-garbage/

Who is stupid now, Mr. Gruber? Americans you so despise or the law you helped write that has increased premiums and deductibles to unheard of levels, repressed the number of insurance companies competing in the Obama Care market, has limited choices in the doctors and hospitals that can be used, and robbed millions of Americans of the insurance policies they had and who were happy with what they had? 

One last set of Obama Care failures 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

To Build A Wall Or Not To Build A Wall? Part 2

One of the big issues of this Presidential campaign is whether or not to tighten up security on the Mexican border with Trump wanting to build a wall to prevent illegal immigration and other nefarious activities on the border. Somehow, someway, some people, mostly liberals and Democrats, think that having security on the border is a bad, racist thing to have.

Let’s take a look at what is going on down on the border and then we can decide who is right relative to the need for a secure border, Trump or the Democrats. Today will be Part Two of our discussion on the wall, a discussion that started with the following post from yesterday:

XXXXXX

1) Back in May, the Boston Herald reported on a violent crime from March 13, 2016 when four illegal immigrants assaulted an American man and his girlfriend. Three men grabbed the woman and dragged her away where they repeatedly raped her. One of the illegal immigrants stayed behind to beat up the woman’s boyfriend.

The boyfriend eventually got free of the one beating him and attacked the group raping his girlfriend, eventually having to defend himself from a knife attack: “I thought we were going to die. I really did,” the boyfriend stated. “And I didn’t care if I died as long as I could save her and get her out of there, that’s all I cared about.”

The sad part of this whole violent crime was that the four attackers had already been deported for previously having committed crimes in this country. But they managed to illegally re-enter the country to commit these heinous deeds in Framingham, Massachusetts. 

And as a result, at least two Americans are likely traumatized for a long time into their future: “I’ve lived (in Framingham, Massachusetts) my whole life and I never imagined anything like this could happen just walking down the street,” stated the boyfriend. “The worst part was I felt like I couldn’t do anything.”

2) But it is not just American citizens walking down their city’s streets that are being attacked. According to a report by Brittany Hughes of the MRCTV website, 140 cases of assault against U.S. custom agents have occurred in just a recent three month period. This data was published by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency of the Federal government. 

There have been 421 attacks so far in fiscal year 2016 which still has a couple of months left to go. This is a 17% increase over the same time frame in fiscal year 2015. The vast majority of these attacks have been directed at U.S.Border agents, the ones trying to make our borders less porous and more secure.

3) This past Fathers’ Day, Breitbart carried a very sad story on its website that chronicled the deaths of some Americans at the hands of illegal immigrants. The focus of the article was the families of those killed by illegal immigrants and their ire directed at House Speaker Paul Ryan, calling for his resignation for his stance and policies on illegal immigration.

Dan Golvach, whose 25 year old son, Spencer, was murdered by an illegal immigrant by a gunshot to the head while stopped at a red light: “I would invite Speaker Ryan to forsake spending Father’s Day with his kids to come down here to Houston and visit the place I will spend every Father’s Day for the rest of my life— my American son’s grave. This way Speaker Ryan can see first hand what pandering to the cheap illegal labor lobby means to Americans who can’t afford to put a security fence up around their house. The best thing Ryan could do to protect his family from what my family is experiencing is resign today. His policies are not only treasonous to us, they are also treasonous to any American that ever happens to be sitting at a red light like Spencer was. This wasn’t Syria or Iraq. It was the neighborhood I grew up in. Do your kids ever sit at red lights, Mr. Speaker?”

Billy Inman’s, whose 16 year old son was murdered by another illegal immigrant, stated in the article that it was a disgrace for Congressman Ryan to suggest he might sue Donald Trump if Trump was President relative to the suggestion that Trump might use executive authority to pause Muslim immigration: “He’s [Ryan] more upset with Trump than he is about what happened to our families. If Ryan sues Trump on the Muslim ban, we could sue him and most of our elected officials for not stopping illegal aliens from crossing the southern border.”

Inman’s son was killed when the car he was driving in was rear ended by an illegal immigrant driving over 60 miles per hour. This happened as the family was on their way to celebrate Fathers’ Day with a fishing trip. Inman and his wife were both knocked as a result of the accident, were put into intentional comas for several weeks for their own good and were unable to even attend their son’s funeral. 

Obviously, if the Federal government was doing their job that illegal immigrant would not have been in the country and would have not caused the death and trauma to this innocent American family: “I’d like for Ryan to try wearing my shoes for a week. I don’t think he’d make it a day,” Inman said in the article relative to the pain and sorrow he and his wife go through daily.

George Wilkerson’s 18 year old son, Joshua, was tied up, beaten, set on fire, and tortured to death by an illegal immigrant while he was on his way home from school: “Ryan is just one of Obama’s puppets. I don’t consider him a Republican. His tone is totally against Americans as far as I’m concerned. He’s been paid by the taxpayers, but he hasn’t done anything for them. He’s been there for two decades. He’s not doing his job. He’s not looking out for Americans. He’s doing more for foreign citizens than he is for his own American citizens."

Rapes of Americans, assaults on Americans, attacks on Border agents, and the unnecessary loss of life of American citizens because of the Federal government’s inability to protect us and enforce common sense and the current immigration laws. As we concluded yesterday, we also conclude today that maybe that wall might not be a bad idea after all, if one cares about the safety and lives of Americans.

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

May, 2016, Part 9, Political Class Insanity: Hypocrisy From Paul Ryan, Lack of Transparency From Barack Obama, and a Comical View of How The Voters Are Screwed in 2016

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

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

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

1) Paul Ryan is the Speaker of the House of Representatives. In that powerful position he should be representing all Americans not just rich and powerful Americans like himself. Which brings us to the latest political class hypocrisy via Speaker Ryan.

After the terrorists attacks in the heart of Paris last year, there was much debate on whether and how the U.S. should allow foreign Muslims into this country with the fear being that terrorists might try to use any amnesty or refugee program to sneak into the country and attack Americans within the country. Ryan came down hard on the side of allow thousands of Muslims to enter the country, asserting it is not “appropriate” to consider religion for any foreigner seeking entry into this country.

And Speaker Ryan certainly has the right to his opinion. But he should have disclosed that the private Catholic school that he sends his kids to does indeed have a religious screening process within its admissions, according to Breitbart reporting. Breitbart obtained a copy of the admissions application from the church and found that the the document does specifically ask whether the applicant is a member of the associated Catholic parish that operates the private school, specifically is the applicant:

• Is officially registered at… [this] Catholic Parish
• Has had their children baptized;
• Fulfills the Sunday Mass obligation and other Holy Days of Obligation;
• Offers consistent financial support (whether weekly, monthly, quarterly, or annually) through the church offertory envelopes or direct deposit for a minimum of $800 per calendar year;
• Volunteers service to the parish; and
• Participates in parish ministries when asked, or if they feel called to share their talent of time.

Applicants that do not fulfill these requirements but do gain admission are forced to pay a substantially higher tuition fee than Catholics. I have no problem with this Catholic school admitting or not admitting who they want in their school or what they charge applicants who attend it. It is their school and operation and they should be allowed to do as they please.

However, I am tired of the hypocrisy of the political class that Ryan has exhibited, having no problem using religion as a screen for his kids and his family while at the same time opposing using religion as a potential screen for terrorists. Typical politician, do as I say, not as I do.

2) As always, I will be voting for the Libertarian candidate for President again this year, likely the former governor of New Mexico, Gary Johnson. The Libertarian Party, like other third parties that I do not support but still have my utmost respect for still having principles and integrity that Democrats and Republicans no longer have, have always been on the edges of national politics. The American political class and the media and wealthy power brokers that they are in partnership with our current politicians do everything they can to prevent anyone or any party from upsetting the infested and infected status quo of American politics.

Which brings us to the following video clip. I am a big fan of ventriloquist Jeff Dunham. One of his characters is a grumpy old man, Walter. Enjoy the recent discussion that Jeff and Walter recently had where Walter accurately compares the 2016 Presidential race to looking down the bar at closing time and realizing that this is all there is. After hearing Walter’s insightful observation of this year’s candidates, consider maybe this year giving a third party candidate your vote since the view at the end of the 2016 Presidential bar is not attractive:

http://conservativevideos.com/its-like-looking-down-the-bar-at-closing-time-lol/

3) We often comment on how Obama claimed that his Presidential administration would be the most transparent EVER. We have showed dozens of times how this might turn out to be the greatest single lie he ever told since if, anything, his administration has been the least transparent in a long time. 

This point was driven home again with the recent news that the IRS within the Obama administration has withheld more than 10,000 pages of information requested by the Alliance Defending Freedom organization that was investigating the IRS procedures for investigating churches. Another 2,000 pages of IRS documents that were released had their entire contents blacked out, obviously making them useless. 

As a result, the Alliance is taking the Obama administration to court to force the issue and to get the documents they legally requested: “The IRS is not above the law, and Americans deserve to know the truth about the agency’s secret deals with activists,” said ADF Legal Counsel Christiana Holcomb. “The IRS has a legal obligation to explain why it is hiding things or else produce the documents. Its ongoing refusal to follow the law is absurd, particularly since much of we are asking for is information that the IRS has already provided voluntarily to Freedom From Religion Foundation.”

Apparently an atheist group wanted the IRS to be more stringent in overseeing church organizations that might be illegally involved in politics. The ADF in its suit claims that the IRS had assured the atheist group that “it had adopted new protocols and procedures for church investigations in order to end the lawsuit.” The ADF wanted to see what those protocols were, certainly a fair request and one that would not endanger national security or the personal safety or identity of an individual. And yet, the Obama administration refuses to comply with a legal Freedom of Information Act request, as usual with this administration.

4) A little bit of insane math to finish up today’s insanity, as discussed in an interview of Congressman Thomas Massie in the June, 2016 issue of Reason magazine:

• By the time that Obama leaves office, the nation’s total debt load at the Federal government level will be about $20 TRILLION.
• This is double what it was when Obama took office, obviously meaning that Obama will run up more government debt than ALL previous Presidents COMBINED.
• When interest rates return to their traditional 5% levels, the American taxpayer will be paying $1 TRILLION a year just on interest on the national debt.
• This annual trillion payment in interest will be 66% larger than the current annual military budget.
• Today, the Federal government spends about $4 TRILLION a year of which three quarters ($3 TRILLION) is spent only on Social Security, medicare, and Medicaid).
• That leaves one trillion dollars to spend on roads, bridges, and every other government function.
• Thus, either the Federal government will have to stop doing everything else except paying Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and interest on the debt or it will have to raise taxes by a trillion dollars a year to keep every other government function funded.
• These additional taxes would come out to about an annual additional taxation of about $8,700 per household.
• This is $8,700 that every American household does not have to spend on vacations, consumer goods, restaurants, etc., leading to stagnating economic growth leading to less taxes being collected which leads to more debt which leads to a death spiral of the country’s financial solvency.

This is simple, straightforward math. Thus, it is highly likely that what Hitler, Stalin, Khrushchev, Bin Laden, and ISIS could not do, simple financial mismanagement of the American political class will do: lead to America’s collapse. 

That will do it for today’s insanity: more hypocrisy from our politicians, more lack of transparency from Obama, more dire financial predictions, and more realizations that the Presidential candidates for 2016 is like looking down the bar at closing time and realizing that: “holy cow, this is all we have to chose from?”

More insanity for tomorrow with a focus on the building fiscal fiasco that the Chicago politicians have created in the Windy City.

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

How "Hope and Change" Became "Dysfunction and Surrender"

It is pretty obvious to anyone who follows current events that the Obama administration’s record on foreign affairs has been pretty abysmal:

• It has allowed North Korea and Iran to get much closer to having ICBM capabilities of delivering nuclear weapons a far distance.
• It has allowed Russia to re-establish itself on the world stage, becoming a force against Europe and a force throughout the Middle East.
• It has allowed ISIS to become the most terrifying and wealthiest terrorist force of all time.
• It has constantly failed to lead when it comes to fighting terrorism, with Obama not attending the world summit that occurred as a result of the Paris terror attacks while attending a baseball game, learning to tango, and playing golf as Brussels with still cleaning up the carnage of the latest European terrorist attack.
• When a Middle East summit was called by the White House, leaders of many Middle Eastern countries declined to attend or sent secondary representatives.
• The administration ticked off many, many allies when it came to light that the administration was using the NSA to spy on other countries and their leaders, with the Brazilian prime minister cancelling a Washington state dinner in protest.
• It has more or less created the reality where "our friends do not trust us and our enemies do not fear us."

The infamous list goes on and on. This administration and the President that heads it has failed time after time to be the leader that the world expects from the President of the United States. Just yesterday, we reviewed how this President failed to have ”good optics” in the aftermath of the Brussels terrorist bombings, looking unconcerned and uncaring, attending a meaningless baseball game, learning to dance the tango, and playing golf as body bags were being used and wounded were being cared for as a result of the Brussels bombings.

And to add insult to injury, today we review a recent analysis from Forbes magazine which put together its annual list of the 50 greatest leaders in the world today, leaders from all walks of life, politics, sports, business, show business, etc. The 2016 list reads as follows:

• Jeff Bezos – CEO, Amazon
• Angela Merkel – Chancellor, Germany
• Aung San Suu Kyi – Leader, National League for Democracy
• Pope Francis – Pontiff, Roman Catholic Church
• Tim Cook – CEO, Apple
• John Legend – Recording artist and activist, The Show Me Campaign
• Christiana Figueres – Executive Secretary, UN Framework Convention on Climate Change
• Paul Ryan – Speaker, U.S. House of Representatives
• Ruth Bader Ginsburg – Associate Justice, U.S. Supreme Court
• Sheikh Hasina – Prime Minister, Bangladesh
• Nick Saban – Head football coach, The University of Alabama
• Huateng “Pony” Ma – Chairman and CEO, Tencent
• Sergio Moro – Federal Judge, Brazil
• Bono – Lead singer & Co-Founder, U2 & One
• Stephen Curry & Steve Kerr – Point guard & head coach, Golden State Warriors
• Bryan Stevenson – Founder, Equal Justice Initiative
• Nikki Haley – Governor, South Carolina
• Lin-Manuel Miranda – Composer, lyricist & author, “Hamilton”
• Marvin Ellison – CEO, J.C. Penney
• Reshma Saujani – Founder & CEO, Girls Who Code
• Larry Fink – CEO, BlackRock
• Scott Kelly & Mikhail Kornienko – Crew members, International Space Station
• David Miliband – CEO, International Rescue Committee
• Anna Maria Chávez – CEO, Girl Scouts of the USA
• Carla Hayden – Nominee, Library of Congress
• Maurizio Macri – President, Argentina
• Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors & Opal Tometi – Co-founders, Black Lives Matter
• Chai Jing – Freelance journalist, China
• Moncef Slaoui – Chairman of Vaccines, GlaxoSmithKline
• John Oliver – Host & Executive Producer, “Last Week Tonight”
• Marc Edwards – Professor, Virginia Tech
• Arthur Brooks – President, American Enterprise Institute
• Rosie Batty – Founder, Luke Batty Foundation
• Kristen Griest & Shayne Haver – Rangers, U.S. Army
• Denis Mukwege – Founder, Panzi Hospital
• Christine Legarde – Managing Director, IMF
• Marc Benioff – CEO, Salesforce
• Gina Raimondo – Governor, Rhode Island
• Amina Mohammed – Minister of Environment, Nigeria
• Domenica Lucano – Mayor, Riace, Italy
• Melinda Gates & Susan Desmond-Hellman – Co-chair & CEO, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
• Arvind Kejriwal – Chief Minister, New Delhi
• Jorge Ramos – Journalist, Univision
• Michael Froman – U.S. Trade Representative, Executive Office of the President
• Mina Guli – CEO, Thirst
• Ramón Mendéz – Head of Climate Change Policy, Uruguay
• Bright Simons – President & Founder, Mpedigree
• Justin Trudeau – Prime Minister, Canada
• Clare Rewcastle Brown – Editor & Founder, Sarawak Report
• Tshering Tobgay – Prime Minister, Bhutan

As you see, the list of leaders includes a university football coach but does not include President Obama. It includes a couple of NBA basketball players but does not include President Obama. It includes two governors from two of the smaller states, South Carolina and Rhode Island, but does not include President Obama. It includes a music composer but does not include President Obama.

You get the idea. The head of the most powerful country in the world, the country with the largest economy and largest military, the country that is probably still the single superpower left in the world today, did not make the Forbes list of the top 50 leaders throughout the world in 2016. 

Now, one might question the criteria and analysis that Forbes used to arrive at a list of leaders that omits the President of the United States and that would be a fair question. But consider what Fortune editor Alan Murray explained why he left out the ‘Leader of the Free World’:

“I voted for Barack Obama in 2008 largely because of his call to unite blue states and red states behind a politics of hope. But it hasn’t happened. At home our politics are as divided—and our federal government is as dysfunctional—as they were when he took office.

Abroad, the record is worse. Many wise foreign-policy analysts believe the President’s public waffling on Syria not only fed the terrorism of the Islamic State, but also emboldened thugs around the world— notably Vladimir Putin. The President has dismissed their criticism by saying he is “less concerned about style points.” But when it comes to leadership, style matters...In his book On Becoming a Leader, the late Warren Bennis said the differences between leaders and managers are “the differences between those who master the context and those who surrender to it.” It’s a good distinction. Faced with difficult circumstances, President Obama has surrendered.”

“President Obama has surrendered….the Federal government is as dysfunctional.” Harsh but nevertheless true. Every month in our political class insanity posts we review how dysfunctional the Federal government still is and in fact, is probably more dysfunctional than it was back in 2009 when Obama took office. We listed the foreign affairs blunders up above which Mr. Murray correctly characterizes as surrender on behalf of the President.

The motto of “hope and change” is now been reduced to “dysfunctional and surrender.” So much so, that the leader of the most powerful country in the world might not even make the top 50 of the most influential leaders in the world, regardless of how the selection is made. So sad, just another American political class sham and failure.

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

July, 2013 Political Class Insanity, Part 8: Warm Beer In Indiana, Expensive Congressinal Donuts, Welfare Travesty, and Term Limits Now!

This is the eight and last (finally!) post this month that documents and reviews all of the political class insanity from the past month or so. This month’s review sets the record for most insanity ever covered in one month. When we started this blog back in 2009, we could usually cover all of the idiocy and lunacy from our politicians in a single day. Now, it takes eight days a month just to keep up with their antics, shenanigans, and wasteful spending. Disgraceful.

So, the final set of insanity for you tears and enjoyment:

1) Although $2 million is not a lot of money relative to an almost $4 TRILLION annual Federal budget, there is no need to spend $2 million of taxpayer money if you do not have to. In fact, if you stop all of the unnecessary $2 million expenses of the Federal government, you probably could save hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars a year. Also, remember that $2 million could have kept the White House tour program operating for more than two years.

Why $2 million? Recent government budget reports have shown that Congress spends about $2 million a year on office snacks. Let’s do a little math. There are 535 members of Congress who spend $2 million just on office snacks over 52 weeks. This comes out to about $14 dollars a day per Congressional office. This is the equivalent about two dozen doughnuts a day per Congressional office.

Given that just about every person working in a Congressional office is making substantially more than the average American worker, wouldn’t it be better, and healthier, option for these people to pay for their own office snacks rather than chomping down the equivalent of two dozen doughnuts every working day of the year? Especially if this $2 million could be used for the more worthwhile government functions (White House tours, Native American education, air traffic controllers) and other programs that were cut by the sequester.

Some politicians have done the right thing and reduced their office budget, with Rand Paul being the poster child for efficient Congressional offices, having reduced his annual office budget by $600,000. Given how the rest of the country is suffering, I am sure the Congressional staffers and their bosses can do without $2 million of snacks every year, or 24 doughnuts every day.

2) We have always maintained that the Federal government is the most inefficient, inept, and often corrupt manager of money in the world. We have spent four years documenting the many and various ways the political class wastefully spends our wealth.

This ineptness was driven home by a speech from Congressman Paul Ryan that I recently came across. Congress Ryan is one of the very few politicians in Washington who have any kind of basic math skills so when he talks, I pay attention. According to a speech he gave at the last Jack Kemp Awards dinner, the Federal and state governments in this country spend almost $1 TRILLION a year on various welfare programs.

Given that there are about 46 million Americans living in poverty in this country today, if the government was not so inept and we could somehow divide up that $1 TRILLION wealth among our needy, each person living in poverty, not every family, every person, would receive an annual check for over $20,000. Thus, a needy family of four would get a check for $80,000, more than enough to not make them not poor or needy any more.

But that does not happen because by the time the $1 TRILLION is mismanaged by politicians and bureaucrats, there is far less available for those that actually need the assistance. This has been going on for almost fifty years, since Johnson’s Great Society programs began. Trillions and trillions of dollars that got lost in the administration and corruption of these government programs, so much so that fifty years later we STILL have 46 million Americans living in poverty.

Maybe we should think about doing this whole welfare thing a different way, one that is not beholden to the established special interests that feed off this government inefficiency.

3) According to a Department of Agriculture report from early June, 2013, there are officially 47.7 million Americans receiving food assistance form the Federal government. The population of Spain is about 46.2 million people. Thus, despite what the Obama administration might try to tell us, you cannot say you have a strong or robust economic recovery underway when the equivalent of every man, woman, and child in Spain is receiving government food assistance.

4) According to the Competitive Enterprise Institute, 1,688 Federal rules and regulations have already been put into effect this year. At this rate, the total tally for 2013 would be 3,582 new final rules and regulations. This averages out to about 14 new government rules and regulations every business day this year.

Want to bet that most of these far too numerous rules and regulations are put forth to justify a bureaucracy’s existence vs. benefiting Americans? Want to bet that this tsunami of new regulations is preventing business owners and companies from focusing on growing their business and the economy, diverting their attention to finding out how not to run afoul of unnecessary regulations?

5) One last bit of political class insanity to finish off this month’s record setting level of lunacy from American politicians. Convenience stores in Indiana are suing the state government over beer sale regulations.

Why? Apparently Indiana legislators at some point in the past had nothing better to do and passed a state law that prohibited Indiana convenience stores from selling COLD beer. They could sell COLD wine, but not COLD beer. Indiana supermarkets, on the other hand, are allowed to sell COLD beer and COLD wine. The lawsuit is based on the equal treatment under the law aspects of the 14th Amendment.

I would have loved to have heard the legislative floor debate and logic for this law, I am sure it was idiotic. More likely, though, there was no debate, this provision was secretly snuck into another law and was supported by some lawmaker(s) who received supermarket-based campaign donations.

In either case, total waste of time and resources on both the state government’s part and the legal resources and expenses that convenience stores are having to expend, resources that would have been better used to grow their businesses and the state’s economy. Insanity.

That does it for July, eight days of unbelievable waste and idiocy from the American political class. Dumb laws, rampant corruption, wasteful spending, self enrichment, the many ways that the American politician under serves the American citizenry.

What can be done about this lunacy? Many times in this blog we have lamented the fact that Federal politicians are not subjected to term limits. Many of the decades' old problems we face in this country, e.g. failing public schools, leaky borders, sky high debt, escalating health care costs, etc. have been around the same amount of time than many, many of our Washington politicians have been around. They have been unable to resolve these issues and, in fact, have probably made them worse. They need to go but the political processes they have also corrupted have allowed them to retain their seats in Washington for far too long.

But there is now a way to fight back. A new grassroots effort is underway to institute a Constitutional amendment that would impose term limits on all Washington politicians, they would be “one and done.” You can participate in that effort at the following website:

www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com

Think about a passage from that website before you decide whether or not to join this term limits crusade:

One last thought: imagine yourself ten years down the road from today. Your kids or grandkids ask you why the economy is so sour, why it is so difficult to get a good job, why freedom in America seems like an empty promise, and why their tax burden is so onerous in order to support the ever growing national debt. Do nothing and you will be able to tell them that when you had a chance to turn out the career politicians that were responsible for their economic distress and replace them with actual problem solvers, you passed on the opportunity. Get involved with this effort to implement term limits and you may never have to answer their questions.

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.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w