January, 2019, Part 3, Political Class Insanity: Americans Want The Wall, Obama Broke Yet Another Law, Overpaid Government Employees, and New Mexico is A U.S. State

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

Let’s get started:

1) As you probably know, Trump and the Democratic Congressional leaders are in a standoff regarding whether or not to build a wall on the Mexican border to protect Americans from the criminals, terrorists, and other bad folks that take advantage of our porous border. This has resulted in many large swaths of the Federal government being shut down.

Since theoretically Congressional members should be carrying out the will of the people, who is right in the eyes of Americans, Trump or the Democrats? According to a recent article on the Godfather Politics website by Warner Todd Huston, the answer is pretty clear:

• According to a new poll by Pew Research, 69% of those surveyed are opposed to increasing the levels of immigration in this country.
• Only 24% said they would like to see higher levels of immigration.
• In fact, 29% said that the country should halt immigration altogether.
• Pew also surveyed 27 other countries and the results were similar to the U.S. results: almost no one anywhere wants more immigration into their country.

Just another example of how disconnected the Americans political class is from the desires of the country. When over two thirds of the country do not want loose borders and increased immigration, many in Washington do the exact opposite.

2) We have existing immigration laws that dictate how and when a foreigner is able to get into the country. For those of those that want to bypass those laws and get into this country anyway possible they are breaking the law and ignoring our long standing rule of law in this country. 

If someone in this country wants to change those laws, then we have established rules of law to do that, basically electing people to Congress and the White House to change those laws. Pretty simple, straightforward, and historical processes.

But according to a recent article by Jeff Dunetz, writing for the Godfather Politics website on December 20, 2018, Obama seemed to have a different take on how America works:

• Research by the Immigration Reform Law Institute (IRLI), Obama’s Department of Health and Human Services gave robust, expensive contracts to a single nonprofit group in 2015 and 2016.
• The value of these contracts were $310 million.
• The money was then used to prevent the deportation of “Unaccompanied Alien Child (UACs)” back to their home country.
• In other words, the American taxpayer was paying to support the actions of those foreigners that had violated current federal law.
• UACs are kids that are in this country illegally and they have no parent or legal guardian already in the country who can care for them.
• Now while one could claim that a kid should have legal representation in an immigration court proceeding, according to current law, that representation should not be paid for by the American taxpayer: “Sec. 292. [8 U.S.C. 1362] In any removal proceedings before an immigration judge and in any appeal proceedings before the Attorney General from any such removal proceedings, the person concerned shall have the privilege of being represented (at no expense to the Government) by such counsel, authorized to practice in such proceedings, as he shall choose.”
• In other words, the Obama administration blatantly broke the law to attain a political aim and the American taxpayer, of which 69% want no increase in immigration, paid for the breaking of that law.
• According to Dale L. Wilcox, executive director and general counsel of IRLI: “These unauthorized payments have undoubtedly speeded-up UACs’ release from detention facilities to join their families, relatives, or fellow gang members – or help them reconnect with and pay ‘pandillas,’ the criminal cartels that make enormous profits from controlling human trafficking over the southern border. My guess is that average voters would not be pleased to know that such vast amounts of their tax dollars are being spent in aid of this giant criminal enterprise.”

So what good is an existing law if a politician can ignore it at his will and even worse, use taxpayer money to abet that law breaking

3) While Obama illegally spent $310 million to defend illegal immigrants in court, unfortunately that is not the only wasteful spending of taxpayer wealth:

• According to Chris Prandoni, writing for the Americans For Tax Reform website back in 2011, government employees at all levels of government are overpaid about $468 billion a year.
• This is the estimate that was created by controlling for factors such as education, age, experience, intangible benefits (job security) for Federal government workers vs. comparable workers in the private sector.
• Federal government employee wages are on average are 22% higher than what private sector employees own for the same jobs.
• Reducing Federal government wages to the privater employee level would save the American taxpayer $46 billion a year.
• If you include wages AND total other benefits, Federal government employees earn 30-40% more than private sector employees.
• Federal employees also get 13 paid sick days every year and 10 days off for national holidays.
• Federal employees receive 22% more in employer payments toward their health care than their private sector counterparts.

So not only do politicians take care of themselves when it comes to compensation, benefits, and other frills of government employment, they also take care of those government workers that work for them, all at the expense of the American taxpayer.

4) Maybe, maybe, if government employees were providing outstanding service well beyond the quality and quantity of service provided by their private sector counterparts, you maybe could justify paying them far more in wages and benefits. But anyone who has dealt with the government bureaucracy knows that this is almost never the case. 

And a recent article on the Convention of States website had a great example of incompetence when it comes to government employees’ performance:

• Gavin Clarkson is a politician from the state of New Mexico.
• He and his fiancee recently applied for a marriage license in Washington D.C. where the planned marriage ceremony was going to be held.
• But when he went to D.C.’s Courts Marriage Bureau in November, the clerk handling their marriage license request refused to issue the license.
• Apparently the government employee did not know that New Mexico was an actual one of the fifty states in the U.S.
• Let me repeat that last insanity: the government clerk did not believe that New Mexico was part of the United States.
• The clerk would not accept Clarkson’s valid New Mexico driver’s license as proof of his identity and insisted that Clarkson produce an international passport since he assumed Clarkson was a foreign citizen...from New Mexico.
• Even worse, the clerk verified his position with his supervisor who supported the clerk, with him also claiming that Clarkson needed an international passport.
• The clerk even complimented Clarkson on how well he spoke English since he was a foreigner….from New Mexico.

This incident raises two questions: could this government employee AND his supervisor be any more idiotic? Both of these folks probably get paid big bucks with high levels of benefits to provide this type of inept service. And possibly the bigger second issue is how much of a failure is our education system if grown adults do not know that an existing state is part of the U.S.?

So, another day of political class insanity: Washington ignoring the wishes and positions of the majority of Americans, another law breaking effort of Obama, overpaid government employees and horrible government service from those employees.

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

February, 2018, Part 3, Political Class Insanity: More Voter Fraud and More Economic Stupidity From Economically Ignorant Politicians

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

Let's get started:

1) We once did an extensive set of posts on how corrupted and open to fraud our current voting processes are. The first post in that series can be accessed at:

https://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2017/10/voter-fraud-review-part-1.html

New results from a research study again magnify how bad our voting processes are:

• According to Jim Holt, writing for the Gateway Pundit in 2016, Pew Research recently completed a disturbing voter fraud study and analysis. 
• The study found that over 1.8 million people currently on the nation’s voting rolls are in reality, dead.
• More than 2.75 million people are registered to vote in more than one state.

As we have said previously, if citizens even think that their voting processes are corrupted or tainted than the very basis of our democracy is endanger.

2) We have often discussed the incredibly stupid economic actions and strategies of our economically ignorant politicians. Almost always their ventures into the world of economics results in the exact opposite of what is intended which is never good.

And that maxim certainly holds when politicians try to force an unrealistic minimum wage level on the marketplace. In an attempt to improve the plight of lower paid workers, politicians often falsely believe that raising the minimum wage will improve the lives of those making below the higher proposed minimum wage. Usually what happens is that businesses react to the paying of higher wages by reducing the workforce, forcing people to have no job at a higher wage rather than having a job at the old minimum wage.

Reason magazine recently discussed another instance of politicians meddling in the wage sector of the economy and the bad results that occurred:

• Eric Boehm, writing for Reason on January 10, 2018, discussed a bad consequence of Seattle’s minimum wage increase.
• The Subway restaurant chain often runs a sales promotion where they have an ad campaign that advertises their Subway foot long sub sandwiches for just $4.99.
• But that ad campaign was not honored by a Subway owner in Seattle, a town that has raised the minimum wage dramatically in recent years.
• David Jones posted a sign explaining why his store was opting out of the national ad campaign and promotion: "Dear Seattle Subway Patrons: Unfortunately, we are not participating in the $4.99 Footlong Promotion. The cost of doing business in Seattle is very expensive. We are balancing the highest minimum wage in the nation, paid sick leave, ACA, Secure scheduling, soda tax and much more.”
• Thus, even though some workers are now making more in the Seattle area, the cost of buying a sub sandwich is also relatively higher wiping out some of the benefit of having higher wages.
• Which assumes you still have a job as a result of a higher minimum wage since according to researchers “at the University of Washington's School of Public Policy and Governance, the number of hours worked in low-wage jobs has declined by around 9 percent since the start of 2016 "while hourly wages in such jobs increased by around 3 percent." The net outcome: In 2016, the "higher" minimum wage actually lowered low-wage workers' earnings by an average of $125 a month...And now those same employees will have to pay more for sandwiches from Subway—and everything else too.”

We have stated the following many times in this blog when politicians screw with economics in the marketplace: The good news is that your current job now pays a higher wage. The bad news is that because your job now pays a higher wage you no longer have a job.

3) But the economic insanity of Seattle politicians does not stop with higher than reasonable minimum wage levels, according to that same Reason article. The city has imposed a tax on sodas sold in the city, a tax rate of 1.75 cents per ounce. This raised the cost of a can of Coke sold at retail in Seattle by 20 cents. It raised the cost of a 36 can case by $7.56. 

Ed Murray who was mayor when the tax was imposed, inanely claimed that the soda tax “could subsidize trips to the farmers market, pay for free community college, and roll back "white-privileged, institutional racism."” How a soda tax could end white privileged institutional racism is a mystery to me but that is a story for another day.

So what happened when the tax went into effect? The same thing that happened when the city of Philadelphia did the same stupid thing: people did their shopping outside of the city limits where they could avoid the soda tax. Seattle Costco locations in fact gave out directions to other Costco locations in the area outside of the Seattle city limits where the tax would not apply.

And not only did soda sales go down in the city, harming businesses and workers of those city businesses, sales of other groceries went down since when people went outside of the city limits to buy the less taxed soda, they did their other grocery shopping outside of the city also.

Thus, in two steps, Seattle politicians made life worse for the very people they claimed they were helping: raising taxes and raising the minimum wage resulted in less economic opportunity for those in the lower end of the economic spectrum. Insane.

4) Red Robin restaurants are a national restaurant chain which has a heavy concentration of its stores in the western part of the United States according to a recent article by Hank Berrien. However, it is in some of those western states where politicians are pushing the hardest to raise the local minimum wage. 

As a result, the chain has had to make some significant changes to its personnel policies in order to stay profitable and in business when faced with politician induced increased wage expenses:

• Red Robin was forced to eliminate the busboy position in all of its restaurants to cope with the increased wages it is being forced to pay. 
• Thus, as always, when politicians force an increase in the wage expense for businesses, businesses have to compensate by reducing costs somewhere else in their business, usually resulting in fewer jobs.
• Eliminating the busboy positions will save the company about $8 million a year allowing it to apply the $8 million in savings to others that still have a job to comply with the higher minimum wage levels being imposed.
• This change comes on the heels of another change, the elimination of expediters, employees that take the food from the cooks and place it on plates for the servers, a move that saved the company almost $10 million last year.
• The company’s chief financial officer, Guy Constant, told a conference recently why the changes were made: “We need to do that [eliminate job titles and jobs] to address the labor increases we’ve seen.”
• Michael Saltsman, director of the Employment Policies Institute (EPI), reacted to that statement: “I read that as minimum wage. Somebody like Red Robin, which has a lot of exposure in western states [where the minimum wage is rising faster] … this is sort of a burger and beer chain. If they can’t pass those increases off in higher prices … they have to find a way to do more with less.”
• 851Franchise.com editor-in-chief Nick Powills also commented: “From a business standpoint, [Red Robin made a] very smart move. From an employee standpoint, you just cut out $8 million worth of labor. The interesting thing about the minimum wage hike is that those that made the decisions to do it, did it on behalf of the employee … when intentions are good, and you can’t please everybody, someone is going to eventually be on the short [end of the] stick.”

As we stated above: The good news is your job will now be paid at a higher level. The bad news is you no longer have a job because it was being paid at a higher level. Consider a recent report by Fox Business news: “Earlier this year, a study conducted by EPI, which analyzed employment trends from 1990 through 2017, found that each 10% increase in the minimum wage in California has resulted in a corresponding 2% decline in employment for affected employees. The impact was larger, 5%, for lower-paid workers."

Some things never change: politicians never fix our broken voting processes and politicians continue to be economic idiots, making the economic plight of lower paid Americans even worse. More insanity to follow.

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

www.loathemygovernment.com

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

Please visit the following sites for freedom:


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

January, 2017, Part 4,Political Class Insanity: More Chicago Gun Violence, Obama The Divider, and The Lost Diplomatic Punch of The U.S.

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

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

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

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

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

1) We often talk about how the political class at the local, state, and Federal level have no idea how to control and reduce the violent gun violence and crime in Chicago. Their only solution has been to enact and enforce more and more gun control laws that have not worked because criminals, as defined, do not obey most any kind of laws including gun control laws. 

The Chicago Tribune recently totalled up the out of control gun violence in Chicago for the year 2016:

• This past year there were 4,328 shooting victims in Chicago.
• Over 700 of those shooting victims were killed.
• There were 2,989 shooting victims in the city in 2015, a total which increased over 1,300 in just one year, a percentage increase of almost 45%.
• Over the Christmas, 2016 weekend, 50 Chicago residents were shot 12 of those died.
• An estimated 90% of these holiday shootings involved gang related activities or people with a previous criminal record, indicating that gun control laws are probably useless against this class of people.

If one of the primary functions of government is to protect citizens, then local, state, and Federal government functions are doing a lousy job in Chicago. This view was more or less proven by recent comments by the Chicago police superintendent, Eddie Johnson, regarding gun control laws and the Chicago violence: “These gun offenders have repeatedly shown us that they’re not going to play by society’s rules.”

So simple and logical an observation, two traits politicians do not have relative to this crisis.

2) Great Presidents are great leaders that bring Americans together for common purposes and goals. Which means that using this criteria, Obama is not a great leader or President, according to an article by Paul Bedard in the Washington Examiner on December 26, 2016:

• Back when he was running for President for the first time, Obama promised to “Move beyond the divisive politics of Washington and bring Democrats, independents, and Republicans together to get things done."
• He then sat back and let his political allies denigrate, insult and slander any American who dared to have an opinion that differed from his, with his allies calling other Americans Nazis, racists, sluts, whores, etc.
• And as a result of his actions and inactions relative to uniting Americans, he will leave office as the most polarizing President in the past five decades, according to Pew Research.
• Pew does an opinion survey where they ask Democrats and Republicans what they think of the current President and assume that the difference between what each group thinks about a President is a measure of how well that President has unified the country.
• For Obama, 81% of Democrats approve of the job Obama has done while only 14% of Republicans approve the job he has done, resulting in a massive difference and divide of 67% between 81% and 14%.
• This beats out even the dismal leadership results of George W. Bush whose difference was 58%.
• Obama’s divisive result findings were the worse since at least the Eisenhower administration:

• Obama’s leadership performance is even worse when you look at just the end of each President’s results, 74% vs. Bush’s 54%:

So much for uniting the country and bringing different segments closer together.

3) For better or worse, the U.S. has almost always been involved in international crisis and ways to try and resolve them. After the fall of communism in Europe, the U.S. was generally viewed as the remaining superpower in the world that could and should be actively involved in world events and crises. And that was the way it has been for over 25 years. Not that the U.S. necessarily made a bad situation better, but we usually had a seat at the table of negotiations.

But a recent effort to bring at least a cease fire, if not a peace plan, to the civil war fighting in Syria shows how far American dominance and presence has deteriorated under Obama. According to Cortney O’Brien, writing for the Townhall website on December 21, 2016, the United States and Obama administration were excluded from recent peace plan negotiations with regards to Syria, peace talks that were conducted by Turkish, Iranian, and Russian diplomats The U.S. was not invited to participate. 

Keep in mind that at least two of these three nations are not on good speaking terms with the United States, meaning that our interests might not be taken care of in these peace talks.

Former UN ambassador for the U.S., John Bolton, summed up this diplomatic slap to the face quite nicely: "It's a sign of the times. It is a precise reflection of the diminution of American influence under the Obama administration." 

Not surprisingly, the Obama administration tried to minimize this major diplomatic snub and embarrassment. “It wasn’t about being kicked out of the party,” State Department spokesman John Kirby said. “There have always been multilateral discussions about Syria that we haven’t been a party to and this is another one. I totally understand that.” He went on to say that the U.S., “is still going to be a leader in this [Syrian peace] effort.” Not likely if you do not even get invited to the meetings.

That will do it for today’s insanity: how far the U.S. has fallen diplomatically in even participating in major peace talks, how Obama is the worse President ever from a unifer and leadership perspective, and the gun violence in the gun control capital of the country, continues to spiral out of control, with no politician having the solution to at least slow it down. More insanity tomorrow.

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

www.loathemygovernment.com

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

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

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

April, 2016, Part 2, By The Numbers: More Weapons To The MIddle East, More Hassles To Filing Taxes, and More Bad Priorities From the Obama Administration

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

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

1) Pew Research recently completely an interesting and involved study to determine what issues are most important to Americans today, providing a priority list of things that they would want the Washington political class to address most heavily. As you will see, as usual, Washington in general and Obama specifically, are very much out of step with what are most important and worrisome issues to Americans today.

Pew gave the poll participants a list of 18 issues facing the country today and asked them to choose which ones they felt should be a top priority of Obama and his administration. The results show a major disconnect:

• Gun policy was 16th out of 18 as far as being a priority even though Obama has been obsessing about shredding the Second Amendment rights of Americans.
• Climate change was only 17th out of 18 even though climate change is another obsession of Obama.
• Global trade ranked dead last, 18th, even though Obama has been pushing hard for his new Pacific trade pact to be approved.
• The economy was the number one issue with a whopping 75% of poll participants saying Obama should focus on that.
• Unfortunately, Obama has provided no new economic plans, thoughts, or focus on the economy for years and even when he did have economic thoughts and strategies earlier in his term, e.g. his economic stimulus program, they were failures, resulting in persistent high real unemployment, anemic economic growth, stagnant wages and incomes, and over 45 million Americans on food stamps for years.
• Dealing with immigration has increased as a priority by 11% since Obama took office, the highest increase of any priority, but despite this growing concern, illegal immigration continues unabated along with the drug running, human trafficking, and criminal elements that go with it.
• The priority to strengthen the military has gone up 8% since Obama took office but our overall military fighting capability has deteriorated during Obama’s Presidency.
• Protecting the environment, another Obama favorite, has dropped 5% as a priority with Americans since Obama came into office.
• 51% of the poll’s participants think that Obama’s failures will outweigh his accomplishments and only 39% think his accomplishments will outweigh his failures.
• Independent voters are even more pessimistic about his failures and accomplishments with a 16 point difference between the two. 

Very telling numbers. A Presidency and political class that work on things that are irrelevant or much less of a priority to the majority of Americans and ignore issues that are of the highest priority to Americans. Maybe that is why nothing ever gets resolved by Washington these days and over the past couple of decades. Today’s American politicians do not know how to resolve the highest priority problems facing Americans so they work on stuff that has no answer just to look like they are working on something, e.g. rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Pathetic leadership and know how. The numbers do not lie.

2) Since most of us just got done paying our taxes to the Federal government, consider some facts and numbers that show how perverted our current tax code is, as explained in an article in Reason magazine by Veronique de Rugy:

• On average, each American family had to expend 8 hours and $120 to file their tax personal returns.
• This translates into 1.35 billion wasted hours just filing tax returns. 
• The compliance cost to the country, Americans, and our economy to file those non-business tax returns is over $20 billion a year.
• 45.3% of Americans do not pay anything in Federal income taxes. Were you in that 45.3% or were you the one of the 54.7% of Americans who actually paid real money to the Federal government while many of your neighbors paid nothing?
• The top 1% of earners in this country paid a whopping 37% of all Federal income tax while the top 10% paid 70% of all Federal income taxes.

A few observations relative to this idiocy:

• How many needy Americans could be helped if some of those 1.35 billion hours could be funneled into volunteer work to help the needy, hungry and homeless in this country rather than wasting time doing tax returns?
• How many needy Americans would be helped if that $20 billion could be funneled into the needs of the needy, hungry, and homeless in this country rather than wasting time paying for tax returns to be done?
• Given that almost half of all Americans do not pay anything in Federal income taxes, it is not a surprise that they do not get excited when the American political class wastes Federal tax money on stupid and inane projects and programs, they have no stake in making sure that Congress and the President are spending tax money efficiently and effectively, none of that wasted money is theirs.
• Given that record numbers of Americans are leaving the country every year and renouncing their citizenship and the likelihood that those leaving are part of the top 1% or top 10% of earners, how long will it take for the Federal government raises taxes on EVERYONE to compensate for the high earners leaving the country forever?

Scary questions and results from a scary, cumbersome, and stupid tax code, as proven by the numbers.

3) One last set of numbers for today. When Obama came into office, there was significant hope across the MIddle East and the World that he would help to finally bring peace to the region. But consider some numbers from the March 4, 2016 issue of The Week magazine:

• A huge weapons buildup is current underway in the Middle East.
• Saudi Arabia is now the second largest arms and weapons importer inthe world behind only India.
• Annual Saudi and Qatar arms purchases are up an amazing 275% since 2011.
• Weapons imports by Egypt and the United Arab Emirates are up 35% since 2011.
• Iran is ramping up its weapons purchases, mostly from Russia.
• But despite that hope of peace from Obama early in his term, the United States is still by far the world’s largest weapons and arms exporter in the world, accounting for one third of all weapons sales.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. Obama is not better than all previous Presidents, the numbers showing that this country is still the nation most responsible for arming the rest of the world, a very dangerous world.

That will do it for the numbers today. America making the world a more dangerous place, the IRS and the U.S. tax code making life more miserable for Americans, and Obama more out of touch with what is important to Americans, the numbers do no lie. More depressing numbers tomorrow.

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

www.loathemygovernment.com

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

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

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

The Obama Era, Part 7 - Memories From The Worst Presidency Ever?

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

This theme unexpectedly took four days to cover, that is how many failures, lies, threats, and narcissism examples we could list out from this President. The first post can be accessed at:

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2015/12/the-obama-era-part-1-memories-from.html

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

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

Today, we will discuss more things that I remember from this Presidency, including the latest Pew Research results, in addition to the horror stories and disasters we already talked about, starting with the link listed above:

- I will remember that the American public rate “gun policy” and “climate change” as the 16th and 17th (out of 18 issues) most important issues in their lives while this President seems to focus only on these two issues most of the time, a bad misalignment with what Americans want him to do.

- I will remember that this President worked hard on a trans pacific trade agreement even though Americans rated that the least important (18th) issue in their lives.

- I will remember that Americans rated the “economy” as the most important issue in their lives even though this Presidential administration has been doing a horrible job at developing and implementing effective economic policy, given that 45 million Americans still receiving monthly Federal food assistance, 14 million Americans who are still unemployed or underemployed, national annual economic growth has never come close to attaining the long term annual average, and household income and wages have been completely stagnant during the life of this Presidency.

- I will remember that dealing with immigration has steadily jumped up over time to become the 11th most important issue to Americans, indicating that they are not happy with Obama’s immigration performance.

- I will remember that as Obama has weakened our military and meddled in military decisions that only experienced military veterans should deal with, Americans desire to “strengthen our military” has grown 8%.

- I will remember how the number of Americans view “protecting the environment” as a top issue has dropped 5% during the Obama Presidency despite the President’s obsession with the potential myth of manmade climate change.

- I will remember how this President promised “hope and change” but 51% of Americans now think that his failures will now outweigh his accomplishments with only 39% thinking his accomplishments will outweigh his failures.

- I will remember how independent voters have a massive 16 point difference between those thinking that his failures will outweigh his accomplishments.

Thus, the Pew results show that America also has a lot of bad memories of this Presidency, that I am not an outlier in my memories of how bad the shortcomings have been of this Presidency.

P.S. One last set of memories, based on the fact that Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia recently passed away and the President of the United States did not attend the funeral. The funeral was held Washington DC, not an inconvenience for the President. It was held on a weekend, traditionally not a work day for anyone in Washington. Previous Presidents have attended funerals of Supreme Court justices so there is a precedent. It is not in the heat of an election season.

Thus, I will remember how this President refused to attend the funeral of a very important person in this country but did attend, and speak at, the funeral of others whose importance and contributions to the country was far less important:

• Less than two months before the 2012 Presidential election, Obama took time out of his schedule to attend and speak at the the funeral service of Democratic Senator Daniel Inouye, which much like the Scalia funeral, is being held in D.C.
• The President attended and spoke at the funeral of Democrat and former Ku Klux Klan member Senator Robert Byrd.
• The President attended and spoke at the funeral of Reverend Clementa Pinckney who was one of the nine people killed in a mass shooting in South Carolina in 2015 even though he had never met the reverend.
• Just six months after skipping the funeral of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and in doing so insulted our British allies, Obama attended and spoke at the funeral of former Democratic Speaker of the House Tom Foley. 
• Obama traveled to New York for the memorial service of Walter Cronkite, where he spoke, although he had never met Cronkite. 
• Obama traveled to South Africa to attend the funeral of non-American Nelson Mandela.

But this President cannot travel across town to the funeral of a Supreme Court justice. And this is so typical of what I will remember of this Presidency: if any event, including an important funeral of an important American, did not support an Obama political situation or feed his ego, he reverts back to being the community organizer that he has always been, whether in Chicago or in Washington.

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

www.loathemygovernment.com

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

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

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

The American Political Class - "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly" Today: The Bad, Part 1

This week we are going through a number of posts under the theme of “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly,” stealing a title from an old Clint Eastwood movie. Yesterday, we looked at some of the good things going on in the country. 

When you write a blog like this, it can get kind of depressing as we watch our political class operate government in such a way that incompetence is rampant and rewarded, taxpayer wealth is abused and wasted, and the politicians in office have neither the will or the ability to truly resolve the major issues facing Americans. They are more intent on personal self-enrichment and staying in office.

Thus, it was good yesterday to get away from the disaster that is the American political class and talk about some good things going on in the country ("The Good"), all being executed and put forth for the betterment of Americans by private citizens doing the right thing. This is opposed to waiting for the politicians to do the wrong thing or do nothing but costing us a lot for their non-productive efforts.

However, today and probably tomorrow, we have to dive into the “The Bad” part of our theme. “The Bad” items discussed below are mostly concerned on how Americans feel about the state of the country, the state of their lives, and their attitudes towards the people causing most of the problems in this country, namely the current set of politicians. Never has a set of politicians been so ineffective or so demoralizing to the citizens of Americas, as we review “The Bad” conditions and feelings prevalent in America today:

1) According to a recent survey by Pew Research:

• The opinion that the United States is No. 1 in the world has dropped significantly in just the last three years.
• Pew found that only 28% believe that the U.S. “stands above all other countries in the world.” 
• 58% say it is “one of the greatest countries in the world, along with some others.” 
• 12% said that there are other countries “that are better.”
• Just three years ago, well within the current Presidential administration and current members of Congress, 38% said the U.S. was No. 1 compared to only 28% today, a whopping 26% decrease.
• 52% of Republicans said America stood above the others but that feeling has decreased has dropped to only 37%, a decrease of 28% in just three years.
• In 2011, 33% of Democrats said America “stands above” others while today only 25% believe that, a decrease of about 24%.
• And most depressing for the future of this country, Americans ages 18-29, are at the bottom of those who view the nation as standing alone in greatness with only 15% of those under 30 express that view today, down from 27% three years ago, a whopping decrease of 44%.
• Even senior citizens, the most optimistic about America, have seen a 20% decline in three years in their attitudes, shrinking their optimism about the country to 40%, down from 50% in 2011.

Thus, we seem to be a nation suffering a crisis of confidence, and nothing that I have seen from the current set of American politicians give me any indication or hope that these negatively trending attitudes and emotions will get reversed any time soon. 

2) Maybe one reason we are feeling so bad about our current environment is that a recent opinion poll from Gallup found that from a freedom perspective, we see ourselves as no better than 33rd in the world vs. other countries. Yes, we are no longer number one, we are number 33! This is out of 135 countries that were polled.

Other findings from this poll include:

• Only 79% of Americans say they’re satisfied with their freedom to choose what to do with their lives, down from 87% in 2008. 
• The top five nations where people feel most satisfied with their freedoms are New Zealand, Australia, Cambodia, Sweden and the United Arab Emirates. 
• At No. 33, the United States is shamefully stuck between Bahrain and Cameroon, from a perception of freedom perspective.
• And not only are we an embarrassing number 33, stuck between two countries that most Americans could not find on a map, we are trending lower over time, of the 100 countries where Gallup measured changes in freedom during the past five years, 75 of those coountries registered an improvement in freedom, 21 registered a decline in freedom, and four stayed the same. 
• Besides the United States, consider some of the other nations within the group of 21 who also suffered declines in freedom, just like us: Syria and Afghanistan are in the midst of wide spread armed conflicts, Tajikistan and Thailand are suffering through major political turmoil, and Luxembourg, the most prosperous of the decliners, has become a target of U.S. and European authorities going after tax evaders with foreign accounts. Nice company to be with.

The historic feeling and pride of living in “the land of the free” seems to have taken a beating relative to most of the rest of the world, a world that seems to be gaining freedom while we continue to lose ours.

But this should not be a surprise since the Washington political class, and especially this Presidential administration, has crushed freedom in so many ways including:

• Assassinating American citizens without due process of laws and trials.
• We have a Presidential administration that views the IRS as a political tool and oppressor rather than a tax collection agency.
• Spying on just about every American’s private electronic communications under the false premise of “national security.”
• Passing such onerous laws including the Patriot Act and the NDAA legislation that allows our government to hold citizens without trial or due process in jail or prison for an indefinite amount of time.
• Piling on so many tax burdens that freedom of choice is significantly curtailed when we have to spend about half of working lives just to pay for all of the taxes at every level of government in this country.

I am not surprised that we think our freedom is declining when we look at what the political class is doing to our Constitutionally guaranteed freedom, our lives, and our wealth.

3) But bad things are not just happening to our freedoms and confidence. Consider some bad economic trends that are probably also hammering at and causing our declining attitudes:

• Median household wealth is still substantially lower than it was before the Great Recession. 
• While there has been recent small improvements in the jobs data, many of the new jobs for American workers come with pay that is lower than it used to be, assuming they can find a job at all. 
• Lower pay impacts economic freedom which has probably leaked into the feeling of declining political freedom that Gallup measured above. A loss of economic freedom impacts our realm and spectrum of life choices in other areas of our lives.
• A recent article by USA Today found that the American Dream, loosely defined, costs a typical family of four roughly $130,000 per year. 
• Given that the median US household income is only about $50,000, and declining, at least 50% of American households are probably making less than half of the income needed to live the “American Dream,” according to USA Today. 
• Living the “American Dream” used to be attainable by just about anyone in the country with the will to work hard to attain it. Maybe not so much any more. 
• The supposed economic recovery that followed the Great Recession and began in 2009 has been the weakest economic recovery since the Great Depression years of the 1930s and history tells us how depressing and bad those economic times were.

4) A recent article in the Against Crony Capitalism website, written by Nick Sorrentino reported on recent government data that found the weak and badly limping economy has resulted in only 47.7% of adult Americans working full time. Mr. Sorrentino put forth the following opinions and data:

• Loads of Americans people are just barely getting by economically.
• Americans are going into debt to buy food with more than 46 million Americans relying on government food assistance or ripping off the program. 
• With such a bad job situation, many Americans have tried to make a living off of government disability programs, with those programs seeing record applications.
• Workers’ overall wages have been declining in a serious way since 2008 when they are adjusted for inflation. 
• The average American household brings in 7% less in real terms than it did 6 years ago. 
• Many recent college graduates still can’t find jobs and those who do find jobs are often underemployed from either the number of working hours or working in jobs that do not require their college education.

As the number of people working at jobs they like and at wages they can live comfortably with continue to decline, at what point does the economy and society collapse? Since we have already crossed over the 50% threshold, i.e. there are more people not working than who are working, we may be closer to that default and collapse than we think. 

Things are bad and getting worse so ask yourself: do you really think that the fools in Washington, the very same people that got us into this fix with faulty economic policies and economic ignorance, have any chance of somehow miraculously getting smart and wise in our lifetimes? 

More "Bad" tomorrow followed by two days of "Ugly" so hold on.

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

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