June, 2020, Part 7, Political Class Insanity: The 14 Major Failures of the Obama Administration, The First Seven

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

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

We are going to do a little retro today. For whatever silly reason, on a regular basis someone proposes that Obama was one of the greatest Presidents ever. It is an indefensible position on so many dimensions. We have previously talked about the multitude of failures of his administration:

The laws Obama broke:

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2016/10/part-2-obama-presidency-end-of-error.html

The failures of Obama’s administration: http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2016/10/part-1-obama-presidency-end-of-error.html

The hate inspired by the Obama administration: http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2016/10/part-3-obama-presidency-end-of-error.html

But let's revisit some of his failures courtesy of Matt Margolis who recently published a review of Obama’s failures on the PJ Media website. His article was entitled, “Liberals Still Think Obama Was the ‘Best President Ever,’ Here Are 14 Reasons Why That’s Ridiculous.” 

So let’s take a walk down memory lane and review 14 of Obama’s biggest failures [note: if you are a fan of Obama, try to come up with the 14 greatest successes of the Obama administration as you read the following, I am positive your 14 successes, if they even exist, cannot come close to matching the damage he did to the country via his failures.]

The driver of this article was the recent celebration of Obama’s birthday and some liberals' celebration of his failed Presidency. Apparently, Obama’s following 14 failures were not discussed during this celebration:

1) There was wide ranging corruption during the Obama years. Mr. Margolis has come up with 30 significant Obama Presidency scandals including but not limited to, the following: 

• He tried to sell his former Illinois Senate to the highest bidder.
• He used government agencies to target his political opponents.
• He gave untold billions of dollars to the biggest terror organization in the world, the Iranian government.
• He illegally spied on and tried to derail the Presidential campaign of a potential White House successor.
• He lied about his failure to protect Americans in Benghazi.
• He operated an illegal gun running operation called Fast and Furious which supplied high end, military grade weapons to the Mexican drug cartels, weapons which were used to kill an untold number of Mexican citizens and at least one U.S.Border Patrol officer.

We will not list the other 24 scandals that the article pointed out, you get the idea, to say his administration was scandal free is the height of ignorance.

2) The student loan debt of American college students skyrocketed during his administration. Just five years into his administration, student loan debt in the country increased a whopping 463%, much faster than any previous President. He had the Federal government takeover the program which not only saddled theAmerican taxpayer with this debt it also resulted in debt ridden kids graduating college into a feeble job market that his economic policies created.

3) Under Trump, the national average price for gasoline has stayed under $3.00 a gallon. During the Obama years it was not uncommon to pay between $3.50 and $4.00 a gallon in one three year period, more than double what we have been paying under Trump. 

This was his feeble attempt to get the country away from oil and into a green economy, an effort that also failed miserably. His green initiatives resulted in the wasting of billions of dollars of taxpayer wealth with absolutely no redeeming benefit. Who can forget the green company flameouts known Solyndra, A123, Spectra, and dozens of others who all failed and took billions of taxpayers down with them? Of course, the biggest flameout was Solyndra, which wasted over half a billion dollars but produced nothing of value.

4) Supposedly the biggest success of the Obama administration was going to be his landmark Obama Care legislation which was going to “bend the cost curve,” reduce annual health insurance premiums “up to $2,500 a year,” would make it possible for every American to get inexpensive health care, etc. But it did not bend the cost curve, it did not reduce anyone’s annual insurance premiums anywhere close to $2,500, and it failed to come anywhere close to getting every American affordable health insurance.

In fact, health insurance costs, co-pays, and deductibles went through the roof. Millions of Americans lost access to their favorite insurance policies, their favorite doctors, and their favorite hospitals. Health Insurance for millions became more expensive and less usable because of high deductibles or the inability to access doctors who accepted Obama Care insurance.

5) Unrealized by many Obama supporters is the high levels of poverty that were attained during his time in office:

• He broke a 50 year record during his Presidency relative to poverty.
• The poverty level measurement in this country got to 15% during three years of his Presidency.
• The number of people on food stamps got to a record 47 million Americans and none of his policies over eight years did much to relieve this food stamp need.

6) He violated the First Amendment any number of times relative to spying on journalists using government agencies to do so, abusing and misusing the Espionage Act in the process:

• His Justice Department secretly and illegally obtained two months of phone records of AP reporters and editors.
• This caused longtime sources of the AP to stop talking to the AP and other news organizations, stymying their attempts to keep politicians and government officials honest.
• Obama’s Justice Department also secretly and illegally obtained the phone records of Fox reporter James Rosen, records which enabled them to track his movements and read his emails.
• Obama threatened him with jail time and labeled him a “co-conspirator” along with one of his sources regarding an investigation Rosen was doing.
• James Risen of the New York Times also got the same treatment as Rosen, treated as a co conspirator along with one of his government sources under the Espionage Act, a law that was passed during the First World War to combat wartime spying and which has absolutely nothing to do with journalists doing their job today.

For any American that cherishes freedom, these acts of subverting the free press have to be very disturbing.

7) But his spying was not reserved just for journalists. He literally spied on tens of millions of ordinary American citizens:

• The NSA’s size grew exponentially during the Obama years.
• This is not because the NSA was tracking that many more potential terrorists but because they were tracking and spying on millions of ordinary American citizens who had done nothing wrong but live their lives.
• The ACLU estimates that there was a 64% increase in electronic spying by the Federal government during the Obama years, much of which had nothing to do with terror suspects.
• According to the article: "The Obama administration argued in federal court in 2012 that the public has no “reasonable expectation of privacy” regarding their cell phone location data and that the government can obtain these records without a warrant. Further blemishing Obama’s record on civil liberties, his administration green-lighted a giant government database of information on millions of citizens who weren’t even suspected of terrorism or any crime at all.”
• Furthermore: “The Obama administration argued that “without any individual suspicion of wrongdoing, the government is allowed to know whom Americans are calling every time they make a phone call, for how long they talk and from where.” Even that wasn’t enough. After Obama left office we found out his NSA was conducting illegal searches on Americans for years in defiance of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. The ACLU called these searches some of the most serious Fourth Amendment abuses ever documented.”

“Most serious offenses ever documented.” Scary stuff when it comes to privacy, freedom and an intrusive and dangerous government and political class. 

Okay, that will do it for today, seven instances where Obama was nowhere close to being a great President. Failures of execution (e.g. Obama Care, good economic policies, etc.) and violations of the Bill of Rights, the Constitution, and existing laws. Unfortunately, we are only halfway through the ignominious trail of failure and disaster that Obama wrought on the country for eight long years. The other seven failures in the next post.

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

https://www.amazon.com/Walter-Bruno-Korschek/e/B002KYU08Q/ref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share

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

April, 2019, Political Class Insanity, Part 6: More Congressional Computer Hacking, You're A Racist If YOu Disagree With This Judge, and Maxine Walters Ignorance...Again

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) Several years Florida Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz got into hot water because she allowed foreign citizen data professionals do work for Democrats in Congress. Things did not go well, with sensitive, classified information getting swiped by some of the data professionals. Wasserman-Schultz then went wild trying to prevent investigators from getting access to Congressional computers since it would prove how careless she was with government data.

Seems that scandal is lingering and growing in ways that were recently reported on the Freedom Outpost website:

• Jackson Cosko, a data professional formerly working for U.S. Senator Maggie Hassan, recently admitted that he stole tens of thousands of Congressional documents, credit card numbers, Social Security numbers and the ENTIRE contents of the network drive of Hassan’s office.
• It is alleged that he stole private data about other Senators to embarrass them during the Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court hearings.
• Cosko took a plea deal for his actions and admitted he worked with an accomplice who helped him get access to the computers to steal the data.
• News reports point to another staff Hassan staff member, Samantha DeForest-Davis, as the accomplice.
• Apparently, the two of them worked for months getting access and stealing the data and information.
• Hassan had already been fired by Hassan for other, unrelated issues but DeForest-Davis helped him gain access to computer rooms and computers: “Deforest-Davis — identified in court documents only as SUBJECT A — allegedly repeatedly provided Cosko a key that he used to enter the office at night and install tiny devices that capture every keystroke, including passwords which were then used to access further materials, according to the statement. After Cosko was caught in the act by a Hassan staffer in October 2018, the accomplice went to the office and wiped down keyboards and mice to erase any fingerprints, prosecutors said.”
• Even more disturbing is the reality that Hassan serves on the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs so she probably has access to highly sensitive information, information that may have been compromised by a fired former employee.
• Court documents said Cosko feared that his “termination” by Hassan in May 2018 would stymie his career, but Democratic Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas hired him soon after. 

Despite being fired by a Senator, and subsequently breaking into that Senator’s office and her computers, Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee actually hired Cosko to work on her computers in her office. You cannot make this insanity up. What a mess, these politicians in Congress expect us to trust them when they cannot even be trusted to secure vital government information?

2) Daniel Greenfield, writing for the Freedom Outpost website on April 14, 2019, discussed a ridiculous but dangerous position of an Obama appointed judge:

• Judge Carlton Reeves was appointed by Obama.
• He recently went off on this ridiculous rant: "When politicians attack courts as 'dangerous,' 'political,' and guilty of 'egregious overreach,' you can hear the Klan’s lawyers, assailing officers of the court across the South." 
• So if someone disagrees with a court ruling, he or she is a racist member of the KKK according to the good judge, the First Amendment be damned?
• He went on to rant that Trump is trying to bring the country to a "homogenous judiciary".

This is a judge who is out of control, wanting to suppress freedom of speech by designating someone with a different opinion of someone like him as a racist. 

3) So many members of Congress are so ignorant and out of touch with reality that it has kept this blog stocked with political class insanity for years:

• Georgia Congressman Hank Johnson, during a televised Congress hearing, voiced his opinion that the island of Guam in the Pacific Ocean could actually tip over if too many Navy resources were stationed there.
• Texas Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee once wanted to know if a Mars rover vehicle was going to drive anywhere close to where Neil Armstrong landed on the moon.
• Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi once stated that the Obama Care legislation had to get passed so that we could all find out what was in it, i.e. she wanted to enact a law before actually reading it.
• New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has said so many incorrect, ignorant, and out of touch with reality falsehoods that she now has a recurring set of blog posts every month.

The above is just a sample of their idiocy. Consider how goofball Congresswoman Maxine Walters recently made a fool of herself during Congressional hearings:

• A bunch of bank CEOs were recently in front of a Congressional committee where the topic of student loans came up.
• Walters went on a little bit of a jag, citing statistics that showed a lot of people in this country had very high student loans that needed to be paid off.
• She then asked the CEOs what they and their banks planned to to do to ease the burden of student loans.
• She first asked Brian Monahan what his bank, Bank Of America, planned to do.
• Mr. Monahan answered: “We stopped making student loans in 2007 or so.” 
• She then asked Michael Corbat what his bank, Citigroup, planned to do with student loan burdens.
• Mr. Corbat answered: “We exited student lending in 2009.” 
• Still oblivious to her ignorance, she asked Jamie Dimon of J.P. Morgan what his bank planned to do about student loans.
• Mr. Dimon answered: “When the government took over student lending in 2010 or so, we stopped doing all student lending.” 
• When Walters FINALLY realized how ignorant she looked, she dropped the student loan line of questioning and moved on to small business.

What Walters should have know before going into a public Congressional hearing and making a fool of herself is that prior to 2010, private banks made student loans that were guaranteed by the Federal government. But Obama decided that year to cut the banks out of the student loan business altogether and have the Federal government serve students directly from a loan perspective.

But Walters and her staff were too stupid to do a little research ahead of time and educate themselves on reality. As a result, she shows another example of how ignorant and stupid many Congressional people have been and currently are, people that write, vote and enact laws affecting us all. And it appears that they do so from positions of ignorance and out of touch with reality.

Insecure Congressional computer systems, a racist judge, and Maxine Walters strikes again, making our case yet again for term limits. 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:

https://www.amazon.com/Walter-Bruno-Korschek/e/B002KYU08Q/ref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share

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

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Insanity, Part 6: The Idiocy Of Forgiving Student Loans and Even Her Mom Takes a Powder To Florida To Avoid High Taxes

Over the past few months, New York City Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has established herself as a human gaffe machine. Her inability to do simple math, her outlandish ideas based on an alternative reality, her economic ignorance, and lack of common sense has resulted in an almost daily stream of idiocy, inane comments, and ridiculous ideas that have no basis in reality.

As a result, most of our recent political class insanity posts have almost always had an Ocasio-Cortez piece of insanity. Thus, we have decided to separately track her craziness and idiotic takes on economics, business, government, and whatever else on a regular basis under its own set of posts. She deserves to have a separate effort that captures all of the ridiculousness she espouses.

The original format we were going to use was to start with a set of her original inane ideas and just continue to build on that initial list as time goes by. But after just three summaries of her idiocy and stupid ideas it has become obvious that we cannot continually add to the existing set of ineptness, that list would get too large too quickly.

Thus, each new Ocasio-Cortez post will have only the latest gaffes out of her mouth. To review her previous idiocies just enter her last name in the search box above. The latest post can be accessed at:

https://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2019/02/9-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-insanity.html

Let’s get started:

1) Greg Holt, writing for the Godfather Politics website on March 18, 2019, gave a quick review of some of Ocasio-Cortez’s stupidity and ignorance before going into her latest misreading of reality:

• She is a Congresswoman who majored in economics in college but does not know the real definition of the unemployment rate.
• She must have taken business classes if she was an economic major but still had no concept of the economic bonanza that Amazon would have brought to her Congressional district when she helped chase the company away.
• She thinks Medicaid is a well run operation that is cheaper than private healthcare, radically wrong on both points.
• She says that Americans should be “excited” about “being automated out of work.”
• She is pushing a disaster known as the “New Green Deal” which also included getting rid of cows, getting rid of air travel, and giving free money to anyone who decided they did not want to earn money at a job.
• She totally misread a Pentagon audit report and claimed that the Pentagon had misspent $26 TRILLION over a ten year period even though the TOTAL Pentagon budget over those years was less than half of that.

And now we have the latest idiocy from her. In a recent tweet she said:

Cost of the GOP Tax Scam for the rich: ~$1.8-2.3 Trillion

Cost of forgiving all student loans in America: ~$1.5 Trillion

Clearly where there’s a will, there’s a way.

When people say that there isn’t “enough” to do these things, what they mean is they don’t *want* to do them.

A few things about this idiocy:

• It is not a tax scam for the rich, these people earned that money, they did not scam it from the poor.
• Who said letting people get out from debt that they knowingly incurred is a good idea?
• And by the way Congresswoman, there is not $2.3 TRILLION laying ground that we are giving to the rich, it is money they will not be paying in future taxes.
• This is the same mistake you made when you thought that the $3 billion that Amazon was getting for moving into your Congressional district was somehow an existing pot of money that could be reallocated to other uses, it is a future reduction in taxes, not a current bucket of taxes.

So ignorant of taxation and life. Twitter users let her know how stupid this concept was:

• Colin Moriarity: “I made an awful call as a kid, lived on campus, and walked out of NU $60k in debt, all because of private school room & board in a big city.I paid every penny back, with interest, 10 years early. Do I get my debt forgiven, too, or do I get to pay the Taking Responsibility Tax?"
• Red Tide: “I paid back every dollar of my student loans. It's called taking responsibility for one's debts. It's what grown-ups do.”
• “Vmf9569: “I agree with 1/2 of this. If you cancel their debt I want my debt canceled. I didnt go to college bc I couldn’t afford it. They did and now you are saying I should pay for their college? Why? Bc debt is hard to pay off? Yes, it is. Get a second and third job like I have.”
• Am pollitcalnmoderate bol: “It’s the price of education, it’s not easy but it’s a choice people make, it’s not like he was forced to do it. He chose to, forgiving debts is just another way we’ll make people lazy and allow people to get away with horrible financial decisions with no consequences.”
• Jess: “Yes let’s teach kids that when you borrow money you don’t have to return it. What a great lesson. I paid back all my loans. Sure I had a small amount compared to others but you still borrowed the money. We need to teach these ADULTS life lessons such as this.”

You get the idea. A lot of Americans with integrity worked hard to get an education and to pay for their education. Assuming that those that were not as honest or hardworking or had as much integrity deserved to have their loans paid off by those who actually work for a living is a travesty, which is just about everything that Ocasio-Cortez comes up with or says, a travesty.

2) I always have believed in karma, that anyone who is evil or stupid eventually gets put in their place by karma, Mother Nature, or whatever you want to call it. Ocasio-Cortez seems to think that she and other in Congress are entitled to the hard earned dollars of hard working Americans, that it it is the right of politicians to take as much as they can from an honest earning American.

Most famously she thought it was okay to rape the earnings of American earning over $10 million a year by taxing those dollars at an obscene rate of 70%. Taking 70 cents out of every incremental dollar starts approaching slave wages.

But there is a little karma or irony when you consider a recent article by Daniel J. MItchell from the Townhall website:

• It has been no surprise that over the past few years many Americans have fled high taxation states like New York, Illinois, and New Jersey for lower taxed states like Florida and Texas.
• Florida ranks number one in economic freedom from a recent study while New York finishes dead last.
• The fact that Florida has no state income tax while New York has a very high state income tax rate explains a lot of this difference and why many New Yorkers are leaving the state in droves.
• And this is where the karma and irony comes into play since, according to the New York Post, Ocasio-Cortez’s mother, despite her daughter’s call for higher and higher taxes, has actually moved out of New York to Florida to, wait for it, to avoid high taxation.
• Specifically: “I was paying $10,000 a year in real estate taxes up north. I’m paying $600 a year in Florida. It’s stress-free down here,” Blanca Ocasio-Cortez told the Daily Mail.
• Former Florida Rick Scott and current Florida Senator laid it out for Ocasio-Cortez: “The elites in New York and Washington should commission a study of Florida to see what happens when conservative ideas are put into practice. …Florida’s economy is thriving, expanding at a record pace. …There’s a reason Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s mom left New York for Florida. And there’s a reason companies are fleeing high-tax states, bringing jobs with them to Florida.”

So even though Ocasio-Cortez’s mother gets it, i.e. that there is no political freedom without economic freedom which is why she is looking to reduce her tax burden, the Congresswoman does not get it, always wanting to raise taxes for stupid, inane ideas. Listen to mom, Alexandria, she is a lot wiser than you have shown yourself to be.

That will do it for now. Her mother understands, freedom, responsibility, and America as does those hard working Americans who worked hard to get educated and worked hard to pay off their rightful debt, three concepts that are foreign to Ocasio-Cortez.

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

March, 2016, Part 6, Political Class Insanity: A Failed War On Drugs, A Failed Tax System, Paying Criminals Not To Commit Crimes and More

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

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

This will be the last post for this month’s political class insanity. Most of today’s insanity is a bunch of quick hitters as we clean up all of the insanity that is still left to tell from today’s American politicians:

1) The Federal government and the political class that operate it give out a lot of taxpayer money in the form of loans to college and vocational school students. The theory is that if everyone gets more education, the country will be better off, a theory that has never been proven. Bernie Sanders, running for President on the Democratic side, wants to do away with loans and just give free college education to anyone who wants it but that is another story of insanity for another time.

How is the current process working out of the Federal government giving out education loans with taxpayer money? According to the Wall Street Journal, more than HALF of the students at 347 colleges and vocational schools failed to pay back ANY of their student loans after seven years. These 347 schools received $2.2 billion in Federal/taxpayer loans in 2015 alone. 

Thus, over a seven year period, it is likely that the American taxpayer easily lost $6-7 billion in loans that were never paid back based on the Wall Street Journal reporting. $6-7 billion could have fed a lot of hungry Americans, sheltered a lot of homeless Americans, treated a lot of American drug addicts, and medically serviced a lot of ailing veterans. Instead, the Federal government wasted it all on student loans that were never repaid.

2) Political class insanity is not restricted to Washington. Consider the case of Marc Kohn. Unfortunately, his daughter, Melanie, recently died, according to a piece in the April, 2016 issue of Reason magazine. Melanie happened to be a big fan of the NHL’s Washington Capitals hockey team. To honor the memory of his daughter, Mr. Kohn built an ice skating rink and allowed his neighbors to use it on land he owned. 

It appears that Mr. Kohn was not trying to build a business out of it or disrupt the area, he just wanted to honor the memory of his daughter and her passion for ice hockey and her favorite team. According to the article, the rink was very popular with local families. There was no mention that the rink had been too noisy, too disruptive, created traffic jams, etc.

Of course, such a nice story and the happiness of Mr. Kohn and his neighbors was too good to be true. County politicians made him close the rink, claiming that he did not have a permit and the property was zoned for farming even though Mr. Kohn owned the land and was not using it for any commercial purposes. Government intrusion into the lives and happiness of Americans, that is what we have come to in this country as government and its bureaucrats overreach their authority.

3) We have previously discussed the reality of how bad the current Federal tax code is, namely that it has encouraged American companies to keep profits offshore since bringing those profits home and investing those profits in the American economy would incur a heavy Federal tax expense. Most estimates say that there could be a trillion dollars worth of profits sitting offshore rather than being brought home to the benefit of the economy and our unemployed.

The main driver of this insanity is that the U.S. has a top corporate tax rate that is higher than the top corporate tax rate of every other country in the world except one. Rather than drop the tax rate and get tax revenue back into the country for the Federal government, the Washington political class leaves the rate so high that it gets NO income tax revenue from the offshore profits.

But it is not just the trillion dollars already sitting overseas. According to an article in the February 5, 2016 issue of The Week magazine, U.S. company Johnson Controls plans to merge with an Irish company, Tyco International, and become an Irish company, a country with a much lower business tax rate. This is the twelfth so-called tax inversion since September, 2014. Thus, there will be even less Federal tax revenue as more and more of these companies take their tax savings and investment wealth elsewhere in the world.

Of course, the insanity here is that the Washington political class would rather have a higher tax rate and collect less in taxes than have a lower tax rate and collect more in tax revenue. 

3) In a world where common sense prevails, criminals would go to jail for breaking the law. However, at least in Washington D.C., common sense does not exist since the city council recently approved a plan to pay convicted NOT to commit crimes. Let that thought sink in: the local politicians are paying career criminals not to commit more crimes.

The council decided that up to 200 criminals deemed to be “at risk” of committing more crimes would be put into a behavioral therapy program and if they somehow avoided jail time they could get cash payments of up to $9,000 a year. Yes, paying criminals taxpayer wealth not to commit more crimes vs. helping the homeless, the hungry, and the addicted in the city, yes common sense has left the city.

4) Obama has been meddling in Syrian affairs for years. He threatened to militarily intervene if the Syrian government used chemical weapons on its own citizens and when it did, the Obama administration did nothing. It has supported the rebels in the Syrian civil war. It likely ran weapons through Libya to the rebels, which got four Americans killed in Benghazi, all of which significantly contributed to the rise of the ISIS terror organization.

What have all of these failures accomplished? According to Roger Cohen writing for the New York Times:

• Syria will be the largest blot of the entire Obama Presidency.
• 250,000 Syrians have died in the fighting.
• 4,000,000 people have left their homes.
• Europe is being overrun by refugees.
• ISIS has established a large physical presence in both Syria and Iraq.
• ISIS has established outpost in countries throughout the Middle East and has inspired terror attacks around the world.

Could not have done a worse job if his administration tried to screw up. Insanity.

5) One last piece of insanity for this month. The American political class has been waging a lost war on drugs for over four decades. It has not reduced addiction levels, it has overcrowded our prisons, and created powerful and violent drug cartels. 

This failed war on drugs has left us with the following situation, as described in the Briefing section of the The Week magazine’s February 19, 2016 issue:

• 47,000 Americans died from drug overdoses in 2014, the last year for which complete data is available.
• This was a 7% increase over 2013.
• 47,000 deaths is about 1.5 times more than the number of Americans killed by guns or car accidents each year.
• 1.9 million Americans are addicted to prescription painkillers.
• 19,000 Americans fatally overdose on painkillers in 2014, up from 16,000 in 2010.
• Heroin death are also increasing and increasing quickly, up to 11,000 deaths in 2014 from 3,000 in 2010.

Failure for over four decades. A long running political class disaster.

That will do it for this month’s insanity. A failed war on drugs, a failed foreign policy in Syria, paying criminals to NOT commit crimes, a failed student loan program, an evil ice skating rink, and a counter productive tax system. Quite the day of insanity. More of the same next month.

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

March, 2016, Part 5, Political Class Insanity: Kiling White People With Impunity, Obama's Ego Creates ISIS, U.S. Marshals Crack Down on Student Loans and More

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

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

Let’s get started with the latest insanity from today’s American politicians:

1) Violent drug cartels have established themselves throughout the country. ISIS and other terror groups are actively looking for ways to spread terrorism to our country. Attacks on and deaths of police officers are growing exponentially. Illegal immigrant criminals are wandering our streets causing crime and murders to rise. 

One would hope that all levels of government are doing their best, and optimizing our tax dollars, to protect ourselves, our families, and our assets. And as always when it comes to hoping the American political class is doing their jobs efficiently and effectively and have their priorities right, that hope is quickly dashed. According to recent reporting by Fox News 26 in Houston:

• Armed U.S. Marshals are now being used to track down and arrest Americans who are delinquent in their student loan repayments.
• And apparently, it is not only people who powe mega bucks on their loans as the Fox News report cites a gentleman named Paul Aker who was recently arrested at his home by Marshals since he still owes….wait for it…. $1,500 from a loan he received in 1987, 29 years ago.
• How many U.S.Marshals showed up to arrest him for a 29 year old loan payment problem? Seven armed Marshals were needed to arrest him.
• Apparently, the Federal government has turned over loan collection problems to private debt collectors who go to Federal court to get a judge to sign off on a Federal arrest warrant which is then used to get the U.S. Marshals involved in the arrest process.

Forget ISIS, forget the drug cartels, forget about violent criminals walking our streets, we need the Federal government to focus on arresting people who did not pay their student loans and we must arrest them with overwhelming force. Insanely bad priorities, priorities that will likely get Americans killed, all because of a few student loans.

2) Remember how Obama recently enlisted the Attorney General and the entire Federal law enforcement bureaucracy to go after people that appear to be harassing or bullying Muslims? Never mind that religious hate attacks are much more likely to be directed at Jewish citizens in this country, on both a relative basis and absolute basis. This President explicitly wants to go after citizens that may have said some hurtful things to or about Muslims.

Now, I am not advocating for anti-Muslims hate speech or actions. But let’s keep things in perspective. Especially when you consider the recent remarks of a Black Panther activities who recently told a crowd of 200 in Charleston, South Carolina that they need to kill "every last [white man] and kill all of their goddamn families.” 

Malik Zulu Shabazz told a crowd of African Americans to rise up and commit mass murder at a “save the Black Church” rally. He cited a slave, Denmark Vesey, who once tried to kill slave masters and their families from long ago: “We got to complete what Denmark didn’t finish. Denmark didn’t finish his mission.”

So the full force of the Federal government will come down on anyone who dares to mutter a bad word about Muslims but a black activist can stand up and call for the death of millions of white folks and the Obama administration does nothing. Pathetically insane and racist.

3) I came across an article recently that highlighted some of the policies that Bernie Sanders wants to implement if elected President. As is the case with most politicians, their ideas are usually garbage and Sanders ideas are not only garbage but they defy logic and the reality of today:

A) ”Medicare For All” - Medicare is quickly going bankrupt, is so infested with criminal fraud and waste that it loses tens of billions of dollars a year to criminal elements, its unfunded liabilities are likely in the tens of trillions of dollars and its costs are rising quickly. And yet it he wants to make it bigger.

B) $19.6 TRILLION in tax increases over the next ten years - The Federal government easily loses, wastes, or is defrauded out of almost a TRILLION dollars a year and this guy wants to raise taxes and give it to Washington politicians and bureaucrats….. who waste upwards of a TRILLION dollars a year with no societal benefit in return. NO American, rich or poor, should by another penny in taxes until Washington does a much, much better job in handling the taxes we pay today.

C) Prosecuting so-called “climate deniers” - we do a monthly series of posts every month under the them, “I am a global warming doubter and a believer in science.” Over the years we have cited hundreds of studies, scientists, experts,and realities that show that man made global warming and climate change is very likely just a myth. But screw those studies, scientists, experts and realities, let’s just arrest and throw those in jail that dare to have an opinion that is contrary to Sanders' opinion.

D) Expand Social Security - much like Medicare, Social Security is already in a negative cash flow situation, is infested with criminal fraud that costs the American taxpayer upwards of $100 billion a year, it also has tens of trillions of dollars in unfunded liabilities, and is quickly heading towards financial insolvency. It is a lousy retirement investment option but yet Sanders wants to expand this failing system.

E) Making college tuition free - yes, take from poor working stiffs and give it to young kids who can hang out for free at the college of their choice for years and years, eventually getting a degree and education that has no use in society and results in college educated kids that contribute nothing back to society.

4) As we have said many times, ISIS has become the most vicious, heartless, and wealthy terror group of all time. But Obama has constantly underestimated the power of this group. He initially called them a JV terror group. They then took over large swaths of land in Iraq and Syria. He said they were contained days before the launched the worst attack on Paris since World War II. He said there were threats to Americans days before a major ISIS-influenced terror attack in California.

But what if he had not been so bull headed a full years ago and had listened to others? What if he put forth good strategy vs. political expediency? According to New York Times reporting, in mid 2014 the Iraqi prime minister had “secretly asked the Obama administration to consider carrying out air strikes against extremist staging areas” and that “Iraq’s appeals for a military response have so far been rebuffed by the White House, which has been reluctant to open a new chapter in a conflict that President Obama has insisted was over when the United States withdrew the last of its forces from Iraq in 2011.” The Iraqis pleaded for over a year to get help in wiping out ISIS but Obama refused to help out.

In other words, instead of attacking the early beginnings of ISIS with low risk drone attacks, Obama decided that he did not want to break a promise and empty accomplishment of getting U.S. forces out of Iraq. As a result, rather wiping out ISIS when it was small and local, Obama allowed it to become a serious worldwide threat. 

And he cannot claim that he was against U.S. military intervention in foreign lands since during the same period he was authorizing drone attacks in Pakistan, Yemen, and throughout Africa. A possibly missed historical opportunity to make the world safer, all for the ego of a failed Presidency.

5) One last piece of insanity for today. We have often pointed out how more times than not when American politicians take action or pass legislation they either make things worse or in the best case, have no impact on the problem they were allegedly trying to remedy. Just such an example was shown to be true by research done by Georgetown University economist Arik Levinson. His work was good enough to be published by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Back in the late 1970s, the state of California passed legislation that required newly constructed California buildings be built to new building codes that theoretically made them more energy efficient. Nice thought, more energy efficient means less carbon footprint impacts and less air pollution. At that time, according to the Reason magazine article describing the Levinson research, proponents of the new legislation claimed that energy usage would be reduced up to a whopping 80% in the new buildings.

Levinson’s research involved comparing California buildings built before and after the new energy efficiency standards were in place and also compared them to buildings built in other states that did not have as stringent energy efficiency building codes. His findings: the promised energy savings never materialized, those California buildings built after the new building codes took effect were no better from an energy perspective than those built prior to the new codes or vs. buildings in other states. Nice try, failed results.

That will do it for today’s political class insanity. Building codes that do nothing, a President’s ego allows a terror group to grow way beyond expectations, Sanders’ silly socialism ideas, killing all white people, and abusing the U.S. Marshal agency. Last insanity discussion 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

January, 2014, Political Class Insanity, Part 6: 83 Depressing Facts About Reality, Courtesy Of American Political Class (1-40)

I used to work for a boss who had a favorite saying: “Nothing is as devastating to an opinion than the right number.” Everybody has opinions and perceptions of reality and usually, those perceptions differ from person to person. However, reality never changes as does the proper and accurate numerical description of that reality. 

I keep that in mind when someone declares without hesitation what reality is. Usually, the people that are most sure of reality are either looking through the so-called rose tinted glasses to make their position in life and opinion seem better than it is or they are trying to convince others that things are much better than they are. I can usually burst either of their reality bubbles with the right number delivered in a calm, calculated voice.

This quote came to mind recently because of two articles I read. The first article from my local newspaper, the Tampa Bay Times, proclaimed that the upcoming year of 2014 was going to be quite good, that trends in the country were looking up. As proof of their insight, they laid out five or so trends, with little or no numerical proof, that proved that good times were ahead for the country.

The second article proclaimed a similar upbeat trend, proposing that recent upticks, not surges, in hiring was a precursor to good times for the country in 2014. The writer and his style of writing of that article was an obvious attempt to portray President Obama’s economic policies in a good light, trying to show that he has executed a deft economic strategy to turn the country around.

However, he left out some key numbers, namely that there are about 23 million Americans who are unemployed or under employed, the number of Americans on food assistance are at an all time high (almost 50 million), and that many of the newly created jobs were low paying or temporary jobs. Nothing is as devastating to an opinion than the right number.

In order to really devastate these false positive opinions and perceptions of reality, consider 83 numbers that have recently been put together by the Freedom Outpost website. We will cover the insanity of these numbers of the next two days as part of our monthly political class insanity habit. These 83 numbers have been created by the 500 or so members of Congress and the high ranking members of this Presidential administration. 

After reading them, you will be devastated, guaranteed. We have a lot of work to do in this country before it is too late and I doubt that the insanity the current political class in Washington has dropped on us and our families make them the right people to fix these 83 numbers. However,  until we recognize and acknowledge these 83 facts, we will never be able to eliminate them. And that, would truly be devastating.

The following 83 points of insanity can also be reviewed at the following link:

http://freedomoutpost.com/2013/12/america-serious-trouble-83-examples-2013-prove/#2sb1Qz31MHBTkkjB.99

The nice thing about this link is that they provide a backup link to every one of their depressing 83 numbers so that you can check for their truthfulness of their assertions yourself.

***********************************

The United States is in a massive amount of trouble, and it is time that we all started facing the truth. The following are 83 numbers from 2013 that are almost too crazy to believe…

#1 Most people that hear this statistic do not believe that it is actually true, but right now an all-time record 102 million working age Americans do not have a job. That number has risen by about 27 million since the year 2000.

#2 Because of the lack of jobs, poverty is spreading like wildfire in the United States. According to the most recent numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau, an all-time record 49.2 percent of all Americans are receiving benefits from at least one government program each month.

#3 As society breaks down, the government feels a greater need than ever before to watch, monitor and track the population. For example, every single day the NSA intercepts and permanently stores close to 2 billion emails and phone calls in addition to a whole host of other data.

#4 The Bank for International Settlements says that total public and private debt levels around the globe are now 30 percent higher than they were back during the financial crisis of 2008.

#5 According to a recent World Bank report, private domestic debt in China has grown from 9 trillion dollars in 2008 to 23 trillion dollars today.

#6 In 1985, there were more than 18,000 banks in the United States. Today, there are only 6,891 left.

#7 The six largest banks in the United States (JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley) have collectively gotten 37 percent larger over the past five years.

#8 The U.S. banking system has 14.4 trillion dollars in total assets. The six largest banks now account for 67 percent of those assets and all of the other banks account for only 33 percent of those assets.

#9 JPMorgan Chase is roughly the size of the entire British economy.

#10 The five largest banks now account for 42 percent of all loans in the United States.

#11 Right now, four of the “too big to fail” banks each have total exposure to derivatives that is well in excess of 40 trillion dollars.

#12 The total exposure that Goldman Sachs has to derivatives contracts is more than 381 times greater than their total assets.

#13 According to the Bank for International Settlements, the global financial system has a total of 441 trillion dollars worth of exposure to interest rate derivatives.

#14 Through the end of November, approximately 365,000 Americans had signed up for Obamacare but approximately 4 million Americans had already lost their current health insurance policies because of Obamacare.

#15 It is being projected that up to 100 million more Americans could have their health insurance policies canceled by the time Obamacare is fully rolled out.

#16 At this point, 82.4 million Americans live in a home where at least one person is enrolled in the Medicaid program.

#17 It is has been estimated that Obamacare will add 21 million more Americans to the Medicaid rolls.

#18 It is being projected that health insurance premiums for healthy 30-year-old men will rise by an average of 260 percent under Obamacare.

#19 One couple down in Texas received a letter from their health insurance company that informed them that they were being hit with a 539 percent rate increase because of Obamacare.

#20 Back in 1999, 64.1 percent of all Americans were covered by employment-based health insurance. Today, only 54.9 percent of all Americans are covered by employment-based health insurance.

#21 The U.S. government has spent an astounding 3.7 trillion dollars on welfare programs over the past five years.

#22 Incredibly, 74 percent of all the wealth in the United States is owned by the wealthiest 10 percent of all Americans.

#23 According to Consumer Reports, the number of children in the United States taking antipsychotic drugs has nearly tripled over the past 15 years.

#24 The marriage rate in the United States has fallen to an all-time low. Right now it is sitting at a yearly rate of just 6.8 marriages per 1000 people.

#25 According to a shocking new study, the average American that turned 65 this year will receive $327,500 more in federal benefits than they paid in taxes over the course of their lifetimes.

#26 In just one week in December, a combined total of more than 2000 new cold temperature and snowfall records were set in the United States.

#27 According to the U.S. Census Bureau, median household income in the United States has fallen for five years in a row.

#28 The rate of homeownership in the United States has fallen for eight years in a row.

#29 Only 47 percent of all adults in America have a full-time job at this point.

#30 The unemployment rate in the eurozone recently hit a new all-time high of 12.2 percent.

#31 If you assume that the labor force participation rate in the U.S. is at the long-term average, the unemployment rate in the United States would actually be 11.5 percent instead of 7 percent.

#32 In November 2000, 64.3 percent of all working age Americans had a job. When Barack Obama first entered the White House, 60.6 percent of all working age Americans had a job. Today, only 58.6 percent of all working age Americans have a job.

#33 There are 1,148,000 fewer Americans working today than there was in November 2006. Meanwhile, our population has grown by more than 16 million people during that time frame.

#34 Only 19 percent of all Americans believe that the job market is better than it was a year ago.

#35 Just 14 percent of all Americans believe that the stock market will rise next year.

#36 According to CNBC, Pinterest is currently valued at more than 3 billion dollars even though it has never earned a profit.

#37 Twitter is a seven-year-old company that has never made a profit. It actually lost 64.6 million dollars last quarter. But according to the financial markets it is currently worth about 22 billion dollars.

#38 Right now, Facebook is trading at a valuation that is equivalent to approximately 100 years of earnings, and it is currently supposedly worth about 115 billion dollars.

#39 Total consumer credit has risen by a whopping 22 percent over the past three years.

#40 Student loans are up by an astounding 61 percent over the past three years.

43 more points of devastation and insanity tomorrow, all courtesy of the American political class.

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