Love My Country, Loathe My Government: transparency

Showing posts with label transparency. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 17, 2016

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

www.loathemygovernment.com

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

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

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

Wednesday, April 27, 2016

April, 2016, Part 5, The Unfolding Disaster That is Obama Care: Illegals Get Illegal Obama Care Benefits, The Administration Stonewalls Congress, and More

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

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

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

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

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

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

This week we have beeen reviewing the latest unfolding disasters from the worst piece of legislation ever written by Washington at a very high level. Let's continue with more disasters today:

1) Michael McGrady, writing for the www.constitution.com website on April 1, 2016, took a look back at the the havoc created by Obama Care on its sixth anniversary of being enacted into law:

Although we have already shown the many disasters of Obama Care including the termination of millions of insurance policies, the loss of access to preferred doctors, hospitals, and insurance plans, the ever rising Obama Care policy deductibles and premiums, the narrowing of insurance and doctor networks, the increasing chance of identity theft, the trillions of dollars that the law will eventually cost taxpayers, the increasing amount of taxes, the dampening of economic growth, etc., on the sixth anniversary, the Obama administration seems oh so ever out of touch with these realities, issuing the following statement: “We’ve made good progress in the last six years.”
They must define “progress” as skyrocketing premium and deductible costs of Obama Care policies.
The must define “progress” as millions of people losing access to their current insurance policies that they were perfectly happy with.
They must define “progress” as millions of losing access to their current employer provided insurance options because Obama Care made those current insurance benefits too expensive to continue.
They must define “progress’ as the situation that was outlined in a recent Blue Cross Blue Shield industry group analysis which found that individuals who were once insured by a Blue Cross or Blue Shield policy but were forced into an Obama Care policy for coverage ended up being sicker and most costly to insure than prior to their Obama Care coverage.
They must define “progress” as insurance companies across the company losing hundreds of billions of dollars from their Obama Care policies.
They must define “progress” as over half of the 23 Obama Care co-op organizations already going out of business for financial reasons with another eight or more likely to collapse in the next year or so.
They must define “progress” as the recent finding from the Kaiser Family Foundation which found that health insurance deductibles will rise faster than insurance premiums, wages, and inflation, with those deductibles rising seven times faster than wages over the past five years and three times faster than premiums.

If this is Obama’s definition of progress, I would hate to see his definition of failure because no matter you view Obama Care, it has been a disaster along just about any dimension possible.

2) One of the selling points that President Obama constantly harped on prior to the enacting of the legislation is that no illegal immigrants would get an advantage of the law, it would only be for legal residents. But of course, this has turned out to be another Obama lie and Obama Care lie, as outlined in a recent Wall Street Journal article which was based on a public opinion survey:

Taxpayers are indeed subsidizing healthcare for illegal immigrants across the country even though it is prohibited by the legislation.
Hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants in 20 of the 25 counties across the country with the largest illegal immigrant population have been signing up for Federal government healthcare programs paid for by American taxpayers.
As many as 750,000 illegal immigrants have gotten this taxpayer benefit at a cost of over $1 billion.

More lies, more costs, more law breaking, typical Obama administration mode of operation.

3) Kathryn Watson, recently writing for the Daily Caller website, pointed out how the Obama administration was ignoring formal requests for documents from Congress as they are related to Obama Care. In this instant of Obama administration lack of transparency, the administration are refusing to give Congress formally subpoenaed documents regarding the failed co-ops of Obama Care.

Members of Congress are concerned that the remaining Obama Care co-ops are likely to go belly up soon and want to help make the process as painless as possible for those customers of those likely failing co-ops, giving them enough time to line up other health insurance coverage if their co-op policies tank. Seems like a reasonable Congressional request, given that the customers of the 12 co-ops that have already failed received very little heads up as far as arranging for alternative coverage once their co-op failed.

These documents were formally requested months ago but still the Obama administration has refused to release them as they are legally required to do, leading Congressman Jason Chaffetz, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, the committee that requested the documents, to state: “Health and Human Services has not provided any valid legal reason for withholding information from this committee. Rather, they assert that if certain information was released publicly, it could cause consumers to think twice before enrolling in CO-OP insurance plans….Our efforts to obtain information about these programs have been met with unexplained delays and what seems like bad faith.”

Well, duh, that is the reason Congress wants the documents, to ensure that Americans are protected from a coverage and financial perspective. Instead, the Obama administration would prefer to protect the interests of the failing co-ops than the Americans who are or who might use them. Insanity.

4) And finally for today, more Obama administration shady dealings, as reported by Washington Examiner reporter Robert King on April 15, 2016. Apparently, some Congressional Republicans are charging that the Obama administration is using $3.5 billion in taxpayer wealth to help protect insurance companies from financial shortfalls as a result of Obama Care. Democrats in Congress, of course, disagree with this assessment.

A recent House committee looked into whether billions of dollars are being improperly diverted into the law’s reinsurance program. This program was embedded in the legislation and was intended to help insurance companies adjust to the Obama Care world by creating a pool of insurance company money to help them serve the claims of Obama Care policy holders who were the sickest and most in need of medical care and had pre-existing conditions.

However, as required by the law, part of the funds that went into that pool from insurance companies was supposed to be sent to the Treasury Department as a deficit reduction mechanism. But Republicans claim that the Centers For Medicare and Medicaid decided to keep that money and not send it to the Treasury as required: "Despite issuing two final rules that allocated a portion of the reinsurance payments to the U.S. Treasury, CMS changed its position to prioritize payments to insurers," said Rep. Tim Murphy, R-Pa., chairman of the subcommittee. "Essentially, CMS ruled that the Treasury doesn't get any money until the insurers got paid."

But Democrats and Obama administration officials deny this reality and say they are allowed to withhold those funds and divert them to the insurance companies offering Obama Care policies, essentially giving the big insurance companies a taxpayer funded bailout. And the insurance companies probably desperately want those Treasury bound dollars since according to the article, the Obama Care results have been so bad and the funding of the reinsurance pot so lean that insurance companies only got $363 million of the $2.9 billion they requested to be kept whole by Obama Care policies.

That will do it for today. More failures: big insurance companies getting taxpayer bailouts, stonewalling Congress at the risk of hurting ordinary Americans from a failing Obama Care co-op program perspective, illegally giving illegal immigrants Obama Care and Federal government health care at taxpayer expense, and a delusional administration on the sixth anniversary of the Obama Care disaster legislation being enacted.

As we have said before, I do not think you could have purposely constructed a law to fail in so many ways as Obama Care has failed. And every month we see and report on more failures as the death spiral of the legislation continues to gain speed. We will do one more post on the unfolding disaster tomorrow for this month where we will just focus on the personal tragedies that Obama Care has created for ordinary Americans across the country, tragedies that Obama thinks is “progress.”

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:

Thursday, April 14, 2016

April, 2016, Part 10, Political Class Insanity: Hillary's Lack Of Trabsparency, Our Opppresive Tax Freedom Day, and The Failure of Dodd-Frank

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

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

1) After seven and half years of Obama and his administration hiding secretes, stonewalling Freedom Of Information Act Requests, spying on journalists, and falling miserably short of his campaign promise to operate the “most transparent” administration ever, it would certainly be refreshing to have a President who actually is honest, in integrity, and not suppressing information that Americans have every right to see and examine, no matter how embarrassing to anyone in Washington. But if Hillary Clinton gets elected, we should probably expect more of the same thing, a government and administration shrouded in secrecy and corruption.

We make that assumption based on two of Clinton’s recent actions that provide no indication that she will be any different than Obama. It is no secret that Hilary is very chummy with and gets a lot of campaign donations from Wall Street firms and executives. In fact, she has given many private speeches to those same firms and executives for which she received hundreds of thousands of dollars.

But she refuses to release the texts of those speeches to the public, a suspicious move that many have interpreted as saying that she will be very friendly to Wall Street interests if elected President. In fact, some people who heard those speeches verify that assumption. But she still refuses to release what could be very embarrassing and hypocritical texts of her speeches that would be in opposition to her public stands where she talks tough about Wall Street while secretly telling them not to worry.

And she followed up this potential scandal with the following little shenanigan. According to Chuck Ross, recently writing for the Daily Caller website, the Clinton campaign managers used a white noise machine to prevent reporters from hearing what Clinton was saying at a fundraiser speech in Colorado. This was reported by Stan Bush who is a reporter for Denver’s local CBS affiliate, CBS-4, who was present when the noise machine was turned on.

The fundraising event was held outdoors at the home of Governor John Hickenlooper, a Democratic super delegate. Bush posted a video online of what it sounded like, comparing it to a low intensity throbbing noise, like a helicopter off in the distance. As with Obama and his lack of transparency, what is Hillary hiding? At least relative to transparency, maybe a Hillary Clinton Presidency would be just like having a third Obama term….unfortunately for democracy and integrity.

2) Earlier this week we talked about how insane Bernie Sanders is in that he actually wants to raise taxes on EVERY American if elected in order to fund is socialism/communism government programs. This insanity is despite the reality that the Washington political easily wastes hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars a year from inefficiencies, duplication, uselessness, and criminal fraud.

How heavy and despicable has the tax burden become in this country BEFORE Bernie Sanders tries to increase taxation in this country. Consider the latest Tax Freedom Day analysis from the Tax Foundation:

On average across the country, Tax Freedom day in 2016, the day we stop working for al levels of government and start working for ourselves and our families, will fall on April 24th.
This is 114 days into the year, about a third of the year we now work for the American political class and the government levels they so ineptly operate.
This breaks down to working 46 days to pay our Federal, state, and local income taxes, 26 days to pay our payroll taxes, 15 days to pay sales and excise taxes, 11 days to pay our property taxes, 9 days to pay the corporate taxes,and 7 more days to pay other assorted government taxes.
And understand that this is a national average, some high tax states such as NewYork and California likely have Tax Freedom Days that extend into May, the fifth month of a 12 month year.
If you include the deficit spending of the Federal government, essentially taxes that have been delayed into the future, then the true Tax Freedom day is actually 16 days later or May 10.
In 1900, the average American paid only 6% of their income in taxes compared to almost a third in 2016.
To more fully illustrate how oppressive taxation is now in this country, the Tax Foundation points out that in 2016 the average American will spend more in taxes than they spend on housing, clothing and food COMBINED:

Besides the insult of taking so much or our wealth in the face of how much money our politicians and government waste, such a high tax burden severely impacts our personal freedoms. We have less money to start our own business. We have less money to send our kids to the schools we want them to attend. We have less money to help out our favorite charities. We have less money to live where we want. We have less money to live the lives we want to live despite working hard to get the wealth we end up giving to the government.

And as we have said many times before, it is not as if we have a lot to show for giving the political class almost a third of our annual earnings. Our roads, bridges, and tunnels are still falling apart. Our borders still leak. Our public schools still continue to not educate our kids. Our government retirement plans, Social Security and Medicare, are plummeting towards insolvency. Current political and government economic policies have resulted in anemic economic growth.

If giving government and the politicians that operate it one third of our earnings has failed, maybe we need to do the opposite, reduce taxation and reduce government’s size and wasteful spending habits. How much worse could it get? This country was formed under the banner, “Taxation without representation.” Today, taxation with representation is not much better.

3)The Dodd-Frank legislation passed early in the Obama administration was supposed to make sure that the Great Recession never occurred again. Besides being over 1,000 pages long, the regulations that have been written so far to support the law now total over 22,000 pages. It was this legislation that created the term, “too big to fail.” This means that big financial institutions and banks would never again be allowed to have such a big negative effect on the industry and the national economy that it would cause another recession and/or require the American taxpayer to bail them out.

Despite what its supporters of the law said at the time, it is pretty obvious from a number of perspectives that this law was doomed to failure from the start. First off, anything that is 22,000 pages long is way too unwieldy to be effective. No bank or government entity is going to efficiently, effectively or legally understand what is buried in 22,000 pages of government jibber jabber.

Second, if anything, today’s banks and financial institutions are bigger and riskier than they were ten years ago prior to the Great Recession. JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, and others are not any smaller. Although they may have set aside more resources to cover a cash crunch, market crash, or other downturn, they still are too big to fail today.

This last assumption was recently voiced by Neel KashKari. Mr. Kashkari was the main driver and developer of the Federal government’s bank bailout program during the Great Recession and oversaw the infamous TARP program (Troubled Asset Relief Program) that fed taxpayer funds to the big financial institutions and banks. He is now the President of the Federal Reserve Bank in Minneapolis. Thus, Mr. Kashkari has some pretty impressive credentials when it comes to knowing what is going on in the financial industry today.

In a recent speech, he boldly stated that the country’s major financial institutions are still too big to fail. That in the next financial crisis, Dodd-Frank be damned, the American taxpayer will have to rescue these same financial institutions again despite 22,000 pages of useless regulations. His solution is much simpler than 22,000 pages of regulations: turn the too big to fail banks into smaller banks by breaking them up into smaller component pieces.

Then, if a new, smaller bank failed during an economic downturn, no big deal, no taxpayer bailout. Simple, elegant and not a chance of ever becoming reality, given how closely big banks and American politicians have become: favorable legislation and treatment for continual campaign donations.

Another day, another set of insanity from the political class. Ineffective financial reform legislation, as stated by an insider expert, despite much ado about nothing, the oppressive and tyrannical tax burden in America today, and Hillary’s lack of transparency, i.e. what is she hiding?

This is the last post in this month's continuing series of Political Class Insanity. This month has set a record in that we needed a whopping ten days to get through all of the nonsense, idiocy, wasteful spending, loss of freedom, and other fiascos from the American political class. Things are getting worse over time vs. getting better.

Maybe it is finally time to implement term limits, for lord knows allowing the same tired and corrupt politicians to stay in office year after year is not working. How much worse could it get if we got some new people in those chairs in Congress and the White House:

www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com

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:

Sunday, April 10, 2016

April, 2016, Part 7, Political Class Insanity: The National Debt Fiasco Gains Steam, Criminal Email Abuse By The Obama Administration, and Obama's Continued Voter ID Denial Of Reality

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

1) We have often talked about how the skyrocketing national debt is probably the biggest issue facing every American and the future of our country, how it will double under Obama’s watch, and how the American political class has no ability, desire, or will to fix the problem of out of control government spending. And according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), it is getting worse and worse every day.

The comptroller general of the GAO, Gene Dodaro, recently testified in front of Congress that within just a few years, the Federal government will owe more than what the entire U.S. economy produces in a single year: “We’re very heavily leveraged in debt. The historical average post-World War II of how much debt we held as a percent of gross domestic product was 43 percent on average; right now we’re at 74 percent.” Obviously the amount of government debt on both a total basis and a ratio basis as compared to the entire economy are at historic highs.

Unbelievable, we are paying the highest amount of taxes in our country’s history, our so-called Tax Freedom Day is months into the year, we pay more in taxes than we pay for food, shelter and transportation COMBINED every year, and still the politicians in Washington cannot get enough of our wealth to waste.

And the very sad part about all of this spending is that we have nothing to show for it. Our roads, tunnels, and bridges are falling apart. Our public schools continue to do a lousy job of educating our kids. Our borders leak and are not secured from foreign criminals and terrorists. The country is a mess and we spent a lot of money, entrusting to the Washington political class, and have nothing to show for it. Insane.

2) Continuing with our theme of the severe budget and debt problems of the Federal government, there are people in the country that do realize how bad things are if not a single Washington politician does. Above, the GAO warned us of what was happening. Earlier this week, we reviewed what the Congressional Budget office had to say about the growing national debt and how bad it is. The Libertarian Party has been warning about the growing debt problem for decades.

To these voices of dire warning, let’s add the voice of JPMorgan CEO, Jamie Dimon, who recently accurately and succinctly reviewed what is going to happen if government spending is not gotten under control: “The long-term fiscal and tax issues (driven mostly by healthcare and Social Security costs, as well as complex and poorly designed corporate and individual taxes), immigration, education (especially in inner city schools) and the need for good, long term infrastructure plans.”

Dimon went on to properly argue that the longer the Washington political class delays in getting serious about its out of control budget, the more painful the consequences will be. Which means that Washington politicians will wait until the crisis overtakes the country rather than tick off a few voters in the near term.

3) Obama promised that he would operate the most transparent Presidential administration ever. We have shown dozens of times in this blog that this is one of the most obscene lies and deceptions that probably any President has ever made, the Obama Presidency has been the exact opposite of transparent.

One of the favorite ways Obama’s people have sabotaged transparency is by illegally and immorally using private email accounts to conduct government business.This is a blatant violation of ethics and current laws. His previous head of the EPA, his previous attorney general, and other high ranking Obama officials have been found to illegally using non-government emails accounts to hide their actions from scrutiny and review. Unfortunately, none of these high ranking government employees were ever punished or prosecuted for breaking the law, seems those in Washington take care of and shield their own from criminal proceedings.

And apparently this law breaking continues to go on. According to documents uncovered by the Energy and Environment Legal Institute (E&E Legal) via a Freedom of Information Act request, Obama’s current head of the EPA is doing exactly what her predecessor did, use non-official emails to conduct and hide government business. It seems that Michael J. Bradley, president and founder of an energy consulting firm that represents numerous green advocacy groups, has preferred to use a private email account to interact with current EPA Administrator, Gina McCarthy.

A sample of their law breaking includes the following exchange: “Joe, Would you please send this email to Gina for me? I would have sent it to her directly with a cc to you but I don’t have a private email address for her and would prefer to not use an office email address,” Bradley emailed to EPA Senior Counsel Joe Goffman. This particular email regarded the Cross-State Pollution Rule, noting companies Bradley represents, according to E&E Legal, want to support the regulation.

The topic of the renegade emails is irrelevant. It is illegal and makes one wonder what other secrets are hiding in hidden emails in the EPA and other government entities that the laws were expressly designed to prevent. You cannot be transparent if you have an underworld of email networks and contacts that are hidden from public scrutiny and review. Pathetic disrespect for the laws of the country.

4) I always love it when politicians like Obama boldly state that something as fact and their “facts” can be easily destroyed by reality. A small example of that recently occurred. Obama was in Chicago speaking to law students about how he thinks that state level voter id laws suppress the voting rights and opportunities of minorities. We have already thoroughly destroyed this Obama lie and myth in the following past posts:

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2014/06/destroying-political-class-myths-part-1.html

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2014/06/destroying-political-class-myths-part-2.html

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2014/06/political-class-myth-busting-part-3.html

But despite these obvious rebuttals to his voter id idiocy, he continued to say these laws hurt minorities. In the same week that he continued this inane line of reasoning, the Western Journalism website reported that: “The president did not cite specific laws, but in the past has opposed state-level voter ID laws. Obama spoke to the Chicago law students just days after Wisconsin implemented its new voter ID law for the first time in its presidential primaries. Voter turnout Tuesday was the largest since 1972.” “Voter turnout was the largest” in 44 years. Yeah, those pesky voter id laws really suppress voting [sarcasm].

Another day and another batch of political class insanity, idiocy, and lies. A President that continues to lie in the face of overwhelming contrary evidence, continuing law breaking by high ranking Obama administration officials, and more bad news on national debt levels and the ineptness of Washington politicians to do nothing to avoid a financial disaster of epic proportions. More insanity tomorrow as it seems to never end.

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:

Tuesday, April 5, 2016

April, 2016, Political Insanity, Part 3: Liberal Hypocrisy, Non-Transparency Of Obama, and The Failed War On Drugs Is Srtill Failing

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

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

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

1) Democrats and liberals always seem to be at the front of the line when it comes to political correctness and claiming that they are more sensitive to the needs of minorities. So it is especially fun when we find out that they can be as prejudiced and non-politically correct as those they accuse of the same fault.

Such is the recent case of religious insensitivity of Nevada Senator Harry Reid. According to the Washington Post, Reid supposedly urged a Muslim Democrat from his home state to terminate the Muslim’s Congressional campaign during a private meeting in 2015.

Jesse Sbaih, who came to the U.S. from Jordan 29 years ago, says Reid told him drop out of the Congressional race since a “Muslim cannot win this race.” According to Sbaih: “I did not feel that this was an issue. They made it an issue. I just turned 40. Been in this country for 29 years. And it’s just absolutely shocking that this occurred.” As proof, Sbaih gave the Post emails and text messages sent during the time of the meeting. In one exchange, Sbaih told a Reid ally that he was “profoundly disheartened and saddened that the Democratic Party is refusing to accept a candidate like me because of my religion and ethnicity.”

A Reid spokeswoman, of course, denied the allegations and called Sbaih a liar. Imagine what would have happened if a conservative or Republican had told a Muslim not to run for office because of his or her religion. The political correctness police and critics would have been in full howl. And since this story comes from the Washington Post, which is usually a strong media ally of anything Democratic, I would tend to believe that Sbaih is telling the truth and the Reid spokeswoman is not. Insanely hypocritical.

2) Jake Tapper is a CNN news reporter and one of the few people on CNN that actually has the nerve to question Obama and other Democrats when they are hypocrites. The Washington Free Beacon recently reported on how while Obama has been lecturing the media and press on how to do their jobs, Tapper correctly points out that the press’s job has been so much more difficult during the Obama administration because of how non-transparent it is. This non-transparency is in direct opposition to Obama’s campaign promise to operate the most transparent Presidency ever.

Details from the article include the following observations and realities:

Justin Elliott, a Pro Publica reporter, stated earlier in March: “In fact, FOIA [Freedom Of Information Act] has been a disaster under his watch.”
Elliot went onto say that as a result of a FOIA lawsuit, government documents have been uncovered that prove the Obama administration aggressively lobbied against making the transparency of government operations even more transparent.
In 2015, the Associated Press found that the Obama Presidency had set a record for censoring or denying access to information to government information requested under FOIA.
The AP also found that the backlog of unanswered FOIA requests across all government entities had risen by 55% to more than 200,000 unfulfilled requests.
According to the article, another recent analysis found that the administration set another record of failing to to respond to 130,000 requests for information under the FOIA.
Tapper pointed out that the administration has even used the Espionage Act to go after more whistleblowers than all previous Presidential administrations COMBINED.
Leonard Downie, a former Washington poster executive editor, is on record as saying that Obama had the “most aggressive” administration towards the press since Richard Nixon, which is saying something since helped to crack the Watergate scandal back during Nixon’s time in office.

Despite all of this evidence of how dangerous and opaque this administration has been, Obama still thinks that he has operated a transparent administration.The insanity and his denial of reality is mind boggling.

3) One of the major failures of not only the Obama administration but also of every other Presidential administration for the past fifty years has been the failed war on drugs. Americans still get high, we still lock up millions of people for being involved with illegal drugs, almost 50,000 Americans die every year from drug abuse, and the lost war on drugs has created some of the most violent and wealthiest drug cartels/gangs in the world.

Just how wealthy has this administration and every other administration’s failed war on drugs made the Mexican drug cartel leaders? According to a recent report on the Free Patriot website, a report that is claimed to be based on pictures and reports published by the Mexican Attorney General’s office and verified by Snopes, the following was found after a raid at the home of a drug cartel leader:

A large solid gold statue of the Virgin Mary.
357 Magnum semiautomatic guns with solid gold hand grips.
One of the largest gun collections in the world on display.
A man made cave under his luxury home with a hot tub.
More than one black jaguar on site.
Eight lions were found on the property.
A rare white tiger was on site.
A large art collection including some pieces that were illegal to own and some that were stolen.
About $200 million in cash, mostly American $100 dollar bills. That was stashed in multiple nooks and crannies throughout the house.

There was also a ton of cash in other currencies.

There were other gold machine guns and pistols.

Insanity that so much wealth had fled south of the border to create such a wealthy and violent criminal organization, all because in the many decades since Nixon declared war on drugs, every President since then, including Obama, has showed no desire, creativity, or ability to come up with a strategy that alleviates the pain that drug addiction causes and denying so much wealth to those that exploit those addicted to drugs.

That will do it for today’s insanity from our politicians. Five decades of politicians that have yet to understand that the war on drugs is lost and we need something else to treat those that become addicted, an Obama administration that is the farthest thing from being transparent despite Obama’s promise to operate the most transparent administration ever and his delusions that he actually thinks he does, and the hypocrisy of Harry Reid and other liberals who chastise those for not being politically correct but who are just as bigoted and biased as those that accuse of being intolerant, at least when it comes to Muslims running for office in his state.

More insanity tomorrow and beyond.

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:

Wednesday, January 20, 2016

January, 2016, Part 5, By The Numbers: Out Of Step With Gun Control, Obama's Apporval Numbers Plummet, and More

This is the next post this month in our continuing theme of “by the numbers.” We do this theme occasionally where we look at the reality of the numbers in the world and not the lies, deceptions, and spin of the American political class. I used to work for a boss whose favorite quote was: “There is nothing more devastating to an opinion than the correct number.” By looking at the statistics, trends, and numbers in our world we can cut through the politicians’ smoke screen to truly understand what is going on and hopefully, remedy the issues of the day.

And there will be a lot of smoke to cut through in the next few posts. Always believe the numbers before you believe our politicians, numbers do not lie but politicians do.

1) Despite Obama’s compulsion to shred the Second Amendment, apparently the rest of America did not get the memo. According to the FBI, on Black Friday the agency processed 185,345 background checks for gun sales. This came out to a background check every two seconds. So, as Obama tries to disarm Americans, Americans decide to arm up. Just another disconnect between Washington and the rest of the world and reality.

2) How do we know that America’s and Obama’s views on the Second Amendment do not line up? Three days after Obama did his press conference on the executive orders for gun control he was going to implement without the consent of Congress, Rasmussen conducted an opinion poll on the subject of gun control:

According to the poll results: “58 percent of likely U.S. voters say the government should only do what the president and Congress agree on when it comes to gun control.”
In addition, 59% of poll participants “say the additional oversight will not reduce the number of [the] shootings” Obama referenced to justify passing gun control in the first place.
50% of those polled oppose more gun control by a 50% to 45% margin.

These Rasmussen results are consistent with a recent poll done by CNN/ORC:

54% said they oppose Obama’s executive orders on gun control.
57% said they do not think that Obama’s executive orders will be effective in reducing gun-related deaths in the country.

As with most issues facing the country, this President and the rest of the Washington political class are out of step with what the voters and citizens want. The Rasmussen and CNN polls prove this point on gun control and Obama’s executive actions.

3) How is the President doing on other issues, given that he seems to be acting contrary to the wishes of the majority of Americans? A recent poll by Fox News show that his numbers on other issues are not much better than they are with the gun control numbers we just reviewed:

61% of those polled said they were unhappy with the direction of the country.
Only 38% say they are satisfied with the direction.
Only 23% of those polled think that the American economy is good or excellent.
76%, more than three out out of four, think the economy is fair or poor.
Only 27% think America is strong and confident today.
53% of those polled say that Obama has “mostly failed” relative to “improving health care.”
A majority, 51%, believe that Obama has failed in “stimulating the economy.”
58% say Obama has failed in “making the country safer.”
60% say he has failed to “improve America’s image around the world.”
65% say he has failed to “handle ISIS.”
62% say the he has failed to “handle illegal immigration.”
59% say Obama has failed to “improve race relations.”

Now, before liberals and Democrats pooh pooh these poll results from Fox, understand they are consistent with recent CNN poll results. The CNN poll found that 75% of Americans were “dissatisfied” with the governing of the country and are 69% at least “somewhat angry” about the situation.

We are not happy about a lot of what Washington has done to us and the country and our freedoms. These poll numbers tell the true story.

4) Let’s look at some more numbers that show how much Americans are fed up with the political status quo in this country. A recent Gallup poll found that 75% of Americans believe that “corruption is widespread throughout the government.” This corruption perception is up a whopping 10% since Obama came into office.

On an international basis, this is also embarrassing. The percentage of Americans who think their government is corrupt is twice the number of Germans who believe their government is corrupt. And not only are we embarrassed we are also angry with the situation since 69% of those polled are “somewhat angry about the ways things are in the country today.

Interestingly, 97% Trump supporters say they were dissatisfied with government in America and 91% reported they were “angry” about it, giving you an indication of what vein Trump has tapped into. Given that voter turnout has dropped over the past two national elections, it will be interesting to see if Trump’s angry supporters reverse this trend in 2016.

Bottom line is that Americans are not happy with what Washington is doing to their lives, their safety, and their country, the numbers are pretty clear on each of these aspects.

5) One reason why the economy might still stink years after the recession ended is the reality that the Obama administration continues to heap more and more regulations on businesses in this country:

The Federal Register in 2015 was the largest it has ever been from a regulation perspective.
According to the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the Register is now an amazing 82,036 pages long.
The Obama administration has set the record six times for having the largest Federal Register, leading the Wall Street Journal to call his administration “the most prolific American regulator of all time.”
More than 500 pages of the Register directly affect small businesses, the type of business that can least afford to divert time, money, and resources to complying with excessive regulations.
Many of Obama’s regulations were done without public comment and without Congressional approval, something that should not happen in a democracy and under the now laughable promise of “the most transparent administration ever.”
According to Politico, the administration has about 4,000 more regulations ready to be implemented in 2016.

Pathetic abuse of the government process and businesses that are trying to grow and be successful. The more time and money that businesses spend on regulations the less time and money they can spent on growing the economy and hiring new workers, which might explain why over 14 million Americans cannot find full time jobs in the Obama economy.

I find it hard to believe that previous Presidencies were so bad at their job that the Obama administration had to fix their oversights by likely setting the record seven times out of eight years for having the most regulations ever.

That is enough numbers for today. Americans are angry and frustrated with they believe is a corrupt government and political process, they are in mass disagreement with Obama and what he is trying to force on the country from a gun control perspective, and despite having entered office with sky high approval ratings, the country has soured on Obama’s handling of just about every issue from guns to ISIS to the economy.

The numbers do not lie even if politicians do, things are not good in America today. More numbers tomorrow.

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

Love My Country, Loathe My Government

Tuesday, May 17, 2016

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

Wednesday, April 27, 2016

April, 2016, Part 5, The Unfolding Disaster That is Obama Care: Illegals Get Illegal Obama Care Benefits, The Administration Stonewalls Congress, and More

Thursday, April 14, 2016

April, 2016, Part 10, Political Class Insanity: Hillary's Lack Of Trabsparency, Our Opppresive Tax Freedom Day, and The Failure of Dodd-Frank

Sunday, April 10, 2016

April, 2016, Part 7, Political Class Insanity: The National Debt Fiasco Gains Steam, Criminal Email Abuse By The Obama Administration, and Obama's Continued Voter ID Denial Of Reality

Tuesday, April 5, 2016

April, 2016, Political Insanity, Part 3: Liberal Hypocrisy, Non-Transparency Of Obama, and The Failed War On Drugs Is Srtill Failing

Wednesday, January 20, 2016

January, 2016, Part 5, By The Numbers: Out Of Step With Gun Control, Obama's Apporval Numbers Plummet, and More

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