November, 2015, Part 2, Political Class Insanity: Stupid Water Idea From California, Stupid Wage Idea From Seattle,and Stupid Syria PLans From the White House

It is the start of another month which means it is time for our monthly review of the latest political class insanity that continually spews forth from America’s politicians. Their actions, words, quotes, incompetency, and general ineptness continue to reinforce our theory that we are currently being served by the worst set of politicians in the history of the nation.

As you read about the latest shenanigans and ineptness of the political class, keep in mind what should be their priorities in these difficult times and compare this list to what they are actually working on:

• NBC recently reported that ISIS forces are getting larger and stronger despite the Obama administration spending billions of dollars on a failed air campaign and military strategy.
• The stock market is stalling.
• Job creation is barely keeping up with population growth.
• Wage growth is anemic, growing just .2% in the second quarter, the lowest quarterly growth since 1982.
• The labor participation rate is at the lowest level in decades because the Obama economy cannot generate enough jobs.
• Thousands of veterans are still not getting the medical care they were promised by the Federal government.
• A record number of police officers have been assassinated in the past week.
• 45 million Americans are still receiving monthly Federal food assistance.
• Our borders still leak and thousands of illegal immigrant criminals continue to walk our streets.
• Major programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security are hurtling towards insolvency and lose hundreds of billions of dollars every year to fraud and mismanagement.
• Our kids are still getting lousy public educations at most public schools.
• The IRS and other government functions seem to be getting their computer systems hacked on a regular basis, exposing tens of millions of Americans to identity theft potential.
• Obama Care is a failure along so many dimensions as health care costs continue to soar despite the Obama promise that they would decrease.
• Annual Federal deficits, while down, are still about half a TRILLION a year meaning that even though the Federal government is collecting more in taxes than ever before, it still cannot run a balanced budget.

Again, keep these real crises in mind as you read what our politicians are actually doing, saying and wasting.

1) California has been suffering through an epic drought for a number of years now. I will not talk about what caused the drought today, although many feel it was the ineptness of the California political class on a number of fronts that at least made the water shortage far worse, if not caused it, to begin with.

Today’s water shortage insanity comes from an LA area Congresswoman who thinks she has a solution to the drought. Her idea is to ship water from Alaska to the LA port for use by California water users. Congresswoman Janice Hahn wants to ship water from the Blue Sitka lake in Alaska via ships. Back in the 1960s there was a proposal to build a pipeline to move the water to California but it was never built.

On first glance there is a big problem with the Congresswoman’s. Even if the Congresswoman can get the water to the LA port, there is no infrastructure or pipeline to transport it. No problem, Hahn’s concept is to put the water in giant plastic bags that would then be put into shipping containers. 

But the problems do not end there. Even if the water could be gathered, put into plastic bags and somehow delivered hundreds of miles, across land and water, to California water users, the cost would be about 12 times the cost of water California users are paying today.

And the final piece of insanity in this watery problem:

• According to the U.S. Geological Survey, in 2010 California users consumed 38 billion gallons of water every day.
• Wikipedia estimates that the average oil tanker can hold 2 million barrels of oil or 84 million gallons.
• Thus, if California used oil supertankers to transport that Alaskan water, it would take 45 supertankers a DAY to supply just 10% of that 38 million gallons of water used everyday.

Thus, her solution is one of impossible logistics, high costs, and numbers that simply do not add up. Typical non-solution from the American political class.

2) Many politicians incorrectly think that significantly raising the minimum wage is a good idea. We have already discussed the reality that this is not a good idea in previous posts with the most obvious outcome is that higher wages depress job growth. Businesses generally have fixed or semi-fixed budgets for salaries and forcing businesses to increase how much they pay their employees reduces the number of employees that the business can carry.

That is exactly what is happening in the Seattle metro area which has decided that substantially raising the minimum wage is a good idea:

• An analysis from the American Enterprise Institute, using metro level Census data, found that the Seattle Metropolitan Statistical Area lost 700 restaurant jobs in the first three quarters of 2015.
• In the rest of the state of Washington, where the minimum wage was not raised significantly if at all, 5,800 restaurant jobs were added to the state economy.
• Over the past three years, prior to the minimum wage increase, the Seattle metro area averaged the creation of 4,000 restaurant jobs a year in the first three quarters each year.
• Overall job growth in the Seattle has been positive despite the loss of the 700 restaurant jobs.

Now, these coincidences, while they imply a high degree of correlation, they do not necessarily prove that higher minimum wages depressed job growth. But, logically and these “coincidences”, along with elementary economic theory proves that many politicians have no idea what they are doing when it comes in their dabbling in the economy. The insanity is that they continue to think they are economic wizards.

3) More than a few times we have shown that President Obama has lied and deceived the American public dozens of times on various topics during his tenure in the White House. Many of us that have followed his pathological lying now assume that any public pronouncement he makes is false until proven true.

The position’s validity has been proven again with a recent article in USAToday on October 31, 2015 by Gregory Korte. For those of you who did not get the news, the President recently announced that he would be deploying 50 U.S. special forces ground troops into Syria itself. One would say that as commander-in-chief he has the prerogative to protect Americans and American interests.

Which is a true statement but for the past few years, according to the article, he has told us over and over and over (at least 16 times) that he would never put U.S. troops “boots on the ground” in Syria (my emphasis added below):

August. 30, 2013: "In no event are we considering any kind of military action that would involve boots on the ground, that would involve a long-term campaign. But we are looking at the possibility of a limited, narrow act that would help make sure that not only Syria, but others around the world, understand that the international community cares about maintaining this chemical weapons ban and norm. So again, I repeat, we're not considering any open-ended commitment. We're not considering any boots-on-the-ground approach."

August 31, 2013 - "After careful deliberation, I have decided that the United States should take military action against Syrian regime targets. This would not be an open-ended intervention. We would not put boots on the ground. Instead, our action would be designed to be limited in duration and scope."

September 3, 2013: "So the key point that I want to emphasize to the American people: The military plan that has been developed by our Joint Chiefs — and that I believe is appropriate — is proportional. It is limited. It does not involve boots on the ground. This is not Iraq, and this is not Afghanistan."

September 4, 2013: "I think America recognizes that, as difficult as it is to take any military action — even one as limited as we're talking about, even one without boots on the ground — that's a sober decision."

September 6, 2013: "The question for the American people is, is that responsibility that we'll be willing to bear? And I believe that when you have a limited, proportional strike like this — not Iraq, not putting boots on the ground; not some long, drawn-out affair; not without any risks, but with manageable risks — that we should be willing to bear that responsibility."

September 7, 2013: "What we're not talking about is an open-ended intervention. This would not be another Iraq or Afghanistan. There would be no American boots on the ground. Any action we take would be limited, both in time and scope, designed to deter the Syrian Government from gassing its own people again and degrade its ability to do so."

September. 9, 2013: "Tomorrow I'll speak to the American people. I'll explain this is not Iraq; this is not Afghanistan; this is not even Libya. We're not talking about — not boots on the ground. We're not talking about sustained airstrikes. We're talking about a very specific set of strikes to degrade his chemical weapons capabilities in terms of delivery."

September 9, 2013: "What I'm going to try to propose is that we have a very specific objective, a very narrow military option, and one that will not lead into some large-scale invasion of Syria or involvement or boots on the ground; nothing like that. This isn't like Iraq. It's not like Afghanistan. It's not even like Libya. Then hopefully people will recognize why I think this is so important."

September 10, 2013: "Many of you have asked, won't this put us on a slippery slope to another war? One man wrote to me that we are 'still recovering from our involvement in Iraq.' A veteran put it more bluntly: 'This nation is sick and tired of war.' My answer is simple: I will not put American boots on the ground in Syria. I will not pursue an open-ended action like Iraq or Afghanistan. I will not pursue a prolonged air campaign like Libya or Kosovo. This would be a targeted strike to achieve a clear objective: deterring the use of chemical weapons and degrading Assad's capabilities."

February, 27, 2014: "We are doing everything we can to see how we can do that and how we can resource it. But I've looked at a whole lot of game plans, a whole lot of war plans, a whole bunch of scenarios, and nobody has been able to persuade me that us taking large-scale military action even absent boots on the ground, would actually solve the problem."

September 5, 2014: "With respect to the situation on the ground in Syria, we will not be placing U.S. ground troops to try to control the areas that are part of the conflict inside of Syria. I don't think that's necessary for us to accomplish our goal. We are going to have to find effective partners on the ground to push back against ISIL."

September 7, 2014: "(You) cannot, over the long term or even the medium term, deal with this problem by having the United States serially occupy various countries all around the Middle East. We don't have the resources. It puts enormous strains on our military. And at some point, we leave. And then things blow up again. So we've got to have a more sustainable strategy, which means the boots on the ground have to be Iraqi. And in Syria, the boots on the ground have to be Syrian. ... I will reserve the right to always protect the American people and go after folks who are trying to hurt us wherever they are. But in terms of controlling territory, we're going to have to develop a moderate Sunni opposition that can control territory and that we can work with. The notion that the United States should be putting boots on the ground, I think would be a profound mistake. And I want to be very clear and very explicit about that."

September 10, 2014: "I want the American people to understand how this effort will be different from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It will not involve American combat troops fighting on foreign soil. This counterterrorism campaign will be waged through a steady, relentless effort to take out ISIL wherever they exist, using our air power and our support for partner forces on the ground."

November 16, 2014: "Yes, there are always circumstances in which the United States might need to deploy U.S. ground troops. If we discovered that ISIL had gotten possession of a nuclear weapon, and we had to run an operation to get it out of their hands, then, yes, you can anticipate that not only would Chairman Dempsey recommend me sending U.S. ground troops to get that weapon out of their hands, but I would order it. So the question just ends up being, what are those circumstances? I'm not going speculate on those. Right now we're moving forward in conjunction with outstanding allies like Australia in training Iraqi security forces to do their job on the ground."

February 11, 2015: "The resolution we've submitted today does not call for the deployment of U.S. ground combat forces to Iraq or Syria. It is not the authorization of another ground war, like Afghanistan or Iraq. ... As I've said before, I'm convinced that the United States should not get dragged back into another prolonged ground war in the Middle East. That's not in our national security interest, and it's not necessary for us to defeat ISIL. Local forces on the ground who know their countries best are best positioned to take the ground fight to ISIL, and that's what they're doing."

July 6, 2015: "There are no current plans to do so. That's not something that we currently discussed. I've always said that I'm going to do what's necessary to protect the homeland. One of the principles that we all agree on, though, and I pressed folks pretty hard because in these conversations with my military advisers I want to make sure I'm getting blunt and unadulterated, uncensored advice. But in every one of the conversations that we've had, the strong consensus is that in order for us to succeed long-term in this fight against ISIL, we have to develop local security forces that can sustain progress. It is not enough for us to simply send in American troops to temporarily set back organizations like ISIL, but to then, as soon as we leave, see that void filled once again with extremists."

Sixteen times Obama said he would not deploy American ground forces within the country of Syria. He made these strong pronouncements within the United States and in foreign countries. He made them publicly to American press people and to foreign press people and foreign leaders.

And yet he has done the exact opposite of what he told us sixteen times, in no uncertain terms, what he would not do. Why would anyone believe anything he says on any topic when after sixteen times in this situation he does a complete reversal of what he said he would not do? Complete insanity to believe anything this man says.

And even worse insanity, what in the world are deploying 50 ground troops into the hellhole that is Syria going to accomplish from a military perspective? Thus, he killed his credibility even further with what appears to be a stupid military strategy. You cannot make this stuff up, it is that inane.

More insanity tomorrow.

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

www.loathemygovernment.com

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

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

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

October, 2015, Part 5, By the Numbers: What Americans Want and What Politicians Deliver (Or Really Care About)

This is the fifth post among a few days worth of discussion 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.

The numbers we have looked at this week often had a common thread running almost through all of them: the views, positions, and opinions of the majority of Americans are often the exact opposite of the views and related actions that our politicians own. Since we are supposed to be living in a representative government system one would hope that the laws, rules, and government functions that our politicians oversee reflect the thinking, hopes, and views of the American citizenry.

As the numbers will usually show, that is nowhere close to reality, which I think reflects two underlying negative trends:

1. American politicians vote and act for their own personal interests first, Americans’ interests and well being being of secondary consideration. If a politician’s actions can get them more votes or more campaign cash for their perpetual reelection campaigns, than that is their priority, usually not the priorities of their constituents.
2. Second, I personally believe that today’s American politicians take care of their special interest friends and financiers first and foremost, and the interests of those special interest friends (e.g.unions, corporations, lobbyists, etc.) are usually not in alignment with what the majority of Americans have as their priorities.

Keep these two possibilities in mind as we go “by the numbers” for the next few days and try to show the major disconnect between what Americans want and what politicians are doing:

1) Stephen Moore, writing for the Heritage Foundation, put together a fascinating set of numbers in a recent article titled, “Nearly 1,000 People Move From Blue States to Red States Every Day. Here’s Why.” His numbers include the following:

• According to new Census data, the top seven states that recently had the biggest percentage increase in in-migration from other states were, in order: North Dakota, Nevada, South Carolina, Colorado, Florida, Arizona, and Texas. 
• All of these states are considered “red states” that lean conservatively politically, except Colorado, which is considered purple, somewhere between red conservative and blue liberal.
• The seven states with the highest exodus of citizens in percentage terms were: Alaska, New York, Illinois, Connecticut, New Mexico, New Jersey, and Kansas. Five of these states are blue, except Alaska and Kansas.
• The latest Rich States, Poor States document published by ALEC, the state legislative organization, estimates that nearly 1,000 people each day on net are leaving blue states and entering red states. 
• Nine states have no state income tax at present and those states are creating jobs at twice the pace of states that have a relatively high income tax rate.
• According to IRS data from 2013, in that year Florida gained $8.2 billion in adjusted gross income from out-of-staters. 
• That same IRS analysis showed that Texas gained $5.9 billion in only one year. 
• Five of the seven states with the biggest gains in income have no income tax at all: Florida, Texas, Arizona, Washington, and Nevada. 
• Conversely, New York, a state with high state income tax rates, was again the big loser in 2013, with another New York 112,236 tax filers leaving and taking $5.2 billion with them. 
• Illinois lost nearly 67,000 tax filers and $3.7 billion of income it can no longer tax.
• In 2013, 1.4 million more citizens left California than moved into the state, killing the theory of some that Americans are moving to red states for the weather rather than for economic reasons. In the same vein it does explain why colder than hell North Dakota is seeing a healthy percentage increase in migration into that state.

As always, the numbers do not lie. Human beings want to be free, they want to keep their hard earned dollars and to do so they are willing to uproot themselves from where they live now to take advantage of better economic conditions elsewhere. In his book “How Money Walks,” Travis Brown showed this to be true when he theorized that the two main factors driving this migration are: 1) whether a state has a right to work law (half of the states do) and 2) how high the top income tax rate is in the state. Nine states have no income tax today, and they are creating twice the pace of jobs as are high-income tax states.

Stephen Moore summed it up nicely in his article: “I’ve never met a Democrat who could come up with even a semi-plausible explanation for why families and businesses are hightailing it out of blue states. They are leaving states with high minimum wages, pro-union work rules, high taxes on the rich, generous welfare benefits, expansive regulations to “help” workers, green energy policies, etc. People are voting with their feet against these liberal policies.”

The numbers do not lie.

2) According to a Suffolk University/USA Today survey that was done back in late June, 2015, 70% of respondents said they do not want the federal government imposing a ban on the sale or manufacture of the Confederate flag. Contrast this with the temper tantrums and pontificating some liberals were ranting about back then when a young white adult shot up a black church in Charleston, South Carolina. Certainly a horrific event but the flag did not kill anyone, a deranged young adult did.

But that did not stop some politicians from trying to make points and a name for themselves by calling for a ban on the sale and displaying of the Confederate flag, something that 70% of Americans were against. Another numerical example of politicians being out of step with what America wants.

3) Lets go back to gun control, a favorite political topic of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. According to them, they know best when it comes to guns and they want to protect us from guns by shredding the Second Amendment and the right to bear arms.

But as we have often shown this past week, the numbers and reality between what politicians want to do to us and how we feel are diametrically opposed. According to a recent Gallup poll:

• A record high percentage (63%) of Americans say guns make homes safer.
• The number of Americans having a gun at home is up slightly over the past two years.
• Only 30% of those polled said having a gun in the home makes it less safe, less than half that say having a gun in the home makes it safer.
• Those feeling that having a gun in the home makes it safer has been trending upwards over time, from only 35% in 2000 to 63% in 2014.
• From 2006 to 2014, the number has risen from 47% in 2006 to 63% in 2014.

Another example of where today's politicians are so out of step with the wishes and feelings of the majority of Americans.4) And the last set of numbers for this update to our “by the numbers” discussion. Most of the country probably thought and hope that the election of the first African-American President would help bring the races together and help eliminate racism in the country. But, alas, hoping that any good ever comes out of the American political class is usually a fruitless endeavor and the election of Obama and the reduction in racial tensions is no exception.Consider a recent Rasmussen poll on the topic of race relations and the election of Obama:
- A mere 20% of likely voters polled by Rasmussen feel that Obama has brought Americans of different races closer together.

- More than double feel that he has driven the races further apart.
27% say his election has had no difference on race relations.

- On a racial breakdown, 44% of African-Americans feel he has brought the races closer together but only 16% of whites and 21% of other races agree that he has brought the races closer together.

- In the same survey, a strong majority of those polled, 58%, feel that there is a war on police in this country today with 66% saying that comments that criticize police officers by politicians make it more dangerous for police officers to do their jobs.

- 70% of those polled say that politicians only discuss race to get elected and not to resolve racial issues.

So much hope and so much disappointment, according to Rasmussen’s numbers. Just another fail on the part of the Obama administration.That will do it for this month’s discussion on the topic, “by the numbers.” As we have emphasized this month, it is always critical to look at the reality of the numbers in our world because we cannot rely on politicians to tell us what is really going on, they have their own agendas and the agendas of the political cronies to protect. The numbers do not lie, our politicians do.

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

May, 2015, Part 1, The Unfolding Disaster That Is Obama Care: Emergency Room Visits Up, Exchanges Crashing, and More

Ever month for the past few years we have had to dedicate multiple posts every month to the unfolding disaster that is Obama Care. It is without a doubt the worse piece of legislation ever passed passed by Washington, as one can see from our dozens of posts and the hundreds of mini-disasters we have discussed in each of those posts.

The legislation has increased insurance costs, stifled the economy, caused millions of people to lose access to their preferred doctors, hospitals, and insurance policies, increased the national debt, and exposed the many lies and intentional deceptions of this President and his political allies. It is a piece of legislation that has no chance of accomplishing its supposed goal of reducing healthcare costs in this country since it never understood nor addressed the underlying root causes of our high healthcare costs. These root causes include, but are not limited to:

• Americans eat too much overall and eat too much of the wrong types of food.
• Americans smoke too much.
• Americans do not exercise enough.
• Washington laws and regulation encourage additives such as high fructose corn syrup to infest our food supply.
• The medical industry is in urgent need of tort reform.
• Current laws and regulations discourage cross state border insurance company competition.
• Federal healthcare programs today are infested with criminal activity that wastes upwards of a $100 billion a year.
• The Obama administration never “followed the money” to find out where the waste and over charging was in the entire medical industry.

Without understanding and alleviating these root causes, it makes no difference how many people get Obama Care insurance policies, the costs will keep going up and care quality will keep going down.

So with this quick background, let’s take a look at what Obama Care disasters have popped up in the past month or so:

1) Many states set up their own Obama Care so-called exchanges to market and distribute Obama Care insurance policies to their citizens. Those that did not defaulted to the Federal Obama Care health insurance exchange. To encourage states to build their own exchanges, the Federal government and American taxpayer gave those states billions of dollars to get their operations up and running, with the expectation that this seed money was enough to build a robust and financially stable marketplace.

That has turned out to be a bad assumption. We have already reported on how many states have struggled to establish a credible online exchange, going over budget, curtailing features, opening up customers to identity theft threats, etc. That trend of failure continues according to a recent Washington Post report: "Many of the online exchanges are wrestling with surging costs, especially for balky technology and expensive customer-call centers — and tepid enrollment numbers. To ease the fiscal distress, officials are considering raising fees on insurers, sharing costs with other states and pressing state lawmakers for cash infusions. Some are weighing turning over part or all of their troubled marketplaces to the federal exchange, HealthCare.gov, which is now working smoothly."

I would take issue with the assertion that the federal exchange is working “smoothly.” That process had some serious operations problems during the second Obama Care enrollment period but relative to the horrible state exchanges it was much better. But the fact is that years and billions of dollars later, the state exchanges are mostly a disaster, something recognized by the usually Obama-friendly Washington Post.

2) The website, www.libertyunyielding.com went into further detail from that Washington Post report on what is failing or has already failed at the state exchange level of Obama Care:

• Insurance policy signups in year two of Obama Care at the state exchange level rose only 12% vs. 61% for the Federal exchange.
• “They are literally looking at huge gaps, and they are not sure how they are going to get through the year,” said Caroline F. Pearson, a senior vice president at Avalere Health.
• Minnesota and Vermont are so frustrated with costly data systems problems with their exchanges that they are considering handing over some or all of their functions to the federal exchange.
• Lawmakers in Oregon have already given up and dumped dumped their state exchange in March.
• The Rhode Island legislature is considering a fee on health plans that would go up or down according to the exchange’s operating costs. So much for the state exchanges not being a burden to local and state taxpayers, as promised by Obama
• However, the obvious problem with the Rhode Island solution is that any additional fees on the insurance companies will be passed down to the consumer, something most legislators seem to forget. Higher insurance rates will depress enrollments even more and likely result in more cancellations due to higher costs.
• In Colorado, Connecticut, Kentucky, Maryland and the District of Columbia, fees to support the exchange are imposed on plans sold on and off the marketplaces. Thus, now non-Obama Care policy holders have to subsidize Obama Care policyholders, increasing costs for those non-Obama Care customers.
• In DC, the financials are so bad that about $25 million of their exchange’s $28 million budget comes from user fees assessed on insurance products not offered on the exchange. 
• In Hawaii, which has had one of the worst exchange experiences, their exchange needs $28 million to fund operations until 2022, when it is projected to become self-sustaining, something that was supposed to happen already but which is now expected to be seven years later, officials say. 
• Without the additional money, “it’s going to be very difficult to keep the doors open,” said Jeff M. Kissel, executive director of Hawaii Health Connector.
• As a backup plan, officials are talking to the Obama administration about a possible federal takeover of the marketplace.
• The cost of the exchange system in Vermont is expected to balloon to almost $200 million by the end of the year, with state officials also thinking of moving to the federal marketplace if things don’t improve. 
• In Maryland, where their exchange’s systems problems were so horrible that they turned to Connecticut for help, officials expect to have enough revenue to cover operations for the fiscal year that begins July 1. If not, the exchange would need to ask the governor for more funds.

What a disaster and disgrace. So many promises unfilled, so much time and money wasted, so many lives disrupted for nothing.

3) One of the supposed big selling points of Obama Care was that the legislation would significantly reduce the number of emergency room hospital visits by sick people since they would now have health insurance. And while the legislation did increase the number of people with health insurance coverage, usually via the poor quality Medicaid process, it did not reduce the number of emergency room visits. In fact, according to a recent USA Today report, a survey from the American College of Emergency Physicians found that:

• 28% of those surveyed said they had seen a large increase in emergency room visits over the past few years.
• 47% had seen slight increase in the number of emergency room visits.
• So, three quarters of those working in hospital emergency rooms had seen at least slight increases in visits, the exact opposite of what Obama Care was supposed to do.
• “Such hikes run counter to one of the goals of the health care overhaul, which is to reduce pressure on emergency rooms by getting more people insured through Medicaid or subsidized private coverage and providing better access to primary care,” explains the USA Today article.

But this finding is not new since in May, 2014, the Huffington Post reported that: “The American College of Emergency Physicians polled more than 1,800 emergency room doctors last month, and 46 percent reported increases in patients coming through their doors since Jan. 1, the day coverage took effect for millions under Obamacare.”

But this should come as no surprise since the article also points out that the same thing happened in two states that had preceded Obama Care with similar programs, namely emergency room visits went UP and not DOWN as was promised by Obama and others: “While a survey of emergency department physicians’ impressions lacks hard data about patient behavior and can’t be considered conclusive, the results are consistent with studies about the effects of Massachusetts’ 2007 health care reform law and a 2008 expansion of Medicaid in Oregon.”

So did they lie about reducing emergency room visits or were they that lazy that they never checked for real world examples of what would happen? Given the track record of this administration and the current set of Washington politicians, I go with the former possibility.

That will do it for today but more Obama Care disasters to follow tomorrow, the legislation that keeps on giving...and that is the problem.

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

May, 2015, Part 2, By The Numbers: Baltimore

On a semi-regular basis we revisit the theme "by the numbers" just to check in on the state of the country and political class using actual realities and their underlying numbers, not the spin or lies from our politicians. You see, politicians usually have nothing to gain by looking at reality and the numbers since they are more than likely to have screwed up reality and our lives in the first place.

That is why they would rather lie and deceive than tell the truth. But that approach can be destroyed by looking at the hard numbers behind the mess they have created. I once worked for a boss whose favorite saying was: "There is nothing more devastating to an opinion than the right number.” And that is what we try to do with this theme, devastate politicians’ opinions by looking at the right numbers.

So let’s take a look at the numbers that have recently cropped up and again prove that the political class in America continues to be one of the worst set of people to ever hold office, given the state of the country, the many ways they screw up our wealth and government functions, and their inability or non-desire to step up and tell the truth.

1) As most informed people know, there have been riots going on in Baltimore, theoretically because of outrage in the death of a young African-American while in police custody, Freddie Gray. This post is not intended to fix blame on anyone, it is solely meant to lay out the numbers as they apply to this situation. Politicians have a field day in situations like this, playing off emotions and passions rather than understanding root causes and the basic reality of the numbers.

The following numbers come from a number of sources including a USA Today article, a National Review Article. the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund and FBI crime statistics: 

• Over the past five years, on average 136 police officers are killed in any one year.
• The majority of those officers are killed by black men.
• On average, 96 black males are killed by white police officers in a year.
• On average, 300 white males are killed by by white police officers in a year, three times the rate of blacks killed by white officers.
• A white homicide victim is over twice as likely to be killed by a black than a black homicide victim is to be killed by a white.
• Sixteen percent of “white” victims in homicide incidents involving a single victim and single offender were killed by blacks, compared with only 7% of black victims who are killed by “whites.” Given the fact that blacks are less than 13% of the national population, their homicide rate against whites and Hispanics combined is vastly disproportionate to their share of the population. 

Again, I am not making an conclusions or accusations about the Baltimore situation. But let’s keep the numbers in the forefront before making any accusations and proposing any solutions.

2) Any premature death is a tragedy, whether it is a car accident or a death while in police custody. But do we really need to Federalize the nation’s local police forces as Al Sharpton wants to do? There are three big problems with this idiotic suggestion. First, given that the Federal government is mostly incapable of doing anything effectively and efficiently, what makes us think that Federalization of local police forces would be a good thing along any dimension?

Second, having anything that resembles a national police force immediately brings to mind the SS of Nazi Germany. The SS were a vicious and cold blooded instrument of Hitler’s dictatorship, not a trend we would ever went to start in a democracy such as our nation.

And finally, are we overacting with a solution to a very minor problem? Consider some government statistics and numbers:

• Local police forces have 53 million citizen contacts of all types in an average year.
• Of those 53 million annual contacts, there are about 26,000 annual complaints of excessive police violence.
• This is .049% of all police contacts.
• Of those 26,000 complaints, a small minority of them (8%) turn out to be legitimate complaints of police violence.
• Thus, the the percentage of legitimate police excessive police violence incidents is .0039% of total annual police and citizens interactions.
• You are 7 times more likely to to be murdered, 15 times more likely to die in a car accident, and 42 times more likely to be raped than have a police officer interaction that results in excessive violence.

Again, any unnecessary death is a tragedy. But do we really want to upset the entire police structure in this country for .0039% and possibly mimic 1930s Nazi Germany? Insanity.

Please go to the following link for more details in this area:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRd5oucG114&feature=youtu.be

3) But we should not be too surprised by what is going on in Baltimore, given the environment. According to the numbers in a recent NewsMax article:

• In a city with a population of 645,000 people, there are an estimated 60,000 drug addicts, almost 10% of everyone Baltimore citizen including kids.
• About 80% of those addicts are hooked on heroin.
• The city’s murder rate is fifth in the nation at 37.4 murders per 100,000 people.

4) About 200 minority owned businesses in Baltimore have been burned, destroyed, or pillaged as a result of the riots, making one wonder how much the rioters were worried about racism if so many black business owners are now non-business owners. This does not help the cause of legitimate concerns over racism.

5) Taking the hurting their cause two numbers further, a recent Rasmussen poll found that only 25% of U.S. adults in the poll consider the riots to be an expression of legitimate outrage while 63% think it is mostly criminals taking advantage of the situation.

That is enough numbers for today. In an emotional situation like Baltimore we must stick to the numbers and realities as we search for solutions. Do not build solutions on opinions, build it on the numbers.

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

www.loathemygovernment.com

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

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

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

April, 2015,I Am A Global Warming Doubter and A Believer In Science

Every month we revisit the theme, “I am a global warming doubter and a believer in science.” The theme started when I got tired of people like Al Gore and others yelling and slandering anyone who dared to disagree with their view of global warming, since then rebranded as “climate change.” Yelling and demeaning people is no way to win them over to your view, which is what the Al Gores of the world are still doing.

Thus, we set off to explore ALL science, research, and realities relative to global warming, not just the handpicked science that global warming advocates cherry pick. What we have found through the years is that it is very realistic and in tune with the real world to be a global warming doubter and a believer in science.

Much science and research has been shown to debunk Al Gore’s way of thinking and slandering. And we have brought counter evidence to his view of the world every month for years. To access those previous posts, just enter the search term "I am a global warming doubter” in the search box above. 

Our intention is to start an adult, mature, science based conversation based on all available information. That has certainly not been the intention of Al Gore types. They have wanted to browbeat their views into disbelievers heads. And even if they are right about global warming, which we have proven they are quite possibly wrong about, they come up with no plans that would reunite the world around a solution. 

They only want the United States to curtail their carbon footprint, a reduction that would be dwarfed by the increasing carbon footprint of the rest of the world, especially China and India. All they would end up doing is briefly forestalling their end result while crippling the economic growth and vitality of the United States.

With that background, let’s look at what the global warming/climate change hysteria has brought us in the past month or so.

1) Obama is really worried about global warming. Secretary of State Kerry is really worried about global warming. Al Gore is really worried about global warming. The American people? Not so much. According to a recent Gallup poll:

• Americans worries about environmental issues such as pollution and extinct species is down across the board from last year’s poll.
• In fact, of all the green issues polled, Americans have the least concern about global warming.
• Last year 34% of Americans worried about global warming or climate change, this year only 32% worried about them.
• Despite all of Al Gore’s rants and other global warming hype, according to Gallup, Americans concerns about global warming is no higher than when Gallup first started asking the question in 1989.

Given previous science related discussions in this blog about the fallacy of global warming/climate change, and Americans having much bigger concerns than global warming according to Gallup, maybe the President and the Secretary of State should refocus on what is important to Americans and not what is important to lawyer and former politician Al Gore.

2) This President likes to make statements and claim facts, expecting us to take him at his word. However, after six years and lies too numerous to count, you have to take anything Obama says with a grain of salt and disbelief. 

Continuing this tradition of statements having no basis in reality, he recently claimed that global warming/climate change was responsible for his daughter’s asthma. As usual he provides no science for his assertion, expecting us to just believe him. Global warming/climate change was the cause of an asthma attack when she was a toddler, an incident that caused the family to rush to the emergency room: “Well, you know Malia had asthma when she was four and, because we had good health insurance, we were able to knock it out early. And if we can make sure that our responses to the environment are reducing those incidents, that’s something that I think every parent would wish for.”

However, in a 2009 USA Today article, Obama said: “I’ve said before that as a former smoker I constantly struggle with it. Have I fallen off the wagon sometimes? Yes. Am I a daily smoker, a constant smoker? No.”

So, maybe secondhand smoke was the culprit in the asthma attack and not global warming? That certainly has a higher chance of causing an asthma attack than global warming/climate change. 

3) We have often pointed out that even if the U.S. reduced its coal power plant carbon footprint by double digit amounts, that effort would be overwhelmed by the expected large increases in coal usage around the world. India and China alone are planning to add hundreds and hundreds of coal fired power plants in the coming years. 

Given the political friction between European nations and Russia because of the Ukraine situation, many nations are moving back to using coal rather than natural gas it used to get from Russia. Even worse, a lot of the coal that they are now using is some of the dirtiest coal in the world.

And now, another country is getting online for coal. Given that Japan used to have a large reliance on nuclear power but has shut down a lot of that capability after the tsunami disaster, it is in dire need of additional energy sources. As a result, it plans to build 43 coal fired power plants to fill the energy gap. Although Japan had promised to submit a plan to cut its carbon footprint, it is not one of the only 35 countries which have submitted plans to the U.N.

Japanese environmentalists from the Kiko Network estimate that these new coal plants will throw off 127 million metric tons of carbon dioxide which they feel will never allow Japan to meet its reduction in carbon output: “These projects, which may still be operating in 2050, run counter to Japan’s efforts to tackle climate change and should be quickly reviewed or stopped,” the Kiko Network said in a press release

The loss of over half of the energy it used to get from nuclear plants has resulted in skyrocketing power costs for Japanese consumers and businesses. Thus, it has turned to coal and is unlikely to turn away from that energy source any time soon, despite whatever promises the country made to Obama and the U.N.

That will do it for this month’s update. Not a lot going on but some of the same old stuff:

• Americans having a better sense of what is important to them vs. what Washington politicians think is most important for them.
• Politicians claiming they know what is best for us even if they have to bring their kids illnesses into the debate and leave science out.
• Another country goes over to the dark side of coal, making any sacrifices Americans make in the name of global warming is even less important.

I am still a global warming doubter and and a believer in science, even more so after today's review.

Retro 1: U.S. Navy Shops For Sale! Cheap, Never Used, Act Now

Note: Given the Thanksgiving holiday this week and the resultant preparations, family visitors, and other commitments, we will be rerunning the top rated and most popular blog posts from the past five years. These posts cover a wide variety of political class insanity, wasteful spending, inane quotes, and other idiocy and are the discussions that most resonated with our readers. We will be back next week with fresh material, starting with our monthly update on "Political Class Insanity."

Just when you think that you have identified the latest government waste of taxpayer money, some big new wastes jump into your face. Consider some recent news reports that reported on how the U.S. government was scrapping two of its Navy ships even though they had never seen one day of service. Details of the waste include:

• Two large Navy ships, that have never been used, are headed for the scrap yard even though they are almost completely finished and ready for duty.
• Work began on the USNS Benjamin Isherwood and the USNS Henry Eckford in 1985 at the Pennsylvania Shipbuilding Company and were intended to carry fuel to the Navy's ships around the world.
• When the company defaulted on their Navy contract in 1989, the 600 foot ships were sent to Florida for completion. At the length of two football fields, these were not insignificant ships.
• The ships were eventually moved to the James River Navy yard and have sat there at 95% and 84% complete the past 18 years.
• A British company considered buying the ships and completing their build out for sale to a NATO country.
• However, since the ships are single hulled and double hulls are required for today's fuel carriers, the British company decided not to complete the construction and instead, settled on a $10 million contract and taxpayer expense to scrap the ships altogether.
• This week the ships are being towed to Texas to be cut up for scrap iron and scrap steel for recycling.Thus, after spending $300 million to begin building the ships, almost finishing their construction, getting absolutely no use out of them, and paying to tow the ships from port to port, the taxpayers will get hit with one last insult and be charged $10 million to destroy the never used ships.

Where to start on this insanity:

• Who is responsible for ordering the construction of these ships but never getting any use out of them? In the private market, if a business person was to incur that big of a screw up they would be out of a job.
• Was there nowhere in the world that these ships could have been sold in order for taxpayers to get some money back rather than incurring another $10 million cost to have them destroyed? Even though the could not be used to haul fuel, was there no company in the world who would not want a sturdy Navy ship to ship other goods in its hold that was not fuel related? There must be a Chinese shipping company who could use a new ship or two, especially since China's exports in the first half of 2011 was a record level of $874 billion, 20% higher than in 2010 (The Week, July 22, 2011). Thus, not only should the people responsible for building $300 million worth of ships be fired, the people who could not get anything in return by selling the ships should also be fired.

This is a classic example of Step 34 from "Love My Country, Loathe My Government." Step 34 would remove politicians from any Congressional committee that does not do its committee job to at least to minimum standards. Whatever Congressional committee or subcommittee members were responsible for flushing $310 million of taxpayer wealth down the drain need to be removed from their committee or subcommittee posts.The article contains a quote from Joseph Keefe from www.maritimeprofessinal.com who stated that the scrapping the ships will "close one of the saddest chapters in American shipbuilding history and for that matter, Federal fiduciary folly." In other words, what a waste of taxpayer money. Very well said, Mr. Keefe.

Another scary aspect of this story is the thought that this may not be an isolated incident. What other $300 million wastes are hanging around the Pentagon closets? With Pentagon resources deployed in three war zones, dozens of foreign countries, and probably most of the fifty states, I find it hard to believe that this is the only wasted money in the Pentagon budget. Eliminating this type of despicable behavior would reduce the Pentagon budget without further endangering the defense of the United States.

While we are on the topic of waste, let's move out of the Defense Department domain and move to another area of gross government waste. According to USA Today article, that was highlighted in the July 7, 2011 issue of The Week, the Federal government wastes about $17 billion of taxpayer wealth every year in the operation of its unemployment benefits program. Almost 12% of the program's budget is paid out fraudulently to Americans who are either collecting benefits they are not entitled to or are those people that have gotten a job but are still accepting unemployment benefits.

Compare these figures to the politically motivated ramblings of President Obama over the past few weeks. He has made a big deal about closing tax loopholes for oil companies and corporate jet users. Now, while I agree these loopholes should be closed, they are a pittance compared to the unemployment fraud. 

Over ten years, the oil company loopholes would amount to about $20 billion and the corporate jets loophole would amount to about $3 billion, a total of $23 billion or so over 10 years. Ten years worth of this type of unemployment benefits waste comes out to $170 billion, which is almost eight times more than the political gamesmanship loopholes of Obama.

It never ends. The government cannot plan its Navy needs, resulting in wasting over $300 million on just two of its ships. The government cannot efficiently run a simple unemployment benefits program, wasting 12% of its budget and $17 billion a year. The politicians worry about the smaller, trivial wastes of taxpayer money while the bigger wastes go on and on every year. 

The worst part of all, there is no apparent accountability. No one ever seems to be held responsible for all of the waste. Politicians continually get re-elected in the face of the waste. Government bureaucrats never seem to lose their jobs despite inefficiency and waste. 

You wonder what kind of world those in DC live in where how well or bad you perform your job has no ramifications on your monetary reward and career paths. Its the kind of world I would like to live in where performance is unrelated to reality. But first, I need to see if any of those ships are still available, they are too good a deal to pass up.

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