March, 2017, I Am A Global Warming Doubter and A Believer In Science: Americans Are Not Worried, Solar Cells Are Bad, and More

Every month we have enough material to return to a continuing theme in this blog, namely that “I am a global warming doubter AND a believer in science.” This became of interest because of people like Al Gore who fanatically and verbosely claimed that you had to be an idiot to not believe in manmade global warming. It has been my life belief that anyone that is that loud and that obnoxious is hiding something, that rather than argue facts and reality it is better to beat down and insult anyone who disagrees

As we have dove into the whole issue of manmade global warming, or its new rebranded title of climate change, we found that Al Gore and people like him were guilty of a number of things:

• Ignoring science and realities that did not support their opinions and positions.
• Rather than have an adult conversation about climate, these types of advocates like Gore sank to the level of insulting those who dared look at ALL science by calling them a variety of names including racists, homophobes, terrorists, flat earth believers, and other slanderous names.
• Continuing to insist that politicians step up their intrusions into our lives with higher taxes, more regulations, and more control of our freedoms and standards of living based on a shaky theory at best.
• To see the past posts and the multitude of evidence that we have compiled that showed it is perfectly okay to be a global warming doubter and a believer in science, enter the phrase "global warming doubter” in the search box above or go through the monthly historical posts listed on the right side of this page.

Thus, let’s see the latest facts and science that prove you can be a global warming doubter and a believer in science, regardless of what Al Gore proclaims.

1) Rather than listen to what people like Gore think about global warming and what it means to them, what do ordinary Americans think about global warming? Let’s look at some of the latest opinion polls on this very topic, as summarized by www.constitution.com website on March 25, 2017 based on a recent article from the Daily Caller News Foundation:

• A new poll by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication organization found that while most Americans adults think human activities may be warming the earth about half of those polled do not feel it will negatively impact their lives.
• 50% of American adults believe that global warming will not harm them at all or only a little while only 40% think it will them moderately or a lot.
• Only 49% of those polled think “most scientists think global warming is happening” and 28% think there’s “a lot of disagreement” among scientists.
• Thus, there are great divisions among Americans on whether or not global warming is a threat to them personally and there is not a consensus among Americans on where scientists land on the whole concept/myth of global warming, unlike what people like Al Gore would tell you that there is an overwhelming consensus and that you are an idiot if you do not see the dire threat of global warming.
• A 2016 YouGov poll found that only 9.2% of Americans rank global warming as their biggest concern in life.
• A 2015 Fox News poll found that only 3% of American voters listed climate change as the most important issue facing the country.
• Also in 2015, Gallup polling found that Americans concerned about global warming feel to the same level of concern as in 1989.
• Another Yale poll from 2016 found that only 17% of Americans were “extremely concerned” about global warming enough to want the government to take immediate action while 28% were simply concerned but did not see global warming as an urgent issue, meaning more than 50% of Americans had no concerns at all about global warming.
• A University of Chicago poll found that 61% of Americans would NOT support any government program or tax to stop global warming if it cost them more than $10 a month.

So, as you see, there is not a lot of support for a full bore fight against the myth/concept of global warming/climate change, Americans have far more important issues and priorities in their lives than what people like Al Gore have to say and rant about.

2) Andrew Pollet, writing for the Daily Caller website on March 1, 2017, had some very interesting statistics and analyses for those out there that think solar energy is the clean energy wave of the future relative to the environment:

• New Federal government data shows that a potent greenhouse gas, Nitrogen trifluoride (NF3) emissions, a key chemical agent used in the production of photovoltaic cells used for solar panels, has increased dramatically over the past years.
• Its annual emissions have gone up 1,057% in the past 25 years in this country whereas U.S. carbon dioxide annual emissions are up only 5% over that time period.
• Emissions of NF3 are also up significantly in Asia where a lot of solar cells are manufactured.
• NF3 emissions are 17,200 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide over a 100 year time period.
• Dr. Michael Prather, an earth science professor at the University of California in Irvine says: “By itself, NF3 is not going to create a climate problem. But everything adds up. Everybody should be paying attention to the pieces that all add up.”

We go over this to show that when discussing global warming and solutions, if any are actually needed, that ALL of the available data should be looked at to see a complete impact on what energy sources do what to the total environment over time. Blindly saying that we should go solar on everything may actually be causing more problems than it solves or resulting in far less benefit than someone like Al Gore might hype.

Also continue to remember that before we start throwing more and more restrictions and regulations on energy and the economy in this country that America’s annual carbon dioxide emission rate is down over 12% since 2005 and down by 2.6% in 2015 alone. We are doing a pretty good job of getting global warming gases under control without overwhelming restrictive political and governmental actions, a fact that ego driven people like Gore and most politicians would prefer that you not know about.

3) An old statistician adage goes as follows: “If you torture the data long enough it will confess to anything.” Which leads us to a statistical atrocity that we have discussed before in this blog but is worth going over again, given how much the data was tortured to get people like Al Gore the answer they wanted.

I was reminded of this misuse of data by a recent article from the “I Have The Truth” website, written by Scott Osborn on February 8, 2017. Remember how we have previously discussed the falsehood that Al Gore, Barack Obama, and other global warming advocates were always throwing around, namely that 97% of climate scientists believe that mankind is causing massive global warming. How did that overwhelming number come about:

• Well, first of all it is based on the opinions of only 77 “climate scientists” of which 75 said that mankind is causing massive global warming, hardly a representative sample of scientists.
• And it is not based on a massive scientific study, it was based on a brief two minute, two question online survey that was conducted by the American Geophysical Union (AGU) in 2009 by two researchers at the University of Illinois.
• But the survey was not sent to 77 climate scientists, it was sent to over 10,000 scientists of which only 3,000 surveys were returned.
• The 3,000 returns were then whittled down to 77 scientists that had had peer reviewed climate articles accepted for publication, or as Larry Bell of Forbes wrote: “Then of those [3,146 that actually took the survey], only a small subset, just 77 who had been successful in getting more than half of their papers recently accepted by peer-reviewed climate science journals, were considered in their survey statistic. That “97% all scientists” referred to a laughably puny number of 75 of those 77 who answered “yes”.”

If you torture the data long enough it will confess to anything. 

What about the 7,000 non-respondents who decided that filling out a two question survey from someone they did not know was worth their time, were the results adjusted for that bias? 

What about the 3,000 people who actually responded to the survey who might be great scientists, in either climate studies or other related fields, who might have a different view but did into fit the final and arbitrary screening process that eliminated all but 77 of the over 3,000, was that bias taken into account? The study and the conclusions and the data butchering render this broad and widely misused statement a sham.

And if I remember correctly, one of the researchers was a masters candidate, not a Phd candidate or a holder of a Phd in a climate related field, at the University of Illinois. She had not even attained her master's degree which brings into some doubt her credibility conducting and analyzing the results of a survey like this. This is what the analysis looks like and how it was tortured down to get the answer the researchers wanted:

Contrast this study’s conclusion, done by a person who does not even a masters degree in a climate related field with the recent comments of one of the founders of GreenPeace, Dr. Patrick Moore who actually has a Phd in the field of ecology: “I am skeptical humans are the main cause of climate change and that it will be catastrophic in the near future. There is no scientific proof of this hypothesis, yet we are told “the debate is over” and “the science is settled.””

You pick the “expert” you think is right. I go with the Phd holder. 

That will do it for today’s review of the theme, “I am a global warming doubter and a believer in science.” Americans have bigger and better issues to worry about, if you ask them, than the potential for global warming, solar power is not nearly as clean and friendly relative to global warming as the global warming advocates would have us believe, and torturing the data is a no no, especially when the torture is so obvious to get the skewed result you want. More next month.

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

www.loathemygovernment.com

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

Please visit the following sites for freedom:


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

December, 2016, Part 1, Political Class Insanity: Congressional Criminality, Congressional Idiocy, and More

It has been almost a month since Donald Trump has been elected which means at some point in the future we may run out of material to talk about. With the demise of the Obama administration, eight years worth of wasteful and excessive spending for nothing in return, foreign affairs blunders, Obama Care disasters, and assorted other administration and government blunders and screwups might end with the onset of a new administration. Trump may usher in a new paradigm of government actions that are limited, effective, cost efficient, and protective of the Constitution. If so, then this blog would run out of material to discuss and would have to be shut down.

But I doubt it. Even if Trump is truly a different type of President, he is still fighting over 500 embedded and entrenched politicians in Congress and thousands and thousands of government bureaucrats who will not go peacefully into the night for the good of the country. I wish him well and hopefully he can fix at least some of the myriad of problems the American political class creates everyday but until then, enjoy the latest political class insanity from Washington and beyond:

1) Over its almost eight years, the Obama administration has probably spent about half a TRILLION dollars on our national defense. This comes out to about a per household cost of over $4,300 for every American household in the country. So, according to the Heritage Foundation’s recently published annual analysis, “The 2017 Index of U.S. Military Strength, “ what did each American household get for its $4,300:

• Only 43% of the Marine Corps' aircraft are considered usable.
• Back in 1992, the Air Force was acquiring about 200 aircraft a year on average while in the past few years that number is about 25.
• The Air Force is short of 700 pilots and 4,000 maintenance personnel.
• In 2017 the Navy will likely be able to fulfill only 56% of its needs for aircraft carriers
• “The Army currently is having to choose between being ready to defend the country today and defend it in the future.”
• And things are not trending favorably with the Heritage Foundation asserting that their “threat score,” which attempts to gauge our enemies’ threat to our country, was raised from “Elevated” in 2016 to “high” for 2017.

Nice going Washington, half a TRILLION dollars and you have still somehow managed to turn our armed forces into a ragtag, under equipped, vulnerable set of defenses.

2) Often over the years we have discussed the reality that very often outright criminals end up in Congress. Remember when:

• Congressman Randy Cunningham of California received a sentence of eight years for taking $2.4 million in bribes from defense contractors.
• Congressman Bob Ney of Ohio received two and a half years in jail for taking bribes from a lobbyist.
• Congressman James Traficant of Ohio received a seven year sentence for bribery and racketeering.
• Congressman William Jefferson was sentenced to thirteen years in jail for accepting bribes, the longest term ever imposed on a Congressman on bribery charges. He was the guy who hid his stolen loot in a freezer.

This is just a small example of the corruption we have covered over the years. And now, thanks to the Reboot Illinois website, we have news of another Washington politician that has potentially gotten caught in his life of crime:

• A Federal grand jury recently indicted former Congressman Aaron Schock on two dozen criminal counts.
• The charges include fraud, theft of government funds, filing false tax returns, and making false statements.
• The indictments charge that Schock “engaged in a scheme to defraud the government, his campaign committees, and others for his direct personal benefit and for the benefit of others.”
• Not only has he been criminally indicted but he may have no one to blame but himself since according to the Reboot Illinois, “The Peoria congressman, who was considered a rising star in the Republican Party, came under media scrutiny after photos posted to his Instagram account depicted a lavish lifestyle, including exotic trips taken by way of donors’ private jets and most notably his “Downton Abbey”-style office makeover on Capitol Hill.”
• The details of the indictment include nine counts of wire fraud, five counts of falsifying Federal Election Commission filings, one count of mail fraud, one count of theft of government funds, two counts of making false statements and six counts of filing false federal income tax returns. 
• If found guilty on all charges the ex-Congressman could be facing 78 years in prison.

Of course, he is presumed innocent until proven guilty. But these are serious charges and a lot of them and a crooked Congressman is not out of the realm of possibility. But despite the seriousness of these many charges, the ex-Congressman seems to still be in denial by claiming he did nothing wrong and these were just “honest mistakes,” honest mistakes he did at least 24 times.

3) Politicians’ quotes are always a source of humor and sadness at the same time. Humor because their comments are so funny and out of touch with reality and sad because it is these types of people that vote on laws that affect all of us. 

Someone named Phoenix, writing for the US Chronicle website, pointed out a classic politician’s inane view of the world. Congresswoman Carolyn McCarthy, while advocating for a total assault weapons government ban, suggested that the ultimate solution to prevent mass shootings from happening is to simply take guns, with large magazines, off of the shelves of stores that sell guns: “If they’re not in the stores, they can’t be bought.” 

My gosh, why didn’t we think of that before? Just take the guns and related materials out of stores and no one could get them, so simple. This same approach worked so well when we made it illegal to sell heroin in stores. Oh, wait, we are in the midst of a heroin epidemic in this country that is killing thousands of Americans every year despite heroin not being available in stores. 

This same approach worked so well when we made it illegal to sell illegal methamphetamines in stores. Oh, wait, we are in the the midst of a meth epidemic across the country that is killing thousands of Americans every year despite meth not being available in stores.

How out of touch with reality is this politician? Numerous studies have shown that very few criminals walk into a store, get a background check done on themselves, buy a gun, and then go out and commit a crime with that gun. They get guns on the black market, from friends, ones they steal from other people, etc. If there is a demand for something, be it a loaf of bread, a can of beer, heroin, meth, or guns, someone will fill that demand and quite often the fulfillers will be criminal elements. 

To think that not allowing guns to be sold in stores will make guns unavailable in society is a lunatic that knows nothing about the real world. And these types of people write and vote on the laws of our land, scary, very scary.

4) One last piece of insanity for today. You really cannot talk about the American political class without talking about the main stream media. One of the tragedies of the 2016 Presidential election, besides the fact that we were forced to choose from two of the most unfavorable candidates ever presented by the two major parties, is the fact that news and journalism disciplines in this country took a beating for being so biased and skewed in their writing and coverage.

How biased and horrific was their reporting in the minds of Americans? Consider the results of a recent YouGov opinion poll that was conducted on November 9th and 10th after the election: 

• Almost 7 in 10 (69%) voters do not believe the news media are honest and truthful.
• Almost 8 in 10 (78%) of voters believe the news coverage of the presidential campaign was biased, with nearly a 3-to-1 majority believing the media were for Clinton (59%) vs. for Trump (21%).
• Even 32% of Clinton voters believe the media were “pro-Clinton.”
• 8% of Trump voters said they would have voted for Clinton if they had believed what the media were saying about Trump.
• The good news, if there is any, is that 97% of voters said they did not let the media’s bias influence their vote.

Democracy is in very bad shape when no one trusts anyone be it politicians or journalists. Democracy relies on truth and actual facts in order to make accurate decisions and when the availability of actual facts is filtered by inept politicians and their campaign staffs and biased and unprofessional journalists, a country is in serious trouble.

First day of this month’s political class insanity and we are off to a good start: another potentially crooked, criminal member of Congress, another inane and idiotic take on gun control and reality by another member of Congress, an overfunded but under prepared military and no one trusts politicians or the media anymore. 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:


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

March, 2016, By The Numbers, Part 1: Gitmo Disconnect, Wasting Money In Mexico, FOIA Stonewalling and More

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

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

1) The Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) was passed several decades ago and was one of the few good pieces of legislation passed over those decades. The law requires the Federal government bureaucracy to make a thorough, good faith search of Federal records whenever a private citizen or organizations submits a formal FOIA request. 

Those records would then be presented to the whoever requested the records, assuming that those records do not contain personal information or threaten national security. This is a checkpoint on runaway government to protect the rights of citizens and ensure that government entities and workers are complying with existing laws.

Fast forward ahead to present time and recall that President Obama promised the country that he would operate “the most transparent” Presidential administration ever. Great promise, we, the citizens, would be able to easily see what hanky panky was going on within the Federal government because the head of the Federal government, Obama, promised that we would be able to see everything going on.

But alas, like most, if not all, Obama promises, this one was also a lie. According to the Associated Press:

• In 2015, the Obama administration set a record for the number of times that Federal employees claimed they could not find the records that journalists, citizens, and others requested via the FOIA.
• In more than one out of six requests, the government searchers said nothing could be found that related to the FOIA request.
• This translates to 129,825 times that the Feds said nothing, not a single page or record in the entire Federal bureaucracy, existed related to the search requested.
• The results across different Federal agencies were quite different and disturbing: the FBI could not find any records 39% of the time, the EPA office that covers New York and New Jersey could not find anything an amazing 58% of the time, and the U.U. Customs and Border Protection could not fulfill requests 34% of the time.

The obvious conclusion is that the government is hiding a lot of stuff. Defenders of the Obama administration could counter that assumption by claiming that 1) there are a lot more requests so that the number of empty searches would go up as a result of more searches being requested or 2) the latest searches are looking for stuff that really does not exist.

However, the following paragraph from the Associated Press report destroys those two rebuttal points [my emphasis added]:

In some high-profile instances, usually after news organizations filed expensive federal lawsuits, the Obama administration found tens of thousands of pages after it previously said it couldn't find any. The website Gawker sued the State Department last year after it said it couldn't find any emails that Philippe Reines, an aide to Hillary Clinton and former deputy assistant secretary of state, had sent to journalists. After the lawsuit, the agency said it found 90,000 documents about correspondence between Reines and reporters.

This is called stonewalling, it is illegal under the FOIA legislation and is typical of the corruption within this administration.

2) As we have reported many times in this blog, the city of Chicago has some of the toughest, most restrictive gun laws in this country. And yet, the southern part of Chicago is so violent that it gives the whole city the distinction of being one of the most violent cities in the country and the world. Consider the latest tally of violence from Chicago as reported by AWR Hawkins, writing for the Breitbart website:

• Between Thursday morning and 6:29 the following Friday morning of a recent week, about 24 hours, 21 people in Chicago were shot, one was stabbed and one died.
• The one person who died died as a result of a gun shot, an incident that also saw two people wounded.
• There were 8 separate shooting incidents within that 24 hour period.
• On March 9, Breitbart also reported that 21 people in Chicago had been shot including two who died inside of a 20 hour window of time.
• The Chicago Tribune reported on February 22, 2016 that the Chicago homicide rate was up about 100% over the same time period in 2015.

This violence happens in Chicago even though the city has a violence tax that raises the price of every gun and bullet sold at retail in the city, it limits the number of gun stores and the locations of those stores, and the New York Times says that Chicago handgun restrictions allow Chicago politicians to “get as close as they could get legally to a ban without a ban.”

The numbers do not lie, tougher gun control laws do not reduce violent crime. If they did, Chicago would not be what it is today from a homicide and assault perspective. Maybe another approach to violent crime is in order, the numbers prove the current approach does not work.

3) The lead laden water coming out of the water pipes of homes in Flint, Michigan has been national news for the past couple of months. As most people know, having lead leach into tap water can cause a number of serious health conditions including brain damage. It is a serious condition.

While Flint has gotten all of the publicity about bad pipes, a recent USAToday article pointed out that Flint is just one of thousands of water systems throughout the country that have problems with lead in the water. Their investigation found that an amazing 2,000 or so water systems in the country were tested and showed that their pipes were carrying lead contaminated water.

These water systems and their lead contaminated water is serving 6 million Americans and 350 of those water systems provide water to schools and daycare centers. A Maine elementary school’s water system had lead levels 42 times higher than the EPA limit. A Pennsylvania school’s water was 14 times higher than allowed under EPA guidelines. A New York state school’s water had so much lead that it was pushing the bounds of being classified as “hazardous waste.”

Part of a central function of government should be to protect the safety and well being of citizens that fund that government via taxation. As with everything else that the American political class touches, this is just another example where American taxpayers have paid trillions of dollars in taxes and have been stuck with not only a $19 TRILLION national debt by today’s politicians but we have nothing to show for our tax dollars in return: our bridges are crumbling, our roads are falling apart and we now know that our water systems might be poisoning us, water systems managed by and neglected by the politicians in this country today.

4) And while across the country, Americans are being served by substandard safety processes by their water systems, Washington politicians continue to waste money on themselves while infrastructure needs like clean water go wanting. Consider the cost of a recent ONE DAY trip Vice President Joe Biden made to Mexico City, according to reporting by Elizabeth Harrington of the Washington Free Beacon:

• Just the cost of the hotel accommodations for the Vice President’s trip was over $500,000. Did I mention this was a ONE DAY trip?
• Biden and his entourage stayed at the luxury International Presidente Hotel.
• The trip entailed the American taxpayer paying for 260 rooms and meeting areas with a total hotel tab of $538,528.65. Did I mention that this was a ONE DAY trip?
• This comes out to an average cost of over $2,000 per room.
• The State Department tried to justify the outrageous expense due to last minute changes to the itineraries, which was the fault of, you guessed it, the State Department. How many last minute changes to the itineraries could there have been, it was a ONE DAY trip?
• The hotel where Biden’s entourage stayed is described as a "luxury hotel tower with sweeping city views," the hotel has "world class" rain showers, blackout blinds, spa treatment availability, steam bathing facilities, massages, body scrubs, body wraps, foot reflexology, manicures, and waxing, in other words, this is not a Red Roof Inn.
• As the article points out, this was just for the hotel rooms. It does not include transportation, security, and other costs for a ONE DAY meeting.

The numbers show a pathetic waste of taxpayer money and so many unanswered questions: why so many people for a one day trip, was this one day trip really necessary, why such a high cost, why couldn’t some people stay at the U.S. Embassy compound to save money, and most importantly, what did this ONE DAY meeting accomplish? According to the article, it probably accomplished nothing since no one from either government claimed it accomplished anything. Pathetic.

5) So how has the economy treated African-Americans over seven years into the first African-American Presidency. According to an article from the Seattle Times that was summarized in the March 11, 2016 issue of The Week magazine, while the U3 unemployment rate for white Americans is 4.3%, the U3 unemployment rate for African-Americans is more than double, 8.8%. 

In fact, the state with the lowest African-American unemployment rate, Virginia, where it is 6.7%, is equal to the state with the highest white unemployment rate, West Virginia. So much for “hope and change” changing the economic plight of the African-American community, nowhere in the numbers is that true.

6) According to a recent YouGov poll, as reported in the March 11, 2016 issue of The Week magazine, 56% of Americans want the terrorist prison at Guantanamo to stay open, 26% want to see it closed, and 18% remain unsure. Just another example where many people in Washington, especially the President, continue to be out of touch with what Americans want and value.

Another set of numbers that show how the American political class has failed the American public. Ignoring our priorities on terrorists, failed economic programs especially for African-Americans, wasting our tax money on Mexican luxury hotels, not protecting us from lead laden water, etc. More bad numbers tomorrow.

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

www.loathemygovernment.com

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

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

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

October, 2015, By The Numbers, Part 1: What America Wants Is Not What American Polticians Deliver (Or Really Care About)

Today’s post will kick off 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 will look at this week will often have 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) According to a new public opinion poll by Clout Research that was reported on by the Washington Examiner:

• A whopping 85% of voters think that America is going down the wrong track.
• Only 9% of Republicans, only 15% of Independents, and only about half of Democrats think the country is headed in the right direction.
• These results are based on a sample size of 800 likely voters.
• Despite an $800 billion economic stimulus plan, an energy revolution that dramatically reduced energy costs, and the Federal reserve printing trillions of dollars that were injected into the economy, 80% of respondents described the current state of the economy as "very fragile" or "somewhat fragile" after seven years of President Obama's economic policies.

If you polled members of Congress and the current President, I would bet that they would have radically different views of life in America today. I would bet that they think they are doing a great job, a complete disconnect from what most of America believes is the reality of living outside of the Washington Beltway. And why not since inside the Beltway unemployment is low, salaries are sky high, and unemployment is never a possibility for those inside the American political class.

2) It is pretty obvious that border security and the deportation of people illegally in this country is a very low or a non-priority for the Obama administration and the Democrats in Congress. If it was a priority, than many fewer innocent American citizens would not be dying at the hands of illegal immigrants and the number of deported illegals would not be declining rapidly as it is under the Obama administration.

Which brings us to the second major disconnect between Washington and America, as measured by the numbers. A recent public opinion poll from the Investors Business Daily polled 913 adults across the country if they “support or oppose the mandatory deportation of illegal immigrants in the U.S.”

Unlike many in Washington and the mainstream press, 59% of the total sample size said that they did support mandatory deportation of illegal immigrants in this country. This reality and number may help explain the success of Presidential candidate Donald Trump since a whopping 87% of Trump supporters are in favor of deportation.

Democrats in Washington want to allow illegal immigrants to stay in this country, border security be damned, while the vast majority of Americans want illegal immigrants deported. Massive disconnect.

3) Let’s stay with the disconnect between Washington and the rest of America as it pertains to illegal immigration since after this 59% number was made public, another survey reinforced this finding. According to Ben Bullard, writing for the Eagle Rising website on September 4, 2015, the latest public opinion poll from the YouGov organization found that an even larger percentage, 72%, of Americans support building a fence along our Mexican border to stop the flow of illegal immigrants into this country.

Only 27% of those polled believe that we should NOT build a fence on the border. I doubt that there is not a 72% vs. 27% consistency with the Washington political class because if there was, that much needed fence would already be under construction. Instead, we have people in Washington that want to continue to give government handouts to illegal immigrants, not send them back or fence them out. And while these top line numbers are overwhelming in favor of building a fence, the sub-category numbers are more amazing:

• The concept of building an effective border fence is more popular than unpopular within every single subgroup in the poll.
• More Democrats support building a fence than Democrats support not building a fence.
• More African-Americans support building a fence than African-Americans support not building a fence.
• And amazingly, more Hispanics (49%) support building a fence than Hispanics support not building a fence (38%).

If ever Washington could find a single, unifying set of numbers to build a consensus on, this would seem to be the concept: build a fence to stop the overwhelming flow of illegal immigration. But as usual, what the people want and what Washington’s politicians do is often the exact opposite.

That will do it for today but we have lots more numbers to cover in the upcoming days, numbers that usually show that what America wants is the exact opposite of what Washington wants, works on, or delivers. As these days unfold, please refer back to one of our most popular posts of all time at:

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2010/11/american-freedom-pyramid-where-it.html

That post describes the so-called freedom pyramid and how the American political class has corrupted the concepts of freedom, liberty, and representative government in our democracy. Once you understand how that corruption has happened, it is not surprising when you read how Americans views and desires take a back seat to what 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

The (Opinion) Polls Are Closed....And America is Not Happy

Recently, a lot of public opinion polls have been floating their latest results so I thought it might be a good idea to check in and see what America thinks about our current set of politicians. I have a feeling that we are continuing our disenchantment with their performance or lack of performance, but let’s see what the poll numbers have to say.

1) The biggest and most credible of current poll results are probably the findings of a recent Wall Street Journal/NBC poll. I say credible since the sponsors of the poll usually line up on different ends of the political spectrum, Wall Street Journal on the right, NBC on the left, so one would assume there is some balance of analysis.

Their poll findings are not good news for Obama, Congress, or the future of the nation:

• Obama's approval rating in this poll has dropped to an all-time low, with 79% of those polled saying they were dissatisfied with him and the American political system.
• Only 40% of those polled said they approved of Obama's performance in the White House.
• This represents his all time low in this poll, down from 41% in the previous month, an all-time low, the survey reports. 
• The President's disapproval rating, 54%, matched a previous high.
• His handling of foreign policy was rated much worse, a 60% disapproval rating to only a 35% approval rating on foreign policy issues. 
• As bad as his disapproval ratings are trending, he still has a sizable lead on the view of Congress where only 14% of those polled gave Congress a positive rating.
• This low approval rating marked the seventh consecutive time the Congressional approval rating has been under 15% in this poll since 2011.

Commentary on the poll results came from various sources:

• Democratic pollster Fred Yang of Hart Research: "The American public is telling its elected representatives that the economic distress that a significant proportion of them are feeling is directly their fault. The public seems to have moved beyond the plaintive cry of 'feel our pain' to the more angry pronouncement of 'you are causing our pain.' " 
• Peter Hart, another Democratic pollster: "We’re in the summer of our discontent, Americans are cranky, unhappy… It is with everything going on the world."

“The summer of discontent” has been going on for a while and is likely to evolve into a year round event unless we somehow find a way to replace those in Washington that are causing both our pain and our discontent.

2) A recent poll from CNN also carried some bad news for the President. Their latest poll showed that 33% of those polled want to see Obama impeached in this summer of discontent. Other findings from the poll included:

• About half of those polled think that Obama has excessively expanded the power of his office.
• 65% of those polled do not think impeachment is a good idea.
• 57% of Republicans think Obama should be impeached, 13% of Democrats feel that way, and 35% of independents supporting impeachment.

The most interesting takeaway here is that when first sworn into office, Obama’s approval ratings were in the 70-80% range. He has moved from that lofty perch to a perch that where now one out of three Americans think he should be impeached.

3) Given the immigration crisis on our southern border, it is no surprise that polls have been conducted on that issue. One of the latest ones was done by the YouGov organization which found:

• 58% of those polled stated that Obama’s unilateral policy of de facto amnesty was the primary driver of this increase in illegal immigration volume.
• 71% of Republicans think an expectation of amnesty drives the illegal activity
• Even a majority of Democrats in the survey feel that the root cause of the flood of illegal immigrants is a belief that these kids will receive amnesty.
• Only 32% of those polled approve of Obama’s immigration policies.
• 58% disapprove of his immigration policies.
• Separately, a recent Washington Post poll also found that Americans disapprove of Obama’s immigration policy by a nearly identical margin of 58% to 33%.
• More than half of those polled say the immigration issue is ‘very important,’ a large jump up jump from the recent low of about 35% just five months ago.

So the importance of the issue is growing while the President suffers through low approval ratings on how he is handling the situation. Not a good combination. 

4) A Gallup poll showed another instance where the President might be on the wrong end of the stick relative to the numbers. In this Gallup poll, the majority of Muslims and atheists polled had a favorable view of president Obama. That is the good news for Obama on these small minorities within the overall U.S. population.

However, Christians in the poll had a negative view of his policies and performance and Christians are, by, far, the largest religious grouping in the country:

• 72% of Muslims and 54% of atheists expressed approval of the President.
• Every Christian sub segment within the poll had an approval rating below 50%: only 44% of Catholics approved, and only 37% of Protestant/Other Christian approved, and only 18% of Mormon/Latter-day Saints approved.

Again, not a great place to be, high approval ratings in the smaller subsegments of the population, leading to an overall bad and trending worse approval rating.

5) Going back to that Wall Street Journal/NBC poll we opened today’s discussion with, let’s look at some of the foreign affairs issues and crises underway that the survey rated this President on, subissuesbelow  the low overall 40% approval rating. Unfortunately, for other issues of our times, Obama receives even worst approval ratings than his low overall approval rating: 

• The Malaysian passenger jet shot down over Ukraine: 26% approve and 37% disapprove

• The conflict between Russia and Ukraine: 23-43

• The civil war in Syria: 18-37

• The ongoing struggle between Hamas and Israel: 17-45

• The rise of ISIS in Iraq: 14-42

It is obvious that in the view of many Americans, this administration is a bust when it comes to foreign policy and issues management, scoring far lower approval ratings by issue than disapproval ratings.

For a President that is trying to build his legacy midway through his last term, the preliminary results are not good. Overall, America is disappointed with his administration. On a range of foreign policies, America is disappointed with him. Where he actually does have favorable approval ratings they are only within small sub segments of the population.

A growing majority of Americans disapprove of his signature piece of legislation, Obama care. America has no idea what to think of his second biggest piece of legislation, the Dodd-Frank financial industry, since four years after it was enacted, his administration has still not written about half of the needed regulations.

Leadership seems to be missing both from within the White House and within Congress as they embark on their annual five week vacation, dismal approval ratings be damned.

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

www.loathemygovernment.com

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

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

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