The Departure Tax

There is no such thing as a “departure tax” per say. However, the estate or “death tax” is a good example of a “departure tax”. In 2012, people worth more than 5 million dollars had to pay a 35% tax (1 million dollars and 55% tax rate in 2013 if an agreement is not reached to change the law) on their assets when they die. Hence, people can only inherit up to 65% of the assets owned by the deceased. The “gift tax” prevents people from avoiding the “death tax” by transferring their assets to someone (other than their spouse) before they die. The problem with these taxes and many tax laws is that income and assets do not mean wealth. A farmer may pass his business to his children upon his death. This farm family may be middle class based on income and wealth, but because the farm has millions in land assets, the children may be forced to give up half its property to pay for the death tax. In doing so, this reduces their crop size and their income in future years. The same can be said of any business – assets and income do not necessarily equate to wealth. Hence, the “death tax” can destroy small businesses from being passed down to future generations.

If the government can tax an individual when they die (depart from earth), then what is to stop them from implementing other departure taxes? Nothing! If the Supreme Court says the government can tax you for not buying a product (ObamaCare), then the government pretty much has ultimate powers when it comes to taxing individuals and companies.

So what are some “departure taxes” we may be able to expect from local, state, and federal governments in the future? How about a tax to depart the nation, state, or locality? California is losing about 200,000 people per year since the recession hit. The primary reason people are leaving the state is to avoid high taxes. To further complicate tax issues, Californians recently elected super majorities of Democrats in both their house and senate, essentially giving their ATM passwords to the legislator. People fleeing California are costing the state millions in lost tax revenues. Hence, what is to stop them from levying a tax on people leaving the state? This type of tax can have two effects 1. It can stop people from leaving the state and 2. This will help the state to recoup possible lost revenues – this is a win – win for the government.

What about a departure tax for people rescinding their citizenship? Thousands of Americans each year of are giving up their U.S. citizenship mostly to avoid paying income taxes. In fact, there is nothing stopping the government from making the fine (tax) for rescinding their citizenship some grotesque amount to ultimately stop people from taking this action.

What about the departure tax that Obama wants to place on corporations that move manufacturing jobs overseas? Even though his policies and ideology are creating the hardships and the reasons for these jobs moving overseas, he wants to prevent it by doing what? Yes, by creating more hardship on these companies by taxing them more. This makes absolute sense if you are a pro-government supporter.

As Time Magazine states the reason for picking Obama as their Man of the Year – he is the “architect of the new America.” Yes, this is the new America, one where it not only uses taxes to force Americans buy products they do not want and distribute wealth to pay for a welfare and dependent state, but to strip Americans of their freedoms to choose where to live and how to die.

Latinos and Democrats

Hispanics have been breaking heavily for Democrats over the past few election cycles. States such as New Mexico, Nevada, and Colorado were all once strong conservative states, but now they are all solid liberal states thanks in part to a large influx of Latino voters. The tables below show the ethnicity breakdown for the past four presidential elections.

Table I: Percent of the Electorate

Year	White	African-American	Hispanic	Asian	Other
2000	81	10	7	2	1
2004	77	11	8	2	2
2008	74	13	9	2	3
2012	72	13	10	3	2

Table II: Percent of the Democratic Vote

Year	White	African-American	Hispanic	Asian	Other
2000	42	90	62	55	55
2004	41	88	53	56	54
2008	43	95	67	62	66
2012	39	93	71	73	72

Tables I and II show that not only are minorities making up a larger portion of the electorate, the Democrats are garnering a larger majority of the minority vote. Hispanics make up about 15% of the U.S. population today (White’s make up 66%, African Americans 13%, and Asians 5%). By 2050, many estimate that the Hispanic population will grow to 29% of the U.S. population whereas the White population will only be 47% (Asians will make up 9% and African-American’s about 13%). The trends in Tables I and II and the estimated growth of the Latino population have rightfully gotten Republicans concerned.

However, Michael Barone wrote an interesting article and he makes the following points:

• From 1995 to 2000 there was a net influx of 2.2 million more Hispanics moving to the U.S than Americans moving to Mexico.
• From 2005 to 2010 there was a net influx of 20,000 more Americans moving to Mexico than Hispanics moving to the U.S.
• Barone notes the most significant reason immigrants come to America is for economic reasons. And while the American economy has been mostly stagnant the past 5 years many Asian and Latin American economies are growing and Mexico is becoming a middle class nation.
• A pew report shows a decline in the Hispanic American birthrate by 24% compared to only 6% for Whites from 2007 to 2010.
• Barone estimates that one third of foreclosures after the housing market collapse affected Hispanic families. And according to unemployment rates, Hispanics have also been hit particularly hard in the recession (up 2% under Obama). Because of this, many Hispanics are moving back to their native countries.
• Barone notes that immigration patterns usually last about a decade or 25 years. The surge of Mexican immigrants went from 1982 to 2007 and he believes has ended.
• I also think that the implementation of ObamaCare will hit Hispanic families hard. Under this law everyone must buy health insurance or be taxed. 42% of Hispanics are currently without health insurance.

Ironically, Hispanics broke for Democrats and Obama in record numbers in 2012, but Obama and his policies may have ended the influx of Hispanics to the U.S. Yes, as more illegal aliens gain citizenship under Obama amnesty executive orders, Hispanic population in the U.S. will grow. But, it will not grow anywhere near those 2050 estimations if birth rates are going down and if those emerging Latin American economies continue to outpace the U.S. economy.

Practical Leraning

I am a volunteer math and science tutor at Avery Parsons Elementary (APE) School. I am called an enrichment tutor because I work specifically with advanced students. I have argued for years that schools spend more time, focus, money, and energy on bringing lagging students up to speed then they invest in kids that are advanced. Most of these students are bored as they go through school. This is the problem with education today and why it is failing so many kids. Schools are focused solely on kids passing a minimum set of requirements. They do nothing to try to maximize the learning experience for students capable of achieving more. This is wrong and why the United States has to import our doctors, engineers, and other technical workers from foreign nations.

The APE Night Light Project is being done by second grade students at Avery Parson’s Elementary school in Buena Vista Colorado. The product is a flash light which can also be used as a bike light or fastens to anything with its 18 inch Velcro strap. It is made using bright white LED lights and circuits purchased from Evan Designs (website below – this is great small business). The circuitry is cased in discarded roll-on deodorant canisters. The lights run on 9V batteries.

Some argue that second grade is a little too young for these types of projects. However, in my experience, the biggest problem with teaching youngsters math is that they see no meaning or purpose for it. That is because 9+8=17 or 25x9=225 means absolutely nothing! Numbers without any units or explanation mean nothing. The sooner kids can see the purpose behind math and science, the sooner they will become interested in learning these concepts.

The purpose of the APE Night Light Project is to have a practical educational experience where students learn math, science, creative writing, and solve real world problems. The goal is for students to see the practical aspects for learning (in particular math and science) as it is applied in the real world. The project fosters creativity and business acumen as students learn how to create a business, market products, and understand the financial implications on product pricing and profits.

Please contact me if you would like to donate (recycle) your used deodorant canisters for this project at pbohan1@gmail.com. The deodorant caps (lids) must be transparent and we prefer clear covers not colored ones (i.e. Secret Deodorant has clear caps or covers). Hopefully, one of these years we can put together a fund raiser and sell the product. Thank you for your help.

LED Company – Evan Design

http://www.modeltrainsoftware.com/bl-214f.html

Avery Parson’s Elementary School

http://www.bvschools.org/Schoolshtml/averyparsons.html

Mrs. Propernick’s Second Grade Class

http://mrsprop.weebly.com/

This information can also be found on my website at:

http://patrickbohan.elementfx.com/APE.htm

Product Features

Light Weight and Compact

Water Proof

Inexpensive

Recycles plastic deodorant canisters

Low Power and energy efficient – Single LED Flashlight runs up to 40 hours and Triple LED Flashlight runs up to 30 hours

Product Usages

Flash Light

Bike Light

Reading Light

Wrist Lamp

Product Types

Single LED APE Night Light

Super Bright Triple LED APE Night Light

Single LED APE Night Light with Velcro Strap

Super Bright Triple LED APE Night Light with Velcro Strap

The GOP's Technical Incompetence

In a prior post I wrote about our local GOP’s inability to get involved in the community, its inability to maximize the use and market their website, and their inability to supply me voter data to develop a Get Out to Vote (GOTV) effort in our county. However, the incompetence goes further as requests for data and information went unanswered at not only the local level, but at national and state levels as well. I just do not understand how a Party can run campaigns blindly – this is what they are doing if they are not analyzing, tracking, or reviewing data. I took upon myself to contact our County Clerk and purchased a voter registration list. The list was 25 dollars plus 1 cent per name – so thankfully there are only 10,575 registered voters in our county ($130.75). The list was in Excel format and contained the following information – voter name, physical address, mailing address, phone number, Party affiliation, gender, year of birth, and voting history over the past 5 general elections. Within a week I was able to create an Excel program with the following features generated from the voter list information (I would have been able to do more if my computer had more processing capability):

1. Determines the percent of voters by demographic makeup: gender, age, marital status, ethnicity, and party affiliation. From this data, a model can be constructed for each demographic parameter to determine the percentage/chances each demographic group will vote for a Republican or Democrat.
2. Determines if the voters are likely or unlikely voters
3. Determines if the voters are married or single
4. Determines if the voters are Hispanic
5. Determines a statistical average and probability a voter would vote for a Democrat or Republican
6. Creates a way to compare lists of voters to determine if voters are new to the area or left the area.
7. Maintains a running count of a hypothetical vote
8. Determines a list of voters (about 20% of the county) who should be contact targets by the GOP because they are borderline voters whose vote could go to either a Republican or Democrat
9. Has the capability of running a statistical analysis, linear regression models, and correlation on any parameter or group of parameters
10. The program highlights those registered voters that should be a target contact by the GOP
11. Converts the excel program into an executable program which hides the algorithm embedded within the Excel file

Is this model 100% correct? No, models are not going to be 100% perfect, but they are useful to analyze and compress large amounts of data. For instance, the model has my wife voting for Obama (which is wrong), but it also lists her as a target contact because she in the middle fifth of the voting population. In most counties across the country my wife would have been a certain Romney vote. However, our county went to Obama by 0.1% despite its electorate being predominately Republican and white with a very high percentage of voters above 50. Because of this, I had to scale back national exit poll numbers to give a better reflection of what is going on in our county.

The GOP Disorganization

I have very little experience with politics so I may be the wrong person to try to advise the local GOP effort. However, sometimes it is good to get feedback from an outsider to gain more perspective. Hence, I decided to attend a few monthly GOP meetings following the presidential election failure. I was curious to see what was going on behind the scenes. Local GOP candidates did well this past election, but Obama won our country despite a GOP advantage over Democrats in the county by 12%. I provided the following feedback which has benn mostly ignored. Here were my points:

1. Place all non-confidential information on their website (http://www.chaffeegop.com/). This is the best and cheapest marketing tool to get their message out. They talked about some interesting issues at meetings, but none of the information was placed on the website for the public to see.
2. Place links to all the county officers on their website – and advertise their website on all of their campaign materials (signs, mailers, etc.). They have a decent website, but many people I know including me did not know it existed.
3. I encouraged them to tie their website in with social media – allowing people to follow them on twitter and Facebook.
4. Put a place on the website for people to sign up if they need assistance to get to the polls.
5. Put a place on the website for people to volunteer to man phone banks and to drive people to the polls.
6. I encouraged the organization to get more involved in the community. Advertise on the website to get people to volunteer at community schools, churches, and the Boys and Girls club. The GOP seems to be isolated from the community. This is the best way to win the trust of independent voters.
7. I asked them to provide me with county voter registration lists and any voter data they have. Unfortunately, it seems the local GOP does not have any.

I volunteered to set up a county wide GOTV effort. I volunteered to evaluate local voter demographic data and statistics to create models and algorithms to place a probability on every eligible voter and the likelihood they would vote for a Republican. From this we can identify the right people to contact personally or by phone or email. I emphatically stated that the time is now to fix why we lost the last election. There is no reason any conservative presidential candidate should lose this county.

I have always been baffled by the fact when people show no urgency and procrastinate to find solutions and fix problems. I am baffled when people continue to go with the status quo and make no changes despite an obvious failure. I am baffled when people turn down volunteer help and suggestions. And I baffled by any election strategy that refuses to use data or statistics to run their campaigns (and these are the same people who were critical of project ORCA and the Romney campaign). This is essentially running blind. I find it hard to believe that an 18 member committee of GOP county officials is still running campaigns as if they were be conducted in the 1970s. Unfortunately, any effort to bring this group back to the 21^st century has been ignored.

Finally, the other major issue I noticed is a big divide between the Libertarian and GOP members of the council.

Obama Scandals Have One Thing in Common - 2012 Election (Part II)

There have been several surveillance type scandals. First, the DOJ tracked the phone records of several AP and one Fox News reporter (James Rosen). The DOJ said it wanted to find a leak in the State Department, which yielded national security sensitive material to the media. However, the DOJ never tracked reporters at the New York Times which printed several leaked stories which contained national security sensitive material. Why did this happen? Once again, targeting the AP and Fox was politically motivated since the NY Times leaks made the President look good (Cyber warfare against Iran nuclear program, the bin-Laden killing, etc.). Secondly, the Obama administration has expanded the Bush administration’s metadata analysis of American citizen phone calls to also include internet and email surveillance. The issue here is that Bush was transparent about what the administration was doing, Obama was doing it secretly. And let’s not forget how Senator Obama condemned Bush over this program calling it an overreach of power. This is the reason Obama was doing this secretly, he did not want his leftist supporters to know he was a hypocrite. Obama said no US phone conversations were ever listened to. I find this hard to believe because if the metadata analysis detects a potential wrongdoing – then those people will face wiretaps. Besides, in the past few months in commencement and campaign like speeches Obama talked about “rejecting the voices that warn against government tyranny” and “The war on terror is over”. Once again, this is just more hypocrisy and lies. This may not sound like a big deal, but Obama may have potentially obtained an unfair advantage over the Romney campaign with metadata analysis on Romney campaign workers (we already know the Obama campaign worked with Google employees to pirate private information [I believe illegally] on US citizens to identify potential backers).

Changing the talking points on the Benghazi attack was also politically motivated. The administration did not want the public to know our Benghazi embassy was attacked by al-Qaida terrorists. This would not look good eight weeks prior to an election especially when the President’s narrative was al-Qaida died along with bin-Laden. Obama proclaimed we will learn from our mistakes, unfortunately, dozens of US embassies around the globe have inferior security. A recent report states our embassy in Beirut has some glaring security lapses.

And let’s not forget the Fort Hood shooter has gotten his wish to defend himself in a civilian court. Major Nidal Hassan not only continues to get paid, but will now be able to preach his ideology to the public while confronting the people he maimed in a court of law instead of a military tribunal. Obama refused to call Nidal a terrorist to deceive and win support from his Left base, even though his actions about Benghazi, media targeting, and citizen surveillance tell a different story.

When Nixon and conservatives wiretapped Democratic National Headquarters people went to jail and the President was forced to resign (and rightfully so). Nixon’s paranoia got the best of him because he won reelection in 1972 by a landslide. In 2012 the IRS and EPA targeted conservative political groups, the DOJ targeted conservative media outlets, the administration lied about a terrorist attack, and the administration covered up its US phone and internet surveillance program – And Obama wins a close election (needed to change about 250,000 voters in Florida, Ohio, Virginia, and Colorado). Still nobody has gone to jail and the President claims to be ignorant about all these happenings – which incidentally must be a coincidence.

I am perplexed as to why Obama still has fairly high approval ratings despite all of these scandals. Even if the president was as he claims – not in the know about most of these scandals then that raises another question. Why wasn’t Obama, Clinton, and Holder aware of any of these scandals? If true, it says government is too big and it also says the Obama, Clinton, and Holder are incompetent and failing to do their jobs. So why are people outraged by all these scandals, but at the same time continue to give Obama, Clinton, and Holder a pass? Maybe public opinion will turn against Obama once all of these scandals are tied to winning the 2012 election.

Obama Scandals Have One Thing in Common - 2012 Election (Part I)

I have written extensively in the past about the Obama administration’s lack of transparency, leaks, politics, and hypocrisy. And not surprisingly, this trend of no transparency with plenty of leaks, politics, and hypocrisy continues to escalate to new levels under Obama with one scandal after another. Let’s investigate the Obama administration’s growing number of scandals and why they transpired. It is important to note the reason many of these scandals have come to the attention of the public is because they were leaked, not because the administration has been forthcoming and transparent. With that said; these scandals have one thing in common – Winning the 2012 election.

On Fast and Furious the administration continues to hide behind executive privilege on the failed gun walking program that has led to the death of hundreds of Mexican citizens and a U.S. border agent. Executive privilege should not apply especially since Obama and Holder have claimed to be ignorant about the program. To date, a few officials lost their jobs, but no one has seen any jail time. What’s worse, the public will not know the truth about this scandal until Obama is long gone.

The IRS scandal was purely political by definition. One particular group or organization was targeted based on their political ideology. Initially, the administration and IRS claimed this activity was carried out by a few rogue agents. However, agent testimony and a misfired email by Elizabeth Hofacre alerted the entire DC based Exempt Organizations and Rulings and Agreements department with a summary of the targeting program back in 2010. This means hundreds if not thousands of IRS employees knew what was going on but they let it continue beyond the 2010 and 2012 elections. The head of the tax exempt division of the IRS, Lois Lerner, took her Fifth Amendment right and did not testify before Congress. Meanwhile, the IRS continues to stonewall Congress and refuses to hand over records and documentation. The head of the IRS department which provided “poor customer service” and oversaw the targeting was promoted to head up the IRS organization in charge of overseeing ObamaCare (quid pro quo). If all of this is not bad enough, at the same time the IRS is being investigated for extravagant spending practices which included spending over 50 million dollars on conferences over a two year period. Obama has once again claimed ignorance, but called the actions of the IRS “outrageous” and people would be held accountable (Lerner is on paid leave while the temporary head of the IRS resigned). If this is true, why isn’t Obama pressuring the IRS to hand over its documents on this issue?

The EPA has also been accused of targeting conservative groups and for also violating the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The EPA is accused of providing environmentalist groups private information about small business farmers. The EPA is also accused of charging conservative groups higher fees than liberal organizations. All of this comes on the heels of the EPA email scandal where former EPA head, Lisa Jackson, created not only a new email address, but created a fictitious employee Richard Winsor. Many government officials use multiple email accounts to help organize information, but no one creates fictitious ones. This once again goes to the lack of transparency by administration officials who try to hide information from congressional oversight. If this is not weird enough, Richard Winsor won many awards during his fake tenure at the EPA.

OBush

Obama has expanded on many of the Bush policies that not only did I not like, but they were also the policies that liberals despised about Bush. In many respects Obama is just Bush on steroids. Let’s examine some of these massive policy blunders:

Spending – Bush spending increased our deficit by over 4 trillion dollars whereas Obama has already exceeded Bush’s spending in just 4 years. Obama expanded Bush spending policies on corporate bailouts and entitlements.

Healthcare – Bush expanded Medicare (prescription drug) and SCIP even though liberals cried foul because it “irresponsible” deficit spending. But liberals are ecstatic Obama passed the most expansive and expensive government takeover of healthcare: ObamaCare.

Education – Bush passed the convoluted “No Child Left Behind (NCLB)” program. What’s worse, Obama added his own bureaucratic education policy on top of NCLB: The Race to the Top.

War – Liberals hated the Iraq war even though we won that war and freed the nation from a genocidal lunatic. On the other hand, Obama escalated the war in Afghanistan but exited the country with the Taliban as strong as ever. And let’s not forget Obama also went to war in Libya without the consent of Congress. Remember, the weapons supplied to Libya opposition forces were used in several terrorist attacks against Westerners.

Civil Liberties – The left was outraged by Bush’s enhanced interrogation policies used on enemy combatants. Obama does not have to “torture” enemy combatants because he does not capture them – he kills them even if they are unarmed. In fact, Obama is the first president to order the killing of American citizens who are terrorists. To make matters worse, the Obama administration says it could use drone strikes within the United States to execute American terrorists or criminals. By choosing to kill terrorists instead of capturing them the U.S. loses the tactical advantage of trying to garner intelligence.

Collateral Damage – The left was outraged by the loss of civilian life during the Bush wars. However, civilian life loss under the Obama drone program has been exponentially worse.

Executive Privilege – The left was outraged when the Bush administration hid behind executive privilege for the outing of CIA agent Valarie Plame and the firing of U.S. judges. However, Obama has hid behind privilege for the terrorists attack in Benghazi and for his failed gun walking program “Fast and Furious”. Let it be said that no one died over the Bush executive privilege fiascos, but hundreds if not thousands died behind the Obama executive privilege fiascos.

Executive Power – Democrats loathed the executive power grab by the Bush administration (in particular the power of the Vice President) but that does not compare to the expansion of power made by the Obama administration in the form of czars and executive orders handed down as rules, regulations, and mandates. Surveillance - Obama has escalated Bush policy to increase metadata analysis of American citizens phone calls and internet use.

Yes, in many respects Obama is just Bush on steroids.

Benign Fasciculation Syndrome (BFS)

I was invited to speak about BFS on a Huffington Post Live show – the link is below (about 30 minutes long). The show was actually about Paraesthesia symptoms. In any event, I would certainly fire myself as being the BFS spokesperson. My wife said I did as well as can be expected considering the show topic and the questions I got in the short show. Please let me know if anyone is interested in going on any future shows (if I am invited again) and I will let you know if we get another opportunity. This one came up with short notice – apparently they read my blog post on “Misconceptions of BFS”.

http://huff.lv/YPsixD

Liberals Continue to Misinterpret Data (Part II)

Liberals, including the president, give a lot of lip service to the fact they are pro two spouse families. However, why would they want to change this outcome if 70% of single women vote the Democratic ticket? There is a direct correlation between single parent families and poverty, entitlement spending, crime, dependency, illiteracy, unemployment, underemployment, and host of other detrimental statistics. This is a growing electorate and they are addicted to government dependency – and Democrats would not want to do anything to change this. In 2013, state and federal anti-poverty programs will spend 1 trillion dollars and charities will add another 500 billion dollars to that total. That is enough money to provide each of 50 million people living below poverty 30 thousand dollars each. In other words, a family of 3 would net 90,000 dollars annually – nearly double the average median US family income. So where does all the money go? It is squandered on bureaucracy and red tape and just enough goes to poverty stricken families to keep alive to support the Democratic ticket. This is the vicious cycle of liberal policies where no one wins. Unfortunately, the liberal ideology premise is that we live in a Ponzi scheme society. We provide ourselves with trillions in unfunded liabilities at the same time the population of taxpayers is diminishing (54%). This will break; it is just a matter of time.

It is a sad state of affairs when we use one line of data to conclude that women in this country are doing great and gaining on those evil men. But this is what it come down to – an us versus them mentality to show that liberalism, progressivism, and feminism are winning in the U.S. and it all due to their socialistic ideology. Unfortunately anyone with a lick of commonsense can see that liberalism is the cancer destroying individuals, families, cities, states, and now nations. The Pew Poll along with 2010 Census data proves this fact.

Liberals Continue to Misinterpret Data (Part I)

I have blogged a lot about people in general being unable to analyze data properly and therefore yield false positives. In many respects people are only able to analyze at most 2 or 3 data points without using mathematical equations. Liberals are very good at the technique of evaluating the least amount of data as possible to defend their ideology. This past week was another perfect example of this type of behavior on display. Pew Research came out with a poll and the data indicated that women are top earners in 2 of every 5 (40%) families. Of course the headlines around the liberal media sphere read “US Women on the Rise as Breadwinners” – NY Times and many more like this.

I am going to point out how this statistic is misleading and the information to confirm this is in the same Pew Research Poll. But first I would like to point out that I am a big fan of data and statistics and secondly, I could care less if 100% of women are the breadwinners so long as our economy is a strong one.

The first glaring mistake made about the Pew data is liberals like to make everything a “war” or “battle” between genders and ethnicities; and that should not be the focus of anything in our world. This is an unfortunate result of progressivism that we cannot treat everyone as equals.

The second error is that this poll was conducted during a period of not only high unemployment, but at a time where the labor force has been reduced to 1970 levels. Also, it is important to note the median family income has declined to 2004 levels and there is a huge population of Americans who are underemployed – working part time. It is hard to say anyone is a winner in this economy, let alone women. Are we hailing women because their spouse was laid off and they were forced to take a part time job? This certainly may be the case for many in this poll.

The third dubious omission from many of these articles is that only 22.5% of married women are the breadwinners (pointed out in the same poll). To get to the 40% mark, the poll considers single parent families where women are the sole breadwinners. These numbers should be alarming to liberals, yet they praise them. What this says is that the number of female parent families is on the rise (it has doubled in the past half century). According to the 2010 census children without fathers are much more likely to grow up in poverty. While married couples with children enjoy an average income of $80,000, single mothers average only $24,000. Though poverty is the primary risk factor for fatherlessness, absenteeism among fathers has also been overwhelmingly a black problem, regardless of poverty status. The majority of black children nationwide – 54 percent – are being raised by single mothers. Only 12 percent of black families below the poverty line have both parents present, compared with 41 percent of poor Hispanic families and 32 percent of poor white families. Are we hailing women because they are divorced and living in poverty? It sure sounds like this is the true for a majority of single female parents in this poll. However, I do give women credit for being the responsible party to care for their children – in other words, I realize there are a lot of dead beat fathers out there who are not taking responsibility for their children. But, once again, these statistics should be alarming to liberals who say they advocate for women and minorities.

No Smoking Gun, But .... (Part II)

The biggest piece of circumstantial evidence is that all these scandals were covered up until after the 2012 election cycle. Benghazi talking points were altered so as to not damage Obama’s campaign narrative that al-Qaida died with bin-Laden. Liberals claim that the IRS never denied any groups tax free exemption status, but that is not the point. Conservative groups’ applications were purposely delayed so they could not be a factor to raise money for the 2012 election cycle. The AP and Fox probes enabled the White House to keep an eye on their “enemies” in a Nixonian manner. And of course executive privilege has prevented Americans from knowing truth about the Fast and Furious exercise.

If someone went to jail in the Bush administration for outing a CIA agent then someone should be held responsible and sent to jail for each of these scandals which are much worse than any Bush so called scandal - including the firing of seven federal judges. Maybe Obama, Holder, and Clinton were ignorant because they did not know what was going on in their departments, but that is no excuse. In the private sector a CEO would be fired if his company was negligent, provided misinformation, used deceptive practices, targeted individuals, discriminated against individuals, and was overall ignorant and incompetent to its business practices. Just because there is no smoking gun it does not mean what this group of people did was appropriate or right. In fact, in many ways it just proves these individuals are not suited to perform the job function they were elected or selected to do. Only governments can get away with these practices and not be held accountable – it is no different than living in a dictatorship or communist country – especially if you can influence the outcome of elections. What Obama and his cast of characters have done is more damaging than what Nixon did. The Nixon cover-up and wire taps did not change the outcome of the 1972 election – Nixon won by a landslide. However, the 2012 election was much more competitive and it is conceivable if the truth were known than maybe 250 thousand people change their votes in Ohio, Florida, Colorado, and Virginia to change the election outcome. The Obama administration and their actions should destroy public opinion for the government. However, Obama and his administration (with the help of the media) are great at changing the story narrative. They point to a recovering economy (which is also misinformation) or give more coverage to other tragedies such as the Oklahoma tornados.

Either way, the public and media will never hold Obama and his cast of characters responsible without a smoking gun. However, anyone with a lick of sense understands that criminals are convicted with less circumstantial evidence than what is available for the plethora of Obama scandals. And what’s worse, the Sergeant Schultz defense (I know nothing) is almost comical. In other words, it is acceptable for people who work for me to deceive, target, discriminate, harass, lie, and silence others so long as I am ignorant and I am not doing my job. This is absurd because unaccountable people are just as liable to be fired than those that are in the know. It is time to hold these morons accountable even without a smoking gun.