Thursday, December 31, 2020

The 2020 Election, Part 12: The First Invalid Election In Our History?

I have voted in every Presidential election for a lot of decades. I have never voted for a Republican for President and thus, I did not vote for Donald Trump either time. 

Thus, I think I can say without much bias that this just completed Presidential election is shaping up to be a disgrace to democracy given the highly likely ways it was corrupted, manipulated, and outright fixed by so many people and entities across the country. Ballots were lost, ballots were found in garbage cans, computers were hacked, computers suspiciously moved votes from one candidate to another, ballots showed up in polling places with no chain of command security protocols followed. Politicians announced results days before the voting took place

I am sure some of the potential incidents of voter fraud and cheating were incorrect. But I am sitting on almost 200 news reports of, call them, “voting irregularities,” enough to convince me that this was the most dishonest, poorly handled, and obscene election that abuses the First Amendment rights and the “one person, one vote” tenet that is basic to our democracy.

Over the past month I have pulled out a lot of those news reports and briefly discussed what allegedly happened. I can not say all of these news reports are true and I cannot say all of these news reports are false. 

But when people are arrested, when people admit on video that they cheated, when there are videos made of people delivering box loads of videos in the middle of the night, I think the evidence is pretty clear that the corruption in this election was real and widespread.

I am not to drawing any conclusions but consider the following reality: the voting locales where most of the corruption occurred was almost ALL in Democratic party controlled areas: Democratically controlled cities, Democratically controlled counties, and Democratically controlled states and happened only in states that were considered “swing state” in the election, in other words, the states that could go either way and a nudge here or a nudge there, from a voting corruption perspective could make all the difference.

The first 132 documented incidents of voting irregularities can be found at:












Each of these incidents are sourced by the organization that reported the voting fraud. I am not going to do a deep dive into each story but by providing the source, you can follow up and decide for yourself whether or not the voting fraud and corruption allegation is legit.

This will be the last post under this theme. It is not as if the proof of voting corruption has dried up, there are news reports every day, it is simply I am tired of reporting such news. The country has survived bad Presidents, Nixon, Obama, Carter, but it will not survive a corrupted voting process. And I truly believe that is what we are witnessing today.

133) Political Animal News - One of the most blatant irregularities was up in Antrim County in Michigan. The initial voting machine tabulation showed that Biden had won the county by about 3,000 votes. But an alert poll worker thought something was amiss and a rerun of the voting machines showed that Trump had not lost the county by 3,000 votes but had actually won the county by 4,000 votes.

This reality has confirmed when a comprehensive hand count was done of the ballots:
  • The recount found that Trump actually had 9,759 votes in the county.
  • That left only 5,959 votes for Biden.
  • The machine count first said that Biden had won by about 3,000 votes and thus, the manual recount shows that there was a 7,000 vote swing in a county that had only 16,000 votes cast.
Now it could be that this was the only county among hundreds across the country that use the same voting software, that “accidentally” moved votes from Trump to Biden. Could be but I doubt it.

133) Tediumedia - Articia Bomer worked in the infamous Detroit TCF voting center on election day and the day after. She recently, under oath, testified to what she saw as far as voting “irregularities:” In sworn testimony, under oath in front of the a Michigan legislative hearing, this is what she testified she saw with her own eyes:
  • Hearing an announcement of 50 boxes arriving at the voting center at 4:00 am.
  • Hearing that those 50 boxes of ballots were counted and processed in an impossibly short amount of time.
  • Witnessing officials tampering with tabulators at the TCF Center.
  • Ballot harvesting operations being done by a local Church.
  • Poll workers overriding the actual votes, and changing Trump votes to Biden.
  • Poll workers refusing to count Trump votes.
  • Poll workers bringing in luggage and boxes that could have contained illegal ballots
  • Poll Workers using deceitful tactics and colluding with Democrats to try and expel Republican poll watchers.
  • Republican being ejected from observing the vote count.
  • Republican poll watchers having their challenges to illegal ballots being ignored.
  • Suspicious meetings of the poll workers.
Is she lying, is she credible, is she just trying to get 15 minutes of fame? Could be but she is not the only one who saw shady doings at the center in Detroit and she is willing to testify under oath to what she saw and endure the death threats to herself and her family that have ensued. So, I think she is credible.

Her testimony can be viewed at the following link:


134) Street Wise Politics - Politicians Georgia along with many of its voting officials have claimed that there was nothing shady about the election processes in the state. But Gabriel Sterling, Georgia’s voting implementation systems manager, recently announced that there are currently 132 voting irregularity investigations underway related to the general election involving 23 investigators in the state. Not sure you can claim that nothing went wrong in your state when your state has opened up 132 investigations to voting issues.

135) American Patriots Unite - White House official, Peter Navarro, recently issued a report that highlighted what he claims are voting irregularities and corruption across the country:
  • His analysis claims that there are more than 379,000 votes counted in Michigan alone that were illegal or invalid.
  • This is more than double the purported size of Biden’s victory in the state.
  • His analysis also found that at least 100,000 illegal votes in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin should also be invalidated.
  • Navarro cited the data work done by Richard Baris of Big Data Poll which found that about 9,500 Michigan voters were confirmed already dead by the Social Security Death Index prior to the election.
  • Another 2,000 Michigan voters were listed as being over 100 years old but who are not listed as “living centenarians” in the state.
  • In Wayne County, Michigan, 174,384 absentee ballots were counted that did not have individual voter registration numbers, making them illegal and not valid for inclusion.
  • He also pointed out that Trump had a large lead in the state late on election night and then 200,000 votes for Biden and only 10,000 votes for Trump miraculously showed up by early the next morning.
  • He has rationally called for an investigation into six facets of voting fraud suspicious: outright voter fraud, ballot mishandling, contestable process fouls, equal protection clause violations, voting machine irregularities, and significant statistical anomalies.
Whether intentional or not, the voting process in at least Michigan was severely corrupted, dead people voting, mysterious old people voting, ballots showing up out of nowhere, the process was corrupted.

136) Red Right Daily - Following up on the above point that there was no voter fraud in Georgia but there are over 100 investigations underway into voter fraud consider:
  • Brad Raffensperger is the Georgia Secretary of State.
  • Thus, he is in charge of the state’s voting processes and insisted that when he validated the state’s voting results there was no fraud involved.
  • He then turned around and said that there needed to be an end to allowing voters to submit absentee ballots without reason because, wait for it, it causes voter fraud: “The no-excuse system voted into law in 2005 — long before most of you, if not all of you, long before I was in the General Assembly — it makes no sense when we have three weeks of in-person early voting available. It opens the door to potential illegal voting, especially in light of the federal rules that deny us the ability to keep voter lists, registration files, clean.”
So only a politician and government bureaucrat can come up with this in his mind and justify that he is not an idiot: there is no voter fraud but we have to change the laws because there is voter fraud. Right out of Orwell’s “1984” doublespeak affliction.

Oh, by the way, although most pre-election polls and most election results across the country had Trump and Biden roughly split in both in person and mail voting, in Georgia, a state Biden “won” by only 12,00 votes, Biden received 850,000 mail-in/absentee ballots while Trump received only 450,000 of the same. Thus, this is either a major statistical outlier or outright voter fraud and Biden ballot stuffing via the mail in voting process.

President Trump lost the state by 12,000 votes, Raffensberger ran to CNN declaring it was a fair and free election and now he admits voter fraud occurred and the laws need to be changed. In the State of Georgia Biden received 850,000 votes by absentee ballots compared to 450,000 for Trump.

137) Steadfast Clash - More statistical improbabilities from the election:
  • Somehow we are to believe that Biden got 81 million votes, the most of any Presidential candidate in history.
  • But he won lonely 477 counties across the country which was only 16% of the counties.
  • So Trump won 84% of the counties and still lost to a candidate that supposedly got more votes than any other President ever.
  • Compare these numbers to Obama’s landslide win in 2008 where he got 69 million votes while winning 873 counties.
  • So we are to believe that Biden got 17% more votes than Obama did in 2008 and got those 17% more votes by winning 45% fewer counties.
  • If we divide the number of votes by the number of counties won for Biden we get 170,000 votes per winning county.
  • If we do the same for Obama we get 79,000 votes per winning county.
  • Thus, as measure of efficiency, Biden was twice as efficient than Obama when it comes to number of votes received and number of counties won, not going to happen.
Don’t like those statistical realities? Consider another set:
  • There are 213.8 million registered voters in the country.
  • 141.5 million voters supposedly voting in November, a voter turnout of 66.2%.
  • Trump received 74 million votes, five million more than Obama received in 2008.
  • 141.5 million voters minus the 74 million votes Trump supposedly received, a number that no Democrat has questioned, and you end up with 67.5 million votes left over for Biden and other third party candidates.
  • 67.5 million votes is not equal to the 81 million votes that Biden supposedly received.
As always. So the math to understand reality.

138) Steadfast Daily - Although it is unlikely to change results, at least one Pennsylvania, has stepped to indicate there may be some fraud involved in the state from a voting perspective: “A Pennsylvania state court issued an injunction Wednesday blocking any potential further certification of election results in the state, pending a hearing to be held Friday. The order from Judge Patricia McCullough comes in the case brought by Pennsylvania voters including Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Pa., in which they allege that a state law allowing for no-excuse absentee voting violated the Pennsylvania constitution, which outlines specific cases where absentee voting is allowed. [T]o the extent that there remains any further action to perfect the certification of the results of the 2020 General Election … for the office of President and Vice President of the United States of America, Respondents are preliminarily enjoined from doing so, pending an evidentiary hearing[,].’” 

139) Big League Politics - For those that claim there was no voter fraud in the election, consider a recent development in Arizona:
  • A grand jury in Yuma, Arizona, a state with its own shady voting irregularities, have been indicted for voter fraud.
  • The indictment accuses them of voter fraud and participating in illegal “ballot harvesting” of mail in ballots.
  • Guillermina Fuentes and Alma Yadira Juarez were both charged with one count of ballot abuse which is a felony in the state. 
  • The charges allege that Fuentes and Yadira possessed and delivered four mail-in ballots to a voting precinct at one time in contravention of state law. 
  • One of the accused is a local school board member.
140) Back across the country a Pennsylvania has been arrested and charged with unlawful voting charges. In this case the accused is charged with allegedly trying to vote using his dead mother’s name via the state’s mail in ballot voting process.

Bruce Bartman was caught casting a vote under his dead mother’s name, Elizabeth Bartman. Given that Mr. Bartman is 70 years old it is probably a good bet that his mom was not recently deceased. He has been charged with perjury and unlawful voting.

In addition, he was caught trying to obtain a ballot in the name of his mother-in-law, Elizabeth Weihan. Unfortunately, the vote cast in the name of his mother was included in the state’s voting totals.

Delaware County, Pennsylvania, district Attorney, Jack Stollsteimer, has said that this was not the “only known case of a ‘dead person’ voting” in his county, but did not comment on the fact that hundreds of thousands of mail-in ballots were accepted without proper scrutiny from poll watchers.

Yes, the Arizona arrests and this arrest for only a few ballots, But if amateurs can game and defraud the system this easily, imagine how a focused, organized and well financed effort could corrupt the entire voting system.

141) Freedom Headlines - An official with the Michigan State Department has been caught on video telling voting center workers who wanted to challenge ballots that obviously had the same identical signatures as others that they couldn't do so: “We need to do the counts because if we don’t have the counts, then we can’t move forward. And we understand that there is a concern with this precinct—but this is not a time for you to be investigating right now.”

When pressed by a counter about the duplicate signatures and how it wold be a good idea to put suspicious ballots, (“We’ll go ahead and count the ballots moving forward, but we will separate out, and count those— there’s going to be an asterisk, saying ‘these ballots have the same signature.’”) the counter is again told to ignore the obvious fraudulent ballots (“And again, we know that you have a concern with this precinct.That’s not your role at this very moment. What I need you to do right now is finish the audit.”)

Obviously, the point of the audit was to get a true count of the valid ballots and ferret out any invalid ballots, a basic premise that seems to be lost on this bureaucrat. The actual video can be sen at:


142) United Patriot News - We know that Republican poll watchers and others were kicked out of a Georgia ballot counting process because of a probable fictitious water leak. Once everyone had left, remaining people took suitcases out from desks and took out ballots for counting even though the announcement had been made that ballot counting was over for the day.

Now, additional video has arisen which shows one of those who remained behind to count what was likely false ballots also ran the same stack of ballots through the voting tabulator multiple times, a clearly illegal and suspicious action.:

The video of the fraud can be viewed at:


143) Steadfast Clash - Smartmatic Systems, a voting machine company that is entangled with the Dominion Voting systems company, has been at the center of some of the fraud accusations. But Antonio Mugica, the Director Of Smartmatic, allegedly admitted in 2017 that its machines and software created one million “phantom votes” for election in Venezuela: "We estimate the difference between the actual participation and the one announced by the authorities is at least one million votes. It is important to point out that this would not have occurred if auditors of all political parties would had been present at every stage of the election."

His admission can be viewed at:


144) Neon Nettle - A voter fraud ring of people was recently busted down in Texas:
  • The four arrested were all women and are charged with running a voting fraud operation that was the benefit of Democrats.
  • They were arrested on Federal felony charges.
  • The fraud involved mail in ballots sent in ahead of the 2016 primary election in Texas that took advantage of elderly voters in the Fort Worth area.
  • The four face 30 felony counts of voter fraud.
  • According to reporting from the Star-Telegram, the four were paid to target older voters “in a scheme to generate a large number of mail ballots and then harvest those ballots for specific candidates in 2016.” 
  • The fraud was done by forging signatures, changing information on the applications, and resubmitting them without the knowledge of the senior citizen voters.
  • The alleged actions of these four included marking a voter’s ballot without his consent in March 2016, altering and submitting applications in January and February 2016, requesting ballots by mail for 13 people who had made no such requests, providing forged signatures for three people on applications, forging signatures on ballot applications, and providing false information on an application for a mail ballot.
And no one in the past two months has accused Texas of having a severe voter fraud problem and yet they continue to find and prosecute those that commit such a crime. Imagine how bad it is in areas such as Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Georgia (among others) where there is far more evidence of voter fraud.

That is the end of this stream of voting fraud reviews. It is not that we have not covered every instance of credible fraud accusations, we probably could get to 200 instances of such if we wanted. But at this point, the trends are pretty well established:
  • High unlikely statistical possibilities that Biden won fair and square.
  • Video evidence both inside and outside voting centers where voting fraud was occurring.
  • Unsecured ballots being delivered in the middle of the night to voting centers.
  • Massive swings in vote totals in the early morning hours after election day, vote totals that were totally skewed to Biden.
  • Whistle blowers across the country stepping up, under oath, to tell what they saw from a fraud perspective, endangering themselves and their families.
  • Voting laws in many states being clearly violated when voting counters are told to include ballots that are clearly not legal from any number of perspectives (no signature on a mail in ballot, a false signature, missing information, multiple ballots with the same signature, ballots from people that died long ago, etc.).
  • Secret video from folks like Project Veritas where people openly admit that they are either professional or amateur voting fraud instigators.
Again, Biden could have won honestly and all of these voting irregularities, though statistically improbable, could have miraculously come together to give him the win. But let’s face it, the realities of ballots secretly getting delivered in the middle of the night, voting machines taking Trump votes and switching them to Biden votes, suitcases of ballots being counted after the poll watchers were sent home, whistle blowers coming forward all over the country, etc., etc., etc., certainly line up more his victory being statistically impossible than a legal and legit victory. 

The 144 cases we have discussed in this series are pretty good evidence that massive corruption did occur. Again, some may not be true. But it is highly unlikely that all of them are empty, sour grapes of the losing side. The corruption is too wide, too consistent, too focused, and too overwhelming, as previous posts have shown. 

And if true, many bad people have corrupted and damaged a fundamental right of freedom, the ability to have their vote counted and counted equally with other legally cast votes. Anything short of this high standard is wrong, dangerous, and treasonous. The country has survived bad Presidents in the past, e.g. Nixon, Carter, and Obama, but it will not survive a corrupting voting process.

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:

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Sunday, December 27, 2020

By The Numbers - Washington Wastes $59 Billion While Americans Suffer The Implications of the Pandemic

On a periodic basis we do some posts that fall under the theme of “by the numbers.” Rather than trust what the American politician 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 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.

Today we are going to focus on the massive amount of wasteful spending that the Washington political class continues to commit. The main source of these wasteful numbers today comes from two sources:
  1. Rand Paul’s annual publication of his wasteful government spending report which annually highlights the stupid, wasteful, and insane programs and projects that Washington wastes our tax dollars on.
  2. The second source comes from the recent Congressional omnibus spending plans for 2021 that contains some very distressing spending on countries around the world.
Politicians should NEVER waste taxpayer money and wealth. But the wasteful spending is especially sensitive this year, given the suffering and challenges that the COVID pandemic has imposed on all Americans:
  • Many Americans became unemployed or had their work hours reduced because of the pandemic and are suffering financially.
  • Over 100,000 restaurants have gone out of business and many thousands more are in dire financial shape, causing millions of restaurant workers to lose their jobs or working hours.
  • Airlines and other travel related industries are desperate for customers and revenue and their employees have already been fired, furloughed, or are in danger of losing their jobs.
  • Food banks are struggling to keep up with the high food demand that the pandemic has caused.
Americans and American businesses are suffering and yet this is some of the nonsense the Washington political continues to waste money on, according to Rand Paul’s research, in the face of Americans’ suffering:
  • Rand Paul’s annual report found that the government wasted at least $54,746,525,000 in taxpayer wealth in 2020.
  • $25 million was spent to teach English to rural, unemployed Romanians.
  • $1.5 million was spent to get Eastern Mediterranean kids to stop smoking hookah. 
  • The National Institutes of Health is spending $1,039,544.00 over five years to try to help people get over their fears of going to the dentist.
  • U.S. Agency for International Development is spending $10,000,000.00 and five years to attempt to improve Zimbabwe’s political process. 
  • The Pentagon lost nearly $200 million in drone equipment just in Afghanistan alone. 
  • The Pentagon spent $23 billion to develop a better version of the M-2 Bradley Fighting Vehicle, a project that failed.
  • The Federal government spent $20 million for an airplane landing strip on Nantucket Island.
  • Another $10 million was wasted on an order of COVID test tubes that never materialized..
  • While thousands and thousands of theater employees lost their jobs because of covid lock downs, the Kennedy Center D.C. received $25 million for salaries. 
  • Congress reimbursed some agencies for money they had spent on COVID in late 2019 and early 2020, before COVID hit, on efforts unrelated to COVID.
  • $36 million was spent on studying why stress makes hair turn gray. 
  • More than $1 million was spent studying whether people will eat ground-up bugs.
  • More than $3 million was spent interviewing San Franciscans about their edible cannabis use.
  • $8.62 billion was spent in Afghanistan on counter narcotics efforts, 
  • More than $37 million was spent helping deal with truant Filipino youth
  • More than $3 million was spent on sending Russians to American community colleges for a “gap year.”
  • Among funds spent on the environment, energy, and scientific research, more than $1 million was spent walking lizards on a treadmill.
  • Nearly $200,000 was spent studying how people cooperate while playing e-sport video games, and 
  • More than $2 million was spent on developing a wearable headset to track eating behaviors.
  • More than $715 million worth of military equipment, designated for Syrians fighting ISIS, was lost.
  • More than $4 million was spent on spraying alcoholic rats with bobcat urine, 
  • More than $10 million was spent on would-be coronavirus test tubes that turned up as used soda bottles. 
  • Nearly $6 million was spent building three bicycle storage facilities at Washington, D.C. Metro stations.
Unbelievable. As Americans suffer, losing their jobs, their careers, their businesses, and facing food deficits, Washington politicians tried to get lizards in good cardio shape, helped out with Filipino kids, support Russian college students, etc.

And we know that they did not grow a heart or increase their compassion for suffering Americans since in their recent omnibus spending bills for 2021, they earmarked over $4.7 billion to go to far flung, non-strategic countries like Nepal, Cambodia, Burma, Egypt, and other places that I bet most people in Congress could not find on a map.

So between actual 2020 wasteful spending and billions being shipped overseas to billions being shipped out to far away countries in 2021, the Washington political class easily will waste $59 billion of taxpayer wealth. Think about what could be done for $59 billion:
  • We have previously discussed the fact that, on average, a homeless American can be fed a decent meal for about $2.94 by food banks and charity groups across the country.
  • That means that the wasted $59 billion could have provided three meals a day for every one of the 550,000 or so homeless Americans for about 33 years!
  • We have previously discussed the fact that, on average, it takes $6,522 a year to treat an American with a drug addiction.
  • That means that the wasted $59 billion could have provided drug addiction treatment to just over 9 million addicted Americans for a year.
  • That $59 billion could have put up every homeless American in a $200 a night hotel room for a year and a half.
You get the idea, we could go on and on with the numbers. Just this amount of wasteful spending, and I am sure that there is plenty more, could bring so much relief to those in need in this country and yet, Washington politicians would rather waste our wealth on stupid pseudo-science and research projects, not hold anyone accountable for lost assets or misspent budgets, and send money around the world to help others but no our own.

The question that should be asked is why do they do it? It has always been my assumption that the reason they would rather help some kid in the Philippines rather than some American kid living in a car with their homeless parents is that there is something in it for them. Remember a few years ago when John Kerry’s daughter got a no bid contract worth millions of taxpayer dollars for an overseas project:

https://dailycaller.com/2016/10/18/exclusive-special-treatment-gave-john-kerrys-daughter-9-million-in-govt-contracts/

I would bet we would find similar actions underway in the wasteful spending above. Which member of Congress pushed to have funding for treadmill lizards and did they or their family in any way get any benefit? Who thought it was a good idea to send taxpayer money to Sudan and did they or their family benefit from that expenditure? 

It would sure be nice to have a budget process where every budget line item had a list of those in Congress who supported it. If someone actually had to fess up to supporting the need to find out why stress causes gray hair I would think and hope a lot of this budget nonsense would disappear.

This country is wealthy enough to feed its hungry, treat its addicted, and shelter its homeless. Unfortunately Washington would rather spend those resources elsewhere to the detriment and health of needy Americans. So very, very sad what their priorities are.

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:



Part 2 - What Other Cities and States Might Beat California To Bankruptcy Court?

We have spent two recent posts describing how much damage and pain that the politicians in California have caused to the state, its residents and businesses. High taxes, high debt, high homlessness rates, high utility rates, higher and higher crime rates, and other bad decisions and legislation have caused more and more residents and businesses to flee the state for more freedom and a better quality of life.

As more and more people and businesses leave the state, the state loses tax revenue and jobs which results in budget shortages and more and more unfunded financial liabilities. This causes the political class to raise taxes and reduce government services which drives more people and business out of the state and the financial death spiral starts.

Thus, a strong case can be made that the state of California and possibly a California city, e.g. San Francisco, could likely be the first state and next large city to go bankrupt. However, they will face some tough competition from other states and cities in the race to the bankruptcy court steps. New York, New Jersey, and Illinois have also entered into a financial death spiral. New York City, Chicago, Baltimore, Philadelphia and other cities are also strong contenders to be the next major city to go bankrupt.

Consider the assets of these other government entities in the race to bankruptcy:

1) Rather than stop wasting taxpayer money, stop politically connected expenses or run more efficient government bureaucracies, politicians always think that raising taxes will solve their short term and long term fiscal problems. Besides raising tax rates, they come up with ever more bizarre and freedom zapping new taxes. 

My former home state of New Jersey and their politicians have come up with some original tax ideas to futilely try to close government budget deficits. First, they now assess a tax on any New Jersey homeowner who sells their house to move out of state. They then came up with a tax based on how much of a homeowner’s property is covered with hard substances such as the house itself, patios, driveways, etc. and then assessed the house on that square footage.

None of these higher tax rates or additional taxes ever create a large enough tax stream to offset the wasteful and useless spending of politicians and governments. A number of years ago, the state of Maryland raised the state income tax rate on all income over a million dollars, i.e. soak the rich concept. Unfortunately within just a few years despite a higher tax rate, the amount of tax revenue from income over a million dollars actually declined. People and businesses either moved out of state or restricted their earnings to not pay the additional taxes. 

Again the principle is pretty straight forward: raising taxes almost always results in lower tax revenue streams and usually the out migration of residents, jobs, businesses, and taxable income.

As our recent discussions of California and New York have shown, at some point the high taxation rates drive rich and poor alike out of the state, reducing the tax base which reduces the tax stream which politicians then use as an excuse to raise taxes even more and the death spiral is in place. 

Nowhere is that more prevalent than in New York City and New York state. They have trouble making their own annual budget numbers which prevents them from addressing their huge future unfunded liability burden which will eventually bankrupt the city and the state.

But rather then reset their priorities, cut wasteful spending, make city and state government more efficient, they continue to raise taxes with the latest idea showing how desperate an ignorant they are:
  • According to a local WNBC report, NewYork state assemblyman, Robert Carroll, has proposed a tax idea that is almost beyond comprehension.
  • He wants to place a $3.00 delivery tax on any item(s) that are ordered online and delivered to a household or business.
  • So think about all of the Amazon and other packages that you had sent out this past month for the holidays: this tax would have made every one of those packages $3.00 more expensive.
  • The only exception would be those packages that contain medicine or food.
  • Carroll tries to justify the new tax by saying it would help with climate change, generate $1 billion a year for the NYC Metropolitan Transportation Agency, and encourage people to do more in person shopping.
So much idiocy with this proposal:
  • For now, people cannot do in person shopping and probably will not be able to or want to for a while due to covid concerns.
  • If and when they do get back to in store shopping they will be driving to stores which will have a negative effect on climate, the exact opposite of what Carroll says he is trying to do.
  • Amazon, UPS and FedEx trucks are going to be driving around everyday anyway so the reduction in carbon from these trucks will be minimal: most people order one thing at a time from online stores and most of the time when they order multiple things, they usually show up all at once so the reduction in orders, and impact on the climate, will be minimal.
  • The MTA is going bankrupt because of covid, no one wants to ride the subways with other potential covid infected riders so fixing that problem rather than making up new taxes is the better solution.
  • If a politician says a new tax will generate $1 billion in tax revenue, you can bet it will not get anything close to that number.
  • And be sure that Amazon and other online retailers are not going to pay that tax, they will pass that tax along to New York residents, increasing their cost of living.
Another tax, another reason to leave places like New York, New Jersey, and California.

2) As tax revenue goes down, or the desire to defund the police goes up, or both, the safety and welfare of law abiding citizens goes way down. This is another factor in driving some cities and states into bankruptcy, residents and businesses are fleeing because safety is no longer either a priority or a capability of city politicians and governments.

Consider one day of violence that happened recently in NYC, a list of violent acts that is far from comprehensive:
  • In Brooklyn, a street gun fight broke out which injured at least six people.
  • A man walking into his apartment building was robbed of his gold necklace and then shot and killed for no reason.
  • At least two subway riders were pushed onto subway tracks for no reason.
  • As we previously discussed, this year there were almost 1,700 reported shootings in NYC by November 15, a number that doesn't account for shootings that were not reported.
  • City murders are up 37% this year when compared to 2019.
If people and businesses don't feel safe, they will act rationally and move away from the danger, taking their tax dollars, jobs, and businesses with them.

3) Still do not believe that NYC is a leading candidate to be the next big city to declare bankruptcy? Take a look at the following video. The video is taken out of a car driving down world famous Fifth Avenue in NYC, the shopping center for NYC.

It captures the reality that crime and riots have forced businesses to basically “board up” their storefronts to avoid being robbed, vandalized, etc. If these images do not scream out financial death spiral then I don't know anything that does:

https://rawconservativeopinions.com/2020/08/16/shocking-dystopian-video-of-nyc-shows-an-abandoned-and-boarded-up-5th-avenue/

3) Since politicians in failing cities and states do not know how to properly downsize government to make it more efficient and less wasteful of taxpayer wealth, when the financial death spiral starts, their first reaction are to 1) raise taxes and 2) reduce government services, making the quality of life more dangerous and less satisfying to their constituents. We have talked about the stupidity of raising taxes in a death spiral and we know that cutting funding of police, fire and EMT services makes a city less safe and prone to population loss, consider another aspect of lowering government services and budgets:
  • New York City has had to cut its short term budget because of a shrinking tax base.
  • This budget cutting has resulted in a smaller sanitation department, which means fewer garbage pickups which leaves more garbage on the city streets which has led to an exploding rat population problem.
  • The problem is defined as, “Rats as big as bunnies are roaming the streets in broad daylight, nesting in trees and chewing through car engine wires that can cost thousands to fix. And there are so many that residents are kvetching about them every chance they get — 311 hotline complaints about rats have totaled 12,632 so far this year — a third more than the 9,042 for all of 2019.”
  • The city has had to start broadcasting a two hour video on rat prevention training, “Rat Academy.”
  • Residents believe the lack of garbage pick up is a main driver for bigger and bigger rat populations.
  • A long term resident is quoted as saying that it is the mayor’s fault, Bill de Blasio: “He’s a f–king waste. He’s turned this city into a s—hole.”
  • Another long term resident claims she saw a gang of 10-15 rats hanging out by a subway stop recently.
High taxes, new and more obnoxious taxes, a growing rat population, a deserted downtown area, covid lockdown, skyrocketing crime, sounds like NYC has all of their ducks in a row for their own death spiral.

4) Other cities are also having the same types of problems and some that have their own unique twist on how to drive out residents and businesses due the failings and ignorance of their own politicians:
  • Minneapolis politicians have defunded their police department which has resulted in them needing to use taxpayer money to hire private security guards to protect themselves but not their citizens since the police force has been so decimated. 
  • Truckers are threatening not to deliver food and other products into the city because of safety and crime reasons.
  • Minneapolis was the first major city to defund their police department and as a result, violent crime against businesses and residents has skyrocketed, encouraging law abiding people and businesses to abandon the city, taking their tax revenue and jobs with them.
  • Portland, which has been under siege for almost a year by Antifa, gangs, criminals, and other lawbreakers, all of whom have taken over the streets in the face of another defunded police department, now have to deal with insurance companies who are threatening not to insure businesses in the city because of the violence, destruction, and attacks on businesses. 
  • No business insurance means no businesses in the city which means residents have no place to shop which means residents move out of the city.
So make your pick: which city will go bankrupt next? Which state will go bankrupt first? It is pretty clear what is going on:
  • A bloated government bureaucracy, which wastes taxpayer wealth, and over-promised government employee pension and retirement plans which results in short term budget shortfalls and long term, unpayable unfunded financial liabilities which results in ever higher taxes which drives tax paying residents and businesses out of a city or state.
  • Crime increases drive out businesses and residents for fear for their lives and businesses so they flee out of a city or state for a safer environment for their family and selves.
  • As the annual budget crunch gets worse and worse, politicians belatedly start cutting government services such as police, fire, EMT, schools and sanitation to meet the budget shortfalls which results in a lower yet more expensive quality of life driving more residents and businesses out of a city or state looking for a better life for their families, their employees, and businesses.
  • And as the city or state gets hollowed out by the out-migration of businesses and residents, the tax base collapses, the tax revenue stream cannot keep up with current expenses, never mind funding future liabilities, and the financial house of cards collapses into bankruptcy. Not a pretty sight.
As you can see for many of these recent posts, from California to Portland to Chicago to New York, the financial death spiral has probably already started, all do the ineptness, the greed, selfish, and ignorance of the American politician. The question is who will crash first? My predictions:
  1. Next major city to go bankrupt: my money is still with Chicago with New York City coming in second and San Francisco going bankrupt third.
  2. First U.S. state to go bankrupt: my bet would be Illinois followed by New York, California and then New Jersey.
What do you think?

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:



Friday, December 25, 2020

Part 1: What Other Cities and States Might Beat California To Bankruptcy Court?

We have spent the past two posts describing how much damage and pain that the politicians in California have caused to the state, its residents and businesses. High taxes, high debt, high homlessness rates, high utility rates, higher and higher crime rates, and other bad decisions and legislation have caused more and more residents and businesses to flee the state for more freedom and a better quality of life.

As more and more people and businesses leave the state, the state loses tax revenue and jobs which results in budget shortages and more and more unfunded financial liabilities. This causes the political class to raise taxes and reduce government services which drives more people and business out of the state and the financial death spiral starts.

Thus, it is our opinion that the state of California and possibly a California city, e.g. San Francisco, will be the first state and next large city to go bankrupt. However, they will face some tough competition from other states and cities in the race to the bankruptcy court steps. New York, New Jersey, and Illinois have also entered into a financial death spiral. New York City, Chicago, Baltimore, Philadelphia and other cities are also strong contentions to be the next major city to go bankrupt.

Consider the assets of these other government entities in the race to bankruptcy:

1) An article from the American Patriot Forum website showed that New York City is suffering the same affliction that cities and California:
  • According to the New York Post, there have been more than 300,000 change of address requests submitted to the Post Office since March in New York City.
  • The obvious conclusion is that many city residents are hitting the road, much like the mass exodus out of California, as people look for lower taxes, lower crime rates, and a better quality of life.
  • Michael Hendrix is the director of state and local policy at the Manhattan Institute: “I think people are afraid. They’re afraid of catching a deadly virus and they’re afraid of crime and other quality of life concerns. One thing we also hear is about trash and cleanliness of the city.”
  • From other sources we know that there is a garbage/sanitation issue in the city as the city cannot keep up with the garbage accumulating on the streets of NYC.
  • Kathryn Wylde is the head of the Partnership for New York City: “The biggest reason for people leaving the city is uncertainty about when the pandemic will be over and how quickly the New York economy will recover. More than half a million city residents who were employed in the retail, restaurant, services sectors have lost their jobs and cannot afford city rents. The late decision on re-opening public and private schools forced many families to relocate so they could make enrollment deadlines in districts where they were living during the pandemic.”
  • The Partnership has pleaded with the Mayor to crack down on crime and quality of life issues which apparently has not happened.

Now, some of those change of address requests may be temporary for any number of reasons. But the sheer magnitude that is inconsistent with past years is a strong indicator that people are leaving NYC just like they are leaving California. This reduces the tax base and job base which results in lower tax revenue streams which means more tax hikes, more new taxes, and lower government services and the spiral is gaining speed.

2) A recent article on the Cracked Politics website reinforced the above points:
  • The number of people leaving NYC, measured via change of address filings with the Post Office, has more than doubled in the past year.
  • 295,103 filings were done in 2020 so far and is more than double the 2019 filings.
  • And it could actually be worse than this: “Since the data details only when 11 or more forwarding requests were made to a particular county outside NYC, the number of moves is actually higher.”
  • This information is consistent with other sources of data including opinion surveys and real estate transactions.
  • From March to July this year, 245,000 change of address filings were done compared to just over 100,000 in those same months in 2019.
  • Shootings and murders in the city are likely to be the highest level in at least ten years.
  • In 2019 there were 295 murders but so far this year in NYC there have been over 400 murders.
  • In all of 2019 there were 828 shootings while through November 15 of this year there have been 1,667 shootings.
Higher and higher taxes with higher and higher violent crime, another factor in any city’s death spiral

3) According to the Patriot Daily Press, higher and higher crime in NYC is not restricted to the streets:
  • Recently a city woman was shoved onto the subway tracks at a Manhattan subway station but luckily suffered only minor injuries since she got back safely just before a subway train arrived.
  • The same day a man was pushed onto a subway track after refusing to give a panhandler any money. Fortunately, he was able to claim back onto the platform before any trains arrived.
And in the face of this increase in violent crime the mayor has decided to decrease the funding for the NYPD budget by $1 billion. Not a good strategy when you are trying to keep residents in the city and not drive them out.

5) And much like Silicon Valley billionaires and businesses are moving out of California, Wall Street billionaires and businesses are moving out of New York City:
  • According to a recent NewsMax article, “A bevy of Wall Street executives, bankers and fund managers are abandoning New York for Florida, embracing the Sunshine State over metropolitan New York as the coronavirus pandemic has eliminated many benefits of working from a global financial hub.”
  • The article points out that Florida has lower taxes overall, no state income tax, better weather, much lower housing costs, lower commercial office rental rates, and more freedom to move about and be free (visiting museums, eating out at restaurants, etc.) in the age of covid.
  • Well over two dozen financial firms associated with Wall Street are either in the process of moving company operations to Florida or have already done so.
  • Elliott Management, Citadel and Moelis & Co are just some of the NYC companies who have committed to opening offices in Florida or allow their moneymakers to be based in Florida.
  • Goldman Sachs is considering moving some asset management staff to the state.
  • "I absolutely love it here and am trying to get some friends to move down here," said Kevin Couper, senior vice president at Wealthspire Advisors, who moved to South Florida six months ago. "People are able to live their lives down here."
  • Elliot Management, which manages $41 billion worth of investments, will open an office in West Palm Beach, Florida in 2021.
  • Elliot’s chief executive has worked in Florida the entire length of the pandemic.
  • Another hedge fund, Citadel, will open an office in Miami next year.
  • Blackstone will move hundreds of jobs to Miami next year also.
Lower taxes, better weather, freedom, lower housing costs, beaches, warm weather year round, all of which bring jobs, taxpayers, and tax revenue to states like Florida, depriving cities like New York City and of those same tax revenue streams. Which of course we now know causes the dreaded financial death spiral for places like NYC.

That will do it for our discussion today on other cities and states that may beat California and California cities to the bankruptcy court. Politicians in places like California, New York, NYC, San Francisco have screwed up the quality of life and freedom for their residents that those residents and the companies they work for have decided they need to leave, for their safety of their employees and the financial viability of their businesses and their families. 

And the sad part is that these same politicians do not realize what they are doing and keep repeating the same mistakes: higher tax rates, new taxes, defunding police departments which endangers citizens' lives and property, and overall decreasing the quality of life.

More insanity from these same financial death spiral causing, inane politicians in our next post.

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


Tuesday, December 22, 2020

California - The First State To Go Bankrupt? Has Its Financial Death Spiral Begun? Part 2

We have often spoken about how California politicians have destroyed what was once the most desirable state to live in. As a result of their incompetence, the state is now plagued with high taxes, high crime rates, high utility costs, high crime rates, high homeless rates, low performing public schools, continual forest fires, high unfunded financial liabilities, etc. As a result, for the first time ever, residents and businesses are leaving the state for better quality of life and economic freedom.

The latest discussion on the failure of California politicians can be found at:


That post got a lot of interest so let’s continue that discussion today and dive deeper into what is going on in the state because of a failed political class:

1) An article on the US First Reporting website reported that the large out migration of residents could actually reduce the number of state representatives in the House of Representatives by one seat, an unprecedented occurrence for a state that has always been in a growth mode:
  • Hans Johnson is a demographer with the Public Policy Institute of California: “This is a real sea change in California, which used to be this state of pretty robust population growth. It hasn’t been for some time now. But it’s now gotten to the point where the state is essentially not growing population-wise at all.”
  • The state has lost population three years in a row which has never happened before.
  • Last year it had its third highest loss of residents ever.
  • Consider the opinion of San Francisco real estate broker Scott Fuller: “I never wanted to leave California. It’s the most beautiful state with the best climate. I think the tipping point was continued tax increases and even more proposed tax increases. … I have absolutely no regrets.”
  • Besides the ongoing issues listed above, e.g. high taxes, high crime, etc., the overlay of the pandemic and the state’s political class, e.g. Gavin Newsom, imposing draconian lockdown measures and penalties have also driven residents and companies out of the state.
  • Frustration has gotten so bad about the pandemic restrictions that those residents staying behind have mounted a recall petition drive for the governor.
Thus, as the quality of life suffers, residents leave and take with them their jobs, their tax revenue and apparently maybe a seat in Congress.

2) Consider some observations from the Three Percent Nation website:
  • The homeless problem has gotten so bad in California that phone apps now exist that show where the homeless folks in California are publicly going to the bathroom in order to help app users to stay away from those areas.
  • We have previously shown how this aspect of the horrible California homeless problem has caused both environmental damage and has led to the revival of ancient diseases, e.g. typhus.
  • Public defecation and urination has resulted in toxic runoffs into streams and the Pacific Ocean leading to water and fecal pollution.
  • The EPA sent the California governor a letter alleging that “the state’s lack of urgency on homelessness threatens public health by polluting nearby water with untreated human waste. It then issued a notice to San Francisco accusing it of violating the federal Clean Water Act.”
  • Some waterways have shown e coli contamination which can cause disease in humans.
So, in addition to high taxes, high crime, high homlessness, etc. we can now add water pollution and health crises to the problems that California politicians have caused.

3) Elon Musk of Tesla and Space X fame has not only moved his residence from California to Texas but also decided not to manufacture his electric trucks in California but in Texas. He laid out his reasons for moving in a recent interview:
  • “We are a bit worried about not being able to resume production in the Bay Area, and that should be identified as a serious risk,” said Musk. “The expansion of shelter-in-place, or as we call it, forcibly imprisoning people in their homes, against all their constitutional rights, is, in my opinion, breaking people’s freedoms in ways that are horrible and wrong, and not why people came to America and built this country. What the f***!”
  • “If somebody wants to stay in the house that’s great. They should be allowed to stay in the house and they should not be compelled to leave. But to say that they cannot leave their house and they will be arrested if they do… this is fascist. This is not democratic. This is not freedom. Give people back their godd*mn freedom … Everything people have worked for all their lives is being destroyed in real time. I think the people are going to be very angry about this and are very angry.”
I am sure he is not alone when it comes to Californians leaving the state to find more freedom after what California politicians have done to their freedom, politically, personally and economically.

4) While California politicians have failed the state residents on broad major issues and topics, taxes, education, housing, etc., they have also failed on smaller, project-oriented efforts. Nowhere is that more obvious than with the their failed bullet train plans that was supposed to make traveling from northern California to southern California fast, efficient, and environmentally friendly:
  • The bullet rain concept never really got off the ground and is now really a dead issue/project.
  • Minimal infrastructure for the train was built and just the consulting fees alone far exceeded the budget for those fees, wasting millions of taxpayer dollars in the process.
  • The waste, and possible corruption, is so bad that employees of a consulting firm who worked on the project have been told to shut up or risk losing their jobs.
  • This gag order has raised suspicions that the state government politicians and bureaucrats created a project that was over budget and had safety hazards built into the design.
  • One of the employees is Mark Styles: “I was told to shut up and not say anything. I was told that I didn’t understand the political arena the project was in. I told them I am not going to shut up. This is my job.”
  • Another former employee, Todd Bilstein, stated that he was told to not provide bad news: “If I was to give a talk at a construction conference, I would say they were not following generally accepted project management principles.
  • President Trump summed up the failure in a tweet: “California has been forced to cancel the massive bullet train project after having spent and wasted many billions of dollars. They owe the Federal Government three and a half-billion dollars. We want that money back now. Whole project is a ‘green’ disaster!” They have wasted taxpayer money. In essence, they owe the taxpayer billions of dollars.”
  • The project started 10 years ago and was supposed to be finished and operational by 2022, which is not going to happen.
Usually, when government goes after whistleblowers there is some kind of nefarious and/or criminal behaviors under the surface that insiders do not want to see come to the surface. But just another failure of state politicians, who can screw up on a grand scale or a much smaller scale.

5) The following video clip is interesting in that it lays out the reality that for decades, the state of California has been run by and influenced by four powerful families: The Gettys, The Newsoms, The Pelosis, and the Browns. These families have members that have been California mayors, governors, and members of Congress. 

Given such an incestuous and long term set of relationships, relationships that have been very profitable for all parties involved, it should not be a big surprise that the state is in such bad condition. Eventually, power becomes absolute power and that corrupts absolutely and self enrichment becomes more important rather than the quality of life of the voters:


6) As we just asserted, long time political power often results in financial gain for those in power. Consider the case of a member of one of the four families mentioned above, California governor Gavin Newsom, as reported by the Daily Wire website:
  • According to a San Francisco television station, several companies, partially owned by California governor, Gavin Newsom, in total received almost three millions in COVID stimulus relief from the Federal Government.
  • Keep in mind that Newsom and his family tree are rich beyond just about every American’s imagination.
  • KGO News, “discovered discrepancies” that “appear to raise questions” about how much relief went to businesses under the umbrella of the PlumpJack Group, a hospitality management company founded by Newsom in 1992. Its properties include wineries, bars, restaurants, and a boutique hotel.”
  • While Newsom placed his financial interests in a blind trust when he became governor, his sister is still the president of the company.
  • One of the companies got $1 million in taxpayer money under the covid stimulus program under an arrangement to save jobs which simple math would show that the number of employees involved divided into the $1 million would come out to $160,000 per employee, far more than any of them were earning pre-covid.
  • This was far more (7X) than the average company in California received for the same number of employees.
  • Keep in mind that Nancy Pelosi was instrumental in writing that covid stimulus package and that she is Gavin Newsom’s aunt.
The rich get richer and the really small American businesses that really needed the money got shut out.

That will do it for today, more insanity from the most insane state: Out migration continues to happen, the “four families” that rule California (sounds like a Mafia movie idea), the California rich get richer, the failed high speed train boondoggle failure and a possible coverup of the failure, homelessness causes serious pollution in the state, and Elon Musk checks in on why he left the state.

While we think that California is a prime state to attain the title, “First American State To Go Bankrupt,” in the next few posts we will cover other states that may beat California to the steps of bankruptcy court.

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: