The Mother Of A Fallen Marine Says It All

Before we get to today’s insanity, please consider the following proposition: as many of you know, the withdrawal from Afghanistan has been a historic and fatal endeavor. But the failure did not start just in the past few weeks, it has been a twenty year disaster. It has cost American taxpayers about a trillion dollars, has left thousands of our brave armed forces folks dead, maimed, or wounded and has resulted in an unknown but substantial number of civilian deaths.

Afghanistan has been a collective failure of multiple Presidential administrations and multiple sessions of Congress. Thus, please consider signing the petition below that calls for the immediate resignation of every member of Congressthat has at least twenty years of service and the resignation of President Biden, Vice President Harris, and critical, and failed, members of the Biden Administration. They do not deserve to serve any longer given their miserable twenty year track record of death, destruction and waste in Afghanistan.

Also, if you are passionate about this topic and effort, feel free to pass the link along to others who might also feel the same way, i.e. incompetence should not be rewarded:

https://www.change.org/p/american-citizens-demand-immediate-congressional-resignations-for-the-twenty-year-afghanistan-debacle

Thank you.

**********************************

As a followup to the message above, today’s political class insanity post is nothing more than the words of a grieving American mother who, because of Joe Biden’s and Washington’s incompetence when it comes to Afghanistan, lost her Marine son, a death that was totally avoidable if not for the ineptness of the Biden administration.

Many times government incompetence is silly and maybe wastes some taxpayer dollars. But as we have seen this past week, government incompetence also wastes lives and results in much avoidable and unnecessary death and heartbreak, as so passionately and accurately summarized by the mother of  Lance Cpl. Kareem Nikoui, who really lays into Biden

**************************

President Joe Biden Joe Biden This msg is for you! I know my face is etched into your brain! I was able to look you straight in the eyes yesterday and have words with you. After I lay my son to rest you will be seeing me again!

Remember i am the one who stood 5 inches from your face and was letting you know i would never get to hug my son again, hear his laugh and then you tried to interrupt me and give me your own sob story and I had to tell you “that this isn’t about you so don’t make it about you!!!”

You then said you just wanted me to know that you know how I feel and I let you know that you don’t know how I feel and you do not have the right to tell me you know how I feel!

U then rolled your f*cking eyes in your head like you were annoyed with me and I let you know that the only reason I was talking to you was out of respect for my son and that was the only reason why, I then proceeded to tell you again how you took my son away from me and how I will never get to hug him, kiss him, laugh with him again etc… u turned to walk away and I let you know my son's blood was on your hands and you threw your hand up behind you as you walked away from me like you were saying “ ok whatever!!! You are not the president of the United States of America Biden!!!! Cheating isn’t winning!!!You are no leader of any kind! You are a weak human being and a traitor!!!!

You turned your back on my son, on all of our Heros!!! you are leaving the White House one way or another because you do not belong there! MY SON’S BLOOD IS ON YOUR HANDS!!! All 13 of them, their blood is on your hands!!!! If my president Trump was in his rightful seat then my son and the other Heros would still be alive!!!! You will be seeing me again very soon!!! Btw as my son and the rest of our fallen Heros were being taken off the plane yesterday i watched you disrespect us all 5 different times by checking your watch!!! What the f*ck was so important that you had to keep looking at your watch???? You are nobody special Biden!!! America Hates you!!!!!

********************

Biden and others need to resign immediately for dereliction of duty, incompetence and total lack of empathy. Nothing short of resignation is acceptable.

August, 2021, Part 7, Political Class Insanity: More Hypocrisy From Our Political Class and $89 Billion Wasted In Afghanistan

Before we get to today’s insanity, please consider the following proposition: as many of you know, the withdrawal from Afghanistan has been a historic and fatal endeavor. But the failure did not start just in the past few weeks, it has been a twenty year disaster. It has cost American taxpayers about a trillion dollars, has left thousands of our brave armed forces folks dead, maimed, or wounded and has resulted in an unknown but substantial number of civilian deaths.

Afghanistan has been a collective failure of multiple Presidential administrations and multiple sessions of Congress. Thus, please consider signing the petition below that calls for the immediate resignation of every member of Congress that has at least twenty years of service and the resignation of President Biden, Vice President Harris, and critical, and failed, members of the Biden Administration. They do not deserve to serve any longer given their miserable twenty year track record of death, destruction and waste in Afghanistan.

Also, if you are passionate about this topic and effort, feel free to pass the link along to others who might also feel the same way, i.e. incompetence should not be rewarded:

https://www.change.org/p/american-citizens-demand-immediate-congressional-resignations-for-the-twenty-year-afghanistan-debacle

Thank you.

**********************************************

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

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

1) We could probably do three posts a day for months to cover the most inane and fatal screwups by the Biden administration in the withdrawal from Afghanistan. It has been one of the worst government operations in any area of endeavor in our country’s history.

But we will save Biden’s failures some other time. Today, we start with a longer term Afghanistan embarrassment that is typical of the trillion dollars that the American political class wasted in Afghanistan in the past twenty years:

• As you read this sad chapter, keep in mind that millions of Americans are homeless, hungry and drug addicted but instead of addressing those domestic issues, the DC politicians decided to send millions of tax dollars overseas to Afghanistan for the most insane reason.
• The U.S. Agency for International Development spent at least $89 million to “increase election participation” in Afghanistan.
• Rather than spend $89 million to increase voter participation in this country or divert that money for shelter, food and drug treatment for needy Americans, the Federal government sent it overseas in a fruitless process to impose democracy on a people that had no experience with the concept

It is constantly amazing how wasteful and non-caring politicians come when it comes to helping Americans, the very people that provide the tax dollars that politicians waste at astronomical levels and for idiotic reasons.

2) Far too many times we have discussed the hypocrisy of the American political class when it comes to the pandemic:

• After shutting down every business in Chicago, the Chicago mayor insisted that only her hair salon open up only for her to get her hair done, denying the pleasure to everyone else in the city.
• After shutting down every business in Beaumont, Texas, the Beaumont mayor insisted that only her nail salon open up only for her to get her nails done, denying the pleasure to everyone else in the city.
• After shutting down every gym in NYC, the NYC mayor insisted that his gym open up only for him so that he could get some exercise, denying that please to everyone else in the city.
• After insisting that every citizen in California wear a mask whenever they are out and about, the governor was caught having a dinner party at a fancy restaurant with everyone present at the dinner not wearing a mask including the governor.

You get the idea, “do as I say, not as I do.” The hypocrisy, the elitism, the condescending attitude of those in political power towards their constituents is appalling.

And it continues despite those politicians above getting castigated for their hypocritical behaviors:

• Ted Wheeler is the mayor of Portland, Oregon.
• We have often made the case that he is one of the worst mayors in the country, allowing the terrorist group Antifa to run wild in his city, breaking laws, setting fires, assaulting and frightening citizens, etc.
• And it turns out that not only is he a wimp of a leader, he is also a hypocrite when it comes to pandemic rules that he endorsed and supported.
• Keep in mind that Portland and the state of Oregon are in the midst of a rampaging increase in covid cases.
• However, that did not stop the mayor from attending an indoor meeting with others in which none of the meeting participants were wearing a mask, certainly a violation of Wheeler’s covid decree, a “do as I say, not as I do” moment.
• Now, the mayor’s office tried to pooh pooh this obvious covid safety violation, claiming that the meeting participants did not have to wear their masks since they were actively engaged in eating and drinking, an exception to the indoor mask requirement.
• However, a photo of the meeting showed everyone seated in a circle not wearing a mask and not actively drinking or eating.
• In fact, while the photo showed some bottles of water sitting around, there was no sign of any substantial food in the photo.
• Thus, Wheeler is guilty of hypocrisy, especially because he insisted a few weeks ago that everyone should be “making a commitment to protect those around us by wearing a mask at all times while indoors.”

The integrity and snobbiness of American politicians continues to disgust everyday Americans, who get stuck living with these government edicts while those making the edicts view them more as a suggestion than a requirement. Insanity.

3) Gretchen Whitmer is running for another term as the governor of Michigan. She has had a dreadful time during the pandemic, guilty of at least two “do as I say, not as I do” instances:

• Early in the pandemic, when Whitmer had shut down just about all outdoor activities in Michigan, her husband tried to go around her decree by throwing her name around when he tried to get his boat out for a day of boating while the governor had prohibited every other citizen of the state from doing the same.
• She had strongly discouraged anyone from coming into the state,including returning Michigan residents when she tried to sneak out of the state to visit her father in Florida and then return, an antic she had formally prohibited

But her hypocrisy does not stop with violating her own covid edits:

• She recently condemned what she called “out of state interests” who were contributing campaign donations to her opponent.
• This is a noble gesture and outrage if you believe that only Michigan residents should be able to contribute to Michigan politicians since those politicians should be accountable only to them, not accountable to out of state interests who bribed her with campaign donations.
• But her nobility is pure hypocrisy since according to the Washington Beacon, she also has received mega donations from “out of state interests,” interests that have little if any connection to the state’s affairs and welfare.
• She raised $8.6 million in campaign donations over the past seven months or so and a whopping 44% of those donations came from donors outside of Michigan.
• Many of these individual donations also exceeded the $7,150 contribution limit for donors that apply to Michigan donors.
• Non-Michigan billionaires, Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker, oil executive Stacy Schusterman, and heiress and Colorado Democracy Alliance Cofounder Patricia Stryker, combined to give Whitmer $750,000.
• None of these three billionaires live in Michigan.
• Whitmer tried to convince the world that she was a “grassroots” candidate, getting small donations from individual state citizens, while at the same time collecting mega dollars from out of state billionaires.

Another insurance of political “do as I say,not as I do,” a politician willing to sell her soul to far away wealthy people who could care less what happens to the state residents Whitmer serves. Despicable.

That’s enough insanity for today: Whitmer is a hypocrite, Wheeler is a hypocrite, and while millions of Americans went homeless, hungry and drug addicted over the past twenty years, the Washington political class sent untold billions of dollars to Afghanistan and in the process provided no benefits to anyone.

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:

https://www.amazon.com/Love-My-Country-Loathe-Government/dp/1604942789/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=love+my+country%2C+loathe+my+government&qid=1607716020&sr=8-1

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

http://www.reason.com

http://www.cato.org

http://www.openthebooks.com

http://www.conventionofstates.com

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

 

 

The American Political Class: Taxing Us Into Economic Slavery While Giving Us Nothing In Return

Far too many times we have made the case that the American class does only two things very well: taking and spending a lot of our hard earned wealth via excessive and burdensome taxation and then spending those tax dollars on government programs and projects that don't work anywhere close to what those same politicians promised. In just three recent posts, we found this to be true:

• A recent research report found that the Federal government annually loses $129 billion in its social support programs to criminal fraud.
• The cities of Los Angeles and San Francisco together put together $1.5 billion in taxpayer wealth to try to help the homeless populations in their cities and audit reports and reality have shown that they failed miserably in doing so, resulting in far fewer housing units than promised being established and those that were established were done so at an astronomical cost per unit.
• And of course, the biggest waste and failure of government expenditures, the 20 year fiasco in Afghanistan. The American political class placed our armed forces in the country in 2001 to rid the country of terrorist cells and remove the Taliban from running the country. Twenty years and one trillion tax dollars later, the Taliban are back in control and the country is now the home to terrorist cells.

Another post discussed a study done by using Department of Labor Statistics tracking and found that in many states across the country, long time residents of those states pay almost 50% of their earnings to taxes at all levels of government. Think about that relative to my original home state of New Jersey: the study found that long time New Jersey residents can expect to handover over 49.5% of their earnings to cover their local, state, and Federal government tax assessments and that they will pay, on average, almost a million dollars during their working lifetime in taxes. I can guarantee you that those New Jersey taxpayers are not getting a million dollars back in benefits.

Paying half of what you earn in taxes is a form of economic slavery. Plus, paying so much in taxes reduces your economic freedom which impacts your quality of life. Think about what a New Jersey resident could have done with that near million dollars in taxation:

• They could have sent their kids to better schools.
• They could have started their dream business.
• They could have contributed more to their favorite charities.
• They could have gone on better vacations, ate better meals, lived a better life.

Those options would have been better than having government entities and the politicians that operate them waste that money on bad programs and lose it to criminal fraud.

Charlie Reese was once a writer at the Orlando Sentinel newspaper. He once wrote a long essay which laid out how only 500 or so members of Congress have screwed up this country and have increased the taxation burden on all of us with few benefits in return. We have already posted that essay in the following post:

https://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2013/07/part-5-freedom-and-liberty-guest.html

What we did not include in that post was his comprehensive list of taxes that the American political class has imposed on us over time. Remember, many, if not all, of these taxes did not exist a hundred years ago. And you know what? The country and government got along quite nicely without these taxes.

But over time, the American political class, in their never ending quest for power and control, came up with dozens and dozens of new taxes, all of which sounded good at the time, and most, if not all, never lived up to the benefits we were promised but the taxes never went away despite those failed benefits.

Review Mr. Reese’s list and count how many of these taxes you pay every year:

1. Accounts Receivable Tax
2. Building Permit Tax
3. Federal Capital Gains Tax
4. State Capital Gains Tax
5. CDL license Tax
6. Cigarette Tax
7. Corporate Income Tax
8. Dog License Tax
9. Excise Taxes
10. Federal Income Tax
11. Federal Unemployment Tax (FUTA)
12. Fishing License Tax
13. Food License Tax
14. Fuel Permit Tax
15. Gasoline Tax
16. Gross Receipts Tax
17. Hunting License Tax
18. Inheritance Tax
19. Inventory Tax
20. IRS Interest Charges IRS Penalties (tax on top of tax)
21. Liquor Tax
22. Luxury Taxes
23. Marriage License Tax
24. Medicare Tax
25. Personal Property Tax
26. Property Tax
27. Real Estate Tax
28. Service Charge Tax
29. Social Security Tax
30. Road Usage Tax
31. Recreational Vehicle Tax
32. Sales Tax
33. School Tax
34. State Income Tax
35. State Unemployment Tax (SUTA)
36. Telephone Federal Excise Tax
37. Telephone Federal Universal Service Fee Tax
38. Telephone Federal, State and Local Surcharge Taxes
39. Telephone Minimum Usage Surcharge Tax
40. Telephone Recurring and Nonrecurring Charges Tax
41. Telephone State and Local Tax
42. Telephone Usage Charge Tax
43. Utility Taxes
44. Vehicle License Registration Tax
45. Vehicle Sales Tax
46. Watercraft Registration Tax
47. Well Permit Tax
48. Workers Compensation Tax

Unfortunately, since Mr. Reese came up with this list, politicians have created new taxes. Just in New Jersey there are two new taxes:

• If you sell your home in New Jersey, you pay a tax at your house closing.
• Also in New Jersey, you have to pay a climate tax based on the area of your property that is non-porous, e.g. the house itself, the driveway, and any other paved areas.

I am sure that other taxing jurisdictions came up with other, non-listed taxes. So, how many of the above taxes have you paid for over the years?

The bottom line is that we have been economically raped by the American political class over the years and received virtually nothing in return. And the sad thing is this will continue to happen until we vote career politicians out of office or impose term limits on them, politicians that always seem to get very rich while in office while the rest of us face almost slave levels of taxation.

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:

https://www.amazon.com/Love-My-Country-Loathe-Government/dp/1604942789/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=love+my+country%2C+loathe+my+government&qid=1607716020&sr=8-1

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

http://www.reason.com

http://www.cato.org

http://www.openthebooks.com

http://www.conventionofstates.com

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

 

 

August, 2021, Part 6, Political Class Insanity: Failing The Homeless In California, Andrew Cuomo's Covid Lies, and Elevator Music Insanity In Quebec

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

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

1) The American political class does do a few things very well, none of which benefit us:

• They find ways to enrich themselves while in office far above and beyond what they earn in salary.
• They are incredible hypocrites, “do as I say, not as I do.”
• They always find ways of spending a lot of taxpayer wealth but never delivering the promised benefits from those expenditures.

That last point was recently proven again, relative to politicians trying to solve the ever growing homeless problem in California, specifically in San Francisco and Los Angeles:

• Voters in both California cities approved bond and spending plans to address the housing shortage for homeless citizens.
• In San Francisco, their plan was to place homeless folks in tent camps where they would have tent shelters, meals, showers, and social services.
• City voters approved the $300 million initiative which resulted in the largest tax increase in the city’s history.
• The funny thing about this spending initiative, the city politicians were actually against it since, according to Reason magazine, they viewed the tax hike as “excessive and that the plan for spending all that money was vague and lacked accountability.”
• As unbelievable as it sounds, the politicians were actually right.
• The program has resulted in the city annually paying about $61,000 a year PER homeless person to get that person a tent shelter.
• This $61,000 comes out to over $5,000 per month which is over $2,000 more per month than the average cost of a full apartment in the city.
• Think about that: the city’s program is spending much more to give a homeless person a tent to live in than putting them in an apartment in the city.
• Also, $61,000 a year is more than what the average American household earns annually.
• Los Angeles didn't do much better from an efficient spending of taxpayer dollars perspective.
• That city approved a whopping $1.2 billion bond issue to house homeless folks in that city.
• The first piece of insanity was that the plan was to use that money to build 10,000 housing units within ten years, a plan that comes to a whopping cost of $120,000 per housing unit.
• So not only was the cost to shelter a homeless person so high ($120,000), the auditors of the program found that five years into the ten year project only 700 housing units had been completed, only 7%.
• And finally, there are about 65,000-70,000 homeless people in Los Angeles which means this $1.2 billion program would have only housed about 15% of the city’s homeless population, assuming the 10,000 housing units were actually completed.
• Given the program, after five years, has only 700 shelter spaces, this $1.2 billion program has helped only about 1% of the city’s homeless problem.

So sad, so much money spent and very few people helped. And those that did see a benefit from these programs that benefit came at an incredibly expensive cost to the taxpayers.

2) No American politician has fallen so far and so hard than recently resigned New York governor, Andrew Cuomo. But it is not like he deserved it, resignation, given has abhorrent behavior over the past few years:

• He was accused of allegedly sexually harassing upwards of 12 women, the accusation that directly led to his resignation.
• He may have also misused government regulations and employees to get a multi-million dollar book deal to tout his actions during the pandemic’s early days.
• His administration may have filed false covid reports with the Federal government, possibly breaking Federal laws.
• He forced New York nursing homes to accept covid infected elderly citizens into their facilities which resulted in tens of thousands of elderly New Yorkers unnecessarily perishing from covid.

Pretty despicable behavior from a career politician. And things just got worse from a covid death perspective:

• The new New York governor, Kathy Hochul, revealed on her first day in office that Cuomo’s administration may have under reported covid deaths by 12,000 victims.
• This brought New York state covid fatalities up to almost 55,400 victims.
• According to Hochul:“We’re now releasing more data than had been released before publicly, so people know the nursing home deaths and the hospital deaths are consistent with what’s being displayed by the CDC. There’s a lot of things that weren’t happening and I’m going to make them happen. Transparency will be the hallmark of my administration.”
• Cuomo’s elderly death counts only included covid deaths reported in hospitals, nursing homes, and adult care facilities but incorrectly ignored state covid deaths that occurred in other locations like folks’ homes, prisons, and hospice.
• Obviously, when you under count the deaths, it makes Cuomo look like his administration was doing a much better job at handling the pandemic than he actually was.

And politicians wonder why people don't trust what they say or what government agencies say. Another example of government lies and political deceptions, behaviors that occur even when it involves death.

3) We usually talk about the inane behavior of American politicians but we have often seen how politicians and government bureaucrats around the world are also just as bad as our politicians. Canada has had a rough time lately as it relates to the covid pandemic. Lagging vaccination rates, closed borders, restrictive traveling, etc. along with the economic downturns that accompanied the covide virus spread.

And according to a recent Reason magazine blurb, Canadian government officials have bad priorities just like their American counterparts:

• Quebec, Canada’s Culture Ministry has ordered that all music played on elevators in the province can only be music performed by local artists in the province.
• Economic downturn, citizens getting sick and dying, and the government is spending time and resources on this nonsense.
• But it gets better since this inane decree also applies to province government buildings, government owned liquor stores, and government owned casinos.
• How many government employees worked on this nonsense, how much did it cost, and what costs did it impose on Canadian citizens. Just a waste of time and taxpayer wealth.

That will do it for today: more covid lies from Cuomo, more bad priorities for politicians around the world, and still fishing the taxpayers and homeless in California.

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:

https://www.amazon.com/Love-My-Country-Loathe-Government/dp/1604942789/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=love+my+country%2C+loathe+my+government&qid=1607716020&sr=8-1

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

http://www.reason.com

http://www.cato.org

http://www.openthebooks.com

http://www.conventionofstates.com

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

 

 

August, 2021, Part 5, Political Class Insanity: Hypocrisy, Corruption, Economic Ignorance, and $129 Billion Down The Fraud Drain

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

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

1) We have shown over the years that the American political class is comprised of some of the biggest hypocrites in the country. During the covid pandemic shutdown, we saw mayors shut down their cities and the businesses within but then insist that hair salons, nail salons, etc. open up just for them but not for their constituents. We have seen politicians insist that their voters inconvenience themselves and wear masks while they flaunt their own mask edicts. We have seen politicians limit the amount of people that could gather in one place and then witness Obama throw himself multiple parties for his 60th birthday attended by hundreds of people.

Hypocrites to the nth degree. But it is not only covid circumstances where we see the hypocrisy:

• Communist/socialistic members of Congress have come up with the hair brained scheme that landlords should not charge their tenants any rent for the privilege of living in the landlords’ housing units until an undetermined future date, the so-called end of the pandemic.
• The idiocy of such a proposal is somehow not evident to these folks: if landlords cannot collect rent to cover their expense of the housing units, then they will either abandon the housing units or stop renting them out, resulting in severe housing shortages.
• But their economic stupidity is not the topic today, it is their hypocrisy of proposing such nonsense.
• You see, a few of these politicians are actually in the rental unit business today.
• For example, Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley, a supporter of the free rent movement, and her husband collected up to $15,000 in rental income last year, as reported on her Congressional financial disclosure report.
• Apparently, her and her husband own rental property in Boston that they have reported income from in multiple years.
• Another socialistic member of Congress, Tashida Tlaib, is also pushing for this indefinite moratorium on paying your rent until the pandemic.
• And she also has reported on her disclosure reports that she also has rental property and is continuing to collect rent on that property going back multiple years.

Which is where the blatant hypocrisy comes in: if this is such a wonderful idea, why have these two members of Congress continued to collect rent from their tenants during the pandemic? If they truly believed that forcing every landlord in the country to give up rent collections until the pandemic ends is a great idea, wouldn't that be a great example, cancelling the rent starting with their own tenants? That would certainly set a good example.

But they do not want to set a good example or lose their income stream. They want to get in front of cameras and news people and act like they care for the downtrodden while in reality they are collecting rent from the downtrodden every month. Insane hypocrisy.

2) Oh so many times we have covered the criminal experiences of elected politicians across the country, both in DC and in cities and towns across the country. One would hope that leaders in the communities, the local politicians, would set high standards of integrity and honesty.

But that hope never seems to materialize. Consider the latest possible corruption coming out of Detroit:

• Apparently, the FBI had enough evidence to raid the homes and offices of two Detroit city council members.
• The search warrants for the raids involved dozens of FBI agents as they seized boxes of potential evidence related to corruption possibilities against Janee Ayers and Scott Benson, both members of the Detroit city council.
• According to Tim Waters, the FBI agent in charge in Michigan: “Why are we doing these search warrants? Because the citizens of Detroit have a right to a city government that is free of corruption. Simply what we’re doing today is collecting evidence, which will be presented to the U.S. Attorney’s office in the Eastern District of Michigan, who will make all decisions on charging in this ongoing investigation.”

Of course, these folks are innocent until they are proven guilty. But only last month, another Detroit city council member, Andre Spivey, was actually indicted on a Federal bribery charge for allegedly accepting more than $35,000 in bribes to influence votes the council may need to vote on.

Seems like Detroit politicians are no better from an integrity perspective than those around the country.

3) Let's look at some numbers and see what correlations, causations might be evident relative to regional unemployment rates around the country:

• As reference, consider that the nationwide unemployment rate right now is about 5.4%.
• According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Nevada, California, New Mexico, New York, Connecticut, Hawaii, New Jersey, and Illinois have unemployment rates over 7%, well over the national average.
• Now, these states not only are all traditionally run by Democrats but they have some of the highest across the board tax burdens and regulations for citizens and businesses in the country.
• More than once we have looked at other data that show citizens and businesses cannot get out of New York, New Jersey, California, Illinois and other high tax states quick enough.
• The same government report showed that Republican-run states, and states with generally lower tax burdens all had unemployment rates under 3%: Nebraska, Utah, South Dakota, and New Hampshire all have an unemployment rate under 3%.

We have always believed in that old song lyric, “People just want to be free.” That is why people move to places like Nebraska, South Dakota, etc., states with low taxation and regulatory burdens. This migration in turn creates more economic growth, freedom, and opportunities which create lower unemployment rates.

It has always amazed us that politicians in Democratic states and cities do not understand, or do not want to understand the basic concept: economic activity and growth is maximized when taxation is low, “people just want to be free.”

4) The other reason why it is a good idea to have low tax burdens is that it seems the more money we give to politicians the more money they seem to waste. Consider:

• According to the Federal Safety Net, “Improper welfare payments, including welfare fraud, are estimated to be 15.6% of all federal welfare payments made and totaled $129 billion in the fiscal year 2020. This estimate is based on reports from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), The General Accounting Office (GAO), and an Inspector General report.”
• $129 billion a year is a ridiculous waste of taxpayer wealth, about $900 for each and every taxpayer.
• That is $900 worth of taxpayer wealth that could not be used to make life better for those 144 million taxpayers, be it more food, entertainment, school tuition, maybe start a business, etc.
• Instead, the Washington political class flushed it down the drain with fraud.
• Another example is that $129 billion could have fed every homeless American three daily nutritious meals for over 70 years, that is how much $129 billion is.

What a waste and missed opportunity to give American taxpayers and American homeless souls a better life.

Enough insanity for today: wasting billions of dollars of taxpayer wealth, higher taxes means higher unemployment, hypocrisy in the rental market, and possibly more political corruption in Detroit.

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:

https://www.amazon.com/Love-My-Country-Loathe-Government/dp/1604942789/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=love+my+country%2C+loathe+my+government&qid=1607716020&sr=8-1

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

http://www.reason.com

http://www.cato.org

http://www.openthebooks.com

http://www.conventionofstates.com

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

 

 

August, 2021, Part 4, Political Class Insanity: Bad Afghanistan Priorities By Politicians, More Violence In Chicago, and Shady Approval Of Pfizer Covid Vaccine

Note: due to some family health issues we apologize that this is only the fourth political class insanity post for this month. The American political class has been really busy screwing up citizens’s lives and freedom lately and we will try, as soon as possible, to catch up on their shenanigans, shenanigans that are usually expensive, freedom-reducing and, unfortunately, fatal to American citizens.

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

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

1) This past weekend in Afghanistan, an estimated 10,000 American citizens were trapped behind Taliban lines and road blocks, their fate and their lives hanging in the balance. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi flew to California and held a major outdoor, maskless fundraiser.

This past weekend in Afghanistan, an estimated 10,000 American citizens were trapped behind Taliban lines and road blocks, their fate and their lives hanging in the balance. Senator Chuck Schumer flew to New York and was seen dancing at a block party in New York City.

Today in Afghanistan, an estimated 10,000 American citizens were trapped behind Taliban lines and road blocks, their fate and their lives hanging in the balance. President Joe Biden held a photo op with the WNBA champions.

Pelosi, Schumer, and Biden have over a hundred years of Washington tenure between the three of them. They are typical of long term Washington politicians: even when American lives are hanging by a thread, fundraising and photo ops are more important to them than solutions that might actually save American lives. They are pitiful, shallow, and disgusting people.

2) Dozens and dozens of times over the years we have covered the sick reality that Chicago politicians have allowed their city and their citizens to be plagued by an ever increasing and never ending violent crime wave. Despite having some of the strongest gun control laws in the country, Chicago almost always leads the country in the sheer number of residents who are killed and maimed every year by the city’s gun violence.

Unfortunately, that trend has not abated:

• During a recent weekend, 44 Chicago residents were shot and seven of them died from their wounds.
• 71 people have been shot and killed just in the month of August, 2021 and obviously, this month is not over yet.
• 321 people have been shot this month in the city and have so far survived.
• In the past full week, 20 people were shot and killed in the city.
• Fatalities included a 67 year old grandmother, a 70 year old woman, and a 26 year old mother of two.
• In all likelihood, none of these three folks were members of a gang or drug cartel, innocent victims in a city whose politicians have failed for years to execute a basic government function, protect the lives of its citizens.

But the good mayor, Lori Lightfoot, was recently out and about, actively encouraging everyone in the city to mask up and take other measures to protect themselves against getting covid. Again, bad, bad priorities, people being shot and the mayor still being ineffective in doing anything about it.

3) While Afghanistan has been a disaster overseas, the Federal government’s behavior during the covid pandemic has also been ludicrous, conflicting, and a coverup in so many ways:

• First we were told that wearing a mask did not help prevent one from getting the virus.
• Then we were told by the Feds that yes, everyone should wear a mask in order to not get the virus.
• Then we were told we needed to wear two masks. Thus, in less than a year we went from no need to wear a mask to you have to wear two masks.
• Then we were told if we got the vaccine shots we would not get the virus.
• Then we were told if we got the vaccine we would still be a virus carrier.
• Then we were told that we might still get the virus if we got the vaccine but it would lessen the symptoms and the chance of getting the virus would be low.
• Then we were told that indeed, not only could you get the virus if you were vaccinated (a so called breakthrough infection) but you could end up in the hospital, e.g. Jesse Jackson and his wife, both vaccinated, and both hospitalized with the virus.
• First we were told we needed 60% of the population to get the virus for the vaccine for “herd immunity.”
• Then we were told we needed 70% for herd immunity.
• Then we were told we needed 80%.

What a travesty, what a mess of conflicting guidance from the same Federal government sources. And the confusion and possible cover up continues to this day:

• The original Pfizer covid vaccine got “emergency use authorization” from the FDA as the virus cases ramped up.
• Which means it did not get the full shake down and testing that is usually done.
• The FDA recently gave the Pfizer vaccine its full seal of approval, which would lead one to assume the full battery of tests that is usually done for new drugs was done for this vaccine.
• But assuming anything related to the government is often a false hope of security and safety.
• For whatever reason, the FDA has decided NOT to hold a formal advisory committee meeting, the usual protocol for any new drug, to discuss its full approval of the Pfizer vaccine.
• But last year the FDA proclaimed it was “committed to use an advisory committee composed of independent experts to ensure deliberations about authorisation or licensure are transparent for the public.”
• But now that commitment seems to have gone away along with the traditional vetting of approval of new drugs.
• One can only speculate on why this vital step in drug approvals has been omitted. Is it possible that the further testing by the FDA found out that the Pfizer vaccine was not safe or not cracked up to be what it was supposed to be, something the advisory committee would have uncovered? The FDA would be quite embarrassed if, after millions of Americans got the Pfizer vaccine, it turned out that this was a mistake, or even worse, dangerous.
• Or even worse, was the fix in for Pfizer, “give us full approval and certain people will see campaign donations?” That is strictly a hypothetical suggestion but given the corruption of the American political class, this is not an impossible possibility.

Given the history of missteps, lies, and conflicts from the Federal government during the pandemic, now layered on top of the FDA shirking its accepted protocols, who knows what shenanigans and lies Feds have subjected us to. Insanity.

So how did the political class screw up today: very bad priorities relative to the Afghanistan debacle, more violence and deaths in Chicago, and the FDA might be covering up something relative to the vaccines. Fatal consequences for all Americans because of the ineptness of America’s politicians.

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:

https://www.amazon.com/Love-My-Country-Loathe-Government/dp/1604942789/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=love+my+country%2C+loathe+my+government&qid=1607716020&sr=8-1

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

http://www.reason.com

http://www.cato.org

http://www.openthebooks.com

http://www.conventionofstates.com

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

 

 

The Historic American Political Class Failure In Afghanistan - A TRILLION Dollars Spent, Thousands of Lives Lost and We End Up Where We Started Twenty Years Ago

 Everyone with a pulse and interest in this country should be aware of the disaster that has unfolded in Afghanistan over the past week. The U.S. supported government collapsed in record speed, allowing the terrorist group, the Taliban, to regain control of the country with disastrous consequences:

• Thousands of American civilians are trapped behind Taliban road blockades with no way to get to the Kabul airport which is now the only way to get out of the country, leaving their lives at the mercy of some of the worst tyrants ever.

• Already there are news reports of American civilians being stopped and beaten on the streets as they try to get to the airport.

• The Taliban are going house to house to look for foreigners and those Afghan citizens that helped the Americans during our stay in the country, with news reports coming out that those folks are being killed on the spot by the Taliban.

• Defeated terrorist groups, al Qaeda and ISIS, are regrouping in the country with likely dire and fatal consequences for the rest of the world quite soon.

• Billions of dollars of high tech military equipment has fallen into the hands of the Taliban that will obviously be used for nefarious purposes down the road, either against other Afghan citizens or other countries’ citizens.

• Women and girls are already suffering under the Taliban with reports of women being accosted or, in at least one case, shot down in the street for not wearing a burqa in public.

What a mess and disaster (in fact, “disaster” is the exact word used by a CNN reporter on site, which is extraordinary since CNN is not prone to call it like it is when it applies to a Democrat like Biden.) And the incompetence of the Biden administration is much too great to go into detail today:

• Biden says the Taliban are freely letting Americans go to the airport for evacuation but then someone in his administration said, about ten minutes later, that is not the case. 

• Biden says he will not withdraw our military forces until every American is evacuated but at about the same time his Defense Department is saying that is not the case.

• Biden says the Taliban are not harming American civilians but news reports claim that Americans are being beaten on the streets.

Again, we could go on for days regarding the completely inept and fatal plans and actions of the Biden administration regarding the failure of protecting Americans in the country. It is simple logic in a military crisis that the order of action is to first evacuate civilians, the next act is to remove or destroy military equipment and then the military evacuates itself. Biden got the whole thing ass backwards, withdrawing American armed forces first and then everything fell apart, civilian endangerment and military equipment not destroyed.

We will get into his disastrous handling of the whole affair in future posts. But today, let’s do a little history lesson and review how the American political class, and the U.S. military and Federal government bureaucracy it is responsible for, led us down a twenty year rat hole that has left us worse off than when we began:

• Recall that George Bush ordered military operations into Afghanistan with the sole purpose of finding and killing Osama Bin Laden, the mastermind for the 9-11 attacks that killed almost 3,000 Americans.

• The secondary objective was to destroy the Taliban, the terrorist group that had protected Bin Laden and the group that was running the country.

• But even after Bin Laden was hunted down and killed in Pakistan and the Taliban were removed from power, the U.S. military presence continued in Afghanistan.

• According to Brown University’s study of the twenty year debacle that has occurred, the American taxpayer paid out about one TRILLION dollars for the American presence in the country, thousands of American soldiers were killed and wounded, and hundreds of thousands Afghan civilians were killed. 

And where do we stand today: 

• The Taliban are back in control of the country and appear to be just as ruthless, violent, and deadly as they were twenty years ago.

• The Taliban actually control more of the country now than they did twenty years ago, back when there was a pretty robust counter Taliban faction in the country.

• The Taliban, courtesy of the American taxpayer, are now much better armed than they were twenty years ago.

• The Taliban now have potentially thousands of American civilian hostages, something they did not have twenty years ago.

While Biden absolutely butchered the withdrawal from the country, the entire American DC political class shares responsibility for twenty years of wasted wealth, wasted lives, and wasted opportunities. How many homeless Americans could have been sheltered with that TRILLION dollars over the past twenty years? How many hungry American families could have been fed with that TRILLION dollars over the past twenty years? How many drug addicted Americans could have been treated with that TRILLION dollars for their addiction over the past twenty years? How many bridges, roads, and other infrastructure could have been fixed with that TRILLION dollars over the past twenty years?

Any member of Congress who has been in their Congressional seat over the past twenty years is responsible for the currently unfolding disaster today in Afghanistan and the wasted resources spent in vain over the past twenty years. Every President every Vice President, every Defense Secretary, every Secretary of State, every member of the intelligence community that worked on this effort over the past twenty years is guilty of wasteful spending, neglect, failure, the deaths of American service people, and quite possibly the deaths of the thousands of Americans currently trapped behind Taliban blockades.

Not a single one of them had the insights, the guts, the courage, or the desire to see the waste and deaths end. While they lived the good life in DC, while they enjoyed the perks of office, while many of them enriched themselves beyond what they could have reasonably gathered in wealth, given their Congressional salaries, a TRILLION dollars were being wasted in Afghanistan, thousands of Americans were being killed, wounded, and maimed, and the Taliban were continuing to function.

Yes, Biden failed on a historical basis getting us out of Afghanistan with incompetence and ineptness that is hard to believe. But there are hundreds of people in Washington that did little to avoid the crises we are facing today, the potential harm that 10,000 or more U.S. citizens face today, more than three times the number of Americans that died on 9-11, the very reason we jumped into Afghanistan. 

Twenty years later, a TRILLION dollars later, thousands of deaths later, and the American political class accomplished nothing except death and waste. We are right back where we were twenty years ago. There are no other examples of political class waste and deaths that come to mind in the history of this country. Every member of Congress, if they had any integrity, would resign their seats today. They do not deserve the honor of serving this country and its citizens, given their failure in Afghanistan.

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:

https://www.amazon.com/Love-My-Country-Loathe-Government/dp/1604942789/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=love+my+country%2C+loathe+my+government&qid=1607716020&sr=8-1

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

http://www.reason.com

http://www.cato.org

http://www.openthebooks.com

http://www.conventionofstates.com

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w