We have spent a lot of our recent posts about which state or city will go bankrupt first and the massive fraud that has been going on relative to government programs. But that does not mean that the potential class has been up to its traditional incompetence, insanity, and screw ups. So, let’s catch up with the shenanigans that continue to plague the country:
1)We have far too often talked about the corruption and self enrichment that permeates the American political class at the Federal government level: insider stock trading, no bid government contracts to friends and political donors, etc. But political class corruption exists at all levels of our political system as we see what recently happened in a small Mississippi town:
Chokwe Antar Lumumba is the former mayor of Jackson, Mississippi.
According to the Daily Caller, he recently pleaded guilty to conspiracy in a real estate bribery scheme.
He apparently collected $50,000 in exchange for advocating for a real estate development deal that was actually an FBI undercover sting operation.
The FBI posed as legit real estate developers looking to do a major real estate development project in Jackson.
The county district attorney, Jody Owens, reportedly funneled the real estate bribes to the former mayor and now both of them face five years in prison.
According to the indictment: “Lumumba accepted the checks knowing and understanding that the money was from the Developers, and that it was being offered in exchange for official action from Lumumba in favor of the Developers’ proposed development project.”
Not a lot of money compared to what Washington politicians have skimmed off of the country over the years but still, one would hope that any politician should be above this kind of criminal behavior and corruption. But hoping American politicians are always honest and in integrity is usually a useless exercise in trust.
2)Let’s do a quick review of the situation in New York state’s population:
There are currently about 158,000 homeless folks living in New York state.
The state has a higher than average crime rate.
Over 2.8 million residents are in a state of food insecurity.
940,000 state residents do not have health insurance.
About 4,500 residents die from a drug overdose every year and almost 3 million are currently fighting their drug addiction.
There are some very serious problems facing millions of New York state residents, problems that you would hope that state politicians are laser focused on remedying. And again, hoping that politicians do the right thing is usually a failing wish as we see what has been recently occupying the state politicians' time and energy:
The state legislature recently passed a bill that would change the language used in family court and other legal documents in the state.
Sounds pretty boring until you find out what the word change insanity actually is.
The word “mother” would be replaced with “gestating parent,” the word “father” would be replaced with “non-gestating parent,” and the word "paternity" would be changed to “parentage.”
For thousands and thousands of years the words “mother” and “father” have been in place but the New York political class now says they know better and that these designations have to change.
Chris Dancy of Fullmont Pride actually came out to support this nonsense: “I’m 100% against anything that compels speech onto everyday people, but this is not compelling speech onto everyday people. This clearly focuses on court cases, specifically so that we can help non-traditional families, you know, IVF straight couples who might have had assistance with reproduction or people with surrogacy arrangements.”
Unbelievable nonsense, given the millions of New Yorkers that are suffering and this is what occupies politicians in the state capital.
State senator Luis Sepulveda, a sponsor of the bill, actually made the case that this effort is nonsense, saying the bill “does not redefine their family, take away parental authority, or prevent anyone from identifying as a mother or father,” and said the bill would make New York law “more consistent and better equipped to recognize all legally established parent-child relationships.”
It seems a lot of folks are trying real hard, twisting themselves into a pretzel, to justify and satisfy a very small group of the population with some legal wordsmithing. Whether this is a worthy goal or not, it should not be undertaken when millions of state residents are hungry, homeless, without health insurance, worried about crime, and drug addicted. That is where the time, energy, and resources should be spent, not on contorting simple words to fit a certain political slant.
3)Meanwhile, in a related bit of nonsense, California and its governor, Gavin Newsom, are doing a entangled in another related political class piece of insanity as it pertains to moms:
We have previously discussed the stupid program that the state government of California has put in place, a program to give new mothers 400 free diapers, paid for by the state’s taxpayers.
Much like New York state, California is faced with massive problems of homelessness, drug addiction, crime, failing schools, budget shortfalls, etc.
But apparently giving away free diapers to new moms is a higher priority of their time and taxpayer wealth.
Oh, let me apologize, in California there are no mothers or moms but there are “birthing parents,” another waste of time and energy.
Besides the stupidity of putting the time and energy into such a program, rather than get into the diaper distribution business, it would have been so much easier to give each new birthing parent a diaper coupon to CVS or Safeway or Costco and they could get the diapers themselves, an approach that would not require inventory management, transportation, bookkeeping, and other distribution costs.
But like any good government program, the idiocy of implementation always costs more.
But quite possibly this simple approach of couponing the diapers was ignored for a more sinister and corruption purpose.
Apparently, the contract for distributing these diapers to thousands of birthing people was awarded to an organization called Baby2Baby, an LA based nonprofit organization, so far, so good.
However, ollow the network/trail of connections here: the Bay2Baby co-CEO is Norah Weinstein who serves on the board of a nonprofit operated by the wife of governor Gavin Newsom, Siebel Newsom, while the other co-CEO of Baby2Baby, Kelly Sawyer Patricof, is married to film producer, Jamie Patricof, son of long time wealthy donor to to Democrats, Alan Patricof.
This could all be legitimate, and it is just a coincidence that the wife of the governor of the state has ties with a wealthy Democratic party donor family and ties to the organization getting the taxpayer funded diaper program.
The CBS News outlet in Sacramento decided to investigate whether this was all just a happy coincidence or it was a no bid money laundering scheme.
CBS filed a California Public Records Act request to receive the Baby2Baby contract and the bidding documents that showed what other family related non-profit groups had bid for the diaper contract and the millions of dollars associated with the program.
After more than two months, CBS claimed it had received absolutely nothing they had requested as it pertained to the program.
This delay was in violation of the law that requires timely disclosure of the government documents requested: “California's delayed release of its Baby2Baby contract is casting a shadow over the state's new Golden State Diaper program. Two months after Gov. Gavin Newsom announced a controversial multimillion-dollar state diaper contract with Baby2Baby, a nonprofit with existing ties to the Newsom administration and the First Partner, Californians still have not been allowed to see the contract or competitive bid records behind the deal to manufacture and deliver millions of California co-branded free diapers to new parents.”
CBS went on: “The Newsom administration waited 24 days to decide whether it would even allow the public to see the records, but continues to delay releasing the Baby2Baby contract and competitive bid records that the governor announced more than two months ago. Remember Diaper-Gate? We fact-checked the diaper math. Now, we're fact-checking the process. Nearly two months after the announcement, California still hasn't released the Baby2Baby contract or bid records. Now, lawmakers want to give agencies even more time to respond to public records requests.”
Someone once said that the appearance of a conflict of interest is just as bad as a real conflict of interest. This was a stupid program to begin with, given all of the other major problems facing the state’s residents.
If the political class in the state thought baby diapers were such a grand idea, then the program should have been a voucher/coupon program that did not require millions of taxpayer dollars to buy, distribute, and manage a huge inventory effort. But a voucher/coupon program would not have allowed a million dollar contract to go to politically connected Newsom acquaintances, a connection that CBS has tried to investigate but which has been stonewalled by the political class.
A stupid program that wastes time and taxpayer money that could have been used for real problems in the state but now appears to be a money laundering/crony reward program.
4)Let’s go back to the Obama Care years and the promises that were made and never fulfilled:
If you like your doctor you can keep your doctor: nope, millions of families lost access to their preferred doctors.
Obama Care will bend the cost curve of health care downwards: nope, health costs never paused their upwards climb, always outpacing inflation.
And the biggest promise made under Obama Care, everyone will be able to afford an Obama Care health insurance policy: nope, millions and millions of American families cannot afford the high cost of Obama Care policies.
The promise of universal health care coverage never came close to happening as the following discussion shows:
The Federal government found that there were 2.6 million fewer Obama Care enrollees compared to a year ago.
The Kaiser Family Foundation estimates that Obama Care enrollment is down to a total of about 17.5 million in 2026, leaving over 27 million Americans without health care coverage.
Remember the promise: every American would be able to get and afford health care coverage under Obama Care.
They missed that promise big time. There are two factors probably driving the drop in Obama Care policy holders. First, temporary subsidies that were approved during the Covid crisis have expired. These temporary subsidies masked the reality that Obama Care policies were not affordable on their own, they had to have the Federal government and the American taxpayer pay for part of the coverage. Once the subsidies expired, policy holders decided they could afford to stay with Obama Care.
The second factor likely driving down the number of enrollees is the reality that the Federal government finally audited the enrollee population. The audit found that millions of enrollees did not belong on the program or receive its subsidies according to the Obama Care law. These folks earned enough money relative to the Obama Care guidelines and should not have never gotten Obama care subsidies. Thus, they were kicked out of the program because they were not eligible for the discounts in the first place.
Whatever the cause of the drop, and there could be multiple causes, not the least of which is increased cost and fraud enrollees, Obama Care continues to be a giant bureaucratic failure. It fulfilled none of its original promises for a very simple reason: Obama Care tried to solve a public health care issue with an economic solution, an approach that was never going to work.
This is the public healthcare situation: Americans eat too much, Americans eat the wrong kind of food, Americans do not exercise enough, Americans smoke too much. Resolve these issues and the skyrocketing cost of health care will drop because of supply and demand: healthier Americans mean less demand for medical attention which reduces the price of said medical care, simple supply and demand principle.
We discussed this principle back in 2010, 16 years ago:
https://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/search?q=cleveland
An excerpt from that blog post:
According to the article, an interview with its CEO, Dr. Delos Cosgrove, they understand the root cause of health care problems:
Three activities, smoking, diet and lack of exercise cause 40% of the premature deaths in the country.
These three activities are major causes to 70% of chronic diseases including heart disease and emphysema.
In turn, these chronic diseases eat up 75% of the nation's cost of health care, i.e. control the root causes and you could control up to 75% of the health care related costs.
It is not hard but apparently Obama and those that supported his Obama Care program did not get it.
Alright, enough sanity for today: 16 years later, Obama Care is a bust as we predicted back in 2010, possible taxpayer money laundering in the diaper business in California, wasting time and taxpayer resources on semantics in New York, and another dirty politician going to prison, this one in Mississippi.
**********************
If you agree that we need to deseat every member of Congress for their lack of success and accomplishment, then please consider going to the following petition link to help the cause:
https://www.change.org/p/deseat-congress-reset-freedom
**********************
