Although many of our recent posts have focused on the ridiculously wasteful spending of the USAID organization and how it has spent untold millions and millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars around the world on absolutely stupid programs, that doesn't mean that the American political class has not been hard at work doing stupid stuff in other areas. Let’s spend another day or so catching up on what our politicians have been up to and generally it has not been good.
1)As we have discussed so many, many times, American politicians often focus on trivial, nonsensical topics that have nothing to do with the protection, safety, and quality of life issues of the citizens they represent. The country has some very serious issues right now including rising homeless rates, hunger, drug addiction, skyrocketing crime rates, etc. One would hope that politicians would be laser focused on those issues.
But as always, they often focus on nonsense that makes no difference in the welfare of their citizens’ lives, as we recently saw from Wisconsin:
The state of Wisconsin, while in better shape than many states, still has some real problems to face: there are about 5,000 homeless folks in the state, about 2,000 state residents die every year from drug overdoses, and the poverty rate in the state is almost 11%.
Despite these real problems, the governor of the state, Tony Evers, in his latest budget proposal actually wasted time and money working on changing nouns used in government documents.
In his dream world, the word “mother” would be replaced with “inseminate person,” “wife” and “husband” would be replaced with “spouse,” “father” and “mother” would be replaced with “parent” and “parent who gave birth.”
Seriously? Rather than spend time and energy on helping the homeless, feeding the hungry, catching criminals, and hoping the addicted, he is focused on changing names that have stood the test of time for centuries. This type of behavior usually means that the politician has no idea how to fix real problems and thus, to prove to himself and others that he is worthy of office, he fixates on stupidity like this. Horrible priorities.
2)We hold very little regard for most politicians in his country and recent events in Dolton, Illinois did nothing to change our view:
The mayor of Dolton, Tiffany Henyard and , were recently hit with Federal lawsuits because of a violent fight that broke out at a January township board meeting.
That’s right, at a township meeting, a wild fight broke out in which the mayor was in the center of it as a protagonist.
The fight started when a critic of Henyard, Jedidiah Brown, criticized her tenure as mayor, finishing with the phrase, “you be gone bitch.”
That incited her boyfriend, Kanal Woods, and the fight then commenced.
As a result, Brown and Lavell Redmond have filed lawsuits, alleging their Constitutional rights were violated for speaking their opinion.
But it gets better since a report by the former mayor of Chicago, Lori Lightfoot, alleged there were systematic efforts by the mayor and others to cover up excessive government spending, including $779,638 dollars that was spent via city issued credit cards.
Apparently, some of the expenses that were incurred by the city credit cards included multiple trips to Las Vegas that had nothing to do with city business or responsibilities.
As a result of this madness, fighting and credit card abuse, there have been calls for the governor of Illinois to step in and remove Henyard from office.
So much for integrity, honesty, and serving the people.
3)Jennifer Granholm was the Secretary of Energy under Biden. While holding that position, there were accusations that she allegedly had never relinquished her investments in various energy companies while heading up the Department of Energy,, a clear conflict of interest.
Whether that was true or not is a topic for another post. But we do now know that she certainly had no problem leveraging American taxpayer money for her own career:
She recently announced that she will be joining the board of directors of the Southern California Edison Company and its parent company, Edison International, one of the largest energy companies in the country.
Which makes this career move particularly slimy is because just six months ago she had the Department of Energy award a $600 million grant to several California utilities, of which Southern California was one of them receiving the Federal money.
What a coincidence, a former Department of Energy Secretary, gets a job with an energy company she directed hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars towards, what are the odds?!
But this type of behavior should not surprise us since in 2021 she held onto shares in an electric bus company, Proterra, that she failed to notify Congress about.
And also in 2021 she told the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee that she owned no individual stocks in energy firms and only invested in mutual funds even though in February 2023, the Wall Street Journal reported that Granholm and other top officials of the Department of Energy did indeed own, or their family members, owned individuals stocks of companies.
Every time she got caught in a lie she chalked it up to a “mistake in reporting” and got away with no consequences.
At one point during her tenure, the inspector general warned that the Department of Energy personnel were administering $385 million in new loans and not maintaining any kind of standards to avoid conflict of interest.
Just before she left office, the Department Of Energy awarded a low interest, $14 billion loan to energy companies in Michigan, a state where she was governor about 20 years ago.
Crony politics and crooked, corrupt politicians always result in wasted taxpayer dollars. It appears that Granholm was one of the best at these types of shenanigans and self enrichment despite being a critical piece of the Federal government.
4)In the state of Maryland, about 2,800 residents die from a drug overdose every year, there are almost 6,000 homeless folks in the state, and there are about 100,000 unemployed state residents. We recently reported on how one high school in Baltimore, Maryland was severely under educating its students, a reality that we would suspect is true in many other state public schools.
Thus, one would hope that state politicians are laser focused on addressing these real problems in their state. But alas, hope is wasted on these folks since:
Politicians in the state are focused on the idea that condoms need to be distributed in every school and sold out of vending machines.
The condom vending machines could be installed in nursery school, preschool, elementary and high schools if desired by the local school board without any criminal penalties.
Much like the state of Wisconsin, forget the homeless, the hungry, the addicted, the unemployed, the victims of crimes, let’s make sure pre-schoolers can get condoms whenever they need them. What a waste of time, energy, and taxpayer resources on a non-problem.
5)One last piece of disgusting political class insanity for today, courtesy of Congresswoman Ilhan Omar of Minnesota:
In a recent interview, the good Congresswoman had some very insensitive and antagonistic opinions about those that voted for Trump for President.
Specifically: "These people [Trump voters} are just idiots. I really, you know, I'm at the point where it's become really hard to have an intellectual debate with any of these people because the level of stupidity that they are displaying every single day is frankly embarrassing, not just in Congress, but as Americans, and the fact that these people are allowed to say the most ridiculous things tells you that the dumbing of the United States has arrived because how else do we get a Trump presidency again?"
Again, you would hope that a member of Congress would have a little compassion, understanding, and tact when it came to Americans simply having a different opinion than them, that the discussion of issues should be based on facts, and logic, and sound reasoning, not calling those that disagree with you idiots and stupid.
It is tough to resolve the many issues facing the country when especially someone in Congress who has no respect for those that have a different view than them.
She should at least be censured for these hateful, horrible remarks if not removed from Congress altogether. Such immaturity and hatred will never help promote a positive environment in the country for mature debate and problem resolution.
A bad day for politicians: Wisconsin cares more about vocabulary than helping those in need, political corruption and physical fighting in Illinois, conflict of interest corruption and self enrichment from a Biden Cabinet Secretary, condoms for preschoolers in Maryland, and hate speech in Minnesota.
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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
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