March, 2019, Part 1, Political Class Insanity: A Mean,Nasty Senator, A Failed Railroad, and More

It is another month which means it is again time to review the latest political class insanity from Washington and around the world. Political class insanity takes many forms including the wasting of taxpayer wealth, criminal fraud within government programs, inane and stupid political quotes and actions, the inability to create and implement effective and efficient government programs, stupid and ill performing economic policies and strategies, and other forms of insanity that continue to evolve and surprise and shock us.

Let’s get started:

1) For decades the Federal government never figured out how operate an efficient and effective railroad system (AMTRAK) in a profitable manner. Then California politicians decided they were going to build and operate a high speed train line from northern California to southern California. Then the California politicians decided that after years of effort, many, many studies and the wasting of billions of dollars, it could not be done. Then daft Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez decided that the U.S. airline industry needed to be destroyed at the altar of climate change.

Which brings us to the latest failure and ongoing saga of failure when it comes to politicians trying to build and operate a railroad system:

• An AMTRAK train going from Seattle to California has been stuck for days in Oregon after it reportedly hit a tree.
• Only a Federal government run railroad could break down because it somehow hit a tree.
• The 180 or so customers on the train were not allowed to leave the train since there was four feet of snow in every direction and the local area was out of power.
• As a result, the customers ran out of food, ran out of diapers forcing the riders to cut up clothes to make their own diapers, ran out of feminine products, and ran out of medicine. 

Obviously, this did not happen on the Orient Express in the middle of nowhere in Siberia. It happened in Oregon and yet the Federal government operation could not get 180 Americans stranded, in Oregon, out of harm’s way for three days. So sad.

Oh, and by the way, an Amtrak train crashed into a freight train in South Carolina early this past February. The crash resulted in two AMTRAK riders being killed and at least 70 other riders being injured. 

Oh, and by the way, in December, 2017, an Amtrak train derailed in Washington state, smashing through an overpass onto Interstate 5, killing three people and injuring dozens. 

Oh, and by the way, in early 2018, an Amtrak train carrying Republican members of Congress to a retreat in West Virginia hit a garbage truck in Virginia, killing one of the three occupants in the vehicle.

So, in a little over a year, we have at least four major AMTRAK incidents with death, injuries, and abandonment and not to mention the abandonment of a major high speed rail project after wasting billions of dollars. And politicians like Ocasio-Cortez think we need to stop flying and somehow use a nationwide, unbuilt rail system that does not exist that would be operated by the same idiots that operate the embarrassment known as AMTRAK. The height of insanity.

2) Washington politicians always act like they care about us but often their actions, and wasteful spending, show us that they only care about themselves and their own self gratification:

• Warner Todd Huston, writing for the Godfather Politics website on February 25, 2019, discussed one of those times when Washington politicians were so self serving again.
• Five Democrats in the House of Representatives are under pressure because of a trip they took, at no cost to themselves, to South Africa just to see a Beyonce concert.
• The trip for the five of them cost $60,000, none of which they paid for.
• According to the article, as reported by Fox: “ They attended the “Global Citizen Mandela 100” concert from Dec. 1-3 to celebrate the centenary birth of the late Nelson Mandela and raise awareness of global poverty. In addition to Beyoncé, other musical acts included her husband Jay Z, Ed Sheeran, Pharrell Williams and Chris Martin.”
• The trip was paid for my a so-called charity organization, the Global Citizen, a group that supposedly helps out the poor in Third World countries around the world.
• Which raises the question: how many poor people could have been clothed, housed, and fed if Global Citizen had used that $60,000 boondoggle money on the poor and not five U.S. politicians?
• The National Legal and Policy Center, a government watchdog group, called the trip a mockery: “These members of Congress that were given an all-expense paid vacation to party with Oprah, Jay Z, and Beyoncé in South Africa are claiming with a straight face this was needed to help poor children around the world live better lives. This was in fact, a mockery of House ethics rules on gifts and travel, the truly poor, and all Americans that expect members of Congress to live not only by the letter of the law but by the spirit and intentions of the rules of the House of Representatives.”

Well said. I almost guarantee you that the world’s poor are no better off because five U.S. Congress people went to a concert in South Africa. So ego satisfying and so useless, as always.

3) Let’s move from House of Representative members acting childish by allowing themselves to get treated to a concert at the expense of the world’s poor over to a childish politician in the Senate, one who actually wants to be President of the United States:

• According to a story by Shawn, writing for the Fix This Nation website on February 24, 2019, Senator Amy Klobuchar of the Senate is possibly not one of the nicer people you will meet in Washington.
• According to many of Klobuchar’s staff members, she is quite the tyrant when it comes to treating other human beings.
• For example, on a trip to South Carolina several years ago, Klobuchar got crazy and blew up at an aide when the aide lost the Senator’s dining utensils in the middle of the flight.
• It then got really bizarre when the Senator used her comb to eat her meal and then ordered the aide to clean the comb of food that had gotten on it when she used it as dining utensil.
• She has been known to throw binders, phones, and other things at aides who did not measure up to her needs and expectations.
• She also had aides do demeaning errands including washing her dishes or doing other cleaning for her, tasks that are quite possibly a violation of Senate ethics rules.
• She was known to point out perceived staff screw ups that were delivered at all hours of the night and day.
• Her nasty quotes included, “In 20 years in politics I have never seen worse prep”, “This is the hands down worse thing you have ever given me” and “This is the worst press staff I ever had.” 

Such a pleasant person. And she wants to be President of the U.S. Really cannot see such a petty, disrespectful human being becoming someone who could unite and lead the country,. Pettiness in personal dealings with people that may not be at such a high level of status would result in pettiness in dealing with anyone who has a different opinion from hers. And that is not the type of divisive behavior that this country needs today.

That is a good start for this month’s political class insanity: a childish, condescending Senator, five Congress people who needed to have scarce money spent on them rather than the Earth’s poor, and the disaster that is the Federal government’s operation of a railroad system. More insanity to follow.

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:

www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:


http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.bankruptingamerica.org
http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

February, 2019, Part 10, Political Class Insanity: NYC Politicians Killing Amazon Deal, Virginia Political Circus Continues, and A Mean A Spirited Presidential Candidate

It is another month which means it is again time to review the latest political class insanity from Washington and around the world. Political class insanity takes many forms including the wasting of taxpayer wealth, criminal fraud within government programs, inane and stupid political quotes and actions, the inability to create and implement effective and efficient government programs, stupid and ill performing economic policies and strategies, and other forms of insanity that continue to evolve and surprise and shock us.

Let’s get started:

1) As most people know, Amazon sent over 200 cities in a tizzy over the past few years when they said they would be setting up new headquarters office complexes across the country to handle their ever growing business. These headquarters efforts would obviously be a big boost to local economic conditions, creating new and high paying jobs both inside the company and in outside businesses, e.g. restaurants, that would support this new, highly paid workforce.

Cities and local politicians jockeyed hard to be selected, given the obvious economic upside, and tried to outdo each other with tax abatements, economic incentives, and a myriad of other bribery gems to try and be one of the two locations.

Amazon eventually ended up choosing northern Virginia and Queens, New York as the sites of these two new headquarters locations. Local politicians were ecstatic….for a while until at least in New York, the whole thing started to fall apart when politicians started screwing up a good deal:

• According to CNBC, Amazon is likely at least taking a second look at whether or not the NYC locations is worth the hassle and grief it is getting from local politicians.
• According to CNBC, the announcement of NYC as one of the two locations “met almost immediately with protest by some New York officials and residents who feared Amazon would take over the Queens neighborhood, drive up prices and and push out existing residents.”
• In other words, Amazon may pull out of New York if the politicians hassle them too much and just go somewhere else, with over 200 cities more than happy to not hassle and hound the company.
• Just the Queens location would be home to 25,000 well paid employees, employees who pay taxes, eat in local restaurants, buy from local merchants, improve neighborhoods with home purchases, and generate a whole lot of economic growth.
• Of course, the newest and most out of touch and economically ignorant member of Congress, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, put her two cents in, objecting that Amazon selected Queens for their location, proving that it is a great idea if she thinks it stinks.
• She issued the following, most ignorant tweet: “Can everyday people come together and effectively organize against creeping overreach of one of the world’s biggest corporations?”
• So, in her world and reality, creeping overreach is good, high paying jobs, economic revival of all aspects of the local economy, and lower unemployment.
• The governor, Andrew Cuomo, is besides himself in frustration that a deal that took so long to to is possibly falling apart because of politicians like Ocasi-Cortez: "We have to make Amazon a reality. For the state Senate to oppose Amazon was governmental malpractice. And if they stop Amazon from coming to New York, they're going to have the people of New York state to explain it to. It is irresponsible to allow political opposition to overcome sound government policy. You're not there to play politics. You're there to do what's right for the people of New York, and what they did here was wrong."

I love it when the political class eats its own, they are so inept at anything they do. Over 200 cities saw this Amazon opportunity as a good thing and now some politicians in New York want to kill the golden goose of economic growth.

Now, look, I thought what Amazon did to these 200 cities was disgusting, economic blackmail. In New York, for example, the local politicians agreed to give Amazon a tax rebate of $3 billion if Amazon generated $27 billion in revenue for the state. Similar offers were made in the over 200 cities as well. As I said, economic blackmail.

But it is still so funny to see incompetent politicians trip over themselves trying to screw up a deal of a lifetime to the detriment of the people they serve. But that should not surprise anyone, these people screw up just about anything they touch.

2) Let’s review the Virginia political situation, or circus, that we have previously discussed in recent posts:

• It came to light that the medical school yearbook page of the current governor had a picture of two guys at a costume party, one dressed in a KKK costume and one dressed in black face in addition to listing the governor’s nickname as “Coonman,” certainly a racial slur.
• The governor first admitted that he was one of the guys in the picture and a day later contradicted himself and said he was NOT one of those in the picture, making himself look like a liar.
• Then the lieutenant governor was accused of a sexual predator attack years ago.
• Then the lieutenant governor implied that the governor had released the sex attack story to take the pressure off of him. 
• Then the state’s attorney general admitted that he had dressed up in blackface long ago.
• Then a member of the state government admitted that he knew of the sexual attack by the lieutenant governor for over a year.

So every day, the situation got worse and worse, and more comical. But just when you thought you it could not get any worse: 

• A second woman has now come forward to accuse the lieutenant governor of a sexual attack.
• Now he wants the FBI to investigate the charges.
• And many of his peers/politician friends are calling for him to resign but he says he will not.

Makes you wonder what insanity will unfold tomorrow in Virginia.

3) Okay, we talked about politicians fighting among themselves to screw up a once in a lifetime economic opportunity, we talked about Virginia politicians screwing up their public offices, and now let’s talk about a Washington politician possibly screwing up her Presidential run before it if got underway:

• Democrat Senator Amy Klobuchar recently announced she was going to run for President.
• But according to the Washington Examiner she has a very nasty temperament and personality.
• Apparently she has a reputation for mistreating staff.
• At least three potential campaign aides withdrew their names from being considered to be on her Presidential campaign.
• According to the Huffington Post. the Senator cultivates a nasty work environment.
• She allegedly made staffers cry if they were late, constantly describing staff work efforts as “the worst,” sharing criticism in public emails, and giving staff tasks that were in conflict with Senate ethics rules.
• No surprise that she has had trouble filling her chief of staff position.

Sounds like she has a great temperament to unite the country and get everyone working together….not! If she cannot even get a small staff to function coherently and positively it is highly doubtful that she will be able to get the country to function coherently and positively.

That will do it for today, the insanity just keeps on coming.

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:

www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:


http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.bankruptingamerica.org
http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w