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) Any number of times we have discussed the harsh reality of living in California:
A large and growing homeless population.
A large and growing violent crime crisis.
A large and growing unfunded financial liabilities problem of the state and local governments.
Higher and higher taxes.
An overall poverty rate that makes the state the poorest in the country.
Population migration out of the state at a higher rate than the migration into the state.
Failed government policies and programs, e.g. the bungled high speed railway project.
Higher and higher gas and utility prices.
Yes, the state is in bad shape. So much so that for the first time ever, it recently lost enough population to lose a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. One would hope that state politicians were working feverishly to resolve these major issues that affect every citizen in the state one way or the other.
But, alas, if we have learned anything about American politicians, we know that hope and the right properties are rarely ever their priority:
Beginning next year, the state of California government will start to enforce an animal welfare proposition that requires that there be adequate space in the breeding of pigs, chickens, and veal calves.
Pig and pork producers think that only 4% of the pig/hog operations in the country currently comply with this new state government regulation.
Yes, the heck with the welfare of the homeless, hungry, poor, and highly taxed state residents, let’s make sure that pigs across the country have adequate space around themselves.
Talk about bad priorities.
Unless something changes in the regulation or by court order, we are just months away from seeing the amount of bacon eligible to be sold in the state going almost to zero which means with the supply slashed the price of legal bacon will go through the roof.
But if hog and pig producers have to adjust their operations to comply, that will also mean higher bacon costs for the rest of us since the producers will pass along their higher costs to meet California rules onto the rest of us.
An economist at North Carolina State University estimates that the cost per animal to comply will go up by 15% which is a cost increase the rest of us will have to pay.
A consulting firm estimated that if just half of the bacon and pork supply was cut 50% for California, those state residents would see a 60% price increase in pork products like bacon.
Unbelievable that this is what the California state government is working on as over a hundred thousand Americans in that state are homeless, millions are probably hungry and poor, etc. Such bad priorities.
But the state residents have no one to blame but themselves since this was a public proposition that apparently was overwhelmingly approved so not a lot of sympathy for them. But really, a ridiculous proposition like this should never have even made it onto the ballot. But given that American politicians never seem to be able to resolve issues that affect millions of Americans, they end up working on idiocy like this. So sad.
2) Democrat city politicians across the country have jumped on the insane and fatal bandwagon of “defunding the police.” From Portland to LA to Chicago to NYC and other big liberal cities, the defunding of police departments has resulted in skyrocketing violent crime and higher and higher murder rates. People have unnecessarily died because of this insane slogan.
But the politicians that made these fatal decisions made sure that they were protected:
In Minneapolis, the epicenter of defund the police because of the George Floyd murder, city council members voted to hire private security guards for themselves, using taxpayer money, since they felt the defunded city police department, that they voted to defund, could no longer adequately protect themselves.
In Chicago, the mayor ordered extra police protection around her home to protect herself and her family from the rising city crime rate and violence even though she helped defund the city police department.
And now the hypocrisy of defunding the police has reached Congress.
Congresswoman Cori Bush, a big advocate to defund police departments across the country, said in a CBS interview that it was okay for her to spend thousands of dollars on a private security guard company to protect her but that the rest of us should have to contend with weakened police departments across the country.
In a fit of blatant hypocrisy and insensitivity, she said, “Would rather I die? You would rather me die? Is that what you want to see? You want to see me die? Because that could be the alternative. So, either I spend $70,000 on private security over the last few months and I’m here standing now and able to speak, able to help save eleven million people from being evicted, or I could possibly have a death attempt on my life. And we’re also talking about the same exact people who say horrible things about me, who lie to get — to build up their base, and then because they lie about me, I receive death threats. I’m going to make sure I have security. Because I know I have had attempts on my life, and I have too much work to do. There are too many people that need help right now for me to allow that. So, if I end up spending 200,000, if I spend ten more dollars on it, you know what, I get to be here to do the work. So, suck it up. And defunding the police has to happen. We need to defund the police and put that money into social safety nets. Because we’re trying to save lives.”
So she can afford private security guards for her own safety but in the same statement denies that protection to others that cannot afford such protection, unreal hypocrisy.
Given that she comes from St.Louis, one of the leading murder rate cities in the country and the world, I can see why she is concerned. But this is a “let them eat cake” moment, protection for me, not for thee. Herself and family are protected but she is more than willing to strip that protection away from others, less wealthy than herself, and worse, apparently not even care about it. Insane.
3) Despite the Second Amendment, Biden and other liberals across the country are hellbent on stripping us of our right to have weapons and protect ourselves, our family, and our property. They somehow think that extensive gun control will make society safer.
But the cities and states across the country that have the strictest gun control laws also seem to have the highest crime, nurder, and violence rates in the world. Chicago has extensive gun control laws and every year more people are shot, wounded and killed in that city by guns than anywhere else. Baltimore has extensive gun control laws and for years has had one of the highest murder rates in the country. California has extensive gun control laws and crime and murders in that state's cities continue to grow.
What happens in these locations is that law abiding citizens find it harder and harder to legally own guns to protect themselves while criminals continue to ignore gun control laws and are free to plunder and kill. That is why they are criminals, the basic definition of ignoring existing laws. No criminal bent on robbing, raping, and killing is going to stop and say, I better not rob, rape and kill, it is against the law.
A perfect example this situation and how politicians are so out of touch with reality when it comes to gun control recently happened in San Francisco, a city and state with extensive gun control laws:
Someone recently snapped a photo in the city of a woman hanging out of the passenger side window, in the middle of the day, of a car holding an AK-47 automatic rifle.
It is illegal to own an automatic weapon in this country, not just California and not just Sam Francisco.
But there it was, someone in a car on the city streets not only owning an AK-47 but brandishing it outside a car window in full sight.
According to the city police department: "During an illegal exhibition of speed event at Barneveld & McKinnon, a passenger leaned out of a Cadi holding an AK47; see photo. SFPD Traffic Company personnel worked up a case, and seized this particular vehicle today."
The car in the photo was found and towed away by the police, no word on the occupants of the car.
Despite strict gun control laws, the number of shootings in the city has almost doubled in the past year.
There were 199 shootings in the city in the first six months of 2021 compared to 58 at the same time last year.
Agreed that you need some kind of gun control to make sure that certain types of people find it hard to legally get a gun: minors, past felons, crazy folks. But the extensive gun control laws in San Francisco and elsewhere that prevent law abiding, fearful citizens from protecting themselves do not reduce violent crime. The mayor of Chicago knows that, the town council in Minneapolis knows that, and Cori Bush in Congress knows that. That is why they hired private security guards to protect themselves often at taxpayer expense, but would deny the rest of us that same level of protections.
Failed gun control laws, politicians' hypocrisy of protecting themselves but not their citizens, and pigs have a higher priority than needy citizens in California, insanity.
