1) Most of our reviews of insanity are current reviews. However, we recently came across a great article from a little while ago from the Independent Journal Review entitled, “18 of the Most Cringe-Worthy Phrases Ever Spoken By a Politician.” Many of these are not real current but they do give you an idea of how out of touch or just plan deceitful most of America’s politicians are today:
1) “If a president of the United States ever lied to the American people he should resign.” – President Bill Clinton. I guess that “I did not have sex with that woman” was not a lie back then.
2) “The Gulf War was like teenage sex. We got in too soon and out too soon.” - Senator Tom Harkin. Totally classless act, Senator. You are supposed to be a leader in this country and teenage sex drivel is what comes out of your mouth.
3) “I don’t understand how they can call me anti-Latino when I’ve made four movies in Mexico.” – former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. He sounds like a “But I stayed at a Holiday Inn” commercial.
4) “I cook occasionally just to see how easy women’s work is.” – former Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill. And people in Tip’s party claim the Republicans have a war on women.
5) “In Delaware, the largest growth of population is Indian Americans, moving from India. You cannot go to a 7/11 or a Dunkin’ Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent. I’m not joking.” – Vice President Joe Biden. No racism to see here, move along.
6) “I am not a chauvinist, obviously. . . . I believe in women’s rights for every woman but my own.” – Chicago Mayor Harold Washington. Another one of Tip’s party members.
7) “It’s a racist tax.” – Florida Represenative Ted Yoho on the civil-rights consequences of taxing tanning salons, which supposedly discriminates against white people. Huh?
8)”I don’t care anything about your disability.” - Texas Representative Sheila Jackson-Lee (quoted in a federal lawsuit brought by an employee who alleged failure to accommodate her disability). A shining example of political compassion.
9) “I think incest can be handled as a family matter within the family.” – Arkansas Representative Jay Dickey Jr. Isn’t that where the problem started?
10) “The roads in Missouri were much more terrifying to me than the attacks on the World Trade Center, because I really did think my life was far more at risk.” – former HHS Secretary and Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius. No sarcasm or cute comment here. This is just a blatant, cold hearted insult and disgrace to anyone who lost a family member or friend in the attacks, totally senseless and compassionless statement.
11) “No, no. I have been practicing… I bowled a 129. It’s like — it was like Special Olympics, or something.” - President Barack Obama. Same as Sebelius, compassionless and cold hearted.
12) “I know what Victoria’s Secret is. She’s a slut.” – Wyoming Representative Barbara Cubin. As with Harkin’s statement above, totally classless act.
13) “I am working for the time when unqualified blacks, browns and women join the unqualified men in running the government.” – Texas State Representative Frances “Sissy” Farenthold. Probably a true statement.
14) “I’m not against the blacks, and a lot of the good blacks will attest to that.”- Arizona Gov. Evan Mecham. Sad.
15) “Every month that we do not have an economic recovery package, 500 million Americans lose their jobs.“- California Representative and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. Give there are only about 315 million people living in the country, 500 million a month is quite a feat.
16) “In two previous gentlemen’s statements on the amendment, both of them referred to the Affordable Care Act, which is the accurate title of the health care reform law, as ‘ObamaCare.’ That is a disparaging reference to the President of the United States. … It is clearly in violation of House rules against that.” - Florida Representative and DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz. I’m sorry what did she say? I usually try not to listen when she or Pelosi speak.
17) “My fear is that the whole island [of Guam] will become so overly populated that it will tip over and capsize.” – Georgia Representtive Hank Johnson. The really sad part about this idiotic statement and belief is that somehow he got reelected, confirming our strong feeling that our election processes are broken if he could get reelected after publicly worrying a fixed Pacific Island could topple over.
18) “I personally find the word ‘alien’ offensive when applied to individuals, especially to children. An alien to me is someone from out of space.” – Florida Representative Frederica Wilson. An alien to me is usually somebody in the White House or in Congress since they usually are dealing with a different world and reality that most Americans are struggling against every day.
Still think that the 600 people or so sitting in Congress and the White House can fix what they have broken in this country? If so, you are either more optimistic than me or you really did not read the thoughts that these types have actually uttered out loud.
2) The Washington political class thought so highly of themselves and their ability to invest taxpayer dollars in the market, that at one point they let General Motors have about $40-50 billion of our money to get back onto their feet. How did that work out, how good was their investing acumen? Consider that we never got back about $10 billion of that sum and the Associated Press recently pointed out how bad that investment was anyway:
- General Motors recently issued six more recalls , bringing its 2014 total to 60 recalls covering almost 30 million vehicles.
- Keep in mind that the annual car market for this country is just over half of 30 million vehicles. In other words, General Motors has had to recall nearly twice the size of the annual domestic auto market.
- This is almost three times General Motors’ previous annual record of about 11 million cars recalled in 2004.
- The latest recalls are for faulty seats in just over 475,000 cars and small SUVs.
- But other problems include incomplete welds on seat brackets, turn signal failures, power steering failures, loose suspension bolts and faulty roof rack bolts.
- The recalls were spread out over discontinued models, new models, cars, and trucks, indicating a systemic and company wide malaise.
This is what the political class does with our hard earned money. Wastes it on dangerous, inept businesses like General Motors but also on such lesser names as Solyndra and others in the alternative energy field.
Again, does anyone really think that the current crop of sitting politicians can manage us out of our major issues when they invest like drunken sailors in companies like the negative record setting General Motors?
3) Since today’s insanity post seems to be focusing on politicians’ incompetence, let’s stay in that realm and discuss a recent article written by Peter Suderman for Reason magazine. The Dodd-Frank legislation was supposed to be the Federal government’s answer to the Great Recession.
It was supposed to fix what the Federal government and the political class did not do in the lead up to the Great Recession, i.e. they screwed up and tried to fix/cover up their screw up with the massive Dodd-Frank legislation. This is probably Obama’s second biggest legislative effort, only behind Obama Care.
Given how poorly Obama Care turned out (see last week’s posts for proof of that disaster), it is not surprising that Dodd-Frank is also turning out to be a disaster, as detailed by Mr. Suderman:
- Four years after the Dodd-Frank legislation was enacted as a result of the 2009 financial crisis, only about half of its rules and regulations have been written and finished.
- The law firm Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP, which tracks implementation of the law, says its research finds only 52% of its nearly 400 rulemaking requirements are complete.
- Over at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), only 44% of the required rules are finalized or closed.
- Almost half of the 280 rulemaking deadlines that have come and gone so far have been blown with no sign things will speed up anytime soon: "To pretend we can process the rules in a thoughtful way, in a period of a year or two, or even five or 10, I think is crazy," SEC member Daniel Gallagher told The Wall Street Journal.
- Which raises a primary question: how good is a piece of legislation if it may take upwards of ten years to implement? We could go through two-three economic cycles by then.
- Last summer, three years after its creation, the 848-page law had created nearly 14,000 pages of mind boggling new regulations.
- Which raises a second primary question: at what point do Americans, or any human beings, stop trying to figure out 14,000 pages of regulations and just ignore the law in total? If you make it so difficult, too difficult to follow the law and the legislation than what good is the legislation?
Given the scale and scope of the rules so far, and the countless hours of dithering and debate surrounding their creation, it is hard to argue that Congress even had a meaningful vision for how the law would function and what exactly it would do. Yes, in theory, judging by the results, it's hard not to conclude that the legislators behind the law did not really know what it was supposed to do at all.
“Did not really know what it was supposed to do at all.” Sounds about right for this group in Congress. Maybe they were too preoccupied on whether Guam was tipping over or being terrified of driving in Missouri. They obviously were not focused on writing crisp, effective, and timely legislation.
So let’s review: bad political quotes, bad political legislation, and bad investment of taxpayer wealth. Sounds about right. More insanity tomorrow.
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