October, 2019, Part 7, Political Class Insanity: NYC Goes Orwellian, Journalism Losses Its Integrity, and New Jersey Governor Imitates Marie Antoinette

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) Novelist George Orwell, writing in his classic novel “1984,” stated that “manipulation of language as a weapon of mind control and abuse of power.” Control the language and you can control the conversation and wherever there is control there is a loss of freedom.

Which is the situation in New York City as a result of a recent law that it enacted: 

• The law has banned people from threatening anyone by calling them an “illegal alien.”
• If found guilty of hatefully calling someone an illegal alien the penalty could be a fine up to a quarter million dollars.
• It is illegal to use the term even though from a Federal government perspective, it is an accepted legal definition.
• What exactly it means to use it in a hateful or threatening way has not been defined by the law so it is obviously open to interpretation and abuse.
• And it obviously is an affront to the First Amendment, a city government and mayor cannot go around and banning someone from saying two words regardless of how and when they are said.
• Which means after a long legal battle, the law will be struck down as being un-Constitutional and a whole lot of time, energy, and resources would have been wasted for nothing.

Besides being repugnant and illegal, why was such effort put forth on this waste of time? Would not have political efforts and capital been better spent on fixing a lousy school system, helping the homeless on the streets of the city, repairing the crumbling subway system, etc.? So many major things broken affecting millions of city residents and the politicians in the city focus on this tripe. Insane.

2) We have always claimed that a free, unbiased press is critical to the maintenance of democracy. A free press keeps an eye on the greed and corruption of the political class and should be educating citizens on facts and allowing those citizens to make informed judgments based on all of the facts and realities of the issue.

But we have also claimed that the field of journalism today is not doing what the Founders hoped they would do via the First Amendment. Media outlets today are themselves biased. corrupt, and always working an agenda rather than being good, unbiased journalists. This reality was vividly and recently pointed out by some stupid and biased comments from an MSNBC broadcast:

• Gabriel Sherman, a Vanity Fair writer, was recently interviewed on an MSNBC telecast.
• The topic of discussion was the faux impeachment drive that Democrats in the House are trying to put together without any real evidence of anything.
• Without pointing out any evidence of substance, Sherman said that the case for impeachment was so simple that “even the Fox audience can understand” how guilty Trump is.
• The obvious cruel insinuation is that Fox viewers are so stupid.

This is obviously no way to have an adult conversation on the issues of the time. This is no way to be an unbiased and respectful journalist. Another example of media news bias and disgrace.

Oh, Mr. Sherman, by the way, the Fox News audience is more than twice the size of the audience of CNN and MSNBC COMBINED so I am pretty sure that in sheer numbers Fox viewers may be as smart as the viewers of your outlet.

3) But Sherman is not the only condescending “journalist” on TV these days who is as biased and hateful as Sherman. Jake Trapper of CNN recently was talking about impeachment and said that: “He [Trump] has an army of trolls [that support him.]” So in Tapper’s mind, a great number of Trump supporters, ordinary American citizens, are nothing but mindless “trolls” in his Tapper’s mind.

Cannot get more spiteful than that. Again, talk about not being unbiased, not searching out for truths and realities like a real journalist would. Just mindlessly calling millions of citizens trolls because you disagree with their political preferences. 

Two examples, Sherman and Tapper, why I fear for democracy in this country because the press and journalism in this country have lost the only thing that made them a valuable part of a free nation: their integrity. And when you lose your integrity it is very, very difficult to get it back.

Oh, by the way Mr. Tapper, you have so few trolls tuning into CNN that many nights your ratings and CNN ratings fall below the audience levels of the Hallmark channel and shows like “Cupcake Wars” on the Food Channel. Again, the loss of integrity, when integrity is the only thing your professional stands for, is a terrible thing to waste.

4) I was born, grew up, and spent much of my working life in New Jersey so it obviously by original home state. Thus, I saw first hand for many, many years the wasteful and irresponsible spending of state taxpayer wealth on failed projects, greedy political, etc. 

I moved to Florida 14 years ago and have probably saved over $130,000 in lower property taxes and a non-existent state income tax in Florida. This all came to mind today when I found out how the current governor of New Jersey was still wasting taxpayer wealth back in New Jersey:

• According to Brent Johnson, writing for the website, NJ.com, current NJ governor, Patrick Murphy, spent over $1 million on a satellite governor’s office for himself in Newark, New Jersey.
• This is one millions dollars spent, not on his primary office in the state capital where he will spend the vast majority of his time, but on a secondary office that he will likely use very infrequently.
• He already had a Newark office but decided he deserved a larger office in that city, at a cost of $1 million.
• But it gets better: the annual rental cost, which taxpayers will pay, of the new office will be more than $145,000 a year compared to the original, smaller office which cost less than $45,000 in annual rent.
• The governor tried to defend this outrageous spending of taxpayer wealth by declaring that having an office in Newark, the state’s biggest city was important.
• But he misses the point: he already had an office in the city, he just wanted a bigger, more lavish one and spending $1 million of someone else’s money was his way to get it.

As with most pompous politicians, such a bad set of priorities:

• How many homeless and hungry New Jersey folks could have gotten a meal or two out of that unnecessary $1 million one time investment and the $100,000 more that he is paying in annual rent?
• How many drug addicted New Jersey folks could have gotten some addiction treatment out of that unnecessary $1 million one time investment and the $100,000 more that he is paying in annual rent?
• How many computers could have been purchased for inner city school kids out of that unnecessary $1 million one time investment and the $100,000 more that he is paying in annual rent.
• Patrick Murphy’s “let them eat cake moment:” I want a million dollar new office, other human priorities be damned.

That will do it for this month’s insanity: wasting money on unnecessary office space, the loss of integrity and the resulting danger to democracy from the mainstream media, and NYC goes Orwellian. More insanity sure to follow next month.

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