November, 2019, Part 10, Political Class Insanity: Legal Idiocy From A Congressman, Pensions Funds' Dire Financial Straits and Hillary Clinton's Delusions

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) We will classify this first instance of political class insanity as “are you that stupid?” When prosecutors want to prosecute a potential criminal, they usually cannot rely on hearsay testimony and evidence. Why? Because the person giving the hearsay evidence could just be making it up for whatever reason they want. 

For example, let’s say I don’t like my neighbor so I am going to say my neighbor tortured and killed a dog. Police cannot find any evidence of the dead dog’s remains, there is no video proof of the torture, there is not a long record of animal abuse, no one reported a missing dog, etc. All the police have is my hearsay word that my neighbor is so evil that he killed a dog. This case would never see the light of day in a courtroom since there is no direct evidence.

But according to a current U.S.Congressman, hearsay evidence without any direct evidence is a pretty good deal:

• According to Ryan Saavedra, writing for the Daily Wire website, a Democratic Congressman, commenting on the lack of hard proof that Trump committed any impeachment offense, said that “hearsay evidence can be much better evidence than direct evidence.” [my emphasis added.]
• This is the nonsensical opinion of Democratic Congressman Mike Quigley relative to the impeachment witch hunt currently underway in D.C.
• Specifically: “And, if gets to closed primer on hearsay, I think the American public needs to be reminded that countless people have been convicted on hearsay because the courts have routinely allowed and created, needed exceptions to hearsay. Hearsay can be much better evidence than direct … and it’s certainly valid in this instance.”
• Hearsay evidence is NEVER better than direct evidence regardless of his stupid assumption on criminal acts and behavior.
• In our dog example above, in Quigley’s world the word of an irate neighbor would be better than having video, forensic, or other direct proof that the neighbor killed the dog.
• And why is hearsay evidence so much more “valid in this instance” vs. any other instance?
• Fortunately, real Americans realize what stupidity this is and reacted accordingly: “Can you believe this insanity? ‘Hearsay can be much better evidence than DIRECT EVIDENCE’ according to Democrat Mike Quigley: "Are you fricken kidding me? 3rd and 4th party info better than hearing it yourself?”
• “From a reliable 4th party source according to other Democrats like #FullOfSchiff the best evidence is (is) shit you just make up for political gain as that appears to be what they have been doing all along.”
• "Uh?"
• “So not only are the Democrats ADMITTING their entire impeachment sham is based off of hearsay, but now they're trying to defend it. What a joke!”
• “Sounds exactly like what someone would say when they’re desperate and have no actual evidence…”
• “Just want to add that these lawmakers who say “hearsay can be much better evidence than direct” are the same ones who want to subject you to a due process-less red flag system. I’m sure that will just stop with guns, right? You still cool with that?”

This kind of nonsense and stupidity would be funny if it was not so serious and dangerous to our democracy and liberties. In this Congressman’s eyes, if someone does not like you, that is reason enough to subject you to criminal investigations and punishment even though there is no actual direct evidence you did anything wrong. As someone who took an oath to uphold the laws of the land he plays fast and loose on what has been a historical and successful road map for justice.

2) We have previously discussed the horrid financial condition of many public servant pension and retirement programs that local and state politicians have grossly mismanaged over the years. These pension programs have been severely underfunded with future unfunded liabilities totalling billions and billions of dollars.

Eventually these unfunded liabilities will become due and there will not be enough money to fund them, resulted in some or all of the following consequences:

• Pension and health benefits of public servant retirees will be drastically reduced.
• Taxes of all citizens will be drastically raised to fund the shortfall, resulting in stunted economic growth and financial freedom.
• Local and state governments will file for bankruptcy with unknown but certainly negative consequences.

How badly have politicians screwed up these funding policies? Consider some numbers from a recent Wall Street Journal article:

• Current state and local government pension programs have about $4.4 TRILLION in assets to payout future liabilities.
• That sounds like a lot of money until you find out that these programs actually have $8.6 TRILLION in future liabilities.
• Thus, under current economic trends and assets, state and local government have just over half of the amount of wealth they need to keep their pension programs solvent.
• And even these paltry numbers might be too rosy a picture since the average assumption across the country is that annual pension returns on investments will be about 7%, a very high and probably unrealistic assumption given that any future recessions could make the annual investment returns to be much less 7%.

The reason for this is very simple: politicians do not care about tomorrow or long term planning, they only care about their own, short term careers. Thus, rather than save for the future to fund these pension programs, politicians would rather spend that money today on wasteful programs and projects that help them get reelected over and over, the future welfare of government workers and their retirements be damned.

3) Margaret Thatcher was one of the most famous and strongest women leaders in the past fifty years. In fact, outside of possibly Mother Teresa, I cannot think of another woman who was as strong and as much of a leader than Thatcher in recent decades.

Compare Hatcher to Hillary Clinton:

• Hillary protected, abetted, and defended a sexual predator husband for decades, a predator that allegedly groped, had sex with, and possibly raped an untold number of women over the years.
• She publicly went after those alleged abused women to publicly discredit their stories of sexual harassment and abuse at the hands of husband Bill.
• She used the the Clinton Foundation as a money laundering operation to enrich herself and her family. 
• While a U.S. Senator, her legislative record is almost non-existent, since only three bills she was the sponsor of got enacted.
• And those three bills were underwhelming: one sponsored bill renaming a post office in a New York town with less than 2,000 residents, sponsoring bill renaming a portion of a highway outside of Buffalo, New York and the third named an existing brick house in Troy, New York as a national historic site which honored a 19th century female union leader.
• She was involved in so many scandals including, but not limited to, Whitewater, Vince Foster’s suspicious death, cattle futures fortune, White House furniture theft, Benghazi cover up, use of a private and illegal computer server in her home, etc.
• She has been caught lying so many times including the reality that she did NOT land under sniper fire in Bosnia like she claimed, all of her grandparents were NOT immigrants like she claimed, she knew the Benghazi attacks were NOT caused by an obscure video like she claimed, etc.

We could go on but you get the idea. She has been a vindictive, lying, and ineffective first wife , Senator, and Secretary of State.

And yet despite all of this trash that has followed her or been caused by her, she has the nerve to bad mouth Margaret Thatcher:

• In a recent interview she said that Thatcher did not even try to “make a positive difference” for women.
• Clinton and her daughter, Chelsea Clinton, had recently released yet another book, called “The Book of Gutsy Women: Favorite Stories of Courage and Resilience,” and was being interviewed on BBC radio.
• The book did not include Margaret Thatcher as one of her gutsy women because Thatcher did not meet the criteria of “knocking down barriers for others” and “did not make an effort to help other women.”
• Specifically: “She does but she doesn’t fit the other part of the definition — in our opinion — which really is knocking down barriers for others and trying to make a positive difference. I think the record is mixed with her.”

Seriously? One of the most successful and strongest political women in the past decades and Clinton does not think that Thatcher was gutsy enough to exist and thrive in a man dominated field? That she does not even make it into Clinton’s book of gutsy women? 

Unreal. Just another example of an American politician being so out of touch, being so petty, and so vain. It was not Thatcher’s job to open doors for other women, It was her job to serve her country and EVERY citizen in that country. She did it well, for a long time, and honorably. Given the list of Clinton’s misadventures listed above, Hilary Clinton is NOT the right person to judge Thatcher.
So today’s insanity includes a former first woman who has no concept of what honor is, politicians have no idea how to manage pension systems, and a politician who has no concept of basic legal principles.

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:

https://www.amazon.com/Walter-Bruno-Korschek/e/B002KYU08Q/ref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share

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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