January, 2020, Part 9, Political Class Insanity: California and E. coli, Omar Under Criminal Investigation, Hurricane Ineptness In Puerto Rico, 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.

This will be our ninth and final political class insanity post for this month. Believe me, we probably could have done another half dozen or so, that is how crazy American politicians are becoming. Inane comments, bad priorities, bold face lies, inept legislating, the list is endless. After today, we will pick up this insanity theme again in early February.

Let’s get started:

1) Unfortunately, California politicians and how they have screwed up a once great state continue to make headlines everyday. In a recent post we went through the calamities that state politicians have caused Californians to endure:

• Homelessness continues to grow rapidly in the state while decreasing around the rest of the country, despite a strong national economy.
• Many state cities tolerate public defecation, public urination and public shooting up and use of illegal drugs.
• The state has hundreds of billions of dollars in unfunded state government liabilities.
• The state has horrible public schools, horrible infrastructure conditions, and horrible forestry management skills, resulting in massive wildfires.
• The state has seen the rise of Medieval diseases such a typhus because of the growing homelessness problem.
• The state failed miserably in building a high speed rail line, wasting untold millions of dollars in the process.
• The state has some of the highest taxes in the country.
• The state has the highest poverty rate in the country.
• The state’s crazy and likely useless environmental laws results in some state residents paying over $5 for a gallon of gas, about double what the rest of the country pays.

Today we add another problem affecting the well being of Californians and it is very serious:

• California politicians’ inability to deal with homelessness has caused the homeless populations in their major cities to continue to grow even though we are in the middle of a strong economy and homelessness is going down outside of the state.
• Also, recent law changes in places like San Francisco have no longer made it a crime to defecate urinate, or shoot up drugs in public, that type of behavior has skyrocketed, forcing cities to create poop patrols to pick up the public defecation and power wash the cities’ streets.
• Unfortunately, this continual power washing of the streets of defecation and urination is having some serious environmental effects.
• According to California Health Line records: “We should all work together to clean up these hazardous waste and homeless sites before the whole city rot[s] away,” 
• President Trump tweeted about San Francisco last fall: “Very bad and dangerous conditions, also severely impacting the Pacific Ocean and water supply.”
• California’s rivers, coastlines and local streams are showing signs of high fecal matter, higher than state safety standards, as a result of the power washing and drainage of city streets because of the explosion in homeless public defecation and urination.
• Consider the real life experience of David Gibson, Executive with the San Diego Water Quality Control Board regarding homeless encampments: “I’ve carried 5-gallon buckets that were unambiguously being used as toilets. They were taking it to the San Diego River, dumping it there, and rinsing it out there.”
• The EPA has sent the state’s governor a letter about the problem and then told San Francisco that it was in violation of the Clean Water Act.
• As a result, dangerous E. coli bacteria levels are also getting to dangerously high levels.
• Some tests have come back that have exceeded the allowable level of E. coli by sevenfold.

I usually do not try to blame a specific political party, we have much disdain for ALL politicians. But in the case of California this is all on the Democrats. They have controlled most of the state government for decades, this is their problem and it is a disgusting and dangerous one.

2) Hurricane Maria did a real devastation job on Puerto Rico several years ago. Trump took a lot of heat about it being a bad recovery effort even though it was eventually found that the ineptness of the local political class on the island had a lot to do with the bad and slow recovery effort. Materials and supplies got to the island but the local government and the politicians that operate it could not get the stuff out to the places where relief supplies were needed.

Now, it appears that not only did relief materials and supplies make it to the island but those supplies are STILL sitting in a government warehouse years after the storm:

• An island emergency management government official was fired after it was discovered that there was a warehouse still stocked with Hurricane Maria relief supplies.
• The warehouse was filled with thousands of cases of water and other supplies from back in 2017.
• The island’s governor immediately fired Carlos Aceedo, the now former director of Puerto Rico's emergency management agency.
• The governor said: "There are thousands of people who have made sacrifices to bring help to the south, and it is unforgivable that resources have been kept in a warehouse." 

As always, government is inefficient and often ineffective, whether it is resolving a dire homeless situation or not knowing there were thousands of cases of water sitting in a warehouse while thousands went thirsty in a time of crisis.

3) American Action News recently reported on how the FBI is now investigating possible illegal shenanigans of freshman Congresswoman Ilhan Omar:

• The FBI and ICE are investigating possible criminal behavior by Omar regarding her so-called “marital history.”
• It is alleged that Omar married her brother in 2009 in violation of the government’s refugee family reunification program.
• According to the Daily Wire website: “The Blaze noted that the “FBI SAC stated that the wide range of criminal activity suggested by the evidence against Rep. Omar may lead the FBI to expand the review to other federal departments” and that in recent weeks, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Department of Education inspector general have reportedly joined the investigation….The Blaze reported that ICE’s involvement in the investigation pertains to “questions about [Rep. Omar’s 2009 marriage],” which allegedly includes “eight instances of perjury, immigration fraud, marriage fraud, up to eight years of state and federal tax fraud, two years of federal student loan fraud, and even bigamy.”
• In addition: “The Department of Education inspector general is reportedly looking into whether Omar’s 2009 marriage to a British citizen was “an attempt to facilitate federal student loan fraud, or other fraud involving higher education.”

The word karma comes to mind. Omar is a person who was an adultress according to the wife of the husband Omar had an affair with, she has numerous times expressed her hatred and contempt for Israel and the Jewish, and her tendency to call anyone with a different opinion than hers is a racist is getting old. Karma can be a bitch.

4) Given California has been such a central theme in this month’s political class insanity posts, let’s finish it up this month’s insanity with another California disaster:

• The latest data from the Census Bureau on poverty shows that California still has the country’s highest poverty rate as measured by the Supplemental Poverty Measure or “SPM.”
• California’s SPM poverty rate came in at 18.1% which edged out Louisiana at 16.5% and Florida at 16.2%.
• The states with the lowest poverty rates were Iowa at 6.7%, Minnesota at 7%, and Kansas at 7.8%.
• Thus, California had a poverty rate two and a half to almost three times the rate of the lowest poverty rate states.
• One of the strongest drivers of poverty in California is the high cost of housing which has been driven by political idiocy when it comes to housing rules, laws, and regulations.
• California is also in the dumps when it comes to homelessness, having the fourth worst homeless rate in the country at .33% (33 homeless people per 10,000 in population) and it also has the most homeless Americans than every other state.
• California is the worst state when it comes to unsheltered homeless folks since 69% of the homeless in California are likely to not be in any kind of shelter compared to the best performing state Massachusetts, which has over 95% of its homeless in shelter.

Someone once said that California is now a “North Korea with a tech industry.” Take away the Silicon Valley and Hollywood millionaires and this is a very, very poor state. The state politicians have taken a wonderful place with a large and varied economy and incredible natural resources and turned it into a third world country. High taxes, high poverty rates, high homelessness rates, high gas prices, high levels of regulations, no surprise that the state’s wealthy and middle class are fleeing the state.

So California politicians have ruined an entire state, Puerto Rican politicians ruined the relief effort for their citizens and Congresswoman Omar may have ruined her life and the lives of others with her alleged criminal actions. More insanity next month.

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:

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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