June. 2020, Part 6, Political Class Insanity: Clueless In Washington State, Corrupt In Colorado, and Ineffective in DC

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) If anyone follows just a little of the news they are aware that a bunch of anarchists and criminals have literally taken over a six block area of Seattle, Washington and have declared themselves the rulers of a new country. The area they took over is called Capitol Hill and they have renamed their new country the Capital Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ). This is obviously an act of lawlessness this country has not seen since the Civil War.

Lord knows what is going on inside the zone but reports allege rapes, violence, business shakedowns, “deportations,” etc. The city government is helpless in enforcing the rule of law within its own city limits and the cops have been reluctant to investigate alleged crimes or to shut down this insurrection.

And despite all of this insurrection going on in Washington state’s largest city, an insurrection and lawlessness that has been broadcast around the world, the governor of the state seems to be a little out of the loop:

• Jay Inslee is the current governor of Washington state.
• At a recent press conference he was asked the following, legitimate press question: “Governor, I’d like to ask you about what’s going on Seattle, there’s this thing called the capital autonomous zone, what’s your thought about the fact that the protesters have taken that over and are not allowing people to come and go freely?”
• In a response that has to rank high on the list of most ridiculous answers to any question EVER, the governor responded: “Well that’s news to me. So, I’ll have to reserve any comment about it. I have not, I have not heard anything about that from any credible source, not that you’re not credible, it’s just like before I espouse an opinion, I should know of which I speak.”

It is difficult to understand this statement. Is the governor that clueless that he has no idea what is going on isn't the biggest city in the state even though the rest of the world knows about it? Does he know what is going on but is so overwhelmed he is in denial? Or does he know what is going on and thinks we don’t know in order to make himself look better than his pitiful performance on the matter has been? In any case, ignorant, lying, or denial, he should not be in charge of an entire state that is seeing its largest city descend into anarchy. 

Seattle-based conservative radio host Jason Rantz said it best in responding to Inslee’s remarks on Wednesday on Twitter: “Wow. @GovInslee said he had no clue about the #SeattleAutonomousZone. Antifa, anarchists and community activist took an entire 6-block radius of his biggest city, have roaming armed guards doing ID checks, and Inslee has no clue. WHAT ARE YOU DOING, INSLEE?!”

2) Let’s move over to Colorado where another American politician is either in denial or thinks we are too stupid to understand reality much like Inslee up in Washington:

• John Hickenlooper is the former Colorado governor and current Democratic candidate for Senate in that state.
• However, his campaign has hit a little snag in that the nonpartisan Colorado Independent Ethics Commission has concluded that he is guilty of violating a state ban on accepting personal gifts while in office.
• The commission found that as governor he had accepted a plane flight on a political donor’s private jet and use of a Maserati limo while in Italy to attend a conference.
• Despite the supposedly nonpartisanship of the ethics commission, Hickenlooper took the low road in defending himself: “These allegations were waged by a dark-money Republican group and they’re going to lay attacks and millions of dollars of smear ads against whoever the Democratic candidate is.”
• His primary opponent was quick to jump on Hickenlooper’s rage against the accusations: “He’s the first person ever held in contempt by an independent ethics commission. Now, when he breaks the law, he refuses to apologize, defies a subpoena. You heard John blame the Republicans, you heard him blame the staff, I suppose he even blames the commission, which includes his own appointees who ruled against him.”
• In addition, the Colorado Springs Gazette seems to believe the accusations, saying that a “politician proven susceptible to inappropriate gifts by corporations is the last thing Colorado needs in Washington.”

Just another American politician assuming they are entitled to whatever they want, ethics be damned.

3) As you know, Minneapolis citizen, George Floyd was brutally and unnecessarily tortured and killed by a Minneapolis police officer. His death resulted in peaceful protests and violent riots across the country as people called out for police reform and an end to racism.

Unfortunately, rather than create the opportunity to have real reform and make real progress against racism to minimize future George Floyd-like incidents, politicians have reverted to the only actions they know, largely symbolic actions that look good on the news and result in no meaningful societal change.

This was recently illustrated by Democratic members of Congress and their leader, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, could not even do that right. Democrats recently gathered to honor the memory of George Floyd and bring attention to the horrific murder of him by a Minneapolis police officer. The process involved them kneeling on the floor for several minutes, all under the watchful eyes of news cameras so that the photo opportunity was not missed. After the period of silence tribute was done, a Twitter user Benny accurately described what happened next:

Pelosi kneels for somber moment of silence to honor George Floyd.

Here is what happens immediately after:

- Pelosi can’t get up

- Pelosi is stuck kneeling

- Pelosi calls for an aide to help

- Pelosi cracks joke about her heels

- Pelosi giggles

Real somber

Wasn’t the whole purpose of this effort to have a somber few minutes to reflect on the unnecessary death of a citizen? And in the midst of this photo op Pelosi cracks a joke accompanied by some giggles.

Fortunately, some folks in the civil rights movement were not fooled by this symbolic gesture made meaningless by this photo op and Pelosi cracking a joke in the middle of it. Yamahtta T., such a civil rights activist, called them out on this effort: “get off your fxxxing knees and change the damn policies, redistribute the funds, and stop the evictions and foreclosures.” [Note: the “xxx” is my insertion, she used the real word.]

Liberal Krystal Ball had this observation: "Embarrassing performative display which no one will fail to see through." “Embarrassing performative display” is a much more elegant description than my “empty symbolic gesture”. But it gets the same message across: politicians think they are doing something important with this and other embarrassing performative displays when in reality they are usually incapable of real, meaningful and fair changes to laws and attitudes in this country. Unlike here though, they are usually not caught in public laughing and giggling about their performative displays.

That will do it for today’s insanity: a clueless governor in Washington state, an allegedly corrupt and pompous Senate candidate in Colorado and empty, apparently funny, gestures of sympathy in Washington DC. The American political class continues to be corrupt, despicable, clueless, and ineffective.

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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