August, 2020, Part 7, Political Class Insanity: The Worst Mayor In The Country, Fleeing Tax Purgatory In California, And Diane Feinstein's China Delusions

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) We recently raised the question: who is the worst mayor in the country? There are certainly a lot of candidates:

• The Portland mayor has seen his city suffer through over 70 days of nightly violence and rioting and has not been able or willing to stop it.
• The Seattle mayor allowed the downtown area of her city to be taken over by anarchists and thugs for a couple of weeks, completely losing control of a major portion of her city.
• The mayor of Chicago has seen violent crime, murders, and shootings skyrocket beyond their already very high levels and apparently has no clue on how to get it under control.

All good candidates but I am beginning to think that the worst mayor from either party in the entire country is Bill de Blasio in New York City. Under his reign:

• Violent crime and murders are skyrocketing, with 2020 city murders currently on a pace to be higher than the total number of murders in 2018 and 2019 COMBINED.
• The homeless problem is spiraling out of control.
• He and the entire NYC police force have been at odds and each other's throat for years which has caused the city police force to be disrespected and now de Blasio wants to cut their funding in the midst of a violent upsurge in crime.
• He has totally mismanaged the coronavirus crisis having told New Yorkers back in March to go about their business, congregate at bars and restaurants, since the virus is not spread via food or drink.
• This idiocy has probably resulted in significantly more virus deaths and illnesses than what would have happened if he had made informed recommendations or at least kept this mouth shut.

The list goes on and on, as documented by a recent article on the Informing America website:

• Michael Goodwin of the New York Post had an interesting spin on de Blasio’s incompetence.
• Mr. Goodwin described the mayor’s approach to running the biggest, most famous city in the country being one of apathy, that he “doesn’t care about the city.”
• Nothing that happens seems to ignite de Blasio to take action even though, according to Mr. Goodwin, the city is in a sharp and obvious downward spiral, wiping out two decades of growth and safety for its residents.
• Violent crime is rising, the number of homeless is increasing and invading more and more of the city, storefronts are empty and people are getting out of the city and heading for better living environments and “de Blasio shrugs.”
• Things in the city have gotten so bad that according to Mr Goodwin: “He’s so bad that critics have run out of words to describe how bad he is.”
• He is so bad that another Democratic politician has really taken him to the woodshed for his ineptness.
• Congressman Max Rose actually said that, “This mayor is not only the worst mayor in the history of New York City, he’s the worst mayor in the history of this great country.”
• Regarding the reopening of NYC schools, Max said: “They [de Blasio’s team] have not put out a plan for opening the schools. They have put out a prayer, an outline at best. But nothing can replace leadership, and I don’t blame anyone — to include teachers, parents, families — for not having faith in this mayor right now. It is an utter disgrace.”
• And even though the numbers show that city residents cannot move out of the city fast enough, given the wreckage de Blasio has caused, he apparently is still in denial regarding his incompetence; “There’s a lot of New Yorkers who are wealthy who are true believers in New York City and will stand and fight with us, and some may be fair-weathered friends, but they will be replaced by others.”

When people in your own political party are calling you the worst mayor in the history of the country, not just the city, when you do not recognize the chaos around you, you are probably now the worst mayor in the country today.

2) I do not know a lot about Joe Rogan. He seems to be a very popular podcaster who is also very wealthy because of his podcasts. He had been based in California but like most intelligent human beings, like those leaving the high tax environment in places like New York, apparently Mr. Rogan is also leaving his base of operations in California and moving to another state:

• He had been a resident of Los Angeles.
• But he recently signed a $100 million licensing deal that will obviously make him very wealthy.
• And one of the first things he decided to do with his new found wealth is not give huge pieces of it back to the tax hungry California politicians and is moving his base of operations to the tax friendly state of Texas.
• Specifically regarding the option of staying in Los Angeles: “When you look at the traffic, when you look at the economic despair, when you look at the homelessness problem that’s accelerated radically over the last six, seven, 10 years, I think there’s too many people here. I think it’s not tenable, I don’t think that it’s manageable.”
• He hinted to his audience several months ago that he may bolt for better living conditions, conditions that did not exist in LA: “If California continues to be this restrictive, I don’t know if this is a good place to live. I might jet. I’m not kidding. I’m not kidding, this is silly. I don’t need to be here.”
• Rogan also pointed out that he would save about $13 million in taxes from his $100 million deal since the top state income tax rate in California is 13.3% while the top state income tax rate in Texas is 0%.

What politicians take so long to figure out, or never figure out, is that humans are always making calculations regarding their quality of life. At some point you cannot keep adding more and more taxes and increasing the tax rates until someone says enough and takes their wealth elsewhere.

We have recently discussed the panic that the New York governor, Andrew Cuomo, is in. He figured it out that rich people are leaving New York, that they had reached the financial and quality of life breaking point.

And the same has happened with Joe Rogan. He can easily visit his old stomping grounds in LA anytime he wants from his new home in Texas using the $13 million he is saving on not paying California state income taxes. You wonder if the California governor, Gavin Newsom, realizes what Cuomo in New York has figured out. 

This is how the financial death spiral starts, i.e. wealthy people leave and take their tax dollars with them which results in a state government tax revenue shortfall which requires the state politicians to cut services and raise taxes which causes more people to leave which results in more tax revenue shortfall, etc. 

My bet is that most high tax politicians in high tax states, e.g. California, Illinois, New Jersey, Connecticut, will not figure it out and take their state down a financial death spiral hole to economic ruin.

3) We have often pondered the question of whether politicians are too stupid to acknowledge simple reality or they think we are too stupid to believe their lies and fantasies. It is a dilemma that may never get solved. 

Diane Feinstein is a long time California U.S. Senator. She is the latest Washington politician to speak some real idiocy despite reality, which again raises the issue: is she that naive or think we are that naive to belief her stupid comments?

But first some background:

• The Chinese government is nothing close to being a democratic state, it is one of the most tyrannical countries in the world.
• It is threatening freedom in Hong Kong in so many different and potentially violent ways.
• It is persecuting the minority Muslim Uighurs inside its borders.
• It has interred millions of Uighurs inside prison/reeducation camps.
• Reports say that Uighur women in the camps are being subjected to forced abortions, dropping the group’s birth date close to zero.
• People inside the camps are reportedly also being used as slave labor.
• There are also reports that Christians inside the country are also being oppressed.
• The Chinese government is expanding its military dramatically and posing a threat to other nations in the south Pacific.
• The Chinese government has had a sophisticated hacking operation in place for years, hacking Western companies for access to those companies’ secrets and technology, as Facebook executives recently verified in front of Congress to this very point.
• There are now reports that Chinese are already looking to disrupt the U.S. Presidential election in November.

Nasty people operating a nasty, evil and oppressive country. And yet, U.S. Senator Diane Feinstein recently declared that China is growing into a “respectable nation.” Say what? Ethnic cleansing, destroying personal freedoms, threatening other countries, etc. somehow makes China respectable in her eyes!?

She has gotta be kidding, right? Nice joke Senator, ha, ha. Or is she serious and thinks that this type of behavior actually is respectable? If so, then she really is disconnected from reality.

That is enough insanity for today: de Blasio shrugs while NYC implodes, Joe Rogan says goodbye to high California taxes,and Diane Feinstein has no clue … again.

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

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