Monday, March 29, 2021

By The Numbers, April, 2021 - Biden Spends $86 Million To Make Illegal Immigrants Comfortable, Defund the Police Increases Crime, and Our Education System Still Stinks

On a periodic basis we do some posts that fall under the theme of “by the numbers.” Rather than trust what the American political class tells us about reality, we like to examine the real numbers and the real reality in the world to understand what is actually going on. Relying on politicians, and their cohorts in the media, to tell us what is reality is always a sucker bet. They have their own agendas and goals, usually centering around their needs and self-enrichment. So we need to look at the reality of the numbers to determine what is really going on.

Previous analyses of “by the numbers” can be accessed by entering the phrase in the search box above. This is where we look at the numbers to truly find out how good, not likely, or bad, most likely, the American political class is doing in managing our tax dollars, protecting our freedoms, and resolving major issues that affect all of us.

1) As many know, within two months of becoming President, Biden has created another illegal immigration problem at the southern border with thousands of people piling up and assaulting that border. For those that are actually able to illegally get into the country and who are taken into custody, the Biden administration has decided that it would be a good idea to put these illegal immigrants in local hotels, feed them, give them medical care, and make sure they are comfortable.

The cost of this effort is now estimated to be in the $86 million range. Meanwhile, around 550,000 Americans are homeless, about 18 million Americans are often under food stress, and millions of American have lost their jobs because of the pandemic. But rather than direct $86 million in taxpayer wealth to these needy Americans, Biden has decided that hotel accommodations for those illegally entering the country is a higher priority.

As we have discussed before, on average it takes about $2.94 to provide a homeless American a decent meal. Thus, by the numbers, that $86 million Biden is spending on housing and feeding illegal immigrants in hotels, could have been used to give every homeless American three good meals a day for about 53 days, or just under two months. What a sad state of priorities, as always, when it comes to Washington politicians and the welfare of Americans in need.

2) We have often discussed the stupidity of the “defunding the police” movement. Every place it has been done has seen a dramatic increase in crime and violence, as the numbers show:
  • Kevin McCullough wrote a defund police analysis for the Townhall website back in July, “Six Cities, Six Weeks, Six Hundred Murders.”
  • He highlighted what happens when Democrats who are in control of major U.S. cities go too far when it comes to blaming all police officers for the bad behavior of a few and cause respect for all police officers to go down the drain.
  • New York City Mayor, Bill de Blasio, has been a big advocate of defunding the police and his actions and the actions of the city politicians have resulted in a defunded police force which has led to city murders being up over 21% and city shootings being up over 46%.
  • Los Angeles politicians defunded the LAPD budget by $150 million which helped the city experience a 250% increase in murders and a 56% increase in shootings on a June, 2020 year over year basis.
  • Chicago’s Mayor, Lori Lightfoot, has led the charge in her city to cut police funding while seeing the city experience over 1,500 shootings through the middle of the year, or about 350 more than the first half of 2019.
  • Chicago murders were around 254 by mid year, up over the same period in 2019.
  • In Washington D.C., homicides were up 13% by mid- 2020 vs. mid-2019 and yet that city’s political class is looking to cut the city’s police force budget by $15 million.
  • In Philadelphia, homicides were up 25% by mid-year, shootings were up 67%, and armed violence crimes were up 29% as the city’s politicians looked to take $19 million out of the police force budget.
  • Baltimore has always been one of the most dangerous cities in the country, currently riding a five year streak with at least 300 murders a year.
  • They set their own all time murder record in 2019 at 348 and yet the murder rate in the city in 2020 ran higher than the 2019 record rate.
  • And, of course, the city’s politicians want to reduce their police force budget by $22 million.
  • Other news sources report that the circus that is Portland, Oregon has drastically reduced its police force budget while seeing a 255% increase in city murders and a 173% increase in city shootings.
Nowhere have I found where defunding the police actually reduced crime and violence. There appear to be no numbers that support the defund the police movement and every number indicates just the opposite: reducing police force personnel and budgets is an open gate to more crime, violence and murders.

3) The EDChoice organization, an organization dedicated to supporting educational choice and charter schools, recently published some distressing numbers concerning public education in this country. We have talked about this massive problem before, how the current education practices, and teacher’s unions, in this country are short changing and severely under educating the kids in this country. The numbers are quite depressing:
  • All levels of government in this country spend about $621 billion a year on public education.
  • This comes out to about $12,000 per student per year.
  • But despite this amount of spending, the education results have not been good.
  • Since 1992, the reading proficiency of high school seniors has decreased 7 percentage points.
  • High school math proficiency levels have not changed over the years.
  • 82% of U.S. high school seniors graduate on time but only about one third of them are ready for college from a reading and math proficiency perspective.
  • According to US News and World Report, math and reading scores for fourth and eight graders have dropped since 2017, especially reading.
  • 25 out of 34 nations recently surveyed have high school graduation higher than the U.S.
  • The number of K-12 students in U.S. schools has increased 96.5% since 1950.
  • However, the number of teachers has grown over 250% and the number of non-teaching school employees is up a whopping 386%.
Thus, spending on school employees of all types has far exceeded the growth in student enrollments but the educational attainment has actually gone down.

Not good numbers from EdChoice which is why we need to change the way we educate kids in this country and break away from the currently failing approach and financing of public education.

Consider the following numbers not covered by their analysis:
  • The Federal Department of Education’s fiscal 2021 budget is $66.6 billion.
  • The Department was formed in 1980 under the Carter administration.
  • Thus, it has been around for about 41 years.
  • It's probably a safe bet that it has spent about a TRILLION dollars over that 41 year time period.
  • And for that TRILLION dollars we have a mediocre, at best, public education system, that far under performs other nations that spend far less on government entities and per student costs.
  • Consider this hypothetical number calculation: there are about 130,930 schools in this country.
  • If we could magically distribute that annual $66.6 billion Department of Education budget to each school, each one would receive over $500,000 a year.
So ask yourself: is it better to pay Washington bureaucrats $66.6 billion a year for a failing approach to education or would it be better to give every school $500,000 a year which could be used as needed by each particular school for more teachers, better education materials, better technology, etc. and just disband the Department of Education

Public education in this country, as administered by American politicians, has been an expensive, wasteful, and under performing endeavor. The numbers do not lie and they show that a different approach is needed, whether it is more charter schools, more teacher and administrator accountability, or the dissolving of the Department of Education and let those resources go directly to the schools and the local school boards rather than being sent to Washington and wasted there.

That will do it for this set of numbers: Biden values and pampers illegal immigrants more than needy Americans, defund the police results in more crime, and we pay a lot of taxpayer money for less than stellar education results. The numbers do not lie even if politicians do.

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:

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

Saturday, March 20, 2021

March, 2021, Part 5, Political Class Insanity: Biden's Continuing Cognitive Decline, The Escape From NYC Continues, Wasting Money In Pakistan, and John Kerry Ignores Biden Mask Mandate

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) It has always been our contention that the concept of government has only a small handful of important and necessary traits and functions, two of which are to provide for the safety of citizens and the protection of the freedom of Americans. If the government at any level and the politicians that operate that government cannot provide at least those two basic government functions then they are a failure.

It has also been our contention that citizens living anywhere where the government cannot protect their physical safety and their freedom will look to change their present situation and go somewhere that will allow them to be protected, both physically and freedom wise. We have provided examples of this very human behavior many, many times, including the most recent analysis on the following post:

https://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2021/01/happy-new-year-and-welcome-to.html

In that post, we went through the statistics that show that Americans are on the move and it's clear they are moving from areas of the country where their physical safety and their freedoms are endangered and under attack. Chicago, New York City, San Francisco, New York state, New Jersey, California, Illinois, etc. are facing massive losses of people and businesses. 

They have failed in their basic responsibility of protecting lives and freedom and as a result, their dwindling tax base combined with their prolific and wasteful government spending is sending these cities and states into a financial free fall that will eventually result in state and municipal bankruptcies.

Some new data from the Post Office confirms our assertion relative to New York City:
  • Almost 300,000 households have bailed out of New York City in a recent eight month period.
  • Keep in mind that some of the harshest restrictions on freedom have been imposed over that time because of covid, the NYC tax burden continues to be high and growing, and Antifa and BLM riots have made the crime rate soar.
  • NYC residents filed 295,103 change of address forms with the Post Office from March through October, of 2020.
  • This information was obtained via a FOIA request through the Post Office.
  • Since the data was available only for receiving zip codes that have had 11 or more requests from a certain zip code, and these were household requests, not individual people requests, there are probably far more than 295,103 people that have left NYC during that time frame.
  • This number is more than double for the same time period of the prior year.
  • Michael Hendrix, the director of state and local policy at the Manhattan Institute, verifies that the failure to protect lives, safety, and freedom by local politicians is at the heart of this massively increased out migration: “I think people are afraid. They’re afraid of catching a deadly virus and they’re afraid of crime and other quality-of-life concerns. One thing we also hear is about trash and cleanliness of the city.”
  • A survey of high earners in the city showed back in the middle of 2020 that a whopping 44% had considered moving out of the city in the previous four months due to high costs of living there, the feeling the city was moving in the wrong direction, the dissatisfaction with city schools, and the lowering of the quality of life.
  • In addition, the number of murders is up and the number of shootings in the city is up almost 100% vs. 2019.
  • Another sign of the out migration growth is the reality that city apartment vacancies are at 14 year high in the city.
Like that old song says, “people want to be free.” Free from having their lives threatened, free from an ever encroaching political class taking away their freedom, free to just live their lives as they see fit. And the politicians in places in New York City and other places either do not understand these basic needs and the basic role of government or are too inept, too greedy, or too blind to the reality of freedom.

2) We have already discussed the pathetic and wasteful $1.9 TRILLION pandemic relief bill that has been passed by Congress. Over half of the spending in that legislation has NOTHING to do with pandemic relief or in any way helping suffering Americans in need.

It is a hodgepodge of political favors that Pelosi, Schulmer, and Congressional Democrats have forced through to satisfy their family, personal, and politically connected friends' needs and wallets. We have already discussed the worthless expenditures that are in the legislation, worthless expenses that can know be joined by the following disgusting wastes of taxpayer wealth:
  • The new law will provide $15 million to Pakistan for “democracy programs” and $10 million to Pakistan for “gender programs.”
  • Seriously, Americans are homeless, hungry, fighting drug addiction and have lost their jobs and we are sending $25 million around the world for this nonsense in a foreign country?
  • A Federal agency, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), claims that it works with Pakistan to improve women’s access to economic opportunities, increase girls’ access to education, improve maternal and child health, combat gender-based violence, and increase women’s political and civic participation in Pakistan, which obviously raises the simple question: shouldn’t America taxpayer money be used for women and girls in this country and not in Pakistan, if spent at all?
What a waste of money on nebulous programs with trivial results, if any. Consider the math that we have done any number of times on wasteful government spending, especially when it is wasted in other countries far away. It is estimated that on average it costs $2.94 to feed a homeless American a well balanced meal in the food kitchens and charities across the country:
  • At $2.94 a meal, this $25 million going to Pakistan could provide over 8 million meals to Americans’ homeless and hungry.
  • 8 million meals could feed over 93,000 hungry and homeless and hungry Americans three meals a day for an entire month.
  • So ask yourself: in this time of pandemic need in this country, why are Washington politicians spending $25 million on democracy and gender programs in Pakistan and not feeding struggling Americans?
I think there are probably two answers to this last question: the first possible answer is that Washington politicians don't care about ordinary Americans, they would rather be associated with more grandiose ideas and plans which require the spending of American taxpayer dollars to satisfy their egos.

The second possible explanation is that I would bet that if you peeled back the coverings to programs like these you would likely find that a friend, a family member, a political donor/supporter for the politician themselves is going to make a boatload of money spending this money. Remember when John Kerry’s daughter got a $9 million no bid contract from the Federal government:


Again, I would bet she is not the only Washington politician-affiliated person who makes millions and millions of dollars off of bogus programs like democracy programs and gender programs in Pakistan, the needs of struggling Americans be damned.

3) During the Presidential campaign last year, I voiced the opinion that Joe Biden was unfit from a mental perspective to be President of the United States. Independent of his failure as a Washington politician for over 40 years, I believed and still believe he is in a state of significant cognitive decline.

I based this conclusion on having been the co-guardian of an uncle who suffered from a long battle against dementia, a battle with the same characteristics that I observed Biden going through. I actually felt and still feel sorry for Biden and detest those that put him through the rigors of a Presidential campaign, I sincerely believe it was a case of elder abuse.

But his family and handlers put him through the ringer anyway, and now the country is subjected to the sick effects of their greed as his cognitive and now physical abilities continue to deteriorate, a personal tragedy for him and a national tragedy for the country:
  • During a recent speech Biden actually stated: “When President Harris and I took …” a virtual tour of a vaccination site in Arizona not long ago, one of the nurses on that tour injecting people, giving vax each shot, was like administering a dose of hope.”
  • Of course, Kamala Harris is not President as Biden referred to her as, but the Vice President, Biden is still the President.
  • Now, if this was a single, simple slip of the tongue, no big deal.
  • But he has slips of the tongue all of the time, indicating an inability to put thoughts together in a coherent manner, a symptom of dementia.
  • In addition, as what happens with dementia patients, they start losing control of their body, as witness recently when Biden tripped not once, not twice, but three times recently when trying to navigate the steps up into Air Force One:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzb-0reGWTo

  • Again, I feel so sorry that his family and handlers have put him through this, given what my uncle went through, it is a disgusting form of elder abuse.
Of course, White House officials tried to tell us that it was so windy that day that it was the wind that caused Biden to fall down….three times. If you look at the video, while there is a breeze present, it is not “windy” by any stretch of the imagination. He is in serious decline and Washington wants us to ignore what we see in plain sight.

4) We have often talked over the past year or so how American politicians live by the creed, “do as I say, not as I do.” The Chicago mayor shut down her city and hair salons in the face of the pandemic but allowed her hair salon to open to get her hair done, denying the ability to all of her citizens. The mayor of Beaumont, Texas did the same thing but did it for her nail salon, allowing it to open to get her nails done but denying that ability for the rest of her citizens to do the same. The list of hypocrisy goes on and on.

And the most recent example of such behavior belongs to Biden’s climate czar, John Kerry. On a commercial airline flight recently, Kerry was caught in the act of not wearing a face mask during the plane’s flight, a direct contradiction of what we are all supposed to do in public and especially when in the close quarters of an airplane.

The photo that came out shows him without a mask on, no food or drink in sight, working with some papers, a clear violation of Biden’s decree and airline protocol. But he is a long time member of the political class so I guess those rules don't apply to him.

Note to Washington: we are not that dumb: we see Biden’s cognitive and physical decline, we see the wasting of taxpayer money around the world while Americans suffer, we see the political class hypocrisy, and we see the need to get out of places that endanger our lives, our safety and our freedom.

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:

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

 

Monday, March 15, 2021

March, 2021, Part 4, Political Class Insanity: Biden Creates A Humanitarian Disaster At The Border, Biden Cares More About Illegal Immigrants Than Americans In Need and Biden's Handlers Keep Him On A Short Leash

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) One trait of the of the American political class that we find happening over and over and what is disgusting is that these people care more about foreigners than they do about Americans. With millions of Americans homeless, hungry, drug addicted or having lost their job recently, American politicians would rather spend billions and billions of dollars overseas for other purposes or joyfully and expensively welcome illegal immigrants while ignoring needy Americans.

This trait is now bubbling up again as we see that thousands and thousand of illegal immigrants are heading for our southern border. Even though Trump had gotten the floods of illegal immigrants under control and had restored the rule of law when it comes to immigration, within weeks of becoming President, Biden has caused the old problems to arise again with a vengeance.

What is fascinating about Biden's failure in this matter is the reality that thousands of people assaulting our southern are all wearing identical Joe Biden shirts that read: “Please Let Us In.” Now I doubt that every one of these people went onto the Internet and decided to buy the identical shirt. There can be no other conclusion other than there is a sustained, organized and well financed plan to undermine our border security. How else do thousands of poor illegal immigrants get the same, identical shirt within weeks of Biden taking office?

It now looks like intentionally or unintentionally Biden is supporting the overrunning of our border for the gains of unknown people behind the scenes who are financing this illegal immigrant surge at the expense of American citizens’ safety and the sovereignty of our country.

2) Furthermore, not only are there forces at work here to undermine our democracy but the living and inhumane conditions at the border for everyone involved , both citizens and illegal immigrants alike, is not good:
  • Even Democrats are scared about the crisis Biden has caused on our southern border.
  • Democrat Congressman Henry Cueller, as reported by Axios, is scared about what Biden has unleashed on the border: “The Biden administration is easing up too much on unauthorized immigrants, citing their impact on his constituents, local hospitals and their potential to spread the coronavirus.”
  • It is actually refreshing to have a Washington politician such as Cueller care more about his American constituents than illegal immigrants from around the world, unlike Biden and the rest of Washington.
  • He is also correctly worried about the resurgence of smugglers coming back to life at the border, both human smugglers and drug smugglers.
  • Another Congressional Democrat, Vicente Gonzalez, is also showing some rare concern for his constituents: “Well, my concern at this in the recent weeks in my district, migrants who made it across the border, who even pass the line of MPPs [Migrant Protection Protocols], who were 5,000 folks that have been waiting for two years across the border, made it across the Rio Grande Valley, were processed and released. If that is the message that we send to Central America and around the world, I can assure you, it won’t be long before we have tens of thousands of people showing up to our border. And it’ll be catastrophic for our party, for our country, for my region, for my district, in the middle of a pandemic, in an area where we’ve lost over 3,000 people in my small congressional district. So, I think we need to have a better plan in place. I think asylum seekers should be able to ask for asylum and be processed in their home country or a neighboring country. And we shouldn’t have a policy in place that impulses people to make this 2,000 mile trek where cartels and human traffickers are enriching themselves.
In the midst of this crisis that Biden and others have created, it is refreshing to see actual Democrats in Washington care more about Americans than foreigners. Now, their concern may be a little selfish in that as conditions of the virus, crime, drug smugglers, etc. have a larger and larger negative impact on their voters, they may be worried they could lose their precious Congressional seat. But if this fear makes them do the right thing for their voters, then that is a good thing. Biden is certainly not doing the right thing for their voters.

3) It has always been our contention that Joe Biden is in a significant state of cognitive decline and that it was pure elder abuse that his family and party subjected him to both the rigors of a Presidential campaign and the office of the Presidency, the most stressful job in the world. He is unable to put together more than a brief coherent discussion or debate and the country is in serious danger because of his declining mental state.

He has gone almost two months without having a formal press conference, something that is unheard of in Presidential politics. Specifically, he is the first president in at least the past 100 years not to have a formal press conference in the first 33 days of being sworn in.

He cancelled his first state of the union message. His handlers, and that's all they are, apparently realize that he is not competent enough to answer questions in a press conference or coherently stand up in front of the nation and deliver any sort of message or speech.

One of his handlers is his press secretary, Jen Psaki. She put forth one of the most inane excuses ever, even for Washington, when pressed on why Biden hasn't had a formal press conference. Reuters correspondent Alex Alper recently asked her why Biden had not had a formal press conference yet: “So we’re 45 days into the Biden presidency and he has yet to hold a presser. At this point in past presidencies, every president from Reagan had addressed reporters, some of them multiple times. So why the delay and when can we expect the president to hold a press conference?”

To which Psaki anemically and comically responded: “Well first, as all you know, the president takes questions several times a week. He took questions actually twice yesterday, which is an opportunity for the people covering the White House to ask them about whatever news is happening on any given day. We look forward to holding a full press conference in the coming weeks before the end of the month. And we’re working on setting a final date for that. And as soon as we do, we will let you all know, but this president came in during a historic crisis, two historic crises, a pandemic like the country had not seen in decades and decades and an economic downturn that left 10 million people out of work. So I think the American people would certainly understand if his focus and his energy and his attention has been on ensuring we secure enough vaccines to vaccinate all Americans, which we will do by the end of May, and then pushing for a rescue plan that will provide direct checks to almost 160 million Americans.”

Such nonsense on so many levels:
  • First of all, randomly answering a few questions tossed to him here and there without much opportunity for follow up questions is not anywhere close to being an equivalent to a press conference.
  • Trump, who faced the same two crises, had daily and then regular press conferences during his years in office and during the pandemic crisis to keep Americans informed and provide leadership in the crisis.
  • Democratic governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, held a daily press conference while dealing with the pandemic and the resultant high unemployment, just like Trump.
  • In fact, Cuomo received a daytime Emmy award for having regular press conferences in the middle of the pandemic.
  • FDR, in the middle of the Depression, World War II, held his famous “fireside chats” to continually inform Americans what was going on relative to the Depression and war effort.
Leaders lead and that involves being out in front of voters and citizens and telling them what is going on and answer the tough questions that need to be asked in a crisis. FDR did it, Trump did, Cuomo did it, even Obama did it relative to the Great Recession when he came into office.

But Biden, no, his handlers know what would happen if he got up in front of an unscripted press conference or tried to deliver a major state of the union speech. The country, the world would realize that he is not capable of being the leader of this country or the free world.

And that is such a sad commentary on how broken our current political processes are. A gentleman in severe mental and cognitive decline somehow got elected President. We still maintain that this is a form of elder abuse that no person in their struggling twilight years should be made to endure.

That will do it for today: Biden is ducking his leadership responsibilities as President, Biden has caused a sovereignty, law and order, and humanitarian crisis at the border, and politicians care more about illegal immigrants than the welfare and needs of Americans.

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:

Please visit the following sites for freedom:


Thursday, March 11, 2021

March, 2021, Part 3, Political Class Insanity: Cuomo Lies, Biden Lies, The integrity of The American Political Class Has Never Been Lower

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 knew Joe Biden was a repetitive liar before he was elected:
  • He did not get arrested during a South African protest march with Nelson as he claims.
  • He did not go to a predominantly black university like he claims.
  • He was not the only one to get a full scholarship for college like he claims.
We could go on but you get the idea, he has lied his way through politics for decades. So it should not be a big surprise that he has been caught lying multiple times during his first six weeks in the White House as explained and documented by the Federalist website:
  • The full list of Biden lies and more details can ge found at - https://thefederalist.com/2021/01/22/heres-the-full-list-of-every-lie-joe-biden-has-told-as-president/
  • In a Univision interview, Biden claims he was merely opening up old illegal immigrant camps that the Trump administration had operated.
  • In reality, his administration was opening up at least three brand new camps in Texas and Arizona.
  • Biden claims that Trump told Americans to directly inject bleach into themselves to fight covid.
  • Even left wing “fact checker” Politifact said this was a lie.
  • Biden claimed that, “Just over four weeks ago, America had no real plan to vaccinate most of the country. My predecessors, as my mother would say, God love ’em, failed to order enough vaccines. Failed to mobilize the effort to administer the shots. Failed to set up vaccine centers. That changed the moment we took office.”
  • But most, if not all of this is false, as members of Biden’s own administration has pointed out, Trump did order enough vaccines and there was a detailed plan on how to distribute them once the vaccines were available, etc.
  • Biden claimed there was “overwhelming consensus” to pass a mega covid spending bill.
  • But not a single Republican member of Congress voted to approve the legislation, members of the left disputed the need and magnitude of the bill as reported by the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times reported that prominent economists were not behind the bill, and Oliver Blanchard, former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, said that “The $1.9 trillion program could overheat the economy so badly as to be counterproductive,” hardly an “overwhelming consensus.”
  • Biden denied that White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, ever said that schools should be open just one day a week.
  • But she did say the exact same thing that he denies she said.
  • Biden claimed in a CNN town hall meeting that the country did not have a covid vaccine when he took office in January.
  • But health care workers in the country were receiving the vaccines as a result of Trump’s successful Operation Warp Speed program to fast track vaccine development.
  • In fact, Biden himself had received the vaccine before he became President a fact that is somehow lost on him since he took over.
  • Biden claimed that a Capitol police officer was killed by a mob of Trump supporters when the Capitol building was stormed on January 6: “It was nearly two weeks ago that Jill and I paid our respects to Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick, who laid in honor in the Rotunda after losing his life protecting the Capitol from a riotous, violent mob on January 6, 2021.”
  • There is no proof that this is a reality and, in fact, the New York Times has quietly walked back its claim that the officer was killed by those entering the Capitol building.
  • Even Vice President Kamala Harris got into the liar act by claiming there was nothing in the cupboard when she and Biden came into office relative to a vaccine plan and strategy: “We’re starting from scratch, on something that’s been raging for almost an entire year.”
  • But even flip flopper NIH Director Anthony Fauci disputed that false claim since over a million Americans were being vaccinated every day by the time Biden/Harris came into office and the manufacturing of the two approved vaccines was ramping up quickly.
  • When Biden took office he declared: “If you’re ever working with me and I hear you treat another colleague with disrespect or talk down to someone, I promise you, I will fire you on the spot — on the spot. No ifs, ands, or buts.”
  • But when White House deputy press secretary TJ Ducklo did exactly that in a disgusting rant against a Politico female reporter, he did not get “fired “on the spot,” he was given a one week suspension without pay.
  • Biden accused Trump of being “xenophobia” when Trump rightfully implemented a travel plan on China, the place where covid started, and Biden declared that such travel restrictions do not work.
  • Although not a classic lie, this is exactly the same action that Biden did when he came into office, implementing a travel ban on South Africa, Brazil, Great Britain, and 26 other European countries.
  • I guess when he does it it is not xenophobic and his restrictions do work, classic political hypocrisy.
  • Biden claimed that there was no vaccine distribution plan when he came into office.
  • However, the plan did coexist and had been detailed and flowcharted out in detail.
  • During his campaign, Biden promised “to shut down the virus.”
  • Once elected he stated, “There’s nothing we can do to change the trajectory of the pandemic in the next several months.”
  • So he went from shutting it down to shrugging his shoulders and saying no can do.
  • Biden claimed that the Federal government under Trump did not “act with urgency” relative to the pandemic.
  • He seems to forget that Trump’s Operation Warp Speed developed and distributed two effective vaccines in record, record time.
  • Biden signed an executive order that face masks had to be worn whenever someone was on Federal government property.
  • Him and his family immediately, within hours, ignored his own order when they soon after visited the Lincoln Memorial without wearing face masks.
  • When he came into office, Biden claimed he would be the “unity” President and bring Americans together.
  • Soon after he called two Republican Senators Nazis and other Republicans Neanderthals, words and actions that cannot ever be construed as bringing unity to the country.
Less than two months in office and the lies and hypocrisies just keep piling up for Biden, much like they have for the forty plus years he has been doing the same thing while in Congress and when he was Vice President, lying and being a massive hypocrite.

2) We have talked a lot about New York governor Andrew Cuomo recently, mostly for being a major screw up:
  • He forced nursing homes to accept covid patients into their facilities which when commingled with healthy but vulnerable elderly nursing home residents caused massive fatalities.
  • He then covered up the extent of the deaths his directive caused, in order to make himself look better than he was, by under counting the total number of nursing home deaths in the state from covid.
  • His cover up may have violated both state and Federal laws.
  • He has now been accused by at least six women of sexual predator behaviors.
And now, according to the National Review, his lying about the total number of nursing home deaths he caused was a lie to cover up another lie:
  • Apparently, Cuomo and his staff members did not lie about the nursing home death undercounting because they thought that Trump would politicize the actual number of deaths which is what they once claimed..
  • They lied in order to protect Cuomo’s legacy as a leading candidate for higher office, a grandiose leader and high performer.
  • Thus, he and his staff lied not to protect themselves from political blowback and possible criminal charges, they lied to protect his ego and image.
  • The New York Times recently reported that back in the spring, people on Cuomo’s staff, none of whom had any medical, pandemic, or public health background, purged death data from a report that public health experts in the state government had compiled as required by law.
  • But since the Justice Department was not aware of this behavior until later in the summer, the purging of the data was not to trick the Justice Department which was the original lie, it was to protect Cuomo’s image, the real lie.
  • And the purging of the death rate had to be done in the spring since Cuomo wanted to write a book about how great he performed early in the pandemic and he needed state government ethics approval to write and profit from his tenure as governor.
  • The purging of the death rate at that time to make Cuomo look better than he was reduced the number of deaths by 50%, from 9,250 actual deaths to 6.150.
  • They only admitted to low balling the number when the state attorney general showed what was really going on.
  • One of the non-public health staffers who helped lowball and then hide the actual number of deaths was someone named Jim Malatras who miraculously was appointed chancellor of the State University of New York just a month after the numbers were fixed, at a salary of $450,000 a year.
  • The obvious, unproven theory is that he got rewarded for making his long time boss, Cuomo look good, and kept the lowballing a secret in return for a plum assignment in an area he had no background.
  • Add on top of all of these lies and shenanigans is the reality that Cuomo once lied that, “I am now thinking about writing a book about what we went through” even though he had already been in negotiations for weeks to write the book, he was not “thinking about writing a book” when he made the statement, he was already working the book deal.
So, Cumo and his staff lied about how many deaths his stupid commingling of covid patients with healthy elderly people caused, then they lied about why they lied about the number of deaths, it was not to avoid Trump politicizing the reality, they lied to help Cuomo look good to get a book deal and the enrichment that would go with it and then Cuomo added the additional lie because he was well beyond thinking about writing book when he publicly state he was only thinking about such an endeavor.

Lies upon lies upon lies and now six women who have accused him to various degrees of being a sexual predator. The American political class in action. Insanity.

That will do it for the political class insanity today: major, major screw ups, lies, and crises for Cuomo and Joe Biden shows that his tendency to lie and exaggerate prior to being elected President has not subsided once he became President. The lack of integrity within the American political class may have never been so bad. Or so sad.

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:

Please visit the following sites for freedom:


Friday, March 5, 2021

March, 2021, Political Class Insanity, Part 2: More Middle East Insanity From Biden, More Wasteful Spending Disguised as Pandemic Relief, and More Sexual Harassment Complaints about Cuomo

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) One of the most puzzling, dangerous, and expensive habits American politicians have is to constantly stick our noses into the mess that is the Middle East. We have lost thousands of soldiers, spent trillions of dollars, and wasted an incredible amount of time and energy in the region with nothing to show for it.

And yet, as the Biden administration takes over, it is more of the same with a strong dose of hypocrisy mixed in:
  • Out of the blue, with no warning, Biden recently authorized US military action and bombing in Syria under the excuse to take out militias that are supposedly supported by Iran.
  • As is always the case, these militias posed absolutely no danger to Americans or our armed forces and yet Biden attacked them, costing the American taxpayer who knows how much in bombs dropped and endangered the lives of our pilots.
  • And yet before he was elected, Biden took the absolute opposite stance when he criticized Trump for taking out a high ranking Iraniain official and possibly the world’s worst terrorist leader, Qasem Soleimani.
  • Biden claimed that Trump's Middle East bombing was “a hugely escalatory move in an already dangerous region” and yet he did basically the same thing in the same region.
  • At least Trump’s bombing took out a terrorist leader, not a bunch of foot soldiers half a world away like Biden did.
  • Vice President Kamala Harris was also critical of Trump’s Middle East bombings when it was discovered that the Syrian regime was still using chemical weapons on its own people but she was silent when Biden bombed the militia in Syria.
  • And to complete the hypocrisy, Biden’s press secretary, Jen Psaki, also criticized Trump’s Syrian bombing attacks, questioning whether those attacks were even legal but she supported Biden’s attacks.
Thus, more useless and dangerous military game playing in the Middle East with a heavy dose of Bidenesque hypocrisy thrown in. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

2) Speaking of “meet the new boss, same as the old boss,” the pandemic relief bill that is trying to get approved and is being driven by Nancy Pelosi continues to get panned for the many unnecessary and wasteful spending programs that the Democrats in Washington are trying to sneak into it that have nothing to do with pandemic relief or helping needy Americans.

We have already discussed the reality that of the $1.9 TRILLION proposed spending in the proposed legislation, over half of that number, about $1 TRILLION, has NOTHING to do with pandemic relief. That $1 TRILLION is just a late Christmas present to Democrats’ campaign donors, themselves, their political allies, and likely their family members. The latest wasteful pending items uncovered include the following:
  • $112 million for San Francisco Bay Area Transit expansion, which has nothing to do with pandemic relief, and just so happens to benefit only Nancy Pelosi’s Congressional district.
  • $135 million for the National Endowment of the Arts, on top of their annual budget allocation, which had nothing to do with pandemic relief.
  • We have already discussed the $1l5 million for the Seaway Bridge for New York state to Canada, a bridge that had nothing to do with pandemic relief, but it gets some money into Chuck Schumer’s state with the pandemic being air cover for an unnecessary expenditure by the Federal government taxpayer.
  • It has been estimated that only 10% of the total $1.9 TRILLION is going to vaccine aid and distribution.
  • You know a wasteful spending package is really bad when even a Demcoratic Congressman has problems with, since according to New York Congressman Adriano Espaillat: "The answer, no, I'm not comfortable [with it]."
  • $10 billion of the $1.9 TRILLION as going overseas for various purposes including but not limited to funding overseas abortions, an action that has nothing to do with pandemic relief.
  • There is an amazing $1 billion included in the $1.9 TRILLION for racial justice for black farmers, which has nothing to do with pandemic relief.
  • There is also $40 million for “native American language preservation” and $50 million for an undefined “environmental justice” fund, both of which have nothing to do with pandemic relief.
Unbelievable on two fronts: first, that the people writing this bill think we are too stupid to realize they are stuffing this bill with their favorite, wasteful projects that they probably could not get approved under any other circumstances.

Second, given the millions of people that have suffered because of the pandemic, the politicians in Washington would rather waste a trillion dollars on idiocy rather than put some of that money to better use and help those in this country who are in need. Just the half a dozen wasteful proposed spending above comes to $11.352 billion. For that $11.352 billion:
  • Based on previous research we have done, that money could have fed every homeless American three good meals a day, every day for just under six and a half years.
  • About 114,000 restaurant owners could have gotten a grant of $100,000 to keep their businesses afloat and keep their employees hired until we got through the pandemic.
  • Since on average it costs about $6,522 a year to help a drug addicted American to get the support they need, that $11.352 billion could have gotten a year’s worth of drug addiction treatment for about 1.7 million Americans.
Thus, when you compare what that $11.352 billion could have been used to help those in need in this country and compare it to what Washington thinks is a better use of taxpayer wealth, you begin to see how out of touch and insensitive Washington politicians are to the rest of the country.

3) We have spoken a lot about how the governor of New York state, Andrew Cuomo, has been a walking disaster for the residents of that state over the past year:
  • First, at the beginning of the pandemic, he forced nursing homes to take in elderly patients who had been exposed to the covid virus and co-mingle those folks with healthy, but vulnerable, nursing home patients which quickly resulted in a rapid and unnecessary increase in nursing deaths because of the virus.
  • Also, early on in the pandemic he stated: “So, when you’re saying, what happened in other countries versus what happened here, we don’t even think it’s going to be as bad as it was in other countries,” which obviously resulted in his taking late and fatal action to contain the virus.
  • In the middle of his bumbling in the handling of the pandemic he wrote a book that praised his handling of his self inflicted disaster using time and resources that probably could have been better used to save lives.
  • There are now accusations from a number of government sources that he intentionally undercounted the number of state nursing home deaths to make himself look better than he performed, an action that may have broken laws and for which he is now under investigation at the state and Federal level.
  • As this has been unfolding, two women have come forward with strong accusations that he inappropriately sexually touched, molested, or spoke to them while in his presence.
Obviously, the governor is innocent until proven guilty but really, he is not having a good year. And it just got a little worse as a third woman has come forward to accuse him of sexually inappropriate behavior. According to The New York Times, a lady named Anna Ruch now claims that Cuomo tried to kiss her at a wedding and put his hand on her bare lower back. Definitely not a good year for the good governor.

That will do it for today: a governor self destructs on every front with fatal and harassment consequences, Washington cares more about themselves and the rest of the world than needy Americans and more of the same failed Middle East foreign policy from Biden with a topping of hypocrisy.

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:

Please visit the following sites for freedom:


Tuesday, March 2, 2021

March, 2021, Part 1, Political Class Insanity: Lame Priorities Continue in California, the Human Carnage Continues in Chicago, and the Over Regulation of Americans Continues in Washington.

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) The vast number of government regulations that are on the books usually do very little to make life better for ordinary Americans. These regulations usually:
  1. Protect existing businesses and industries from new, innovative, better and market disruptive competitors.
  2. They are rewards that enrich certain companies and individuals that support a politician’s political campaigns.
  3. They are used to justify a government bureaucracy’s existence while not making life any easier or less expensive for Americans.
Trump realized this when he came into office and one of his accomplishments was the severe downsizing of Federal government regulations that were unnecessary and clogged up the free market’s effectiveness and functioning. This downsizing is estimated to have saved the American economy $160 billion (per an analysis from the American Action Forum) over the four year term of his Presidency or about $400 for every man, woman and child in the country. Thus, a four person American family got about $1,600 in economic benefit from his actions.

He accomplished this with a very simple rule: for every new regulation that someone in the Federal government wanted to impose, two existing government regulations had to be abolished. Additionally, he imposed financial limits on how much any new regulation would cost. As a result, Trump had issued almost 300 deregulation orders and his administration had added the fewest new regulations to the Federal register since records were started being kept in the 1970s.

And guess what? The world did not end, chaos did not ensue, criminality did not go up, life was just as good, and economically better, with fewer government regulations.

But along comes Biden and all of that good work goes to waste since one of his first executive orders was to rescind the simple yet elegant rule that two regulations go away for each new one put forth. Thus, the $400 in economic savings we all enjoyed because of Trump is now likely history as the growth in the size and wasteful spending of the Federal government is now back on track.Thus, even when Washington finally does something worthwhile, they still eventually screw it up.

2) Unfortunately, far too many times in this blog we have discussed the reality that Chicago politicians have failed miserably in providing the most basic government service to its citizens: protection from crime and violence. Over the years, Chicago has been the undisputed murder capital of the country with hundreds murdered and thousands wounded by gun violence despite having some of the strictest gun control laws in the country.

And the carnage is still going on:
  • In 1982, Chicago politicians put forth a strict handgun ban to crackdown on crime.
  • Unfortunately, this created the exact opposite effect since gun controlled, law abiding citizens were disarmed and were then at the mercy of gun toting criminals who could care less about gun control.
  • Over a recent weekend, 40 Chicago citizens were shot and 10 died from their gunshot wounds.
  • In just one day over that weekend, 4 were killed and 11 were injured.
  • The violence occurred even though the city had dispatched “community mediators” (think defund the police idiocy) into heavy crime neighborhoods to try and reduce the gun violence.
Thus, Chicago area politicians continue to be clueless on how to curb the violence and death and because of their incompetence, Chicago residents continue to be killed and maimed. A basic function of government and they continue to fail miserably.

3) We have often discussed how much state politicians have screwed up California and how bad the quality of life has become in the Golden State:
  • Given the high cost of housing, caused by idiotic housing rules, regulations and laws enacted by state politicians, California is now the poorest state, on average, in the whole country.
  • California has some of the worst education results in the country.
  • It has the most homeless Americans in the country.
  • The homeless situation in LA is so bad that Medieval diseases (e.g. typhus) are making a comeback because of the explosion in the rat population caused by the unsanitary conditions of a large homeless population.
  • State residents pay some of the highest taxes in the country.
  • The state has huge, unpayable future unfunded financial liabilities.
  • Big city politicians in the state have made it not illegal to defecate, urintate, or shoot up drugs in public.
  • Crime rates are rising rapidly across the state.
  • Poor, middle class, and wealthy state residents are fleeing the state, reducing the tax base and the tax revenue stream requiring the state politicians to raise tax rates and introduce new taxes which drives more residents, and businesses, out of the state and the financial death spiral is underway.
Bottom line: the state is in horrible shape from a quality of life, tax burden, and freedom perspective. In the midst of these disasters, what are state politicians worried about:
  • A propose law by California Assembly members Evan Low and Cristina Garcia would require California retail stores to have one unisex department for children’s products and clothes.
  • In other words, there would be no “Girls Section” and separate “Boys Section” for shopping in stores in the state.
  • The stores would also be forbidden to put up any signs that would indicate a toy or product was meant for a boy or a girl.
  • Names that are allowable include kids, unisex, or gender neutral.
  • According to Low: "This is an issue of children being able to express themselves without bias."
  • A store that had separate sections could be hit with a $1,000 fine.
  • The proposed law only applies to stores with over 500 employees.
So kids in the state are getting a horrible education, many kids in the state are going hungry and homeless along with their parents and other adults, the state economy is in sad shape along with employment opportunities because of the pandemic and the state’s political class botching the recovery and reopening, etc. And of all the issues and challenges that state residents are facing, this is the garbage that two state politicians are focusing on. Such a lame set of priorities.

Lame priorities continue in California, the human carnage continues in Chicago, and the over regulation of Americans continues in Washington.

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:

Please visit the following sites for freedom: