Sunday, July 11, 2021

July, 2021, Part 5, Political Class Insanity: Violence And Death In Chicago and NYC, California Is Running Out Of Energy, and More Chicago Politicians Indicted

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) California politicians have turned their state into the most regulated and most socialistic state in the union. One of their most oppressive manias is renewable energy, having mandated that state utilities get their use of wind and solar energy way up there in a short amount of time. This has resulted in sky high utility rates and more and more intense wildfires as utilities waste money on renewable energy investments as opposed to making their antiquated equipment less likely to start wildfires.

And despite the mandates and the resultant higher and higher electricity costs, things don't seem to be working out as the state politicians envisioned:
  • Apparently the green energy infested electric grid in the state cannot provide enough electricity for the homes and businesses of the state.
  • Government officials have asked the California Independent System Operator, which operates most of the state's electric grid, to go out and find and contract additional electricity capacity for July and August.
  • Apparently once the sun goes down, rendering solar energy useless, there is not enough other energy capacity to fill the overnight demand.
  • Rather than blame themselves for poor planning and not realizing how unreliable renewable energy sources can be when the sun goes down or the wind stops blowing, they are blaming that old mythical bad guy, global warming: “California is using all available tools to increase electricity reliability this summer,” the heads of the California Energy Commission, California Public Utilities Commission, and grid operator said citing “unprecedented climate change-driven heat events, which are occurring throughout the West in combination with drought conditions that reduce hydroelectric capacity.”

But this is a BS answer since state politicians and government officials knew they had this problem last year when they had rolling blackouts for the same reason and “global warming” is not a new concept, it has been around for decades, so to now blame that myth for the problem is to admit that they have no planning capacity to take global warming into consideration.

And this is where it gets a little crazy. A new harebrained concept is being put forth to resolve the power problems that the politicians created: “The short-term strategy needs to be centered around incentivizing demand reductions instead of increasing supply,” said Abe Stanway, co-founder of Amperon Holdings Inc., which provides analysis to utilities and power traders. “The best way to reduce uncertainty around demand resources is to simply pay consumers more to use less during peak events.”

Pay people more money to use less electricity? How upside down is that? I guess when you have no real solutions to a problem a politician and government bureaucrat will come up with convoluted ideas that are just plain stupid.

2) It has always been our contention that a very, very basic function of government is to protect the lives and property of the citizens that the government entity serves. And just as frequently we have shown examples where government entities have failed miserably in that protection function, a failure rate that has gotten more intense and violent over the past year or so as the recent Fourth Of July crime statistics show:
  • Crime reports show that at least 118 people were shot just in Chicago and NYC over the July 4th weekend.
  • 92 were shot in Chicago and 16 of those shot died.
  • Another 26 were shot in NYC and two of those people died.
  • Two Chicago police officers were also shot.
  • Even Lori Lightfoot, the useless mayor of Chicago, finally acknowledged that things are getting worse in her unruly city city, especially as it relates to police safety: "Every single day the men and women of our police department are under danger. We've seen an unprecedented level of people shooting at the police, last year and still this year."
  • Some shooting victims involved kids, including a 13 year old girl and a 12 year old boy in Chicago.
Still failing to protect the lives and property of citizens in Chicago and NYC, these politicians should be removed from office for this basic failure of duty.

3) Not only do Chicago politicians fail in their basic duty to protect the safety of their citizens, they also have a long history of being just plain corrupt and that history of corruption may have just got a little longer:
  • Chicago alderman, Carrie Austin, was recently indicted by the Department of Justice along with her chief of staff.
  • They were charged with bribery and joined two other recently indicted members of the city council.
  • And she is not just an ordinary council member since she also is the 34th Ward Committeeman, Vice-Chair of Cook County Democratic Party of Illinois, Central State Committeeman, was a Delegate for President Barack Obama at the Democratic National Convention and also Vice Chairs the Chicago City Council Committee on Committees, Rules, and Ethics.
  • According to ABC7/Chicago, she is facing a “federal indictment alleging they conspired to receive home improvements from construction contractors who were seeking city assistance for a development project in Austin’s South Side Ward. Her chief of staff, Chester Wilson Jr., 55, is charged with bribery conspiracy, two counts of using interstate facilities to promote bribery and one count of theft of government funds.”
  • According to the indictment: “Starting in 2014 a construction company planned to construct a residential development in Austin’s ward at a cost of approximately $49.6 million. Under an agreement with the city, the company was responsible for making infrastructure improvements within the project, including construction of new interior streets, street lighting, landscaping, and sidewalk improvements, and was eligible to receive more than $10 million in tax increment financing and other payments from the city. The indictment alleges that beginning in 2016, Austin and Wilson were provided with personal benefits by the owner of the construction company and other contractors in an effort to influence them in their official capacities. The benefits included home improvements, furniture, and appliances for Austin’s residence, and home improvement materials and services for rental properties owned by Wilson, the indictment states.”
They are all, of course, presumed innocent until proven guilty. But if they are all guilty then maybe one of the problems with the ever escalating crime in the city is because those that are supposed to be protecting the city citizens are too busy lining their pockets from their corrupt positions of power in the political class.

That will do it for today, potentially more political corruption in Chicago, more violence in the streets of Chicago and NYC, and more insane energy disasters in California. A sad commentary on the American political class across the country.

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