Showing posts with label Ukranian. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ukranian. Show all posts

Monday, March 30, 2026

March, 2026, Part 4, Political Class Insanity: Maryland Politicians' Fixation On Tampons, A Potential/Likely Ukrainian Money Laundering Scheme. and Yamaha Escapes From California

 We have  spent a lot of time recently talking about which city or state will go bankrupt first. That race to  bankruptcy court seems to be accelerating as politicians in these vulnerable cities and states are starting to realize that their policies and ignorance are causing financial crises across the country.


However, we will step back from that theme for a few days since political class insanity in other areas has continued unabated and needs to  be discussed and ridiculed.


1)We do not often talk about the state of  Maryland from a political class insanity perspective but that is our lead piece of insanity today. But first, consider:


  • Maryland has about 7,000 homeless folks in the state.

  • About 556,000 or 9.1% of the state residents are considered poor.

  • 1,315 state residents died from drug overdoses in 2025.

  • State residents suffer from the 15th highest crime rate in the country.

  • The state government  is facing a  $1.5 billion budget shortfall.


Yes, there are some very important issues and crises facing Maryland residents that involve poverty, crime, and homelessness. But that did not stop state government politicians from  devoting time, resources, and what little brain power they have  on the following ridiculous issue:


  •  A proposed legislation by Democratic Delegate Terri Hill, and  co-sponsored by ten other Democrats, would require EVERY government/public building in the state to stock tampons and feminine hygiene products in  public restrooms.

  • This requirement extends not just to  women’s restrooms but also men’s restrooms.

  • EVERY restroom in every public/government building.

  • Further idiocy is  that the  proposed legislation explicitly makes it clear  that the stocked tampons would have to be  "appropriately  sized tampons,”  whatever that means.

  • When pressed, the sponsors of the legislation could not provide an estimate of  what it would cost or what an appropriate sized tampon is.

  • Republican Delegate, Kathy Szeliga, saw the stupidity of this requirement when she questioned the sponsors of the legislation: "What are appropriately sized tampons?" I've never heard of such a thing. What do you consider appropriate?"

  • Kerr's inane answer: "Just a regular sized tampon in the bathroom."

  • Then why was the language appropriately sized tampons put into  the  legislation?

  • But Szeliga was not done  ripping this idea  apart:  "Even if they determine to shift some of the cost to the consumer, this still creates hundreds-of-thousands of dollars worth of administrative costs to put tampons in men's bathrooms – just for the administrative costs."

  • So the administrative costs would be hundreds of thousands of dollars which does not account for the cost of the actual tampons.

  • But Szeliga was not  done: "Instead of tackling actual problems like out of control spending and other real problems, electric bills that people cannot afford, they pivot to nonsense like putting tampons in men's bathrooms."


Calling this  proposed legislation  nonsense is being kind. The state does not have  enough tax money to  fund  its budget but these folks want to divert taxpayer  money to put tampons in  men’s restrooms. Maryland residents are struggling with high crime, high utility  and gas costs, addiction problems, poverty, and homelessness and yet tampons in men’s rooms apparently are a higher  priority for some of those sitting  in the state government.  True insanity.


2)Recently declassified intelligence documents reveal what has to be one of the most disgusting alleged money laundering schemes of the American political class:


  • During the Biden administration, hundreds of billions of American taxpayer dollars were sent to Ukraine,  one of the  most politically corrupt countries in the world, to help fight back the Russian invasion.

  • We have previously discussed the likely proof that upwards of half of that money never  made it to the intended purposes and was corruptly siphoned off before ever helping to fight back the Russians.

  • If that was not bad enough, in late 2022, U.S. intelligence agencies intercepted messages between Ukrainian officials.

  • Those  messages discussed a scheme to take part of that taxpayer funding that Biden had  sent them to fight the Russians and send it back to the United States to help fund Biden’s reelection campaign.

  • In other words, American taxpayers of all political leanings would be financing the Presidential  campaign expenses of Democrat Joe Biden.

  • Director  Of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, has  opened an investigation into whether the Ukrainian officials ever went through with their plan to  redirect funds back to Biden.

  • According to the released documents:  “The Ukrainian Government and unspecified U.S. Government personnel, through USAID in Kyiv, reportedly developed a plan that would provide hundreds of millions of US taxpayer dollars to fund an infrastructure project for Ukraine that would be used as a cover to send approximately 90% of funds allocated to the DNC to fund Joe Biden’s reelection campaign. They were confident the project would be funded initially, even though at some time in the future the project would be disapproved as unnecessary. At this time, the money would already be allocated and impossible to return or use for a different purpose.”

  • The funds would be funneled back into the Biden campaign using U.S. companies as subcontractors on the bogus infrastructure plan to make the  money laundering even more  difficult to track: “Additionally, contracts would be executed that would be difficult to verify. In this manner, most of the U.S. funding would be diverted to Joe Biden’s election campaign without the ability to track where exactly the funds came from.”

  • Given that Biden was very generous in giving American taxpayer  money to the Ukrainians, it  is  not surprising that a plan was discussed to get Biden four more years in office and continue to receive American tax dollars for their own benefit, personally and for the war effort.


Anyone who has followed the Biden crime family should not be surprised by this alleged and potential money laundering scheme.  Also, previous work by the DOGE folks found that many times U.S.  taxpayer dollars were used to fund NGO projects via USAID all  over the world with some of that money eventually finding its way back to Democratic politicians in his country for their use. Disgusting disregard for taxpaying Americans.


3)A continuing theme in our blog is the  discussion of what city or state will  go  bankrupt first. As these vulnerable  cities and states  constantly raise taxes and business regulation, businesses in these states leave for other states that have lower tax and regulation burdens, taking their taxable  assets with them. Some of those recent discussions include the following posts:


https://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2026/03/the-race-to-bankruptcy-court-clueless.html


https://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2026/03/the-race-to-bankruptcy-court-hochuls.html


https://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2026/03/the-race-to-bankruptcy-seattle-and.html


California is one of those states rapidly heading to bankruptcy court. Many state based  companies have already fled the state in total or moved  major portions of their  companies to other states for better economic and business opportunities: Toyota, Tesla, Chevron, Schwab, Oracle, Twitter/X, Palantir, Public Storage, In-N-Out, Valero,  and thousands of other, smaller businesses.


And that out migration of businesses from the state continue:


  • Yamaha has decided to pull  its headquarters out of California.

  • The company has been in California for almost 50 years.

  • They are moving across the country to Kennesaw, Georgia.

  • As reported by the California Globe:  “Another large business is leaving California. Yamaha says Sayonara to Governor Gavin Newsom after 50 years in the once-Golden State…” and this exodus “is going to hurt Gov. Newsom who has had a lot of success chasing out hundreds to thousands of California businesses or subsidiaries, which fled to business-friendly red states including Jelly Belly, Chevron, X/Twitter, Space X, Oracle, Hewlett Packard, Charles Schwab, and Toyota Motor North America.”

  • According to CBS News: “The company’s headquarters in Cypress, California, had been its home since 1979 after Yamaha acquired the land the year before….ATVs, boat engines, personal watercraft, and other motorized products had already moved its marine business to Kennesaw in 1999 and its motorsports business in 2019.”


How is it possible that California's politicians, and the  voters that continually elect them, do not understand basic economic concepts: a company will maximize its profits and thus,  will  look  for ways to minimize its costs, expenses, taxes, and business overregulation. Every company that leaves the state takes employees and their taxable income with them. And it also reduces overall state economic growth since those exiting residents and businesses do  not spend money on other state companies’ products and services (e.g.  retail stores, pizza shops, movie theaters, etc.), further reducing the state tax base.


Enough insanity for today: more taxable assets leaving California, a possible government/Biden money laundering effort for the ages, and ridiculous Maryland politicians’ priorities.


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If you agree that we need to deseat every member of Congress for their lack of success and accomplishment, then please consider going to the following petition link to help the cause:


https://www.change.org/p/deseat-congress-reset-freedom



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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:


Thursday, January 23, 2025

January, 2025, Part 7, Political Class Insanity: Chicago Takes A Step Closer To Bankruptcy, Aid To Ukraine Is Getting Stolen, and We Do Not Trust Congress or The Media

 Every month we devote posts to just general political class insanity that is running rampant through the country. The members of the American political class continue to show that they are incapable of efficiently operating any level of government in this country.


Even their best efforts are almost always ineffective at resolving any problem facing Americans. They spend a great amount of time not trying to improve the lives of their citizens but continually ensuring their reelection and enriching themselves, their families, and their friends in the process, all at taxpayer expense.


1)We have often discussed the reality that pretty soon a major U.S. city or an entire state government will go bankrupt. The mismanagement and  minimal budget skills of the politicians running these cities and states has resulted in a serious out migration of residents and businesses to other locales that have lower tax burdens, business friendly regulations, lower crime rates, and a better quality of life.


This out migration causes the tax base to shrink which reduces the tax steam and since most opticians never cut spending or make government more efficient, they have to raise tax and cut services.  This drives more residents and businesses away and the financial death spiral is underway.


Our top state candidates to go bankrupt include New York, New Jersey, Illinois, and California with other states in trouble but in not nearly as bad financial shape as the top candidates. Our top cities to go bankrupt include New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and maybe Portland and Seattle.


The leaders in this race to bankruptcy court vary over time as financial crises arise. However, given what is going down in Chicago, we think that city has taken the lead in the race of financial insolvency:


  • Chicago has very high taxes to begin with.

  • It also has seen a large out migration of residents and businesses as a result of high taxation and rampant crime.

  • But things recently got much worse as a major Wall Street ratings agency, S&P,  downgraded the city’s credit while at the same time pointing the finger of guilt at the current mayor, Brandon Johnson, and the city council.

  • A lower credit rating means that Chicago will have to pay higher interest rates on any municipal bonds the city issues which raises the cost of serving that bond and increases the expenses of the city.

  • According to S&P, the city politicians created a budget spending plan for 2025 that created “a sizable structural budgetary imbalance” that will only make the city’s financial situation worse. 

  • The city’s credit rating was lowered to BBB which means that the city has an “adequate capacity to meet financial  commitments” but is vulnerable to “adverse economic conditions.”

  • The BBB rating is only two steps above junk bond rating.

  • According to S&P’s Scott Nees: “The downgrade reflects our view that the 2025 budget leaves intact a sizable budgetary imbalance that we expect will make balancing the budget in 2026 and outyears more challenging.”

  • The city politicians were almost not able to close a $982.4 budget deficit for 2025 but left it in danger of not being able to have a viable budget in 2026 and beyond, i.e. they did not make the necessary spending cuts that were necessary to cope with a shrinking tax base.

  • Specifically: “The city’s practical options for raising new revenue appear less certain, as does the willingness of city leadership to cut spending, creating a level of uncertainty around its financial trajectory that is more appropriately reflected in the lower rating.” 

  • The mayor, not surprisingly, criticized the downgrade, claiming that the city has “fundamental economic strength.”


But the city still has many underfunded pension and other obligations, residents and businesses continue to flee the city, crime is still rampant, and now the world knows that Wall Street is not happy with the financial outlook of the city government. Yes, it looks like the city of Chicago is now in a financial death spiral and is now our top city candidate to go bankrupt first.

2)Speaking of corruption, let’s go halfway around the world to Ukraine:

  • As most people know, the Ukranians have been fighting the invading Russian army now for almost four years.

  • Also, as most people know, Joe Biden had no plan, no strategy and even  worse, made no effort to end the conflict.

  • Insead he just kept writing checks using American taxpayer money and sending it overseas with the intent to help the Ukranians save their country from the invaders.

  • The cost of his inability to negotiate and lack of energy to do so has probably cost the American taxpayer about $200 billion so far, the amount of  money Biden sent to the Ukrainians that was supposed to be used to beat the Russians.

  • This is wasted money that could have been a great help to helping millions of Americans that are homeless, hungry, need medical care, and relief from many natural disasters.

  • But it gets worse, according to ex-Polish deputy minister Piotr Kulpa.

  • Kulpa claims that up to half of the funds that reached the Ukrainian capital were stolen by Ukrainian officials.

  • This is not out of the realm of possibility since the country has a long history of alleged corruption within the government.

  • Specifically: “But they will also find something else: that a huge portion of the funds was stolen in Ukraine. From 30% to 50%, regardless of the nature of the aid.”

  • He also said that U.S. foreign programs are a way to “write off large sums of money that finance shady systems under the Democratic Party’s control,”

  • Also, he claims that the public figure of aid that was supposedly sent to the Ukranians was nowhere near what was actually delivered and used for the purpose of beating the Russians.

  • A lot of the money was siphoned off to pay the sky high salaries and bonuses of senior Ukrainian government politicians and officials.

Given that Federal government programs like the covid relief programs,  Social Security, Medicare, and just about every other government function is rife with fraud, criminal activity and stupidity, this assertion by the Polish official should not surprise us, just another day to rip off the American taxpayer, or as Mr. Kulpa says: “It’s a spit in the face of every Ukrainian. To every European and American taxpayer. This system is criminal from start to finish.”

Follow up note: A recent report from the Pentagon Inspector General, Robert Storch, said existing Ukrainian corruption “continues to complicate Ukraine’s efforts to achieve its EU and NATO aspirations.”

3)So political class incompetence is alive and well in Chicago and D.C., which should not surprise us when we look at the most recent Gallup trustworthy survey:

  • On a regular basis, Gallup polls Americans on how they judge the honesty and ethical standards of various professions.

  • The least trusted professions recently turned out to be lobbyists, members of Congress, and TV reporters.

  • More than half  of those surveyed said these professions have low or very low ethics.

  • Only 13% of respondents had a high opinion of TV reporters who ranked higher than Congressional  members and lobbyists, which means less than 13% of those polled had a high opinion of them.

  • Only 8% said they had a high opinion of Congress and only 4% had a high opinion of lobbyists.

  • And why Congress is rated very low, the mainstream media/TV reporters are on a very bad trend since in 1972 Gallup found that the media was rated highly by 69% and today that 69% has slid to 31%.

So Americans do  not trust their members in Congress or the media TV reporters that cover them, leaving us in deep trouble from a democracy perspective: politicians stink at their jobs and we do not trust mainstream media types to tell us about their failures and corruption. Dangerous times.

Just another day of insanity: Chicago takes the lead in the bankruptcy race, another government program that wastes billions of taxpayer wealth, and no one merits a bit of our trust.

**********************

If you agree that we need to deseat every member of Congress for their lack of success and accomplishment, then please consider going to the following petition link to help the cause:


https://www.change.org/p/deseat-congress-reset-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: