California - The First State To Go Bankrupt? Has Its Financial Death Spiral Begun?

We have often discussed the deteriorating condition of life and politics in California. California is the closest thing we have in this country when it comes to socialism, it’s politicians have done so many stupid, overreaching, and financially wasteful things that it has turned a California paradise into the following hellish conditions in the state:

• The state politicians have run up hundreds of billions of dollars in unfunded financial liabilities that at some point in time will either cost Californians even heavier taxation or drive the state government into bankruptcy.
• State residents are some of the heaviest taxed Americans in the country with an unreal top state income tax marginal tax rate at over 13%.
• Even though Californians pay, on average, about 55% more for electricity than the rest of the country, they have to suffer through periodic rolling electricity blackouts because the state’s politicians have forced more and more of the state's electricity be created by unreliable solar and wind power sources.
• Bad environmental laws and regulations have caused massive forest fires over the past couple of years.
• California has some of the highest poverty rates in the country.
• California’s public schools do a horrible job educating their kids.
• By far, the state has more homeless people than any other state, e.g. there are 66,000 homeless Americans wandering the streets just in LA County alone.
• State cities have made it not illegal to defecate, urinate, or shoot up illegal drugs in public which has drastically reduced the quality of life in many state cities.
• High taxes and lower quality of life has caused many Californians to leave the state, taking their tax dollars and jobs with them.
• Since 2005, more people have left California then who moved into the state, the first time that has ever happened.
• Since 1990, migration in California has averaged -225,000 residents a year, i.e. on average 225,000 moved out of the state then moved into it.
• According to a recent CEO survey, California is the most challenging and difficult state to do business in.
• Crime rates in the state are going up quickly and yet state politicians continue to “defund the police” which results in more crime and more criminals getting away with their crimes.
• The state government’s attempt to build a high speed rail line in the state crashed almost immediately after beginning, wasting millions and millions of taxpayer dollars without accomplishing anything except showing how inept state politicians and bureaucrats are.
• Idiotic housing laws and regulations have resulted in an extreme affordable housing supply deficiency in the state which has not just impoverished those that can barely afford the expensive housing but also contributed to the huge homeless problem of people who just plain could not afford housing in the state and ended up on the streets.

Poverty, bad schools, expensive housing, lower quality of life, higher and higher taxes, higher and higher unfunded future financial liabilities, high living costs, etc. The state is a mess mostly because of the inept politicians that run the state government and the mess they have made is driving more and more people and businesses out of the state.

One of the best descriptions I ever heard of California is that it is now just “North Korea with a tech industry.” In other words, the state is being kept afloat financially because the Silicon Valley billionaires and their high flying companies have kept some tax money flowing into the state government, where, of course, it gets squandered by the state politicians. Take away the rich tech leaders, take away their rich companies and all of a sudden, the tax stream of the state goes down the drain, leaving behind nothing but...another North Korea who lost its tech industry.

And do not think this scenario is not starting to materialize:

• Joe Rogan is one of the most famous podcasters in the world and was recently given a ten year, $100 million contract by Spotify.
• Mr. Rogan is now a former California resident since one of the first things he did was move to Texas, a state without a state income tax, because if he had stayed in California, that $100 million contract would have cost him about $13 million in California state income taxes.
• Obviously, the move was a financial no brainer since Texas has no state income tax.
• Ben Shapiro is a famous conservative pundit.
• He grew up in California, went to college in California, met and married his wife in California and started a family in California.
• Nevertheless, he recently moved his business and family out of California to Tennessee.
• The reason for moving was totally logical: “We’re leaving because all the benefits of California have steadily eroded — and then suddenly collapsed. Meanwhile, all the costs of California have steadily increased — and then suddenly skyrocketed.”
• He also referenced the financial death spiral syndrome that we have talked about many times: “It can be difficult to spot the incremental encroachment of a terrible disease, but once the final ravages set in, it becomes obvious that the illness is fatal. So, too, with California, where bad governance has turned a would-be paradise into a burgeoning dystopia. The most beautiful areas of Los Angeles, from Santa Monica beach to my suburb, have become wrecks. My children have personally witnessed drug use, public urination and public nudity. Looters were allowed free reign in the middle of the city during the Black Lives Matter riots; Rodeo Drive was closed at 1 p.m., and citizens were curfewed at 6 p.m. I want my kids to grow up safe. I want them to grow up in a community with a future, with more freedom and safety than I grew up with. California makes that impossible. So, goodbye, Golden State. Thanks for the memories.”
• Billionaire Elon Musk of Tesla and Space X fame also recently made the move out of California, both as a resident and as a business person.
• He is building a truck factory in Texas rather than invest in California, keeping high tech, high paying jobs and tax revenue in Texas, and has publicly stated that he was tired with the overbearing politicians, government and regulations in California. 
• Oracle is another Silicon Valley tech company that has recently decided to move its headquarters out of California.
• Chairman Larry Ellison of Oracle: “Oracle is implementing a more flexible employee work location policy and has changed its Corporate Headquarters from Redwood City, California to Austin, Texas. We believe these moves best position Oracle for growth and provide our personnel with more flexibility about where and how they work. Depending on their role, this means that many of our employees can choose their office location as well as continue to work from home part-time or all of the time. In addition, we will continue to support major hubs for Oracle around the world, including those in the United States such as redwood City, Austin, Santa Monica, Seattle, Denver, Orlando and Burlington, among others, and we expect to add other locations over time. By implementing a more modern approach to work, we expect to further improve our employees’ quality of life and quality of output." 
• More jobs and tax dollars leaving California.
• Earlier this month, Hewlett Packard Enterprise also announced it was moving its corporate headquarters to Texas: “HPE has made the decision to relocate its headquarters from San Jose, California, to Houston, Texas. HPE’s largest U.S. employment hub, Houston is an attractive market to recruit and retain future diverse talent, and is where the company is currently constructing a state-of-the-art new campus. The Bay Area will continue to be a strategic hub for HPE innovation, and the company will consolidate a number of sites in the Bay Area to its San Jose campus. No layoffs are associated with this move.”
• More jobs and tax dollars leaving California.
• Toyota had previously moved its headquarters out of California to Texas, driven a lot by its employees complaining about the high housing costs in California.
• More jobs and tax dollars leaving California.
• Other California companies to recently move themselves and their employees out of California include, but are not limited to, McKesson, Core-Mark Holding Co., and Charles Schwabb.
• More jobs and tax dollars leaving California.

Many of these moves of employees, companies, and jobs were to Texas, a state that has no state income tax, does not tax capital taxes at higher and higher rates, has affordable housing, has a less stringent business regulatory environment, and has no rolling electricity blackouts.

People want to be free and a large part of being free is 1) being able to keep their hard earned wealth and 2) not having some politician and government bureaucrat constantly adding to lists of things that they cannot do. Economic freedom allows people the freedom to send their kids to better schools, freedom to choose from a larger variety of lifestyles, contribute more to their favorite charities, save money to possibly start up their own business, etc. The high taxes across the board in California make that freedom shrink in direct relationship to the higher and higher taxes.

But the insanity, insensitivity, and ignorance of these principles and the actions that are reducing the state government’s ability to function financially are lost on California politicians. That is why I believe that California, along with Illinois, New York, and New Jersey, could very well be the first state in our history to go bankrupt. You cannot keep losing your tax base, suffer an ever growing out migration of businesses, residents, jobs, and tax revenue, while not cutting spending, and expect to not go belly up financially. The financial death spiral in California has already started and nobody in the state political class seems to have noticed.

North Korea without a tech industry, it is getting more and more likely everyday that will be the future of California, thanks to a political class bent on socialism and the denial of 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:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=loce+my+country%2C+loathe+my+government&ref=nb_sb_noss

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

October, 2020, Part 7, Political Class Insanity: Bad Political Priorities In California, Democrats Corner the Market On High Murder Rate Cities, and the California Financial Death Spiral Continues

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 have often and recently pointed out what a terrible place California is becoming:

• The unfunded liabilities of the state government is skyrocketing.
• The state and local tax levels are among the highest in the country.
• There is a massive homelessness problem throughout the state.
• Out migration of state residents heading out of state to other places to live is among the highest in the country.
• The state has one of the highest poverty levels in the country.
• The state’s public schools generally do a horrible job educating the kids in the state.
• Faulty state government emphasis on renewable energy sources has resulted in regularly occurring rolling blackouts of electricity and electric rates that are, on average, 55% higher than the rest of the country.
• Wild fires have burned out millions of acres in the state because of stupid government regulations on forest management.
• The state’s physical infrastructure is collapsing.
• The state, like every other state, has been fighting the coronavirus for months.

Given these dire problems facing the state's residents, one would have thought that the state’s governor and other politicians would be laser focused on addressing and resolving these issues. But alas, you hopes would be wrong:

• From the beginning of time, California prison inmates were separately based on their birth gender, males and females.
• But the state politicians decided to work on and actually enact legislation that will allow prison inmates to choose their gender and it does not have to be just male or female, it can be transgender, intersex, or nonbinary.
• After they decide, what out of a multitude of genders they want to be, the state will separate the prisoners via their announced gender which, again, is not restricted to male and female.
• The law also requires prisoners to be called by their preferred pronouns, which again, is not restricted to simply he or she.
• Despite state government budget shortages, this law will obviously require money be spent to build facilities for more sex designations.

High taxes, unfunded government liabilities, forest fires everywhere, high crime, low educational system performance, etc. and these state politicians spend time, energy and resources on a prisoner gender identity bill.

2) I could have included the following discussion in one of our “by the numbers” posts but lets do it here:

• We have always viewed every segment of the American political class as being inhabited by people that are not that smart, brave, or effective in doing their jobs.
• Democratic Congressman Hank Johnson once worried that the island of Guam could tip over in the Pacific Ocean, Democratic Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee thinks the Constitution is over 400 years old and that two distinct Vietnams still exist with North Vietnam ruling South Vietnam, and Democratic Congresswoman Alexnadria Ocasio-Cortez who provides a never ending array of ignorance.
• But when it comes to being safe in a city, it is pretty clear that you probably do not want to be a city operated by the Democrats.
• According to a New York Times report, 18 of the top 20 cities in the country, when it comes to homicides, are run by Democratic mayors.
• The top 13 cities with the most homicides are run by Democrats.
• Only Miami (#14) and Tulsa (#18) are among the top U.S. cities not run by Democrats when it comes to murder rates.

Correlation is not causation (i.e. having a Democratic mayor results in a high murder rate city) but it may be a good thing to avoid cities run by Democrats if you want to stay alive, the numbers don't lie.

3) We recently talked about how famous podcaster Joe Rogan was leaving high tax California and taking his operation to low tax Texas. Mr. Rogan has recently signed a $100 million deal and by moving out of Los Angeles to Texas he immediately saves about $13 million, the amount he would have paid in California state income taxes since the state of Texas doesn't have a state income tax.

We have often discussed the reality that hard working, tax paying state residents are fleeing high tax states for lower tax states with Mr Rogan probably being the most prominent person to do so. But we know that moving companies cannot get their hands on enough moving to satisfy the out migration of NYC residents out of the city. 

I believe it is a basic human drive to want to live as free as possible. But when the state’s politicians start taking more and more of your hard earned wages and offering very little in return, people decide that economic freedom from high taxation requires them to take action to preserve whatever economic freedom they can garner.

Ben Shapiro is a famous conservative commentator and pundit. He recently announced that he is also leaving his home state of California, mostly driven by the higher and higher levels of taxation with little incremental benefit in return. He described the reason why in a recent article on his website:

• Mr. Shapiro is a true Californian, having lived there most of his life.
• He was born in Burbank, California, went to college in Los Angeles at UCLA, founded his media company in the state, met his wife in the state, and his three kids were born in the state.
• He believes California is the most beautiful state in the union, the state climate is great, the scenery is breathtaking, and there is so much to do.
• And yet he is moving his family and business out of the state.
• Some of his reasons include: “We’re leaving because all the benefits of California have steadily eroded — and then suddenly collapsed. Meanwhile, all the costs of California have steadily increased — and then suddenly skyrocketed.”
• Like we have said about California (and Illinois, New York and New Jersey) the financial death spiral has started, which is what Mr. Shapiro describes using a medical analogy: “It can be difficult to spot the incremental encroachment of a terrible disease, but once the final ravages set in, it becomes obvious that the illness is fatal. So, too, with California, where bad governance has turned a would-be paradise into a burgeoning dystopia.”
• He points out that the homeless population in Los Angeles County alone has gone from less than 40,000 in 2011 to 66,000 today, an over 50% increase.
• This has resulted in homeless encampments and resultant trash in every neighborhood in the county.
• But homelessness is not the only quality of life issue: “The most beautiful areas of Los Angeles, from Santa Monica beach to my suburb, have become wrecks. My children have personally witnessed drug use, public urination and public nudity. Looters were allowed free reign in the middle of the city during the Black Lives Matter riots; Rodeo Drive was closed at 1 p.m., and citizens were curfewed at 6 p.m.”
• As crime has gone up the funding for police forces has gone down.
• He also points out the same reason why Mr. Rogan left: the top state income tax rate is 13.3% and the state politicians want to raise that retroactively to 16.8%.
• The state also has a 7.5% sales tax and high gas taxes.
• According to a survey of 650 business CEOs, California is the worst state in the union to do business.
• Out migration has risen for the past seven years as people flee the ill run state which taxes high and provides low quality government services in return.
• And finally: “I want my kids to grow up safe. I want them to grow up in a community with a future, with more freedom and safety than I grew up with. California makes that impossible. So, goodbye, Golden State. Thanks for the memories.”

This is what happens when the political class gets too big, too greedy, and proves that they have neither the brainpower, the courage, or wisdom to operate oversized, malfunctioning government operations. People want to be free and when that becomes too much of a hassle or impossible where they live, they move, be it out of California, or out of NYC, be it rich or middle class, people want to be free.

California, Illinois, New York and New Jersey are the canaries in the mine. They have started their descent into a financial and quality of life death spiral. Learn from them or we all will be living the nightmare that is California: high taxes, low quality government services, loss of freedom, high crime, bad schools, poverty and homelessness, and violence, etc.

So, we have bad priorities in a distressed state, California, it looks like Democrats operate the top murder cities in the country, and the famous and not so famous continue to abandon the sinking ship that is California.

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/s?k=loce+my+country%2C+loathe+my+government&ref=nb_sb_noss

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

December, 2018, Part 5,Political Class Insanity: The New Abuser Of Government Power (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez) and The Veteran Abuser (Hillary Clinton)

It is another month which means it is again time to review the latest political class insanity from Washington and around the world. Political class insanity takes many forms including the wasting of taxpayer wealth, criminal fraud within government programs, inane and stupid political quotes and actions, the inability to create and implement effective and efficient government programs, stupid and ill performing economic policies and strategies, and other forms of insanity that continue to evolve and surprise and shock us.

Let’s get started:

1) We have spent the past month or so featuring the inane, out of touch, and plain ignorant comments of newly elected Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. It is very discouraging and scary that a person that is so out of touch with reality will actually vote on legislation that affects us all. 

But she has taken a very dangerous step, a step that is a first step toward out of control politicians abusing government power to attack its citizens for simply having an opinion, a dangerous abuse of the First Amendment and tyranny. According to a recent report on the Daily Wire website:

• Apparently Donald Trump Jr. put a harmless meme on line that was derogatory towards her Instagram account.
• She responded via Twitter in what can only be considered a severe and dangerous abuse of power: "I have noticed that Junior here has a habit of posting nonsense about me whenever the Mueller investigation heats up. Please, keep it coming Jr - it’s definitely a “very, very large brain” idea to troll a member of a body that will have subpoena power in a month "Have fun!"”
• In other words, “you make fun of me and I will bring the entire weight of the Federal government and Congress down on your head for insulting me.”
• This coming from someone who is a proven gaffe machine and who is not even a member of Congress yet, imagine how power hungry she will get when she actually is a member of Congress.
• Fortunately, other Americans jumped on her butt, recognizing what a bad abuse of power she had invoked.
• Sean Davis of The Federalist:"It's worth noting that the official House Ethics Manual explicitly prohibits the kind of threat that @Ocasio2018 just issued against @DonaldJTrumpJr for his refusal to support her political agenda:"

• Ben Shapiro on Twitter: “So, um, if he trolls you on media, then you're going to use the power of the government to come after him? That's not fascist or anything.”
• Derek on Twitter: “So you stalk @DonaldJTrumpJr on Twitter and are now threatening to abuse Congressional subpoena power for a personal vendetta if he continues to point out the stupid things you say? How very progressive.”
• Art Tavana on Twitter: “"The new gestapo will come to us in the form of internet trolls led by a telegenic populist from one of the five boroughs." - Nostradamus
• German Lopez on Twitter: “Imagine if Trump threatened a private citizen with his official powers because the person trolled him on Twitter. "
• Joe Walsh on Twitter: “My dislike for Jr is well-documented, but threatening a private citizen with a Congressional subpoena because he made a meme you don't like is one hell of a hot take.”
• Brandon Morse on Twitter: “Sorry, did this fool just threaten to use the power of government to punish a citizen because he posted a meme?”
• Kimberly Guifoyle on Twitter: “Did you just threaten to subpoena someone for criticizing you? As a lawyer and former prosecutor I find this deeply troubling.”
• John Cardillo on Twitter: “.@Ocasio2018, you come off as ignorant and uninformed. Going to threaten all of with illegal retaliatory subpoenas because you’re too thin skinned to take that kind of criticism? You are proving that you are far too emotional and immature to hold this seat.”

Despite her tyranny, at least there are a goodly number of Americans that recognize tyranny, abuse of power and a form of fascism to call it out and decry the concept of a thin skinned government official using government power to handle her personal immaturity.

2) It has always been my opinion that Hillary Clinton should be in jail for any number of transgressions, from using a private email server for government actions, violating any number of laws and government regulations, to illegally using the Clinton Foundation to enrich herself and her family at the expense of government policies and assets.

But according to the Conservative Daily Post website, justice may finally be closing in on her transgressions:

• Judge Royce Lambert recently lambasted the State Departments and Justice Department under Obama for “falling short” and “making things worse” when it came to investigating Clinton when she was Secretary of State.
• As a result, he ordered the email abuse investigation reopened.
• Specifically, because of the Freedom of Information Act, he ordered the government reopen the investigation because previously the investigation tried “to deliberately evade public records laws, and to answer whether the agencies acted in bad faith by not telling a court for months that they had asked in mid-2014 for missing emails to be returned.”
• The judge’s other comments included, “faced with one of the gravest modern offenses to government openness, [the Obama administration’s] State and Justice departments fell far short,” “the current Justice Department made things worse,” and the behavior “smacks of outrageous misconduct.”
• And finally, the judge concluded that the government under Obama had acted with “negligence born of incompetence,” and “At worst, career employees in the State and Justice departments colluded to scuttle public scrutiny of Clinton, skirt FOIA, and hoodwink this court.”

Finally, someone in a position of responsibility who actually sees that the truth has been suppressed by the corruption of the Obama administration and career politicians and government bureaucrats.

A tale of two corrupt politicians: a newby one who is already abusing government power and another who has been abusing it for years. More insanity to follow.

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:

www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

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

November, 2017, Political Class Insanity: The Scandal That Is Hillary Clinton, Part 1

It is the beginning of another month which means it is again time to review the latest political class insanity from Washington and around the world. Political class insanity takes many forms including the wasting of taxpayer wealth, criminal fraud within government programs, inane and stupid political quotes and actions, the inability to create and implement effective and efficient government programs, stupid and ill performing economic policies and strategies, and other forms of insanity that continue to evolve and surprise and shock us.

We are going to dedicate a couple of days to the latest insanity that has been coming out regarding the corrupt and unethical behavior of leaders in the Democratic Party, specifically Hillary Clinton, her staff, and their shenanigans.

1) Let’s start out with a quick summary we put forth in our last post regarding the latest revelations by Donna Brazile who became the chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee in the midst of the Presidential race in 2016:

• Brazile thought that Obama was a leech to the Democratic Party, that he only used the Party for his own ego and personal causes which helped drive the DNC into near bankruptcy.
• According to Brazile: “We had three Democratic parties: The party of Barack Obama, the party of Hillary Clinton, and this weak little vestige of a party led by (Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz) that was doing a very poor job getting people who were not president elected.”
• Furthermore: “This was not working to strengthen the party. He [Obama] left it in debt. Hillary bailed it out so that she could control it, and Debbie went along with all of this because she liked the power and perks of being a chair but not the responsibilities.”

Let’s move from these basics to more detailed insanity from Hillary and her minions last year.

2) Ben Shapiro, writing for the Daily Wire website on November 2, 2017, filled in some details on what Brazile has revealed about the unethical workings of the Clinton campaign:

• After reading what Brazile has released from her forthcoming book, Shapiro summarizes her conclusions that Hillary was the villainess, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz was incompetent and lazy, and Obama was “the unnamed cancer that ate away at the center of the party.”
• Brazile realized the Hillary had indeed rigged the nomination process of the Democratic Party and she regretted having to be the one to tell Bernie Sanders that he had been short circuited in his plan to become President.
• Wasserman-Schultz, the predecessor to Brazile as head of the Democratic National Committee, was inept and a disaster: “My predecessor, Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, had not been the most active chair in fundraising at a time when President Barack Obama’s neglect had left the party in significant debt. As Hillary’s campaign gained momentum, she [Clinton]resolved the party’s debt and put it on a starvation diet. It had become dependent on her campaign for survival, for which she expected to wield control of its operations.”
• Brazile claims that Wasserman-Schultz turned the operations of the Democratic Party over to the Clinton camp before the primaries started which allowed Clinton to control all party functions to her advantage.
• Brazile claims that Obama help lead the party to being broke with a $24 million debt on the books when Brazile took over the DNC.
• This debt hole allowed Clinton to step in and eliminate the debt but only by assuming control of all Democratic Party operations.
• According to Brazile, the CFO of the Hillary campaign, Gary Gensler, “described the party as fully under the control of Hillary’s campaign, which seemed to confirm the suspicions of the Bernie camp. The campaign had the DNC on life support, giving it money every month to meet its basic expenses, while the campaign was using the party as a fund-raising clearing house.”
• Shapiro described the Hillary takeover of the Democratic Party as a money laundering operation since while she raised a bunch of campaign money, almost all of that money went to her campaign and she only allocated less than one half of 1 percent of all money raised to the states,” as described by Brazile: “When the Politico story described this arrangement as “essentially … money laundering” for the Clinton campaign, Hillary’s people were outraged at being accused of doing something shady. Bernie’s people were angry for their own reasons, saying this was part of a calculated strategy to throw the nomination to Hillary.”
• Shapiro and others conclude that Bernie Sanders campaign got robbed of a fair fight for the nominations which Brazile describes the reality: “The funding arrangement with HFA and the victory fund agreement was not illegal, but it sure looked unethical. If the fight had been fair, one campaign would not have control of the party before the voters had decided which one they wanted to lead.”

Wow, talk about cutthroat and unethical behavior. Step in and take over a bankrupt political party and then use the machinery of that party for her benefit to the detriment of all others in the party. 

2) Let’s review some other quotes from Brazile regarding Hillary, Barack, and the 2016 Presidential campaign:

• “We had three Democratic parties: The party of Barack Obama, the party of Hillary Clinton, and this weak little vestige of a party led by (Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz) that was doing a very poor job getting people who were not president elected.”
• “This [Obama’s actions and/or inaction] was not working to strengthen the party. He left it in debt. Hillary bailed it out so that she could control it, and Debbie went along with all of this because she liked the power and perks of being a chair but not the responsibilities.”

Bernie never had a chance, the embedded political class politicians in charge of the Democratic Party nominating process either weakened it or took charge of it for their own selfish and greedy purposes.

Wow, enough scandal and unethical behavior for one day. But certainly not a surprise, given the Clinton Crime Syndicate’s behavior we have talked about previously, what the Clintons want the Clintons go for in any way possible, be it personal wealth or the Presidency of the United States.

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:

www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

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

November, 2017, Part 4, Political Class Insanity: HIV and Pronoun Idiocy in California, Hillary Gun Idiocy, and More

It is the beginning of another month which means it is again time to review the latest political class insanity from Washington and around the world. Political class insanity takes many forms including the wasting of taxpayer wealth, criminal fraud within government programs, inane and stupid political quotes and actions, the inability to create and implement effective and efficient government programs, stupid and ill performing economic policies and strategies, and other forms of insanity that continue to evolve and surprise and shock us.

Note: we realize that November, 2017 has not started yet but trust me, we have so much political class insanity to get to this month that we are going to start a few days early in order to get it all in:

1) One of the great things about this country is the ability to speak your mind and opinions and tell your rulers what you want done rather than having them tell you what they want done. This wonderful arrangement seems to be lost on most current and former politicians in that once in office they think they know what is best and are more than willing to impose their views and values on citizens.

A wonderful example of this type of political example recently came up relative to former Vermont governor Howard Dean. But first, a quick background review. Article V of the Constitution allows the states to petition the Federal government to act in certain ways according to the will of the people. In this process, state legislatures call for a Convention of States meeting where changes to how the Federal government works are discussed, voted on, and passed onto the Federal government which, according to the Constitution, must implement those Convention changes.

There is a major Convention of States effort underway to fix what the Washington politicians have broken:

• Decimating our freedoms as guaranteed under the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
• Bankrupting the country via excessive Federal government debt.
• Usurping what should be state's’ responsibilities and taking them over at the Federal level.
• Staying in office way too long and being way too ineffective while there, requiring that term limits be put in place.

The current Convention of States effort seeks to fix these four busted parts of our country. It is totally within the Constitution governance tenets to do so.

But according to the Convention Of States website, Dean recently attacked the Convention of States effort by claiming it will “be full of special interests who will want to do all kinds of right wing nut job things.” He also stated that: “The threat is the complete collapse of our democracy.”

No Mr. Dean, the Convention of States is the restoration of our democracy, not the collapse of our democracy. How can one argue against more freedom, rational fiscal policy, downsizing the massive and burdensome Federal bureaucracy by returning rightful Constitutional powers to the states, and getting rid of useless and inept Congressional members? 

The only way to argue against the Convention of States is to want to maintain the current power trip that elitist politicians are currently on because returning power to the people in our democracy threatens the cushy and personally enriching lives that people like Howard Dean have grown rich and fat off of.

As far as “right wing nut job things,” the Convention effort is very focused on a minimal amount of substantial changes, something that Dean probably knows but needs to hype up to prove his misguided point of view. When citizens win, politicians lose and that is what his fearmongering is all about.

2) As we all know, a nut case recently opened gunfire from a Las Vegas hotel room and rained down hundreds of rounds of bullets into a concert crowd, killing dozens and wounding hundreds. One reason he was able to do so much damage in a short time was that he had a so-called bump stock which crudely changed his semiautomatic weapons into automatic weapons, allowing him to fire more bullets faster. It was a tragic situation caused by a deranged madman.

It did not take long for the political class, especially Democrats, to jump in and push their agendas even while people were fighting for their lives and families were desperately seeking to find the status of their loved ones. This pushing aside human suffering to push a political agenda is bad enough.

But when you are doing such trash and are ignorant about what you are talking about, that is even worse. Such was the case of Hillary Clinton who could not wait to wade into the middle of this tragedy with her gun control nonsense, especially as it relates to silencers: “The crowd fled at the sound of gunshots. Imagine the deaths if the shooter had a silencer, which the NRA wants to make easier to get.” I guess her point is if the nut job had a silencer on his weapons even more people would have died since the crowd would have been slow to realize what is happening. 

But alas, as with most stuff politicians talk about, they are clueless and Clinton was no exception. Her ignorance shows since she obviously has no idea what a silencer does and does not do:

• NRA spokeswoman Dana Loesch: “Suppressors [silencers] only reduce [noise] by a few decibels, still same decibel level as a jackhammer.” 
• National Reviews editor Rich Lowry said Clinton was a “tone-deaf political hack” 
• Scott Greer of the Daily Caller sarcastically called Hillary a “noted firearm expert.” 
• Former CIA member Buck Sexton said her comments were “appallingly stupid, and entirely irrelevant,” writing how “she knows nothing about firearms. "and even worse, she doesn’t care.” 
• The Daily Wire editor-in-chief Ben Shapiro echoed stated that Clinton’s comments were “ignorant, irrelevant and exploitative.”

In other words, she has no idea what she is talking about and yet some how thinks she does know what she is talking about. Ignorance at the time of tragedy = political class insanity.

3) Unfortunately, political class insanity is not restricted to Washington politicians. Many state politicians, seemingly a disproportionate of whom live in California, are also inept and ineffective. Consider the latest insanity from that state’s political class as reported by Keely Sharp on the Eagle Rising website:

• The state government recently passed a law that makes it only a misdemeanor now to knowingly expose others to the AIDS/HIV virus including blood donated to blood banks.
• Yes, let that reality set in: in California it is no longer a felony to knowingly pass on HIV to another person, either through direct contact or by submitting bad blood to a blood bank.\According to the article: “This new law also applies to blood banks. People will not be required to tell blood banks that they are HIV-positive and can therefore freely donate their infected blood.”
• Sponsors of the bill tried to justify the downgrading of the crime by stating that modern medicine allows people to live longer with HIV so I guess no big deal if you get HIV from someone who knows they have the disease, just suck it up and start taking medicine and live with the disease for the rest of your life while the person that infected you gets a misdemeanor slap on the wrist.
• One of the sponsors was quoted in the LA Times as saying: “We are going to end new HIV infections, and we will do so not by threatening people with state prison time, but rather by getting people to test and providing them access to care.” 

This obviously makes no sense at all. According to California Democrats’ warped logic, it is okay (i.e. not a felony) for a HIV infected person to infect another with a potentially fatal disease since medicine is much better at treating a life long affliction. I am not sure that the innocent person who knowling gets HIV from an infected person would agree with that statement. 

Republican Senator Joel Anderson apparently does have some common sense: “I’m of the mind that if you purposefully inflict another with a disease that alters their lifestyle the rest of their life, puts them on a regimen of medications to maintain any kind of normalcy, it should be a felony. It’s absolutely crazy to me that we should go light on this.” This is why we call it political class insanity.

On a somewhat related note, understand that the same politicians in California that just said it is basically okay to knowingly infect another person with the HIV virus also recently passed legislation that makes it a crime to call call a senior citizen in a California nursing by a pronoun that is not preferred by that senior citizen. 

Specifically, any person who “willfully and repeatedly” does not “use a transgender resident’s preferred name or pronouns” could, if found guilty of the misdemeanor, spend up to a year in county jail and face a $1000 fine.” Thus, in California it is now a misdemeanor to infect someone with a life threatening fatal disease, HIV, and it is also a misdemeanor to call a person by the wrong pronoun name. Sometimes this stuff makes your head to explode.

Enough insanity for today: HIV and pronoun insanity from California, more Hillary ignorance, and Howard Dean insulting Americans exercising their Constitutional rights. More insanity to follow.

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:

www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

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