Love My Country, Loathe My Government: de blasio

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Saturday, December 18, 2021

December, 2021, Part 7, Political Class Insanity: Politicians Continue To NOT Protect the Lives Of Citizens, From Austin To NYC to Chicago

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) First, many politicians across the country in liberal cities decided that it was a good idea to defund and reduce the police forces in their cities. We knew right away, as did most logical and semi-smart people, that this was a stupid idea since their actions created a void of law enforcement without any process to handle the consequences of the void they created.

As a result, violent crime skyrocketed in liberal cities across the country, from LA to Chicago to NYC. But it was not only the major cities that rued the idea of defunding the police:

The brain dead liberal politicians in Austin, Texas defunded their police department to the tune of 30% over the past year.
And surprise, surprise, as they reduced their police force the homicide rate in the city rose dramatically this year.
There were 88 homicides in the city in 2021, beating by far the previous record of 59 that was set in 1984 and almost double the number of murders, 48, in 2020.
This happened after the city politicians reduced the Austin police budget by 30%, $150 million, and reallocated those funds to other social programs.
The almost doubling of the homicide rate is among the highest percent increase in the entire country.
And after a year of unnecessary violence, the Austin city politicians took the same belated action that other cities took: they raised the city’s police budget to a record $442 million and paid for three new police cadet classes.

As we forecasted in previous posts, this defunding of police movement was stupid because there was no back up plan to fill the void in law enforcement, It was like trying to design a new parachute AFTER you jumped out of the plane, without testing the design beforehand. The sad part of this scenario of events is that people died unnecessarily because of the shortsightedness of liberal politicians.

2) We have often asked the look running question: do politcians say the most outrageous things/lies because they actually believe themselves or do they lie so much and so grandly because they think we are too stupid to identify their lies when the put them forth? It is a question for the ages, as outgoing NYC mayor Bill de Blasio recently illustrated:

Keep in mind that New York City has experienced massive increases in violent crime within the city over the past few years.
Rampaging gangs have invaded stores and businesses and gotten away with untold millions of dollars in stolen merchandise.
A very, very liberal, and idiotic bail reform, has allowed just about any alleged criminal in the city to walk out of court without bail and without jail time, free to go back out into the city and commit more crimes.
And yet, de Blasio has recently proclaimed that NYC became “much safer” during his time in office.
During his first year in office, the city experienced 318 murders back 2013.
By 2020, the annual murder numbers were up to 437 and so far in 2021, the murder total is 443, more than a 30% increase from 2013.
Now, NYC is an exception in that some major crimes in the city are down, not because of decreasing murders, but decreases in other crimes.
In addition to increasing murder rates, the number of so-called hate crimes has gone from 252 to 503 in 2021.
NYC Police Commissioner Dermot Shea and incoming mayor, Eric Adams, both blamed de Blasio’s bail reform for the increase in murders and hate crimes.

So back to the original question: most rational people would say that if murders in a city go up over 30% in just 8 years, that city is not “much safer.” And yet politician de Blasio sees a city with a massive increase in murders as being “much safer.”You cannot makeup this insanity.

3) And while de Blaso’s NYC has seen a marked increase in homicides that are at least because of his massive defunding of the police, the epitome of cultivating violence in a city still belongs to mayor Lori Lightfoot in Chicago:

Way too many times we have discussed the weekly, monthly and annual increases in violent crimes and murders in Chicago.
And each time we pointed out that the local politicians and the mayor have no clue on how to fix the deteriorating situation.
Recently two criminals walked into a high end auto dealer in Chicago in the middle of the day and stole a million dollars worth of high end watches that the dealership also sold.
Dealership owner, Joe Perillo, was quoted in the local city news: “When I went on the news, I said enough is enough. Those two words resonated. The phone calls started ringing in my dealership. My friends, relatives, people that I didn’t know. People that could get a hold of my number and they were saying enough is enough. I never realized that it has gotten to such a boiling point and no one stepping out to say anything about it. They’re [mayor and local district attorney] probably good people. They’re probably are trying to do good for the community. But they’re doing bad for the community.”
He is probably right since there has been an amazing and depressing 220% increase in violent crime in downtown Chicago since 2019.
Perillo went on to further say: “What happened to my dealership, it’s not about me. What they don’t realize is that they’re harvesting criminals.”
Even fellow Democratic Chicago Alderman, Raymond Lopez, slammed Lightfoot for “refusing to acknowledge any fault” for the surge in crime.

And in the wake of all this increasing violence, what program has Lightfoot put forth to fight the violence epidemic? The city recently launched a program called “Safe Chicago” which has installed “bleeding control kits” throughout the city to help citizens treat life threatening injuries once they have become a victim of violent crime. Seriously? Thousands of people are being shot every year in Chicago and the local political class is basically stationing band aids around the city as a response. Pathetic.

That will do it for today: politicians continue to not keep their citizens safe from violent crime, from Austin to NYC to Chicago.

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/Love-My-Country-Loathe-Government/dp/1604942789/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=love+my+country%2C+loathe+my+government&qid=1607716020&sr=8-1

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

http://www.reason.com

http://www.cato.org

http://www.openthebooks.com

http://www.conventionofstates.com

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w 
 

Thursday, November 4, 2021

November, 2021, Politicial Class Insanity: Part 1: A Congressman Parties For Free, NYC Declines Across the Board, and Trying To Buy A Virginia Election

1) As Americans continue to struggle with rising food prices, rising gas prices, and rising prices for just about everything, at least one member of Congress seems to be immune to the economic pressures facing ordinary Americans:

Congressman Eric Swalwell, spent thousands and thousands of dollars recently, and in a short amount of time, on a variety of expenses that had nothing to do with his Congressional duties.
The money he spent was not from his private assets but from campaign funds and included expenses such as meals at expense steak house restaurants, sporting events, alcohol at bars, limo services, a liquor delivery service, a luxury plane flight, a beer garden and at a casino.
These expenses came to light via Federal Election Commission (FEC) reporting.
The FEC report covers the third quarter, 2021 expenses and covers dozens and dozens of instances where he used campaign funds for a variety of the above listed expenses.
These third quarter expenses follow his spending of $21,200.75 in six separate instances last April at the high end Ritz-Carlton hotel in California where his wife was the director of sales.

Must be good being a member of Congress when expenses and experiences for private jet flights, alcohol, sporting events, luxury hotels, etc, are free to you while Americans struggle just getting by day to day. Nice work if you can get it.

2) We have often debated which big city in the country has the worst mayor. The top candidates usually include the mayors of Portland, Seattle, Chicago and New York City. It is our opinion that Chicago’s mayor, Lori Lightfoot, has in general been the worst, but NYC’s Bill de Blasio is not out of the running for being the worst mayor these days.

As he has gutted and demeaned the NYPD, crime and violence has skyrocketed throughout the city. His inept advice early in the pandemic probably caused an unknown number of city residents to unnecessarily die or get ill from the covid virus. The declining quality of city life has caused many, many residents, particularly the richer city residents, to get out of the city in search of a better quality of life.

And his ineptness continues as he is trying to force all city employees to get the covid vaccine, often against their will and principles, or be fired. This is going to have potentially dire and fatal results as many first line responders refuse to comply with his dictatorial edict:

Earlier this week a massive number of firefighters called in sick, likely not because of an actual sickness but to protest the mayor’s vaccine edict.
There are reports that the city has closed down over two dozen firehouses because of the shortage of personnel to operate those firehouses, either because of the fake sick out or because the mayor will fire those firefighters who do not get the vaccine.
Obviously closing down so many firehouses will eventually result in a fire crisis that causes undue damage and injury to city residents.
But the mayor's ineptness is not confined to the fire department since sanitation workers are also balking at the vaccine mandate and possibly have gone into a work slowdown mode to protest, causing massive amounts of garbage to build up on the city streets.
Another self imposed disaster from a horrible leader and politician. A city resident, Vinnie Agro summed up the current situation quite nicely: “We’re f***ked. We are going to toast like marshmallows.” All for a failed and stupid covid policy.

3) In our book, “Love My Country, Loathe My Government,” one of the basic tenets was that campaign finance laws should be structured so that only those people affected by an election can contribute to a politician's election campaign. For example, in a city's mayor race, only residents and businesses in that city should be allowed to contribute to that person’s mayoral campaign since he should be serving them and only them. In a state governor race, only residents and businesses in that state should be able to contribute to that election race. In a US. Senate race, only state residents should be able to contribute, again, the reason being that those people running for that office should be serving only those that can legally vote for them.

Otherwise, as we have seen so many times, big money organizations swoop into a local race and overwhelm the rights and needs of citizens to get what they want, voters be damned. This disgusting abuse of election campaign financing was recently found in the Virginia governor race:

According to government campaign financial reports, anti-Second Amendment groups aligned with billionaire Michael Bloomberg gave Democrat Terry McAuliffe almost half a million dollars in support of his campaign for governor.
The money mostly came from the Everytown For Gun Safety organization in late September.
McAuliffe is a staunch anti-gun, anti-Second Amendment advocate.

Another example where people’s votes could get overwhelmed by outside money and influence. If Virginia residents want to destroy their Second Amendment rights, then it is their choice, not a choice that could be overwhelmed by outsiders like Micheal Bloomberg.

Note: as of this writing, it appears that McAuliffe has suffered an upset defeat in his bid to become Virginia governor so the people have spoken and overcome the half a million dollars that Bloomberg and his associates spent in a vain attempt to undercut democracy.

4) Getting back to New York City and its inept mayor. Independent of the covid work slowdown and sick outs, the city was having serious troubles with rising crime and the declining quality of life that goes with it:

As we have discussed many times, de Blasio jumped on the stupid “defund the police movement” and not only stripped budget and resources from the NYPD but also continued to unduly criticize the police officers that protect New Yorkers every day.
Now it appears that NYC police detectives are currently struggling to keep up with the skyrocketing crime in the city.
Twenty years ago the city had 7,200 detectives working on criminal cases but today, with much higher crime rates, the city is down to about 5,000 detectives.
The reduction in detectives and the increase in crime have resulted in single decttives handling as many as 100 criminal cases at a time.
That kind of workload probably does not result in a lot of criminal cases being successfully resolved which then feeds the increase in crime in the city since criminals eventually find out that the chances of being punished for being a criminal are growing less and less.

As we've said so many times, a very, very basic function of government is to protect the lives and property of law abiding citizens. De Blasio and the NYC political class have failed miserably in providing that very basic government service with fatal and criminal results, as summed up by recent comment by a police union official: “If the next mayor, whoever it may be, doesn’t fix the crime epidemic in the city of New York, the economic machine of the city will come to a halt, and the city will fall. It’ll go back to days that you don’t want to see, and that we haven’t seen in many, many years.”

A Congressman parties for free, NYC is in a death spiral from a police, fire department and sanitation perspective and trying to buy an election in Virginia, the insanity continues.

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/Love-My-Country-Loathe-Government/dp/1604942789/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=love+my+country%2C+loathe+my+government&qid=1607716020&sr=8-1

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

http://www.reason.com

http://www.cato.org

http://www.openthebooks.com

http://www.conventionofstates.com

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w 
 

Friday, October 8, 2021

October, 2021, Part 4, Political Class Insanity: A Clueless Congresswoman, A Cynical Congressman, and An Elitist Mayor

Before we get to today’s insanity, please consider the following proposition: as many of you know, the withdrawal from Afghanistan has been a historic and fatal endeavor. But the failure did not start just in the past few weeks, it has been a twenty year disaster. It has cost American taxpayers about a trillion dollars, has left thousands of our brave armed forces folks dead, maimed, or wounded and has resulted in an unknown but substantial number of civilian deaths.

Afghanistan has been a collective failure of multiple Presidential administrations and multiple sessions of Congress. Thus, please consider signing the petition below that calls for the immediate resignation of every member of Congress that has at least twenty years of service and the resignation of President Biden, Vice President Harris, and critical, and failed, members of the Biden Administration. They do not deserve to serve any longer given their miserable twenty year track record of death, destruction and waste in Afghanistan.

Also, if you are passionate about this topic and effort, feel free to pass the link along to others who might also feel the same way, i.e. incompetence should not be rewarded:

https://www.change.org/p/american-citizens-demand-immediate-congressional-resignations-for-the-twenty-year-afghanistan-debacle

Biden and others need to resign for dereliction of duty, incompetence and total lack of empathy. Nothing short of resignation is acceptable. Thank you.

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

1) In our opinion , Bill de Blasio is one of the worst mayors in the country. He led the “defund the police” in New York City, an effort that led to serious increases in violence crimes, murders, and other law breaking activities. He was grossly uneducated when it came to the pandemic, encouraging his citizens to go out and party like normal times because the covid virus is not passed via drinks and food, a position that probably led to the deaths and serious sickness of an untold number of city residents. He shut down all of the gyms in the city because of covid but then forced his gym to open up so he could work out, denying that same function to every other New Yorker.

And his sense of privilege for himself and his contempt for the city taxpayers still goes on:

The NYC Department of Investigation (DOI) has issued a report that says the good mayor misused police resources.
According to the DOI, de Blasio used police resources to help his daughter move out of Brooklyn in addition to using police resources to transport his campaign staff during his inane Presidential bid.
Police officers were used to carry furniture out of the mayor;s daughter’s apartment and then a police van took her furniture to Gracie Mansion, the official residence of the mayor.
Police detectives also drove the mayor’s son to and from Yale University.
A whopping $319,794 of NYC taxpayer money was used to transport personnel around the country when he ran for President.
And the sad thing about this whole state of affairs is that de Blasio does not see the problem with having police officers turn themselves into a moving company for his daughter, a taxi service for his son, or a travel company for his failed and ridiculous Presidential campaign.

He attacked the report, claiming that his police detail’s very job is to protect him and his family. This is true but I am pretty sure that the details of that assignment do not include actually moving furniture and such. Another example of an elitist politician who thinks the rules do not apply to him.

2) For almost two years we've had to put up with government officials telling us, ordering us to wear a mask in public, stay six feet apart, do not gather in large groups, etc. But it seems that as soon as a politicians put a covid edict into place, they themselves ended up violating their own orders:

The mayor of Chicago shut down all of the hair salons but forced hers to open to get herself a haircut, a function she denied to all other city residents.
The mayor of Beaumont, Texas, shut down all of the nails loans but forced hers to open so she could get her nails done, a function she denied to all other city residents.
The governor of California ordered his state citizens to always wear a mask, avoid crowds and social distance but was then photographed in a swanking restaurant doing none of those things.
As we said above, de Blasio closed down all of the NYC gyms but forced his gym to open up only for him.

You get the idea, with American politicians it is often “do as I say, not as I do.” And a member of Congress recently told how she is following in that sad tradition:

Rashida Tlaib is currently a US Congresswoman.
She recently admitted, an admission that was caught on video, that she only wears a mask when she goes in front of the cameras.
She said that, “No, no, no, I’m just wearing it because I’ve got a Republican tracker here.”

The hypocrisy is so bad. We are suffering with this whole mask thing, being browbeat by local and national politicians to wear a mask and she readily admits that she only does it for show. So who is the idiot: Tlaib for not protecting herself or us for doing what those in power are not doing.

3) Since Biden came into office, the southern border has been a drug cartel, human trafficking, criminal gang, covid, juvenile abuse, and all round humanitarian disaster. Everyday thousands of people are illegally entering the country, endangering all of us from a drug addiction, covid, and terrorism perspective.

Recently over 15,000 illegal immigrants parked out under a bridge, causing a sanitary nightmare before they were shipped to locations around the country to endanger the lives of American citizens. News reports showed a constant stream of people wading across the Rio Grande river to illegally enter the country.

All of which provided a good example of how out of touch Washington politicians are with the rest of the country:

We have previously discussed, many times, how Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee is so out of touch with reality.
She once proclaimed that the Constitution is over 400 years old, it is not.
She once proclaimed that South Vietnam and North Vietnam both still existed, with North Vietnam ruling over South Vietnam even though South Vietnam disappeared over 45 years ago.
She once asked if one of the Mars rover vehicles would be going past the place where Neil Armstrong landed… on the moon!
And not to outdo her ignorance, she recently proclaimed that the southern border is closed and secure, despite the tens of thousands illegal immigrants, drug and criminal gang members, human traffickers and potential terrorists that come over the border every month since Biden took office.
In her special world, it is her opinion that “biased and unfair narratives” are being used for political purposes.
She is a Democrat and even Democrats in Congress and locally on the Texas/Mexican border are crying out for help to stop the flow of humanity illegally coming into the country and overwhelming Border Patrol and other government entities and services, but in her mind, all is good and fine.

Unbelievable that a member of Congress could be that ignorant of reality. She reminds of the Kevin Bacon ROTC character in the movie “Animal House.” towards the end of the movie, chaos and bedlam are breaking out in the downtown area and he is in the middle of it all shouting, “Remain calm!” His soothing words are so out of tune with the chaotic reality around him and he eventually gets run over by the stampeding crowd. Jackson Lee should put herself down on the border, it would be a hoot to see her Kevin Bacon impersonation trampled by the stampeding illegal immigrants.

A clueless Congresswoman, a hypocritical and cynical Congresswoman, and an entitled mayor, lord help us.

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/Love-My-Country-Loathe-Government/dp/1604942789/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=love+my+country%2C+loathe+my+government&qid=1607716020&sr=8-1

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

http://www.reason.com

http://www.cato.org

http://www.openthebooks.com

http://www.conventionofstates.com

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w 
 

Sunday, May 23, 2021

May, 2021, Part 7,Political Class Insanity: Another Washington Law Breaker Avoids Jail, Karma For a Rochester Politician, and The Political Class Blows The Pandemic Crisis

1) Possibly at some distant point in the past, Washington politicians and bureaucrats were focused on honestly doing their jobs and helping Americans. Seems like a long time ago, given today’s poisonous political atmosphere and the reality another Senate staffer has been found guilty of crimes:

A second member on the staff of Senator Maggie Hassan has been found guilty of hacking government computers for political gain.
The staffer, Samantha DeForest-Dave, assisted another Senate staffer, Jackson Cosko, in breaking into the Senator’s office where they hacked Congressional computers.
The result of that hack was to download the addresses of Republican Senators and then make that information public, endangering the lives of those Senators and their families.
Jackson has already pleaded guilty and is serving four years in a Federal prison.
Apparently, he was angry because Brett Kavanaugh was being confirmed to the Supreme Court so, of course, endangering the lives of others was a rational reaction.
DeForest-Dave initially lied to police investigators about providing keys to Cosko to get access to the Senator’s offices.
According to Courthouse News: “After Hassan fired him in May 2018, Cosko lent Deforest-Davis money for her rent but requested a favor in return. That summer, spurred by anger over Kavanaugh’s Senate confirmation hearings, Cosko repeatedly used Deforest-Davis’ keys to access the senator’s office after hours and hack the congressional computers.”
He then published addresses and phone numbers of Congressional Republicans on Wikipedia and Twitter.

Nasty and dangerous stuff but like most lawbreakers in Washington, she got no prison time, just a suspended sentence, 200 hours of community service, and two years of probation. Imagine what would have happened to us if you or I facilitated a hack into a restricted Federal computer system, downloaded secret information, and then published that information, endangering lives. Doubtful we would have avoided prison time.

2) As we have pointed out so many times in this blog, politicians talk a good game but often fall short of their own espoused ideals and goals:

Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot shut down almost all small businesses in Chicago during the pandemic but forced her own hair salon to open to get her hair done while the rest of the city residents could not get that luxury.
The Beaumont, Texas mayor did a similar antic, forcing her nail salon to open to get her nails done while forcing the rest of the city to stay shut down, the need for nails to be done by ordinary citizens be damned.
The governor of California forced all of his millions of residents to wear masks during the pandemic while he partied and frolicked at a high end French restaurant with friends and supporters who did not wear masks.
The governor of Michigan restricted travel in and out of her state during the pandemic but treated herself to a private vacation in Florida, to the tune of a $26,000 airfare cost, while her residents were stuck back at home.

Yes, the hypocrisy of the American political class often knows no limits. But every once in a while one of them gets hit up the side of the head with hypocrisy karma for their pompousness:

Rochester, New York mayor, Lovely Warren, has a history of wanting to get guns off of the streets of her city.
She has supported state laws that probably violate citizens’ Second Amendment rights and was all excited about a gun buyback plan her police force executed.
She recently claimed that “getting guns off our streets must be a priority.”
Specifically: "That’s why I’m glad our police department is partnering with the Attorney General’s Office and our churches to host a gun buy-back event next week. I know Chief Herriott-Sullivan and her team are working with their partners in law enforcement to stop the flow of illegal guns into our city. We must continue working together with our citizens to take these guns off our streets so our residents can feel safe in their neighborhoods and live the lives they deserve.”
Certainly her right to have this opinion and the position it would help protect her citizens, a primary function of her office.
But while she was out pontificating about getting illegal guns off of the street, it turns out she has illegal guns in her own home.
When the New York State Police recently raided her home they found her husband, Timothy Granison, in possession of 31 grams of cocaine and in possession of a firearm.
The firearm was illegally in his possession because of a conviction he received for armed robbery 24 years ago, a conviction that voided his right to be in possession of a weapon, which makes it an illegal gun, the kind his wife is campaigning against.
He was arrested with seven other folks as part of an ongoing illegal drug investigation.
The investigation executed seven searches including the Mayor’s home where, in total, they found two kilos of powder and crack cocaine, four guns including a semi-automatic rifle, and over $100,000 in cash.
The rifle was found at the mayor's home.

Looks like the mayor should have cleaned up her own illegal gun act before trying to clean up the city’s gun population. The Zerohedge website summed up the mayor’s predicament quite nicely: “Well, I suppose the good news for Warren is that there are two fewer guns in Rochester today. Too bad for her that they were seized from her own home. I wonder if Warren is still big on ensuring that there are consequences for possessing a gun illegally in the city she oversees, or if she’s suddenly had a change of heart over the past 24 hours.”

Karma can be a bitch.

3) Warner Tood Huston recently did an online article about how many of the policies and lockdowns that the American political class forced on us all made the super rich even richer, helped make the politically connected richer, and had dire consequences for the rest of us, consequences that in many cases were worse than anything the virus could have done:

According to Huston, the pandemic saw a bunch of power and money end up with the “overclass” of politicians, corporate managers, and government bureaucrats.
Small businesses were forced to shut down, many never to reopen again, while big, corporate businesses got themselves deemed “essential” and thrived.
High paid white collar workers got to work at home while others were forced into low paying delivery jobs, think Uber Eats, DoorDash, etc.
The national debt exploded which will force EVERYONE to pay higher taxes down the road, hitting the lower economic strata especially hard.
Politicians often exceeded and abused their lawful duties and responsibilities.
While the Chinese Communist Party used the cover of the pandemic and lockdowns to crush a righteous rebellion in Hong Kong, American politicians took similar actions.
Americans who protested the draconian and often illegal lockdowns and other political orders were called granny killers while others, whose political leanings were in line with sitting politicians, were allowed to do anything they wanted without consequences.
For example, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio allowed a massive Black Lives Matter protest while ensuring that the gates to a Jewish playground were welded shut.
States with draconian lockdowns and dictatorial political leaders were not healthier, and in many cases were less healthy, than states and cities that used more common sense in their pandemic reactions.
But that reality, realized early on, did nothing to change the often heartless and senseless lockdown rules of the stricter states and cities.
According to an analysis by the American Institute for Economic research, the lockdowns did more public health harm than good: businesses died, causing economic hardship and stress on individuals and families, mental health problems cases exploded, people opted out of routine and elective medical procedures such as cancer screenings with the obvious long term negative consequences yet to be realized, child and spousal abuse rates climbed and kids basically lost a year of schooling, with, again, long term consequences yet to be realized.
And while the country suffered, no politician, no government bureaucrat, no teacher union member lost a dollar in salary or compensation.

Look, the situation was challenging to say the least. Early on, no one knew what the virus consequences would be, how deadly the virus would be or not be, what was the best way to combat the virus, etc. But as time wore on, it became obvious what was working and what was not working: common sense from some states and cities that trusted their citizens to do the right thing voluntarily and produced procedures and guidelines that were based on common sense and the best info at the time.

At the same time, there were those local and state politicians that just went on a power ego trip and acted like the Chinese Communist party in Hong Kong: do it our way or else there would be dire consequences regardless of how stupid, and hypocritical our policies and ourselves are. As a result, economic disasters, business disasters and closures, unneeded alternative health issues, both physical and mental, and so much more.

As always, most American politicians approach every problem with a hammer when maybe a little more precision and elegance could be used to not make life so hard for regular Americans. And in the process protect our freedom to live our life as we see fit, not as some dictatorial governor or mayor sees fit.

That will do it for today: ego driven, power hungry politicians whose decisions were not optimal, a Rochester politician gets a brutal dose of karma, and another Washington lawbreaker gets off with basically no penalty.

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/Love-My-Country-Loathe-Government/dp/1604942789/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=love+my+country%2C+loathe+my+government&qid=1607716020&sr=8-1

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

Wednesday, May 19, 2021

May, 2021, Part 5, Political Class Insanity: de Blasio Reverses Course, Biden Appointee Breaks the Law Without Consequences, Crisis On The Border and More

1) In our previous post, we discussed the reality that city politicians across the country erred so fatally when they decided to defund their police forces as a result of the George Floyd murder in Minneapolis. As a result, their police forces were given fewer resources to combat crime. This has led to more crime and to manpower shortages as police officers leave the force because of their hindered ability to do their jobs, because of less resources and verbal abuse and disrespect they received from city politicians.

Unfortunately, this short sighted defund the police movement has led to an explosion in urban crime and the deaths of unknown numbers of city residents. Nowhere was this defund the police rhetoric and action more obvious than in New York City. NYC’s mayor, Bill de Blasio has shown probably more contempt for his police force than in any other city in the country. He has berated them, belittled them, and has significantly defunded their budgets, all of which has led to an explosion in crime in his city like never seen in recent decades.

Now, all of a sudden, after the damage has been done, citizens have been killed mauled, and robbed, he finally sees how stupid his actions were:

After threatening to cut the NYPD annual budget by about $1.5 billion, he is now crowing about how a new, $105 million NYPD precinct building for Queens is going forward AFTER he eliminated the project last year in the fever of defund the police hysteria.
In a kiss up to Black Lives Matter and such, de Blasio proposed that a community center be built on the location and not a new NYPD police precinct.
He proposed this community center despite the fact that the mostly black residents of the neighborhood desperately wanted more police presence since they were ones bearing the brunt of the local criminal elements.
Another example of politicians kowtowing to the media and the more vocal demands of a minority set of voices. Unfortunately delaying the start of this effort probably resulted in more crime and more suffering of local residents, a secondary concern of a mayor and city political class who were more concerned about form and media preening than substance and providing a basic government service, protecting the lives of their constituents.

In other words, Nero fiddled while Rome burned, de Blasio fiddled around while NYC burned with increased crime.

2) The Hatch Act is a very good Federal Government law in that it prohibits government officials from promoting political candidates and causes when in their official government capacity. This helps prevent government resources and pressure from impacting political races and actions.

Unfortunately, it is rarely used to actually punish those that violate the letter and spirit of the law. A great example of this was when Kathleen Sebelius, a Cabinet member under Obama, endorsed a Democrat for lieutenant governor of North Carolina.

The Office of Special Counsel said she made the political remarks in her capacity as a federal employee and thus violated the Hatch Act. Of course, as what usually happens with members of the American political class when they violate existing laws, nothing happened because of her law breaking.

And now Biden has a similar problem and another Hatch Act violation:

According to Politico, the office of Special Counsel has determined that HUD leader Marcia Fudge did indeed violate the Hatch Act when she expressed an opinion on an Ohio Senate race while acting in her official government role.
The violation occurred during an official government press conference when Fudge was asked by a reporter about possible Senate candidates in her home state of Ohio.
She mentioned that friends of hers, Tim Ryan and Nan Whaley, might be in the running for the Senate seat.
Since then, both people have made moves to actually enter the race for the Senate.
Of course, she later apologized for her remarks AFTER she got caught violating the Hatch Act: “I acknowledge that I should have stuck with my first instinct and not answered the question. I take these things seriously and I want to assure the American people that I am focused on meeting the needs of our country.”
Ana Galindo-Marrone, the chief of Office of Special Counsel’s Hatch Act Unit, released a letter late last week summarizing the office’s findings: “By stating, for example, that ‘we have a good shot at it’ and ‘I believe we can win the Senate race,’ Secretary Fudge showed support for the Democratic Party with respect to the Ohio Senate race while speaking in her official capacity."

I guess it is okay then, no harm, let’s move on, she violated a Federal law but no problem. Let’s take her statement and make a few small changes as it might apply to an ordinary American: “I acknowledge that I should not have been speeding in my car. I should have stuck with my first instinct and not sped down the road. I take these things seriously.”

Same thought process, different context. You can bet that you and I would be held accountable for violating the law but as always, those in power in the political class get to apologize after the fact and move on with no consequences.

3) The Constitution is pretty clear on how our government is supposed to work:

Congress passes legislation that funds and directs how those funds should be spent in the annual budget process.
In theory, at least, their budget decisions should represent the priorities and needs of those that elected them, the voters.
The budget agreement is then approved by and executed by the executive branch of the government.
It is called democracy.

But much like the Hatch Act farce we just discussed, the executive branch sometimes thinks that it has the right to bypass the Constitution and the procedures that are set up for representative government:

As we all should know, Biden has wasted no time in creating a major humanitarian, drug cartel, and national security problem at the southern border.
Thousands and thousands of illegal immigrants and criminals have flooded the border areas which has resulted in tens of thousands of children being apprehended at the border with no adult or parent in sight.
Part of the problem is that drug cartels and criminal enterprises are now locating unaccompanied kids on the border which has tied up Border Patrol resources which in turn has given the cartels and criminal freer reign to do their illegal activities.
Thus, there are now 20,000 unaccompanied kids in Federal government detention centers, truly a humanitarian disaster, one that Biden created on his own.
Now to compound his incompetence, he is likely violating the spirit and letter of the Constitution by diverting taxpayer funds that had been properly allocated to protect and aid needy Americans and is inappropriately taking $2 billion to care for these kids.
Now, I am not saying these kids should not be taken care of but it needs to be done in a Constitutionally viable way, i.e. Congress approves the $2 billion needed as representatives of the voters and the executive branch then uses it to care for the kids.
The executive branch has no Constitutional authority to move money around from the purposes it was designed for to cover its mistakes.
Specifically, Biden’s HHS Department has taken over $2 billion that was approved for COVID relief to cover the costs of caring for the illegal immigrant kids.
According to Politico, the $2 billion was supposed to be used replenish the Strategic National Stockpile with needed personal protective equipment
Other medical equipment was also to be used for expanded covid testing of Americans: “The redirected funds include $850 million that Congress originally allocated to rebuild the nation’s Strategic National Stockpile, the emergency medical reserve strained by the Covid-19 response. Another $850 million is being taken from a pot intended to help expand coronavirus testing, according to three people with knowledge of the matter.”

Again, the kids need to be taken care of, no question. But there are Constitutional and government budget processes that are in place that were meant to protect our freedom, democracy and safety, and these have all been violated by the Biden administration.

4) How bad of a situation has Biden caused on the border in the few short months since assuming the Presidency? Consider reporting from the Associated press:

Thousands of children, “from toddlers to teens,” are being housed in shelters across the country, shelters with very little oversight and scrutiny.
Staff in some of these shelters have eluded FBI background checks so who knows what type of people are overseeing these kids.
According to the AP, the kids “aren’t guaranteed access to education, recreational opportunities, or legal counsel.”
Many of the 20,000 or so kids are being housed in “mass shelters” and "are isolated, less supervised and without basic services.”
Oh, by the way, Vice President Kamala Harris, who Biden assigned to fix the problem he created, has yet to even visit the border and see what these kids are going through, despite having been given the task of fixing this mess over two months ago.

In four months Biden has disrupted the peaceful status quo at the border, an orderly and safe way for people to come into this country, and has turned it into a drug cartel, sex trafficking, criminal gang, and humanitarian crisis that has endangered not only illegal immigrant adults and kids but also has deprived Americans of their safety and needed medical supplies. A failure of monumental proportions.

That will do it for today's insanity: chaos on the border, Constitution violations, violations of the law but no legal consequences for government employees, and de Blasio, too late, supports the NYPD police and the residents of Queens.

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/Love-My-Country-Loathe-Government/dp/1604942789/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=love+my+country%2C+loathe+my+government&qid=1607716020&sr=8-1

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 
 

Monday, May 17, 2021

May, 2021, Part 4, Political Class Insanity: Failure To Protect Citizens In Chicago, New York City, and Minneapolis, The Deadly Consequences Of Defund The Police

1) For far too many years and posts we have discussed the unending violence and killing that has been going on in Chicago. Despite the violence and nation leading murder totals every year, the city political class has never come close to finding a solution to the murders and shootings and, if anything, the violence is getting worse.

Consider a recent, and typical, weekend in the city:

During a recent weekend, seven city residents were killed by gun violence.
In total, more than 45 people were shot including a 14 year old boy.
That doesn't include the two others who were stabbed, one fatally.
The 14 year old boy received three wounds but is still alive.
Twelve of those that were shot were shot inside of a two hour window on a Saturday night.
While the year 2020 was the worst year for gun violence since 2016, the violence and shootings and deaths in 2021 are on track to exceed last year's spike in violence since there have already been almost 200 homicides through the month of April.
Over 1,000 residents have already been shot in 2021.
The number of people shot in the city in April is 299 vs. only 225 in April, 2020.

As we have often discussed, a basic, basic, fundamental role of government is to protect the lives and safety of its citizens. For years and years, Chicago politicians have failed miserably in that basic responsibility.

2) I would think most people would find that New York City mayor, Bill de Blasio, has been a failure on just about any front:

His stupid advice in the early days of the pandemic likely caused the virus to spread much more rapidly than if he had kept his mouth shut.
His loathing of the NYPD has caused low morale among the force and bitterness between the mayor and the heads of the police unions.
His belittling of the police force along with his stupid efforts to defund the police has caused incredible spikes in all kinds of crime in the city.
As a result, many city residents have hit the road and moved out of the city as have many businesses.

Much like the mayor and politicians in Chicago discussed above, he does not seem to have any clue on how to fix what he has broken. This is pretty much verified by his recent idea on how to protect city employees:

Rather than fix the crime and violent criminal elements in the city, the mayor’s big idea is to have city employees have “travel buddies” as they travel to and from work.
This is especially true for those employees that use the subways as the subway system has become a focal point of increased city crime.
Part of the overall crime problem and the specific subway crime problem is a 2020 New York law that forced the judicial system to theoretically release criminals charged with non-violent crimes without bail or jail time.
Unfortunately, this law has some serious flaws as illustrated when a criminal suspect tried to push an undercover police officer onto the subway tracks.
The suspect was charged with harassment, aggravated harassment, and menacing with a racial overlay since the undercover officer was Asian-American.
Despite the criminal charges, the suspect was both arrested and released without bail the same day.
In the wake of this insanity the best de Blasio can come up with is a “travel buddy” system: “Our mission is to make New York City safer for everyone; that’s why we have transit officers and mental health teams in the subway system, and that’s why we’re spearheading this effort [travel buddies] to make our colleagues feel comfortable after a year away from the office,” de Blasio spokesman Mitch Schwartz, said in a statement.
He then tripped over his own logic when being interviewed, he said the subways were getting safer and more and more people were taking the subways to which the interviewer asked, “If everything is fine, why should people be buddying up?”
His response was pure political double talk with the conclusion that more people traveling in the subway will somehow make the criminal element go away.

Much like Chicago, clueless in New York on how to execute a basic function of government, protecting the lives of citizens.

3) Speaking of defunding the police and the resultant spike in crime in NYC, let’s revisit the birthplace of the “defund the police” movement, Minneapolis:

That city also saw a major spike in crime when it decided to defund its police force, much like de Blasio did to the NYPD.
Not surprisingly, after defunding the police, stripping it of officers and resources, city crime spiked significantly.
Things got so bad, that city council members, the ones that had voted to defund their police force, hired, using taxpayer money, private security guards to protect themselves, ordinary citizens' safety be damned.
As crime spiked, the council finally saw the error of its ways and decided to increase the funding of the police force to the tune of an additional $6.4 million.
But as a result of this circle jerk going from defunding to increasing the police force funding, crime went up and citizens started paying with their lives.
In a recent weekend, seven people were shot in a span of just 12 hours.
The mayor, Mayor Jacob Frey, has stepped in and has been holding meetings with community leaders to find any set of solutions to the increase in crime.
He also finally admitted that the defunding the police rhetoric and actions were at least partly responsible for the increase in crime: “The violence needs to stop, it’s unacceptable. People deserve to feel safe in their neighborhood, they deserve to be able to send their kids out to the sidewalk to play and to recreate without bullets flying by. That’s unacceptable. We should be holding those perpetrators accountable.”
One community leader, Pastor Dale Hume, knows what the real root cause of the crime problem is: “To people who think that the easy solution to this is defund the police, when you live here and something like this happens, you can obviously see that is not the solution."

Another city, another defund the police movement, another spike in crime and the agony and deaths that came with it. Looks like the political class across the country in major cities still cannot provide that basic function of government: protecting the lives of the citizens they serve.

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/Love-My-Country-Loathe-Government/dp/1604942789/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=love+my+country%2C+loathe+my+government&qid=1607716020&sr=8-1

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 
 

Saturday, November 7, 2020

November, 2020, Part 2, Political Class Insanity: Ocasio-Cortez Designer Clothes, The First Family Of NYC Wastes A Billion Dollars, and States Cannot Pay Their Bills

1) We used to blog a lot about Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez from New York City. Her ignorance and inane comments and plans were actually entertaining for a while as we wondered how anyone that naive about the world could be elected to Congress and actually vote on legislation.

However, over time her ranting and self-centeredness and inability to understand reality and numbers got really tiring. Thus, we haven't done a lot about her lately since it was the same ignorance, the same stupidity, and the same inability to ever have a decent solution to any problem, just empty ranting. But we cannot let the latest bit of hypocrisy from her go by unnoticed:

Recall in a previous post how she appeared at a public function about helping the poor and putting more socialism programs in place and yet was wearing a designer outfit that was priced at well over a thousand dollars, blatant hypocrisy.
Well, she is at it again.
She was recently featured on the cover of Vanity Fair magazine wearing a $14,000 outfit.
This behavior from someone who more than once portrayed herself as a friend of the working class and how she had a struggling background… until she could parade around in extremely expensive designer clothes.
While wearing such expensive clothes she still continues to try and pass herself as a “working woman, that it is “legitimately hard being a first-generation woman … and being working class, trying to navigate a professional environment. … It continues to take me so long to try to figure out how to look put-together without having a huge designer closet.”
Note that she does not deny she has a ”designer closet,” just that she doesn't have a “huge” designer closet.

I bet most of her constituents do not even have a “designer closet” of any size. Please, dress anyway you want, spend your money on any clothes, cheap or expensive that you want, but do not try to pass yourself off as a friend of the working class and the poor when you are wearing designer clothes that cost thousands and thousands of dollars.

2) Recently, we have been spending a lot of time reviewing the latest budget numbers of cities, states, and the Federal budget and the numbers in almost all cases are not good. Cities such as Chicago are likely to go bankrupt really soon, given the following financial death spiral realities:

Chicago cannot pay its own current bills, never mind paying down billions and billions of dollars of unfunded future financial liabilities.
Chicago is now the murder capital of the country which has endangered the lives of residents who are leaving the city much faster than people are moving into the city, taking their tax dollars with them and thus, making the city’s financial situation more bleak.
The inept mayor, Lori Lightfoot, has had to grovel at the feet of employers not to leave the city because of the safety of their employees and property, taking more tax dollars and jobs with them as they abandon the city.
The city’s municipal bond rating is just a shade above junk bond status meaning that it will be difficult for the city to finance its debt and revenue shortfalls with more debt.
And since Chicago's home state of Illinois is probably going to be the first state to go bankrupt, it cannot provide any financial relief to Chicago.

New York, San Francisco and other cities are not much better off. But the cities are not the only government entities that are in serious financial shape:

The watchdog group, Truth In Accounting, recently released its annual report, “Financial State of the States.”
According to standard accounting practices, the report found that 39 states, (78%) did not have enough money coming in via taxes to pay off their bills.
Total unpaid bills amounted to a whopping $1.4 TRILLION at the end of fiscal year 2019 BEFORE the added expenses of the covid fight kicked in.
The report estimates that the states will see their 2020 fiscal year revenue reduced by just under $400 billion, making their ability to pay their bills in 2020 even more difficult.
The states with the biggest unpaid bill problem are New Jersey, Illinois, Connecticut, Hawaii, and Massachusetts.

Since we have predicted that Illinois will be the first state to go bankrupt and that New Jersey will be one of the states that will quickly follow Illinois into bankruptcy, it is no surprise they are the top two states that cannot pay their bills.

3) Maybe one of the reasons that cities and states are going bankrupt is that they cannot keep track of the money they spend in order to decide if it is going to the right functions to address the right problems. Such is the case of New York City, our choice for the second most likely city to go bankrupt after Chicago.

It appears that the mayor’s wife is having trouble explaining how almost a billion dollars of city tax money not only went missing but failed to come close to fulfilling the objectives the money was intended for:

Mayor Bill de Blasoi’s wife, Chirlane McCray, is in charge of a city mental health project.
But according to reporting by the Daily Mail, she cannot adequately explain where and how her program has spent $850 million worth of taxpayer money.
In the three years it took to spend the $850 million, the organization she heads, ThriveNYC, has generally been unable or unwilling to document how that money was spent and whether or not it actually did any good.
ThriveNYC was supposed to have 417 metrics to measure its performance but according to reporting by Politico, the data for those metrics is minimal and what data does exist shows what a gigantic failure the program was.
For example, one of the metrics was to screen 78,000 new mothers a year for post natal depression.
But in a recent two year period, the program did not screen the 156,000 it was supposed to screen but screened just over 28,000, only 18% of the target.
Even worse, it was supposed to help 12,000 to 15,000 new mothers over that time and ended up treating only 570, a tiny fraction of its metric goal.
In another example, the organization records showed it had given out 190,000 MARCAN kits to those in need of opioid treatment but there is no record of how many of those kits were used and how many addicted people it helped.

Despite the failures, despite the shoddy bookkeeping and results tracking, the program has been given more funding and will spend over a billion dollars very shortly over its life with very little success to show for it. But that is how politics works, put a program out there, fund it, not have a clue whether it works or not and then fund with more taxpayer money. Insanity.

4) But it is not just de Blasio’s wife that wastes NYC taxpayer funds, apparently the mayor recently conceded that he also wasted a huge chunk of taxpayer funds:

Three years ago, de Blasio put aside a whopping $773 million dollars to improve 100 of the city’s worst schools.
After three years, that $773 million was only good enough to improve 25 schools to a degree that they were not considered the worst performing city schools.
Thus, on average, $7.73 million was spent on each school and only 25 of them showed any significant improvement despite having a whopping $7 million or so poured into each of them.
Adding insult to injury, 25 of those 100 worst schools were just closed or merged with other schools despite $7 million spent on each of them on average.

Even de Blasio knew when the failure was too great to continue, having recently terminated the program that has failed so miserably.

States cannot pay their bills, the First Family of New York wastes over $1 billion of taxpayer money, and Ocasio-Cortez’s hypocrisy and high fashion maintenance continues unabated. The inability of the American political class to do anything right continues to amaze and disappoint.

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

Love My Country, Loathe My Government