May, 2017, Part 7, Political Class Insanity: Bad Chicago Priorities and The Height Hypocrisy In California

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.

Today and for all of the insanity posts this month, let’s start off with a welcome piece of honest political dialog. It comes from a State Department spokesperson. Mark Toner, who is about to start the daily State Department press briefing. In a joking matter, he makes the following quote: "Welcome to the State Department. I think we have some interns in the back. Welcome. Good to see you in this exercise in transparency and democracy."

He then burst out laughing at his own quote, indicating he also knew what a joke the Obama administration has been, especially Mr. Toner’s State Department, when it comes to cover ups, lack of transparency, denial of Freedom of Information Act requests, the prosecution of whistleblowers, etc. But at least it was a little refreshing to finally hear some actual honesty out of Washington as we see from the actual clip of the news conference:

http://www.againstcronycapitalism.org/2016/08/when-even-the-state-department-spokesperson-cant-keep-a-straight-face-about-things-anymore-video/

With that context of honesty, let’s see what other insanity has been going down:

1) Political class insanity is not restricted to Washington politicians. Local politicians can also be insane, idiotic, and have wacked out priorities. Such is the case in Chicago and their mayor, Rahm Emanuel. 

Apparently, several pages were recently removed from the EPA’s website that were related to climate change. This is obviously the prerogative of the Trump administration after their election victory last year and the fact that many, many Americans, including myself, are global warming doubters and believers in science. We do want to have unproven theories shoved down our throat when those that advocate for manmade global warming and climate change only consider science, research, and statistics that favor their position, ignoring all information and science to the contrary.

But according to a recent report on the Independent Journal Review website written by Mike Miller, the good mayor of Chicago took it upon himself to resurrect those deleted website pages of the EPA website and reinstate them on the Chicago city website. Now, this is certainly his prerogative to do so, being elected by the good people of Chicago but one has to question his priorities. Given the horrendous crime and violence conditions in his city, shouldn’t the good mayor be focused on the day to day conditions that affect his citizens that he is supposed to represent rather than spending time and city resources on a climate theory that gets weaker and weaker as more and more science shows that massive man made global warming and climate change is closer to a myth than a reality? 

The reaction to this misplaced set of priorities was swift and ruthless onTwitter: 

• Vinnie Nilsen reminded Emanuel that in 2016 that Chicago had 3,550 shootings, 4,331 shooting victims, and 726 murders and that “2017 isn’t looking any better.”
• ABC News in Chicago reminded the mayor that in April, 2017 alone there were 45 killed in Chicago.
• The Chicago Sun Times reminded the mayor that 4 residents were killed and 17 wounded during just a single recent weekend.
• “Jack” reminded the mayor that there have been over 200 murders in Chicago already this year.
• Actor James Woods sarcastically asked if the new climate change web pages were listed before the Chicago murder rate page?
• Duckwacker also got sarcastic and claimed that people are killed by global warming in Chicago every day.
• Chuck Flynn suggested that “Maybe Rahm should change the climate of The Southside of Chicago. Maybe he'd see a reduction in murders.”
• According to the Hey Jackass website, in a recent weekend 38 Chicago residents were shot, three were killed and as of the first week in May, the year-to-date carnage has been 195 people killed and 907 wounded in the city.

Does anyone really think that the majority of Chicago residents, if asked, would approve of the mayor using his time and city resources worrying about global warming and climate change when they themselves and their kids are in such mortal danger every single day of their lives? This is nothing more than the rearranging of the chairs on the Titanic syndrome. The mayor is in his second term and if anything, the murder rate, crime, and violence has gotten worse as his administration has progressed.

Obviously, he has no clue on how to fix the real, immediate problems of the city so he wastes his time and attention span on a silly website and climate statement, actions that will not protect the next set of hundreds of Chicago residents that will die at the hand of gun violence in the remainder of the year. In this case, the political class insanity is fatal and dangerous for an entire city of people.

2) Let’s move from local political class insanity to state level political class insanity in California. It is no secret that the current governor and most of the current state politicians in California are so upset because Trump is enforcing existing immigration laws relative to illegal immigrants, a group of people that California politicians seem to idolize and coddle, often at the expense of the welfare and taxpayer dollars of tax paying California residents.

They certainly object to the fact that Trump promised to build a wall to restrict illegal immigration, and a lot of the crime that comes with it, and putting in place temporary travel bans on people traveling from a few terrorist infected countries, ticking off the California political class to no end. As with Rahm Emanuel in Chicago, that is certainly the prerogative of California politicians since they are duly elected representatives of the citizens of that state.

But consider what the governor and others in California are doing against their own citizens and then try to convince me that they are not hypocrites, taking the same type of actions that Trump is taking but perpetrating them on their own citizens and Americans:

• According to a recent article on the American Daily Patriot website, California is imposing its own travel ban on its own citizens.
• According to Samantha Roberts, writing on May 1, 2017, a new state law bans universities from sending students to states that oppose gay rights including California university students who travel to such states to present their research or participate in athletic contests.
• Specifically, “The athletes have been told not to be too excited about competitions with teams from states like Kansas, Tennessee or North Carolina.”
• The law applies to all California university students and staff regardless of their personalities or beliefs on gay rights.
• “The LA Times reported that the new the new California law bans state-funded travel specifically to any state that the California attorney general lists as discriminating against the LGBT community.”
• The law, for instance, has already scuttled the plans for the UC Berkeley and University of Kansas men's basketball teams to meet in a series of basketball games in future seasons.

Insanity? Has does punishing current California students and faculty in academics and athletics open up adult, mature conversations about the issues of our times? Do California politicians actually think that other states are going to change their laws and attitudes because a California professor cannot present his findings and research or an athletic team is banned from traveling to that state? 

How is this not the height of hypocrisy, complaining about a temporary travel ban that Trump might place on the travel of non-citizens from a few countries that have known terrorist ties to a permanent law that bans innocent Americans from enriching themselves and others with travels to other states simply because those states and the residents of those states have a different opinion that an California politicians? 

Disgusting and repugnant to affect innocent researchers, professors, and student athletes in a futile attempt to be holier than thou.

That will do it for today’s insanity but we still have a lot more to get through for this month’s dose of insanity over the next week or so so stay tuned.

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

December, 2016, Part 7, Poltiical Class Insanity: Pelosi and Biden Get Delusional, Obama's Vacations Expensively, and More Chicago Vioelnce

It has been almost a month since Donald Trump has been elected which means at some point in the future we may run out of material to talk about. With the demise of the Obama administration, eight years worth of wasteful and excessive spending for nothing in return, foreign affairs blunders, Obama Care disasters, and assorted other administration and government blunders and screwups might end with the onset of a new administration. Trump may usher in a new paradigm of government actions that are limited, effective, cost efficient, and protective of the Constitution. If so, then this blog would run out of material to discuss and would have to be shut down.

But I doubt it. Even if Trump is truly a different type of President, he is still fighting over 500 embedded and entrenched politicians in Congress and thousands and thousands of government bureaucrats who will not go peacefully into the night for the good of the country. I wish him well and hopefully he can fix at least some of the myriad of problems the American political class creates everyday but until then, enjoy the latest political class insanity from Washington and beyond:

1) Earlier this month we reviewed a series of posts where we proved that the Obama administration could have been the worst administration in my lifetime. That seven part series started at the following link:

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2016/11/retro-1-part-1-obama-presidency-end-of.html

The present administration was so bad that the Democrats, of which President Obama and Vice President Biden are the de facto leaders, just got their hats handed to them in early November when the Republicans took control of both houses of Congress and the Presidency. One would think that the message would have gotten across that Obama and Biden have not been good for either the country or the Democratic Party.

But apparently that reality did not yet reach Joe Biden. According to a December 5, 2016 NewsMax article by Solange Reyner, Biden recently announced that he could very well run for President in 2020 to oppose Donald Trump. A few real pieces of insanity with this vain wish:

• The Obama administration has not ended yet and already he is talking about the next Presidential race: hasn’t the country suffered enough and doesn’t it need some time to recover?
• Biden is currently 74 years old and would be 78 years old in 2020. Nothing about older Americans but I am not sure that a 78 year old could withstand the pressures and stress of being President.
• Who says anyone wants Biden as President? He has already run and failed twice to become President, never getting past the Democratic nominating process.
• And the biggest question of all, who even thinks that he is qualified, based on the past quotes of idiocy he has uttered:

http://politicalhumor.about.com/od/joebiden/a/top-10-biden-quotes.htm

Included in those quotes is his infamous racist quote where he avows that every 7-11 or Dunkin Donuts location is owned and operated by someone of Indian descent who speaks with an Indian accent. Hasn’t the country suffered enough with Joe Biden front and center?

2) Remember when Obama promised he would not take any vacations if elected President, that he would devote 24 hours of every day to the affairs and welfare of Americans, sacrificing vacations to do so:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68WS5B19LC4

That assertion almost looks comical now in light of a recent Washington Examiner article by Paul Bedard on December 5, 2016, an article that reported that the Obama family has already spent over $85 million on family travel and vacations over the past eight years, averaging well over $10 million a year in taxpayer funded vacations:

• The government watchdog group, Judicial Watch, has been tracking Obama's vacations since day one.
• The last Obama family Christmas trip to Hawaii cost almost $5 million and with the family planning to return to Hawaii this Christmas season the possibility of the Obama First Family spending $90 million on vacations is a real possibility.
• These costs do NOT include the costs of positioning ships and aircraft in the area for protection of any incremental communications costs.
• Judicial Watch: “Judicial Watch announced today that it obtained records from the U.S. Secret Service revealing that its travel expenses for the First Family's 2015 Hawaiian vacation cost taxpayers $1.2 million, which bring the total cost of the vacation trip to at least $4.8 million. This was the Obamas' eighth Hawaiian family vacation. The trip has become an annual event for the Obamas. To date, Obama's and his family's travel expenses total at least $85,029,819.”
• Just the Secret Service costs of the Obamas’ Hawaiian vacations come out to over $1.2 million per year.
• The Secret Service rented 103 cars for the Obamas’ most recent Hawaiian vacation at a cost of $165,893.88.

$85 million in vacation expenses and counting is a long away from his promise of taking no vacations if elected President. 

3) We have often and tragically pointed out how Chicago has the the some of the toughest gun control laws in the country but still has some of the highest murder and violent crime rates in the country, leading one to hypothesize that having strong gun control laws actually contributes to more violence and higher crime rates.

This hypothesis gets stronger every week when we often report on the carnage and victim toll from gun violence in Chicago. Nick Kangadis, writing for the MRCTV website on December 5, 2016, recently tallied up the latest death toll:

• So far in 2016 Chicago has had almost double the number of shooting victims than New York City and L.A. combined.
• This comparison was done based on statistics compiled by the Chicago Police Department and the Chicago Tribune.
• Through November 27, 2016 Chicago had experienced 3,289 shooting incidents which resulted in 4,122 people being killed or wounded in those shooting incidents.
• During that same period, New York City had experienced 907 shooting incidents and 1,077 shooting victims.
• L.A. does not shoot incidents but did report during the same period that there had been 1,063 shooting victims.
• Thus, the combined shooting victim count of New York City and L.A. of 2,140 is just barely over half of Chicago’s 4,122 shooting victims.

In light of this carnage, what does Mayor Rahm Emanuel want to do? You guessed, increase the amount of gun control laws in the city. Maybe if he concentrated on curbing the drug cartel influence or improving schools or improving policing methods or increasing non-criminal economic activity and opportunities, things would get a little less violent. But those actions require strategic thinking and bold innovative thinking and planning, something that the American and Chicago political class have always lacked.

Oh, as an update, in the first weekend in December another three Chicago residents were killed and 28 more wounded. The good news is that these numbers are down from the Thanksgiving weekend before when 9 people were killed and 60 were wounded. The bad news is that the relatively light carnage in the first weekend in December was likely caused by a heaving snowfall on Sunday which may have suppressed the killing and wounding.

4) And if the news that Joe Biden thinks he is a viable Presidential candidate in 2020 seems quite delusional, consider what are favorite inane quote machine Nancy Pelosi recently said on Face The Nation regarding the national and voter mood that was manifested in the November elections: 

Face The Nation Host: “The Democratic Party is in a moment of questioning about its identity. You were reelected to lead the Democrats in the House. What do you tell Democrats who want a new direction and then, go to you, what are you going to do differently?”

PELOSI: “Well, I don’t think people want a new direction. 

Let’s review, Ms. Pelosi: The Democrats are so inept that they allowed a total political novice, Donald Trump, to beat a former Senator, former Secretary of State and former First Lady. The Democrats are so inept that they have allowed the Republicans to take control of both houses in Congress for the first time in ten years. If Democrats do not want a new direction than that is the height of insanity, especially if they look at what has happened since 2008, a time period where you were either the Speaker of the House of the Minority leader in the House:

If you are right, doubtful, that Democrats do not want a new direction then they are totally out of touch with reality.

That will do it for today’s insanity. Two fading politicians, Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi, who are delusionally out of touch with reality, a President who somehow averages $10 million a year in taxpayer funded vacations even though he promised never to take a vacation, and Chicago politicians still without an answer to the carnage in the strictest gun control city in America.

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

October, 2016, Part 1, Political Class Insanity: More Corruption In Afghanistan, More Inetpness In Veterans Affairs, Poorer Americans 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.

The current monthly record for the number of posts that were needed to cover one month's worth of insanity is ten. We equaled that record last month when we needed ten days to cover one month’s worth of political class insanity. There is a very good chance that the ten day record could fall this month since as we get closer and closer to the election, the volume of ineptness grows almost exponentially. 

But today and for all of the insanity posts this month, let’s start off with a welcome piece of honest political dialog. It comes from a State Department spokesperson. Mark Toner, who is about to start the daily State Department press briefing. In a joking matter, he makes the following quote: "Welcome to the State Department. I think we have some interns in the back. Welcome. Good to see you in this exercise in transparency and democracy." 

He then burst out laughing at his own quote, indicating he also knew what a joke the Obama administration has been, especially Mr. Toner’s State Department, when it comes to cover ups, lack of transparency, denial of Freedom of Information Act requests, the prosecution of whistleblowers, etc. But at least it was a little refreshing to finally hear some actual honesty out of Washington as we see from the actual clip of the news conference:

http://www.againstcronycapitalism.org/2016/08/when-even-the-state-department-spokesperson-cant-keep-a-straight-face-about-things-anymore-video/

With that context of honesty, let’s see what other insanity has been going down:

1) Unfortunately, it seems we have to review this topic every month as local and Washington politicians obviously still have no answer to the gun and drug cartel violence that is racking Chicago every day and every week of every month. According to Robert Gehl writing for the Federalist Papers on September 25, 2016, in a recent 24 hour period, 22 people were shot and two died. This adds to the record number of people that have been shot and killed already this year in Chicago, three months before the year is over.

Victims included a 16 year old boy, a 17 year old boy, and two women who were just walking down the street. In the face of these incidents and violence, Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel recently gave what was called a “big speech” on violent Chicago crime levels. Apparently, his big speech was accompanied with his tears and little in the form of creative and ground breaking, effective solutions. 

As we have often pointed out, the city with the most stringent of gun control laws has the most violent crime in the country, proving that past politician attempts to resolve the problem via gun control has not worked and they have no alternative plans in place.

2) The Convention of States website did a quick review of the massive waste of taxpayer wealth in all aspects of the Afghanistan occupation by U.S. troops. John Spoko, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, recently released a new report that shows in detail how untold billions of dollars were lost to fraud, were given outright to corrupt local warlords, and ended up in the hands of terrorists that were fighting American and government troops.

According to Spoko: “Considering that more than 2,300 Americans have died in Afghanistan and that Congress has appropriated nearly $115 billion for Afghanistan reconstruction -- a number that does not include [the estimated $680 billion] spent on U.S. military operations there -- it would be an absolute dereliction of duty not to try to extract lessons from 15 years of struggle.” Unfortunately, this corruption has existed through two full terms of two Presidents over the past 15 years, all of which has resulted in a still broken country that will likely collapse once U.S. troops leave, resulting in the total waste of upwards of a trillion dollars.

3) We often the debate the question of which Federal government agency or organization is the most inept, ineffective, and haven for wasteful spending. Morgan Chalfant, writing for the Washington Free Beacon, provided more evidence that the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) continues to be a leading candidate for most dysfunctional government agency. According to the reporting:

• The VA wastes billions of dollars every year on contracts for services and goods without giving those contracts and purchases proper oversight and management.
• The Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that the VA, which has spent at least $46 billion on procurement in just the past three years, is managing procurement contracts using “outdated and fragmented policies.”
• In addition, the GAO auditors found “shortcomings in the VA’s data systems, policies, oversight, acquisition workforce, and contract management related to the agency’s multi-billion-dollar procurement program.”
• Unfortunately, as we have found with other dysfunctional government agencies, the VA has been repeatedly told of their shortcomings over the years in this area and apparently did not fix what had been pointed out to them, resulting in the continued waste of billions of dollars: “This GAO report shows VA’s contracting operations are as dysfunctional as ever. This is the same sort of bureaucratic bungling that led to the massive VA procurement scandal that was exposed in 2015,” Congressman Jeff Miller (R., Fla.), chair of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, told the Washington Free Beacon. “The fact that VA can’t seem to stop mismanaging resources underscores the agency’s lack of respect for taxpayer dollars. Given VA’s abysmal accountability track record, it’s unlikely the department will hold any employees accountable for this mismanagement, leaving veterans and taxpayers to foot the bill.” 

Imagine how more more veterans could get quality health care, that many do not get today, if those billions of wasted dollars could be directed to their care and medical needs? Billions of dollars could buy a lot more medical capabilities for our vets, as pointed out by Shaun Rieley, an analyst at Concerned Veterans For America: “The VA continues to be buried in red tape and bureaucracy, and cost efficiency is not a top priority for the self-serving bureaucrats who work there. Until real VA accountability is enacted, American veterans will continue receiving poor service and American taxpayers will continue getting short-changed.”

The article says that Congress will get involved but Congress has been involved with the VA problems for years and apparently they have not been able to fix anything despite their faux horror and surprise whenever a new VA scandal arises.

4) While the VA is often cited here as a top incompetent government function, the Federal food stamp/food assistance program is usually right there when it comes to incompetence. We have often reported on how store owners across the country have conspired with food stamp recipients who trade their food stamp credits for cash from the retailers, who then redeem the food stamps even though no food products were exchanged.

But apparently, food stamp fraud is not restricted to humble store owners and their customers. David McIntosh, writing for the American News website on September 16, 2016, reported on how an immigrant from Iran has been living the good life while taking food stamp assistance from American taxpayers. Ali Pascal Mahvi owns a whopping 8,000 square foot home in Ohio, a home that has horses on site, an inground swimming pool, and a set of sports cars in the garage.

But he has been taking in food stamps from the Federal government despite his obvious wealth. Fortunately, he was finally caught but one has to ask how did he get away with collecting any Federal welfare benefits when he was living, let me say it again, in an 8,000 square foot house? Don’t the Feds have any kind of screening protocol that says if someone is living in a neighborhood with 8,000 square foot houses may not deserve food stamps? Insanity.

5) One last piece of political class insanity for today. The Obama administration overspent its tax collections by an amazing $10 TRILLION over the past eight years. It has imposed thousands and thousands of new regulations on businesses in this country, hindering the economy from growing and creating new job opportunities. His Obama Care legislation imposed taxes and businesses restrictions and hassles on every American, depressing economic growth.

As a result of his mismanagement of the economy, Businessweek reported this week that “From 2008 to 2014, the share of the U.S. population living in poverty grew by 11%.” This time period covers a majority of the Obama recovery from the recession and occurred even though Obama had the benefit of an $800 billion (failed) economic stimulus program, unexpected and record low energy costs, and trillions of dollars from the Fed to stimulate the economy. Pathetic management of the economy despite having three tailwinds of economic stimulus and a lot of Americans are poorer because of this ineptness.

This gets us started on which is likely to be a long series of political class insanity. More tomorrow.

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:

Term Limits Now: http://www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com
http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.bankruptingamerica.org
http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

May, 2016, Part 10, Political Class Insanity: The Political Fiasco That Is 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. In fact, last month we set a record, needing ten full posts to cover it all.

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.

It looks like our politicians have been especially insane over the past month or so let’s get started, with a focus today on Chicago’s politicians and the fiasco they have created for the good people of the Windy City:

In the Briefing section of the May 13, 2016 issue of The Week magazine, we get an idea of how bad things have gotten in Chicago:

• Chicago has a lower credit rating than any other American city with the exception of Detroit.
• The Chicago unemployment rate at 6.1% is twenty percent higher than the national unemployment rate and dead last among the 51 largest U.S. metro areas.
• The city has a whopping $20 billion in unfunded pension debt liabilities for city employees’ pensions.
• Just this infunded debt load would theoretically cost every resident of Chicago, both kids and adults, about $8,700 each to cover the liability.
• Violent city crime is at its highest rate in decades with over 1,000 people in the city already having been shot this year.
• 141 people were killed in the city in the first quarter of this year vs. 82 in the same period in 2015 despite having the strictest gun control laws in the land.
• Chicago became the murder capital of the country when 470 people were murdered in 2015.
• Chicago lost more jobs between 2000 and 2010 than the largest ten American cities during that period.
• Between 1990 and 2012 white Chicago residents saw their incomes rise 33% on average while black Chicago residents saw their incomes drop 4% on average.
• The black resident poverty rate and unemployment rate are twice those of white residents.
• A recent report found that 47% black men in the city aged between 20 and 24 were out of school and out of work, 15% higher than the national average.
• Chicago is recognized as one of the most corrupt cities in the country.
• Chicago schools are bad from a performance perspective and are likely underfunded for the job they have to do.
• On top of all of this bad news, many in the city believe that it has a violent and out of control police force requiring tighter police oversight.
• This attitude has made the police much more cautious, so much so that in the first quarter of 2016 they have stopped, frisked, or questioned about one eighth the number of people they did in 2015.
• The mayor, Rahm Emanuel, was re-elected with 56% of the vote in the last election while now a majority of city residents think he should resign.
• In addition to these violence and employment woes, the city politicians put in effect at least a dozen new taxes for 2016 including raising the city sales tax rate to an obscene 10.25%, increased property taxes, a new tax on Netflix like services, and many, many more.

You probably could not do a worst job managing a city’s affairs than the job that the Chicago political class has done. High taxes with little to show for it. Lack of quality performance from its schools and police force. Extremely high taxes which is probably contributing to a death spiral of higher tax rates and lower tax collections as the wealthier residents leave the city to avoid the high city tax burden, leaving behind the less wealthy to carry more of a rising tax burden. What a disaster.

It is no secret that the Chicago political class has been a closed and corrupt set of people for decades and decades. And this is what happens when here is corruption in the DNA of a city’s politicians that are protected from term limits. But typical of American politicians, enriching themselves while failing to protect the rights, wealth, freedom and safety of the citizens they represent.

And keep in mind that these problems arose when Obama was heralding what a great job he personally did to revive the economy. Imagine what happens to Chicago when the next recession comes about.

And Chicago is not representative of the country. Forbes recently ran an article about the 15 quickest growing metro areas. These cities are gaining population and growing vibrantly as compared to Chicago. And one thing jumps out when you look at these 15 fast growing metro areas: almost half of them, seven out of fifteen, are located in Texas and Florida, states that have a tax burden that is significantly lower than the tax burden in Chicago. Other growing metro areas are in other states with lower tax burdens. 

Which proves again to not only Chicago politicians but Washington politicians also: higher taxes rarely results in a better quality of life for the citizens that today’s politicians represent. It may result in a better quality of life for politicians but not for ordinary citizens. Chicago proves it: despite higher and higher tax rates and taxes, the quality of life of the city’s people continues to go down, it’s the political class way of life.

More insanity tomorrow on the political class insanity that permeates and infects our lives every day.

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:

Term Limits Now: http://www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com
http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.bankruptingamerica.org
http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

Part 6, August, 2013 Political Class Insanity: The Nine Most Likely Cities In America To Follow Detroit Down The Fiscal Drain, Courtesy Of The American Political Class

This is the sixth list this month in our monthly series of political class insanity. This insanity takes many different forms and includes wasteful spending, stupid/idiotic quotes, ineffective or no solutions for citizens’ issues, and operation of inefficient and ineffective governments. Unfortunately, the pace of insanity seems to be accelerating every month with no relief in sight.

Today, we will focus on the horrible government economics of government entities around the country, the horror created by short sighted, greedy, and corrupt members of the American political class. Apparently, bad financial management is not unique to Detroit politicians. While reviewing the following list of impending government disasters, keep in mind that some politicians in government want to send money to Detroit to bail it out of its incompetence. 

This would be a very bad idea since Detroit is highly unlikely to be the only victim of its' politicians. Would all of these other impending disasters also be given bailout relief from other taxpayers? And if not, who would decide what government entities are rescued, at least temporarily, and which ones would be allowed to die off. 

Kind of like what the Federal government and Washington politicians did during the Great Recession, arbitrarily deciding which banks died (Lehman Brothers, Bear Sterns, etc.) and which lived (Citi Bank, Bank Of America, etc.), usually basing their decisions on how much campaign funding each banking entity gave them in the previous election.

So, let’s get started. Most informed Americans now know that political incompetence, economic ignorance, and widespread political corruption have led Detroit to declare bankruptcy when it reached the obvious conclusion that it had neither the assets or tax revenue stream to resolve the debt, economic, and cultural hole the local politicians had dug for the city. 

But Detroit was neither the first major city to declare municipal bankruptcy (e.g. Stockton, California had already declared bankruptcy) or, according to an article from the Washington Examiner, the last. The article reviewed the work of Moody's Investors Service, a major bond-rating agency, which recently issued a report identifying 9 mostly famous and large sized American cities that are in trouble from a of credit-worthiness perspective. 

In general, the most dire, underlying problem affecting the financial viability of these cities is their underfunded and over promised pension liabilities for retired city employees. Moody‘s pointed out in their analysis that many of these cities‘ pension liability calculations may be severely deficient and are reporting pension funding levels that are not correct

"The purpose of the [analysis] adjustments is to provide greater transparency and comparability in pension liability measures for use in credit analysis," said Timothy Blake, a Moody's managing director.

The article makes sure to point out that the following cities are not facing immediate danger of going into bankruptcy. However, the Moody’s analysis should be a danger sign for the following cities’ voters and citizens because they are the ones that are going to get hit with the consequences of any bankruptcy fallout.

Highlights of the Moody’s analysis singles out the following nine American cities as being on shaky economic and pension funding grounds, all the result of political class greed and incompetence:

Chicago

- Moody's downgraded The Windy City's credit rating by three notches in mid-July.
- The primary reason for the downgrade is the $19 billion in unfunded pension debt.
- In an ominous sign, the Chicago mayor, Rahm Emanuel, has told Chicago city employees that they should sign up for Obama Care’s health insurance exchanges, with the implication being that the city will try to find a way to dump the health care insurance of the city’ employees onto the Federal government and Federal taxpayer to save money.
- As proof of this likely need, the article cites a Pew study that  reports Chicago's retiree health benefits are exactly 0% funded. In other words, not a single dollar has been set aside in savings against a future $1 billion health care insurance liability.
- Since Illinois is facing a $97 billion unfunded pension liability of its own, it is highly unlikely that the state government is going to bailout the city of Chicago.

Portland, Oregon

- Moody's has found a slew of economic problems in Portland since it is reviewing the city's credit rating for its general obligation bonds, tax obligation bonds, housing bonds and redevelopment bonds. 
- The article quotes another Pew analysis that shows Portland "had virtually no assets" to offset unfunded liabilities of $2.3 billion just for its pension and disability plan for police and firefighters. 
- In other words, the city is paying for the retirement costs of those uniformed employees on a pay-as-you-go basis, meaning its politicians have not been able or willing to stow away funding in past years for future retirement needs of these city employees.

Omaha, Nebraska

- Omaha has managed to ring up more than $1.4 billion in pension liabilities and it has only enough cash saved to pay about 43% of those costs, according to Pew.

Minneapolis, Minnesota

- Minneapolis could be facing a credit downgrade from Moody's in the near future.
- The city has more than $700 million in unfunded pension liabilities, causing Moody’s to take another look at the city‘s financials and general obligation debt

Cincinnati, Ohio

- Moody's recently downgraded Cincinnati, as a follow up to when its analysis placed the city on the list of possible downgrades back in April.
- Not surprisingly, Moody’s cited pension debt as the main reason for dropping the credit rating for Cincinnati's bonds.
- "The outlook on the city of Cincinnati is negative, reflecting our expectation that the city will continue to face budgetary pressure stemming from required pension contributions to the City Retirement System and potential long-term pressure from its exposure to statewide, multi-employer, cost-sharing pension plans," Moody's wrote.
- The city's unfunded pension liability tops $700 million.

Providence, R.I.

- Although  not facing an immediate downgrade from Moody’s, according to the article, the city has one of the worst-funded pension systems of any major city in the U.S.
- Its pension funding ratio, the percentage of pension debt versus current assets to pay those debts, of 42%, makes Providence's pension mess even worse than Chicago's.
- The city may have recognized that its financials are in bad shape since 1) it recently suspended annual cost-of-living adjustments for city employee retirees and 2) now requires all former workers older than 65 to switch to Medicare instead of receiving health benefits from the city. Thus, much like Chicago, the city is looking for ways to dump its municipal costs onto the Federal government taxpayer.

Trenton, N.J.

- Moody's is currently reviewing general obligation bonds issued by Trenton's public school system.
- A downgrade on those school bonds would follow in the footsteps of a citywide ratings downgrade that hit in 2011.
- Much like Chicago, Trenton may not be able to get help from other government entities since the home county of Trenton, Mercer County, had its credit rating knocked down a notch by Moody's earlier in 2013.

Santa Fe, New Mexico

- In putting Santa Fe "on notice" a few months ago, Moody's noted the severity of the city's pension problems. Moody's ranked the city of Santa Fe as the worst in the country, saying it has net pension liabilities equal to six times its operating revenue.
- Moody's is also reviewing two other cities in New Mexico and the credit rating for Santa Fe County.

Charleston, W.Va.

- Like Providence, Charleston is another state capital that made the articles top nine list of infamy despite not attracting direct scrutiny from Moody's -- right now. 
- The reason the city made this list is that Charleston has the worst-funded pension system of any major city in the United States, possessing only 24% of the necessary funds to cover its $337 million in pension debt.
- Like Chicago and Trenton,  Charleston won't be able to look to other levels of government for help. Its home state of West Virginia is dealing with its own pension crisis with only Illinois having a worst funded ratio of its state pension plans.

Sad, sad, sad. Short term thinking politicians have been making silly and financially dangerous concessions to city unions over the decades to ensure that they have union support when election time rolls around. Now, those checks and promises are coming due and the resources and tax streams are nowhere to be found.

Tomorrow, we will look at even more political class insanity in this area where we review other government entities in detail that are likely to pull a “Detroit” in the next few years. They cannot all be bailed out by the Federal government and Federal taxpayer, there are just too many cases of political promises run amok. And whenever that happens, it is the average taxpaying citizens that get screwed, not the culprits at city hall, in the state house, and in Washington.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

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:

Term Limits Now: http://www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com
http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w 

April, 2013 Political Class Insanity, Part 1: Snail Sex, Puppet Funding, and More

It’s the beginning of another month which always means the start of another set of posts related to political class insanity. Last month we set a record for the number of posts required to cover all of the latest stupidity, wasteful, spending and insanity from the American political class, beginning with the following post:

http://www.loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2013/03/february-2013-political-class-insanity.html

I do not think we will need as many posts this month to cover the latest insanity. This is not because the political class is getting any smarter or better but because we covered a lot of the insanity, mostly wasteful spending escapades, with the following three Chicken Little posts in March:

http://www.loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2013/03/chicken-little-and-washington-political.html

http://www.loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2013/03/chicken-little-and-washington-political_26.html

http://www.loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2013/04/chicken-little-and-washington-political.html

The remaining, undiscussed insanity starts below:

1) According to a recent U.S. News and World Report article from March 28, 2013, The Federal judicial districts that contain Chicago, Los Angeles and New York City RANKED LAST in terms of Federal gun law enforcement in 2012 despite having some of the toughest gun control laws in the nation. These conclusions come from a research effort conducted by Syracuse University's Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, which tracks Federal data.

Federal gun crimes that seem to get neglected in areas with tough gun control laws include illegal possession of a firearm in a school zone, illegal sale of a firearm to a juvenile, felon, or drug addict, and illegal transport of a firearm across state lines. The Federal districts of Eastern New York, Central California, and Northern Illinois ranked 88th, 89th and 90th, respectively, out of 90 districts, in prosecutions of Federal weapons crimes per capita last year.

It wasn't always this way. All three districts now fare lower on the list than they had been in years past. In 2010, for instance, Chicago was 78th in Federal weapons prosecutions. Thus, the longer the tougher gun control laws are on the books, the less and less likely these districts prosecute gun offenders.

In a final twist or irony, not only to these cities also have some of the nation's most restrictive gun laws, they are also run by some of the most active mayors in championing gun control. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa are all members of the national Mayors Against Illegal Guns campaign.

Two thoughts here:

1. Maybe we should start to prosecute criminals under the gun control laws before unnecessarily shredding the Second Amendment with more laws.
2. Maybe we should go back to the core problem that started this whole disaster, the Newtown school shooting and focus on protecting our kids today rather than endlessly debating gun control legislation that is unlikely to make any difference, given that existing laws are ignored and thus, make no difference.

2) I had come across a number of articles claiming that the Federal government had recently spent millions and millions of dollars supporting puppet and marionette efforts across the country, many of which came out of the failed economic stimulus program that Obama wasted over $800 billion on. I found it quite a stretch of the imagination that our politicians in Washington would waste our tax wealth on such trivial matters when there were so many larger issues to tackle.

Well, I was wrong. Following up on these articles led me to an official government website that tracks all government spending by topic:

www.usaspending.gov

This website bills itself as “Government spending at your fingertips.” Given that it is owned and managed by the Federal government, I thought it would be a good place to prove that politicians are not wasting millions of dollars on puppets. Unfortunately, when I typed the word “puppet” into the site’s search function, the following data and information flowed back to me:

• There were 121 instances listed in the website where Federal dollars had been spent or granted to projects involving puppets.
• These 121 cases wasted over $2.9 million worth of taxpayer wealth, enough money to keep the White House tour tradition funded for three years.
• For some reason almost 40% of the $2.9 million went to entities in just two states, Georgia and Illinois.
• These puppet grants were doled out from a variety of different Federal departments including, but not limited to, the Defense Department, the National Science Foundation, the National Endowment for The Arts, the Department of Commerce, proving that this puppet nonsense spending is not confined to one Federal branch of government.

Insanity, such bad priorities, why is the American taxpayer’s wealth going to such inane programs? Here are is a small sample of the actual projects that were funded:

• Collaborative Research: Major: Puppet Choreography and Automated Marionettes.
• Interactive multimedia puppet training program for the Berkeley interview.
• Puppet Enterprise software support.
• To support the Puppet Rods and Strings Series at the St. Anne’s Warehouse.
• To support the development and production of a bilingual puppet theater adaptation of “Beauty and The Beast.”
• To support the 8th International Puppet Festival, “Puppets In The Green Mountains.”

Craziness. Now, not all of these expenses were incurred in the recent past, some happened over the past few years. But timing still does not make it right. Wasteful, insane spending for very little redeeming value to the vast majority of Americans.

Note: this is a great website that we will be exploring in the near future to continue uncovering blatant government waste.

3) If you think spending money on puppets is bad, get ready for an even worse use of taxpayer wealth. The National Science Foundation has awarded a taxpayer fund grant worth $876,752 to the University of Iowa to study whether or not there is any benefit to sex among New Zealand mud snails and whether that explains why any organism has sex.

That is right. Rather than spend taxpayer money on how to improve our kids' education, become more energy efficient, make Americans healthier to reduce our sky high health care costs, or a few other major issues that affect most Americans, the Federal government is studying the sex lives of snails. And not even American snails.

The effort was first funded in 2011 and will continue until 2015. It will examine the New Zealand snails to see if it is better that they reproduce sexually or asexually, the snail can do both, in order to gain insight on why so many organisms practice sexual reproduction. According to the study’s overview, “Sexual reproduction is more costly than asexual reproduction, yet nearly all organisms reproduce sexually at least some of the time. Why is sexual reproduction so common despite its costs.”

Two questions are 1) Who cares and 2) Who approved such a nonsensical use of taxpayer money?

The actual grant proposal can be read at:

http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1122176&HistoricalAwards=false

4) The local ABC television station in San Francisco, KGO/Channel 7 recently reported on political class insanity at the local government level. It seems that Alameda County Administrator Susan Muranishi currently receives over $420,000 in pay and benefits every year and more importantly, and she'll continue to receive that for the rest of her life.

Alameda County, like many other counties, is facing a multimillion-dollar deficit. That's part of the reason taxpayers are stunned; not only by the administrator's current salary, but also because she'll earn that amount long after she leaves this office.

According to state records and ABC‘s reporting, Muranishi earns a base salary of almost $302,000. But she also gets more than $121,000 in other compensation, including equity and longevity pay, a performance bonus, and car allowance among other things, putting her annual compensation above $423,000. That makes her the highest paid county administrator in California. I would also bet that makes her the highest paid county administrator in the country.

But this sky high compensation does not stop with Muranishi's salary. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the 63 year old administrator is guaranteed about the same amount of money, more than $400,000 per year, in retirement for life. If you assume that on average she will live another 20 years, the county will end up paying her over $8 million for doing nothing in retirement. This expense is in the reality of a county which is struggling to support basic services.

Jon Coupal, the president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers' Association, said this in a statement in the article: "The obscenely exorbitant salary received by the CAO of Alameda County reveals a fundamental disconnect between our public leaders and ordinary citizens. The 'guaranteed salary for life' is particularly galling and will burden Alameda County taxpayers for decades."

Well said Mr. Coupal, “a fundamental disconnect.” Another example of politicians personal enrichment vs. the needs of their constituents.

A potential bigger question and scandal is how and who approved these types of salaries and retirement benefits? Were taxpayers asleep at the wheel and blindly approved these numbers or were they developed behind closed doors by politicians for politicians? In either case, insanity all around.

Let’s review. Taxpayer wealth wasted on puppet initiatives. Taxpayer wealth wasted on snail sex. Gun control politicians whose gun law enforcement efforts are feeble. And millions of dollars wasted on a county politician’s retirement. Insanity, idiocy, and head scratching wonder. More to come tomorrow.

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