July, 2020, Part 5, Political Class Insanity: Politicians Using The Coronavirus To Suck The Taxpayer Dry While Enriching Themselves

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) American politicians do very few things well when it comes to actions that benefit their voters and residents. But things they do very well include acting with a “do as I say, not as I do” attitude that almost always results in their own self enrichment and benefit. This reality will drive all of our political class insanity discussion today, beginning up in the state of Maine:

• Susan Collins is the Republican Senator from Maine and she is up for reelection this fall.
• Democrat Sara Gideon is her likely opponent.
• Gideon has been hammering Collins in ads, claiming that Collins supported the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) that Congress passed to theoretically help American citizens and small businesses to cope with the coronavirus.
• Specifically, Gideon accuses Collins of supporting a program that created funding to bailout large corporations but abandoned small businesses.
• Gideon seems to forget that much of the legislation for the PPP was written by Nancy Pelosi and Democrats in the House and passed with the votes of most Democrats in the House and the Senate but Gideon ignores those facts and reality.
• The ads were such semi-blatant lies that even the liberal leaning, Democrat loving Washington Post could not help but give Gideon’s ads the second highest rating for false claims, three Pinocchios.
• Gideon also somehow forgot to mention that her husband’s law firm, Berman & Simmons, received over $1 million in assistance under the PPP.
• Her husband is a partner in the law firm and owns anywhere from a $250,000 to $500,000 equity stake in the firm.
• If his equity stake is as high as half a million dollars, then it is probably a pretty safe assumption that the equity value of the entire law firm and the partners that own it put the value of the firm probably into the millions of dollars.
• I am pretty sure that if you ask most Americans what a small business is they would refer to mom and pop stores and operations that are not worth millions and millions of dollars like this law firm is likely worth.
• Oh, by the way, the partners in the law firm are heavy contributors to Gideon’s political campaign fundraising, sending over $30,000 to the campaign in 2020.

So, the politician (Sara Gideon) lies about her opponent’s (Susan Collins) record while her (Gideon’s) husband takes advantage of her opponent’s support for the program that the wife criticizes. Do as I say, not as I do...or as my husband does.

2) Let’s stay with the “do as I say, not as I do” theme and jump across the country from Maine to California:

• Gavin Newsom is the governor of California and the nephew of Nancy Pelosi.
• Earlier in July, Newsom targeted some California counties with high virus rates and forced the wineries in those counties to shut down in an attempt to control the spread of the virus.
• He made sure that the county where his winery was located stayed open.
• In addition, businesses owned or tied to Newsom, Lt. Governor Eleni Kounalakis and two other top politicians in the state government all received PPP financial support.
• Newsom alone received somewhere between $150,000 and $350,000 from the PPP.
• Keep in mind that the purpose of PPP financial support was to help small businesses retain employees on their payroll and not close down or limit operations, something that Newsom did not do by exempting his winery from a mandatory shutdown.
• Newsom was asked by a reporter why his winery justified getting taxpayer support: "Some data released today by the federal government shows at least one business that you own received some loans to stay open during the COVID-19 pandemic. I know that before you took office you placed those companies into a blind trust, but I'm wondering if you could address that issue and why the company that you own felt the need to receive that loan?”
• Rather than answer this delicate and embarrassing question, Newsom basically told the questioner to bug off: “You would have to ask the people that are running those businesses. It’s in a blind trust. Period. Full stop.”

As we find out more and more about the PPP it becomes more and more obvious that this intention of helping small businesses keep their employees onboard and their small business open for business in the face of the virus crisis was nothing more than a lie and a charade to help the political class enrich themselves. From a law firm in Maine to a winery in California, the politically connected and wealthy hogs are feeding at the trough of the American taxpayer, small businesses be damned.

3) Let’s move up the Newsom family tree and see how Nancy Pelosi, a prime architect of the PPP, is weathering the storm caused by the virus:

• First off, understand that Nancy and Paul Pelosi, her husband , are super rich, a lot of which came as a result of Nancy Pelosi’s shenanigans in Congress.
• According to Bloomberg News reporting, EDI is a firm of which Paul Pelosi is a major stakeholder.
• EDI is a limited partnership with an investment in the El Dorado hotel.
• EDI received PPP financial support of between $350,000 and $1 million.
• Paul Pelosi’s stake in EDI is listed as between $250,001 and $500,000.
• If his stake is worth upwards of half a million dollars, then the entire value of EDI is likely in the millions and millions of dollars, making it hardly a small business.
• And yet, somehow, PPP and taxpayer dollars ended up in the EDI coffers.

As with the likely million dollar law firm up in Maine, how an investment firm like EDI, also likely worth millions of dollars, ended up getting small business financial support from the PPP is despicable and disgusting. The corruption of Washington apparently knows no bounds when it comes to self enrichment and greed. How many pizza shops, tailors, small restaurants, etc. could have been saved and helped with the millions of dollars that went to wealthy law firms and investment firms? 

Soulless individuals sucking up taxpayer wealth when it was not necessary or in integrity to do so.

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/Walter-Bruno-Korschek/e/B002KYU08Q/ref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share

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

Janaury, 2016, Part 7, Political Class Insanity: Obama Family Vacations Get Expensive, Crony Capitalism Infects Homemade Soaps, and More

It is the start of another month which means it is time for our monthly review of the latest political class insanity that continually spews forth from America’s politicians. Their actions, words, quotes, incompetency, and general ineptness continue to reinforce our theory that we are currently being served by the worst set of politicians in the history of the nation.

As you read about the latest shenanigans and ineptness of the political class, keep in mind what should be their priorities in these difficult times and compare this list to what they are actually working on:

• NBC recently reported that ISIS forces are getting larger and stronger despite the Obama administration spending billions of dollars on a failed air campaign and military strategy.
• The stock market is stalling.
• Job creation is barely keeping up with population growth.
• Wage growth is anemic, growing just .2% in the second quarter, the lowest quarterly growth since 1982.
• The labor participation rate is at the lowest level in decades because the Obama economy cannot generate enough jobs.
• Thousands of veterans are still not getting the medical care they were promised by the Federal government.
• 45 million Americans are still receiving monthly Federal food assistance.\
• Our borders still leak and thousands of illegal immigrant criminals continue to walk our streets.
• Major programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security are hurtling towards insolvency and lose hundreds of billions of dollars every year to fraud and mismanagement.
• Our kids are still getting lousy public educations at most public schools.
• The IRS and other government functions seem to be getting their computer systems hacked on a regular basis, exposing tens of millions of Americans to identity theft potential.
• Obama Care is a failure along so many dimensions as health care costs continue to soar despite the Obama promise that they would decrease.
• Annual Federal deficits, while down, are still about half a TRILLION a year meaning that even though the Federal government is collecting more in taxes than ever before, it still cannot run a balanced budget.

Again, keep these real crises in mind as you read what our politicians are actually doing, saying and wasting.

1) Judicial Watch has done a great job of prying loose documents from the Obama administration despite the administration’s stonewalling. Often Judicial Watch has had to go through the courts to get access via the Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) to get documents that were allowed to be made public under the law. Often, once the court ruled in favor of Judicial Watch, the embarrassments that were uncovered were not complimentary to the Obama Presidency.

Such is the case from a recent batch of Federal documents that were finally released to Judicial Watch. These documents show the hideous amount of taxpayer dollars that have been used to ensure that the Obama family had a great Christmas vacation in Hawaii every year of this Presidency. Highlights of the whopping spending found in the latest documents include the following taxpayer insults:

• Secret Service expenses for the Obama 2013-2014 Christmas vacation in Hawaii were $316,698.03.
• This brought the entire cost of the Obama Christmas vacation that year to $8,098,060.33.
• It took the government two long years to produce the requested documents.
• Despite taking so long to provide the documents that were legally required to provide, the Secret Service still blacked out 28 pages of the documents, leaving one with the suspicion that something else is being covered up relative to taxpayer expenses needed to cover Obama family vacations.
• Judicial Watch has recently sued the Department of Homeland Security for ignoring its 19 other FOIA requests for additional Obama family vacation expenses.
• So far, Judicial Watch has identified almost $71 million in taxpayer funded vacations.

Insanity that with all of the suffering and struggles facing ordinary Americans, this President continues to burn through tens of millions of dollars in First Family vacations. Narcissism knows no boundaries.

2) Of all the issues and crises facing Americans, many of which were listed above, home made soap is not one of them. I can guarantee that if you asked every American what were the top 100 issues in their lives, home made soap would not make the list of any of them.

But that has not stopped some members of Congress to take up valuable time and effort in cracking down on homemade soap. Artisanal soap makers say new regulations, proposed by Senator Dianne Feinstein and Senator Susan Collins, will put them out of business.

The Senators are pushing the so-called Personal Care Products Safety Act that they think will make the world a safer place by scrutinizing “everything from shampoo and hair dye to deodorant and lotion.” They want the FDA to be more aggressive in checking out what goes into shampoo, soap and hair dye by conducting tests, mandating warning labels, assessing fees, and having recall authority.

Why would Senators want to go to such trouble when there is no widespread, if any, problems arising as a result of local soap makers being in business? Well, as usual in Washington, it comes down to money and cronyism. The following major companies support the legislation:

• Johnson & Johnson
• Procter & Gamble
• Revlon
• Esteee Lauder
• Unilever
• L’Oreeal

It would be relatively simple and inexpensive for these huge companies to comply with new government requirements spelled out in this legislation. However, it would put a substantial financial and resource burden for local manufacturers to comply with this onerous law. In other words, this effort is not for your safety, it is to protect the major companies from competition and to protect politicians’ election campaign donations from these major companies. 

Pathetic crony capitalism that has nothing to do with your safety and everything to do with maintaining the cozy relationship between politicians and corporate America.

3) Most Washington politicians are somewhat delusional or very much delusional when it comes to their non-accomplishments and abilities. Such was the case when Obama recently sent out a fundraising letter where he listed his “accomplishments.” We recently finished a series of posts where we laid out in significant detail of his failures. The first post in that series can be accessed at:

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2015/12/the-obama-era-part-1-memories-from.html

After reviewing that inventory of failure, compare the failures outlined in those posts with what this President considers “accomplishments,” a weak list if ever there was. In his words:

Together, we’ve been able to make a real difference in the lives of our fellow Americans. We’ve seen the Affordable Care Act upheld time after time, even with a Republican-led Congress intent on undermining its successes. We’ve celebrated the joy of marriage equality for all Americans, no matter who they love. We’ve pushed to make community college accessible for more students, and for important student loan reform to protect our young people’s interests. And we’ve taken a real stand on the serious problems that climate change poses.

Her may consider these actoins accomplishments but in reality:

• Obama Care (Affordable Healthcare Act) caused millions of Americans to lose access to their preferred insurance plans, doctors, and hospitals, its inferior data systems security processes subjected millions of Americans to the increased threat of identify theft, it will add two trillion dollars to the national debt, it caused insurance policies premiums and deductibles to sky rocket, it failed to address the root causes of our escalating healthcare costs, it depressed economic growth, it contributed to higher than needed unemployment rates, it caused many, many Americans to become part time workers against their wishes, etc., etc. If this was an accomplishment, I would hate to see what he considers a failure. 
• While being against gay marriage for decades, he finally supported it, but his change of view had nothing to do with it becoming law, the issue and his flip flop only served his political needs.
• As far as making community college affordable, that is a bad investment for taxpayers since we have already reported on how only one in five community college students ever get a degree. How is throwing taxpayer money at a one in five success rate an accomplishment?
• As far as climate change, we prove every month that global warming/climate change is a sham. Just put “global doubter” in the search box above or search through every month’s posts for the phrase “I am a global warming doubter” in the post listings to the right side of this page.

A weak set of accomplishments that really are not even accomplishments, compared to his failures we identified late last month in this blog. The blog WeaselZippers added to our list of Obama failures with a sampling of Obama’s actual accomplishments:

– destroyed race relations
– infected the independence of the Supreme Court, the Justice Department and anyone of a number of government departments and agencies.
– pulled troops out of Iraq early resulting in the rise of ISIS, resulting in the deaths, rapes, and torture of thousands.
– failed to respond to that threat allowing them to spread throughout the region, and beyond, to Libya and to commit terrorism in Paris and San Bernardino
– failed to adequately protect us from that threat
– instituted Obamacare, forcing many to lose their plan and their doctor, a lie he knew would happen yet pitched anyway along with the lie of $2500 savings for average family.

That will do it for today’s political class insanity. Today, we learned that even Obama had a hard time identifying any worthwhile accomplishments, crony capitalism is alive and well in the home made soap industry, and the Obama First Family continues to spend taxpayer for far away and lavish vacations for themselves every Christmas season. Pathetic and insanity knows no boundaries when dealing with American politicians.

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