Love My Country, Loathe My Government

Thursday, January 4, 2018

January, 2018, Part 4, Political Class Insanity: Kicking People Out Of Their Homes, Fruitlessly Searching for UFOs and Wanting UN Peacekeeping Troops In Chicago

Cook County (Cook County includes Chicago) Commissioner Richard Boykin has put forth the radical suggestion that the United Nations send in peacekeeping troops from other countries to fight the violence.
He says foreign UN troops are needed to fight the “quiet genocide.”
Boykin actually made a trip to New York City to meet with Oscar Fernandez-Taranco of Argentina, the U.N. Assistant Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Support, to seek UN help with “horrific levels of shootings” and other violent crime in West Side and South Side Chicago communities: “I’m hoping to appeal to the U.N. to actually come to Chicago and meet with victims of violence, and maybe even possibly help out in terms of peacekeeping efforts, because I think it’s so critical for us to make sure that these neighborhoods are safe.”
He correctly pointed out in a news conference just prior to his trip that, “leaders in Chicago and Cook County have failed to protect many communities from violent crime.”
He went on to explain that, “There is a quiet genocide taking place in too many of our communities. Eighty percent of those who are being killed by gun violence are African American, and often killed at the hands of another African American. So we must protect these population groups, and that’s what the United Nations does. They’re a peacekeeping force. They know all about keeping the peace, and so we’re hopeful that they’ll hear our appeal.”

I appreciate his thinking outside of the box to try and resolve this violence issue and I also appreciate his frustration and desperation to get something done. But really, the United Nations and peacekeeping troops? Name one spot in the world today, or ever, where UN peacekeepers ever did a good job at keeping the peace? The UN is a bloated, ineffective and inefficient organization that cannot get out of its own way.

Plus, the reality is that the country in no way whatsoever is going to allow foreign troops to occupy an American city. It is a total waste of time to even try and make that happen. While I feel Boykin’s frustration, maybe his energy would be better spent reforming our drug laws which give rise to violent drug cartel gangs who openly battle for turf on Chicago’s streets.

Maybe his energy would be better spent finding ways to bring jobs and economic opportunities to the residents of Chicago to help people more easily and more safely avoid a life of crime.

Maybe his energies would be better spent ousting long term politicians from their jobs, politicians who have proven over time they have neither the will, the brains, or the desire to fix the violence.

UN peacekeeping troops in Chicago? Insanity.

2) One of our favorite pastimes in this blog is to report on stupid uses of taxpayer wealth by all levels of government and politicians. We once reported on how the National Science Foundation used over half a million dollars to create a video game that simulated “Prom Week.” We reported on how the Department of the Interior used taxpayer wealth to replace all of the windows in a government park building that had been closed for years and no plans were in place to ever reopen the building again despite all new windows. Another government agency wasted thousands of dollars to determine that in bars men generally prefer younger, thinner women. Insanity.

Which brings us to the latest wasting of $22 million in taxpayer wealth:

According to New York Times reporting, the Pentagon has spent at least $22 million of taxpayer wealth investigating reports of UFOs since 2007.
The program was super secret and hidden deep inside Pentagon accounting budgets to hide its existence.
And while the Pentagon now admits to the program and says that it ended in 2012, there are reports that investigations are still going on within the budgets of existing Pentagon organizations.
The program started at the insistence of former Nevada Senator Harry Reid.
Oh, just be “coincidence,” much of the research and money went to an aerospace research company headed by a long time friend of Reid’s, Robert Bigelow who just happens to be located in Reid’s home state of Nevada.
Reid proudly stated that he did not regret blowing $22 million chasing UFOs, a chase that netted nothing: “I’m not embarrassed or ashamed or sorry I got this thing going. I think it’s one of the good things I did in my Congressional service. I’ve done something that no one has done before.”

A few questions and observations Mr. Reid:

Nothing came of this program so why are you so proud of it? If the objective was to prove UFOs exist, you failed.
Just because you have done “something that no one has done before” is no reason to be proud. No one had previously gassed to death six million people like Hitler did and that is nothing to be proud of. Or as the old saying goes, “just because you can does not mean you should.” Just because you spent and wasted $22 million on a failed idea does not mean you should have.
During this time frame we know now that it was highly likely that thousands and thousands of veterans were not getting the prompt and needed professional medical care that they were promised and yet you were wasting $22 million chasing bogus UFOs. Terrible waste of money and terrible priorities.

Insane.

3) Let’s finish up today’s insanity and government out of control review with some local political class insanity from Denver, Colorado, as reported in the February, 2018 issue of Reason magazine:

Cynthia Lopez owned a house in Denver that she wanted to sell.
She had a found a buyer that wanted to pay $265,000 for her home.
But just days before the sale was to be closed, the local political class and the bumbling government apparatus it runs got involved, much to Ms. Lopez’s dismay.
Denver government workers told her that her home was part of an affordable housing program, unbeknownst to her, and that she could not sell the house for over $180,000 even though she had found a buyer willing to pay $85,000 more.
The local government officials readily acknowledged that Ms. Lopez had not been told or made aware when she bought the property that it was low income designated.
Nevertheless, the local government officials told her tough beans and not only did she have to sell the house for far less than market value but she also had to sell it quickly since she did not qualify for low income housing, given her higher than allowed income, of which her home was designated as, and she needed to get out of the neighborhood and program and her home as quickly as possible.

This is a prime example of government and common sense being out of control. Through no fault of her own, a poor citizen is being forced out of her home and is being forced to take a substantial financial hit at the same time. Pure insanity.

So let’s review what our politicians have wrought on us today: kicking innocent people out of their homes, wasting money chasing UFOs, and wanting foreign combat troops via the United Nations to come to Chicago to do what Illinois and Chicago politicians cannot do, stem the violence. Three stupid solutions courtesy of the American political class. More insanity to follow.

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

www.loathemygovernment.com

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

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

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

Wednesday, January 3, 2018

January, 2018, Part 3, Political Class Insanity: John Kerry Enriches His Daughter, California Kills Jobs, and More

Let's get started:

1) Nowhere do American politicians show their ignorance more than on economic matters. They almost always opt for the solution that satisfies their political intentions rather than the economic solution that is right. In fact, more often than not, their decisions on economic policy make a bad situation worse, not better. Consider some analysis of a recent economic action from California politicians:

Joe Crowe, writing for NewsMax on December 15, 2017, reviewed the recent action taken by California politicians regarding the minimum wage in that state.
The state has enacted legislation that will force companies to pay their workers at least $15 an hour by 2023.
An analysis of that law by the Economic Policy Institute, which looked at employment trends from 1990 through 2017, concluded from their analysis that each 10% increase in the minimum wage in California resulted in a 2% decline in jobs for minimum wage workers.
This led the Institute to conclude that this latest economic foray by state politicians will cost the state 400,000 jobs.
Most of the job losses will be in the food service and retail industries, typical industries that hire lower waged people. lower income people.

As always, when politicians meddle in economics and the free market they end up hurting the very people they say they are helping. Or as we have said many times, “the good news is that you have to be paid at least $15 an hour at your job,the bad news is you no longer have a job (because in this case in California 400,000 jobs are likely to be wiped out because of this new law.” Thus, 400,000 people will see their hourly wage go to zero, not quite what the politicians likely had in mind.

2) Corruption among the American political class seems to be a constant these days. We had the Clintons running a kickback crime syndicate using the Clinton Foundation as a front. Congresswoman Corrine Brown was recently sentenced to jail for defrauding her own charity. Earlier this week we discussed the case of Congressional candidate Shaun Brown who was recently indicted by a Federal grand jury for defrauding her own charity also.

And now we have a story from the Daily Caller website on how former Secretary of State John Kerry defrauded the American taxpayer:

We have previously reported on how the State Department funneled millions of taxpayer dollars to a charity operated by his daughter, Vanessa Kerry.
The latest report purports to confirm that Kerry knew all about this sham, non-competitive bid situation and did nothing to stop it.
The Daily Caller claims that Kerry privately lauded his daughter’s program back in 2014 but did nothing to stop the non-competitive bid renewal of the State Department contract at that time: “What we’re talking about here is a multi-million dollar effort that will strengthen the capacity of healthcare workers to deliver lifesaving HIV services,” Kerry said in December 2014, at a World AIDS Day event. “[I]t will build on the Global Health Service Partnership with Peace Corps and Seed Global Health.”
These Kerry comments from over three years ago is in direct conflict with the official State Department position that Kerry “played no role” in Department decision to funnel over $9 million to his daughter’s non-profit without any competitive bidding on the project being done.

Makes one wonder, in conjunction with the crime syndicate that his predecessor ran while Secretary of State, was there was ever a more corrupt, crooked State Department under any other President than the one under Obama?

3) The next embarrassment from the American political class is a little dated but worth reviewing anyway. It comes from the Biz Pac Review website in an article written by Carmine Sabia back on November 24, 2017 and is related to the recent sexual predatory issue surrounding not only politicians but journalists and Hollywood power houses:

Most people know by now that a number of Washington politicians have been outed or at least accused of being sexual predators and perverts.
One of the most accused those perverts was allegedly John Conyers, a Congressman from Michigan, who eventually resigned as a result of his actions and/or accusations against him from numerous women.
Mr. Conyers apparently, at least in the initial stages of the sexual predator scandals, was not going to resign and apparently found a way to justify the reason for not resigning, according to his lawyer: “Mr. Conyers is not going to resign. If everybody that was facing ‘allegations’ — including the President, members of the House and Senate — resigned, we’d have a lot of unemployed people walking around.”
The lawyerly statement is kind of admitting your client is wrong without admitting he is wrong, i.e. everyone else is being accused or is guilty of sexual harassment and worse so let’s not worry about my client’s alleged behavior, everyone else does it also.
The lawyer then tried to rebound off of this “everyone else is doing it” defense to claim his client is innocent of the numerous charges even though we know that taxpayer funds were used to settle a 2015 lawsuit of sexual harassment that a woman had brought against the Congressman.

I did not do anything but even if I did, a lot of others may have done the same thing so you cannot punish all of us. Which sounds like an adult version of the excuse you gave our mom when you were a kid, “everyone else was doing it,” e.g. jumping off a bridge, so it is okay. Pathetically insane.

That will do it for today’s insanity: group think...and sin in Washington, John Kerry’s “I see nothing imitation” when it comes to enriching his own family with taxpayer wealth, and economic ignorance in California and the death of 400,000 jobs. More insanity to come.

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:

Tuesday, January 2, 2018

January, 2018, Part 2, Political Class Insanity: A Senator Votes For The Opposite Of What He Believes, Another Politician Gets Indicted 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.

Let's get started:

1) We have often pointed out how confused, dazed, and lost most politicians are. We once reported that a Georgia Congressman thought the island of Guam could tip over in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. We reported on a Texas Congresswoman who thought that there were still two Vietnams with North Vietnam ruling over South Vietnam. That same Congresswoman once declared that her own Congressional district was 50 feet below sea level which, of course, it was not. We once had a Speaker of the House proclaim that a piece legislation (Obama Care) had to be passed BEFORE we could see what was in it.

Which brings us to the latest piece of politician confusion. As most of you know, Washington recently enacted some far reaching tax reform legislation that will reduce and simplify the Federal tax process. It is estimated that over 140 America tax filers will see a reduction in their taxes going forward as a result. The tax legislation will also make filing one’s taxes easier and quicker. And the legislation has already resulted in companies taking important steps to reward themselves, their employees, their stockholders, and the charities they support with their tax savings.

Which brings us to our latest confused politician. Joe Manchin is a Democratic Senator from the state of West Virginia. He voted against the tax reform legislation as did every other Democrat in Congress. In a recent radio interview, Manchin acknowledged there was a lot of good in the legislation that he voted against: “There’s some good in this bill. I acknowledge that. The things that you mention are correct. Initially people will benefit and see some changes in their taxes.” He went on to say that, “I think there is going to be benefit from the get-go, which is called the sugar high.”

Now, he did try, vainly, to justify his no vote on the legislation. He said that taxes could go up in ten years if Congress does not renew the tax cuts. Well, that gives Americans ten years of tax reductions, Joe, and in ten years all Congress has to do is renew the tax cuts, that simple. Another way to say the same thing is a line I found describing Manchin’s idiotic position: “Which is like saying you’re going to pass on this delicious chocolate cake right now because there might not be any left in 2027.”

Obviously, Manchin voted against his conscience and voted along party lines because his handlers in the upper end of the Democratic Party dictated his vote. Which is just another example of what is wrong with our political class in America today: doing the right thing always takes a back seat to doing the things that benefit only politicians and the two major political parties.

2) It is not only politicians that are confused, dazed, and lost. Often celebrities are the same way. For some reason they think that because they are good at show business stuff that they have deep insights into life and politics that they need to share, and impose, on the rest of us who do not have their brains or knowledge.

Third tier comedian Rosie O’Donnell is one of those show business types. She has been a vocal, often hysterical critic, of Trump ever since he decided to run for the Presidency, somehow thinking that her ranting and raving will make some kind of positive difference in the state of the union.

Unfortunately, her out of control ranting and raving may have exposed her to some serious felony possibilities:

Tim Brown, writing for the Freedom Outpost website recently, reported that O’Donnell could face a $12 million fine and 15 years in prison for attempted bribery.
In the run up to the vote to reduce taxes, O’Donnell went on Twitter and publicly offered to pay two Republican Senators $2 million if they voted against the tax reduction legislation.
Unfortunately, selling your vote to the highest bidder is not the way our republic and government processes are supposed to work which makes offering a sitting member of Congress money to vote a certain way a crime.
According to the article: “18 U.S. Code § 201 criminalizes the attempted bribery of federal officials by whoever “directly or indirectly, corruptly gives, offers or promises anything of value to any public official … with intent to influence any official act.””...”The fine to be imposed would be “not more than three times the monetary equivalent of the thing of value, whichever is greater, or imprisoned for not more than fifteen years, or both, and may be disqualified from holding any office of honor, trust, or profit under the United States.””
While some people initially thought her bribery tweet was in jest or to make a symbolic point, she followed up with another tweet, insisting she was serious, making her even more susceptible to prosecution.

Still no cure for stupid...or show business people who think they are smarter than the rest of us when it comes to politics, government, and the world.

3) Probably the second most mentioned topic in this blog behind stupidity of politicians is the crookedness of politicians. Which brings us to the latest instance of a crooked politician:

Virginia Democratic Congressional candidate Shaun Brown was recently indicted by a Federal grand jury.
The indictment includes two counts of wire fraud and one count of theft of government property.
Specifically, the indictment claims that Brown and others filed bogus claims with the Federal government’s Summer Food Service Program in excess of $439,000 via a non-profit group that Brown founded in 1995.
Her non-profit was supposed to provide meals to children of low income households during the months when those kids could not get meals via school lunches.
The indictment claims that Brown defrauded the Federal government, and American taxpayers, by submitting for compensation for more meals than she actually served.

If true, and a Federal grand jury indictment is serious stuff, then how low is this potential member of Congress, using hungry kids as a front to defraud the American taxpayer. And she wanted to be a member of Congress. So sad and pathetic.

That will do it for today’s insanity: Another potential greedy and pathetic politician, this one feasting off of low income kids, an idiotic show business celebrity whose big mouth might land her in prison, and a Senator who voted how others in his political sphere dictated how he was to vote rather than voting for the best interests of his constituents. More insanity to follow.

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

www.loathemygovernment.com

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

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

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

Monday, January 1, 2018

January, 2018, Part 1, Political Class Insanity: People Just Want To Be Free and The Horrible Priorities Of California Politicians

According to an article on the Daily Caller website by Will Racke on December 26, 2017, almost half a million people migrated out of just three of those most heavily taxed states, California, New York, and New Jersey, in the past year.
New York lost the most amount of current state residents with 190,000 residents leaving the state between July, 2016 and July, 2017 according to the Census Bureau.
Since 2010, New York, a heavily taxed state, lost over 1 million residents, more than any other state on both and absolute and as a share of population.
Now, in total the overall population was not down too much since the birth rate exceeded the death rate and there were a lot of international immigration into the state.
However, recently born resident obviously do not pay taxes and new international arrivals are quite possibly lower income and lower tax generators than the established residents who left the state.
Illinois is another heavily taxed state that has long term state employee pension issues also lost a lot of tax paying residents.
115,000 Illinois residents left the state in the past year, causing it to drop to the sixth most populated state behind Pennsylvania.
Illinois has lost 650,000 residents since 2010, equal to the population of the 2nd through 5th largest Illinois cities (excluding Chicago).
The loss of taxpayers at such a great rate has caused Illinois lawmakers to raise taxes to cover the smaller tax base revenue stream which is likely to cause even more residents to leave the state, says Orphe Divounguy of the Illinois Policy Institute: “As people leave the state, they take their pocketbooks with them. That means there are fewer Illinoisans to pay the bills. It’s worrying because if you have a declining population and a declining labor force, you will for sure have a further slowdown of economic activity going into 2018.”
And unlike New York, Illinois could not make up the difference with births and in-migration.
California also experienced high levels of out migration with 138,000 residents leaving the state last year, second only to New York, which is not surprising since the state’s highest marginal tax rate is over 13%, an income tax to be paid on top of the Federal income tax.
Like New York, California showed a small overall increase in population to offset the 138,000 with births outnumbering deaths and a high level of international immigration.
But as with New York, newborns do not pay taxes and the international input, especially in California, is likely mostly lower earning and poorer Central and South American and Mexican immigrants.
And with Trump’s tax reform legislation about to become law, a law that caps the amount of state and local tax deductions one can take on Federal income tax returns, the out migration from these three states is likely to increase since their higher earning residents no longer get the advantage of higher tax deductions from the states’ high income and property taxes.

Can you say death spiral? HIgher taxes causes tax paying residents to leave the state for lower tax rates which reduces the tax base which reduces tax revenue which causes politicians to raise tax rates (because they seemingly never reduce government spending or inefficiencies) which causes more residents to leave, etc. People just want to be free, a reality that politicians seldom understand.

2) Jared Sichel, writing for the Daily Wire on December 29, 2017, showed that it is not only Washington politicians that pass stupid laws, as he reviewed six inane California state laws that will take effect January 1, 2017:

California politicians decided that the state government will ignore existing Federal immigration laws by forbidding state law enforcement officials from asking for someone’s immigration status or holding someone for ICE immigration agents and prohibits landlords from reporting renters who are illegal immigrants. So, the safety of American citizens (e.g. Kate Steinle) and the rule of law take a backseat to illegal immigrants in the state of California.
As if Californias were not taxed enough, see the previous point on how high taxation is forcing residents to leave the state, as of January 1 California motor vehicle registration fees are going up between $25 and $175.
It will be against the law for a potential employer to ask a potential employee what their salary history was or what salary they are getting at their present job. Why the government should have any say in a private conversation between a private employer and a private citizen is a mystery to me along with what possible good could come from this invasion of privacy is also a mystery.
A new California law will steadily increase the state’s minimum wage level to $15 in 2022. As we have shown so many times in this blog, this forced increase in the state’s minimum wage will reduce the demand for low skilled, poorer people and/or force businesses to move out of state to avoid the higher salary costs in their business, increased costs forced upon the businesses by economically ignorant politicians.
In California you no longer have to go through “clinically appropriate treatment for the purpose of gender transition.” In other words, anyone at any time can change their gender destination on their birth certificate of any state id documents. Which raises the question: the homeless rate in California is skyrocketing, the state’s infrastructure is falling apart, the state’s financial health is dire straits, the state’s public schools generally stink and the state politicians are worried about trivial gender change issues.
Local schools can no longer be allowed to whether or not they want their schools to be designated “gun free zones.” Which means that all schools will no longer be able to protect their students and staffs they way they want to protect them.

Again, so many pressing issues facing California residents, issues that dwarf any potential upside from these trivial and petty laws from the state’s politicians.

So let’s review what we learned today: people want to be free and are willing to physically move to a place that makes them freer and California politicians have what has to be the most inane priorities relative to what is really broken in their state. More insanity to follow.

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

www.loathemygovernment.com

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

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

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

Love My Country, Loathe My Government

Thursday, January 4, 2018

January, 2018, Part 4, Political Class Insanity: Kicking People Out Of Their Homes, Fruitlessly Searching for UFOs and Wanting UN Peacekeeping Troops In Chicago

Wednesday, January 3, 2018

January, 2018, Part 3, Political Class Insanity: John Kerry Enriches His Daughter, California Kills Jobs, and More

Tuesday, January 2, 2018

January, 2018, Part 2, Political Class Insanity: A Senator Votes For The Opposite Of What He Believes, Another Politician Gets Indicted and More

Monday, January 1, 2018

January, 2018, Part 1, Political Class Insanity: People Just Want To Be Free and The Horrible Priorities Of California Politicians

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