Category: Politics

Some days I really wonder if the Republicans would rather be in the permanent minority like they are in Sacramento, California. An irrelevant bunch, who can go on the local friendly paper/news channel and preach about how “we need Republican’s ideas to fix this state!”  They can carve out their individual fiefdom and never lose, and that’s ok.

I made the above statement because this came out this AM.

Tim Scott calls Obamas video shared by Trump ‘most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House’

The video was posted on Trump’s Truth Social account which I did see. It is based on the Lion King movie, with Donald Trump depicted as the Lion King, other political types were depicted as well, including, the Obama’s as monkeys.  Yeah, you read that right.  Two black people, the former President and his wife, were depicted as monkeys, in the year of our Lord 2026.  Folks I might be alone on this, but this is pretty dang racist. 

Oh, the Senate’s lone Black Republican agrees…

“Praying it was fake because it’s the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House,” Scott said about the video in a post on the social platform X.

“The President should remove it,” the Senator added.

Folks I want to say this, I do not think Donald Trump is a racist; however, he is, in my opinion, too flippant with his words and says/does stupid things.  I will also add, I do not believe this video was created or even posted by him. Nevertheless, it was on his account, and as of 4 PM left coast time, no one has been fired.  This tells me it wasn’t just “some intern” either. I want to see heads rolling, this is no better than people cheering Charlie Kirk’s death or wishing death on Rep. Omar.  Whoever decided to portray the Obama’s as monkeys may be one of the dumbest people on earth.

Why do Republicans do this?  They shouldn’t, but they never seem to learn.

Granted, the following is a list of things I have witnessed in my life, not so much on a nationwide level, but they were disturbing, nonetheless.

1.  Tony Andrade’s (RIP) email to Sac Central Committee members depicting watermelons growing in the White House Garden when Obama got sworn in.  Blatantly racist, a few members called him out, some maybe even supported it.  Why?  Stupid!
2. Dominic Foppoli putting up “Republicans freed the slaves signs” at my university late at night the day before MLK Jr’s birthday.  Time and place, it was neither one, and while, yes, a Republican president freed the slaves, posting those flyers was felony stupid.

Folks, Republicans don’t do that, or should I say real Republicans.  However, there is a new breed of Republican that came out of the closet when Trump got elected.  It’s a new breed of character who I honestly detest.  I have no need for the Jorge Riley’s of the world.  They spout racist, drunken BS that no one agrees with, yet they are allowed to speak freely.  I long for a simpler time.  We are supposed to be above this; the Democrats are the ones who protest in trees, burn their clothing, riot, loot, set things and buildings on fire, not us.  But that has changed.  Believe it or not, January 6^th changed that narrative, and now the GOP must try to change it back.  Things like this do not help, they hurt the cause, and badly.  Hopefully some adults will take over, and soon.  With today’s proceedings, we are no better than the folks who cheered Charlie Kirk’s death as mentioned above.  Was it Trump or someone else?  Who cares, damage inflicted cannot be undone.

Folks I have a feeling, as much as I hate to say it, and do not wish to believe it, these types of mistakes may well cost Trump Congress in November.  I hope I am wrong. 

The Chief

Editor’s Note: I saw a claim on Facebook that the offensive video was made over a year ago and has been circulating on social media since then. After the proverbial stuff hit the fan, it was removed from Trump’s official page.

That sound you are hearing is the people’s brains (what’s left of them) at the local CRA chapter exploding on command.  How could The Donald choose to work with a far-left crazy liberal?

It’s easy, and it’s something I would advise the Democrats to do more often actually. 

If there are two things I wish Donald Trump learned from his first term, it’s that his own party really doesn’t want to work with him (in my humble opinion that has mostly continued to this day), and that Executive Orders are easily overturned by either; the Court, or his successor in office.  If these things Trump wants are codified by Congress they become very hard to repeal or replace, like Obamacare.  In all honesty, this term for Trump, I can only really think of one piece of legislation (the big beautiful bill) he has used Congress for.  Everything else will be easily repealed or undone, before lunch the day his successor is sworn in (assuming it’s not a Republican). 

Enter the Democrats in Congress.

Folks it’s painfully obvious that the Republicans do not want to eliminate or replace Obamacare, I could care less what Sean Hannity or any other host on Fox has to say about this.  They had a chance, had no plan, and when voted on couldn’t muster the votes.  Other pieces of legislation, they show little interest in being of assistance.  Trump has actually dealt with a lot of drama in his first year back in office, nearly all of it started by his own party!  Tom Massie, Rand Paul, Don Bacon, Marjorie Taylor Green, Lauren Boebert, and a few others have either opposed his moves or made headlines screaming about “the Constitution.”  Sure, I hear them on blowing up the “suspected” drug boats in the Caribbean, and arresting Nicolas Maduro, but is that the hill you wish to die on?

Trump made his comments and will be signing (signed?) and Executive Order limiting credit card interest to 10%.  I cannot get a reading on his own Party on this, but if he is doing an Executive Order, he likely found out there isn’t much appetite on the GOP side for this.  Enter Liz Warren.  Warren is a fierce fighter of big banks and the ways they conduct business, resulting in hurting the poor and middle class. Do not get me wrong. She is wrong on quite a bit, but in this case, she sides with Trump.  Warren can try to carry this bill through the Senate and get the House on board too, perhaps.  It’s a Trump piece of legislation but in this case common ground exists. I have a feeling the GOP won’t want to hear Liz Warren sponsored it, so they will jump on board.

My point of this blog is politics creates strange bed fellows, but also Trump views everything as a deal, and he is not a conservative, he is a populist.  Learn the difference!  If I was leading the Democrat Party I would quit this impeachment and 25^th Amendment nonsense, likely being pushed by far left media types like Matt Dowd used to do, and work with him.  He seems willing and ready to deal on almost anything.  Think of the possibilities?  Democrats may well have a congressional majority next year, rather than sharpening the knives (impeachment and 25^th Amendment), why not set the stage for deal making.  Hate the ICE raids going on?  Maybe strike a deal saying can you only go after the criminals?  Leaving the family and day laborer types who are not criminals alone?  Maybe cut a deal and say we will speak to the Democrat governors and communicate you only want to get the criminals and will do it for only a couple months?  Trump may go for it if he gets an increase in defense spending, or if we can get some serious regulation roll back.  Maybe tell Trump you want to see the ships in the Caribbean not blown up anymore, but in a trade, we will let you spend more money to hire inspectors at our ports and border patrol officers? 

This already kind of happened in Maryland, Wes Moore, the governor, actually welcomed the FBI and ATF being sent in to work in Maryland. He didn’t want the National Guard, he gave valid reasons as to why.  Folks are willing to work with Trump on certain issues, leverage that!  Trump has a major say over members of his own party, and an election is coming this year.

Warren is not wrong on this, neither is Trump.  Let us see if more deals are made.

The Chief

Bloggers note: No way was this going to be posted the day I sent it to William due to an earlier blog submission.  Any changes after today will create a retraction to this story.

The day didn’t start well as a woman was killed by ICE Agents in Minneapolis, Minnesota.  I will state I am never happy to hear anyone getting killed by authorities.  There is more to this story, I am sure.  If the ICE agent was in the wrong throw the book at him; however, I have a sneaky suspicion the person no longer with us was no saint in the matter.

On to the good parts.

First Trump is going to ban defense corporations from using government funds to buy back stock and pay dividends unless they make serious changes to manufacturing capacity and research.  Here is some info below….

President Donald Trump said he would move to block U.S. defense contractors from paying dividends or repurchasing shares unless they significantly increase spending on manufacturing capacity and research, remarks that sent shares of major arms makers lower.

In a social media post Wednesday, Trump also called for sharp limits on executive compensation at defense companies, saying pay should be capped at $5 million until firms construct what he described as “NEW and MODERN Production Plants.” He argued that contractors are failing to produce and maintain military equipment quickly enough.

Defense companies “are currently issuing massive Dividends to their Shareholders and massive Stock Buybacks, at the expense and detriment of investing in Plants and Equipment,” Trump wrote. “This situation will no longer be allowed or tolerated!”

Folks to put it lightly, this needs to happen, and I hope it does.  By no means am I insinuating that we should be stockpiling for war, we do need increased capacity to build war machines faster and more efficiently.  The bottom line is that times are far different from fifteen years ago.  We must be vigilant that war could break out in the not-too-distant future.  Folks, the 90-day people amongst us will be angry but why should our taxpayer dollars go towards bloated executive compensation, stock buybacks, and dividends?  That tells me we are being grossly overcharged.  Why is it that everything to the older generation must be based on the almighty dollar and how big my bank account is?  To be clear, I am not saying, and neither is Trump, they shouldn’t be allowed to make money, but look at the profits these companies are churning out.

More from Hegseth…

The criticism fits a broader theme of the Trump administration’s approach to the defense industry. In November, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth criticized what he described as a slow and inefficient procurement system, arguing that weapons programs are often over budget, delivered years late and sometimes outdated by the time they reach the field.

Over budget, years late, and obsolete is not going to win too many wars.

The second thing is he wants to ban private equity/institutional investors from buying homes.

President Donald Trump said he would ban Wall Street investors from buying single-family homes in an effort to ease the affordability crisis that’s plaguing the housing market.

“For a very long time, buying and owning a home was considered the pinnacle of the American Dream,” Trump said in a Jan. 7 post on the social media site Truth Social. “I am immediately taking steps to ban large institutional investors from buying more single-family homes, and I will be calling on Congress to codify it. People live in homes, not corporations.”

Institutional investors, such as Blackstone, have been reliably buying and renting out single-family homes since the 2008 financial crisis locked many Americans out of the mortgage market.

First-time homebuyers are suffering as housing has remained scarce and increasingly expensive. They made up a record-low share of all buyers in the most recent year, and the average age of a first-time buyer jumped to 40, according to an industry analysis.

Folks, I just turned 40. I have owned my home for over 10 years.  I cannot fathom not being a homeowner until this age … but … the older generation has made it their mission to make it so my generation and the ones below it will never own a home.  They started allowing these large corporations to buy homes with the only intention being to rent them out.  In some places, like near Atlanta, entire communities are owned by these firms.  They rent them out at top market rate, and when they are able, the rent is “raised to current market standards” regardless of their relationship with the tenant.  Wouldn’t it make more sense to keep the rent increases manageable for a tenant you like, that will maybe take care of the property or at least not let it get run down?  I would think so.  As a result, it’s a “turn and burn” scenario for the renter.  One of these outfits, Invitation Homes, bought a home about 5 doors down from me. The tenant has turned over 3 times in a 26-month period, and it currently sits unoccupied.  The tenants also left a lot to be desired; the first was three generations of a Filipino family that moved in.  Nothing against any race, but wouldn’t you consider it a bad sign 3 families are required to make rent each month?  They quasi converted the garage into living quarters for the youngest family of 3.  They lasted the longest.  Next was a young Hispanic family, that lasted about 8 months.  The last was a young black couple, they lasted about 2 months.  In regard to the black couple, it sounded like the marriage was on ice and that was likely the reason for the short stay.  As I note, it has sat vacant for about 5 months now.  I predict it will sit for a while. The corporation can likely use the vacancy as some kind of write off, and they likely have the attitude of the 90-day guy and say “why take less than what we think its worth?”

The other big problem, first time and even not first-time homebuyers normally have a liquidity issue., They need to get the money together for the downpayment and sometimes have other contingencies … Selling their current home (if not a first-time home buyer).  These corporations have none, their only ask is “where do we wire the money.”

These are both very good policies, with the second being probably my favorite of his term so far.  Keep it up!

Chief

Oh, wait until I tell you about the healthcare issue in this country.  BTW it ain’t Obamacare.

I’ve been thinking about the below Editor’s Note,

Editor’s Note: One issue that is not refuted in the above is stolen identities and organized crime. I suspect the bulk of fraud is via this mechanism. In my experience, government is ill equipped to deal with fraud as the presumption of any government program is that the applicant is eligible.

William is in fact correct. Fraud is likely coming from stolen identities, organized crime, and professional crooks.  The honest reality is that the fraudsters are always several steps ahead of normal people.  Think of it like this: to keep the honest person honest you put a lock on your front door.  However, the burglar doesn’t care that you have a lock and has a device to pry said door open.  Bottom line, if the bad guys want it, they will achieve their goal. In this case, the fraud is committed by folks who know how to avoid detection and may even have people on the inside doing the dirty work for them.

I am proposing a solution, unlike many in the Republican Party, I know I want to “throw this out there.”  It’s not perfect but here goes.

Universal Basic Income.

Yep, the 90-day guy called it the “stupidest thing he has ever heard.  Saying that’s socialism.”  The only thing he knows about socialism is that Sean Hannity rails against it. He is loyal to the folks at Fox News.  He describes his generation and Republicans in general pretty well, be against everything.  Folks voting NO on everything is not a long-term strategy. This mentality is what led us to Obamacare.  When asked for his plan, he shrugged.  With the amount of TV he consumes, he should know we are facing a serious crossroads in our country.

Think of it this way, we have so many government programs: Section 8, SNAP, disability, unemployment, welfare, just to name a few, what if we replaced them all.  Replace them with 1 federal government program.  Universal Income isn’t going to be $100,000, not even close.  Income would be verified by the IRS annually with your tax return. If you find work and earn an income over ____ you come off the program.  Steal my identity and apply?  You will be rejected because I earn too much income. This would be verified by the IRS not an administrative law judge.  Lose your job during the year?  You would have documentation of that to be sent in with your application!  To quote Dave Ramsey, folks on UBI (Universal Basic Income) aren’t going to be seeing the inside of very many restaurants.  This will probably be in the neighborhood of $35-55k a year depending on where you live, not work.

We have to start thinking differently about an ever-changing work environment.  People are having their jobs outsourced overseas constantly. Stores close simply because they “aren’t making enough profit” AI and quantum computing are going to replace a lot of jobs.  When workers retire, the replacement is hired for half or two thirds the salary to save money.  This constant cutting of expenses as the basic structure of profit and loss statements does not bode well for the workforce long term.

Our workforce of the future needs to be viewed differently too.  Some people are disabled and cannot work or cannot work full time.  Others will lack a skillset to work. Let’s be real. When Schools and Universities are saying that graduating high school students (incoming class) only read at a 4^th grade level, we have a real issue!  That isn’t going to get better with time. That generation is going to be left toiling and twisting in the wind.  We shut down our country for 3 years and it has consequences which are just now being felt. Many didn’t finish high school/college.  Many students also picked up bad work habits due to the Covid shutdown. Most jobs do not get filled permanently. If they have something, it’s just on a temporary basis.  Sadly, these items are basically uncorrectable.  Automation is only going to eliminate more positions which again is making the population more and more unemployed.  Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have both spoken about importing folks to the USA on H1-B? Visas to work here. Due to the structure of our educational system, that is the future of our workforce folks.

Paying for it?  Well, this is the stumbling block. I’m too lazy to look it up as of press time but collapsing all the federal/state aid programs and their subsequent employees would free up quite a bit of cash to fund this.  We do not know how much fraud is truly going on, but this collapses several programs into one program. Streamlines the process and makes it so theIRS will be annually verifying income.  It may not be the answer, but I think it’s a start.  I have also heard Mark Zuckerburg, and others discuss funding this with some of their own wealth, so there is that.

As far as the obvious Fox News comeback, what will stop people from just not working, or working for cash under the table?  There isn’t, but I will say $35-50k is not a whole lot of money, so your lifestyle won’t be great.  Much like my remark about food stamps, I highly doubt those folks are using them to buy a filet mignon.

Make the application in person only, verified by a government issued ID, and must have a bank account verified in their name.  If they do not possess all three of these, sorry can’t help you.  No judge to sign off, no paperwork mistakes.  Income verified and viola.  As mentioned above, IRS checked each year for fraud purposes.  Get caught, you are arrested and permanently removed from the program.  Check has to go to an address not a PO Box.   Will it stop all fraud?  No.  Will folks on the program use the funds for illicit activities?  Sure.  The point isn’t to stop all fraud going on, that’s impossible. But my idea is to make it a lot more difficult, that’s all.

If you hate my idea…. May I respectfully ask for your submission?

The Chief

Editor’s Note: I don’t wish to speak directly to the merits of this idea, although collapsing the infamous social safety net into a handful of programs instead of the thousands of existing and overlapping programs being administered currently appears to have merit. I just want to remind you of the plans that Joe Biden had for the IRS. Biden wanted every financial transaction in the United States reported to and tracked by the IRS. The goal of the plan was that the IRS would become our financial Big Brother. Part of the proposal was that the IRS would eliminate income tax filing for individuals. At year end, they would either send you a tax bill or a refund for overpaid taxes. One reason for the program was to eliminate fraud (that it would boost tax revenue was assumed as well).

As an opening note, remember I am a Libertarian who votes with the Republicans, think of me as the opposite of Bernie Sanders who is a Socialist but votes Democrat.

Under the Constitution, we conduct a census every 10 years, meaning we count everyone in every; state, county, city etc.  For the sake of this blog, I am not going to touch the “illegals were counted” argument.  I am simply making a point about the lines drawn.  Yes, I am aware and agree that certain states play “creative accounting” with the numbers.  After the states finish the count, they send their figures to the feds.  The total population then gets divided by 435 (the number of congressmembers) and a number of representatives for each state is determined.  Let’s say 800,000 people.  Then they take each state’s population and divide by that number and that is how many “districts” they get awarded.  States that grow in population may/will gain seats, those who lose population or do not grow fast enough may/will lose seats.  Each state is guaranteed 1 congressmember.  Obviously for states that lose/gain, they must re-draw their district lines.  This occurs once a decade.  Some states have the state legislature draw them, others like California have an independent commission.  These maps, when approved, go into place, typically for the election in years ending in “2,” for the next decade.  Sometimes these maps are delayed by courts, or the voting rights act.  Typically, this is due to racially altered districts, I’ll explain more below.

So, the Republicans in Texas, via Trump, decided to re-draw their lines for the upcoming election.  While this is not specifically forbidden, they do not gain or lose seats, they just redraw the lines.  They drew the new lines in such a way as to try to “gain” 5 Republican seats.  The 90-day guy needed a new pair of man panties upon hearing this, it was the best news ever!  They then moved on to Missouri redrawing the lines to obliterate the Democrat representing Kansas City.  Ditto in North Carolina with a Democrat representing a “swing seat.”  This is like shooting fish in a barrel, right?  Then Comrade Newsom in California decided he would get in on the fun, and the voters passed an initiative to adopt new Democrat drawn lines, and suddenly it wasn’t so fun for Republicans.  I will give Newsom credit, we have an “independent” commission, and he went to the voters and the voters approved a measure to override the commission and adopt new maps.  I am not saying Its right, but it was the correct process.  From what the interwebs are saying, Virginia, Maryland, and Illinois are kicking around the idea of re-doing their maps.  Those would benefit the blue team.  As a side note, Ohio was forced by the courts to re-draw their map, it appears the red team will gain a couple, Utah was required to re-draw theirs, blue team will gain one. 

So, as you can see, we have bedlam. 

The red team is angry that the blue team is doing it, the blue team is saying the red team started it.  Truth is both couldn’t be more wrong.  What the Founders had in mind were districts drawn so that regions/areas/cities/towns with the same needs get a representative who serves their interests.  Think of it like this; if the Geater Sacramento area was in one district, the representatives could focus on; infrastructure, public transit, redevelopment funds, things bigger that more developed cities need.  On the other hand, places way up north of Sacramento like Chico, Red Bluff, and the rural cities nearby have completely different needs; timber industry, farming, rural internet etc.  My point is, what these maps did, was put the rural areas in with parts of the large cities, (both sides did this) to create districts the other side cannot win.  For example, what do Santa Rosa and Sonoma have in common with Alturas and Chico?  Outside of smoking weed, I’d say very little, but it now has 45% Democrat registration making it unwinnable for a Republican.  This is a common theme both parties used, it’s been going on for years, but the pedal was pushed  to the floor this go round.  Also, both parties “shored up incumbents,” meaning they took members who may lose their seats and put people/areas containing large amounts of voters from the other team into a neighboring district.  Think of it like this, as far as Northern California is concerned, if you remove some rural parts of Kevin Kiley’s district, and replace with a city like Rancho Cordova it could suddenly become unwinnable.

The other issue I have is that this sets a dangerous precedent going forward.  How often will we be redrawing these seats?  Let’s use this example. A congressperson from a former safe seat wins by only 4% due to shifting demographics. Do you re-draw the lines shifting parts of the closest “big city” out or draw in more of the “rural area or military base” in?  To be clear, I am targeting both parties here.  This would mean we become a banana republic, and sadly we are getting very close to being one.

What is my solution?  Well, nothing is perfect, but I would start by saying cities should not be split up.  For example, the City of Nashville should have representation from 1 person, not be “cut up” into four pieces and spread out making it impossible for a Democrat to win.  Likewise in California, there should be 2 Republicans representing rural northern seats, not 2 Democrats representing Bay Area/Norcal hybrid seats.  This actually gives representation. The idea here is the rep from a city will argue for certain things and against others, also bringing perspective from city life, the rural rep will do the opposite.  This is healthy.  By carving up Nashville or putting Bay Area cities in with northern rural areas, they do not get a voice.  Frankly there is no point in even visiting there. 

As far as competitiveness goes, I doubt many seats will be competitive but at least the maps would create actual representation.  The other point here is states would likely be sending a coalition of representatives that looks like their states voting demographics.  I mean shouldn’t CA be sending about 38% of its representation as Republicans?  Ditto in Texas for Democrats?  The way the lines are currently being drawn creates an out of whack representation demographic.  Does anyone think North Carolina, a literal toss up state in presidential elections should send 11 Republicans in a 14 seat delegation?

With all the talk of rigged elections, doesn’t this actually seem like rigging an election?  Creating a district your guy cannot lose?  Or even being remotely challenged?