Stop Pulling the Wagon

Susan Rice – Domestic Policy Adviser to President Joe Biden

photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Domestic policy adviser Susan Rice detailed Tuesday (1-26-2021), President Joe Biden’s attempt to fight systemic racism by highlighting “equity” policies advanced by the administration.

She began her speech with the following statement: “For too many American families, systemic racism and inequality in our economy, laws, and institutions still put the American dream far out of reach,” Rice said at the White House press briefing.

I both listened to her speech and read it several times.  If you would like to read it for yourself it is available at: https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/01/26/susan-rice-trumpets-equity-policies-under-joe-biden-fight-systemic-racism/

My reaction to what she had to say was in general wanting to agree with her on the goals she outlined.  I think virtually all of us want to see equity in our system to offer opportunity to every citizen regardless of race, gender, religious beliefs, etc. etc. etc.

“Advancing equity is everybody’s job,” she said, noting that each federal government agency needed to place equity at the “core of their public engagement.”  Ms. Rice said in her statement.

Excuse me, but I believe Federal, as well as State and other public agencies already have this mandate in place.

One area I have questions on in her speech is when she speaks of equity: how is she defining it?  I did some research and see various definitions.  Some definitions found relative parity between equality and equity.  I am in full agreement with that definition.  However,  in one place I found the following definition:

As the New Discourses site points out, “Where equality means that citizen A and citizen B are treated equally, equity means “adjusting shares in order to make citizens A and B equal.”

Let that sink in for a while and think about what is implied here.  I find this definition very troubling because every time government somewhere tries to impose “equity” as defined as “equal outcomes” the results are invariably disastrous for the average worker and citizen.

the following is a little story I shared in an earlier article about a well intentioned professor with a plan to provide equal, guaranteed outcomes to members of the class he was teaching:

“A group of students go to college.  Some students work hard,  study diligently and get all A’s & B’s.  Other students party, skip classes, do not study, attend marches and protests for “causes” and get D’s & F’s.  Their Professor says that in order to be “fair” to all students he has decided to “tax” the hard working students A’s & B’s  and share those grades with the lazy students who got the D’s & F’s.  In this way all students can average out at a “C” grade.    Some of the students are going to love this idea and others will likely hate it.  Can you guess which ones will love it?” 

I believe our Federal, State and Local Laws already require “equity” in opportunity, hiring, salaries and treatment of employees.  In addition we have laws that make it illegal to discriminate in housing etc. etc.

In my experience I have found employers invariably want employees who show up for work on time, are trained, productive, customer oriented, and want to do everything they can to make the employers business successful.  In the process all employees succeed as well.  The employer really does not care what the race, gender etc. of the employee is.

Unstated, but to me implied in Ms. Rice’s statement is an implication that our government may be planning on trying to institute laws for “guaranteed outcomes” for citizens.   Pardon me, but no matter how well intentioned such a goal might be there is simply no way to guarantee outcomes.  If I were to bring any group of five individuals together; you can pick the races, genders or whatever diversity of your choice, and I gave each of them 1 million dollars with the only criteria that they report back to me in one year with what their new found wealth had done for them, does anybody believe they would all have the same story to tell?

Our government should and must guarantee equal opportunity to everyone – it cannot guarantee outcomes.

In our form of Democracy the most we can do, and I want to make sure we do, is to provide equal opportunity to everyone, and I mean everyone without regard to race, gender, background, or who they are related to,  all deserve the same opportunity to succeed.  We cannot, and should not try, to guarantee equal outcomes.

Every time government tries to impose artificial equal outcomes for its citizens the result is always the same.  (1) The super rich (Jeff Bezos, George Soros etc.) who are above the law. (2) An Oligarchy (government by the privileged political ruling class) also above the law.  And  (3) The rest of the citizenry are given “equity”, that is all become equally poor and live in fear of the law (Cuba, Venezuela, the Soviet Union etc.).

Bob Bandy – January 2021

Regular Readers of my columns know that I am neither a Democrat nor a Republican.  Many think I am a Libertarian and there is much that I share with the Libertarian view but I do not identify with them either.

I am old enough that I can say I was a Kennedy Democrat though in truth I don’t think John F. Kennedy would recognize the Democratic Party of today.

Later I became disenchanted with the Democratic Party and became a Reagan Republican for a number of years.

Still later I became disappointed with the spinelessness of most of the Republican Party and became “not affiliated” with any party.

Both Political Parties have their share of a small number of “good” people who sincerely want what is best (in their minds) for the country and a much larger number who only seek power, wealth and some form of immortality in the footnotes of history.

I have many good friends in both parties that I respect and like even though we may strongly disagree on important issues.  This article is not about them.

Within the Republican Party there are many whom I consider politically and morally “Bi-Polar” in that they can’t adhere to their supposed value system if it will make them unpopular with the media or interferes with their personal goals of wealth and power.

Within the Democratic Party there has come to be a more sinister element that seems to have wedded itself to the “Dark Side of the Force” with an agenda of destruction of what this country was originally founded on.

If one looks at any of the Red/Blue Political Maps of the country it seems apparent that the so-called “Red” zones are in area much larger, more sparsely populated with those parts of the country in general more responsibly governed fiscally and contributing a greater share in productivity of goods and services producing a solid foundation of taxes.  For purposes of this essay I will call them “Tax Cows”.

The “Blue” zones are much more focused in large urban areas.  Many, many of these corrupt, inefficient, large, densely populated urban areas are run by so called “Liberal” politicians and have become infested with consumers of what the “Tax Cows” produce.  Often they are overly populated by “non-producers”, either receivers of government handouts or overpaid bureaucrats whose main job is doling out other peoples tax money to non-productive citizens, by which I mean those who could, but do not work at something productive.  Sometimes referred to as those who feed at the government trough.

This “Dark Side” of the so-called Democratic Party has one agenda.  That is to “milk” the “Tax Cows” and ship that “Tax Milk” from the more sparsely voter populated  countryside where it is produced to more heavily voter populated non productive inner cities where much of the Tax Dollars are wasted on sound good, feel good programs that only make the citizens more addicted to the public dole and less able to care for themselves.  The receivers of this “free money” largess seem to believe the lie that the Democratic Party is somehow the “Mama Milk Tax Cow” and vote for the Democrats in misguided loyalty.  If one tries to point out that the tax dollars are not producing the desired result, one is labeled as “not caring”, “heartless” or any number of other punitive adjectives and told that “we” just have not spent enough but with ever more “Tax Milk” it will all work out.  This is how a city like Seattle can spend a “Billion Tax Milk Dollars” on homelessness and only make the problem worse.

At some point this “Tax Milk” transfer produces social collapse with collateral crime, drugs and hopelessness.  The city lies in ruins with lots of finger pointing and no solutions.  Whatever few producers/tax payers are left that have the ability to leave “Beat feet for the tall grass” and look for peace, order and fiscal discipline elsewhere.  As an example this is why California and New York are hemorrhaging citizens relocating to states like Florida and Texas.   The city then ends up with increasing filth and debris as well as sickness and death.  If you doubt me, visit some of the cities this is happening to right now.  New York City, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Portland, Baltimore etc. etc. etc.

Those in charge on the “Dark Side” don’t really care because they are part of the ruling class and protected from the chaos and misery they have helped create.

George Soros and other American haters win and you end up with a “Banana Republic” led by corruption, lies, waste and greed.

Sad to say, the warnings of many of our nations founders seem to have gone unheeded and are coming to pass.

Bob Bandy – January 2021

John Kerry photo – Slick Times

President Elect Joe Biden has announced that he will be putting John Kerry in the position of “Special Envoy on Climate Change”.  An interesting choice.

In the past John Kerry has been unkindly likened to the butler “Lurch” in the old Addams Family series (1964-66).  I say unkindly but in many ways the part of Lurch, played by actor Ted Cassidy, demonstrated more charm and wit than former Senator and Secretary of State John Kerry seems to possess.

In my own mind John Kerry appears more like a humorless and inept caricature of Cosmo Kramer from the Seinfeld Series (1989-98).

An unremarkable Senator and never more than a “Yes-Man Bobblehead”  for the inept foreign policy of the Obama Administration.  He bumbled and stumbled and fumbled his way from one assignment to another serving as Secretary of State (2013-17).

“Jan 15, 2020 The Boston Herald · John Kerry, sucking up to the Iranians, is ending his long political career the way he began it, and that is by befriending the country’s enemies.” 

Again – Jan 15, 2020 The Boston Herald – “If the mullahs in Tehran want to get on President Trump’s good side, they could start by returning the billions they extorted from a willing Barack Obama.” 

Thank you John Kerry for doing your part.

Other than what he has been spoon fed as “Pablum” Climate Change propaganda from “Man Made Global Climate Change” so called “experts”,  I suspect he has little to no knowledge on the subject.

“Experts”,  for example like our former Vice President and self made charlatan Al Gore who predicted the end of civilization as we know it by the year 2000 unless we did exactly as he told us to do.  We didn’t and it didn’t.  In the process he made himself a multi-millionaire and bought a beach front mansion with his get rich quick charade which he still peddles to this day to his Kool Aid drinking sycophants.

I seriously doubt that John Kerry can set a temperature on his own heating and cooling system without help.

“Does climate change? Of course. If we had been alive 10,000 years ago, the majority of us would have been up to our butts in year round glaciers, ice and snow. Today, large areas of the upper United States are flat lands created by glacial action. Thankfully, climate has changed and continues to change with warmer and cooler periods.” (see “Junk Science Ala Carte” – SPTW November 23, 2019).

The fact is our planet is 70% covered in oceans and of the remaining 30% man occupies a tiny fraction of 1% of the land area and lacks the ability to effect the climate by more than an almost immeasurable amount.  Natural Solar cycles and volcanic action contribute much, much more to climate change.

But if, repeat if, John Kerry really thinks he can make a difference then let him take on the real polluters, China and India who have been all but exempted from the Paris Climate Accords till the mid 2030’s.  If he can’t do that then what can he hope to do other than eliminate a lot of jobs here in the United States.

Fact is, the United States does not have now, and will not have even 75% of the ability to provide our electrical and energy needs from solar and wind sources until at least 2050.

Have any of these “Green New Deal” zealots told us how, if you put everybody into electric cars, those cars and their batteries will have electricity pumped into them at the end of each day and from what source?

Of course, a Biden choice like John Kerry seems to be the “norm” for the coming Biden/Harris presidency which appears to be trying to re-create the Obama Administration.  Is former President Obama going to have a desk in the Biden Whitehouse?

Shall we be looking forward to Obama 3.0?  Ambassador Hillary Clinton?  Secretary of State Michelle Obama?

Bob Bandy – December 2020

photo: marketpulse.com

I fought the law and the law won – Lyrics by Sonny Curtis 1966

The “Swamp” is a common name given to the “Deep State” headquartered in Washington DC and refers to an entrenched Bureaucracy committed to continue their own existence at all costs no matter whether they actually accomplish anything or not.

Being somewhat less charitable than others I do not think of this as a swamp but instead consider it a cesspool or sewer.

There are literally countless Agencies, Bureau’s and Departments.  Many duplications with often intentionally obscure relationships.  All have one goal, to achieve Bureaucratic Immortality with lifetime payrolls and benefits for employees and suppliers.

Just one example that I wrote about in April 2012  (Bring on the Clowns)  is the Department of Energy:

“The Department of Energy was instituted during the Jimmy Carter Administration on 8/04/1977,  TO LESSEN OUR DEPENDENCE ON FOREIGN OIL.   Now it’s 2012 —- 35 years later —- and the budget for this “necessary” department is $24.2 Billion a year.  It has 16,000 Federal Employees and approximately 100,000 contract employees and look at the job it has done!  35 years ago 30% of our oil consumption was foreign imports.  Today 70% of our oil consumption is foreign imports…..  Great job!   Good old Federal bureaucracy.  (And we could supply all our oil needs from the USA)”  

I don’t need to tell you that this agency continues to this day, growing in size and cost to the taxpayer. We have since become energy independent, not because of the Department of Energy but because of technology and new ways to extract energy along with regulatory relief.

None of  these countless Bureau’s, Departments and Agencies want to see any kind of threat to their continued existence and  will support any political party dedicated to their immortality.  They will fight ferociously, using any means to continue their “kingdoms” infinitum. Hence, the “Deep State”.

President Donald Trump came to office with a promise to “drain the swamp”.  With this promise he became the “enemy” and had to be “gotten rid of” at all costs and with any measures possible.  Investigations, accusations, impeachment, character assassination, unnamed sources, distortions……  whatever it takes.

The “Deep State” has within their camp numerous collaborating “partners”.  The Federal Education and University Cartel, Tabloid Media Mafia, Hollywood Groupies, Big Tech Underworld.  Plus all the Government Unions dependent on the continued status “as is”.  A metastasized group of supporters.

What did you think was going to happen?  Want to get a visit from a government FBI agent?  How about an IRS Audit?  Maybe you would prefer having Robert De Niro screaming the ‘F’ word at your family and kids while you are having dinner at Denny’s?

I know I am always grateful when a Google Algorithm thanks me on my cell phone for shopping at Walmart for my underwear.  Aren’t you?

It is what it is and we seem stuck with it.

Bob Bandy – December 2020

California Homeless Camp 
                  California Globe 11-16-20 

Will $1 Billion Spending on California’s Homeless Fix the Problem?

“California’s largest cities are ground zero of the state’s expanding homeless population.  Contrary to most city leaders’ claims that this is a housing problem, it is not that simple. While California’s housing costs are through the roof, many of those living on the streets are not even from California, but come here for the state’s liberal policies on drug use, easy theft opportunities and lack of criminal convictions, generous welfare benefits, as well as the “sanctuary” status – and the weather.  Notably, most of the homeless also receive a monthly check from the federal government.” (my emphasis)

(Source: California Globe November 16, 2020)

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In December 2019 I wrote an article on Sacramento’s homeless problem and the City of Sacramento’s authorized $22.5 Million Dollar plan to help some 750-760 of the homeless on the cities streets and by-ways.  (see Tweedledum & Tweedledee  – Dec. 19, 2019 -SPTW).

Using my own calculator I determined this worked out to a cost of $29,605 per person helped.

I now hear on the news that Sacramento’s homeless problem has increased by 150% since last year and downtown merchants and citizens are “demanding” the city do something to alleviate the problem because the streets are unsafe, unclean and not “good” for business.

I have been unable thus far to determine where the $22.5 million dollars went and what the results of this “homeless solution” have been.

“Like most everyone else, I would love to get these poor, struggling people off the streets and into warm dry environments, housing, shelter etc…. but I have a question….. Do any of these officials and decision makers own a CALCULATOR?” (quote from my earlier article)

Why does government always seem to try to solve actual problems by throwing taxpayer dollars at them rather than tackling the true root causes of such issues so well spelled out in the California Globe article quoted above?

In a related case, I heard in the news last year that the State of Washington spent over $1 Billion Dollars on its homeless problem (mostly in Seattle) and the problem got worse, not better.

Tweedledum & Tweedledee appear to be still hard at work with “brain dead”, “feel good” solutions to problems with your tax dollars.

Bob Bandy – November 2020