Infrastructure bill

Back in 2009 Obama passed an $800 billion dollar infrastructure bill which he said would start shovel-ready jobs. Of that $98 billion was dedicated to transportation and infrastructure and only $27 billion of that was actually spent. The number of jobs predicted did not materialize and to this day many can't figure out where the money went. Last night the house passed a $1.2 trillion dollar infrastructure bill that contains $500 billion for transportation and infrastructure but this bill includes something called human infrastructure. Infrastructure—originally used to designate building and repairing road, bridges, railroads, and ports—has been expanded under President Biden to include human or social infrastructure which includes things like healthcare, childcare, education and job training. Many feel that the human part has the best chance of seeing results since it will not be hampered by environmental concerns and it provides government benefits to many people.

Oil production

Because of fracking the US started to export oil and achieved a certain amount of energy independence. Then things changed quickly when Biden was elected. The administration has put any new Alaskan production on permanent hold and frozen any new exploration and development auctions in the lower 48 states and offshore. One of the results is a hike in the price of gasoline by more than one dollar since the election and Biden is concerned so he asked OPEC to increase production. When Energy Secretary Granholm was asked about this she said she did not control OPEC and they refuse to increase production. Why she just didn't say the US will increase production is a mystery.

Minn

The city of Minneapolis voted to keep the police department but the surprising thing is that 44% of the people voted to replace the police with social workers. City council members who were for defund the police lost their jobs. The question arises how did anyone think you could run a major city, where murder is on the upswing, without a police department. How did anyone think you could send a social worker to a robbery in process scene. Most experts say that even a family dispute is a dangerous place for police officers. It seems that common sense has returned. Now maybe steps can be taken to reduce the murder rates that have risen across the country.

School board elections

In yesterdays school board elections in Minnesota one of the larger district, Rosemont, Apple Valley, the winners received about 8,000 votes. There are 2,000 teachers in this district. Unlike the general public, the teachers are organized and interested in this election. The result is that they can generally elect members who are sympathetic to the teachers needs. Just as the teachers union puts teachers first, the elections also put teachers in control. When the union sits down to negotiate with the school board they are looking across the table at people they helped to elect and will help to re-elect assuming they get a pro teacher program. In addition the board is not working with their own money but rather tax payer funds. Contrast this to private unions where the negotiators have a truly adversarial relationship and they are dealing with shareholder money.

Black murders

Sometimes the best way to describe something is to say what it isn't. When it comes to Wokeism this example may work. Here is some factual information that cannot be stated without being called racist. Twelve percent of Americans are Black and half of those or six percent are male and half of those or three percent are Black males between the ages of 15 and 40 and those three percent commit 55% of the murders and 90% of those murders are Black males killing Black males. People do not know these statistics but they see what happens every weekend in cities like Chicago and they know that something is wrong in the Black community. If you talk about single moms which means poverty, crime and drugs in the inner cities you are, once again, not Woke. The cry of racism is keeping white people quiet and this results in a lot of Black people being murdered. The elections yesterday may be a wake up call to the Woke, excuse the verbiage, and get people to start recognizing what is going on.

PACs

People often ask how a politician can become so wealthy. Many earn extra funds by giving speeches and writing books but one way that is often overlooked, perhaps on purpose, is something called a leadership PAC. In a regular PAC the left over funds from a campaign cannot be used for personal use but a leadership PAC is not covered by these rules. A leadership PAC is established and controlled by an individual holding public office and candidates can transfer left over funds into this PAC and the personal use rule does not apply. You can use it for travel, you can use it for dinner, concert tickets, all in the name of fundraising. There's just not that much scrutiny on it. And politicians have used their leadership PACs quite lavishly. It could make for a nice retirement plan when a Pol leaves officer by choice or otherwise.

Going green

As the push for climate change moves slowly toward nuclear another factor comes into play and that is land usage. Solar fields and wind farms require 360 times as much land as a thorium nuke plant. The land must be cleared of all natural growth meaning the destruction of natural habitats for many species. Where are the environmentalist. Are they quite because of politics. Where are the scientist to tell people that you cannot replace fossil fuels with wind and solar. Do they have a vested interest in solar panels. Are the people getting subsidies controlling the news. These are valid questions for people who are concerned about climate change.