Racism is the only reason to follow Betty McCollum’s advice in this matter.
22 thoughts on “Things I’ve Learned Over The Past Eight Years”
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Shot in the Dark
Cranking Open The Big Brass Nozzle Of Truth Since 2002
What continues to amaze me — there are a lot of ambitious DFL pols in CD-4. I’m stunned no one has challenged McCollum, who has accomplished nothing in her years in Washington. Her only value, at one point, was that she was sewn into the lining of Nancy Pelosi’s pantsuits when Nancy Pelosi had the gavel. Pelosi has never been less relevant than she is now, so what value does ol’ Betty bring?
“It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to lead the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development,” McCollum wrote…”
If this former grade school social studies teacher isn’t the stupidest person ever elected to Congress, I’ll eat my hat. McCollum’s is an abiding stupidity, an epic stupidity, a stupidity so profound it overwhelms one with not only it’s breadth and depth, but it’s utter sincerity.
There is a reason you won’t hear her give an interview, not one mocking Ben Carson’s qualifications, not mocking anyone, not anywhere, not even for NPR.
It is the same reason she seldom speaks from the House floor. The reason is Betty’s stupidity shines through the spoken word like a beacon. You cannot fail to detect it, and you will be offended that someone so simple minded is voting to shape the laws that govern our country.
The fact that Carson won’t even respond to her dim prattle is more evidence of his qualification to hold office than anything she or any of her care givers could ever provide for her to hold hers.
The current HUD secretary is Julian Castro. Castro is proud of the fact that he was an affirmative action admit to Stanford.
“Joaquín and I got into Stanford because of affirmative action,” Julián says. “I scored 1,210 on my SATs, which was lower than the median matriculating student. But I did fine in college and in law school. So did Joaquín. I’m a strong supporter of affirmative action because I’ve seen it work in my own life.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/09/magazine/09Mayor-t.html?pagewanted=all
Castro is not a native speaker of Spanish. He learned Spanish in secondary school, like I did.
I heard Castro interviewed on NPR a few months ago, re: a new HUD policy (not approved by law, but by Obama with an executive order), that ex-cons could no longer be discriminated against by landlords. This is a terrible policy, the people who will pay the price for this are the honest working poor, who will now be warehoused with ex-cons. The NPR “journalist” who interviewed Castro did not mention this. She seemed to be reading her questions from a script provided her by Castro.
If the Democratic Party learns anything from this election, Identity Politics have brought them nothing but defeat.
Betty should be held up as proof that anyone can rise to at least Congressman, regardless of intelligence level. Sadly, I won’t need this example for my girls. I sometimes live in terror of their intelligence.
Interesting that McCollum argues that Carson, who saw up close and personal his mother’s efforts to secure safe housing for her family, and who saw up close and personal the consequences of Detroit public housing, has no clue about how the poor afford decent housing, or what can go wrong with HUD.
Really, the deal is that McCollum knows that Carson has seen up close and personal how disastrous HUD aid has been, and that he might have a good idea how to fix it, presumably by shutting it down.
Related; the recent “Ghost Ship” warehouse fire in Oakland. Container shipping took off decades ago, so any sane person knew that the warehouse business wasn’t coming back to that area. At the same time, the whole region is chronically short of affordable housing close to employers.
So instead of building “affordable” housing for about $350k/apartment back in 2001, they could have simply rezoned such properties and let developers make housing more affordable….with no cost to the taxpayer. HUD really exists to cover up the consequences of idiotic decisions by cities and states that prevent housing from being built in critical areas.
Heck developers could take the above mentioned containers, of which a surplus of empty ones sit on US soil, and converted them to apartments for less than the 350/k each.
SmithStCrx, Mitch and I attended a “Town Hall” Betty threw at Macallister college a few years back.
She rarely appears in public unless her audience has been carefully screened, as was done by union thugs at the gate of a union hall she spoke at in 2012, because she simply cannot deal with anything that strays from the script her caregivers have prepared for her. She falls apart, quite literally.
I’ll give her this; she knows she is stupid, and she isn’t ashamed to STFU if the discussion gets away from her. Although I don’t have a clip from her Mac Attack, it went pretty much just like this:
https://youtu.be/l2MSNE8w8p4?t=3m10s
Cornered by a respectful, quietly expressed request for details on tax policy, let’s watch Betty tackle a respectful request for details on tax policy:
https://youtu.be/9UxZx1RZ3MI?t=30m10s
She can’t even name the tax bill she voted for…the bi-partisan thingy…ya know.
Oh. And please take note that in the first clip, she tells her constituents “there are no earmarks”, but at 31:45 of the second clip she says “earmarks, there were earmarks”, and at 33:10 she repeats it.
bikebubba on December 7, 2016 at 11:00 am said:
. . .
Related; the recent “Ghost Ship” warehouse fire in Oakland. Container shipping took off decades ago, so any sane person knew that the warehouse business wasn’t coming back to that area. At the same time, the whole region is chronically short of affordable housing close to employers.
. . .
Also related: the “tiny house” movement. Building codes call “tiny houses” foundationless dwellings. To the housing authorities they are the same thing as your hillbilly cousin’s double-wide. My God, these hipsters are living in trailers in trailer parks and they refuse to admit it.
Loren: maybe. The article linked below describes a container home in Royal Oak, Michigan, of about 2400 square feet selling for $430k. Spendy. But they say it’s cheaper than others….given how ugly it is, it had darned well better be!
http://www.detroitnews.com/story/life/home-garden/2016/03/10/couples-royal-oak-home-built-shipping-container/81614328/
Don’t get me wrong–I think it’s a really cool idea, and steel instead of concrete in an earthquake zone has some obvious attractive points. For that matter, steel in a tornado zone has its benefits, too. I just don’t know whether the economics would work out. Maybe it simply needs to “pair” better with standard building.
Loren, I really like the shipping container idea. If we could encourage rent seeking leftists, moochers and wards of the state to move into them, we could just close the doors and have them delivered to Mogadishu.
You silly Plisken… The leftists, moochers and wards want to bring Mogadishu to you!
Jethrene….true. The funny thing, though, is that if you don’t have something of a foundation under those wheels, it’ll be a LOT of fun getting that house moving when the time comes. Plus, they’re spendy–typically about the same price as an Airstream of similar size, just not with the functionality of the Airstream. But hipsters also love to “live riveted”, I’m told.
My brother shared a home with hipsters/hippies when he was in college in Berkeley for a while….moved out/was forced out when he realized their “garden” was in reality a rats’ nest and cleaned it up. So the distance between hipsters/hippies and trailer parks is not as much as one would think, and experience suggests often the trailer park residents end up looking better than the hipsters. At least the trailer park residents are mostly over PBR, no?
Swiftee, my wife was a GOP LA when Betty was just a small time state rep. During a hearing about Camp Riply, Betty asked the General what Bivouac meant. Completely straight faced he explained, “Camping. We teach them camping Ma’am.?”
The General twigged what manner of dolt he had on his hands right off, didn’t he, SSC? lol
Jethrene, it’s only a matter of time before we start seeing rusty Prius’ up on blocks in the front yard.
BikeBubba, that’s seven containers. I was thinking 400 sq foot single container dwellings. That’s as big or bigger than many studio apartments that might be available in these markets. Stack them up four high with steel staircases outside. Ground floor would be ADA accessible.
Understood. I was just thinking cost/square foot, and it’s decidedly on the high end. They probably also made things more expensive by using “one way containers” without rust.
Betty….I suppose that’s another problem with one-party rule. You just need someone who will vote “correctly”. Doesn’t matter if she has the IQ of a toaster oven.
A lot of people in Hawaii County live “off the grid.” Electricity is very expensive here (about $0.35/kWh). It’s also expensive to have the power company hook you up. When I moved to my modern subdivision — paved roads, cable, high speed internet, etc., attached to my deed was a $9,000 lien from the power company for running power to my house.
Anyway, when I was single, I looked into buying or building a small, off-grid cabin.
The problem is the infrastructure, the power, plumbing, and waste water. Solar power gets expensive fast, and if you want modern, inexpensive appliances, you need a high power inverter and lots of batteries. If the inverter blows (and it will), you are in the dark until you fork over a few thousand bucks for a new one.
Four walls and a roof is the cheap part.
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