Hey Egyptians........Ya Got Nothing On Mickey D's.

                                                                 

Egyptian Mummies?  Big deal.   In 1999 a Utah man strolled into McDonald's, ordered two hamburgers, ate one and stuck the other one in his coat pocket for later.  Except the Utah dude forgot about that burger.  He did not find it until 2013, just after its 14th birthday.  Astonishingly the burger was doing just fine.  No mold, no green slime, nothing!

So every year about this time I check in on how that ancient burger is doing.  Just fine I'm glad to say.  I hear it made an appearance on CBS as well as the medical show, The Doctors.  It was there where the docs examined the burger, proclaimed it free of rot, not stinky, the only sign of age being the dried up pickle.  The doctors explained that there are so many enzymes and preservatives in a McDonald's hamburger even bacteria take a sniff and walk away.

As the McDonald's hamburger celebrates its 20th birthday I bid you all "Bon Appetit!" for your next visit to the golden arches.

The Melting Pot Ain't So Savory Lately

                                                                     

Assimilate:

"to take in and utilize as nourishment : absorb into the system. 2 to absorb into the cultural tradition of a population or group the community assimilated many immigrants."

This week North Dakota's capitol city, Bismarck, with a relatively tiny 95,000 population, will decide if they want to take in any more refugees. According to local news reports the 22 member city commission has decided to declare a loud "no".

Now this would be a little startling, given that only a few years ago cities in North Dakota was promising free or cheap houses for anyone who would come and live up in their frosty climes.

A little background is required here. On 26 September of this year President Trump issued an Executive Order that said no American city would be forced to take in an already drastically reduced refugee quota. The Executive Order specifically requires each city to declare their willingness to accept refugees, with none to be relocated in that city unless an acceptance documented is forwarded to Washington.

So let's get back to tiny Bismarck. Doesn't a capitol city need a larger tax base? More people to pay property and sales taxes...to fund schools and museums and local community centers?

Apparently Bismarck is suffering from the same unsavory melting pot that the rest of America is feeling. Folks who immigrate here, refuse to assimilate by learning English and respecting our traditions. Instead we keep getting the rest of the world's dregs.......folks who make their living by crime....or exploiting the wonderful "Disneyland" of public benefits.

And can we find no better example than up in Michigan......where entire population conclaves consist of Muslims, bound and determined to ignore U.S. law, and live by Sharia Law only.

Ironically the ACLU is taking the opposite tack from Trump's position They are suing Trump for his miserly refugee quotas. And the ACLU, who normally battle to prevent folks from being forced to do anything, now argue that cities and towns should be forced to take in refugees.

I'm with the President on this one. The American Melting Pot has become a bitter brew these days.

Merry Christmas

                                                                     

Read an article this weekend about someone who had been called into their Human Resources department and scolded for wishing a work crew Merry Christmas. I was already expecting to hear the HR guy/girl suggest an alternative greeting. Instead the lady worker was advised not to say anything at all.

Wow! The writer for that article had done a little more research. As if boasting that there really isn't a war on Christmas (55 percent of Americans still prefer "Merry Christmas" to "Happy Holidays", it seems that a solid and growing 11 percent of folks are actually offended if you wish them Merry Christmas. I'm sorry but some 20 million Americans offended by "Merry Christmas" sounds like a war to me.......or at least a serous skirmish.

With apologies to that 11 percent, I wish you all a Merry Christmas and joyous New Year.

Impeachment, Part Deux?

                                                                     

This week the Democratic controlled House will vote for impeaching the President. The straight party line vote will no doubt end up voting "for", thus setting up a trial in the Senate.

Once the Senate trial begins the Republican controlled Senate will have two options...........either take basically a "guilty or "not guilty" straw poll, to see if 67 Senators vote "Yes", or stage an extended trial, each side allowed to call witnesses.

Though both Majority Leader McDonnell and Trump's defense team wants quick procedure, the President has said he'd like to have an extended trial. He wants his defense team to issue summons to Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Adam Schiff, Nancy Pelosi, and Biden and son........that they might all be grilled on national TV, just as his staff has been.

I'm all for that. In an age where guilt by accusation is society's "modus operandi", I can think of dozens of the Democrats's missteps and coverups over the last decade. A trial like that might be cleansing for our nation. Alas, chances are the Senate and Trump's lawyer will prevail and January's impeachment trial will be quick and dirty.

The Democratic party is unique. Though they already know the outcome of their impeachment efforts they went ahead anyway. Why? Because they lost in 2016, took a look at the pitiful herd of their own 2020 Presidential candidates, and decided to "play the lottery", hoping their numbers come up. With such long odds a reasonable person might not go out and purchase a Rolls Royce as they wait for the lottery pull. The Democrats are doing exactly that.

And we might also note that nothing in the Constitution precludes the Democrats from starting another impeachment effort as soon as this one is over. (God knows next November's election is looking dismal for the Dems.) They might label the next impeachment efforts "Impeachment, Part Deux" and call on Adam Schiff to do a better job next time in writing political fiction.

Mon Dieu!

Santa In Cleats

                                                               

In the 1960's only two professional baseball players made $100,000 per year......Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays.  (Prior to that only Babe Ruth and Joltin' Joe made that kind of money).  Mickey and Willie were worth it.  Every year they were Triple Crown candidates.  Sadly, once the two greats showed symptoms of decline they were retired or shuffled off to hawk beer or breakfast cereal.

In the Mantle and Mays era one could take his kid to a baseball game, order up hot dogs and beer or soft drink, and have enough left from a $20 dollar bill for some Crackerjacks.  Today those same two tickets, and food fare would cost you more than $160 dollars. What has changed since the 1960's?  Baseball free agency.  

Hey, as a life long baseball fan I can tell you that free agency was a welcome change from the baseball slavery that went on for the first century of professional baseball.  Before free agency baseball players were just the "property" of team owners.  Until the 1970's the vast majority of baseball players had to take on second jobs during the winter months, so paltry was their pay.  The average baseball player in that era made less than $7,000 a year.  And he had no control over where he might play, nor any guarantees that he'd have a contract the following year.  And, god forbid he have a bad year.  The owner would slash his contract in a heartbeat.

Consider the Los Angeles Dodgers' dynamic duo of Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale; two Hall of Fame pitchers who perennially won 20 games, had sub 2.00 earned run averages, and mowed down major league hitters with regularity.  So, in the mid-60's Drysdale and Koufax had a brilliant idea.  They would jointly hold out until the Dodgers offered them a hundred grand a year.  Well, after a prolonged holdout Koufax got $90,000 and, as I recall, they bumped Drysdale up to $65,000 or so.

As baseball fans know, everything changed with the Curt Flood challenge.  The courts ruled that no baseball team can ever own human beings.  That ruling was further reinforced with later court rulings.

The first beneficiary of free agency was the great Jim Catfish Hunter, for whom the New York Yankees shelled out $160,000 or so for a long term contract.  Other stars began receiving similar rewards.

Then, during the 70's and 80's, a sort of balance was achieved.  Players were finally being paid what they were worth, and owners were still reaping profits.

Alas, no one could have predicted what we see today.  A .220 hitting, average shortstop makes the major league minimum of $600,000 or so.  If he hits .260 he makes millions.  If he can hit .300 the owners open the vault and shell out ten million a year for his services, all of it guaranteed money.  Then there are the superstars......the pitcher who can win 15 games a year, with a sub 3.00 ERA, or the hitter who can get a hit once in every three times at bat, club 30 home runs, and drive in a hundred.  For that talent, that would have seemed mediocre in the 50's and 60's,  owners sign them up for a decade and fork out hundreds of millions.  Are they worth it?

Let's just look at his week's signings.  Pitcher Stephen Strasberg, hero of this year's World Series, has never won 20 games in a single year, has never stayed healthy enough to pitch 200 innings, yet was able to opt out of his 25 million per year contract and sign one with his Washington Senators for $245 million over seven years.

How about Anthony Rendon, the Washington Senators third baseman last year.  The Angels just inked a deal with him that pays him over 35 million a year or seven years, all guaranteed....even if he suffers a career-ending injury.

Ah, but the most insane contract belongs to former Pittsburgh Pirate and Houston Astros's pitcher Gerrit Cole.  Prior to last year Cole was a mediocre, average pitcher.  Then he had a good year with the Astros.    So the mighty New York Yankees came calling.   And they signed him up for a $345 million dollars (yeah, that's a third of a billion!).  

You almost wouldn't gasp if these 30 million dollar a year wonders actually earned that kind of money on the field.  But, Quick!  Name me just one player in the modern era who ever earned that kind of lucre after the ink was dry on his contract.

I can think of only a few "civilian equivalent" to the baseball madness that occurs today.  The only rivals to these overpaid, underperforming baseball jocks are the Chief Executive Officers of our corporate giants, Wall Street traders, and politicians who always seem to enrich themselves on the taxpayer's dime.

Take a minute or two to mourn for Yankees fans.  They're gonna have to shell out $200 bucks for a couple of nose bleed seats to pay Gerrit Cole's salary.  And they won't even get a box of Cracker Jacks out of their change back.

No Round Table Or Wrenching Sword From Stone In Our Future

                                                                   

I slept fitfully the other night.  The day's headlines were on my mind as I lay in bed and travelled down the dreadful parkway of worry.  Our communities are plagued by the lotus-eating creatures who make it unsafe to walk the streets, necessitate barred windows and who, along with parenting in abstentia, are helping to tear our children to shreds with meth and opioids, and impractical quests. 

And we have never experienced such a vacuum of principled leadership.  Our founders feared the very things we are living through today.  Though Washington was somewhat non-futuristic, Jefferson was fancifully hopeful and fearful at the same time about our Democratic Republic's chances.  Both Hamilton and Adams, suffering from royalist envy, were cynical from the start......believing that the average citizen was neither intelligent or principled enough to maintain a republic formed on the previous three century's best social philosophers.

For the first two centuries of our Republic we did okay.  We certainly weren't perfect.  We see-sawed through periods of controlled chaos, then managed to right ourselves through the adherence to the pillars of basic societal laws that held us together.  We spent the remaining part of the 18th century jelling into a coherent form, the 19th century fanning out over the country, our citizens moving west whenever they spied the smokestack of a neighbor's chimney, and the 20th century searching for our adulthood and trying to figure out our place in the world.

It was the 20th century when things went very right and very wrong for us.  Ignoring Washington's warming to stay out of Europe's unending warring, we fought two world wars.  Ignoring Adam Smith, perhaps the world's greatest economist, we suffered through the robber barons.....the Carnegies and Rockefellers......and our own personal greeds.  It would take a Great Depression to slap us silly and reclaim a work ethic and fear of hunger.  And we hired a fellow who wore tu-tu's and prom dresses at night, while by day he ran our FBI, kept the commies at bay for half a century, kept the streets relatively safe.

It was in the 1960's when things went really wrong.  Baby Boomers, spoiled by the Greatest Generation parents, came to find it acceptable to decide which wars they would fight in, which park they would openly copulate in, which drugs gave them the greatest high.  

The 60's was a firestorm of the liberal Warren courts, the ascension of a psychopathic President who thought he could buy his place in history with the dispensation of "war on poverty" dollars while simultaneously fighting brush wars in Asia and elsewhere.

America since that 60's era has busied herself with mixing up a toxic brew of buying votes with government gravy, abandoning the PTA and parental responsibilities, allowing the courts to legislate instead of mediate, ignore our national borders, resolve the crime problem by eliminating the law itself and giving the miscreants a second, third, fourth or fifth chance at redemption.  

And we have few leaders to lift us from our national morass.  The principled men and women pretty much stay out of politics, deathly afraid their entire lives will be examined under a microscope......which leaves us with pampering, unprincipled magpies who talk pretty, speak a good game, then fail to follow up on any promises.

Break out the history books if you want to see where our parkway of misery is leading us.  We are a broken nation and it is far too late for an Arthur to come along and pull Excaliber from stone, and sit us down to a round table to discuss and fix our ills.

Inevitably an unrulable nation descends into chaos.........a societal state where the emergence of a dictator seems remarkably attractive.  President Trump, far from being a dictator, regardless of how the Left perceives him, may very well provide the blue print for a dictatorial ruler who comes along in the next couple of decades.  It seems inevitable.  Our problems are just too complex to fix within the confines of the Constitution.  Instead we'll need a Caesar, a Hitler, a Mussolini, a Stalin, or a Mao to "make the trains run on time"...... a metaphor for a little social stability.   While the first "rulers absolute" will probably emerge from the Left, those guys never last.  Bread and toilet paper shortages eventually send them packing, with a cargo of gold to a political haven where they can't be extradited.

The boomers, and X, and Y generations can probably relax.  They can still feed off the last vestiges of capitalism and the thinning remains of a two hundred year old constitution.  It's our grandchildren we should mourn for.  It is they who will live under the iron-fisted rule of a despot.  By that time the guns will have been confiscated, the meth and opiod lotus eaters long since dead from mass executions, and everyone can feel secure from crime.........except for the institutionalized crime committed by an intrusive government.

It is at that time, when the eternal dreamers will open a book (if they are still allowed books) and wistfully imagine an Arthur coming along, pulling sword from stone.....and making things wonderfully right once again.  Well those dreamers can forget it.  America had her chance.  She has been saved more than once....by the founders who risked life and limb and property for freedom, by the millions in uniform who died to preserve those freedoms, only to see our citizenry piss all those freedoms away in grand fits of irresponsibility.

So that's what kept me up the other night.  At my age, when I should be worried about keeping my remaining teeth, drawing up funeral plans, or wiling away the hours in carefree splendor,  I lay sleepless, fretful for a republic I so dearly love, no matter how sick she is.

No Gold, Frankincense Or Myrrh Required

                                                                 

I had a little difficulty yesterday, trying to avoid the bumper car world of lies, exaggerations, personal attacks and general savagery that appeared in the newspaper headlines.  So I googled "Christmas miracles" and was introduced to a story about a Colorado mom whose heart stopped beating as she went through labor.  Fearful for the unborn child the doctors performed a C-Section and removed the infant, its skin already tinted blue from lack of oxygen.  Once the child had been stabilized they wrapped him in baby blanket and placed him in the arms of expired mother.  Then somehow, and not a little a miraculously, the beating heart of child awakened the heart of dead mother.  Both mother and child survived their ordeal without any enduring ills.

After reading that I sat there at my desk, thinking about all the wonderful things that happens to we humans, the most spectacular of them being written about during the Christmas season.

In fact, if we really stop to look around us, we can see gestures of goodwill that better another's life nearly every day.  

So after reading that wonderful little story I ventured up to my local grocery, to replenish the eggs and bread and lunchmeat stocks.  And since my mind was more closely attuned to the human activity going on around me, I saw a produce clerk run to the back and pluck a more appealing head of lettuce for a woman who had looked sourly on what was stocked out front.  In a grocery aisle I saw a tall young man reach up and grab a jar of spaghetti sauce for an elderly woman who was too short to reach that top shelf.  Then, as I checked out, I waved the woman behind me, dressed in medical garb, holding a single bottle of juice in her hand, to go before me at the register.  I usually do that with anyone who has less than me in hand or cart.  I figure I'm retired and have more time than the working and harried.  Finally, as I walked out to my car in the parking lot, I saw a store worker wave off the offer of a tip from a lady who he had assisted in loading her groceries.  I'm sure the acceptance of tips is frowned upon by the grocery store.  Still it was both comical and touching to see how vigorously that young man waved off a tip, as if that dollar was tainted with arsenic.

As I drove home I began to think how,  no matter how modest the gesture, goodwill can be spread among men.  Just as sprinkling  a little sugar and cinnamon will make an apple pie more tasty, we can sweeten the lives of those about us with the smallest kindness.  No miracles and no gold, frankincense, or Myrrh required.

Merry Christmas, people.  May you be showered with the smallest of miracles during this Christmas season.

Will Trump Call "Foul?"

                                                                   

Will Trump Cry "Foul!" At The Last Minute Over This Latest China Trade Deal?"

Better hope so. This deal is a sham. In exchange for the Chinese buying $50 billion dollars of American wheat and soybeans the U.S. drops the tariffs on $300 billion of Chinese products and puts off imposing tariffs on $375 billion more.

No Chinese promise to stop stealing our technology. No Chinese cessation of China demanding American companies who wish to sell in China to turn over their corporate technology.

Is Trump feeling the heat? (He promised we'd see 4 percent GDP growth rate...(and got less than 3.) Has Trump weakened as we enter the 2020 Presidential race?

Trump's "mouthpieces" at Commerce and Treasury are cleverly portraying this deal as "Part I" (Kind of like Part I of those Police Academy movies). But just as Senator Rubio and Senator Graham have said, you don't lift those tariffs until the Chinese hold up their part of the bargain.......and make real concessions. Otherwise, where's the stick to beat em over the head with?

Besides we've been doing just fine without Chinese made basketball shoes and Walmart plastic and poisoned baby food and dog treats......while the Chinese are really hurting as evidenced by their latest economics report.

Let's see how much flack Trump catches from the National Chamber of Commerce and his own party. This deal ought to be a bit "no!". I've got my fingers crossed that Trump catches enough flack and nixes the deal.

Lizzie Warren Took An Axe...Gave Charter Schools 40 Whacks....Then

                                                                     

Did anyone catch the 30 second clip of Presidential candidate Liz Warren getting booed by a Black audience last week in Atlanta? In typical main stream media fashion CNN, MSNBC, nor any of the big three networks bothered to explain why Lizzie was getting the loud cold shoulder.

Seems Liz had just declared charter schools an abomination that shouldn't be allowed to thrive. She declared it a threat to public schools.

It was then when her predominately Black audience began to boo. Why? Because public schools are breeding grounds for guaranteed failure. And remarkably, if the federal and state departments of eduction are to be believed, it is the charter schools who are not only more effective at educating minority children, but are more diverse in accepting a minority child.

We should not put all the blame on Liz for being a cheerleader for public school teachers unions. Raising their pom-poms, and throwing ridiculous amounts of money at public schools has been a pillar of the Democratic party for decades now. And why not.........90 percent of all teacher union money goes toward electing Democrats.

I am proud to say that Arizona leads the nation in the expansion of charter schools. Charter school students score higher on national achievement tests than their public school brethren and the state encourages charter school expansion by offering dollar for dollar tax write-offs for your charter school donations.

Was Liz's "mob-booing" a sign that things are changing among the electorate? It would certainly seem so as minorities are quickly learning that only charter schools are lifting them out of poverty.

Humor; The Lost Art

                                                                     

Each night, at 10PM, I turn to one of my retro channels and watch re-runs of Johnny Carson and his Tonight Show.  I can always tell the year the show was recorded simply by listening to Johnny's opening monologue.  Those were things of beauty.  Johnny would mix in general humor with side swipes at both political parties.   It was not until many years later that I learned ol' John was a social liberal.  (Whew!)

When asked why he didn't talk about his personal politics Carson said he'd be a fool to offend half of his audience.  Wise advice.

Contrast that with our current late night hosts.  First of all you can scrap the humor.  There is none.  Those shows are packed to the gills with an hour of liberal snark, most always to the detriment of President Trump.  And lest they offend their liberal ilk, they never attack a political liberal.  Wouldn't be "prudent", as George H.W.  used to say.

I find these later talk shows just soul deadening.  If there is even an attempt at humor it is usually aimed at the latest round of societal targets.........those folks who have already been beaten up unmercifully by social media.  That form of "ganging up" just shows how cowardly the "two Jimmies" and their fellows are.  They dare not call out anyone who has not yet been assigned a crown of thorns.

So I watch Johnny.  And a lot of dead celebrities.  Sometimes I gasp as Johnny makes a joke about gays, or cross dressers, or loose ladies.  Sometimes I watch as Carson jokes about cleavage, or general sexiness.

Carson did the Tonight Show for 30 years.  Did it well.  Made us laugh back when little offended us....when we had our sense of humor intact.

Today we are an easily offended, serious-minded nation where nearly every attempt at humor must be narrowly defined.

Johnny wouldn't survive a month in this barren desert of political correctness.

Sad.  Damned Sad.

Civilization As We Know It.........Really?

                                                                     

This past week we saw three of four well succored liberal legal scholars testifying in support of impeaching President Trump. (Not once did any of them find a problem with Obama's "live mic" concessions to Russia, or his treasonous speech to the Egyptian Parliament, when he said America was no more special than any Islamic fiefdom. We also didn't hear any liberal lawyering about the Clinton Foundation corruption...and not a word about Biden's son and his half million dollar salary with a company that ripped off $14 billion of our tax dollars).

On a separate front Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi reiterated that these impeachment proceedings have nothing to do with politics. (If you believe that can we talk about a deal I can offer you on a swamp in Georgia?) Pelosi also said she doesn't hate Trump........cause "she's a good Catholic girl" ((who just happens to support 500,000 fetal murders each year)). Pelosi even says she prays for Trump every night. (Perhaps with needles and voodoo dolls?). Pelosi said if Trump is allowed to continue in the Presidency "civilization as we know it will be destroyed forever!"

Most of America is paying little attention to the Democrats' dog and pony show. Why?

Perhaps some answers can be found in Friday's job report. A whopping 266,000 jobs were created last month and the unemployment rate fell to 3.5 percent.......the lowest in half a century.

Better yet, American wages increased 3.7 percent. That puts an extra $100 bucks per month in the average worker's paycheck.

Please give us more of that civilization destruction that Nancy and her ilk fear so much.

Crazy Joe's Crazy Minimum Corporate Tax

                                                                       

On Wednesday Crazy Joe, in an effort to cater to the far left, says he will propose a minimum tax on giants like Amazon and Google, et al.

This "Carnival Barker" and his liberal ilk just don't get it. If Amazon had never expanded from just selling books, to selling everything under the sun, they would not be employing hundreds of thousands of workers. Had they not plowed their profits back into Cloud Services, hundreds of thousands would be seeking work elsewhere. And it is not even true that they pay no taxes. They pay out billions to the states in sales taxes, they pay into the Social Security Fund, and in those years when they are not investing in other businesses they pay out billions in federal taxes. Last but not least, were Amazon not as successful as they are, their stock holders would never be forking over billions more in capital gains taxes!

Putting onerous taxes on businesses whose existence creates jobs, enrich lives, and generate government income will destroy what America does best.

But the "Carnival Barker" lies sound nice to the liberal lemmings who will never, ever get it.

Liz Warren's New "Medicare For All" Starvation Diet

                                                                       

Just read this morning that Presidential candidate Liz Warren is ready to cut her Medicare For All plan by a cool $15 trillion dollars. Liz now says she has a plan to provide medical freebies for a mere $2.5 trillion a year. 

Well any of us who passed eighth grade math knows that her annual Medicare For All budget is exactly $2.5 trillion more than the government now takes in every year. Assuming Liz wants to implement her plan, that pretty much leaves nothing to spend on what we are spending today. Stuff like national defense, Social Security, Welfare, food stamps, education, et al.

Liz says she has plans to make up for that $2.5 trillion dollar annual deficit. Says she'll cut payment to doctors by a third. I ran the numbers on that and it looks like doctors would have to pay for their office staff, the lease on their building, comply with government mandated health record laws, and fork out $150,000 a year in malpractice insurance while being paid $40 bucks per doctor visit from Medicare. 

Quick! Everyone raise their hands. How many think doctors (especially those paying off eight years of student loan debt) will say in business and how many will retire and go to work as a cashier at Walmart?

Liz also wants to pay hospitals less. While I think that's a good idea, she might want to take a look at how many hospital emergency rooms have driven hospitals into bankruptcy since ER's became the plan of choice for illegal Mexicans. Any more cuts and you can expect more hospital closures.

Ironically it is the government run hospitals that cost the most, with non profit hospitals coming in second, and for profit hospitals costing the least! (In California you'll pay a thousand bucks more per night in a government run hospital than one that is privately owned). That doesn't say much for a government run healthcare system, does it.

Leaving doctors and hospitals out of the equation, Warren's plan gets even more ditzy. Her wealth tax was made unconstitutional by the 16th amendment so that 1 percent wealth tax is out the window. That leaves basic income taxes on the wealthy. Since the top 1 percent of the wealthy are already paying 87 percent of all taxes Liz is gonna have to sock it to the middle class to come up with the $25 trillion ($25 trillion!) she needs over the next ten years on her "bare-boned" new plan.

Well I passed my eighth grade basic math. The only way Liz Warren funds "Medicare For All" is to revive Barack Obama's death panels..........those appointed folks who were supposed to let anyone over 65 die in their rocking chairs.

Politician........heal thyself.

California's Brilliant Homeless Solution

                                                                     

Over the last two decades California has managed to formulate revolutionary new means to deliver the gravy bowl to homeless folks.  It is now possible for a homeless person to stake out a rent free spot of sidewalk on Main Street, all the while collecting welfare and food stamp checks and Medicaid cards.  Just send the goodies via General Delivery at the local post office.  Funds received can then be used to purchase booze or drugs.  No onerous apartment rent, or utility bill,  to get in the way of whatever dependency one is enjoying.

California's major cities, drowning in homeless shit and drug needles, have decided a "get tough policy" is needed.  The cities of Los Angeles and Sacramento have committed tens of billions of dollars toward building new homes for their ever growing homeless ilk.  Once built these brilliant pols will then demand that the homeless move in to their rent free homes.....or face the consequences. 

Except the politicians won't say what those consequences might be.  Unused to enforcing the rule of law, I'm sure municipal and state officialdom will have to convene various committees to decide how they'll handle the miscreants.

Perhaps the homeless are a bit smarter than their municipal leaders.  For example, in the last few years, the drunks and druggies have learned how to monetize their free nightly motel and hotel vouchers.  They simply turn those vouchers over to a tourist scalper for half the value, whereby the scalper sells the motel vouchers to out of state tourists suffering from a tight vacation budget.  Brilliant!

California's new governor has opened a second front on the housing war.  He has ordered city leaders in California to build homeless housing.......or face denial of those cities' share of state taxes collected.  Guess Governor Newsom never checked with Detroit or Chicago or Baltimore about ghetto building.

I'm no rocket scientist but I gotta feel that California's new homeless strategy.........building homes for free, will only lure more homeless to the La La Land that is now California.