When Scoundrels Rule

expense especially when they leave and collect on special interest favors.

Look no further than President Biden. He spent 50 years in public office and became a multi-millionaire on the salary of a public servant. His family connections to communist Chinese business interests, which are in fact run by the Chinese military exacts only a yawn from the lap-dog press. He’s truly a Manchurian president who’s shown utmost contempt for our national security even as war looms with China. Look no further than his cavalier handling of classified documents and questionable business activities of his son Hunter. Yeah, I know, “nothing to see here so move along” so we’re told.

Our political masters decided they are “the chosen few” whose mission is to lead us into a future paradise (read hell) where our every moment is guided by their wisdom and no detail of our lives is too small for them to dictate to include our homes, appliances, travel et al. They will monitor our expenditures and chastise us if we exceed our daily allotment. The machinery is in motion to accomplish all of that if you read their comments at the recent World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Davos attendees ($19,000/ ticket) used 1,500 private jets to stay in $1,000/day or more rooms, emitting CO2 equivalent to 350,000 cars for a year. All necessary because they are the “chosen elites;” I guess they never heard of a Zoom meeting. Davos elites expounded on how non-elites must have fewer children, especially all those very poor people in Asia/Africa who have a duty to die (early is better) and we must adopt draconian policies to restrict energy use to save the planet (Aspen ski vacations exempted). Food must be rationed therefore the masses must be taught to eat insects instead of meat and gassy cows should wear diapers.

The star of the Davos show was former VP Al Gore and our own climate czar John Kerry. Gore is a piece of work. Gore relentlessly pursues a green agenda, especially the kind that fits in your wallet. According to a Jan. 26 article by Douglas Andrews, Gore’s assets when he left office in 2001 was around $2 million, including his Arlington Virginia home ($500,000) and stocks worth $500,000-$1 million. His current worth is estimated to be $330 million. Gore receives $2 million a month for the use of his name by the Generation Investment Management green energy fund and $200,000 for each public speaking engagement. Gore’s Tennessee mansion in Nashville is valued at $7.5 million, plus owning a waterfront villa in Montecito, CA worth $13 million, a Virginia home worth $3 million and an apartment in the St. Regis building in San Francisco. He owns $80 million in stock in Apple & Google and draws another salary from Apple sitting on a “compensation committee.” Gore incessantly harps on the energy Americans use while he uses private jets; his Montecito home uses “more electricity in a year than the average U.S. family uses in 21 years.” I’m puzzled, why so many homes? How come the average American’s modest home threatens the planet but not Gore’s?

California’s Governor Newsom lectured you last year about not socializing to prevent the spread of Covid as he munched at a $300/ plate exclusive restaurant with his friends, sans masks. Now his party is proposing to impose a mileage tax upon you, six-cents a mile to start, a wealth tax on billionaires/millionaires, even if they leave the state (they will) which when it fails to collect enough revenue will fall upon middle-class taxpayers as it always does. Newsom and his party continue to deny farmers water, even as 32 trillion gallons of rain recently fell upon the state, 95 percent of which was allowed to wash out to sea. You voted repeatedly for bonds to construct reservoirs which they didn’t build and highways they didn’t construct. They’re tearing down hydroelectric power dams to save fish that were never there and closing your last nuclear power plant, regardless of consequences. What they are building is a third-world economy with rolling blackouts, energy rationing and misery for everyone but themselves. But hey, we’re saving the planet, right?

Al Fonzi is an independent opinion columnist for The Atascadero News and Paso Robles Press; you can email him at atascaderocolumnist@gmail. com.