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Louise Lucas is not a household name, nor should she be. State Senators from Virginia should barely make headlines within our own Commonwealth let alone in the newspapers of 49 other states (or a few territories, but I don’t count them. In fact, I would relinquish them all tomorrow, but that’s another subject. One day I’ll write about my time appointed by W to the President’s Task Force on Puerto Rico’s Status). This week the octogenarian powerbroker state Senator was unceremoniously arrested, along with several members of her family, in a DOJ takedown of a crime family, and Louise Lucas made news.
The world is healing.
I won’t give the nasty, vulgar, corrupt, scumbag Lucas much more thought here. She is unworthy, and I hope prison is hell for her and her reprobate gangster thug family, but Lucas is a springboard for me to opine on something larger: the elected leaders of the poor, and how, by and large, they are pure evil. If you go through the worst districts (in terms of crime, poverty, drug addiction, unemployment, homelessness, etc.) they are represented by some of the worst people in Congress.
Let me start with Charlie Rangel.
Charlie Rangel is dead. So is my uncle. The former represented Harlem in the U.S. House of Representatives for nearly 50 years. My uncle was NYPD Blue, and one of his jobs as a young cop in the early 70’s while he was attached to the infamous 28th Police Precinct was delivering a wad of cash to The Honorable Charlie Rangel monthly. And Charlie, the nasty, vulgar, corrupt, scumbag that he was, would count it in front of him and laugh about how he was untouchable.
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True story? I don’t know. Family lore, like Elizabeth Warren’s Cherokee cheekbones or Kamala Harris’ cry for “Fweedom” from her baby stroller. If I run for office (that’s another op-ed in the works… hold your horses) this story won’t be central to my appeal. I don’t, however, see why my uncle would concoct such a story. He had plenty of others which were verifiable, as all cops do. But that story always stuck with me, especially when I got to DC 25 years ago and started working in politics, and Charlie was still causing trouble with endless phlegm stuck in his throat.
Here’s Charlie, here’s Harlem. Here’s Charlie’s wealth, here’s Harlem. Here’s Charlie who combined four apartments into a palatial spread all while claiming stabilized rents, here’s Harlem. Here’s Charlie, censured for dodging taxes on a Dominican Republic estate sale, here’s Harlem. Here’s Charlie’s $2.5 million net worth at the time of his death, here’s Harlem. Here’s Charlie’s estate claiming only $300,000 wealth to avoid taxes even in death.
And here’s Harlem.
Harlem, which after decades of Charlie’s tenure, is pretty much as dangerous, as dirty, as poor, with schools as terrible, and opportunities as scarce as ever. Harlem was good to Charlie, but Charlie was not good to Harlem. That power dynamic wasn’t an accident. It was essential.
What’s the expression? Rest in piss? Is that harsh? I’ve lost perspective.
The Virginia state senator is cut from the same cloth. The district she has represented since 1992 is the poorest, the most dangerous, has the worst schools, and has the least opportunity. It is not a coincidence. Lucas needs poor, hopeless, dependent people to stay in power. Someone wants to build a data center? Hell, no. Lucas won’t allow it in her district. A data center could bring jobs and opportunity, but outside of her orbit. People with jobs and their own money don’t need powerful elected officials for their bread, and no one would be beholden to Lucas… so no data centers. But she does love pot. Lucas led the charge to legalize pot in Virginia, and wouldn’t you know it her family opened the first pot stores. Lucas is the pot Queen of Virginia.
Wonder if her stores took EBT?
Maxine Waters is 88 years old, and has represented Compton, California since 1991. She lives in Beverly Hills, in a $4.5 million home, and has a net worth of $20 million. How is Compton doing? As well as Hampton Roads, Virginia? As well as Harlem, New York?
House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries lives in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn. Think 5 story brownstones, with large stone stoops, and 100-year old trees. He represents East New York and Brownsville, perhaps the most dangerous part of New York City. These are parts of Brooklyn where you don’t stop at red lights, and if you have a car accident, you keep on driving. The vast majority of the residents are on welfare and in government housing projects. I’d be curious to do a video there on a random Tuesday at noon just to show how many able-bodied men are hanging out… but I wouldn’t risk it. No joke. I would not risk it. No wonder why Hakeem doesn’t live there.
The list of districts goes on and on, at the state and federal level. Districts gerrymandered to get all black or black majority demographics which elect black democrats who rubberstamp a progressive agenda. And the districts never improve. Never.
Never.
The people are trapped there. Jobs don’t come in. Business don’t open. Schools don’t improve. Gang violence thrives. Violence is so common that it never makes the news. A shooting? A stabbing? Don’t expect NBC news to send a camera crew. It happens every day.
I am well aware someone will call me racist. Yawn. That just means I am over the target… but the real racists are those elected officials who benefit from the misery of their constituency. The real racists are those with power to affect change, but who know the real change that will improve lives, and will reduce their power. So, they talk about climate change. Or Ukraine.
Free Palestine, or something.
Joe Biden put it best in the 2012 election when he warned a black audience “Mitt Romney is going to put you all back in chains”.
Mitt Romney. Milquetoast, moderate, Mormon missionary Mitt is going to put black people “back in chains”. Joe Biden is a racist, but you likely already knew that. See, Joe Biden needs black people to be poor, to be dependent. Joe Biden had to scare black people into being afraid that only he could keep them safe.
In his 2016 campaign, Donald Trump told black audiences that after generations of supporting democrats nothing in their life had improved. He asked for their vote saying “what the hell have you got to lose?” Simple and effective.
It isn’t just black America. It’s poor America, writ large. West Viriginia is one of the poorest states in the nation, and one of the whitest. I guess there is a common denominator if you look at the last 50 years of its Senators: Jennings Randolph (democrat), Robert Byrd (democrat), Jay Rockefeller (democrat), Joe Manchin (democrat). It wasn’t until this decade West Viriginia elected a Republican.
It’s not just black America. It’s democrat America: an entire party sustained by the misery of its constituents. Once people have jobs, have income, have prosperity and autonomy, and start questioning their taxes and scrutinizing their government, suddenly elected officials have a difficult job justifying their purpose let alone why they should be reelected. A prosperous people do not need government. Moreso, a prosperous people begin to eschew and curtail government, and that is a death sentence for democrats.
Term limits could help. Ending racial gerrymandering could help. In the case of Louise Lucas, prison will definitely help. But no amount of studies or white papers or seminars, no amount of angry op-eds like this, can do anything so long as elected officials can benefit off the poverty of others. They demand we tear down statues or push DEI quotas, yet the modern democrat is the real slave owner, keeping poor people, both black and white, on their district plantation forever.
Rest in piss. All of them.
Daniel Turner is the founder and executive director of Power The Future, a national nonprofit organization that advocates for American energy jobs. He also runs a sheep and cattle farm in rural Virginia. Contact him at daniel@powerthefuture.com and follow him on Twitter @DanielTurnerPTF
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This article really hits where it needs to. Right in the nutz. Thank you for putting this powerful piece out for the world to see. Hopefully the blinders will come off.
I absolutely love this article. It's so spot on and so underrepresented in the press because people do get called racist.
Congratulations!