Rob Ford And Friends: It's World Wacko Politician Week!

Politicians have been having a field day this week outdoing each other with stupidity.

Hawaii State Rep. Tom Brower, ready with his
sledgehammer to combat homelessness.
Or so he thinks.  

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford has been hogging the spotlight here, what with his crack smoking, binge drinking, murder threatening, city councilor pushing rampage through his fair city.

The other day, I noted the Louisiana politician who thinks most clientele of libraries are druggies and hippied and moochers who go there to look at pictures of drugs and food stamps.

We also had a U.S. Congressman from Florida, who was arrested recently for possession of cocaine.

And now we have a pol in Hawaii, State Rep. Tom Brower, who says the best way to solve the intractable problem of homelessness is to batter the homeless peoples' shopping carts with sledgehammers.

 Says Hawaii News Now:

"In his spare time he scours streets and parks in his district, looking for shopping carts homeless use to store and move their belongings. He returns good ones to stores and destroys other with his sledgehammer."

"I got tired of telling people I'm trying to pass laws. I want to do something practical that will really clean up the streets," he said."

Though he's not actually destroying the homeless population's possessions, just their shopping carts (at least so far), I'm not quite so sure the sledgehammer trick will clean up the streets. A number of people in Hawaii agree with me that it would make things worse. OK, we're all being Captain Obvious here.

"There are some people who are not that stable and maybe drug affected that could really react to him," said Connie Mitchell of the Institute for Human Services in a big understatement to Hawaii News Now.

Despite the outcry against our fearless Brower, he might step up his activity even more. From Hawaii News Now:

 "Brower said he has yet to take a cart from a homeless person who's pushing it, but that may be coming. He supports other efforts to remove abandoned property. The sledgehammer approach is his way of pitching in."

Hmm. Not sure.  Maybe homeless people can be hired to make new shopping carts to replace the ones Brower is destroying? That doesn't seem like the best job creation program in the world.

Using a sledgehammer can be cathartic. Maybe I could smash up his desk Brower's desk at the Hawaii Statehouse with one.