Rebane's Ruminations

Scattershots – 30oct15 (updated 3nov15)

George Rebane

Overwhelmingly what government touches, government taints.

NPR reported this morning that 2 million who signed up for Obamacare last year have now dropped out due to not being able to afford the cynically named Affordable Care Act.  The embarrassing stats show that with more and more people opting out, the net sign-ups have slowed to a trickle.  This mandated travesty that has inflicted our country’s healthcare now reveals more of its fraudulent sides every day.

Recall back in 2009 there were supposed to 20 million Americans without healthcare insurance, and of those there wee 9 million who actually wanted it and couldn’t afford it.  This number was a pittance for an excuse to destroy the nation’s healthcare system and revamp one sixth of its economy.  So it was upped – first to 30 million, then to 40 million.  The overwhelming number of these were the young and self-insureds who chose not to buy health insurance, and, of course, those very same on whom the touted ‘success’ of Obamacare depended.  Well boys and girls, today the government reports that after people found out enough truth (there is more to come) about this dose of socialist medicine, there are still 41 million Americans without healthcare insurance.

This hits hardest the poor and the lower middle class most (all?) of whom must pay a penalty if they don’t sign up – apparently there is another complication about those hoped for subsidies that involves what kind of co-op is available in your state.  The bottom line is that the system continues to be a costly mess for all except the healthcare and pharma corporatists who have gamed the system.  But then, who could have predicted that?  (more here)

The upcoming Paris conference on preventable global warming (PGW) is starting to hit some early speed bumps.  A major one is President Putin of Russia who readers may remember years ago identified PGW as a scientific and political fraud – “there is no global warming, that this is a fraud to restrain the industrial development of several countries including Russia,”  Russia’s position has been “that the climate is a complicated system and that, so far, the evidence presented for the need to ‘fight’ global warming was rather unfounded.”  Anthony Watts has a piece (here) that goes into some detail about what to expect from Russia and poor countries in Paris.

But the greatest fraudster at the conference will be China who today has completely bamboozled the nitwits comprising Team Obama.  Recall the happy dancing in the oval office when China ‘agreed’ to curtail CO2 emissions in some remote future epoch.  But, of course, we were never told the real details of the deal.  China, along with other second and third world countries, will demand exceptions and payments from the first world (i.e. the US) if they are to play along in Paris and contribute to maintaining the hysteria.  This becomes comical when we consider that we have to borrow the money from China to first pay it and the G77 block of nations the agreed upon subsidies, and then second, repay China the borrowed amount.  The bamboozle doesn’t get any better than this.  Meanwhile our leftwing loonies are touting to our gruberized all the added economic benefit and green jobs that PGW spending will create – NOT!  (see also 3nov15 update below)

Ruminations – 28oct15 (updated 31oct15)

George Rebane

The assumed level of perceived risk in competitive markets is constant.  When governments alleviate known risks, added unknown risks will be assumed to maintain the balance – profit demands it.

Obama’s economy continues to scoot along on its butt.  Seven years on and we have finally achieved the steady state snail-paced GDP and jobs growth rates that confirms American socialism in action.  Reported GDP and jobs growths are anemic, politically manipulated, and constantly revised downward from initial announcements.  Keep an eye on what the palpitating Fed does this December about interest rates.

World chess champion turned international political activist Gary Kasparov has written Winter is Coming.  Therein readers will find an expanded development of the history of collectivism, communism, and today’s geo-political realities that mirror what has been exposed in our commentaries.  Kasparov’s theme is the disastrous world order we are heading toward given the west’s (and specifically Obama’s) foreign policy in meeting the expansionist threats from the covey of international bad guys.  He concludes - “With world events crashing around us, the final year of Barack Obama’s presidency promises to be among the most dangerous in our history. A long dark winter will indeed be upon us unless our nation changes course.”  All this, of course, continues to be invisible to the liberal mind.  (more here)

Dr Anna Haynes’ website NC Voices has been a useful compendium of links to local online information and media sources.  I notice that she has recently rearranged the categorization and display of links to these sources.  NC Scooper and RL Crabb formerly enjoyed a ‘humor’ section of their own, but have now been buried in a potpourri of websites/blogs the nature of which eludes.  I wonder how/where they stepped out of line.  And a new ‘Climate/H2O’ category has been added that properly reflects this very leftwing website and the sentiments of its owner/publisher.  However, only True Believers are allowed their links in this section; skeptics (now called ‘Climate contrarians’) are still relegated off-page to the last righthand column.  That is where RR finds itself included with websites and blogs which have long been abandoned or unused.  On the other hand, the most prominent top lefthand and first category of blogs continues to be labeled ‘JeffP’, and belongs to none other than Mr Jeff Pelline.  Most readers will agree that it is most appropriate and appreciated that RR finds itself bookended from that progressive propagandist and his purple pillar of social justice, morality, and correct thought.

[29oct15 update]  Now that he has been cut down a mite by the mild-mannered medico, did anyone else see the future of a more mellow and measured Trump?  What effect will that have on the Republican base as the man, now having cartooned his name into every household, begins to roll out substantive policies and plans on foreign policy, illegal aliens, economic growth, trade, tax reform, …?  I believe he has the brains to assemble a respected brain trust that will generate a political work product which will quickly gain traction with a large segment of voters.  The real question is ‘given the persona he has ingrained in us, can he believably reinvent himself as one who can win and execute his newly minted plans for the country?’.

RR has maintained for years that debt service to budget ratio (NOT the oft quoted debt to budget or GDP ratio) is the metric that will impact America’s QoL.  Finally, the pundits are beginning to recognize that and show concern about the inevitable rise in interest rates.  This rise will blow the federal budgets into unknown territory as debt service on $18T+ soars from its current pittance.  But to get the economy out of its Obamanomics doldrums, banks have to start loaning money to individuals and businesses at much higher rates.  Right now it doesn’t make much sense to risk loaning money at these low rates; everyone is waiting for the return of real (risk compensating) interest rates to loosen the flood of money into the economy.  So now you see what makes up the rock and the hard place when you mismanage the economy for years.  Thank you Democrats and Team Obama.

An elected politician’s accomplishments are still measured by the ‘significant legislation’ that he has been able to get passed.  According to Rebane Doctrine that criterion is simply unmitigated bullshit, especially today when government overreach extends into every sector of the economy and private life.  I fervently hope that we will someday be smart enough to also laud politicians who have spent their political capital fighting and holding back bad bills about to become law, and repealing the putrid legislation already on the books.  Increasing the stack of US Code and new regulations should not be the only measure of a successful politician.

[30oct15 update]  The Donald's first campaign ad (here) is a clever amalgam of our (un)military anthems.  H/T to reader.

[31oct15 update]  Dr Haynes' NC Voices appears to have stabilized its new format.  I'm happy to see that now my friend RL 'Bob' Crabb's blog has been awarded its own real estate labeled V.I. (Village Idiot?) and located right under the site's prime spot.  And under Bob's new plot we have the new home for the perennially piquing NC Scooper.  And in this recent reshuffle and face lifting, I am happy to report that lesser lights like RR are still tolerated and are allowed to ride along in what charitably can be called the website's caboose (for which we are grateful).  So all is again well with world, and as our German friends would say, 'Alles ist wieder in Ordnung'.

Mideastern muslim migrants mug Europe (updated 29oct15)

George Rebane

Has anyone noticed that reporting about the migrant onslaught has fallen silent on the key issue that initially gave it a moral and humanitarian dimension.  Europeans of all political stripe were willing to take in a controlled number of refugees fleeing from death and torture that they would most likely suffer were they to stay in their homelands.  In those distant days of a couple of months ago, everyone (save the A21 Left) agreed that illegal entrants climbing over border fences only for economic gain should be denied a free pass, for obvious reasons.

Well, now the obvious reasons have quietly sunk from public consciousness, except that some Europeans in each country, who can still peek a bit into the future, are letting their concerns be heard.  What concerns, you might ask.  Losing their country and way of life is the simple answer.

Sandbox - 27oct15

Corporatism - when government has less to sell, there are fewer buyers.

[Boehner's swansong highlights the problems conservatives have had with the man for some time now.  There doesn't seem to be a hill worth dying on in his political geography.  Can some cleverer minds remind us what now the congressional Republicans have to bargain with a rogue hard left Executive branch once they have forfeited the power of the purse which the Constitution specifically reserved for them and them alone?  gjr]

‘What has Hillary Clinton accomplished?’

George Rebane

From one of their own kind we now have the definitive record of candidate and former SecState Hillary Rodham Clinton’s accomplishments.  Her record has been a longstanding and recently growing concern across the nation as it becomes more clear by the day that she will be anointed as the Democrats' nominee for the country’s next fearless leader.

In today’s Union is published a timely apology by Michele Spencer, a local Democrat worthie.  Ms Spencer paints an impassioned picture of Hillary and her manifest accomplishments.  I have never seen such an embarrassing list of under- and or non-performance for a national public figure, save perhaps the one for our current occupant in the White House.

Hillary is introduced and also characterized as “a principled, pragmatic, practical problem solver rather than an ideologue.”  But what becomes clear in the sequel, as reflected in her record and public persona, is that she is anything but principled, pragmatic, or solver of problems, especially of the practical kind.  All that the Spencer piece makes clear is that Hillary is first and foremost an ideologue who has run with crowds sporting trendy ideologies while accomplishing nothing to which the world can attach her name.

I retract that – her name indeed is visibly and indelibly attached to the embarrassing ‘Reset with Russia’ button which brought a chuckle from Lavrov when he made clear to all that the US State Department had no one who could properly translate a simple phrase into Russian.  Oh yes, we can also throw in the tragic Benghazi fiasco which she now personally owns.

Ms Spencer’s piece – ‘What has Hillary Clinton accomplished?’ – is so priceless that I have done you the service of reproducing it below in its entirety.

Central Planning Fest – preparing our minds

George Rebane

To control a modern society, gain control of its connectivity.

The upcoming Paris conference on preventable global warming (PGW) would be laughable if it didn’t serve as a cover for some pretty draconian public policy plans.  I was reminded of this by yesterday morning’s emails and some contributions to The Union’s op-ed pages.  We can assume that what we read here in the foothills is a fair sampling of what appears in local newspapers nationwide.  To all this may be added a thoughtful and relevant essay in the 24oct15 WSJ – ‘The Myth of Basic Science’.

This propaganda blitz is part and parcel of the Left’s ongoing effort to silence opposing voices.  On the country’s campuses the liberal war on speech has reached unbelievable heights of censorship.  It is hard to believe that these pogroms on free thought and speech are actively pursued in America.  And the proscription on freedom of expression in what used to be the home of exploring new and contending ideas is condoned by the very students who used to pursue higher education to open their minds – “A recent survey reported college students, by a margin of 51% to 36%, favor speech codes.”

By ‘speech codes’ they mean explicit rules on what can and cannot be said on campuses.  Exclusive Williams College is the latest to invite and then disinvite a speaker that might stretch students’ minds.  There “Suzanne Venker joins a long and distinguished list of people—including Ayaan Hirsi Ali, George Will, and Charles Murray.”  Ms Venker was originally scheduled to speak in the school’s new ‘Uncomfortable Learning’ speaker series.  Apparently the students decided they didn’t want to get that uncomfortable and forced the administration to cancel the invite.  Across the land these are now the little darlins that have been thoroughly indoctrinated by our unionized progressive public schools.  We are reaping what we have sown.  (more here)

Meanwhile the same line of opposition goes on in the PGW debate that somehow refuses to be silenced no matter how much the local leftwing loonies call for dousing any and all opposition in the local media.  These folks declare their deep and abiding ignorance of anything scientific by the ongoing drumbeat of ferociously flawed citings of consensus science which they claim justifies the termination of debate on scientific issues.  Now those who understand even a smidgeon of what science is about would never make a claim that our understanding of any part of this universe is complete or that debate over scientific issues – yes, even evolution – is over and should therefore be proscribed in the Galeleonian manner or worse (cf. prosecution under RICO laws).

And the summa of socialist reasoning argues that inhibiting publication of opposing ideas is not censorship, it is simply the practice of prudent discretion in published content.  We recently learned through our Designated Reader the call for such “disgression”(sic) from one of our bright liberal bulbs palpitating on another progressive blog.  Yet the denials that the Left opposes free speech continue unabated.  That folks is the liberal mind in full bloom.  Go figger.

'Can California be Saved?' (updated 24oct15)

George Rebane

We have long pointed to the travesty of governance that has totally engulfed California over the past decades, and called out its failures which now have become a tidal wave of destruction.  The Left has identified this effort as the misbegotten complaints of an ignorant clutch living isolated from the glorious realities that define the Golden State as the defender of Earth and succor of the poor and alienated.  As the most recent years have demonstrated, these same people have doubled down on their most destructive policies, and are now determined to spread these across America.  We have a government in Washington only too happy to oblige and force the nation to march in the footsteps of California.

Fortunately, there are still Americans who see the follies of socialism, and in their own words echo what has appeared in these pages.  Unfortunately these same people are having a difficult time getting organized and become a more effective political force to oppose our headlong drive to socialism, that beguiling gateway to comprehensive collectivism.  One of the respected national voices of this cohort is the historian and commentator Victor Davis Hanson.  Yesterday he assembled a compendium of California’s calamities – ‘Can California Be Saved?’ – that caught the notice of one of our readers – thank you Mr Tozer.  For the record here is an abbreviated summary of Hanson’s points.

Scattershots – 22oct15

George Rebane

Hillary told the House Benghazi hearing that 1) Chris Stevens should have known better than to expect the security he requested, and also that being a diplomat was a dangerous profession; 2) she never saw the Stevens’ urgent security requests – “they didn’t rise to my level”; and 3) as SecState, if she wasn’t aware of it, she was not responsible for what State did or not.  So there.

Teacher and author Helaine Smith teaches ‘High-School English Without the Politics’ – what a concept!  She teaches critical thinking through the classics with the objective that “what my students are learning is a lesson that is not political but is essential for politics: that one must support assertions with proofs, that one must consider counterarguments, that it’s necessary to listen to what others say and that doing so may allow you to strengthen, or force you to alter, what you think.”  In sum, she tells us that “I am reassured that I send forth young adults who, whatever political positions they adopt, will question before they conclude, and will respect others’ rights to question and to conclude otherwise.”  I’m not reassured that most of our country’s English teachers have either the intellectual horsepower or motivation to equally grace their students.  (more here)

Why not more black scientists? asks professor of law and civil rights commissioner Ms Gail Herlot.  She might want to sit in on Ms Smith’s class to improve her own ability to puzzle out such issues.  In her 22oct15 WSJ piece she claims that it all has to do with “the perverse impact of university racial preferences” wherein first rate universities fill their racial quotas with Sec 8 blacks who are not ready to compete with their white and Asian counterparts.  Even though blacks enter such schools more interested in STEM subjects, they quickly drop out or “transfer to softer majors” when hit with the reality of the competition they encounter in top schools.

She assures us that “this is not because they don’t have the right stuff”, because “many do” and cites that black students entering second rate schools have a much higher graduation rate in STEM subjects when encountering weaker competition.  As proof she astounds us with the tautology that half the graduates of ‘historically black colleges and universities’ have “entering credentials in the top half of the class” when they go for advanced degrees.  Now I don’t really know how to communicate this to the good professor, but how in hell could half such black students from all black schools NOT graduate in the top half of their class?  (more here)

The globalists operate a subtle program of population control in third world countries.  While not explicitly making the case, internationally known environmentalist Bjorn Lomberg (director of the Copenhagen Consensus Center) gives ample data that the billions of dollars spent and promised to these backward countries for “climate-related aid” is a big mistake.  These countries don’t need additional solar panels, but they do “need help with tuberculosis, malaria, and malnutrition.”  Solar and other renewable power generators will not provide the amount of reliable electricity needed in those nations to make a difference in the countries’ economies or delivered healthcare.  “Green energy sources may be good to keep on a single light or to charge a cellphone.  But they are largely useless for tackling the main power challenges for the world’s poor.”

This, of course, makes no never mind to the world’s progressive elites again meeting in Paris later this year.  Putting some of that very corruptible money into mosquito nets alone would save about 300,000 lives a year.  And for the gruberized first world masses, that good feeling from fighting 'climate change' is worth every dark skinned life that must be sacrificed – good feelings are not cheap. (more here)

The exodus to red states continues.  Our innumerable and innumerate Left denies any such migration, especially if the tally is taken by the likes of the Heritage Foundation (here).  But both the Dept of Commerce and the IRS have the numbers which under this administration will not be ushered into the light of day.  In California the paradigm is ‘government dependent illegals in, wealth generating middle class workers out’.  And I’ll be a sumbich if the population doesn’t keep on increasing.

Back to Fort Sill in place and time

George Rebane

We got home yesterday afternoon from a visit to Ft Sill, OK and Denver, CO, a trip that also let us catch up with a lot of what’s happening in the country.  Ft Sill is the world’s preeminent artillery development and training center.  If you are an American cannon cocker or tactical missile man (Army or Marine), you have gone through Ft Sill.  The place is located on an ideal patch of land that has little use for things other than maneuvering guns and impacting shells.  All of us who graduated from there agreed that ‘if the world needed an enema, then they’d stick the tube …’, you know the rest.

The Army base itself is a small, well-kept city home to thousands of GIs and their dependents.  We also train our allies’ artillery officers there, so you see a lot of different uniforms on base.  On this occasion the historical (pre-Civil War) fort hosted the veterans who served in Babenhausen, Germany during the Cold War from the 1940s to the 1980s.  Babenhausen was already well-established in American history by the time WW2 ended.

Located in Hessen, Babenhausen was the home base of the Hessians who fought ineffectively (cf. Washington crossing the Delaware) for the British in our Revolutionary War when King George III got a deal for mercenaries he couldn’t refuse from a long lost German cousin who ran into some money problems.  (see also ‘Babenhausen Remembers’)

Sandbox - 18oct15

[Did President Obama prejudge the FBI investigation of Hillary's email contents and handling? gjr]

Understanding Wealth Inequality

George Rebane

Without a formalized utility, making public policy is guided by topical and anecdotal outliers. 

[This is the transcript of my regular KVMR commentary broadcast on 14 October 2015.]

Wealth inequality has been a topic of keen interest and agitation, and concerns about it seem to be increasing, especially with our left-leaning neighbors.  Today terms like the ‘one percenters’ are common in any discussion about the economy and the direction our country is taking.  Wealth inequality is one of many issues that divide us.  People of a conservative bent explain that such an inequality is a natural result of people being different in their work habits, education, intellect, willingness to tolerate risk, and so on.  All of these attributes coupled with today’s acceleration of technology create work environments and opportunities where people with such characteristics can make more money than those who lack them.

However, folks on the left are convinced that the unequal distribution of wealth is the result of richer people screwing the poor, and all of that is due to bad public policies which government can mend.  As we saw in a recent letter to our local Union, there are many out there who believe that enterprise and entrepreneurship in America fundamentally do not work to benefit society, and have been barely tamed through vigorous application of collectivist remedies under the regulatory umbrella of a caring government.

Sandbox - 13oct15

[Well boys and girls, let's gird our loins and prepare for the vibrant and vociferous aftermath of tonight's debate between them that's working to mount the bridge of the ship of state and holler out loud and clear, 'Haaard a'Pooort!!'  Polarized pundits predict that the lamestream CNN's moderator will just toss puffballs to Hillary.  While that may be so, it's hard to believe that Comrade Bernie the Socialist will not use the occasion to find a scuttle valve or two in Queen Hillary's assumption to the throne.  Not all will leave that hall with heads on their shoulders.  gjr]

Scattershots – 12oct15

George Rebane

The government is corrupt.  It’s always a tickle to note the protestations of liberals on these pages who howl when we conservetarians point out that our government is too big, inept beyond belief, costs too much, overreaches into our lives, and is hopelessly corrupt in literally all that it does.  The local leftwing lackeys dutifully decry our citations of such violations of public trust as the whine of an ignorant, negligible and soon-to-disappear miniscule minority.  Yet the national data keeps coming in to show how out of touch are our neighbors of the Left.  Gallup again returns to us polling results that confirm 3 out of 4 Americans believe that our government is indeed corrupt, and the national Right/Left split falls evenly at 48% favoring each.  What is it about the definition of 'small minority' that these innumerates don’t understand?

The new movie ‘Truth’ is a hopelessly blatant whitewash of the CBS/Dan Rather scandal of forged documents used to create out of whole cloth a smear of President George W. Bush.  It is truly desperation time for Democrats to put out such a movie that will highlight the perennial mischief the Left propagates through its lamestream media.  But in this case even CBS is distancing itself from this revisionist propaganda piece about Rathergate.  Here is what CBS said to Variety about the film portraying their yellow journalists –

It’s astounding how little truth there is in “Truth.” There are, in fact, too many distortions, evasions and baseless conspiracy theories to enumerate them all. The film tries to turn gross errors of journalism and judgment into acts of heroism and martyrdom. That’s a disservice not just to the public but to journalists across the world who go out every day and do everything within their power, sometimes at great risk to themselves, to get the story right.

Can the combined auras of Robert Redford as Dan Rather and Cate Blanchet as the wicked producer Mary Mapes really convince 2015 Americans that they were the moral equivalents of the heroic Woodward and Bernstein of Watergate fame?

The Liberal Mind – Climate Skeptical Debates are Unworthy and Should be Censored (updated 11oct15)

George Rebane

The more tightly ANY system is coupled, the more likely its performance is paced by its weakest and/or its most stupid members.  Mother Nature

In the 10oct15 Union there is an opinion piece that perfectly, nay, iconically reveals the liberal mind.  ‘Let’s Have a Worthy Debate’ by local politician Heidi Hall and much regaled/reviled meteorologist Dr Michael Mann (of Hockeystick fame) is a call to silence the preventable global warming (PGW) skeptics and banish their voices from the public media.  It is a chilling preview of the future that our progressives have in store for Americans.

The Union management appears to be flummoxed by how to properly present all this debate. They are having a hard time sticking to their policy to publish letters rebutting named condemnations (e.g. one of my rebuttals was not published).  Admittedly it is a difficult piece of content management, especially about something that people spend most of their time talking past each other, like hiding everything under the misleading umbrella ‘climate change’ which is not even in dispute.

One of the more interesting aspects of the Hall/Mann piece is its stock denigration of skeptics without mentioning one word about the significant science and scientists who have presented counter arguments to PGW in all of its dimensions.  To understand the taxonomy of the issues involved in any rational discussion of PGW, please see Drilling Down ‘Climate Change’.  But then, censorship not reason is the objective of their piece attacking skeptics; Hall/Mann do not mince words –

Journalists and editorial page editors need to stop wasting ink to give a false sense of equity from “both sides of the issue.” In this time of Internet jockeys thinking that every opinion is equal regardless of their actual understanding of the issue, this matters.

Publishers and bloggers do us a disservice by not distinguishing credible opinion from absurdities, and continuing to give both equal time. We understand that it can be difficult to determine the credibility of opinions. But doing so is, in our opinion, a key responsibility of journalists today.

Sandbox - 8oct15

[Leaving the 4oct15 sandbox to complete the debate on rampant racism in Nevada County and on RR, we open a fresh one to permit untrammeled consideration of how the Republicans are faring in their selection of a new Speaker against the background of Hillary's Benghazi and email scandals, and the lamestream's coverage of the whole mess.  gjr]

Cap & Trade, a tax by any other name …

George Rebane

Liberty is not free, and efforts to make it appear so inevitably lead to tyranny.

Mr Steven Frisch, who frequently shares his thoughts on these pages, has written an eloquent opinion piece in the 8oct15 Union in which he argues for compliant submission to California’s carbon cap and trade (C&T) program that became law under the notorious AB32 legislation.  I believe his Other Voices commentary to be an effective piece of government propaganda for people who, for openers, are not students of liberal governance.

Mr Frisch claims that we should separate C&T from the preventable global warming (PGW) debate, and focus on garnering the 'benefits' he sees coming to Nevada County from that legislation.  In his arguments he characterizes C&T as being a new wealth creating instrument and economic boost for California which “has taken bold action to reduce emissions, priced carbon emissions, created a stable market to reduce carbon emissions (the California Cap and Trade Program and the Low Carbon Fuel Standard), and is now realizing a hefty revenue stream to address climate change. That market is returning billions of dollars to state accounts (called the Greenhouse Gas Investment Fund) to invest in emission reduction projects.”

This “hefty revenue stream” is nothing but a naked tax increase on all Californians and those doing business here.  The new C&T tax has not and cannot be shown to provide any measurable benefits to California’s environment, but that is how the phony new market place for trading carbon credits continues to be sold to the state’s light thinkers.

Mr Frisch points out that by 2020 the state will be sucking out more than $5B annually in additional taxes from our wallets, but not to worry because the money will be “used to improve transportation networks and infrastructure, install energy efficiency measures, realize water efficiencies, build affordable housing, manage forests and divert waste.”  In short, the money will be used to augment state expenditures that would normally have come out of the state’s general fund (now being depleted by growing costs of MediCal, welfare programs, and unfunded pension liabilities).

As a posterchild offspring of AB32 he introduces us to Truckee’s proposed Railyard project for which the city has already been awarded $8M under the guise of redevelopment money which apparently no private interests are willing to gamble without government as a partner (read taxpayer guarantees).  The new Railyard is slated to essentially revamp Truckee’s downtown, providing jobs, shops, housing units, and the Lord knows what other goodies for our county’s east end.  And yet again we note that this wonderful idea shows little promise to stand on its own legs.

But the really big benefits touted for California lie in all the new ‘green jobs’ that the C&T taxes promise.  This is the biggest of all phony economic arguments that was first revealed by Frederic Bastiat over 150 years ago in his ‘Broken Windows’ dissertation contained in The Law.  C&T creates nothing new, but does impose new business and private citizen behaviors that in the scheme of things are completely arbitrary, and ride on the ever growing hubris that government can plan and direct the spending of an additional $5B a year better than can the people from whom that tribute was extracted at gunpoint.

People who think and educate themselves know that money is fungible.  C&T tax monies do nothing but replace the general fund monies collected under existing taxes that pay for the laundry list of things spelled out by Mr Frisch who exhorts us to get excited and get in line for our share of Sacramento directed ‘largesse’.   But we all should know that the new C&T monies will do nothing more than release general fund monies to pay for new progressive programs that create more Californians on the government tit and buy their votes.

[For those new to these pages, Mr Frisch, a leading progressive in these parts, is employed as president of the Sierra Business Council a nonprofit organization based in Truckee, and the Sierra Small Business Development Center serving a seven county region including Nevada County.  His grant and tax funded organizations stand to directly benefit from advising jurisdictions and private concerns in the conformance to a vigorous implementation of AB32 and all its derivatives.]

The XQ Super School Project

‘A nation ignorant and free, that never was and never shall be.’, Thomas Jefferson

George Rebane

Two items caught my eye about our disastrous public school system that once more confirm the status of our schools, the intellectual level of our gruberized citizenry, and that teachers unions are the work of the Devil, or a dirty communist conspiracy, or the idiot produce of our progressive elites who are beyond remediation, or, who knows, maybe from the heartbreak of psoriasis.  But one thing is for certain, our high schools are bad, really bad; and you can see it for yourself right here in River City.

The first thing I ran across in this morning’s paper was a full page ad (must have cost them a pretty penny) by the XQ Super School Project that lamented the status of our high schools citing “seventy-two percent of graduating high schoolers don’t have the skills they need for success in college or a career.”  Why should they when in today’s age of accelerating technology and growing systemic unemployment, 50% of our high schools don’t even offer calculus (and you can easily guess why).  The XQ folks have gone out nationally to seek ideas for “rethinking” and revamping our high schools.  Take a look at their website and mayhaps you may even want to get involved.

Drilling Down 'Climate Change'

George Rebane

Sandbox - 4oct15

[It turns out that socialist Connecticut, one of the most leftwing, richest, and corporatist states in the Union (hedge funds, corporate headquarters, and Wall Street mavens from NYC) "has a huge pension problem' (here).  "Connecticut has roughly half of what it needs to pay future retirement benefits for its workers, meaning the home to scores of hedge funds and some of the country’s wealthiest towns is wrestling with financial distress rivaling that of Kentucky or Illinois."  gjr]

Obama shoots from the lip on Roseburg (updated 6oct15)

George Rebane

Predictably Barack Hussein Obama voiced his conclusions and exhortations for gun control before the Roseburg bodies had cooled, the wounded were out of surgery, and any relevant information about the shooter and the shootings had been released by the police – anything to take people’s minds off his debacles in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan.  Our national demagogue again addressed the gruberized in an attempt to make them believe that these rare shootings are a national problem that far outweighs those that happen in gun controlled cities day in and day out.  Nowhere did he rise to address the 50 Chicago shootings two weekends in a row – to that sumbich black lives don’t matter, but Agenda21 does.

According to the Rebane Doctrine all gun control laws in legislative debate should address their impact on the Founders’ intent for including the Second Amendment in our Constitution.  Will the new law make it more difficult for citizens to successfully oppose a future rogue government as anticipated by the Founders and echoed by patriot Americans over the last two centuries?  The progressives promoting world socialism always want to divert us from the hundreds of millions of their own citizens that collectivist tyrants have murdered during the last century.  And they do it with the ever popular, ‘It can’t happen in America.’  In the mid-1930s ‘It can’t happen in Germany’ was used to keep the very educated and cultured masses quiet and compliant, even while Stalin was slaughtering kulaks by the tens of millions a few hundred miles away.

Anyone want to make book on what part religion, specifically Islam, played in the mind of the Roseburg shooter?  And all that as Team Obama does its best to disarm law abiding America.  (For those interested, I’m prepared to go through some probabilistic calcs on the number of such people still loose in our population who will not be affected one whit by the Left’s proposed new gun laws.  As long as the perp knows he’s the only one with a gun, these killings will continue.  There are just too many of us, and enough of them.)

[2oct15 update]  Well, the comment stream below has grown enough to attract and include the obligatory leftwing arguments for functionally, if not absolutely, disarming America.  From those commenters we hear nothing about our president rushing to be the first to call for new gun laws, and the first to politicize the event.  The Left, of course, with Alinsky-style retorts, flips that event and accuses those reporting and countering the president’s remarks as instead being the first to politicize this tragedy.

What is important to note is that the Left again 1) says nothing about the non-enforcement of existing gun control laws, continuing their litany of ‘forget enforcement, just pass more restrictive laws’; 2) spells out no specific laws that could have had any effect on the latest shootings; and 3) totally ignores the horrendous history of state killings of citizens in countries that denied them guns (the Second Amendment’s raison d’etre).  As we see from the comment stream, the Left’s educated elites practice cynicism of the highest order in arguing that our ongoing social breakdown is due to factors such as legal gun ownership, western religiosity, capitalistic greed, market-based income inequality (anti-unionism), intrinsic distrust of government, … .  To them society should be organized around an all-encompassing government guided by collectivist elites under whom work legions of altruistic technocrats striving to implement a comprehensively-regulated social order, all for the “greater good”, that is uniquely visible in their lights.

Again, I invite the attentive reader, in these first decades of the last great century of Man, to identify any common ground between our polarized and gruberized body politic that would just support functional communication, let alone that may contain a path to reunion as a citizenry of a sustainable sovereign nation-state.

[6oct15 update]  Rumor has it that President Obama will take his gun control politicizing to Roseburg.  Folks up there don't cotton to Obama, and most certainly his use of this tragic event to grandstand his 2nd Amendment agenda.  The man does not have a sense of decorum or knows that not everyone is a progressive eager to hear the pap he spews.  That, of course, may come as a surprise to some of our locals who think that only a remote group of knuckle dragging old farts in these hills don't take kindly to his politics.  For those progressives, here's an illuminating video of an O'Reilly segment.