Rebane's Ruminations

‘… stuck on 1% growth.’ (updated 2aug16)

George Rebane

On the last day of the Democratic Convention we suddenly saw some very un-Democratic displays of military officers on the podium, (borrowed) Old Glories galore, and shouts of ‘USA!, USA!, …’ from the floor.  So much in fact that NPR’s Weekend Edition had to do a feature piece on it asking experts what is the meaning of this year’s Democrats coopting traditionally Republican totems.  The answer, of course, is beyond simple.

To support the newest National Lie expertly floated by President Obama last Wednesday about how well the economy is doing, the Democrats scuttled back for instructions from their political bible, Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals.  And there it was, plain as day – when getting caught doing something bad, spout the good stuff from the other side while blaming your bad stuff on them.

Ruminations – 27jul16 (updated 3aug16)

“The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their proper name.”  Confucius

George Rebane

Since Turkey’s Erdogan most recently explained to the world of infidels – “Islam is Islam, there are no modifiers.  Democracy is the train we ride to our ultimate objective.” – more and more articles now appear expanding on that truth by quoting leaders from America’s Muslim communities.  One by Scott Richert is ‘Islam, Period’.

Pew Research has shown that the maturing seeds of Islamic terror are already among us.  This we have reported before; however, the scope of the problem is something that expands as we understand the numbers and suffer the growing intensity of the so-called lone wolf attacks.  Pew also reports on the insularity of Muslim communities that makes it difficult/impossible for so-called moderate Muslims to report any insipient radicalization of their members.  From attitudinal surveys the population of potentially radicalizeable American Muslims today is about one in five adults.  At a population of 2.75-3M, this yields a cohort of potential terrorists among us that numbers in the hundreds of thousands.  And from this heating cauldron of hate we have no idea who or where the next Islamist will decide to do Allah’s will.

Social scientists tell us that historically it takes only 5% of true believers in some socio-political cause to destabilize an entire population.  Fewer, if they become militants.

Progressive mantra, ‘Will trade liberty for peace.’

Daily terror - the drumbeat of terror is picking up the pace – in the last 24 hours an elderly French priest holding mass was decapitated in front of his congregation by two terrorists.  An attending nun is fighting for her life.  While in Berlin a physician was killed by a patient whose ethnic identity is still being kept a secret.

Ever wonder how the Democrats can spout the fantastic job that Obama has done with the economy (‘everything is already great’) from one side of their mouths, while from the other side they concurrently appeal for votes so that they can implement their plan to fix the stubbornly poor economy?  Answer:  such contradictions are invisible to their constituents.

[28jul16 update]  The WSJ tells us “The next U.S. president will confront a deeply unsettled world”, and then goes on to compare the candidates’ foreign policy positions without making clear that only one candidate had a direct hand in deeply unsettling the world which, in the interval, she now claims to have learned to resettle. (more here)

[29jul16 update]  When they venture into numbers, economists continually demonstrate themselves to be clueless about how economies operate.  Even when they stay in the safe arena of rhetoric, they have to cover their butts with their notorious ‘… on the other hand’ pabulum fully adorned with tautological conditionals that a ten-year-old can generate.  ‘Unemployment is expected to grow unless, of course, if interest rates go up then we may have a problem.’  Now what in hell are you supposed to do with that kind of horse manure?

But with numbers they really show themselves to be totally naked and unarmed.  This January economists predicted annual GDP growth to finally spring back to the 3% level, thereby giving Obama some cover that his administration finally knew what they were doing in managing this recovery.  No joy.  With 1Q16 growth at 1.6%, and today we hear that 2Q16 came in at 1.2%, then each of the remaining two quarters will have to deliver 4.6% for the predicted annual 3% growth to be realized.  Anybody wanna bet even their pocket change that this will happen?  And what’s more amazing is that these people get hired by banks, big companies, and government bureaus for good salaries.

I’m not familiar with any other profession that stands still for such poor performance from their professionals.  Well, maybe the so-called climate scientists peddling AGW hysteria.  Neither group has computer models that are worth a warm bucket of spit.

[3aug16 update]  By now everyone has heard of our $400M ransom payment in small bills delivered to Iran in an unmarked brown paper airplane.  And the cover story comes from an arcane, dusty, and long-forgotten larder that's just chuck full of many more like it, all ready made to handle future payments.  But the most remarkable thing is that they really believe we believe them.  More here.

Medical Marijuana Ordinance - BoS Meeting

George Rebane

Tomorrow the Nevada County Board of Supervisors will meet to “Introduce/Waive further reading/Adopt An Urgency Ordinance adding Subsections … (long list of subsections) … of Article 5 of Chapter IV, of the Nevada County General Code, regarding Marijuana Cultivation Regulations. (4/5 affirmative vote required)”  The meeting will be held in the Rood Center and the BoS agenda calls for the MMJ ordinance part to start at 1:30PM.

The new ordinance is a complex affair that has been much discussed and described in these pages – most recently here.  The ordinance has two antecedents which have also garnered much controversy and form the prime input to the current ordinance scheduled for adoption.  To aid in sorting out the evolution of these ordinances, you can download a comparative analysis generated over the last few days by Jo Ann Rebane (the wife of my life).  It has been distributed to the interested BoS members and the principals on the pro/con side of the MMJ cultivation issue.   Download Marijuana Ordinance Study v3 2016 Aug 25

 

George Boardman nails it

George Rebane

Columnist and RR reader George Boardman wrote an excellent and timely critique of California’s STEM education available today in our secondary schools.  Not only did he present relevant stats on the status of courses offered across the state, he also gave a chilling summary of the new revisionist history and social studies subjects that are being emphasized.  Mr Boardman makes the point that California is no longer educating the technology workforce for industries for which we are still recognized.  It seems that now Silicon Valley imports its talent from other states and countries.

Under the state’s progressive tsunami, we are diving for the mud in more areas than can be tracked.  The collectivist mindset has become a plague across the land, and most virulent in the now cynically named Golden State.  The themes in Mr Boardman’s observations have been a constant in these pages for the life of RR, and I welcome its reprise in our community’s newspaper, no matter that it was relegated to the bottom half of his entire offering that opened with some local vanilla-flavored fare.

…

Oh what the hell, here’s the relevant part of the column filched from the 25jul16 Union.  I can hardly wait for the screams from the Left.  (Truth be told, I’m envious that I didn’t submit the very same article.)

Reinette Senum – the aftermath (12aug16 update)

George Rebane

It appears that enough dust has settled around Ms Senum’s unfortunate remarks about the nation’s police departments that we can bring closure to the factors involved in the considerable support she has received for her (now clarified) sentiments.  My own support of her position was published in the 13jul16 Union and in these pages which garnered an extensive comment stream (here).

The revealing part of public attitudes became quickly apparent during the NC City Council meeting where public comment against Ms Senum was a bit in excess of two to one.  At the meeting and in the media her antagonists almost uniformly demanded her apology and removal from public life.  Not only that, but these folks expected the NCCC accede to their demands forthwith.  The fact that the overwhelming part of them had no say in the matter beyond exercising their First Amendment rights did not occur to them, and upon reflection can still be seen to represent a broader national understanding of how policies should be made and implemented in the country’s thousands of electoral jurisdictions.

In this commentary I would like to expand on this audacious national misunderstanding, and clarify the various aspects about elected officials voicing and representing unpopular sentiments.  What appears to confuse people are factors associated with such events that are independent of each other, and which should also be treated as such.  These are –

• The legal expressability of an unpopular sentiment,
• Public expression of the unpopular sentiment by an elected official,
• The sharing of the sentiment by the official’s constituency,
• The right of constituents holding unpopular sentiments to be represented,
• The legal aspects of the official’s tenure in office – who/what is required to unseat,

Legal expressability:  This is covered primarily by the First Amendment right of free speech, unless specifically proscribed by a public code of conduct for the elected office.  All educated people know that the First Amendment does not guarantee the right for all possible instances of free speech.

Public expression by elected official:  First, let’s all be clear that an elected official cannot effectively parse their speech into personal and public categories.  All of their speech reflects on their duties and how they are perceived to execute their office.  And all protestations to the contrary serve only to weaken the subsequent effectiveness of the elected official.  After all, they were elected in great part for their displayed character and values which were taken by their constituents to be the ‘real person’ who would represent them.

Constituents’ shared sentiments:  Until and unless the official’s constituents, publicly and in the aggregate, disagree and/or reject the official’s stated sentiment, it is reasonable to assume that silence presumes acceptance.  Here it is important to consider the plurality of the aggregate (numbers matter), and that such disagreement does not automatically imply or dictate the official be unseated.

Representation of unpopular sentiments:  In a free country, and still in America, sentiments which one cohort of franchised citizens embrace may be totally reprehensible to and rejected by another, perhaps the majority, cohort.  Nevertheless, all such sentiments in every electoral jurisdiction have the right to representation in their governing bodies as enabled by the jurisdiction’s applicable election laws.  In America there are no extra-legal provisions by which people from other jurisdictions may peremptorily have the offending official removed.

Who/what is required to unseat:  The only provisions that exist for the removal of an official are those spelled out in the applicable laws and in any additional ‘code of conduct’ codicils to which the official is a signatory.  Absent these, the official is tenured and secure in his seat, and may vacate it only through volition or reasons of health.

Convention Capers 2016 - Democrat (updated 29jul16)

George Rebane

I thought that launching this forum a couple of days early would let us all do an orderly segue from bombast to abject denial that something more is needed than continuing the disaster of the last eight years.  It will be heart wrenching to witness the description of a bizarre alternate reality in the public forum of Democrats.  The heart wrenching part is recalling Jefferson's 'A nation ignorant and free; that never was and never shall be.'

So let's start the comments and commentaries on what Crooked Hillary with her trusty partner Sen Tim Kaine will promise to do over the next four years.  The convention in Philadelphia will be the greatest opportunity this year to experience the liberal mind revealed.

Sandbox - 22jul16

[The slaughter of the innocents continues now on a daily basis by an enemy whose name we cannot say within the confines of progressive thought.  Why? Because naming the enemy will make no difference in our policy to secure America.  gjr]

What a fine kettle of fish

George Rebane

[This is the transcript of my regular KVMR commentary broadcast on 21 July 2016.]

It’s convention season and in our dear land the political fur is flying.  Tonight the Republicans will hear Donald Trump, their roughly anointed candidate for the presidency, accept his nomination and promise to sally forth to a November victory.  And next week we will witness the same song and dance as the recently and tentatively exonerated Hillary Clinton accepts her mantle to lead the Democrats to the White House without appearing to detour too far to the left.

Medical Marijuana Advocates hold Townhall (updated 21jul16)

[Last night the various factions of the local MMJ stakeholders held a townhall gathering in the historic Nevada Theater.  It was moderated by Pascale Fusshoeller of Yubanet.com and broadcast live on KVMR.  Jo Ann and I were in attendance in the packed hall.  The on onstage panel of five made lengthy opening statements after which they answered questions from the audience.  I personally laud the efforts that our MMJ proponents are making to understand the comprehensive MMJ vs RMJ issue and work with the Nevada County Board of Supervisors to arrive at an acceptable ordinance that defines the kind of permissible MMJ grows and the distribution of the product.

One of the panelists was Ms Patricia Smith president of the local chapter of Americans for Safe Access and a longtime contributor to these pages.  She has kindly submitted the following piece covering last night’s proceedings to inform RR readers of the progress toward the new ordinance.  gjr]

Patricia Smith

The Town Hall meeting at the Nevada Theatre was convened to showcase the differences between the approaches that the Stakeholders have recommended from those that the County have proposed in their Interim Ordinance.  To listen to the entire discussion, log onto KVMR at http://archive.kvmr.org.  Scroll to June 18th, 6:00pm.

All five Stakeholder members of the Advocacy side were on the panel, none of the County's representatives agreed to appear.  I can understand them not wanting to go into the "lion's den," but they should have the courage of their convictions to defend their proposals to the public.

At issue is how the County will respond to the vote of the people.  So far, they are still behaving as if they know what is best for the citizens of Nevada County.  Making decisions for the County is exactly what the Supervisors were elected to do, however, they forfeited that right when, through their own arrogance, they insisted on putting Measure W on the ballot to cement the ban into law. 

They lost.

Convention Capers 2016 – Republican (updated)

George Rebane

Lots to be said about the political party conventions, and this is the place to say them.  I woke up this morning to National Propaganda Radio carefully parsing Melania Trump’s speech around the few words that were similar to Michelle Obama’s equivalent speech in 2008.  Now I notice that the liberal outlets are all competing to see who can best hyperventilate about this - journalism at another summit.  Truly BFD, since in those words both ladies paid homage to their upbringing and the values derived.

If they wanted to compare and contrast the First Lady and her would be successor, they would have pointed out that Mrs Obama’s previous significant employment was a corrupt job paying around $300K for her to do nothing – a job so important that it was not filled when she finally left.  Contrast that with Mrs Trump running a successful fashion business that provides products people pay for with their own hard-earned money, and a company that provides jobs to those who work the business.  And oh yes, one lady clearly loves the United States as a sovereign nation-state in which people are free to pursue their dreams.  More later.

[update 326pm PDT]  Why am I not surprised?

AP Top News at 6:21 p.m. EDT

POLICE BREAK UP SKIRMISHES AMONG DEMONSTRATORS IN CLEVELAND
CLEVELAND (AP) - Police broke up scuffles between groups of demonstrators a few blocks from the Republican National Convention as crowds in the hundreds gathered Tuesday afternoon. There was no immediate word on any arrests or injuries. A skirmish broke out when right-wing conspiracy theorist and radio show host Alex Jones started speaking in downtown's Public Square through a bullhorn. Police on bicycles pushed back a surging crowd, and Jones was whisked away. Minutes later, more officers on bicycles formed a line between a conservative religious group and a communist-leaning organization carrying a sign that read, "America Was Never Great." The demonstrators - including anti-Muslim protesters, religious conservatives and marchers decrying racism and "murder by police" - appeared outnumbered by law officers and members of the media.

Web Handles – their use and abuse

George Rebane

The topic of anonyimity in web comment streams has risen again in these pages.  The most recent instigation was the advent of a commenter who signed himself  “XXXXX” that set off a stream of responses from other commenters some of whom also use a ‘nom de web’.  Under ‘Hillary’s First Loyalty’ I questioned XXXXX’s need to hide behind such a bizarre moniker.  Readers ‘Bill Tozer’ and ‘jon smith’ pointed out that I had a naïve understanding of how the use of real names under real sentiments can be dangerous to one’s financial health.

This issue is a real one that has arguments on both sides which should not be dismissed out of hand, and therefore deserves its own discussion area which I provide here.  My thoughts on the matter go back some years, and may now be dated by the amount of water under the bridge – cf ‘Internet Conversations – Sackheads & Scattershots’ and ‘A Sackhead Saga’ that also features RL Crabb’s contribution to the matter.

Hillary’s First Loyalty

[This column by my friend and Union editorial board member Norm Sauer (pictured) was published as a lead op-ed column in today’s (16jul16) Union.  Norm sent me a copy for early posting here, but I chose to hold back and not steal his thunder from the newspaper.  gjr]

Norm Sauer

What a week it was for Hillary Clinton.

On Tuesday after her husband Bill met with attorney general Loretta Lynch in a plane on the Phoenix airport tarmac, President Obama lauds, “there has never been any man or woman more qualified for this office than Hillary Clinton.”

Concurrently, FBI Director James Comey delivers a blistering indictment of Hillary’s extremely careless handling of highly sensitive emails. He concludes 110 emails in 52 email chains contained classified information when sent, and of those eight chains were top secret and seven contained the most sensitive secrets our government protects. None of these emails “should have been on any kind of unclassified system.” Stunningly, he then declares “no reasonable prosecutor” (Lynch?) would bring charges against Hillary.

By the day’s end, Hillary and the mainstream media believe she is out of hot water. But the fat lady wasn’t singing for Hillary quite yet.

Sandbox - 15jul16 (updated)

[OK, the last one filled super-fast.  Time to talk about the truck attack in Nice, and what that portends for future easy-to-execute lone wolf terror on our shores.  And why is the lamestream again trying to represent this Muslim as a confused man with family troubles, instead of someone who was organized enough to assemble quite a collection of guns and grenades with which he intended more misery than he delivered?  And then there's Trump's announcement of Pence as his Number Two.  And now the coup in Turkey.  We must recall the words of Turkey's president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, "Islam is Islam; there are no modifiers.  Democracy is the train we ride to our ultimate objective." gjr]

 

Sandbox - 11jul16

[Agreed, the old one was overfilled.  Now we still need to return to Hillary and whether she will get reinvestigated for what we may term her Foundation Follies.  Do not lose focus.  gjr]

Reinette: ‘I will not resign’ (updated 18jul16)

[13jul16 - This commentary sans update also appeared in the op-ed pages of today's Union.] 

George Rebane

Well good for her, she has the courage of her convictions and the determination to represent her constituency – the people who voted for her.  While I take great exception to Reinette Senum’s grossly uninformed assertion that the nation’s police “have obviously been given directives to go out there and kill. It’s insane and it’s meant to create mayhem”.  Holding that belief and stating it publicly should not be grounds for requiring an elected public official to resign.  It may be one of the few honest statements politicians have made in this election season about what they believe.

I have known Reinette for years and have enjoyed working with her on panels and local media broadcasts.  We have broken bread together and taken the time to trade views and ideas.  While as a conservetarian I don’t fly in tight formation with her politics and many of her public policies, I do respect her as a strong and energetic voice for a significant and perhaps dominant constituency of Nevada City neighbors who have visibly celebrated her many works in the community.  Today she again represents these people in city government.

Scattershots – 10jul16 (updated 14jul16)

George Rebane

Progressivism's Litmus Test is their introduction of public policies that eliminate dependence of social order on culture, and their replacement with prescriptions based solely on the state's threat of gratuitous and arbitrary application of overwhelming force.

National Lie #53(or whatever) – Illegal aliens are a net contribution to our GDP.  Really??

… according to a new report from Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BAML). The report noted that in 2014 unauthorized immigrants had a labor force participation rate of 70% compared to 62.9% for the overall population. (more here)

Get out an old envelope for a little arithmetic.  The politically correct population of illegals in the country is somewhere north of 11M – the actual is somewhere between 15M and 30M depending on how you count.  Never mind the actual number, say, it’s 15M, and assume all of them are workforce age.  So according to BAML 0.3*15M = 4.5M are not even in the workforce.  Now charitably assume that the remaining 70% or 10.5M in the workforce are unemployed at the nationally quoted level of about 5% which adds another 0.05*10.5M = 525,000 to the 4.5M already unemployed, giving a total of a bit more than 5M unemployed illegals in the country.  So approximately 5M illegal aliens in the country are living off of some kind of government programs that should at least be paid for by the 10M working and taxpaying (sales and maybe payroll taxes) illegals to net out zero impact on state and federal budgets.  In this we don't count the almost 2 of 5 people in jail who are illegals costing about $1.9B/yr to house.  You have to be beyond dense to believe that the taxes paid by two low paid illegals are enough to support one unemployed illegal alien as you swallow National Lie #53.  Now you can show the envelope to your friends.

Sandbox - 8jul16

[Much to say about the Dallas massacre of police presumably prompted by the most recent police shootings of two black men.  gjr]

The Day Justice Died (updated 8jul16)

George Rebane

[This is the addended transcript of my regular KVMR commentary broadcast on 6 July 2016.]

Today millions of Americans believe that yesterday morning we saw justice publicly executed at the hand of a corrupt federal government.  And the executioner was none other than FBI Director James Comey, who was not supposed to wield the ax, yet he did it anyway.

Even he must have known that history would be made by his unprecedented public statement (transcript here), one not called for by his job description nor delivered by any of his predecessors. Comey spent the first 14 minutes detailing the federal penal codes Ms Clinton had violated, and then summarily stated there was not enough evidence to indict her, after which he peremptorily walked out of the room.  Americans were both astounded and distressed.  (more here)

The many remarkable events over the past eighteen months, along with coincidences during the last two weeks, have given rise to a number of conspiracy theories on what really happened behind the scenes that led to yesterday.  So now allow me to entertain you by spinning one more such conspiracy theory that you might not have heard yet.

Compliant Comey exonerates Hillary

George Rebane

This morning we heard FBI Director James Comey announce that the bureau’s exhaustive investigation found no reason to bring criminal charges against Hillary Clinton regarding the goings on with her private email servers when she was Secretary of State.

His conclusion was based on two factors –

1. Lack of intent to harm the country. “Although we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information,”

2. Assessing the success of a subsequent prosecution were she indicted; to wit, “no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case.”

Anyone who has ever held high security clearances with the responsibility to safeguard classified materials, and also the responsibility to classify previously unclassified materials knows that intent to violate the laws governing such handlings makes no exception for the perpetrator’s intentions.  (cf Federal Penal Code, Title 18, Sec 794(f)(g) ) It is the existential behaviors and their portent for harm that determine guilt or innocence.  Without doubt Hillary’s position as SecState assigned her those responsibilities, apparently without having to be accountable for failing to carry them out.  When I was in government service, holding such high clearances in and out of the military, any careless, let alone “extremely careless”, handling of classified materials would have instantly resulted in the loss of my clearances and a criminal indictment.  Were this to have happened while I was on active duty, I would have spent my life in Leavenworth no matter what my intentions had been.

And when did it become a material factor for a criminal investigative agency to base its findings on its own apprehension of what every one of the population of the country’s “reasonable prosecutors” would do were the conclusion to recommend indictment?  In this case that decision is specifically reserved for the DoJ of which AG Lynch in her recent half-hearted retreat still retained her right to make the final decision to indict or not.  Comey’s precipitous conclusion and rationale relieved Team Obama of having to bear the corruption-laden political brunt of exonerating Hillary.  Comey conveniently chose to fall on that sword himself.

According to my lights it is beyond ludicrous to conclude that “no reasonable prosecutor” could be found to prosecute Hillary based just on the evidence that has been released to, and surreptitiously withheld from, the public.  The most likely case is that there would be tens of reasonable prosecutors across the country who would step up to make the case that Hillary is guilty of a long list of serious infractions that include impeding the investigation.

Finally, we are being asked to believe that the sequence of recent events had no impact on the investigation’s outcome and its timely announcement this morning.  We are asked to believe that all parties and departments for the first time in federal government history behaved with solid insularity between jurisdictions, with hundreds of agents, bureaucrats, and officials remaining mum about their individual goings on.

Exit questions: How would Hillary’s announced trip with President Obama on Air Force One to campaign in North Carolina have had to be handled if Comey had recommended indictment?  Without certain knowledge of Comey’s compliance as a team player, who would have had the meetings, scheduled the events, and made the public statements we have witnessed in the last week?  Is it really over?

ASA’s recommendations for new interim MMJ ordinance

George Rebane

Ms Patricia Smith, MMJ champion and president of the local Americans for Safe Access, invited Mr Eddie Garcia (NC SoJ steering committee) and me to have lunch and discuss the progress toward a draft of the new interim MMJ ordinance that the NC BoS will adopt before Labor Day.  The county and stake holders promoting MMJ access have already met twice, and are scheduled to meet again before the new ordinance is finalized.  In the interval Ms Smith is meeting with various community interests to get a wide range of feedback on attitudes toward growing MMJ in the county, and what should be contained in the ordinance.  In November California will be among eight states that will vote on legalizing both MMJ and RMJ.  Nevada County’s finalized MMJ ordinance will then be put in concordance with what comes down from Sacramento.

Happy 240th!

George Rebane

Happy Birthday America!  Let's not let this ...

... become this.

Independence Day Weekend Thoughts (updated 3jul16)

George Rebane

This will be America’s 240^th birthday celebration observed by divers cohorts of “real live nephews of our Uncle Sam” not all of whom wish him a long life.  Our divisions today are at least as great as those which gave rise to the South’s War for Independence – aka the Civil War.  Americans grouped under the Left banner no longer share anything of significance in common with those who assemble themselves as various forms of the Right.  By this I am referring to a comprehensive intellectual, spiritual, and ideological break.  No common history, worldview, socio-political ideals, sense of Man, interpretation of foundational principles, application of logic and modes of critical thought are shared.  And recently even the scientific method has donned a distinct and politically correct mantle.

Sandbox - 1jul16

[Dear People, here is a fresh sandbox for our 4th of July weekend.  I would like to seed it with the arguments from this WSJ editorial, 'Loretta Lynch's Clinton Mess'.  Hopefully all will be careful with their BBQs and adult beverages during this festive time.  While we can no longer shoot off our guns and firecrackers, we can still think good thoughts about the old Republic and quaff a few much needed toasts to its health.  gjr]