Ruminations – 16feb20 (updated 20feb20)

George Rebane

Bernie will force employers to pay disabled workers the going minimum wage in his “disability rights” platform – according to socialist lights, it’s only fair.  No matter that repeal of Sec 14(c) of the Fair Labor Standards Act will no longer induce employers to fashion jobs for which the (mostly mentally) disabled can join the labor market, and with other workers provide a rewarding service.  And the rank and file Dems don’t understand any of it.

"Germany's experience is typical for bureaucratic climate policies, and it stands in sharp contrast to the American experience. The U.S., though heavily criticized for not signing the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, is curbing emissions today much faster than any country that actually did sign the agreement… U.S. carbon dioxide emissions have hit 30-year lows, even as global emissions have increased by 50% during the same period. And since 2005, natural gas has done more to reduce power sector dioxide emissions than all renewable energy sources combined, according to the Energy Information Administration."  (more here and H/T to correspondent)

Pocahontas has another plan, this one to stamp out foreign and domestic “disinformation” campaigns: punish those who disseminate misleading online posts about elections.  This includes holding responsible online platforms that let their users post such “disinformation”.  What this former Harvard pinhead professor misses is that disinformation campaigns have been a staple of elections for centuries.  Hardly any election has ever been held free of lies, libels, fabrications, mendacities, misrepresentations, fraud, … by opposing sides.  Before the internet there were pamphlets, newspapers, radio, and TV.  Is her sophomoric epiphany one more sign that our electorate has descended another couple of critical thinking rungs?  Thank you unionized public schools.

[17feb20 update]  George Boardman writes a good column (here) in the 17feb20 Union on NC’s economic development.  His review of our recent economic development history makes clear that the county and city governments contribute materially to the county’s slow/no economic growth. His lament, “Where are the jobs that pay a living wage and offer a meaningful career path?” will go on until we attract an educated population which won’t happen until we can offer good schools and desirable commercial amenities.  Our local politicians imposing their opinions on what businesses should be permitted and properly located continues to keep us as a backwater in a state that already has baked in anti-entrepreneurial policies.

[18feb20 update]  Rep Chris Murphy (D-CN) was doing a little foreign policy on the side with Ukraine.  Why he did it is more than a bit convoluted.  But even his own best excuse doesn’t contradict his meddling in America’s foreign policy, which is a clear violation of the old Logan Act that the Dems have been trying to pin on a number of Repubs.  I question the man’s ability to think clearly if he thought pulling a stunt like that would have no consequences.  Who else in his brain trust also advised that the surreptitious visit would be a good idea?

[20feb20 update]  One of the Dems’ big lies was again front and center in last night’s clown car debate – the economy is bad because there has been no wage growth for middle and lower class workers and minorities.  Now as I have mentioned, such lies are consequential because it drives decisions of people who are too lazy or simply are not able to think critically.  Here is what the Fed tells us about wage growth over the years.  The Dems continue to tell consequential lies that totally misrepresent the existential situation in America and around the world.  And their lamestream lackeys ignore, if not reinforce, the entire performance.  Instead, they focus on the make no-never-mind ‘lies’ that Trump spouts in his usual and regrettable braggadocio tweets.

The joys of capitalism.  A small innovative pharmaceutical company has come up with a vaccine for the corona virus in three hours after getting access to its genetic sequence.  The company developed an algorithm that works on such double helixes to find the proper gene to disable that will neutralize the COVID-19 virus.  Inovio Pharmaceuticals is now getting ready to mass produce the vaccine and have it ready for the market possible as soon as this summer.  That’s the kind of innovation free markets invite, and the candidates in the Dems’ clown car want to dismantle.  Remember, their mantra is that ‘you didn’t build that; you didn’t develop that, you didn’t …’ – it was all due to the great collective in the sky.  (more here and H/T to correspondent)

Comments

[Bill Tozer]

Good read by VDH and quite on topic for Dr. Rebane’s post above.

Reaching Peak Progressivism

https://amgreatness.com/2020/02/16/reaching-peak-progressivism/

[Bill Tozer]

Progressive solutions

‘The Moral Crisis of Skid Row’

“The truth is that homelessness is not primarily a housing problem but a human one. Mayors, developers, and service providers want to cut ribbons in front of new residential towers, but the real challenge is not just to build new apartment units but to rebuild the human beings who live inside them. Unfortunately, this isn’t the kind of work that can be “scaled” like a product. Still, the builders have prevailed. Every few weeks, Mayor Garcetti and a rotating group of public officials announce new projects, shovel dirt, and cut ribbons. On Skid Row, a nonprofit developer is building two permanent supportive-housing projects, the Flor 401 Lofts and Six Four Nine Lofts, that will provide studio apartments to 153 homeless men and women, at a cost of $65 million. Though Skid Row is undoubtedly one of the most difficult places in America to achieve sobriety and reclaim a normal life, the city’s political class continues to centralize the problem.
This is the iron grip of homelessness, addiction, and mental illness in Los Angeles: you can’t arrest your way out, you can’t harm-reduce your way out, and you can’t build your way out. Beneath the optimistic rhetoric of the politicians lies growing anxiety that the crisis has moved beyond its control. “This is a FEMA-like, Red Cross–like disaster,” says Andy Bales, a critic of the Housing First model who has spent the last year calling for the National Guard to intervene and help prevent the outbreak of an epidemic. “We have actually left homelessness to grow exponentially to the point that it has put all of us in danger.”

https://www.city-journal.org/skid-row-los-angeles

[scenes]

Good article @ 9:13

It references this one.

https://www.city-journal.org/html/reclamation-skid-row-13041.html

"In 1999, the doyenne of downtown homeless agitators, Alice Callaghan, picketed the opening of a Skid Row drop-in center providing people with showers, a place to sit or lie down, and various services that would start them on the path to rehabilitation. Callaghan, an ex-nun and ordained Episcopal priest, likened the 24-hour facility to an “internment camp.” The problem? A drop-in center reinforces the idea that “anyone still on the street is on the street by choice and not because of a lack of options,” she told Mother Jones magazine in 2001. “The language of rehab and programs and community is the velvet glove on a puritanical and punitive fist,” she added.

The exertions of the homelessness industry long ago passed into the realm of the surreal. Estela Lopez, director of Skid Row’s business improvement district, the Central City East Association (CCEA), had to negotiate in a judge’s chambers the arcane question of whether feces in a plastic bag constitute “property.” Defending the property label were lawyers from the prestigious law firm Morrison & Foerster, who, along with the ACLU, had sued CCEA over its efforts to remove encampment detritus from the sidewalks in front of members’ businesses."

[fish]

Posted by: scenes | 17 February 2020 at 09:27 AM

“The language of rehab and programs and community is the velvet glove on a puritanical and punitive fist,”

This is why these people....they of the "helpful" non-profit, the activisty social crusader......need to be ignored entirely as they almost always have ulterior motives.....whether it be raging grudge against the church or maintaining that sweet, sweet high sierra lifestyle!

[Walt]

Reopening the mine would give a great economic kick in the ass to the county.

The last time, the lying bastards opposing the mine swore up and down "high tech" employers would move in just as soon as "they" knew the mine was dead... It was all bullshit.

But Hey!! You have untold numbers of illegal pot grows to keep the place afloat.

[scenes]

Walt: " You have untold numbers of illegal pot grows to keep the place afloat."

Plus the large criminal infrastructure that that implies. The main thing changing hands here isn't marijuana, it's money.

No doubt the entire dope economy here is a handful of people growing the purest organic product in order to sell to cancer patients. lol.

The obvious answer is to either make it illegal as all get-out and turn the LEOs loose...or you make it legal as can be and suck the money out of the business. I expect that the dope biz would quickly move to North Carolina and be sold by the megaton by industrial farming.

There's too many people making a tidy living from having the right level of illegality.

[Walt]

Well Scenes,, taxing it has worked out SO well.

The dopes got what they wanted. It's "legal", and the tax free income still is rolling in.

[Bill Tozer]

Re: Update, Senator having secret meetings with Iran

Mollie Hemingway: Democrats' 'hypocrisy on display' after senator's secret meeting with Iran

https://www.foxnews.com/media/mollie-hemingway-chris-murphy-iran-democrats-flynn-logan-act