Rebane's Ruminations

Trump is Inaugurated

George Rebane

Long wait, but Trump was finally inaugurated. Most of the country, including the Rebanes, celebrated. There were scattered demonstrations by leftwing socialists and shills protesting the election and calling President Trump a “fascist”. The leftwing media (I watched CNN and MSNBC) saw no hypocrisy in their version of what happened yesterday. Only that an evil has descended on the land. They live in a different universe to which there is no bridge from here to there.

[The following was generated by MS Copilot as a test from a few simple phrases that I input.  Thoughts?]

As we embark on this new chapter, it is imperative that we focus on the future and the opportunities that lie ahead. Our nation stands at a crossroads, and it is our collective responsibility to work together towards a brighter and more prosperous tomorrow. We must prioritize policies that foster economic growth, strengthen our national security, and promote unity among our citizens.

Let us channel our energies into constructive dialogue and collaboration, setting aside divisiveness to build a stronger, more resilient nation. Our commitment to the fundamental principles of democracy and freedom will guide us as we strive to achieve the aspirations of all Americans. The challenges may be great, but with determination and unity, we can overcome them and ensure a legacy of progress and hope for future generations.

Scattershots – 19jan25

George Rebane

Democrats’ demonstrators are paid shills.  There is no end to the evil that this political party practices and foists on the country.  There is actually a booming business for outfits like Crowds on Demand who hire low-lifes to masquerade as concerned citizens expressing their scripted First Amendment rights in the streets.  And the Democrats are their prime politically oriented market.  This is just one more confirmation that the party is historically and organically evil.  It all began in the ante-bellum years when the Democrats promoted and fought for slavery, then they became the sponsors of corrupt unions, then they promoted eugenics and the KKK, then they latched on to socialism cum communism, now they seek to control the country through ever bigger government, higher taxes, and stifling regulations.  The individual means nothing to them, only his class membership matters.  (more here)

Trump wants Greenland for enhancing national security and controlling America’s access to important minerals and ‘rare earths’.  This isn’t the first time America has had its eye on a closer relationship with the frozen Arctic island that historically belongs to Denmark.  Since WW2 we have had military bases there and continue to maintain a radar early warning base.  To me it makes a lot of sense for Greenland to become at least an American protectorate.  Given a properly negotiated agreement, I think the Danes and the Greenlanders would enjoy such a relationship for all the obvious security and economic reasons.  Puzzling over this I have a proposal for a treaty that would be a consistent addition to Rebane Doctrine.  The outcome of the negotiations would have America assume military and foreign policy control of Greenland, in addition to the economic control of its natural resources.  America would also commit to insuring the security of Denmark in perpetuity against all foreign aggression by a status of forces agreement that allows us to maintain air and naval bases on the Jutland peninsula.  This would provide a triple economic boon to both Greenland and Denmark.  The presence of American bases bolsters the host country’s economy, here the host country/territory would no longer have to spend monies on its military, only on in-country police and coast guard, and the hosts would share in the economic gains from the plethora of new mines on Greenland.  Local governments, control, and cultures would not be affected by the American presence.  What’s not to like?

The resurrection of yesteryear’s stars is now possible and will be demonstrated this year through Bollywood’s release of a feature length film that is completely AI generated by Intelliflicks Studios in India. I started describing this future to friends over fifty years ago when I first got into AI in defense work.  Now it has arrived as you can see from the movie’s trailer (here and here).  The making of movies will never be the same.  As the software and hardware becomes cheaper, we will all be able to compose stories, write the screenplays, and produce realistic films.  Selling them will still be a problem with a flooded marketplace.  I wonder who owns the intellectual property for John Wayne, Fred Astaire, Marilyn Monroe, … ?

On to the inauguration - hallelujah!

Panama Canal – who should own it?

George Rebane

President Trump’s recent proposal for the US to reacquire control of the Panama Canal has created a lot of controversy – most on the Left oppose such a reacquisition of control as more American imperialism, and most on the Right support it on national security grounds.  Facts about the status and operation of the canal are hard to get.  A contribution to inform the debate was submitted in the 27dec24 letter to Brian Kilmeade by Panama’s former ambassador to the US, Juan B. Sosa (here).

Ambassador Sosa submits a reasonable story that nevertheless overlooks or misunderstands some important factors about the canal’s ownership and administration of the strategic waterway.

1. Sosa asserts that “I can unequivocally say that China does not have control, or even influence on the operations of the Panama Canal.” The Hong Kong based company Hutchison Whampoa administers the canal’s terminal ports of Cristobal and Balboa.  What Sosa misses is that Hong Kong is now part of mainland China, and must respond to the dictates of its CCP no matter what its de juris relationship is to the communists.
2. “The claim that United States’ ships are being ripped off in fees for transiting the Canal is unfounded and far from the truth.” Tariffs and fees are assessed according to a “Neutrality Treaty introduced by the US” which supposedly “obligates the Panama Canal to treat all countries fairly and with the same tariffs”,   However, no one has publicized at what levels these assessments were initially made and how they now stack up as other countries have become more developed and wealthy in the interval.  The economic impact of canal tariffs and fees on the American economy is apparently minimal.
3. Income from the canal is the “lifeline of the economy of Panama”, and the basis for its opposition to relinquishing any part of it. Panama has also widened the alternative channel’s width to 180 feet (from the original channel’s 110 feet) which now permits America’s largest naval vessel’s use of the canal to again use the tactical shortcut in our preparation for a potential conflict with Red China.  It is the absolute control of this resource, most effectively secured by our military presence, that is of strategically paramount importance to the US. 
4. “The threat to ‘take the Canal back’ fails to recognize the history of the treaties’ debate when U.S. military experts widely accepted that the canal, with fifty miles of length and five (on) each side of the canal, is indefensible unless in friendly territory, which would not be the case under a major power imposing its might on Panama, the Canal and its people.” This is a thinly veiled threat that Panamanian insurgents will oppose any retaking of the canal by force and thereby make it an unusable waterway in a contested war zone.

Sosa concludes with a heartfelt call to not tamper with decades of a successful relationship between the two countries, stating “Panama has always treasured its relationship with United States since it declared its separation from Colombia in November 3, 1903 and was supported militarily by the United States which sealed Panama’s separation followed by the signing of the Canal Treaty. Since the new Treaty was signed in 1977 and began its transition period in 1980.”

Given such a history of good relations between our countries, it seems to me that the whole matter can be resolved with a newly negotiated treaty that re-examines and resets any material inequities in tariffs and fees, and more importantly allows the US to re-establish two or three military bases in what used to be known as the Canal Zone.  These bases would operate under a new status of forces agreement, and initiate another source of income for Panama in providing the support logistics and personnel for base facilities.  This should be much cheaper for the US and eminently more agreeable to the Panamanians.  We don’t have to retake the Canal Zone.  

LA Inferno – Criminal Incompetence on Parade?

George Rebane

The Los Angeles area continues to burn after entire neighborhoods of the city are already heaps of ash and ruin.  What news has been concurrently emerging with videos of burning houses and hills, interviews with residents who lost everything, and endless ‘news conferences’ with obviously incompetent officials who have no useful information and are desperately trying to cover their collective asses.

Jo Ann and I are multi-decade veterans of SoCal wildfires with our valuables and heirlooms packed and ready to go every late summer and fall.  The last 25 years before moving to Nevada County we lived on Saddle Peak Rd in the Santa Monica Mountains on a high ridgeline in a house we built.  The latest information we have right now is that ‘our house’ is gone after dodging dozens of fires and surviving the big Malibu fire of 1993.  I have documented that experience here, here, and especially here.

So what is the takeaway so far from the SoCal fires.  Well, nothing much has changed for the better with the passing of the decades and the incompetently comprehensive governance exercised by the Democratic Party over these years.  But the last two days confirms again that things have gotten much worse as far as the recognition of the nature of the wildfire problem and preparations to prevent and fight such large scale conflagrations.

Some major screwups -

• Reduction of fire and police budgets in favor of succoring illegal aliens, criminals, insane environmentalists in favor of implementing woke DEI policies.
• Dumping about 75% of Sierra Nevada snow melt water into the Pacific Ocean in order to save the smelt – a very much unendangered species no one cares about.
• Eliminating water storage reservoirs by destroying dams and not constructing sufficient water tanks in the mountains to provide gravity fed water for fire fighting.
• Environmentalists opposing building additional reservoirs to collect water during wet years to have for the inevitable 7 to 10 year intervals between statewide droughts.
• Insurance companies abandoning California because they aren’t allowed to raise premiums commensurate with the cost of rebuilding in a state with stifling building regulations (again refer to the insane environmentalists and incompetent politicos).
• Allowing ignorant NIMBYs to oppose/restrict prescribed burns and fuel reduction programs.

Witness the results of elections that have stacked local governments and Sacramento with progressive politicians, and you explain away the above list of devastating deficits. (more here) The general mentality of California’s electorate is corroborated when we consider how the media continues to cover and report on such disasters.  Examples abound.

The most important thing residents, both evacuated and still in place, want to know is where is the fire, and which way is it moving.  Almost all reporters with mic-in-hand in the field do not know where they are and what is happening beyond their visible surroundings.  All they do is repeat the obvious and ask how some devastated resident feels about having lost his home.  Air coverage has provided no more information – one flaming and smoky mountain looks pretty mush like another one.  Although to credit where a little bit of it is due, in Fox’s current coverage they have shown road names superimposed on the large area aerial videos, but only very briefly before switching back to yet another close-up of a burning house.

The last thing they care to look at for hour after hour is close-up videos of flame engulfed houses, and still images of huge flame masses on unknown hillsides.  And the last thing they want to hear are news conferences by phalanxes of politicians, bureaucrats, and officials standing in turn to mouth the same platitudes of how terrible the disaster is, how much they are praying for everyone, how everyone is co-operating with everyone else, and how much the state and federal governments are providing us all that we need while there are way too few firefighters on the line with no water to come out of their hoses.

It is abundantly clear that our political leaders and local responding agencies have been totally incompetent in preparing and/or raising the alarm to current the obvious shortcomings listed above.  Perhaps the inevitable follow-on investigations will even find people who are criminally at fault and make them publicly accountable.

Scattershots – 30dec24 (updated 3jan25)

George Rebane

Yes, Jimmy Carter was a nice and decent man, but he didn’t cut it as our President.  What no one is pointing out in the media is that President Carter took us to the very brink of WW3.  At the time (1977-80) this precarious situation was a highly classified assessment within our military and intelligence agencies.  Since then, the passage of time and the collapse of the USSR have allowed historians to tell us the albeit little read story, and the media have suppressed it as yesterday’s news and its anti-Left message.  As a member of the DoD’s classified research sector, I was constantly made aware of the goings on behind the Iron Curtain that gave obvious evidence of the Red Army’s preparation to come through the Fulda Gap.  Brezhnev told the Politburo that all the signs advised a ‘now-or-never’ opportunity for global communism – a war-weary US, greatly diminished post-Vietnam defense budgets, depleted US military stores, economy in shambles, low morale in the ranks, and a weak-willed President.  Add that to the USSR coming to the end of the line in its ability to keep funding their outsized military, and it was easy to conclude that the time had come to go to Paris.  Then in 1980 along came Reagan who immediately, and against the advice of the Pentagon, invited the Soviet command staff with their experts to visit the US and take a detailed tour of our R&D and defense plants across the country.  As I have described elsewhere, they were blown away and went back to report that the correct decision was ‘never’ – the US had ample military stores left, and had and was building advanced combat systems (many of which were operational) at historical rates with Reagan’s greatly enlarged defense budgets.  As a response, enter Gorbachev with his glasnost and perestroika, and the rest is history.  Now for the last four years and for the same reasons we’ve had that putz Putin dreaming of those glory days and doing all he can to start moving west again.

Dateline Washington – President-elect Donald Trump endorsed House Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) for another term, working to tamp down rumblings from some Republicans that the party should seek an alternative leader over complaints about spending.  “Speaker Mike Johnson is a good, hard working, religious man. He will do the right thing, and we will continue to WIN,” Trump said on Truth Social. “Mike has my Complete & Total Endorsement.”

From his mouth to God’s ear, let it be so – onward!

[Update 31dec24] And now a Happy 2025 wish for all of the RR readers and commenter crew.  Jo Ann and I wish that you and your families enjoy a healthy, productive, and bountiful new year.

[2jan25 update]  PG&E sends out tree trimming crews to my neighborhood at least once a month.  They’re always a different contractor hired by the utility, and they always find yet another overhanging branch to trim or even cut down a tree.  For the last 20 years they have never finished the job of securing the power lines on my property.  The practice has all the hallmarks of a corrupt scam that contributes to California’s high electricity bills.  There is nothing to prevent the utility from such gratuitous work assignments all in the name of public safety.  The more of these that can be logged per budget cycle the better as far as the PUC and the utility's lawyers are concerned – subsequent rate increases to cover the costs are easily justified.  Of course, nothing prevents kickback monies flowing between the various levels of bureaucrats and tree contractors – for the system it’s a win-win scam as long as the consumer continues to unquestionably pay the bill.

{3jan25 update] "Mike Johnson Wins Speaker Vote on First Ballot After House Drama" - Gott sei Dank!

Scattershots – 18dec24

George Rebane

The lopsided lamestream fesses up – not quite.  Those of us not restricted to lamestream media news have always had a more complete picture of what’s going on in the country and the world.  Not so for our leftwing friends.  But now that the election is over and there is nothing to be gained by more lies and omissions that favor the Democrats, the major left-leaning outlets – broadcast, print, online – are starting to fill in their audiences on what has really been going on since 2016.  Led by no less than the NYT, its readers are, for example, finally informed that the millions of illegal aliens who have entered and been loosened in our land has really been due to the border and immigration policies of the Biden/Harris administration.  National columnist Jason Riley fills you in (here) on some more revelations currently being introduced to the dedicated Democrat cadres across the land.  Managed ignorance has always been the forte of socialists worldwide, and in many ways we in America have perfected it.  But don’t hold your breath that this is an enduring epiphany with the lamestream; it’ll be back to business as usual before you know it.

Leftwing universities identified by the Left.  Here’s another awakening going on with our left-leaning thought leaders.  Prominent columnists of the Left like William Galston are writing revelatory essays such as ‘Higher Education Is in Trouble’ in the 18dec24 WSJ, coming right out and saying “schools should curtail DEI and stop taking political sides.”  He admits that “higher education in the U.S. faces a crisis: Its credibility is under attack. The public is increasingly skeptical of university-trained experts and the test-score-based meritocracy that dominates America’s upper middle class.”  But note that he doesn’t specify that only the leftwing upper middle class has been skeptical about testing – the rightwingers of all classes have long been and continue to be supporters of meritocratic metrics.  Galston also has a jaundiced view of the relevant history he claims that led to politicized leftwing universities – the listed faults are all attributable to Republican policy failures.  To his credit, Galston does conclude with three useful prescriptions starting with, “First, they should get their houses in order. They should end mandatory DEI statements for faculty and staff candidates. They should adopt the principle of institutional neutrality … (and) while defending free speech, they should act firmly against activities that impede core academic functions such as teaching, learning and hosting speakers with a range of views.” 

California’s continuing war against privately owned cars advances another notch.  The legislature is pushing through AB413 which will make it illegal to park within 20 feet of a crosswalk.  You’re supposed to believe it’s for “public safety”.  It’s real purpose is to remove thousands of parking spaces from our cities and towns, making an already bad situation worse.  For example, San Francisco will lose 14,000 parking spaces, and about 100,000 statewide.  Californians keep voting for “busybodies (who) want people walking, biking, scooting, or bussing — anything but driving their own cars to their own destinations on their own schedules.”  (more here)

Drones over New Jersey

George Rebane

Kinda reminds you of the classic ‘Moon over Miami’, except hold the romantic part.  The ongoing sightings, now numbering in the hundreds, remain unexplained by our government.  That this has been going on for weeks is unheard of in our nation’s history, yet it is very revealing as to the new attitude that our rulers have for us.  These aircraft are not to be dismissed as something insignificant that we’ll get around to puzzling out some day soon.  All of them are of a size that can carry cameras and munitions – some of the larger ones can carry payloads weighing over 100 lbs, enough for a sizeable nuclear device in addition to some very destructive high explosive warheads.

What is the reason that we have not sent up armed gunships and/or other aircraft that can close with and follow these UAVs to determine their nature, source, and where they will eventually land.  The government mouthpieces dutifully lie to us, a much practiced skill, about not knowing anything about them as they promise to keep “investigating”.  Who among us believes that crap as these things continue to crisscross some of the most critical and densely used airspace in the country?

Why has not a single one of them been shot down yet?  That fact alone makes the whole affair smell to high heaven.  But the larger takeaway from all this is clear – it is the nature of governments in the large to be incompetent, ignorant, and demonstrably evil in the way they treat their citizens.  To their power centers and legions of bureaucrats we are no more than potted plants to be handled and/or dismissed in any way they please.  As always, the solution to this perennial problem of governance is to keep governments small and minimize the amount of money they can collect and spend.  Hopefully the brothers DOGE can push the peanut in that direction.

California Chaos Update – 8nov24

George Rebane

While our revamped president organizes a major government cleanup at the federal level, we in California will be immune to the resulting Trump-induced benefits.  Moreover, led by the peak pinhead himself, the Sacramento mental midgets will do their best to make our lives more costly and miserable than ever.  All of this continues to be brought about by California’s electorate – the most unread, indolent, and ignorant population of voters in the nation.  The ongoing legal and illegal increase in their numbers is driving out the productive Californians who seek more enlightened pastures in which they can raise their families and start/operate their businesses.

Latest additions to the list of loonies -

1. California’s fuel prices are already the nation’s highest. That makes no never mind to the leftwing global warmers who will increase our cost of fuels to new record setting and business killing levels. (more here).
2. Newsom is marshalling his lackeys to quickly pass legislation that will fund legions of lawyers to enable California to oppose federal reforms and to “Trump proof” the state. He is planning to call a special legislative session to accomplish this fiasco.
3. Passing SB 1383 is another law that will assuage the climate calamitists and do nothing to impact global warming. But it will increase the cost of waste disposal across the state and require citizens to perform additional work to prepare their trash for pick-up. “This law requires cities and counties to provide organic waste collection services to residents and businesses. It also requires residents, businesses, and multifamily complexes to separate organic waste from trash and recycle it in a separate cart. The law aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and slow climate change.”  This latest pain-in-the-ass starts on 1 January 2025.
4. No unity, more polarization. Yes, we will now be more polarized than ever as envisioned by Kamala in her ‘defeat speech’ wherein she vowed that her neo-Marxist dream will continue to be pursued at cross-purposes to the Trump policies that won the popular vote.  As another polarizing burr under the blanket, the Dems will still attempt to claw back presidential immunity. (more here and here) Fat chance with a Repub Congress, but the touted ongoing search for the already non-existent common ground is guaranteed a snowball’s chance in hell. 
5. Dems have no clue about what happened on 5 November 2024; Kamala vows to keep promoting the policies that the nation rejected and that cost her the election. I doubt that she will have much to say about anything after Congress certifies the electoral vote in early January.

Election Reflections

The sense to let things settle.  Especially when the public, or the private, sea is most turbulent.  There come whirlwinds into human traffic, storms of passion, when it is wise to seek a safe harbor with smoother waters: many times is an evil made worse by the remedies used.  Gracian #138

George Rebane

As we sit in wait for the election of our lifetime, many of us are in a cold sweat as to what may be our country’s fate if the neo-Marxist Left prevails this upcoming Tuesday.  Our Left’s not so hidden agenda is to remove the United States as the main impediment to global governance.  It does this by fostering drastically flawed policies for conducting the country’s economy, education, and foreign policy (to include blatantly porous borders).  The Left’s inventory of governance deficits is large and continues to grow, immune to ongoing appeals of reason and historical evidence of their failures wherever these have been implemented.

Today I will focus my screed on the Left’s successful attempts to put in play a malformed economy that is accepted by an alarmingly large share of the country’s (lightly read) electorate as having fixed the Trump legacy, if we are to believe the polls.  And specifically I want to highlight the entire notion of the Left’s goal to implement wage/price controls (“price gouging”) across the land should they also dominate Congress.  They have convinced a large contingent of us that Kamala’s economic plan (what plan? where?) is backed over Trump’s by scores of economists from sea to shining sea.

Longtime RR readers know my assessment of economics as a field of study and informer of policy.  Most certainly there is nothing scientific about economics when it comes to quantitative models designed to predict the future – i.e. contain equations with time as the independent variable.  Wherever such models have been applied, they have shown themselves to be woefully inadequate for the job for reasons I have detailed many times.  Yet they persist, perhaps serving the economists’ ongoing desire to be accepted into the more respectable community of science. 

In this regard I offer the celebrated British macro-economist Lord John Maynard Keynes as an example of one who did not understand the impact of wage/price controls and gave us his ‘demand side’ model of an economy which continues to infect the thinking of government planners all over the world.  His economics began to fray in the 60s and 70s when governments’ demand infusion policies did nothing to mitigate stagflation.  However, leftwingers like Barack Obama gave Keynesianism another chance after the 2008-09 recession, and demonstrated to the world how such demand based economic policies gave rise to the most impeded and slowest recovery in the history of US recessions.

Getting back to wage/price controls.  It is easy to show that anyone who continues to believe that wage/price controls will increase the quality of life in an economy is way past those who still believe in a flat earth.  At least the flat earthers can stand on a hill and point to the surrounding horizons to demonstrate that the earth is always flat from here to there.  The true believers in w/p controls have never had such a hill to stand on.  Theirs is a pabulum-based body of evidence that crumbles under any serious examination.

The more successful economists have been those who interpret economic behaviors in terms of very apparent and recorded behaviors of individuals when presented with economic choices and decisions.  Successful economists of this stripe have been men like Smith, Bastiat, von Mises, Hayek, Hazlitt, and Freedman.

Henry Hazlitt contributed to a widespread understanding of economics with the publication of Economics in One Lesson (1946), a paperback translated into over ten languages with which he intended to attract readers put off by Friedrich Hayek’s more dense and massive classic, Road to Serfdom (1944).  (The highly recommended Hazlitt tome is now in the public domain and available here along with a chapters summary here.)

This September’s issue of the Hillsdale College Imprimis (here) features an updated reprise of the Hazlitt essay ‘The Dangers of Price Controls’ which also appeared in the very first issue of Imprimis in 1972.  (Imprimis is a monthly pamphlet on governance and cultural issues that is subscribed by 6.6M people worldwide.)  The essay opens with –

The first thing to be said about price and wage fixing is that it is harmful at any time and under any conditions. It is a giant step toward a dictated, regimented, and authoritarian economy. It makes impossible arrangements that both sides are willing to agree to. It sets aside contracts that have already been made in good faith. If an employer wishes to give a man a raise in pay, and the man deserves it, he is nonetheless forbidden to do it under the new regulations. This is a grave abridgment of individual liberty. … Price and wage fixing does harm even if there is no inflation. In a free economy prices are constantly changing. They are changing to reflect changes in supply and demand, in costs, and in a hundred other conditions. Some prices are going up, other prices are going down. If an effort is made to freeze prices and wages exactly where they are, it immediately disturbs the relationship of prices and comparative profit margins, which decides what things will be made and what quantities they will be made in. It upsets the process by which the free market decides how thousands of different commodities and services are to be made in the proportions in which people want them.

So now I and those of my persuasion sit here holding our breaths for Tuesday night when we may receive a hint of the kind of future that awaits us all.

Scattershots – 18oct24 (updated 25oct24)

George Rebane

Sacramento City Council idiots are going to pass “ordinances (that) range from requiring gun liability insurance to a yearly $25 gun harm reduction fee” -  that’s $25/gun/year.  The claimed purpose of these insane ordinances is to “combat senseless gun violence”. However, anyone with a working 3-digit IQ will immediately see that these ordinances can and will do NOTHING to reduce gun violence.  Their real purpose is another step in ratcheting the elimination of Second Amendment rights. (more here)

Leftwing Union columnist George Boardman doesn’t recognize the constant stream of Democrat lies.  Throughout history socialists have always been the dominant liars since the governance they are selling has never worked and only delivered the greatest misery to the greatest number who acceded to travel their road.  Predictably his 15oct24 sacrament (here) on free speech only focused on the Right, claiming that “conservatives are disingenuous when they don the mantle of absolute free speech by viewing lies and falsehoods as just part of the exchange of ideas. It is hard to take seriously people who celebrate media personalities who sell falsehoods as a triumph of free speech, a true debasement of the idea.  (piling more on Loomer)  We got a taste of that in a statement issued by our local Republicans eager to hear Loomer’s viewpoints. 'We look forward to hearing about her struggle to defend her First Amendment rights.' This from a party whose leader can’t resist telling one lie after another.”  Boardman is a steadfast loyal water carrier for all those on our political left. 

‘Kamala Harris is an Idiot’ writes Charles Cooke (here) in the 14oct24 National Review in a blisteringly on-the-mark summary of her public career, and he correctly concludes that everything she has attempted has shown her to be “wildly, catastrophically, incontestably out of her depth.”  In spite of that, lamestream “reporters have struggled mightily to find kind ways of describing Harris’s ineluctable inability to convey anything comprehensible, complex, or concrete.”

Our leftwing neighbors continue stealing Trump yard signs.  This year is no different than all the previous years that we have lived in Nevada County.  Our conservative friends living in different parts of the western county consistently report that their Republican election signs disappear very quickly after being displayed.  A simple tour through our community will demonstrate that somehow Democrat promoting signs proliferate suggesting that there are very few or no Republicans living in these parts who promote their candidates during election seasons.

Well-known hedge fund manager and former Democrat Bill Ackman (CEO Pershing Square Management, Chairman of Howard Hughes Corporation) has gone public with an extensive list of reasons for supporting Trump in the coming election (here).  It’s definitely worth a read since Ackman has now become the new target for the progressive commentariat.  An example of this is Yahoo’s Rick Newman who hasn’t a clue as to what forces are really at work in shaping the future of America and the free world.  He demonstrates this for all to see in his 15oct24 ‘What Bill Ackman and other business titans don’t get about politics’ (here).  His other politically naïve businessmen include Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, and Marc Andreessen who have come out with their support for Trump.

[25oct24 update] Sounds of Socialists’ Silence.  Here are a couple more items for progressives and socialists to shun from discussing in public.  Did you know that electricity rates in blue states that mandate green policies to fight catastrophic climate change are significantly higher than those in the red states with sane climate policies?  (more here)  And are you aware that DOJ is pushing DEI, especially the ‘equity’ part, to make sure that our police and fire departments will be filled with people who cannot pass either the qualifying IQ tests, physical ability tests, or both?  Yep, double dummies and weaklings can now bypass these tests and be hired so as to keep the departments’ African-American and female ratios up to snuff.  Anybody from the Left care to offer a cogent comment on these? (more here)

Pre-Singularity Systemic Unemployment

George Rebane

For years these pages have heralded systemic unemployment caused by advancing technology.  The current strike of dock workers costing our economy over $4B per day is a milestone in this regard as their International Longshoremen’s Association, in addition to the usual pay increases, etc, also demands to become the gate keeper for dock-side introduction of new technologies.  Of course, this tack will do nothing but accelerate the introduction of such advancements and the commensurate reduction of labor costs as the militancy of government-backed unions ups the cost of labor above its normal rate of increase due to market forces.

And the socialist silly season of attempting to restrict and regulate AI developments will do nothing but make in-country innovation into surreptitious enterprises, and drive more expansive developments overseas where governments are not yet heavy-handed.  The exodus of companies that can most benefit from these future advances will launch a growing spate of whackamole legislation intended to slow corporate emigration.  At best it will be an exercise in futility; at worst it will hobble America’s industry and put a kibosh on our quality of life - all of it in the playbook of our hardworking neo-Marxists.

More later.

Twisted Logic from Twisted Minds (updated 1oct24)

Just as you don't find eagles living in the ocean or fish living on mountain tops, so you don't find leftists concentrated where their ideas have to stand the test of performance.  Thomas Sowell

George Rebane

The appearance of the enthusiastic MAGA proponent Laura Loomis at tonight’s Republican fund raiser dinner continues to draw fire from our local Left.  I reported on the onset of this firestorm of censorship in the previous Scattershots (here).  More should be said as the howls from our socialist neighbors continue unabated.  In today’s 28sep24 Union we have a double header in the form of a letter from Grass Valley resident Jacob Kolb (here), and a pile on from local leftwing cartoonist Bob Crabb shown nearby.

Mr Kolb goes on to advise our Board of Supervisors to get into the fray by “publicly affirming” that the Board “does not endorse Loomer’s rhetoric, showing that we understand the dangers of misinformation.”  In the process our county government should promote “truth and inclusivity” by opposing “political factions” that “represent a small minority.”  Oh my, does that not put an additional burden on our elected leaders to now become the arbiter and would be censors of what they consider “misinformation and hate speech” by their constituents?

If such declarations become a new standard of proscribing political speech for the BoS, then by extending Kolb’s logic should not ALL Democrat public pronouncements also be greeted with “strong messages” against “harmful ideologies” as assessed by our so-called non-partisan elected leaders?  Every Democrat who opens their mouth on a public podium repeats their egregious lies about ‘secure borders’, ‘Russia, Russia, Russia’, Hunter’s laptop hoax, Trump’s inflation legacy, the glories of Bidenomics, criminality of illegal aliens (see recent release of  Dem cover-up here, here, and here), and on and on.

Kolb begins his letter with the Voltaire misattribution, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”  From the Left’s outcry of the last few days, it is clear their willingness to die is at best a one-sided commitment. 

[1oct24 update]  The more desperate minions of the local Left took it up another notch on letting everyone know that they are a post-constitutional bunch cum mob demanding the silencing of voices with which they disagree.  The 1oct24 Union features a pictorial under the heading ‘Crowds gather to protest Loomer visit’ (here).  The local Republican Party turned tail and ran, moving the Loomis speaking event to an undisclosed location.  Their ‘duck and cover’ policy missed a perfect opportunity to highlight the planned demonstration by the mini-minded to once more illustrate that the Left opposes the First Amendment, among others.  And to put a ribbon on it, our indefatigable leftwing columnist George Boardman must needs add his shoulder to the wheel on the matter (here).  Perhaps the BoS can settle such future vetting problems by establishing the Nevada County Commissariat on Public Speakers.

Scattershots – 27sep24 (updated 29sep24)

George Rebane

The Air Force, and presumably the other services, are actively reducing the number of white males going into their respective officer corps.  All of it is part and parcel of implementing the in-service DEI programs in both training and operations that have been so destructive to morale and the resulting enlistment rates that have left our military woefully understaffed and short of qualified  personnel.  Much of this has come to light through documents obtained from the Air Force by the Daily Caller News Foundation. (more here)  These outline how the AF has “prioritized diversity and inclusion programs” since 2022 in its college ROTC programs seeking to minimize the number of white males who may wish to make military a career.  This is yet another of the multitude of anti-American policies that the evil Democratic Party has foisted upon our country.  (Full disclosure: I went through UCLA’s Army ROTC program, was honored as a Distinguished Military Graduate, and was commissioned as a 2/Lt upon graduation.)

‘The Shadow of a Shadow’ (here) by James Howard Kunstler is a short and on-the-mark assessment of the chaotic roiling of the Democratic Party as it attempts to govern and campaign in this election year.  From it we read, “In fact, the entire Democratic Party and its Deep State intel blob partners have melted down into a desperate mob of political criminals frantic to evade accounting for their acts. So then, setting the world on fire is all they have left, a fitting act of revenge for a faction thwarted in its mad drive to merely wreck the United States for the sake of “social justice” and “equity.” … The Democrats of 2024 made exactly the same mistake that their predecessors, the Jacobins, made in France back in 1794: they just couldn’t tell when they’d gone too far with their insults against the public interest and common decency. Their insults derived from the age-old human impulse to demolish society due to life being unfair, later codified in Marxian doctrine, and then made into a play-book by Saul Alinsky (with annotations by Antonio Gramsci, Richard Cloward, and Frances Fox Piven).” (H/T to reader)

[update] Rightwinger and pro-MAGA Laura Loomer is the invited speaker at the fund-raiser dinner for the Nevada County Republican Central Committee this weekend.  We have a peek into our Marxist future should the Democrats ever consolidate their power over our land.  This is in the form of four vituperative letters in the 27sep24 Union from local TDS-drenched woke progressives who loudly protest Ms Loomer’s visit to Nevada County and demand that the Republicans withdraw her invitation. (here, here, here, and here) Imagine that it has come this far where members of the Democratic Party have the temerity to think they can publicly vet the attendance at events and gatherings of another political party.  And these autocrat pinheads see nothing wrong with issuing such demands.  (One such pinhead even commented about Loomer’s visit on these pages.)  For balance, I have to commend Democrat Lynn Ely for her ‘Censorship is a problem nationally and locally’ column in the same edition of the paper.  She should re-examine her choice of political affiliations.

[29sep24 update]  Today’s overall candidate preference polls are pretty much meaningless when understood in light of the analysis presented here on switch probabilities.

Berkheimer bamboozled by borders

George Rebane

This is a big miss to leftwing columnist Darrell Berkheimer for his muddling and misleading report on our illegal alien problem in the 23sep24 Union (here).  His use of “immigrants” to refer to illegal entrants continues to confuse the national dialogue over porous borders, legal immigration, and immigration policy reform.  For generations by law immigration has been a two-party contract between the government and immigrant.  His unsupported diatribe, especially on the net costs of illegals on federal and state budgets, echoes Democratic Party talking points that have long been based on the Big Lie that “our border is secure”.  This claim ignores that somewhere north of the 15M illegals have been released into America under Biden in addition to an unknown few million more ‘got aways’.  Citations on the true net cost of illegal aliens are readily available from investigations by the various Senate and House committees and subcommittees, reports that somehow have evaded Mr Berkheimer’s attention.

Place your Trump/Harris bets

George Rebane – 28aug24

Suppose parties A, favoring Trump, and B, favoring Harris want to bet on the election.  And to add spice to the affair, suppose A has made known his assessed probability P_A that Trump will win, but all that B has done so far is to assure everyone that Harris has the election in the bag.  However, B has yet to reveal his assessed probability P_B that Harris will win.  How can such a bet be negotiated so that B’s real belief in Harris’ victory becomes known.  Perhaps, we can let money do the talking, and see where that takes us.

Let’s say after some dickering, A and B agree in principle that the cash bet should result in the expected winnings of both parties be equal – what could be more fair than that?  As usual, both parties calculate their expected winnings by multiplying their cash payoffs by their belief (probability) of their candidate’s victory.  But no matter whether both use their probabilities or not, the dollar amounts of the bet are agreed on – A bets C_A that B will win with Kamala’s victory, and B bets C_B that A will win with Trump’s victory.  The relative sizes of the amounts reflect the odds of the bet.  So in principle the bet reflects the equality of expected payoffs for each party.

                                    For party A:                P_AC_B = (1 – P_A)C_A

                                    For party B:                P_BC_A = (1 – P_B)C_B

From these two relations we can immediately estimate each party’s belief probability.

To obtain the resulting odds of the bet we solve for the ratio, say, C_A/C_B from each party’s perspective.

Suppose now that A has already declared his belief at P_A = 0.2, indicating that Trump will probably not win.  Substituting this in the above equation calculates the minimum odds A will accept at C_A/C_B = 0.2/(1-0.2) = 1/4.  So A should be willing to accept any bet where C_A ≤ 4C_B. 

Since it is clear from B’s ample display of TDS in which he claims that Trump will surely lose, we can safely assume that P_B > P_A = 0.2.  So let’s say that the bet amounts were negotiated to be C_A = $100 and C_B  = $500.  This most certainly satisfies A’s required odds, and yields the pro forma estimate of P_B ≥ 500/(500+100) = 0.833.  From this we can conclude that B’s odds calculate to C_A/C_B = (1-0.833)/0.833 = 1/5, and that he will most likely not accept C_B > 5C_A.  The negotiated amounts satisfy all these conditions, so it appears that we have a satisfactory bet and in the process have ferreted out that B’s belief in Kamala’s victory is at most 5/6 since he will not give A better odds than 5:1.  Now go forth and wager prudently.

'Democrats’ Deception May Win the Presidential Election Again'

[This commentary by Gerard Baker, former editor and now editor-at-large of the WSJ, appears in the 27aug24 edition of the newspaper’s op-ed pages.  It succinctly nails a fundamental tenet of Rebane Doctrine numerously repeated in these pages over the years.  (“…, you can fool all the people all the time.”)  Since the publisher invites it to be shared on Facebook, I offer this respectfully purloined version below in its entirety; the original may be read here. gjr]

Gerard Baker

You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose.

Mario Cuomo’s adage has been updated and adapted by his successors in the modern Democratic Party. The duality they present to voters either side of an election is a deception that has defined American politics and culture for the past 20 years.

As they campaign for office, they present a kind of idealized version of themselves to the electorate as mainstream Americans, seeking merely to bring a little unity and compassion to a fundamentally great country in need of reform. Once in office they act as if they have a mandate to remake a benighted country, to reorder an unjust system, to replace American exceptionalism with European social democracy, and to rewrite the nation’s values with the precepts of their cultural Marxism.

They campaign, to borrow the late governor’s taxonomy, in the poetry of Robert Frost. They govern in the prose of Herbert Marcuse.

Last week in Chicago we got the poetry, a Frostian pastoral of Democrats posing as regular Americans, honest toilers in a darkening landscape (of their own making, as they didn’t tell us). They propose only to enlighten with their benevolence.

I don’t mean poetry in the literal sense. With a few exceptions the quality of our political oratory is dire—and plumbed the usual depths last week. We have reached the point where even the actual poetry is prosaic, as the left’s unofficial poet laureate, Amanda Gorman, demonstrated with another of her recitations of platitudinous banalities and leaden progressive nostrums delivered in her trademark phony iambic meter.

The “poetry,” such as it was—Michelle Obama’s speech was the only moment of the week when the oratory came close to matching the ambition—was figurative, an attempt to paint colorful images of the promise of another Democratic presidency.

Its centerpiece was the semifictional self portrait of the presidential candidate herself. In her own biography-heavy, substance-light acceptance speech, Kamala Harris presented herself as that familiar image from popular story telling—“the happy warrior,” the all-American fighter for our nation’s finest objectives—the tough prosecutor who waged war on crime just as she will wage war on illegal immigration; the proud patriot, product of a classically diverse, American, immigrant family; the commander in chief, ready to face down America’s enemies abroad; the staunch friend of America’s allies—Israel, especially—unafraid to use the military’s “lethal” force in their support, as she explicitly reminded us.

This verbal illusion of American iconography was reinforced by the crowd’s chants of “USA! USA!” like ecstatic fans at the Olympics, and a waving sea of red white and blue “USA” placards.

But the poetry last week came also in the constantly retold personal narrative that was the real theme of the convention. The winsome second gentleman telling cute stories about gawky first dates and tasty brisket like something from the pages of a 1950s yearbook; saccharine testimonies to Ms. Harris’s innate goodness from childhood friends and professional acquaintances; above all, that Giant Middle American Cliché made flesh himself—Gov., sorry Coach, Tim Walz—practically pulling the high-school football playbook out of his back pocket and urging the nation to vote for him so he could go out there one more time and win just one for the Grifter.

Is anyone fooled?

The answer, I am afraid, is yes. Every time.

President Biden is only the most recent example. The lifelong centrist Democrat who campaigned as a regular Joe promising to do his best to heal a divided and damaged country in 2020, promptly became the vessel for a Bernie Sanders policy agenda, splurged trillions in expansive government spending and championed the left’s continuing cultural reformation of America. He prepares to leave office apparently convinced he belongs in the pantheon of great social reformers next to Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson.

Barack Obama reminded us in his speech how successful his own self-portrayal was in 2008 as the unifying figure who could bring cohesion and order to a nation battered from the chaos of war and financial crisis, but who again governed, thanks to rigid internal party discipline, to implement an agenda that produced seemingly irreversible shifts in the economic and social fabric.

Above all we were reminded how far Democrats managed to move the needle in government in their direction along the political spectrum by the appearance of those two aging icons from another epoch—Bill and Hillary Clinton. Mr. Clinton’s presidency, which ended a little more than two decades ago, now looks to most Democratic activists like an exercise in political reaction. If many of its ideas were preached on a university campus today, they would probably get the speaker canceled.

Republicans also pitch themselves in campaigns as unifying centrists but in office they have too often lacked the ambition or determination actually to govern as Republicans. It is to his credit—and a reason he is widely loathed—that Donald Trump bucked that trend.

Does anyone doubt that a Harris presidency would continue the Democratic pattern of divergent pre-election promise and postelection reality? Will a President Harris more closely resemble Candidate Harris from last week’s convention than Vice President Harris from the last four years or Candidate Harris from 2019? If you think she will, then it isn’t poetry you’ve been reading. It’s a fairy tale.

Scattershots – 25aug24 (updated 28aug24)

George Rebane

62 since ’62.  We’re happy to report that today my sweetie-pie and I celebrate having been married since 25 August 1962.  We were both then undergrads (seniors) at UCLA.  Now it’s two children, six grandchildren, and seven great-grandchildren later after a long and wonderful road with some inevitable miles unpaved.  Gott sei Dank.

Lies, more lies, and blatant lies.  Among other things, these campaigns will be remembered by all as having issue debates with little basis in reality.  The Repubs are still not weaned of their bombast and bravura when describing their own accomplishments, and the Dems are simply over the top.  Not a single one of their characterization of Trump’s and their own administrations comes anywhere near being factual when compared to the historical record published by the several federal agencies.  Voters who care are left to dig out their own takes on reality and the possible promised futures.  To this degree was it ever thus?  Not in my lifetime. (We await the debates.)

[28aug24 update]  Funny business in the polls.  Rasmussen reports (here) that the nation’s pollsters are exposing their leftward tilt by holding back recent polling data that shows Kamala’s convention bounce waning.  Their leftward lurch is such that “people are holding data or not releasing polls to leave Harris-favorable polling alive in the aggregate.  Why put a new poll out if you like the results you got last time?" 

Scattershots – 16aug24 (updated)

George Rebane

The UK is on the threshold of totalitarianism.  To illustrate the devastating slippery slide that comes with socialism, one of Europe’s oldest democracies has now descended into prosecuting its citizens on the basis of thought control.  Not only is free speech in Great Britain’s past, but their hubristic bureaucrats promise to threaten foreigners outside their borders with extradition is they overstep the new restrictions on newly disallowed publicly expressed opinions. (here, here, and here)

‘Islam and the Future of the West’.  Islamophobia is a clearly warranted reaction to the long-standing writings and recently reinforced statements by leaders of trans-national Islam.  “Any reading of the Koran, as Robert Spencer, Raymond Ibrahim, Ali Sina, Ibn Warrak, Rebecca Bynum, and a host of other excellent scholars make abundantly clear, will reveal ayah after ayah commanding acts of grotesque violence against unbelievers. The reward for the martyrs who have been slain in service to Allah will be peace, loveliness, and virgins with pear-shaped breasts, as stipulated variously in Sura 44:45-55 and 78:31-36 of the Koran.” (more here) According to our neo-Marxists defending your culture against the promised and ongoing Muslim onslaught is ignorant and despicable racism.

“Inflation is down!” trumpet our lamestream media outlets.  NPR even coordinates its ‘news’ items with featured programming subjects in promoting this jaundiced view of the nation’s economy.  In their coordinated support of the Democrats’ campaign talking points, the Left’s lightly-read legions are spared the difference between ‘inflation level’ and ‘inflation rate’ in the constant cacophony they consume daily.  Contrary to what they experience in their wallets, they are led to believe that prices are actually going down in this Biden/Harris economy.

[16aug24 update] Dems move to red states.  The conspiracy to soil the remaining states not embracing socialism is in full swing.  There is now an organization called MoveIndigo -  MoveIndigo encourages Democratic flight to swing districts with Republican congressmen, often in swing states. Its goal is to “reset the balance in our country” and elect a more “representative” government. That’s doublespeak, but the group has also put it plainly: “It only takes a few Democrats moving to crucial toss-up districts . . . to take control of the House”—even to have “a profound impact on the Presidential race. (more here)  None of the migrating progressives are smart enough to ask what has made their selected red state so desirable compared to the shithole state they are abandoning, and moreover, what makes these leftwing double dummies think that the arrival  of more like them will not turn their new home also into the same kind of socialist quagmire they abandoned.

[update]  Georgia non-citizens registered to vote.  The Heritage Oversight project interviewed residents of a large apartment complex in Norcross, Georgia asking its residents 1) were they registered to vote, and 2) were they citizens.  14% answered that they were non-citizens who were already registered to vote. (more here)  With this kind of evidence of what is most likely happening to some extent all over the land, it was a very reasonable and legitimate request to Georgia SecState Brad Raffensberger by Trump to have their vote counts checked to discover more legal votes that may favor him.  There was never any demand to “overturn” the Georgia election.  Restricting voting to America’s legal voters is trumpeted as ‘voter suppression’ by our leftwing sleazebags, and their lightly read constituents lap up this ongoing lie.

Trump’s November Chances – 11aug24 update

George Rebane

This is a lament.  From his statements and recent – post Tim Walz – behavior it looks to me that Donald Trump has really gone off the rails and is headed for a massive defeat in November.  As the record of these pages confirms and given the available choices, I have been a qualified Trump supporter ever since he became the Republican nominee in 2016.  During the entire time I have been chagrined at his tendency for bombast, bravura, and exaggeration, especially when on the campaign trail.

Today, when finally presented with an ideal pair of very vulnerable opponents, and eight years of experience under his belt in how his off-track shooting from the lip has been received, he still pays no mind to the harm he does to himself and the Republican party by continuing on the same path.  And he is doing it proudly as he has declared to his audiences that he has no intention of changing his gratuitous personal attacks on anyone that happens to cross his mind while on the podium.

So now the country’s conservatives, capitalists, and small government devotees have to suffer through daily doses of free leftwing talking points served up to the lamestream media by Trump.  Their news stories and commentaries almost write themselves from the copy spouted by our former president.  Instead of focusing on the rich trove of Democrats’ lies and policy screw-ups from the Obama and Biden/Harris administrations, Trump continues to be the petulant third grader on the playground focusing on lurid descriptions of his opponents’ real and imagined personal shortcomings.

Perhaps the most worrying aspect of his campaign is that he has no strong adult advisors in his inner circle who can tell him daily when he needs zip his lip.  It’s hard for me to believe he doesn’t have a cadre or even a small clutch of such people in his inner circle.  But it is clear that he is flying blind without the aid of such critical navigators.  Were such people to exist, we would by now have seen them resigning one-by-one as Trump continued to ignore their counsel.

Given this ongoing travail, my own assessment of his probability of winning in November started with a paltry 0.45 and eked up to 0.48 (here) after the assassination attempt.  But taking into account what has happened since, my belief in his chances for regaining the White House has plummeted to 0.22, or a bit more than one in five.  This new assessment accurately represents the dour mood that the Trump campaign has me in.

Scattershots – 4aug24

George Rebane

Kamala Harris is a DEI VP and now is a DEI candidate.  That was made clear when Joe Biden told the nation that his VP pick would be a “black woman”.  The lamestream media has now added that to their repertoire of Trump attacks for reminding the country of her qualifications for making Biden’s cut.  Of course, she was also a DEI office holder for all her previous positions before being anointed VP.  But now that progressive attribute has suddenly become tabu even as formerly compliant corporations are dropping DEI among their criteria for employment. The hypocrisy of the leftwing media is both unfathomable and unending.

The Project 2025 policy book was composed by Heritage authors many of whom were Trump cabinet members and advisors.  It mostly contains policy recommendations that conservatives believe.  One of Trump’s recent bevy of mixed messages – another one of his lipshots - is that he rejects P2025 in toto.  That is plainly not true, but it is just more grist for the Democrats’ mill in mischaracterizing what Trump proposes and what the document contains.  For example, being purveyed on the lamestream is the report that ‘90% of Americans’ are opposed to it.  That is a specious argument instigated by the Left’s media mouthpieces.  Ninety percent of Americans don’t know what P2025 is and much less what it contains; they are again just mouthing what the lying liberal outlets are telling them.

Vance’s cat lady remark - In a 2021 interview with Fox News host Tucker Carlson, then-Senate-candidate Vance complained that the U.S. was being run by Democrats, corporate oligarchs and "a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they've made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too." (more here)  On its face the statement is true, and it’s also true upon deeper examination.  The lamestream’s actual attribution to Vance is that he claimed women and couples who have children are ‘worth more’ (to society) than those who are childless.  Well of course.  All other things being equal when comparing such cohorts, it’s not rocket science to acknowledge that our species would come to an end were it not for children being conceived, brought to term, and raised to adulthood, if for nothing else than to provide humankind continuity.  But such arguments are too deep to be pondered in the public square, and again advantage Left.

Trumps November Chances – 25jul24 update

George Rebane

The Lip from the Hip has done it again.  With his 18jul24 convention acceptance speech he took a cinched November win and threw it back into a campaign maelstrom welcomed only by Kamala Harris and the Dems (and Putin and Xi).  My own immediate reaction to his convention performance was posted here, and since then literally every left and right commentator has agreed that Trump blew it.

Trump’s self-declared return to a barroom brawl mode of campaigning has put his road to the White House back in play, even with the likes of an unaccomplished opponent and grifter like Kamala as his opponent.  WSJ’s Dan Henninger summarizes her chances in today’s paper (here).

With a flawed candidate like Trump already problematic when he was running against Bumblebrain, on 15 June I did a little work in extracting my own assessment of Trump’s probability of winning in November (described here).  The result (0.45) was not promising.  Given all that has happened since – assassination attempt, enthusiastic Republican convention, reversion to rambling stump speeches, … - I redid my probability assessment, hoping against hope for a better outcome.  The resulting probability came in at slightly north of 0.48, not much of an improvement when considering the woulda/coulda/shouldas.

Given her documented far left ideology and promised public policy initiatives a Kamala Harris presidency would be cataclysmic for our republic.  And Trump’s loose cannon tactics promise to make the interval to November a real nailbiter.  Is there no one on his team of advisors with the courage and gravitas who can tell him to stuff a sock in it and give acting presidential a try?

Scattershots – 21jul24 (updated 22jul24)

George Rebane

Given the nature and extent of America’s ideological schism, all effective public policies should be made in the anticipation that this schism will endure.  Existentially we are no longer one nation.  Rebane Doctrine, 2024.

The mentality of collectivists – progressives, liberals, wokes, socialists, communists, neo-Marxists, … - ranges within a space anchored by insanity, cynicism, and evil. The evidence continues to pour in.  Today we hear leftwing commentators on lamestream media attempting to foster doubt that there was an actual assassination attempt on Donald Trump.  Their cynical cum evil proposals to their ill-informed audiences are that the blood letting was staged and/or was caused by some mysterious shards of broken glass exploding out of somewhere.

As expected, Bumblebrain is out and an even worse choice in Kamala Harris is now undemocratically foisted by the Dem elites as their new standard bearer. (more here)  But everyone knows Kamala will just be the next empty pipe to power for those who have been acting as the administration’s Star Chamber.  She will be a compliant conduit between the leftwing power brokers and the public policies they intend to implement, much like Joe Biden has been during his term.  From my perch I see the political landscape between now and November as a minefield for Republicans, especially Donald Trump.  There will be an opportunity to make countless politically destructive gaffs when shooting from the lip as the campaign really heats up.

[22jul24 update]  POTUS is NOT the hardest job in the world as any casual perusal of history will confirm.  In fact, POTUS may be the most fault tolerant job ever.  For how else do people with no executive experience and a woefully limited knowledge base perform more or less adequately – i.e. they didn’t start WW3?  Almost anyone who reads English can assume the position and make it through with on-the-job training that is amply available to a president.  Since FDR, consider the tenures of Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Obama, and now Biden.

PJ Media is not a credible source of news and information due to its conservative outlook – so again posits one of our leftwing commenters after I cited it above in reference to the ‘undemocratic’ way that the Dems have hoisted Kamala to be their standard bearer.  What I always ask these liberal critics is for the evidence they have to support their assertion.  They can never provide any such backing for their gratuitous conclusion.  This is in opposition to conservatives dunning liberal outlets like NYT, WaPo, MSNBC, CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, NPR, PBS as willing shills of the Democratic Party publishing years of unrecanted lies to their audiences.  As evidence just consider their years of ongoing reporting on the Russian election interference, that the border is secure, onset of inflation, Trump instigating insurrection, FBI doctoring FISA evidence, Hunter’s laptop as Russian disinformation, Hillary’s paying for generating the infamous Trump memo, and on and on.  And now we know that the whole cadre of the country’s Left has been covering up and lying about the cognitive breakdown of Joe Biden which has been obvious to Americans during his entire term as POTUS.

Those Pesky Estonians

[Living under the armpit of Russia (czarist, communist, thugocracy), its perennial nemesis, Estonia is and has been an enthusiastic member of NATO.  As a small yet leading high-tech country it spends more than its required 2% of GDP on defense, and has been the first to respond with men and weapons in the fight against the traditional enemies of western culture.  Its latest venture has been to develop an AI-based family of combat drones that cost up to an order of magnitude less than those supplied by the big guys like the US et al.  The defense news periodical Defense One has published the following here.   gjr]

How Estonia is becoming a hotbed for drone warfare

Projects include experimental loitering munitions that cost a fraction of U.S. equivalents.

Sam Skove

Staff Writer

JUNE 11, 2024 12:59 PM ET

TALLINN—With a close eye on Ukraine’s use of drones, Estonians are fielding new kit, changing doctrine, and revamping training for unmanned systems in case they also have to repel a Russian invasion one day. 

Estonia — a country with a population of just 1.3 million — is also being uniquely thrifty, working to field systems whose price is often orders of magnitude cheaper than similar U.S. systems. Defense One got a close-up look at these efforts on a trip funded by the Estonian ministry of defense. 

At the center of many of these efforts is Aivar Hanniotti, the military’s point man for everything related to drone technology and development. He took the job in January, and is already well known in Estonia’s bustling drone industry. 

Hanniotti’s team is working on a long list of updates to Estonia’s drone and counter-drone tools. Much of the work is done by members of Estonia’s Defense League, a part-time volunteer organization that serves as a military auxiliary force. Hanniotti himself is a member. 

Estonian civil society is heavily engaged in supporting Ukraine, and many Estonian Defense League members help Ukrainian units by delivering supplies to them, like drones. This puts them in touch with Ukrainian troops, who pass on information, said Hanniotti, and this access to battlefield experience helps drive innovation.  

Among the projects linked to Ukraine is the “Angry Hedgehog,” a plan to field a domestically produced short-range loitering munition similar to Ukraine’s first-person-view drones.

The drones will have a custom warhead and a range of up to nine miles, said Hanniotti. They will be equipped with artificial intelligence to guide them the last mile to a target, an increasingly popular countermeasure against Russian jamming. 

Hanniotti said the drone will cost under 1,000 euros, and use European-manufactured components. It will undergo further tests in June 2024, and Estonia also aims to deliver 1,000 of them to Ukraine to test their use in combat. Formal fielding may occur next year.

The price is far less than similar short-range loitering munitions, like the $94,000 Rogue One. Hanniotti said the aim was to have a drone that was “good enough,” rather than one tricked out with the latest in tech. 

Other projects include a Estonian-made hand-held drone detection system, which Hanniottii is working to field to every squad starting sometime next year, he said. Such systems are widely used in Ukraine, and are also coming to the U.S. Marine Corps. 

Yet another project seeks to develop a cheap missile for taking out drones. One missile, which so far exists only as a concept, has a theoretical price of 2,000 euros. The price is one-tenth the cost of the APKWS missile, one of the cheapest anti-drone missiles. The planned missile, which is to rely on commercially available parts, will be tested at the end of this year, Hanniotti said. 

Other projects are virtually free, such as an Estonian Defense League-designed tool that takes the inputs from passive radio-detection systems and plots them on a map to identify probable enemy locations. 

The Estonian drone push isn’t all low-cost initiatives. Between 2024 and 2027, Estonia will spend 220 million euros (about $238 million) on loitering munitions, out of a total outlay of 529 million euros for indirect fire systems, according to a briefing by Oliver Tüür, director of the Defence Planning Department at the Estonian Defense Ministry.  

Estonia is planning a special unit to operate loitering munitions, Maj. Andrei Šlabovitš told Defense One last year, in what may be the first dedicated loitering-munition unit fielded in a NATO army. 

New technology brings new questions, from what tactics to use to what units should use them. Estonian infantry squads, for example, have begun experimenting with drone operators who scout ahead for hidden enemies. 

The Estonian army is also testing how to use drones to support its artillery. Hanniotti said that they are experimenting with linking artillery fire control officers with drone units to reduce the time it takes to target enemy formations. Estonia’s dense forests, however, pose a problem by blocking drone signals, Hanniotti said. 

Hanniotti said other experiments have included using the Android Tactical Awareness Kit to mark targets for artillery, but the system—like many sent to Ukraine—has proven vulnerable to GPS jamming. 

Hanniotti is also involved in developing a designated unit for operating short-range surveillance and attack drones. Ukraine operates these types of units in large numbers, but the concept is still new for NATO militaries. The U.S. does not operate short-range drone units, although Army experiments have tested the concept informally. 

New tech also needs new training, and Estonia plans to launch a drone training center this year. The center will also serve as a test range for new electronic warfare technologies. 

Many U.S. efforts parallel Estonia’s, including an Army initiative that aims to  field a short-range loitering munition by 2026. U.S. plans, though, generally move slower than Estonia. The Army, for example, will allocate just ten hand-held drone detectors to a division, according to a 2025 budget request, while Estonia is aiming to give one to every squad. 

One explanation may be the quasi-civilian nature of the Estonian Defense League, Hanniotti said. 

“In the Defense League, we are used to getting by with small funding,” he said. “We are all motivated—and we would like to have fast results.” 

Scattershots – 10jun24 (updated 20jun24)

George Rebane

Government inevitably corrupts and/or badly screws up the projects it initiates in the public sphere.  This thesis has been a common RR thread for years and forms a basic tenet of Rebane Doctrine.  The 9jun24 WSJ has a short and succinct column, ‘Your Government at Work’ by Andy Kessler that summarizes this ongoing process of ineptitude.  And, of course, our government is not the only one charged; it is a common trait of all large bureaucracies operating without proper incentives and feedback.

Women’s basketball phenom Caitlin Clark didn’t make our Olympic team, it turns out, because she wasn’t diverse enough – i.e. white, straight, European, and all that.  The given bullshit reason was the claim that her fame would disrupt the historical somnolence with which women’s basketball has been received in the Olympics.  And all this in the face of multiple efforts to promote a more broad and enthusiastic reception of the sport’s distaff participation.  So now the public pushback has caused the sport’s political hacks to instate Clark as a first alternate in the event one of the twelve chosen can’t play.  Can you imagine the mentality of the jerks who made the decision to exclude her in the first place? (more here)

[11jun24 update]  Pelosi pleads pretermission about J6 security preparations for the Capitol.  Finally, the former Speaker admits that a mass protest with unknown consequences was long anticipated at the Capitol by both the DHS and the FBI for the Senate’s 6jan21 electoral vote certification.  Neither agency issued a timely intelligence report on this, and “Congressional leaders, including Pelosi, chose not to deploy the National Guard early over concerns of ‘optics’ amid 2020’s Black Lives Matter riots, according to a 2022 GOP report.”  Meanwhile, everyone including then President Trump got blamed for the Capitol breach, even though he was perfectly in his rights to encourage his supporters to protest the certification – there is no evidence that he directed the demonstrators to enter the building or do anything illegal. (more here)

[12jun24 update]  ‘Sports Should Unify, Not Divide Us’ writes Clay Travis in a compelling piece featured in the recent issue of Imprimis (here).  He again illustrates the deep evil that the woke Democrats have unleashed on the land – in this version another piece of established western culture targeted for destruction to achieve their dissolution of America.  And it boggles my mind to realize that these people walk and live among us as they do their dirty work while we remain ignorant and/or indifferent about the impact of their labors.

[13jun24 update]  Ignorance on parade.  In a recent Union Jo Ann pointed out the asymmetric street level responses of the Left vs Right when addressing public policies they don’t like.  As evidence abounds, the Left likes to riot, burn things down, and in general favor violence instead of more peaceful means.  Local leftwing worthy Daryl Grigsby writes in today’s Union (here) that my sweetie is totally wrong in her observation.  His cutting response alleges equity in that conservatives are “silent as election workers are harassed and threatened, promote divisive language, and see anyone seeking basic human dignity as Marxists.”  And, of course, J6 “was an attempt to burn down democracy”.  His intellectual coup de grace was citing the 1921 Tulsa massacre when white Jim Crow Democrats “burned down 1400 black homes and businesses, murdered over 300 African-Americans, destroyed the black business district, …”  Reaching back over a century and then missing the politics of his own white racist forebears is the best counter he can offer?  Point, set, match!

[20jun24 update]  Democracy on the block.  The Democrat sleazebags continue telling their know-nothing constituents that Trump and the Republicans will kill democracy in America if they get elected.  Meanwhile it's the progressives who now actively thwart democracy wherever they find it.  Check this that just came out of Sacramento.

Terry McLaughlin: A better policy on homelessness

[Ms Terry McLaughlin is a longtime regular columnist for The Union and contributes well researched and written reports on current issues and happenings (quite often vocally proscribed by our local liberal contingent).  Her columns are always factual exhibiting high journalistic standards now mostly lost from the industry.  Recently she attended an important town forum on the homelessness problem focused on Nevada County and contributed an excellent report to Barry Pruett’s Sierra Thread blog (here).  However, she seldom if ever injects her own opinions into her reporting.  As her friend I know that her perspectives are well thought out, and I requested she write a follow-on piece in which she would state her own perspectives on this important issue.  She kindly submitted the following.  gjr]

Terry McLaughlin

Despite enormous sums of tax money being provided to “solve the homeless problem”, the size of the unhoused population is only growing and increasing.  How that tax money is being spent and who is benefiting from it is an issue for another discussion, but it appears that we, as taxpayers, are not getting any “bang for our buck”, and those who are homeless are not getting the help they need.

A very small subset of the homeless population is the “working poor” who have truly hit upon a serious economic problem, either because of employment layoffs, large unpaid medical bills that have saddled them with debt from which they cannot recover, or other similar experiences.  People in these situations, who do not suffer from mental illness or substance addiction, will most likely transition out of homelessness successfully, either because they were able to find new employment, family or friends offered temporary housing, government benefits allowed them to find reduced-rate housing, non-profit organizations came to the rescue with temporary aid, or other similar methods of assistance.   A very small number of those who are homeless fall into this category.

As discussed by both Nevada City Police Chief Dan Foss and Grass Valley Police Chief Alex Gammelgard during the community forum sponsored by the Sierra College Foundation, the main causes of homelessness are mental illness and substance abuse and addiction, whether it be drugs or alcohol.   Both chiefs agreed that the problem of homelessness will never be solved until we deal with the underlying causes that created the situation in the first place.