Rebane's Ruminations

Sandbox – 19may19

[AG Barr has hired experienced and highly reputed special investigator John Durham to unscramble the shady doings of and subsequent BS spewing from former FBI director James Comey, and former CIA head John Brennan (you can throw in Clapper for good measure).  The Dems are scared and furious, and desperately looking for ways to sink Durham.  Meanwhile, we’re told that surreptitious gathering of information by our government about our citizens is not ‘spying’, but is merely ‘surveillance’.  It was all those other commie and fascist governments that had and still have extensive networks and institutions that spy on their citizens.  We should all be relieved now that’s cleared up, capice?  OK, here’s your Lucky Strike extra, wanna know who the double dummies are?  Just ask someone whether Comey spied or surveilled.  gjr]

Scattershots – 18may19

George Rebane

Freedom and equality have never been bedfellows – naturally enabled inequality in all dimensions is the litmus test for a free society.

‘The Myth of Wage Stagnation’ is explained by Phil Gramm and John Early.  Dr Gramm is an economist and the former chair of the Senate Banking Committee. Dr John Early is the former assistant commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics.  Convincing the country’s lightly read that middle class wages have stagnated for decades is the Democrats’ sine qua non Big Lie, along with ongoing fake news reports, required to beat President Trump in 2020.  The basis of their argument reduces to, ‘Do you believe your lying eyes or what we’re telling you?’  After supplying the reader with a snootfull of relevant economic data, Gramm and Early conclude with – “The suggestion that America hasn’t gotten a raise in 46 years doesn’t pass the laugh test. Poor measurements of compensation are more than misleading; they also cause many voters and policy makers to favor redistribution that would depress growth and compensation. Nothing is more critical to promoting sound policy than measuring economic outcomes accurately. A nation is only as good as its facts.” (more here)

Speaking of facts, our educational systems are supposed to teach us both facts about the world and how to deal with them to create wealth and benefit society.  Two men who have outdone themselves to hinder America in these pursuits are David Coleman and the late Howard Zinn.  Coleman is the maven behind the disastrous Common Core curriculum (extensively covered in these pages) that has put the latest dent into our public education system, and the man who is also the architect of taking down the merit-based SAT by appending to it a proprietary and secret “adversity score” to aid colleges in returning to sub-rosa, race-based admission policies. (more here).  Zinn is the author of the notorious revisionist and widely-used The People’s History of the United States (1980) that has mangled the historical view of two generations of our country’s high school and college students.  Historian Wilfred McClay has now written a counterpoint text, Land of Hope: An Invitation to the Great American Story.  While not “some saccharine whitewash of American history”, the tome does correct the country’s past from Zinn’s version as “a comic-book melodrama in which ‘the people’ are constantly being abused by ‘the rulers.’”, that explains today’s younger generation’s love affair with socialism. (more here)

Power from magnets may provide us a more hopeful future if the ‘Earth Engine’ prototypes of industrial engineer Dennis Danzick pan out.  He claims to have cracked the long-hidden code of how to suck net energy out of magnetic fields, and has demonstrated the process as something that could soon be commercialized.  No one, including Danzick, has yet to explain the physics of this contraption, and a couple of prominent physicists have poo-poohed the whole thing as yet the promotion of the latest perpetual motion machine.  You can see a live stream of the ‘Crystal’ version of the engine working at the facilities of Inductance Energy located in Scottsdale, AZ.  (more here and here)

Alabama Abortion Law

George Rebane

OK, here’s the drill.  The Left opposes the recent Alabama law that is being replicated in its essential elements by a growing number of heartland states.  The crux of the opposition is preserving the mental health of the mother, not her physiological health or other factors about which most on both sides agree.  (And as a corollary, saving society from the maturing of a rejected child.)  She simply doesn’t think it would be all that satisfying, for a number of reasons, to raise the little darling – besides, at best it was probably a ‘Oops!’ to begin with.  So, with the partial information she has during her pregnancy while baby is growing inside her, she should have the right to decide that it should be killed.

And make no mistake, that is the fundamental argument of the pro-abortion proponents who use the ‘mother’s health’ and ‘mother’s right to choose’ smokescreen.  So OK, let’s go with that.  While the baby is pre-partum, the mother knows little or nothing about the potential of that baby to bring her happiness and grow up to lead a productive life that contributes to society.  The pro-abortionists are militating for her right to make the life or death choice in ignorance.  Any reasonable person would agree that her choice would be more informed and, in short, better for all if she made it knowing more about the child.

So why not increase her legal prerogatives to preserve her QoL and mental health in general, by allowing her to make the decision based on more complete information about the little tyke.  Let’s give all women the option of terminating the development (life) of their child after they have seen how the little darlins are really turning out.  Why not extend the pro-choice period they demand to include, say, the first couple or three post-partum years of the kid’s life?  The mother would have a hell of a lot more information about how her offspring is going to turn out, and the kind of kink it will put in her lifestyle if she kept the kid.  After all, it’s all about empowering women and extending the mother’s right to choose so she can make a more informed decision.  And the final solution for the rejected kid will be the same, we kill it - now as then, we can make it so the kid will never know what hit him.

In the end, if it’s all legal, no one will make a fuss, and in fact, no one will even have to know if one day mom is no longer pushing a perambulator around the shopping mall.  If anyone asks, she just tells them that she exercised her woman’s right to choose, just as if she had decided early on to get rid of the bump in her belly.  Everyone will understand that a law extending womens’ rights in this fashion makes all the sense in the world, since it gives them a greater latitude to decide with much more information than just blindly condemning to death a child whom she has yet to meet and get to know.  So, let’s get with the program.

Trump’s Immigration Policy

George Rebane

Our current immigration policy, such as it is, hails and invites illegal entry from distant lands, favors meritless chain migration without end, and offers entry to only one of eight immigrants who have skillsets that would make them productive members of our workforce.  Additionally, its proponents seek every opportunity to provide amnesty and a fast path to citizenship for the 11M to 20M illegal aliens already in the land.

Trump’s proposal is for more than half of our new immigrants to possess skillsets that are scarce and needed, reduce chain migration to a third of the total, and require all legal immigrants to have some knowledge of English and be able to pass an elemental civics test about the US and its forms of governance. (more here)  It is moot on the resident illegals, knowing that this aspect will be resolved through extensive negotiations with the Democrats who look forward to these millions enlarging its constituent voter base.

But all progressives, led by Pelosi and Schumer, have immediately attacked the Trump plan as obviously being against the strategic interests of the Democrats in their massive lurch to the left.  Their main argument, a la Madame Speaker, is that America has never enforced merit-based immigration, and that the generations of the 19^th and early 20^th century immigrants, who contributed so much to America’s greatness, would never have been allowed in had Trump’s policy been in place then.  This claim is false from a number of perspectives, and again exemplifies the low intellectual esteem that Democrat leaders hold their core supporters, and by extension, the country’s undecides – Team Pelosi considers them all as slogan-swallowing, double dummies.

To make matters worse, the Dems’ arguments are even too difficult for some Republicans (including the vaunted Judge Napolitano) to counter.  The truth of the matter is that when those millions from Europe and Asia arrived in generations past, they ALL possessed skills that allowed them to immediately enter our workforce as its newest productive members.  Taken within the context of predominant workforce skillsets of those times, all the arriving immigrants had the ability to start jobs that they already knew how to do, or for which their skill extensions were easily acquired.  (BTW, Mollie Hemingway, senior editor of The Federalist, was the only one who grokked that historical factor on an FN panel – track her career, she is one astute female.)  In our age of specialization, advanced technology, and automation, such jobs for the under-educated from third world countries are much harder to find, thereby putting those English-absent immigrants at a great disadvantage and make them prey for criminals and other low-lifes ready to take advantage of them and make their advent a net cost to our society.

The other factor of which Team Pelosi is ignorant or willing to dissemble is the merit-based immigration policies we have had in place since WW2.  For example, refugees from war ravaged Europe were let in only on the basis of satisfying three major criteria – having US-needed skills, being sufficiently healthy, and having a political record with no taint of communist or fascist support.  These requirements were relaxed in the post-Vietnam era when immigration policy began to support party-specific voter agendas.  As cited above, workforce merit factors in for only one out of eight legal immigrants, and, of course, zero for those most welcomed above all who are adept at climbing dilapidated fences and fording rivers.

So Trump’s totally pro-American immigration policy proposal has little chance of becoming law under the current federal government's make-up, but contributes yet one more litmus test to distinguish between the pro- and anti-American factions in our land.

‘Religious Freedom in Islam’

George Rebane

That’s the title of the new book by political science professor Daniel Philpott of Notre Dame.  It appears to be another anxious attempt at understanding and reconciling global Islam.  The book has an excellent review by Thomas Howard (history professor at Valparaiso University) in the 14may19 WSJ (here). Philpott divides the non-Islamic world into “Islamoskeptics”, holding that Islam is incompatible with religious freedom, and “Islamopluralists”, who accept the “religion of peace” teaching from the Mecca (v the Medina) Quran.

Philpott tries to give us the correct perspective on Muslim-majority countries by dividing them into three categories – “religiously free” (e.g. Lebanon, Kosovo), “secularly repressive” (e.g. Egypt, Turkey), and “religiously repressive” (e.g. Iran, Saudi Arabia).  Philpott agrees that the third confirms the West’s worst fears about Islam, but argues (as if it mattered) that the second kind is actually an import from the West, with its teaching that “the state must manage, control, and contain religion in order to make way for modern civilization.”

According to the author, the problem is that the secularly repressive countries spawn most of the Islamist terror that afflicts the world.  Somehow, here he overlooks the major (dominant?) contributions of Iran, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia (homeland of almost all the 9/11 terrorists).  And the so-called peaceful and devout Muslims in the religiously free countries “have concluded that secularism (in its various guises) is to be eschewed as a Trojan horse sent by the West.”  In other words, the West as a whole remains the enemy of Islam, and not only Islamism (the terror spawning kind).

Nowhere does Philpott cover the much-feared and scripturally taught practice of taqiya (q.v., dissembling to promote Islam), or the caliphate as Islam’s endgame.  Most Islamoskeptics and all Islamophobes are sensitive to the global practice of terror killings by Islamists, and also their ongoing practice of green-on-green (and blue) killings, primarily in lands actively resisting Islamist factions such as ISIS, Taliban, Al Qaeda, Hamas, … .  Non-Muslims, especially westerners, have a hard time reconciling such ubiquitous and longstanding practice of the ‘murder of the innocents’ with any other belief system save those who follow Allah.

Nevertheless, Philpott’s essay concludes that our Constitution, and especially its First Amendment, provides a global template for protecting religious freedom rights (an unexamined goal of Islamic religionists) that will attract our Muslim brethren to exercise their “capacity to embrace a shift in thought.”  Again, here it is proper to insert from what-to-what, which apparently Philpott avoids in order to also avoid sounding, what, paternalistically neo-colonial?

I count myself definitely as an Islamoskeptic with periodic lapses into Islamophobia (fear of attempts to bring about a sharia-dominated caliphate).  My main concern is the absence of wholesale condemnation by the expatriate Islamic communities of individual acts of Islamist terror.  These Muslims, at best, only murmur a quiet, quick, and qualified disapproval, and when polled, turn in some very scary aggregate sentiments.  (e.g. results from Pew Research)  And the behavior of immigrant Muslims, in countries with insular communities abandoned by indigenous law enforcement agencies, speaks for itself, especially when considered in light of politically correct self-censorship by the media in reporting goings on and statistics that describe such cultural enclaves.

In the final analysis, our need to publish such apologetics in the west as Professor Philpott’s Religious Freedom in Islam (2019) speaks volumes about the real collision between the followers of the Prophet and the rest of us.  In many ways this work sounds like another careful walk whistling past the graveyard of the thousands who have been killed in the name of Allah.

Like likes Likes - once more (updated 13may19)

George Rebane

Dr Mark Moffett of Harvard and the National Museum of Natural History writes ‘The Social Secret That Humans Share With Ants’ (and other social critters), an essay derived from his The Human Swarm: How Our Societies Arise, Thrive and Fall (2018).  Therein his main thesis is “building giant communities of strangers requires ‘markers’ that let members know who does and doesn’t belong.”  The essay goes on to concur and confirm the oft-repeated Rebane Doctrine tenet that people like to live and work among people who share their mores, values, …, in short, their culture to the maximum extent possible.  For such communal environments promote trust and rapid socialization, foster specialization, and in general provide the benefits that derive from being able to reliably predict each other’s communal behaviors.  (photo philched phrom article)

Moffett’s article is carefully wordsmithed for this day and age, wherein he comes as close as possible to calling a spade a spade without offering an obvious invite to the inevitable opprobrium from the Left should he speak too plainly.  The destruction of America’s common culture, that has been so successful in forging ‘E pluribus unum’, is the seminal objective, bar none, of our indigenous Left.  Achieving this, drives derivative objectives like transforming our public educational system into a giant package of progressive propaganda that today has combined product, distribution, and audience into one compact and unassailable institution.

Moffett points out that durable societies began long ago “when our ancestors began to signal who belonged through the use of what I call ‘markers’, signs that for many societies came to include gestures, rituals, styles of dress and dialects. Bound together by markers, even the simplest hunter-gatherer societies of the past achieved populations of a thousand or more.”  With his markers, Moffett then two-steps around the unifying idea of a common culture without connecting them to such a culture in our modern world of politically corrected multi-cultural societies.  Pointing to the utility – past and present – of a mono-cultural society today is strictly verboten.

Nevertheless, his dance steps convey a clear message to the careful reader in which he points out how even slight deviations from culture-specific markers “induced anxiety because the conduct of (such individual) couldn’t be predicted.”  And Dr Moffett’s insightful essay concludes with the non-controversial coda – “Then as now, markers have been a way for humans to maintain order and boundaries even in the midst of rapid social change and growth.”  Whew!

As a recent milestone on the multi-kulti highway, one that illustrates the destruction of a stanchion of our common culture - especially when easily related to western cultures – we have Dr Seuss (Theodor Geisel).  He is the latest to get a revisionist history written about him.  It turns out that not only was Geisel a “racist”, misogynist, and xx-phobic of everything you can imagine, but even his published “illustrations are steeped in racist propaganda, caricatures, and harmful stereotypes.”  This man became a beloved icon of America’s common culture which the socialist cum communist Left must now obliterate in every remaining corner in which it is still allowed to draw a breath.  The whole story is told in Becoming Dr Seuss (2019) by Brian Jay Jones which is reviewed here by Meghan Gurdon.

And we all should know the ‘blessings’ bestowed by multi-cultural societies living cheek-by-jowl under repressive regimes that use corrupt and militant justice systems to enforce stacks of laws and regulations, prescribing mandated common behaviors, under each of which inevitably lies the gun.

[13may19 update]  Author and political theorist Timothy Carney of the Washington Examiner and the American Enterprise Institute gives us an added perspective on tribalism and its antitheses in today’s public forums (here).  He reviews how de Toqueville and Russel Kirk “saw that a nation’s strength lay in our hodgepodge of ‘little platoons’”, and that “we are a nation of people with multiple overlapping identities.  We have our Americanness as one identity, but that is tied up with a diversity that includes our particular geographic identity, our particular vocation, our particular faith, and yes, our particular ethnicity.”  Carney concludes that “real love for posterity is inextricably tied to a loving, familiar embrace of the past, and of a tribe.”

Ruminations - 10may19 (updated 13may19)

George Rebane

Global warming warmongers like to ‘prove’ their calamitous climate change prognostications by citing the increasing dollar costs and casualties caused by natural disasters such as winds, floods, and fires.  They count on their claims being consumed without question by constituents not able to discover that such statistics are due to greater numbers of buildings and people populating danger-prone areas.  The record of parameters that measure the physical intensity and frequency of such disasters don’t support the lamestream publicized histrionics.  ‘Growth Fuels Size of Catastrophes’ in the 10may19 WSJ attempts to educate the educable.

No Democrat with a 3-digit IQ wants to actually impeach Trump for the simple reason that their case for it is laughable, and then they would lose an anti-Trump election issue that still has legs with certain deficit-laden constituencies.  Speaker Pelosi and Rep Nadler are doing their best to keep blowing hot air into their “constitutional crisis” balloon which continues to float beautifully through lamestream outlets like CNN and MSNBC.

‘Let’s Apply the Moore Protocol to Congress’ suggests R.G. Walker of St Petersburg (here).  That protocol was established by a liberal court in Fairfax County, VA through ordering the release of the sealed divorce records of Stephen Moore and his former wife, despite strong objections from both parties.  This kind of “dumpster diving” was fomented by the lamestream with such intensity that the VA court finally succumbed to the extra-legal sleaze in order to publicize ‘evidence’ that finally caused Moore to withdraw his nomination to the Fed’s Board.  Mr Walker suggests that if this kind of ethical detour is warranted for Fed candidates, it should also be uniformly applied to members of Congress who have much more power to do harm, the propensity for which presumably arises out of previously hidden character shortcomings that the American public has the right to know.  He recommends that they all should have their sealed records unsealed with the merciful option, not offered Moore, to retain their “previously established privacy to any who resign their congressional posts immediately, say, by sundown.”

Our designated reader gave me a heads up that our FUE has once more mounted the pulpit and issued another ex-cathedra missive, this time delivering a sage reflection and admonition under the 10may19 Union’s Hits & Misses column in reference to Jo Ann’s contribution (here).  She is a continuing member on the newspaper’s editorial board, who drew the FUE’s ire for not including my MIM board membership in her praise for MIM’s recent grand opera Carmen presentation.  (For the record, and to pre-empt another breathless revelation, I am also the Vice President of MIM, and we are long-time In Concert Sierra donors, attendees, and appreciative promoters.)  But what we always find remarkable is the boundless hubris with which our self-adorned “veteran editor and award-winning journalist” issues his absolutes about our “podunk community” and its podunkier inhabitants whom he has graced with his presence, that is today regrettably so far removed from a more compatible cosmopolitan and civil environment.  The man is truly a gift that keeps on giving.

[13may19 update]  After my 9may19 visit to our local pot shop (here), I now read that bio-engineering companies may start making MJ’s active ingredients, THC and CBD, in processing plants without having to grow those smelly weeds.  In the MIT Technology Review, Antonio Regalado tells us of the Dutch bio-tech company Amyris that has designs of producing those ingredients in bulk to become readily available ingredients for “large scale use” in all kinds of consumables.  Of course, there still is some “cognitive dissonance” involved in all this since “biotech is supposed to be about helping people, and cannabis, like alcohol, doesn’t always do that. It can be used for pain relief, but there’s also a link to psychosis.” (more here)

Sandbox – 9may19

[Trump thumping has now reached a fever pitch in Democrat, socialist, and alt-Left circles.  When was the last time you heard a US president accused by political opponents of working to do away with our Constitution, democracy, free speech, and other liberties that have defined America since its founding?  In our daily dose from the Democratic leadership, the media are full of emotional videos accusing President Trump of exactly that – he’s a treasonous and treacherous criminal with no morals who must be removed from office by any and all means possible in order to save our nation.  Any memories of such a state of affairs?  gjr]

Scattershots – 6may19 (updated 9may19)

It is the ultimate fantasy that we can live our lives, or at any rate live them in peace and contentment with each other, without ever having to share a common reality. - James Bowman

George Rebane

An example of fake news.  Apple News is a very comprehensive news website for Mac, iPad, and iPhone users, one that allows you to customize with your interests, and then augments the format with your viewing history – in short, it snoops in your user sessions.  Recently it included a piece from the National Geographic reporting on the military marine mammal programs of Russia and US (here).  I was a bit astounded that almost everything they reported on the US program was either false or grossly misleading.  Full disclosure – I and my company spent years supporting the US Navy’s marine mammal (and other animal) R&D programs as their analytical support team doing the heavy lifting in the math, data analysis, and systems design work.

The 6may19 Union’s op-ed has two pieces from our favorite leftwing columnists, Dr Milan Vodicka (search RR) and, of course, Mr George Boardman.  Dr Vodicka delivered one of his trademark muddled sermons on the joys of socialism (not posted yet).  There he attempted to augment Bertand Russell’s three factors motivating human behavior with a fractured taxonomy that makes absolutely no sense to the careful reader, and then went on to celebrate the free nationalized healthcare systems found in EU countries.  In the latter, he drinks the kool-aid by the gallon, and evinces no understanding of the realities that obtain.  Mr Boardman presents a good critique of the Republican California Senate candidates Assemblymen Dahle and Kiley, and then blows a tire describing the Democrat Audrey Denny attempting unseat Congressman LaMalfa (here).  Without so much as a smidgen of qualification or sourcing, he tells the reader that the Green New Deal is “a sweeping national plan to zero-out emissions and provide clean energy and infrastructure jobs to millions.”  Apparently, our columnist continues to have trouble distinguishing between objectives and plans, and reports the GND as actually being a plan.  Regardless, objectives or plans, It has a snowball’s chance in hell of accomplishing anything touted.

[7may19 update]  Spying v. Surveillance.  I don’t know why this is so difficult for the media talking heads to resolve (those on FN, not the lamestream whose agenda is known).  A nation’s law enforcement agency does surveillance (on an individual, group, organization) when the target of such intelligence gathering involves a domestic issue/parties that does NOT involve the presumed culpability of a foreign government.  That same agency conducts a spying operation when it seeks to gather intelligence on a matter that does involve a foreign government.  To infiltrate a domestic gang, you send in an 'undercover agent'; to surveil or infiltrate foreign government operations, you employ/send in 'spies'. That is the way we have successfully defined spying v. surveillance for generations.  Since Obama’s FBI et al were convinced from the gitgo that Team Trump was in cahoots with Russia, their surreptitious intelligence gathering efforts were clearly spying.

[8may19 update]  Upcoming tariffs increase on Chinese goods this Friday (10may19) is supposed to be in retaliation for the Chinese reneging on parts of the two countries’ established trade agreements and/or the progress made in the current negotiations.  And there’s a big debate on whether President Trump is doing the right thing with this retaliation.  The debate would be moot if the administration just published the details of China’s renege.  I don’t know why the big secret in not putting it out for all to see and judge for themselves as to the relative magnitudes of the offense vs the response.  Everyone involved in such negotiations around the world already knows what has gone down; the only ones ignorant who will be affected by it all are the people of China and America.  I can understand the communists keeping their people in the dark (it’s their nature), but I can’t see why our government also keeps us in the dark.

AG Barr will be held in contempt of a Democrat House, and that is again denigrating the intelligence of their own constituents – why?  Simply because they can.  They know that in the aggregate, Democrat voters have little or no idea how our government works or what the laws are, and they overwhelmingly consume media outlets that cynically keep them in the dark.  The rest of us know that AG Barr is under no legal imperative to release any of the Mueller report to anyone, or to even reveal its main contents/conclusions – why?  Because the special prosecutor came up with nothing with which to prosecute anyone.  (He diddled away the people’s money on a self-serving sideshow nailing individuals on process crimes, people who had nothing to do with his commissioned charter, and then wrote the best anti-Trump political blueprint that he could.)  Now scumbag Nadler is going to up it a notch and hold Barr in contempt for not releasing information that is against the law for him to release - please reread this.  And none of it has anything to do with Congress’ oversight function for legislative purposes.  Moreover, the whole thing is a total bag of bullcrap that Democrats are dealing out to their know-nothings as part and parcel of the Big Lie – i.e. anything it will take to defeat Trump in 2020.

[9may19 update] Well boys and girls, your humble host has now visited a genuine, legal pot shop.  A good friend (known to you all) with whom I often take lunch, took me on a tour of the Elevation 2477 cannabis dispensary in Nevada City.  The experience was quite remarkable.  We entered into an immaculate reception area at the end of which sat a uniformed security officer behind (bulletproof?) glass.  The room contained a nice couch and an abstract painting presumably abstracting some visions customers may enjoy after imbibing of the establishment’s offerings.  We were invited to the window to place our driver’s licenses against the glass to be scanned, and I being a newbie, was instructed to fill in a store “membership application”, studying the store’s rules, and then putting my John Hancock declaring that I understood everything.  My friend was already a member, so my joining up allowed us both to be ushered into the inner sanctum housing the stash.

The store itself was immaculately laid out with neat glass-cased counters displaying all the desiderata in various forms and at various concentrations of THC and CBD.  For the cognoscenti, this was no doubt a very inviting display as evinced by the palaver carried on between other customers and clerks, all of whom were very knowledgeable of both their products and the applicable legalese.  After getting some answers to my questions, my friend made a very modest purchase of probably their most benign SKU, and we made our way to the exit.  Then I noticed that the store’s walls each had a magnificent abstract painting cum mural on it, replicating their foyer and no doubt reinforcing visually the promises made by the cleverly named substances and concoctions.  As we left the premises, it occurred to me that I am now marked for life.

4 May 2019 - A Day of Auspicious Observances

George Rebane

Seventy years ago today, in the early hours of 4 May 1949, I stood on the rail of the troop carrier USS Harry Taylor (pictured) with my father, as the ship slid past the Statue of Liberty to dock at the Brooklyn Navy Yard.  That evening on a chicken farm near Plainfield, Connecticut began our new life in America.  The description of that auspicious day I recall in ‘Sixty Years Ago Today – 4 May 1949’.

Earlier today Jo Ann and I attended a farewell party for our friends Stan and Elaine Meckler.  They are the latest Californians who see no reason to stay in this state of galloping socialism, rapacious taxes, and a badly fractured society with dysfunctional values and no identifiable culture.  After the 2008 election we worked with the senior and junior Mecklers and a few other Nevada County families to found the Tea Party.  In the following years, their son Mark Meckler became the recognized co-founder and prominent national voice of the Tea Party.  Jo Ann and I are sad to see another family of friends disappear over the horizon to greener pastures.

And finally, this afternoon we also said good-bye to a long-time friend and poker buddy Gil Gray who died about six weeks ago.  Gil’s wife Dee asked me to deliver the eulogy at his celebration of life held at the Gold Miners Inn in Grass Valley.  Gil was a kind good-hearted person, and always a gentleman.  Gil’s passing marks for many of us a tragic 12-months, during which we now have lost three from our band of Brothers of the Green Felt, who attend monthly psychostochastic seminars around the beloved octagon, a tradition now in its 25^th year.

Sandbox - 1may19

[The $2T infrastructure bill is going to be a problem that the Dems hope will choke Team Trump.  What about letting the several states plan and do the infrastructure work in their states under a coordinated plan from the feds.  The states can come up with novel public/private funding schemes which may involve the feds only to the extent of guaranteeing loans and bond issues of those they approve.  Thoughts?  gjr]

Ruminations – 30apr19 (updated 3may19)

George Rebane

Pluralism is always favored by immigrant minorities who in their native countries will countenance none of it.

“All power grows out of the barrel of a gun.” – Mao Zedong.  Our Left creates, supports, and inflames divisive (identity) cultures that produce high gun murder rates in order to promote ever stricter gun controls that will ultimately lead to confiscation, and remove, once and for all, a free people’s ability to rebel against the comprehensive command and control autocracy they promise to install.  All power to the state!

Left-leaning author (Balkanized America) and journalist Colin Woodward in his ‘Welcome (Back) to the Divided States of America’ – “One would think our continent’s famed mobility — and the transportation and communications technology that facilitates it — would dissolve differences between these regional cultures. Paradoxically, it appears to be reinforcing it. As journalist Bill Bishop and sociologist Robert Cushing revealed in The Big Sort, for decades now, Americans who are relocating choose to move to communities where people share their values and worldview. As a result, the proportion of voters living in counties that consistently give landslide wins report — more than a 20 percent margin of victory — to one party increased from 26.8 percent in 1976 to 48.3 percent in 2004. The volume of people is significant and has benefited the GOP, with a net 13 million people moving from Democratic to Republican landslide counties between 1990 and 2006 alone. In doing so, they’re often moving between regional cultures as well and increasing the differences between them.” (emphasis mine) 

The widespread recognition of this important dynamic in American demographics illustrates, by contrast, the profound ignorance of local grassroots leftwingers here and across the nation.  An expanded analysis in ‘The Real Issue that Divides Us’ also illustrated how profoundly ignorant the grassroots Left is of anything beyond the simplistic slogans they receive from their national thought leaders.

Vaclav Smil’s Energy and Civilization: A History (2017) is one of the books I’m now in the middle of that is turning out to be quite an education.  Those interested in energy issues should get this material under their belt.  “Vaclav Smil is Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of Manitoba. He is the author of forty books, including Energy and Civilization, published by the MIT Press. In 2010 he was named by Foreign Policy as one of the Top 100 Global Thinkers. In 2013 Bill Gates wrote on his website that “there is no author whose books I look forward to more than Vaclav Smil.”  More on him to come.

People who move for ideological comfort have more radical views than those at their destination.  This works for both ends of the ideological spectrum.  Locally here in Nevada County we have seen the influx in recent years of liberals with markedly more radical beliefs – i.e. ‘San Francisco values’ - than the liberals who lived here compatibly with the more conservative indigenous folks. (more here)

The 30apr19 Union (here) celebrates the formation of yet another organization to shield, succor, and provide a “safe space” for illegal aliens from US law enforcement authorities.  The Sierra College’s new Undocumented Student Center is intended to fill this “need” as identified by local progressives in this sanctuary state.  One wonders if there are other areas where violating US laws can be equally supported so visibly while thwarting law enforcement authorities in carrying out their duties.  Perhaps setting up organizations that enable individuals with a wider range of capabilities and means to avoid the legal formalities and performance requirements in place, so that more people can enjoy well-paying sub-rosa careers as lawyers, physicians, various contractors, … ?

Fascism, in popular use by progressives today, is becoming more and more convoluted in how their meaning of it departs from the ideology’s origin and correct usage in former times.  For a brief history of fascism, please review ‘Fascism – what it is and isn’t’.  For the Left fascism is today’s catch-all label for any and all on the Right who oppose their form of socialism cum communism.  However, for them to apply that label requires the promulgation of a polyglot of historical and factual lies.  One of the latest leftwing pundits to arise in the last year is Umair Haque who writes on Medium, the new online outlet for millennial minds.  Mr Haque’s prominent misunderstanding of fascism is fully displayed in his ‘Are Americans (Really) So Dumb They Don’t Know Fascism When They See It?’  Judge for yourself.

[1may19 update]  “TRUMP WILL MEET WITH TOP ADVISERS TO DISCUSS PLANS TO CHALLENGE CLIMATE CHANGE REPORTS” Democrats, of course, are screaming bloody murder opposing an open debate about climate change that features scores of prominent scientists who are skeptics.  Such a public conversation would give visible lie to the hysteria mongers who have long claimed that only ignorant knuckledragger “deniers” have problems with the cited science behind proclamations of imminent global catastrophe. (more here)

Speaking of leftwing liars and fake news.  The NYT and WaPo have been pushing the story that Mueller wrote Barr criticizing him about the latter’s 24mar19 4-pager to Congress; that the Barr’s letter misrepresented the findings of Mueller’s report.  Well, those sacks of s#!t are at it again with their blatant brown journalism (that’s a notch below yellow).  You can read Mueller’s 27mar19 letter here.  What I found a bit disturbing was that when Barr offered Mueller the chance to review his 4-pager, Mueller demurred.  Nevertheless, after getting Mueller’s letter, Barr called Mueller during which telecon Mueller said that Barr’s 4-pager contained nothing that was inaccurate or misleading.  Apparently, Mueller’s bitch was with the media’s characterization (i.e. spin) of the 18apr19 release of his redacted report along with Barr’s 4-pager.

[2may19 update]  Rebane Doctrine immigration policy for the record.  Genevieve Wood of the Heritage Foundation presents a summary of a correct US immigration policy in this short video.  I have been promoting these principles/requirements for years.

Elizabeth Warren's 'Marshall Plan for America'.  Here on Medium we have a communist hyper-ventilating on the "brilliant" proposals of proto-communist Warren.  It's worth a read as a reality calibration on what many of today's Millennials have been taught to believe as we head into 2020.  Seatbelts please.

‘Medicare for All’ is NOT Medicare at all as the Dems, led by Bernie Sanders, would like you to not notice.  When it comes to major league lying, Trump is a piker and the Left have always been the champions.  Today the Dems’ 20+ presidential candidates are each vying for the top spot as they deliver their stump speeches.  Dr Robert Pozen of MIT’s Sloan School of Management lays out the proposition that “Democrats mislead voters by appropriating the name of a popular program they actually seek to abolish.” (more here)

[3may19 update]  Help!  A very interesting problem I'm working on runs into a fairly straightforward looking definite integral (shown below, a and b are constants) for which I need the closed-form analytical solution.  Everywhere I've looked - Wofram Alpha, Matlab Symbolic Toolbox, CRC Math Formulas (33rd ed) - I draw a blank.  Now I'm rummaging around with pencil and paper trying to noodle the anti-derivative(s) by hand; so far no joy.  So I'm appealing to any of RR's technical readers who may be able to shed some light on this particular worm standing at attention. 

Scattershots – 26apr19 (updated 27apr19)

George Rebane

The 17apr19 Scattershots got a bit too long with items that are hard to see below the page break, so let’s start another one.  BTW, I want to thank the thousands of RR readers and its group of stalwart commenters of all ideological hues.  We are now in our thirteenth year, and to date have amassed an archive of 3,006 posts underpinned by 140,681 comments in their comment streams.  Actually, the number of posts would be thousands more, save for my use of aggregating many of them under the dated ‘Ruminations’ and ‘Scattershots’ collections.  RR continues to be a uniquely open forum for the civil (albeit sometimes uncivil) discussion of all ideas that “alter and illuminate our times.”

Rebane’s rumblings are not the only attempts at deep thoughts about the goings on in our country and on our planet.  Significant contributions from our commenters on other issues and ideas decorate and lend weight to these comment streams, especially under the dated Sandboxes.  I call your attention to a recent exchange in the 23apr19 Sandbox between commenters Messrs Tozer (starting 848am) and ‘scenes’ (formerly ‘Scenes from the Coming Apocalypse’) that illustrates how illiberal has become free speech and discussion of new ideas in our progressive-run universities and colleges.

Democratic mayor Pete Buttigieg has entered the party’s race for its 2020 presidential candidate.  And, out of the gate, he’s basing the launch of his campaign on an audacious pack of lies about VP and former Indiana governor Mike Pence, with whom he had a most cordial and cooperative working relationship.  Governor Pence went out of his way to support and work with the unabashedly gay South Bend mayor.  But now “Mayor Pete picks a fight with a caricature of the vice president that he knows from experience is false.” (more here)  I bring this up re the continuing charges from our leftwing about Republicans being the only lying politicians in the land; none of them recognize the whopper-based careers of their own political leaders.  Why is it that the Right has no problem calling out the lies of Republican politicians (witness the numberless articles and features from the WSJ, National Review, Fox News, Heritage Foundation, …), but you never hear about the lying sumbiches and biches on the Left from their lamestream outlets?

How many mosques and Muslims have been attacked by self-declared Christians, or in the name of Christ?  Ask that reciprocal question about Muslims murdering Christians all around the world.  And dig deeper to ask how many of these Islamic terrorists have been recruited, trained, dedicated, and directed by Islamic institutions, organizations, and their clergy.  It is hard to make the case that there is any semblance of reciprocation in this ideo/theological conflict as our progressive brethren like to point out.  The two stacks of evidence simply do not compare.  So why does the Left continue to maintain this façade of lies?  (Full disclosure: this a is an unvarnished rhetorical question to which most Americans already know the answer.)

Western media glibly continue to report that North Korea is a “nuclear armed regime”, when it clearly is not.  I think for diplomatic and propaganda purposes we need to paint NK and its dear leader, the Ugly Fat Kid, as having the capability to wreak worldwide havoc.  This so that we can continue our attempts to keep him from acquiring/developing nuclear arms, and in the process support our agenda with China and now Russia.  It may be a bit technical to follow, but the UFK is nowhere near having nuclear ‘arms’ – i.e. operational weapons capable of delivering and exploding nuclear devices over distant enemy targets.  The simple fact is that the UFK has yet to test and demonstrate a launchable warhead that can be controlled with sufficient accuracy, and that also carries precisely-deployable, onboard penaids (penetration aids consisting of staged decoys used to spoof interceptor radars and IR sensors) that enable it to survive re-entry and reach the desired detonation point before being intercepted.   Before such a weapon enters their arsenal as an operational weapon system, NK will have to conduct multiple re-entry tests using otherwise fully functional, dummy warheads aimed at open-ocean ‘targets’.  Such tests will take time and be visible to all, and will be most carefully monitored by us and other nations concerned about the UFK’s sabre rattling.  (The Soviets and now Russians have monitored the re-entry of our ICBMs at mid-Pacific target atolls for decades.)  However, no such tests have been observed; ergo, NK is not yet a nuclear armed regime.

Avengers: The Endgame was touted by WSJ’s film critic Joe Morgenstern, who gave the movie a glowing review last Wednesday (24apr19), the day before its nationwide opening (here).  And apparently he was not the only one trumpeting hosannas for the flick.  Well, Jo Ann and I don’t go to the movies much, so we thought ‘what the hell, even though comic book heroes are not our favorite past time, the cultural experience sitting with a live audience should be worth it – so we went last night to the GV del Oro theater and wedged ourselves between an interesting menagerie of humanity that included a pair of motor-mouths behind us rattling their popcorn bags and bumping the backs of our seats, and next to a couple of twenty-something females who hauled in a four-year-old young man who had been taught no social skills about how to behave in polite company (perhaps because it didn’t turn out to be all that polite).  Anyway, the theater’s noise level during the movie was something to behold – when will they provide the audio over our own wireless, noise-cancelling headsets?

So now the 3+ hour movie.  It was the most banal attempt to combine some awkwardly composed serious dialogue with action scenes designed for the comprehension of six-year-olds that unsuccessfully attempted to explain the role of quantum-based time travel by the characters before they found themselves battling the vast array of minions in the service of a really bad guy who wanted to destroy the universe – we noticed that we’re now beyond simply destroying the earth, or our solar system, or even the galaxy – and then build a new one more to his liking.  Apparently he had the godlike powers to do it, although the movie was distinctly free of any accompanying spiritual content – you know, separation of church and Hollywood – that might at least have made a cameo appearance.  And so this utter waste of time dragged on for hours that seemed like much more than its claimed three, during which time all (who knows?) the Marvel heroes made their own appearances in addition to more cameos by some notable film worthies like Robert Redford and Benedict Cumberbatch.  And here we thought such people had enough money to avoid another turn at the world’s oldest profession.  Apparently not, since all across the country multiplexes bumped other films to use all their auditoriums for extra showings of Avengers, some going so far as to advertise 24/7 offerings so everyone could come and enjoy this heartwarming epic and culmination of the cinemagraphic arts.  Truth be told, if you paid attention, you could even catch odd snatches of acting, each lasting maybe ten, fifteen seconds.  And this morning we were told that this flick is breaking all box office records.  But overall, as a public service our advice is to save your money, unless you are determined to dip your own dipstick to check the level and character of today’s hoi polloi.

[27apr19 update]  Our indominable cartoonist Bob Crabb has hit another home run.  His latest offering below was filched from the pages of the 27apr19 Union.  Thanks Bob for making the already painful also memorable 😉

Post-citizenship America (updated 28apr19)

George Rebane

[This is the addended transcript of my regular KVMR commentary broadcast on 24 April 2019.  A slightly edited version also appears in the 27apr19 issue of The Union.]

Perhaps no recent issue of national contention illustrates the differences of how our two polarized sides see the future direction of America than does the debate about whether the 2020 census should include the citizenship question.  The original intent of the census had to do with redistricting and reapportionment.  That intent was carried out with our census from 1820 to 1950 by counting American citizens, which then determined membership in the House of Representatives and the Electoral College for the several states.  In the 20^th century an accurate citizen count provided by the census was also used to determine the allocation of federal dollars back to the states under various programs that Congress legislated.

Scattershots – 24apr19 (updated 25apr19)

George Rebane

We’ve all seen countless thrillers from Hollywood in which the plot line has a department or agency of Big Government that has gone rogue, and threatens to bring down the country or even the world.  And against great odds our hero/heroine manages to overcome them and triumph.  These movies are made by leftwingers who obviously cannot connect the dots, why?  Because they are inadvertently creating propaganda denying the very things they believe in and promote – namely, very large, powerful, and ethical governments.  The conflict between a moral and principled small guy against the uncaring and corrupt leviathan is a rightwing narrative.  How come these mavens of public communications seem to miss the obvious, and show up at events raising funds for ever bigger government programs and government roles in our lives?  Any answers out there?  (Maybe they know their grass roots constituents who buy the tickets aren't smart enough to catch on.)

Democrat presidential hopefuls are lining up to participate in Fox News townhalls.  They do this while they denigrate that network for being the embodiment of journalistic corruption and fakery.  Of course, we know why they are waiting their turn to be in front of FN audiences – because that’s where the viewers are that they must reach if they are to have a chance.  By all published numbers, FN and FB essentially rule the roost of broadcast TV, garnering not only the conservatives, but more importantly, attracting the middle-road viewers who know the kind of pabulum that is served up by Teams Maddow, Matthews, and Cooper.  But the DNC still will not trust Fox to host a debate between their presidential hopefuls.  Those events cannot afford to have questions asked by anyone outside of the reliably tethered lamestream.

[25apr19 update]  Union columnist Terry McLaughlin lists the litany of new taxes that the state’s Democrats are proposing in her 25apr19 ‘Who will fill California’s coffers without the 1 percent?’.  One of the more egregious taxes that is guaranteed to shift the ongoing exodus into high gear is the 40% death tax on the so-called minds of our progressive legislators.  Apparently they, along with the voters who sent them to Sacramento, don’t know that almost half of CA’s income taxes are paid by the 1%, and that 40% of the state’s residents don’t pay any income tax at all.  We are here talking about absolute stupidity, not to be confused with ignorance.  The latter can be corrected by education, the former cannot since it is cooked into your DNA.

Apropos the above, journalism, like the teaching profession, no longer (if ever) attracts the brightest bulbs on the tree.  All the media are still aspirating about the Mueller report contents viz Russia “attacking” our voting process.  Depending on their political leanings, each outlet emphasizes by implication (i.e. choice wordsmithing) whether these attacks had any influence on capturing the votes, securing the vote data, counting the votes, and/or tallying and reporting the results.  Of course, there is no evidence that Russia’s attacks had any influence whatsoever on the election, and Mueller said so.  But in their palaver, the dimwit talking heads (including on FN) don’t discriminate between ‘attack’ and ‘influence’ – one being the attempt, the other the achievement.  Dumbth now prevails.

Saint Thomas of Friedman, working the Lord’s vineyards at the NYT, has had another epiphany – border walls work.  Given the rabid objections to improving border security that he and his flock have made over the years, this revelation gives evidence that divine intervention is real and continues to work even in post-biblical times.  Now the task remains in how to turn their massive titanic of a narrative on this issue so that 1) it doesn’t acknowledge the prescient wisdom of our president, and 2) delivers this new missive to the alt-Left core and its national tendrils in a manner that communicates the saint’s primacy and the president’s silence on the matter.  It’s a challenging task, but not one beyond the kind they have handily managed before.

Welcome Lonesome Joe Biden into the Democrat presidential cauldron.  Absent any policy ideas that distance him from the looney left-fringe of the party, he will be fighting for the “soul” of America and, with that political cudgel, promises to beat Trump.  He is counting on the part of the electorate not concerned with public policies, but only focusing on the good feelies Joe will emit.  And make no mistake, Joe can do that better than any in the rest of the herd.  If they try to hold age against him (76), they will also have to take on Bernie (77) and Lizzy(69), two powerful mouths that have staked out strong positions in the pack.

The Dems will spend from here to eternity (or Trump’s loss in 2020) doing their best to hassle President Trump.  They know their platform has no chance at all in any government in which they don’t hold all of Congress and the Executive.  My free advice to Trump is to immediately set up a Counter-Strike Agency staffed by about 30 lawyers and analysts experienced in the ways of Washington politics.  CSA’s job is to relieve Trump’s regular WH administrative staff and cabinet departments from dealing with the crap coming from the House Dems.  These people have no other charter than doing deep research on the Dem leadership, generating counters to ongoing attacks, and presenting the president with alternative attacks that he can launch.

The Ugly Fat Kid is meeting with Vladimir in Vladivostok. Interesting that it took so long for this meeting to take place.  But the reason for it is the same as for all the other meetings – the UFK doesn’t want to have his brains blown out by someone from his circle of generals.  So here’s how it should go.  Vladimir: So what can I do for you?  UFK: I’m between a rock and a hard place, I need for you to tell everyone that Russia will guarantee the survival of my regime.  Vladimir: OK, so what do I get?  UFK: Anything you want that doesn’t piss off Xi too much.  Vladimir: Let me think about it and lay it out for Donald.  UFK: Do it.  Vladimir:  OK Don, now that you know what came down with the UFK, what do you think that I should do?  Don: That’s a no-brainer Vlad - guarantee his f*c%ing regime.  Tell him you’ll rain nukes down on my head if I do anything to kick his ass out of there.  We both want the bastard gone and the Korean peninsula under a strong government that is independent of Xi, who we know has eyes on your east Siberian resources.  We’ll do the rest from here with the guys in Seoul.  And we both know that you’re a lying sumbich and I’m a lying sumbich, so the UFK has no recourse when he starts screaming at you to fire the nukes, as you give him a shit-eating grin.  Capice?

Sandbox - 23apr19

[To impeach or not to impeach - that is the question.  BTW, it appears that the number of leftwing readers regularly contributing to comment streams now outnumbers those leaning to starboard.  We've always known that the Left are assiduous RR readers, but usually they don't want to debate their politics.  How did such an outrageous fortune afflict us?  gjr]

He is Risen!

George Rebane

Hearing that strong assertion, the Christian answers joyfully, ‘He is risen indeed!’

For us, Christmas is the promise, and Easter its fulfillment.  The summation of all Christianity is Christ’s covenant in the promised transcendence of Man, all concentrated into one simple declaration – ‘He is risen!’  Without this, our faith is a fraud; with it, Christianity promises Man to become an unending part of God’s love of all Creation.

(And for the humanist skeptics among us with a cosmological perspective, consider that many/most(?) world class scientists believe in some form of a higher intelligence which subsumes the universe we see.  Christians see this as their 'aseity of God', and for others - Steven Hawking, to Elon Musk - this is the belief that our universe is not the ‘base level’ of a computed and/or computable universe.  Consider what such an ontology portends. More here, here, and here.)

Civilian Militia Detains Illegals at Border

George Rebane

News reports tell of a civilian militia in New Mexico’s border region apprehending aliens who had just illegally crossed over from Mexico (here).  The authorities were called and the 300+ illegals were detained until the Border Patrol arrived to arrest and take custody of the aliens.  Such militias have operated in previous years – most recently during the Bush2 administration - to augment our under-staffed border security agencies in regions that are not secured by appropriate physical barriers.  Such interdictions by concerned civilians have always been a problem to law enforcement authorities and political leaders, especially politicians who embrace porous borders and encourage illegal entrants.  The reported incident drew the ire of New Mexico’s AG Balderas and the ACLU which immediately labeled the action “illegal”, and called for an investigation.

Throughout history it has been not only the prerogative, but the duty, of the citizens of a civil society to prevent criminal activity in their midst.  Whether as a member of a law enforcement unit or a civilian, when a citizen is witness to a crime being committed, it is his duty to do everything possible to either stop the crime in process and/or aid the authorities in the apprehension of the criminal(s).  When civilians have put themselves in harm’s way to either thwart crime or sacrifice themselves in the attempt, we have honored their courage and commitment to civil responsibility.  However, today when the culture of a community promotes/condones ignoring such responsibilities, then our society inevitably slides toward a Mad Max world, as daily witnessed in our inner cities, and now throughout major metropolises governed under policies that hew overwhelmingly to social orders promoted in leftwing ideologies.

Crossing our borders illegally violates several US Codes, and those illegal aliens doing so are deemed criminals under US law.  So the question arises, in this time of national emergency and humanitarian crisis when illegals are pouring into the US at rates exceeding one million per year, when our border authorities are overwhelmed in both staffing and detention facilities, when our legal system is totally dysfunctional and allows aliens to permanently escape and evade due process, is it not prudent for cohorts of concerned and willing Americans to augment the apprehension capabilities of our border security officers?  Would news of such civilian reinforcements operating in remote and porous border regions not dissuade most would be illegals from risking their and their families’ lives and wellbeing to attempt such dangerous crossings?

Or do we now catalog crimes into categories which are politically correct for civilians to thwart, and those crimes which are politically incorrect and cannot be thwarted even by duly sworn law enforcement agencies, and therefore most certainly not by citizens concerned about the future of their country?

The Mueller Report – some early takes (updated 20apr19)

George Rebane

The long-awaited report from special counsel Robert Mueller has turned out to be a disappointment on all counts to all sides.  The following summarize my initial take on it.

1. From a legal perspective, the report is an iconic nothing-burger. A 400-page embarrassment that documents the failure to conclude anything definite about the commissioned purpose for the drawn-out investigation.  It is a collection of legal pabulum as a CYA disguise for spending tens of millions over two years to no avail.
2. From the gitgo the Mueller investigation was an obviously composed effort to nail the president and derail his administration. The composition of the investigative team and its flailing, off-the-mark, subsequent indictments gave evidence that it really was a desperate witch hunt which had to fire off a few legal pyrotechnics now and then to keep the effort looking credible to the light thinkers.
3. From a political perspective, the report is a success. Since there was no credible prosecutorial evidence for either ‘collusion’ or ‘obstruction’, the investigation’s redoubt terminus was always to deliver a product that would dissemble its conclusions so as to invite and enable follow-on probes which the Democrats took every opportunity to specify during the 22-month fiasco.  Team Muller got its marching orders early and often from the Left and its lamestream.
4. President Trump and his administration have been isolated, perhaps, like no other administration in our history. The Dems could never accept the election results, and the Repubs have carried on a feckless relationship with a president who obviously was not their first choice from their retinue of available candidates.  And Trump’s incurable foot-in-mouth disease did not endear him to anyone in the Washington political establishment.  Mueller’s investigation was drawn out for the obvious collateral damage it was inflicting by hobbling and diverting Team Trump from governing.
5. Mueller’s work has also served 1) to firmly entrench the public’s longstanding opinion of the dodgy legal profession and our convoluted and corrupt justice system in which it operates, and 2) to highlight and further widen our country’s ideological divide. The report’s dearth of evidence and painfully wordsmithed syntax made sure that it would change no minds already secure in their beliefs about Trump’s guilt or innocence.  All sides can now put their own particular spin on it, and never look back.

WSJ Washington columnist Kim Strassel adds more meat to these points in her ‘Mueller’s Report Speaks Volumes’.

[20apr19 update]  Upon reflection on Volume 2 of the report dealing with obstruction, it strikes me as more than utter bullshit that would be below the standards of any other profession other than those populated mostly by sleazebag lawyers.  I add point #6.

6. “… while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.” A little thought immediately causes one to ask, ‘is there ANY investigation that cannot have such a codicil appended to its conclusion, should the investigator desire to leave a cloud over the individual investigated without the finding of any illegality or indictable criminality??’ To conclude with such an unnecessary assertion is an act of desperation which confirms that the investigation was carried out with an agenda unfulfilled.  Such a dangling innuendo strongly implies that guilt could yet be uncovered with more effort, and forces the so accused into having to prove his own innocence – not exactly the way our system of jurisprudence was intended to operate.  (That is one of the many reasons I assess our judicial system to be invitingly corrupt.)

In Mueller’s case he was not able to indict someone for not obstructing an unobstructed investigation that terminated without finding any evidence of an indictable crime.  About that the Dems are pissed to the gills, and will now do everything to correct the situation.  Go figger.

Sandbox - 18apr19

[Well boys and girls, let's all talk about the released Mueller report (here).  After explaining a year or two that collusion by itself is neither nefarious nor illegal, and conspiracy is surreptitious collusion with intent to harm, I smiled this morning as the NPR mavens awakened to that important distinction in their aspirations about AG Barr's talk and press conference this morning.  Your task, should you be so inclined, is to find in this entertaining aftermath even a smidgen of common ground for healing the land.  gjr]

Scattershots – 17apr2019 (updated 19apr19)

George Rebane

RR readers may recall that the two necessary pillars on which science rests are Occam’s razor and falsifiability.  The former selects the simplest theory that explains observations, and the latter requires every theory to contain propositions that, the subsequent falsification of which, will either negate or restrict the applicability of the theory.  Religions are belief systems that require compliance to neither.  Today progressivism is a secular humanist religion that has many belief tenets (propositions) which cannot be falsified.  Currently two of the more often cited are 1) Justice Kavanaugh is a sexual predator, and 2) candidate Trump conspired with the Kremlin in order to win the presidency.  Daily statements from the lamestream, progressive activists, and the Democratic leadership confirm that there neither is nor can be nothing that will change the verity of these tenets.

Apropos to the above, the asymmetry of the Left and Right in about every dimension of behavior in the public forum is familiar to most Americans.  It is denied by the Left that always seeks to attribute equally reprehensible actions from the Right anytime something obviously atrocious is carried out by the Left.  However, their ability to cite evidence – in either frequency, intensity, or participants – to back their claims is woefully lacking.  Today the rise of alt-Left socialism, as espoused by Democrats like Sanders, AOC, Warren, Harris, …, concerns the more established party leaders.  These leaders seek to discount their more radical brethren by identifying them as just the Left’s version of the Tea Party, the group they and their lamestream identify as being equally rightwing radical.  But again, there is no evidence presented; it is just a religious belief.  My recent invitation for local leftwingers to remedy this deficit (here) continues to be met with silence.

Free speech is dying at hands of corporatist giants on the internet.  Conservative leaning outlets like Daily Caller, Daily Signal, and Breitbart are being censored by social media giants and even banned as references on information sites like Wikipedia, as they, including Fox News, are accused of being hateful and sources of ‘fake news’.  There is no evidence for that; in fact, the evidence is exactly the opposite especially as concerns major stories that have dominated our attention for these last years – e.g. Trump’s Russia collusion, DoJ corruption, the glories of nationalized healthcare, and global warming.  Instead, outlets like CNN, MSNBC, NYT, and WaPo are being glorified (e.g. awarded Pulitzer prizes) for being demonstrable sources of fake news.  For example, it was they who kept spreading the collusion lie for over two years, and even today are doing their best to keep it alive.  They have done untold harm to the administration of Trump the candidate and then as the sitting president.  And by extension they have harmed America in our efforts to effect policies foreign, domestic, national security, and in world trade.  Being a progressive leftwing news outlet means never having to say you are sorry.

[18apr19 update]  ‘Afghanistan is our longest lasting war’ seems to be repeated more and more these days for purposes unknown or hazy at best.  In reality, it turns out to be a propagandized meme without moment.  The ‘war’ started in 2001 with our defeating the Taliban who had then been ravaging the country for some years while supporting Islamic terrorist organizations in the land they governed.  Over these last 18 years America has sacrificed fewer than 2,500 lives in conducting what at best can be called a simmering counter-terrorist operation.  To put this number in perspective, during this period over 9,300 Americans have been violently killed in Chicago alone.  And that number is multiplied several times when we include other bastions of our progressives’ prize-winning policies in cities like Baltimore and Los Angeles.  (It is there where we should concentrate our efforts to save American lives.)  During real wars in the 20^th century, America lost more than all of Afghanistan in one day as we assaulted the beaches of Europe and the Pacific.  The reality is that there will be an ongoing price that our military and their families must needs pay if we are to remain the world’s peace keeper and white hat hegemon.  Our overarching and abiding concern should be that such ongoing sacrifices will be made wisely, and only as the last resort to serve our country’s legitimate national interests.

[19apr19 update]  The climate change hysteria has developed all the trappings of a cult. I gave my Occam razor and falsifiability arguments above, and did not here make their connection to global warming strongly enough (although in previous posts this point has been much emphasized).  The cult connection has been detailed in a piece, ‘Climate Change and the Ten Warning Signs for Cults’, posted on Russ Steele’s blog (here).

Iconic Incoherence on ‘Immigration’

George Rebane

That is the best that can be said about ‘Trump’s approach on illegal immigration won’t solve the problem’ by columnist and one of our readers, George Boardman, in the 15apr19 Union.  He blithely blames the whole border security problem on President Trump “who created the current crisis” for political reasons.  Mr Boardman is known for his solidly established views from the left shoulder from which he occasionally forays to visit the center stripe.  But in this latest offering he ventures further into the weeds with claims such as –

• Trump has labeled “all illegal immigrants as criminals that threaten the security of the most powerful nation on earth.” (emphasis mine) Everyone knows that the most powerful nations cannot be so threatened.
• Trump is “siding with racist-driven hardliners who want to shut off all immigration, especially from Third World countries.” (emphasis mine, but who are these racist-driven hardliners?)
• After WW2 “the end of colonial rule didn’t deliver the promised benefits to Third World nations when the US became the economic powerhouse of the world.” (Where has this man studied?  All data show exactly the opposite – life in 3^rd world countries that embraced models of western governance made and continue to make enormous strides in all dimensions in quality of life for their citizens.  The culturally deficient suffered.)

Mr Boardman seems to be innocent of the more salient causes of illegal entry across our southern border.  Ted Kennedy’s role in launching chain migration and Third World preference quotas through his Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 is a major omission.  And nowhere does he even hint that the Democrats are the major beneficiaries of the increase of America’s Hispanic population – both illegal, and most certainly the ongoing illegal migrations.

In the middle of his piece Mr Boardman shows a welcome awareness that illegal migrant hordes do cost taxpayers somewhere in the $100-300B range annually.  And he correctly offers “that’s a high price to pay to fill agricultural and other low-paying jobs”, especially if we want to “retain the core values of America, and control our own destiny.”

However, knowledge of America’s governance should inform Mr Boardman that there is nothing Mr Trump or any president can do to solve our border crisis, save fulfill his constitutional duties to secure the nation and execute current immigration laws.  Congress, dominated by globalist anti-American Democrats, will not do anything to slow the migration of illegal aliens.  Today the Left is active in Mexico and central America through their NGOs, mega-sponsors, and activists forming up cohorts, numbering in the thousands of women and children, for the perilous journey north.  These migrants are motivated, not by Trump’s efforts to secure the border, but only by Democrat promises that our president will be thwarted from doing exactly that; and, that once across, only American taxpayer-sponsored succor and sanctuary awaits them.

Progressive propagandists like Mr Boardman (presumably) see none of this, else they are part of our Left’s openly pursued policies to create a post-American continent in whose history the United States will be seen as a sordid chapter of humanitarian insult, that will then have been corrected by the socially just march to inevitable socialism.

Sandbox - 14apr19

[Well, it looks like we may be able to settle the embarrassment of riches that the county should suffer from if we really do have 700K annual visitors to the South Yuba.  gjr]

Ruminations – 13apr2019 (updated 16apr19)

George Rebane

AG Barr will finally seek to hold the FBI accountable for their Obama era corruptions.  This has the Democrats screeching bloody murder for what they know will be revealed on the road to the 2020 elections.  WSJ’s Kim Strassel lays it all out – ‘Barr Brings Accountability’.

California’s critical 4^th grade academic rankings are in the toilet – 47^th in math, 46^th in reading, 46^th in science.  Assemblyman Kevin Kiley was punished in the California Assembly for making public the latest progressive follies in screwing the state’s school kids.  The bottom line is that progressives are lunatics when it comes to governance as they demonstrate total ignorance of how humans work – their needs and behaviors.  The only policies they propose, promote, and pass are those designed to enlarge government and give the Left ever more power over our lives.  (more here)

Our K-12 education is a national travesty

George Rebane

[This is the addended transcript of my regular KVMR commentary broadcast on 10 April 2019.]

The President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology tells us that in the next ten years the country will need, at a minimum, about 1M more STEM professionals than we will produce at our current rate.  Today there are already more than 2.4M unfilled STEM jobs.  It has been the innovators and workers in science, technology, engineering, and math who have made possible today’s quality of life, and it is they who will provide us the intellectual assets and infrastructure means to continue generating the wealth that, more than anything, will insure our future.

However, our public education industry is not doing much to support young people going into such careers.  In fact, there is ample evidence that most of our education professionals are fostering a future that will soon relegate the US into second world status on the global stage.  Today only one out of six high school graduates are proficient in STEM subjects and interested in a STEM career.  However, out of this small cohort who then enroll in STEM programs, only 2 out of 5 actually graduate with STEM degrees.  Most of our STEM students drop out because high school did not prepare them properly in science and math.

The cause of such deficits is now visible to all but the politically invested in Common Core, the latest whizbang curriculum to have come out of the mavens of progressive education.  Federally mandated Common Core has turned much of K-12 education on its head, abandoning the teaching methods and means that accelerated post-war America into the world’s technology powerhouse.  Today teachers are taught that they cannot teach science along with reading and arithmetic in the lower grades.  New Common Core compliant approaches like ‘Everyday Math’ forbid memorizing multiplication tables and reject the use of common algorithms for solving problems in favor of new and counter-intuitive ones that are hard to understand.

In short, effective science and math education has become extinct in our union-dominated public schools in which unqualified teachers literally foil millions of kids in their efforts to understand and enjoy science and math.  It is in such schools that kids are made to wade through dysfunctional instruction schemes in the early grades, after which they are not likely to stay interested in the more difficult subjects.  Even as this predictable and visible tragedy unfolds, all the experts continue to noisily pretend they are solving the problem.

Common Core also induces schools to defocus what is left of their STEM curricula by piggybacking various arts subjects, thereby adding the ‘A’ and making STEM into STEAM.  STEAM opens doors to further pedagogical perfidy and silliness by inviting courses like the recently announced “writing program for STEM students” developed by the University of Michigan.  It is clear that, with these professional pinheads from the education schools, anything goes except straight-ahead, proven STEM teaching methods.

Things have gotten so bad that Bill and Melinda Gates have already pulled their support of Common Core, offering a veiled apology for being the early and major supporter of this disastrous approach to K-12 education.  The Federalist reported that “Since 2009, the Gates Foundation’s primary U.S. activity has focused on establishing and implementing Common Core, a set of centrally mandated curriculum rules and tests for what children are to learn in each K-12 grade, with the results linked to school and teacher ratings and punitive measures for low performers. The Gates Foundation has spent more than $400 million itself and influenced $4T in US taxpayer funds (under the Obama administration) towards this goal. Eight years later, however, Bill Gates is admitting failure on that project, and a ‘pivot’ to another that is not likely to go any better.”

When we step back an take a broader look at what has happened to our ideologically-dominated public education from kindergarten through academe, it appears that things could not have gone more counter to America’s interests to continue as the global leader in technology, commerce, and maintaining the world order.  In sum, to millions of Americans, our education system appears and performs as if it were designed for us either in Beijing or in the Kremlin.

My name is Rebane, and I also expand on this and related themes on Rebane’s Ruminations where the addended transcript of this commentary is posted with relevant links, and where such issues are debated extensively.  However, my views are not necessarily shared by KVMR.  Thank you for listening.

[Addendum]  It’s also interesting and relevant to know some stats on how well our government schools are received by Americans.

1. 62% of Americans think education has gotten off on the “wrong track”.
2. 68% of middle-income earners vs 59% of low-income earners hold the ‘wrong track’ sentiment.
3. A plurality (42%) of Americans would choose private schools over public schools in selecting among types of schools. 28% would select a public school, while 11% would select a public charter school, and 10% would rather homeschool their children.
4. A solid majority (59%) favor charter school, and 23% oppose charter schools.
5. A majority of Americans (56%) support school vouchers vs 28% who oppose such vouchers.