Rebane's Ruminations

Ruminations – 23mar19 (updated 25mar19)

George Rebane

Thought I’d try something different on this cloudy and wet Saturday morning.  The Mueller report is in AG Barr’s hands, and from the early assessments it is a nothing burger for the TDS Dems.  If so, they are looking at it merely as a speed bump on the road to Trump’s impeachment, which we are assured will follow when the next tranche of “clear evidence” of some, any, wrongdoing will be dug up by the Left’s congressional witch hunts that have yet to get their second wind.  I’m going to hold back my sage assessment of the progress toward nailing the president before the 2020 election.

That China’s going to eat our lunch seems like a much more relevant issue to dwell on.  So argues AI expert and prominent VC Kai-Fu Lee in his AI Super-Powers – China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order (2019).  Lee, a Chinese national, has impressive credentials – Google’s speech recognition head, then chief of Google China, then major VC funding AI start-ups here and in China.  He goes into great detail outlining our two countries’ different approaches to AI/products development and marketing, and the mentality of the entrepreneurs involved.  The punchline is that China has caught up or soon will in all the major arenas of commercializing and researching AI.

A careful read between the lines, makes me think that Lee really wrote this book for China’s communist leadership, complete with data-supported observations, comparative analysis, and critiques of both countries’ government support of their AI sectors.  He makes a case for state-controlled support of China’s AI, while carefully outlining the weaknesses of lawless competition and a command research environment that’s not all that conducive for creativity.  He ends the essay with a very hopeful vision of how AI-induced systemic unemployment may be alleviated (yes, Lee flies in tight formation with Rebane Doctrine on several important fronts).  The only big hole that I saw that he ignores the fact that half of our workforces have 2-digit IQs, and therefore cannot be ‘upskilled’ to fill future jobs.  Lee sees them providing the human touch and delivering “love” in human2human caregiving work.  No matter, for those interested in the last great century of Man, this is a worthy read.

Sandbox - 20mar19

[The Dems want to bump up SCOTUS membership so that they can also have a majority in that branch of government, and do away with the Electoral College to "make every vote count", and give the Hormonal Hordes with WIP brains the vote.  And if that's not enough, then do away with the 1A and 2A, and, aw hell, just do away with the Constitution while we're at it.  The fundamental transformation of America as promised.  gjr]

NZ Massacre – the Left’s new perfect storm

“Conservatism is corporatism in disguise.  I want no part of it. … The nation with the closest political and social values to my own is the People’s Republic of China. … Conservatism is dead, thank God.”  Australian Brenton Tarrant, NZ shooter

George Rebane

The Christchurch massacre has been covered extensively and also received an initial go-through by RR commenters.  As always happens in the coverage of such massacres, they are characterized as ‘insane’, ‘the acts of a deranged person’, and ‘senseless killings’.  I have always thought that we’re missing something significant about these mass killings when we dismiss them as such.  Years ago, I gave my own take on these killers of the Islamic persuasion in ‘Of Ragheads and Racism’.  However, it should be clear that those sentiments are not restricted to terrorists of only one persuasion; there is a lot happening in this world which requires a wider and more detailed look.

Scattershots – 18mar19 (updated 21mar19)

George Rebane

Sen Liz Warren wants to reduce the size of big techs.  As we know, big corporations get that way and survive by practicing the fine art of corporatism.  That means essentially working with politicians and bureaucrats to buy competitive advantage through laws, regs, taxation, etc (all the ways that govt mangles markets) in exchange for contributing their monies through various channels to assure re-election success.  If Warren were an honest woman, she would know that corporations automatically resize themselves once you pull out the mechanisms of govt support.  IBM and GE discovered that for themselves.  There is nothing magical about big centrally controlled bureaucracies in the private sector being more efficient than the same organizational structures in government – both ultimately reach an inefficient size.  Corporations must suffer the uncompromising feedback from competitive markets, while governments – with the power of the gun – are immune to productive feedback and can keep on screwing up forever.  (more here)

TechTestJr 2019 was given on 5-6 March at the corporate campuses of AJA Video and Telestream (NC Tech Connection is also a corporate sponsor).  This year over 100 fifth through eighth graders took the STEM merit scholarship test which is sponsored and administered by the Sierra Economics and Science Foundation.  TTjr was launched eight years ago by Mr Mike McDaniel, and board member Mr David Pistone has been the director of TTjr for the last six years.  TechTest2019 for Nevada County juniors and seniors will be administered again this year on 30 March (9-1pm) in the NUHS Science Lecture Hall.  This is TT’s 13^th year as the county’s premier merit scholarship test for students heading for STEM majors in college.  The annual test is preceded by two seminars of which I gave the last one this past Saturday morning at NUHS.  (I have written the test and given these seminars since the beginning, and am now in the process of turning over the writing and reins of this project to younger turks.)  NUHS math teacher Mr Kevin Baker is the TT Academic Coordinator who will administer the test. (more here)

Union columnist George Boardman followed Clerk-Recorder and Registrar of Voters Greg Diaz off the rails with his 18mar19 column repeating the fake news with his “WHY DOES the Nevada County Tea Party want to discourage people from voting in the special election? Are they afraid the wrong Republican will win?”  This politically motivated error was covered in my last KVMR commentary, ‘Election Integrity – one more time’.  Mr Boardman’s insistence that he views our fables and follies “… from the center stripe” continues to bring a smile to those who can clearly see from which side of the road he continues to do his reporting.

[20mar19 update] Brainless Beto in the White House? Now there’s a jarring thought argued by David Marcus in The Federalist (here) “Beto O'Rourke looks a lot more like recent Democrats who won the White House than any other candidates. Don't underestimate him.”  And rubbing salt into such a wound, that lightweight promises to pick one of the Democrats’ female proto-communists as a running mate.  Can you imagine an O’Rourke/Warren or O’Rourke/Harris or … ticket?  Such a revoltin' possibility most certainly will cramp the cockles of me heart.

Reparations for blacks is on the Democrats’ marquee again.  All the usual collectivist congress critters are signing up for that proposal as a sure-fire way to insure the black vote in 2020.  Jason Riley asks “How can centuries-old oppression be to blame for problems that became sever only recently?” (here)  And no one dares mention the ‘reparations’ (e.g. Sec 8) that have been continually paid to blacks since the Great Society days, all to no avail as the Democrat mismanaged inner cities have become killing fields for drugs and crime, and home to millions of unmarried single moms trying to raise and educate their kids.  So we see once more how keeping them on the Democrats’ plantation works – they are always there, ready and willing, when their masters beckon with another manufactured social injustice.

[21mar19 update]  Democrats continue leftward march. The party is now starting to show some cracks as the more saner members try to put on the brakes.  In these parts the local lefties have been totally unaware of this massive ideological lurch which shifted into high gear under Obama.  These pages are replete with our leftwing commenters' arguments dunning the 'ignorance' of the conservative readers for not being aware that, according to their dim lights, the Dems have not moved, but it's been the Repubs who are drifting right.  This same knowledge base is amply reflected here in their other fractured assessments of the country's goings on.  Here' a hot flash for our lefties, the Repubs are also worried that their more mushy members are beginning to kowtow to the Dems' proto-communists. (more here)

Sandbox - 14mar19

[“USC, Yale University among colleges sued by Stanford students amid college admissions scandal” (more here and here)  Boys and girls, this is going to get big, real big.  gjr]

Election Integrity - one more time

George Rebane

[This is the addended transcript of my regular KVMR commentary broadcast on 13 March 2019.]

We have a special election coming up to fill the state’s Senate seat for District #1.  Nevada County is in District #1 and election day is Tuesday March 26^th.  This special election has again raised concerns about who may and how should people be able to vote.  Mr Greg Diaz, Nevada County’ s Clerk-Recorder and Registrar of Voters has stepped into the dialogue in a highly partisan manner for someone holding a non-partisan office.

He gave an unfortunate interview in the 12mar19 Union (here) in which he falsely characterized Nevada County Tea Party’s position on voting, claiming “I can't have it when someone's telling people not to vote, or not to vote their vote-by-mail ballot”, and stating that “Their true intent: is to make it more difficult for folks to vote.”  These highly political charges are wrong on all counts, since the Tea Party actually supports the advice and counsel of California’s Election Integrity Project, and clearly says that on its website (here).

Scattershots – 11mar19 (updated 14mar19)

George Rebane

Looking for national conspiracies?  Now here is one that involves everyone from George Soros through the DoJ/FBI to the DNC/Hillary.  “A dark money group with links to several high-profile liberal activists contributed $2 million to The Democracy Integrity Project, an organization founded by a former Dianne Feinstein staffer that has contracted with Fusion GPS and Christopher Steele to investigate President Donald Trump.” (more here)  But no one gives a hoot after the FBI’s historical public exoneration of Hillary after confirming that she did indeed break several laws dealing with national security and destroying subpoenaed evidence.

The EU’s socialist-burdened, debt-ladened countries have had a hard time taking advantage of the global upswing in business, and appear to be heading for a slowdown if not recession.  With low growth rates and still high unemployment, the continent added another harbinger as investors are exiting stocks and bidding up government bonds.  The German bund last Friday was paying 0.04% or essentially no interest as a safe haven for cash.  This, of course, sets up a vicious circle in which left-leaning countries regulate and tax their businesses to low profits, which causes their shares to be sold off, which reduces business expansion and hiring, which bids up bonds thereby lowering government debt service costs, which provides governments essentially free money to borrow and dispense into programs that grow bureaucracies and launch more programs of socialist largess, which makes the business climate even worse, which … .  Our Democrats are taking notes on how to replicate such policies on this side of the pond.

[12mar19 update]  Finland’s government collapses over healthcare costs (here).  Other Nordics are not far behind as has been reported here for some time now.  None of these socialist programs nationalizing this or that are sustainable – it’s only a matter of time when other people’s money runs out.  H/T to a Sandbox commenter for finding an early report of it.  You can bet the ranch that the lamestream will hide this as long as it can, and proto-communists like Bernie and AOC will lie through their teeth about the news.  Their solution will, of course, be even higher taxes (aka wealth redistribution).  We all await our progressive pundits’ response for an enlivening conversation; sure hope they don’t send in their cricket corps.

NPR’s Morning Edition today featured a segment on what our 2050 world will look like after we have stopped emitting CO2 and global warming has been stopped in its tracks.  The reporter was almost delirious with joy reporting from the future and looking back on what it took to get to the brave new world where people live in ‘stack & pack’ housing, suburbia was no more, private electric vehicles cost a lot, were taxed a lot, and all roadways charged dynamic fees to keep you using public transportation. That future world was envisioned quite accurately by Orwell’s 1984, and even portrayed more honestly in Pasternak’s Dr Zhivago.  Big suburban houses will repurposed for multi-family living, and standard houses will be home to 4-5 people sharing kitchen and bathroom facilities.  (The Rebanes lived almost five years in such lodgings after WW2.  See ‘My Story’)  What the report conveniently omitted was what draconian measures it would take for government to herd people into such warrens and then keep them from revolting, and what would happen to the economy when taking risks was no longer rewarded, or even allowed by central planners and controllers.

[14mar19 update]  Second Amendment attack by Connecticut's Supreme Court in ruling that manufacturer of the Sandy Hook AR-15 can be sued. (more here) This is more than a gun control nose under the 2nd Amendment tent.  If this ruling is allowed to stand, then where will this kind of rogue litigations stop?  The implication is that the manufacturer of a tool legally made for legal use can be held accountable for its illegal uses.  What then of knife makers, or hatchet makers, or baseball bat makers, or rat poison makers, or rope makers, or even manufacturer of a car used by a terrorist or drunkard to kill people?  What then of the item's distributors and dealers?  You get the idea.  'The Left is evil' gets another confirming check mark.

The Amygdala Struggles (updated 10mar19)

George Rebane

Peggy Noonan (8mar19 WSJ) draws a useful parallel between Mao’s 12-year Cultural Revolution and the present-day antics of the Blue Mobs on campuses and our streets.  Both roilings have involved pre-intellectual young people, mostly students in each country’s academe.  And both sought/seek to banish politically incorrect traditions, customs, learning, behaviors, and thinking.  Mao’s revolution followed a devastating famine, brought on by his extremely ignorant economic policies, which reportedly killed Chinese in the high tens of millions by several post-Mao accountings.  (Liberal media have since sought to reduce that number down to the low millions.)

And today as then, both types of ‘gatherings’ with shouting throngs of young people were directed to identify and publicly shame those politically incorrect who sought to speak, comment, write, or attend in places their betters identified as being out of bounds.  These ‘struggle sessions’ (Chinese term), conducted by the youth who became the Red Guards, would take place in streets, conference halls, legislative chambers, classrooms, administrative offices, and wherever else such targeted people could be found, hounded, transported, or summarily executed.  As then, today the so-accused also have learned to quickly admit their guilt in the attempt to limit added opprobrium.  Leading the currently accused by the hard-Left are self-deprecators from the ranks of Democrat politicians like Kirsten Gillibrand and Joe Biden who have quickly pled ‘guilty as charged’ and recanted.

Sandbox - 8mar19

Quo Vadis Nevada County? (updated 8mar19)

George Rebane

Actually, Nevada County is going nowhere now that it has adopted ‘San Francisco values’ to contribute to the state’s new appellation as the ‘Far Left Coast’ described by Dr Charles Kesler, professor of government at Claremont McKenna College.  Our Democrat controlled state has seen a steady decline that has recently accelerated as a one-party state with super-majorities everywhere you look.  The last election gave us what can only be called Democrat hyper-majorities that are kicking our adoption of socialism into high gear.  Kesler observes –

The Democrats’ crushing dominance allows them to use California as a progressive policy laboratory. As a result, the state has the highest welfare numbers (a third of all Americans on welfare live in California), the largest contingent of illegal immigrants, a burgeoning homeless population, onerous regulations on business and private property, mediocre public schools, high income taxes (the highest marginal rate is 13.3%) and sales taxes, a yawning gap between rich and poor, its own summer blend of expensive gasoline, bedraggled and crowded roads to punish people further for driving, and a widely mocked high-speed rail boondoggle. (more here)

Not to be a laggard in the race to the Left, Nevada County progressives today are promoting programs that promise to put us at the bottom of the bottom in the state.  It appears that the only community-wide programs and policies we encourage are those designed to attract the poorest, most indigent, homeless, substance abusing, and least educated.  In the latter case the Nevada Joint Union High School District has announced that it will cut the last Advanced Placement Calculus course from its curriculum due to declining enrollment, explaining that "We are not trying to push students to move too fast in math, as the experts in the field have placed greater value in foundational algebraic skills."  According to Dan Frisella, NJUHSD Assistant Superintendent, “the state created new standards five years ago that put a higher emphasis on slowed progression in mathematics. The result was supposed to bring long-term success in the subject.” (more here)  Well, guess what? - their experts’ “result” ain’t doing no such thing; we are instead skidding downward according to state rankings.

Having worked with many of the county’s top STEM students for the last twelve years, I can confirm that the last concern NJUHSD should have is moving their students too fast in math.  The adoption of Common Core has dunned the state’s public education system in more ways than we can count and have covered in these pages.  The result of all this dumbing down of curriculum and tests is that grade school has become an extension of kindergarten, high school has become an extended grade school, and most lower division college curricula are now remediation high schools.  For students already here who desire to pursue STEM careers, they are being told to shift for themselves and find alternative educational outlets in order to find courses that prepare them for the higher education they need to compete in the job markets.

In the meantime, our leftwing political leadership in the county continues to tout their dedication to attracting businesses, high-tech, and middle-class families to these foothills.  However, what they actually promote are programs that “(divert) resources toward students in need of more help, which is a growing population, according to the district.  ‘Forty percent of our students come from low socio-economic status backgrounds, are English language learners, foster youth or homeless youth.’”  It is easy to see what kind of population the county is working to attract, and even easier to see how this cements a voting majority that will continue importing SF values and help insure the permanence of the Democrats’ hyper-majorities in Sacramento and across the state. 

Does any of this give anyone looking at Nevada County reasons why they would want to come here to start a cash-importing business or raise their family?

[8mar19 update]  It appears that the NJUHSD did not terminate the entire AP Calculus offering at NUHS.  The Union published this “clarification” on their website –

Clarification: The entire AP Calculus program was not cut. While AP Calculus BC was phased out at Nevada Union, AP Calculus AB is still ongoing.

However, given what Democrat-controlled Sacramento has done over the decades and continues to inflict on the Golden State, this rollback of STEM curriculum is still part and parcel of both the symptom and expression our state’s progressive disease.

As Nevada County stagnates and our remaining businesses bring in fewer dollars, the maintenance of our quality of life falls more and more on the tenuous tourist business and that silent cohort of resident retirees.  It is the retirees who so generously give of their time, talents, and treasure to support our community services, eateries and other local businesses, and cultural institutions by volunteering, serving on boards, and writing big checks.  And for that contribution to the community, these major cash importers and generous consumers are the same people who tread gently and require so little in return from our city and county governments.  Were these successfully retired residents to be driven out by the ever more visible SF values on our streets, alleys, and surrounding forests, there would be a run on 4x8 sheets of plywood.

Sandbox - 3mar19

[No more swallows on RR.  gjr]

Ruminations - 3mar19 (updated 6mar19)

George Rebane

California's ruling families.  Well, here are some interesting links among the Browns, Newsoms, Pelosis, and Gettys on the goings on in California politics.  It appears to be a very cozy bunch.  I invite our leftwing brethren (and cistern) to counter any of the presented facts - in short, shoot down the message and ignore the messenger.

The UFK's knowledge of Warmbier's death is independent of the US declaring that NK was responsible for a reprehensible violation of human rights, and neither can be characterized as heaping "lavish praise" on the Ugly Fat Kid.  Why is that such a difficult concept to parse in our national dialogue?  Could it be that there might be some anti-Trump cynicism involved?

Nuclear power is the answer, a persuasive argument by Michael Shellenberger of the Environmental Progress in his ‘Why Renewables Can’t Save the Planet’.  This is something we techies have known and been able to demonstrate for some time now.  Shellenberger, a dedicated environmentalist, adds some more reasons why the politically powered renewables industry has the potential of actually destroying the planet, and (seatbelts please) even climate scientist Hockeystick Hanson has calculated that nuclear power has saved 2M lives to date that would have been lost to air pollution had that power been generated by fossil fuels.  The piece is worth a read, especially by those who have been making a living on the government's renewable energy subsidies tit.

[4mar19 update]  Globotics Upheaval by Richard Baldwin is about today's growth of systemic unemployment and asks “How do we cope with a sudden trade-related loss of jobs that can’t be stopped with quotas or tariffs? How do we keep society together when most employment in the information, service and financial sectors can abruptly be shifted abroad to workers earning much lower wages? And how do we deal with the anger that is likely to swell as articulate, well-educated people find their skills devalued by technological changes that they cannot escape? These are questions Mr. Baldwin deserves credit for raising.”  Well, longtime RR readers know that Baldwin and his reviewer Marc Levinson are members of a cadre with high-falootin’ credentials, all of whom today are about 15 years late in recognizing and becoming concerned about this pre-Singularity ‘upheaval’.

[5mar19 update]  A reader sent me a link to a Brookings Institute site that has a lot of tables and graphics which are compiled under 'A vast majority of counties showed increased support in 2018 House election'.  The data presented, if it holds, does not look good for Republicans in 2020.  Which again makes me think of Jefferson's 'A nation ignorant and free ...'.

[6mar19 update]  The lamestream is finally reporting the national crisis at the border, but without actually calling it such.  For months the Border Patrol et al have been reporting record numbers of illegal aliens, including families, penetrating the border and being arrested.  The number who evade capture are unknown.  But now Congress is taking testimony from people like Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin MacAeenan who reports that our ability to handle the border’s illegal traffic is now overwhelmed, and “the situation is not sustainable”.  Meanwhile, our anti-American Left along with a congressional cadre of useful idiots keep telling the country that there is no national emergency. (more here and here)

“It’s very clear that the president obstructed justice.” Claimed Jerry Nadler, House Judiciary Committee chairman, adding that “we don’t have the facts yet” and that’s why “impeachment is a long way down the road.”  Conclusion first, supporting facts later. Adam Schiff is the like-minded Red Queen of the House Intelligence Committee who is already certain that Mueller screwed up by not finding any evidence of Russia collusion, and to him TrumpJr’s meeting with the Russian lawyer in Trump Tower is evidence enough that Donald and Vladimir threw the 2016 election.  We notice the same tack of evidence-free conclusions routinely taken by our leftwing readers in these pages. (more here)

'Investigations over economy' is the Dems’ strategy for 2020 reports Jason Riley of the WSJ and Manhattan Institute.  The progressives are totally bereft of any productive national policies at which thinking people don’t cringe, so their strategy is to create enough dust and fog to overwhelm any news of the country’s continuing economic progress under Trump.  Somewhere Team Nancy cum Chuckie decided that since they can’t put a cork into the Left’s butt-stupid, socialist initiatives like Green New Deal and Medicare for All, they have to raise the noise level in their compliant fake news channels with the only thing they have left – congressional investigations in the House.  (more here)

Great Divide – it’s a’comin’

George Rebane

The Democrats have re-outed themselves as the resurrection of the Socialist Party of America, now with detailed near-term policy objectives to make the country into a socialist state over the next two decades.  To achieve this, their plan calls for the certain election of a proto-socialist President in 2020, with a supportive Congress to follow directly.  The only thing standing in the way is the re-election of Donald J Trump, and this possibility has driven the Democrats and their media lackeys into a state of political hysteria not witnessed in the history of our republic.

The Democrats are justifiably convinced that the only way to get one of their own into the White House is to prevent President Trump from completing his first term in office, and to do it in such a way as to deny the country any additional beneficial policies like those he fostered during the last two years.  In the process, perhaps the biggest lie from the Democrats circles around their constant narrative that Main Street and the poor have not benefited at all from Trump’s policies, and only the ‘rich’ have enjoyed this president. 

The Left knows that Americans are very focused on the President’s walk and not his talk.  The other countless lies from the Left maintain that no one likes the man, Americans don’t like what he’s done, and they don’t like what he will do going forward.  Were that really the case, then leftwing politicians such Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Elijah Cummings, Adam Schiff, and Mad Max Waters would not have to continue making fools of themselves every day in front of the cameras; believing their own words, they could just lay low, continue to introduce socialist legislation, and watch The Donald self-destruct.  But that clearly is not the case, and they are all sanitarily scared that the electorate will sense the truth if they tone down their investigative histrionics – no, no, no, the Cavalcade of Diversions must go on.  (BTW, one of RR’s favorite historians and observers of the nation’s churn is coming out (5mar19) with A Case for Trump, his new book that confirms and expands the points made above.)

In the meantime, more and more people today see the fiscal and social havoc that the progressives have created across the country, especially in states like New York, New Jersey, Illinois, and poster-child California.  Victor Davis Hanson addresses our home state in his 27feb19 ‘California’s Rendezvous With Reality’ that pretty much destroys the la-la land lies with which the state’s progressives are trying to paint over each of the new social, environmental, regulatory, and fiscal cracks that continue to widen.

In concert with this national charade, even some of the more observant on the Left are beginning to understand that our ship of state is no longer holding a steady course into the future.  Even progressive thinkers are beginning to consider new political configurations for the United States.  These governing structures range from new breakaway states, through “mega-regions” based on coherent economies (here), to political units hearkening back to the historical city-states of Europe (here).

However, as we continue to shout past each other in the manner much documented in these commentaries and comment streams, the Great Divide debates are starting to embrace a new and more ominous timbre.  Two WaPo reporters have noticed that pundits from both sides today see the country at loggerheads that have not been witnessed since 1860, the eve of our previous ‘civil war’.  When considering the prospect of a shooting war, a recent poll found that “more than 40 percent of Democrats described such a conflict as "likely," compared with about 25 percent of Republicans.”  Even our venerable VDH has voiced his portents, asking, "How, when, and why has the United States now arrived at the brink of a veritable civil war?" (more here)

(H/T to readers and correspondents who share my concerns.)

Scattershots – 28feb19 (updated 2mar19)

George Rebane

Trump won big in Hanoi.  By walking away with a smile when the Ugly Fat Kid overreached by offering to give some to get all, our president maintained his creds and caused the UFK to call a midnight news conference to claim a misunderstanding – ‘No, no, no, we didn’t demand that all the sanctions be lifted.’  Bullshit; Trump would never have left had not the UFK overplayed his hand.  Now, with visions of a prosperous Vietnam in his head, the UFK will be ready for some real give and take – I predict that he will seek the next meeting before the end of this year.  In the meantime the friendly parting will maintain the UFK’s good behavior – no testing.  All in all, a brilliant piece of foreign policy with a country that for 60+ years no other president has made any progress.

RR has concluded early and often (here) that our Millennials are America’s dumbest generation – both they and their parents were ‘educated’ in leftwing unionized public schools.  That most of them now view socialism favorably over open market capitalism gives abundant testimony that they will readily vote America into tyranny.  The culmination of dumbth indeed.

Union columnist Terry McLaughlin reminds us (here) in detail of how biased and one-sided are our lamestream media.  After two years of investigating Trump’s supposed “collusion” with Russia to throw the 2016 election, on 12feb19 NBC reported, “After two years and interviewing more than 200 witnesses, the Senate Intelligence Committee has not uncovered any direct evidence of a conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia. That's according to sources on both the Republican and the Democratic side of the aisle."  During this time the lamestream devoted more than 36 hours of intense coverage attempting to convince America that the evidence for collusion existed and was about to be released.  Instead of banner headlines for this announcement, all the lamestream outlets together basically ignored the bipartisan announcement from the Senate committee.  “But just take a moment to sit back and compare 2,202 minutes of media coverage of potential collusion with Russia — with supposedly unbiased journalists accusing a sitting American president of misconduct, lack of patriotism, impeachable offenses, or worse — to the less than one minute of coverage within the first 48 hours of an announcement that no evidence has actually been uncovered in a serious two-year bipartisan investigation, and it is abundantly clear why many Americans have lost faith in the honesty and trustworthiness of the media.”

Harvard law professor Cass Sunstein, our favorite manager of the masses (here), has a new book On Freedom.  There he argues that too much freedom is really not all that good for us – “What if people do not know how to find their way?” - that certain unnamed elites should really be in positions to mercifully limit our choices to only the proper ones, and then “nudge” us to the correct one before we stray too far from the social ideal, this to be prevented by structuring the country’s “choice architecture”.  While Big Brother looms large in the background, Sunstein never quite explains “which of us deserves the exalted position to design and impose nudges on others, and for what ends?” (more here)  But not to worry, after the Green New Deal gets into gear, Bernie, Nancy, Chuck, and AOC will know exactly how to set up such ‘exalted positions’; all we have to do is vote correctly in 2020.

Italy will offer Universal Basic Income real soon now.  They’re going to make up the shortfall for all people earning less than their poverty threshold – but wait!  If you subsequently get a job or a better paying job, then the government will cut back you UBI payments to the extent that your earnings exceed that threshold.  Now that brilliant tactic is really going to motivate people to go work and get paid less. (more here)  Finland already had to roll up its experiment with UBI because people got real used to living on unearned handouts and only put forth effort in the black markets to increase their (untaxable) incomes.  To their benefit, even a bunch of Italy’s leftwing politicians are worried about this UBI’s impact on the national fisc which, next to Greece, is Europe’s shakiest.  The UBI was ushered in by the electorate voting for socialist Luigi Di Maio who was able to marshal Italy’s byzantine legislative machinery to launch their UBI.  That’s what enough not-too-bright voters and socialists candidates can do – given our Millennials, along with Bernie, Liz, and Kamala, we should not be too sanguine when next year rolls around.

[2mar19 update]  The crippling counters by our leftwing politicians and courts to stopping illegal entrants and contraband is having the predicted impact – more people than ever are climbing border fences and walls.  Government stats cite “The proportion of foreign nationals attempting to cross the border illegally rather than reporting to legal ports of entry has risen in the past year, according to the data. Those crossing illegally made up 73 percent of all border crossings from October 2017 to January 2018 and then rose to 83 percent for the same period of time ending on Jan. 31, 2019, NBC News reported Friday.” (more here)  Why’s that?  Well, we all know that most entrants claiming asylum don’t have a leg to stand on, and before Trump they were admitted at legal crossing points, told to appear in a US immigration court at some future date, and then turned loose never to be seen again.  Today we tell such asylum seeker to stay in Mexico until their court date comes up.  But the overwhelming share of them know they can’t qualify for asylum, so they go back to Mexico and then attempt illegal crossings somewhere down the line where they think the border is most porous.  Today they’re coming in over such porous spots at just the underside of a million a year because we can't do the right thing and build the needed wall/fence border security infrastructure.  And the anti-American Left continues to trumpet through their lamestream outlets that this does not constitute a national emergency.  (BTW, the size of an army division is about 15,000 troops.  At 80,000 illegal entrants per month, that is like an invasion force of five divisions each and every month.  And we haven’t even started reviewing the growing dollar cost of illegals in the country.)

America’s education - mandated and biased (updated 2mar19)

George Rebane

[This is the addended transcript of my regular KVMR commentary broadcast on 27 February 2019.]

Many and perhaps most young people today have a very jaundiced view of America, capitalism, Christianity, and western civilization in general.  Instead, all across the country and especially in the academe, they have come to embrace ideas about the benefits of collectivism – especially socialism – and societies that emphasize group identities and a world order in which group membership, especially if in one of the aggrieved groups, is paramount.  Individualism, personal freedom, and entrepreneurships that promise riches are on the wane.  How did we arrive at such a societal junction from which all roads lead to a fundamentally transformed America, one that will share little with what our Founders bequeathed us, and with the system that made us the envy of the world?

Political leaders, from constitutional monarchies to communism, answer that such rapid changes in outlook and attitudes can only come from the educational system governments adopt and impose – as the twig is bent, so grows the tree.  And in the last half century there has been a lot of twig bending going on in America’s schools, and the clear evidence indicates that all the bending has been leftward.  Let’s look at three seemingly disparate facets of such evidence.

CA GOP RIP (soon)

George Rebane

Last week I attended a candidates’ luncheon put on by the NC Republican Women Federated, undeniably the most active and productive party organization in the county.  Featured were the four candidates running for State Senate from our district – Brian Dahle, Rex Hime, Kevin Kiley, Theodore Dziuba.  Each a fine gentleman, and each gave good account of themselves during their turn at the mic.  When Q&A time came, my card was one of those drawn for the candidates to answer – ‘What plan does the CA Republican Party have for its resurgence in the state?’

None of the four knew of any such plan, and each spent their time rehashing pabulum for the assembled that we must all work harder for the 2020 election to seat more Republicans – and this was right before the party’s big statewide convention this past weekend.  On a follow-up question I pointed out that statewide and local Dems were organized to a tee, demonstrating every issue at every opportunity, prominent in the media, harvesting voters at the grass roots level, and in general eating our lunch.  The candidates' individual responses could be summed by ‘Well yeah, we could do that also.’  Most attendees were a bit aghast at such a presentation by local party stalwarts.

The CA Democrats’ super-majorities in all things political has pretty much stunned the Republicans, and the malady seems to have spread statewide.  Edward Ring, co-founder of the California Policy Center, has posted ‘California’s GOP Plays It Safe, When Safe Equals Death’, which may be considered as a pre-post-mortem for the CA GOP.  (H/T to correspondent)

Longtime RR readers are aware of my litany of criticisms about how the CA Republican Party has been organizing the state’s conservatives and libertarians to stand up and promote their values and vision for America’s future and the revival of our Golden State. 

Sandbox - 26feb19

[The NCAA now allows transgender females to compete in women's track events, and soon other sports.  The big concern that needs to be addressed is not that the transgenders are setting new records for women, but that this makes no never mind to the officials now fashioning this new sports world, “Focusing on performance advantage is largely irrelevant because this is a rights issue. We shouldn’t be worried about trans people taking over the Olympics. We should be worried about their fairness and human rights instead.” (more here)  gjr] 

Scattershots – 25feb19 (updated 26feb19)

George Rebane

In ‘America’s Second Civil War’ by Dennis Prager, he makes the case of the Great Divide stating that, save for slavery, Americans are further apart in how they think about their country and in which direction should be its future, than during the “First Civil War” in the 19th century.  He writes in Townhall.com that “Liberalism -- which was anti-left, pro-American and deeply committed to the Judeo-Christian foundations of America; and which regarded the melting pot as the American ideal, fought for free speech for its opponents, regarded Western civilization as the greatest moral and artistic human achievement and viewed the celebration of racial identity as racism -- is now affirmed almost exclusively on the right and among a handful of people who don't call themselves conservative. … The left, however, is opposed to every one of those core principles of liberalism. … Like the left in every other country, the left in America essentially sees America as a racist, xenophobic, colonialist, imperialist, warmongering, money-worshipping, moronically religious nation.”  This has been a seminal part of Rebane Doctrine and the RR commentaries that have expanded on these points over the years.  This message will continue here as long as it is allowed to be published.

Gov Gavin Newsom is part of the leftwing clatch that supported CA’s bullet train to nowhere and blew billions in its abortive and aborted construction.  CA having violated literally every part of the agreement with the feds for getting dollars from Washington, Trump now has stopped further funding and wants to claw back what the state has fraudulently received.  Newsom unabashedly lies in stating that the state has complied, and is really not stopping the project, but merely reducing its scope to have it now go from nowhere to nowhere on the remaining funds. (more here)  Ultimately he’ll have to go back to CA voters for more money, and he’ll probably get it from a now-dominant Democrat electorate, most of whom don’t pay very much or any taxes.  To them it will all be OPM from the greedy rich.

Edelman Intelligence conducted a recent poll which revealed that “53% of California residents are considering leaving the Golden State because of the high cost of living.” A higher share (62%) of “respondents said they believed the best days of California were in the past.” (more here and here)  This in the face of a continuing barrage of leftwing lies telling us that the state is in fine fettle with all the right-thinking people happy dancing in the streets.  As also witnessed on these pages, the progressives maintain that only the narrow-minded, ignorant conservatives are disgruntled because the Republican party has become irrelevant in Sacramento and major metropolitan areas.  People voting with their feet tell a different story.

Trump and the Ugly Fat Kid will meet again, this time in Vietnam, to continue talking about North Korea’s 'denuclearization', a concept yet to be defined by the parties.  And you can bet the ranch that their current definitions are not even close.  Here’s my take on Trump’s plan forward.  He knows the UFK cannot give up his nuclear program for the simple reason that he and his family will then be killed by the high level echelon of generals that surrounds him (because they and their families will also live only so long as the regime survives, otherwise they too will be dead meat).  So Trump will be satisfied to continue these talks, claiming progress as long as NK doesn’t resume missile flights and underground testing.  When he leaves office and a more weaker-looking Democrat (a la Obama) takes over, the UFK will immediately resume testing and threatening that will bring the world to the brink again, and also solidify his grip on his regime.  At that point Trump and the Repubs will point out that it was their clever foreign policy that kept the world safe, and now look what’s happening with the naïve Dem leadership in power.  This will be known as Trump’s Grand Ropadope to avoid war on the Korean peninsula for which no one seems to have a stomach.

[26feb19 update]  Henderson’s population surges past Reno’s as Californians arrive in droves to escape taxes, fees, regulations, and prices (especially for living units).  The numbers are truly amazing as again reported in ‘As California Loses People, a Las Vegas Suburb Grows’.  California’s small net population growth is made possible by an equally massive influx of immigrants and illegal aliens, and a high birthrate contributed by resident minorities.  Progressives are the only political segment of California’s population that is totally sanguine if not celebratory about this demographic dynamic.  The rest of us chickens continue wondering how long the state can carry on with an ever smaller cohort of highly taxed wealth generators.

None dare call it treason

George Rebane

‘Microsoft workers’ letter demands company drop Army HoloLens contract’.  Microsoft “workers” (not employees) are the latest of progressives working at high tech companies to protest doing work for the DoD in defense of America.  Other companies like Google have already turned down defense work in which they could make a significant contribution to national security.  (H/T to reader)

This marks the latest twist in the country’s downward spiral from global exceptionalism and hegemony.  The 75-year Pax Americana is rapidly coming to an end as other bad actors in the world see how our younger generations, especially those with STEM and related skillsets, have been ideologically fashioned in over two generations of leftwing schools and academe.  Lenin’s words, “Give me just one generation of youth, and I'll transform the whole world.”, have never sounded truer as they ring across the land.  And we have given him two generations, and are now beginning to reap the fundamentally transforming whirlwind.

Employees who make such demands actually evoke two important notions about our 21^st century social order.  First, that such people mean to withhold strategically valuable skills from contributing to the defense of the order that made possible their education, jobs, and general well-being.  And because such skills are not easily attained by the population at large, these people have a special responsibility to their fellow citizens who work in supportive industries and non-tech fields providing their support for the sustenance of America, and thereby deservedly enjoying their globally-preeminent quality of life.  And finally, these STEM workers contribute materially to creating the wealth that enables us to care for our poor and indigent at levels that are the envy of the world.

The second aspect to notice about such a presumptuous protest letter from a company’s employees is that they actually believe in the collectivist (socialist/communist) principle that workers at a private company have the intrinsic right to specify and “demand” what work the company will and will not do.   In a country founded on the principles of free markets, capitalism, entrepreneurship, and individual liberties, telling someone else what they may or may not do legally with their property is an abhorrent concept and a blatantly deplorable behavior.  Hundreds of thousands of Americans have died to keep our land from coming under such mob rule.

If a private sector employee does not like the work his employer legally undertakes, he has the alternatives to resign, to respectfully request that management changes policy, or suck it up and continue trading his labor for wages in a professional manner.  His employer does not operate a charity, a psychobabble support group, or an enterprise to satisfy someone’s concept of ‘common good’.  An employee’s job is sustained only to the extent that it contributes to the enterprise being able to attract and serve a sufficient customer base in a highly competitive marketplace.

These lessons have been absent from our schools for over a half century.

Unsustainable Socialism

If it hasn’t happened, it won’t happen. - Progressive shibboleth

George Rebane

The conversation hereabouts circles the ‘sustainability of socialism’ barn as regularly as turning the pages of a calendar.   Ever since the French revolution we have always lived with socialists who in past years were harder to spot, at least until Marx and Bastiat published their pro- and con- apologies.  In those years socialists living in capitalist countries did their best to hide their socio-economic credos as they sought to fashion public policy, and letting the word ‘socialism’ be connected with their proposals was the ultimate taboo and an almost certain kiss of death.

Not so any more.  We are now almost 50 years into a public education system the common thread of which has been to turn out socialist-friendly graduates.  Most recently this subterfuge has been replaced with the educators’ blatant promotion of socialism accompanied by a revised history that strongly recommends it to young minds.  And so today we have at least two generations of 'educated' voters who are convinced that everything anti-socialist they hear in the public forum is fomented by the rightwing fascisti and their greedy capitalist running dogs.

Sandbox - 19feb19

[I think it's profitable to continue the discussion about how the progressive Left is certain about President Trump's unsuitability for office in light of his domestic and foreign policy record, and the record of investigations that to no avail have sought to nail him.  And in light and in spite of this record, how our Left has become more confident that all their evidence-free allegations and more are true beyond the need for any further substantiation. gjr]

Border Security’s True Colors (updated 20feb19)

George Rebane

For some years I have been pointing out to readers that America’s Left has a totally different outlook on the function of US borders, especially the one with Mexico.  I don’t claim to be flying solo in this interpretation, since several nationally prominent commentators of the Right have expressed their similar views and continue to do so today.  The bottom line on this observation, with loads of supporting citations, is that our Left sees the southern border as the perfect political tool for their work in the fundamental transformation of America into the peerage of socialist states preparing for the globalist future.

This objective could not have been more clear than what was reported by host Scott Simon on NPR’s Weekend Edition this morning.  The program regularly presents segments promoting progressive causes and viewpoints.  Today their daily anti-Trump dump featured an interview with Gil Kerlikowske, US Customs and Border Protection Commissioner under President Obama.  The entire message was of a piece in which Mr Kerlikowske strongly maintained that Trump’s declaration of a national emergency at our southern border is a gratuitous political stunt to get money to build “his wall” because in reality there is no emergency at our Mexican border. (more here)

Kerlikowske then went on to outline some stats stating that the real emergency existed in 2000 when more than 1.2M crossed the southern border, and today only 400K are coming across annually, thereby making such yearly ingress of illegals most certainly not an emergency but more like business as usual.  He also pointed out that most of our drugs come in surreptitiously through legal ports of entry, and therefore we shouldn’t concern ourselves with the lesser amount of drugs coming in across fences and rivers.

The only problem he saw with today’s border operations is that there are not enough immigration judges to hear all the illegal aliens’ pleas to become permanent US residents.  During the entire course of the interview – one like so many others with leftists – there was not even a hint of hundreds of thousands of illegal border crossings being evidence of a border security problem.  The Left’s only existential and acknowledged problem is that these illegal entrants couldn’t be processed fast enough to get their permits to stay here.  In the de juris case then, these people can now be formally designated as ‘illegal immigrants’ because by allowing them (inviting them?) to readily cross our border, the US government has entered into the required, albeit de facto, two-party agreement with them as acknowledged immigrants.

So think about it.  The Democrats have stepped out with a clear pronouncement that today it should be our accepted policy that 400K unvetted illegal aliens should be able to easily cross our border and enter our broken immigration system which has been purposely maintained only to build and buttress the Dems' voting pool, and, more importantly, increase its immediate representation in Congress.

Few people understand the real reason the Dems oppose an accurate census of US citizens as required by the Constitution.  We have adopted the custom of allocating seats in the House of Representatives on the basis of a state’s share of the country’s residents, NOT its citizens – although being a citizen is still a requirement for voting, but the Dems are working hard to also remove that ‘barrier to democracy’.  So grab an envelope and do the numbers.  It’s not hard to see that with concentrations of illegals in big population ‘sanctuary’ states, the number of representatives for already leftist states like California will increase.  And these seats will be filled by leftwingers, voted in by an ever-DECREASING share of franchised Democrat voters from each congressional district.  But no one understands this, the confusion abetted by the lamestream’s narrative that requiring a statement of US citizenship on the census questionnaire will unfairly inhibit the minority vote.

And these, dear readers, are the true colors of the Democrat Party in the early 21^st century, ever more visibly on display with each passing day.

[20feb19 update]  Great Divide reflections: >85% conservatives and Republicans believe there is a national emergency at the border; >65% of liberals and Democrats believe there is no border emergency.  The Right is astounded at this disparity and wonders how a nation with such a polarized outlook on such fundamental matters can continue, let alone function.  On the other hand, with no such concerns the Left believes the Right is just ignorant and evil, and needs to be brought to heel by whatever means it takes.

Idiots (Evil?) on Parade (updated 18feb19)

George Rebane

I claimed that the photo of all the congressional critters who support the Green New Deal will become iconic to both the Left and the Right, of course, for diametrically opposite reasons.  I'm not sure that all of the pictured 40 are demonstrably stupid, such as AOC; no doubt many of them intend to use the GND to fundamentally transform America.  These people I consider somewhere between cynical and just plain evil.  I'll post better images of GND supporters as they become available - these really deserve to be in RR's archive.

[18feb19 update] And the GND supporters in Congress just keep coming.  Besides the major Dem presidential candidates, the count is now up to 64 in House and 9 in the Senate.

 

Ruminations - 14feb19 (updated 19feb19)

The main vice of capitalism is the uneven distribution of prosperity; the main vice of socialism is the even distribution of misery - W. Churchill

George Rebane

‘Amazon Cancels HQ2 Plans in NYC’ – Now here’s a good dose of social justice for the residents of NYC delivered by local socialist politicians who couldn’t stomach the tax incentives the city promised Amazon for bringing in thousands of high-paying jobs.  Some call that cutting off your nose to spite your face.

Mueller’s investigation is wrapping up??? All kinds of rumors are flying around from the imminent termination of the investigation, that most of his lawyers have already been reassigned or left, there will be no final report (at least not one released to the public), to God knows what.  Has any reader found anything that looks like it's definitive and/or reliable out there on the web?

[15feb19 update]  The depth of AOC’s stupidity is yet to be fathomed.  CBS reports that the congresswoman actually believes that NYC has saved $3B, money which it now has and can spend on more teachers, fixing subways, etc, etc, instead of ‘giving away’ to Amazon.  Unbelievable!!  And what can we say about the voters who elected her? – they are at least as stupid as she.  And what can we say about the Dem congressional critters that support her? – they range somewhere between butt stupid and cynical/evil.  And what about all those across the land who are fans of AOC; talk about national dumbth.

[18feb19 update] Taqiya in America appears alive and well.  Our newly-minted Muslim in the House has successfully bamboozled herself out of a little anti-Semitic slip up, and immediately gone on to declare her true colors by agreeing to raise money for an Islamic organization with an iffy relationship to western culture and terrorist organizations.  Daily Caller reports, “Democratic Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar is scheduled to raise money in March with the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) only a week after she used an anti-Semitic trope to claim Israel has paid for GOP support.”

'Autopsy of a Dead Coup' by Victor Davis Hanson is an excellent summary of our Left's draconian three-year effort to put an end first to candidate Trump, and then to President Trump.  The VDH piece was brought to us by a regular commenter in the last Sandbox's comment stream.  I did not want the link to it to languish there, so I'm making it more prominent here.  As expected, one of our regular liberal readers had no problem assessing the events of that sordid trail of treachery as nothing more than some solid, concerned citizens "exercising their Constitutional duty in evaluating Trumps mental fitness."  (No really, that's what the Left believes has been happening.)

[19feb19 update]  'Hate crimes' list reported by the liberal lamestream media just during the two years of the Trump administration.  When a progressive hates a duly elected President, then let nothing stand in the way of getting him out of office or delegitimizing his administration.

The American AI Initiative & herding cats

George Rebane

[This is the addended transcript of my regular KVMR commentary broadcast on 13 February 2019.]

The entire field of artificial or machine intelligence (AI) seems to be more misunderstood by the day, and not only on Main Street, but also in the highest levels of government.  President Trump recently signed an executive order to launch the American AI Initiative.  The purpose of this whatever it is, is to “focus federal government resources to develop AI” in order to “increase our prosperity, enhance our national and economic security, and improve quality of life for the American people.”