Rebane's Ruminations

Election 2022 – America’s Voters Tested (updated 15nov22)

George Rebane

So, election day 2022 is finally here.  It arrived with a months-long preamble of leftwing lies about the current state of the country and the portents for its future were we to deviate from the sorry road that got us to where we are under this administration.  The question now is how many of us believed the crap spewing from the White House, Congress, and their lamestream lackies.  And yes, it is the most momentous election since I started paying attention in my pre-teen years.  Communists of all stripes used to be pariahs in the American political menagerie.  Not anymore.  Now communism is being taught in our schools as one of the more beneficial ways to organize society after we rid ourselves of the capitalist democratic republic that we have had foisted on us.

The fault is not with our politicians, it lies upon those of us who put them in positions of power.  “A republic, if you can keep it.”

[9nov22 update]  The much-vaunted Red Wave has now turned out to be recognized nationally at best as the Red Ripple – and that appellation is still hopeful since neither the House nor Senate results are yet in.  Our Nevada County went predictably Democratic – RR has acknowledged for years that the county is blue, not quite as badly as California, but close enough for government work.  So what happened yesterday and its weeks-long preamble of early voting was a disaster for our republic.  My takeaways can be enumerated as follows –

1. The irretrievable decline of our constitutional republic is confirmed. The fraction of our electorate that is terminally ignorant of collectivist governance, economics and capitalism, the beneficial role of entrepreneurship and financial risk, elements of science, American history and history in general, AND the basic skills of literacy and numeracy has now breached the 50% level. (cf National Center for Educational Statistics)
2. The effectiveness of our progressive educational institutions working in tandem with our compliantly propagandized Fourth Estate is beyond question when it comes to the kind of learning and related behavioral changes that are still possible for our adult population to again support capitalism and American constitutionalism. There is no feasible road back from collectivism and collectivist dogma for a major share of the American electorate whose post-reasonable belief systems have become immune to evidence.
3. The Republican party is not an effective alternative to the Democrats, and continues to shrink its political efforts to champion the nation’s Right, which currently has no viable alternative through which to seek ideological resurgence.
4. The fork in the road of our national future lead to autocracy cum tyranny or the Great Divide. The peaceful resolution would be a negotiated Great Divide, the several forms of which have been discussed in these pages.  What stands in the way is that the Right wants to separate from the Left, but the Left wants to prevent separation and favors controlling a subdued, subservient, and shrinking Right.  This is made clear daily by their political leaders and media talking heads.
5. The above asymmetries to governance and social order are uniform across the land and visible daily even in our little rural county. In today’s Union, its op-ed pages featured a skewed admonishment of the newspaper’s political orientation which has faithfully represented the county’s invasion by coastal liberals who have soiled their former homes.  The paper does print rightwing authors whose sparse offerings are regularly decried for being allowed in print in a community with a majority leftwing population.  Such illustrative responses to inhibit free speech and opposing views are innately foreign to people of the Right.
6. No matter what the final counts will indicate, this election has proven to be a disaster for Republicans. Never since FDR’s atrocious New Deal policies have we witnessed a more incompetent, corrupt, and corrupting administration with ample evidence of its doings becoming increasingly available over the months.  The hopeful sentiment was that this much government corruption, imbecility, and anti-Americanism will surely make an impact on leftwing constituencies.  The results didn’t pan out and gives proof to the indelible mentality of the main street Left.  (The polls have been worthless, no good ways of random sampling remain in this age of screened telecommunications.)
7. The only glimmer that has come out so far is some visible migration of Hispanics and blacks away from the devastating inflation and crime that the Biden administration has brought about over the last two years. But even that was not enough keep the wave from turning into at best a ripple.

Coda: Apparently I’m not alone in the assessment of the American electorate.  Stephen Kruiser of PJ Media writes, ‘We're Done–American Voters Are Idiots’.

[15nov22 update] 'Tragically Trump' is Victor Davis Hanson's major essay on the election, the role of Trump, and the Republican Party's future that heavily depends on what Trump will do now.  I don't believe he will go quietly into the dark night of political has-beens.  H/T to commenters who also picked up on VDH's commentary.

America’s Foreign Policy

George Rebane

Our foreign policy is on the rocks, and has not been so badly mishandled since JFK’s screw-up brought on the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.  Our globally recognized incompetence in that national endeavor has brought us to the brink of WW3 with not only one, but two marginally stable enemies (I discount North Korea and Iran).  Russia and Red China are each exhibiting their opportunistic ire in the face of the weak leader now in the White House, one who has visibly weakened and demoralized our military and promises to continue down that path by withdrawing funding for critical technology upgrades and new combat systems procurements required to bring our defense establishment back up to par with our longstanding national security requirements.

A nation’s foreign policy begins at its border.  And our president has been purposely and impeachably delinquent with his policies starting at our southern border which he has kept invitingly open to millions of illegal aliens pouring in at a steady stream – over five million during the last two years.  This lawless stream has contributed to unmanageable crime, thousands of drug deaths, and an ongoing cultural shock to communities.  Upon closer examination, Joe Biden has done nothing to fulfill the oath he took in January 2021.  His only accomplishment in keeping half the nation in deep ignorance is his daily stream of historically preposterous lies about the state of the world, the nation, and his political opponents.  With a willing and compliant media, and a dumbed-down electorate, almost anything can be passed off as an acceptable and palliative version of reality.

We Americans permit this dangerous assault on national security and our way of life by a continuing, if not deepening, ignorance about the world and our role in it.  As mentioned, our media and educational institutions have been partners in keeping Americans in the dark about global happenings and how to relate these to our foreign policy.

This social deficit was first recognized by James F. Byrnes (1882-1972), politician (congressman, senator, governor), jurist (Supreme Court justice), and diplomat (Secretary of State) extraordinaire.  He was the ‘President’s Hand’ under Roosevelt and Truman, and critical architect of wartime and postwar policies, including peace treaties with Germany et al and Imperial Japan, and agreements to keep the USSR and international communism at bay.  He was America’s principal advisor or principal negotiator at international conferences and head-of-state meetings from 1939 to 1947.  Having taught himself shorthand in law school, he became the inveterate note taker at every meeting he attended.  No one could cite erroneous memories from previous meetings when Byrnes was involved, since he could read them chapter and verse of direct quotes of who said what when.

After the war Byrnes’ accomplishments became known and his fame spread.  There was a national outcry for him to write the definitive record of the war’s diplomatic back story and how the major decisions were made, decisions from whether/when to drop the atomic bomb to how the post-war world should be partitioned.  He acceded to this and published a detailed and fascinating history titled Speaking Frankly (1947), which instantly made it to the top of the charts along with being highlighted by the then enormously popular Book-of-the-Month Club.  For WW2 history buffs like me, reading it was an expansion of my own knowledge and a thrilling page-turning reveal of the highly classified and secret goings-on that guided where and when the battles occurred.  Along with the inevitable barnacles that collect with such a career, he was among the several under-appreciated giants that determined the course of the war and subsequent international relations.

On the subject of foreign policy Byrnes promoted openness and public participation as prerequisites to peace and avoiding unnecessary wars.  He wrote –

I continue to think that, if we are to have a lasting peace, it must be a people’s peace.  The people can exert their full influence in the conduct of foreign affairs only if they know more about them.

The basic democratic right, the right of the people to know, must be applied increasingly to the conduct of foreign affairs.  If that right is essential – as I believe it is - to the functioning of democracy here at home, it is at least equally necessary to apply it in the field of foreign affairs where the need for knowledge and understanding is so much greater.  To carry this policy into action involves a break with the diplomatic habits of the past.  Such habits are not easily broken.  Time, effort, and a constant demand by the public to know what is happening will be needed.

People cannot act intelligently if, in all matters of importance affecting our relations with other governments, they are kept in the dark.

Let there be light – and lots of it!

America’s Ingrained Indelible Ignorance

George Rebane

Union columnist Terry McLaughlin penned an important column in today’s (3nov22) newspaper titled ‘Perceptions and reality’.  In there she cited studies from academe and data from government agencies about the large deficits in what our adult population, which includes the electorate, knows about our country and what beliefs they actually use on which to base their decisions.  The information derived from academic surveys paints a picture of a population that has almost no knowledge about the important parameters that define the country they live in.  McLaughlin does an excellent job in summarizing the skewed view our neighbors have about America.

For example, Americans’ average belief in share of adults who belong to unions is 36 % to the actual value of 4%.  They believe that about 26% of American household incomes exceed $500,000 when the real share is about 1%.  They also think that about 41% of Americans are black when the reality is approximately 14%.  The numbers are 39% for Hispanics instead of 17% according to the census.  We believe that 30% of us are homosexual when again the real number is 3%; that 21% are transgender which in reality is 0.6%.

It's not hard to attribute the reason we have such a grossly misinformed citizenry.  Almost all of them have been educated by barrel-bottom teachers in unionized public schools which promote the country’s leftwing narrative, and that recently have started incorporating various neo-Marxist ‘critical’ curricula based on the teachings of the Frankfurt School (more here).  All of these educational institutions, even at the university level, are teaching the country to believe that there is a new norm in place that is markedly different from what the older folks were taught and grew up with.  And all of this is reinforced daily by the preponderant leftwing (aka lamestream) media.  When we look at its emphasized news items, ads and commercials, and entertainment program contents, we see such skewed population shares being foisted on the consuming audiences with brains in neutral.

And to put a bow on this state of our nation, McLaughlin cites "research (that) seems to indicate that shining a light on public misperceptions and providing accurate data may have little or no impact on changing the firmly held positions and opinions of Americans on almost any topic."

The lament of those who are not so encumbered is what will this existential plurality take into the voting booth next Tuesday.  Looking at the condition of our country, and especially California, we know how they have mis-marked their ballots in the past.  Given the hysterical level of daily lies from the Left – the economy is sound, crime is low, borders are secure, Republicans will destroy democracy, wind and sun will replace fossil fuels, higher taxes and more regulations are good, … - does not promise anything better from the upcoming mid-term election.  But then again, I may be wrong.  Even a pecking blind chicken will eventually find a seed.

Ruminations – 29oct22 (update 4nov22)

George Rebane

Left fears the ‘start of political violence’ with the Pelosi assault.  As commenters from the 25oct22 Sandbox observe, why have such fears suddenly come up now, and none such during the summer of city riots and Justice Kavanaugh assaults?  Judging from his lodgings, the nutjob’s political orientation was leftwing.  And given Nancy’s horrible anti-American policies that hurt all of us, ‘Where’s Nancy?’ is politically an equal opportunity query. Is there anyone on the left with balls enough to explain the matter to the rest of us?  Don’t hold your breath.

How come cancer of or inside the pericardium, the sack that surrounds the heart, is so rare?  This question keeps recurring to me.  Maybe a reader knows the answer.

“What are election crimes?”  Well, it appears that the FBI has come up with an answer (here), the remaining mystery is how it intends to seek out and capture the ‘criminals’.

[1nov22 update]  Conspiracies exist.  They have always existed, and always will.  How then can we examine, debate, and expose harmful conspiracies in the public forum if our citizenry is brainwashed into believing that theorizing about the existence of any conspiracy or surreptitious activity is on its face an extremist, ignorant, and/or socially harmful endeavor?

[4nov22 update]  Bumblebrain is to meet with China’s Xi in a “summit” during the G20 conference this month. (more here)  What possible motivation would we (i.e. the administration and Democrats) have in allowing that level of incompetence to take part in a one-on-one meeting with perhaps the shrewdest tyrant on earth?  Is Biden going to wear ear buds so his handlers could at least attempt to mediate what comes out of his mouth?

Sandbox – 25oct22

[Has any reader witnessed an administration that in two years has managed to be so incompetent, corrupt, and spewing so many material lies per day?  Every commentator of conservative and libertarian persuasion has now written several articles listing in detail the Biden administrations atrocious handling of the economy, energy, crime, border, public education, drugs, foreign policy, … .  Can anyone mention ONE THING that they have gotten right?  And to cover it all up before 8 November, they and their lamestream are telling their dumber-than-doorknob constituents that everything is just hunky-dory, the country has never been better.  And to put a ribbon on it, half of America believes that horseshit.  gjr]

The Durham Disaster (edited)

George Rebane

Igor Danchenko walked in a jury opinion that made special prosecutor John Durham’s ‘strike two’ as he concludes his three-year investigation into the Russia collusion hoax.  Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussman was Durham’s first failure at the bar of justice.  The evidence against both sleazebags was overwhelming to most who understood the magnitude of the hoax from its start, now more than six years ago.

But for reasons that still boggle my mind, our legal system is now so convoluted and corrupt that main street reason and logic cannot even comprehend its processes and products.  The convoluted part has always been there since biblical times for all legal systems - i.e. the lawyers' full employment act.  It’s today’s corruption add-on that is most disturbing.

Durham’s last chance at bat is his vaunted report that is forthcoming.  Of course, there’s no guarantee that Biden’s law firm, aka the DoJ, will ever let it see the light of day.  In that event, I suppose that is why God invented leakers.  The much-awaited report is supposed to be a summa indictment of the now thoroughly corrupt FBI.  Can you imagine that they offered ex-Brit spy Christopher Steele one million dollars if he could come up with what would pass for evidence in corroborating the fictions Danchenko generated and passed off as another Clinton hireling involved in what was mischaracterized as opposition research.  When you weave the contents of the infamous ‘Steele dossier’ out of whole cloth, that is at best creative writing and not research. (more here) 

And, of course, Hillary continues on her perch on top of Mt Olympus, totally shielded by the lamestream and the federal justice system from any splatter as all this hits the fan.  No one knows when Durham will wrap up his disastrous exercise to count coup on any part of the neo-Marxist machine that is powering the country’s turn away from constitutional republicanism.  No one should bet a dime against the FBI coming out of this as a rehabilitated institution - aka smelling like a rose.  Meanwhile, the sheeple remain quietly bedded down, and the Republicans are doing their best cricket imitations.

[correction]  An astute reader caught my error in ascribing Danchenko, instead of Steele, as the intended recipient of FBI's desperate $1M payoff.  Many thanks.

Scattershots – 12oct22 (updated 16oct22)

California is a warning to the nation.  Kevin Kiley

George Rebane

Unhinged leftwinger op-ed in the 12oct22 Union. (here) In this community the ideological sentiments (aka blinders) of Ms Cheryl Cook are well known.  In today’s column she corroborates her reputation as a woke progressive who strives for a world repulsive to anyone to the right of Joe Manchin.  She highlights her ignorance from the gitgo with “At River Valley High School in Yuba City recently, it was three shirtless Black students who suffered humiliation during a videotaped mock slave auction. They were lined up against a wall with objects hanging from their bowed heads while they were yelled at and assigned monetary values by a few Varsity football team members.  That’s humiliation! That’s embarassment!(sic) Yes, sir! Right there in Yuba City, California. With a capital C, that rhymes with C, that stands for Cruel.  Ever wonder how the pain of unresolved history is inherited by our own children?”  Anyone with a minimum room temp IQ knows that this was an historical enactment willingly participated in by the black students wanting to graphically act out the unsavory and tragic aspects of US history.  From there Ms Cook’s screed goes down hill winding up with the assertion that MAGA Americans are Nazis equivalent to those of pre-WW2 fascists who brought Hitler to power.  And, of course, you know who is the MAGA-Hitler.

Democrats continue their reputation as the anti-science party while loudly claiming the Alinsky alternative.  The Steamboat Institute had a hell of time putting together debates on college campuses on the resolution: “Climate science compels us to make large and rapid reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.”  Dr Steve Koonin, MIT theoretical physicist and prominent author (Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn't, and Why It Matters), has agreed participate in all three scheduled debates to argue the negative.  When this became known to the leftwing ‘scientists’ proclaiming climate hysteria, they went ballistic.  Ms Jennifer Schubert-Akin, CEO of the Steamboat Institute, informs us (here) that “Some of the responses we received from well-known climate scientists and academics stated that we are “wildly irresponsible” for giving Mr. Koonin a platform, that there is “no room for debate on these issues,” and my favorite, from a well-known climatologist who is on Reuters’s “Hot List” of the world’s top climate scientists: “I don’t debate climate science. It’s a poor way to get at the truth.”  To socialists, the way to truth, goodness, and light is take Marxist maxims as ex cathedra.

Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change.  For those truly interested (and concerned?) about climate change, here is a look at it from an apolitical perspective and one that really relies on all that science has to offer on the subject.   “The Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change, or NIPCC, as its name suggests, is an international panel of scientists and scholars who came together to understand the causes and consequences of climate change. NIPCC has no formal attachment to or sponsorship from any government or governmental agency. It is wholly independent of political pressures and influences and therefore is not predisposed to produce politically motivated conclusions or policy recommendations.”

[15oct22 update]  ‘How EVs Can Power the Grid’  Well, they can’t really do that today, but governments are keenly interested in using the increasing number of EV batteries as a distributed storage cache for electricity.  These EVs will have bidirectional inverters that let you plug in and charge your EV or, when the utility decides, then to drain your battery for the greater good of the grid users.  Utrecht in Holland is leading the way in studying this possibility with the city’s EV charging stations.  Implementing this V2G capability will give someone else the ultimate control of your EV - whether you can drive it or not, when and how far.  No grousing allowed; it’s for the common good you see.  (more here and here)

[16oct22 update] ‘The Biden Admin Has Been A Chaotic Disaster. But Will It Matter?’ That is my perennial question; are there enough Americans informed and smart enough to make it count in the voting booth?  The affirming evidence is hard to find. Jared Whitley of the Daily Caller writes, “The first two years (God help us, it’s just been two years) of the Biden Administration have been an irrefutable disaster. Biden has wiped out $9 trillion in wealth from the stock market. The rate of inflation is 8.2%, four times what it was under former President  Donald Trump. The cost of energy is up almost 33%, whereas Trump sold oil to the Middle East. … After a 25-year trend of decreasing violent crime across the country, hopelessly blue cities have seen a spike, with murder rates up 44% since 2019! … The president is himself a barely coherent, maladroit zombie. Whereas the corporate media roasted George W. Bush for saying nucular instead of nuclear, today they blissfully ignore the gaffes of a man who was gaffe prone even before he was senile.’ (more here)

Thus spake VDH

Civilization is fragile. It hinges on ensuring the stuff of life.

 To be able to eat, to move about, to have shelter, to be free from state or tribal coercion, to be secure abroad and safe at home—only that allows cultures to be freed from the daily drudgery of mere survival.

 Civilization alone permits humans to pursue sophisticated scientific research, the arts, and the finer aspects of culture.

 So, the great achievement of Western civilization—consensual government, individual freedom, rationalism in partnership with religious belief, free market economics, and constant self-critique and audit—was to liberate people from daily worry over state violence, random crime, famine, and an often unforgiving nature.

 But so often the resulting leisure and affluence instead deluded arrogant Western societies into thinking that modern man no longer needed to worry about the fruits of civilization he took to be his elemental birthright.

 As a result, the once-prosperous Greek city-state, Roman Empire, Renaissance republics, and European democracies of the 1930s imploded—as civilization went headlong in reverse.

 We in the modern Western world are now facing just such a crisis.

 We talk grandly about the globalized Great Reset. We blindly accept the faddish Green New Deal. We virtue signal about defunding the police. We merely shrug at open borders. And we brag about banning fertilizers and pesticides, outlawing the internal combustion engine, and discounting Armageddon in the nuclear age—as if on autopilot we have already reached utopia.

 But meanwhile, Westerners are systematically destroying the very elements of our civilization that permitted such fantasies in the first place.

 Take fuel. Europeans arrogantly lectured the world that they no longer need traditional fuels. So they shut down nuclear power plants. They stopped drilling for oil and gas. And they banned coal.

 What followed was a dystopian nightmare. Europeans will burn dirty wood this winter as their civilization reverts from postmodern abundance to premodern survival.

 The Biden administration ossified oil fields. It canceled new federal oil and gas leases. It stopped pipeline construction and hectored investors to shun fossil fuels.

 When scarcity naturally followed, fuel prices soared.

 The middle class has now mortgaged its upward mobility to ensure that they might afford gasoline, heating oil, and skyrocketing electricity.

 The duty of the Pentagon is to keep America safe by deterring enemies, reassuring allies, and winning over neutrals.

 It’s not to hector soldiers based on their race. It’s not to indoctrinate recruits in the woke agenda. It’s not to become a partisan political force.

 The result of those suicidal Pentagon detours is the fiasco in Afghanistan, the aggression of Vladimir Putin’s Russia, the new bellicosity of China, and the loud threats of rogue regimes such as Iran.

 At home, the Biden administration inexplicably destroyed the southern border, as if civilized nations of the past never needed such boundaries.

 Utter chaos followed. Three million migrants have poured into the United States. While some cross over clandestinely, others clear border stations without an adequate audit, and largely without skills, high school diplomas, or capital.

 The streets of our cities are anarchical—and by intent.

 Defunding the police, emptying the jails, and destroying the criminal justice system unleashed a wave of criminals. It’s now open season on the weak and innocent.

 America is racing backward into the 19th-century Wild West. Predators maim, kill, and rob with impunity. Felons correctly conclude that bankrupt postmodern “critical legal theory” will ensure them exemption from punishment.

 Few Americans know anything about agriculture, except to expect limitless supplies of inexpensive, safe, and nutritious food at their beck and call.

 But that entitlement for 330 million hungry mouths requires massive water projects and new dams and reservoirs. Farmers rely on steady supplies of fertilizer, fuels, and chemicals. Take away that support—as green nihilists are attempting—and millions will soon go hungry, as they have since the dawn of civilization.

 Perhaps nearly a million homeless now live on the streets of America. Our major cities have turned medieval with their open sewers, garbage-strewn sidewalks, and violent vagrants.

 So, we are in a great experiment in which regressive progressivism discounts all the institutions and the methodologies of the past that have guaranteed a safe, affluent, well-fed, and sheltered America.

 Instead, we arrogantly are reverting to a new feudalism as the wealthy elite—terrified of what they have wrought—selfishly retreat to their private keeps.

 But the rest who suffer the consequences of elite flirtations with nihilism can’t even afford food, shelter, and fuel. And they now feel unsafe, both as individuals and as Americans.

 As we suffer self-inflicted mass looting, random street violence, hyperinflation, a nonexistent border, unaffordable fuel, and a collapsing military, Americans will come to appreciate just how thin is the veneer of their civilization.

 When stripped away, we’re relearning that what lies just beneath is utterly terrifying.

 Victor Davis Hanson

Sandbox – 8oct22

[In my considered opinion (nothing humble about it), more than on any proffered policy or politician, the upcoming election will be a referendum on the ability of the American electorate to govern itself.  Historically, the choices have never been more clear in which diametrically opposite way the wisdom of this crowd will choose for the country.  ‘A republic if we can keep it.’  gjr

Dark Days Diary – 30sep22 (updated 1oct22)

George Rebane

Sen Joe Manchin has turned out to be another double dummy political hack and a major disappointment, succumbing to the predictable and obvious wiles of Sen Schumer.  Ol’ Joe had us all fooled during the past year as being the staunch stalwart, along with Sen Sinema (D-AZ), against the economic ruin the Dems were cooking up with their Inflation Reduction Act bamboozle.  They got Joe’s vote with the promise of including his pipeline and permit facilitation bill, which most on the Right correctly saw as Lucy’s football.  Now that the bill has no chance of passing as is, Manchin’s reputation is in the mud with Republicans, moderate Democrats (vanishing breed), and, of course, his West Virginia constituents who expected more than the meadow muffins he wound up delivering.  Tough to see how he’ll ever recover.  (more here, here, and here) 

Fire tax – Nevada County voters will have a chance to vote down the proposed ½% sales tax increase that’s supposed to fund wildfire prevention and mitigation.  Actually, the collected monies will go into the general fund where the Supes promise they will be carefully watched and audited by a “citizens oversight committee”.  California’s Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association warns us once more (here) how such taxes will be misused as they have been in the past.

J6 show trial postponed closer to election – Moving the century’s biggest-to-date show trial closer to the election again tells you all you need to know about this hyper-partisan kabuki theater.  The Dems have no viable platform or record of achievements to present to the voters, so all they have left is to pump up the J6 hysteria of imminent attacks by Trump led ultra-right MAGA white supremacist terrorists.  The real tragedy is that there are millions of muddle minded Americans who swallow this political swill. (more here)

Dems’ Big Lies – As opposed to counting Trump’s political bombast as lies, the real material lies that continue unabated from the Left need to be reviewed, revived, and reinserted into the public’s attention span.  This, of course, is the job of the Republicans who have not shown much political moxie in keeping these highlighted in the public fora.  Oh, to again have two viable political parties.  Here is the list from a recent post -  

When the dissemination of prime-time, first-rate whoppers comes up for discussion, our leftwing neighbors, both national and local, volubly maintain that both sides are at least equally guilty, with the Republicans dispensing the majority.  By any comparative listing of such poetic truths (aka Big Lies), the contest is not even close, nor has it ever been.  Historically socialists are the big liars, for that is the requirement for their public square bamboozles to gain any traction in governance.  Today’s examples overwhelm –

‘Our southern border is secure, there is no border crisis’,

‘Crime rates are not up, there is no urban crime wave in America’,

‘Increasing taxes will not exacerbate the ongoing stagflation’,

‘Increasing taxes will grow the economy’,

‘Tax rates do not affect investment and productivity’,

'You can keep your doctor ...',

'Obamacare will reduce national healthcare costs',

‘Fossil fuels are bad and unnecessary; our energy needs can be met entirely by renewables’,

'America is better off being energy-dependent on foreign suppliers,'

‘Illegal immigration and illegal aliens in the workforce are necessary for economic growth’,

‘Capitalism and minimally regulated markets are arbitrary, cruel, and don't work’,

‘Men and women are exactly the same, making sexual distinction racist and unnecessary’,

‘Christians are intolerant’,

‘Trump’s collusion with the Russians swung the 2016 election’,

‘The tenets of Critical Race Theory are not taught in our K-12 schools’,

‘Merit based education (especially in STEM subjects) is racist’,

'Western culture is intrinsically racist',

‘America is a systemically racist country’,

‘Blacks don’t overwhelmingly kill blacks, cops gratuitously kill blacks,’

‘Government enforced equity motivates better than equal opportunity,’

‘Multi-cultural factionalism serves to unite America,’

… and on and on.

[1oct22 update]  Competing for the biggest of the Dems’ big lies is their ‘Republicans want to destroy the Constitution, censor free speech, do away with our freedoms, and establish a totalitarian state.’  This message to their cognitively constrained constituents is Alinsky and Lenin on steroids, each part being exactly 180 from their own daily demonstrated policies and activists on the march.  Today’s fragmented conservative pro-life movement is as close as any leftist can get to some Republicans wanting to limit your freedom to kill your unborn child.  Other than that, it is ONLY the Republicans who work for fewer regulations, lower taxes to support a smaller government, and a nation of constitutional laws instead of a corrupt and growing administrative neo-Marxist state.  And to put a bow on it, today’s Republicans leave a lot to be desired in their efforts to keep our republic.

[2oct22 update]  One of our astute readers and commenters posted a link to a recent VDH piece, ‘The Thinnest Veneer of Civilization’.  In communicating the current state of western civilization, the good professor has again hit it out of the park.  Definitely a must read and share.  One wonders how much of such writing is comprehensible to our Left.  Dark days indeed.

Name the bastards!

George Rebane

Rep Tom McClintock (R-CA4) writes ‘A Nation Without Borders Will Cease to be a Nation’ in the Washington Times.  In the piece he gives his usual erudite arguments that support his banner thesis.  But this open border travesty is not due to some natural disaster or act of God.  The closest he comes to ascribing the cause is to blame the “Biden administration”, a polyglot of faceless, anonymous, and unaccountable minions.  The congressman and I have had several talks on how ineffective such responses are in today’s political wars.  When the Democrats attack Republicans, they identify their targets by name and pile on them additionally fabricated faults.  To the voters this makes the cited problem real, one that is caused by known and dastardly Republicans.  It also makes a news story interesting and worth reporting in the vein of ‘let’s you and him fight.’

I have strongly advised our local congressmen (LaMalfa, McClintock, Kiley) in face-to-face conversations to always include names of the Democrat(s) guilty of foisting the latest feckless, foolish, and/or anti-American policy on the country.  While I have received mild agreement and no pushback on my recommendation, I have also gotten no traction as is again evident from the above column.  If the Republicans want their opposition to Democrats be heard, they need to name names of the guilty bastards who introduce and support the continuous stream of insanities which comprise progressive legislation.  Such one-on-one counters make news which people can understand, while word-smithed intellectual repartees will go on to sustain the sound of Republican silence across the land.  Engage, dammit!

Underserved, really?

George Rebane

Underserved groups used to describe populations without adequate access to goods and services, e.g. education, medical care. This included rural, elderly, low-literacy, blue collar, and poor populations. Minorities (i.e. Blacks, Hispanics, homosexuals, transphiles, illegal aliens, …) per se were not included, but often belonged to one or more or the included categories.  The current politically correct definition first and foremost characterizes all minorities as being underserved, and therefore needing wealth transfers along with a growing slate of “socially equitable” laws, regulations, rights, and permissions.

Today the underserved minorities are grist for the Democrat voting machine.  But the government’s own wealth transfer data from its myriads of welfare programs tells a markedly different story.  Starting around 1970, when the Great Society laws and programs started kicking in, it turns out that if anything, the minority populations in the big urban areas have been overserved.  (Culture and public education explains away why these monies have not been used more wisely.)  What keeps the underserved Big Lie alive in the lamestream is the way that progressive government bureaus, agencies, and departments keep score on the dispensed cash.

A good illustration of this is the cited statistics on the country’s child poverty rate.  Nationally prominent economists Phil Gramm and John Early debunk (here) the leftwing claim that currently one in six (over 16%) children live in poverty.  When you look more closely, you find for openers that “the Census Bureau’s tallies still don’t include $1.9 trillion in government transfer payments. … If the Census Bureau had included the missing $1.9 trillion in transfer payments, child poverty would have been only 3.2% in 2017, compared with the official rate of 17.5%.”

A similar Big Lie treatment generates the “myth of American income inequality”.  The authors treat this issue in an excellent online version (here) of their similarly titled book.  The income inequality ‘facts’ are cooked from statistics that garble earned income and the myriad of transfer payments that induce people not to work.  The continually cited poverty stats range in the one in five or six level (16-20%), when the actual rates are really less than one fifth (about 3+%) of that.  This fact is known by all illegal aliens who risked life and limb to get here.

The bottom line of all this is that these lies are used by our Left to perennially bolster their voter rolls with the unread and diseducated of the land.  At the same time this narrative forms the basis for the Democrats’ constant drumbeat of promoting vote-buying payments to these populations which require ever more taxes and national debt increases.  You can bet the farm that none of this has been covered in the Dems’ lamestream media, and therefore at least half the country has no idea of who is underserved, and to what extent these populations are actually being overserved.

Sandbox – 22sep22

[Bumblebrain’s foreign policy bungling and catastrophes have boosted the fortunes of America’s enemies who have now organized themselves into the Shanghai Cooperation Organization of Asian nations, anchored by China and Russia with India and Pakistan already ensconced, Iran ready to step aboard, and Erdogan working to bring Turkey into the fold.  The SCO promises to become China’s answer to NATO and support its Belt and Road advances into the Middle East and Africa.  While the US continues tangled up in its political nightmare, Team Biden knows as much about this as it does about our "secure" southern border. (more here)  gjr]

Scattershots – 21sep2022 (updated 23sep22)

George Rebane

Do any of them know what they’re talking about?  Here’s a comment from a liberal sackhead –

I sense much desperation on this site from the host's diatribes against women, blacks, and the march toward MAGA extremism. ... The hosts(sic) denigrates educated women, and assumed anyone not a rank MAGA is an idiot when in fact the QAnon prone MAGA are far more dangerously ignorant and mind controlled.  Posted by: Whole Foods | 21 September 2022 at 07:21 AM

As the record shows, RR contains no “diatribes against women, blacks,” nor has it ever given evidence of any “march toward MAGA extremism.”  Does the commenter have a definition for ‘MAGA extremism’, or even know the tenets of MAGA?  My money is on ‘Not even a clue’.  Naked allegations without a shred of substance behind them is the progressives’ de rigueur of accepted indictments.

They also have a very coarse, actually a binary, concept of ‘hate’.  Their lexicon between embracing and hating is a barren desert.  Once you criticize something or someone, especially one of their totems, then you are automatically accused of hate.  Nuanced semantics are relegated to their never-neverland.  An example of the other bookend, once someone embraces any one of the many conspiracy theories promoted by QAnon, they are automatically relegated to membership in the internationally fractionated and unstructured organization, along with embracing the entire smorgasbord of socio-political worldviews attributed to QAnon.  There is no middle ground.

On the lighter side.  Here’s a brain teaser reputed to have even caused Einstein a moment of puzzlement.  An old car is to drive a stretch of 2 miles, up and down a hill (one mile up and one mile down). Being so old, it cannot drive the first mile (the ascent) faster than with an average speed of 15 miles per hour.  How fast does it have to drive the second mile (on going down, it can, of course, go faster) in order to have an average speed of 30 miles an hour for the whole journey?

[23sep22 update]  Democrats’ partisan 501c3 charities use tax deductible contributions to register leftwing voters.  Such charities are not supposed engage in partisan activities.  The evil party has done this for decades knowing that the IRS will continue to give them a pass (consider if the Repubs did this).  Kim Strassel provides chapter and verse about this crap in the 23sep22 WSJ, “America’s charitable giving laws have been an enormous force for good, but Democrats are cynically abusing the system for partisan gain. If Congress wants to keep dollars and politicking in the political sphere—and under the remit of the Federal Election Commission—it needs to change tax law to prohibit ‘charities’ outright from taking part in voter-registration or get-out-the-vote drives. The problem isn’t ‘dark money’—it’s the sham ‘philanthropy’ voter-registration racket, taking place in broad daylight.” (more here)  Talk about election fraud; and what has the incompetent GOP leadership done about this?  Nothing, absolutely nothing.

A One-Party Humanitarian Crisis (updated 17sep22)

George Rebane

‘Humanitarian crises’ in ‘sanctuary’ jurisdictions set up by progressives across the land.  Sending a few scores of illegal aliens from overcrowded border towns to sanctuary cities and exclusive enclaves is trumpeted as a “humanitarian crisis” by the Left and their lamestream media.  To do that is a “cruel, inhumane way to treat people” who have been enticed by the Biden administration to travel thousands of dangerous miles, paying cartels and coyotes their life savings to chance getting across our border without being raped, human trafficked, or killed in the process.  None of what the Democrats are putting the poor of the world through to get them illegally into America is seen by progressives as the greater humanitarian crisis compared to the final plane ride or comfortable bus trip to a community that advertises itself as a welcoming sanctuary.

What’s more galling is that so-called conservative commentators are unable to compare and contrast all this to their audiences.  They are joined by the eternally dumbfounded Republicans in ignoring the ongoing travesty, not even being able to point out how Democrats ignore the secreted midnight planes rides they sponsor to transport unannounced illegals to various cities in Republican governed states.  And all this is done to the continuously headlined Big Lie from the White House that “our border remains secure” and the problem is our “broken immigration system” which was caused by then President Trump.

And the biggest tragedy, as we approach the election, is that half the electorate that is eternally ignorant and/or consumes only lamestream outlets has no idea that all this is going on pursuant to a purposed and dedicated Democrat policy which is part and parcel of their ongoing successful program to fundamentally transform America.  The eternally timid and out-to-lunch Republicans have given us a one-party country that now openly operates under a dominant neo-Marxist ideology.  This means that the other half of the country has no effective representation in national politics and policies.  The Republicans were the only game in town to stop the march of collectivism over the last half century, and today they have demonstrably failed to deliver.

[17sep22 update]  National Conservatism – we encountered news of the new direction in America’s conservative circles in the last Scattershots (here).  Now we get the announcement that the venerable Heritage Foundation has announced this ideological tweak in its socio-political philosophy (here).  I find nothing outrageous in this change, and have long encourage a more robust use of limited government resources by the Right to direct and implement socio-economic policies in our republic – and mainly for the Republicans to get off their collective ass and start making themselves heard on our behalf, especially in the face of the Left’s now desperate campaign of wall-to-wall lying bordering on ‘save democracy from semi-fascist, white supremacist, domestic terrorists’.

According to Heritage, the new direction will engage in “promoting a more restrained approach to foreign policy and a more active government role in the regulation of big tech, while moving away from the conventional wisdom that conservatives shouldn’t use government power to advance their interests.”  We’ll see how the rest of the Republican leadership adopts and implements this change.  And there will be more to say on all this.

‘The Real Threat to Our Republic’ (updated 12sep22)

George Rebane

Over the years I’ve touched on the impact that the ‘educated’ liberal woman have had on our society and our republic.  My own experience with such people has been uniformly informative and corroborated by many readings on the subject.  I’ve been meaning to write a definitive piece on these females who pervade our big cities and suburban communities, and now Jack Cashill at the American Thinker has beat me to it with his excellent essay, ‘Why ‘Educated’ Liberal Women Are the Real Threat to Our Republic’.  Along the way he coined ELF as the efficient acronym for future reference.

Through my many years I have had the opportunity to take the measure of ELFs in divers social and professional situations.  They all share a set of common characteristics which start with a collectivist ideology expressed through fewer than 50 tried-and-true leftwing shibboleths and slogans, an ideology which they can neither dissect nor defend, and which is sustained on a solid foundation of unwarranted hubris held together by generous dollops of ignorance and one-sided mis/disinformation.

These are the women who will proudly vote Democrat regardless of soaring inflation, rising gas prices, rampant crime in the streets, the unchecked flood of illegal aliens, and oppressive COVID policies that have irreparably damaged all children, the poor most notably.

Institutionally, they have co-opted formerly non-partisan organizations such as the League of Women Voters and the American Association of University Women.  Additionally, in academe they have been stalwart foot soldiers in both pedagogy and administration to turn our public schools and institutions of higher learning into critical-thinking-free zones operating under the façade of ‘education’.

At the core of the ELFs' (intellectual) vulnerability is their ignorance, if not at the top, certainly among the masses.  This should not surprise.  Everywhere and always, men have performed better on political knowledge tests than women (just as conservatives routinely outperform liberals and independents).  Researchers exploring this particular gender gap long ago gave up on questioning whether this was true and have focused instead on why.

When ELFs vote, they vote as a homogeneous block.  The DNC and Democratic leadership have long been painfully aware of this, and the fact that they only trust and get their news from the lamestream media and social media sites.

In the not too distant past, women attended college with the expectation of finding a spouse.  Today, they would have much better luck hanging out at a construction site.  As late as 1970, there were five men for every four women in America's four-year colleges.  By the fall of 2021, there were almost two women for every man. … Once in college, the progressive grooming that began discreetly in high school now publicly and proudly moves to center stage.  A study of faculty voter registration at 40 leading U.S. universities showed a more than ten-to-one ratio of Democrats to Republicans with the numbers skewing higher in liberal arts and among young faculty.  In some fields, there are no Republicans at all. … Lacking a male counterpoint in their lives and often majoring in subjects with a social justice agenda, college women enter the political arena not so much uninformed as misinformed.  Given that communications/journalism faculty members skew 20 to 1 Democrat, the media these young ELFs consume will only reinforce the biases nurtured in college.

Jack Cashill expands on all these points, citing many studies that corroborate the above characterization of ELFs and the institutions under their influence.  We can put a bow on it for now by also recognizing the current thrust of the Democrats’ divisive pre-election rhetoric, especially Biden’s Philadelphia speech that could not have been better staged by Joseph Göbbels himself.

In November, Biden needs the ELFs to vote en masse.  This will happen only if they remain ignorant of the things that should worry them — the border, crime, inflation — and scared silly of things that need not.  Something tells me that the producers of Biden's Nuremberg-style spectacle knew what they were doing.

Incapable of giving it further thought, the ELFs will confidently vote us into the kind of American autocracy that the socialist wing of the Democratic Party has been planning for decades.

[12sep22 update]  Victor Davis Hanson’s recent essay ‘American Delira’ puts the above threat to our country in its greater and proper context.  In recent years such essays have appeared regularly, not only from his pen, but also from other astute observers of the American saga.  Nevertheless, VDH has a unique gift of being able to wordsmith a comprehensive description and analysis of what has brought us here and what we are doing now to undo ourselves.  A hat tip to one of our regular commenters who has also regularly been the first to alert RR readers to the timely contributions of VDH and others.

Sandbox - 9sep22

[I wonder if anyone is counting Biden's daily lies.  And I'm talking only about material lies, the kind that affect our current or future QoL because they impact policy and legislation; and not political campaign or bombast promises that have not come true or have no chance of being realized.  Examples are, 'Our borders are secure', 'Taxing something does not affect its supply/availability', 'Injecting excess cash (not supported by increased production) into an economy does not cause inflation'.  I would like to see these lies, including their daily repeats, be tallied somewhere, mainly because these affect the beliefs of the lightly read population, especially before an election.  gjr]

Scattershots – 8sep22 (updated 14sep22)

George Rebane

Accuse them of your own sins.  That longstanding advice to our Left comes from both Lenin and Alinsky.  Today no one knows that the Democrats were the first election deniers, seeking to overturn the 2004 election in favor of John Kerry by not certifying Ohio’s electoral votes on the House floor on 6 January 2005.  Fortunately, the 31 Democrats’ votes were not enough to carry the day and Bush2 remained our president.  One of those election deniers was James Clyburn (D-SC) whose last-minute endorsement of Biden flipped his faltering campaign just before the election.  Imagine what would have happened had the corrupt FBI also not helped mangle the 2020 election by keeping Hunter’s laptop under the rug.  (more here)

Economists are becoming more dismal than ever.  (Don’t even call it ‘the dismal science’, there is nothing scientific about that field of pseudo-sorcery.  Be especially wary when an economist argues with equations.)  The latest example comes from the “leadership” of the American Economic Association that announced the mandates for attendees at their January 2023 New Orleans conference.  All must have been vaccinated with one additional booster shot, and wear a mask that at least as good as the N-95.  Nowhere else at the hotel venue, in the city, or overwhelmingly in most of the country, are people still subjected to such unscientific protocols.  It’s hard to think of another ‘discipline’ in which its demonstrated error-prone practitioners are still accepted and continue to be cited. (more here)

One of Jo Ann’s ‘Hits & Misses’ in today’s Union was censored.  She has been one of the longest-serving members of the paper’s editorial board, and under previous publishers has never had any of her submissions rejected, even the occasional ones critical of the publication.  She submitted the following Miss regarding the recent treatment of RL Crabb’s cartoons, which have recently been printed in hard-to-read, washed out, black and white while other cartoons continue in their full color formats - Miss to The Union which demoted favorite, local political cartoonist RL Crabb’s offerings to a faded black and white format.  That’s no way to treat such talent. Please bring back his witty, vibrant political cartoons in color.  The times they are a-changin’.

Addendum - Please allow me to expand the reasonable basis on which one may conclude that Bob Crabb’s work has been discriminated against.  In an email exchange The Union’s leadership claims that they have no control over which pages the printer decides to print in black & white, to them it is a random process.  Now allow for a moment that we consider the last two months or nine weeks during which The Union has published 45 op-ed cartoons.  Bob submits two per week, and the rest are selected from a potpourri of syndicated cartoonists.  That means that Bob submitted 18 cartoons, all of which appeared in faded black and white.  While I don’t recollect any b/w syndicated printings, but to be generous, assume that one in ten of the 27, or between two and three of the syndicated ones also appeared in black and white.

With this understanding in hand, we know that the probability was 0.1 that the first Crabb cartoon happened to be black and white.  The probability that his second one was similarly b/w is 0.1 x 0.1 = 0.01.  In the same manner, the third b/w cartoon appeared with probability 0.1 x 0.1 x 0.1 = 0.001, or a chance of one in a thousand.  Continuing this calculation for all 18 of Bob’s cartoons yields the mind boggling miniscule probability of 10^(-18) = 0.000,000,000,000,000,001 or one billionth of a billionth that such a run of b/w cartoons would have occurred from the claimed random process – talk about highly improbable.  It is clear that any reasonable person with a smidgen of understanding of the above would reject the The Union’s characterization of the process along with the claim of no bias against RL Crabb’s work.

As a coda to the above argument, I want to remind readers that RR has always supported the rights of private sector enterprises to manage their own relationships and conduct their business affairs as they see fit – subject as always to a minimum set of regulations and laws that prevent parties from doing gratuitous harm to each other.  In this case The Union and RL Crabb are both private sector parties, and are free to negotiate any mutually acceptable working relationship, including one that contains discriminatory provisions.  At the same time others, including the customers and consumers of products and services provided by a business, are always free to criticize the business for any reason or no reason at all.  In sum, I oppose the kinds of discrimination against RL Crabb and Jo Ann Rebane described above, and I do it without impugning The Union’s right to so discriminate.  The discriminating reader(sic) will understand that an instance of discrimination and the right to discriminate are independent notions/issues.

[11sep22 update]  Seattle has cracked the homeless problem.  They plan to spend $66.5M to build a “homeless megaplex” that will house 500 homeless to be maintained by 400 staffers costing in excess of $22M/yr to keep open, and the indigents and crazies from killing themselves and each other. (more here)  Fantastic!  That comes to costing more than $50K/yr for getting one homeless off the streets.  So let’s apply the Seattle solution to the national problem consisting today of about 575,000 homeless.  That will cost the country’s taxpayers about $76B to kick off the program and over $25B/yr to keep the nation’s streets clean of derelicts, needles, and feces.  Not sure who all are going to pay for the Seattle project.  I suspect they’re going to pass the hat to the rest of America to solve their problem in the Puget Sound area.  And, of course, if this template is applied nationwide, then we all pay.  But think of the extra benefit from such a public ‘investment’; it will require the training and hiring of about 460,000 low skilled (pre-homeless?) workers to take care of the 575,000 homeless, an almost one-for-one ratio of government keeper per bum.  Bum?  That was a popular label in less enlightened years that described “a person who avoids work and sponges on others; loafer, idler, tramp, hobo, or derelict.”  Bring on the megaplexes, one in every neighborhood.

 [14sep22 update]  Nevada County’s sales tax will be increased by 0.5% if a majority of voters approve Measure V in November.  The anticipated $12M annual take will go into the county’s general fund to be spent as the supervisors determine.  However, the tax is being sold under the guise that “the money would go toward fire prevention and mitigation efforts.”  A local judge ruled that the voters would not be confused by this double labeling of the new tax.  According to the unfathomable legal logic used in our corrupt legal system, the judge stated that “… this court is satisfied that should Measure V be adopted, the public would have been adequately informed that it was adopting a general tax.” (more here)  Experience advises otherwise – all will focus on the wildfire aspect and few will discern that it is really a general tax increase which depends on the promise of politicians to be spent as advertised.  Would it be correctly represented to the voters as a specific use tax, then it would require a 2/3 super-majority approval to pass it.  IMHO the tax passage requirements should be reversed – 2/3 to approve a general fund tax, and simple majority to approve a specific purpose tax.  Better yet, 2/3 to approve all tax increases.  Thoughts?

National Conservatives are a relatively new branch of the GOP and have some nuanced yet important differences with those who view themselves more as ‘Reagan conservatives’.  I find some tenets of their ideology attractive, and easily accepted by the conservetarian in me.  Since we’ll be talking more about national conservatives and national conservatism, I recommend that interested readers get acquainted with this version of conservatism.  (more here)

Democrats’ Rubicon?

"As I stand here tonight, equality and democracy are under assault; we do ourselves no favor to pretend otherwise."  Joe Biden

George Rebane

Last night President Biden delivered an historically horrendous milestone speech at our republic.  It was positioned by Democrats as an official federal government stance and interpretation of the political state of our union.  In it he revealed the utter fear the country’s Left has of our citizens who oppose what the Democrats have been doing during their control of the Executive and Legislative branches of our federal government.

Bumblebrain’s carefully fashioned speech tread in the exact footsteps of Lenin with his Bolsheviks, and Hitler with his Nazis after gaining a tenuous grip of their countries’ governments.  Both tyrants lashed out against their political opponents, characterizing them with all the sins they themselves had and were committing, and identifying factions of their citizens as homegrown enemies of the people bent on policies to enslave the land.  Last night I and people like me were identified as “semi-fascists” and “enemies of democracy” deserving of all the opprobrium that a properly constituted state can lavish on us in preparation for more draconian measures reserved for enemies of the state.

With 300 carefully chosen disciples and Orwellian visual backdrops in place, the speech was a clear ‘us and them’ declaration intended as a rallying cry for all who have been convinced by the lamestream that former president Trump is Satan incarnate, and the cadres of “MAGA Republicans” are a cult of his irredeemable disciples who should be forcefully constrained if their re-education does not work.  Most certainly none of them should henceforth be tolerated in public life or let alone public office.  (more here and here)

Sandbox – 1sep22

[No doubt Jackson, MS (thanks for correcting my MI blooper) is also a shithole city under Democrat rule, and has been for decades.  Today’s water system breakdown is typical of how Soviet-style jurisdictions took care of their infrastructure with public monies going mainly into the pockets of corrupt politicians.  Today’s mayor of Jackson is Chokye Antar Lumumba, a proud textbook socialist who describes himself as a “progressive, socialist, and political revolutionary”.  Like with most of his ilk, maintaining a functioning infrastructure is not high on his governance to-do list.  Again, the overwhelmingly black residents of the city continue to bring it on themselves.  (more here) gjr]

California Exodus Refuted?

George Rebane

A reader and correspondent sent me the following article – ‘A Shocking Number of Californians Are Moving to Texas Unless You Do Basic Math’.  Therein the author cites data and analysis from a market data firm Placer.ai which sidesteps the long-running and well-established California exodus phenomenon, focuses on the California-to-Texas migration, and erroneously concludes that there is nothing unexpected about the numbers that Placer has collected.  To wit –

The logic here is very simple. Some people move between states every year for normal life reasons. That’s good and normal and not cause for alarm. And California has the most people of any state. Therefore, all things equal, we’d expect lots of people from California to be moving to Texas. In fact, we would expect that more people from California would be moving to Texas than from any other state, again, because California has the most people. This would not in itself imply anything is wrong with California or great about Texas. It would simply mean people are doing what we would expect them to do. The only way this particular data point would suggest something is indeed amiss is if a disproportionate number of new Texans came from California relative to California’s population.

That may sound confusing, but doing some quick math makes it all very clear. The population of the United States minus Texas—because people already in Texas cannot move to Texas—is 300.86 million people. California’s population is 39.35 million, or 13 percent of the U.S.’ non-Texas population. Therefore, more than 13 percent of Texas’ new residents would have to be Californians in order for there to be something of note going on here.

But that’s not the case. According to Placer.ai, which uses “foot traffic data” gleaned by tracking people's phones, 11.1 percent of new Texans from July 2019 and July 2022 are from California. That’s actually slightly less than one would expect based on an even distribution. If anything, the pertinent question from Placer.ai’s data is: Why are so few Californians moving to Texas?

The main flaw in the argument here is that people move randomly between states with ingress and egress rates proportional to source and target populations.  This is a gross error in the current situation where most of migrating Americans are motivated by economic (taxes, regulations) and socio-political (crime, education) reasons.  For example, Texas receives many new residents from so-called shithole cities in states like New York, Illinois, New Jersey, in addition to California.  Such movements can invalidate any arguments based on randomness.  For example, California’s lower percentage of “new Texans” can be completely explained away by the greater number of the state’s immigrants arriving from the other escape-worthy states that need have no relationship to population proportions, and greater numbers of Californians moving to other states such as Idaho, Wyoming, and Florida.

Bloomberg reports, “The long-term migration out of California accelerated during the Covid-19 crisis, with Texas, Washington and Florida as top destinations for people moving out of the state, according to a study from the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.” (here)  The LA Times continues its ongoing reports of the exodus with ‘California Exodus Continues: LA, San Francisco lead the way’.

Liberals across the land are desperate to refute the mass migrations out of the major shithole regions that Democratic administrations have created since the launch of Great Society programs.  This gives rise to a number of loudly argued but logically weak pieces that appear in various lamestream outlets.  The fundamental reality is that California continues to create conditions that drive out large numbers of its wealth-generating workers and businesses.  This is apparent from all types of correctly analyzed data starting with what we learn from the Dept of Commerce (Census Bureau) and going all the way down to California’s historic first-time reduction in the number of representatives we send to Congress.

‘There Is No Climate Emergency’

George Rebane

Similar to the subsequently corroborated Great Barrington Declaration on Covid (here), a new declaration on climate change was released in June 2022 entitled ‘World Climate Declaration: There Is No Climate Emergency’.  This declaration is signed by hundreds of scientists and thousands of technical professionals from almost every country in the world (here).

In asserting that there is no climate emergency, the undersigned state –

Climate science should be less political, while climate policies should be more scientific. Scientists should openly address uncertainties and exaggerations in their predictions of global warming, while politicians should dispassionately count the real costs as well as the imagined benefits of their policy measures.

Natural as well as anthropogenic factors cause warming The geological archive reveals that Earth’s climate has varied as long as the planet has existed, with natural cold and warm phases. The Little Ice Age ended as recently as 1850. Therefore, it is no surprise that we now are experiencing a period of warming.

Warming is far slower than predicted The world has warmed significantly less than predicted by IPCC on the basis of modeled anthropogenic forcing. The gap between the real world and the modeled world tells us that we are far from understanding climate change.

Climate policy relies on inadequate models Climate models have many shortcomings and are not remotely plausible as policy tools. They do not only exaggerate the effect of greenhouse gases, they also ignore the fact that enriching the atmosphere with CO2 is beneficial.

CO2 is plant food, the basis of all life on Earth CO2 is not a pollutant. It is essential to all life on Earth. More CO2 is favorable for nature, greening our planet. Additional CO2 in the air has promoted growth in global plant biomass. It is also profitable for agriculture, increasing the yields of crops worldwide.

Global warming has not increased natural disasters There is no statistical evidence that global warming is intensifying hurricanes, floods, droughts and suchlike natural disasters, or making them more frequent. However, there is ample evidence that CO2

They conclude with –

To believe the outcome of a climate model is to believe what the model makers have put in. This is precisely the problem of today’s climate discussion to which climate models are central. Climate science has degenerated into a discussion based on beliefs, not on sound self-critical science. Should not we free ourselves from the naive belief in immature climate models?

Need I be fearful of most black people?

George Rebane

My clear answer is yes – let me explain.  Yes, I am physically afraid of blacks in the urban neighborhoods.  They have demonstrated to all that there is inherent danger to life and limb in neighborhoods where blacks rule the streets.  This same sentiment has been publicly acknowledged by black leaders such as the Rev Jesse Jackson.  The criminality of young black males is now well established, and it is not a minor fraction of the population.  Their historical arrest and incarceration rates attest to this.

But perhaps my greater fear of blacks is when they join the ranks of the America’s voters and make their presence felt at the ballot box.  They have now demonstrated across many generations that they do not vote to promote their own best interests.  They elect dismally stupid, corrupt, cynical, racist, rapacious, and/or simply crooked people to represent them in the halls of political power.  It would not be so bad if their voting habits only impacted their own communities.  But that is not the case.  Black-elected politicians (no matter their color) extend their unfortunate ethics, socialist ideologies, and corrupt practices far beyond the precincts that voted them into office.

To be sure, black communities suffer most from the ministrations of their political leaders.  No one has done more harm to our African-Americans than the politicians who regularly garner their votes through promises of ineffective policies or those never kept.  And again, as history has shown, no learning takes place from one election cycle to the next.  Generation after generation, they send the same people to occupy the same seats of power and expect different results, while decrying their carefully taught lamentations about white supremacy and systemic racism.  It is these politicians with black constituencies who join with those voted in by ignorant whites et al that have launched national programs to usurp American culture over the last half century by engaging in the ongoing fundamental transformation of our country.

I write this in response to the column by Mr Daryl Grigsby – ‘Need I be fearful of most white people?’ – which appears in the 27aug22 Union.  As an African-American, Grigsby goes on to answer the question with a YES, and then continues to back-up his sentiment with yet one more diatribe against Trump, filled with the familiar ignorant tedium comprised of all the usual unsubstantiated allegations.  He opens with –

I am troubled by this possibility (of fearing most whites). As an African American who has lived all over this nation, I have seen and experienced much that raises this question. At the same time, my life has been enriched by generous, affirming, justice-seeking white Americans. … Yet, the opening question often plagues me. By “most,” I don’t mean the overwhelming majority. I do mean some number more than half. Anything more than half is “most.”

… and closes with -

Republican candidates who stand against Trump lose their seats, voting in Black communities is a hurdle instead of a right, Anti-CRT movements flourish. The real question is, do we want a just and multi-racial society, or one of white privilege and dominance?

And what of Black Lives Matter? Professor Treva B. Lindsey says, “to even have to proclaim ‘Black Lives Matter’ and know that people will dispute it, or counter with ‘all lives matter,’ is a result of entrenched and learned anti-blackness. In what world would saying ‘Black lives matter’ prompt a rejoinder? A fundamentally anti-Black one.” I am hopeful we can create a society different than described by Professor Lindsey.

No amount of skulduggery(sic), lies, treason or corruption deters millions of white Americans from supporting Trump. What explains that devotion? Anger? About what? Fear? Of who(sic)? As white militias grow and the internet rumbles with threats, I fear the majority is silent. I believe but a small fraction of white America is prone to racist violence. That small group, however, is dangerous if the majority does not stand up. … Believe me when I say, I don’t enjoy thinking this, and frankly, I would be happy to be proven wrong.

His reasonable tone withstanding, it is clear that I and mine have a lot to fear from the Grigsbys of America who cast their ballots within the collectivist glow of goodness and light, as they send the next tranche of corrupt fools to the nation’s capitols.  The exoduses from California, New York, Illinois, New Jersey are exhibits of their political accomplishments.

The Democrats' evil is professionally inbred

[This piece came across my email transom forwarded by a lawyer who apologized for his profession and how it confuses litigation with governance.  gjr]
 
Every Democrat presidential nominee since 1984 went to law school (although Gore did not graduate – Biden (no surprise) was at the bottom of his class).  Every Democrat vice presidential nominee since 1976, except for Lloyd Bentsen, went to law school.  Barack Obama was a lawyer. Michelle Obama was a lawyer.  Hillary Clinton was a lawyer. Bill Clinton was a lawyer.  John Edwards is a lawyer. Elizabeth Edwards was a lawyer.  Look at leaders of the Democrat Party in Congress: Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer is a lawyer.  Former Senator Harry Reid was a lawyer.
 
The Republican Party is different.  President Trump is a businessman.  President Bush 1 and 2 were businessmen.  Vice President Cheney was a businessman.  President Eisenhower was a 5 star General.  The leaders of the Republican Revolution: Newt Gingrich was a history professor.  Dick Armey was an economist.  Ex-House Minority Leader John Boehner was a plastics manufacturer.  The former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is a heart surgeon.  Who was the last Republican president who was a lawyer?  Gerald Ford, who left office 31 years ago and who barely won the Republican nomination as a sitting president, running against actor Ronald Reagan in 1976.  The Republican Party is made up of real people doing real work, who are often the targets of lawyers.  This is very interesting. I had never thought about it this way before.
 
The Democrat Party is made up of lawyers.  Democrats mock and scorn men who create wealth, like Trump, Bush, and Cheney, or who heal the sick like Frist, or who immerse themselves in history like Gingrich.  The Lawyers Party sees these sorts of people, who provide goods and services that people want, as the enemies of America .  And, so, in the eyes of the Lawyers Party, we have seen the procession of official enemies grow.  Against whom do Hillary and Obama rail?  Pharmaceutical companies, oil companies, hospitals, manufacturers, fast food restaurant chains, large retail businesses, bankers, and anyone producing anything of value in our nation. 
 
This is the natural consequence of viewing everything through the eyes of lawyers.  Lawyers solve problems by successfully representing their clients, which, in this case should be the American people. Lawyers seek to have new laws passed, they seek to win lawsuits, they press appellate courts to overturn precedent, and lawyers always parse language to favor their side.  Confined to the narrow practice of law, that is fine. But it is an awful way to govern a great nation.
 
When politicians, as lawyers, begin to view some Americans as clients and other Americans as opposing parties, then the role of the legal system in our life becomes all-consuming.  Some Americans become adverse parties of our very government.  We are not all litigants in some vast social class-action suit.  We are citizens of a republic that promises us a great deal of freedom from laws, from courts, and from lawyers.
 
Today, we are drowning in laws; we are contorted by judicial decisions; we are driven to distraction by omnipresent lawyers in all parts of our once private lives.  America has a place for laws and lawyers, but that place is modest and reasonable, not vast and unchecked.  When the most important decision for our next president is whom he will appoint to the Supreme Court, the role of lawyers and the law in America is too big.  When House Democrats sue America in order to hamstring our efforts to learn what our enemies are planning to do to us, then the role of litigation in America has become crushing.
 
Perhaps Americans will understand that change cannot be brought to our nation by those lawyers who already largely dictate American society and business. Perhaps Americans will see that hope does not come from the mouths of lawyers but from personal dreams nourished by hard work. Perhaps Americans will embrace the truth that more lawyers with more power will only make our problems worse.
 
The United States has 5% of the world's population and 66% of the world's lawyers!  Tort (Legal) reform legislation has been introduced in congress several times in the last several years to limit punitive damages in ridiculous lawsuits such as spilling hot coffee on yourself and suing the establishment that sold it to you and also to limit punitive damages in huge medical malpractice lawsuits.  This legislation has continually been blocked from even being voted on by the Democrat Party.  When you see that 97% of the political contributions from the American Trial Lawyers Association go to the Democrat Party, then you realize who is responsible for our medical and product costs being so high.

Double Dummies on Daily Display (updated 24aug22)

George Rebane

This is really a critique of the American electorate, and how low it has sunk in its capacity to discern and vote for political leaders sufficiently competent and principled to maintain our republic as the world's shining city on the hill – “A republic, if you can keep it.” B. Franklin.

I am simply astounded by the parade of incompetent, duplicitous, and just plain ignorant politicians that parade across our TV screens daily.  My latest pique occurred yesterday when FN’s Trace Gallagher was interviewing Sec Energy Jennifer Granholm, specifically about the administration’s new Inflation Reduction Act bamboozle. (here)  I have no idea why anyone would allow that woman to come before a live mic.  She demonstrated no idea about what the Dems’ new law would do, and what Americans really care about as November approaches.

What she did corroborate is the Biden administration’s ongoing incompetence in everything it has touched since January 2021, and their ability to generate the most stupendous list of lies about what has happened and what is going on now.  The term for this is ‘gaslighting’, and Team Bumblebrain is front and center daily taking advantage of an already poorly educated electorate by filling them with stuff that simply ain’t so.  And the tragedy of it all is that it appears to be working.

Victor Davis Hanson covers the matter in the more germane details as only he can in his ‘The Worst and the Stupidest?’.  Unfortunately, the only game in town opposing the evil anti-American Democrats are a bunch of mostly spineless Republicans who have little or no idea on how to appeal to the masses of main street Americans.  Our border remains open to millions of illegals, crime is fostered by the justice system, foreign policy is in shambles on three critical fronts, black lives don’t matter, meritocracy is white supremacist, and our educational systems at all levels are being co-opted by neo-Marxists.  The only remaining hope is that the existential pain in America’s wallets remains sufficiently intense so that people will seek something different at the ballot box this Fall.

[24aug22 update] Elizabeth Warren discovers that free money is popular.   Pursuant to Bumblebrain’s cancelling of at least $10K of everyone’s student debt, she said, "Look, I’m not at all surprised that Mitch McConnell is attacking this. The reason he’s attacking it is because it is very, very popular. Popular among Democrats, independents, Republicans – popular.  You know why?  Because I don’t think there’s anybody left in America who doesn’t know somebody who is not struggling with student loan debt. This has become a part of our country now. People for whom their only sin was to want to try to get an education and not be in a family that could afford to write a check for it."  After also claiming that it will be “good for our economy”, I have no idea why anyone would let her near an open mic.  Well, maybe those Dem leaders who believe their constituents overwhelmingly are really, really stupid.