Rebane's Ruminations

Picking on Piketty

George Rebane

Admittedly not a difficult task.  I just finished Brief History of Equality (2022) by Thomas Piketty.  Darling of the international Left, we have encountered this French economist before in these pages (here).  Our American Left is in thrall with the man’s wisdom, prescience, and prescriptions for a better world.  Piketty’s thoughts and nostrums on economics and the future global order are important for Americans to understand since they form the illustrated intellectual basis for much of the Democrats’ social, economic, and even foreign policies.  Piketty’s extensive neo-Marxist works give our Left the veneer of legitimacy to sway the country’s center and undecided toward wholesale collectivism.

In my previous remarks on Brief History I concentrated on some of the technical points from his earlier works, specifically points that evinced his massive blindspots about human nature, especially when it comes to our economic behavior in the presence of monetary risk.

In this coda I want to put a ribbon around his arguments promoting the new world order he has invented and labeled “federalized democratic socialism”, along with various other derivative names.  This is a destination form of collectivism that Piketty describes as “decentralized” socialism, hence the appended ‘federalized’ attribute.  Such decentralization will result when the masses come together to “develop new forms of sovereignism(sic) with a universalist vocation.”  If you understand any of this ideo-babble, you’re a better man than I.

Open Letter to Don Rogers

[This piece was published in the 11may22 Union op-ed pages here.]

Your weekly column – ‘The gritty middle way’ - in the 6may22 Union (here) was a thoughtful, well-written piece that I and many of your readers enjoyed reading.  By now, most of the newspaper’s readers know that, counter to your protestations, you have become markedly left-of-center in your politics.  We have all witnessed the transition over the last few years.

The essay’s great opening – “Humans live in tension between the collective and the individual, neither ant drones nor lonely snow leopards.” – sets the stage for a good discussion of that gritty tension.  As you might expect, your words will sound very different to right and left readers who don’t necessarily inhabit the extremes of their respective polar regions.

The discerning reader is jarred a mite when he runs into “the farther right and farther left have uncannily similar root worldviews in common. Just understand that America’s actual risk of living under the thumb of fascist overlords or critical-theorist Marxist mobs amounts to the same fever dream born of indigestion from bogieman stories repeated mostly on blue screens.”

This observation and a couple of others can qualify as a litmus test for an intellectual leftist – they do not see the asymmetries in the ideological foundations of individualism and collectivism.  For them, “our yearnings in politics would have us believe that the end of the rainbow, the prize, lies at one pole or the other, sweet relief to be found there.”  However, that is not true.  Were we to believe polls and voting patterns, we would know the overwhelming share of liberal voters embrace large government collectivism, seeing no natural limits to taxation, regulation, and centralized control – reaching for the undefined but uniformly applied ‘common good’ dominates all political thought.  This is the foundation of the ‘fair share’ dictum - from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs – enforced equity über alles.

On the right the conservative, most certainly the conservetarian, sees no desired end in fascist governance.  For after all, fascism is the other dominant form of collectivism that also requires a very large autocratic government to implement its principles of social order and economics.  This is anathema to the overwhelming share of those on the Right.  Perhaps unrealistically, but the mainstream rightwinger’s desiderata are based on a smaller government minimally regulating open markets, staying out of people’s lives, and subsisting on minimum tax revenues.  The real political bookends for us are quite different than those apprehended and preached by the Left.  An easy proof of this is in the readings of your cited Levin, who describes a leftist society accepted by the Left, and Lakoff, who demonstrates repeatedly that he has no idea what the Right believes and seeks.

What the left-leaner also misses is that his desired social order requires the practice of wholesale altruism to make it work, and populated by perfected Marxists who have always been beyond the pale of human action (see Hardin’s ‘The Tragedy of the Commons’).  Historically, all leftwing nostrums to achieve such a glorified state of affairs require an initial phase of large-scale authoritarian social conditioning, wherein some eggs have to be cracked to make the sought for omelet.  This road, de rigueur to the intellectual Marxist, is kept hidden from the hoi polloi lest they up and embrace the ever-present siren song of the capitalists.

So, in sum Don, your commentary invites the reader to an admittedly difficult, yet reasonable, and reasoned middle path, avoiding both sides bounded by indistinguishable brambles and thorns.  Sadly, as attested by more than two hundred years of history, along with today’s petabytes of data, that is not the real world – it never was.  May the conversation continue.

Always with respect and best wishes,

George Rebane

Democrats speak in ‘poetic truths’ (updated 10may22)

George Rebane

Hoover Institution senior fellow and national commentator Shelby Steele has coined an appropriate tongue-in-cheek label for the gigantic lies that issue daily from our Left.  It turns out that such lies may be viewed as “poetic truths” when broadcast by politicians and political activists.  Poetic truths are "narratives that play down or disregard reality and facts to advance a favored ideological position."  The current claimant of the most audacious poetic truth is Ms Nusrat Choudhury (pictured), whose statement that “the killing of unarmed black men by police happens every day in America” patently qualifies (emphasis mine and Sen Kennedy’s).

She maintained the correctness of this statement to Sen John Kennedy who questioned her during the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing that revealed her (lack of) qualifications to become a federal judge pursuant to having been nominated by the nation’s First Incompetent, President Bumblebrain himself. (more here)

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.

[10may22 update]  Poetic truths also come in the complimentary form of the sound of silence.  The evil party again demonstrated its true colors when both the administration and Democratic congressional leaders chose to remain silent on the historical travesty of compromising SCOTUS deliberations by leaking a draft of the forthcoming ruling on the continued federal involvement on abortions.  The leak, if allowed to become a precedent so prevalent in other governmental branches, departments, agencies, … will completely politicize the last vestige of non-political functions of our federal government.  The Democrats quickly doubled down on their ‘ascent by silence’ with a chorus of Big Lies about the impact of the upcoming Roe v Wade ruling that would range all the way from summarily prohibiting abortions in the land, to banning every other social activity that today we are free to perform – e.g. gay marriage.  The poetic truths Democrats perpetrate on the poor and the poorly informed knows no end.

As always, Democrats are invited to counter.

Scattershots – 1may22

George Rebane

‘Workers of the world, arise and celebrate the day that brings us together to again be thankful for the blessings of collectivism that unite us in a revolution to make socialism available to all peoples everywhere.’ - or something similar.  I just thought it would be appropriate to make up that piece of crap on May Day.

Inflation Tax.  Last year many of us already saw the salacious intents of the Biden administration in how they were systematically going about to ruin the nation.  Among the many disasters they were cooking up was inflation.  Well, it’s here now, and the piece I posted then (here) is definitely worth reviewing by those who are impacted by inflation and those who are planning to be so impacted.  I count myself among the latter, so it’s time to review the taxing aspects of inflation (here).  And for those who are spreadsheet challenged, I made a spreadsheet with the formulas from the ‘Inflation – up close and personal’ post. Download InflationInvesting2

Wealth tax:  The Build Back Bullshit agenda is still not dead and buried.  Team Bumblebrain has every intent on passing most of its provisions, especially those increasing our taxes.  The administration's entire team on economics are double dummies who couldn’t pass Econ 101.  They continue to tell the sheeple that we can tax ourselves out of an inflationary spiral.  Even Keynes, the lord of demand-siders, counseled against raising taxes in an inflation infested economy. (more here)

Election corruption right here in River City?  My bride and a commenter picked up on a thinly disguised campaign ad in the 30apr22 Union for Natalie Adona, our Soros'(?) foreign plant Assistant Registrar of Voters, who is running for the county’s Clerk Recorder – Registrar of Voters in the 7jun22 election.  The ad, pictured below, is made to look like a public service announcement from the Nevada County Clerk Recorder – Registrar of Voters office.  Notice the formal seal in the lower right corner.  Were it a bona-fide voter info notice from that office, then it would have been published under the aegis of our current holder of that office, Greg Diaz.  It does not speak well for The Union to have allowed this campaign ad to appear without some corrective editorial comment.

Leftwing Journalism (Addended)

George Rebane

Reading this morning’s (28apr22) Union, I was both startled and disappointed when I came to the paper’s weekly Hits & Misses column (here).  Publisher Don Rogers usually places his contributions at the bottom, and there we saw –

MISS (from Publisher Don Rogers): To the kind of free speech as uttered by bullies, liars, abusers, propagandists, trolls, rumor-mongers, gossips and other asses lurking in social media, including the new owner of Twitter.

Now, it’s been no secret for decades that there is a great asymmetry between the reportage from our neighbors on the Left and Right.  (The published literature on that could fill a library.)  We have covered this phenomenon going on 15 years now.  Recent leftwing journalistic atrocities include the multi-year unabashed and still ongoing reporting of the Great Russian Collusion for which there is not a shred of evidence.  In a similar vein, material events of national importance are thoroughly buried in what is now correctly known as the lamestream media.  An example of that is the Hunter Biden laptop scandal which revealed influence peddling that included payoffs to the “Big Guy” principal, now in the White House, whose influence was peddled.

Such evidence-free, evidence-hiding journalistic behavior is to be expected in the national press, but not so much from local outlets in markets where the writers and readers know each other.  This is why I was surprised to read Don’s pre-emptive swipe at Elon Musk.

Readers may recall that I consider Don Rogers a respected friend, among the many I have on the port side.  However, his published Miss is so out of character of the man I know on two counts.  First, Musk’s stated intentions to open up Twitter to uncensored free speech should be welcomed by all who support our First Amendment, especially those who supposedly deal in ‘Truth’ as journalists claim in their code of ethics.  And second, Musk has yet to do anything at Twitter that would justify anyone to categorize him on Roger’s list of misfit communicators.  So why launch such a pre-emptive editorial attack that looks so much like gratuitous pandering to the county's growing progressive faction?

In expressing all this consternation, I am reminded that The Union is a privately owned enterprise, and has wide latitude in what kind of news and editorial content it is free to publish.  I don’t think that the above Miss crossed any libel lines, but I do think that Don Rogers does step over the bounds of editorial prudence when he joins the ranks of the country’s leftwing lemming chorus, all howling their imagined portents of Elon Musk single-handedly about to bring American democracy to an end by opening up Twitter to free speech.

Addendum:  Leftwing journalism cannot survive as a co-equal in an open market of ideas.  In such an environment, collectivist thought withers away into a dry shell of an echo, infrequently encountered and never taken seriously by those open to the greater wash of ideas that inundate the public square.  This is to be corroborated by the establishment of a very visible crutch that will henceforth support the already limping lamestream.  The Biden administration will seek to ensconce a permanent Ministry of Truth (aka Disinformation Governance Board) to oversee and variously censor ideas, opinions, happenings, and facts that counter the neo-Marxist narrative of socialism that has become the dissonant chorus from the Left. (more here and here)  The leader of these quenchers of free speech will be Nina Jankowicz, a renown incompetent in all but partisan zealotry, which she has demonstrated throughout her career (more here).  This woman is the carefully chosen poster-child for fettered discourse in the land.

Ruminations – 15apr22 (updated 16apr22)

George Rebane

Twitter’s poison pill to dissuade Elon Musk from taking the company private and making it truly a universal platform for free speech.  Democrats and other socialists are mortified, with many of their media lackies quickly declaring that only with more “mediation” (aka censorship) of online speech can we sustain democracy.  Not long ago such a statement was palpably unbelievable; today not so.  Here is a link to find out more about the types of most commonly used poison pills.

RR’s characterization of the liberal mind is confirmed multiple times daily.  Here is one from this morning’s letters to the 15apr22 Union by a Ms/Mr/Xcritter Nory Fussell – The year 2021 ended with 745 billionaires, up from 614 in 2020. Many billionaires pay little or no taxes. We suffer the lie of backbreaking “inflation” while corporate profits skyrocket.  Progressives don’t cause this.  Wars continue to break out, the military budget continues to grow, and our chief export is weapons of war. This is not the work of Progressives but of soulless men, put mildly, suffering an acute anti-social personality disorder.  Infrastructure crumbles. You lose power, heat, and essential services. Look what you pay at the pump, while oil executives laugh and rake it in. The economic war against you is raging — it will only get worse.  Progressives, perhaps imperfectly, work toward health care, education, and basic human needs. The oligarch party (you know who they are!) rages flat-out lies about race, class, gender, even about a violent insurrection. They offer no solutions to your needs.  Apparently (unbelievably!), a fairly large percentage of you are moved more by fear, anger, victim-hood and divisiveness. In one generation, how did the USA lose so much?

[16apr22 update]  Our economists and other economic analysts are hyper-ventilating about 3.5M workers they claim will not re-enter the post-Covid job market.  They tell us this deficit – consisting mostly of lowly paid women with no college - will be permanent.  Rebane Doctrine advises them not to worry.  As we have repeatedly noted, systemic unemployment has been slowly growing for years, and will continue to do so as cheaper and more capable technology replaces more expensive and unreliable workers.  And even the short-term deficit will be easily handled by the influx of illegal aliens as they get settled into their new homes and look for work.  From my perch, our continuing problem will be to mollifying the growing horde of the chronically irrelevant and systemically unemployed from revolting to relevance. (cf rising crime rates and more here)

Giving until it hurts?  FN and The Blaze cite IRS records (here) showing that Bumblebrain and FLOTUS gave $17,400 or 2.8% of their 2021 income to charity.  Kamala and SHOTUS upped them a mite, and gave $22,100, but only 1.3% of their 2021 income to charity.  These laughable amounts are not all that laughable as records have shown for years that leftwingers don’t give much to private charities – their charity operates with OPM.  This has been much studied (here).  And as socialists they believe that government should be the sole provider of succor to its citizens.  Nevertheless, Americans continue to give through private charities amounts that are multiples of what the deficit-spending, vote-buying government dispenses.  For the record, as grateful entrepreneurs we, and many of our friends, are blessed to be able to give up to 40% of our earnings to worthy causes.  This tallies to several times the amounts that our progressive elites and leaders let escape from their tightly zipped wallets.

 

The Jewish Question

George Rebane

In his ‘Passover and the Constitution’,  Professor William Galston writes “The Jewish festival teaches that liberty is only possible with tradition and order.”  These are not the mainstay criteria nor governance objectives of today’s American progressives.  Galston is a political science academic who now resides as a senior fellow at the very liberal Brookings Institution in its Governance Studies program.  His linked article appeared in the 13apr22 WSJ.

In the rabbinical tradition of studying the Talmud and the Torah, Dr Galston does not always present the most understandable prescriptions – there’s always ‘on the other hand’.  Here the point that seeks exposure is that sustainable freedom can only be achieved and exercised in an environment of mutually accepted order.  And mutual acceptance is passed on as an inherited tradition, a social legacy from previous generations.  Jews formalize this tradition in the course of the traditional Seder (order) that is central to the celebration of Passover (freedom).

“This raises a classic issue—the relationship between order and freedom. Some schools of thought view them as antitheses—the more order, the less freedom, and vice versa. Libertarians want to minimize government constraints to maximize liberty. Anarchists carry this thesis to its inevitable, and self-refuting, conclusion. … In the Jewish tradition, by contrast, order makes freedom possible. In the absence of a framework—a law, a text, a tradition—we cannot act freely. Not only are we plunged into debilitating doubt, but our decisions also collide with those of others. The actions of others rarely coordinate harmoniously with our own. And when they don’t, all are prevented from acting as they choose. Without a framework of social order, every individual can seek freedom, but none can achieve it.”  If this sounds like a bit of ‘you can have any color you want, as long as it’s black’, then so be it.

However, a little meditation on the freedom/order dichotomy reveals again that in an enduring communal setting no member can act with total freedom; several times a day our fist inevitably comes to within an inch of others’ noses.  So, all of our communal freedoms are in fact circumscribed.  And respecting where the fences are, by what authority they were so placed, and who abides by them, defines the area in which we and our neighbors can practice our ordered freedoms.

Socialist Economics

George Rebane

A Brief History of Equality (2022) is the latest issue of socio-economic wisdom from the socialist-celebrated French socialist economist Thomas Piketty.  You might recall that Piketty gave us Capital in the Twenty-First Century (2013), his magnus opus comprised of “an 800-page book turbid with equations and numbers of all kinds, … is regarded as a game-changing weapon in the war to wrest wealth from the rich.”  Therein he introduced the world to “the central contradiction of capitalism” which elicited worldwide acclaim from collectivists of every stripe – progressives, Marxists, communists, … .  Its dense arguments made the tome’s 2.5 million copies sold as one of the most unread books of all time.  Nevertheless, adulatory columns and commentaries without end graced the pages and programs of the mainstream media.  With all those equations, it appeared that someone had finally put the demise of capitalism on a firm scientific basis.

The piece de resistance of ‘Capital’ was introduction of his signature inequality r > g, stating that the rate of return on capital always exceeds the growth rate of its underlying economy.  In a nutshell, that was his ‘central contradiction’ to which I return in a bit.  But as Tunku Varadarajan of the American Enterprise Institute explains (here), “Thomas Piketty attempts to lure readers unable to scale the mountain of ‘Capital’” with a series of socialist principles that would create equality (think social justice) by “flattening the wealth curve.”

Piketty does admit that there has been an historical movement toward equality along many dimensions – status, gender, race - since the late 1700s, but still not enough “to brag about.”  These gains have not been achieved by the increase in access to material wealth made possible by capitalist, profit-seeking entrepreneurs, but instead by revolutionary politics and class struggle.  “Efficient production, shrewd investment, or the genius and dynamism of innovators are sideshows”, because “all creations of wealth in history have issued from a collective process”.  For Piketty, this process has not only included but also depended on “the international division of labor, the use of global natural resources”, and most importantly “the accumulation of knowledge since the beginnings of humanity”, all blessings of the global collective.  Varadarajan correctly concludes from these claims that Piketty “is pure Bernie Sanders or AOC” and “may even be to their left.”

Militarizing local LE agencies

George Rebane

Last week’s Union had a couple of items that piqued my ire.  One included the display of a grim array of new militarized riot control gear that our Grass Valley police will now have at the ready to put down any protests they deem will violate public order and safety. (more here) The other item was the newspaper’s editorial board, in their 8apr22 Our View column (here), clutching their communal pearls about the recent Sacramento shootings and lamenting that “we’re nowhere near knowing the steps we need to take to reduce the number of shootings in this country.”

Ruminations – 3apr22 (updated 5apr22)

George Rebane

‘Birthing people’ is yet the latest addition to the Democrats’ newspeak, in their ongoing and evil intent to reduce the information carrying capacity of English.  Birthing people replaces the use of ‘mother’ and ‘woman’ in describing a human capable of giving birth to a baby.  It ambiguates the meaning of the referent, and requires the use of 15 ASCII characters vs the 6 or 7 characters needed for the shorter and more precise terms.  (See also 'Democrats' Newspeak - 13jan22')

The ending of the Russo-Ukraine War is a growing issue in today’s diplomatic and political deliberations regarding aid to Ukraine and Russia’s reaction to such aid.  Talking heads and experts are predicting that the war will go on for at least a month and no longer than three months.  Reasonably assuming that the war is a minimally known process, what is the probability that the war will actually end in the oft-cited two-month period.  Well, R-G theory (here) has an answer for such questions.  Using today’s duration of the war (which began 24feb22) as 38 days, the desired probability computes to about 0.26 or one out of four.  Additionally, 0.45 is the probability that the war ends in the next 31 days, and 0.29 is the probability that it continues past 92 days.  Place your bets.

[4apr22 update]  Putin’s future looks less than dim, no matter the course he now takes.  If he continues his totally useless and failed aggression in Ukraine, he will probably get a bullet in the head from the nomenklatura.  If he withdraws from Ukraine under some bullshit bravado, he’ll get a bullet or be sent to the Hague for war crimes.  Most likely a bullet since his definitive removal will be a condition for the lifting of sanctions and normalization of Russia’s relations – the sanctions are devastating the country both economically and socially.  If he pops a nuke, he’ll definitely get a bullet and/or be hog-tied and shipped to the Hague in a packing crate.  There are too many powerful and rich people in Russia who cannot countenance Putin’s disaster taking away their stash and trashing Mother Russia.  And I think Putin knows all this.

[5apr22 update] The 5apr22 Union reports of a useful idiots gathering (here) to remind us that America is still woefully short on civil rights, and that voting is difficult in many/most states.  Here we’re told of our guilt as being the “whitest county in California”, and “it’s also one of the more conservative counties in California,” so “it’s important for folks in this county to know that our privilege and easy access to voting is not universal across the United States.”  This hot flash comes from a cohort of the most under-informed leftwing activists in the country.

‘Genes vs. Culture’

George Rebane

This is the title of a landmark essay on the American condition by Lawrence Mead, Professor of Politics at New York University, published in the March/April 2022 edition of Chronicles, flagship publication of the Charlemagne Institute.  Continuing the work of Charles Murray et al, Professor Mead makes the case that “conservatives face a juggernaut determined to transform society in the name of equity. In order to fight it, they must have the courage to state the truth: There are real differences, both genetic and cultural, between races and sexes.”

The essay presents a compendium of information about the racial and cultural differences inherent in the people who today populate the United States.  Almost everything that is cited is currently censored in today’s land of the free and home of the brave.  That we compliantly accept this is ongoing evidence of the country’s continuing decline toward autocracy cum tyranny.

When I wrote ‘Equity Denies Reality’ and also submitted it to The Union, its publisher told me in so many words that the subject was too hot to be handled in our rapidly bluing Nevada County.  It would generate way more heat than light, and besides, our publisher’s own worldview did not countenance the presentation of such government data - not all that the government gathers and archives is suitable for sheeple fodder.

The main thesis this forbidden research and recorded data supports is that we are a variegated citizenry in an historical melting pot that has yet to melt into a homogenous amalgam when it comes to individual propensities and capabilities which are identifiably and unambiguously still distinguished by genes and culture.  Denying this, and making it public policy to lie about it over the past fifty years has done untold harm to our e pluribus unum work in progress.

I strongly recommend both Murray’s Facing Reality: Two Truths about Race in America (2021) - source of graphic - and Mead’s ‘Genes vs. Culture’ in order to understand the quantitative details about the nature of our divisions, and how today's Left seeks to capitalize on these as we march toward the Great Divide or the global Great Reset.

Liberal Hypocrisy Fuels American Inequality

George Rebane

What do Dems actually do when they have all the power?  The short answer is that they have created the worst states in the Union with regard to housing, education, taxation, homelessness, … .   And first and foremost, they turn on their political and media lying machines to deny what horrible messes in governance they create when voters unwittingly hand them all the levers of power in a state.  This has gotten so bad that even the NYT now runs op-eds decrying the Democrats’ hypocracies, illustrating in chapter and verse the 180 differences between the nation’s progressive talk and walk.

Today Democrats control the legislative and the executive branches, or else have veto-proof majorities in the legislatures of 18 states – Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, Illinois, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont, Maine, Hawaii.  And these are the worst governed states in which progressives promote and maintain the greatest inequalities between their rich and their poor.  In these states there is no possibility for any Republicans to stand in the way of Democrat public policies – the Left owns these states lock, stock, and barrel.

Noted author and NYT editorial board writer Binya Appelbaum has zeroed in on these states to discover the nature and magnitude of leftwing travesties in operation.  He teams up with video journalist Johnny Harris to report on the details in this NYT Opinion video.  Here they present the data that forms the basis for the fabric of Big Lies on which our Left has based its access to power by buying the votes of the less-read, and keeping them on urban plantations for decades during which millions of American lives have been destroyed and/or stunted.

To me the information presented here is yet another confirmation that the Democrat Party is fundamentally evil, especially in how it has bamboozled the poor, and succored its rich into believing they have the moral high ground on the nation’s conservatives.  The Great Divide cannot happen soon enough.  (H/T to reader and correspondent)

Scattershots – 8mar22 (updated 12mar22)

George Rebane

Probability is the measure of possibility.

H&I fires.  The Russians are using an unusually insidious, deadly, and dastardly artillery tactic to kill fleeing civilians on negotiated evacuation routes.  The tactic is called Harassment and Interdiction fires, and are designed to deny the enemy free use of designated areas over extended periods.  H&I fires are conducted randomly with high explosive shells fired from one or two tubes, and set to denote at 50-150 feet above ground level.  This results in an anti-personnel ‘kill circle’ of at least 200-300 feet radius depending on shell size.  Historically artillery is the biggest killer on the battlefield, spraying shrapnel (extremely jagged and irregularly shaped pieces of steel ranging from bullet to tennis ball sizes) at extreme velocities around the detonation point.  And whereas small arms military bullets travel at around 3,000 ft/sec, shrapnel comes at you at over 20,000 ft/sec.  Targeting H&I fires on escape routes that are used only once by escapees is like shooting fish in a barrel – they never know whether or when its incoming, and they’re always out in the open.  I wonder what a Russian battery commander feels when ordered to schedule H&I fires that he knows will kill/maim only civilians?  Talk about war crimes.

Minds that never will meet.  We have yet one more example of the Great Divide in progress.  In my recent ‘Pentagon teaches socialism’ post’s comment stream we have one of our longtime leftwing readers deny acceptance of this important piece of anti-American news, why? because he considers the cited Newsmax “hardly a credible news source”.  This reader is an established representative of this kind of progressive mentality – if the messenger is unfavorable, summarily reject the message.  He never even bothered to examine the further referenced links which would have taken him to the DoD website where the conference was announced, described, and additional links provided.  Instead, he and his consider CNN, MSNBC, NYT, WaPo, … and other lamestream news media as reliable, no matter that they don’t report news that doesn’t comport with the DNC narrative, and are unrepentant and uncontrite about most items they falsely report and/or spin.  People of the Right have no problem consuming leftwing news and progressive literature – we demand to know it.  However, those of the Left never lift the blinders they had carefully installed during their K-12 years.  Such news consumption practices of the Left and Right are but one of many asymmetries that have made meaningful communication between the sides a rapidly fading episode in our country’s history.

[10mar22 update]  Re the restraining order on my daughter.  Nearly everything that has been admitted as evidence from the plaintiff at the hearing is a lie as corroborated by the available videos and the physics of the possible (e.g. see 1032am comment below).  The judgement was a preordained political act.

[12mar22 update]  Putin’s Rasputin bubble?  Perhaps a little play on words, but a friend and reader sent me a link and asked whether I had ever heard of Aleksandr Gelyevich Dugin.  It turns out that Dugin has been the political philosopher and intellectual ideologue of Putin’s inner circle for some time now, dishing out his esoteric views on neo-fascist ‘Eurasianism’. (more here)  Now I have never heard of Dugin or even that Putin has had an ‘inner circle’ of confidants.  From what has been reported it appears that Putin has used the Machiavellian structure of alternating advisor circles whose members are political enemies of adjacent circles, thereby making it hard for a court conspiracy to mature sufficiently to topple the prince.  But according to the referenced article, it appears that Putin’s Rasputin may have successfully implanted his ideas about the historical resurgence of a post-czarist Russia extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific.  “Gestated in anti-communist right-wing activism during the waning days of the Soviet Union, indebted to a specifically anti-liberal and anti-Enlightenment philosophical embrace of authoritarianism, irrationalism, and hyper-nationalism, Dugin dreams of a reborn Orthodox Tsarist state surpassing the borders and spheres of influence as they existed before 1989, of a Novorossiya (New Russia) built not on socialist principles, but fascist ones.” 

The mentality of a Russian soldier has always been a puzzle to westerners since at least the 1905 Russo-Japanese War.  (Recall that my grandfather was a czarist conscript in that war, transported to and from Pacific rim battles on the trans-Siberian railroad in cattle cars which served as troop trains for Russian soldiers.)  The Russian soldier has been distinguished by his overall and abysmal ignorance of his mission, especially as it fits into the geo-strategic situation du jour, and his lack of what the western soldier knows as patriotism.  The Russian soldier always has found himself poorly led and poorly outfitted – his main goal is just to stay alive and go back home.  To achieve this, he will follow any orders and do anything that lets him survive the day.  Questioning authority is an unknown concept as long as it doesn’t put his life in immediate danger.  However, he has been known to sabotage his own equipment, and even his own body, in order to avoid being thrown into the next maelstrom from which retreat often means summary execution.  In this light one can understand Russia’s wanton shelling of Ukrainian civilians, be they in their apartments or fleeing on an open road.

Reunification? Fuhgettaboudit!

George Rebane

A dear friend of more than half century who insists he is a middle-roader and considers both sides before coming to conclusions had an extremely revealing but unsurprising email exchange with me minutes ago.  We had just finished watching the news, a great part of which was the coverage of Durham’s announcement and court filing last Friday concerning the Clinton Russiagate scandal.  Now my friend is very well educated and seeks not to be identified as a polarized American.  He is even an active member of No Labels as confirmation of his claim of being politically independent.  (No Labels is patently leftwing.)

For any conservetarian and most right-leaning readers of my many years’ experience who might examine the writings and opinions of my friend, they would immediately identify him as a dyed-in-the-wool leftist cum progressive.  One who is even insular along with run-of-the-mill Democrats who drastically limit themselves only to lamestream sources – all others are considered suspect political propaganda from the Right.  So here is our little email exchange less than an hour ago.

George: What's your take on the latest Durham finding and court filing that came out last Friday? 

Friend: Durham as in NC? I have followed that. Is it on gerrymandering or something else?

More conservative outlets such as the WSJ, FN, Washington Times, Newsmax, … have had wall-to-wall coverage of this latest revelation which in itself is much more devastating and sheds light on the illegal subterfuge in our corrupt government than Watergate ever was.  And from the reports this evening on media coverage, we find that more than half of the country is totally ignorant of Durham’s latest findings and filings.  (more here)

Someone out there with a keener mind than mine, please find us some hope.

As a coda to this bleeding artery, consider conservative pundits like FN’s Brit Hume sonorously informing us that with this latest finding the lamestream cannot help avoiding an ample helping of egg on their face.  Unfortunately, nothing could be further from the truth.  The lamestream doesn’t give a big rat’s ass about what rightwing journalists, pundits, and commentators know or think.  Their focus is on the great unwashed.  As long as they know that they control what that cohort of Americans knows and believes, the rest makes no never mind.  We confirm that at every election

Racist SCOTUS Nomination

[More than three-quarters (76%) of Americans want President Joe Biden to consider all potential nominees to replace outgoing Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, according to a recent ABC News-Ipsos poll. (more here)]

George Rebane

Bumblebrain joins the short list of known presidents who have chosen their SCOTUS nominees based on race and gender, and, of course, their proper ideological orientation.  We all know that, along with the other government branches, SCOTUS is a political organization.  It attempts to distinguish itself by claiming otherwise.  Reagan limited one of his choices to (white?) women only, and Bush1 limited his choice to black men only.

Black Americans make up about 13.4% of our population of 332M, and of those 50.8% or 22.6M are women.  Given a chance, candidate Bumblebrain promised to put a black woman on the bench, to bring the court’s black contingent up to three or 33% of its justices.  (Actually, the racist Dems don’t recognize Justice Thomas as a black because he votes mostly conservative, and therefore the lamestream lackies ignore him and his work.)

So after bragging to his base that now he’ll seat a black woman, he got massive pushback some of which even included his own propaganda organs who correctly feared that such naked criteria, left to themselves, would really be politically damaging.  That got the WH team with room temp IQs busy trying to get that horse back into the barn.  Bumblebrain himself got in front of mic to assure everyone that he really was interested in the candidate’s lawyering credentials, but then slipped and admitted that the interest was limited to qualified black females.

I’m not sure how the Dems are going to handle Bumblebrain going forward.  The man definitely did not help himself by voting against Clarence Thomas, and today his woke supporters are not even sure what defines a person as a ‘woman’.  So here is the way I see it shaping up.

Bottom line, the Bumblebrain is a hypocritical, politics-first, racist when the Left argues that he just continued in the established tradition of Presidents Reagan and H.W. Bush .  A little thought reveals this.  Reagan appointed Sandra Day O’Connor as part of the nation’s awakening to the long-suppressed role of women.  His appointment of the first female justice was lauded by all, and rightfully so.  Bush1 appointed Clarence Thomas in order to maintain the multiracial composition of the court with the retirement of its first black justice Thurgood Marshall.

Bumblebrain will appoint a black woman because he wants to retain as much of the black and progressive vote as possible during the next two national elections – it’s a matter of retaining Democrat power in our national and state governments.  Before his nominating a black woman, SCOTUS already has two blacks, 22.2% of the court and more than the black share (13.4%) of our population.  Biden wants to pump the court’s black share up to 33%.  And the court already has three women justices, so he’s not breaking any new ground by increasing that to four or 45% of its sitting members.  The argument would be different if he simply wanted to bring female membership up to par.

His apparent real criteria in order of importance are 1) woman, 2) black, 3) demonstrated leftwing ideology, 4) has some demonstrated knowledge of law.  The population of such politically qualifying and credible candidates is relatively small.  If being a member of some accredited bar is a requirement, then there are only 107,000 (8% of all lawyers) black women, out of over 497,000 practicing female lawyers, who make it past that hurdle.  Women make up 37.4% of the total number of 1,330,000 lawyers in the US.  Given that identical proportions hold for lawyers of all races and genders, and since legal qualifications are not a high requirement for the new justice, Biden is then peremptorily excluding 92% of equally and/or better qualified lawyers from being considered for the job.  Our society’s high price for bespoke progressive ‘equity’.

Correction - As pointed out in a comment below by reader Steven Frisch, Justice Sotomayor is not black.  Mea culpa.

Ruminations – 17jan22 (updated 18jan22)

George Rebane

A zealot is one who identifies intimately with his message, and opposes all efforts to reasonably falsify the message because doing so would also falsify him.

A brief compendium of current observations for the record.

Conservatives are (fascists, racists, white supremacists, … pick one or more) and work constantly to have government limit individual freedoms, diminish America’s liberties, and promote an autocratic government – so goes the progressive/Democrat/lamestream narrative.  This is witnessed daily and well documented in progressive activist literature like ‘Don’t Think of an Elephant’ by George Lakoff.  The latter is actually a best-selling leftist communication handbook into which is marbled the Marxist/socialist manifesto.  What the leftwing elites count on is the ignorance of their audience who cannot connect the dots between an autocratic state and big government based on central planning and control.  This deficiency prevents them from seeing that all conservative efforts in governance and public policy are directed in exactly the opposite direction – a minimally funded smaller government with fewer laws and regulations based on federalized maximum local control.  Such governments cannot generate and maintain collectivist public policies which need a massive government to enforce and implement.  Nevertheless, this Big Lie continues.

America’s Left and their Democrat Party public face are desperately attempting to pass federal voting legislation (HR1, ‘The Voting Rights Act’) that will foster and facilitate the entrenchment of a political monopoly based on Marxist/socialist ideology.  The selling point, hysterically touted by Team Biden, is that America’s current election laws limit voting rights, especially those of protected classes.  The evidence to oppose this attack on constitutional federalism is abundant and readily available, but totally buried by the lamestream media.  Only conservative outlets inform their audiences of how the states’ voting laws compare, and about public attitudes that favor policies which restrict the voting franchise to American citizens, and minimize opportunities for election irregularities and fraud. (more here)  Our Left tells Americans that such voter integrity policies are racist/fascist/etc designed to limit voting access to minorities, when nothing could be further from the truth.  Nevertheless, this Big Lie continues.

Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine have fallen victim to Mammon and politics of the most reprehensible, insidious, and deadly kind.  Both medicines have been widely used worldwide as a prophylaxis and treatment for a number of maladies, including Covid – extensively reported in these pages – but proscribed by our federal government and big pharma.  The former to establish precedents and new avenues of government control, the latter to keep effective off-patent medicines out of reach so that high margin patented medicines remain the only alternatives to combatting the pandemic.  The effectiveness of IVT and HCQ have been demonstrated in countless studies and clinical cases.  It’s now so bad that Covid patients on death’s door cannot be administered either medicine by court order (more here).

The death rate of Covid ‘vaccines’ is another scandalous cover-up by our federal government.  In the program to maximize vaccinations, the data on vaccine-related deaths is withheld by the CDC and the FDA.  No vaccine is entirely safe, and every one has its own mortality rate due to various complex – mostly anaphylaxis – reactions to the prophylactic.  According to government data, the death rate within 14 days of being vaccinated for standard flu is about 120 per 100,000, and for shingles it is about 21 per 100,000.  It turns out that for Covid, the equivalent death rate within 14 days of getting jabbed is 190 per 100,000.  When this rate is applied to the millions of people vaccinated, then the Covid vaccines have killed over 388,000 Americans alone.  And with the incidence of breakthrough infections, the efficacy of the vaccines is yet to be determined.  One thing is certain, no government agency wants to talk about this, and all continue to stonewall legitimate queries submitted to them.  (more here and here)

The destruction of the FBI by the Left is almost complete – they are now being repurposed as the nation’s new Stasi.  As evidence, consider that today the FBI finally acknowledged that last week’s attack on the Texas synagogue was an act of Islamist terrorism.  They were the last to know what was immediately obvious to the man on the street across America when informed that one Malik Faisal Akram was the attacker who demanded the release of Aafia Siddiqui, another convicted and jailed Islamist killer.  AG Garland did the best he could to bamboozle the American public as long as he could before national ridicule made him tell his FBI lackeys to announce that the attack was “a terrorist-related matter”.  No kidding Kemosabe.

A more standard law enforcement fare for today’s FBI is launching domestic terrorism investigations of parents who go on public record to oppose local school boards about the content of the curricula – e.g. the tenets of CRT - taught to their kids.  On such matters the FBI is right on the spot ferreting out those subversive parents who don’t toe the line laid down by leftwing dominated teachers unions.  Gotta get those parents out of the way of our educators who are concerned first about their students right after they have their pension negotiations in the bag.  Actually, there may be an issue or two, like paid days off for Covid safety, that may still consume their attention before they get to the kids.

[18jan22 update]  Open and free critique of government is a fundamental principle upon which America was founded.  And the continuance of that right has been the mainstay of our republic since its birth in revolution, which itself is the ultimate critique of government by its citizens.  All roads to tyranny start with the state proscribing the critique of government.  We in the United States have a long history of criticizing our government, its policies, and actions both domestic and foreign.  Everyone has exercised that right, built into our founding documents, without second thought of suffering retribution from any institution of government.  This is not to say that it hasn’t happened (e.g. the IRS going after conservative 501c3 organizations).  But when such illegal retributions have been discovered – usually uncovered by an alert media - they have been roundly rejected by all Americans, resulting in public censure, ending of careers, and even legal actions against the perpetrating scoundrels.  Those days are gone.  Today, firmly on the doorstep of autocracy, we have the Democrats in power openly deploying federal intelligence and law enforcement organs to punish critics of its rogue and radical politicians and policies, and even those opposing state and local leftwing authorities illegally mandating laws and regulations about schools, the pandemic, academe, border porosity, elections, and corporatist enterprises that seek government favor. (more here)  What portends even worse for the republic is that a large share of Americans now favor such government reprisals that formerly were the hallmarks only of communist and fascist governments, and tinpot dictators of backward (e.g. shithole) countries.

The “Insurrection” one year on

George Rebane

Calling and pursuing the 6jan21 Capitol riot as an ‘insurrection’ is the new litmus test for identifying those of the Left in America.

Countless leftwing naïfs across the country – e.g. Tom Durkin (here) in the 6jan22 Union – are decrying the “death of democracy”, which supposedly started with what they call a rightwing insurrection last January.  What happened then was anything but an insurrection planned and executed to destroy American democracy and replace its government.  Look up the definition of ‘insurrection’ and read some history on real insurrections.  In the meantime we may take these 'insurrections' as coming from the semantically challenged and politically agendized.

For other perspectives on the 6jan21 riot attended by rightwingers and Trump supporters, I call your attention to two WSJ pieces – ‘Democracy Isn’t Dying’ and ‘Stop Calling Jan.6 an Insurrection’.  From such perspectives we can reasonably conclude that 1/6 now conveniently serves the Left's agenda to define our division, and also to divide us further.

Victor Davis Hanson ties a nice bow on what the Democrats are actually pursuing in Washington and nation wide in his ‘Who are the Real Insurrectionists?’  It is clear to all who pay attention that the Dems have only one tune to play for their 2022 chances with an obviously debilitated and failing administration.

Recently, Democrats have been despondent over President Joe Biden’s sinking poll numbers. His policies on the economy, energy, foreign policy, the border and COVID-19 all have lost majority support.  As a result, the Left now variously alleges that either in 2022, when they expect to lose the Congress, or in 2024, when they fear losing the presidency, Republicans will “destroy democracy” or stage a coup.  A cynic might suggest that they praise democracy when they get elected, only to claim it is broken when they lose. Or they hope to avoid their defeat by trying to terrify the electorate. Or they mask their own revolutionary propensities by projecting them onto their opponents.  (emphasis added)

Ignorance that passeth all understanding

George Rebane

The Biden administration in attempts to climb out of its shithole of bad policies has the latest excuse for the inflation surge – it’s the fault of American businesses, big and small.  You see, they all got together and decided to start raising prices at the same time.  Another capitalist conspiracy if there ever was one according to our socialists cum communists (that has been their message for over a century now).  It is incomprehensible how the simple economic principle of supply/demand and its effect on prices (and economic behaviors) continues to elude them.

This aspect of their profound ignorance ranks right up there with the Left’s eternal shibboleth that tax rates don’t affect economic behavior.  Where are their intellectual luminaries like Cass Sunstein, of Nudge (2008) and Noise (2021) fame, when Bumblebrain and his redheaded shill put out such garbage for national consumption?  It has never taken much between the ears to understand why socialism and widespread misery correlate so well - more socialism, more misery.  Assemble just a handful of their tortured tenets on human behavior, and you can not only write the economic histories of their disasters, but also predict the nature of the next disaster given their latest policy WIP.  Their BBB (Bring Back Blight) legislation, now in limbo, is a perfect redux of the Titanic’s last night at full speed in iceberg infested waters.

As part of the carefully intended and hidden blights in the BBB, consider that one of its many disastrous provisions calls for the feds to subsidize the nation’s journalists’ salaries.  The wraps would finally come off these lamestream lackies of the Democratic Party – they would finally be put on the payroll to write the ‘news’ as dictated by the DNC - so much for the sham of a free and impartial press. (more here) The American electorate is judged to be in such dire straits that the Left no longer needs to hide or deny such fundamental transformations of America.

Dinner table topics (updated 16dec21)

George Rebane

At our house the conversation turns to politics after the usual householder topics are covered and resolved.  Both Jo Ann and I are political animals.  Readers know my beliefs and propensities, there is here a long record of both, one that is regularly ignored by those of the Left.  Not so many here know about the wife of my life.  She is a longtime hardworking volunteer in various philanthropic organizations and in charge of our family’s giving.  She is also a member of the NC Republican Central Committee, the Union’s editorial board, and the Nevada County Republican Women Federated.  The latter is the local chapter of the largest organization of grassroots Republicans, and next week she will become the new president of the NCRWF.  Did I mention that she’s also the family matriarch with our two daughters, six adult grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren?  Me?  I now try to devote as much time as possible to master the lifestyle of a classic flâneur of the Taleb school – you see, I have been blessed as a kept man by a very capable woman.  Enough.

Recently we dissected the abortion issue (again).  It’s a topic much discussed in these pages, but not so recently.  The so-called ‘pro-life’ anti abortionists continue to miss the dominant argument to abet their cause.  The ‘pro-choice’ promoters base their entire case on the mantra ‘A woman has a right to do with her body as she will.’ – my body, my choice.

The entire basis of the abortionists is that there is only one body and one life involved.  That’s not true in any sense of the word, most certainly not clinically, and in many places, not legally.  What the pro-lifers should continually point out is the singular ‘body’ in the pro-choicers’ mantra, and ask ‘how many bodies (lives) does your choice affect?’  Getting them to admit to the correct answer will change the nature of the debate on a pregnant woman’s rights, subsidizing abortions, who should be involved in the decision, especially in the pregnancy of a minor, and so on.

All ideologues, no matter their coloration, agree on the importance of controlling language as part and parcel of controlling thought (Sapir-Whorf and all that).  The ongoing onslaught of the Left to cancel western culture requires strict adherence to language control, especially as it is taught in schools, used on the lamestream, and pontificated by progressive politicians.  The tsunami of illegal entrants across our open southern border is a case in point.  These arrivals are no longer illegal aliens, or even illegal immigrants.  Today they are simply migrants.  Everyone knows that people have innocently migrated here and there for ages, that’s how the world got populated.  And the migrants from the south are simply people who decided to move to the United States, so what’s wrong with that?  Read the poem on the Statue of Liberty.

In the same vein the press has banned Christmas tree.  The thing we light and decorate in our living rooms during Christmas is now relabeled as the “holiday tree”.  None of that European western culture need be acknowledged in lands both ancient and colonized.  Today a new global world of equity is dawning.  But a little attention reveals that the culture cancelling is very precisely directed.  No one yet dreams of calling the menorah of Hanukkah a ‘holiday candelabra’.

And then there are pejoratives like ‘white supremacist’ and ‘racist’ which must only be used for their implied meanings but never ever defined.  For to offer definitions, no matter how imprecise or ludicrous, would quickly torpedo their entire narrative in pursuit of social justice and equity.  Substance in support of socialists’ apologetics is definitely not their strong suit.

We both could not help smiling (more like snickering) when we heard the latest report on NPR about BLM leaders going on media to lament that ‘armed white people are now running amok’, thereby making their rioters and pillagers to feel unsafe during their public activism.  As odd as that may seem, we hope that more law-abiding people would carry in public, and have the strong belief that rioters assaulting innocents should not feel safe as they are promoted politically on the lamestream.

[13dec21 update]  Ivermectin's effectiveness subrogated to landing a $40M grant.  A leading virologist and researcher, Dr Andrew Hill, republished his favorable findings on the life-saving effects of Ivermectin in order to satisfy the politically correct requirements for obtaining a sizeable grant for Liverpool University.  Given the demonstrated performance of Ivermectin in saving lives during the Covid pandemic, Hill worried about changing his report that could then cost about a half-million lives since his research was one of the main inputs used by the WHO to recommend Covid therapeutics around the world.  You can read all about this tawdry and deadly saga here.  (H/T to reader)

‘Bend over and spread ‘em.’  Our State Dept admits this was the reception our diplomats got when arriving in China and succumbing to their government’s C19 tests via anal swabs.  Understandably Foggy Bottom has been very silent about this new level of contempt Xi has for Team Biden.  This latest foreign policy embarrassment was instituted in February 2021, immediately after Bumblebrain got sworn in.  The insult was first discovered by The Hill to whom State admitted that it was carried out but under protest since the State Dept “never agreed” to the Chinese ignominiously swabbing our diplomats where the sun don’t shine.  This was confirmed by Judicial Watch which filed a lawsuit after State stonewalled a FOIA request.  (more here)

[16dec21 update]  No disaster remains unattributed to climate change.  The know-nothing activists are doing their best not to let the recent Midwest tornado disaster go to waste.  They will be haranguing us with a passel of made-up tales that the whole thing is more undeniable evidence of preventable manmade global warming.  However, suppressed historical data tells a markedly different story of huge multi-state tornado systems with hundreds killed that have devasted that region since white settlers started keeping records in the early 1800s.  But such counter-narrative evidence is no match for the bullshit that now saturates lamestream outlets. (more here)

Scattershots - 29nov21 (updated 9dec21)

George Rebane

Is it Offensive to Illegal Aliens to Refer to Them as 'Illegal Alien'? (here)  I certainly hope so.  But I'm afraid that doing so will not deter more of them from becoming illegal aliens, nor convince those already here illegally to go back.  Nevertheless, it is another concern that is rising to top of our idiot Left's panoply of concerns about America.

[2dec21 update]  Been pig hunting.  Got back yesterday after a few days in the coastal range near Ladoga on a couple of big cattle ranches with the ranch manager and prominent hunting guide Mike Gardner.  I was with my grandson (in-law) who runs a local electrical contracting business.  We saw some pretty impressive country traveling in Mike’s ‘ranch truck’ and his quads.  We almost had a sanitary problem experiencing for the first time the unbelievable steep terrains both vehicles were capable of navigating.  No luck during the first evening’s and next morning’s hunts.  Then we tried a mid-day hunt.  Grandson got his pig in the standard way with a good scoped shot stalking in medium density vegetation.  He spooked the remaining herd and, as planned, drove them in my direction up the next hill where I was waiting with Mike.  The herd of about eight pigs decided to run up my hill along a fence line that would only give me about a 30ft window and slim chance to nail a pig going about 25mph and covering the space in less than a second.  I was standing about 50ft away with my scope set at a wide 4X as the first pig banzaied out of the brush and immediately disappeared behind the next brush wall.  Having seen how little time that took, I was ready for the second pig a couple of seconds later and calibrated my lead on him.  A second or so later the third pig burst out and I was ready – led him properly and put a round through her a foot before her momentum carried her out of my shooting window where she collapsed and quickly died, bleeding copiously from entry and exit wounds and mouth.  Mike said that in 20 years of guiding hunters he had never seen such a well-placed, off-hand shot at a pig that close and hauling ass at full speed.  Grandson later made my day saying, “Papa, you've still got it!”  (I did a little calculation that determined the pigs’ angular rate from my position was about 42 deg/sec; I had less than a second to nail Miss Piggy.)  We collected our pigs and went back to the ranch house to field-dress them and enjoy a well-earned evening of libations, campfire, and BBQd tri-tip dinner.  Got home yesterday after dropping off the carcasses at the butcher in Oroville.  Fun time and good eating to come of some of the most expensive pork available in these parts – it will pencil out at about $45/lb.

[3dec21 update]  The march of the deluded continues unabated on The Union’s op-ed pages.  Today’s lead commentary is from a Keith Rhodes.  He argues that K-12 ‘Students need (a) balanced, complete history’, elements of which come right out of CRT, which he maintains is taught only in select courses at the college level.  The evidence from uncounted sources that CRT is well established in the K-12 curricula across the nation.  This is either totally unknown to the (lamestream limited) Mr Rhodes, or is terminally denied.  The Union’s management stated that it will addend editorial corrections to contributed columns with obvious errors.  But it has become clear over the last few months that these ‘corrections’ consist primarily of the newspaper’s editorial (ideological?) stance, and have been applied selectively to conservative commentaries.  Mr Rhodes exhortations to teach our kids divisive anti-American history are so far off base that he does not even acknowledge the decades of enduring damage to public school students perpetrated by unionized leftwing teachers and administrators.  He concludes his sermon with – We have become a polarized society for many reasons, but what was once just the day-to-day march to improve science, medicine and history, to name but a few, has become a contest of rights and freedoms that isn’t necessarily controversial. It’s simply progress.  As we bog ourselves down in the minutia of these arguments, our competitors in Russia, China and Europe march forward, surpassing us militarily, educationally and culturally. We are slowing our progress and we are threatening not only our democracy, but our future.  Students, and all Americans, deserve to know the truth and be taught a balanced and complete history of our nation. That includes the good, the bad and the ugly.

[7dec21 update]  Ever notice that the self-declared ‘centrists’, ‘independents’, 'non-partisans', etc are overwhelmingly leftwingers who need that extra little bit of subterfuge to bamboozle the innocents they seek to influence?  I was reminded of this again reading this morning’s Union columnist George Boardman’s ‘Observations from the Center Stripe’ which is usually a continuation of his leftwing perspectives on a potpourri of items similar to RR’s Scattershots.  Commentators of the Right never have a problem declaring themselves as conservatives or libertarians, or need to disguise their ideological bent.  But those of the Left know that their medicine will not go down easily unless it is misrepresented in something more palatable.  My own posterchild for this practice is a dear friend of many years whose list to port is beyond obvious and who seeks to deny this through his membership in the equally left-leaning organization calling itself ‘No Labels’.

[9dec21 update] Sudetenland redux. “President Joe Biden’s administration reportedly plans to push the Ukrainian government to appease Russian President Vladimir Putin by ceding territory” reports the Associated Press.  The profundity of ignorance displayed by this administration knows no bounds.  Perhaps the new history taught in schools today does not mention how surrendering Sudetenland to Hitler in 1938 helped save the world from WW2.

Climate models’ unreliability finally admitted.  This truth has been a yearslong ongoing RR campaign debunking the climate change hysteria in which the world is embroiled.  There is literally no scientific basis for believing the 50-100 year predictions of the current spate of mutually incoherent climate change, or the more formally known general circulation models.  The 9dec21 WSJ reports, “Earlier this year, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for the first time used data on past climate behavior to gauge the reliability of climate models for policy makers.” (emphasis added)  The science on climate change, and especially on preventable manmade global warming, ranges between thin and non-existent.  And the gulf between science and knee-jerk climate public policies is still beyond measure.  The bamboozle of the centuries continues unabated.  (more here)

Controlling language to control the masses.  We are reminded of this by the first commenter here below.  However, not understanding or properly using language may have an equally destructive impact on the public mind.  Case in point is the ongoing confusion between the use of ‘data’ and ‘information’ which in almost all people’s minds are erroneously the same.  This includes journalists, lawyers, and even most techies.  Today’s WSJ contains an entire section on the “Information Explosion” which turns out to be nothing more than articles on today’s still important data explosion.  The critical difference is that data are facts and beliefs about the real world.  On the other hand, information is data formatted/processed to support decision making.  It is clear that from one dataset more than one set of information may be generated.  Making information from data is usually hard and requires many different skillsets, most of which are difficult to master.  It is the information generating enterprises which deliver real value to society, and also where the real money-making opportunities beckon.

BLM laments Rittenhouse verdict

George Rebane

Those whose politics have no acceptable future, divert attention only to their version of the past.

National Propaganda Radio this morning featured interviews with BLM leaders who claimed that the Rittenhouse verdict now justified the wanton killing of black protesters by illegally armed and militant white supremacists.  This outrageously false message was repeated by the usual lamestream suspects in a litany of videos shown on FN’s Media Buzz broadcast.  All of it follows an historical year of the mainstream media and leftwing politicians gratuitously libeling Kyle Rittenhouse with allegations that have shown to be pure fabrications by a rogue press continuing their narrative to support critical race theory.

Upon examination, the main complaint of BLM is the fear that the thugs they field under the rubric of ‘peaceful protesters’ will now no longer feel secure when they riot and assault property owners and others they deem to be their class enemies.  The lament is that Rittenhouse has set a precedent that it is now legal for “militant white supremacists” to carry guns on the street and defend themselves when attacked.  A gang of rioters can no longer feel safe and protected by supportive progressive politicians, and the legions of the side-lined and lame law enforcement cadres.  What’s a peaceful protester to do when presented with such a potentially dire scenario?

Led by outlets like NPR, CNN, MSNBC, NYT, WaPo, …, the public has been told a mountain of lies for over a year about what happened in Kenosha on 25 August 2020.  Humorous personal vignettes now abound about astonished, some outraged, Americans who just now are finding out that race was not an issue in the shootings since only white men were involved, and that it was legal (if not wise) for Rittenhouse to carry a visible long-gun during a riot, and that there was no illegal crossing of state lines with a weapon, and that he had more right to be in town than the imported thugs burning and destroying everything they could lay their hands on.  You pay a high price in ignorance when you limit your news sources to the politically woke and stridently divisive lamestream.

For the rest of us it would be a boon if more law-abiding citizens with concealed carries to protect their cities were on streets empty of police when Antifa and BLM plan their next riots.  No rioters should feel secure when they pick an innocent victim and decide to assault him with the intent of doing great bodily harm or worse.  Nevertheless, that guarantee of safety for the criminal is the demand of every Democrat, most certainly those of national repute.

Postscript – To properly characterize the nature of the Left who now assemble on the streets, and prepare for future protests cum riots, we have last Friday’s Chicago, Portland, and Brooklyn demonstrations led by worthies such as ‘The Reverend’ Jesse Jackson.  At these demonstrations people chanted, “every city, every town, burn your precinct to the ground”, and “the only solution is a communist revolution.” (more here)

Ruminations – 27oct21

George Rebane

Record storm total at Casa Rebane measured out at 12.1 inches.  According to The Union this is a regional record for western Nevada County.  We were amazed that the power stayed on while the rain fell almost horizontally.  Home fires were kept burning; we’re blessed with acreage that supplies an ‘infinite’ amount of firewood.

Liberal Minds on Display #1.  Union reader Terry Boyles wants cuts in military spending to help pay for the Democrats’ Debacle of the Trillions.  He argues (here) cuts are justified due to our military’s poor performance, and points out “the fact that our armed forces have achieved little in the way of real national security recently, after a string of failed foreign excursions.”  You think that our political leadership might have had just a tad to do with those failures?

Liberal Minds on Display #2.  “Banning two-stroke engines over time is not a bad thing” opines Phil Carville in a 26oct21 Union ‘Other Voices’.  He cites the air pollution caused by two-strokers as the prime reason for going all electric.  What he and other liberals advocating such a future sooner than later is where does all this reliable electricity come from, and at what cost to both wallet, environment, and economy.  None of these proponents cite the energy losses required to convert one form of energy to another, and the multiple costs and pollution involved in such conversions. 

[Here are some electrical energy conversion scribbles for the curious.  The world’s average fossil fuels net conversion efficiency of 33%, and that is further degraded by transmission and distribution losses of about 9.2% (CA) before it gets to the outlet that charges your battery.  And before your e-mower cuts a blade of grass, its motor works at most with only 80% of the energy that was used to (slow) charge the battery, and at least a 10% further loss in battery storage.  When you put it all together, the energy efficiency of your battery-powered appliance comes down to a generous net of about 20% - I’ve left out some other losses like in your house wiring.  More here, here, and here.]

Liberal Minds on Display #3 – Union letter writer Ron Lowe frequently shares his thoughts with us.  In the 27oct21 Union he is (here) “convinced Republican Party leaders have adopted an authoritarian approach that demands ideological conformity to most any political or scientific posture.  There is no room for independent thinking or freedom of speech allowed.”  Really?!  Now this is exactly what our woke progressives have put in place in government, academe, and the country’s workplaces.  Anyone see the GOP having done any of this?  None of us want to live with the Ron Lowes, and would only want to talk to him about a peaceful separation.  But the Ron Lowes, for some reason, want us to stay.

Oath Keepers – a closer look

George Rebane

National Propaganda Radio did a hit piece on Oath Keepers yesterday morning, labeling them as a “radical right, anti-government paramilitary organization”.  The highly biased progressive slant presented was in line with today’s lamestream narrative trying to make the case that the 6jan21 Capitol riot(?) was organized by the OK in their attempt to overthrow our federal government.  I am not an OK member, and have only heard the standard reports on the organization and its doings.  Of course, all of these reports have been more than shaded by the outlet/individual who has done the reporting.  Wanting to find out more of what they actually believe, I went to their website to read about their organization, adopted charter/mission, and bylaws.

Nothing I have read or heard from voices I consider reasonable has come close to painting these former members of the military and first responders as belonging to a radical right, anti-government paramilitary organization.  Save for the current efforts by our own rabid Left to nail OK as the organizers and leaders of the 6jan21 affair, there has been no evidence presented that these people have done anything of which they are currently accused by the Democrats and their lamestream.  However, the congressional investigation continues, and every possible filament, no matter how gossamer or tenuous, is made out as a portent of much more damning evidence to come.

From their website and the public record, we learn that –

1. OK are non-partisan, hewing to neither political party;
2. Their guiding principle is to maintain the oath we all swore upon entering the military or becoming first responders – to “defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”
3. Instead of anti-government, OK is a dedicated pro-government organization; (As opposed to the existentially anti-constitutional Democratic Party and Biden administration.)
4. There is nothing paramilitary about the OK, save that their members have acquired military and civil first responder skills, which they continue to preserve and share with other members and associate members.
5. Under a constitutional government their activism as an organization is constrained to lawful demonstrations against what they perceive as unconstitutional actions and intents by our federal and various state governments and their agencies.

As such, the OK is very much against the kind of neo-Marxist “fundamental transformation” of America into a socialist state as promised and demonstrated by the country’s leftwing factions led by the radical progressives of the Democratic Party.  OK members, like many more of us, believe that if the leftwing autocrats continue making ‘progress’, then there will come a time when our Left will commission the state police and security apparatus, and/or the military (given its current woke reorganization) to finally disarm the American citizenry and complete their planned road to our servility.  They know that the OK and other similar organizations would then seek to mobilize and organize the public against such an unconstitutional and rogue government.  After all, such a response is our heritage, and the most fundamental American tenet is to preserve our liberties.

The proof of this pudding is that a liberty maintaining government of, by, and for the people is not afraid of citizens who retain the means to overthrow and reconstitute its government gone rogue.  A constitutional government would welcome the existence of supportive grassroots organizations such as the Oath Keepers and other assemblies of veterans and patriotic groups.  Since the Left historically has never trusted the people under their control, their ultimate success depends on the concurrent subversion of government institutions while they disarm the populace and discredit organizations assembled to defend America and its Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

Evidence to the contrary welcomed.

The Union – no room for blasphemies du jour

‘All great truths began as blasphemies.’  GB Shaw

George Rebane

[This commentary was published (here) as an Other Voices column in the 30Oct21 Union.  As usual, the leftwing commenters on the newspaper's website continue to demonstrate their total ignorance of who has been censoring whom across the land.  Add that to their reading comprehension and reasoning abilities, and the nature and content of their comments becomes clear.  gjr]

We have broken bread with our newspaper’s publisher Don Rogers, communicate with him regularly, and consider him a friend.  Don is a likable and honorable man with clear ideas about the kinds of content that should appear in The Union, ideas that he most recently shared in the 22oct21 edition of his weekly column.(here)  Writing about the criteria for acceptable commentary, he informed us, his readers, that –

Facts and evidence must check out with conventional, legitimate sources. We try to keep it within the mainstream guardrails factually for more grounded discussion than, say, on Brunswick street corners or at the start of county supervisors meetings.

Swimming with the times, the newspaper’s editorial policy has noticeably tilted leftward.  I sensed something had changed when a recent Other Voices submittal of mine (here) on some new research by sociologist Charles Murray was rejected for containing subject matter outside established norms, content that would violate the sensibilities of the newspaper’s readership.  It was my first and only rejection in twenty years, and since then I’ve almost learned to behave myself.

These are trying times and new ideas are a messy business, often rejected by minds more careful and staid.  And as a private enterprise, The Union has every right to determine what it chooses to print.  Nevertheless, this is my lament about our hometown newspaper which we eagerly consume daily.  It is also an appeal for more latitude in the ideas it sees fit to print.

With its current editorial policy in place, the writings of thinkers such as Pythagoras, Copernicus, Galileo, DaVinci, Newton, Kepler, Darwin, Pasteur, Mendel, Edison, Bell, Einstein, Fermi, Payne, Revere, Franklin, Jefferson, Hamilton, Adams, Madison, … would not have passed muster to grace the pages of today’s Union.

As a student of both history and science I am reminded that, fortunately, our beloved land was born on “Brunswick street corners” and in exciting “county supervisors meetings”, all of which then as now were considered outside “the mainstream guardrails factually”, violating the “more grounded discussions” of the day.  So now as then, such out-of-box expressions have again been proscribed, and it appears that The Union has joined the ranks of today’s publications with an editorial policy distinctly of a medieval bent.  But I wonder, does it have to be this way?

‘Tax the Rich’ – a momentous Democrat lie

“… until you run out of other people’s money.”  M. Thatcher

George Rebane

The momentous lies retold daily by the Democratic Party are now getting too numerous to count.  Among the most impactive on Americans is their assertion that the $5T+ cost of their new government growth and spending programs “will be zero”.  How’s that?  Well, they’ll just tax the crap out of “the rich” and corporations.  ‘You, Mr/Ms Main Street Snuffie won’t have to pay a penny; what’s not to like?’

For our informed and educated neighbors such claims are truly head-spinning as is made clear again by economists Phil Gramm (also former senator) and Mike Solon in the 15oct21 WSJ (here).  There we are reminded again that “the wealthy already bear far more of the burden in the US than they do in other developed countries.”  The chart below compares the ‘fair shares’ paid by the top 10% earners in the US, France Germany, and Sweden.  Note the enormous imbalance in what our socialists are demanding to what we already are paying to keep the vote buying programs funded.  The tax burden in other developed nations (including the vaunted Sweden) is more equally shared by incorporation of a nominally 15-20% VAT on all purchases.  So it turns out, as Gramm and Solon show, that the US already has the most progressive tax system in the world, thereby giving lie to the claims that somehow the ‘rich’ are getting away with murder at the expense of the remaining 90% of Americans.

Their public copy aside, what the Democrats’ new tax proposals do is continue to favor the top 1% who lower their tax rates by charitable giving and investing in tax-favored securities and sectors promoted by our government.  These provisions actually favor the very rich – i.e. the top 1% of earners, not the 10% - and none of such bennies will be affected by the new ‘tax the rich’ rates designed to hit the less wealthy down the income ladder.  No lamestream outlet is allowed to tell us this.

In the meantime we are having a problem finding enough workers to support robust economic growth.  “Since the War on Poverty started in 1965, the labor-force participation rate of bottom-quintile earners, who now receive more than 90% of their $50,000 average income from government transfer payments, has fallen from almost 70% to 36%. With the Build Back Better Act proposing to explode unearned benefits and shower them on middle-income Americans, how long will it take for the current U.S. labor-force participation rate of 61.6% to fall to 55%, as it is in France, or 50%, as it is in Italy? Who then will pull the wagon and pay the taxes to fund the American welfare state?”  This is what we mean when we talk of the takers and makers.  And who do the takers vote for, and which party wants to maximize the people (citizens and illegals) who draw ever more of their succor from the government?

(And these worthies have no idea what’s in store for them regarding their contribution to labor, once the nation, any nation, falls under the tender mercies of a single party state.  History read is a great teacher; not so much history ignored.)

We are reminded again by Gramm and Solon that “corporations don’t ultimately pay taxes” – their customers and their risk-exposed owners pay the whole kit and kaboodle.  “If there is anything economists agree on—and there isn’t much—it’s that all taxes imposed on corporations fall in part on the consumers of their products and in part on their stockholders and workers. Workers pay between 50% and 70% of the corporate tax that isn’t passed on to consumers in higher prices. The record growth in real wages after the 2017 corporate tax cuts, especially among low-income, minority and disadvantaged workers, bears this out.  So when corporate tax rates are raised, it’s workers and their pensions, retirement accounts and insurance investments, which own 72% of America’s stockholder equity, who pay most of those taxes.”

Again, the indominable man-in-the-street who votes Democrat has no clue of this, or at best considers it to be another rightwing piece of fake news put out by rich capitalists and big corporations.  However, when you run the numbers, you see that “not surprisingly, with much of the 2017 tax cuts made up of corporate rate reductions, child tax credits and a doubling of the standard deduction, the Trump tax cuts made the tax code more, not less, progressive.”  When was the last time you heard that on any of the lamestream outlets?

We can put a ribbon around all this by citing the most recent big three feel-good economic accomplishments out of Bumblebrain’s teleprompter – 1) he has created 5M+ new jobs, 2) unemployment dropped below 5%, and 3) wages have gone up.  Well, not exactly.  Employment gain has been anemic due to government handouts, industry is stifled for lack of workers.  Unemployment dropped only because more people dropped out of the workforce -  i.e. they quit looking for jobs.  And the buying power of wages has declined due to not keeping pace with the big jump in inflation.  Americans’ real wages have declined for the first time since the big Obama dip in 2013.  And all of this is due to self-inflicted harm brought to you by Team Biden and his ballyhooed Build Back Better policies which have a snowball’s chance in hell of kicking in.  But to Bumblebrain, all this is "progress".