A blog in defense of western civilization by Roger Graf
Author: RogerG
I am a retired teacher and coach, Social Science Department chairman, community college instructor in Physical and Human Geography. I have attended 4 colleges with relevant degrees and certificates in History, Religious Studies/Philosophy, Education, and Planning and Community Development. I am also a 3rd generation native Californian, now refugee living in northwest Montana.
While listening to a podcast of the musical career of Simon and Garfunkel, up popped a segment of their song “Mrs. Robinson”. The verse struck me as oddly reminiscent of today. Think of the looming contest between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. The verse:
“Sitting on a sofa on a Sunday afternoon
Going to the candidates’ debate
Laugh about it, shout about it
When you’ve got to choose
Every way you look at it, you lose”
I don’t expect much practical wisdom from rock stars, but this verse hits a chord. A verse from 1968 comes full circle to meet 2024.
A week ago, I happened to be watching an episode of Fox News’s “The Five”. A new Fox News poll had just been released showing Donald Trump ahead of Joe Biden. Four of the five hosts were almost dancing a jig on the table about the results, as if votes had already been counted and Trump was preparing his coronation speech. Is Trump becoming popular, or, more likely, is this a choice between the most abhorrent candidates of all time?
Look at the candidates’ negatives. They are far and away more detested than loved. A smattering of polls from the Nov. 8-14 shows these guys to be stinkers (see below). Biden’s detestability hovers between 53% and 59%. Trump’s swings from 54% to 56%. Biden has achieved a level of loathsomeness slightly greater than Trump’s. And the hosts of The Five are dancing a jig over this?
The contest is a consequence of the parties foisting on the general voting public execrable nominees. The Democrats can’t come around to jettisoning their enfeebled sellout to the party’s neo-Marxist Left. The Republicans can’t shake their enchantment with a narcissistic lunatic. Now, the public has experienced both behind the Resolute desk and the bully pulpit. If the contest is reduced to this binary, then the choice is about the least reviled.
So, why does Trump appear to be allegedly riding high? Biden is in the seat of power, more immediate, before cameras, at the head of the nightly newscast, the subject of much conversation, and people get a daily dose of the failures of the party’s neo-Marxism: an overrun border, inflation, climate-change central planning, the unraveling of civilization, the group-guilt shaming, the international scene coming unglued, etc. The present soon overwhelms the past. Trump slides into background noise amid court appearances. As a consequence, if the election were held today, the possibility of a president taking the oath while wearing an ankle bracelet looms large.
What’s there to like?
It is said by many that people prefer Trump’s policies but personally dislike Trump. There’s a lot to that, but those cherished policies are a reflection of longstanding GOP platforms. Prior to 2015 and Trump’s grandstanding on Obama’s birth certificate, Trump had few if any policy ideas other than the border and trade protectionism. His ignorance was profound. In a 2016 debate, he couldn’t name the legs of the strategic triad. He was befuddled by the term “triad”. When he amazingly got elected as a Republican, he not surprisingly turned to Republicans to fill out his administration. From a guy who was a policy empty suit, many of his “wins” were crafted by the input of others who would later be insulted into oblivion. Bill Barr, John Bolton, Mike Pence, Kelly, McMaster, et al, and the congressional leadership who were the fount of these ideas such as Paul Ryan, won’t be around for a Trump second bite at the apple.
In a Trump term #2, who will he turn to, the clown caucus of Matt Gaetz and company? A person still possessing their wits would be a fool to get too close to Trump. Expect any future Trump presidency to be filled with “fighters”, fighters who are a bit too punch drunk: the clown car caucus moves from Congress to the executive branch; the extended universe of isolationists and sycophants; and the rule of the Democrats’ craziness would be replaced by those who romanticize 1932’s Smoot-Hawley Tariff and the American Firsters of 1940. Mmmm. What would that world look like?
I have to amend my prediction that Trump is a loser. Er, he is; you just might have to look down ballot for the misery. The guy has no coattails because he’s kryptonite at the state and local level. As long as Trump is far from you, he might be tolerable, even if you’ll only see him on parole or probation. Yet don’t count out that Democrat vote-harvesting machine so quickly, or the possibility that they’ll do a switcheroo replacing the enfeebled with a fresh-faced, milquetoast neo-Marxist from the party’s ranks.
RogerG
Read more here:
* For the latest polls turn to https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/
** Also in my Substack feed, The Golden Mean, at https://rogerlgraf.substack.com/publish/home
I’ll soon be flying Israeli and Ukrainian flags on my house. The two causes are similar and linked. Both are facing extermination in a replay of the 1942 Wansee Conference (the Nazi Final Solution) and Stalin’s Holodomor (Stalin’s Final Solution on Ukraine in the 1930s). Realistically, like it or not, America is the last remaining superpower on the side of the angels and, as such, we must look outward as well as inward. Both fringes want a self-flagellating retreat. It’s despicable.
The neo-Marxist Left, as symbolized by The Squad, see America and western civilization as the fount of oppression. For them, we need to go away, or get boiled in revolution.
The Squad
The clown-car Right wants us to go away, mostly from the international stage, their nuanced blabberings notwithstanding. The simpletons think that we can’t chew gum and walk at the same time because our ability to produce gum has weakened. They say “No” to Ukraine because of some strange affection for Putin’s propaganda and the existence of problems at home, which was always and will be forever true. Speaking of an impossible standard.
The Clown Caucus, clockwise: Lauren Boebert, Matt Gaetz, Madison Cawthorn, Paul Gosar, Marjorie Taylor Greene
And “No” to Israel according to a charter member of the clown caucus, Marjorie Taylor Greene, unless we make cuts from somewhere else in the budget. She’s got a laundry list which unsurprisingly doesn’t include cuts in ag subsidies for her rural northwest Georgia district or the entitlements.
She practices a cheap shot at foreign aid. It’s the go-to for dimwits. It’s less than 1% of the federal budget. Look it up. And from that fraction of 1% we are supposed to address the atrophying of our defense supply chain and balance the budget? So, in a flight of fancy, she’s mum on the almost $3 trillion of Social Security and Medicare but gun-ho about $39 billion (foreign aid), or .13% of the entitlement behemoths which are half of the total federal budget. Do you see why the clown caucus qualifies for dimwit status?
The lunatics on the fringe seem to have outsized influence in both parties. Of course, we’ve got the neo-isolationist Right of the clown caucus with a founding membership of Matt Gaetz, Lauren Boebert, MJT, Matt Rosendale, and a few hangers-on, with Senators Josh Hawley and JD Vance occasionally dipping their toes in the fever swamp. And on the other wing, we have the always crazy neo-Marxist Left that has intoxicated the Democratic Party.
I close with Michael Ramirez’s most recent cartoon that faced censure at the Washington Post for its accurate depiction of Hamas leader Hamadi hiding behind children and other innocent civilians. It apparently hurt the feelings of some of the paper’s left-wing readership. Are we that far gone that we can’t be safe in condemning the murder, rape, and beheading of real innocents?
Part of the House Republican clown caucus (l-r): Lauren Boebert, Matt Gaetz, Majorie Taylor Greene
As a public-school teacher for 30 years, I know the critical rule of classroom management. If one kid’s bad behavior is left unattended, it won’t take long for the classroom to become a zoo. A parallel is Trump’s entry into the Republican presidential sweepstakes in 2015. More than Trump entered the race, also came his personality. It has left an impression on certain adolescent-minded clusters of grownups in the Republican Party – both registered voters and some in elected office. Think of the clown caucus who engineered the ouster of Kevin McCarthy as Speaker.
“Trumpian” boils down to braggadocio, bombast, simplistic and blunt issues in a blunt style with a lot of bullying of friends and foes alike. It’s the over-the-top behavior of a person who craves the tabloid limelight. The Obama birth certificate dustup is a classic example of a simplistic and blunt issue to be exploited for personal gain, which would be Trump’s signature approach to modern politics. The only thing is, the bombast that drew so much attention ended in Trump scaping egg off his face when Obama produced the document.
Few, however, would predict that a windbag’s curtly rudeness would have an appeal among the rank and file. And the whole style seemed to be electorally validated when Trump won in a 2016 black swan event. Success can bring out the worst in people, and “Trumpian” came to be as fashionable as the John Wayne swagger in the 1950s.
While the personality type is appealing to certain party voters, it’s a big turnoff to getable swaths of the general electorate. After 2016, Trump’s appeal down ballot was a disaster. Let’s not forget 2022, at a time when the Democrats have made a shambles of the country, the Republicans could only squeak out a bare majority in the House leaving the clown caucus in a position to put their Trumpian hijinks on public display. The Republicans are proving that neo-Marxism is survivable if Trump, his political personality, and the clown caucus are the face of party.
In Orwell’s “1984”, Big Brother had a face. In today’s rendition of the Republican Party, its face is that of Donald Trump with the likes of Matt Gaetz, Lauren Boebert, Majorie Taylor Greene, Matt Rosendale, and Nancy Mace in a chorus line behind. Big Brother wouldn’t be laughed at; the picture of Trump and the Trumpkins elicits guffaws at first, followed by beads of sweat from the realization that they have actual power. To be sure, these are not the kind of people that I would trust with my kids.
Big brother from 1984
The despicability of the Democratic Party and a sizeable faction in the Republican Party is registered in polls, something that you’ll recognize if you rely on more than Laura Ingraham for your news. She doesn’t hesitate to bellow a poll with Trump ahead of Biden. Yet, the reality in the most recent Suffolk University/USA TODAY poll presents a more complicated picture (see below). Yes, among Republican primary voters, Trump is far and away the favorite with 58%. Metrics of enthusiasm for Trump are high among these voters. But – here’s the key number – among the general electorate, Biden squeaks out a tiny lead, essentially a tie.
Trump is favored on a host of issues – the border, economy, foreign affairs – but when offered a choice between Biden and Trump, it’s essentially a dead heat. What’s holding Trump and the Republicans back from a sweeping lead? Look at Trump’s negatives. He’s even more reviled than Biden in a recent NBC News poll (see below). Biden’s negative rating stands at 49%; Trump registers a 54% downside. Megaphones like Laura Ingraham of Fox News would mention a Trump lead in a poll’s head-to-head matchup, but nary a word about Trump’s unlikability. Does “putting lipstick on a pig” remind you of anything?
The Trump personality is only appealing to a sizeable portion of the Republican Party base. It’s reviled nearly everywhere else. Trumpian bluster might carry a candidate through the primary, but in places other than a crimson district, it’s the kiss of death. If you want to stop the Democrats’ neo-Marxism, first win elections. What’s a turn-on for primary voters can be poison in the general election.
Democrats know this. That’s why they’re interfering in Republican primaries to elect Trumpians. In my home state of Montana, mysterious ads are appearing that throw mud on Tim Sheehy, who’s challenged in the primary by the Trumpian Matt Rosendale. Not a word in these hit pieces about Rosendale.
The group – Last Best Place PAC – is an undercover Democrat operation (see below) to help get Rosendale the nomination and, thus, an easier challenger for incumbent Democrat John Tester. It’s the same Democrat tried-and-true tactic from 2022. It’s not out of distaste for Sheehy that drives Schumer and company to stick it to Sheehy. He knows, like everyone else who are not fans of the Trump schtick, that a Trumpian is a weaker candidate. What worked in Arizona, Pennsylvania, et al, in 2022 has a good chance of succeeding in 2024. Watch Republicans rush headlong into the trap.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)
Further, watch an example of a boisterous Trumpian on full display, Lauren Boebert from September of this year. After this, is she like Trump – “I could stand in the middle of 5th Ave. and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters” – and therefore immune from the voters’ wrath? Are some Republican voters that morally stunted? Is the Trumpian personality that hypnotizing?
The Trumpian personality came through the door in 2016 and has entrenched itself. At this point, the party will have to face a disaster before the malignancy can be removed. Like a classroom under the control of hellions, we have a party that has allowed this element to run roughshod. And we will pay the piper.
RogerG
Read more here:
* For deep dive into the Suffolk University/USA TODAY poll, see the full text of the poll at https://www.suffolk.edu/-/media/suffolk/documents/academics/research-at-suffolk/suprc/polls/national/2023/10_24_2023_marginals_embargoed_2.pdf?la=en&hash=ABF93DCEAAFCA91DBE9BD17A2A10E4E4A2C6189E
* The NBC News poll can be read at https://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/first-read/poll-overwhelming-majorities-express-concerns-biden-trump-ahead-2024-r-rcna111347
* “Nine months before the Montana GOP primary, a mysterious super PAC is on the airwaves attacking Tim Sheehy”, Ally Mutnick, Politico, September 12, 2023, at https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2023/09/12/congress/montana-senate-sheehy-pac-ads-00115276
* More on the Democrat-affiliated PAC: “Dems Look To Meddle in Montana’s GOP Senate Primary”, Meghan Blonder, The Washington Free Beacon, September 13, 2023, at https://freebeacon.com/elections/dems-look-to-meddle-in-montanas-gop-senate-primary/
You might be tired of my constant criticism of California, but there’s a reason for it. The state is in the vanguard of trends that are weakening the nation. Many of the ideas that prove to be harmful emanate from the state, while the state is without doubt in a doom loop. There’s no need to sugarcoat the reality.
Let’s start with population projections for the state. For at least a decade, people have been fleeing the state at a pace that might conceivably accelerate. The census that determines apportionment (the number of representatives in the House of Representatives for each state) has not been kind to California and is likely to get worse. After the 2020 numbers came in, California lost one seat (53 became 52). Now, as reported by Decision Desk HQ, California’s representation could very well shrink by an additional 5 by the time of the next census count in 2030 (see below).
Why the decline? Point of fact, the state is so poorly governed. Lefty ideation, which dominates the one-party state, is poison to the health of any community. Annually, bills are passed and signed that are making the state a living hell. Parents are losing control of their kids as soon as the kid steps onto the school grounds. State taxpayers will be on the hook for treatments and surgeries for any teen and tween from anywhere demanding to alter their birth sex. Call it an underground railroad for America’s version of teenage genital mutilation. Government workers in their unions control the state and many local governments driving them into insolvency. Filth, squalor, crime, drug abuse mar public and private spaces. And, let’s not forget, lefty environmental utopianism is destroying an entire way of life. With all that, why not get out?
One barometer of a community’s overall health is prices. High taxes on nearly everything jack up the cost of living, but it’s more than that. The state is a regulatory nightmare, mostly due to a labyrinth of laws and rules in pursuit of a “carbon-free future”. The state is busy administering a lethal injection to the fossil fuel industry and the plentiful natural gas fields in the state. The result? You guessed it; the people get hosed in exploding utility rates. And what should really be driving you bats is the fact that CO2 will still accumulate in the atmosphere since few people on the planet are as looney as the people elected to run the Golden State.
Watch the video below of a deep dive into one aspect of your California utility bill: your assessment for natural gas usage. It’s scheduled to jump. The sacred cows of windmills, solar panels, and EVs are a joke and making life a poor imitation of that lived generations before. Now, watch as your gas bill more than doubles . . . while prices fall nationally. It’s what happens when utopians taking on the role of central planner monkey around with the basic stuff of life.
My 8.23 cents/kilowatt-hour keeps looking better and better each time I read about the lunacy in my state of birth.
RogerG
Read more here:
* “California on Track to Lose Five House Seats in 2030 as Residents Leave”, Ben Wilson, The Washington Free Beacon, September 20, 2023, at https://freebeacon.com/latest-news/california-on-track-to-lose-five-house-seats-in-2030-as-residents-leave/
* See X, “California is now predicted to lose 5 congressional districts in the 2030 reapportionment cycle. What happened to its historically fast growing population?”, September 19, 2023, at https://twitter.com/DecisionDeskHQ/status/1704155907150733503
Ideology: noun; a set of ideas, beliefs and attitudes, consciously or unconsciously held, which reflects or shapes understandings or misconceptions of the physical, social, economic, and political world.
Post hoc ergo propter hoc: logical fallacy; supposition about cause that mistakenly assumes that a thing was caused by something else that occurred before.
***************
We are living through a time of rampant ideology masquerading as irrefutable scientific truth. To be critical is to forfeit your place in polite company, or worse. Any tactic is allowed by this most recent class of moralizers in pursuit of what now can only be described as a crusade, even exploiting the innocence of a little girl: Greta Thunberg, with a history of serious emotional and mental problems (see below). It’s grotesque.
This isn’t a piece about Greta Thunberg, but she represents the lengths ideological crusaders will go to achieve their ends. Famous as a climate-change activist, her adolescent zealotry extends to all things of the Left. Right now, she is in a bit of hot water with Israeli authorities for siding with a cause whose leadership organizations engage in mass infanticide, beheadings, rape, and torture. On X, she wrote, “Today we strike in solidarity with Palestine and Gaza.” Well, the Israeli Education Ministry is on strike against Greta by removing any mention of her in the nation’s curricula, and as an “education role model”. Dah! What would you expect in regards to someone who can’t find it within herself to condemn the beheading of babies?
Greta Thunberg (lower right) with fellow young zealots in recent post on X
There she is holding a sign “Stand With Gaza” surrounded by other young zealots displaying “Free Palestine” and “Climate Justice Now”, which means that the young and naïve can fluidly shift from one radical cause to another.
These are not geniuses, far from it. Yet, she has thrust herself at the tip of the spear of the lunacy. “Climate justice”? What can be crazier than to hinge our livelihoods and very existence on a set of naked beliefs rooted in a partisan hypothesis of impending doom and call it “science”? You can’t go from rising levels of atmospheric CO2 and a gradual warming trend all the way to earth-on-fire, jeremiads on extreme weather, and mass extinction. This is more than post-hoc-ergo-propter-hoc on steroids. It’s on fentanyl. There’s an evidentiary chasm between the symptom (warming temps) and the prescription (net zero on carbon).
Further, it’s unlikely that the attendant government takeover of life in the U.S. in pursuit of this promised land would achieve much good, given the fact that the rest of the world is too much in love with the prospect of air conditioning and cheap energy.
Notice to everyone: China left the Paris Climate Accords, and they’ve averaged 2 new coal-fired generating plants per week over the past 7 years (see below). Hello, somebody in Gavin Newsom’s office please pick up the phone. He’s traipsing to Beijing seeking climate deals.
Of course, none of this has stopped that epicenter of leftism, California, from working to ruin the lives of its residents. California Attorney General Rob Bonta has joined with other opportunistic alarmists to sue the oil companies out of existence (see below). It’s the tobacco strategy. Tobacco kills and so do fossil fuels according to Bonta and the now 20-year-old Greta Thunberg. Any time something bad happens in the ecosystem, it’s thrust into the climate-change vortex, which then produces the predicate to go after the oil companies for fun and profit.
Rob Bonta, Ca. Atty. Gen., “We are coming after them [the oil companies]”Jonathan Lesser of Continental Economics and the Manhattan Institute has a modest proposal (see below). He advises Chevron and Phillips 66, two of Bonta’s targets, to call California’s bluff by closing down their four refineries in El Segundo, Wilmington, Richmond, and San Francisco which currently provide 45 percent of the state’s refinery capacity. You don’t like us, okay, we’ll leave. If they do, don’t blame the oil companies for the long lines, skyrocketing prices, and shortages; blame the clowns who Californians continue to elect.
Everything from drought to wildfires is placed at the feet of evildoers in corporate America, despite the fact that any inductive connection between event and alleged culprit is thin to nonexistent. Take the wildfires. Mediterranean climates are notorious for prolonged droughts. Tree ring analysis shows many in Alta California, usually lasting 10 to 20 years, some much longer, in the last 1,200 years (see below). Usually, articles that mention the fact make the politically obligatory deference to the official climate-change orthodoxy, but filter out the political tripe and there stands the regular drought recurrences.
The next question is, what is being done to reduce the resultant pile of dead understory and trees from being ignited by lightning or California’s seemingly growing army of miscreants? Answer: nothing! The California forestry industry is a midget of its former self (see below). It has shrunk to half its pre-1990 size. So, little help there.
Instead, the clowns in Sacramento weaponized the utility industry to be the arsonist of choice. They have longed to chain the state’s population to solar panels and windmills. As such, the unavoidable trade-offs of “transition” hit the fan. The entire state-regulated power industry was shepherded into net zero and that left fewer resources for the hardening of the grid. Maintenance languished and, voilà, poorly maintained lines and transformers spark fire deluges in hillsides overgrown in dry vegetation. Goodbye Paradise, Ca.
Part of the town of Paradise on fire, 2018
Hawaii likens itself to a miniature California (see below). It pioneered the same path to net zero by date certain and it had its own Paradise experience. Lahaina was nearly swept away in flames. As expected, the climate change drum was beat till the skin came off the kettles. In reality, Maui is well-known as an island of multiple microclimates (see below). The western side is dry and plagued with non-native, invasive grasses just waiting for a spark from their own carbon copy of California’s rickety grid. That grid languished as state regulators pushed Hawaii Electric into net zero by 2045. That ugly word, trade-offs, rose in full force as more of one thing – transition to renewables – led to less of something else, a safe and reliable grid.
The Waiola Church hall and nearby Lahaina Hongwanji Mission temple are fully engulfed in flames, 2023. (photo: The Maui News / Matthew Thayer)
The power industry in those Meccas of left-wing governance decayed and conflagrations ensued. What they’ve done to the distribution of electricity, they are chomping at the bit to do to your ability to get to work, the kids to soccer practice, a vacation to Yellowstone, or your ability to affordably get things from Amazon. Personal transportation is their next target, while the commercial version is looming larger in the revolutionaries’ crosshairs. Step by step, a century and half of development of the internal combustion engine is to be blotted out in a mad dash to electric vehicles (EVs). Amazing that the geniuses have decided to do this at a time when they’ve made the provision of electricity unstable and dangerous. Go figure.
More and more information is coming to light on the madness of this scheme. A review of the pros and cons of EVs would be enlightening. On the pro side, it has fewer parts in comparison to the many in a regular power train – and, maybe more importantly, it serves as an emotional salve to the cadre of alarmists. As for the con, it’s a glorified golf cart. Sure, it seeks to imitate all the conveniences of its fossil-fuel powered uncle, but, remember, the a/c, heater, audio system, the massive computer systems, and plethora of servos and sensors run down the battery making a mockery of its range. And that’s not all.
Like the climate-change boosterism in all manner of weather talk, nonetheless, you can cut through the puffery to get a true picture about the EV in many sources (for instance, see below). For example, that battery is the heart and soul of the vehicle . . . and a problem. Those lithium-ion batteries, for optimal performance and longevity, should be kept charged between 20% to 80% of their capacity, which means that 40% of their capacity and subsequent range is off-limits. Draining to near zero and overcharging are crippling for the things.
And, oh, if you live in Phoenix or Bakersfield, the batteries decline in efficiency and longevity in those long, hot summers. Don’t park them on the hot pavement for long stretches. What’s true in the scorching heat also applies to the bitter cold climes along the Great Lakes, the Rocky Mountain zone, the Great Plains, and Alaska. Today’s EV lithium-ion packs are finicky. Ideally, the EV is best suited for the moderate temps along the narrow stretch of the California coastal plain. And, coincidentally, that’s where most of the state’s population, votes, and passion for leftist causes resides, and, to no surprise, enthusiasm for EVs.
All of the above, and fast charging (often called level-3 charging), will wreak havoc on the battery’s life span. If you don’t relish an hour or more for charging on that road trip, and the 3-hour or more wait if there is a line, you might be tempted to jump at an open fast charge station (minimum 15 minutes to get back on the road, an hour or more for a full charge). Fast charging degrades the batteries in like manner as the daily consumption over an adult’s lifespan of a fifth of whiskey, a pack of cigarettes, and the habitual shooting up of opioids/fentanyl turning a 50-year-old into an 80-year-old.
EVs waiting in line for a charge, California
You see, the heart of the EV are the batteries, and when they go bad, it’s $20,000 to replace. Junk the car, to go along with the hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of others piled and lined in fields across the fruited plain if Biden, Kerry, and company get their way. That brings us back to trade-offs: mountains of cash in R and D to make the 1,000-pound battery packs covering most of the length of the car less of a hazard and embarrassment, and, of course, none of that cash will be available for advancements in what actually works.
That’s how central planners function. They are political activists for what they call the “truth”. The “truth” is actually a set of political dogmas wrapped around a few facts so as to discredit those still practicing some semblance of rationality. If their dream of an EV world is chock full of problems, just pump more money into the scheme. Remember, it’s government. In other words, inflate the trade-offs and hide the fact. And life inevitably gets poorer.
Indeed, it will translate into a life less appealing and prosperous. Think of all the money shoved into making the batteries work as effectively as a fossil fuel engine. The current lithium-ion batteries are a joke – heavy, combustible, long charging times, fast-charging degradation, limited range, temperature sensitivity, etc. That leads to the activists’ search for the current iteration of the holy grail, the solid-state battery. Toyota has big dreams for the things (see below), and so does everybody else wishing to lick the boots of the fashionable climate utopians in power.
Not so fast. The holy grail has holes in it. The solid-state battery has more lithium in it than its heavy and cumbersome lithium-ion cousin. And lithium is rare – “much less common than 25 of the first 32 chemical elements” (see below) – and hardly ever appears in nature in a pure form. Thus, it requires much more energy-intensive processing to produce, whose energy will come from God knows where. Regardless, getting it and making it usable is a very expensive process with a high potential for broad environmental damage. Is anyone up for trading one environmental problem for another, possibly one more serious?
Lithium after processing
That’s not all. After herding the population into solid-state EVs, an expanse of the older batteries will accumulate in junk yards. One can only hope that the assemblage won’t be in places susceptible to deluges of rain; the things will combust into an unquenchable firestorm. Further, the combination of the natural lithium scarcity, alongside a government-induced inflation of demand, will make lithium prices skyrocket. It’s already begun.
Tesla on fire
The recycling of those old batteries will be necessary to make the contraption practical. The only problem is that recycling the things is another one of those distant will-o’-the-wisps. Jordan Lindsay, research and innovation manager at Minviro, a U.K. consulting firm, puts it succinctly:
“One of the issues with solid-state is that we’re going to have to get better at recycling lithium. Currently, with lithium-ion batteries, you can recycle nickel, cobalt, manganese pretty well—aluminum and copper from the cell components pretty well. But, graphite and lithium are the issue. They’re the sticking point from wholesale, closed-loop battery recycling.” (see Tim Stevens below)
The unavoidable consequence is that of an even more bloated trade-off. More alternatives will be sacrificed to make this central planner’s dream a reality.
It’s not that the EV can’t be made into a more widely used option, if enough resources are tossed into the money pit. Nearly anything becomes a possibility at that point. But think about it. Huge swaths of the rest of the world won’t play along. So, CO2 will continue to gather in the atmosphere regardless of whether we can virtue signal with our EV fleet or not. Rather than throw good money after bad, why not continue along the path of greater and cleaner fossil-fuel efficiency? What about carbon capture? Rather than junk fossil fuels, junk the climate-change commissars.
If a state like Rob Bonta’s, or nations beholden to the rantings of a 20-year-old emotional wreck, wish to bury their places in politicized nonsense, so be it. But don’t let them get away with calling it “science”. It’s no different than the ideologies peddled by the Jacobins in the Reign of Terror or the Marxists in Petrograd under Lenin. With the same result – misery.
RogerG
Read more here:
* “Opinion: Her mother’s memoir reveals the extent of Greta Thunberg’s suffering”, Brad Polumbo, Washington Examiner, in the The National Post, March 3, 2020, at https://nationalpost.com/opinion/opinion-her-mothers-memoir-reveals-the-extent-of-greta-thunbergs-suffering-and-exploitation
* “China is building six times more new coal plants than other countries, report finds”, Julia Simon, NPR, March 2, 2023, at https://www.npr.org/2023/03/02/1160441919/china-is-building-six-times-more-new-coal-plants-than-other-countries-report-fin
* See the Superior Court filing, County of San Francisco: Rob Bonta v. Exxon Mobil, Shell, Chevron, ConocoPhilips, American Petroleum Institute, et al, at https://oag.ca.gov/system/files/attachments/press-docs/FINAL%209-15%20COMPLAINT.pdf
* “California Drought: Some Have Lasted Longer Than 200 Years, Scientists Say”, Paul Rogers, Mercury News, August 12, 2016, at https://www.mercurynews.com/2014/01/25/california-drought-past-dry-periods-have-lasted-more-than-200-years-scientists-say/
* For more from the federal USDA: “California’s Forest Products Industry: A Descriptive Analysis”, Todd A. Morgan, Charles E. Keegan III, Thale Dillon, Alfred L. Chase, Jeremy S. Fried, and Marc N. Weber, July 2004, at http://bber.umt.edu/pubs/forest/fidacs/CA2000.pdf
* “ENVIRONMENTALISTS DESTROYED CALIFORNIA’S FORESTS”, Edward Ring, California Policy Center, September 10, 2020, at https://californiapolicycenter.org/environmentalists-destroyed-californias-forests/
* “Hawaii’s Microclimates: How One Island Can Have Many Weathers”, Hawaiians, at https://www.hawaiians.com/hawaiis-microclimates-how-one-island-can-have-many-weathers/
* “Did Climate Change Cause Maui’s Wildfires?”, Veronique De Rugy, National Review, August 17, 2023, at https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/did-climate-change-cause-mauis-wildfires/
* “A Simple Solution to End Frivolous Climate Lawsuits”, Jonathan Lesser, National Review, October 13, 2023, at https://www.nationalreview.com/2023/10/a-simple-solution-to-end-frivolous-climate-lawsuits/
* “How long do electric cars last?”, by iSeeCars, Kxan.com, October 9, 2023, at https://www.kxan.com/automotive/how-long-do-electric-cars-last/
* “Electric Vehicles: Toyota’s Battery Charge”, Andrew Stuttaford. National Review, October 25, 2023, at https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/electric-vehicles-toyotas-battery-charge/
* “Solid State Battery Tech For EV Cars: Challenges Lie Ahead”, Tim Stevens, Motortrend, March 10, 2023, at https://www.motortrend.com/features/solid-state-ev-car-batteries-challenges/
* “10 Cool Facts About Lithium”, Anne Marie Helmenstine, PhD, ThoughtCo, November 3, 2019, at https://www.thoughtco.com/lithium-element-facts-608237
Some people believe in things that are completely nuts. Look at “gender-affirming care” and the adults in positions of authority who have bought into it. Think about it: the self-diagnosis of a toddler or tween is sufficient to invoke a permanent life-altering trajectory as the result of a medical intervention that screams malpractice. Despite the indoctrination that is mislabeled as counseling, the kid will never be the same, either emotionally or physically, and can’t return to their former self.
After the victims’ exposure to the counseling/indoctrination, Lupron (AbbVie’s chemical castration drug and puberty blocker), cross-sex hormones, and surgeries, we’re starting to see regret in the form of the word “detransitioner”. Later comes the realization, after all of the changes to the body and mind, that the tween’s rash self-diagnosis for sex-transition can’t be fully undone. Cutting to the chase, this whole thing is c-r-a-z-y!
Of course, the response of the adult enthusiasts in the transition Borg when confronted with any reluctance to the treatment is a resort to the rhetorical equivalent of Defcon 1 (nuclear war is imminent or has already begun) – “Do you want a dead daughter or an alive son?” Heck, the affected are still committing suicide . . . after the transition.
I give you three cases of regret: one ends in suicide; the other is ending in a lawsuit; and still another concerns a whistleblower at a gender clinic.
The situation involving David Reimer (the full account below) will turn out to be a refutation of the behaviorist’s chief insight, that social conditions overwhelmingly define a person’s development. It was believed by some that the influences of biology can be replaced by the social engineering of “expert” interventions. Reimer was thrust into the trap of a psychologist’s effort – John Money, a Johns Hopkins University psychologist – to reengineer David from a boy to girl. It didn’t work. David committed suicide at age 38.
David Reimer as Brenda (l) and the Reimer familyJohn Money, Johns Hopkins University psychologist
The story begins 8 months after David’s birth in 1965 when his penis was accidentally removed during a surgical procedure. After consultation with John Money, his parents agreed to interventions to turn David into Brenda. 14 months later, David’s remaining male genitals were removed, artificial and rudimentary female genitals installed, and he started a regular regimen of estrogen injections. His upbringing as Brenda ensued.
An uneasiness would plague him for the rest of his life. And then he learned what happened to him. He would “detransition” back to David and replace his artificial female genitalia with artificial male genitalia. He got married, adopted 3 children, but continued to be consumed by depression up to the moment of his fateful decision to take his life.
He was misdiagnosed as an adult with “gender dysphoria” because he wasn’t “in the wrong body” so to speak – or maybe he was, put there by an “expert” whose ideological inclinations would prevent him from realizing the obvious truth that XY chromosomes signal the release of male hormones to the body and brain. The potential for harm is as great for the modern version of the John Money approach, “gender-affirming care”.
That brings me to the case filing of Chloe Cole v. Kaiser Foundation Hospitals, Inc, in early 2023. At age 13, Chloe fell into the arms of Kaiser’s gender team. According to her filing (see below), “a team of doctors (i.e., the Defendants) . . . decided to perform a mutilating, mimicry sex change experiment on Chloe.” Even more damning is the treating practitioners single-minded commitment to one approach – gender-affirming care – without adequately divulging the controversial nature of the treatment, risks, and the shortcomings of much of the research into it. How could anyone, let alone a 13-year-old, exercise informed consent under the pressure of doctrinaire activists in white smocks? Chloe’s formal complaint reads,
“Defendants [i.e., Kaiser] obscured and concealed important information such as the following: the conflicting studies in this area; the high quality evidence demonstrating poor mental health outcomes; the existence of only low to very low-quality studies purportedly supporting this treatment; the significant likelihood that desired outcomes would not be attained; the significant possibility of desistence, detransition and regret; and the lack of accurate models for predicting desistence and detransition.”
Chloe Cole
Chloe detransitioned at age 17 and is now seeking legal redress for what can only be described as mental and physical mutilation by a branch of the medical industry that is more beholden to an ideology than real medical science. It’s nearly as horrific as anything that came out of the German SS Race and Settlement Main Office or the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics of the 1930’s with its fixation on other forms of malevolent flights of fancy under cover of “science”.
Now, other clinics and hospitals have earned suspicion and scrutiny for engaging in practices that can only be described as licensed mutilation. Jamie Reed, a former pediatric gender clinician at Washington University Transgender Center, St. Louis Children’s Hospital, blew the whistle on the hasty and obsessive herding of minors into gender-affirming care.
Jamie Reed
Even the New York Times, frequently dismissive of such charges, has confirmed much of Reed’s story. They validated many instances of the facility’s staff jumping to transition counseling and testosterone before any underlying emotional issues were addressed. It became commonplace at the clinic, facing a social contagion of gender dysphoria among adolescents, particularly young girls, to reach for short cuts in processing the horde with a reliance on highly dubious outside examiners and the snap push into cross-sex hormones and the indoctrination of the patient into accepting that they’re the opposite of their chromosomes.
Manias based on dubious “truths” aren’t unusual in history. Astrology, phrenology (skull shape is determinative of a person’s nature), and bleeding (opening a vein, leeches) were integral elements of medical training and practice. Pre-Civil War, some races were said to be best suited for subjugation (slavery for instance, John C. Calhoun). It carried over into Jim Crow. An incomplete and rudimentary understanding of heredity led to the horrors of eugenics which fed into the Supreme Court’s Oliver Wendell Holmes’ stupefying opinion in Buck v. Bell (1927) – “Three generations of imbeciles are enough.” – and Auschwitz, et al. Karl Marx was intent on uncovering a “science” of history which, when put into practice in the 20th century, led to over 110 million deaths. Far from enlightening, some “scientific truths” have been the harbinger of much misery.
Who knows, climate change in its current ideological form may join history’s many delusional offramps from real science.
Meanwhile, the self-diagnosis of tweens as a proper basis for life-altering treatment is farcical. Euphemisms like “gender-affirming care” can’t hide the ugly reality. Which leads to another profound question: Why does it seem that the vulnerable – the mentally limited, those powerless in slavery, the subjugated by military conquest, the people stripped of their power of self-defense, children – are chosen to be the guinea pigs? Harvard grads don’t usually show up in the casualty lists.
RogerG
Read more here:
* The story of the David Reimer and Dr. John Money can be read at “John Money Gender Experiment: Reimer Twins”, Julia Simkus, Research Assistant at Princeton University, review by Saul McCleod, PhD, in Simply Psychology, June 23, 2023, https://www.simplypsychology.org/david-reimer.html#:~:text=The%20John%20Money%20Experiment%20involved%20David%20Reimer%2C%20a,identity%20and%20transitioned%20back%20to%20male%20in%20adolescence.
* An excellent introduction to the Cole v. Kaiser can can be accessed here: “Cole claims that Kaiser Hospital physicians encouraged her to undergo irreversible, gender-affirming procedures without exploring alternate options, such as psychotherapy”, Ryan J. Farrick, Legal Reader, Feb. 23. 2023, at https://www.legalreader.com/detransitioner-chloe-cole-lawsuit-kaiser-hospitals/. Also here: “Chloe Cole v. Kaiser Permanente”, Dhillon Law Group (representing Chloe), at https://www.dhillonlaw.com/lawsuits/chloe-cole-v-kaiser-permanente/.
* The story of Jamie Reed’s allegations can be read at “How a Small Gender Clinic Landed in a Political Storm”, NYT, August 23, 2023, at https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/23/health/transgender-youth-st-louis-jamie-reed.html
* More on Jamie Reed’s allegations can be read at “I Thought I Was Saving Trans Kids. Now I’m Blowing the Whistle”, Jamie Reed, The Free Press, Feb. 9, 2023, at https://www.thefp.com/p/i-thought-i-was-saving-trans-kids
* Excellent reportage on the troubles with gender-affirming care can be read at National Review Online. For example, “New York Times Confirms St. Louis Gender Clinic Whistleblower’s Claim That Adolescents Were Rushed into ‘Affirming’ Care”, Ari Blaff, NR, Aug. 23, 2023, at https://www.nationalreview.com/news/new-york-times-confirms-st-louis-gender-clinic-whistleblowers-claim-that-adolescents-were-rushed-into-affirming-care/. Also in “Chloe Cole v. Kaiser Permanente”, Madeleine Kearns, NR, March 14, 2023, at https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/chloe-cole-v-kaiser-permanente/.
38-year-old Vivek Ramaswamy running for the Republican presidential nominationInside Pride Month 2023 at TargetDylan Mulvaney and Bud Light
Two things are on today’s docket: Vivek Ramaswamy’s star is rising and Bud Light and Target are still crashing. Regarding the former, Ramaswamy is pandering to the Trumpkins in the GOP. He’s trying to be a 38-year-old Trump but without the ugliness. He’s risen to second place in some state polls. Astonishingly, Bud Light and Target have jumped onto the gender-confusion/teenage-genital-mutilation bandwagon, as if their customers want to hear from them on the culture war. In both cases, what foolishness. Who in their right mind would think that any of this would pass the smell test?
Trump’s powerful presence in the GOP is making the party a reflection of his unlikeable persona for a functioning majority of the national electorate. By that, I mean disliked by those not siloed behind the increasingly constricted walls of MAGA world. As many Trumpers cling ever so tightly to him with each indictment, other and far more numerous GOP-leaning demographics fly the coop, no matter the imbecilities of the Biden clan on the other side of the political ledger. Democrats win by making the other guy more detested than them.
Vivek wants the nomination and will say anything to get it. For him, as an investment guru, everything, including politics, is transactional – i.e., you get something (the nomination) by paying something (pandering to the Trump crowd). What comes out is pure, unadulterated poppycock.
Have you heard Hugh Hewitt’s interview of Vivek from August 14, 2023 (transcript and audio below)? Vivek announced to the world a green light for Red Cina to invade Taiwan after 2028. You heard me right. Imitating his mentor (DJT) in the use of blunt and stark terms, no matter how asinine, he declared,
“I’m being very clear: Xi Jinping should not mess with Taiwan until we have achieved semiconductor independence, until the end of my first term when I will lead us there. And after that, our commitments to Taiwan, our commitments to be willing to go to military conflict, will change after that, because that’s rationally in our self-interest.”
There you have it in Ramaswamy’s words: Don’t mess with us until after my term ends and we have transplanted Taiwan Semiconductor and/or a good portion of the world’s semiconductor industry to our shores within reach of our IRS, EPA, and our ascendant neo-Marxists. After that, Taiwan, my friend, you’re on your own. Done.
MAGA is thrilled because no more “forever wars”. A President Ramaswamy looks tough in announcing a four-year delayed abandonment in “Trumpian” words. Well, for Taiwan, starting in 2029, enjoy the Taipei May Day parades of the People’s Liberation Army.
When pressed by Hewitt about the astounding repercussions, Vivek began repeated non-clarifications with “Let me make myself perfectly clear.” Making oneself “perfectly clear” is a poker-tell that you’re not going to be clear. He continued to insist on sending a huge naval force to the area but backed away from the will to use it. What’s the point? Thugs need to face real threats, not an armada that would blithely move out of the way for the PLA’s amphibious and aerial assault. The will to use it must be conveyed along with the deployment of the Pacific Fleet. Without the will, it’s an empty bluff.
Vivek, try to be something more than talking like Trump while acting like Jimmy Carter, Obama, or Joe Biden. It isn’t a good look for you, nor is it good for the country.
I would say, “Thank God, this guy isn’t president”, but then I have to glance over at the current occupant. Whew, what a mess, what a choice. Sadly, for this investment exec, transactional thinking doesn’t necessarily incorporate strategic calculus, such as the loss of Taiwan producing a gaping hole in the first island chain for the burgeoning PLA Navy to flood the Pacific. Vivek will do nothing but reinforce among our allies our habit of abandonment when things get messy. Remember Vietnam, Bill Clinton’s 1990s dithering with Al-Qaeda, Obama’s Iraq pullout and red line in Syria, and Biden’s Afghanistan bugout? And now Taiwan?
Our potential and current friends and allies will certainly remember. A lack of steadfastness and reliability won’t bode well for alliance-making. Who’d want to be our friend?
At that point, it will be America alone as the export part of our economy dries up in the face of a cordon of CCP satraps. If you think that Biden and company is making a hash of our way of life, wait for a President Ramaswamy and his 20-30% hit (value of our exports) to US GDP after his forced retreat to fortress America. We would be in Great Depression territory. Speaking of transactional thinking, Vivek’s pandering to the no-more-forever-wars constituency will have real world costs. We’ll quickly learn the value of alliances as we get crushed under a depression-ignited, debt-fueled, and bulging safety net.
Vivek’s foolishness can be chalked up to youthful rashness. What’s the excuse for the seasoned big wheels at Anheuser-Busch and Target? Or, are they “seasoned”, by whom, where? Who thought that a man (Dylan Mulvaney) trying to compete and look like a bulk of their customers’ wives and girlfriends would be a nice way to expand the Bud Light brand? Who thought that the family-friendly Target, with many a mother with children in tow, would be an excellent venue to advocate gender confusion and same-sex amory? It’s unfathomable.
At this time, Bud Light’s sales continue to plummet. They can’t give away the stuff. Whereas, at the beginning of the year, it ranked #1.
Alissa Heinerscheid, the Bud Light advertising exec behind the Dylan Mulvaney endorsement
The person most responsible for the debacle was Bug Light’s 39-year-old advertising exec Alissa Heinerscheid. Her classroom pedigree is impressive: Groton, Harvard, Wharton. But is such a distinguished pedigree a marker for success for the company and its products? We’re at a stage in our history when people need to question the idea that business acumen is a product of overhyped degrees from institutions who have been diminishing in excellence for years.
It probably never occurred to Alissa that expanding the brand in one direction could lead to lead to a dramatic contraction in another. This is a person who was marinated in a cocoon far removed from the lives of the people who buy the goods. She may know of the average Americans’ way of life, but it’s a kind of knowing absent the intimacy of actually having lived it. For her, “beer” meant European or craft. In her rarified social atmosphere, sex rebels are a cute social appurtenance; they’re kind of cool.
However, for the bulk of Bug Light’s consumers, it’s a movement to revolutionize their lives and expose their kids to emotional harm in their crucial developmental years. They want a beer to drink at the bar-be-cue not one that is curated to advance a disturbing cause. Who would have thought that in a week someone like Heinerscheid could turn a popular product into an icon of a left-wing cultural revolution? Bud Light’s sales have dropped for 17 straight weeks. “Expanding the brand” turned into subtracting the core, and out goes Alissa, and down goes Bud Light.
It’s a similar pattern with Target. Pride Month 2023 in June heralded a drop in sales which continues into the third quarter after the geniuses in the c-suite thought that it was a good idea to plaster the kids’ department in pride flags, introduce a line of “tuck friendly” girls’ swimsuits, and carry children’s products from Abprallen, famous for their Satanist line. What accounts for what can only be described as bizarre decisions? Like Bud Light and its determination to link with a TikTok “influencer” for transgenderism, these decisions arise out of people who were acculturated in a peculiar environment at odds to the life lived by most people who’ll never experience the Groton-to-Wharton social pipeline. The c-suite is simply out of touch, and grossly so. It’s as if they came from a different planet, and don’t realize it.
A Pride Month display at a Target store in Dickson City, Pa. (photo: Ted Shaffrey/AP)Idealized Target board meeting from its website. They’ve certainly got the look of the ignorant and naive.
Both cases are abject lessons in how to clog the bankruptcy courts by making yourself detested. The quality and affordability of the good or service is made irrelevant. Simply seen walking from the parking lot into the store, or being seen with the blue can in your fridge, now could brand you as an endorser of extremist causes.
It’s more complicated than “go woke, go broke”. The turn-off won’t come from the Groton-to-Wharton crowd. Anyway, their Maserati won’t be seen in the parking lot or with a 12-pack in the passenger seat. More accurately, it’s “go woke and half the country will be suspicious of what you’re selling”.
Meanwhile, from the right comes the youngish business savant, anxious to be president, who is completely out of his league regarding foreign relations and national security, adding greater urgency to the possible uses of the phrase “idiot savant”. Along with much of the c-suite, their self-confidence is so grand that they will court disaster for all of us.
Michael Ramirez is great for a comical portrayal of our current condition. Could fear of being “cancelled” drive the corporate brain trust to endorse left-wing cultural causes?
RogerG
Read more here:
* Transcript and audio of High Hewitt’s complete 8/14/23 interview of Vivek Ramaswamy: “Vivek Ramaswamy On All Things National Security” at https://hughhewitt.com/vivek-ramaswamy-on-all-things-national-security?highlight=vivek%20ramaswamy
* “Who Will Heed the Lessons of Target and Bud Light?”, Jim Geraghty, National Review Online, 8/17/23, at https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/who-will-heed-the-lessons-of-target-and-bud-light/
“Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…” Winston Churchill in the House of Commons, 1947
But, dear Winston, what happens when the people vote for lunacy, or vote into power an autocracy of the self-important who happen to be the missionaries of the lunacy? It stays and never seems to go away until the place becomes a ghost town. Such is the bane of our times.
To borrow another line from the demagogic James Carville in 1992, “It’s the economy, stupid.” Rework it a bit and you would uncover another truism: It’s the people, stupid. The civilizational rot in our deepest blue places did not originate in a foreign lab. It was homegrown by our citizenry voting for lunacy and lunatics. No coup put into power in Sacramento, Seattle, Portland, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, New York City, Albany, practically the entire Bos-Wash corridor, such a homogeneous grouping of the daft. They were freely chosen by the residents who decided to show up at the polls in those jurisdictions-turned-asylums.
We know it to be lunacy because . . . just look around. It’s littered all over the ground in these places, in the abandoned store fronts, empty commercial buildings, the gauntlet of the homeless/needles/feces, business flight, the lawlessness, the eviscerated economy from the eco-fanaticism. Of recent note, here’s a few examples of the dégringolade (civilizational decline).
The people of California, in the grip of the decarceration schtick of the Obama years, passed Prop 47 in 2014. It tweaked the state’s criminal code to reduce many felonies to misdemeanors, under the moniker “nonviolent”, especially property crimes with damages under $950. Probably, the only benefit from the change is that it improved the math skills of some of the state’s worst students. Understandably, rushing down the aisles of Nordstrom grabbing everything hither and yon and being able to produce a running – literally running – total of under $950 will sharpen anyone’s math intellect.
“Smash and grabs” have become the latest thing for many urban youths in the Golden State. Watch the ransacking below of a Nordstrom in Topanga, Ca., Saturday, August 14. Brazenness has become commonplace in the post-Prop 47 world of California. It (Prop 47) was billed as a sensible response to overzealous prosecutors. Instead, it produced A Clockwork Orange. All of it democratically chosen.
Don’t think that’s the end of it. Up and down the state, the mania is sweeping high-end shopping centers. That venerable mouthpiece of “decarceration”, NPR, in a rare sign of awareness of reality, stated, “Saturday’s robbery was the third Nordstrom heist in California in less than two years.” Days before, an Yves Saint Laurent store in Glendale was hit. San Francisco is famous for it.
Walgreens, San Francisco, chains their freezer boxes. Convenience shopping at a Walgreens or CVS is harder to come by since many have closed. One shoplifter at a SF Walgreens when asked by a reporter why he didn’t pay, as he nonchalantly walked out of the store, responded casually, “It’s San Francisco, Bro.” Watch the ABC 7 report here:
Seattle turned itself into a basket case. Remember CHAZ (Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone – ergo, no cops allowed) from that 2020 summer of riotous “fun”? In a recent Household Pulse Survey, Seattle residents’ disapproval of their own city ranks it ahead in the misery index of such metropolitan disaster zones as Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and New York City. 600,000 residents were queried and half cited “rent increases” while a quarter of them pointed to “unsafe neighborhoods”. Not a good look if you’re trying to keep or attract people. And the policymakers that made it all happen were duly elected, and may get elected again.
Oregon, in the grip of the inmates of the Willamette Valley urban asylums, passed with a 60% majority Measure 110, drug decriminalization and stepped-up treatment programs. Drug decriminalization occurred, but the measure’s treatment programs grotesquely floundered, so much so that the program’s director, Angela Carter, resigned one year later. The state is a druggies’ haven with overdose deaths and crime skyrocketing and the public square filthy and littered in homeless encampments.
A self-described “left of center” Portland resident and restaurant owner, Lisa Schroeder, expressed her regrets, “If I could turn back time and repeal Measure 110 tomorrow, I would do it.” Some are trying. Clackamas County Board of Supervisors, which encompasses some of Portland’s suburbs, approved a resolution requesting the state to do just that. Don’t expect that to happen any time soon. Other popularly elected representatives stand in the way.
At root is the prevalence of a mindset – left, right, and center – that an individual’s problems are somebody else’s fault, or the costs of their misbehavior will be borne by an abstracted “other”, not by them. They are not their own fault . . . when, in fact, they are!
This mentality is growing on the right. The anti-racists’ “privileged” (whites) are not so privileged – look at the opioid and meth deaths among poor whites – and these destitute whites are acquiring the outlook that they too are victims of faceless, nameless “others”. The lack of agency is as profound as the ingrained excuse-making among the youths rampaging a Nordstrom in California and their left-wing abettors in positions of power. The it-can’t-be-my-fault is resplendent in Oliver Anthony’s “Rich Men North of Richmond” tune. It’s gone viral. Some lyrics:
I’ve been sellin’ my soul, workin’ all day
Overtime hours for bullshit pay
So I can sit out here and waste my life away
Drag back home and drown my troubles away
Sorry, but here’s a guy who needs to get off his ass. Bull**** pay? You know, he may have to walk around the homeless encampments, but he could go to school and pick up a skilled trade rather than fret about “bull****” pay while he “drown[s] [his] troubles away”. Watch the full ditty:
That’s the problem: too many people have bought into system-mongering. The “system” is said to be working against them, whether the panderers are talking about blue-collars in depressed areas or the deepest blue precincts who see a racist under every rug. You see, it’s the “people” who believe in things that aren’t true. In a democracy, a deranged people create a deranged government. It’s time that we put the blame where it belongs – on the people – and stop the pandering.
RogerG
Read more here:
* For an excellent compendium of Churchill quotes: Churchill by Himself: The Definitive Collection of Quotations, Richard Langworth editor, 2008 edition
* Southern California thefts, including the Toganga one, here: “’Savage’ mob robbery at Topanga Nordstrom sparks outrage, beefed up LAPD patrols”, LA Times, August 12, 2023, at https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/savage-mob-robbery-at-topanga-nordstrom-sparks-outrage-beefed-up-lapd-patrols/ar-AA1fgJJO
* “SF Walgreens puts chains on freezers as shoplifters target store 20 times a day, employee says”, Luz Pena, ABNC 7 News, July 18, 2023, at https://abc7news.com/san-francisco-retail-theft-sf-walgreens-shoplifters-geary-boulevard-17th-avenue/13520154/
* “Seattle tops major metros for people feeling unsafe in their neighborhood”, Gene Balk, The Seattle Times, August 2, 2023, at https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/data/seattle-tops-major-metros-for-people-feeling-unsafe-in-their-neighborhood/
* “Oregonians Turning against Drug-Decriminalization ‘Mistake’ amid Record ODs, ‘Dystopian Nightmare’”, Ryan Mills, National Review Online, August 15, 2023, at https://www.nationalreview.com/news/oregonians-turning-against-mistake-drug-decriminalization-amid-record-ods-dystopian-nightmare/
County of San Francisco Board of Supervisors, Mayor Londond Breed centerSan Francisco Mayor London Breed
Many of our debates are vastly off-kilter. It begins with hugely consequential things. Republicans seem intent on foisting Donald Trump on the country again. The Democrats are focused on making a shambles of our country. The former makes the latter more likely. The abhorrent DJT is simply too ugly a face for the GOP to succeed among a national electorate.
It doesn’t stop there. The so-called solutions have the maturity and depth of understanding of locker room humor. Trumpkins insinuate that the country needs a Tasmanian Devil (of Looney Tunes fame) to fight, fight anyone, anyone coming from any direction, making enemies of friends. The Dems and their fellow cultural revolutionaries (their inspiration: Mao), after creating swaths of wreckage from their cuckoo ideas, want the help of people, who they have habitually tarred, to clean up their mess.
For the revolutionaries in power, more cops to reverse the doom loop of places like San Franscisco is much less feasible of an option after years of decriminalizing criminality and the branding of cops as racists. What they just don’t get is the fact that once the slide is initiated, like an avalanche, it’s awfully hard to stop. This class of revolutionary ruler is emotionally and mentally ill-equipped to address the situation.
The carnage is glaringly obvious to all. Type “doom loop” and/or “San Francisco” in YouTube’s search field and you’ll see. The list of major retailers abandoning the city is too well-known to require mention here. The two largest downtown hoteliers prefer foreclosure to continuing operations among the filth and crime. The iconic Westfield Mall has discovered a similar affection for foreclosure. San Francisco is the donkey party’s policies taken to their logical conclusion.
Mayor London Breed quipped in support of additional funding for public safety, “San Francisco must be a safe and just city for all”, and her fellow-travelling potentates on the Board of Supervisors responded with an additional $60 million in funding for the Police Department and 220 more officers. I don’t know what 220 more cops will be able to accomplish for residents, under the guise of the same ravenous Red Guards who created the situation, except spend a whole lot more money for more uniforms, training, equipment, and compensation with little real power to do anything to clear the public spaces. What high-quality candidate for SFPD recruitment would be willing to step into that minefield?
My guess is, if the same clowns are running the show, that things might marginally improve, but “marginally improve” is a bit like “marginally mugged”. It’s still going to be horrible, and managers responsible for many employees will recommend Zooming (stay home) if at all possible, instead of running the gauntlet.
A view of the troubling walk to the entrance of the San Francisco’s Federal Building
And that includes federal employees at the downtown federal building. HHS Assistant Secretary for Administration Cheryl R. Campbell issued the following advisory to SF district managers earlier this month, “In light of the conditions at the (Federal Building) we recommend employees … maximize the use of telework for the foreseeable future.” Even with the added cops, any return to the office workstation won’t survive the next assault.
Nancy Pelosi’s well-publicized pleas won’t matter squat if the people in charge fundamentally still think like her. That’s the crux of the matter: the critical mass of politics in San Francisco is infatuated with the power of the state to create Shangri-la and the view of the world through the lens of systemic victimization. So long as that sticks between the ears, decline becomes more than an option. It’s a perpetual reality.
Ideas matter, and boy do they matter. The clowns in San Francisco City Hall just don’t get it.
RogerG
Read more here:
* “HOW SAN FRANCISCO BECAME A FAILED CITY”, Nellie Bowles, The Atlantic, June 8, 2022, at https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/06/how-san-francisco-became-failed-city/661199/
* “Federal workers in San Francisco told to work remotely ‘for the foreseeable future’ because local crime is so bad”, Chris Morris, Fortune Magazine, August 14, 2023, at https://fortune.com/2023/08/14/remote-work-federal-workers-san-francisco-work-from-home-crime-drugs/
Our politics are insane, much more so than normal. Our national figures act as if they walked off the drawing boards of the cartoonists for Warner Brothers Looney Tunes. Our two major political parties modulate between a cult of personality and a nest of neo-Marxist revolutionaries. It’s deranged. Why vote?
Of special note is Donald Trump’s grip on the GOP. Opinion polls consistently show him to be the far-and-away front runner for the nomination. Objectively, by any measure, the guy is loathsome. Would you actually like your children if they grew up to behave like him? Think about it. The bombastic self-promoting narcissism has left a trail of former allies, now turned enemies, in its wake. All that’s left are sycophants and a chunk of the party base seemingly in the grip of a mass psychosis, for want of a better term.
To understand the gravity of Trump’s scorched earth of the party, first we must grasp the fact that there aren’t any serious RINO’s – “Republican in name only” in the mold of Lowell Weicker or the Rockefellers – in the party anymore. Reaganite fusionism defined the character of the party, and for most still does. RINO has been mindlessly coopted by Trumpers for anyone not enthralled by the man from Mar-a-Lago. “RINO” is conjoined to “establishment” and the “swamp” to make the nonsense compelling to those consumed in jargon and sloganeering, and nothing else weightier.
Speaking of nothing else weightier in the head, so bound up in jargon are Trumpkins, and so ill-informed, that a gaggle of them showed up at a July 29 meeting of the California GOP to protest a rules change at the behest of their political guru, DJT. They thought that it was the “establishment” trying to screw Trump, completely unaware that the rules change was concocted by the Trump campaign for the benefit of Trump. Whew, go figure.
Let’s examine the line of corpses along Trump’s path to power. Jeff Sessions, an early endorser and Trump’s first AG, was one of the first to end up on the cult’s blacklist. The Bushes, not as flamboyant as the orange man, were reduced to wishy-washy “neo-conservative” and “establishment”, not that most of the cult’s enthusiasts could define the words. Ex-military commanders such as John Kelley (chief of staff) and James Mattis (SecDef) quickly learned that working with an ignorant blowhard is untenable. Hawks of the peace-through-strength variety like John Bolton – the Democrats’ bette noir and now Trump’s – was tarred for not acceding to Trump’s impulsive isolationism. Bill Barr, Trump’s latest AG and bulwark against the Democrats’ Mueller grotesquerie, was blasted for not being sufficiently supportive of Trump’s stop-the-steal drivel. One could go on and on. The track record would invite the conclusion that anyone friendly to Trump will eventually become an enemy, given enough time. The closer you get, the more likely you will get burned.
It’s even true for that mainstay of conservatism, Mike Pence, VP under Trump. He’s now enemy # . . . for not rejecting Electoral College votes from states of Trump’s choosing on January 6. Trump besmirched Pence with the schoolyard taunt “Liddle Mike Pence” after Pence forthrightly recalled on Fox News, “The American people deserve to know that President Trump and his advisers didn’t just ask me to pause. They asked me to reject votes, return votes, essentially to overturn the election.” As if on cue, Trumpists showed up at a recent Pence event in New Hampshire yelling “traitor” and “sellout” as he tried to speak.
Pence heckled by Trump supporters in New Hampshire
The stupidity should blast anyone in the face still in charge of their wits. Trumpkins enjoy the jargon of epithets, such as “neo-conservative” as a substitute for adult reasoning. That abuse of “neoconservative” by Trumpkins obscures the policy reality of “peace through strength”. Strength for what? Yes, peace, but also a peace worth living. Reagan’s “evil empire” and “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall” is the quintessence of what used to be standard Republican foreign policy. If Trump exercised a little (liddle?) self-reflection, it was his too. Only, since the guy doesn’t read – he’s “too smart” for that – Trump had to first see it on tv: the bodies of gassed children after an Assad bombing. It took tv before Trump realized that’s there’s something more to foreign policy than “America First” sloganeering.
Go figure, dump Reagan to chase after an opinionated cretin. I refuse to follow the lemmings. That old saw about the election being a binary won’t wash a third time. I am not going to let a cult force me into seeing Trump as our only bastion against neo-Marxism. If the country chooses neo-Marxism to Trump, which seems likely, many Republicans will have to face life outside the cult and the country will have to face life inside a hellscape. Republicans should have presented a better option to the country.
And that’s speaking truth to the . . . unhinged.
RogerG
Read more here:
* The Trump/Pence imbroglio is recounted in, of all places, Newsmax: “Trump Says ‘Liddle Mike Pence’ Has Turned to Dark Side”, August 6, 2023, at https://www.newsmax.com/politics/donald-trump-mike-pence-truth/2023/08/06/id/1129783/
* The ill-informed but excitable Trump following at the July 29 meeting of the California GOP: “Tensions flare as California GOP gives Trump a boost by overhauling state primary rules”, LA Times, July 29, 2023, at https://news.yahoo.com/tensions-flare-california-republicans-trump-211138809.html
