Book recommendation: “Luther: Man between God and the Devil” by Heiko A. Oberman. The book may be out of print but used copies are available.
It is unique among contemporary biographies. Modern biographies emphasize external and objectified circumstances to define their subject. Personal background, psychology, social, and economic factors are treated as all-determinative. The ideas of the person get lost in the shuffle. Yet, the ideas are the catalyst for shattering the preeminence of the Catholic Church in Western Europe, and in much of Christendom.
By objectifying a person with an over-emphasis on such attributes, we get to avoid the difficult task of grappling with their ideas. Run-of-the-mill biographies cheapen the subjects by stripping away that which made them famous – their ideas.
Oberman’s treatment is refreshing, as opposed to the more common loose speculation peddled to Oprah’s clientele.
Politics can exhibit “Eusociability”. The term refers to the highest level of community-building among some animals, such as the hives of the hymenoptera class of insects – wasps, bees, etc. Political eusociability is becoming increasingly evident among the Left since the election of Trump.
As in a wasps’ hive in an agitated state, the activists of the Left are swarming. The Left’s fury isn’t the spontaneous activity of scattered individuals – or “organic” as some would say – but behave as a horde neurally connected through the bio-chemicals of past activism and social media, triggered with the seed money of donors.
Consider the financial backers to be the “angel investors” of the hive. An example would be Democracy Alliance.
An example of today’s left-wing angel investors: the “Democracy Alliance”Prominent donors to the “Democracy Alliance” are George Soros (l) and Tom Steyer (r)
Hive-funding can go through a circuitous route, almost like money-laundering. One such example would be Alliance for Global Justice, headquartered in Tucson, Az. An examination of its 503(c) IRS form 990 reveals a list of wealthy donors that includes The Bridgewater Fund, The Tides Foundation, Ben & Jerry Foundation, etc. It, in turn, ladles the money out. Crowdrise’s page for a fundraiser for Alliance for Global Justice (AGJ) describes refusefascism.org as a project of AGJ. Money moves about.
The phenomena of hive-building can be traced back to the early labor organizing of the late 18th century into the more sophisticated 19th/20th century efforts of Eugene Debs, Big Bill Haywood, Samuel Gompers, John L. Lewis, and Marry Harris Jones (“Mother Jones”).
From “Solidarity”, publication of the IWW, 1917
Modern iterations of the activity include “Occupy….(fill in the blank)”, “the Resistance” (to Trump), “Fight Fascism”, and “Indivisible”.
“Occupy Wall Street” protest, Zuccotti Park, 2011“The Resistance”, a collection of groups for defeating Trump, 2017“Fight Fascism” in one of its forms, San Diego protest, 2017‘Indivisible’ movement grips St. Johns County, Fla., January 2017.
It’s simply hive activity, without splitting academic hairs over the fine distinctions between “community organizing”, mere “activism”, or “mobilizing”. It’s also not a conspiracy in the same vein as the Comintern (Communist International), which had a Moscow address. The organization’s constituent national communist parties were appendages of the Soviet Politburo.
No central commissariat exists for the hive. It is a web of scattered individuals and groups, united by compatible beliefs, a tendency to activism, most lacking permanence, and interconnected by social media and loose funding streams. They spring up as events warrant and vary to local circumstances. They can appear spasmodic, and frequently are.
The tie that binds is a remarkably consistent set of beliefs. You know, the litany of “isms” and “phobias” are prominent: racism, sexism, Islamaphobia, homophobia, etc., etc., etc. The list is notably fungible according to the fads-of-thought of the moment. For them, America is reduced to a collection of group victims. Their cure is Fabianism-with-an-edge.
Fabianism is a form of socialism without the violent overthrow of Marx and Lenin. It’s socialism with a human face – i.e., democracy. This form has been called “social democracy”. It favors human rights broadly defined and greater government control of the “commanding heights” of society, to borrow from Lenin. In Britain, it led to the formation of the Labour Party. In Europe, many national social democratic parties sprang up. In today’s America, it has found a home in the Democratic Party.
Early logo of Britain’s Fabian Society as a turtle. It displays the group’s desire for gradualism in bringing about a socialist country.Another common emblem of the Fabian Society as a wolf in sheep’s clothing, as seen in a stained glass window. It would later be dropped for its negative connotation.
The modern Democratic Party has given the movement an institutional form. However, the plodding nature of a national political party is ill-suited to a base agitated by immediate events. The desire for respectability of a national party restrains the emotional explosion which has led some partisans to break away seeking the “Bern”, or “StopFascism”, or “Black Lives Matter”, or “Occupy” (the universe?), or …….. That’s the “edge” part of Fabianism-with-an-edge. Yet, party activists are still littered throughout the constellation of groups.
MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow holding up a copy of Indivisible’s Practical Guide to organizing against Trump
Taking a closer look into one these groups, Indivisible, will bring to light the interconnected nature of the hive. From their “Practical Guide for Resisting the Trump Agenda”, the authors parrot the hive’s party line on the threat posed by Trump:
“…[Trump] will attempt to use his congressional majority to reshape America in his own racist, authoritarian, and corrupt image.”
Three of the four individuals listed as authors of the “Guide” – Ezra Levin, Adam Padilla, and Jeremy Haile – were ex-staffers of Democrat representatives. Levin and Haile were staffers for Lloyd Doggett (D-Tx). Padilla was a legislative assistant for Luis Gutierrez (D-IL). The fourth, Leah Greenberg, wife of Ezra Levin, is listed as the young policy director for the Tom Perriello gubernatorial campaign along with involvement in various “social justice” private and non-profit organizations according to her LinkedIn page.
Perriello is another interesting specimen. He served as representative in Virginia’s 5th congressional district from 2009-11, but was defeated in 2010 by Republican Robert Hurt. He is mentioned as the founder of Avaaz, ” a U.S. based civic organization launched in January 2007 that promotes global activism on issues such as climate change, human rights, animal rights, corruption, poverty, and conflict.” It’s a mission statement for the “social justice warrior” (SJW).
The “Guide” asserts that they are emulating the Tea Party circa 2009. But the Tea Party wasn’t organized by Hill staffers, or anyone representing the “establishment”. More believably, the kinship of the “the resistance” points to the “Occupy” factions of 2011 and the more recent campus SJW outbursts, not the Tea Party.
Below is an “Occupy Wall Street” demonstration from October 2011. It’s 6:46 in length.
Compare the above to the disruption of Charles Murray’s attempt to speak to students at Middlebury College.
When the above attempt at a lecture failed, Murray and Prof. Allison Stanger, professor of International Politics and Economics, went to a room to live stream their conversation. The disruptions continued in the auditorium, and when Murray and Prof. Stanger attempted to exit to her car, they were assaulted. Stanger required hospitalization.
Now, let’s take a look at a congressional townhall, the kind of thing that Greenberg, et al, are encouraging.
Or this one.
Or the harassment of Tom McClintock after leaving his townhall.
The townhall crowds appear to be older versions of the campus SJW’s . Five decades ago many of them might have been at home on Haight-Ashbury – at least spiritually.
The outbursts, cries, and incriminations aren’t spontaneous in the literal meaning of the word. I suspect that the swarms are people – local and transported – already active in the party, agitated by the election’s results, neurally connected by social media, loosely directed by certain websites, and reflective of blue-America, even if they might live in red-America. Rather than an inter-cultural phenomena spanning the cultural divide, quite the opposite, they emulate the deep cultural division in the country. The hive’s views have no home in red-America.
What does this portend for the country? Blue-America is still geographically stuck in blue-America. Their behavior has just become more rabid. The beliefs of identity politics, assaults on traditional Christianity, the blind faith in the omni-competent state, and hyper-environmentalism has no more credence today in “fly-over” country than it did before the election.
The danger for Republicans lies in the appearance of a groundswell. Such a thing could have an effect on impressionable “independents” and lukewarm Republicans. The Republicans could experience a dip in passion while independents fall away leaving the field open for the Fabians-with-an-edge in the Democratic Party.
If Republicans don’t counter-organize, the next couple of election cycles could pave the way for boys-in-dresses in the girls’ lockeroom and on the girls’ field hockey team. Be prepared for a sovietized EPA. The professions of Christian faith in the economy will be criminalized. Just take the California template and press it onto the country.
It’s time for red-America to get organized to challenge the hive. You might call it red-America’s “counter-swarm”.
“Indivisible: A Practical Guide for Resisting the Trump Agenda – Former congressional staffers reveal best practices for making Congress listen.”, https://www.indivisibleguide.com/
“Soros, Steyer, and Democracy Alliance Work to Retake Colorado: Left-wing donor club returns to its birthplace to win back state senate for Dems”, Lachlan Markey, The Washington Free Beacon, 8/5/16, http://freebeacon.com/politics/soros-steyer-and-democracy-alliance-work-to-retake-colorado/
The following is a commentary to “Sessions: ‘I will recuse myself’ from investigations when appropriate”, Washington Examiner, 3/2/17, http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/sessions-i-will-recuse-myself-from-investigations-when-appropriate/article/2616229?fb_action_ids=416334178716129&fb_action_types=og.comments.
Tempest in a teapot: Sessions having 2 short encounters with Russia’s ambassador. If an ambassador doesn’t develop relationships with a country’s policy-makers, what’s the guy to do? As senator and senior member of the Armed Services Committee, is Sessions to run at the mere sight of an approaching Russian diplomat? Nonsense, nonsense.
Andrew Puzder
Tempest in a teapot: Andy Puzder “unacceptable” for Labor Secretary for a messy divorce, disproven accusations of spousal abuse, and hiring an “undocumented” person. Such allegations would automatically exclude anyone with the income to hire domestic help, and that means the Democrat senators pompously grilling Puzder. More nonsense.
Jerry Brown (l) and Meg Whitman (r) shake hands before 2010 debateIllegal immigrant maid and attorney Gloria Allred at press conference, Sept. 29, 2010
Tempest in a teapot: Meg Whitman, California Republican gubernatorial candidate, hiring an “undocumented” person for domestic help. This is smaller than a teapot. Try a thimble. More nonsense.
Kimba Wood, Pres. Clinton’s second nominee for Attorney General
Tempest in a teapot: Kimba Wood, Clinton’s Attorney General nominee, employing an “undocumented” nanny. Proof that dippiness is a bi-partisan sport. More thimble-scale nonsense on parade.
Zoe Baird, Pres. Clinton’s first nominee for Attorney General
Tempest in a teapot: Zoe Baird, Clinton’s first nominee for Attorney General, drug over the coals for similarly employing an “undocumented” nanny. Apparently there was a dragnet for “undocumented” nannies at the time. More partisan dippiness.
Were there other episodes in theatrical grandstanding, and are we likely to experience more? Probably. Our press and partisan inquisitors are more interested in chasing down the employment records of nannies, maids, and gardeners, while culling divorce records and chasing down chance encounters during years of service in the public eye, than a mature examination of a person for their policy preferences. Ideological biases will have a greater impact on whether a citizen can even operate a wedding cake business.
Macbeth murders King Duncan and takes the Scottish throne.
To borrow from Macbeth: “It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
The days when Bill Nye’s Ministry of Truth was led by Atty. Gen. Loretta Lynch.
I was fascinated when I realized that 3 seemingly disparate experiences – Tucker Carlson’s interview with Bill Nye, reading CS Lewis’s That Hideous Strength, and Martin Scorsese’s Silence – pointed to a common theme. Life requires us to juggle many things simultaneously. Usually, there’s no common thread. In this case, there is. The contemporary scene has a habit of producing popularizing zealots who then seek to amputate from public discussion any opposing views. Case in point: Bill Nye, The Science Guy.
Occasionally, I channel surf over to Fox News (like I do the other cable news channels). I happened to catch Tucker Carlson in an exchange with Bill Nye over Nye’s desire to prosecute climate change “deniers”.
Tucker Carlson (l) interviews Bill Nye (r).
Here’s Bill Nye calmly explaining the criminalization of alternative opinions in an earlier discussion.
Simultaneously, I’ve been reading C.S. Lewis’s That Hideous Strength with one of its early plot threads being a plot among “progressive” faculty to eliminate dissent.
C.S. Lewis
This, in turn, brought to mind Thomas Hibbs’s review of Martin Scorsese’s Silence. The film centers on the attempt of Japan’s powerful in the 17th century to exterminate Christianity from the land.
Liam Neeson in “Silence”.
All three illustrate what Jean Francois Revel identified as the “totalitarian temptation”. Zealots can feel so strong in their “truth” that they seek to extinguish disagreement. It matters not if the temptation is exhibited by the 17th-century Japanese shogunate, or a conspiring faculty member at Lewis’s fictional Bracton College, or an ex- Boeing engineer and comedy script writer masquerading as an expert on all things scientific (Nye).
Jean-Francois Revel, 1924-2006
The quality of Tucker Carlson’s interaction with Nye wasn’t the best. Yet, Nye’s inner totalitarian crept forth. He justified prosecution of dissenters because the evidence for “climate change” is asserted to be indisputable. Further, “deniers” are a threat to his quality of life. Thus, there you have it: he goes from evidence of climate change to its apocalyptic dimensions to filling up the jails with anyone with the temerity to question Al Gore. His logic – or lack thereof – is breathtaking in its sweep.
The whole thing reminds me of the 19th century’s shallow understanding of genetic inheritance and subsequent calls for euthanasia and the selective breeding of humans. The zealots didn’t stop at voluntary measures. They wanted to recruit the state into their fixation. It all didn’t work out so well for Carry Buck. The question of her forced sterilization reached all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1927. In a grotesque display of legal pretzel-logic unhinged from morality, writing for the majority of the Court, Oliver Wendell
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
Holmes declared Carry Buck to be persona non grata and subject to forced sterilization by the state of Virginia. He announced, “Three generations of imbeciles are enough”. Maybe Holmes proved that a smidgen of science can indeed be dangerous.
Nye isn’t a scientist, as in a scholarly researcher of theoretical science. He’s got just enough exposure to the discipline to be dangerous, like Holmes. He’s most threatening as he mimics power-hungry adademics. They are an element all-too-familiar to C.S. Lewis as he walked the corridors of Oxford and Cambridge for almost 40 years. In That Hideous Strength, Lewis has a character with Nye’s predilections in the person of Lord Feverstone. Feverstone explains to his younger protege, Mark,
“Man has got to take charge of man. That means, remember, that some men have got to take charge of the rest – which is another reason for cashing in on it as soon as one can. You and I want to be the people who do the taking charge, not the ones who are taken charge of.”
Nye seems to be “cashing in” as his notoriety climbs. He also exemplifies the Feverstone complex of “man taking charge of man”. For Nye, and for the rest of us, that means a secular Inquisition of state attorney generals, civil forfeiture, and the placement of skeptics on the list for elimination with Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi of ISIS fame.
Leader of ISIS, Abu al-Baghdadi
As for Scorsese’s Silence, how much does Nye parallel the 17th century Shogunate in its persecution of Christians? Only a matter of degree. Nye, it appears, would not sanction the water-boarding of “deniers”, but might be assuaged by confiscation of their personal wealth. But such is only speculation on my part.
Doubt, caution, humility, and modesty are not words to describe Nye. I suggest arrogant, self-anointed, and totalitarian is closer to the truth. He’s an example of the new man of public affairs, particularly of the Left. He’s got the minimal amount of scientific knowledge to take on the airs of a scientist, but not enough to avoid being reckless and imprudent.
RogerG
Sources:
“Religious Speech and Action Silenced”, Thomas Hibbs,
Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/445194/silence-movie-martin-scorsese-shusaku-endo-novel-christianity-japan-statism-review
The Totalitarian Temptation, Jean Francois Revel, 1978, https://www.amazon.com/Totalitarian-Temptation-Jean-Francois-Revel/dp/0140048413
“Attorney General Lynch Looks Into Prosecuting ‘Climate Change Deniers”, Hans von Spakovsky, The Daily Signal (a publication of the Heritage Foundation), 3/10/16, http://dailysignal.com/2016/03/10/attorney-general-lynch-looking-into-prosecuting-climate-change-deniers/
“Bill Nye, the science guy, is open to criminal charges and jail time for climate change dissenters”, Washington Times, 4/14/2016, http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/apr/14/bill-nye-open-criminal-charges-jail-time-climate-c/
“Buck V. Bell”, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buck_v._Bell
That Hideous Strength, C.S. Lewis, 2003 ed., p. 40.
The following is reply to a Charlotte Observer column by Isaac J. Bailey, “Franklin Graham’s God isn’t mine; is he yours?” (http://www.charlotteobserver.com/opinion/editorials/article134819004.htmlfb_comment_id=fbc_1288950587859919_1289747547780223_1289747547780223#f35461721bd9bd)
I’m bowled over by Isaac Bailey’s remarkable incoherence. Is he presenting himself as an expert on Christian exegetics, or the purveyor of trendy pronouncements of Hollywood celebrities? Maybe both? Quoting a study-of-the-moment as scripture, while attempting to morph the Bible into the preface for the Democratic Party platform, is folly on steroids.
Mr. Bailey apparently doesn’t want a Christian to be a Christian. This may come as a surprise to Bailey but being Christian means acceptance of the deep truth of the Gospel, not the Koran or Bhagavad Gita. To be an adherent of a particular faith is by nature to be exclusive. A person gets baptized as a Christian, not as a proselyte of a fashionably amorphous and undemanding spirituality common in west LA.
Mr. Bailey wants to obliterate the doctrines that define Christianity in the same manner as progressivism’s desire to interpret the Constitution out of existence. Remember, they claim, it’s a “living thing”, like the Constitution, waiting to be shaped by the boundless imagination. In his mind, we can have a new Jesus, like a new Constitution, every time a thought becomes fashionable among the beautiful people. It’s all so ludicrous.
Kanye West
Really, people like Bailey have movie-land visions running around in their heads of snake-handlers and fulminating sermons when they think of traditional Christianity. It’s a fictional script implanted in the mind that has little room for a devout, fundamentalist, and evangelical Christian being also caring, considerate, compassionate, and tolerant.
To put it bluntly, prejudice among “progressive” types is as common as anywhere else.
Political discourse has turned into tirades, much like the roaming cliques on college campuses who scream for “safe spaces”, like the one below. Watch the whole thing to get the sense of the collapse of decorum.
Slate’s Isaac Chotiner, in his rant on Alan Colmes (www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2017/02/23/alan_colmes_was_fox_news_original_liberal_patsy.html), is digital media’s version of the same kind of verbal gang-tackling. Check this out: Chotiner’s hostility to Colmes is rooted in Colmes’s tendency to be affable and “nice”. Quoting Chotiner, “Colmes was the most absurd, useless, and mocked television personality in America for many years, precisely because he was nice …. being a nice guy — and a ‘liberal’ nice guy at that — meant being a buffoon, and a patsy.”
Isaac Chotiner of Slate.
“Nice” was a virtue in the not-too-distant past. Apparently, not anymore. Primal scream has replaced civil discourse. Anyone approaching an issue from a different viewpoint is no longer a person adding to a discussion. He or she is deserving of character assassination. And for those on your side willing to be considerate reserve your worst rhetoric.
Randomly asking a person at a mall on a Saturday afternoon about healthcare will be met with blank stares, bumbling utterances, and the mall’s background noise. Maybe not everyone, but a good number.
Why? Well, people don’t care about it till they need it; there’s a nearly complete disconnect about costs; people won’t read anything longer than the 3 lines of a Facebook post or Tweet; our politicans have been allowed to demagogue the issue; and self-serving special interests (AARP, and the list found here: https://votesmart.org/interest-groups/NA/38#.WLMbF_nyuUk) pettifog the issue. It’s scandalous … and all so confusing to a largely inattentive and ill-informed public.
Here’s some points of confusion. First, “healthcare” and “health insurance” have been jumbled together. The reality is that a person can have healthcare without health insurance, and health insurance without healthcare. Unless we enslave medical practitioners, we are learning that we can possess insurance that few with a medical license will honor. Conversely, healthcare can exist as a form of “welfare” without purchasing a premium.
Secondly, somebody else paying the bills creates childlike fantasies. It’s called the third-party-payer problem in economics. A barrier exists between seller and buyer called the insurance middle-man. Bottom line, particularly for the consumer: Who cares? The result is a chronic escalation of prices.
Thirdly, government can’t give you anything without taking from somebody else first. A Robin Hood society isn’t a healthy one, if we can project beyond our nose. Eventually healthcare will resemble a combination of the DMV and Saturday night in the emergency room at the public hospital.
Where does this leave us? Block grant Medicaid to the states; phase-in Medicare reforms; expand Health Savings Accounts; allow stripped-down policies; restrict sign-ups to one deadline per year; treat health insurance like car insurance; and grandfather existing policies. If some states love Obamacare, they can keep it … and foot the bill. How’s that for starters?
California’s Oroville Dam poses a threat. Here’s the dam’s layout.
Oroville Dam layout
Last week, northern California residents awoke to the dangers of major flooding in areas downstream from Oroville Dam. The concern was over the possible failure of the dam’s main and emergency spillways. Spillways help regulate the volume of water behind the dams during periods of heavy incoming stream flows. Look below at what has recently happened.
Oroville Dam with releases down the main splillwayOroville Dam’s main spillway rupturesOroville Dam’s main spillway at point of ruptureOroville Dam’s adjacent emergency spillway releases cause serious erosion
If the spillways fail, uncontrolled amounts of water flow through the breach till the water behind the dam falls below the level of the spillways. The rush of water could last some time if high volumes from the Feather River persistently flows into the lake.
How could this happen? Was it poor foresight? Was it due to a policy of the deferral of monitoring and maintenance of critical infrastructure, like dams? It is true, at a 2005 FERC (Federal Energy Regulatory Commission) re-licensing hearing, that a proposal to concrete-line the slope below the emergency spillway (last photo from above) was rejected by the state’s Department of Water Resources as too expensive. Since the dam is owned and controlled by the state, it owns full responsibility for this and all other decisions.
Resentment from many of those in the path of possible destruction is directed at the State of California, a government seen as more beholding to the passions of heavily-populated coastal realms than the needs of the interior. USA Today’s Trevor Hughes sensed the discord when he recently wrote while covering the dam situation, “Here, residents distrust a state government they think is all-too-eager to help undocumented immigrants and build a bullet train to serve the rich coastal elites, leaving them with little.”
California’s interior is so much different from the coast in more than temperament . The area to the east of the Coast Range provides much of California’s water, power, and resource industries. Yet, they bear the full brunt of the policies built around the coast’s lifestyle progressivism, especially the region’s passion for environmentalism in all its guises.
California’s mountain ranges. The Norther and Southern Ranges are the major political divide in the state.
“Progress” for coastal activists is subsidies for solar panels and windmills while ensuring high prices for electricity. As it is, California is 42nd among all states in terms of the average price per kilowatthour. In other words, 41 states are cheaper. The impact is minimal if all you have to do in Monterey to cool down the house is open a window.
Not true in Bakersfield-to-Redding. You’ll take the solar panel subsidies – always paid for by somebody else – and drill into your roof trusses to anchor the things, as well as learn about sweltering during the hottest part of the day. If you want to sleep at night by using air conditioning, be prepared to be labelled an energy “hog” by the state’s commissars as you cool your way to bankruptcy.
The whole scheme is a hammer to anyone living on the sunrise side of the Coast Range. All the while, coastal sophisticates get to indulge their Europhilia and Japanophilia fantasies with bullet trains and light rail. There is a complete disconnect depending on which side of the Coast Range that you reside.
It shows in elections. As the the whole state seemed to go for Hillary-mania in 2016, giving her 4.2 million more votes than Trump, counties in the path of the flooding tacked quite differently. For instance, Butte County, in spite of being home to liberal Chico and Chico State University, went Trump 46% to 42%. Yuba County awarded Trump with 58%. The red/blue divide doesn’t follow state lines. Out west, the line of demarcation follows the ridge of the Coast Range.
2016 California election results by county. The last remaining Republican counties in the state reside east of the Coast Range.
The near calamity of the Oroville Dam is resurrecting the call for secession of the far northern counties and a union with the similarly disaffected southern counties of Oregon to form the long sought-after State of Jefferson. Rallies and signs are reappearing.
The State of Jefferson map.State of Jefferson sign on fence near construction site for repairing the Oroville Dam.State of Jefferson sign near Red Bluff, northern California, between Chico and Redding.State of Jefferson Christmas float, Redding, Ca.State of Jefferson sign in Tuolumme County.Recent rally in Sacramento for the State of Jefferson.
Recently, we’ve been hearing cries from some elements within California’s governing coalition (read “coastal elites”) to secede to get away from Trump. I wonder if it ever crossed the minds of these coastal urbanites that there are people who want to get away from them.
To the east of the coastal divide, there’s a growing realization that the state is no bargain for the hard working taxpayer. Instead of getting well-maintained roads, the folks get ruts, cracks, and potholes. Just rattling off the stats could turn any state resident into a Prozac patient.
* The state ranks 45 for the efficiency of its state highway system (Reason Foundation, Sept. 2014 report).
* 68% of its roads are in poor condition according to a State Senate report.
* The state has $135 billion of unfunded repairs according to state and local officials.
* 5 of the 10 cities with the worst road systems are in California according to TRIPP, a Washington DC research group.
* California’s interstate are the worst in the nation according to the American Road and Transportation Builders Association.
* The state is developing a habit of chronically under-funding its roads by two-thirds.
Not enough money for roads? How’s that possible? The state is tax happy. It should be rolling in the dough. And it is, but the money gets lost somewhere along the way from the motorists’s wallet and paycheck to the pavement underneath his or her tires.
The state’s taxes on fuel are one of the highest in the nation. The Reason Foundation ranks them at #5, meaning there are only 4 states with higher rates.
This dour claim-to-fame doesn’t tell the whole story. Breaking into the molecular structure of the California gas tax reveals a gas excise tax of 39.5¢/gal, state and local sales taxes from 7.5% to 10%, and a “cap-and-trade” fee of 13¢ to 20¢/gal assessed on wholesalers. Of course, the cap-and-trade hustle is passed onto the lowly motorist.
The meandering course of the “cap-and-trade” money has a dubious destination. Its first billion dollars goes to the dream of a bullet train from LA to San Francisco.
Conception of “high speed rail” hurtling its way through the hills and Central Valley of California.The reality?
Since the revenue haul from the various fuel taxes is hitched to rising fuel prices, keeping them on a upward path is a fiscal necessity to fund the state’s low-carbon schemes. Thankfully, fuel prices in California are like a piece of foam in the water. There are forces keeping prices buoyant (up).
The buoyant effect arises from the powerful environmentalist lobby’s mania for punishing carbon fuels. California demands a very special low-emissions fuel. So special, in fact, no other state requires it. The base ingredient for fuel is called “blendstock”. Certain approved reformulated “blendstocks” are required by the EPA: CBOB and RBOB. RBOB is more expensive to produce. Not only is RBOB mandated by the state, an uncommon form of it, CARBOB, is the only one allowed. It’s even more expensive to make.
The expansion of supply could work to moderate the effect of the state’s fussy gasoline taste buds, if suppliers could expand capacity to produce more. Discouragingly, enlarging an existing refinery or building a new one in the state necessitates the patience of Job and the political muscle of Hercules.
CEQA’s maze for project approval. It rivals the labyrinth of King Minos of Crete.
The California Environmental Quality Act of 1970 creates a daunting maze with bountiful opportunities for eco-activists and NIMBY’s (Not In My Back Yard) to block and delay any project, particularly big ones, inflating its costs. The last refinery built in the state was Valero’s Wilmington plant in 1980, but the state has added 15 million souls since then. Sclerotic production leads to price shocks down to the gas station pump when a single pipe breaks at any one of the few remaining refineries. The state is always living on the edge.
A typical resident of California pays more to gas up the family sedan, as it is driven on cracked and rutted roads, to flee the floods from failing spillways. The state is trying to survive on 30-year-old fuel supply chains and a 50-year-old water and flood control infrastructure. It’s running on the fumes of the past.
Eventually, the fumes dissipate. Before then, either join the the rebel movement in the State of Jefferson or load up the U-haul to escape the clutches of the coastal eco-warriors. Good luck.
An interesting story appeared in Tacoma’s The News Tribune on February 15, 2017. A routine driver’s license check by a Washington State trooper at the scene of a multi-car accident revealed a man, Armando Chavez Corona, who was a deported felon convicted of a drug charge. A trooper then notified ICE and two hours later ICE agents arrived to take the man into custody.
Ironically, the state trooper making the call to ICE may be in as much hot water as Mr. Corona. The Washington State Patrol is investigating the officer for not following department guidelines about not detaining or questioning people based on immigration status.
Mr. Corona presents an intriguing case. According to ICE spokeswoman Rose Richeson, he was a “previously deported criminal with an aggravated felony conviction for possession of a controlled substance and a conviction in the U.S. District Court for illegal re-entry. He was removed to Mexico on four separate occasions between 1996 to 2000.”
What of the state guidelines in question? The so-called protocols pronounce that the agency will not “not stop, detain or interrogate or place an immigration hold on any person solely for the purpose of ascertaining immigration status or in any other way attempt to enforce federal immigration laws.” The troopers at the scene didn’t detain or otherwise question Mr. Corona. Corona had to wait at the crash site for cars to be cleared. While waiting, ICE arrived to take Mr. Corona into custody.
Now, what if Mr. Corona was a citizen? What if a routine driver’s license check revealed an outstanding FBI notification of him to be a person of interest in a federal matter? Local law enforcement would have taken him into custody in a heartbeat.
The only consequential difference in the two scenarios is the real “undocumented” status of Mr. Corona in the first and his hypothetical status as a citizen in the second. In the real story, the “undocumented” Mr. Corona has a halo of protection from federal arrest as a result of Gov. Jay Inslee’s (D) declaration that state and local law enforcement are not to be “mini-immigration agencies”. Mr. Corona has greater legal protections in the state of Washington as an illegal resident than as a citizen.
Certainly, residents of the state of Washington who happen to be citizens wouldn’t evade the federal hammer. How does this comport with our veneration for the constitutional principle of “equal protection”? Equal protection requires the government to guarantee the same rights, protections, and privileges to all citizens. Apparently, the non-citizen designation of “undocumented” by the state of Washington means a greater level of protection, not equal protection. Eschewing the “citizen” label while violating our immigration laws perversely means a higher status than the lowly citizen.
Citizens get hauled away by the feds as the “undocumented” receive sanctuary. We have most certainly entered the pretzel logic world of Alice’s Wonderland of the Sanctuary City.
The following is a response to an article by Charles Krauthammer, “The Cover-up in Search of a Crime”, in National Review Online, http://www.nationalreview.com/article/445005/flynn-phone-call-coverup-searching-crime
Vice President Mike Pence with National Security Adviser Mike Flynn
This story is much richer than the matter of a subordinate misleading the Vice President. Be careful, though, the deeper story may not follow the path to a collusion with Russia during the election. The scent may lead to Obama. Andrew McCarthy was astute to mention it.
Obama’s people got a FISA-approved wiretap on Russian operatives prior to the election and in the waning days of Obama’s term after DNC and Podesta’s emails became public. This has “politics” written all over it. Then, the always present partisan operatives, entrenched in the upper reaches of the agencies, still clinging to power during the transition, leaked the edited results to an Obama-pliant press.
Yes, this whole affair may be a cover-up in search of a crime. It may also be an intense version of the long twilight struggle that is politics in modern America.
