George Rebane

*** Busy day today; Sheriff Mack is in town to speak tonight at the GV Vets Hall.  My sweetie and the Nevada County Republican Women Federated have been busy for months on this major speaker event, and now I and a few other husbands have been put in harness to help out.  I’m told tickets have been selling like hotcakes, and all sides will be represented when the band starts playing.

My take is that Sheriff Mack’s wake will be at least as large as his bow wave in this community.  Thinkers on the Left and Middle are still trying to find some specifics about the good sheriff’s political and social beliefs that they can disagree with without embarrassing themselves.  The rest of the town’s progressive pundits (pinheads?) will do their usual thing of just keep calling him an extreme rightwinger, and leave it at that.

Nevertheless, Sheriff Mack’s coming has exposed a passel of unexpected strengths and weaknesses in certain people and organizations of our politically polarized county.  And these will be dissected in the coming days, for some of them will definitely cast a long shadow.

*** With the government shutdown temporarily on hold, the left-locked lamestream keeps up the propaganda drumbeat that the recent agreement to kick the can until after the new year really averted the imminent catastrophe of “defaulting on our debt.”  As the bond markets told the world, nothing could be further from the truth.

Speaking of truth, a rare commodity coming from the Dems these days with accusations of “hostage taking”, “terrorism”, “obstructionism”, … , one message intended for the nation’s historical illiterati is that if the Repubs want to change things – e.g. roll back regs and Obamacare, and be prudent on debt and deficits – then they should just hunker down and conform compliantly to White House diktats until they win an election.  Any other kind of opposition in the interval would be unprecedented and a reprehensible obstruction of the people’s business.

Au contraire, both by intent and the historical record.  Our Founders knew the systemic fragility of pure democracies, and gave us a constitutional republic purposely designed to make government by one-sided fiat difficult, cumbersome, and slow.  The terminal disease of the majority running rampant over the minority was to be avoided at all cost, hence multiple avenues of recourse were built in for legislative and judicial recourse between elections.  Besides, last time I looked, the Republicans did win the House, and, as intended, are applying that win to slow down the country’s run to financial ruin and European socialism (which the Europeans themselves are now rethinking).

*** Making unemployment insurance available for longer periods increases unemployment.  That is the new finding in a report from the National Bureau of Economic Research.  Upping the duration of unemployment benefits from 26 to 99 weeks not only delays the urgency and intensity with which the unemployed look for new jobs (that is a no-brainer to most of us), but now the NBER tells us that it also gives rise to a vicious cycle of employers avoiding the creation of such new jobs thereby abetting unemployment.  Why?  Because the laid back attitude of the so comforted unemployed keeps upward pressure on wages.  That added to all the other anti-business risks in the country (recall that we’re now 17th in the ranking of economic freedom among the developed countries) makes employers seek other alternatives to new hiring.  And the effect on our economy is what I call the ongoing Depression2.

The looney Left continues to argue that longer unemployment benefits are a compassionate way for us to help the less fortunate during these (self-inflicted) difficult times.  Well, it turns out that it doesn’t.  But if Team Obama and the Dems really believe that longer term unemployment  benefits encourage workers to seek work, then let’s extend the benefits to, I don’t know, say 250 weeks.  That oughta make them really hustle into employment offices and pound down the doors of would be employers.  Some of them might even offer to work for lower wages than they’re getting from government.  In socialist thought, all such things are not only possible, they form the canon on which policy is based.  And all sides should agree to abide by such policies until they win the next election.

Now where did we stow that purple-tinged middle ground that everyone is looking for?

[19oct13 update]  We heard the sad news from Betty last night at the Sheriff Mack reception.  The email Fred Buhler sent to members of the Friends of Nevada County Military says it for all of us.

I
am saddened to report that John Hood passed away Thursday night after a long
illness. John and his wife Betty have been strong supporters of “Friends” and
our troops since the early days.  Despite deteriorating health John rarely
missed a packing party.  Each year, he prepared beef jerky for the
troops.  That was a big job when we were shipping 110 boxes each month.

Our
thoughts and prayers are with John and Betty.

Johnnie,
we miss you.  May you rest in peace.

Amen.