George Rebane

Well, here are a handful of observations on the progress the progressives are making to fundamentally transform America into a second-world autocracy that will look nothing like what our Founders intended to bequeath us, and nothing like the America many of us older folks have enjoyed and learned about.  And about which the younger generations have been kept in the dark, discontent, and expectant that the nation is in dire straits and will be saved only by fulfilling the objectives specified in Agenda21 (now Agenda2030).

Private property prepares for assault.  The spread of suburbs and towns into fire-prone areas and government mismanaged forests and neglected utilities continue to result in great losses of property and public funds better used elsewhere for the common good.  Under the guise of public safety the Left has already introduced initiatives to limit living away from built-up urban areas, and now sees using such arguments to start promoting the abrogation of private property.  The Nation, a prominent trumpet of our Left, makes the case in their ‘California’s Fires Prove the American Dream Is Flammable’ by arguing “if we want to keep cities safe in the face of climate change, we need to seriously question the ideal of private home ownership.”  Those of us of the conservetarian bent have been aware of the assault on private property for some years now as the socialists have passed a continuous stream of laws and regulations that have constructively destroyed private property rights.   We recall that we own something only to the extent that we can dispose of it as we will.

One of the Dems’ Big Lies coursing through ‘airwaves’ in these times is that America’s overall economy is poor and today only benefits ‘the rich’.  This narrative continues despite government’s own numbers documenting the marked increase in middle-class wages and historical lows in minority unemployment.  The latest reports deliver data on the continuing benefits to the rank and file workers who are wooed by employers feeling the pinch of record low unemployment in the nation’s workforce.  “Pay for the bottom 25% of wage earners rose 4.5% in November from a year earlier, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. Wages for the top 25% of earners rose 2.9%. Similarly, the Atlanta Fed found wages for low-skilled workers have accelerated since early 2018, and last month matched the pace of high-skill workers for the first time since 2010. … A strong labor market makes the bargaining power of lower-paid workers more like the labor market higher-wage workers experience during good times and bad”.  All this makes no never-mind for the lying Left who have to keep up the drumbeat of a bad economy if they expect to have any chance this coming November.  (more here)

The progressives' full court press on dumbing down our educational system continues today with the removal of merit-based college admission policies (more here).  This has been going on for some time, and is now beginning to reflect itself in the marketplace.  Adult toy manufacturers report big drops in the sale of motorcycles, ATV, snowmobiles, outboard motors, … ; apparently the young people who used to buy the stuff are no longer doing it mainly because they can’t afford such things.  The manufacturers' immediate response is to make smaller/cheaper models in order to maintain sales and market share. (more here)  The same effect has already been noted in the home buying market.  A ready contributor to this change in economic behavior is that so many of our young adults have graduated with worthless college degrees, so their job prospects are in lower paying jobs that are more in line with their skill sets – few employers see much need for women’s studies graduates.  And now with academically merit-free admissions rapidly coming into vogue, expect many more such dismayed graduates to hit the job market in coming years.

‘Elizabeth Warren Has a Plan, Oh My’ in the 27dec19 WSJ is a toe-curling summary of her plans to destroy the American economy and everything that depends on that.  All of it will, of course, be preceded by the dictatorial state of Big Brother in effective control of the private economy and demanding tributes at unheard of levels.  Americans will not go into that dark night gladly.  The main takeaway today is that “she may not win the nomination, but her ideas show where the American left wants to go” – oh, does it ever, and that has been our point all along.  This is such a well-assembled, horrendous list of bad ideas that I want RR readers to read it in detail, I have made a download of an extensive quote from the article available here – Download ElizabethWarrenPlans

[28dec19 update]  Today Aloha = Goodbye Hawaii.  For years one the Dems’ big lies has been that tax rates don’t affect economic behavior, therefore it’s OK to raise taxes as much as they think are needed.  Well, we’ve been telling our local leftists for some time now about how working people are leaving California, and the other high tax states.  To that lengthening list we add Hawaii, where “with an 11% top rate (CA 13.3%), many Hawaii residents are looking for two tickets out of paradise.” (more here) In addition to high taxes, Hawaii has most of the other government induced problems to visit on its residents starting with the Jones Act requiring stuff between American ports to be carried in ships built and flagged in the US, to unaffordable housing caused by insane land use laws.  Meanwhile the blindered Left keeps coming up with ever more taxes and limits to what people can do with private property.  So where people are still able, they vote with their feet to move to be freer and prosper.  We should compare these migrations to those of foreigners fleeing their own countries to come here.  Everything is relative, save the greed of governments for power and money.

[31dec19 update]  Dems conceal SCOTUS nominees.  The far-Left slate of Democrat candidates for president know that their plans for an autocratic socialist United States are toxic to the majority of American voters.  Part of their plan for control is to have an aggressive program of new laws come through the country’s courts instead of an unreliably bipartisan Congress.  Sen Amy Klobuchar is one candidate with a secret list of such nominees which she will not reveal, and which no lamestream journalist will ask her about (e.g. NPR’s Judy Woodruff during the last debate), or point out that candidate Trump revealed his list of SCOTUS nominees.  The reason for the secrecy is, of course, clear.  As Bill McGurn (31dec19 WSJ) points out, “So a public list would be risky for her. If it isn’t filled with progressives, it could cost her among Democrats for whom the restoration of a liberal federal bench is a priority. But if she satisfied progressives by offering a list that included, say, Pamela Karlan—the Stanford law professor who testified before the House during the Trump impeachment and is on the Demand Justice short list—it would only give Mr. Trump ammunition to claim that, notwithstanding her claims to being a moderate, a President Klobuchar would stuff the courts with liberal activists. … With the possible exceptions of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, who are campaigning forthrightly from the left, the other Democratic candidates have a similar problem. Joe Biden, the other alleged moderate? He recently said he’d consider appointing Barack Obama to the Supreme Court. But as with Ms. Klobuchar, a real Biden list wouldn’t be a list of moderates.”