When intellectuals and journalists of the left use the word “democracy,” they typically are not referring to elections and decision-making by popularly elected officials. For the left, “democracy” is another word for progressive policy aims, especially the widening of special political rights and welfare-state provisions to new constituencies. By that definition any Republican president is carrying out an “assault on democracy.” – Barton Swaim
George Rebane
California hides C19 data to insulate Newsom’s disastrous pandemic response policies from criticism. Surprisingly, AP broke this story (more here), and the rest of the lamestream immediately clammed up about it. As usual with the Left, this practice is well-established in all autocracies wherever they are implemented. Don’t let the public discover that their government is wrongheaded, stupid, pernicious, or a sordid amalgam of all three. Newsom is an established idiot with a penchant for control. For almost the entire past year his stratagems against C19 have been totally ineffective or markedly underperformed those of almost all other states. You have to be idiots-on-steroids like Cuomo and DeBlasio to outperform Newsom in governance. (It takes a union-educated progressive not to know that California is well on its way to becoming a full-fledged one-party autocracy. And California has them by the millions.)
Speaking of Newsom and the nationalization of California’s failures, here is a compendium of them by CA Assemblyman Kevin Kiley in a 21jan21 letter that he sent to President Biden. In it he responds to Newsom’s plea to Biden to implement the Golden State’s disasters nationwide. Have you signed the petition to recall Newsom?
Higher wages increase profits – well, at least “at times”, according to a 23jan21 piece (here) by Ray Fisman and Michael Luca in which they describe ‘efficiency-wage theory’. This theory by some prominent leftwing economists proposes that paying workers more will increase retention and productivity. And the cost benefits from these increases, for certain industries, primarily the 'shag and stack' kind, it may boost the bottom line for a while. However, the special cases in which this may be true are few and far in between, and most certainly don’t recommend a national minimum wage policy. Leftists who believe that some arbitrary amount, today $15/hr, will result in workers happy dancing in the streets are the same ones who still believe in perpetual motion, and that the moon is 1/49th the size of earth, even though it is further away. Henry Ford’s raising assembly workers' wages by almost double and reducing work from 9 to 8hrs/day did indeed increase productivity and retention enough to more than pay for itself. But that was primarily due to the long lines of applicants outside the factory gates to replace those Ford would fire for not working their butts off for the firm. This is not today's labor market. Everything has its market price, and no matter how much governments attempt to mangle those prices, in the end reality will rule. Biden’s Bunch knows none of this, and will do its damnest to show all how levitation by bootstraps will work.
[24jan21 update] On vaccine distribution and administration, under its disastrous Democrats California now ranks dead last in getting the stuff out to the people who need it. And double-dummy Newsom writes Biden to have the nation start following California's lead on public policies a bit more closely. I guess he figgers that if the rest of the country gets as crappy as we are, then Californians won't notice the difference, and they won't have anyplace else to go, and maybe we'll even stop the recall petitions now circulating around the state.
[25jan21 update] Bumblebrain’s latest Big Lie is one that is attributed to his victory over Trump, and also the ONLY thing the Dems could claim was his mandate from the electorate – to demonstrate how Trump was derelict in responding to C19, and to demonstrate how his administration will finally get the pandemic under control. Well, as pointed out @914am below, he has no plan of his own that is better than what President Trump achieved with both the historically rapid development of multiple vaccines (Project Warp Speed), and the meticulously planned distribution of the vaccines to the states using military logistics. What did the states do? The Dem governed ones loudly declared that they didn’t trust Trump, and sat on their collective asses instead of preparing their states’ distribution plans. Today most of their vaccines are still sitting on shelves and some are spoiling instead of saving lives. But the bottom line for Bumblebrain is that his handlers have finally explained the matter to him, which is that he can do no better than Trump. He admitted his Big Lie with “there's nothing we can do to change the trajectory of the pandemic in the next several months”. So, on what he got elected, he can’t deliver. Compare that to the share of promised accomplishments by his predecessor. (more here)
For Sale – White Privilege Card. I'm selling my white privilege card. It's over 70 years old and still in mint condition. It has never been used. Full disclosure – reason for selling is that it hasn't done a damn thing for me! No free college, no free food, no free housing, etc. Prefer cash but would be willing to do an even trade for a different race card that is much more widely accepted! Interested? Contact me on my non-Obama cell phone that I pay for every month… Serious buyers only! (H/T to correspondent seeking a similar transaction.)
[26jan21 update] Dr Fauci has an intimate connection with the development of the Corona virus, a relationship that calls into question his continuing role in the Biden administration as the head of its task force to develop national response policies. This was reported Sunday night by FN’s Steve Hilton, and comes as a shock/surprise to most of the country. (more here) It will most interesting to see how the current administration handles what normally would be a politically hot potato, and, of course, how the lamestream lackies then subsequently report on it. (H/T to reader.)
[27jan21 update] ‘The 1776 Report’ by the President’s Advisory 1776 Commission arrived yesterday in the mail. (download report here) This is a magnificent document that successfully counters the fanatically anti-American 1619 Project’s version of our country’s history and what our nation represents to the world. (more here) ‘1619’ forms the basis for a perverse curriculum that the country’s Left, supported by the Democratic Party, is injecting into our public schools as the main plank of its program to re-formulate our educational system according to the worldview and mandates of ‘critical race theory’ (full text pdf here). For that reason, one of Biden’s first EOs was to shut down the 1776 Commission, and bury its work. To those for whom the survival of the United States as a sovereign nation-state is paramount, ‘1619’ and CRT are manifestations of pure political evil. Their intent is to fill the ranks of American citizens with people ‘educated’ to accept and comply with our collectivist elites, ensconced in the Democratic Party, whose aim is to meld what was America into a global amalgam of centrally-controlled satraps under a one-world government. These are the times we live in.
rebanesruminations.com 
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