George Rebane

Solar Tax – California, as regular as the sunrise, is again showing the world that it knows how to expand its unchallenged butt-stupid ways to govern possibly the most blessed land mass on God’s green earth.  Sacramento, led by our idiot governor, is contemplating levying a tax on homes that have installed solar panels.  These are housing units that use less electricity from the grid, and also pump back electricity into a grid that is already overloaded, poorly maintained & managed, and expensive to boot.  Instead of encouraging the installation of more environmentally friendly photovoltaics, the state wants to dun those who already have them, and provide more reasons why not to install more of these home power-generating systems.  Call your governor and tell him what you think of the Democrats’ latest brainchild.  (info here)

Economic Freedom.  And then we have the Heritage Foundation’s annual update of America’s economic freedom index as we compare ourselves to the international community of countries.  Sadly, but expected under this administration, the US continues its decline as our leftwing political cadres implement more and more socialist policies in this divided and now economically ravaged land.  In the 2022 Index of Economic Freedom we read – A notable reshuffling has taken place at the top of the rankings. Singapore maintained its status as the world’s freest economy, but Australia dropped out of the “free” cat­egory, and New Zealand dropped to fourth place, behind Switzerland and Ireland. Luxembourg, Taiwan, and Estonia joined the “free” category for the first time.  Quite notable is the continuing decline in the “mostly free” category of the United States, which plummeted to 25th place, its lowest ranking ever in the 28-year history of the Index. The major causative factor in the erosion of America’s economic free­dom is excessive government spending, which has resulted in mounting deficit and debt burdens. (Click image to enlarge.)

[22jun22 update]  Biden and his team are much more stupid than reported in any previous assessments of their disastrous administration.  Now the WH idiots, with Bumblebrain as spokesman, are mandating that the Fed include “racial equity as a third central bank priority.”  The Fed demonstrated for years it doesn’t know how to concurrently manage price stability and full employment (added more recently).  Now the Left’s economic lightweights are piling on a new Woke requirement in a bill now going through Congress.  Rating banks on “equity and inclusion” is just a sliver of the byzantine regulations this new law will require – what enlarged bureaucracy will monitor/enforce that?  Another butt-stupid provision will call for private companies to “disclose to the Securities and Exchange Commission the racial, gender identity and sexual orientation of directors and executives.”  This latest vote-buying scheme will also require that lenders make a fraction of their loans to people who have no demonstrated means to repay what they have borrowed.  And when millions of such get their financial tits in a wringer, then the Democrats will again – a la 2008 – scream that the greedy capitalists bamboozled the poor minorities by making racially tainted predatory loans.  But the worst part of it all is the ongoing confirmation that half the country sees nothing wrong with this (witness the absence of liberal response in the comment stream below), while the other half has their heads up where the sun don’t shine.  “… a republic if you can keep it.”   (more here)

[23jun22 update] Govt assistance  programs – The country’s Left, again well-represented by some of our readers, does not acknowledge the Biden administration’s disastrous policies that have given rise to historic workforce participation lows, national shortage of workers, plans to shutdown entire industries and raise taxes on corporations (i.e. their customers), pump unneeded new cash into the economy to cause inflation, and prepare piecemeal implementation of their economy-stifling ‘Green New Deal’, all of which are driving us into recession (depression?).  What boggles minds capable of reason is the progressives’ work to expand an already expansive list of government assistance programs, while concurrently claiming that they neither exist nor cause the nationwide staffing shortages that businesses from large to small experience.  A miniscule of research reveals that “there are seven major welfare programs in America, they include Medicaid, Supplemental Security Income (SSI), Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Child’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF), housing assistance, and the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC).”  And this is just the tip of the iceberg, here is a more complete list of the federal and state assistance programs that keep American workers from working.  And for even more, just google ‘active government welfare programs’.  Yes Virginia, being a progressive means that you are clinically insane with a malady known as Woke, currently for which there is no known treatment, let alone a cure.

[25jun22 update]  We again confirm that there is no middle ground in the land on which both sides can come together.  The SCOTUS rulings on the 2A and abortion make that very clear.  Our Left continues its violence started when the draft abortion ruling was leaked, and now it’s building up in cities across the country.  (more here)  The latest gun ratchet has yet to settle in for the states set on removing the right by law-abiding citizens to own and bear arms.  Leading the way, California is coming up with all kinds of new ways to constructively deny the SCOTUS ruling in particular and the 2A in general.  The same is happening with the state wanting to become the go-to abortion capital of the nation.  If the evil Dems in Sacramento get their way, California’s will not only pay for out-of-state abortions, but also for the pregnant women’s travel and lodging expenses to get and stay here.  As for gun confiscations, none of the Left’s useful idiots know the history of what has happened as a result of such mandates by governments. (more here)  Is it time to use these ‘SCOTUS crises’ to start the Great Divide conversation with our progressives?