Rebane's Ruminations
May 2026
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  • George Rebane

    The competition has become fierce between the Democratic leadership and President Trump.  Both are doing their best to estrange themselves from the country’s voters.  The bottom line, according to my lights, is that the president is winning this contest in the number of people he leaves disappointed, dismayed, and simply pissed in the wake of his daily pronouncements.  But let’s start with the Democrats before returning to our fearless leader.

    The Democratic National Committee recently completed a post-mortem study of how and why they lost the 2024 election.  They interviewed over 300 party strategists and heavyweights from whom to assemble their conclusion.  Everyone, especially the Democrat workers in the vineyards, was looking forward to the DNC’s release of the results which would guide preparations for the 2026 primaries.  Instead we got the announcement that the DNC will not reveal what they learned from their closed-door discussions.  Massive disappointments all around.

    Listening to the rightwing media, all one could hear was puzzlement from their reporters and sage commentators as to why the report would not be published.  I found it hard to believe that these keen observers of our political landscape could not draw the obvious conclusion about the DNC’s reticence.  The Democrat mavens did not conclude that their 2024 campaigns were poorly run, or underfunded, or misdirected to wrong voter blocks.  Any of those tactical mis-machinations would have been readily disseminated to their rank-and-file election workers.

    However, what their mavens did discover and the DNC would never admit was that enough of the wrong message had leaked out to sufficiently tip the balance in the Republicans’ favor.  What the Democrat insiders are not yet prepared to admit is that they are neo-Marxists and proto-communists with the objective to ‘fundamentally transform’ America into a socialist-and-beyond state.  With what they have learned, from the much publicized yet isolated recent victories of their socialist candidates, is that it is not yet the time to start selling the collectivist utopia (‘this time we’ll do it right’), let alone revealing it to be their prime political objective for the United States.

    Now back to our fearless leader.  From the evidence it is easy to acknowledge that Donald Trump has accomplished more for the country in, yes, ten months than any president before him.  His economic, social, and foreign policies have borne unexpected fruits.  These governance ‘victories’ would speak for themselves if only the administration’s focus would continue to highlight them with citations of the ample evidence readily available from the government’s own sources and the reports/accolades from foreign leaders.

    But that is not to be.  Our president’s character and temperament drives him to continually snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.  His mouth does it all – 24/7.  Over the years someone must surely have told him that he is not naturally a loved or lovable character.  We surmise that long ago he learned being brash and braggadocio is the best way to portray and project his strength.  No doubt in the private sector, such as urban real estate deal making, such modus operandi have proved to be an asset, but unfortunately not so in politics and the public sector.

    So, as we head into the 2026 primaries President Trump continues daily to supply the Democrats and their media mouthpieces all the ammo needed to cover up their deeply disappointing record of governance and their ongoing void in public policy proposals that would attract the thinking voter.  For the light thinkers and those who don’t pay attention the polls continue to confirm that proclaiming their TDS symptoms is sufficient to prevail in the political arena.

  • George Rebane

    At a recent holiday social I chanced to talk with retired judge of a distinct leftward bent who assured me that “I am no leftwinger” while exhibiting all the symptoms of TDS and iconic traits of a progressive.  When we first discovered each other’s ideological orientations, he immediately announced that we should return to less contentious topics – as with most liberals, he was true to form and did not want to debate political matters with a conservative.  Nevertheless, as a parting shot, he did assert that the Left always wants to extend human rights while the Right seeks to stifle them.  As an example he cited book banning by rightwingers.

    For evidence he expounded on the books denied to grade schoolers in some conservative school districts.  These would be books like Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe (a memoir exploring nonbinary identity, often cited for explicit illustrations); All Boys Aren’t Blue by George M. Johnson (essays on growing up Black and queer); and titles from the A Court of Thorns and Roses series by Sarah J. Maas (fantasy with romantic and sexual elements).  For him age-appropriateness was not a factor to be considered for curating young children’s literature.

    He was also not aware of any books banned by the politically correct Left.  When I mentioned that numerous leftwing activist organizations want to ban certain books for adults from the nation’s libraries, he was surprised and found it hard to believe that such titles included removals or restrictions of classics like To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee or The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain in some districts (e.g., Burbank, California), due to racial slurs and portrayals.  In short, challenges from progressive or left-leaning sources exist which apply to all of the nation’s readers.  The Left claims that their proscribed titles are properly focused on offensive language or stereotypes rather than broad ideological campaigns.  To them denying an eight-year-old the motivation and opportunity to question his own gender is part of the Right’s “broad ideological campaign” to stunt the proper development and education of our youth.

    So there we have the main difference or asymmetry in how each side views the other’s disposition on education and access to information.  Parents in local school jurisdictions directing the education of their children is considered stifling by the Left, while their proscribing of established classics, history, and even science/math titles to our adult population, based on their interpretations of human rights, racism, homophobia, ethnic appropriation, white supremacy, …, is considered a public service promoting the common good of a society.  Shades of Stalinism and Nazism as expounded by Orwell.

  • [The data on Trump’s successes in foreign policy, immigration, economy (affordability, inflation), etc are manifold and supported by ample government data.  These are faithfully reported on rightwing media frequently as retorts to blatant lies on the lamestream which are shown in appropriate video clips.  However, all of this makes no never mind to the nation’s great unwashed who continue to embrace lamestream lies and dun the president.  The Republicans are simply not getting through with their messaging.  I would enjoy a discussion/analysis of what public attitudes metrics should be used as the ‘gold standard’ to assess the effectiveness of what the rightwing wants the nation’s voters to know/understand.  gjr]

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  • George Rebane

    Gavin Newsom is on both a national and international tear burnishing his name if not his credentials as a serious Democratic candidate for the 2028 presidential election.  The Right has long lamented that our electorate has a dangerously large intellectual deficit.  The evidence in the nation’s and states’ voting record provides overwhelming evidence for this.  But now we should take note of the Left’s corroborating assessment of this in that no one in the Democrat Party leadership has stepped forward to advise against Newsom’s run as being harmful to the party’s overall prospects.

    Newsom’s record as governor for seven years and the California Democrats’ record as the decades long controlling party of the legislature (including with super-majorities), statewide elective offices, and its manifold bureaucracies is there for all to see in the state and federal governments’ own numbers, daily news broadcasts, and simple conversations with neighbors.  In regard to governance, California is in the toilet along every metric one can dredge up – unemployment, homelessness, welfare, debt, housing, education, crime, illegal alien population, cost of living, regulatory overreach, … .  Consider that there is not one single policy, piece of legislation, initiative, government program, etc from the Democrats that has improved the lives of the state’s taxpayers, and the quality of life of its citizens in general.  Only the nation’s largest number of takers and the super-rich still continue to see California as the golden state.

    So now the view of our electorate as being under the control of the nation’s double dummies is complete – both sides of the political aisle have again rendered their verdict with the running of Newsom added to recent elections of radical left Democrat socialists and communists-in-training.  Piling on to this hilarity is the rank and file of Democrats who don’t hold themselves responsible for dismal states such as New York, New Jersey, Illinois, and California to name a few.  Further confirmation was provided this week by one of the Democrats’ leading lights, Whoopie Goldberg (since 2007 the co-host of ABC’s The View) who stated on national television that the deplorable condition of California was “not Newsom’s fault” – the blame lay on Republicans.

    (I’ll save venting my spleen on the Republicans’ lame response to all this for another time.  Past posts make clear how misdirected is our Right in fighting the nation’s dumbth.)

  • George Rebane

    Research has shown that if you spend some time noodling on problems like math/logic puzzles or play chess or other similar pursuits that stretch your brainbone, then that can help delay or even eliminate the onset of dementias.  As a public service I am doing my part in offering readers the prophylactic shown in the figure.

    There we see a circle nested in the corner of a square and a line drawn from the opposite corner that is tangent to the circle.  This forms the shown blue right triangle.  Given that the diameter of the circle is a known fraction f (ranging from zero to one) of the length L of the square’s side, derive the formula for the area A of the triangle in terms of f and L.  A little thought reveals that A = 0 when f = 1, and A = L^2/2 when f = 0.  Use this to check your formula.

  • George Rebane

    Today as we gather to give thanks, it might (should?) be of interest about how the whole affair started and then evolved.  It’s our history and worth knowing – more here https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/the-great-pilgrim-conspiracy-thursday .

    However you observe it, the Rebanes wish you a meaningful celebration of gratitude.

  • George Rebane

    Well, maybe it’s just 300 which is still good in any league.

    Let’s start with his Ukraine peace plan. The best that can be said about his initial ’29 point plan’ is that its adoption would be a disaster for the west.  Trump still does not understand Putin, his goals and constraints.  As I’ve pointed out before, Putin will not accede to any progress toward peace until he has a significant recent victory in the field – which today he has none.  Trump’s plan that clumsily excluded Zelinsky could have readily been drafted by Putin.  It gives him everything he has already taken and more (the three strategic Ukrainian cities critical to further Russian advances).  In Trump’s peace it is OK to leave Ukraine with a castrated military and no firm security guarantees.

    The only realistic solution for a peace that does not inspire Putin to undertake further invasions into Europe (e.g. Finland, the Baltics, Poland) would be to allow minimal territorial gains (e.g. only Crimea), a capable rearmed Ukrainian military with usable long range missiles, and European boots on the ground in Ukraine conducting regular military exercises.  To prevent his falling out of a window, Putin must show some gains after four years of war and over a million casualties.  Recognized integration of Crimea and the removal of selected sanctions should allow him to survive this war.  In the meantime Zelensky should get the missiles and permission to use them against Russian population centers starting with Moscow.  Given Putin’s massive missile and drone response last night in light of ongoing peace overtures, the ready use of counter-force is the ONLY thing the asshole has ever understood and respected.

    The jury is still out on Trump’s dealings with Xi Jinping, but the optics don’t look good.  The Donald seems not to understand that China is successfully running its ‘hundred year marathon’ to become the world’s dominant hegemon.  Trump continues to embarrass those of us who understand communism with blather about having a “friendship” with the Chinese dictator.  There are no friendships with totalitarian thugs whose well-published goals are to conquer the world.  Publicly calling Xi, Kim, and Putin friends only furthers their disrespect for Trump whom they have successfully played for a fool for the duration of his political life.  Such disrespect motivates their further adventures, e.g. with Taiwan.

    Where our president has made progress is in our display and use of force.  He did good with bombing the crap out of the Iranian and Houthi ragheads, and supporting Israel to do more of the same.  Finally, we come Maduro in Venezuela.

    Venezuela was and has the opportunity to again be perhaps the richest country in Latin America.  Our president is on the right track in massing forces on Maduro’s doorstep.  And it would warm the cockles of me heart if he actually started inland strikes against the drug cartels and Maduro’s military installations.  When/if that happens, I believe Maduro would be on the next plane to somewhere in Africa.  He will have no welcome in the remaining thuggeries of the western hemisphere – i.e. Cuba, Nicaragua, Colombia, … .  And when Venezuela then normalizes and begins to benefit from its massive fossil fuel reserves, we will see a domino effect in which the other communist and Marxist regimes of the Americas will follow suit to start mimicking their neighbors who are successfully turning toward free market capitalism under liberal governance.

  • [Don’t buy that new laptop until you find out when the next generation of AI-capable laptops become available.  The push now is to have AI models executed more at the so-called edge of the cloud.  That means that client PCs will be able to do a lot of the processing locally that should give better results and smaller latencies.  More here – https://spectrum.ieee.org/ai-models-locally .  gjr]

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  • [This commentary was published in the 9dec25 online and print editions of The Union.  Recent reports from the federal government and UC San Diego highlight the ongoing and alarming trend in the increase of dumbth in our student population and young people in general. Since this is due entirely to the influence of leftwing teachers’ unions across the land, the lamestream media does not want such reports to see the light of day and corrupt its narrative about the glories of increasing socialism. I commend The Union for being an exception. More here – https://www.wsj.com/opinion/the-college-students-who-cant-do-elementary-math-2db5e549 . gjr]

    George Rebane

    Gavin Newsom, our disaster for governor, is virtue posturing at the latest climate change conference in Brazil while California’s real problems – poorest education, highest unemployment, highest homeless, highest taxes, …  – continue to mount.  In the interval Bill Gates has had an epiphany realizing that the current global warming policies have had and will have little to no effect on climate, but do continue to deny a better life for the world’s poor and needy.  He joins internationally recognized climate realist Bjorn Lomberg of the Copenhagen Consensus (and several thousand independent scientists) in advising that instead of beggaring the world’s less advantaged, that we spend money on improving people’s quality of life and developing technologies that demonstrably do have an impact on reducing manmade contributions to climate change.

    In the crosshairs of climate activists is the abolition of fossil fuels as the world’s major source of energy.  In California we are shutting down more refineries in preparation for $7-9/gallon gasoline.  Meanwhile, as Lomberg cites, major international energy agencies report that by 2050 we will reduce our dependence on fossil fuels to satisfy our energy needs from today’s 80% to only 50% at best.  And this will be made possible by expanding today’s prohibitive policies that mandate the changeover from fossil fuels to ‘clean energy renewables’.

    What is quietly glossed over and not reported is that even the 50% goal by 2050 will NOT reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, but will actually require a significant increase in their use to satisfy the increased energy needs of the world 25 years from now.  Please stay with me for some light on how this will happen.

    Given that more people will emerge from poverty and the enormous energy requirements of advanced technologies like AI, the world’s energy needs are growing at about 2.5% per year.  If we can hold the increased need to this rate of growth, we will require about 85% more energy generation in 2050 than today.  Reducing the fossil fuels’ contribution from today’s 80% to 50% in 2050 will still require almost 93% (=1.85*0.50) of the world’s energy sourced from fossil fuels.  Based on today’s energy production rate this will demand an increase of 13% (=93-80) from fossil fuels.  Again compared to today’s fossil fuel usage, in 2050 we will require more than a 16% (=13/80) increase in the annual amount of fossil fuels generation required to satisfy our future energy needs.  Only major breakthroughs in energy related technologies – not fostered by progressive policies – have a hope of reducing this level of dependence on fossil fuels.

    This reality goes safely unreported because our collectivist politicians and their policy elites know that, according to the National Center for Educational Statistics, our citizens are almost totally innumerate and would neither discover nor understand the simple arithmetic of the previous paragraph.  The 50+ year downward spiral in America’s schools has our students today rank 33rd among the nations of the world in reading, math, and science.  We are even below average among the OECD countries – quo vadis America?

  • George Rebane

    Ignorance is the handmaiden of collectivism.  When ignorance prevails, socialism/communism will always seek to fundamentally transform the governance of a liberal society.  Rebane Doctrine

    Government shutdown derby.  Unfortunately too many government workers live paycheck to paycheck.  That depends more on individuals’ faulty behavior than unavoidable financial stress.  (Even as dirt poor immigrants with minimally paying jobs the Rebanes always put a fixed percent in the bank for such rainy days – government handouts didn’t exist then.) That said, I don’t see why such destitutes cannot get a bank loans today to tide them over, since we all know that the government will make them whole once the shutdown ends.  That lump sum payment can serve as signed-over collateral to completely eliminate the lenders’ risk.

    News on the street is that lamestream media is in retreat.  Led by major outlets like WaPo and CBS, the formerly ‘hate Trump’ newsrooms are getting a makeover with new management replacing former sleazebags who have long generated fake news to serve the socialist narrative.  In the forefront of their efforts have been edited versions of what President Trump actually said.  Even the vaunted BBC has had a management change because they admitted to modifying, among others, Trump’s 6jan21 speech to sound as if he were promoting an insurrection.  However, these good tidings may be premature, our leftwing media is very firmly entrenched with both ignorant and evil reporters.  I’ll believe any change in the offing when I see it.

    “… to save our democracy” is the practiced refrain of our legions of the less read.  Ever notice how many of your progressive neighbors don’t know the meaning of such concepts as democracy and republic.  Our local newspaper’s op-ed pages overflow with supporting evidence. To them all these words are just parts of parroted slogans that let them declare their membership in the politically correct (today read ‘socialist’) class.

    Eliminating government shutdowns has a ready solution in the Rebane Doctrine.  Government will continue to operate on a perennial continuing resolution of current spending until Congress passes a new budget or appropriations bill.  And all congress critters cease getting their pay during the interval between the old appropriations having expired until the new one reaches the president’s desk.

    [15nov25 update]  Job openings galore.  Small example – “Ford has 5,000 job openings for mechanics offering a six-figure salary, a sign of skilled manual labor shortage facing the United States, the company’s CEO, Jim Farley, said in a Nov. 12 interview on the “Office Hours: Business Edition” podcast.” (H/T to reader)  Anyone who cares to look at the details will see that the Trump economy is roaring.

    [16nov25 update] “History (of socialism) repeats itself because people forget the past.”  So writes Victor Davis Hansen here – https://www.dailysignal.com/2025/11/12/mayor-mamdanis-socialist-vision-is-setting-nyc-up-for-failure/ .  Unfortunately, that is not only untrue, but the reality is much worse.  Today there are already two generations of Americans whose schooling has never covered the tragedies of socialism (and other forms of collectivism) along with the benefices of free market capitalism.  You cannot forget what you have never known.

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