Tag Archives: CA

The Census Myopia

Wow, cannot believe the number of hits on the blog yesterday, well over 500 and the majority were on the LtCol  Scheller post. I want to thank everyone who made comments.. I really enjoy getting comments on posts and yours yesterday were on the mark! As I I am sure you have heard by now he was relieved of his duties as the CO of the Advance Infantry Training Bn, School of Infantry (East), Camp Lejeune, NC at 1430 that very day. The reason given was lack of confidence, which has become the standard cause since the Obama admisntration. 

As a LtCol, he is guaranteed 25 or26 years (can’t remember which) service under DOPMA , unless he is court martialed and kicked out. Of course, there are a variety of other lesser punishments the heavies could dish out. From the comments he made after being relieved, it appears he may just resign his commission and get out on his own. Of course that would be without retirement. Personally, I would stay in the remaining three years doing whatever shit job they decided to give me, then retire. But that’s his decision. I do hope we are able to follow the case and find out what happens.

On to something new this morning, another great article from my favorite contributor, Greg Maresca. Greg is a historian and does so much research on his comments. This one is loaded with thought provoking knowledge, most of which were new to me. Enjoy and once again, pray for our nation.

By: G. Maresca

The nation’s Founders recognized that a government of the people, by the people and for the people needed a consistent census. That is why every ten years a census is required by the Constitution.

The custodian of the national census are its numbers, but its progeny has always been – politics.

The census boils down to Congressional representation, which in turn, makes the political stakes and the scramble for federal monies paramount.

The nation’s overall population increased only 7% from 2010 – the second slowest ever – aided by a plunging national birth rate. The Hispanic population grew by 12 million to 62 million. Black America grew at two million to 46.9 million. The Asian population was up slightly, while Native American and Alaska Natives stayed about the same.

Most are moving South and West with the majority fleeing the Northeast with the mid-Atlantic states having lost 30.5% of their seats in the House of Representatives since 1950, while Florida has more than tripled.

Such a population shift means seven states lost one seat in the House. Pennsylvania, New York, California, Illinois, Ohio, Michigan, and West Virginia will all forgo one seat. Rural America got older while half of the nation’s counties lost population. States that warrant more seats include Texas with two and Florida, North Carolina, Colorado, Oregon, and Montana with one additional seat.

Republican state legislatures have been tasked with redrawing 187 Congressional districts to 75 for Democrats. With the 2022 midterm elections a little more than a year away, conditions would be primed for Republicans to win the House as they need just five seats.  However, the ten largest cities grew and remain the epicenter of the progressive left making the 2022 midterm no Republican guaranteed win.

What stood out most about the 2020 Census was that for the first time in its longstanding history, the number of white Americans dropped by nine percent and now comprise less than 60% of the nation. The mainstream media played it up hailing it as a “historic demographic milestone.”

California was one state where whites are now in the minority with 34.7%, while Hispanics were the majority with 39.4% of the population. Hawaii and New Mexico are the other two states where whites are in the minority.

Consequently, the nation is becoming more diverse as people claiming a multi-racial identity grew by over 226% with 33.8 million or 10% of the population. Whereas, in 2010, only nine million claimed to be multi-racial.

Apparently, many who identified as white in the past are now claiming otherwise.

Since 2000, the census permits multiple options regarding race or ethnicity. The ways we define minority status are as diverse as the people defining themselves.

Personal preferences don’t seem to matter as much as perception.

Racial identity politics took center stage following the 2012 murder of Trayvon Martin. Martin’s murderer, George Zimmerman, was identified as white, provoking allegations that he racially profiled Martin, who was black. When it was revealed that Zimmerman’s mother is Latino and his father white, he was reclassified as Hispanic and then, white Hispanic.

More Americans are pulling a Sen. Elizabeth Warren who claims she’s 1/32nd Cherokee and thus Native American.

People use their mixed-race background to gain advantage. Many who were half black but passed for white avoided discrimination. Today, some flip the script to claim minority status in order to obtain select college admissions, scholarships, and employment promotions.

The diversifying of America exposes the mythical and fraudulent racist narrative of critical race theorists.

Since America’s white population shrank, so should the number of scapegoats and excuses. It won’t because whites are just too convenient of a piñata for the culture’s ills. Contemporary society thrives on victimhood, so culprits like white, straight, conservative, Christians will remain in demand to populate the lion’s den of leftist angst.

Once upon a time in American immigration policy, both my grandfathers were considered non-white because they were Italian. The same held true for the Irish and the Jews. Perhaps somewhere in the future one’s racial makeup will be an afterthought as Martin Luther King’s dream of a colorblind society will become a reality.

Genetics says skin color is all about melanin levels.

When will society finally agree?

Postscript: Back when the census was being conducted, I had two neighbors who were working for the bureau conducting the door to door interviews. Talking to one, I asked who all he was counting, he said, “Everyone.” To which I queried, “You mean everyone in the household regardless of citizenship.?” He said yes. When I asked why, he replied that it means more money for our county. Later I asked the other neighbor and he said that was illegal and he should not be counting everyone in the household, especially of they are illegal immigrants. So, the takeaway is, how much faith can we place on the results of the national census. 

In the interest of full disclosure, the first neighbor was a die hard liberal (he’s since moved), and the second is as far right as me, and brutally honest.

Originally posted 2021-08-28 12:13:13.

Booked and Cooked – Not So Fast

Go Morning Folks, here we are on a Monday; took the weekend off to relax and take in some TV. Meanwhile the swamp creatures were hard at work doing what they do best e.g.,  create anger, divisiveness, hate, tell lies,  and BS gullible Americans.  And of course puppet Joey continues to react to his string puller –  Obummer.  Anyway, here is another good one from my friend Greg. If you looked at the “Shopping – California Style” post and then read this one, it becomes obvious that sooner rather than later that style of shopping will be prevalent throughout our Third World shit hole, once referred to as United States of America.  Just walk into a store pick out what you need (or just want) and walkout.  I mean isn’t that the ultimate goal of defunding the police?

In the mid-1980s, it was perhaps the nation’s most anticipated civil service exam. After a series of layoffs, retirements (my Dad being one of them) and a hiring freeze courtesy of the late ‘70s malaise, the NYPD was looking to replenish their diminished ranks.

Despite a sweeping crack cocaine epidemic and a record number of homicides, there were many more applicants than openings. Aspiring candidates hailed from not only the city’s five boroughs, but throughout the country. Having taken the test on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, it was quickly evident that the test site, Seward Park High School, was for those from outside the city. And we were there in droves, classroom upon classroom.

Today, the NYPD is shedding officers like a Siberian Huskey in late June.

Last year, over 5,300 either retired or quit, a 75% increase from the year before – 15% of the total department. Nearly 1,000 officers have left in the first half of 2021.

According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, “The Philadelphia Police Department has 268 vacancies, and are expecting plenty more.” The New Jersey State Policemen’s Benevolent Association said their state is also facing a recruiting crisis as they usually receive up to 20,000 applications – this year only 2,023 qualified applicants applied.

As the summer policing season heats up nationally, the stories of how police departments are dwindling are legion. Recently, a Portland, Oregon volunteer rapid response police unit resigned en masse. Many city halls are seemingly defunding their police through attrition.

The National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund said police officers suffered 295 on-duty deaths in 2020 – the most ever since they started keeping records in 1786. When a city is not supporting their police, the working conditions become nearly impossible. When police stand-down, criminals step-up proving that criminality abhors a vacuum.

When you vilify every police officer for another’s poor decision, who wants the job? The “defunding the police” crusade and the endless negative media coverage of law enforcement has made anti-police sentiment mainstream. Such overt posturing has only fueled a police shortage nationwide. Provided a cop killed Hitler, the national media would mourn the loss of a promising Austrian artist and vegetarian.

This anti-cop virus has become a pandemic in high-crime neighborhoods that are in most need of policing. It remains a deterrent for police to act and most of all, it is a disincentive to remain on the job.

Black Lives Matter (BLM) prefers community watches, preferably Omega, Tag Heuer and Rolexes. Atlanta City Councilman Antonio Brown, a defund the police disciple, had his Mercedes stolen and it took police over an hour to respond. The BLM communities that support defunding deserve a year of no policing.

This universal defund movement is a logical incoherence with French Revolution overtones that underscores how critical the Second Amendment is as a constitutional right.

How far left will the anti-cop pendulum swing and disincentivize good people from pursuing a career in law enforcement and what will be the long-term damage to our communities?

Once upon a time in America, the police were to be respected. You cannot expect law and order when you malign its enforcement, while at the same time failing to hold certain groups responsible for their criminality. We demoralize police by treating criminals like victims and cops like criminals.

Apparently, nothing justifies deadly force. That’s what future victims hear, and it will only encourage more recklessness. The left beatifies as paragons of humanity those who resist arrest. For those who disagree with this woke ideology: fear and intimidation and perhaps loss of their job.

Feckless leadership that ended quality of life “broken-windows” policing, imposed no-bail laws, disbanded street-crime units, while adopting policies to empty prisons. Catch and release may work while fishing, but it is a lousy way to police a community.

The protagonists of the defund movement reside in communities where crime is not much of an issue. To people living in crime-ridden neighborhoods, having an effective police department is a crucial part of daily life.

Make no mistake our freedoms are in jeopardy as the facts are difficult to ignore. We must respect the law and those who work to enforce it because any war on policing puts everyone at risk.

No exceptions!

Okay, what’s say we go shopping this week, California Style? LOL. Of course I jest, but you just watch, so many companies have made rules about non interference, under the guise of protecting their employees. When they do that, the invitation is out, “Come and get what you want or need.  Hell  hire us old farts, arm us, and we will lower your shoplifting stats immediately! What say you guys?

Originally posted 2021-06-28 11:19:16.

Shopping – California Style

Folks, you are not going believe this video you are about to watch. In fact, if you suffer from hypertension or high blood pressure perhaps you should not watch it. And in case you are wondering if this was taken in some third world shit hole, it wasn’t . . . .  but wait a second . . . . . . . .  let me rethink that. I guess you could call San Francisco a third world shit hole. Is Tony still singing that damn song about leaving his heart there? Probably not as he snuffers from Alzheimer, so he probably doe not know what has happened to his one-time great city.

This is what is happening in within the borders of our once great nation, Remember now, don’t let your white privilege come into play just because all these folks in the video are not white. Remember they are depressed, underprivileged, down trodden, and disadvantaged. And keep in mind BLM is supporting this kind og behavior. I suspect that this is probably within Madam  Pelosi’s district, and these are the folks who keep her in office. 

I don’t think you will see this on the any evening news, except perhaps from Tucker, actually he is on the video. Stand by to be entertained!

 

Now, was that not enlightening? Is your neighborhood next? I know mine isn’t. not with our Gov.

 

Originally posted 2021-06-24 08:46:03.

Political Passports

Another great one from my friend and contributor Greg, and a good one it is. As promised I have given up posting President Joe Sanders’, no that’s not a typo, nation destroying actions. So what, besides Joe’s garbage, is going on in the swamp. even though it is Saturday. They never take a day off, not even Sundays, but I do. The Lord is going to get them for that. at least I sure hope so! 

 

 

 

 

By: G. Maresca

“Your Paper’s Please.”

It is a phrase with historical Cold War overtones from the East side of the Iron Curtin. Such an introduction may find itself being exercised from sea to shining sea if the armies of government bureaucratic COVID-19 zealots get their way regarding digital vaccine passports.

Communist China that tracks its citizens and uses medical tyranny to enforce compliance was onboard as soon as a vaccine was available.

I have yet to hear a cogent and convincing argument as to why COVID-19 is different from every other virus and every other pandemic. Why was it necessary to violate Constitutional rights and close down an economy, while censoring and ridiculing anyone who questions why?

The average age of COVID death is 78, while the average life expectancy is the same. Why should any healthy person be forced to take a vaccine where the recovery rate is 99.6%? Asking children to get vaccinated when effectively 0% of those under 18 with COVID die and the vast majority are asymptomatic is totally unnecessary.

There are far deadlier diseases than COVID that require nothing by way of vaccination. How about a bar code on the forehead, or is that too much Mark-of-the-Beast?

In a dichotomy of the times, many that are against voter ID covet vaccine passports. Showing an ID to vote supposedly suppresses. A digital vaccine passport would require downloading an app to your pricy phone to prove you received a vaccine for a virus that is no deadlier than influenza where you must be tested to know you contracted it.

While certain vaccines are required for overseas (ask any member of the Armed Forces) where some deadly diseases are more common, Americans have to understand such passports are being touted as a requirement for living within the land of the free.

The Patriot Act and other post-9/11 surveillance legislation by Washington that is arguably unconstitutional have been abused beyond their initial Orwellian reach. Recall how your Social Security number would be forbidden to be used outside of Social Security. Now picture a central vaccination database administered by Uncle Sam – what could possibly go wrong?

Since the length of vaccination efficacy is still unknown, when does your digital approval expire and who decides? What about those who possess natural immunities having recovered already?

This not only violates our Constitution, HIPPA laws, and liberty regarding decisions about one’s health. You must prove you are not the leper that everyone suspects. It is the equivalent of “guilty until proven innocent.” We should respect everyone’s wishes whether they want to get vaccinated or not. America was built on individual liberty and personal responsibility.

Vaccine passports is an anathema to our democratic principles and Constitutional rights. It is an insidious overreach allowing for bureaucrats to leverage fear and control the debate and push unconstitutional policies. This would serve to maintain the culture of shutdowns and restrictions, while violating one’s privacy, and act as a gateway for nefarious players for boundless abuse.

Requiring passports would endorse more political malfeasance in a society already drowning in it. The vaccine passport is not about easing restrictions but a coercive to vaccinate. It has nothing to do with health or the science, but everything to do with power and control.

It would place access in the hands of a bureaucrat akin to a Twitter or Facebook content reviewer. Passports will create another breed of identity politics that is destroying society by pitting brother against brother, friend against friend, neighbor against neighbor.

Noncompliance would give unelected bureaucrats power to discriminate and fashion another political identity class. For those who take the shot a somewhat pre-COVID life, but for those who refuse, repression of goods and services.

Americans are an autonomous people and would recoil at the thought of any restriction on our freedoms. Today, we just shrug and continue to scroll away on our phone masked up like a preteen on Halloween.

We all know what the road to Hell is paved with.

With every vaccine is informed consent. Passports would be coercion, not informed consent.

Texas, Tennessee, Florida and Mississippi have nixed vaccine passports.

The rest of the union needs to follow suit.

I have an idea. Something I learned from my cattle mentors in MT. Ear tags. We should place a certain color ear tag in everyone upon receiving their final vaccine shot. That way, we can see at a distance who is safe and who is not.  Those with the right colored ear tag need not wear a mask. So, if you meet up with someone who does not have the right ear tag and is not wearing a mask, you can shoot him/her. Right? I mean if we are going to force controls on our citizenship n preparation for us becoming a communist nation, no amount of force and coercion is unacceptable., and we need to get on with it. What do you think Joe?

 

Originally posted 2021-05-15 12:36:55.

Toyota Warns (Again)

About Electrifying All Autos. Is Anyone Listening?

Folks, when Toyota speaks, GM had better listen before they find themselves coming to our table again asking for a bailout.  A friend of mine now retired, worked in a field where he became acquainted with several CEO’s, one of which was Alan Mullaly of Ford,  who by the way, is credited with saving Ford when GM, Chrysler et al went bust. Having lunch one day a few years ago, my friend asked Alan a hypothetical question, “Looking ahead ten years who will be the “Big Three?” Without hesitation Alan said, “Toyota, Volkswagen, and Ford.” I’ll not delve into Alan’s explanation as to why these three; let me only say, as a Economist, I agree it him.

While living in TN we belonged to an Newmar RV Klub. Someone arranged a trip for the Klub to visit the Toyota plant in Kentucky.  WOW, is all I can say. You could eat off the floor. The employees were cheerful, courteous, and happy. Several months prior the UAW came and asked to post signs around the plant announcing a meeting in a space the plant offered up to them.  This was the umpteenth time the UAW had come to them trying to get their employees to unionize. The plant was always courteous and offered space and time for the meeting..  The plant even allowed any employee time off to attend the meeting if it was during his/her shift. Of the then nearly 8,000 employees four showed up. If you buy Toyota, or Lexus, you are buying American; that plant now employs over 10,000 Americans.

BY BRYAN PRESTON MAR 19, 2021 12:50 PM ET

Depending on how and when you count, Japan’s Toyota is the world’s largest automaker. According to Wheels, Toyota and Volkswagen vie for the title of the world’s largest, with each taking the crown from the other as the market moves. That’s including Volkswagen’s inherent advantage of sporting 12 brands versus Toyota’s four. Audi, Lamborghini, Porsche, Bugatti, and Bentley are included in the Volkswagen brand family.

GM, America’s largest automaker, is about half Toyota’s size thanks to its 2009 bankruptcy and restructuring. Toyota is actually a major car manufacturer in the United States; in 2016 it made about 81% of the cars it sold in the U.S. right here in its nearly half a dozen American plants. If you’re driving a Tundra, RAV4, Camry, or Corolla it was probably American-made in a red state. Toyota was among the first to introduce gas-electric hybrid cars into the market, with the Prius twenty years ago. It hasn’t been afraid to change the car game.

All of this is to point out that Toyota understands both the car market and the infrastructure that supports it perhaps better than any other manufacturer on the planet. It hasn’t grown its footprint through acquisitions, as Volkswagen has, and it hasn’t undergone bankruptcy and bailout as GM has. Toyota has grown by building reliable cars for decades.

When Toyota offers an opinion on the car market, it’s probably worth listening to. This week, Toyota reiterated an opinion it has offered before. That opinion is straightforward: The world is not yet ready to support a fully electric auto fleet.

Toyota’s head of energy and environmental research Robert Wimmer testified before the Senate this week, and said: “If we are to make dramatic progress in electrification, it will require overcoming tremendous challenges, including refueling infrastructure, battery availability, consumer acceptance, and affordability.”

Wimmer’s remarks come on the heels of GM’s announcement that it will phase out all gas internal combustion engines (ICE) by 2035. Other manufacturers, including Mini, have followed suit with similar announcements.

Tellingly, both Toyota and Honda have so far declined to make any such promises. Honda is the world’s largest engine manufacturer when you take its boat, motorcycle, lawnmower, and other engines it makes outside the auto market into account. Honda competes in those markets with Briggs & Stratton and the increased electrification of lawnmowers, weed trimmers, and the like.

Wimmer noted that while manufactures have announced ambitious goals, just 2% of the world’s cars are electric at this point. For price, range, infrastructure, affordability, and other reasons, buyers continue to choose ICE over electric, and that’s even when electric engines are often subsidized with tax breaks to bring price tags down.The scale of the switch hasn’t even been introduced into the conversation in any systematic way yet. According to FinancesOnline, there are 289.5 million cars just on U.S. roads as of 2021. About 98 percent of them are gas-powered. Toyota’s RAV4 took the top spot for purchases in the U.S. market in 2019, with Honda’s CR-V in second. GM’s top seller, the Chevy Equinox, comes in at #4 behind the Nissan Rogue. This is in the U.S. market, mind. GM only has one entry in the top 15 in the U.S. Toyota and Honda dominate, with a handful each in the top 15.

Toyota warns that the grid and infrastructure simply aren’t there to support the electrification of the private car fleet. A 2017 U.S. government study found that we would need about 8,500 strategically-placed charge stations to support a fleet of just 7 million electric cars. That’s about six times the current number of electric cars but no one is talking about supporting just 7 million cars. We should be talking about powering about 300 million within the next 20 years, if all manufacturers follow GM and stop making ICE cars.

Simply put, we’re gonna need a bigger energy boat to deal with connecting all those cars to the power grids. A LOT bigger.

But instead of building a bigger boat, we may be shrinking the boat we have now. The power outages in California and Texas — the largest U.S. states by population and by car ownership — exposed issues with powering needs even at current usage levels. Increasing usage of wind and solar, neither of which can be throttled to meet demand, and both of which prove unreliable in crisis, has driven some coal and natural gas generators offline. Wind simply runs counter to needs — it generates too much power when we tend not to need it, and generates too little when we need more. The storage capacity to account for this doesn’t exist yet.

We will need much more generation capacity to power about 300 million cars if we’re all going to be forced to drive electric cars. Whether we’re charging them at home or charging them on the road, we will be charging them frequently. Every gas station you see on the roadside today will have to be wired to charge electric cars, and charge speeds will have to be greatly increased. Current technology enables charges in “as little as 30 minutes,” according to Kelly Blue Book. That best-case-scenario fast charging cannot be done on home power. It uses direct current and specialized systems. Charging at home on alternative current can take a few hours to overnight to fill the battery, and will increase the home power bill. That power, like all electricity in the United States, comes from generators using natural gas, petroleum, coal, nuclear, wind, solar, or hydroelectric power according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. I left out biomass because, despite Austin, Texas’ experiment with purchasing a biomass plant to help power the city, biomass is proving to be irrelevant in the grand energy scheme thus far. Austin didn’t even turn on its biomass plant during the recent freeze.

Half an hour is an unacceptably long time to spend at an electron pump. It’s about 5 to 10 times longer than a current trip to the gas pump tends to take when pumps can push 4 to 5 gallons into your tank per minute. That’s for consumer cars, not big rigs that have much larger tanks. Imagine the lines that would form at the pump, every day, all the time, if a single charge time isn’t reduced by 70 to 80 percent. We can expect improvements, but those won’t come without cost. Nothing does. There is no free lunch. Electrifying the auto fleet will require a massive overhaul of the power grid and an enormous increase in power generation. Elon Musk recently said we might need double the amount of power we’re currently generating if we go electric. He’s not saying this from a position of opposing electric cars. His Tesla dominates that market and he presumably wants to sell even more of them.

Toyota has publicly warned about this twice, while its smaller rival GM is pushing to go electric. GM may be virtue signaling to win favor with those in power in California and Washington and in the media. Toyota’s addressing reality and its record is evidence that it deserves to be heard.

Toyota isn’t saying none of this can be done, by the way. It’s just saying that so far, the conversation isn’t anywhere near serious enough to get things done.

Bryan Preston served as chief of staff at the Texas Railroad Commissioner. The Texas Railroad Commission regulates oil and gas production in the Lone Star State, which is the nation’s top energy-producing state. He is the author of Hubble’s Revelations: The Amazing Time Machine and Its Most Important Discoveries. He’s a veteran and a Texan.

Toyota CEO Agrees With Elon Musk: We Don’t Have Enough Electricity to Electrify All the Cars

Question is, will the others listen or think they are smarter? My bet is on the latter

Originally posted 2021-03-23 13:59:13.