Celebrating Sclerosis in California

May 30, 2025 by Dan Mitchell @ International Liberty

I’ve written many times about bad government policy in California (too many times to count), but I’ve only highlighted bad policy in Los Angeles four times over the past 16 years (here, here, here, and here).

But something caught my eye that demands attention. It involves how quickly the people who lost their homes in the Palisades Fire can rebuild.

As you can see from this tweet, the mayor of the city thinks the bureaucracy is beating expectations. If Mayor Bass is correct, then expectations must have been extremely low. Perhaps even zero. Why do I say that?

Because the fires occurred in early January, destroying more than 12,000 structures, and only 11 permits have been issued for rebuilding. Not 1,100, just 11.  This tweet summarizes the sloth-like permitting process in Los Angeles.

To be fair, maybe Mayor Bass is comparing Los Angeles to Maui in Hawaii, which is another place where government red tape is hindering the rebuilding process.

I’ll make two observations.

1. At the risk of sounding overly libertarian, why should homeowners need to get a permit before they sign a contract with a builder to put a house on their own land? Are there any downsides to this laissez-faire approach?
2. If there are going to be permits, there should be a time-limit rule stating that all house plans are automatically approved if bureaucrats don’t identify a specific problem within a very shot period of time such as five business days.

I’ll conclude by noting that Mayor Bass’ tweet is the regulatory version of “defining deviancy down,” which was the title of a 1993 article by former Senator Patrick Moynihan, in which he explained the unfortunate tendency of some societies to redefine norms to accommodate dysfunctional behavior.

If approving permits for 11 homes more than four months after the fire is a success, norms have definitely eroded. I’d hate to see Mayor Bass’ definition of failure.

P.S. Here’s the column I wrote about the fiscal version of defining deviancy down

Additional articles:

• Palisades Resident Destroys LA Mayor Bass’ Narrative, Describes ‘Bureaucratic Hell’ Following Wildfire — Uncontrolled wildfires raged through Los Angeles in January, all but destroying the neighborhoods of Pacific Palisades and Altadena. We at RedState covered extensively the mistakes made before the fires and after they broke out—including empty reservoirs, a missing mayor, a failure to clean out forests, a fire department that was as focused on social justice as much or more than it was about fighting fires, and more. .....

LA’s Political Bosses Are On Fire

By Daniel Greenfield @ Sultan Knish Blog

The ashes of the most destructive fire in Los Angeles history have settled, but a new wildfire is burning through the ranks of the elected and unelected officials who let the disaster happen.

In a truly historic event in which all sorts of glass ceilings were no doubt broken, the first black female mayor of Los Angeles fired the first lesbian fire chief for not warning her that there would be heavy winds before she set off on a trip to Africa that she had promised she wouldn’t go on.

Former Fire Chief Kristin Crowley, a paramedic like the other two lesbians also named Kirsten running the LAFD, appealed to the Los Angeles City Council leading to a historic diversity face-off between an incompetent black woman and an incompetent white lesbian.

City Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson, a former Bass ally and, like her, a former community organizer, initially rejected the appeal. Harris-Dawson was hardly an objective observer since he was the one who had to declare an emergency because LA Deputy Mayor Brian Williams, another Bass ally, was being investigated by the FBI for making bomb threats.

It took Harris-Dawson six hours to declare a state of emergency. Both Bass and Harris-Dawson dismissed the delay, claiming that declaring an emergency actually made no difference at all.

In the City Council showdown, Bass and her allies blamed Crowley for not warning her about the heavy Santa Ana winds even though every local already knows about them and they had been widely covered in the media before the mayor decided to fly off to Ghana. Additionally they complained that Crowley had sent 1,000 firefighters home. According to Crowley, there was no money and no available engines for them to operate because of funding cuts by Bass.

Most damningly though, the Los Angeles City Stentorians, an association of black firefighters, popped up to accuse Crowley of racism, claiming that firefighters were yelling racial slurs while fighting the Palisades fire. This entirely plausible set of events was further backed up with “reports of white firefighters circulating MAGA hats, erecting Trump shrines in stations”.

The allegations against Crowley running a racist MAGA fire department full of Trump shrines where firefighters fight fires by shouting racial slurs at them were signed on to by the local NAACP and other Bass allies. And that was it for the LAFD’s first lesbian fire chief.

It may be acceptable to let significant parts of Los Angeles catch fire, but it is never allowable to let firefighters wear MAGA hats.

The first lesbian fire chief lost the support of black councilmembers but held on to the support of the (probably) first Chinese LAFD union head Chung Ho. Only the two more moderate city council members, including the ‘third latina to serve on the city council’, voted to reinstate Crowley who has now been replaced by the second latino fire chief in what is a historic event.

The DEI circular firing squad is mostly moot because everyone in the identity politics mess had failed on the most basic level to deal with a massive catastrophe. Text messages involving Crowley showed that the city did not move to Level 1 activation until the next morning.

Mayor Karen Bass however deleted her text messages just in time for the roughly four investigations into the devastating fires. According to the city’s lawyer, the deletions were automatic and she was not obligated to keep her text messages because they were not made for the “purpose of preserving its informational content for future reference.”

Messages from her aides however showed that they received warnings about the winds including a big red block warning of “critical fire conditions.” According to Bass, who had promised not to even leave the country, the warnings “didn’t reach that level to me, that something terrible could happen, and maybe you shouldn’t have gone on the trip.”

Her current 28-year-old deputy mayor, a former spokesman urgently promoted to deputy mayor on account of not yet being raided by the FBI for sending in bomb threats, argued, “that is not a warning of disaster. That sends the opposite message.”

While multiple investigations continue of those fires, with investigators claiming last month that they have over 235 leads, but no actual answers there’s also an investigation of a new fire which they suspect was arson that was also mishandled by the LAFD. The suspicions for those fires however revolve around New Year’s Eve fireworks and “unauthorized camping” which is locally a term for the homeless encampments unleashed by the Democrat political machine.

Without waiting for the evidence to be finalized, Los Angeles County sued Southern California Edison: the politically connected power company many are blaming for the disaster. But there’s also reason to believe that the fires may have involved the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power which was supposed to replace power lines, but was unable to do so because it was the location of 183 bushes of an endangered weed known as milkvetch which blooms after fires.

The fires are good for the milkvetch and environmentalists and bad for everyone else.

The DWP is also being sued for low water levels under its historic first latina head Janisse Quinones set to make $750,000 a year. That salary, already described as “eye-popping” will be further augmented by DWP spending another $700,000 to provide her with personal security after reported ‘threats’ due to parts of LA burning down. It would have only cost $130,000 to fix a crucial reservoir, but instead DWP will have spent more than ten times that on its boss.

While families who lost it all are still picking up the pieces, LAPD resources were diverted to protect Quinones, Crowley and assorted other public officials. Now the DWP boss will have her own Pinkerton secret service protecting her historic nature and even more historic salary.

That is what ‘equity’ looks like.

While the multiple federal, state and local investigations into the disaster continue, it’s as of yet not entirely clear which element of the state, county, and city’s historic wokeness was the cause of the historic fires, but what is clear is that every historic leader in the loop failed badly. And rather than admit fault, they have taken to blaming each other and crying that they’re the victims of ‘hate’ before getting back to business as usual without changing a single thing.

That’s what a historically corrupt California looks like. 

 Daniel Greenfield is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. This article previously appeared at the Center's Front Page Magazine. Click here to subscribe to my articles. And click here to support my work with a donation.  Thank you for reading. 

 

So, That's What a San Francisco Democrat Thinks Is Causing the City’s Homeless Problem

Matt Vespa  |  December 14, 2023

San Francisco is a wreck. It’s riddled with homeless people, dirty needles, fecal matter over sidewalks, and crime. It’s what happens when far-left Democrats take over. Liberal utopia consists of enabling criminality and living in abject filth, all while property values remain high, thanks to wealthy white progressives who are shielded from most of the mayhem.   It’s also geography vis-à-vis Silicon Valley—where the tech billionaires and their ilk set up shop. But one San Francisco Democrat knew what was causing the city’s homeless crisis: capitalism. It shouldn’t shock anyone that this man is a democratic socialist (via NY Post): 

San Francisco Supervisor Dean Preston claimed the city’s homelessness problems were “absolutely the result of capitalism,” and it was “counterproductive” to arrest people openly doing drugs. .......... “I think we have a very, very bloated police budget. All kinds of waste in the police department. I could cut $100 million out of the department,” he said in the interview. ........To Read More....

My Take - More evidence of the "Leftist Liturgy: It's Not My Fault, It's Not My Fault, It's Not My Fault, Amen!"

The War on Competence

 January 22, 2023 By Clarice Feldman

Decades ago, the Left played the class-war game. These days it’s a war on competence and achievement, hiding beyond claims of racial and sexual equity.

In Virginia, we are to believe that on their own, high school administrators in seventeen schools decided not to inform those of their students who had scored high enough on their scholastic aptitude tests to be named National Merit semi-finalists. Of course, it was not coincidental. Two factors are involved: The spurious claim that schools can achieve the impossible -- equal outcomes for all -- a claim which must not be challenged by contrary facts; and prejudice against high-achieving students -- most likely, given historical records, majority Asian and white. Hugh Hewitt thinks this was a clear violation of the students' civil rights for which Faitfax County may end up paying heavy legal damages. 

A Massachusetts congresswoman,  Ayanna Pressley (who represents, inter alia, most of Boston and Cambridge, Massachusetts), plainly revealed what is the basis for the war on intellectual achievement:

“IQ is a measure of whiteness.”

It isn’t, of course. It’s a combination of genetics (dare we say this?), home environment, including familial respect for achievement, personal interests and motivation, and to a certain extent, the caliber of the education received.  This is not just a K-12 excrescence. For some years now it has metastasized to higher education.  ...........To Read More...

Who's Running this Ship of Fools?

November 13, 2022 By Dennis Lund 

The puzzle as to who is really running the country, has been with us for some time. Certainly, all logic points to the fact the Joe Biden is an example of a man who has risen to his level of incompetence. His age, reflecting the early stages of dementia, makes him a prime target for manipulation. Those closest to him in the West Wing are making the day-to-day decisions, but where are they getting their direction? In a strong Presidency, that would be the President, the is the captain of the ship, as was the case with President Trump. Obviously, Biden is not the one articulating a cohesive strategy. So, who is actually directing the massive bureaucracy of the nation? Is it possible that numerous, well-entrenched bureaucrats and appointees’ function, to a large degree, much like a beehive, an ant colony, or a ship on automatic pilot?......To Read More....

The Basic Math Problem that Undoes Global Warming Hysteria

August 15, 2022 By Maker S. Mark

If someone proposes a solution to an "existential problem" that has no chance of success, should we be forced to take the problem seriously? If the climate alarmists truly believe there is a climate emergency, then they should be able to answer the first basic question about "the plan."  Are the numbers in the plan even remotely achievable?  Remember: based on their screeching, we have only twelve years before we all die from "man-made climate change."

To answer that question, let's break part of the plan into the most basic math problem: can we replace 25%, 50%, or 75% of the cars on the road in ten years?  To understand the theoretical possibility, we will simplify this to how many years will it take to replace all vehicles on the road in the U.S...........

Unserious people, who can't do this basic math, definitely cannot comprehend the complex science involved in studying the climate.  The numbers don't lie.  Their solution will not solve the "man-made climate problem" without a magic wand to replace every vehicle in the U.S. in one or even two generations. .......To Read More...

 

Our Alice in Wonderland Culture

August 6, 2022  By Jack Wisdom  

The Chancellor of the City University of New York (CUNY), Felix V.M. Rodriguez, just sent a mass mailing to everyone in CUNY about… monkeypox. In it, he repeated the advice of the NYC Dept. of Health include “asking sexual partners whether they have a rash or other symptoms consistent with monkeypox and avoiding skin-to-skin contact with someone who has a rash or other monkeypox-related symptoms.”  The chancellor of a great urban university -- to fulfill his administrative and educational duties (not as a medical professional or a counsellor but as a chancellor) -- is recommending all employees and students to ask their sexual partner(s) about symptoms of monkeypox, a disease contracted by homosexuals and bisexuals. One-quarter of the cases in the USA are in New York State, and most of those are in New York City. Rodriguez wants to advise all educators and students what to say one-on-one to avoid placing their rod in the wrong monkeyfied place. This is his way of waving the rainbow flag to show solidarity with homosexuals.

His letter is part of an increasing number of “through the looking glass” experiences we are having in American society.  Each day we may feel more and more like Alice in Wonderland having strange encounters in a make-believe world. One of the creatures Alice meets is the Hatter (often referred to as the “Mad Hatter”) who asks strange riddles. He asks Alice, “Why is a raven like a writing-desk?” which is only one of his many stumpers. In our looking-glass world, the answers to normal questions are strange as his riddles.  We have a candidate for the Supreme Court -- the so-called top nine jurists in the USA -- who evades answering “What is a woman?” and declares, “I’m not a biologist.”  That is an Alice in Wonderland-style answer............Our Alice in Wonderland Culture

A Few Thoughts on the Arab Spring, Ukraine and the Media!

By Rich Kozlovich

The New Republic was, and still is, a leftist organ originally "founded by Herbert Croly and Walter Lippmann through the financial backing of heiress Dorothy Payne Whitney and her husband, Willard Straight, who maintained majority ownership.”  All of whom were either communists, Soviet agents or fellow travelers calling themselves ‘liberals’.    

Eventually Straight’s son, Michael, became an editor at the New Republic.  While attending that famous cesspool noted for generating Soviet spies, Cambridge University in England, he met those infamous English Soviet spies, Guy Burgess, Donald Maclean and Anthony Blunt, all communists and all secret Soviet spies - one of which he also became.   They were the outside fringe, but no longer.  What we have now is the legacy media has reached parity in philosophy and practice as those who ran the New Republic.  

The problem with the leftist media is a lack of consistency.  They demand war today and then condemn that war tomorrow.  The problem with the left’s lack of consistency is the total lack of moral foundation.  Their views are based on shifting sand.  Whatever works that day must be right.    

It appears all these ‘liberal’ rags, who hate the military, the police, and traditional values are pushing for …. dare I say it ….. war!   And with Russia no less!  How brain dead is that?  

Well, let's take a trip down History Lane to see just  how brain dead they can be.  Note this article:

It's Time to Intervene in Syria Red lines exist for a reason. Syria shouldn't get away with crossing one.  BY JOHN B. JUDIS

There are at least three questions to ask about Syria: First, what exactly is happening there; second, what is the United States doing about it; and third, what, if anything, should the United States be doing about it? It is hard to sort out the details of what is happening in Syria; but the outline is pretty clear; and it’s also fairly clear that the U.S. should be doing something consequential if, as reported, the Syrian regime has used chemical weapons against its people. But it remains unclear what the U.S. is actually doing or planning to do. Let’s take the questions one by one.

What is happening in Syria? Syria’s civil war began in the spring of 2011 with popular demonstrations like those that had toppled regimes in Tunisia and Egypt. But instead of standing aside, the Syrian military shot and killed demonstrators, tortured dissidents and burnt down homes and businesses. When that didn’t stop the opposition, the regime conducted scorched earth sieges and launched air strikes against villages and cities. So far, about 70,000 Syrians have perished—about half have been civilians—and as many as 1.3 million have been driven from their homes. And that’s of a population of only 23 million….To Read More…

So what history should we look to for the answer?  Let’s look at Obama’s decision to interfere in Libya and how really good that worked. 

Tripoli on Edge as Fears of Additional Bombings in Libya Escalate by Jamie Dettmer Apr 30, 2013

 “Disorder and terror” have gripped Libya following the blast at the French Embassy, and rumors swirl of another attack. Jamie Dettmer reports on the rising tension in the capital. Diplomatic missions here in the Libyan capital are observing the strictest security procedures following suspicions that the bombers behind last Tuesday’s blast at the French Embassy have rigged a second car with explosives and are hunting for another high-profile Western target.

Embassy protection teams and private security contractors working with foreign businessmen and nongovernmental organizations are on high alert, and the United Nations compound on the outskirts of Tripoli has introduced onerous security measures and placed severe restrictions on the movement of their diplomats.

The French Embassy wasn’t the only target on Tuesday—the second target was, according to diplomatic sources, the British Council, a government-funded educational body under the aegis of the British Foreign Office. That attack was thwarted by security guards; the bombers were foiled as they were preparing to park a rigged vehicle in front of the compound gate, diplomatic sources say.

A British Embassy spokesman said they could neither confirm nor deny that a bombing attempt on the British Council took place. "It would be inappropriate for us to comment while investigations are under way." …….To Read More...  

Clearly it appeared they are asking for more of the same in Syria because they must believe Libya was a great success.  Thus the leftist brain trust wanted more of the same, and the pattern repeats now.   Do I understand that correctly?

U.S. kicks Syria chemical weapons can down the road  By Charles P. Blair

Syria’s civil war is the first to engulf a country armed with weapons of mass destruction. Understandably, the unfolding cataclysm precipitated by that country’s collapse has prompted new levels of uncertainty and risk. But where exactly does the Obama administration stand on managing the various threats posed by Syria’s chemical weapons?

An April 25 letter from the White House to members of Congress included the Obama administration’s seventh notice threatening unspecified but “significant” action if the al-Assad regime crossed the “red line” on chemical weapons activity. But by remaining mute on what specifically constitutes a chemical weapon in the context of its “red line,” and by characterizing the mounting evidence of chemical weapons use by Syrian military forces as requiring “credible and corroborating facts” validated by the United Nations, the administration clearly wants to avoid (or at least delay as long as possible) substantive action against the regime.

So, now we have Biden bleating the same kind of blather as did Obama, both leading "from behind", and a media that fawns over them.   Whether you agree with Bush, Obama, Trump, Biden or Joe the Plumber you can’t help but be disgusted by the lack of consistency and integrity within the media, especially now with Biden and his band of incompetents in charge.   So then, with that kind of historical foundation we should ask: Why would anyone want to interfere in this mess in Ukraine?

The Islamists were out of control and there were no solutions then, there will be no solutions now, and there will be no solutions in the future.   We have 1400 years of history to substantiate that.

As for the claptrap: That's was as delusional as anything I have heard since I heard Bush stated that Islam was a religion of peace.  At least until now when I hear Biden and his Liar in State, Jen Psaki, blaming Putin for inflation and high gas prices.  

Ultimately Biden is to blame for this war because of his totally insane energy policies and green agenda.  He's to blame for the inflation, the lack of commodities, the rising prices, and high gas prices.  All done because of his total and complete incompetence and insane thinking. 

Does anyone in Washington read history books? I know the media are not only paragons of historical ignorance, they're also have the moral fiber of tree moss.  

 

Exclusive insight from the Illinois Policy Institute

This edition of The Policy Shop is brought to you by Adam Schuster, senior director of budget and tax research.

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot shared her budget proposal last month. Now what? City council members now have until Dec. 31 to pass a budget for the city.  City council members now have until Dec. 31 to pass a budget for the city.  Here’s the skinny of what Lightfoot proposed and what Chicagoans and the city we love are up against.
 
Finances are so shaky in Chicago that, even with an infusion of $3.5 billion in federal aid, the mayor still included a $76.5 million property tax hike. That increase comprises $22.9 million in automatic increases after Lightfoot pushed for tying property taxes to inflation last year, $25 million for debt service on bonds for Lightfoot’s $3.7 billion infrastructure plan, and $28.6 million from new property. After deducting new property, the $47.9 million discretionary levy increase would raise property tax bills by an average of $72 to $180 depending on the neighborhood. 

We’re from the government and we’re here to help
 
Seriously, with city officials receiving billions of dollars in federal aid, how are Chicagoans facing a property tax hike? Business leaders don’t get it.
 “With the historic level of federal funding coming to the city we can avoid a property tax increase that impacts all residents and businesses.” – Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce. 
 
The business community is right that a property tax increase is unnecessary considering the $3.5 billion in pandemic-related federal aid. Lightfoot’s proposed budget uses $782 million in federal funds to replace 2021 revenues, $385 million for 2022, and reserves $152.4 million for 2023 revenue replacement. That leaves roughly $581 million in flexible aid currently dedicated to new program spending. The property tax hike could be prevented by using just 2.5% of Chicago’s $1.9 billion in American Rescue Plan funding. 
 
Moreover, while U.S. treasury rules prohibit states from using aid to directly or indirectly offer tax relief, this prohibition does not apply to cities. Lightfoot has the greenlight to help overburdened homeowners, if she wants to. 
 
Spin cycle: No new taxes
 
In her budget address, Lightfoot emphasized that her budget proposal achieves balance “without any new taxes, no reduction in city services, and no layoffs.” Similarly, a press release from the mayor’s office claims the budget has “no new tax or significant fee increases for our residents.” Lightfoot claims the $74.5 million property tax hike doesn’t count as a tax increase because automatic annual inflation increases and the increase for infrastructure were approved last year, but this argument is political spin. The bottom line is that city property owners will pay higher property tax bills next year.
 
Lightfoot could have proposed to use the federal aid to undo last year’s property tax increase, which hit during a pandemic and related economic downturn. This would meet the American Rescue Plan’s goal to “support immediate economic stabilization for households and businesses.” Stopping this year’s tax hike would not require cutting anything, just slightly scaling back some of the new spending.  Taking a small portion from each of the larger new line items could prevent the tax hike while still leaving hundreds of millions of dollars more for Lightfoot’s “community priorities” such as youth job training and affordable housing. 
 
A smaller tax increase is still a tax increase
 
How does this $74.5 million property tax increase compare with recent years?

• Way smaller than the $543 million increase under Mayor Rahm Emanuel in 2015.
• Less than the $94 million property tax hike in Lightfoot’s budget last year.

Still, it is an increase and would add an unnecessary burden to a city economy still recovering from COVID-19. (Did we mention it was also unnecessary given the city is sitting on $3.5 billion in federal aid?!)
 
Illinois’ pandemic restrictions, as well as $655 million in state tax hikes pushed in Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s budget this year, have together contributed to the struggle for Illinois’ businesses to create jobs for workers as fast as the rest of the nation. The state’s unemployment rate remains 35% higher than the national average. Piling on even modest additional tax hikes on Chicago residents and businesses will mean fewer jobs and lower wage growth for residents as the economy recovers from the COVID-19 recession. 

Temporary revenue can’t fund permanent programs 

The budget increases spending by roughly $1.2 billion on a range of city services from the Chicago Police Department, affordable housing, and mental health services to a pilot program for a universal basic income. Unfortunately, that spending is propped up by one-time federal aid that expires by 2024, meaning many programs will have to be cut or financed with significant tax hikes within just two years. > If Lightfoot wants to live up to the rhetoric in her budget address – in which she promised to invest in Chicago’s economic recovery while giving predictability and stability to taxpayers – she needs to develop and execute a plan to match revenues and expenses long-term. Only a long-term balanced budget can give city residents confidence programs will continue and taxes will remain affordable.
 
The elephant in the room 
 
Despite calling pension debt the city’s “biggest problem” in May, Lightfoot’s address did not include any plan for Chicago’s pension crisis. Her predecessor, Mayor Emanuel, endorsed a constitutional amendment to allow pension reform late in his final term. Amending the constitution is the only way to unlock changes to 3% compounding cost-of-living increases Lightfoot has called “unsustainable.” 

Pension costs will consume more than $2.3 billion of the city’s budget, or 21.4% of its own source revenue, meaning local collections excluding state and federal grants. That’s $461 million more than last year, a spike that accounts for 63% of the $733 million 2022 budget deficit reported by Lightfoot in August.

Chicago’s pension spending is up nearly $1 billion just during the three years Mayor Lightfoot has been in office and nearly 500% since 2004 in nominal terms. Lightfoot bragged that this is the first year the city is making “actuarially determined” pension payments, but that does not mean they are “actuarially sufficient.” Chicago’s rapid and unsustainable growth in pension spending still won’t be enough without benefit reforms.
 
Springfield must let the people vote on a constitutional amendment to control rising pension costs. Lightfoot needs to use her platform as a public official to push the General Assembly into doing the right thing if Chicago is going to reverse its economic stagnation and provide residents with quality services at a reasonable cost.
 
Read a full rundown of the problems in the proposed Chicago budget here.

 

We Are Governed by Children

By Bonchie | Sep 28, 2021

Sometime around mid-day last Friday, as the headwinds blew strongly against the $3.5 trillion reconciliation boondoggle, the White House and their allies in Congress decided on a new messaging strategy: Just say it costs nothing.  Yes, in the fantasy world our political leaders inhabit, $3.5 trillion “costs zero dollars.” That was the line Joe Biden dropped on September 25th. Worse, the media have run with that idea, arguing into absurdity that tax cuts that let you keep more of your own income “cost” money but huge, multi-trillion-dollar spending bills are somehow free because of tax hikes that may or may not produce what is claimed..........To Read More....

 

Too many Americans are sleeping in this new red dawn

September 17, 2021 By Frank Liberato

A red dawn is slowly rising. An alarm is ringing somewhere but our eyes are still thick with sleep. We hit snooze and turn our faces away from the light but it is time to wake up. The outrages are piling up quickly now. Like snow in a blizzard, they make every new step more ponderous than the last. Overwrought and overwhelmed, it’s difficult to know which way to turn. This is by design. Absent clear and decisive action, a red dawn will become a red day and then even the little brownshirts in the media and the universities will realize that something magnificent has been irretrievably lost and their lives will change forever.

The mainstream media would not know the truth if they fell over it. They broadcast the most bald-faced lies, speaking with anger and righteous indignation. Surely, they were mentored by Joe Biden. Biden’s reckless falsehoods are accelerating and, in just the past few weeks, he has demonstrated repeatedly that his words mean absolutely nothing. He discarded his promises not to leave Americans behind in Afghanistan or to mandate vaccines with all the aplomb and mendacity of a general who claims to worry about “white rage,” while promising to pass military secrets to the Chinese.

The media are now trying to gild the likes of George Bush, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Liz Cheney. Most of those who once offered them their sacred vote resent this. All they can see is betrayal stretching back as far as memory will allow, with past events now seen in a completely different light. It’s gotten to the point where it’s almost axiomatic: If the media supports it, it can’t be trusted.

The media may realize, in time, that they were the instruments of their own destruction. The deep state will not share its power with the media or with anyone else. The lies that they freely broadcast today, will become the “truths” that they are forced to broadcast tomorrow. Their large salaries and lavish entitlements will fall by the wayside as they join the ranks of the “workers’ paradise.”

The same can be said for academia. The rot they have willfully fed our children for generations will no longer be their free choice. Most of their jobs will be gone and what remains would more aptly be called the Ministry of Propaganda. They too will take their place among the working poor.

Young people are the saddest part of this story. Having been so thoroughly indoctrinated, they have absolutely no idea how good their lives could be. Instead, they are taught only grievances. If their utopian goals are realized, they will never have the chance to pursue their dreams or join the great American middle class because it will no longer exist. They will be put to work and their options in life will be severely limited. You take all the tests and then work where you’re assigned. The state owns you.

All of them would, of course, scoff at this portrayal, but it doesn’t take a genius to see this sad reality wherever communism has taken root in the world. Our homegrown communists believe that they are the ones that can do communism right. They can “build back better.” It is, of course, all folly. Nobody ever does communism better. Governance by coercion creates poverty, misery, and more coercion.

What about China? China was still a communist hellhole as recently as the late 1990s. It has evolved into something more akin to fascism, with private industry layered onto communism’s dictatorial roots.

An incredible influx of capital from the west has allowed the CCP to build modern cities and what may soon be the world’s most formidable military but the Chinese people are still the property of the state. They must toe the party line or risk disappearing..........The rural areas, amounting to roughly half the population, are still mired in abject poverty. Lacking a free enterprise engine to drive their economy, if the western money spigot is ever turned off, China would revert to an ugly communist pit with only the rusting material remnants of prosperity............To Read More....

 

Incompetence, corruption, and the Pelter Principle

September 14, 2021  By Robert Arvay

The Pelter Principle is similar to the Peter Principle, not only in spelling, but in a more important regard.  The Peter Principle is a term invented by Laurence J. Peter.  He said, "In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence. ... [I]n time every post tends to be occupied by an employee who is incompetent to carry out its duties. ... Work is accomplished by those employees who have not yet reached their level of incompetence."

In other words, if one is good at his job, he gets promoted.  If he is good at that, he gets promoted again.  Eventually, he may get promoted to a job at which he is not good.  Therefore, he will not get promoted again, but will tend to remain in a job where he is incapable.  Eventually, in any organization, there is a tendency for the people in charge of each and every department to be incompetent.  Thus, the organization becomes mismanaged through and through.  Only the unpromoted workers get anything done, but their productivity is restricted by the incompetence of those in charge.  

A related principle in hierarchies is referred to as the "Impostor syndrome."   "Impostor syndrome refers to an internal experience of believing that you are not as competent as others believe you to be."  It has been remarked by some social critics that in many cases, the syndrome is a consequence of the Peter Principle — that is, a recognition by someone who has been promoted to his level of incompetence that he is indeed incompetent.  ............

We are now at the stage of American history in which corruption has saturated every level of government, and every level of institutions connected with government.  Were those in power competent to gain, use, and preserve it, we would already be a North Korean–style totalitarian state, an Orwellian beast of nightmare proportions.  That we are not, at least not yet, is due only to the ineptness of those would rule over us.  They who would run our lives cannot run their own.  .............To Read More....

 

One-Party Rule: When Corruption and Radicalism Collide

September 14, 2021 By Linda R. Killian

New York and California are glaring examples of one-party rule gone bad, resulting in tyrannies of the hard left. They are also contrasts of how the populace in one state is impotent to reject corrupt, one-party rule and how the populace of the other has availed itself of a constitutional pressure valve, the recall petition, for political self-correction.

Each state demonstrates the extreme dangers of one-party rule recognized 250 years ago by America’s Founders and addressed by the U.S. Constitution through federalism at the national level. However, the Founders were uncertain how to institutionally protect minorities in individual states and municipalities from the tyranny of the majorities, ultimately leaving it to the discretion of each state’s own constitutional structure along with the voters.

As of September 2021, there are 23 Republican-controlled states, in which the Republicans control governorship and both houses of the legislature. Democrats hold 15 of these trifectas and the remaining 12 states are divided. The political disruptions occurring in two of the Democrats’ largest trifectas, New York and California, may provide some answers for the future American political landscape, particularly just how much hard left policies the public is willing to endure............To Read More...

What Can the Liberal Media Do with a Dementia-Ridden Biden and a B****y VP?

Matt Vespa Aug 08, 2021

The liberal media is a powerful institution. They offer cover to their friends until they don't. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is finding that out now as his stock has been depreciating ever since it was revealed that he killed scores of the elderly with his nursing home order. The sexual misconduct findings by the New York attorney general's office were the last straw. Every prominent Democrat has called on him to resign. This comes after months of protection from these media types; his brother Chris is a CNN host. Yet, there are limits. You can't polish a turd. You can't make a candidate better with puff pieces. So, with Kamala Harris sucking again, will these quasi-Democratic operatives try again to rebuild her? Or was the vice presidency the best they could do? It also doesn't help that Joe Biden is planting the seeds of her destruction. 

Now, on that front, it could be unintentional since the man probably needs a steward to remind him to wear pants every day. Did you notice how all the hard tasks – immigration and COVID vaccinations – are handed to her? If Joe doesn't know, his staff does – she can't do it. So, when the going gets tough, blame Kamala. She did dither on the border, waiting some 100 days to "visit." She has failed miserably in quarterbacking the COVID vaccination effort, as well. There's no way Joe's staff would have signed off on this without the intention of damaging her stock. They know her staff is incompetent. They know her workplace is toxic. They know those who can get out are jumping ship and not turning back. 

It's the same old story. We've seen this movie before. In 2020, Kamala Harris dropped out before the likes of Deval Patrick, Tom Steyer, Julian Castro, and other Democrats who had zero chance of winning the nomination or the presidency. She got gutted by then-Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI). We've mentioned this before, but that was the key moment we all knew Harris was a house of cards. She was an incredibly weak candidate as we all knew someone on the debate stage would mention her career locking up scores of folks, especially blacks, for smoking marijuana. She opened herself up when she took a swing at Biden's past remarks about busing. Well, it was Gabbard of all people who disemboweled her, and she never recovered. Politico’s lengthy piece about her 2020 campaign was described in three ways: no message, no strategy, and no discipline. Well, that carried over into the vice presidency.......... To Read More.....

Mad Science & The Far left

People such as Bill Gates who wants to spray the atmosphere with dust to block the sun, or the people that insist you can change one's gender and then insist we pretend with them. They are all mad as hell 

By Ray DiLorenzo ——Bio and Archives--August 7, 2021

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 “Science never solves a problem without creating ten more.”—George Bernard Shaw

Mr. Shaw may have overstated the problem with science a bit, but there are consequences when science moves ahead without limits, without mores, without God. And if there was ever a time in our history when we needed boundaries, it is now. There is a bad cocktail out there, and it’s found in combining the Far Left with science.

We live in two different countries. It has never been as apparent as it is today. It may not be strictly geographical, but they are separate nonetheless. One has a recognition of who we are before God, and the other with no sense of the eternal or spiritual, no sense of natural, or biological law. The latter are convinced they are gods unto themselves

The Far Left Didn’t Know….

• The Far Left claims they didn’t know that fewer police officers would bring about more crime.
• The Far Left claims they didn’t realize that closing a pipeline would mean less gas, higher prices, and dependence on foreign oil.
• The Left didn’t understand that unrestricted abortion would diminish the value of life.
• The Left still doesn’t understand that unlimited deficit spending goes against the laws of economics, poses a significant risk to our economic growth, standard of living and general prosperity.

If they did know, then we are in more dire shape than most of us realize........To Read More...

Scapegoats, Boogeymen, and Hobgoblins

The Biden Administration, the bureaucracy, military, media, academia, Silicon Valley, and corporate boardrooms across America don't know how to explain, much less solve, our mounting crises.

  By Victor Davis Hanson July 7, 2021@ American Greatness

The world may be increasingly baffled by 2021 America, and its sudden scapegoating of "white supremacist" hobgoblins for problems it cannot or will not solve.

Roughly 400 Americans were shot over the past July 4 holiday weekend. About 150 of them were killed. The majority, both of the shooters and the victims, were inner-city, African-American males. The level of violence approaches the bad casualty days of the recent Afghan and Iraq wars.

Meanwhile, during the carnage, progressive black leaders, from Representatives Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) to Cori Bush (D-Mo.), blasted America's foundational holiday and the country at large for its white supremacy and the current supposed lack of freedom for African Americans.

During 120 days of rioting, arson, and looting during the summer of 2020, the country suffered about $2 billion in property damage, roughly 25 deaths, and some 14,000 arrests.

Rioters burned down a Minneapolis police precinct. They set afire a federal courthouse in Portland. And they tried to incinerate the historic St. John's Episcopal Church next to the White House. Downtown areas of Portland and Seattle were taken over by rioters, who occupied entire city blocks with impunity.

Most of those arrested during the violent summer were either released or eventually had their charges dropped or vastly reduced. Although many of the Antifa and BLM rioters shouted revolutionary slogans, called for violence against the police, and carefully organized their rioting on social media, neither the media nor the government ever declared the rioters to be conspiracists or insurrectionists.

In contrast, when roughly 500 renegade Trump supporters, in buffoonish fashion, broke into the Capitol on January 6, 2021, the media and government immediately claimed it was a carefully planned "armed insurrection." But no one was arrested for possessing or using a gun.

Headlines blared of five killed. But four died of natural causes and three of those deaths were among Trump supporters. The only violent death was also of a Trump supporter and military veteran, lethally shot by a Capitol police officer while entering through a window. Her shooter remains unidentified.

In the aftermath of the Capital riot of a few hours, the media, the Left and the government militarized Washington, D.C, with over 20,000 troops, massive fencing and ubiquitous barbed wire. The takeover was in response to fears of violent "white supremacy." No such anticipated attempted attack or hyped violence ever followed.

The earlier four months of violence never earned such a hyper federal response as did the few hours on January 6, although the death, destruction, and mayhem went on for months at far greater human and material costs.

Murders and violent crime in some major American cities have doubled. Forty percent of residents in liberal San Francisco poll a desire to leave their now crime-ridden city.

In response to nationwide increases in criminal violence, an embarrassed President Biden and exasperated governors and mayors talk of clamping down on legal gun ownership and sales. They blame all firearms for the shootings, even though legally purchased and possessed rifles are involved in just a fraction of violent crime cases.

Currently, the Chinese military is in the news for issuing overt threats to its neighbors, particularly Taiwan. China seized the unoccupied Spratly Islands to create naval bases to control sea traffic in the South China Sea. It is currently building over 100 hardened long-range-missile silos to house intercontinental nuclear missiles, most of them to be pointed at the United States.

Iran is accelerating its nuclear enrichment. The current government seems emboldened by new outreach from the Biden Administration. The Taliban will take over Afghanistan in a few weeks. Kabul will likely soon recreate the fall of Saigon in 1975.

Hackers, some of them likely to have covert affiliations with the Russian government, have systematically attacked U.S. companies. In response, President Biden asked Russian President Vladimir Putin to make sure the attackers at least put more important American facilities off their target lists. 

What is the U.S. military's reaction to all these crises?

Recently the Chief of Naval Operations, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and the Secretary of Defense all testified before Congress that the U.S. military is systematically scanning its ranks for potential white supremacists. It now requires woke workshops, and recommends various critical race theory books to enlisted personnel.

In the crazy times of 2020-21, America seems helpless to stop urban violence, months of rioting and arson, spiraling crime, an anticipated wave of 2 million illegal aliens crossing the border over a 12-month period, a rising and aggressive China, and foreign hackers.

In response, the Biden Administration, the bureaucracy, the military, the media, academia, Silicon Valley, and the corporate boardrooms across America do not seem to have a clue about how to explain, much less solve, mounting economic, cultural, social, and security crises.

Apparently, all they can come up with is scapegoating mythical white supremacy for existential problems that they cannot solve, mostly because otherwise such challenges require bothersome and politically incorrect answers and introspection.

About Victor Davis Hanson

Victor Davis Hanson is a distinguished fellow of the Center for American Greatness and the Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. He is an American military historian, columnist, a former classics professor, and scholar of ancient warfare. He has been a visiting professor at Hillsdale College since 2004. Hanson was awarded the National Humanities Medal in 2007 by President George W. Bush. Hanson is also a farmer (growing raisin grapes on a family farm in Selma, California) and a critic of social trends related to farming and agrarianism. He is the author most recently of The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won and The Case for Trump.

 

The Genesis of Our American Collective Meltdown

Our adversaries can’t quite believe their good fortune. Had they thought up ways to divide and impoverish America, they could not have improved on our own collective meltdown.

By Victor Davis Hanson  July 4, 2021

This Fourth of July holiday we might pause for a moment from our festivities to ask how we collectively lost our minds over the last 15 months—and are we yet regaining any semblance of our sanity? 

A pandemic caused by the leak of a Chinese-engineered virus and its coverup was cause enough for nationwide madness. But the spread of COVID-19 was followed by a nationalized and often politicized “flatten-the-curve” quarantine that soon ensured a stir-crazy nation. Tens of millions saw no people, and heard nothing human other than what was fed to them through television and computers. No wonder they grew paranoid, conspiratorial, and angry, and soon forgot the therapeutic nature of personal interaction and the shared humanity of being in the physical presence of others.

Our first self-induced recession came next and lasted over a year, destroying all the hard work of the prior three years. Next ensued the death of George Floyd and a subsequent 120 days of rioting, looting, and arson. The immediate costs were $2 billion in damage, over 25 deaths, 14,000 arrests, and a Lord of the Flies anarchy with no-go zones in our major cities. A McCarthyite frenzy followed, as remote-controlled America hunted down the supposed “racists” among us—while career agendas, personal grudges, and ideological hatred fueled the cancel culture. 

All this was antecedent to our first election in which Election Day voting was incidental, not essential, to the outcome. This was also our first presidential campaign in which the incumbent was stricken by a pandemic virus. And his opponent, due to his age and infirmity, simply reverted to the 19th-century style of staying home and outsourcing the electioneering to the Democratic-media complex. Biden’s basement became the equivalent of the “front-porch” of homebound candidates of a century and more ago. ..............To Read More....

Tucker Carlson: CNN hates the idea of Buckhead trying to leave the city of Atlanta

Rich liberals hate diversity so much that 'at the first sign of spray paint, they run for the whitest hills they can find' 

By Tucker Carlson | Fox News

Ever been to Buckhead in Atlanta? It’s a beautiful residential and commercial neighborhood in the northwest corner of the city. It’s not a huge place. Fewer than 80,000 people live there, but it’s fair to say that, without Buckhead, Atlanta, at least as it’s currently run, could not exist. Taxes from Buckhead residents account for fully a fifth of Atlanta’s entire city budget. You’d think the people who run the city would be very polite to Buckhead. They certainly should be. But the opposite is true. For decades, various mayors of Atlanta have attacked Buckhead, as if there’s something offensive or immoral about maintaining a clean and orderly neighborhood. For the most part, the residents of Buckhead have taken this abuse in silence. Complaining seemed impolite. So they’ve continued to send huge amounts of money to a city government that hates them. For politicians in Atlanta, it’s been a very good deal—attack Buckhead and take the dough. But that deal could soon be ending.  ...............To Read More and See a Must See Video

 My Take - Carlson makes mention that CNN is headquartered in Atlanta and know exactly how bad it is as a result of these racist, incompetent leftist politicians actions, and yet they attack Buckhead residents as racists.  The reason to not watch CNN is the same reason you don't drink water our of your toilet. 

In Just 4 Months, Biden Manages to Highlight How Competent Trump Was Over Previous 4 Years

Randy DeSoto May 13, 2021 

  

“Do you miss me yet?” former President Donald Trump asked an adoring CPAC crowd in Orlando, Florida, in February weeks after Joe Biden took office.  The answer then and now, four months into the new administration, is a resounding, “Yes!” Whether the issue is the economy, immigration or foreign policy, Trump far outshines his successor.  From the day Biden assumed the presidency, he has been making decisions that have hurt all three.

You’ll recall a slew of executive orders, including canceling the Keystone XL pipeline, placing a moratorium on oil and gas exploration on federal land, stopping construction on the border wall and ending the Trump administration’s “Remain in Mexico” policy.  All are beginning to have disastrous consequences...........To Read More.....

California's Zero Carbon Plans: Can Anybody Here Do Basic Arithmetic?

May 11, 2021 Francis Menton 

In California, as we all know, the inhabitants and their elected officials are far more sophisticated and virtuous than the rest of us rubes who inhabit the other parts of the country. This particularly goes for the arena of climate change, where California is leading the way to saving the planet by rapidly eliminating all of the carbon emissions coming from its electricity sector. California’s CO2 emissions are about 1% of the world annual total, and its electricity sector accounts for about 15% of those emissions, so we’re talking here about approximately 0.15% of world emissions — an amount whose elimination, as you can easily see, will rapidly transform the world’s climate.

In 2018 California enacted a law known as SB100, which mandates a 100% carbon-emissions-free electricity sector by 2045. But how to get from here to there? That question was finally answered in March of this year, when the California state agencies responsible for achieving the goal (California Energy Commission, California Public Utilities Commission, and California Air Resources Board) issued a Joint Agency Report and accompanying Summary Document setting forth their Plans. The Plans can be accessed via this link.

The Plans show that the California regulators have absolutely no idea what they are doing. Perhaps I am wrong. I invite all readers to check me and see if I am missing something. But I don’t think so. Either these people do not understand the basic units used for these calculations, or they cannot do basic arithmetic, or both. In their projection of incremental costs, I think they are off by a factor of 1000 or more. about

The answer given in the Plans as to how to get to a zero emissions electricity sector is to build lots and lots of solar and wind power facilities. Obviously, those don’t work all the time, so to start with you need to build far more capacity than your peak usage. California’s peak power usage is currently about 40 GW, and that is projected to increase substantially as more of the economy gets electrified, for example automobiles. So the Plans call for the addition of some 97.6 GW of solar capacity and 22.6 GW of wind capacity by 2045, on top of 26.5 GW of those two currently existing. (The Plans also call for the addition of 0.1 GW of geothermal capacity, but that is a rounding error.). With the additions, California would have a total of some 146.7 GW of wind and solar capacity, which may be around triple peak usage after you account for incremental electrification of the economy by 2045.

But then solar and wind power are “intermittent,” meaning that they don’t necessarily deliver the power when you need it. What are we going to do about providing power on completely calm nights, when solar and wind deliver nothing? The California regulators have an answer for that here in the Plans, which is “storage.” And how much storage will we need? They give a very specific figure: 52.8 GW. Perhaps that may seem to make sense at first blush. If peak usage is around 50 GW by 2045, then 52.8 GW of storage may be just about enough, with a very small margin, to deliver power at a sufficient rate to satisfy demand when the solar and wind are completely dead.

And how much will all this cost? We’ll be replacing all the current fossil fuel generation with wind and solar facilities, plus adding enough storage to make it all work. Here’s the calculation:

Modeling results indicate that achieving 100 percent clean electricity will increase the total annual electricity system costs by nearly $4.6 billion by 2045. This is 6 percent more than the cost under the state’s Renewables Portfolio Standard requirement of having at least 60 percent clean electricity by the end of 2030.

Basically, it’s chump change. After all, “modeling results” prove it.

But are we maybe missing something? Here’s a piece that I think is more than a little significant: All discussion in the Plans of storage needs and capacity is expressed in units of gigawatts (GW). Now, GW of capacity can certainly be relevant in this context, because assuring that power can be delivered from these massive batteries quickly enough to satisfy peak demand is definitely an important engineering challenge. But another whole subject is gigawatt hours (GWH); in other words, is the total amount of energy stored by the system sufficient to carry you through the longest possible period when demand will exceed supply? How about if there are entire seasons — like “winter” — when days are short, cloudiness is high, the wind has extended periods of calm, and batteries could be getting drawn down for weeks or even months on end? How much will you need in the way of GWH of storage capacity to support this entirely-wind-and-solar system; and how much will that cost?

There’s nothing about that subject that I can find in these Plans. Can you find it?

Back in 2018, a guy named Roger Andrews made just such a calculation, and published it at a website called Energy Matters. I covered the subject in a November 2018 post titled “How Much Do The Climate Crusaders Plan To Increase Your Costs Of Electricity? — Part III.” Mr. Andrews used actual daily production data from existing California wind and solar facilities to project how much of such facilities would be needed to satisfy California’s total annual demand over the course of a full year; and then further used the same data to calculate daily surpluses and deficits, to figure out how much battery capacity, in GWH, would be needed to get through the longest period of low production. The most important lesson from Andrews’s work — which emerges from simply looking at the data for actual daily production from existing wind and solar facilities — is that production from these facilities is not just intermittent within a day or a week, but is also highly seasonal, with higher production in the Spring and Fall, and lower production most notably in the winter.

Here is Andrews’s chart showing production from existing wind and solar facilities, normalized to satisfy all demand over the course of a year, plotted against actual demand on a daily basis:

 

The large Spring surpluses and Winter deficits leap out at the eye. Andrews then calculated — and this is purely a matter of simple arithmetic — daily surpluses and deficits to figure out how much battery capacity California would need to carry it through a full year. Here are his charts showing that work:

 

The bottom line is that it would take about 25,000 GWH of stored energy to get through the full year. The batteries would get to that level around August, and get drawn down all the way through March. And of course, that’s at a peak usage of about 40 GW. Ramp that up to more like 50 GW peak usage, and you’ll need more like 32,000 GWH of storage.

So how much will that cost? In my November 2018 post, the answer for California was “around $5 trillion.” Let’s see if we can get a more up-to-date figure. According to this post at Electrek on April 1, 2021, Apple — in an effort to demonstrate its extreme corporate climate virtue — plans to construct a gigantic battery project to enable its corporate headquarters to run on just solar power. From Apple’s press release:

“Apple is constructing one of the largest battery projects in the country, California Flats — an industry-leading, grid-scale energy storage project capable of storing 240 megawatt-hours of energy, enough to power over 7,000 homes for one day. This project supports the company’s 130-megawatt solar farm that provides all of its renewable energy in California, by storing excess energy generated during the day and deploying it when it is most needed.”

The batteries are being supplied by Tesla. Based on pricing data from Tesla, indicating cost of such batteries in the range of $200 - $300 per kilowatt hour, Electrek calculates Apple’s cost for the 240 MWH of battery capacity as about $50 million. So what then would be the cost for 32,000 gigawatt hours worth of these batteries? You do the math. If it helps, there are a million KWH in one GWH. I’m getting about $6.7 trillion.

$6.7 trillion is well more than double the annual GDP of California. Remember that the Plans of California’s joint agency task force said that the incremental costs of the all-wind-and-solar-plus-storage system were going to run around $4.6 billion. Could they really be off by a factor of well over 1000?

Meanwhile, California marches forward with big additions to its grid battery capacity, supposedly to balance the grid in light of additions of solar and wind power. But are the additions meaningful to that task, or remotely cost effective? Here is a post from RenewEconomy on April 5:

A recent report published by Bloomberg Green citing new BloombergNEF numbers revealed that the leading power analysts expect California to not only install 1.7GW worth of new battery storage in 2021, but another 1.4GW in 2022 followed by 1.2GW in 2023.

Always GW, never GWH. Trying to get any useful information out of these people is almost impossible. I think they are all completely innumerate. Out of 40 million people in California, isn’t there a single person who can even ask a relevant question?

My view continues to be that the best thing that could happen for the country and the world would be for these people to try to build out their utopia as fast as humanly possible, and have it crash and burn quickly for all to see and learn from. Or maybe they will succeed. I certainly wish them the best, but on all the evidence they have no idea what they are doing.