Month: November 2018

Now Tesla is Spying on You

Tesla Charging Station in China

 

The Tech Industry is very cozy with the Chinese government and not just because iPhones are cheaper to make there. Tech companies willingly participate in Chinese government censorship and suppression of their citizens. Tech companies know that most laptops, cell phones, televisions, and other electronic devices that they sell all over the world regularly report user data back to their masters in China but have no problem with this as long as the get their financial cut.

Governments in the United States are tinkering with the idea of mileage taxes which have rightly raised the specter of government tracking your every movement—which my cell phone and health band already do.

Now this from China.

SHANGHAI (AP) — When Shan Junhua bought his white Tesla Model X, he knew it was a fast, beautiful car. What he didn’t know is that Tesla constantly sends information about the precise location of his car to the Chinese government.

Tesla is not alone. China has called upon all electric vehicle manufacturers in China to make the same kind of reports — potentially adding to the rich kit of surveillance tools available to the Chinese government as President Xi Jinping steps up the use of technology to track Chinese citizens.

More than 200 manufacturers, including Tesla, Volkswagen, BMW, Daimler, Ford, General Motors, Nissan, Mitsubishi and U.S.-listed electric vehicle start-up NIO, transmit position information and dozens of other data points to government-backed monitoring centers, The Associated Press has found. Generally, it happens without car owners’ knowledge.

And critics say the information collected in China is beyond what is needed to meet the country’s stated goals. It could be used not only to undermine foreign carmakers’ competitive position, but also for surveillance — particularly in China, where there are few protections on personal privacy. Under the leadership of Xi Jinping, China has unleashed a war on dissent, marshalling big data and artificial intelligence to create a more perfect kind of policing, capable of predicting and eliminating perceived threats to the stability of the ruling Communist Party.

China’s electric vehicle monitoring raises surveillance fear

Shanghai Data Center monitoring real-time data

Oh, remember all those self-driving cars the utopian folks here in California want to unleash on the public? The article addresses that too:

There is also concern about the precedent these rules set for sharing data from next-generation connected cars, which may soon transmit even more personal information.

Many vehicles in the U.S., Europe and Japan transmit position information back to automakers, who feed it to car-tracking apps, maps that pinpoint nearby amenities and emergency services providers. But the data stops there. Government or law enforcement agencies would generally only be able to access personal vehicle data in the context of a specific criminal investigation and in the U.S. would typically need a court order, lawyers said.

Automakers initially resisted sharing information with the Shanghai monitoring center; then the government made transmitting data a prerequisite for getting incentives.

“The automakers consider the data a precious resource,” said a government consultant who helped evaluate the policy and spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive issues. “They gave you dozens of reasons why they can’t give you the data. They give you dozens of excuses. Then we offer the incentives. Then they want to give us the data because it’s part of their profit.”

There was concern that data pulled from electric vehicles might reveal proprietary information about, for example, how hybrids switch between gas and battery power, and eventually set automakers up for commercial competition with a Chinese government entity. As cars become more connected, carmakers are looking to tap new revenue streams built on data — a market McKinsey estimated could be worth $750 billion by 2030.

The Chinese government’s ability to grab data as it flows from cars gives its academics and policymakers an edge over competing nations. China tends to view technology development as a key competitive resource. Though global automakers have received billions in incentives and subsidies from U.S., European and Japanese governments, they are contributing data to the Chinese government that ultimately serves Beijing’s strategic interests.

Global automakers stressed that they share data to comply with Chinese regulations. Nearly all have announced plans to aggressively expand their electric vehicle offerings in China, the world’s largest car market.

“There are real-time monitoring systems in China where we have to deliver car data to a government system,” Volkswagen Group China chief executive Jochem Heizmann said in an interview. He acknowledged that he could not guarantee the data would not be used for government surveillance, but stressed that Volkswagen keeps personal data, like the driver’s identity, secure within its own systems.

“It includes the location of the car, yes, but not who is sitting in it,” he said, adding that cars won’t reveal any more information than smart phones already do. “There is not a principle difference between sitting in a car and being in a shopping mall and having a smart phone with you.”

Jose Munoz, the head of Nissan’s China operations, said he was unaware of the monitoring system until the AP told him, but he stressed that the automaker operated according to the law. Asked by the AP about the potential for human rights abuses and commercial conflicts posed by the data sharing, Munoz smiled and shrugged.

If you read the American media, you’d think the real threat to our nation comes from Russia. Really?

In the 1980’s, Japan was famous for saying, “Business is war”. Almost 40 years later, China has raised the concept to an art form—with the support of likeminded people in America—and the stakes are not just commerce but the freedom of the world. We have never seen a global totalitarian regime rule the planet but China is positioning itself to be the first.

Those that see this as a possibility are considered nutjobs by the Liberal Elites. Donald Trump is concerned that America’s dependence on China is a problem but most folks don’t care as long as YouTube and Facebook are working on their cell phones.

Mueller Investigation Dead

As many of us know, Hollywood is much like a roach motel, good ideas check in but rarely check out. Studios buy the rights to all kinds of books and other stories but few get to the big screen. They get stuck in “development hell”. Trying to line up the director, script, studio, funding, marketing, etc.

The other complaint about Hollywood is that they are rarely faithful to the source material. Often they keep character names, scrap the plot, and create a film that has no resemblance to the story for which they purchased the film rights. Case in point is almost any “true story” made into a film. Often Hollywood admits this with a caption “based on actual events” at the beginning or end of a film. Other times they aren’t so honest. The Chronicles of Narnia movie Prince Caspian is nothing like the book. The movie created all kinds of stuff not in the book and moved the few scenes retained into a different order which further distorted the point of the whole story. The moral lessons that C.S. Lewis so painstakingly crafted into his story are completely lost long before the script was in its final draft.

Similarly, Robert Mueller had the opportunity to tell the true story of what shenanigans were played leading up to the 2016 Presidential election. Instead he opted to retain the names of a few characters and then try to substitute his own script with the caption “based on actual events” to smooth over his application of creative license.

Mueller’s rewrite was leaked to the media yesterday and it really stinks. The plot of his story is so lame as to be laughable except for the fact that he has carte blanche to subpoena folks and send them to jail in order to affect the outcome of his story. Instead of investigating the facts and following them wherever they lead, Mueller has written the script and tried to backfill it with will dupes to connect the dots. After yesterday’s revelations, it is clear that he was gunning to undo the results of the 2016 election and that he has wasted tens of millions of taxpayer dollars trying to do just that.

Mueller’s story goes like this:

Paul Manafort, who briefly worked as Donald Trump’s campaign manager, is alleged to have contacted Julian Assange to coordinate the release of Democrat emails hacked by Russians so WikiLeaks could release them to do the maximum damage to Hillary Clinton’s Presidential aspirations.

That in a nutshell is his story. Based on what I read yesterday on this story, Mueller is looking at three individuals as the pipeline of information from the Trump campaign to WikiLeaks. After two years of investigating, that’s all he has which is bupkis.

Here are some reasons that I know this is wrong:

Julian Assange has repeatedly stated that he did not get the information from the Russians. Julian Assange has never released or said anything false about his document dumps on WikiLeaks so it is not reasonable that he lied in this instance.

When I resigned as Ambassador to blow the whistle on UK/US complicity in torture and extraordinary rendition, I had a number of official documents I wished to leak to prove my story. They were offered to WikiLeaks through two friends, Andrew and Jonathan. WikiLeaks declined to publish them because they could not 100% verify them.

Their reasons were firstly that they were suspicious of me and whether I was a plant; British ambassadors are not given to resigning on principle. Secondly a few of the copies were my own original drafts of diplomatic communications I had sent, not the document as it printed out at the other end.

That is how scrupulous they are. I can vouch for the fact that their record for 100% accuracy is no fluke, it is safeguarded by extreme caution and careful checking.

How Wikileaks Keeps Its 100% Accuracy Record

The person most likely in a position to release the Democrat emails to WikiLeaks was murdered shortly after they were published. Since this man’s death, no further leaks of Democrat communications have surfaced.

The report refutes Democrat politicians’ claims that it was Russia that hacked into DNC computers and released the emails. Instead, an unnamed federal investigator told Fox News that Democrat staffer Seth Rich sent the cache of internal emails to Gavin MacFayden, a London-based WikiLeaks director. WikiLeaks published the highly-damaging emails that detailed DNC leadership’s favoritism of Clinton over Sanders just 12 days after Rich’s death.

Seth Rich died under suspicious circumstances. He was shot in the back twice but not robbed. His cell phone, jewelry, and wallet were on him when he died leading most to suspect foul play.

Murdered Democratic Party Staffer Seth Rich sent DNC emails to WikiLeaks

The only Russian involvement ever alleged at the time of the election was via Hillary Clinton and the Democrats who paid for Christopher Steele’s dossier.

 And so, on a warm day last June, Christopher Steele, ex-Cambridge Union president, ex-M.I.6 Moscow field agent, ex-head of M.I.6’s Russia desk, ex-adviser to British Special Forces on capture-or-kill ops in Afghanistan, and a 52-year-old father with four children, a new wife, three cats, and a sprawling brick-and-wood suburban palace in Surrey, received in his second-floor office at Orbis a transatlantic call from an old client.

“It started off as a fairly general inquiry,” Steele would recall in an anonymous interview with Mother Jones, his identity at the time still a carefully guarded secret. But over the next seven incredible months, as the retired spy hunted about in an old adversary’s territory, he found himself following a trail marked by, as he then put it, “hair-raising” concerns. The allegations of financial, cyber, and sexual shenanigans would lead to a chilling destination: the Kremlin had not only, he’d boldly assert in his report, “been cultivating, supporting, and assisting” Donald Trump for years but also had compromised the tycoon “sufficiently to be able to blackmail him.”

And in the aftermath of the publication of these explosive findings—as nothing less than the legitimacy of the 2016 U.S. presidential election was impugned; as congressional hearings and F.B.I. investigations were announced; as a bombastic president-elect continued to let loose with indignant tirades about “fake news”; as internal-security agents of the F.S.B., the main Russian espionage agency, were said to have burst into a meeting of intelligence officers, placed a bag over the head of the deputy director of its cyber-activities, and marched him off; as the body of a politically well-connected former F.S.B. general was reportedly found in his black Lexus—Christopher Steele had gone to ground.

How Ex-Spy Christopher Steele Compiled His Explosive Trump-Russia Dossier: The man behind the infamous dossier that raises the possibility that Donald Trump may be vulnerable to Kremlin blackmail is Russia expert Christopher Steele, formerly of M.I.6. Here’s the story of his investigation.

So who interjected Russia into the WikiLeaks email dump, why the Old Gray Lady.

The release of a cache of emails from the Democratic National Committee by WikiLeaks last month has raised a great many questions — about the role of the D.N.C. in trying to influence the primary and about the alleged interference of Russian intelligence in an American election.

As for Mr. Assange’s animus against Hillary Clinton — he has written that she “lacks judgment and will push the United States into endless, stupid wars which spread terrorism” — that is evidence of bias, but no more than that. After all, many news outlets are clearly, and sometimes proudly, biased.

We still don’t know who leaked the D.N.C. archive, but given Mr. Assange’s past association with Russia, it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that it was a Russian agent or an intermediary. Mr. Assange insists this is a mere distraction from the issue of D.N.C. interference, but the answer is also in the public interest. We should all be concerned (although hardly surprised) if it is that easy for the Russians to break into the D.N.C. and possibly United States government networks.

Can We Trust Julian Assange and WikiLeaks?

Meanwhile, Paul Manafort is threatening to sue the Guardian newspaper over reports he met with WikiLeaks’ Assange. Manafort categorically denies any such meetings, as does Assange.

WikiLeaks said on Twitter it was willing “to bet … a million dollars and the editor’s head” that the Guardian story was wrong and that the group is launching a legal defense fund.

Corsi: I’ve had ‘no contact’ with Assange

As support for my arguments, this from Rush Limbaugh:

Limbaugh said Tuesday: “If anybody doubts the political nature of the Mueller investigation, all you have to do is take a look at the news today. For crying out loud, they really want us to believe that Paul Manafort met with Julian Assange three times before WikiLeaks published the Podesta emails?”

He said if that story was true, Obama and his buddies would have known back when they “were spying on the Trump campaign.”

Then there’s the claim from Mueller that Manafort lied.

“I don’t think Manafort’s been lying about anything. What Manafort’s refusing to do is to compose evidence, make it up!” he said.

Limbaugh said: “All of this is a political trap. This is not about the execution of justice. It’s not about law and order. It’s not about trying to get to the bottom of what happened in the 2016 election. It’s about trying to overturn it. And short of being able to do that, it’s about discrediting the winner.”

Limbaugh: The real reason for Manafort headlines

So what’s with Russia?

When it appeared to Moscow that Secretary Clinton was likely to win the election, the Russian influence campaign then focused on undermining her expected presidency.

We also assess Putin and the Russian Government aspired to help President-elect Trump’s election chances when possible by discrediting Secretary Clinton and publicly contrasting her unfavorably to him.

Russia’s Influence Campaign Targeting the 2016 US Presidential Election

I will stipulate that many world leaders had it in for Hillary. She was a major screw-up as Secretary of State. She helped to destabilize many regions of the world and many people died as a result of her (and President Obama’s) incompetency.

Only after the U.S. media began blaming Russia for the Democrat email dump did Vladimir Putin fan the flames of Russian conspiracy.

In early September, Putin said publicly it was important the DNC data was exposed to WikiLeaks, calling the search for the source of the leaks a distraction and denying Russian “state-level” involvement.

Last time I checked, Rahm Emmanuel was still saying “You never let a serious crisis go to waste”. So why should Putin?

Rahm Emanuel

Putin was a bigshot in the KGB. If he was up to no good, he certainly wouldn’t have his fingerprints on the operation. Heck, look what Willie Brown was able to do in California for many years. Nothing ever was traced to him even when you knew he was behind it. Willie is a poser next to Putin.

Also of note, in the government report quoted above, the National Security Agency—the folks in the best position to know what is going on in other countries because they are the only part of the government that listens—were the most skeptical of the Russia tampering narrative put forth by the CIA and FBI.

I think the hole analogy works best.

We often hear that the first rule of holes is to stop digging. However, the first rule of holes when your enemy is digging is to offer to hold his coat and tell him what a great job he is doing.

I think Putin was performing the second. He was encouraging his enemies to double-down on stupid behavior.

I still maintain that all you have to do to hurt Hillary Clinton is tell the truth about her.

As I’ve stated before, China gets a pass on election tampering because they give millions of dollars to Democrats. China’s election tampering and spying on the United States is so well documented that nobody seems to care as long as our cell phones keep letting us play Candy Crush and watch cute videos.

Anyway, Mueller is out of ammo and the last few days have proven that conclusively.

I hope Trump or one of his appointees put this witch hunt down once and for all.

Obama Motors Kills Electric Car

General Motors announced that it is terminating 15 percent of its workforce. That is just over 14,000 jobs.

The cuts will eliminate more than 14,000 jobs in all, roughly 8,100 white collar positions and more than 6,000 factory jobs, according to the company.

GM to halt production at several plants, cut more than 14,000 jobs

I can’t recall the last time I saw more white collar jobs cut than blue collar. Per the above article, GM is also closing several production facilities. Hardest hit at Michigan, Ohio, and Toronto, Canada.

The Detroit automaker said plants in Ohio, Michigan, Maryland, and Ontario will be “unallocated” in 2019 and it will cease operations at two additional plants outside of North America by the end of next year. It will also wind down operations at propulsion plants in White Marsh, Maryland, and Warren, Michigan.

GM is expecting the move to save the company 6 billion per year starting in 2020. Speaking of the blue collar jobs:

More than 6,200 jobs are at stake: roughly 1,500 in Hamtramck; 1,600 in Lordstown; about 2,500 in Oshawa; and a total of 645 at transmission plants in Warren in suburban Detroit and near Baltimore.

The Hamtramck plant makes the Chevrolet Volt and Impala, the Cadillac CT6 and the Buick LaCrosse. Those vehicles and other cars made at the targeted facilities will be terminated.

General Motors to close Detroit, Ohio, Canada plants

President Obama visits Volt manufacturing plant

This brings us to the most sarcastic article on the subject.

Six years ago, President Barack Obama promised to buy a Chevy Volt after his presidency.

“I got to get inside a brand-new Chevy Volt fresh off the line,” Obama announced to a cheering crowd of United Auto Workers activists. “Even though Secret Service wouldn’t let me drive it. But I liked sitting in it. It was nice. I’ll bet it drives real good. And five years from now when I’m not president anymore, I’ll buy one and drive it myself.”

Now it looks like Obama will not get his chance to make good on the promise. General Motors announced Monday that it would cease production of the hybrid electric plug-in Volt and its gas-powered sister car the Cruze. The announcement came as part of a larger restructuring by the car company as it seeks to focus production around the bigger vehicles in favor with U.S. consumers.

The Volt and the Cruze were two of the signature achievements of the partnership between the Obama administration and General Motors following the auto-industry bailout. Although the Volt was long-planned by GM executives, it received a lot of support from the administration. Obama described the Cruze as “the car of the future.”

Watch: Six Years Ago Obama Promised to Buy a Chevy Volt. Now It Is Dead

 

President Trump and the United Auto Workers are on the same page about this announcement. Per CNBC:

“This callous decision by GM to reduce or cease operations in American plants, while opening or increasing production in Mexico and China plants for sales to American consumers, is, in its implementation, profoundly damaging to our American workforce,” said Terry Dittes, a UAW vice president who leads negotiations with GM.

The Detroit Free Press reports:

President Donald Trump, who made keeping manufacturing jobs in the U.S. a major campaign point and promised Lordstown workers that their jobs were safe, was disappointed in the announcement.

“We don’t like it,” Trump said.

He said that he was “very tough” with Barra.

“I spoke with her when I heard they were closing,” Trump said in response to a reporter’s question specifically about the Lordstown closure. “And I said, ‘You know, this country has done a lot for General Motors. You better get back in there soon. That’s Ohio, and you better get back in there soon.’ “

This move by GM does not bode well for Elon Musk and Tesla. General Motors decision to short-circuit production of the Volt insures that the federal government will not by subsidizing production and purchase of electric or alternative energy vehicles anytime soon. A corollary with this is that government subsidy of charging stations and electric car infrastructure is gone also.

Conclusion: the free market wins and utopian Liberals lose. Government arbitrarily picking winners and losers in the market place will get trumped by consumer choice every time.

When They Come for Your Children

Keith Green wrote a song many years ago (1978) Asleep in the Light. The song is an indictment of the Church, particularly in America:

The world is sleeping in the dark,

That the church just can’t fight,

’cause it’s asleep in the light!

How can you be so dead?!

When you’ve been so well fed

Jesus rose from the grave,

And you!

You can’t even get out of bed!

If there’s one thing that I have seen over-and-over in my lifetime, it’s that Christian people don’t care about the world around them as long as they are left alone. Like kicking the proverbial bee’s nest or waking the sleeping giant, occasionally those assaulting Christians get too bold and rouse folks from their pews just long enough to have them push back…for a while anyways.

You can go back to Moral Majority, Christian Coalition, Tea Party, Gary Bowers, Patrick J Buchannan, Glenn Beck, Mike Huckabee, opposition to Common Core, and others. People will band together for a short period of time and then unilaterally surrender and go back to their lives of isolation. Back to their Christian Ghettos.

30 years ago, I was a member of Capital Christian Center in Sacramento. At this church of 6,000 folks, I got a copy of the Christian Yellow Pages. In it I learned that I could live practically my whole existence without ever having to interact with a pagan. We had the Christian car dealer, the Christian pizza parlor, Christian haircut place, Christian grocery store, Christian real estate, etc. The only folks missing from this book were the public utilities.

Steve Taylor pokes fun at this notion in his song, Guilty by Association (1984)

So you need a new car? let your fingers take a walk

through the business guide for the “born again” flock

you’ll be keeping all your money in the kingdom now

and you’ll only drink milk from a Christian cow

don’t you go casting your bread to keep the heathen well-fed

line Christian pockets instead–avoid temptation

guilty by association

(Please note: the Christian cow mentioned above is not Chick-fil-A)

So why am I dredging up this stuff today? Because of the super-secret meeting tonight in Elk Grove. Those of you that need to know were told via the grapevine.

Update 11/27/2018
Super Secret Meeting is now 12/10/2018 @ 7 PM
Lifepointe Church, 10291 E. Stockton Blvd. 95624

The topic tonight is how to combat the new curriculum in the Elk Grove School District that promotes homosexuality in elementary schools. This exercise at tilting at windmills is brought to you by at least one local church and the Pacific Justice Institute.

While I agree that imposing San Francisco values on the rest of California is terrible, the truth is this ship sailed about a decade ago thanks to such luminaries as Mark Leno and Leland Yee. Where were you then?

Folks you had a few school board candidates two years ago that would have agreed with you on this issue but where were you then? The guys in your corner lost decisively.

How many people at tonight’s meeting voted a straight Democrat ticket three weeks ago? Two years ago? Ten years ago? Oh, truth is they probably didn’t even vote.

The truth is that these guys aren’t serious about anything except being left alone.

How many at tonight’s meeting will blame Common Core for this addition to the social studies curriculum? FYI it’s not, I had two different teachers look it up on the official Common Core website. This requirement is a Legislative amendment to the education code that was approved by the governor.

Folks you have my sympathy for the meeting tonight,
But only if your goal is to shine your light.

What Happened in CA on Election Night?

I came across an editorial in the Orange County Register newspaper Saturday, it was written by a Republican strategist (whatever the hell is that?) and proclaimed that the Party in California isn’t dead, they just need to change their messaging.  It spoke about how John Cox picked up more than 500k votes than the Republican congressional candidates statewide!  The editorial was kind of much ado about nothing, made claims about how the tax cuts didn’t help anyone, etc.  I’m going to give my take on what happened and the steps to take to rebuild the Party.

The Party is dead.  This is due to many reasons, but generally due to the consultants and upper political elites who run the Party.

This rung true under Ron Nehring, who used the GOP job as a reason to take multiple trips to Australia??? Thomas Del Beccaro who used the GOP job as a personal dating service, and current chair, former State Senator Jim Brulte, who is basically just a graveyard caretaker, we will have a new chair in January.  While none of these three are directly involved in the loss of several House, Assembly, and State Senate seats, nevertheless, they are the chairmen, the Party’s decline falls on them.

I blame the consultants on many levels, first being that they essentially territorialized the Party.  Meaning they have a candidate for Congress, maybe a candidate for a State Senate seat, but they care very little after that.  This is very apparent in far northern CA, think Chico, Redding, Roseville, and Rocklin areas, the central valley area, and in Orange and San Diego areas.  These consultants have also become very adept at protecting their own, want to run against one of their people?  Prepare to be carpet bombed.

I witnessed this personally by a central valley/bay area based consultant. I was at a fundraiser for a candidate for Assembly in San Ramon. At this event, the consultant walked up to a rumored future candidate and told them he would personally see to it they are defeated for re-election to the seat they were running for as a result of thinking about running!  This person was a Republican, essentially being told, screw off.  Want to run against a Democrat in a safe seat?  You will get no money and no support from the Party apparatus.  Keep in mind, the Party leadership largely signs off on this.

Our candidates didn’t understand the political climate.  We have a very unpopular president in this state at the top of the ticket, our governor nominee was largely running a “I know I’m going to lose but I want to make the Democrats spend money campaign”….I don’t fault him for our struggles.  No offense to Mr. Cox, but it was a bloodbath in the statewide races and the trickle down was brutal.  Diane Harkey and Jeff Denham never took their races seriously post primary. In the case of Denham, I don’t think he took it seriously at all.  I think these seats are lost for good.  Dana Rohrabacher was a weird incumbent and made enough weird comments to doom his re-election, I think we win can back this seat in 2 years.  Steve Knight and Mimi Walters seats are harder to predict. I think we could win them back but they may well be lost for good in 2022 after redistricting.  The seat Young Kim ran for is tougher to read; however, I think it’s gone. There was a strange ethnic twist here being it was an Asian American against a Hispanic American.  I think its likely toast after redistricting.

The bloodshed continued in the State Assembly and Senate.  We even lost seats that we should have won handily!  In my opinion our incumbents suffer from what I call Dan Lungren syndrome.  Lungren worked hard to get elected, then stopped working the district and as a result faced a very close election in 2008, he lost in 2012.  He fell victim to the thought “I have been elected so many times how could I possibly lose?”

Now back to the consultants and these seats we lost, who do we run in 2 years?  That is a question that cannot be answered. We have no bench in many of these areas.  In reality, you could argue the Democrats have better future candidates then we do.  This speaks to the fact that consultants have essentially locked out other Republicans from seeking elected office in “their territories” as they wanted to keep their own brand.

Now how I would fix the Party in California, keep in mind this will take about a decade or so.  Here are some ideas.

Republicans need a full-time chair and a full-time professional staff.

We need to seek out fresh thinkers and new ideas, not settle for a journeyman or a newbie looking to hop from one job to the next.   Mark Standriff did this years ago. He was press secretary, spoke to a local group of Republicans about how we are doing great things and he was so happy to be a part of it…he took a job the following day in Fresno.

Break up the consultant good old boy network. They never bought a franchise, so why do they have territorial rights?

Work closely with local GOP groups. This should go without saying, but it’s funny how most of these groups don’t even communicate with each other.

Have a slate card that involves ALL GOP Candidates running in the election. The Democrats do this why don’t we?  Their campaigns coordinate….so why don’t we?

We need a platform stating our policy positions on everything, this should be done ASAP.  We also need to enforce the platform so candidates don’t agree with it when campaigning and sell us out once they get to Sacramento or Washington.

Also, how come we don’t play in every race?  We have essentially become a regional Party; playing in rural northern CA, some parts of the valley, Orange County and surrounding areas, and parts of San Diego.  When I say play everywhere, obviously we won’t be winning anytime soon, but in most of those other area’s people refuse to vote for us because they have never heard our message.  Work the area, put a token candidate up and see what happens, maybe after several election cycles we could make inroads.  This is how Donald Trump won, he wasn’t afraid of the inner city.

We need to partner with every small Party in the state to overturn the top 2 primary!  This is a no brainer, the other parties are just as jilted as us, take this to the Supreme Court if need be.  This likely nets us a gain of about 6-8 seats in various districts.

Challenge the citizens redistricting in court as well, this is a sham!  I would argue just like the Pennsylvania Democrats did, how come the GOP gets 40% of the vote, yet we have just 20% representation, and have judges draw a new map.  This could net 10 new seats.

Just my $.02

When is it Voter Fraud?

We all know that whenever necessary, Democrats will cheat at the ballot box. This is nothing new. You can go back to the 1960 Presidential race between Nixon and Kennedy. Nixon was winning until the dead vote in Chicago came in and stole Illinois from Nixon.

As the years have gone by, the election results have grown more and more ridiculous. Democrats manufacture voters out of thin air each and every election. It’s how they roll. In the last Presidential race some counties had more votes cast than adults living in them. Often precincts will have over 130 percent voter turnout. This is not unusual; especially in Liberal strongholds. Please note that this phenomenon doesn’t happen in Republican areas. Earlier this month, Broward County in Florida has 200,000 more votes cast than registered voters. Despite this fraud, Republicans still won the US Senate seat and Florida Governor’s race.

Now this out of Orange County California; how is it that the Republican candidate for Governor John Cox won the county but every congressional seat went to Democrats?

While the county went for Republican John Cox over Democrat Gavin Newsom in the governor’s race, all six House districts were won by the Democratic candidate, points out the Gateway Pundit’s Jim Hoft.

In 2016, the Republicans won four of those races.

Hoft believes voter fraud could be an explanation for the split-ticket voting.

He points out that 299,931 more Democrats voted for the Democrats in the Orange County congressional races than voted for Newsom for governor.

Hoft cites a reader who argues Cox “ran a horrible campaign and was virtually invisible.”

“I find it hard to believe that voters would split the ticket — voting R for an unknown guy Governor and D for a super liberal congressperson,” the reader wrote. “Just seems like a BIG red flag.”

Orange County vote count suggests fraud

At the same time voter fraud is rampant, I find it curious that there is only one acknowledged instance in California. Back in September, the Los Angeles Times ran a story about voter fraud on skid row.

A dollar goes a long way on skid row, Los Angeles Police Capt. Marc Reina said.

So investigators were not completely surprised to find homeless people there taking $1, food or cigarettes to forge signatures of registered voters on petitions to qualify initiatives for the ballot, police said.

Now, an LAPD crackdown this year on suspected election fraud on skid row has yielded eight felony arrests, including three last week, booking records show.

LAPD cracks down on use of homeless people for ballot initiative fraud on skid row

Fox News ran a follow-up story yesterday because the wheels of justice have begun to turn in the case which stems back to May.

The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office says it is charging nine people in total with felony counts related to the offenses, which are said to have happened during the 2016 and 2018 election cycles.

The charges, it added, include “circulating a petition with false names; use of false names on a petition; voter fraud, registering a fictitious person; and voter fraud, registering a nonexistent person.”

Some of the nine charged were identified as Kirkland Kauzava Washington, Harold Bennett, and Louis Thomas Wise – who are each facing eight counts. The others: Richard Howard, Rose Makeda Sweeney, Christopher Joseph Williams, Jakara Fati Mardis, Norman Hall and Nickey Demelvin Huntley, are each facing four counts. Their ages range from 28 to 62, and each could end up having to serve a maximum of around five to six years in prison if convicted.

Skid Row voter fraud: Prosecutors say homeless offered cash, cigarettes in exchange for hundreds of signatures

I guess that now that the elections are over, they can prosecute the token offenders.

The Times story provides more details:

In May, Christine Hooks, a signature gatherer, set up a card table at 6th and San Julian streets, Joseph said, and opened for business at 5:50 a.m., when homeless people were breaking down their tents and likely to be the only ones around.

Hooks, 30, who police said was homeless, allegedly told them she had downloaded voter registration lists off the internet, Joseph said. The lists were of people from Orange and San Diego counties and Monrovia, Joseph said.

People hired to get initiatives on the ballot are often paid by signature, typically $1 to $2, although a recent glut of proposed ballot initiatives has pushed the rate as high as $6 a signature, officials said.

But they can’t pay people for signatures, and having them forge signatures off registered voters lists is an obvious violation.

“It’s not really voter fraud, in terms of illegal voting and manipulation,” Logan said. “But I am certainly concerned about any activity that causes voters to lose faith in the process.”

Why are the only folks getting singled out for fraud the homeless? Since no photos of these guys exist, it is a safe bet that they are probably black. Lest you think I’m racist, to the contrary, I’m accusing these folks of racism since as we learned with the BOE fiasco, only the black Democrat gets thrown under the bus by fellow Dems.

If you go back to the original reports of these arrests in May, the NBC Los Angeles story concludes with this killer quote from local election officials, “This is the first voting fraud arrest that they can remember, ever”.

Low Level Charges Filed in Skid Row Voter Fraud Case

Please note this is the only arrest, ever. Really, in all of Los Angeles County? This claim was made in 2018 despite the fact of such well known cases of fraud as this back in 2016:

The Los Angeles County Registrar is investigating how 83 ballots were sent to a single address at a San Pedro apartment.

The unused ballots were found on Saturday by tenant Jerry Mosna, sitting on top of the mailbox center at his apartment building in San Pedro.

The ballots were all addressed to a two bedroom apartment upstairs from Mosna’s, belonging to an 89-year-old woman.

All of the names on the ballots were different, and Mosna did not recognize the names on the ballot envelopes.

More Than 80 Ballots Mailed to San Pedro Apartment

To faithful readers, if you are getting the vibe that this particular prosecution is not a coincidence then congratulations. This arrest and prosecution are remarkably similar to the campaign model used to abolish the Board of Equalization 18 months ago. The “tell” is buried in the LA Times article quoted above which happens to mention this gem:

Jerry Brown this month vetoed a bill banning per-signature payment for petition circulators, saying the law could enhance ballot control by “the wealthiest interests.”

FYI: Brown vetoed this is bill (AB1947) in September 2018.

 

See if this outline looks familiar:

1.    Bills are introduced in both the Senate and Assembly. In this case, to abolish paid signature gathering

2.    A high profile event happens to highlight the problem.

3.    Politicians pile-on decrying the ill addressed by the bill.

4.    As a result of the campaign, bill successfully navigates both chambers of the Legislature.

5.    Governor decides fate of this crucial bill.

If you compare the timeline of the bill’s travel through the legislature with the timing of the original arrests, it dovetails rather nicely. Both AB 1947 and its companion bill SB 1394 were voted out of their committees and sent to the opposite chamber within days of the initial news reports of fraudulent signature gathering.

Despite the veto, there’s no doubt that this bill will be back again next session with a new Governor ready to “do the right thing” by signing.

 

The interesting corollary to this story of voter fraud that isn’t voter fraud is that government can point to this single instance as proof they are doing something. Thus the status quo is preserved and symbolism over substance wins again.

Conclusion: voter fraud is the purview of the establishment. All others beware!

Jimmy Carter Effect

In 1980, the presidential contest between Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan was called by the “Big Three” networks at 5 PM Pacific Time, three hours before the polls closed on the Left Coast. This resulted in many unexpected Republican victories in the western United States because Democrats had no reason to go to the polls and thus their down-ticket candidates got skunked.

As a result, the networks promised never again to call the election until polls close in the Continental US. Well not until this year anyway.

I find it curious that when the media called the House of Representatives going to the Democrats before 4 PM on Election Day, when the online results were showing the Democrats up only two seats, nobody complained about the resulting voter suppression in the Western States. The closeness of the Arizona and Montana Senate races prove that the outcomes were affected by this proclamation as were many House seats here on the Left Coast.

Again, since Democrats benefitted and this is the natural order of things in the media, nobody complained.

Dems Might Unfriend Facebook

The media doesn’t think they are biased. They are Democrats in their thinking regardless of their voter registration. When something benefits or advances the Democrat agenda that is not remarkable to them, it is “normal”. Anything that goes contrary is concerning and perhaps newsworthy.

 Yesterday, The Wall Street Journal published a shocking news article that Facebook and “big tech” might not be the friends Democrats thought after all. The article has lots of pop-culture mythology in it that illustrates that many still bitterly cling to the Russia interference myth created by Hillary Clinton’s campaign and Facebook accidentally helped Republicans in 2016. Please note that Facebook helping Democrats in 2008, 2012, 2016 is not newsworthy because that is what is expected of them thus “normal” behavior.  The article quotes many leading Democrats—mostly Senators where they are the minority—decrying that “big tech” may need regulation. The author shockingly concludes that Facebook, Google, et al are just corporations and not the friends that Democrats thought after all.

 Sadly, the WSJ article is buried behind their pay firewall

Movie Recommendation: Ragamuffin

I found an obscure gem on Amazon that you can stream this weekend while you are hiding out from the smoke. (FYI I will be outside mowing the lawn and walking the dog because I already saw this movie and refuse to wear a face mask.) If you search for the title on Amazon, you will find two movies about the same person, one is a documentary that is free and the other is the movie that I’m writing about today.

This movie, Ragamuffin, is a dramatic portrayal of Christian singer/song writer Rich Mullins. It stars Michael Koch as Rich Mullins. It costs money to rent the movie (about $4) but is well worth it.

A lover of Jesus and a rebel in the church, Rich refused to let his struggles with his own darkness tear him away from a God he was determined to love. As he struggled with success in Nashville and depression in Wichita, Rich desired most of all to live a life of honest and reckless faith amidst a culture of religion and conformity.

IMDB: Ragamuffin

Rich Mullins

The descriptions of the movie found on the internet are not really on point with one part of the story, Mullins did develop a relationship with a Navajo Indian reservation but contrary to the reviews, did not quit the rest of the world to go live with the Navajos.

The movie is about how Mullins faced his demons head-on and challenged others in the church to honestly live their faith.

This movie can be compared and contrasted with  I Can Only Imagine

Both movies are about Christian musicians/song writers that wrote breakout hits, both feature dramatic portrayals of Amy Grant who’s shadow looms large over both men’s stories, and both men had problems as adults due to broken relationships with their fathers. The similarities end there.

Mullins was a broken soul that was deeply flawed and knew it. Instead of anger at God, he tenaciously cling to his faith. Many will be offended that this guy claimed to be a Christian in good standing. He chain smoked, is alcoholic, and often refused to obey authority figures in his life. Mullins followed the beat of a different drummer as only an artist or genius would. Mullins reminds me of King David in the Old Testament; a deeply flawed individual that God calls “a man after his own heart”.

Mullins once described his faith like this:

Christianity is not about building an absolutely secure little niche in the world where you can live with your perfect little wife and your perfect little children in a beautiful little house where you have no gays or minority groups anywhere near you. Christianity is about learning to love like Jesus loved and Jesus loved the poor and Jesus loved the broken-hearted.

Wikipedia: Rich_Mullins

Mullins was influenced by Brennan Manning. Manning wrote The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out.

Brennan Manning wrote The Ragamuffin Gospel “for the bedraggled, beat-up, and burnt-out,” the marginalized folks to whom Jesus ministered: the children, the ill, the tax collectors, the women. In other words, the ragamuffins. Manning understands better than most that behind our facades of order and self-assurance are inadequacies that can find healing only in Jesus. While the powerful and religious elite challenged him, Jesus embraced and healed and fed the needs of the ragamuffins. Jesus delivered love, healing, and, most of all, grace.

Grace is defined as “the freely given and unmerited favor and love of God.” But, as Manning points out, we have “twisted the gospel of grace into religious bondage and distorted the image of God into an eternal, small-minded bookkeeper.” In reality, God offers us grace immeasurable. Brennan Manning gently encourages us to embrace that grace in the face of our greatest needs. And Manning certainly knows whereof he speaks, having taken a journey from priesthood and academic achievement through a collapse into alcoholism. Manning came face to face with his need, finally abandoning himself to grace. And he invites us now to join him in a life of grace.

The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out.

The other thing that I really appreciate about this movie is that the music is not lip-synced. The guy playing Mullins, Michael Koch, is actually singing Mullin’s songs. I can’t tell you how rare that is in any movie.

This movie is about a real person with real problems, many of which you’ve experienced or know someone who has. It is about a real relationship with God not something you do once a week so you can live how you will the rest of the week.

God loves you as you are right now. If you have trouble believing this or wish you could, I encourage you to spend two hours watching this movie. In the final analysis, we are all ragamuffins needing God’s grace.

Paradise Fire

Camp Fire map November 16, 2018

It’s a week since Paradise was Lost. I wanted to recap on what we think we know thus far and what’s next.

In a nutshell this is it:

At about 6:15 AM last Thursday (November 8th), Pacific Gas and Electric electrical sensors reported a fault in a line near Camp Road. At 6:33, a fire was reported in the area of this fault.

Thursday morning at 6:43 a.m., Butte County firefighters called dispatch after seeing flames across the Feather River from Poe Dam.

“It is on the west side of the river, underneath the transmission lines,” the firefighter went on to say. “Probably about 35 mph sustained wind on it.”

CBS13 obtained a report that PG&E made from the California Public Utilities Commission. It described an incident at 6:15 a.m., 28 minutes before that call from firefighters. It read: “PG&E experienced an outage on the Caribou-Palermo 115 kV Transmission line in Butte County.”

CalFire records show the Camp Fire started at 6:33 a.m., just 18 minutes later.

PG&E Could Be to Blame For Sparking Camp Fire In Butte County

 

Whether the fire caused the fault in the electric line or the line caused the fire will be determined first by investigators and secondly in some as yet to be filed lawsuit on behalf of victims.

It was a windy day. The wind was blowing from the mountains into the valley. Before noon that day, the city of Paradise—population about 28,000 souls—and the surrounding area were burned to a crisp. By sunset, 70,000 acres had burned.

The lands to the west of Highway 99 are agricultural and thus a natural barrier to further spread of the fire in that direction. Much of the area is used for rice production. Maintained lands have less fuel available to be burned. Also, the growing season is over and fields are traditionally plowed and left fallow during the winter months.

As of this writing, 142,000 acres have burned, 63 people are confirmed dead and over 600 are listed as missing. Most of the missing are elderly and were likely indoors going thru their regular routine when the fire struck their homes. They were not warned in time or unable to escape the flames.

Authorities searching through the blackened aftermath of California’s deadliest wildfire have released the names of about 100 people who are still missing, including many in their 80s and 90s, and dozens more could still be unaccounted for.

List Of Missing In Camp Fire Includes Many In Their 80s And 90s

For readers not familiar with this area, this part of northern California is rural and poor. Unemployment is chronically high. There once was a thriving timber industry in this area but it was run out of the area decades ago. Now, government is the only employer offering middleclass wages to most folks in this area. Paradise was the type of place folks could go to get more for their money in terms of housing. You could get a place with a view or at least some pine or oak trees on your property. Chances are that a house there had no sidewalks and is on a septic system not connected to a city sewer. Many driveways are gravel not paved. The pace of life is slower than the big city and folks like it that way.

The rural lifestyle is part of the reason for the loss of life. Another is that communication with citizens is more difficult in today’s society. We get our information from a varied and decentralized network of sources.

In the wake of the political season, how many of you would answer a phone call from a number that you don’t recognize? If the sheriff’s office called me with a warning, I’d probably let it go to voicemail. We all know telemarketers can spoof the name and number of the call so caller I.D. has limited effectiveness. Plus old folks might not answer the phone because they didn’t hear it ring.

Anything short of a welfare check on your neighbor had limited effectiveness. Many people were heading to work or school when the fire struck Paradise. People didn’t know who was home and who was not. Often they didn’t have time to check on their neighbors. Often they grabbed the car keys and left with nothing.

Today, the south and east sides of the fire continue to burn. The area near Highway 70 and Oroville Lake is inaccessible and contains lots of fuel so it will be a while before this part gets firm fire lines.

 

Let’s talk about rebuilding.

·         Roads must be cleared and burned structures must be removed and disposed somewhere.

·         Land must then be surveyed to mark property boundaries.

·         Basic infrastructure—power, water, and sewer—must be restored before structures can be rebuilt. Concurrently, communication is also necessary whether that be cellular or land lines.

·         FEMA, CalOES, and insurance companies must get all their paperwork organized so money will be available to rebuild.

·         State, county, and local officials need to find a way to fast-track permits for all this to happen and of course winter is coming.

 

Unless you opt for a mobile home, you are probably a year or more away from occupying a rebuilt house. Even with insurance, who can afford a year in temporary housing waiting to get their life back?

I know people that have lost everything short of their lives in the fire and others that were evacuated and still don’t know if they have a place to return to when they are able.

I have more to say on this tragedy but I will refrain until a later date. Meanwhile my heart goes out to those suffering loss. Let the smoke be a reminder that whatever inconvenience you think it is causing, it’s nothing compared to what people in Butte County are experiencing now.