Politics – Page 45 – Really Right

Elk Grove Councilman Steve Detrick Wades Halfcocked into Charlottesville

I have been trying to avoid commenting on the series of protests in Charlottesville, San Francisco, Berkeley and other places but after seeing the Facebook post (below) by Elk Grove City Council Member Steve Detrick I finally decided to jump into this issue. Why? Was I afraid to touch the third-rail of race in post Obama America? No.

In my view, the correct political view of this is that it is an internal struggle amongst Democrats. White supremacy, the KKK, eugenics, and the Confederate statues are all classic institutions of the Democrat Party. These forefathers of the modern Democrat Party are the guys that laid the foundation that gave us “the New Deal” but they have fallen out of favor with the younger generation. Why? Because the youth of America think all these shameful sins of our nation were caused by Republicans. That’s not history, its history revisionism on display. Republicans freed the slaves and were instrumental in passing the 1964 voting rights act but Democrats took the credit. Oh, don’t forget Internment, we got that from Democrats too. I won’t say there weren’t some Republicans involved in these “national sins” but the core leaders were devout believers in the Democrat way. See Dinesh D’Souza’s Hillary’s America

Enter Steve Detrick. I know Steve was trying to say what he thinks people want to hear but frankly its nonsense. First here is the statement in its entirety.

Vice Mayor Steven M Detrick’s personal statement in the days since the ugly and tragic events in Charlottesville.

In the days since the ugly and tragic events in Charlottesville, leaders from around the country and across the political spectrum have come together in denouncing the hate and violence of the Nazi, KKK, Confederate and white supremacist movements. We must do more than just mourn the death of Heather Heyer. Here in Elk Grove, we make it clear that those that espouse violence and genocide against African Americans, Muslims, Sikhs, Latinos, Asians, the Jewish community, LGBTQ or any other community are not welcome in our city nor anywhere in our nation.

President Trump spoke about Charlottesville, saying that some of the bigoted marchers were ‘fine people’ along with other equivocal comments. His words have been used by racist terror groups to show that they have support across the country. I say without hesitation that President Trump was wrong in giving safe harbor to bigots. He should have said clearly that marching on the side of the Nazi, KKK, Confederates and white supremacists is a despicable act intended to terrorize communities. Never let it be said that the people of Elk Grove remained silent against hate.

Steven M. Detrick
Vice Mayor
City of Elk Grove, CA

First off, Detrick denounces only one side of this protest. Sorry, but this isn’t my first experience with protests and activism. I would be willing to bet him the standard Tom Sullivan wager—a meal at a local fast food drive-thru of his choice—that the white supremacist folks were outnumbered at least twenty to one. Their opposition included Black Lives Matter and other likeminded folks. These guys are every bit as racist and full of hate as the KKK and in my mind bigger hypocrites because they don’t have a problem with the genocide of black children perpetuated by Planned Parenthood and their fellow travelers in the modern eugenics movement. So really, only some black lives matter (theirs), not all lives.

This brings me to Detrick’s criticism of President Trump. “President Trump spoke about Charlottesville, saying that some of the bigoted marchers were ‘fine people’ along with other equivocal comments.”

Steve, there are racists in both groups of protesters.

Also, in the mix, likely on the side of the BLM folks were regular people—probably from local colleges and the like that also were protesting against the KKK. These were Trump’s “fine people”. They were dupes or mislead as to the purpose of the rally. Rank-and–file Democrats—if you wish. Trump got plenty of Democrat votes and regardless of their registration, he views them as “fine people”.

On the right, the police’s “wait-and-see” approach was perceived as a conspiracy: Cops allowed violence to break out so they would have an excuse to shut down the rally. That claim was bolstered by Virginia’s ACLU chapter, which tweeted that the police stood “passively by, seemingly waiting for violence to take place, so that they’d have grounds to declare ‘unlawful assembly.’”

White supremacists are casting themselves as police victims in the wake of Charlottesville

The organizer of the so-called white supremacists was a democrat activist that up until the November election was an Obama supporter and advocate for nationalized healthcare.
Report: Charlottesville Racist Leader Was Former Occupy Activist, Obama Supporter

This whole thing was a setup and everyone did their part as scripted. Including some dumb hick being provoked into harming others.

This is the same playbook as Occupy Wall Street and every other protest. Quit following the narrative that the media focuses upon and follow the money. This is the Liberal Establishment’s campaign to cause disruption to sway public opinion against their enemies—which happen to include the President and the weak-kneed Republicans in Congress. Liberals have lost momentum and hope in moving their agenda legislatively so they are literally taking it to the streets. This is their temper tantrum for losing in November. It’s the same rent-a-mob with new lipstick. This has been part of their stock playbook for decades.

Detrick has been fooled by the media narrative and is accepting it as true. Given that, he is lost.

He also states: “Here in Elk Grove, we make it clear that those that espouse violence and genocide against African Americans, Muslims, Sikhs, Latinos, Asians, the Jewish community, LGBTQ or any other community are not welcome in our city nor anywhere in our nation.”

Steve where are you when the US Government, the State of California, the Muslims, and LGBTQ folks are attacking me and my family? You’re pretty damn silent about that. I know in a state where Hillary won by a landslide that there’s no upside for you defending Trump but you once claimed to be a Republican. A stand on principle instead of pragmatism would make me happier that you are representing me.

Like most people, Detrick’s analysis of this issue is like explaining why he just lost playing Three Card Monte. He’s looking at the wrong thing and thinks he’s seeing the big picture. Thankfully, others see human behavior with more clarity. John MacArthur nails the real issue here. He simultaneously explains Gen X, Gen Y, and the Snowflake crowd. His explanation has the precision of a military sniper and the Truth of what he says is so devastating that nothing can stand up to it. Plus it applies the same standard to both sides, something sorely lacking in the current discussion.

This is spiritual problem not a political one.

That’s not what’s going on there in Charlottesville or any of these other demonstrations. This is the wretched fallen human heart feeling like it can rise to any level that is not completely controlled. And let me tell you what gets you there.

Number one, the human heart is evil, war is in the heart, men will kill—that’s how they function. But God has built three restraints into society. Restraint number one is in the individual and it’s the conscience. But the conscience reacts to moral law. So if you have a whole generation of young people that have been taught a twisted perverted inverted upside down and backwards moral law, then their conscience can’t function. The conscience is simply a recognition mechanism that says that’s wrong, that’s right—that excuses and accuses. But it can only function where there’s a sound moral law written in the heart. So you have a whole generation of these people, of this generation, who have had a totally perverted sense of what morality is. And the dominant part of this new morality is, “I’m the most important person in the world, it’s all about me.” It’s the selfie culture. So conscience is now crippled.

Secondly, God put fathers and mothers in a family to bring a rod to discipline people in order to subdue their evil. If the family is destroyed and the family breaks down then you have no control over those people.

So conscience can’t function because the moral law has been literally destroyed. Families don’t function, so there is no discipline learned, there’s no sense of what is right, what is acceptable behavior. And the only institution left that God ordained was the police. Police were given a sword to subdue those who do evil. When you assault the police long enough that you diminish their authority and the sense of fear and the sense of reverence that a society has to have for those who police them, then all hell will break loose.

Conscience isn’t functioning, family is not functioning, and the police have been stripped of their powers in the social consciousness. You literally have unleashed the human heart at its worst level.

This is not about race, and this is not about what happened in America in the past. No one can tolerate white supremacists; no one can tolerate the Ku Klux Klan. …That is just one manifestation of the evil of the human heart. And we have only begun to see it once it’s unleashed. And it’s going to start coming in all kinds of forms because of the breakdown of moral law, the breakdown of the conscience, the breakdown of the family, and because of the incessant assaults on governing authorities. So get ready. I don’t think it’s going away.

Facebook Video John MacArthur on Charlottesville, Racism, and God’s Word

Transcript typed by Really Right from captions provided by GTY.

Two related links for audio on this issue are available here:
Audio #1
Audio #2

Human Beer Keg Aaron Park Wrong Again

Everyone knows I can’t stand the CRA, the CAGOP, the Tea Party, and Aaron Park; but these past two weeks Park has outdone himself. I have been watching from afar as the CAGOP has once again commenced the circular firing squad. As you may know Chadwick Mayes (I know his name is Chad, but I call him Chadwick) stepped down as Assembly Minority Leader yesterday.

By the way is anyone offended by the word “minority”? Because the way our country is going that word is going to get stripped from the job title soon.
Back on track now…

Ever since Chadwick and his six minions sold out on cap and trade, or crap and spade as I like to call it, some of the Assembly Caucus wanted to oust him as leader. Being that I don’t live in the state anymore, I have taken to reading my daily emails from Jon “Squishy GOP’er” Fleishmann and reading Aaron Park’s right-on-occasion blogsite. Fleishmann is funny because he talks all big and bold, but I’ll never forget his term as GOP chair, he was about as liberal as the Democrats under the dome in Sacramento. Fleishmann is also a Nevertrumper, so I’m just going to ignore him on this post.

But, human beer keg Aaron Park, (I call him that because of his drinking past and the size of his stomach when I last saw him), couldn’t have been more wrong at every turn.

First Park declared Jay Obernolte would be our new leader. Park is friends with Obernolte, which is a good reason to be glad that he isn’t our next minority leader. Actually as ironic as this sounds, Obernolte never even put his name into consideration; this after Park declared he was told his pal had the votes necessary to win it.

Then Park said there would be six people running for minority leader: Obernolte, Melendez, Fong, Mayes, Dahle, and Bigelow. While this is somewhat true, Melendez, Obernolte, and Bigelow never put their names into consideration. Fong never wanted the job (I know this from inside sources). He was being pushed by the anti-Munger crowd. Chadwick Mayes didn’t run for leader again, he knew his time was up. Mayes was making calls on behalf of Dahle. Dahle, pronounced Dolly, as in when the CRA loses elections they like to play with their dolly, is the new leader. Dahle is from a town called Bieber. Yeah, I cannot take him seriously, he is about as big of a joke as the new CRA or a certain pop music icon.

Assembly Republicans replace Hanging Chad with the Dolly from Bieber and report deck chairs are now in order, sir.

So Park had it wrong on who was running to replace Mayes, but his erroneous prognostication didn’t end there. He was also very wrong on who was the real conservative in the race. Park wrote up and down on his blog, calling Vince Fong a real conservative, when in fact Charles Munger poured hundreds of thousands into his election campaigns. Munger is no friend of the conservative movement but he was on speaking terms with Park last time I checked. In recent years Park has had little use for conservatives except to renounce them—at least until they write him a check. Park also claimed that Dahle was close to Mayes and would vote for his re-election as leader. So by this logic, Dahle voted for Chadwick Mayes, and a majority of the Caucus voted for him? Great logic there Aaron! Interestingly enough a few days after calling Fong “the conservative”, someone influential must have passed Park a bag of cash or Doritos because suddenly Fong was the core of all evil and Dahle became the last man on earth to save conservatism.

Here is the problem, Dahle was in favor of the cap and trade bill, he voted for it. He doesn’t sound like a conservative to me. The more I read about this Dahle character, the more I don’t feel comfortable with him. He seems to have close associations to squishy members of the Assembly. All of the cap and trade voters: Chad Mayes, Devin Mathis, Catherine Baker, Heath Flora, Jordan Cunningham, Rocky Chavez and Mark Steinnorth all voted for Dahle. Kevin Kiley—who Aaron Park seems to be hot and cold toward—also voted for Dahle (Park was ready to early endorse him for re-election last month). The conservatives: Obernolte, Melendez and a few others voted for Fong. Dahle also has a very disturbing pattern; he seems to be from the John Kerry School of Political Reasoning, voting for something and then voting against it to try to prove his conservative credentials or be on the right side of any issue half the time.

Anyways, while I sit back and watch from afar, Republicans in California you have a new leader; Brian Dahle. So now the CRA can go back to debating the good ole days of Ronald Reagan and figuring out how to make Ted Cruz president in 2020, (sadly they remained silent during this entire episode and couldn’t even find the time to issue a timely press release or resolution against the biggest Republican sell-out in California since Arnold signed the cap and trade bill.) Likewise, the Tea Party—if it even still exists—can revert to saying “NO” to everything again, and Aaron can go back to binge eating or drinking. Seriously for someone who claims insider status and is often paid handsomely for his prose, he is really wrong much of the time. Leading me to conclude Aaron Park knows a lot more about snacks then he does politics. But then again, ESPN Radio may have an opening soon for someone with his accuracy rating.

Hanging Chad Mayes

Six weeks after California Republican minority leader Chad Mayes and six other Republicans sold-out their principles and voted for an extension to Arnold Schwarzenegger ’s AB-32 Cap-and-Trade bill, Mayes is finally out as minority leader.

Six weeks after helping Democrats revamp California’s landmark climate change policy and facing a torrent of anger from conservative critics, the Republican leader of the state Assembly agreed Thursday to step down…

Rancor over Mayes’ leadership began last month, when the Yucca Valley assemblyman aligned with Democratic state lawmakers and Gov. Jerry Brown to extend the cap-and-trade program…

Mayes’ ouster was the first political consequence since the vote July 17 to extend the cap-and-trade program. Republicans are worried that others in their caucus who voted for the extension may face backlash at the polls in the next election.

Link: In first political consequence of cap-and-trade vote, C

Chad Mayes—another failed Republican Leader

had Mayes is replaced by Brian Dahle as Assembly Republican leader

Despite the objections of those in the State Party (CAGOP) loyal to Charles Munger Jr., the State Board voted to call for the ouster of Mayes last week-end.
Link: California Republicans tell Assembly GOP leader Chad Mayes to step down
The Sith Lord postulated that in addition to being stupid, Mayes vote in favor of AB-32 was hurting Republican fundraising efforts and that’s no surprise.

Mayes did survive an attempt to replace him as minority leader earlier this week and was able to defer the meeting until next week. At the time, it appeared that Mayes would likely survive the vote—especially since no clear leader was on deck to replace him; however, today he has stepped down to be replaced by Brian Dahle. Dahle reportedly called Mayes on Wednesday night and informed him that he had the thirteen votes necessary to win a vote to replace Mayes.

Meanwhile Mayes’ website still describes him as a “governing conservative”, “Republican leader”, and “…passionate about…reducing poverty through education, job creation, and economic expansion.”

Link: Assemblyman Chad Mayes

All the above claims are contradicted by his vote to extend this revenue scheme based on junk science. Taxing the poor to eliminate poverty is tyranny not compassion.

Chad Mayes is clearly cut from the same cloth as Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell. He may have had good intentions when he went to Sacramento but he was seduced by the Dark Side because he either lacked principle or never really believed what he said to get elected. Either way he is a fool and stooge.

Oh, lastly, why are the other six traitors getting a pass on their votes?

Battlestar Galactica was Right

While I didn’t like many parts of the Battlestar Galactica remake that was on television a few years ago, the pilot for the program got one detail right; namely the computers. The premise of the show was that Galactica was “old school” and since its computer systems were not integrated but isolated from each other, it was not susceptible to the computer virus that disabled the rest of the fleet.

Now hacking is being proposed as an explanation for the rash of collisions of Navy vessels. Perhaps this is legit or just an excuse for another system problem.

…the Navy will conduct a wide investigation, including a review into the possibility of “cyber intrusion or sabotage.”

Link: Is someone hacking our 7th Fleet? Navy to investigate after USS John S McCain collision

When I was in the Navy in the 1980’s, Reagan was President and our engineering systems were purposely not using solid state electronics. No transistors were allowed to be used by the protective systems of the nuclear reactors; instead we used mag amps.

Mag amps are such obscure components that my friends that earned electrical engineering degrees never heard of them. Basically mag amps are transformers with additional windings that either aid or oppose current flow. They work but require weekly calibration. They are immune to electromagnetic pulses and thus an EMP attack would not disable ship propulsion.

Now ships have Internet, satellite television, phone capability and other systems that were not available in my day. Whether these systems are integrated into ship-wide systems or isolated is something that I have no firsthand experience with but the possibility exists. Also Aegis Combat Systems have been around for decades. They allow one ship to control the weapons systems of all ships in a fleet to allow coordinated attacks. A logical extension of Aegis is allowing the remote control of a vessel by another one to position the ship for optimum attack. It is logical that such capability exists today.

If you recall, the drones that we flew in Iraq and Afghanistan were controlled from an Air Force facility in Nevada. The control signals for these flying weapons platforms were unencrypted for almost the entirety of the Bush administration. They were hackable for anybody with the right radio setup. Not until it was suspected that somebody might be trying to take them over did the government act to encrypt the control signals.

Perhaps the Navy has a similar problem; the remote control ability of their ships is unencrypted or severely out of date—Windows XP anyone? Perhaps they need to go “old school” and separate their systems so they aren’t so integrated.

Lastly, in my day we had people called look-outs and watches that were supposed to be working with the radar guys to keep us out of trouble. (We had three different and independent radar systems on our ship.) Maybe the Navy needs to get “old school’ in this area also. People work better than automation in many circumstances. The idea that two ships in the Pacific collided with merchant ships and nobody reported their proximity to the bridge prior to the collision is most disturbing of all.

Sloppy Navy

In the last few months, two reports of US Navy vessels colliding with merchant ships have been reported. Both collisions have disabled the ships and resulted in loss of life.

USS John McCain August 21, 2017
Link: Search underway for 10 sailors after USS John S. McCain collision near Singapore; ship has significant damage

USS Fitzgerald June 17, 2017
Link: Search is on for 7 missing US sailors, cause of ship collision off Japan

I spent six years in the Navy and I’m positive that this is not a coincidence. I think that much of this can be laid at the feet of Barack Obama’s cuts to the military; no, not just cuts in the budget, but his promotion of people on the basis of things not related to qualifications such as diversity and social engineering. Obama ran a lot of good people out of military service and replaced them with less qualified ones. He purposely weakened the military in moral, training, and readiness.

Lest you think this is just a Navy problem, less than two weeks ago you may have seen that Marine Corps to ground all aircraft after recent deadly incidents.

My son is currently in the Air Force and stories of cannibalizing aircraft to keep others in the air are just a way of life for them. Every time an aircraft lands there is an expectation that it needs repair before flying again. That is just how things are for them. It’s really tragic.

Folks, our military is in shambles right now. Let’s hope that President Trump can get it back on track.

Solar Eclipse Panics State Government

For those of you expecting doom’s day during Monday’s eclipse, you have company. In anticipation of the eclipse, the State of California has issued a declaration of an energy emergency and possibility of an environmental crisis.

Talk about mixed messages try these:

As a result, solar energy production is expected to drop by 6,000 megawatts. Other power sources, like hydroelectric power plants, will be ready to step in, but for three hours on Monday morning California’s electricity grid will experience an unusually rapid decline in solar generation.

…take a pledge to Do Your Thing by reducing electricity usage from 9 a.m. until 11 a.m. during The Great Solar Eclipse on August 21, 2017. This will allow California to burn fewer fossil fuels and emit fewer greenhouse gas emissions when California’s solar energy production dips during the eclipse.

—Scott Kernan, Secretary of Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation

Accompanying Kernan’s memo is a press release from the California Public Utilities Commission. The PUC has even created a website just for the eclipse (CalEclipse.Org) where we can take the pledge to save the sun.
Isn’t that what old pagan cultures believed about an eclipse?
They required a sacrifice to placate the gods and bring back the sun?
Anyway here are portions of their release.

“We have plenty of wind, geothermal, hydro, and natural gas to make sure the grid runs smoothly during the solar eclipse, but we also have a lot of Californians who want to do their California thing and step in to help replace the sun when it takes a break,” said CPUC President Michael Picker. “When we come together to do one small thing to reduce energy usage, we can have a major impact on our environment. When Californians take the pledge on CalEclipse.org, they are joining a movement of people, businesses, organizations and local governments that are taking action during the eclipse to give the sun a break by saving energy and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.”

The press release asked us to do the following:

…unplug the things that are “always on” but don’t need to be.

Before the eclipse, change at least half of your lightbulbs to LEDs:

and after the expense of buying your LED lights you are supposed to promptly turn them off.

And, of course, make sure all unnecessary lights are off during the eclipse!

Curiously missing is any mention of compact fluorescent bulbs. You know the ones that require full body hazmat containment protocol if you happen to shatter one because of all the junk inside them.

Lastly we are commanded to turn off our air conditioners even though temperatures in the affected areas will drop by as much as ten degrees.

Temperatures in those areas could tumble by as much as 10 degrees Fahrenheit (5.6 Celsius), according to Paul Walker, a meteorologist with AccuWeather Inc.

Link: Eclipse Turning Day Into Night to Send Temperatures Tumbling

Talk about junk science. So will the power grid hold or should we head to the fallout shelter?

These dumb atheists can kiss my grits if they think I’m going to do these things on Monday.

Who are the Rich?

Class warfare is a staple of the Democrat Party. They are constantly berating Republicans for being rich and claiming they are for the little guy. In my previous article I showed extensively the comments of a coworker that leans Left. He blames Republicans for being rich, greedy, and screwing the little guy. In his mind that is their only reason for existence. For people like him, “the rich” are often defined as anyone making a dollar more than you do. Envy and jealousy are biblical names for this particular sin.

After reading my blog post (08-02-2017) to my wife last night, she challenged me to research the rich and try to refute my coworker with facts.

My first thought is that followers of the Democrat Party are not persuaded by facts only emotions. However, I’m up to a challenge so I took a look at the subject.

As with everything else in our society, everything I found in my research was highly politicized to try to prove either that most rich are Republicans or most rich are Democrats. My first observations were these:
• Many “rich” play both sides of the political divide but typically lean heavily one way or another.
• The one figure that is cast in both camps depending on who you read is Oracle owner Larry Ellison.

Second, there are actually two types of “rich” in our society. In times past they were called the wealthy and the nouveau riche. For those from Rio Linda, perhaps a definition is in order before proceeding.

Nouveau riche (French: ‘new rich’) is a term, usually derogatory, to describe those whose wealth has been acquired within their own generation, rather than by familial inheritance.
Link: Definition Nouveau Riche

Before going further, let’s talk about wealth. Most people think in terms of payroll because that is how they get paid. They are more than happy to vote to tax the rich—especially here in California—but they are dupes. Yeah, they will be able to get taxes from some middle manager in Silicon Valley or aspiring actress in Hollywood but the CEO types? Never! You see, after a certain level, wealthy folks don’t get large paychecks. As a result, a 13 percent state income tax in California or a 39 percent federal income tax rate (combined tax rate of 52 %) don’t bother them. Wealthy folks have trusts, derivatives, municipal bonds, and other financial vehicles that aren’t available to folks like you or me. That’s why Warren Buffett can say that his secretary pays more in taxes than he does and get a standing ovation from the Democrat National Committee for making the comment. You see, his wealth isn’t from a payroll check—he is beyond the likes of such inefficient stuff. However, he is perfectly fine pitting the poor and middle classes against the nouveau riche ‘cause it’s no skin off his nose.

When you hear about the Forbes lists of wealth people, rest assured that you have left the lifestyle of the nouveau riche far behind. The top of the 2017 list by Forbes is dominated by Democrats even when you put Larry Ellison into R bucket. Guiding these folks are literally the best lawyers and accounting firms that money can buy.

Link: Usual suspects at the top of Forbes list of world’s richest billionaires

Beyond the Forbes list, I began to take a look at the broader group of wealthy and their political contributions and the subject was permeated with so much partisanship that it was impossible to make sense of the information. I found one list that said by grouping the rich by families that 75 percent were Republican and another list that claimed 75 percent were Democrat. Hard money, soft money, 527’s, surrogates, etc. it’s simply impossible to track it all down. Maybe the Sith Lord has time to try but the rest of us are too busy. Direct contributions are easy to identify—to a point—but after that the trail gets cold rapidly. Anybody that claims to be in full possession of the facts is blowing smoke. What you can say is that some folks on each side are more public than others about giving in certain areas be it politics or charities. We all know there are other ways of giving that keep your fingerprints off the contributions.

Additionally, since the days of Bill Clinton, money from other countries has been flowing into US politics but those receiving it find excuses not to keep track of it. We may have some idea of how much but not from where. The bottom line is if you have a will to give, there is a way that you can do so—the variable is the paper trail that you are willing to leave behind.

Clearly, Buffett and the Tech Kings are on top of the hill in terms of assets. They openly favor the Democrat brand and many of us on the Conservative side expect them to remake the party of Clinton and Obama in their image sooner rather than later. Maybe starting in 2020, stay tuned.

Talking Obamacare at Work

When you work for a government agency, you expect to find many folks on the payroll that lean to the Left. But silly me, when I saw this article on the KOVR-TV website yesterday, I thought I had found a teachable moment. Consider the following:

Anthem Blue Cross Ends Health Care Exchange Coverage in Most of California

Monthly premiums for California health insurance plans sold under Obama’s Affordable Care Act will rise by an average of 12.5 percent next year.

The 12.5 percent average increase is slightly lower than last year, when premiums rose by more than 13 percent.

OK, so that’s a 25.5 percent increase in the last two years. With a rate of inflation at or below three percent annually, such increases in healthcare are astronomical. But there’s more:

About 10 percent of people enrolled through Covered California will also be forced to look for a new plan, as Anthem Blue Cross plans to end the coverage in most of the state. State officials say Anthem will continue providing coverage only in Santa Clara County and parts of Northern California and the Central Valley.

So, in the same story, Anthem Blue Cross is exiting most of California except Santa Clara County—can you say Google, Apple, and Facebook—while the rest of the customers can look elsewhere. So 10 percent of those on Obamacare (Arnoldcare on steroids) in California just got the boot. Only those in the heart of Silicon Valley will continue to be served by Blue Cross.

The same story on the KCRA-TV website has additional details worth considering:

Consumers could lower their increase to about 3 percent if they switch to the lowest-priced plans, officials said, though that could require them to change doctors.

More proof Obama lied. Low premiums and you get to keep your doctor, yeah, right!

The article states that Covered California sells insurance to 1.4 million folks in California.

Peter Lee, executive director of Covered California, said the state shows that insurance markets are not failing. “We in California … are not just stable, but stable in a way that is truly working for consumers,” Lee said.

Talk about lipstick on a pig, this program is a mess and don’t forget that California is the most vibrant and successful of the healthcare exchanges in any state with a large population. Elsewhere premiums next year are going up by 30 percent—if any insurer even offers coverage in your area.

Top health insurance companies in numerous states are looking to hike premiums by double-digits – some by roughly 30 percent or more – for ObamaCare plans in 2018…

Insurers seeking huge premium hikes on ObamaCare plans

However, all the above is only half the equation because you still need to find a doctor willing to accept your insurance and nobody is talking about that particular problem right now. The pool of folks willing to accept the Obamacare insurance is shrinking also.

Given all this, how does a certified Liberal read these disturbing trends? Well the universe next door sees the world quite differently.

Reacting to the news of the rate hike, my Liberal coworker writes, “Great, the rich keep robbing and stealing from the poor.”

My response was:

What do “the rich” have to do with this?

Who is stealing?

These rates are with government subsidies that are supposed to make healthcare more affordable.

Also, rate increases have to be approved by Dept of Insurance which isn’t run by anybody that I voted for.

His reply:
“All of this extra money generated won’t be going to any poor people it will all be going to the rich people. The rich are stealing, when we pay more they pay less.“

My next response:

If what you say is true then how can the rich steal from poor if they aren’t engaged in commerce with them?

Trust me, if there was money to be made then Blue Cross would be insuring more folks not pulling out of markets.

You seem to think that for one guy to get rich that he must steal from someone else. This assumes that the economic pie is only so big and can never grow. This was basis of Keynesian Economics which was popular in the early part of the last century. Reality has proven that this is a defective way to view economics but it remains popular in some circles.

Wealth can in fact be created without screwing someone else. The economy can expand or contract over time, it is not static.

My friend’s next response was like an editorial from CNN:
“Insurance companies are owed and run by Billionaires and Millionaires. Yes, money is very finite….to poor people. Rich people can always get more. Yes sometimes wealth can be made without screwing people, sometimes. The AFA is a 95% Republican bill including the tax penalty which is 100% Republican idea. Of course no rich person ever paid the penalty. The Penalty was put in under the guise of if the poor people are taxed more then we (R) will support the AFC. Of course that was never the plan, no R voted for it, but the Republican penalty stayed in the bill to assure poor people pay more so the rich won’t have to.”

In my response I tried to break the above into pieces and respond. My comments were these:

• Insurance companies are also owned by retirement plans and retired people. Part of your pension is invested in such companies by CalPERS.
• All I can add is that most Wall Street traders are Democrats—look at the New York vote for Clinton and the market reaction to Trump winning. After hours trading on election night was down over 750 points on the news. Lastly, by a large majority, millionaires in Congress are members of the Democrat Party.
• No, Republicans did offer amendments, most were described as technical. It’s not their bill.

If you recall, the House Speaker told Republicans that it must be passed to know what was in it. They did try to soften some of the edges of the bill which they knew they could not kill but the bill was never fully vetted thru the committee process in Congress. However, by offering amendments, as the minority party at the time, it does allow the bill to be called bipartisan in a narrowly defined way.
• The penalty was put in to encourage young people to get coverage. It is programmed to increase each year until it gets to the point that insurance is cheaper than continuing to pay the penalty. Trump reportedly has suspended the collection of this penalty by the IRS. The whole thing is wrong so I don’t particularly care what Party you want to blame. Using the power of the State in this way is wrong regardless of who is doing it.

The bottom line is this, logic and facts don’t work with Liberals. As a group, they are economic illiterates that hang their hats on disproven ideas just because they hear something in the idea that they like regardless of how much evidence to the contrary that you can muster. In reality they are the bitter clingers to such dumb and outmoded ideas as Keynesian Economics. Many truly believe that the economy is static and the only way to get wealthy is on the backs of others. Ironically, the people like Buffett and Musk that are in their Party really behave that way so some examples can be sighted but they are the exceptions. They also believe that government creates jobs and other nonsense.

I just need to remember that their blindness is primarily spiritual and their dependence on government to solve their problems is idolatry—a worship of a false god.

Eric Cantor Admits Republicans Lied About Obamacare

If you needed proof that I’m really right then here you go.

Eric Cantor served in the House for 13 years. He was succeeded as the Republican House majority leader by Kevin McCarthy.

Remember the summer of 2013, when the “Defund Obamacare Tour” drove the news cycle all through Congress’s August recess? The town halls organized by the political arm of the Heritage Foundation enlivened the base and furthered what had been the GOP’s core message since 2010—that Obamacare was bad and, if Americans helped Republicans hold both chambers, it could be repealed.

Cantor helped create that perception. Earlier that summer—after many failed attempts over the years to shred the law piecemeal—Cantor promised colleagues that the House would vote on a “full repeal.” But even after it did, the measure was dead on arrival in the Democratic-controlled Senate…After seven years of pledging they could dismantle Obamacare, if only they had control of Congress and the White House, Republicans—at last in charge of both—have faced deep divisions over a replacement.

Asked if he feels partly responsible for their current predicament, Cantor is unequivocal. “Oh,” he says, “100 percent.”

He goes further: “To give the impression that if Republicans were in control of the House and Senate, that we could do that when Obama was still in office . . . .” His voice trails off and he shakes his head. “I never believed it.”

Yeah, here’s the proverbial “smoking gun.” Republicans never believed they could win on Obamacare. They just wanted the issue for votes. They also didn’t believe Trump could win the White House. Republicans controlling the levers of power is the Establishment’s worst nightmare.

It’s a stunning admission from a former member of the party leadership—that the linchpin of GOP electoral strategy for the better part of a decade was a fantasy…

Oh, lastly is Cantor’s advice for the current leadership is do nothing!

All it takes, Cantor will tell you, is for party leadership to do what it’s been doing—to keep quiet, hold its breath, and watch the party return from the anger detour.

The author of the story then asks the question that logically follows:

But what if he’s wrong?

“God help us,” Cantor says. “Because how does it end?”

Link: Eric Cantor: “If You’ve Got That Anger Working for You, You’re Gonna Let It Be”

McCain’s Big Week in the Spotlight

OK, I know the senior Senator from Arizona has brain cancer. My grandfather died from some flavor of brain cancer many years ago so I’m sensitive to the subject; however, to say John McCain has been erratic lately is nothing new. His behavior has been inexplicable for his entire public career. McCain has been a thorn in the side of Republicans for decades. Ironically, former Senator Barry Goldwater—the so-called arch conservative (also from Arizona)—turned out to be just as hostile to Conservatives as McCain. The only difference is Goldwater didn’t begin saying so publically until he was out of office while McCain has been at war with the Right flank of his party since at least the 1990’s.

Yeah, I just called Barry Goldwater and John McCain hostile to Conservatives—especially the religious ones. McCain has a track record of attacking his own party on a national basis with the same zeal as Charles Munger Jr. does here in California.

As many of you are being reminded right now as you watch the Obamacare farce of “repeal and replace,” often both Republicans and Democrats believe in big government; they only differ on which areas should be the largest. McCain believes firmly in one rule for himself and a different one for the rest of us. If he had the same healthcare that he wants the rest of us to be forced to have, he would be in hospice or worse yet a military cemetery.

Yesterday John McCain is marched out as the savior of the Senate as he gives Republicans enough votes—along with the tie breaking vote by the Vice-President—to allow the Senate to debate Obamacare. A few short hours later, the first amendment offered to the bill is shot-down as the motion fails 43 to 57.

This exercise in symbolism over substance taking place in the US Senate is not intended to result in any significant changes to Obama’s hallmark legislation but to paint a target on the House of Representatives as being the obstructionists in the legislative bottleneck. This political jujitsu is just a game being played-out to pass the buck (or in this case blame) to someone else. That way the Senate can enter their delayed summer recess having done their best rendition of Pontius Pilot washing his hands of this unpleasant business before him.

This is how big government really works…pass the buck to others, keep the issue to campaign on in the next cycle, and most important, don’t really fix anything. This is the real definition of legislative gridlock.

Look for Senators to give us a lot of smoke and mirrors over the next week or so and then adjourn for summer recess. The only truly bipartisan thing coming out of their chamber is a campaign to blame the House of Representatives saying that they did their job and the fate of Obamacare is in the hands of those other guys.