Really Right – Page 53 – Religion, Politics, and Culture: Explained and Defined

California Feudalism

Folks, I’m including several different articles today as well as personal observations of the ongoing collapse of the once golden state. I also want to recommend one article in particular that is worth sharing to everyone. I will give you some highlights just in case it ends up behind a pay firewall someday.

Retail Apocalypse

First, the retail apocalypse continues. January 1, 2020 saw an economic bloodbath. Especially hit hard are restaurants. Reasons are increasing regulations like AB-5 and minimum wages/benefits, rent increases, and in at least one case, I suspect failure to keep up on payroll taxes.
Here’s a partial list:

Local closures on the retail side

Dick’s Sporting Goods
Cost Plus World Market
Pier1 Imports

CA Jobs—Sorry Not Interested

Not only are jobs leaving California but one online job website based in San Francisco, is banning any employment listing after March first anywhere in the State of California.

Fast-growing Wonolo, which helps connect thousands of businesses with tens of thousands of contract workers, plans to halt its gig worker job postings for California on March 31.

It is all because of the new California state legislation known as AB-5, which went into effect Jan. 1 and requires companies to reclassify a wide category of California contract workers as employees.

“Given the limitations of AB-5, we anticipate that we may not be able to allow businesses to post jobs in California as of March 31, 2020. This means you will see significantly fewer jobs on Wonolo in California. We have not made this decision lightly but have done so in order to protect businesses from any unnecessary risks associated with the new legislation,” Wonolo co-founder and CEO Yong Kim stated in an email sent Dec. 17 to its gig workers and viewed by the San Francisco Business Times.
Thanks to Lefty Legislation, Fast-Growing San Francisco-Based Company to Exit California Market

I find it ironic that a decade ago, the best political consultants on the conservative/Republican side based in California quit working California campaigns, instead spending their time in out of state elections. Now for much the same reasons, California businesses are concentrating on out of state markets to stay alive while ignoring their own backyard. I’m sure this is just coincidence.

High-Tech Feudalism

OK, as promised here’s portions of the article that I implore you to read in its entirety. It’s long but worth it.

California Preening: The Golden State is on a path to high-tech feudalism, but there’s still time to change course

In truth, the Golden State is becoming a semi-feudal kingdom, with the nation’s widest gap between middle and upper incomes—72 percent, compared with the U.S. average of 57 percent—and its highest poverty rate. Roughly half of America’s homeless live in Los Angeles or San Francisco, which now has the highest property crime rate among major cities. California hasn’t yet become a full-scale dystopia, of course, but it’s heading in a troubling direction.

In the last two decades, the state has adopted policies that undermine the basis for middle-class growth. State energy policies, for example, have made California’s gas and electricity prices among the steepest in the country. Since 2011, electricity prices have risen five times faster than the national average. Meantime, strict land-use controls have raised housing costs to the nation’s highest, while taxes—once average, considering California’s urban scale—now exceed those of virtually every state. At the same time, California’s economy has shed industrial diversity in favor of dependence on one industry: Big Tech. Just a decade before, the state’s largest firms included those in the aerospace, finance, energy, and service industries. Today’s 11 largest companies hail from the tech sector, while energy firms—excluding Chevron, which has moved much of its operations to Houston—have disappeared. Not a single top aerospace firm—the iconic industry of twentieth-century California—retains its headquarters here.

Though lionized in the press, this tech-oriented economy hasn’t resulted in that many middle- and high-paying job opportunities for Californians, particularly outside the Bay Area. Since 2008, notes Chapman University’s Marshall Toplansky, the state has created five times the number of low-paying, as opposed to high-wage, jobs. A remarkable 86 percent of new jobs paid below the median income, while almost half paid under $40,000. Moreover, California, including Silicon Valley, created fewer high-paying positions than the national average, and far less than prime competitors like Salt Lake City, Seattle, or Austin. Los Angeles County features the lowest pay of any of the nation’s 50 largest counties.

Perhaps the biggest demographic disaster is generational. For decades, California incubated youth culture, creating trends like beatniks, hippies, surfers, and Latino and Asian art, music, and cuisine. The state is a fountainhead of youthful wokeness and rebellion, but that may prove short-lived as millennials leave. From 2014 to 2018, notes demographer Wendell Cox, net domestic out-migration grew from 46,000 to 156,000. The exiles are increasingly in their family-formation years. In the 2010s, California suffered higher net declines in virtually every age category under 54, with the biggest rate of loss coming among the 35-to-44 cohort.

As families with children leave, and international migration slows to one-third of Texas’s level, the remaining population is rapidly aging. Since 2010, California’s fertility rate has dropped 60 percent, more than the national average; the state is now aging 50 percent more rapidly than the rest of the country. A growing number of tech firms and millennials have headed to the Intermountain West. Low rates of homeownership among younger people play a big role in this trend, with California millennials forced to rent, with little chance of buying their own home, while many of the state’s biggest metros lead the nation in long-term owners. California is increasingly a greying refuge for those who bought property when housing was affordable.

The state, nevertheless, continues its pursuit of policies that would eliminate all fossil fuels and nuclear power—outpacing national or even Paris Accord levels and guaranteeing ever-rising energy prices. Mandating everything from electric cars to electric homes will only drive more working-class Californians into “energy poverty.” High energy prices also directly affect the manufacturing and logistics firms that employ blue-collar workers at decent wages. Business relocation expert Joe Vranich notes that industrial firms account for many of the 2,000 employers that left the state this decade. California’s industrial growth has fallen to the bottom tier of states; last year, it ranked 44th, with a rate of growth one-third to one-quarter that of prime competitors like Texas, Virginia, Arizona, Nevada, and Florida.

Reality is asserting itself, though. Tech firms already show signs of restlessness with the current regulatory regime and appear to be shifting employment to other states, notably Texas, Tennessee, Nevada, Colorado, and Arizona. Economic-modeling firm Emsi estimates that several states—Idaho, Tennessee, Washington, and Utah—are growing their tech employment faster than California. The state is losing momentum in professional and technical services—the largest high-wage sector—and now stands roughly in the middle of the pack behind other western states such as Texas, Tennessee, and Florida.

On its current course, California increasingly resembles a model of what the late Taichi Sakaiya called “high-tech feudalism,” with a small population of wealthy residents and a growing mass of modern-day serfs.

Folks, as we often say at the editorial board meetings, California hasn’t hit bottom yet. I predicted that if Trump won in 2016 that he would bring prosperity to the nation and the benefit that California enjoyed would just enable them to dig a deeper hole. That is what is happening now. The financial solvency of the state’s government is built on Silicon Valley and Hollywood. When our economy catches a cold, California will suffer a fatal case of pneumonia. Too bad there’s no viable alternative offered by the minority political party.

California Corrections Publishes Changes for 2020

For those who remember when Folsom Prison Blues was a popular song or thought Alcatraz was what all prisons should be, you may not recognize the penal system in California any more. Not only can you get your gender reassigned or released early to reduce overcrowding, but now taxpayers are adding even more fringe benefits to your life of crime. I’m not sure if this has anything to do with the popularity of recent movies like Suicide Squad or Joker but the California Department of Corrections has added more goodies to their mission statement. Starting in 2020, the stated purpose of the department now includes “restorative justice.”

The new vision and mission statements result from legislation in 2016 that added restorative justice to the purpose of imprisonment…

The department’s new Mission statement now reads thusly

To facilitate the successful reintegration of the individuals in our care back to their communities equipped with the tools to be drug-free, healthy, and employable members of society by providing education, treatment, rehabilitative, and restorative justice programs, all in a safe and humane environment.
Vision, Mission, Values, and Goals

So what is restorative justice?

Restorative justice is an approach to justice in which one of the responses to a crime is to organize a meeting between the victim and the offender, sometimes with representatives of the wider community. The goal is for them to share their experience of what happened, to discuss who was harmed by the crime and how, and to create a consensus for what the offender can do to repair the harm from the offense. This may include a payment of money given from the offender to the victim, apologies and other amends, and other actions to compensate those affected and to prevent the offender from causing future harm.
Restorative justice

Folks, the Department of Corrections was claiming last year that their recidivism rate was down to 46 percent and with this added coddling and care of criminals, this rate is expected to go even lower.

Wow. Imagine all those thousands of years of human history wasted on war, crime & punishment when all this time all we really had to do is explain to the guy wielding the sword or brandishing the gun that it hurts the other person when you stab or shoot them! If only we could talk it out and come to a mutually agreeable solution then crime would cease. Instead, society keeps going all Old Testament on people and perpetuating the cycle of violence.

Thankfully now we have enlightened people running the great State of California who are willing to finally admit that the State bears the sword in vein and society should lay aside its obligation to protect citizens. Instead government should be welcoming and inclusive of all—criminals, homeless, illegal aliens, etc. (except unborn children, Christians, charter schools, or any other alternative to the Party in power).

Please understand that I do have problems with our current system but this solution seems to me to be a perversion of the biblical idea of restitution. Folks familiar with Chuck Colson’s Prison Fellowship know that he advocated a two-tier system where those committing property crimes be separated and treated in a different system than violent criminals. California is not moving in this direction.

Instead, California is decriminalizing many behaviors and also forcing much of the state prison population down to the county level for incarceration—thus cooking their recidivism statistics.

The other thing lacking in all this is employment for those being released back into society. The mission statement says they want to make prisoners employable but given the State’s hostility to jobs, how does that work? AB-5, ridiculous minimum wages, anti-entrepreneur environment, sky-high taxes, etc. What hope do released criminals have of “going straight” in such a hostile environment?

Folks, if solving crime was really as simple as restorative circles, watching Mr. Roger’s reruns, and reading All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, then I think the issue would have been solved long ago. Sadly, the one thing government can’t fix is the human heart. Government can’t fix sin, only Christ can. The idea that government can is simply nuts.

Democrats to Boot AOC

Back when I was a kid, one of the most popular television shows was All in the Family. For those of you unfamiliar with the show, here’s a synopsis of the show’s premise.

All in the Family is about a working-class white family living in Queens, New York. Its patriarch is Archie Bunker (Carrol O’Connor), an outspoken, narrow-minded man, seemingly prejudiced against everyone who is not like him or his idea of how people should be. Archie’s wife Edith (Jean Stapleton) is sweet and understanding, though somewhat naïve and uneducated; her husband sometimes disparagingly calls her “dingbat“. Their one child, Gloria (Sally Struthers), is generally kind and good-natured like her mother, but displays traces of her father’s stubbornness and temper; unlike them, she’s a feminist. Gloria is married to college student Michael Stivic (Rob Reiner) – referred to as “Meathead” by Archie – whose values are likewise influenced and shaped by the counterculture of the 1960s. The two couples represent the real-life clash of values between the Greatest Generation and Baby Boomers. For much of the series, the Stivics live in the Bunkers’ home to save money, providing abundant opportunity for them to irritate each other.
All in the Family

Rob Reiner, Jean Stapleton, Carroll O’Connor and Sally Struthers

The program ran from 1971 – 1979. Its producer, Norman Lear, was very liberal. Lear had multiple hit shows running simultaneously on network television in the 1970’s. Lear provoked opposition from Conservatives because of his constant attacks on the beliefs and values of mainstream Americans. This opposition gave rise to Rev. Jerry Falwell and the creation of the Moral Majority. All of this helped unite evangelical Christians to vote overwhelmingly for Ronald Reagan in 1980.

The character, Archie Bunker, was based on my grandfather or at least it seemed that way to me as I was growing up. Both men espoused the same political views.

Archie would frequently call his son-in-law a “meathead” and to this very day, folks still call actor Rob Reiner by that name because of his crazy liberal ideas. It seems to many of us that Reiner wasn’t acting because his views on and off the program were identical.

Archie would often called his wife a “dingbat.” As quoted above, Edith was portrayed as “somewhat naïve and uneducated.”

As a result of the program, both “meathead” and “dingbat” were inserted into America’s cultural lexicon for the baby boomer generation.

Nowadays, when I think about a dingbat from New York or anywhere else, I have to put Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (a.k.a. AOC) near the top of that list. AOC’s congressional district includes the same neighborhood which was the setting for All in the Family forty years ago.

Folks, this babe is as clueless an individual as the fictional Chance the Gardener played by Peter Sellers in Being There but without any idea of how things work; however, instead of being silent and allowing people to assumed her to be knowledgeable, AOC frequently opens her mouth and removes all doubt. Amazingly, people in her generation often agree with her. Alas, they demonstrate the true value of public education.

The only praise that one can heap upon AOC is that she has been a constant thorn in the side of Nancy Pelosi and the Democrat establishment. Recently however, word has gone out that AOC may need to return to her gig as a bartender. Yep, the run of the most well-known person on the Broad Squad may finally have an expiration date.

You see, later this year thousands of folks will follow in the footsteps of the Sith Lord and conduct the constitutionally required census. Preliminary numbers are projecting that both New York and California will lose at least one congressional seat each. As fate would have it—or the folks in the smoke-filled backrooms—the word is out that AOC’s congressional seat will go poof just like CRA’s membership records under the tutelage of George Park. This would mean that AOC has one more chance to serve in Congress before being exiled.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) may have anticipated a long and prosperous career in Congress, but if the Democrats in New York’s state legislature have their way, the freshman Member may be out of a job as soon as 2022.

According to pollster Frank Luntz, New York is likely to lose a seat in Congress after the 2020 census and Democrats in the state legislature will have to redraw the state’s Congressional districts as a result. Although there are plenty of places to cut, New York Dems are reportedly eyeing Ocasio-Cortez’s Bronx district for elimination because she’s been out of sync with state-level Democrats who control the process.
New York Dems Are Redrawing Congressional Districts And It Could Put Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Out Of A Job

Unlike Republicans, most Democrats can’t return to the private sector because all they’ve ever know is suckling at the public trough so instead they typically go to a cushy teaching job or become a lobbyist. They only decide to “spend time with their families” if they have brought disgrace to the Party; otherwise they tend to take care of their own. However, they might make an exception for AOC.

Alexandria is facing strong headwinds in her political future.

Apparently she doesn’t play well with others in New York politics.

The Intercept pointed out back in February, when rumors began to surface that Ocasio-Cortez could be out of a job as soon as the 10-member districts commission met after the 2020 census, that Ocasio-Cortez isn’t a typical politician and she doesn’t play well with her own state party, which ultimately controls which member of the New York delegation to Congress won’t be returning to work.

“New York politics are famously insular,” the Intercept reported, “with a tight circle controlling major decision-making for years. That began to shift in 2018, not just with Ocasio-Cortez’s victory, but also wins from a number of insurgent candidates against Democrats who had caucused with Republicans in the state Senate.”

Next, 25 percent of her district’s residents are illegal aliens.

“A review by THE CITY, building on data and analysis by The Texas Tribune, suggests Ocasio-Cortez’ district could be particularly vulnerable to undercount because a little over a quarter of those living there are non-citizens…That’s a higher percentage than any other congressional district in the state.”

Even worse, her fundraising numbers are less than most school board candidates in your town.

… there are more than twice as many people running for president as there are people from the Bronx and Queens who have reported to have given money to Rep. Ocasio-Cortez. That’s right, a new report shows that just 10 individuals from her own district have given the Democratic Socialist any sort of financial donation for her 2020 election effort.
Just Who Exactly Is Donating To Ocasio-Cortez’s Re-Election Campaign?

Accordingly, “The $1,525.50 Ocasio-Cortez received from her New York constituents represents less than 1% of her campaign’s itemized contributions reported to the FEC in the first half of 2019.“

Ten donors and $1,500 dollars for a Congressional reelection in the 21st Century? Just for reference, last time I looked, the federal limit per year, per person was $2,300. Heck, I bet Al Sharpton has more cash than that in his wallet just to go to the local Popeye’s for a chicken sandwich.

AOC may try to remain in politics but I think it’s a longshot.

Ocasio-Cortez does have an insurance policy: she won’t be leaving politics anytime soon, and if she’s yanked out of the House, she could easily run for Senate, challenging Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), or move to a new district and run there. Her ties to the Bronx are questionable, anyway, and her name recognition is high — even if her own constituents say she rarely shows up in her own district to listen to their concerns.
New York Dems Are Redrawing Congressional Districts And It Could Put Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Out Of A Job

I think Rush Limbaugh was the one that used to say, with Democrats, its party before principles. I guess that’s still true even if your principles are rooted in socialism.

Final thought, can you imagine what AOC will be like knowing that her next congressional term will likely be her last and her party doesn’t have her back? Wow. I sense a real cat fight with Nancy Pelosi brewing.

Crowds Trump v 2020 Dems

Photo above: Trump Rally at Hershey, PA 12-10-2019

A few months back, I started getting emails from something called The Black Sphere. They began showing up in my throwaway email box and always lands in my Junk folder. After getting bombarded daily for many weeks, I finally read one, the guy writes interesting headlines which piqued my curiosity.

It turns out that The Black Sphere is a website by a talk show guy named Kevin Jackson.

Kevin has the unfortunate task of going head-to-head against the Rush Limbaugh timeslot. No wonder I never heard of him. Anyway, he had an article today that I thought would be of interest to my readers. Kevin talks about the crowd size of Trump rallies versus the 2020 Democrat hopefuls. Partially, I read this based on comments that my dad made over the weekend about watching a Trump rally and being inspired.

I wrote recently about Trump’s rally in Hershey PA. Over 23,000 people showed up in a town of under 15,000. One thing I left out of that post is the fact that had the highway patrol not shut down areas of the freeway, thousands more would have been outside the arena waiting to hear the president. A friend of mine who lives and works in the area updated me on this fact.

If you add up all the Democrats’ events over the past 3 months, the combined total wouldn’t surpass what Trump accomplished (audience-wise) at ONE event. For Democrats, there is no smoke. No smoke, no fire.

But Trump’s events look like towering infernos. They have all the appeal of a rock concert, and in fact Trump breaks attendance records at almost every venue.

Call this what you want, but I must say that I’m convinced Trump-mania is real. Sadly for Democrats, they offer nothing close.
Democrat Woes: Creepy Joe Biden’s DISMAL Crowds

The disparity of crowd size that Trump draws compared to anyone else is monumental. And unlike the Democrats, Trump doesn’t have to pay people to fill empty chairs. I think Trump will easily be re-elected and unlike other Presidents, his second term will be much more productive that his predecessors.

NTSB Looks at Tesla Deaths

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is investigating the crash of a speeding Tesla that killed two people in a Los Angeles suburb, the agency announced Tuesday.

Agency spokesman Sean Rushton wouldn’t say whether the Tesla Model S was on Autopilot when it crashed on Dec. 29 in Gardena. That system is designed to automatically change lanes and keep a safe distance from other vehicles.

The black Tesla had left a freeway and was moving at a high rate of speed when it ran a red light and slammed into a Honda Civic at an intersection, police said.

A man and woman in the Civic died at the scene.
NHTSA investigating fatal California Tesla crash

Another Tesla crash killed a woman Sunday in Indiana. State police said the driver, Derrick N. Monet, 25, of Prescott Valley, Arizona, was seriously injured after he rear-ended a fire truck parked along Interstate 70 in Putnam County. His wife, Jenna N. Monet, 23, was pronounced dead at a hospital.

Folks, Tesla’s Autopilot is starting to attract the attention of regulators and I suspect the lawyers will soon follow. It will be curious how the company responds when it finally gets held to the same standards as other automakers.

NHTSA … has inspected a total of 13 crashes involving Tesla vehicles that the agency believed were operating on the Autopilot system. Results were published in two of those cases, one of which involved Autopilot. Results are pending in the other 10 cases, the agency said in a statement.

Not only is the Autopilot system being looked at for deaths, but a lawsuit in Florida is underway concerning the vehicle’s door design. The door handles retract into the door. A Tesla involved in a crash resulted in the driver’s door failing to open because electrical power was lost in the vehicle. This resulted in failed rescue attempts to save the driver while the vehicle burned.

Omar Awan was driving his dream car when he lost control. The sleek, blue Model S Tesla careened across a road in South Florida and slammed into a palm tree.

But it wasn’t the crash that killed him, his family’s lawyers said — it was the car’s futuristic design features.

The last moments of Awan’s life were gruesome and excruciating. After the crash, the Tesla’s lithium ion battery caught fire, according to a wrongful-death lawsuit. Smoke — and then flames — filled the car, suffocating Awan and burning him from his feet up. Outside, a crowd gathered but couldn’t help.

That’s because the car’s retractable door handles, which are supposed to “auto-present” when they detect a key fob nearby, malfunctioned and first responders weren’t able to open the doors and save Awan, the suit alleges.

“The fire engulfed the car and burned Dr. Awan beyond recognition — all because the Model S has inaccessible door handles, no other way to open the doors, and an unreasonably dangerous fire risk,” the complaint reads.
A man died in a burning Tesla because its futuristic doors wouldn’t open, lawsuit alleges

Awan’s death is one in a string of recent incidents that have been blamed on Tesla’s innovative technology. A lawsuit stemming from a May 2018 crash that killed two teens also blamed a battery fire for at least one of the deaths.

In Awan’s case and others, the carmaker has argued that high-speed crashes can result in fires whether the car is powered by gasoline or batteries. But Awan survived the crash, and he could have escaped the smoke and fire, too, Grossman said — if only the police officer who arrived on the scene could have opened the car’s doors.

The lawsuit asserts that the features rendered the car “defective” and “dangerous” — the door handles compounding the problem of an “inherently unstable” battery.

“Tesla failed to warn users about the scope and extent of the defective and unreasonably dangerous conditions of the Model S,” the complaint says.

The Broward County autopsy report, obtained by The Washington Post, lists Awan’s cause of death as “inhalation of products of combustion with a contributory cause of death of thermal injuries.”

The medical examiner who responded to the crash wrote that Awan “was not identifiable on scene.” His clothes and hair were burned and a yellow metal ring was found on his left ring finger.

Oh, if you recall the article that I posted a few months ago on Tesla fires, the following will be no surprise to you.

After the crash, and after firefighters extinguished the blaze, Awan’s Tesla was transported to a tow yard. Once there, it reignited and burned again.

Yep, reigniting of the vehicle following a fire is typical for Tesla and other electric cars. In the old days, we called this a Class D fire.

Class D fires involve combustible metals – especially alkali metals like lithium and potassium, alkaline earth metals such as magnesium, and group 4 elements such as titanium and zirconium.
Fire class

As attempts at creating self-driving vehicles continue, expect more such news reports of deaths and injuries.

Confession: I’m a Clan Member

Yep, no way around it, I’m a member of the clan. I could say that its my son’s fault; after all, I send him to one of those conservative, religious schools where most of the teachers believe in a literal six day creation, but I know that, in the final analysis, I’m responsible for my own actions.

Truth be told, my son was talked into joining the clan by friends at school. Maybe idle hands (or minds) are the devil’s workshop. Anyway, he was persuaded that the benefits of clan membership were such that he couldn’t pass up the opportunity. Of course, he gave me the line about all my friends are doing it.

After a few months, he decided to recruit me as well. I was surprised. First, membership required only a few clicks to get to the Google store and download the app by which we all communicate. I never would have thought you could join the clan via Google but sure enough, it was so. Truly everything can be had on the Internet if you know where to look. Second, the price to sign-up was negligible… at least at first.

Please understand that I love my son and want to be part of his life. Thus, joining the clan was not because I want to hurt others but because I want to be part of his life; hurting others came later.

You could ask me who the other members of our clan are, but I honestly don’t know. Online, everyone hides behind pseudonyms. Think of the clan as a cell where nobody knows all the members, but each works in concert for the benefit of all. Hurting people online isn’t like being a Troll—where words are said that are harsh—instead, we specialize in targeted action. One goal of the clan is effectively dominating our opponents. We literally live to humiliate and destroy them. To minimize retaliation, we limit our online activity and take turns pummeling others only to fade into the ether to rise another day.

Our cell has a code name that changes every once in a while, the change helps us to cover our tracks. Lately we have been calling ourselves the “Crusaders.”

I have been elevated to a co-leader of the group—I’m sure the fact that I have more resources to contribute is part of the reason. Its more responsibility than I was planning on, but I’m committed to seeing this thru, at least to the end of the school year. Teenagers don’t have long attention spans but at least I’m with them right now. For better or ill, I’m the only parent that really knows what their sons are doing in their spare time. Joining the clan is not for everyone but I really want to support my son as he tries to find his path in life.

If you’re curious about the clan click here for more information.

Johnnie Does: A Car Purchase

By Johnnie Does

My 15-year-old Ford with over 178k miles on it finally took a dive. We had a great run, but the prognosis was terminal, in the sense that the repair needed would likely result in a bill north of $3,000, and quite frankly, the car really isn’t worth that much.

I was in a bad spot, I knew this day was coming and I had money saved up, but like they say, the worst time to buy a car is when you are desperate. Of course, advice was given by any and everyone. People suggested “best time to buy is year-end” and “Go to CarMax.” The suggestions were good, but I really needed wheels that day, it was October. I had always driven an SUV and thought I may have wanted something different. Problem is, I did not have time on my hands, I work, I own part of a business. I took some advice and was looking at Toyota Tacoma pickup trucks. They hold their value very well and are far less expensive than their “American” counterparts.

I filled out an online form and instantly it was sent to every dealership within an hour radius from my house. Within about 10 minutes, the emails and calls were coming in like crazy. Merced, Lodi, Elk Grove, Sacramento, Vallejo, Roseville, you name it. I was literally whacking away car salesmen from all corners of the area. It was mentally draining, but in a sense, I was prepared. I knew what I wanted and was able to stick to my guns. This was a key, I wanted a 2018 Tacoma, SR5 double cab, super white color.

It is very similar to an SUV, keep in mind I had done some homework and unless my terms were met, I was walking. The salespeople at Vallejo and Merced were by far the most accommodating, but the locations were too far away for my liking. The Lodi guy won me over because he told me, find the best offer and he would match it. So, I went to Elk Grove and puttered around the lot. The sales guy tried talking me into something else, the access cab, which has a single side door for the backseat, in essence a typical truck, a cab, and a bed. I didn’t want it, but he knew best, he was trying to buffalo me, and I said I would go check out the Ford and Chevy lot, both conveniently located across the street. Just to give you an idea of how expensive cars are; the Tacoma ran around $33k sticker price, F-150 and the Silverado ran about 50k sticker, one F-150 Raptor edition ran about 100k, yes for a pickup truck.

I got my best offer from Merced and called down in Lodi. The guy told me, we had a deal and to see him tomorrow at 7pm. I was going to lease the truck, which if you aren’t aware, is similar to renting, you pay virtually no interest since you are taking the depreciation hit. I have a 3-year lease for 12k miles a year, if I decide not to keep the truck in 3 years and the mileage is over 36K, I pay a $.25 a mile overage penalty. Yikes, but it won’t be an issue. You also know the price you will pay at the end of the 3-year lease, and they take care of all the maintenance free of charge. If you so choose, you can be driving a new car every 3 years, the downside is you do have a car payment, which I have never had before. I had gotten counsel from people I knew who had leased and was about to head to Lodi. He called and said we have a problem, no 2018 in Super white, deal was in peril. He said he would get back to me, but they had other colors, I wanted white, not sandstorm or electric blue, or fire engine red. Great! I was desperate for a car and was going to get screwed.

Not so fast, he called back and said they have a 2019 in the aforementioned white, and had all I wanted, he even said he would honor the price, but deal was needed asap. I sped down there, and it had some cool extra features, snakeskin pattern on the seats, some tan upholstery, back up camera and more. I test drove it and shook his hand! Deal! Then the real fun began. I then had to visit the finance department, which promptly greeted me saying only the best buyers get your deal, and it was all subject to a credit check. I felt I would have no issue and I didn’t. The lady remarked that I had an 811-credit score and even knocked a few bucks off the payment. It was done, I left the dealer in my new truck.

The lesson learned is this, I had perfect credit history so in a sense I made the rules. They wanted me; others are not so fortunate. I was in a bad spot, but I came prepared. I knew what I wanted and had the salespeople compete over me. Most get credit terms unfavorable to them, I was lucky. I got what I wanted and my terms, it was a long time coming and I love my truck My advice, I would go through the same online channels I did; that way you deal with an internet sales guy not a typical car sales guy. I feel very blessed as I was in a horrible spot.

Johnnie Does

Review: How to be a Perfect Christian

Rarely do I ever do a book review on this blog but occasionally something rises to the level of deserving such attention and folks, “How to be a Perfect Christian” is such a wonder. Forget what you think you know about church and give this book a try. Using their Holiness Progress Tracker 5000, the Babylon Bee staff coaches you thru the perils and pitfalls of modern American Christian culture so you can arrive at the pearly gates completely under your own efforts.

Here’s a sample of endorsements for the book:

“Forget love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control! Perfection is so much better than the fruit of the Spirit. And, as the Babylon Bee’s How to be a Perfect Christian shows, it’s a lot easier too.”
–Karen Swallow Prior

This book is a checklist for spiritual supremacy. Chapters include such topics as Joining the Right Church.

If the church has a lit name, a slick website, no statement of faith, a modern building, and membership of at least fifteen thousand each week, then great! You may have found the place where God will have your material needs met and keep you entertained…slip out of your old church without so much as a goodbye, and get ready to visit your new home at whichever of the nine weekend service times is most convenient for you.

In the chapter Worshipping Like a Pro, you will read such valuable tips as this about your first visit to church:

You’re staring down the welcome team, and now, here it comes: the primary litmus test of the morning that will forever decide whether or not you should make this church the place where you will achieve perfection. We’re talking about the quality of the church swag they give away to visitors such as yourself. (emphasis in original)

What you’re looking for is high-end gear here: aluminum water bottles, American Apparel T-shirts, expensive vacation giveaways, and NFL tickets. Freebies like these let prospective visitors know the church is serious about helping them attain true godliness and they’re not just messing around.

The Bee covers the gambit of modern living and governing your household. Such topics as child-rearing, dating oops I mean courtship, and marriage. They even acknowledge two models of family, the Complementarian and Egalitarian. Here are samples of their advice.

Complementarian Men
These men rule their home as ruthlessly as supreme leader Kim Jong-un runs the great Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. Every minute household decision must be run by the husband and he gets the final say—no ifs, ands, or buts about it. In Ephesians 5, Paul addresses how men are to run their homes, and he’s pretty clear that the Lord calls men to be unilateral, totalitarian dictators, like Big Brother or the Dark Lord Sauron.

In the name of Christian liberty, the Bee also recognizes that in God’s grace, some men prefer to let their wives run the home in an Egalitarian way.

We recommend that egalitarian husbands are never to be the breadwinners. In fact, you probably shouldn’t contribute financially to the family at all. Instead, you should play the latest Madden NFL game on your Xbox all day long and rest in the knowledge that you’re not being a burden on the home. You are, instead, empowering your wife to work eighty-hour weeks to pay the family’s mortgage. There’s no better way to be a godly husband. And you don’t want to be oppressive and lead your home like those backwards complementarians, do you?

We have friends of the blog in both camps and you know who you are.

Anyway, I think I’ve given you a feel for this book. If you love sarcasm and humor that makes a point, then this book is worth a look. I read it Christmas Day and I’m glad my wife bought it for me. I’d rate it 8.5/10.

Christianity Today v Billy Graham

Orson Scott Card wrote a book many years ago called Speaker for the Dead and yesterday Christianity Today decided to do just that claiming that Billy Graham himself would have opposed the Orange Man and support his removal via impeachment. Today I wish to unpack this controversy and the Graham family’s response.

Christianity Today (CT) Editorial

First here is a look at the Christianity Today editorial Trump Should Be Removed from Office.

In our founding documents, Billy Graham explains that Christianity Today will help evangelical Christians interpret the news in a manner that reflects their faith. The impeachment of Donald Trump is a significant event in the story of our republic. It requires comment.

The typical CT approach is to stay above the fray and allow Christians with different political convictions to make their arguments in the public square, to encourage all to pursue justice according to their convictions and treat their political opposition as charitably as possible.

That said, we do feel it necessary from time to time to make our own opinions on political matters clear—always, as Graham encouraged us, doing so with both conviction and love.

So here’s the setup. We (Christianity Today) have a charter granted to us from Billy Graham to speak to actions in the public square. Thus Christianity Today is “the voice” of evangelical Christianity. So dear readers, listen up.

Let’s grant this to the president: The Democrats have had it out for him from day one, and therefore nearly everything they do is under a cloud of partisan suspicion. This has led many to suspect not only motives but facts in these recent impeachment hearings. And, no, Mr. Trump did not have a serious opportunity to offer his side of the story in the House hearings on impeachment.

Then the editor of Christianity Today says we know the Democrats have it in for Trump and we have only heard from one side in this impeachment thing but…

But the facts in this instance are unambiguous: The president of the United States attempted to use his political power to coerce a foreign leader to harass and discredit one of the president’s political opponents. That is not only a violation of the Constitution; more importantly, it is profoundly immoral.

So literally without any evidence presented, we at CT know that Trump is guilty as sin. Why? Because we don’t like his Twitter posts.

The reason many are not shocked about this is that this president has dumbed down the idea of morality in his administration. He has hired and fired a number of people who are now convicted criminals. He himself has admitted to immoral actions in business and his relationship with women, about which he remains proud. His Twitter feed alone—with its habitual string of mischaracterizations, lies, and slanders—is a near perfect example of a human being who is morally lost and confused.

That Trump fired guys that were later convicted as criminals—many in a failed effort to take him out—and yet despite Mueller’s Report, he is still there. Oh, and he admitted that he likes women and has done business in New York (immoral actions in business?).

Whether Mr. Trump should be removed from office by the Senate or by popular vote next election—that is a matter of prudential judgment. That he should be removed, we believe, is not a matter of partisan loyalties but loyalty to the Creator of the Ten Commandments.

Trump broke the Ten Commandments so for God’s sake he must be removed.

To the many evangelicals who continue to support Mr. Trump in spite of his blackened moral record, we might say this: Remember who you are and whom you serve. Consider how your justification of Mr. Trump influences your witness to your Lord and Savior. Consider what an unbelieving world will say if you continue to brush off Mr. Trump’s immoral words and behavior in the cause of political expediency. If we don’t reverse course now, will anyone take anything we say about justice and righteousness with any seriousness for decades to come? Can we say with a straight face that abortion is a great evil that cannot be tolerated and, with the same straight face, say that the bent and broken character of our nation’s leader doesn’t really matter in the end?

How can you be a Christian and support Trump? If abortion is an important issue for you then remove Trump and give us a pro-abortion Democrat so sanity can return to American politics.

So we have done our best to give evangelical Trump supporters their due, to try to understand their point of view, to see the prudential nature of so many political decisions they have made regarding Mr. Trump.

We have done our best to put up with you Trump supporters but it’s time for you to throw him under the bus otherwise he will be reelected and God help us if he is.

Rebuttal

Billy Graham voted for Trump

On social media, Franklin Graham wrote, “Christianity Today released an editorial stating that President Trump should be removed from office – and they invoked my father’s name (I suppose to try to bring legitimacy to their statements), so I feel it is important for me to respond.

“Yes, my father Billy Graham founded Christianity Today; but no, he would not agree with their opinion piece. In fact, he would be very disappointed. I have not previously shared who my father voted for in the past election, but because of this article, I feel it is necessary to share it now. My father knew Donald Trump, he believed in Donald Trump, and he voted for Donald Trump. He believed that Donald J. Trump was the man for this hour in history for our nation,” he said.

“For Christianity Today to side with the Democrat Party in a totally partisan attack on the president of the United States is unfathomable. Christianity Today failed to acknowledge that not one single Republican voted with the Democrats to impeach the president. I know a number of Republicans in Congress, and many of them are strong Christians. If the president were guilty of what the Democrats claimed, these Republicans would have joined with the Democrats to impeach him. But the Democrats were not even unanimous – two voted against impeachment and one voted present. This impeachment was politically motivated, 100% partisan. Why would Christianity Today choose to take the side of the Democrat left whose only goal is to discredit and smear the name of a sitting president? They want readers to believe the Democrat leadership rather than believe the president of the United States,” Franklin Graham wrote.
Franklin Graham: Dad voted for Trump

CT says Trump proved guilty

Christianity Today ignores the Bible when trying to tell us what to believe about impeachment. In fact, what they said in this editorial is so unbiblical as to be nothing but sins of omission. What does the Bible say about rules of evidence?

1 Democrats have never produced one witness with firsthand knowledge of anything let alone two or three.

One witness is not enough to convict anyone accused of any crime or offense they may have committed. A matter must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.
Deuteronomy 19:15

“Every matter must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.”
2 Corinthians 13:1-2

In your own Law it is written that the testimony of two witnesses is true.
John 8:17

2 Do not decide a matter without first hearing both sides

“He that is first in his own cause seemeth just; but his neighbour cometh and searcheth him.” Proverbs 18:17

He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him.
Proverbs 18:13

Trump a notorious sinner and so are you

Is President Trump guilty of sin? Of course he is, as were all past presidents and as each one of us are, including myself. Therefore, let’s pray for the president as he continues to lead the affairs of our nation. – Franklin Graham

For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;
Romans 3:23

For as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law: and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law
Romans 2:12

If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.
1 John 1:10

Trump’s Character

Christianity Today attacks Trump’s character with ad hominem claims “He himself has admitted to immoral actions in business and his relationship with women.” The claim is used as a factual statement without any proof or foundation and is used to buttress their assertion of his guilt in the impeachment accusations.

President Trump has been married more than once, as was Ronald Reagan whom I regard as the greatest President of the 20th Century. Trump surrounds himself with beautiful women but does not have a reputation of having intercourse with them in the Oval Office as has been the practice of other Presidents. Divorce is a sin in most circumstances but this has not been an issue in Evangelical circles for many decades. Was this a shot at Stormy Daniels?

Most of those who formerly worked for Trump and are headed for jail were convicted of offenses prior to being on Trump’s payroll. We have previously documented on this blog that Trump’s pool of campaign staff was not top tier, especially early in the campaign. Trump got last pick of those that remained after Bush, Rubio, Cuz, etc. had hired their staffs. Any people not in this category were never found guilty but entrapped. They had the choice of fighting prosecutors with unlimited budgets or saving their personal assets and taking a plea deal. This was not a criminal issue but an economic one. In light of recent revelations by the government, some are trying to undo their plea bargains and be cleared.

Hitting Trump with the argument that we don’t like what you say on Twitter is not relevant to the impeachment issue either. On Twitter, Trump is typically defending himself in real time or touting his accomplishments; neither of which the media is willing to report. In a world with 24/7 news coverage in which almost 100 percent of everything about Trump is presented negatively, what do you expect him to do? Trump, like Saint Nicholas, hits heretics right between the eyes.

CT concludes by saying Evangelicals should flee Trump

My question is why? I can rebut their assertion in several ways. Here’s three quick ones.

“You can’t beat something with nothing.”

“You go to war with the army you have not the one you want.”

Oh, and Trump is president because it is God’s will.

Conclusion

CT asks something that deserves comment. “Consider how your justification of Mr. Trump influences your witness to your Lord and Savior.”

My response is this, if we continued down the road Obama put us on, it would be illegal for us to have any public witness for our Lord and Savior. All religious institutions were being subjugated to the State by the State’s use of the sword and mandated to accept homosexuality and other perversions, compromise on abortion, and the core claims of Christianity such as Jesus being the only way to God. We as Christians were staring into the abyss. We were in danger of having our children removed from us by the State, our institutions outlawed, and other retributions visited on us for being practicing Christians. (This is always the experience of Christians in socialist societies.) Trump stopped this momentum and is reversing this danger to the very fabric of our existence. Trump is our Constantine. Whether he is one of us or not, he has never said but his policies are exactly what Christianity needs to be legal and free in this country. The fact that Christianity Today is willing to throw us under the bus to score cheap political points is all you need to know. They are not on the side of light.

The final tell in their editorial is, “we have done our best to give evangelical Trump supporters their due…” No. They are tired of us sticking to this man in spite of all hell being loosed on him and him being unscathed. Folks all this impeachment stuff has done is insure the Donald Trump will spend the rest of his days fighting for this country and for us. The days of ex-Presidents sitting silently on the national sidelines are over. Trump will remake the Republican Party just as I’ve been saying for many years. To NeverTrumpers and Democrats, look out, the Orange Man cometh in wrath and vengeance.

Microsoft sadly proves war on Christmas is real

I was looking at a few of the tech websites that I regularly visited when I came across this article by an author that I think is Hindu and even he finally gets it.

The perceived wisdom is that the “War on Christmas” is merely a right-wing delusion and in general companies themselves are deciding to be more inclusive in celebrating the holidays rather than responding to complaints from anti-religious people who are offended by Christmas decorations.

It turns out Microsoft has proven that this was not the case, after responding to a complaint about adding a small Santa hat to VSCode, Microsoft’s open-source IDE.
Microsoft sadly proves war on Christmas is real

Due to one complaint by an anonymous guy on the internet, the offending Santa hat was banished.

Here’s the complaint.

The Santa Hat on vscode insiders and pushing of religion is very offensive to me, additionally xmas has cost millions of Jews their lives over the centuries, yet even if that was not the case, pushing religious symbols as part of a product update is completely unacceptable. Please remove it immediately and make it your top priority. To me this is almost equally offensive as a swastika.

Christian-Schiffer referred to an article on Sefaria listing the sins associated with Christmas which include:

Christmas has always been a holiday celebrated carelessly. For millennia, pagans, Christians, and even Jews have been swept away in the season’s festivities, and very few people ever pause to consider the celebration’s intrinsic meaning, history, or origins.
Christmas celebrates the birth of Jesus, a Christian god who came to rescue mankind from the “curse of the Torah.”
At its origin, Christmas is a 24-hour declaration that Judaism is no longer valid.
December 25 is a day on which Jews have been shamed, tortured, and murdered.
Many of the most popular Christmas customs – including Christmas trees, mistletoe, Christmas presents, and Santa Claus – are modern incarnations of some extremely offensive and violent rituals

Microsoft responded to the complaint by saying:
@Christian-Schiffer we’re sorry we hurt your and other’s feelings. We’ll remote the Santa Hat.

The author of the article concludes:

In short, the war on Christmas appears to be very real.

Folks, I’m glad whenever other people agree with us—especially, that there really is a war on Christmas. The logical fallacies in the article cited as the reasons to oppose Christmas are frankly ill-informed, inaccurate, and just dumb.

First, the swastika is a Hindu religious symbol and is not the exclusive property or emblem of the Nazi Party as constituted in Germany. Hindus and others have used the swastika symbol for thousands of years before Hitler was born.

Second, a Santa hat is a winter symbol not a Christian one and people really wear similar hats in certain cultures. Oh, and there is zero proof that the real Saint Nicholas ever wore said hat.

Third, any holiday—Christian or not—can be celebrated by tradition and the real meaning can be forgotten. For example, in the United Stated we celebrate our Independence Day on July Fourth, but do you really believe that our people shun tyranny as a result? No. We have forgotten the reason and lessons of the Revolution. Our current government is much more tyrannical and oppressive than the British rule of the 1770’s. Our tax rates are way higher than those of the Stamp Act and tea taxes imposed by King George back in the day.

Jesus came to rescue mankind from the curse of sin not the Torah. Jesus fulfilled the requirements of the Torah and perfectly kept the Law. He ever said, “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill.” Matthew 5:17.

Christmas is a 24 hour declaration of nothing anti-Jewish. Where does that come from? Christmas is a 12 day celebration in the Church’s liturgical calendar beginning on December 25th and going thru January 6th. Twelve days of Christmas anyone? Messiah has come, first to the Jews—angels declare peace on earth and goodwill to all men on December 25th and January 6th—known as Epiphany—celebrates salvation coming to the Gentiles, as symbolized by the arrival of the wise men. Jesus was probably not really born in December although the 25th day of a month is mentioned in some early Christian literature. Since we don’t use the same calendar as they did back then, this discussion can’t go much beyond what I have just stated.

Evil doesn’t take a holiday and not all Christians celebrate Christmas on December 25th so what does the fact that someone of a certain faith might be killed on a particular date? I’m sure I could find examples of people from almost any faith group that were killed on December 25; especially, over a span of over 2,000 plus years. I don’t deny that Christians have persecuted Jews at certain points in history but it’s not a teaching of the New Testament or tenant of our faith. In fact, persecution of Jews is the opposite of Christianity properly understood. There’s that pesky command to love our neighbor thing that gets in the way of such behavior.

The claim that popular Christmas customs are all the result of offensive and violent rituals is silly. We give gifts to others as a symbol of peace on earth and goodwill towards men—we keep circling back to this phrase—because God gave us His greatest gift in the form of sending His son to become a man and fulfill the requirements of the Law (Torah) and be the once and for all time sacrifice for the sins of the world.

Santa Claus is a composite of many traditions but Saint Nicholas was a real man that was best known for two things, giving gifts to the poor in the name of Christ and hitting a heretic (Arius) at the Council of Nicaea in about 325 AD. This was the first recorded time that any Christian decked someone in the halls.

Folks, the fact that one anonymous complaint can force a trillion dollar company to change something as trivial and innocuous as a Santa hat should really bother you and I hope it does. Especially when the same company is perfectly willing to repeatedly attack my Christian beliefs on issues of marriage and family and doesn’t care what I think.