My dream for Martin Luther King Day is simple; namely, that people that follow Dr. King would believe him.
Nobody praises him as a Christian and man of the
Word.
Nobody that claims his legacy talks about the
fact that he was staunch Republican.
Nobody that claims his legacy believes in his Dream.
Yeh, I just said that, “nobody that claims his legacy believes in his dream.”
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
Almost all black folks vote for Democrats; a political party that only cares about their skin color and views them as a block of voters, just another interest group among many. These same Democrats created the KKK, Jim Crow, segregated schools, and everything they claim oppressed them in the past, yet despite all that, they cling to the Democrats like a baby to its mother. The black community seems to be suffering mass hypnosis, Stockholm Syndrome, or something even more diabolical.
If insanity is really defined as “doing the same thing over
and over again and expecting a different result”, then these folks are insane.
They faithfully vote Democrat every two years, get nothing for it, and then do
it again.
I would argue that Dr. King was telling his people to wake-up. Nobody is going to help you but yourselves. He also advised the protesters to work with others willing to work with them. He says it will be work but is worth the struggle.
I say to you today, my friends, though, even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up, live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”
King take the promise of John the Baptist and converts it into a metaphor of brotherhood and transformation.
I have a dream today … I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain; shall be made low. The rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight. And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together. This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.
In my opinion, King’s dream was highjacked decades ago and replaced with a stay on the plantation mentality (Mason Weaver’s words not mine).
The black community now looks to the government for justice not God. When government is your God, it only leads to slavery and oppression not freedom. Like Esau, they have forfeited their birthright–which Dr. King tried to remind them of–for a bowl of soup.
Its not too late to believe in King’s dream but clearly it requires, work, sacrifice and vigilance; things they will never get from Jackson, Sharpton, and Farrakhan.
Folks the Democrats have been talking about this since November of 2016 and the Atlantic publishes this headline today, January 18, 2019! How many new House members campaigned on this issue? Like most of them!
During the election, Nancy Pelosi had no mandate or issue to unite her Party except their visceral hatred of Donald Trump and their promise to get rid of him. Nancy has an impossible job of keeping her folks in line; especially given that many Democrats promised during the campaign to get rid of her. Yeah she’s Speaker now but who on her side of the aisle will be her Brutus and plunge the political knife in her back with a smile on their face?
The article says that Democrats might not wait for the Mueller Report to Impeach Trump. No surprise. They started saying two weeks ago that Mueller doesn’t have a “smoking gun” and the report will end with a whimper and not a bang. In fact his report may never be made public. If Mueller had the goods on Trump we would have had the Mother of all October Surprises but all we got was crickets.
The comments mark a noticeable shift in what had been the standard party line on the possibility of impeachment—that Democrats should wait to act until after Mueller issues his final report. But Attorney General nominee Bill Barr’s refusal to commit to providing Mueller’s findings to Congress and to the public, combined with BuzzFeed’s implication that the president committed a felony while in office, has given Democrats a new sense of urgency—and they won’t necessarily wait to hold Trump accountable…
“Hell hath no fury like a women scorned” but Michael Cohen seems to be coming really close. Every time he opens his mouth he undercuts his own credibility in an effort to say stuff trying to implicate Trump. The bottom line is Trump trusted him and Cohen was not deserving of that trust. Trump believes in delegation to subordinates and Cohen enriched himself off of Trump like a parasite.
Cohen solved things but he made no effort to stay within the lines. The truth is that someone as slimy as Cohen probably fits in well in New York City but that doesn’t play well in the rest of the country. During the campaign, Cohen experienced something new, scrutiny. He couldn’t operate in the dark as Trump’s lawyer. A high profile national campaign was shining the light on his deeds and once exposed, it was clear he had taken advantage of Trump to enrich himself.
Case in point, this article yesterday in the Firewalled Street Journal. (Subscription required to view this article)
In early 2015, a man who runs a small technology company showed up at Trump Tower to collect $50,000 for having helped Michael Cohen, then Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, try to rig online polls in his boss’s favor before the presidential campaign. In his Trump Organization office, Mr., Cohen surprised the man, John Gauger, by giving him both a blue Walmart bag containing between $12,000 and $13,000 in Cash and, randomly, a boxing glove that Mr. Cohen said had been worn by a Brazilian mixed-martial arts fighter, Mr. Gauger said.
John Gauger RedFinch IT
Mr. Gauger said he never got the rest of what he claimed he was owed. But Mr. Cohen in early 2017 still asked for—and received—a $50,000 reimbursement from Mr. Trump and his company for the work by RedFinch, according to a government document and a personal matter. The reimbursement—made on the sole basis of a handwritten note from Mr. Cohen and paid largely out of Mr. Trump’s personal account—demonstrates the level of trust the lawyer once held within the Trump Organization, whose officials arranged the repayment.
…Mr. Cohen said in a tweet that he attempted to have the polls rigged with Mr. Trump’s knowledge.
Rudy Giuliani, a lawyer for Mr. Trump, said of Mr. Cohen’s tweet: “My response will be a cleaned-up version of ‘Bullshit.’”
“Why anyone would believe Michael Cohen at this point is an amazement to me,” Mr. Giuliani said in an interview. “This is not true. The president did not know about this if it happened.” He added: “The real takeaway from your story is, didn’t he steal $37,000?”
In January 2014, Mr. Cohen asked Mr. Gauger to help Mr. Trump score well in a CNBC online poll to identify the country’s top business leaders by writing a computer script to repeatedly vote for him. Mr. Gauger was unable to get Trump into the top 100 candidates. In February 2015, Mr. Trump prepared to enter the presidential race, Mr. Cohen asked him to do the same thing for a Drudge Report poll of potential Republican candidates, Mr. Gauger said. Mr. Trump ranked fifth, with 24,000 votes, or 5% of the total.
To quote the beloved Aaron Park, this was an “epic failure.” Frankly, The Justice Brothers would have done a much better job than Cohen/Gauger plus Trump would have received an endorsed on their blog. This also would have prevented the horrible optic of Aaron and George on the front row of Jeb Bush’s 2015 appearance in Reno.
George and Aaron Park with Jeb Bush on 05-13-2015
As you can see, Cohen is a self-admitted thief and ethically challenged. Why Democrats would start putting all their faith in him shows how desperate that they are. I believe that they will likely impeach Trump just for being alive, the truth notwithstanding. If they unleash this circus, it will be the death of them in 2020.
So when I see a headline about Trump Impeachment, I think so what? Republicans had Clinton dead-to-rights and he skated just like he always has. How will this be any different?
Democrats are blowing a golden opportunity by not working with Trump right now. Within reason, they could ask for whatever they want in exchange for letting Trump have the wall and probably get it. If I was them, I would ask for something Trump promised on the campaign—like maybe infrastructure improvement, which would create many union blue-collar jobs—claim it as their issue, and declare victory. The low information voters would swallow the lie as they always do, and Washington could go back to business as usual. But no, it seems more important to takeout Trump than to get anything fixed.
A decade or so ago, it was fashionable to ask, “What would Jesus do?” Many people would walk around with little bracelets with the initials WWJD on their wrist. Today I would like to point out that the Bible talks about walls too. In fact Jesus himself addressed the issue directly:
“Very truly I tell you Pharisees, anyone who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in by some other way, is a thief and a robber. The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger’s voice.” Jesus used this figure of speech, but the Pharisees did not understand what he was telling them. Therefore Jesus said again, “Very truly I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who have come before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep have not listened to them. I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. They will come in and go out, and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. John 10:1-11 (emphasis added)
This ladies and gents is Trump’s argument for the wall, enter thru the gate and be welcome, hop the fence and you are lawbreakers come to kill American citizens, steal from American taxpayers, and destroy the American way of life.
Please note that the Pharisees (for our purposes substitute Liberals or Democrats) don’t understand what they were being told.
Case in point, I mentioned the stunt the other day when people hopped the wall at Nancy Pelosi’s house and claimed to seek refuge as they were from Guatemala. I said that I thought it was funny and a clever way to illustrate the hypocrisy that a wall is OK from rich Democrats like her but giving the same protection to the American people is immoral?
My coworker, thought it was wrong for anyone to hop the fence around her house but he saw no connection to the border wall dispute. I explained it to him and he still didn’t understand. Ironically, he said they should enter by the gate if they want in. No wonder Jesus said things like, “for those that have ears let them hear.”
Jesus “I am the gate”
The Bible also has much to say about respecting boundaries and property lines and specifically calls it a sin to tamper with such. Also the Bible is very committed to the principle that the foreigner is expected to follow the religious and civil laws of Israel when they are within its borders including honoring the labor and Sabbath laws. In fact this like treatment of citizen and sojourner is part of the Western (Christian) basis for equal protection under the law, not that anyone in a government school would ever acknowledge this fact.
So if Trump is on Jesus’ side, where does that leave Pelosi, Schumer, et al? Why with the liars, murders, and thieves. If you have any doubt just look at their views on abortion. No wonder the Democrats are screaming like demons; they work with them.
While it will not be official until January 29th, Today PG&E announced their intention to file chapter 11 bankruptcy so they can reorganize and become an efficient company again. I say it became official today because PG&E did not pay the interest on a bond obligation due 1/15/19. Even worse the company only has enough cash to cover 4% of their fire related obligations, due to their negligence. Chapter 11 is not liquidation, its reorganization. If you’re a stockholder you will be wiped out, a bondholder, you will see pennies on the dollar for your “investment” and if you’re an employee your paycheck and retirement may be effected slightly. However the company will be lent money by investment banks, so your power and gas will still be operational, and rest assured a monthly bill will still show up.
How did we arrive to this fateful day? Well the fires are the easy answer, and as mentioned in an earlier blog SoCal Edison is not far behind. Utilities as a whole are debt laden companies due to the extensive capital expenditures that are supposed to be occurring every year (more on this later) and are 100% reliant on the Public Utility Commission to allow them to raise rates to cover expenses. The fires occurred, they had no reserves and as a result had no cash to make the payment on the bonds.
What is the fallout going to be from this you may ask? As mentioned above your service will not change or be disrupted. Stockholders are wiped out, bond holders get some scraps from the table, and pensions are likely going to be restructured. CEO Geisha Williams was “axed” the question on Sunday and she chose to resign instead…don’t feel bad for her she gets a nice parting gift of 2.5 million severance. (Had she worked for a governmental agency in Elk Grove, she would have got lifetime medical benefits for being fired, too.) I need to find one of these jobs were apparently incompetence is rewarded.
Geisha Williams presides over PG&E’s scorching of California
Geisha spent a whole two years on the job by the way, thank god she wasn’t a teacher, she would have tenure right now and you couldn’t get rid of her if you tried.
What is going to happen during bankruptcy? This is where things get very interesting, as I could see many different scenarios taking place. I think the most likely is a systematic parting out of the company over the course of several years while under state receivership. You could make an argument it should be broken up into a northern, coastal and inland utility. However I can see a big hang up, the infrastructure. A man in my office made a comment that the company owns quite a bit in valuable assets; this is somewhat true but mostly very false. True they own their headquarters in San Francisco, which is obviously worth quite a bit, but they are going to sell it to stave off creditors. As far as other assets, one mentioned by said man in my office was their wire line assets….really? I view those as a massive liability waiting to spark another fire. Ditto for their generators and transformer units, especially with their maintenance history as a company. Simply stated, buyer beware with these “assets” even if I got a sharp discount I wouldn’t touch them with a 100 foot insulated pole.
The aftermath with the bondholders could get very interesting though. CalPERS our state retirement system has not said how much in bonds they hold. Could the state bail them out just to keep CalPERS solvent? Could we see a state owned utility? Stay tuned! This is going to get messy.
Oh, the stock is down to around $6 a share, and don’t worry; they halted trading this morning, so you were unable to sell your shares, but retirement funds, institutional investors and those in the know were still able to bail out.
If you thought the only EU news today was that the United Kingdom failed to move forward on their Brexit plan, keep reading. Here’s another reason to get away from the political quagmire overseen by Germany and France known as the European Union.
An EU judge today ruled that McDonald’s can no long call one of their hamburgers a “Big Mac”. Yep, the largest food chain on the planet which has legally owned the trademark in the EU since 1996 lost the case to an Irish fast food place called Supermac.
Big Mac under attack from rogue judges in EU
The lawsuit was a result of building tensions between McDonald’s and Supermac’s, after McDonald’s attempted to stop Supermac’s from expanding their chain throughout the EU. McDonald’s argued that the name Supermac’s would confuse customer’s with McDonald’s iconic Big Mac burger. Supermac’s referred to McDonald’s legal tactics as “trademark bullying; registering brand names which are simply stored away in a war chest to use against future competitors.” The judgment in favor of Supermac’s, which was handed down by the European Union Intellectual Property Office, ruled that McDonald’s was not putting the Big Mac trademark to “genuine use.” To make genuine use of a trademark, a company must utilize it to “guarantee the identity of the origin goods.” Evidently, the EUIPO didn’t feel that naming a burger the Big Mac was sufficient evidence that McDonald’s was making genuine use of their trademark. In an interesting twist, the legal decision also reportedly gives Supermac’s the right to use the Big Mac trademark on any of their own food items.
Supermacs wins exclusive right to call hamburgers “Big Mac”
I think I speak for the entire rest of the country in extending a hearty thank you to the CRA. Their piss poor performance on election night has only bolstered the ranks of other state’s Republican Party rolls. Sadly, the CRA “leadership” —I guess that is still a thing—likely feels they are doing a mighty fine job. The Republican Party was decimated at every level and the CRA was more than happy to be the ship’s captain. Not a single statewide candidate got over the 40% threshold; keep in mind one of the most liberal politicians ever was on the top of the ballot. Down ballot we did even worse as a party. However, I don’t want to focus on the CAGOP for this blog—we all know they lack any competence—I want to focus on the group that calls itself the “conscious” of the Republican Party.
I used to be a CRA board member, so I am keenly aware of the ins and outs of the CRA. I can tell you as much as they may blame “vote harvesting” or “same day registration” or pick any other excuse, the fault lies with them. Since I know many of them read this blog, I will offer up undebatable concrete examples of their incompetence.
First their opposition to all things Jeff Denham. I will stipulate that Denham is not perfect, but the CRA wanted no part of him and never endorsed him. As a result, he finally lost his seat. Sadly, it’s a seat we will likely never get back. Many in the CRA saw this as a chance to be rid of a congressman whose first vote as a member would be for a Republican speaker! Appears that wasn’t good enough for the CRA!
Look at some of the Orange County based seats…. Several years ago, these seats were all easy victories for the good guys; that was until the CRA started meddling. As a result of their interference, additional seats were lost, again most of these seats were lost for good. Rohrabacher’s seat we can likely win back, but not the others. Hopefully the CRA stays far away from that race since it could be winnable without their meddling. As far as the legislative races, we lost a seat we should have had no issue keeping and lost a few more again due to CRA meddling. All in all, it was a disaster on election night, however I think the CRA spent the night celebrating! I’ll get in to that below.
The biggest issue with the CRA has been their evolution (or should I call it intelligent design?) The CRA used to be the premier volunteer organization in the entire state. We sent forth an army of volunteers and we tipped many races in our favor! We held our elected officials accountable and vowed to hold the other side in contempt! Then something changed, we became a club. We were no different from the CAGOP which we used to view as the moderate machine! We even branded ourselves as a sane version of the Tea Party after they were corrupted and taken over by Republican political consultants—can you say Sal Russo?
What is a top political operator, who owns a multimillion-dollar lobbying firm and has had a hand in many of California’s crucial election campaigns since Ronald Reagan was governor, doing at the head of an anti-establishment grassroots phenomenon like the Tea Party movement? Sal Russo is the brains behind one of the largest and most politically effective groups, the Tea Party Express. The movement exists to end what its followers call “business as usual” – the cosy club of politicians and vested interests in Washington. Yet Russo himself could be said to come from precisely that same cosy club.
Now CRA is just the old guard club. It is the political equivalent to the VFW; just a bunch of old, used-up soldiers sitting around tell war stories of the glory days of their youth. From that time to now, everything is different; I mean everything. I’m glad I left when I did.
Nowadays, CRA meetings consist of the club President speaking for hours at a time about mindless drivel like: lower government, less spending, tax cuts, and how over forty years ago Ronald Reagan called us the conscious of the Party. Heck, most voting age people in California weren’t even born when “The Gipper” uttered those words. Undeterred, CRA folks—like a cult using its mantra to focus power— say that conscious thing at every meeting. These days, they are never able to get a decent speaker and they have run off most of their membership. Heck you could put everyone attending my old CRA chapter’s month meeting in a corner booth at Denny’s and still have room for visitors.
You see, when you join the CRA you must be either completely nuts or very weak kneed; I’ll discuss the latter in a minute. On the topic of being completely nuts I mean that you are a one issue person who could care less about any other issue. I witnessed firsthand this group ignore a tax hike measure in Sacramento county and instead put all their effort behind an unwinnable school board race…by the way the tax failed by about one hundred votes, no thanks to the “conscious” of the Party which sat it out.
Now I will discuss the values and beliefs of this group. I call it “beliefs you can change in” because on paper, they have a plethora of issues; however, they never take a stand on them in some cycles and in others they act as if they picked that very issue to die on. For a group that claims to be based on principles, they are an inconsistent lot. Abortion tends to be a mainstay issue with these guys, even though there is little chance that Roe v Wade gets overturned outright—even if it did, nothing in California would change because Democrats covered that base decades ago… just in case. Taxes seem to be an issue that comes and goes, depending on what races they want to get involved with.
The CRA has a litmus test for both candidates and members that is enforced on a “when we feel like it” basis; however, if you support Donald Trump…you’re out. Support Jeff Denham…. you’re a moderate, support Ling Ling Chang…..you’re a gun grabber, the list goes on and on. They love to keep their members in check, however when it comes to holding candidates and elected officials accountable? Don’t count on the CRA.
The board members are the worst, they’ve been rotating deck chairs on the Titanic for a while now. It seems like a tradition to permanently expel officers by forcing them to walk the plank every few years and tell everyone that with a smaller crew, things will get better. CRA then celebrates their victory of principle, the opportunity for improvement, and the promise of better days ahead…but, it never arrives.
How about this for ways to treat your membership: conning delegates into traveling 2+ hours by car to an endorsement convention that features only 1 person running for said office! Talk about a waste of time and resources. Or conning a member to call the question about a candidate’s past or a rule change, only to have the floor pulled from under them by the same person who prompted them to call said question. Bylaws may keep the same wording from meeting-to-meeting but be interpreted differently by the same guys depending on what outcome leadership requires in a particular situation.
Johnny “Captain” Morgan, CRA savior?
Hopefully Johnnie “Captain” Morgan can turn this around, and by that, I mean fire the entire incompetent board immediately. I still would like to know how “The Wookie” and “Drunken Jedi” remaining on the board due to their myriad of issues.
Lastly, where is any sense of activism within your club? You have members in your group that claim to be “insiders” or “in the know” regarding local events. 9 times out of 10 you have no idea about the goings on. Two concrete examples, Governor Gavin Newsom in his inaugural address mentioned 2 tax increases he was going to propose with help from the super majority legislature, elected in no small part due to CRA incompetence. Has the CRA put out anything regarding these tax hikes? Do they even know about them? I would say “No” on both counts! The tax hikes for those of you wondering are a new tax on phones to fund a 911 system overhaul, and a tax on drinking water to help underprivileged communities. Only commentary out of the CRA is hopefully Ted Cruz is running in 2020. These are things the CRA should be out on front of…instead apathy, or maybe boycott Dick’s Sporting Goods since they want to ID people who buy guns?
On my old version of my blog, I used to have the following quotation from Martin Luther:
If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking,I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christ. Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved, and to be steady on all the battlefield besides, is mere flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point.
If you want to know why the Church in America is so weak and ineffective, just look at the aftermath of the incident that I blogged about a few days ago.
First To Recap
A rural pastor in California put the following on the sign in front of his church:
Bruce Jenner is still a man Homosexuality is still a sin The culture may change but the Bible does not
Some local people that were not church members or as best as I can tell, not self-identified Christians, protested.
The pastor responded:
The church has lost its saltiness and I fully expect to get as much or more flack from the visible church as I am getting from the world.
If a conservative mountain farming community is no longer a safe place to call sin, sin, then is anywhere in this country still safe for real Christians?
Follow-up
Little did the pastor know that he had preached him last sermon. You see, his congregation abandoned him and cut him loose for “calling a sin, sin.”
Pastor Justin Hoke posted the following on Facebook on Saturday.
As of today, I am no longer the pastor of Trinity Bible Presbyterian Church. After much prayer and counsel, I have decided that it is best to briefly communicate what has taken place. I was informed by our other elder that he felt he could no longer follow my lead as Pastor of TBPC. I was informed that essentially all but one couple in membership would leave the church if I continued as pastor of TBPC. Our other elder and the couple felt that those who left would likely return if I would leave. Our other elder was agreeable to stay and assume the pastoral responsibilities. Therefore it was determined that it would be in the best interest of the local body for us (TBPC and the Hoke family) to part ways. Update 1/14/19 I would like to add this, I did not want to leave, I did not quit, and I was willing to stay.
Justin Hoke Facebook post
Bottom line was the pastor was faithful, but the flock was not. The clergy would not support him, and the congregation abandoned him.
Please note that he was their pastor for seven years and they kicked him to the curb for being right. Let me emphasize that again:
not for cheating on his wife
not for messing with the altar boys
not for skimming money from the collection
not for buying his wife a Lamborghini
but for BEING RIGHT
He called people to repentance and as a result got the boot. This brings me back to the quote from Luther who said in essence, if you are right about everything except where the devil is attacking at that moment and flinch on that point your faith is worthless.
Sadly, pastor Hoke’s congregation is the rule and not the exception in much of the modern western church. So next time you want to vent about the stupid pagans and what they are doing, remember that they are acting according to their nature—dead in their trespasses and sin—while we that are claiming to be alive in Christ are often the ones to blame.
Sadly, too many Christians read II Chronicles 7:14 like this:
“If those other people, would call on my name, humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”
Unfortunately for them, this verse in not directed at the pagans in our world and commanding them to repent; instead, it is directed at the Church to repent, humble themselves and pray. Those claiming to be believers have failed in their mission. We need to repent and turn to God and that will heal our nation.
“If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”
Thanks to, Joe Miller, for making me aware of the update on this tragic situation.
Sunday January 6th, 2019, a date which will live in infamy. At the Johnnie Does residence I was innocently watching the conclusion of the Bears/Eagles game when the lights and all other power devices suddenly stopped working. The time was around 5:00 PM and since our electric utility monopoly recently switched to a time of use billing system, where folks pay higher rates between 5-8pm I figured my utility was doing me a favor.
Soon thereafter I realized the entire block was without power, was this a “rolling blackout?” I immediately called a friend and learned that he was out of power too. I then texted my parents, they live 5 minutes away, their power was on! I was dumbfounded so I went to the SMUD website, it showed no outages…apparently, I was living in the matrix. That or the Russians had hacked the SMUD power outage alert website. I thought death could be imminent since I was without power and Internet service, no one would be aware of my passing, I was experiencing a blackout.
However this blackout was a new experience for Johnnie Does, he is far more accustomed to the alcohol induced blackout. I remember those well from my college days of drinking copious amounts of alcohol, waking up having no clue who she is, or how I got home…oh sorry it’s a PG rated blog.
I hunkered down and waited.
Eventually, rain and wind knocked out power to over 130,000 people. Unable to cook due to a lack of power, I used my laptop to pass some of the time. At around 10:00 my parents called me to see if I was ok and invited me over, not to offer rations or even a place to charge any devices that run on said power, just to do a wellness check.
On my way back to my dwelling, I was furious at the inconvenience caused by the outage. I passed a CVS…this was the perfect opportunity; I contemplated doing what some of the homies do in Los Angeles and loot the place…hopefully I wasn’t the only one with this idea and the selection was not limited to just Vagisil and Monostat.
To my dismay, the lights and power were functioning there, so I ducked my head down and drove home.
I subsided on a diet of brownies, Tostitos tortilla chips and water from the tap. Batteries eventually died, and as a result I turned in to bed early around 11:00. Then I realized, the power outages are broadcast by the radio all over the county to anyone listening, so the bad guys knew where to go to loot! I grabbed my trusty weapon of choice and worked guard duty ‘til 3:30 am, I kept telling myself if anyone comes through the door, shoot ‘em all and let God sort it out! Out of power myself I eventually turned in without having to use said weapon.
I woke up to find that I was still without power…since I live in a “rural area” the priority is very low for restoring my power. I made due, lifted my garage and closed it behind me and headed off to my place of work…commerce continues despite adverse conditions.
Upon arriving at my office, I was greeted by folks offering really dumb suggestions like the following:
Why didn’t you grill your dinner last night? Well hurricane force winds?????
Why didn’t you microwave your dinner? Lack of power may have something to do with it
The power finally came on at around 4:00 the following afternoon, just in time for “peak electricity rates to occur” funny coincidence? I thought, “Get the **** outta here SMUD, that was weak!”
In the afternoon sunlight, my backyard looked like a war zone due to my 9 redwood trees dropping branches like it was going out of style. The only thing I didn’t lose during that blackout was my sanity. I was able to survive, but I will say this; given a choice between the two different types of blackouts: I prefer the alcohol induced one!
This concludes a real life experience of a blackout.
We all know that the Trump tax-cut made changes to the Standard Deduction and Payroll Tax Withholding Tables but wait ‘til you sit down and try doing your taxes this year. When you do, forget everything that you thought you knew about filling out the tax forms. The forms that you knew and loved don’t exist!
Form 1040 EZ
Deleted
Form 1040A
Deleted
Form 1040
Nuked
Instead, now there is one form to rule them all and one form to find them, there is only the 1040…and a bucket load of worksheets to bind them.
For Tax Year 2018, you will no longer use Form 1040A or Form 1040EZ, but instead will use the redesigned Form 1040. Many people will only need to file Form 1040 and no schedules.
While its not the mythical postcard form that we were promised decades ago, the form has taxpayer information on the first page and all the math on the second. For the most part, the actual calculations are on the six new worksheets. Page 2 of the 1040 is just filling in totals or leaving nonapplicable boxes blank. The tax tables don’t even go above earnings of $100K. If you and the spouse, make over $100K then you take the earning amount and multiple it by a decimal number and that’s your tax! Easy Peasy.
While my wife and I will probably use the Standard Deduction
and thus not need to itemize for a Federal filing, the question is what in the
heck will California do? We know they don’t like Trump or how the tax cut was
crafted but will I miss deductions on the California return if I do the quick
and dirty math on the federal form and send it in? Usually states try to mirror
what the national government does but, in this instance, I have no confidence that
this is the case.
Presently I have no clue; partially because TurboTax doesn’t work yet. I bought the software on December 31st and got hard stops in the program when I put in my estimates for 2018 taxes. Schedule A –the form where you itemize everything–was broken. Intuit is promising to have the software up and going in mid-January (about now) but I suspect they will be pushing out updates for many more weeks.
W-2s are required to be mailed by the end of January. The government shutdown may affect your ability to get a refund but somehow, I think if you send Uncle Sam a check, he will be happy to cash it anyway.
Based on what I can discern thus far, it appears that our days of getting a big refund are at an end. By lowering the withholding amount from each paycheck and giving me more monthly take home pay, it looks like I may actually stand a chance of writing a check to the government for the first time. If you usually bank on a big refund, I’m warning you that it may not happen. Both my wife and I claim married with zero dependents, this is the largest amount withheld on the tax tables. If we’re sweating about not getting a refund, some on you are probably in big
trouble. Don’t wait until the last minute, especially this year.
If you think you’re going to come up short, file you tax
return anyway. The biggest penalties from the IRS are for not filing. I know
you can arrange payment but do this before April 15th and I think it
will go better for you.
Pacific Gas & Electric–also known as the “Firestarter” for causing too many fires this past decade–has announced that it intends to split off its natural gas division and/or file for bankruptcy protection. This is a direct result of actions taken Thursday, January 3rd, by the largest insurance companies in the state; Allstate, State Farm General, and USAA filling suit to recover damages incurred by the Camp Fire.
The Camp Fire for those of you who; live under a rock, vote democrat, or are related to a Park Brother, is the fire that burned all of Paradise and Magalia late last year. The fire was started by a spark at a PG&E power generating facility, which had a myriad of maintenance issues by the way. The utility could be on the hook for over $15 billion in damages from fires over the last two years alone, an amount that could well exceed the company’s total value.
Camp Fire, Paradise , CA 2018
How did we get here you may ask? In short, California has a strange law (only 1 other state has it as well) called inverse liability. This law applies to utilities in the state, basically saying, if there is any chance your power lines/equipment may have caused the fire, you are 100% liable for all the damage. In the fires in Sonoma and Napa in 2017, as well as the Camp Fire in 2018, it appears PG&E will be liable for all damages under this law. So, whether the cause was sparks from a generator in Concow this year, a tree falling on a transmission line in Napa, or a short in the line in Sonoma, PG&E is on the hook, not your insurance company. Additionally, because this is set law, no judge will overturn this, or rule in the utility’s favor.
As a result of these liabilities, PG&E late Friday night began to look to implement “Project Falcon” named for the Peregrine Falcons that land on top of the San Francisco HQ’s roof. Project Falcon includes selling off their prime real estate in San Francisco and relocating elsewhere in the Bay Area. Maybe they should relocate somewhere less expensive…like I don’t know….ANYWHERE ELSE! It includes finding additional board members and directors with a background in safety…..yeah probably should have done this after San Bruno, but ok. In addition, they are looking to sell off/spin off their natural gas operations; i.e. the gas part of your bill.
This I have no opinion on, the entire company is ethically and morally bankrupt so I don’t know if two companies are better than one, but I digress. Actually, they lobbied State Senator Bill Dodd (D-Soviet Berkeley) to pass legislation to absolve them of all liability from fire stemming from their electrical lines. While Dodd may have been their puppet for a year, the bill went nowhere, and he has since reversed his stance calling PG&E one of the most corrupt companies he has ever dealt with. I guess the check never cleared the bank?
This issue is actually very complex, and I see it two ways:
On one hand, PG&E like other utilities are a legalized monopoly governed by a state regulator who essentially tells them how much they can charge and how much they can make. The other problem is their service territory is very large; they have over 5 million electricity customers in their territory. In addition, most of their territory is rural, meaning they must bury their lines (very expensive) or have them on towers running through heavily wooded areas or rugged terrain.
Electric Utility Service Area
For example, PG&E must somehow get power to the town of
Biggs. Since this is part of their service area, they must run power lines there
or have a generation plant for this community.
Let’s say that they run electrical transmission lines there and create a
defensible space of call it 20 feet on both sides of the lines. In theory, that
is all well and good, but along the route of the transmission lines are 100-foot-tall
trees. When the trees fall or large branches break off and knockdown the lines,
perhaps as the result of a storm or disease, not only could they disrupt power
but might start a fire. Since the
transmission lines belong to PG&E, they own the resulting repair costs even
if it was not directly their fault. While I do not feel sorry for them, the job
is not very easy, especially when you are a monopoly and have no choice but to
provide electrical and natural gas service.
On the other hand, I’m sorry; you are without a doubt the most ethically bankrupt company in the state, and by a wide margin. When the San Bruno pipe blast occurred, your company never admitted or accepted blame, they passed it off and gave traditional corporate speak answers.
San Bruno pipe blast
That pipe rupture and explosion killed people, and you were caught lying to a judge when they discovered the pipe was essentially “frankensteined” by welding together a bunch of scrap pieces.
“frankensteined” pipe welds
You decided to save face by running a bunch of feel good ads on TV essentially saying you are working harder than ever to keep our communities safe….liars! The fires in Sonoma, Napa and Paradise killed many people. This is a direct result of a total lack of maintenance and integrity. As much as I do not wish to see my gas provider go bankrupt or be split up/sold/etc. they need to be held accountable. So far, they never have been. I had to watch your annoying commercials then watch a town go up in flames because of your equipment and lack of accountability to your rate payers. When it came time for maintenance or tree trimming, I’m sure you just had a single employee check it, initial a log and move on to the next site. Rather than have a cross checker or someone to make sure the work was actually done, it was ignored, and people lost lives/homes and possessions as a result. Shame on you. You never learned your lesson, you just continue to repeat the same mistakes just hoping for a different outcome.
The Blog Father and I agree on several things involving this
corporation. First, it will be
interesting to see how the bankruptcy proceedings handle what is likely a much-underfunded
union pension plan for employees. This
state is very pro-union, and like most utilities, PG&E is very heavily
unionized. If the state swoops in and
takes them over, do the union pensions get bailed out by the taxpayers? Does the state bail the company out? It will be fun to watch. If the company splits, how does the gas
company make it on its own? Natural gas
prices are literally at their lowest levels and it has been this way a long
time. Also, what happens to both
companies? Splitting up is an easy
temporary solution but the problems will still exist. Finally does the company even know what it
actually owns or has infrastructure wise?
Some of these lines were laid decades and decades ago underground. As a matter of fact, PG&E scoped the
sewer lines in both our neighborhoods recently for some unknown reason. As I stated earlier no one even knows what
this company has infrastructure wise or the length of time it is guaranteed to
work for. My suspicions are that huge portions of underground infrastructure in
this state are decades past their useful life and in need of replacement.
Here is what needs to happen: CEO Geisha Williams needs to be led out in handcuffs, she may not work in the field but she as CEO is the captain of the ship and sadly the ship has been taking on water for too long. The failures happened under her watch. Come out and admit your failures and shortcomings in the maintenance division. Allow a judge to investigate the senior management including any supervisor in the areas where the issues occurred. The Public Utility Commission (PUC) should be allowed nowhere near this, they have direct oversight of all CA utilities and have been asleep at the switch. Talk directly to the ratepayers, PG&E’s electric rates are among the highest in the country, yet the upkeep has lacked badly. In addition, please stop running your statewide propaganda commercials about how safe you are and how you are removing tree branches to keep us safe. They are just that…propaganda. Thanks to your negligence, many people lost everything, some even paid with their own lives. Oh, and take a look at what you have done to your stockholders this past year. In addition to a free-falling stock price, your bond rating was cut to junk, and you eliminated the dividend–a traditional hallmark of all utility stocks…good thing I was never an owner!
Geisha Williams presides over PG&E’s scorching of California
What is going to happen: Xavier Becerra is going to take a break from suing Donald Trump and the feds for a minute to take up an investigation and sue PG&E. I guess that’s a good thing because he won’t be wasting taxpayer dollars for a bit, but isn’t this too little too late? I thought the job of government was supposed to be oversight? Instead they just read and react, suing after the fact to get their pound of flesh. Apparently, even your corporate record of supporting Liberal causes with large campaign contributions can’t buy you enough goodwill to get out of this mess. I’m still angry that you gave large sums of ratepayer money to fight against traditional marriage back when we were voting for Prop 8. Any linkage between electricity usage and what ratepayers do with their reproductive organs is beyond my comprehension, but then I don’t live in San Francisco.
Xavier Becerra
Becerra is talking about criminal charges against the corporation…how does that work? Send the transformer to jail? Put the power lines on supervised probation? Get it together! Sadly, I forsee a government owned utility coming soon to every part of the state near you, that includes you Southern CA Edison customers, your utility is in only slightly better shape. I offer up this evidence, PG&E wants to split into 2 companies as discussed above; gas and electric being separate. This runs against the current trend of electric utilities buying gas utilities, also both companies have a record of serious neglect for safety of its customers. The state knows this. They also know that PG&E has a very underfunded pension, and its bond credit rating has been cut to junk, essentially meaning the company faces insolvency very soon. Enter the State of California, coming in hot with a bailout, keeping the union workers happy, just simply folding them into CALPers. I’m sure the state looks at the electric rates charged by PG&E and salivates over being able to add that kind of coin to the general fund each month. Gov. Newsome is on his way to state run healthcare, might as well make utilities the same way, this way they can make you install solar, and simply take it and not pay you.
Conclusion: I think the answer lies somewhere in between these two scenarios. I see the state essentially “parting out” PG&E. In the past (2005), SMUD put out a study and a ballot initiative to annex Davis and Woodland as mentioned above. PG&E spent big to defeat it. I think this plan could come back to fruition. I could see the State selling off the territory to SMUD under an agreement that SMUD also take the surrounding rural areas and agree to a massive overhaul of the maintenance of existing infrastructure.
I see this scenario playing out all over the state to be honest. I don’t really see criminal charges, but I do see a major fine coming. When you look at PG&E’s service territory you can also see a case to break up the company into about 3 – 4 smaller companies, similar to AT&T’s breakup. Bottom line, this company needs to be gone ASAP and take all their employees with them. This has to be the most corrupt company in CA history.
