California and Conservatism

Victor Davis Hanson

. . . "Is there some hope? A recent April poll from the liberal UC Berkeley Haas center proved a shock in reporting that 24 percent of the survey’s participants agreed that it’s “very important” for the U.S. to increase deportations of undocumented immigrants, while 35 polled said it was “somewhat important” — an aggregate majority result expressing a desire for future legal immigration only. The poll included a majority of Hispanic residents, upon whose schools, communities, and social services open borders and illegal immigration most heavily fall. Currently there are early pushbacks against the new steep gasoline taxes; high-speed rail, whose half-built overpasses are our modern Stonehenge, has lost most public support.

"What, then, is the chance of California’s recalibrating as a conservative state? It largely hinges on meritocratic, measured, diverse, and legal immigration that studies show most successfully leads to assimilation, intermarriage, and integration, a melting pot that makes residents see their particular tribal affiliations as incidental rather than essential to their characters.

"When that happens, millions of Californians of all backgrounds will more likely vote for issues such as reducing taxes, encouraging energy development and middle-class housing construction, and investing in infrastructure such as freeways and reservoirs (rather than building impossible utopian high-speed rail projects), reforming pensions, curbing teacher unions, and allowing more charter schools and school choices. In other words, the present-day Democratic voter will someday question why such high sales, income, and energy taxes result in such poor social services, as the state’s highways and schools rank near last in the nation." . . .

Left buys into fake news about Martha Stewart refusing Trump pardon

Rich Terrell

Monica Showalter  "So did Martha Stewart refuse President Trump's pardon of her, on a maliciously prosecuted insider stock trading case, based on her progressive views? Nope, not to anyone's knowledge.

"But a satirical news site put that out there and sure enough, out on Twitter and elsewhere, much of the left bit into the fake news and passed it around. Obviously, the satirists knew the left would believe it." . . .

"What Trump did, in fact, was a bipartisan thing, given that Stewart is a friend of the Clintons and holds Democratic views, something she never allows to pollute into her magazine. For most people, this is fine, and the selective prosecution she got was bad stuff. Trump fixed it, Stewart has accepted it (a thank you would be nice, but let's not get ahead of ourselves) and now she gets her life back as it was. Above all, Trump's pardon was based on a sense of justice, not her being a member of the right party, as Obama would have required. Can you imagine Obama pardoning a Republican? Never would have happened, and never did happen. Republicans, such as Dinesh D'Souza, were special targets of Obama's prosecutorial apparat, and to correct that injustice, Trump to his credit pardoned D'Souza, too. Obama, by contrast, pardoned mainly drug dealers and petty criminals, along with a few favorites. Trump's pardon power extends to actual cases of injustice in the judicial system, and sends a message to selective prosecutors ambitious for headlines that their efforts may be junked." . . .

Oklahoma becomes the 8th state to fall under California travel ban

Rick Moran   San Francisco Chronicle:

“ 'Our taxpayer dollars do not fund bigotry,” Becerra said. “No exceptions.' ”

. . . " I'm sure there are plenty of California laws that Oklahomans object to, not least of which are sanctuary laws that spit in the face of the rest of the country when it comes to allowing illegal aliens to enter with impunity. California cannot guarantee that all those illegals will remain in California. No doubt some will end up in Oklahoma, placing a burden on state residents who did not vote for sanctuary policies. California cannot invoke federalism in one instance and not in another.

"If "bigotry" is the standard by which a state is judged, California should clean up its own house. There are other kinds of bigotry besides idiotic notions about race, ethnic origin, or sexual orientation. If the definition of bigotry is a "stubborn and complete intolerance of any creed, belief, or opinion that differs from one's own" then California should be kicked out of the union. There is no state more intolerable of minority political beliefs. There is no state more intimidating to the free flow of ideas. There is no state more hostile to free speech and freedom of thought."

Eventually, California will get around to banning travel to most states. They will define bigotry more and more broadly until only the most rigidly politically correct states will be left.

The left is destroying science (as it always does)

Vlad Tepes

Probably more than you want to know in this video:

How the Left Is Destroying Science (Science vs. Scientism) From 2016.

. . . "Because these profoundly devout Christians considered physics and mathematics simply another manifestation of a holy and ordered Creation, they never worshipped science.  Lying was a sin, and lying about the nature of the world was a particularly serious sin, because it knowingly concealed the true nature of the world.

"Within the Medieval university was that same sort of freedom and mutual respect that had never existed before except in the academy of Plato.  As with the academy, the Medieval university had schools of thought and different interpretations of what phenomena meant.  This was science.

"Scientism, on the other hand, is a vile misology that arose at the end of the nineteenth century and has infected those processes intended to discover the truth about our world ever since.  The most evil and dishonest regimes in modern history – Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia, and Maoist China – were all utterly and passionately devoted to whatever pseudo-science was needed to support the party. " . . .

The Liberals' War on Science 
"How politics distorts science on both ends of the spectrum"

Is Loony Left Gov. Jerry Brown killing California? What does that mean for America?

 . . . “America can’t afford more political paralysis. One side or the other must win. This is a civil war than can be won without firing a shot. But it is a fundamental conflict between two worldviews that must be resolved in short order. California, as usual, resolved it early. The Democrats won; the Republicans lost.  . . .

Steve Hilton

"Exuberant Democrats – carried along by the self-righteousness of their authoritarian and puritanical identity politics zealotry, and self-confidence in the supposedly inevitable electoral annihilation of President Trump and Republicans in November – are starting to see a long-cherished liberal dream as an imminent reality: California as a model for the whole nation.

"You’ll get the picture if you read a widely-shared article published earlier this year by Medium, written by tech guru Peter Leyden, headlined “The Great Lesson of California in America’s New Civil War.” The article is subtitled: “Why there’s no bipartisan way forward at this juncture in our history – one side must win.”

. . . 

"And you see it in Brown’s bizarre championing of Proposition 47, which essentially decriminalized the theft of any item under $950. His stance has been a social policy disaster, giving a green light to drug-fueled crime throughout the state.

. . . 

"So we’d better take this seriously. Democrats, as the old political adage goes, now want to do to America what they’ve done to California. It’s an alarming prospect. . . .  (Emphasis added by TD)

Hat tip to Harley Standlee; Placerville, CA

Related:

California Bans State Employees From Traveling to Oklahoma

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra announced Friday that the state would banstate-funded and state-sponsored travel to Oklahoma due to an Oklahoma law that allows certain adoption agencies to deny services to same-sex couples.

California Central Valley farmer Victor Davis Hanson wrote: 

Will Unfinished Train Overpasses Become California’s Stonehenge?

California's unfinished high--speed-rail overpasses will stand as monuments to the state's insatiable appetite for spending money it doesn't have.

 Christmas Lessons from California

. . . Over some 50 consecutive months of drought, California did not start work on a single major reservoir — though many had long ago been planned and designed.Instead, given the lack of water-storage capacity, and due to environmental diversions, tens of millions of acre-feet of precious runoff water last year were simply let out to the ocean.This year, the state may want all of that water back. . . . 

Cartoons added by TD. 

US Marines Kill Stunning Number of Taliban Leaders In Last 48 Hours

100% FedUp  "On January 29, 2918, President Trump announced that his administration won’t engage in talks with the Taliban after the terrorist group claimed responsibility for a pair of recent attacks that killed more than 100 people.

“When we see what they’re doing and the atrocities that they’re committing, and killing their own people, and those people are women and children — many, many women and children that are totally innocent — it is horrible,” Trump said during a meeting with members of the United Nations Security Council.                               “ 'So there’s no talking to the Taliban. We don’t want to talk to the Taliban. We’re going to finish what we have to finish,” Trump added." . . .

"Fox News is now reporting that the U.S. Marines in Afghanistan have killed dozens of Taliban leaders last week using rocket artillery after tracking them to a meeting in volatile Helmand Province, according to the top American general in Afghanistan Wednesday.                                                                                   "U.S. Forces Afghanistan said more than 50 Taliban commanders, including the deputy Taliban shadow governor of Helmand was killed. Taliban leaders from six other provinces across Afghanistan were killed as well in the strike in the Musa Qala district of Helmand, according to the statement." . . .Video

CNN reports this, so it must be true: Military proposes medal for troops showing restraint

Medal for 'courageous restraint' plan get mixed review from troops
. . . "The directives "are confusing and the mixed messages from command is making it more difficult for us to defend ourselves," said a U.S. Army soldier in Afghanistan.
A U.S. Marine captain who has served in Iraq, said that he understands the intentions of the award but believes "it's just a bad idea." He said, "They teach us not to second-guess our decisions in dangerous situations. When people second-guess themselves they can be putting lives at risk."

"Some soldiers shrugged at the proposal. "It's good, but just like with valorous medals, guys are going to do the right thing because it is the right thing," said Army Lt. Joseph Cooper said. "I think our year in Maiwand [Afghanistan] has shown that in frightening and confusing moments the U.S. soldier will consistently make the right choice time after time."

"But other soldiers saw the medal proposal as a reinforcement of troubling rules of engagement. "Unfortunately, we are being reduced to a police force," said another U.S. soldier. "There are troops that never leave Bagram or Kandahar airfield. ... Maybe if they left us all on base and never sent us out to confront the enemy, we could all be honored [for] valor."

Hopefully, many more bad ideas like this died of their own weight.

Liberals Are Shocked To Find We’re Starting To Hate Them Right Back

Townhall  "I know it’s theoretically wrong for a Republican candidate to smack around an annoying liberal journalist, but that still doesn’t mean that I care. Our ability to care is a finite resource, and, in the vast scheme of things, millions of us have chosen to devote exactly none of it toward caring enough to engage in fussy self-flagellation because of what happened to Slappy La Brokenshades. 

"Sorry, not sorry. 

"And that’s not a good thing, not by any measure, but it is a real thing. Liberals have chosen to coarsen our culture. Their validation and encouragement of raw hate, their flouting of laws (Hi leakers! Hi Hillary!) and their utter refusal to accept democratic outcomes they disapprove of have consequences. What is itself so surprising is how liberals and their media rentboyz are so surprised to find that we normals are beginning to feel about them the way they feel about us – and that we’re starting to act on it. If you hate us, guess what? 

"We’re going to start hating you right back. 

"Cue the boring moralizing and sanctimonious whimpering of the femmy, bow-tied, submissive branch of conservatism whose obsolete members were shocked to find themselves left behind by the masses to whom these geeks’ sinecures were not the most important objective of the movement. This is where they sniff, “We’re better than that,” and one has to ask ,“Who’s we?” Because, by nature, people are not better than that. They are not designed to sit back and take it while they are abused, condescended to, and told by a classless ruling class that there are now two sets of rules and – guess what? –the old rules are only going to be enforced against them." . . .

Pictures added by TD

Brooke Baldwin brings a sliver of light into the darkness that is the leftist media

CNN reporter actually practices journalism!

This places her head, shoulders and full height above these CNN embarrassments:

2011; CNN Reporter Dan Lothian asks Obama this challenging, insightful question: (Speaking bromantically to power)

 "So I'm wondering if you think that they're uninformed, out of touch, or irresponsible?" CNN's White House correspondent Dan Lothian asked President Obama in Hawaii."

CNN’s Don Lemon: ‘Is It Preposterous’ to Think a Black Hole Caused Flight 370 to Go Missing?  "CNN’s Don Lemon has been entertaining all sorts of theories about the missing Malaysian Airlines Flight 370, including the chance something “supernatural” happened, but on Wednesday night, he actually asked panelists about the possibility a black hole was involved.
"Lemon brought this up along with other “conspiracy theories” people have been floating on Twitter, including people noting the eerie parallels to Lost and The Twilight Zone, and wondered, “is it preposterous” to consider a black hole as a possibility?" . . .

Thank you, Brooke Baldwin for this small ray of light in the darkness that is today's media.

Congressional Candidate In Virginia Admits He’s A Pedophile

Yahoo  "Nathan Larson, a 37-year-old accountant from Charlottesville, Virginia, is running for Congress as an independent candidate in his native state. He is also a pedophile, as he admitted to HuffPost on Thursday, who has bragged in website posts about raping his late ex-wife.

"In a phone call, Larson confirmed that he created the now-defunct websites suiped.org and incelocalypse.today ― chat rooms that served as gathering places for pedophiles and violence-minded misogynists like himself. HuffPost contacted Larson after confirming that his campaign website shared an IP address with these forums, among others. His sites were terminated by their domain host on Tuesday.

"On the phone, he was open about his pedophilia and seemingly unfazed about his long odds of attaining government office.

“ 'A lot of people are tired of political correctness and being constrained by it,” he said. “People prefer when there’s an outsider who doesn’t have anything to lose and is willing to say what’s on a lot of people’s minds.”

"When asked whether he’s a pedophile or just writes about pedophilia, he said, “It’s a mix of both. When people go over the top there’s a grain of truth to what they say.' ” . . .

After Clinton Buddy Gov. McAuliffe Restores Rights To Felons, Pedophile Runs For Congress In VA 

Obama-era FAA hiring rules place diversity ahead of airline safety, attorney tells Tucker Carlson

Weasel Zippers photo

Fox News "The safety of America's airline passengers is being compromised for the sake of diversity in hiring air traffic controllers, an attorney suing the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) told "Tucker Carlson Tonight" host Tucker Carlson on Friday.

"During the Obama administration, the FAA replaced the previous hiring standards with rules designed to increase diversity among air traffic controllers, attorney Michael Pearson said.

“ 'A group within the FAA, including the human resources function within the FAA -- the National Black Coalition of Federal Aviation Employees -- determined that the workforce was too white,” Pearson told Carlson. “They had a concerted effort through the Department of Transportation in the Obama administration to change that.' ” . . .

Opening the White House to the Muslim Brotherhood

"If you have ever wondered just why President Obama could never bring himself to condemn or even say "radical Islamic terrorism," Valerie Jarrett is one of the reasons. " . . . 

Daniel John Sobieski  "One of the unfortunate side effects of Roseanne's racist tweet implosion involving Valerie Jarrett is that it may put off limits the documented influence held by the Muslim Brotherhood in the Obama administration – influence that was so great that we handed over a loyal ally, Egypt, into its control for a time.

"The key player in Obama's administration is the Iranian-born Valerie Jarrett.  Her role in the Obama administration has been likened to the mysterious Rasputin in the era of the Russian czars:

Her influence is shown by an account in Richard Miniter's book "Leading From Behind: The Reluctant President and the Advisors Who Decide for Him."

It relates that at the urging of Jarrett, Obama canceled the operation to kill Osama bin Laden on three occasions before finally approving the May 2, 2011, Navy SEAL mission.  Seems she was concerned about the possible political harm to Obama if the mission failed.

"Then there is Huma Abedin, wife of disgraced former congressman Anthony Weiner and top aide to former secretary of state Hillary Clinton.  She is expected to assume the Jarrett role in a Hillary Clinton White House.  Her affiliations and loyalties are also suspect:

Her father is said to be close with the Saudi government's Muslim World League, and her mother is said to be a member of the Muslim Sisterhood.  World Trade Center bombing prosecutor Andrew McCarthy wrote in National Review: "The ties of Ms. Abedin's father, mother and brother to the Muslim Brotherhood are both specific and substantiated." . . . Full article

Make Presidential Pardons Great Again

"But Trump is using the presidential pardon the way the Constitution intended: to correct an injustice.

Don Surber  "President Trump is using the presidential pardon the way it should be used: to correct an injustice. The people he pardoned -- Scooter Libby, Joe Arpaio, Kristian Saucier, Jack Johnson, and now, Dinesh D'Souza -- were all victims of malicious prosecution.

"Contrast and compare Bill Clinton's pardons.

• Roger Clintion, his brother, who served a year for doing cocaine.
• Marc Rich, a billionaire who was convicted of tax evasion from his illegal sale of oil from Iran. Clinton pardoned him in exchange for a considerable donation to Clinton's presidential library.
• Henry Cisneros, his secretary of housing and urban development, who committed 28 counts of bank fraud while he was secretary of HUD.
• Susan McDougal, a friend who took the rap for the Clintons for Whitewater and kept her trap shut about it.
• Democratic Congressman Dan Rostenkowski, a sleazy Chicago politician.
• Democratic Congressman Mel Reynolds, another sleazy Chicago politician who also committed statutory rape.

"None of them were railroaded.

"They were pardons on the Family and Friends Plan.

"Two wrongs do not make a right. If Trump does anything like that, I will bust him for it.

"But Trump is using the presidential pardon the way the Constitution intended: to correct an injustice." . . .