Quick Jots: September review

The news cycle has proven to move too fast for me. I have to focus on a few things to explore more in-depth and the rest, cram it all into a monthly post.

Nickolas Wildstar running for Governor
Spike Cohen's bus tour across America came to town early September, where a fundraiser was held for the Jorgensen campaign at a private residence before the Oakland rally at Lake Merritt, where multiple Libertarian candidates spoke. I spoke with Nickolas Wildstar at the fundraiser, who revealed that he would be running for Governor of California again in the next cycle, which is great news. He also mentioned to me a puzzling thing he found out that when he was doing pamphleteering amid the Black Lives Matter protests, those people wouldn't give him the time of day, but whenever he did pamphleteering in more conservative events, they were all much more receptive. Considering Nickolas Wildstar is a black man who himself has been harassed by the cops multiple times, including getting arrested because he "fit a description", it's just more evidence that BLM is more interested in politics than actually trying to reduce police violence against black lives.

Spike Cohen at a fundraiser thrown for him at a
local activist's house // photo my own

Nickolas Wildstar at Spike Cohen's Bus Tour
stop in Oakland // photo my own

Remember Steven Taylor
The first post I made in this blog was about the Steven Taylor murder in San Leandro, the town next door to me. The officer was charged with felony manslaughter this month. I like to think that the officer was smug in thinking he'll get away with it when it happened in April, then his soul getting crushed when the nation responded to George Floyd. In nearby Hayward, Agustin Gonzalez was shot and killed about two years ago by the police in a situation that seems to me, to also include use of excessive force. The county District Attorney decided to not move forward with charges against the police officer last year, with the family pushing for an independent investigation. I hope the recent events, particularly with Steven Taylor's case, renew interest in the push with the city council.

Nancy Pelosi Maskgate
In a move that shouldn't surprise anyone, Nancy Pelosi was caught on security footage walking into a salon sans mask to get her hair done. She should know as well as anyone that the state of California forced salons to close, showing the political elite have two sets of rules: one for themselves, the royal class, and another for the rest of us, the lowly peons. In another move that shouldn't surprise anyone, when this was publicized, she spun the blame on the salon owner that she's been going to for years, demanding an apology for it being "a setup". The disgusting useful idiots sniffing Pelosi's farts, in retaliation, sent the salon owner numerous death threats following the incident, who will likely leave the state for fear of her own safety.

USC Professor suspended for saying a Chinese phrase
At the University of Spoiled Children...er...(or should I say, "nè gă") University of Southern California, a professor was suspended because he was teaching filler words like "um" and "er", while giving examples of filler words in other languages. In Chinese, that would be nè gă or the similar pronunciation, nà gă. Some students filed a complaint because it sounds like, well, you know. The students claimed to be emotionally distraught by the professor speaking a Chinese word and the dean, instead of using it as a teachable moment, decided to put the professor on suspension from the course. When these fragile Spoiled Children get a job in the real world and has to converse with Chinese companies, what are they going to do then when they hear the phrase? Contact the president of the company to put its entire workforce on suspension? These kids are completely unprepared for life in the real world and the dean is purposefully stunting their growth.

Hannah Nicole Jones and the New York Times doesn't understand how the internet works
Hannah Nicole Jones unbelievably claimed recently on Twitter and CNN that her 1619 Project's intent was not to redefine the country's founding from 1776 to 1619, calling attempts to frame it as such, conservative bias. Of course, the New York Times, in the intro to the piece, wrote: "It aims to reframe the country's history, understanding 1619 as our true founding." The NYT has, since it initially published the piece, deleted that phrase without issuing a retraction amid mountains of historians disputing numerous claims made in the project, in itself a troubling move for a "paper of record". Jones's own Twitter profile page had a banner crossing out 1776 and writing 1916, also since, been deleted. 

Hannah Nicole Jones's deleted Twitter banner. Yeah, totally not
trying to reframe the founding to 1619. // Twitter screenshot via Reason Magazine

Trump introduces 1776 Commission
Not to be outdone by Jones and the NYT, Trump introduces the 1776 Commission. This idiotic executive order, whatever they end up requiring, will be even worse than the 1619 Project because this could become mandated teaching material nationwide. While the 1619 Project has major flaws, no school was required to adopt it as curriculum, though a few have. The 1776 Commission, would have far greater power to do this, and the "conservatives" cheering this on would be wise to consider what the Democrats would install when they regain the White House. That they would harshly criticize the 1619 Project, then turn around and do this with no sense of irony, is, well, completely expected.

Maine ranked-choice voting
Hey! Something actually positive. Maine introduced ranked-choice voting for the presidential ballot. It would be interesting to see how well Jo Jorgensen will do in Maine, compared to third parties in previous years. There are a ton of variables in this comparison, but it would be interesting nonetheless. Hopefully, while I doubt it would actually get third parties to rise to the top any time soon, it would help aggregate more votes toward third parties, helping with ballot access.

King Newsom decrees no gas cars by 2035
In an executive order, or rather, royal decree, Newsom decrees for no new gas cars sold by 2035. Newsom declared in a news conference, "If you want to reduce asthma, if you want to mitigate the rise of sea level, if you want to mitigate the loss of ice sheets around the globe, then this is a policy for other states to follow," as the wildfires rage on due to California's mismanagement of forest land and open space, creating untold environmental damage and emissions. I also doubt Newsom's czars are properly factoring in the environmental destruction of the required ramping up of rare earth mining in the equation. In 2036, I suppose anyone, say a lower middle-class resident wanting to purchase a cheaper-than-electric, new gas-powered car would have to drive out of state, buy one, and bring it back. The state is also short in charging station infrastructure by quite a bit.

California blackouts
Speaking of charging station infrastructure, California has been suffering from rolling blackouts due to high energy usage in the heat. For the same policy reasons as above, California has pushed renewable energy over fossil fuels, while at the same time, inexplicably barring nuclear from advancing. The result, of course, is rolling blackouts since renewable is far less reliable than fossil fuels. This has been a secret to nobody except the political class. California has had to import more electricity than any other state in the Union due to this disastrous policy, though in high usage times, there is not enough electricity to import, and so we get rolling blackouts. In an extremely poorly researched and written LA Times project, where it bizarrely claims energy prices are high because of the glut of electricity California has, despite every single other source claiming the opposite import-export ratio on net (both can be true, but not on net), it looks like California also exports a lot of electricity. If the article is true, California also pays Arizona to take electricity from California. This is plausible because solar power and peak usage times don't always align and any excess electricity has to be offloaded, but purchased from other sources when renewable energy sources are no longer active. That means California pays other states to give us electricity and to take electricity from us. The idiocy of how this is all run is staggering. So California wants us to transition the power source of our cars to electricity, which California can't figure out how to properly generate? Smrt.

Joshua Wong arrested
Freedom activist Joshua Wong has been arrested in Hong Kong where authorities allege he broke an anti-mask law a year ago, although today, mask-wearing in the same location is mandatory. The anti-mask law was never repealed, so now if you wear a mask you're breaking the law and if you don't, you're breaking the law. There was little doubt that Wong was going to be arrested for something. Obviously, he was targeted by Beijing to silence him, utilizing a laughably minor offense to do so a year after the fact. Let this be a lesson for anyone who says "Well, I'm not doing anything wrong so I'm okay with the government doing x."

Ron Paul stroke scare
While livestreaming an episode of The Liberty Report, Dr. Paul appeared to have a stroke. When I found out about it, it was his Tweet saying that he was okay. Good thing, because if I had seen that live, I would have had a heart attack. If I had found out via the NY Post on Friday, I would have been a wreck all weekend. Sometimes, it pays to not pay attention for a few days. I'm glad he's well and hope he lives to see many more years. He's older than Biden, but certainly functions far better.

Trump nominates Amy Barrett to SCOTUS
I honestly don't know much about Ms. Barrett or her judicial history. She is very religious which makes me a bit nervous about civil liberties. Reason wrote a piece confirming my fears (but perhaps not my "reasoning"), describing her civil liberties as a "mixed bag". Their legal specialist, Damon Root, rips apart her reason-based judicial deference, showing how it more or less provides a rubber stamp for legislators while disregarding the Fourteenth Amendment. The Volokh Conspiracy blog excoriates Slate's reporting as misleading trash, as would be expected, given the politically charged nature of this nomination. It confirms what I suspected about Trump's judicial nominations: he wasn't some genius in nominating a great justice in Gorsuch, bur rather stupidly stumbled into a great pick. I wasn't anticipating some brilliant nomination and it looks like that's what more or less happened. One thing I do know...she's not going to get #MeToo'd.

Trump's taxes released by the New York Times
Amid much balleyhooing, the New York Times released Trump's tax returns, showing massive losses claimed by his businesses. In the middle, they dedicated one sentence to "Nor do they reveal any previously unreported connections to Russia." Damn, that must have been rough for them to type and I can't believe they're still trying to hang their hat on this, despite the entire ordeal not passing the smell test from day one to any objective person. They also make a big deal about his floundering businesses revealed in his returns, but this is hardly new. This has been known since at least 2016 when he was running for president the first time around. In the end, this massive "exposé" was just that. Old news about a blowhard not being able to back up his pompous remarks about himself. There was nothing overtly illegal about his taxes, though he is under audit (so are hundreds of thousands of other Americans). This was mostly his accountant being able to minimize tax payments under an insanely complicated system the political establishment created that only the rich have the resources to fully figure out. That's what the real moral of the story is. It's hardly some unique tactic to Trump, nor is he a hypocrite for doing so. He's always been for lowering taxes (and not lowering spending, which makes his tax "cuts" really just tax deferments, which is where the real story is to criticize Trump). The hypocrisy lies more in the politicians like Bernie Sanders, who thinks it's a moral imperative for millionaires to pay more in taxes, yet maximizing his own tax deductions with aggressive itemization. I was thinking about doing a full write up, but Dave Smith did a thorough takedown of this entire piece on his podcast to where I don't have much to add to it.

Presidential debate crashes Jorgensen's website
I knew the presidential debate would be a complete dumpster fire with nonsensical platitudes fired at each other. That's why I wanted to watch it, for the lolz, but we had guests over so we didn't get the opportunity. And now it would be kind of like watching a game while knowing who wins. Turns out it was a different kind of dumpster fire with much of it being just a shouting match between two five-year-olds, with apologies to five-year-olds everywhere for insulting their intelligence. Many called the debate a waste of time, but it always has been a waste of time. Has anybody watched one of these "debates" before? Intelligible policy discussion has always been nearly nonexistent, with more interest in attacking others for tangential reasons. The one major difference in this debate was that the mask was pulled off. Anyone seriously learning anything substantive from these debates in the past needs to find better sources of information. The major positive from this: Jo Jorgensen's website crashed from high traffic during the debate and Google searches for her name spiked. With the Commission on Presidential Debates, a private corporation run by Democrats and Republicans, placing an arbitrary 15% polling minimum and only selecting polls that exclude third parties on their polls, how do people not see that this is totally rigged? This is the America that the Democrats and Republicans have given the voters that have voted for them. When will they wake up and stop voting for children to run their lives? George Farah, who wrote the book No Debate: How the Republican and Democratic Parties Secretly Control the Presidential Debates, explains the history of the debates and how it only serves the duopoly in this compilation video: