MY LATEST SUBSTACK ESSAY: Schrodinger’s Election.
Author Archive: Glenn Reynolds
October 5, 2024
JOEL KOTKIN: Kamalafornia Über Alles. “Yet given the partisan fixations of most mainstream media, few look at the Kamalafornian reality. Since 2000, this state of unmatched attractions has managed to lose a net 3.5 million domestic residents. Critically, it ranks toward the bottom among US states in drawing newcomers, who have always been the critical fuel for its economy. Many of those leaving, according to an analysis of IRS data, are middle-income families in their childbearing years; many are college graduates. Forget Harris’s youthful “vibe”: The state, according to data from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, is aging 50 percent more rapidly than the nation—gradually ditching the surfboard for the walker. When Biden was elected in 2020, an overjoyed Los Angeles Times gushed that his goal was to turn America into California. This reflected the reality that the progressive power center lies not in New York, now only the fourth most populous state, or even in the wider Northeast, but in California.”
Plus:
California progressives like to hold up the state as a social-justice model, with establishment left theorists like Laura Tyson and Lenny Mendonca envisioning the state as the epicenter of “a new progressive era.” Others see California, as a New York Times column put it, epitomizing “the shared values of our increasingly tolerant and pluralistic society.”
This is a stretch of planetary proportions. Instead of becoming more of a social democracy, California is becoming ever more feudal: a place characterized by a two-tier economy, with a more affluent educated white and Asian population lording it over a Latino and African-American service class.
California may be home to the highest number of billionaires. Despite its enormous wealth, it is also home to a third of the nation’s homeless people. The Golden State also suffers the highest share of residents living in poverty and the widest gap between middle- and upper-middle-income earners of any state.
Nearly one in five Californians—many working—lives in poverty (using a cost-of-living-adjusted poverty rate). The Public Policy Institute of California estimates that another fifth of residents live in near-poverty, or about 15 million. Most tragic, roughly 20 percent of California’s children lived in or near poverty in 2016.
They’ll turn us all into beggars ’cause they’re easier to please.
THIS IS NOT AN ACCIDENT: The Number of Illegal Aliens Dumped Into Swing States Is Jaw-Dropping.
QUITE A MOVEMENT:
ELON MUSK: "The true test of someone’s character is how they behave under fire. We had one president who couldn’t climb a flight of stairs and another who was fist-pumping after getting shot! FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT!" pic.twitter.com/5R8gJdEz08
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) October 5, 2024
#JOURNALISM:
New York Times says elon musk is “barricading himself behind a phalanx of bodyguards”
Scroll down about 3,000 words and they admit that Zuckerberg has ten times as much security pic.twitter.com/cgpaACkj7i
— Gregg Re (@gregg_re) September 18, 2024
MICROBIOME NEWS: Gut bacteria engineered to act as tumor GPS for immunotherapies.
LIES ALL THE WAY DOWN: Kamala Harris’s Long-Running Disinformation Campaign on Guns.
CALL ME, DUDE:
I see we’ve reached the stage of civilizational decline where the sclerotic federal bureaucracy is hamstringing the tech billionaire’s effort to run private disaster relief in the face of government inaction while trapped civilians run out of food and water… https://t.co/9QSXZBIavy
— John Daniel Davidson (@johnddavidson) October 4, 2024
Related: Feckless Mayor Pete Gets Caught Flat-Footed When Elon Says ‘Call Me, Dude.’
THE FINANCIAL PRESS CERTAINLY ISN’T QUESTIONING THE TIMING: Are Folks In America That Stupid?’ Dave Ramsey Says Americans Should Be More Suspicious Of The Fed Rate Cuts Timing. “We just got word a few moments ago – surprise, surprise, 45 days from the election, the Fed dropped the interest rate … That wasn’t possible four months ago or eight months ago, but right before the election, it’s possible. That’s just sus.”
EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: There’s a Marburg virus outbreak, younger women are getting breast cancer and more children are dying from flu.
THERE SEEMS TO BE A ROWBACK UNDERWAY: Fluoride in drinking water might be less beneficial today.
Related: Federal judge orders EPA further regulate fluoride in drinking water due to concerns over lowered IQ in kids. I used to laugh at fluoridation alarmists and conspiracy theorists, and now. . . .
Meanwhile, General Jack D. Ripper smiles:
CHANGE: HAVE WE PASSED PEAK OBESITY?
We already know from clinical trials that Ozempic and other GLP-1 drugs produce sustained reductions in body weight, but with mass public usage taking off — one in eight US adults have used the drugs — the results may now be showing up at population level. pic.twitter.com/e1FxDkBh3X
— John Burn-Murdoch (@jburnmurdoch) October 4, 2024
BEYONCÉ IS SO RADICAL: Yale offers Beyoncé ‘black radical tradition’ class.
WELL, GOOD:
OH WOW 👀
Trump has placed Cory Comperatore’s Fire Fighter uniform in the stands where Cory laid down his life protecting his family from the assassin bullets.
Truly a place of honor for all to see.
Cory’s family will be at the rally tonight. pic.twitter.com/rtr6eE2Y9Y
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) October 5, 2024
ON THE GROUND:
Chinook pilot asked if they had a forklift. This is pretty awesome. pic.twitter.com/uH2GspO2ek
— Nathan 🇺🇲 (@vastlyimpartial) October 3, 2024
INCOMPETENCE, OR MALICE?
Just received this note from a SpaceX engineer helping on the ground in North Carolina. @FEMA is not merely failing to adequately help people in trouble, but is actively blocking citizens who try to help!
“Hey Elon, update here on site of Asheville, NC. We have powered up two…
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 4, 2024
Just got off the phone a Pastor in the midst of the flooding in TN/NC. He is in one of the most devastated locations. He verified a few things about the situation:
– Almost all help is being done by private citizens, mainly churches.
– Private helicopters are flying in the vast… pic.twitter.com/jCAfZT4Klx— Spencer Smith 🇺🇸🇰🇪🇩🇴 (@BroSpencer) October 4, 2024
Related: Hurricane Helene and the Lost Mandate of Heaven.
The default assumption many people hold now is that the regime is composed of criminals, of enemies. It is difficult not to feel this way. It is, indeed, almost foolish not to.
So when the regime fumble’s the response to a disaster, many will assume that it did so deliberately.
Maybe it did, and maybe it didn’t; that so many assume this to be so is the significant fact.
This is a government which has lost the mandate of heaven. It is no longer fit to rule.
There’s a third theme, though, which is in the long run the most significant.
While the state dithered, schemed, bumped into itself, and got in the way, the self-organizing networks of civil society responded immediately, seamlessly, and nimbly. Civilian helicopters were the first to take to the air; relief supplies were collected and distributed by spontaneously organized rescue missions that got to work right away, without waiting for permission, authorization, or orders. . . .
Given what we’ve seen in North Carolina, and elsewhere, how much government do we really need?
And I think many of us know without being told that the answer is: a whole lot less than what we have now.
Flashback: Amerian Dunkirk. “People at Ground Zero, the Manhattan Waterfront, nearby New Jersey, Staten Island and Brooklyn waterfronts, and crews on the numerous vessels repeatedly used the phrases “just amazing,” “everyone cooperated, and “just doing what it took” to describe maritime community responses. Individuals stepped up and took charge of specific functions, and captains and crews from other companies took their direction. . . . Private maritime operators kept their vessels onsite and available until Friday, Day Four, when federal authorities took over.”
“Day Four, when federal authorities took over.”
HOW’S THAT GOING FOR YOU? Flashback: Boeing CEO Vows to Beat Musk to Mars.
PULL A MILLEI AND FIRE ‘EM ALL: Biden’s agency bosses say Americans have ‘too much freedom.’
These people need to be out on the street looking for work in this economy, not sucking off the government teat while sneering at the taxpaying hoi polloi.
CAN’T THINK, CAN’T TALK:
JUST IN: Kamala Harris has no clue what to say after her teleprompter appears to stop working, keeps repeating herself.
The Vice President kept repeating “32 days.”
“Remember his number 32 today? We got 32 days until the election.”
“So 32 days… 32 days… Okay. We got some… pic.twitter.com/2fIl1nyEkq
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) October 4, 2024