Quote from: Ghostmaker on January 22, 2021, 08:13:33 am

Quote from: Pat on January 22, 2021, 06:13:23 am

Quote from: jhkim on January 21, 2021, 05:49:42 pm

Yes, California has a problem with its pension system - but lots of states have different financial woes. In general, blue states are not financially incompetent. On average, blue states have higher GDP per capita and household income than red states. They host dominant financial institutions like Wall Street, Hollywood, and Silicon Valley. There's plenty of problems in blue states to nitpick, but overall, their finances are no worse than red states.

In terms of general debt, California is roughly average in debt as a percentage of GDP, and less than, for example, Texas.

https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/state_spending_rank_2021pH0C

14% of $3.1 trillion is about $430 billion. Yet here's a source that says California's debt is $1.3 to 2.3 trillion, with pensions alone accounting for $1 trillion:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasdelbeccaro/2018/04/19/the-top-four-reasons-california-is-unsustainable/
I'd bet that 14% doesn't include unfunded liabilities. Which private companies are required to include on their balance sheets, by government regulators, because it's just common sense to include legally promised future commitments. But which the government frequently doesn't include on its own balance sheets, because they're trying to hide their own failures to control costs.

Yup. Jhkim is cheerfully quoting statistics that are, how shall we say, 'massaged'. Hence why I'm not really paying much attention.

And of course, the proof is in the pudding; why else would California be trying to pass blatantly illegal tax codes targeting people outside its jurisdiction?

Yeah, the proof is in the pudding. When it really comes down to it, what matters to people's lives is proposed laws that haven't been passed.

Oh, wait. No, that's not the proof.

The proof is in actual results - in how people actually live. Things like GDP per capita, average lifespan, poverty rate, suicide rate, violent crime rate, and so forth. Yes, California has problems - but so do all the other states. When we compare *proven* results, California mostly does better than average. Regarding the statistics - if you have a comparison of unfunded liabilities by GDP per state, I'd love to see it. I didn't see a comparison of that in my search.

Pat's already linked you to one.

How many people left California last year again?

Now this is something that I have personally wanted since the year 2000, when the presidential election was compromised by the State of Florida. There the vote was so close, that a recount was ordered. The Republicans at that time, had the Courts intervene, and stopped the recount before it was completed, short-circuiting the election process and unfairly awarding the Republicans the presidency, as well as a majority in the Senate.

I kinda disagree on your analysis of this, as there were repeated recounts, and Florida's election laws specifically stated 'you must turn in your papers on X date'. The Democrats wanted to ignore that and keep recounting until Gore won Florida.

This elections, the Courts wisely chose to not interfere in the election process, throwing out every single case but one, from Drumfs challenge.  The courts returned the responsibility directly back to the American people, and to the individual states, to build a more transparent and fair system to conduct elections. The Drumf was not wrong, their are a lot of irregularities in the election process, as well as some clear cases of voter disenfranchisement while the voting was occurring.during this last election. Never mind that the Republican party has been practicing voter disenfranchisement before the elections, ...for at least, the last twenty years.  This last election, the Courts just gave them back, what they have been handing out to the American people for the last two decades.

Which is unintentionally hilarious, as it's the same 'punt' they used to avoid dealing with the ACA. 'It's not our job to determine when laws are completely fucking useless'. Ooooo-kay...

Where Drumfs supporters crossed a clear line though, is when they no longer peaceably protested. That would be, when they forcibly broke into the Capitol, and disrupted the Congress that was in session, that they had already duly elected to conduct their business for them, and then forcibly interfered with the election as it was occurring. For the record, the changes to ensure a fair election process has to occur at the local and state level, becuase that is what the courts decided.

Completely agree, although -- as has been stated before -- the pearl clutching and sniveling looks more than a little hypocritical considering what had transpired over the last year.

Let this be a lesson: legitimizing political violence is a bad idea, and sooner or later the other side starts using it.

Also just so you know, peaceful protest, ...doesn't really work. It's a complete waste of time and resources. Here is an example of the peaceful protest march of Iranian Women, marching for their right to dress as they prefer, and demanding equal rights.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/long_reads/iran-women-revolution-hijab-protests-ayatollah-khomeini-a8251686.html

Mike Vanderboegh (an irascible, cranky pro-2A blogger and activist) once opined that if Mahatma Gandhi had tried his civil disobedience tactics on the Imperial Japanese (circa WW2), his bayoneted and beheaded corpse would've been found floating down the Ganges River along with his followers. The tactics work with a people and government who prefer peaceful resolution and are willing to listen, as well as having a moral center that abides by such. Iran does not have that. Britain did, hence why Gandhi got away with it.

Let's see, one day into this new era of normalcy, we've had a speech that called for unity while taking shots at the other side, peaceful protests in Seattle and Portland where leftist with Molotovs and crowbars unseditiously attacked federal buildings, Senate Democrats upholding norms by refusing to agree to uphold the long-standing norm of the filibuster, and now Peter Robb has been fired. He's the general counsel of the National Labor Relations Board, a 4-year Senate-confirmed position at an independent agency, and had 10 months left in his term. No NLRB general counsel has ever been fired, including Richard Griffin, an Obama appointee, who served out the remaining 9 months of his term in 2017 under Trump. Yet with minutes of Biden taking the oath of office, Robb was told to resign by the end of the day, or be fired. Robb respectfully declined in a letter where he pointed out these facts, and was kicked out the door.

The completely precedented day one firing also happened to Kathy Kraninger, the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, whose position was explicitly created, under the Obama administration, so the director could only be fired for inefficiency, neglect of duty or malfeasance. Fortunately that stiff standard was overthrown by the courts, who supported the unitary executive authority of You're Fired! Specifically, it was overthrown by the judge loved and adored by Democrats everywhere, Brett Kavanaugh.

Perfectly normal. So normal.

In defense, the entire CFPB is a scam.

That being said, though, it amuses me how much 'unity' we're seeing even among Democrats. Rashida Tlaib is arguing against expanding police powers to target domestic terrorism (whether it's on principle or she's worried fellow Muslims will get swept up in the net is up to you). The Biden Administration ran a line about how they were 'starting from scratch' with vaccine distribution, only to be contradicted by Fauci.

Good times.

Quote from: Shasarak on January 15, 2021, 07:51:31 pm

Trump was forced by the Supreme Court to allow everyone to see his Tweets.
But Jack Beaner can decide to stop everyone from seeing Trumps tweets.

Well, I never saw Trumps Tweets, because I didn't follow him on Twitter. So the Supreme Court was tremendously unsuccessful in allowing me to see his Tweets. as in epic fail level.

Jack can decide to stop everyone from seeing Trump tweets, but If I wasn't seeing the tweets in the first place, ...will I still hear the screams of outrage?...

Jack can do whatever he wants with Twitter. I'm still on it now because there are a few muggles I keep in touch with there. chances are, it won't last though, something better will come along, or someone will launch a Nuke into space and EMP fry all the lectronics in the western hemishere, and then Jack, along with everyone else, won't be able to  do anything with Twitter at all. My suggestion is to prepare for that day and figure out another way to stay in touch with your muggle friends. One that doesn't rely on Jack, or any of Jacks' services.

Sigh. The problem isn't 'Jack can do what he wants with Twitter'. Because, yeah, he can, short of a First Amendment ruling (which would open up a can of worms I'm not comfortable with).

The problem is that Jack and his buddies will happily kneecap competitors. So the whole 'if you don't like it, start your own X' meme falls apart, because you are prevented from doing so.

One of the first things Antifa did was to start rampaging again.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/antifa-smash-window-democratic-headquarters-attack-police

The fact that the batons didn't come out for Pantifa is interesting. I have a bad feeling these goons are going to be the left's brownshirts for further attacks on nonconforming citizens.

While everyone was witnessing the spectacle of a demented old hair-sniffer and his knee-pad wielding running mate lying through their teeth to 'uphold the Constitution'... it seems suddenly Covid is harder to catch now.

https://www.who.int/news/item/20-01-2021-who-information-notice-for-ivd-users-2020-05

Suddenly, now you need to be presenting with symptoms and have TWO PCR-positive results.

California has mastered the homeless crisis.

The states and cities throw tax money at grifters and useless agencies who do nothing and everyone else just ignores the heaping piles of filth and drugged out human vermin.

Viola! Utopia achieved.

Yeah, that works till you run out of other people's money.

Though with the newly anointed Pederast In Chief, I expect some of these big-spender blue states will be coming hat in hand to the federal government for bailouts. Sleepy Joe already plans, supposedly, to remove the SALT (state and local tax) cap on federal tax deductions, which means once again states with lower taxes will be propping up the ones with higher.