Bloomberg opinion published a piece Wednesday calling for President Biden to increase gas prices, intentionally and forever, in order to hasten a transition to alternate forms of energy. The op-ed, written by columnist Eduardo Porter, called for a “$5-a-gallon floor on gasoline prices.”
Porter described the policy as “one bold move” that would put a “real dent” in “the emission of heat-trapping carbon dioxide that is causing such havoc with the weather,” although he admitted it was unlikely the president would make it.
“As any economist will tell him, the most efficient way to reduce fossil fuel consumption is to raise its price relative to alternatives, encouraging people and businesses to switch to cleaner sources and use less energy altogether,” Porter wrote.
Legend has it that Jed Clampett “was shootin’ at some food / When up through the ground come a bubblin’ crude.”
The Beverly Hillbillies’ transformation into instant millionaires illustrates one of the oldest conceptions in the western world: What’s on your land belongs to you. This idea predates the founding of America. If you find gold in your backyard, that resource belongs to you.
California wants to change that.
A source near San Diego has shared with California Globe a shocking letter that’s quietly being delivered to owners of private wells.
“California is marching toward a world where those with wells on their own property will be required to put a meter on them and pay the government,” writes the source. “Because in their world, the government owns everything and we’re just renters.”
The letter is signed by Natalie Stork, the Chief of Groundwater Management Program Unit 1, and was sent in late July on the letterhead of California Water Boards, under the authority of Gov. Newsom and Jared Blumenfeld, Secretary for Environmental Protection. Buried beneath the bureaucratic acronyms GSA and SGMA (Groundwater Sustainability Agency and Sustainable Groundwater Management Act) is an extremely aggressive conception of government authority and its dominion over private property.
The letter reads, “Landowners whose property is within an unmanaged area and contains an operating ground water extraction well must report the volume of groundwater extracted from the well. The groundwater extraction volume must be reported as a monthly total. In addition to pumping volumes, reports must include the location of the well and the place and purpose of use of the groundwater. Groundwater extraction reports are not due to the state water board until February 1, 2023. However, if you are required to report, the report must include pumping volumes for each month between the date of receipt of this letter and September 30, 2022.”
This is not merely a bureaucratic hassle. There are fees, of course. The base filing fee is $300 per well, which all extractors are required to report. Then there’s an additional fee of $10 per acre foot with a meter, $25 per acre foot without. Tardy filers face a late fee of 25% per month.
California Globe reached out to Ms. Stork and SGMA to inquire how widely this letter was sent and where the State Water Resources Control Board derives the right to charge well owners for water on their own property. This story will be updated to include her comment if either responds.
Meanwhile, the ramifications for property rights are enormous.
“Indeed it may be said with some confidence that the average man never really thinks from end to end of his life. There are moments when his cogitations are relatively more respectable than usual, but even at their climaxes they never reach anything properly describable as the level of serious thought. The mental activity of such people is only a mouthing of clichés. What they mistake for thought is simply a repetition of what they have heard. My guess is that well over eighty per cent of the human race goes through life without having a single original thought. That is to say, they never think anything that has not been thought before and by thousands.”
“The urge to save humanity is almost always only a false-face for the urge to rule it.” ~ H.L. Mencken, Minority Report
“The wisest thing in the world is to cry out before you are hurt. It is no good to cry out after you are hurt; especially after you are mortally hurt. People talk about the impatience of the populace; but sound historians know that most tyrannies have been possible because men moved too late. It is often essential to resist a tyranny before it exists.”
In a free country, the government needs permission to do everything. In America today, we all need the government’s permission to do anything, even to defend ourselves. Ayn Rand called this an inversion. Ludwig von Mises famously described government as the negation of liberty, and Murray Rothbard called it the monopoly of force in a given geographic area with no presumption of moral propriety.
The failure of law enforcement at all levels — local, state and federal — to protect 19 children who were slaughtered by a madman in Uvalde, Texas, in May has raised serious questions about the role of police in our once-free society. Admittedly, the Uvalde case was extreme, as 376 armed police officers did little or nothing to stop the slaughter perpetrated by one madman. There was no command and control; the decisions made on the scene were chaotic and farcical; and the essence of what law enforcement did was to shield itself from harm, rather than stop the harm.
The killer in Uvalde began his rampage by shooting randomly at the school building from a parking lot across the street as he walked toward the school. He apparently entered through a door that officials presumed was locked. It wasn’t. The police themselves waited 44 minutes to obtain a key to this unlocked door, which none of them even tried to open. The commanding officer at the scene was not in electronic communication with his team, his dispatcher or the 24 other police agencies present.
The Texas Legislature condemned the police response; and now heartbroken parents are left without a remedy. This is so because the U.S. Supreme Court has consistently ruled that the government and its agents have no duty to interfere with crimes that are in progress and no general duty to protect innocents. Under this line of cases, collectively called the DeShaney doctrine, the police can physically observe a bank robbery, a rape or a murder, and lawfully do nothing.
Joshua DeShaney was a 4-year-old boy who had been repeatedly abused and irreparably brain damaged by his own father whose behavior was well-known to the local government. When the mother sued the government for failure to protect Joshua, the Supreme Court ruled that the government enjoys the common law privilege of allocating its resources with impunity. Stated differently, the government decides whom it will protect and whom it will let be. Not surprisingly, the DeShaney doctrine compels the government only to protect itself and those it has confined.
There is nothing in the Constitution that compels the DeShaney doctrine. It is just big government protecting itself. There are many selfless police throughout the country who would courageously interfere to stop violent crime because they have the ability to stop it and because it is always right to save innocent human life.
In Texas, where it is lawful for anyone over 18 to purchase and openly carry a handgun, it is unlawful to carry one in a school. Local school officials can request exemptions from this law from state officials, and those exemptions have been given to all 137 Texas school districts that requested them. Of course, in none of the districts where teachers and staff are armed have there been any killings.
Just this week, in Greenwood, Indiana, before the police arrived, a 22-year-old civilian shot and killed a shooter who had begun a killing rampage in a shopping mall. Had Indiana not recognized the right to carry a firearm, we might have had another Uvalde or Buffalo, New York, slaughter on our hands.
The problem here is too much government, a Progressive goal going back to the beginnings of the Nanny State 125 years ago, when cities and towns started government monopolies on law enforcement and schools, and taxed everyone in their jurisdictions for the so-called services these entities provided, whether the taxpayer received the services or not. Unfortunately, it takes a tragedy like Uvalde before folks recognize that America is no longer a free country.
The first in an exchange between two writers on the progressive San Francisco DA’s fall from grace and what it reflects about broader national debates over crime.
One of the issues on which I have long focused — both as a journalist and, prior to that, as a lawyer — is the extraordinary rates of incarceration in the U.S. For years, the U.S. has imprisoned more of its citizens than any other country on the planet — both in absolute numbers (despite having a population far smaller than China and India) but also proportionally. An oft-cited statistic tells much of that story: roughly 25% of the world’s prisoners are located on American soil, even though the U.S. has only 5% of the world’s population.
The causes of these unique incarceration rates are varied and complex. In 2008, working in conjunction with the CATO Institute, I traveled to Portugal to research and produce the first-ever comprehensive report on the results of that country’s 2001 law which decriminalized the possession of all drugs (trafficking remains a crime). The data demonstrating its success was so clear and overwhelming that even the political parties and factions which originally opposed its enactment had come to support it. But even if that success could be replicated in the U.S. — and I believe it could be, albeit with some greater difficulty — that would not come close to moving the U.S. into alignment with the rest of the world regarding incarceration rates.
The issue of crime and incarceration policy in the U.S. has always been hotly debated in American politics, but, for a variety of reasons, has received even greater attention over the last several years. In 2019, the Trump administration worked with numerous advocacy groups including the ACLU to engineer bipartisan enactment of the First Step Act, one of the most significant criminal justice reforms laws in years. That law — which applies only to the federal justice system — “allows thousands of people to earn an earlier release from prison and could cut many more prison sentences in the future.” Given that most prisoners are in the state system, that law will have only a modest effect on incarceration rates, yet was intended to serve as a model for providing greater sentencing discretion to judges and ensuring that prisoners are motivated to engage in good behavior and to rehabilitate by offering early release.
Another more controversial response to these strikingly high rates of incarceration has been to elect so-called “criminal justice reform” prosecutors in large liberal cities. These prosecutors vow to rely less on lengthy prison terms, particularly for non-violent crimes, and more on polices of rehabilitation and “root cause” solutions, particularly for drug addiction. But high rates of violent crimes and growing perceptions of a lack of public security have made these reform prosecutors the target of public ire, culminating in the failed attempt to thwart Philadelphia DA Larry Krasner’s reelection last May, followed by the successful recall vote that removed from office San Francisco’s DA Chesa Boudin in June of this year.
Whatever one’s views are on these debates, it is hard to contest that America’s exceptionally high rates of incarceration reflect multiple policy, social, and cultural failures. A healthy society does not imprison millions of its citizens. The question of why this is happening, and what the proper responses are, are far more vexing. Just as we aired a debate over Philadelphia DA Larry Krasner’s reelection campaign last year, we asked two advocates on each side of this question to engage in an ongoing exchange about whether the fault lies with excessive punitive approaches to crimes or whether leniency is to blame. The following is an exchange between two writers, Ben Spielberg and Leighton Woodhouse, in the first of what will be a continued debate published here on Outside Voices between the two on the subject of San Francisco DA Chesa Boudin’s recent recall and what it reflects more broadly on the issue of crime policies.
Ben Spielberg is a progressive writer and activist who has lived for years in the Bay Area. Leighton Woodhouse is a journalist and documentary filmmaker who lives in Oakland, CA. Initially a supporter of Boudin, (he even produced a campaign ad for the former district attorney), Leighton grew to be a sharp critic of the San Francisco DA during his tenure, ultimately advocating for his recall and reporting on what he called Boudin’s “legacy of failure.” Woodhouse also recently worked with California gubernatorial candidate Michael Shellenberger, whose unsuccessful campaign to unseat California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) highlighted critiques of Boudin and reform polices generally. Spielberg opposed the recall of Boudin, and has written for this publication in defense of Philadelphia DA Larry Krasner and other district attorneys with similar progressive projects.
As is true of all “Outside Voices” contributions, our publishing of these articles does not signify my agreement with all or even any of what any writer expresses. It instead only reflects my assessment that this exchange will enable readers to form their own views in a more informed and less propagandized manner. We hope you find the first portion of the debate to be illuminating. As the debate continues, we will post the responses of each for as long as the debate remains illuminating.
(On a separate note: we have been working hard to develop a new and quite major project that we will unveil next month. That is what explains the lighter-than-usual output here over the last several weeks. I am very excited about what we are about to announce and believe it will significantly transform and augment all the work we have been doing here. We will try to produce as much high-quality content as we can during this development process, but it is sometimes all-consuming. I am confident our subscribers will be as excited as I am once we are able to announce it).
By Ben Spielberg
What will ensure that people feel and are safe? That, to me, is the key question underlying the debate about crime in San Francisco and the recent loss of San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin in a recall election. It is also the key question behind discussions of crime and prosecutor races in other parts of the country in which attorneys with visions similar to Boudin have won recently, including Philadelphia, Iowa, and elsewhere in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Wrong. It’s not the fault of Putin. Rather it is Germany’s and the EU’s response to Putin, prior to and now in the aftermath of, the Russo-Ukraine war which is at fault. The EU and Berlin took their knee-jerk cue, as always, from the mischief-makers in Washington.
You wanna sanction Russia? You wanna cut off your nose despite your face? You wanna engage in yet another messianic crusade to nowhere? Be my guest. But if you do that, dear crusaders, there will be consequences.
I was lucky tonight. He had a gun, but I had a tire iron.—Phillip Marlowe, 1958
I woke up in Munich with a headache this morning to see an alarming item in the Financial Times, reproduced below. The FT is not part of the underground press. It’s mainstream. Looks like Germany, and hence Europe, and hence the world, is in real trouble. Economic trouble due to Russia’s fisticuffs with Ukraine. Once again, I must say, “Thank you, Washington!”
Never, ever, for one moment forget the immortal words of Victoria Nuland in 2014, ”Fuck the EU!” Washington’s top policy-maker for Europe and chief hands-on architect of the Ukraine fiasco was making an important point.
Did the numskulls in charge of the EU and Germany listen and take heed? No. They continued to dance to the tune blasting from Washington. Hence, the present slow-motion train wreck for Germany, Europe, and the world.
My headache this morning may have been caused by Paul Krugman yesterday. He’s part of the tag-team wise-man duo of the NY Times, the other being the all-knowing Tom Friedman. Krugman wrote yesterday about the recent Euro-Dollar rough parity. The Euro has been falling like a stone.
Krugman, current or ex-professor of economics from Princeton, takes what seemed like forever to explain why—“the meaning of the plunging euro”— before coming to the point. It’s not the surge in interest rates by the FED to fight runaway inflation. No, the central reason is, “…a major downward revision of investors’ views of European competitiveness, and hence of the perceived long-run sustainable value of Europe’s currency.”
And why is that, pray tell? “….over the past couple of decades Europe—especially Germany, the core of the Continent’s economy—has tried to build prosperity on two pillars: cheap natural gas from Russia and, to a lesser extent, exports of manufactured goods to China.” Oh, the horror!
I think it’s called “globalism” or free-enterprise or just taking care of business or whatever. Nothing inherently wrong with that. But now, wait for it, according to Krugman, “…One of these pillars is completely gone thanks to Vladimir Putin’s bungled invasion of Ukraine.” Ah, yes, it’s Putin’s fault! Of course. That “bungled invasion”.
Wrong. It’s not the fault of Putin. Rather it is Germany’s and the EU’s response to Putin, prior to and now in the aftermath of, the Russo-Ukraine war which is at fault. The EU and Berlin took their knee-jerk cue, as always, from the mischief-makers in Washington.
You wanna sanction Russia? You wanna cut off your nose despite your face? You wanna engage in yet another messianic crusade to nowhere? Be my guest. But if you do that, dear crusaders, there will be consequences.
As the German, Jorg Rothermel, says in the FT article, “There is now a danger that we won’t be able to produce certain thing in Germany any more.” To put it crudely, in the words of the unspeakable Nuland, “Fuck the EU!”
As the Daily Mail notes, “Ocasio-Cortez was seen walking escorted away by police with her hands crossed behind her back, as if she were in handcuffs, but she was not. At one point she uncrossed her hands and raised her fists to the other protesters.”
Staff confirms this is video of Rep @ilhanmn under arrest and in handcuffs , she and other female Members were arrested in a protest supporting abortion rights in front of the Supreme Court today pic.twitter.com/2RwOAq6U2J
How the British state turned a blind eye to the rape of thousands of children.
One of the markers of a civilised and compassionate society is the extent to which its public institutions prioritise the safety of its most vulnerable citizens. But when it comes to tackling child sexual exploitation, Britain is failing spectacularly. A toxic mixture of racial identity politics and victim-blaming tendencies among the authorities has left vulnerable children – many of whom have experienced family breakdown, parental neglect and domestic violence – exposed to sexual abuse and exploitation.
The report into grooming gangs in Telford in the West Midlands, published last week, told an all-too-familiar story. Groups of men, of largely Pakistani heritage, sexually abused young girls for years while the authorities, fearful of appearing racist, did nothing.
This ought to shame the nation. Over and over again, we have seen the same story unfold. Local councils and police forces, paralysed by the forces of political correctness and identity politics, have failed spectacularly to protect the children and young people in their care.
This raises urgent questions: How did we get here? What is the true scale of the problem? And what can be done to tackle it?
Rotherham
Rotherham, a large market town in South Yorkshire, is at the heart of the grooming-gangs scandal. In 2012, The Timesrevealed that a confidential 2010 police report had warned that vast numbers of children were being sexually exploited in South Yorkshire each year by organised networks of men ‘largely of Pakistani heritage’. South Yorkshire Police and local child-protection agencies were shown to have knowledge of widespread, organised child sexual abuse. And yet they had failed to act on that knowledge.
Rotherham borough council, South Yorkshire Police and other agencies responded by setting up a child sexual exploitation (CSE) team to investigate the reports. In 2013, an independent inquiry led by Professor Alexis Jay was launched. Her subsequent report into child sexual exploitation in Rotherham, published in 2014, made for horrific reading. It found that at least 1,400 children had been subjected to sexual abuse between 1997 and 2013. Jay detailed how girls as young as 11 had been raped, trafficked, abducted, beaten and intimidated by men predominantly of Pakistani heritage.
Jay was also deeply critical of the institutional failures that had allowed organised child sexual abuse to flourish in Rotherham. She concluded that there had been ‘blatant’ collective failures on the part, firstly, of the local council, which consistently downplayed the scale of the problem; and secondly, on the part of South Yorkshire Police, which failed to prioritise investigating the abuse allegations. Indeed, the Jay Report found that the police had ‘regarded many child victims with contempt’. The inquiry discovered cases involving ‘children who had been doused in petrol and threatened with being set alight, threatened with guns, made to witness brutally violent rapes and threatened they would be next if they told anyone’. One young person told the inquiry that gang rape was a normal part of growing up in Rotherham.
The Jay Report also took the local authorities to task for elevating concerns about racial sensitivities over the protection of the children in their care. As the Jay Report put it: ‘Several [council] staff described their nervousness about identifying the ethnic origins of perpetrators for fear of being thought as racist; others remembered clear direction from their managers not to do so.’
Rotherham was not an isolated case, of course. By the time of the Jay Report, men had been prosecuted in other potential instances of organised grooming in places like Keighley (2005 and 2013), Blackburn (2007, 2008 and 2009), Rochdale (two cases in 2010) and Oxford (2013).
The cases all bear striking similarities. The mainly Pakistani-heritage perpetrators. The vulnerable young victims, usually in care. And in each case, as later reports were to reveal, the authorities had been afraid to tackle the abuse for fear, effectively, of being called racist.
I wonder how much of this is CARES (your tax) money? Covid is about the money for common scum like Hochul, but, for those at the top like Klaus Scwab it is about control.
For the average New Yorker, the economy is in shambles. However, if you happen to be connected to the New York political elite, business is booming.
Governor Kathy Hochul’s health department has awarded a stunning $637 million in no-bid contracts to a company led by one of her major donors, for the supply of junk COVID products like tests, masks, and other “medical” devices.
Hochul megadonor Charlie Tebele, who has contributed some $300,000 to her campaign, has scored major business from COVID Mania, securing some hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer funds. Before securing the money from offices controlled by his sponsored politicians, Tebele transformed his electronic device outfit (a company called Digital Gadgets) into a COVID-19 business.
The Albany Times Union reports that Tebel received “$637 million in taxpayer funds to provide the state Department of Health — an agency controlled by Hochul — with at-home COVID-19 test kits,” adding, “the huge expenditure was made without the agency conducting competitive bidding.”
According to OpenBookNY, the democrat megadonor has received all of the $637 million over the course of the last 7 months, over 29 separate payments.
The timing and nature of the deal gives off the stench of massive corruption in Hochul’s office.
One month prior to the no-bid contract being awarded, Hochul signed an executive order suspending “competitive bidding for certain contracts as well as the normal contract review and approval process conducted by [the New York Department of Health], which oversees state government spending,” the Times Union adds.
Tebele’s business is far from “essential,” as the company does not even manufacture the “COVID PPE” products that it supplies, which are likely made in China. It only acts as a “wholesaler,” or really, a middleman, for the goods. Before pivoting into COVID-19 as a business, his company sold electronic gadgets like hoverboards.
Under Kathy Hochul, New York has become fully committed to embracing COVID Mania. In ordering countless rounds of lockdowns and other mandates, Hochul has routinely outed herself as a power drunk authoritarian menace. Now we know she’s both corrupt and tyrannical.
MCViewPoint 