“History records no pity for parties that choose purity over competence, vengeance over vision, pathology over pragmatism. The long night is not coming. It is here. . . . ” —LHGrey on X
Like everything, the polls are (mostly) fake. Push polls they used to call them - they are designed to tell you what to think not ask you. The only thing that Dems need is ballots, they couldn't care less about voters
I completely agree with you re: the polls being fake. I can't believe Bass is leading, when you realize how much of L.A. she has allowed, encouraged even, who would vote for her? The Palisades fire alone is enough to turn most if not all Los Angelenos against her.
Democrats are now some kind of grievance party. Their run of the mill voter is jealous and envious. They work to increase the angst of the haters. They are happy the "rich" SOB's got damaged. Of course seeing some fool like Gwyneth Paltrow, supposedly worth $200 mil yesterday complaining about "rich White dudes" is par for their course.
NYC Mayor Mamdani putting tax on luxury second homes, driving out the people who pay the most in taxes. Soon Zohran runs out of OPM (other people's money) to fund free buses, free subway, free grocery stores, free rent.
Already is chaos and violence as hundreds try to get on free bus, break windows, rob driver and other passengers.
As the old saying goes, "I wouldn't want to be in New York City on the day that the welfare checks bounce." Leftists always forget a basic rule of both economics and sociology: wealth and capital (which, by the way, are the same thing, and are necessary for any healthy society to function) go to where they are loved and protected, not to where they are hated and stolen.
"Creation comes before distribution -- or there will be nothing to distribute."-Ayn Rand
Wealth and capital are created when a person or society is productive enough to produce more than it consumes. All of these terms describe the same thing: surplus productivity, profit, savings, wealth, capital. When a person says that he hates one of them, he effectively hates them all. Socialists hate them all. Socialists are also hypocrites. They say that they they hate wealth, but they sure as hell want the government to GIVE them some of it.
As long as the printing presses are running the checks won't bounce. Once the USA dollar loses the worlds "reserve currency" status then all hell will break loose. The problem is the world isn't much better off than the USA so the dollar maintains its status. The printing presses run, checks keep getting cashed and the dollar continues to become more and more worthless.
Much wealth is created via fraud. Even more is created by fake capital, the "instruments" of the financial parasites. You don't seem able or willing to distinguish between these and real capital. Alas they both create wealth, one by fraudulent means the other, legitimate. Since the latter is hard work, the fraudulent is more popular. Thus sans a referee (Fascism), we are doomed.
do-nothing Deep State? you act like creating stochastic terrorism, Presidential assassination attempts, and fomenting domestic color revolutions happens all by itself. Give them some credit.
She's not rich because her bank account is below $1 Bn. These people are so stupid that they're talking about ditching the Met Gala because lefty Jeff Bezos paid for it this year. How dare he!?
Yes, polls are used to sway voters one way or another. Personally, I think pre-election day polling should be illegal. Period. Polling is popular and necessary for the news media outlets to get viewers and gain clicks. Our elections have become entertainment for these people.
From what I can tell, the polls generally reflect whom the Puppet Masters have in mind for the "selection". That doesn't rule out a late audible to shock the faithful.
There are many citizens of this vast land who live their lives like a theater production, which they can alter (in their mind) to adapt a "reality" that fits their views. But along comes The Long Emergency, crushing dreams and imposing limitations on how much the script can be warped. Some of the citizens wise up, and will choose a selection that's just different, something new, to see if that works better.
It remains to be seen the path we'll go down as Decline continues, and the sociopaths running things choose to step aside to allow a those with logic and compassion to have a go, or if they'll stubbornly retain their grasp on power at all costs - including death and destruction for all of us. So far, it's not looking good.
I think they will "stubbornly retain their grasp on power at all costs" - no question. It is the singular, and most important thing to them. In my humble opinion, the only thing that will stop them is prison. Meaning, holding political leaders accountable for the blatantly obvious, and tragic ills they "oversee" such as the CA wildfires. As I always say, correct and rightly applied punishment is a great teacher and, it's a great deterrent.
I don't trust polls and never did. They can be advantageous though. In 2016 Hillary's team assumed they had it in the bag. They didn't count on the quiet majority that didn't participate in polls.
California's Democrat candidates sound like escapees from Bedlam. I know they claim they spend $100,000 a year on a homeless person. I am inclined to believe about $99,000 of that goes to a black hole called "administration." "Administration" has offices in the Cayman Islands and various Mercedes and Lexus dealerships.
BINGO!!! I LOVE your first sentence, good description. Mayor of L.A. Karen Bass (yes she is officially a "Karen" which is quite fitting for her) is a dedicated Communist. Always has been. I did some research on her.
JHK described it perfectly in his write up. These homeless people don't want homes. They want their next fix of meth. Period. There you go. You can't keep throwing people in homes when these people don't want to be housed. The sickness is the drug addiction.
Seriously, instead of throwing money into housing programs for these drug addicts, the state needs to bring back state hospitals where these people are kept to receive treatment for their brain injuries. And yes, drug addiction is a brain injury. There used to be state hospitals to help people recover from these addictions. They don't exist anymore. When someone now suffers from addiction we just kick them out to the street and then throw money at housing programs.
Like you so aptly said, I would guess that the majority of homeless funding doesn't go to the homeless.
Add on the economically disenfranchised, the folks who have been phased out as technology moves forward. People who have spent years training themselves for a job only to find out they are obsolete in five years.
AI is going to compound this big time.
Have you seen the ads for Optimus, the Tesla robot? Going to take care of seniors, costs $20000, maybe free through Medicare, will eliminate care homes, able to take care of a home and yard. Musk is talking about moving car production from California to Texas, and devoting Fremont to building robots.
Think about it, a robot that can do all the chores in a household, for less than the cost of a new car. Does that sound marketable? Musk will be the first multi-trillionaire.
Hey, CP, maybe we can have wars between robots, drones and missiles and leave the people at home? I would bet that a soldier costs lots more than a robot.
They don't call it the "Homeless Industrial Complex" for nothing. I went to downtown LA (Diamond District) just last week to shop for a ring. I hadn't been there in 30 years. The surrounding area looked like a cross between "The Walking Dead" and "Escape from New York." You truly have to go there to understand just how bad the communists running the show there have let things devolve.
As always, a most enlightening and entertaining essay. Thank you.
The destruction of California has been a nearly 40-year slow-moving train wreck. My business is there, soon to be relocated.
After returning to the U.S. after my last tour in the Foreign Service (East Africa), settled in Santa Monica. Was there 2015-2020. Left after the C-VID and George Floyd Summer of Love dynamic hit full force.
The dynamic there (particuarly in LA and SF) is a national disgrace.
Heads must (figuratively) roll. It is a national imperative to address.
"The destruction of California has been a nearly 40-year slow-moving train wreck. My business is there, soon to be relocated."
Please, I beg of you, please, if you abandon your state and move to another, please don't vote the same way you did in California.
My state of Utah is being overrun with Californians who participated in their state's downfall and have moved here. Now Salt Lake County is blue.
Arizona and Nevada, once firmly red states are now bluish purple because of California refugees.
If you leave California, reconsider you political positions and don't vote the same way. We can't keep you out of our states so when you come, don't turn our good states into California.
California has 40 million people. Think about it. That's as much population as many countries. If even half of those 40 million people decide to move they will saturate every small state with California voters. What has happened in Arizona, Nevada and Colorado will eventually befall Utah, Idaho and Montana. Our states are so small that even a small percentage of Californians will devastate our political structures. California is a plague on the rest of the country. A cancer.
Californians should stay in California and endeavor to repair the damage they have permitted to be done in their state. Instead the pack up and run away to other, better managed states, and then destroy them. That is cancer.
Salt Lake City is solid blue. You should see the makeup of the Salt Lake City Council. Four latina females, two of whom are rabid lesbians. A latino male who is a homosexual. And two white guys. One of the lesbian latinas on the council is under investigation for numerous reports of sexual harassment towards other council women.
This is the kind of bullshit that Californians bring to our states because this is what they vote for. I wish we could put a wall around our state with big signs saying "Californians, stay out, we DON'T WANT YOU."
Californians know it too. I had a retired couple move into my neighborhood directly across the street from me. When I met them the first thing they did was apologize for being from California. Later, I watched the doofus mow his lawn with some dinky little electric lawn mower. Took him two hours to get it done. Yeah. Californians.
Your point is well taken, Tim, but things rapidly spiral out of control (just ask Camille Desmoulins, who kicked off the French Revolution and wound up losing his own head). I will settle for restoration of public stocks for now.
JHK…I agree with everything you posted except the demise of the Democrat Party. Appropriately 15% of the country has been driven functionally insane by Trump. Another 20% are brainwashed by the national media and another 5% think they can take advantage of Democrat policies to get rich by gaming the bureaucracy.
By stealing votes in mass urban minority districts, the Dems can remain a threat in any national election or any state with the above demographic breakdowns.
The Trump who you mention is the same Trump who signed an executive order so that illegals won't be allowed to vote; he did that so that we can have HONEST elections, finally. This will be the first time in my life that we will have honest elections, I'm in my 70s. Just something to think about.
Executive Orders affect only the Federal Executive Branches and the employees. EOs do not affect the States and the States voting laws. I give credit to Trump for trying but without Congress, everything he's doing is a temporary bubble gum band aid. Point fingers at that mother trucker John Thune and his ilk in the Senate.
That's absurd. Franklin Roosevelt's Executive Order took away every American's dollars that read "payable on demand for gold" and substituted them for fiat. And guess what- only a few worked for the federal government in those days. He also created a gigantic alphabet list of new federal agencies that still exists.
Most elections have a federal candidate on the ballot and if there's just one then it is a federal election. But you're right, if there are none then the state can do whatever it wants
Your assessment is exactly why my wife and I removed our names from the official voter rolls in Colorado. To actually believe We the People have a functioning "constitutional republic" is "hopeium" - vanity or chasing after the wind.
I compare living Circa 2026 in the USA, similar to living in Roman occupied Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria during the life and times of Jesus Christ.
Philip K. Dick’s theory that "The Empire Never Ended" posits that the ancient Roman Empire never truly fell, but rather transformed, with 20th-century America functioning as its modern, technological incarnation, known as the "Black Iron Prison". This idea, heavily detailed in his Exegesis following a 1974 mystical experience, suggests that humanity lives in a "semi-real" reality controlled by a rigid, authoritarian structure that spans across time.
The current edition of "The Democrat Party" is actually a socialist/communist party wearing the old "Democrat Party" skinsuit. The transformation began back in the 1960's with the admission of radicals like Tom Hayden into party leadership and continued with each passing year until the party has become indistinguishable from the Comintern of old. The Gramscian march through institutions has reached a critical mass in the party as well as the educational establishment (formerly known as "teachers"), unions, mass media (currently operating as the Völkischer Beobachter of the democrat party) and entertainment industry (a/k/a "Hollywood"). I do not foresee that enough residents of the state of California, especially those living and voting in Los Angeles will turn out to vote against the politicians who promise to give them more goodies and freebies out of the public exchequer. There is still enough ruin in that misbegotten state to carry the day for Bass/Raman/Newsome, but those days are running out. As it says in The Bible, Matthew 7:27, describing the ruin of a house built on sand: "And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it". If ever there was a house built on sand, it is California and when it falls, as it will, that fall will indeed be great.
If only there were real repercussions to those 'selected' politicians for their destructive and criminal actions where we could then start moving in the right, (no pun) direction. We first must fix the broken voting/election debacle.
I fled California in 2019, to move to Georgia, which politically is like jumping out of the fire back into the frying pan. The last meal we had before leaving, I remember the waiter bringing our drinks and his hand hovering over a pocket full of straws, trembling. Because if a waitperson offered a straw without the customer asking, they faced significant fines and the threat of jail. And yet it seemed rude not to offer it. This in the same state where stores stopped prosecuting theft under $900...and of course people showed up with garbage bags and just pulled items off of shelves into their bags, in full view of God and everyone, and sauntered out the door without paying. It was just madness, and just one of many Cali madnesses.
In Georgia you get straws. And people don't steal blatantly from stores on an everyday basis, because guns, and--for many people--God. But Lord Almighty we make up for it in political corruption. I am pleased to report to y'all that on that front there has been much progress in evidence-gathering for the theft of the Presidential election in 2020. It gives me hope.
That Bass is leading speaks to the incredible lack of awareness or concern about the awfulness of her administration or that those voting for her are Marxists themselves and want CA destroyed. Same in the gubernatorial race with Becerra.
I agree except for one thing - evil does not know it's evil. The self righteous elites do not think they will destroy CA. They believe they ar RIGHT! and everyone needs to get with the program. This is why nothing can change that those who believe they know best cannot be reprogrammed.
Leading? Polls? i've noticed the game has been rigged more than usual the past few decades. There is a tendency over time to return to some manner of equilibrium. possibly we just are not far enough out on the pendulum swing for a return just yet?
Speaking of elections, noticed that Retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel Alex Vindman, a key witness in President Trump's first impeachment, officially filed paperwork on April 22, 2026, to run as a Democrat for the U.S. Senate in Florida. He is challenging incumbent Republican Senator Ashley Moody in the 2026 special election. Democrat politicians have no shame. The slimier the better.
The DNC is today’s equivalent of the Federalists in Party of 1800. The people are too dumb to run themselves and need a central government to run them.
Today’s DNC has succeeded in putting a target on the education system and flooded immigration with the “wretched refuse”. They have succeeded in creating a public that is too dumb to run itself. The idiocy of the California electorate JHK expounds on is just an indicator of the trend. The fact that people vote for idiots that feed on the belief that the public is too stupid to make good decisions is debilitating to people that know what is going on. It is sickening.
Attacking the education of the public is one thing. Attacking the economy by sending jobs overseas is quite another. Obama led the charge, and Biden’s mob enlarged the effort. How do you make people more dependent?
Make them stupid and take away their opportunity.
Exactly what the DNC led Deep State has been doing for three generations. The percentage of Gimmes in our society has escalated year after year and is about at the point today where it controls the country. Just what the power mongers in the Deep State want.
That's why we need same day, paper ballot voting. There are millions of people (mostly democrats) whose votes are now being counted, who wouldn't be able to find, or care to find, their local voting site on election day.
I think it had more to do with giving Most Favored Nation status to Communist regimes in Asia: China and North Vietnam (now "Vietnam") notwithstanding the fact they had just sent 60,000 young Americans to their graves- but the needs of American Big Business must be served! (but admittedly, NAFTA is part and parcel of the same idea.)
O California, sun-drenched God's country, to where, for the last century -- and especially post-WWII -- where people flocked to pursue the wisp of a mostly superficial dream that has now all this time later turned into a palpable, yet still steadfastly denied, nightmare.
Hollywood, naturally, is imitative, attention-seeking, neurotic. One hair out of place, one wrinkle too many, one ounce of fat -- and you're finished. The wrong thought, you're finished. When the power centers of a state have too many people like that, and too many parasites who feed off that insecurity, the whole state is then finished.
The lizards, coyotes, and chaparral will reclaim the terrain that will always be desert.
Ole Ronnie Reagan ruined California when he granted amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants from south of the US border making them voting citizens. Since that time California has voted blue. Before that California was the "golden state." Thanks for that Ronnie!
Latinos in California have swung between parties for several election cycles now. Trump increased his support to 43% in 2024 and won 9 of 12 predominantly Latino districts. The GOP actually gained seats in Sacramento from the Latino vote.
The Mexicans lean culturally and politically to a moderate/conservative outlook. They liked what Trump was saying. They also know bullshit when they see it and Trump is rapidly losing them along with independents and antiwar MAGA’s.
You have to work at flucking things up as bad as Trump has.
Yes, diplomacy was never his forte: "“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have a lot of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”
People don't understand how destructive rank choice is. Last primary I voted in WA state had 36 candidates for governor. How are voters expected to make sense of that? Add in vote by mail, which gives the postal employees a chance to throw away your ballot. And motor voter to allow citizens of other countries to vote in our elections. No wonder things are bad
Xavier Becerra is a name that makes me see red. It was he who, as California A.G., continued the previous A.G. Kamala Harris's prosecution and persecution of investigative journalist David Daleiden for having exposed Planned Parenthood's FELONY trafficking in baby organs and parts.
Please note: Becerra and Kamala didn't give a damn about the FELONIES that PP was committing. They prosecuted the guy who DOCUMENTED the felonies.
The abortion issue always shows people's true colors. People who aggressively promote sacrificing babies to Moloch have made a deal with the devil.
A large number of women support it. A large number of women are evil. Melania pretended to be a devout Catholic, but she came out as a pro-abort Satanist.
I certainly hope that JHK is correct, and that the 2026 Democrat Party dies a complete, rapid, and horrific political death--and that many of its most criminal members (and there are a lot of them, from bottom to top) wind up in prison for a very long time.
Californians have been drinking their own leftist political piss for so long that they think that it is lemonade. The difference between California and what is actual America--the conservative states--is stark. Out here in what leftist coastal morons call "Flyover Country", this spring has seen some devastating tornado damage. One year after the Palisades fire in California, thanks to leftist Democrat "leadership", almost nothing has even started to be rebuilt. Out here in conservative "Flyover Country," construction crews are already repairing damaged structures (and infrastructure) and building replacement structures for those homes and businesses that were totally destroyed. That began within days of the disasters, not months or years after. And, unlike leftist California, conservative governments in Flyover Country are actually helping with the rebuilding effort instead of doing everything possible to obstruct or hinder it. And Democrat lunkheads think that the Democrat Party is all about "helping the people." How dumb and deluded can they get?
I will never forget the Black state legislator in California, when asked what he thought of the middle class, about five years back, increasingly leaving California. His reply was he was happy and wanted more to leave, to make room for more illegals.
Unfortunately, the amount of confirmation bias, which seems to be more of a virus among the Democrats, is infinite in California.
If Bass is currently leading in the polls after such an extreme display of incompetence, the only thing that will save LA is an earthquake.
Like everything, the polls are (mostly) fake. Push polls they used to call them - they are designed to tell you what to think not ask you. The only thing that Dems need is ballots, they couldn't care less about voters
Suggested edit, Scott: "only thing that Dems need is ballots" could perhaps be rendered, "only thing that Dems need is elections".
After all, they do seem able to supply their own ballots. And, in many jurisdictions, they control the counting process.
Joseph Stalin was famously reputed to have said, “Those who vote decide nothing. Those who count the vote decide everything.”
I completely agree with you re: the polls being fake. I can't believe Bass is leading, when you realize how much of L.A. she has allowed, encouraged even, who would vote for her? The Palisades fire alone is enough to turn most if not all Los Angelenos against her.
Democrats are now some kind of grievance party. Their run of the mill voter is jealous and envious. They work to increase the angst of the haters. They are happy the "rich" SOB's got damaged. Of course seeing some fool like Gwyneth Paltrow, supposedly worth $200 mil yesterday complaining about "rich White dudes" is par for their course.
NYC Mayor Mamdani putting tax on luxury second homes, driving out the people who pay the most in taxes. Soon Zohran runs out of OPM (other people's money) to fund free buses, free subway, free grocery stores, free rent.
Already is chaos and violence as hundreds try to get on free bus, break windows, rob driver and other passengers.
As the old saying goes, "I wouldn't want to be in New York City on the day that the welfare checks bounce." Leftists always forget a basic rule of both economics and sociology: wealth and capital (which, by the way, are the same thing, and are necessary for any healthy society to function) go to where they are loved and protected, not to where they are hated and stolen.
"Creation comes before distribution -- or there will be nothing to distribute."-Ayn Rand
Wealth and capital are created when a person or society is productive enough to produce more than it consumes. All of these terms describe the same thing: surplus productivity, profit, savings, wealth, capital. When a person says that he hates one of them, he effectively hates them all. Socialists hate them all. Socialists are also hypocrites. They say that they they hate wealth, but they sure as hell want the government to GIVE them some of it.
As long as the printing presses are running the checks won't bounce. Once the USA dollar loses the worlds "reserve currency" status then all hell will break loose. The problem is the world isn't much better off than the USA so the dollar maintains its status. The printing presses run, checks keep getting cashed and the dollar continues to become more and more worthless.
Much wealth is created via fraud. Even more is created by fake capital, the "instruments" of the financial parasites. You don't seem able or willing to distinguish between these and real capital. Alas they both create wealth, one by fraudulent means the other, legitimate. Since the latter is hard work, the fraudulent is more popular. Thus sans a referee (Fascism), we are doomed.
Ha, you noticed the Dem methodology. Promise the moon to the gullible, then do nothing. Blame it on the Republicans. Rinse and repeat.
The greatest change agent of this century is in the WH right now and he is being cancelled out by the promise them anything, do-nothing Deep State.
do-nothing Deep State? you act like creating stochastic terrorism, Presidential assassination attempts, and fomenting domestic color revolutions happens all by itself. Give them some credit.
So you think the rich pay most of the taxes keeping the country afloat? And 11 people think this is correct? Education is fake.
She's not rich because her bank account is below $1 Bn. These people are so stupid that they're talking about ditching the Met Gala because lefty Jeff Bezos paid for it this year. How dare he!?
Yes, polls are used to sway voters one way or another. Personally, I think pre-election day polling should be illegal. Period. Polling is popular and necessary for the news media outlets to get viewers and gain clicks. Our elections have become entertainment for these people.
From what I can tell, the polls generally reflect whom the Puppet Masters have in mind for the "selection". That doesn't rule out a late audible to shock the faithful.
There are many citizens of this vast land who live their lives like a theater production, which they can alter (in their mind) to adapt a "reality" that fits their views. But along comes The Long Emergency, crushing dreams and imposing limitations on how much the script can be warped. Some of the citizens wise up, and will choose a selection that's just different, something new, to see if that works better.
It remains to be seen the path we'll go down as Decline continues, and the sociopaths running things choose to step aside to allow a those with logic and compassion to have a go, or if they'll stubbornly retain their grasp on power at all costs - including death and destruction for all of us. So far, it's not looking good.
I remember Hillary Clinton was a shoo-in according to the polls.
Excellent comment. Thank you.
I think they will "stubbornly retain their grasp on power at all costs" - no question. It is the singular, and most important thing to them. In my humble opinion, the only thing that will stop them is prison. Meaning, holding political leaders accountable for the blatantly obvious, and tragic ills they "oversee" such as the CA wildfires. As I always say, correct and rightly applied punishment is a great teacher and, it's a great deterrent.
Who are the polls run by? The press. Who runs the press? Who runs the judiciary?
I don't trust polls and never did. They can be advantageous though. In 2016 Hillary's team assumed they had it in the bag. They didn't count on the quiet majority that didn't participate in polls.
Followed by fire, followed by flood, followed by drought. Then after another 40 years the political landscape may be habitable again.
Or Godzilla.
Given their situation, an earthquake would be the best of the alternatives.
Yes indeed,,,,but i would feel bad for the children and the animals such as the horses. Other than that…..YES
😂😂🙄!
SMOD for Mayor
California's Democrat candidates sound like escapees from Bedlam. I know they claim they spend $100,000 a year on a homeless person. I am inclined to believe about $99,000 of that goes to a black hole called "administration." "Administration" has offices in the Cayman Islands and various Mercedes and Lexus dealerships.
BINGO!!! I LOVE your first sentence, good description. Mayor of L.A. Karen Bass (yes she is officially a "Karen" which is quite fitting for her) is a dedicated Communist. Always has been. I did some research on her.
JHK described it perfectly in his write up. These homeless people don't want homes. They want their next fix of meth. Period. There you go. You can't keep throwing people in homes when these people don't want to be housed. The sickness is the drug addiction.
Seriously, instead of throwing money into housing programs for these drug addicts, the state needs to bring back state hospitals where these people are kept to receive treatment for their brain injuries. And yes, drug addiction is a brain injury. There used to be state hospitals to help people recover from these addictions. They don't exist anymore. When someone now suffers from addiction we just kick them out to the street and then throw money at housing programs.
Like you so aptly said, I would guess that the majority of homeless funding doesn't go to the homeless.
Add on the economically disenfranchised, the folks who have been phased out as technology moves forward. People who have spent years training themselves for a job only to find out they are obsolete in five years.
AI is going to compound this big time.
Have you seen the ads for Optimus, the Tesla robot? Going to take care of seniors, costs $20000, maybe free through Medicare, will eliminate care homes, able to take care of a home and yard. Musk is talking about moving car production from California to Texas, and devoting Fremont to building robots.
Think about it, a robot that can do all the chores in a household, for less than the cost of a new car. Does that sound marketable? Musk will be the first multi-trillionaire.
Hey, CP, maybe we can have wars between robots, drones and missiles and leave the people at home? I would bet that a soldier costs lots more than a robot.
John,
No "maybe"...wait for it....
I've thought about that, too. As much as AI is freaking people out, the robot revolution will be 10x worse.
The thought of a robot changing my adult diapers is more than a little scary.
They don't call it the "Homeless Industrial Complex" for nothing. I went to downtown LA (Diamond District) just last week to shop for a ring. I hadn't been there in 30 years. The surrounding area looked like a cross between "The Walking Dead" and "Escape from New York." You truly have to go there to understand just how bad the communists running the show there have let things devolve.
Exactly!
As always, a most enlightening and entertaining essay. Thank you.
The destruction of California has been a nearly 40-year slow-moving train wreck. My business is there, soon to be relocated.
After returning to the U.S. after my last tour in the Foreign Service (East Africa), settled in Santa Monica. Was there 2015-2020. Left after the C-VID and George Floyd Summer of Love dynamic hit full force.
The dynamic there (particuarly in LA and SF) is a national disgrace.
Heads must (figuratively) roll. It is a national imperative to address.
"The destruction of California has been a nearly 40-year slow-moving train wreck. My business is there, soon to be relocated."
Please, I beg of you, please, if you abandon your state and move to another, please don't vote the same way you did in California.
My state of Utah is being overrun with Californians who participated in their state's downfall and have moved here. Now Salt Lake County is blue.
Arizona and Nevada, once firmly red states are now bluish purple because of California refugees.
If you leave California, reconsider you political positions and don't vote the same way. We can't keep you out of our states so when you come, don't turn our good states into California.
CP,
In the 70's and 80's in Oregon, there was a catchphrase "Don't Californicate Oregon"...there were even bumper stickers. Didn't do any good.
We are now well "Californicated", and well done....
California has 40 million people. Think about it. That's as much population as many countries. If even half of those 40 million people decide to move they will saturate every small state with California voters. What has happened in Arizona, Nevada and Colorado will eventually befall Utah, Idaho and Montana. Our states are so small that even a small percentage of Californians will devastate our political structures. California is a plague on the rest of the country. A cancer.
Californians should stay in California and endeavor to repair the damage they have permitted to be done in their state. Instead the pack up and run away to other, better managed states, and then destroy them. That is cancer.
Agreed. They've done it to Nashville too. TN as a state is solid red, but Nashville is not.
Salt Lake City is solid blue. You should see the makeup of the Salt Lake City Council. Four latina females, two of whom are rabid lesbians. A latino male who is a homosexual. And two white guys. One of the lesbian latinas on the council is under investigation for numerous reports of sexual harassment towards other council women.
This is the kind of bullshit that Californians bring to our states because this is what they vote for. I wish we could put a wall around our state with big signs saying "Californians, stay out, we DON'T WANT YOU."
Californians know it too. I had a retired couple move into my neighborhood directly across the street from me. When I met them the first thing they did was apologize for being from California. Later, I watched the doofus mow his lawn with some dinky little electric lawn mower. Took him two hours to get it done. Yeah. Californians.
Lunacy. Collective brainwashed lunacy.
Utah is the home of the Mormons, a very conservative group. I bet they love Californians.
Erect razor wire, buy in belt fed machine gun guns.
Maybe it’s the plan.
Never underestimate Sacramento's python ability to strangle the state and maintain its idiocracy.
Indeed. I left California over 20 years ago. Moved to Florida and haven’t ever regretted it
“Heads must (figuratively) roll”
If we’re not already to a point where heads must literally roll if we are to get out of this mess, we will be soon.
Your point is well taken, Tim, but things rapidly spiral out of control (just ask Camille Desmoulins, who kicked off the French Revolution and wound up losing his own head). I will settle for restoration of public stocks for now.
after reading julia child's autobiography, her husband was in the foreign service. blatant communist front.
Pffft…why “figuratively”?? You a bit squeamish?
“Nithya Raman has the charisma of a mung bean” made me laugh out loud!
Ditto! Still chuckling over that one.
JHK…I agree with everything you posted except the demise of the Democrat Party. Appropriately 15% of the country has been driven functionally insane by Trump. Another 20% are brainwashed by the national media and another 5% think they can take advantage of Democrat policies to get rich by gaming the bureaucracy.
By stealing votes in mass urban minority districts, the Dems can remain a threat in any national election or any state with the above demographic breakdowns.
About 35% have DRIVEN THEMSELVES INSANE over Trump??? There fixed it!!!
Trump’s rational America First policies have triggered a mass outburst of insanity in this country. I agree with your assessment.
Hmmm, America First is driving people mad? That says a lot about the current state of our population.
The Trump who you mention is the same Trump who signed an executive order so that illegals won't be allowed to vote; he did that so that we can have HONEST elections, finally. This will be the first time in my life that we will have honest elections, I'm in my 70s. Just something to think about.
Executive Orders affect only the Federal Executive Branches and the employees. EOs do not affect the States and the States voting laws. I give credit to Trump for trying but without Congress, everything he's doing is a temporary bubble gum band aid. Point fingers at that mother trucker John Thune and his ilk in the Senate.
Congress is worthless, a big reason we sit where we do.
Worthless to us -but somehow they all get very rich...hmmmm
Hmmm, they are in charge of their own criminal empire.
like five wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner
That's absurd. Franklin Roosevelt's Executive Order took away every American's dollars that read "payable on demand for gold" and substituted them for fiat. And guess what- only a few worked for the federal government in those days. He also created a gigantic alphabet list of new federal agencies that still exists.
Executive orders sound good but that does not mean those who know how to cheat won't find other ways. I live in Georgia. I know.
Yes, an executive order is akin to a judgement at law. A claimant is awarded monetary damages by the court, but it is up to the claimant to collect.
Executive Orders from any President regarding elections only impact Federal elections.
Most elections have a federal candidate on the ballot and if there's just one then it is a federal election. But you're right, if there are none then the state can do whatever it wants
Thanks, I was considering expanding the comment in the manner you note.
🤞🏻🧐🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
Your assessment is exactly why my wife and I removed our names from the official voter rolls in Colorado. To actually believe We the People have a functioning "constitutional republic" is "hopeium" - vanity or chasing after the wind.
I compare living Circa 2026 in the USA, similar to living in Roman occupied Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria during the life and times of Jesus Christ.
Philip K. Dick’s theory that "The Empire Never Ended" posits that the ancient Roman Empire never truly fell, but rather transformed, with 20th-century America functioning as its modern, technological incarnation, known as the "Black Iron Prison". This idea, heavily detailed in his Exegesis following a 1974 mystical experience, suggests that humanity lives in a "semi-real" reality controlled by a rigid, authoritarian structure that spans across time.
Is this exegesis in book form?
Yes - available in hardcover and paperback. A bit crazy and also one of the best books I've ever read . . . well worth the price https://www.amazon.com/Exegesis-Philip-K-Dick/dp/B00A7KUEVI
Thanks. I've never been able to read him, but I've enjoyed movies based on his books. An incredible mind by all accounts. Maybe I'll try again....
Get out of Colorado, it is insane. Maybe altitude? I did, 23 years ago and have never regretted it. It is an LBTGQ haven.
All things old are new again.
Trump didn't drive them insane....they did it to themselves...
The current edition of "The Democrat Party" is actually a socialist/communist party wearing the old "Democrat Party" skinsuit. The transformation began back in the 1960's with the admission of radicals like Tom Hayden into party leadership and continued with each passing year until the party has become indistinguishable from the Comintern of old. The Gramscian march through institutions has reached a critical mass in the party as well as the educational establishment (formerly known as "teachers"), unions, mass media (currently operating as the Völkischer Beobachter of the democrat party) and entertainment industry (a/k/a "Hollywood"). I do not foresee that enough residents of the state of California, especially those living and voting in Los Angeles will turn out to vote against the politicians who promise to give them more goodies and freebies out of the public exchequer. There is still enough ruin in that misbegotten state to carry the day for Bass/Raman/Newsome, but those days are running out. As it says in The Bible, Matthew 7:27, describing the ruin of a house built on sand: "And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it". If ever there was a house built on sand, it is California and when it falls, as it will, that fall will indeed be great.
If only there were real repercussions to those 'selected' politicians for their destructive and criminal actions where we could then start moving in the right, (no pun) direction. We first must fix the broken voting/election debacle.
Wo gives a rat's ass what's in that ancient book?
Your drool cup is full, Merwood. Gross.
Good old Nico.
I fled California in 2019, to move to Georgia, which politically is like jumping out of the fire back into the frying pan. The last meal we had before leaving, I remember the waiter bringing our drinks and his hand hovering over a pocket full of straws, trembling. Because if a waitperson offered a straw without the customer asking, they faced significant fines and the threat of jail. And yet it seemed rude not to offer it. This in the same state where stores stopped prosecuting theft under $900...and of course people showed up with garbage bags and just pulled items off of shelves into their bags, in full view of God and everyone, and sauntered out the door without paying. It was just madness, and just one of many Cali madnesses.
In Georgia you get straws. And people don't steal blatantly from stores on an everyday basis, because guns, and--for many people--God. But Lord Almighty we make up for it in political corruption. I am pleased to report to y'all that on that front there has been much progress in evidence-gathering for the theft of the Presidential election in 2020. It gives me hope.
What do you think of Atlanta, the Black paradise?
That Bass is leading speaks to the incredible lack of awareness or concern about the awfulness of her administration or that those voting for her are Marxists themselves and want CA destroyed. Same in the gubernatorial race with Becerra.
I agree except for one thing - evil does not know it's evil. The self righteous elites do not think they will destroy CA. They believe they ar RIGHT! and everyone needs to get with the program. This is why nothing can change that those who believe they know best cannot be reprogrammed.
Either that or it speaks to the enormous stranglehold of the corruption omnipresent.
Leading? Polls? i've noticed the game has been rigged more than usual the past few decades. There is a tendency over time to return to some manner of equilibrium. possibly we just are not far enough out on the pendulum swing for a return just yet?
Speaking of elections, noticed that Retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel Alex Vindman, a key witness in President Trump's first impeachment, officially filed paperwork on April 22, 2026, to run as a Democrat for the U.S. Senate in Florida. He is challenging incumbent Republican Senator Ashley Moody in the 2026 special election. Democrat politicians have no shame. The slimier the better.
The DNC is today’s equivalent of the Federalists in Party of 1800. The people are too dumb to run themselves and need a central government to run them.
Today’s DNC has succeeded in putting a target on the education system and flooded immigration with the “wretched refuse”. They have succeeded in creating a public that is too dumb to run itself. The idiocy of the California electorate JHK expounds on is just an indicator of the trend. The fact that people vote for idiots that feed on the belief that the public is too stupid to make good decisions is debilitating to people that know what is going on. It is sickening.
Attacking the education of the public is one thing. Attacking the economy by sending jobs overseas is quite another. Obama led the charge, and Biden’s mob enlarged the effort. How do you make people more dependent?
Make them stupid and take away their opportunity.
Exactly what the DNC led Deep State has been doing for three generations. The percentage of Gimmes in our society has escalated year after year and is about at the point today where it controls the country. Just what the power mongers in the Deep State want.
That's why we need same day, paper ballot voting. There are millions of people (mostly democrats) whose votes are now being counted, who wouldn't be able to find, or care to find, their local voting site on election day.
Heh on your last, now add on ballot harvesting.
Actually Bill Clinton started the ball rolling with the NAFTA trade agreement.
I think it had more to do with giving Most Favored Nation status to Communist regimes in Asia: China and North Vietnam (now "Vietnam") notwithstanding the fact they had just sent 60,000 young Americans to their graves- but the needs of American Big Business must be served! (but admittedly, NAFTA is part and parcel of the same idea.)
Kathy, I worked for a company that sold its technology to China in 1988. China’s hi-tech originated here.
And the idiots increase exponentially! I am astounded!
Unbelievable.
Mandami = Bass
Yes, both are dedicated Communists.
O California, sun-drenched God's country, to where, for the last century -- and especially post-WWII -- where people flocked to pursue the wisp of a mostly superficial dream that has now all this time later turned into a palpable, yet still steadfastly denied, nightmare.
Hollywood, naturally, is imitative, attention-seeking, neurotic. One hair out of place, one wrinkle too many, one ounce of fat -- and you're finished. The wrong thought, you're finished. When the power centers of a state have too many people like that, and too many parasites who feed off that insecurity, the whole state is then finished.
The lizards, coyotes, and chaparral will reclaim the terrain that will always be desert.
Ole Ronnie Reagan ruined California when he granted amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants from south of the US border making them voting citizens. Since that time California has voted blue. Before that California was the "golden state." Thanks for that Ronnie!
The more I find out about Reagan....
Yeah, me too. Same goes for Honest Abe. The more I learn the more I realize they weren't the heroes they were made out to be.
Their opponents were many times more repugnant.
Trump was the same. Clinton and Harris.
Latinos in California have swung between parties for several election cycles now. Trump increased his support to 43% in 2024 and won 9 of 12 predominantly Latino districts. The GOP actually gained seats in Sacramento from the Latino vote.
The Mexicans lean culturally and politically to a moderate/conservative outlook. They liked what Trump was saying. They also know bullshit when they see it and Trump is rapidly losing them along with independents and antiwar MAGA’s.
You have to work at flucking things up as bad as Trump has.
Yes, diplomacy was never his forte: "“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have a lot of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”
People don't understand how destructive rank choice is. Last primary I voted in WA state had 36 candidates for governor. How are voters expected to make sense of that? Add in vote by mail, which gives the postal employees a chance to throw away your ballot. And motor voter to allow citizens of other countries to vote in our elections. No wonder things are bad
Xavier Becerra is a name that makes me see red. It was he who, as California A.G., continued the previous A.G. Kamala Harris's prosecution and persecution of investigative journalist David Daleiden for having exposed Planned Parenthood's FELONY trafficking in baby organs and parts.
Please note: Becerra and Kamala didn't give a damn about the FELONIES that PP was committing. They prosecuted the guy who DOCUMENTED the felonies.
The abortion issue always shows people's true colors. People who aggressively promote sacrificing babies to Moloch have made a deal with the devil.
The thinking of religious nut jobs:
Abortion = People who aggressively promote sacrificing babies to Moloch have made a deal with the devil.
Planned Parenthood's FELONY trafficking in baby organs and parts.... give me a fucking break, Kathy
This makes me see red!
A large number of women support it. A large number of women are evil. Melania pretended to be a devout Catholic, but she came out as a pro-abort Satanist.
You need to be punched in the face
Truth is hate to those who hate Truth.
Truth hate who those to hate is Truth.
I certainly hope that JHK is correct, and that the 2026 Democrat Party dies a complete, rapid, and horrific political death--and that many of its most criminal members (and there are a lot of them, from bottom to top) wind up in prison for a very long time.
Californians have been drinking their own leftist political piss for so long that they think that it is lemonade. The difference between California and what is actual America--the conservative states--is stark. Out here in what leftist coastal morons call "Flyover Country", this spring has seen some devastating tornado damage. One year after the Palisades fire in California, thanks to leftist Democrat "leadership", almost nothing has even started to be rebuilt. Out here in conservative "Flyover Country," construction crews are already repairing damaged structures (and infrastructure) and building replacement structures for those homes and businesses that were totally destroyed. That began within days of the disasters, not months or years after. And, unlike leftist California, conservative governments in Flyover Country are actually helping with the rebuilding effort instead of doing everything possible to obstruct or hinder it. And Democrat lunkheads think that the Democrat Party is all about "helping the people." How dumb and deluded can they get?
The plight of the dems conjures up an image of a snake, separated from its head, writhing on the pavement.
I will never forget the Black state legislator in California, when asked what he thought of the middle class, about five years back, increasingly leaving California. His reply was he was happy and wanted more to leave, to make room for more illegals.
Right up there with Guam tipping over.