Florida Republican congresswoman Maria Salazar shouts out her demands that the US take an active role in supporting anti-government protests in Cuba. This, as the Fox News lineup has been fulminating over the missed opportunities to do the same—meddle—with respect to Iran, and other countries that neoconservatives feel we should “help” be as “free” as we.
Showing comity to Cuba by allowing commerce with its people, as Barack Obama had dared to do—oh no! We can’t have that. That the Fox bots will not condone.
Trade and robust free exchange with Cuba is all I want to see. For the rest, let the Cubans fight their own battles.
From conservatives, let’s hear more about the glories of free-market capitalism, the suppression of which accounts for Cuba’s abject misery. US Government declarations “in support of the people,” whatever that means, are worth nothing.
Curious: Why does Rep. Salazar refer to the Cubans in her Florida district as exiles? Surely if they are now Americans they are home, and not in exile.
“… our country is suffering a blackout of intelligence”
Excerpt:
Some blame a quasi, free-market in electricity for the collapse of the electrical grid in Texas, during a winter snow storm, mid-February, with temperatures averaging zero. The same people finger deregulation and isolation from the national and neighboring grids.
The other side has it that an excessive reliance on renewable energy sources, like wind turbines, was the culprit in a grid collapse that saw 40 percent of the power supply fail within hours of the storm, indirectly causing the death of about 60 Texans.
All agree that the oil-and-gas state enjoys both cheap natural gas and abundant wind power, and that its natural resources could have stood Texas in good stead.
The Lone Star State’s human resources are another matter entirely.
Be they wind turbines or gas pipelines; the electrical grid has to be properly maintained. Texas, however, lacked “leadership.” It transpires that the grid had not been weatherized nor winterized in anticipation of a harsh winter—pipelines had not been insulated and wind turbines never deiced.
Leadership is a euphemism for intelligence. Texas in the winter of 2021 will likely be looked upon as a case of systemic stupidity; systemic rot.
Things start to fall apart when the best-person-for-the-job ethos gives way to racial and gender window-dressing and to the enforcement of politically pleasing perspectives.
Likewise has the emergency personnel managing the blackouts for the nation’s largest utility, Pacific Gas and Electric Company, joined California’s political leadership to deliver Third World quality service to Californians.
When it is reported that, “Among the hundreds of people who handled the blackouts from Pacific Gas and Electric Company’s emergency operations center, only a handful had any training in the disaster response playbook that California has used for a generation”—that is a fancy way of saying “affirmative action.”
It doesn’t help that the American Idiocracy is moving at breakneck speed to equate merit-based institutions with “institutionalized racism.”
When it is reported that “among the hundreds of people who handled the blackouts from Pacific Gas and Electric Company’s emergency operations center, only a handful had any training in the disaster response playbook that California has used for a generation”—you know this is a nice way of saying:
Affirmative action.
The Associated Press found that, “The utility entered 2019 planning to ‘de-energize’ its aging electric grid during autumn windstorms, so that downed lines couldn’t spark a blaze. Yet among the hundreds of people who handled the blackouts from PG&E’s emergency operations center, only a handful had any training in the disaster response playbook that California has used for a generation, The Associated Press found.”
The emergency personnel managing the blackouts for the nation’s largest utility, Pacific Gas and Electric Company, delivers third-world quality service to California.
When the best-person-for-the-job ethos gives way to racial and gender window-dressing and to the enforcement of politically pleasing perspectives; things start to fall apart.
A spanking new bridge collapses, new trains on maiden trips derail, Navy ships keep colliding, police and FBI failure and bad faith become endemic, and the protocols put in place by a government ‘for the people’ protect offending public servants who’ve acted against the people.
You can be sure that the same fate awaits the task of contact tracing vis-a-vis COVID. It is a highly skilled endeavor, detective work, if you will. The South Koreans, for example, to it to perfection.
Contact-tracing, however, will be used as a job-creation opportunity for the government. Instead of merit-based appointments, state and federal authorities will make politically advantageous appointments .
UPDATE I (11/1):
Exactly. Even Tucker, commiserating with fleeing Californians, failed to mention that they pollute every other locality at which they arrive. Idaho, apparently, is getting toxic. How low IQ can you get? Escape a place due to x, y, z; replicate x, y, z in new home.
I was in the vanguard of the Cal-Exodus. The trouble with a lot of my fellow refugees: they forget to leave their Cali value system behind. Pretty soon the whole US will be Californicated. How to tell the bad eggs? Ask. If they say, “weren’t me, dude,” it probably was.
About 70,000 Cali "refugees" came to Colo. for several years in the mid-90s, seeking jobs and a better life for their families. But they also brought far-left ideas and "wants". Result: Colo. flipped from a balance of Dems and Repubs to hard-left Blue. Now, Colorado's a mess.
UPDATE II (11/05): Prop 16 in California may just fail, but, somehow, I think they’ll find a way to retain That Sinking Feeling.
?Have they had enough of a state collapsing into the black hole of #AffirmativeAction, @dbroockman? (It recently was reported that those strategizing over fighting fires are incapable of following established protocols.) https://t.co/NzUrxB2xjX
Thankfully, the domestic production of personal protective equipment (PPE) is predicted to vastly expand in the next five years.
Back on March 5, a full month before government’s “experts,” national and international, stopped fumbling, lying and dissembling about the effectiveness of masks, I foresaw what IBISWorld, an industry research company, now confirms. I wrote:
A rise in consumer demand for this product, reflected in empty shelves and relatively higher prices, will galvanize business to hire more workers and produce more of the coveted commodity. Prices are crucial. They are the street signs of the economy. The thing the socialists will soon insist on controlling (“price-controls”) and suppressing are the vital signs of the economy. In particular, scarcity and high prices are vital signals. Mask these natural market indices, and you kill off the knowledge needed by manufacturers and entrepreneurs to decide whether to rush into the production of surgical face masks and N-95 respirators.
Masks and all others pandemic prophylactics are currently exorbitantly priced to reflect high demand and subsequent scarcity. These prices have already been taken by producers as a signal to accelerate productions.
IBISWorld now forecasts an “increased emphasis on domestic production capacity in the interest of national security.” It expects “the industry’s trade balance to shift from a deficit to a surplus over the five years to 2025.”
IBISWorld further reports that “the PPE manufacturing industry has seen an unprecedented surge in demand for N95 masks, respirators, face shields and gloves. The industry’s largest operators are operating at maximum capacity and are currently or intending to expand their domestic production capacity within the year.”
For this, we owe the profit motive, not American leaders. As a rule, the latter have no compunction about leaving their pliant people in the lurch during disasters. The U.S. government knows its loyalists will do anything, including to deny COVID is real, to help their leaders save face.
