Over the last several years hundreds of thousands of residents of California have decided to leave the state deciding that that there was no future for them there.
America’s biggest home insurance company has announced it will no longer insure houses in California, saying that the risk from wildfires was too great and the cost of rebuilding too high.
State Farm, the nation’s biggest car and home insurer by premium volume, said existing customers would not be affected.
But from Saturday, no new home insurance policies will be issued. The company will continue offering auto insurance.
The shock to me is that they still consider it safe to offer auto insurance, but it is a pretty big state and there are likely more than a few places outside of Oakland, Sacramento, San Francisco and LA where you can insure a car without losing your shirt.
Of course if the state had sane forestry policies as they once did before the left made it their fiefdom this would not be an issue but the voters are bound to get the government they deserve.
I — I couldn’t take a blow, sir. I suppose I’ve been too long with gentlemen”
Among gentlemen a blow could be wiped out only in blood; among the lower orders a blow was something to be received without even a word.
C. S. Forester: Hornblower and the Hotspur 1962 p 301
If you want to know why the left in California are not bothered by what is happening in San Francisco Kurt Schlichter nails it in one sentence in an excellent paragraph:
As in California, all the good ones are leaving. There are a lot of complaints about blue state denizens shifting to red places and bringing their clown show politics with them, but in my experience it’s the red people who are saying “The hell with this” and checking out. The poor libs can’t move and the rich ones don’t need to – their little enclaves are relatively safe. The subways may be a concrete jungle where freaks with meat cleavers wander and you might get pushed into an oncoming train by some schizo with 100 arrests and no real jail time on his rap sheet, but the cops are still empowered to act in the well-heeled precincts. People ask how I can stay in LA, but I’m not actually in LA – I’m in a city by the beach where the cops actually cop. The chaos is for the poors on the uncool side of the 405; my neighbors vote for Ted Lieu and let the consequences of their moral preening fall on the people who don’t work via Zoom
Emphasis Mine
There is a word for this. It’s not “socialism” it FEUDALISM.
I’ve been writing about the left’s actions as Feudalism for over 10 years: and it’s become more and more clear that what the left really wants is the status that comes from being better than those who they consider beneath them. After all if everyone has peace and prosperity what makes you special?
Can’t the doorman and driver understand that, like the Lords of old, the Pelosis in Washington like and the Mahers in Hollywood seek power and status simply for the good of all? Don’t they realize if they support the great Lords in DC and Hollywood, as trusted retainers, they might expect advancement from the state, a better job in a growing federal government? Don’t they understand that by keeping an underclass on assistance they provide protection to the retainer like themselves to keep them from revolt (remember Occupy)?
And if such assistance goes to the 2nd or third generation it is a good thing because like those who came before them, they are repaying their bounty with votes that keep the enlightened lords in power.
This entire philosophy & mindset is contrary to the entire march of Western Civilization from Magna Carta to the Declaration of Independence. It is the idea that some laws can be enforced while others are not, why some standards apply to some and not to others. It’s the idea that the rights are granted by other men, the elites like themselves and not from God
If one were to examine the concept of California as a feudal state, all the pieces would be identifiable. The aristocracy is the wealthy billionaires and the titans of the high tech industry. The knights and the nobles are the public employees. The clerisy consists of the academics and the nonprofit activists, which include environmentalists, homeless and low-income housing advocates, and social justice warriors. Everyone else would be serfs.
California’s serfs would either be members of the state’s dwindling middle-class and small-business owners, paying crippling tithes to the feudal regime, or they would be low income workers and the unemployed, who would rely on alms from the nobles for their sustenance.
You can’t be a lord without serfs, California is returning to it’s Spanish and Mexican roots, Caballeros and Peons and the money that is voted to allow the peons to have drugs and the willingness to let them steal without consequence, that’s today’s version of Noblesse Oblige.
It’s just that it’s not that “noble” and it’s done using other people’s money.
Feinstein official Senate photo, retrieved from her website on January 29, 2023
By John Ruberry
Nearly overlooked earlier this month because of the drawn-out vote for speaker of the House was the breaking of seven decades of precedent in the upper chamber of Congress in the election for largely ceremonial post of president pro tempore of the Senate. Largely ceremonial only up to a point, that is. The holder of that position is third-in-line in presidential succession. Every president pro tempore elected since 1949 had been the longest-serving senator from the majority party. The dean of the Senate is 89-year-old Dianne Feinstein, she has been representing California since 1992. But Patty Murray of Washington, who is a relatively spry 72, was elected president pro tempore, which ups her salary a bit and earns her a security detail.
Feinstein reportedly declined to run for president pro tempore.
Concerns about Feinstein’s mental acuity go back to 2020, when she praised then-Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Lindsay Graham (R-SC) when the confirmation hearings for Amy Coney Barrett concluded. “This has been one of the best set of hearings that I’ve participated in,” she told Graham before hugging him, “I want to thank you for your fairness.”
Personally, I think Graham did a decent job during those hearings, but Feinstein overlooked–or should I say she couldn’t remember–that during the Donald Trump presidency it was the duty, in the eyes of the Democrats’ hard-left base, for every Democratic member of Congress to RESIST Trump and the Republicans.
Shortly afterwards, Feinstein stepped down as the ranking Democrat of the Judiciary Committee.
Last spring, her hometown newspaper, the San Francisco Chronicle, spoke to members of the House of Representatives and the Senate, as well as ex-Feinstein staffers, about her mental state. And all of them, anonymously, told the Chronicle that because of memory issues, Feinstein appears unable to serve as senator.
More bluntly, in my words, it looks like Feinstein can’t do her job.
“I have worked with her for a long time and long enough to know what she was like just a few years ago: always in command, always in charge, on top of the details, basically couldn’t resist a conversation where she was driving some bill or some idea. All of that is gone,” a California House Dem admitted to the Chronicle about Feinstein. “She was an intellectual and political force not that long ago, and that’s why my encounter with her was so jarring. Because there was just no trace of that.”
The same article offered up this damning quote, “There’s a joke on the Hill, we’ve got a great junior senator in Alex Padilla and an experienced staff in Feinstein’s office,” a former staffer said.
Last year the New York Times described an experience that will be familiar to anyone who has witnessed a friend or relative suffering from cognitive decline.
One Democratic lawmaker who had an extended encounter with Ms. Feinstein in February said in an interview that the experience was akin to acting as a caregiver for a person in need of constant assistance. The lawmaker recalled having to reintroduce themself to the senator multiple times, helping her locate her purse repeatedly and answering the same set of basic, small-talk questions over and over again.
Tellingly, a visit to Feinstein’s Senate website offers up a photo of her that appears to be a couple of decades old. That’s the pic you see in this entry. Click here for a more recent photograph.
This month, two Democratic southern California members of the House, Katie Porter and Adam Schiff, announced they are running for Feinstein’s seat–her term expires in 2025. Schiff, who repeatedly lied about having evidence proving Trump-Russia collusion, claims he informed Feinstein of his intentions. Believe that if you want to.
Other candidates are expected to declare their candidacy. Feinstein hasn’t said anything yet, but she’s expected to announce that she will not be running for reelection.
Clearly, Feinstein should have resigned for health reasons at least three years ago.
One way to minimize the chances of having senators–and House members–suffering from cognitive decline is to enact congressional term limits, even though that may mean amending the Constitution. Besides, serving in Congress should be a highlight of someone’s career–not the entire career.
Feinstein’s sad situation is not unique in Washington. Two Republicans who served with Feinstein, Strom Thurmond, who ended his 48 years in the Senate at 100, and Thad Cochran, who resigned after 39 years in the Senate, suffered cognitive challenges late in their careers, as well as one Democrat, Robert Byrd–he died in office when he was 92.
For five months in 2001, at the age of 98, Thurmond was president pro tempore. And when Byrd died, he was president pro tempore of the Senate. Hey, hats off to the Democrats for bucking tradition by electing Murray over Feinstein for that post.
Besides congressional term limits, America also needs smarter voters. Although by all accounts Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) is a healthy 89-year-old man. Last year he was just elected to his eighth term. Grassley is a former president pro-tempore.
Having wiser and less selfish members of Congress is probably too much to hope for.
Mental issues can burden younger persons too.
In Pennsylvania, 53-year-old Democrat John Fetterman, who suffered a stroke last year, successfully ran out the clock in his successful Senate election, despite speaking struggles in his few public appearances and a disastrous debate performance.
Joe Biden turned 80 last year and he’s expected to run for reelection. Biden has had many mental miscues in his two years at president. But that’s a problem well worth another discussion.
Please don’t call me ageist. If heart ailments, cancer, accidents, or infectious diseases don’t conquer me first, I am certain that one day I will suffer from cognitive issues.
UPDATE February 14: Today Feinstein announced that she won’t seek reelection. Call me ableist, agist, or whatever. But Feinstein should have quit at least two years ago. She can still resign.
There is a very great danger to letting Democrats in charge of your state because they do things like this:
In March 2021, former Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam signed the legislation — the so-called Clean Cars bill — in an effort to bolster Virginia’s clean energy transition and boost the number of electric vehicles sold throughout the state. The bill, which was praised by environmental groups, also mandates that Virginia automatically adopts tailpipe emissions standards implemented in California.
Youngman has tried to get this repealed so that the standards of Virginia can be decided by Virginians but Democrats have managed to block these attempts.
There is another election in two years so Virginians will have a chance to put a new State Senate majority in place but there is an easier solution that Governor Youngman can implement:
Redefine “California”
Our liberal friends have redefined “Marriage” they’ve redefined “Man”, they’ve redefined “woman” they’ve redefined “free speech” so why not take a page from their book and issue an executive order consisting of the following text:
“For the purposes of the 2021 ‘Clean Cars Bill’ the word ‘California’ shall be defined as ‘The commonwealth of Virginia’.
In one fell swoop suddenly Virginia gets it’s sovereignty over it’s own standards back.
The left will howl but frankly the only way we’re going to stop the left redefining words to advance their agendas is to use the same tactic against them.
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