More Pix

A second batch of Zion N.P. photos at the other DrC's blog. It is a pretty place.

Why CA Stays Blue

In COTTonLINE’s continuing coverage of the decline and fall of California, here comes a column at Chronicles which adds measurably to that discussion. Its contribution is in noting the importance of state and local government employees in the CA Democrat coalition. 

The D coalition consists of the wealthy and the poor, that much is common knowledge. Add to that all the various government employees who are its middle class members. The Ds makes sure they are treated well and they make sure the state continues to vote D.

Consider California’s notoriously generous CalPERS (California Public Employee’s Retirement System) payouts. In an era where pensions in the private sector are increasingly rare, CalPERS benefits (while they last) are a boon to millions of middle-class Californians.

As one can imagine, this makes government employment for at least one family member very attractive and, in turn, fuels the demand for and creation of ever more government jobs—whether legitimate or, as in most cases, concocted.

Some are concocted, most are not. But government employment at some level - school or other special district, city, county, regional agency, state, or federal including military - provides many of the middle class jobs left in CA.

Demographer/pundit Joel Kotkin famously compares the role of government employees in modern society to that of the Church in medieval society, and refers to them as the “clerisy,” meaning “the literate ones.” I get a mental image of a fat friar - robe, sandals, tonsure and all, but of course it’s wrong.

Schools in Trouble

Power Line's numbers guy, Steve Hayward, posts a chart comparing the performance of three types of schools at educating the nation's 4th and 8th grade students.

What is discouraging is that charter schools do no better than regular public schools. At both grade levels and for both reading and math, Catholic schools outperform the other two types and the differences are not tiny. 

When parents are paying monthly fees to keep their kids in school, it appears they pay more attention to whether their allocation of funds is paying off, whether their kids are doing homework and learning. It is also likely the RC schools are more serious about maintaining classroom order and discipline.

The other DrC - who trained teachers for employment in the public schools - believes those schools are no longer doing their job. Another chart shows things are getting worse over time. This testing evidence substantiates her dismal opinion.

Monday Snark

Images courtesy of RealClearPolitics' Cartoons of the Week.

Last Friday's Snark, Belatedly

Images courtesy of Politico's 

Nation's Cartoonists on the Week in Politics.

History ... Rhyming

This Oren Cass column deals with the some of the same issues as the previous post below. It also contains some foreign policy thoughts current in the Trump White House you need to see. Hat tip to Power Line for the link.

In it Stephen Miran, chair of Trump’s Council of Economic Advisors, quotes Scott Bessent, the new Treasury Secretary, as proposing the following.

Putting countries into different groups based on their currency policies, the terms of bilateral trade agreements and security agreements, their values and more. … These buckets can bear different tariff rates, and the government can lay out what actions a trade partner would need to undertake to move between the buckets.

More clearly segmenting the international economy into zones based on common security and economic systems would help … highlight the persistence of imbalances and introduce more friction points to deal with them.

To which Miran adds:

Countries that want to be inside the defense umbrella must also be inside the fair trade umbrella.

Cass describes the dilemma facing other nations thus.

Doing so will be in their interest, as compared to the alternatives of falling into the Chinese sphere or being excluded from both ours and theirs. Only while the United States offers the alternative of “take advantage of us and gain all the benefits of our alliance anyway” does the option of complying with U.S. demands seem strange.

What they're proposing would essentially reestablish the Cold War "us vs. them" duopoly, with China replacing the USSR as our designated foe and some third group of "non-aligned" nations, typified by Indonesia and a few others in the first Cold War. 

"Second verse, same as the first." History doesn't repeat itself but it often rhymes.

The Power of the Purse

Not everyone in the U.S. is wealthy, but collectively we represent the biggest import market for other countries’ raw materials, manufactured goods, and services on the planet. We’re their biggest customer.

President Trump figured out something that we should have known for decades, but obviously failed to recognize. Namely, the enormous leverage the huge, lucrative U.S. market’s demand for goods with overseas roots gives us. 

Trump decided we should demand the respect the biggest customer should always expect to get, by reminding countries of how much they depend on our custom. Plus how he can price their offerings out of our giant market with his targeted tariffs.

He recognized that - if we decided to buy less from them - they’d rather please their biggest customer than continue with whatever policy we found offensive. That is precisely what his tariff threats represent, pricing their goods out of our market.

So far Panama has decided to not renew it’s deal with China, Mexico has decided to help us with a drug crackdown, and several have decided to allow us to repatriate their citizens now illegally in the U.S. Who knows what other nations will offer up in return for unfettered access to our market? 

So far, only Canada seems not to recognize the “biggest customer” reality. It may take a political shift there before it does.

Better Late Than Never Snark

Images courtesy of Power Line's The Week in Pictures

and its Comments section.

A Third Term?

Yesterday Politico headlined a speculative piece about ways Trump might succeed in having a third term as President. It quotes Trump as joking about the possibility. 

Was he kidding or floating a trial balloon, who knows? He sometimes says outrageous things just for the fun of watching Dims’ heads explode.

It then lists the four ways this could come about, beginning with a new constitutional amendment. The most plausible of these is he could run as another Republican’s vice president with the public understanding that individual would resign and hand the job to Trump. There is precedent for such transparent trickery overseas.

I will make a prediction that, in 2028, Trump will not want to run for a third term. I know he seems like the Energizer™ bunny now, but his current pace would tire a much younger pol. The office wears its occupants down, even the younger ones age visibly over 4 years. He won’t want to risk the Joe Biden experience of losing it in office and looking foolish.

From Zion NP

 If you have been wondering where the Friday and Saturday Snark postings have gotten to, here’s the scoop. We decided on a last-minute weekend getaway and booked in at the lodge at Zion National Park. 

We have been here since yesterday afternoon and it has been super, not crowded at all. The other DrC has pretty photos at her blog, as well as some very well earned praise for this special place. 

As she notes, we each came here as children with our parents. We’ve been coming back over the decades, not every year but more like every 3 years, give or take. 

Now that we winter a 1.5 hour drive from here we’ll be back at least yearly, and always in midwinter. It is the only time the place isn’t overrun with what the other DrC calls ‘tourons,” a portmanteau of tourists and morons. 

What would I call the scenery here? Literally one of the most spectacular places on this planet, much of which I’ve seen in our travels. They named it Zion because you can feel the presence of the creator here, even if not especially religious.

Do you remember a Sunday comic strip featuring a Western sheriff Rick O’Shay and his gunslinger pal Hipshot Percussion? When Easter or Christmas would roll around, they’d ride out to the rim of the Grand Canyon and, looking in awe at the enormous view, feel like they were in church. I get that feeling at Zion N.P.