This is why the Democratic Party will never recover

 Today I read a really interesting story about the guy who in a paper he posted to LinkedIn back in 2013 recommended that Amazon should buy Whole Foods - Ex-Amazon Exec Explains What Bezos Could Do With Whole Foods -- and Other Deals That Might Happen.

But within the same list of recommended stories was this one which reflects why the Democrats will never recover Amazon’s deal with Whole Foods should be scrutinized by Congress, lawmaker says. If facts matter to you (and urban liberal Democrats are almost as bad as Republicans about alternate facts), the Amazon-Whole Foods deal represents a minor transition only and we can have no idea what the impact will be until it evolves for several years - but initially it affects exactly the people who are killing the Party - those who initially embraced Whole Foods in its growth years.

This clown, Rep. David Cillicine (D-R.I.), a typical Northeastern Democrat, is from Rhode Island's 1st Congressional District 

• with three Whole Foods stores, 
• that is 79.3% white, 
• with a college graduation rate of 31.6%, and 
• with about 19.7% of the population on Medicaid.

It's in stark contrast to California's 21st Congressional District represented by David Valadao (R–CA), 

• with no Whole Foods store even close to the District, 
• that is 19.3% white, 
• with a college graduation rate of 8.9%, and 
• with about 56% of the population on Medicaid.

Here's the story Trump America will understand - A new industry is beginning to thrive in rural America, with Amazon leading the way.

And where exactly were the Democrats in an election year when Walmart acquired Jet.com in August 2016? Not representing the people who depend on Walmart for food and clothing by studying if such mergers impact the way the rural and suburban working class live. Nope, urban Democratic members of the House of Representatives are worried about Whole Foods customers- their people.

Really, Democrats are worried about Amazon buying Whole Foods. Really?? That's what's important and deserves the focus of any Democratic energy??? Why again have I been a registered Democrat all these years????

Gray Whales threatened, again! Wind and wave electrical generation structures planned for Pacific Gray Whale migration route

An Eastern Pacific Gray Whale keeps a wary eye on humans.

If you see worry on this face, it may be because of two green blood-red "alternative" energy proposals.

The first is outlined in this 2016 story...

...which apparently could happen according to Floating Wind Plan Could Finally Crack California’s Offshore Market published today.


Then on December 31, 2016, this image appeared US Doubles Down On Wave Energy, $40 Mil For New Test Bed...

Click on image to see a larger version!

...followed up this month with 12 Million Says Ocean Power Can Compete In The Big Leagues With Wind, Solar.


Ten years ago my article Limited Time Only - Act Now To Own Your Piece Of The Ocean Off The Mendocino Coast appeared in The Great Western Pacific Coastal Post. The following year I started this blog with the post FERC Ponders Allowing Public Input, Environmental Review of Proposal for Electrical Generators in Whale Route.  In early 2012 I posted Obama's Administration & the wave energy technocrats: What whales? and The Cloud versus the Gray Whale.

In that last post I wrote:

It was hard to accept the truth that a significant effort is being put into an "attack-by-dismissal" effort with regard to the Eastern North Pacific Gray Whale. Apparently accurate information needs to be more broadly disseminated. This lengthy post is an attempt to do that....

Much to my surprise I've lived 10 more years since 2007. Also much to my surprise the new generation of "green" energy engineers are continuing the threat to the gray whale. Why???

There is really more than enough information in those four pieces to inform people that the waters of the Pacific Coast of North America is not a suitable place to place electrical generating facilities and related cables. The reason is obvious...

 To begin with, the Pacific States - California, Oregon, and Washington - can produce more than enough power for their own use from wind and solar.

In fact, as the LA Times told us this month in California invested heavily in solar power. Now there's so much that other states are sometimes paid to take it:

    On 14 days during March, Arizona utilities got a gift from California: free solar power.
    Well, actually better than free. California produced so much solar power on those days that it paid Arizona to take excess electricity its residents weren’t using to avoid overloading its own power lines.
    It happened on eight days in January and nine in February as well. All told, those transactions helped save Arizona electricity customers millions of dollars this year, though grid operators declined to say exactly how much. And California also has paid other states to take power.
    The number of days that California dumped its unused solar electricity would have been even higher if the state hadn’t ordered some solar plants to reduce production...

Admittedly, the situation is complicated. But as I indicated in my February 2012 post The Cloud versus the Gray Whale, internet cloud facilities were being constructed in Quincy, Washington, because the Grant County Public Utilities District from Wanapum and Priest Rapids dams could generate adequate power at a relatively reasonable cost. Plus, the District owns 12.54% of the production from the Nine Canyon Wind Project is located in south-central Washington  which was constructed between 2002 and 2007 including 63 wind turbines with a maximum generating potential of 95.9 megawatts of electricity.

Click on image to see a larger version!

If these companies can find a way to get power in a location not threatening the whales, why do we need to even think about harming the whales.

The Eastern Pacific Gray Whale migration route is unusual. Most other American coastlines do not have this kind of habitat. It's difficult to understand why anyone thinks the solution to our problems related to power generated using fossil fuels is to cause harm to another sentient species.

We know that Gray Whales use low-frequency sounds and known regular sounds, visual cues, scents, and geomagnetic field information to navigate. Does anyone really believe that wind and wave energy production in the middle of their migration route isn't going to cause harm?

In the next 10 years we do not need to build or continue to research projects like this along the North American Pacific Coast. Just because some engineers and contractors can build something doesn't mean they should. And "alternative" in the term "alternative energy" should not mean let's knowingly cause harm to an "alternative" species other than humans.

Let's protect these residents with whom we share the Eastern Pacific Ocean:

U.S. political parties exist in name only... Undisciplined college-confused liberals versus the tool of focused Neoliberal money

Last weekend at the luxurious Broadmore Hotel in Colorado Springs, a group of Americans who care deeply about government policy in these United States¹ attended an annual retreat to review their strategy and plans for the future as they do every year.

Right away we know that these folks do not include the undisciplined college-confused liberals who loosely call themselves Democrats. We know this because Democrats, other than candidates and paid staff, have no detailed government policy or election plans they care that deeply about to have the necessary level of focus and commitment.

The folks at Colorado Springs enjoy winning in these United States political arenas as opposed to tilting at windmills and they know how as explained in The Washington Post:

    COLORADO SPRINGS—The wealthy donors who finance the Koch network are frustrated that national Republicans are not doing more to capitalize on having unified control of the federal government. But at their summer seminar here in the Rocky Mountains, which wrapped up last night, many were ecstatic—even giddy—about significant conservative gains that have been made this year in state capitals across the country.
    Republicans now control the governorship and legislature in 25 states, compared to only six states for Democrats. Last November, the GOP seized all the levers of lawmaking in four new states – Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri and New Hampshire – making it much easier to pass far-reaching legislation.
    The network, led by the billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on low-profile races and building out grassroots operations in 36 states over the past decade.
    In 2017 alone, several of these states have reduced union power, scaled back regulations, cut taxes, blocked Medicaid expansion, promoted alternatives to public education, loosened criminal sentencing laws and eased requirements to get occupational licenses.
    Because President Trump is such an all-consuming story, most of these moves received scant national attention. But the 400 donors who descended on the Broadmoor resort over the past few days have been paying close attention and are keenly interested in the outcome of these state-level fights.
    “Even in the past six months we’ve seen a lot of success: We have two new right-to-work states, school choice wins in five states, and a dozen states have reduced spending or taxes,” Roger Pattison, director of member relations for the Koch network, said at a dinner on Saturday night. “I could go on and on.”
    “We’re coming off the most successful legislative session that this network has ever had, and it’s a result of your investments,” added Luke Hilgemann, chief executive of Americans for Prosperity, which is part of the constellation of Koch-funded groups.
    [Tim Phillips, the president of AFP,] revealed at a strategy session that the network’s next targets include Ohio, Minnesota and New Hampshire. “I know Washington tends to suck most of the oxygen out of the room … but the untold story is the dramatic policy advancements … at the state level,” he said. “At the state level, we’re seeing a once-in-a-generation renaissance.”

They are the folks who over the past 50 years were able to use the state Republican parties as a tool to elect politicians who will support policy in line with Neoliberal ideology, at least as it is being implemented in the United States. I explained in great detail in my post The critical civics lesson America & Trump needed - 21st Century Ideologies in America & the Government$ of the United States who these people are and what they believe is the proper role of government.

The point here is that they know the National Republican Party exists in name only. You need to keep in mind that you don't see any Tea Party folks in Trump T-shirts holding misspelled signs at the Colorado Springs Broadmore. Instead, what is referred to in some articles as "the Koch network" has been successful using the state Republican Parties.

Were you there this past weekend you might have seen Vice President Mike Pence, a long-time ally of the network, meeting with billionaire industrialist Charles Koch on Friday evening for 45 minutes. They were joined by Marc Short, who directed political efforts for the Koch network until last year and is now the White House’s legislative liaison.

You haven't heard much about Marc Short. Again, he is the White House’s legislative liaison - meaning that on behalf of the President he interacts with Congress - you know, where federal policy is made. And from 2012 to 2015 he served as President of Freedom Partners, a 501(c)(6) Koch Brothers political fund, to oversee the spending of money on behalf of various Republican politicians and conservative groups raised at donor summits.

If you think you know who the Koch brothers are, consider this article: Koch brothers partner with Deion 'Primetime' Sanders to fight poverty.

You need to know the Koch brothers aren't evil. They are just committed to the Neoliberal ideology. As ideologues they are more wealthy, knowledgeable, smarter, and committed than what we call progressive liberals. Ideologues aren't always good for America, but in my opinion they are better than uninformed, self-centered egotists like Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump and their populist supporters.

The Koch's shun tabloid-type publicity and hide from any suggestion that they hold public office. They hate populism as explained in one of several Washington Post articles written about a seminar in January in Indian Wells, California, one of several sponsored by the Koch network held each year,  Fear of authoritarianism pervades Koch network seminar, as billionaire donors grapple with Trump:

    “As recently as 1960, both the left and the right were united in general support for what was called the American creed. The American creed was the basics of individualism and freedom and opportunity,” Murray explained. “And what we discovered last year was that the proportion of the American electorate on the right that is still devoted to those American creedal principles is way smaller than I thought it was. I’m not talking about how many doctrinaire libertarians there are. I’m talking about the degree to which people buy into what we’ve always considered, ‘This is what America is all about.’”
    During a panel discussion later in the afternoon, billionaire industrialist Charles Koch – who has been convening these twice-annual seminars since 2003 – reiterated Murray’s point. “We have a tremendous danger because we can go the authoritarian route,” he said, “or we can move toward a free and open society.”
    Koch, who has become a household name over the past few years, was not referring specifically to Trump. But he and others at the three-day conference, which continues until tonight, have warned in stark terms that the “disenchantment” which allowed Trump to become president shows how fragile freedom is in this country. “There’s some that like Trump. There’s some that like Bernie Sanders. But they didn’t like the status quo,” Koch said. “The struggle between opportunity and humanity and control and stagnation is eternal. We can never rest.

They also know that ego problems keep getting in the way of approval of complex effective policy in American politics. The higher up on the elected-official food chain a "political ego" is the less likely any coherent policies will be forthcoming.

That is why this Neoliberal movement has avoided any focus on Presidential elections. Now they've run into that ego problem with Republicans in Congress. Their correct understanding of government in these United States has been confirmed - that over the long term only at the state level can you create through politics coherent policy. But it is frustrating for them, nonetheless, even though they do have plans.

Another article on that Indian Wells gathering in January was Koch network to spend $300 million to $400 million on politics, policy in 2018 cycle. The plan is typical:

    The Koch network plans to spend between $300 million to $400 million on policy and political campaigns during the 2018 election cycle. ...By comparison, the network spent about $250 million during the 2016 cycle on policy and political efforts.
    The funds will be spread across a constellation of groups, including Americans for Prosperity and Freedom Partners Action Fund, along with Concerned Veterans for America, the Libre Initiative and Generation Opportunity, which now operate under the AFP banner.
    Leaders from the groups said that they plan to focus on building up the capabilities of their grass-roots organization, which has boots on the ground in 36 states, and that the precise amount will depend on opportunities.
    More than 550 donors are attending the seminar, the largest contingent ever. The network, which is led by billionaire industrialist Charles Koch, has about 700 donors who give a minimum of $100,000 per year. About 200 of the donors gathered at a desert resort outside of Palm Springs this weekend are first-time attendees. The seminar has happened twice annually since 2003.
    In the last election cycle, the network put its political focus on backing a group of targeted Senate Republican candidates, declining to endorse a presidential candidate. That decision frustrated some donors, who urged Koch to back Donald Trump once he secured the GOP nomination. But the longtime libertarian patron refused, expressing dismay with Trump's comments about immigrants and Muslims.

Certainly, the Koch's organizational funding has created an effective fund raising and on-the-ground campaign system which some might describe as "parallel" to the Republican Party. But in truth they have supplanted the Party organization, meaning the traditional Republican Party is ineffectual except as directed by the Neoliberal organizations in each state.

Which brings me to the progressive liberals or whatever they want to call themselves. In my last post on American ideology, I explained that in the 21st Century government$ of United States we have a compass, not a spectrum, to represent the expressions of ideological perspectives as follows:

Where exactly do you put the folks who call themselves progressive liberals? They seem to be busily advocating federal control of human behavior which curiously makes them demanding Social Conservatives pushing their tribe's culture - they really do not want Cultural Individualism which would permit without punitive recourse through government politically incorrect behavior.

Nor do those led by Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren want Economic Individualism. They advocate a variation of Economic Corporatism.

As the Chinese have discovered, you cannot have a large economy under socialism except through organizations that together represent economic corporatism. Economic corporatism generally involves varying levels of government bureaucracy, along with government and private ownership of property associated with economic production. All this mostly entails large corporate structures be they private companies or public institutions/agencies.

When pushed to populist extremes, economic corporatism results in a totalitarian state because all governments are corporations and the only corporations are government-controlled. It is irrelevant whether the system calls itself socialist or corporatist. The Chinese culture has moved south-easterly on that political compass far more than Americans understand and their 21st Century political system is not as oppressive to the typical non-political Chinese citizen as the American system is to the typical non-political black American citizen.

On the other side of the "north point" is anarchy. Neoliberals are just grades of belief south-westerly away from anarchy, being extreme advocates for economic and social individualism. As reflected in a much decried Supreme Court decision² , in their thinking privately owned "corporations" are just like people - individualistic, reflective of the corporation's group creativity which also reflects the personalities of the owners. Private corporations are "individuals" encompassed by the concept of individualism, not property like the dirt under a building. Like all persons, corporations can own dirt under a building.

Government corporations (institutions/agencies) have a facilitative place in the economic structure. Outside the role of defense and protection of the immediate public safety, regulatory behavior is considered part-and-parcel of totalitarianism. Government facilitative behavior includes creating currency and assuring interstate and international trade. It does not include restricting trade to the benefit of the less competitive.

Over the past two decades the Democrats have had no coherent ideological direction other than a clear preference to expand the use of federal power because of the political failures of the Party within the states. The truth is the ego-boost of holding office as a U.S. Senator or as President is really the only means of sharing amongst the undisciplined college-confused urban liberals a sense of importance - something Neoliberals gain from achieving implementation of a clearly defined desired public policy.

The current popularity of Senator Bernie Sanders reflects the failure of the Democratic Party and the general ignorance of the undisciplined college-confused liberals. Bernie's leadership skills are so great his own state does not offer that tuition-free college he used as a policy proposal in his Presidential primary run.

Lately he has been busily involved in California's universal health care proposal, getting a lot of publicity without mentioning the fact that in 2011 a bill to establish a publicly financed, single-payer system was approved requiring the Governor of Vermont to submit a detailed financial plan by 2013. Democratic Governor Peter Shumlin, a strong single-payer supporter, enthusiastically signed the bill.

In late 2014 the financial plan came in and Shumlin would not seek funding for it because it would nearly double the size of the state’s budget in the first year alone and require large tax increases for residents and businesses.

If this sounds familiar to Californians, this is exactly the nature of the costs for such a program in California. The bill Bernie was blabbing about never got out of the Legislature. Bernie never helped California Democrats by mentioning the Vermont experience to the press. And his ineffectiveness doesn't stand in his way because it gets no publicity.

The fact is in the United States national political parties exist in name only. The state Republican Party organizations can be viewed simply as a tool to be used by the Neoliberals. Those Neoliberals have been so effective that the state Democratic Party organizations are floundering in a death spiral in a large majority of the states.

Here in Democratic California we are likely three general elections (seven years) away from Democratic voters and elected officials understanding the full impact of our nonpartisan blanket primary system.

Republicans have already gotten the message. In the 2016 U.S. Senate race, two Democrats vied for the seat after placing #1 and #2 in the primary.  The California Republican Party has the same impact on statewide races as the Libertarian and the Green Party - none.

It has been in that position since Arnold Schwarzenegger was first elected Governor on October 7, 2003, in a special nonpartisan blanket recall election to replace then-Governor Gray Davis. Arnold could not have won in a Republican Primary, but won as a registered Republican voter. No Republican politician who could win in a statewide closed Republican Primary could win in a statewide General Election.

Now it doesn't matter. Absent some disarray like that surrounding the recall Democratic Governor Gray Davis, no one running of statewide office with the support of the California Republican Party can win. And that is an impact of our nonpartisan blanket primary elections.

Two months before Californians discovered they are really irrelevant in Presidential Elections, I posted:

    I'm a Californian. California is the first state to eliminate the partisan primary.
    Also here in California, Governor Jerry Brown is 78, Senator Diane Feinstein is 83, Senator Barbara Boxer is 75, and our most famous member of Congress Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi is 76. The Chairman of the California Democratic Party former Congressman John Burton is 83.
    In California back in 2012, Millennials were 29% of the population, Gen-X'ers were 21.8% of the population, Baby Boomers were 23.4% of the population, and the Silent Generation was 9.4% of the population. All people who hold power in the Democratic Party are of the Silent Generation.
    That is embarrassing - we have a non-representative government - literally a gerontocracy meaning per Wikipedia "a form of oligarchical rule in which an entity is ruled by leaders who are significantly older than most of the adult population."
    "Coincidentally" recently in California we have done away with party primaries except for the President. That is because the strongest political movement in the state is the Independent Voter Project (IVP). Folks in other states should get to know this logo: .
    Slowly that half of the Millennials who do not consider themselves part of either community known as the Democratic Party and the Republican Party will take control of who gets to be on the General Election ballots in California - the largest state in population with the largest number of electors in the Presidential Electoral College. At some time in the future the top two candidates for a statewide office will both not identify with a party.
    Which leads to the point of this post. The 21st Century internet could permit potential "no party" candidates to use social media and "crowdfunding" to create a community of Millennials and Gen-X'ers to succeed in a "top 2" primary system.

Democratic Senator Diane Feinstein, who will be 85 next year at 2018 General Election time, is indicating she will run again.  Should she win, she will be 91 when the term ends. But how that all plays out in our nonpartisan blanket primary system will be interesting.

One possibility is that the Neoliberal political machine could disrupt the 2018 nonpartisan blanket primary for Feinstein's Senate seat, perhaps funding a run by a younger non-partisan candidate who could literally run on a platform challenging the power of the federal government now controlled by Republicans.

Such an effort might not succeed in 2018. The California Democratic Party still has access to money and people on the ground.

But Party Chairman John Burton retired this year and the process of replacing him has sown discord - about half of the active California Democrats are disgruntled that no real change has occurred. U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer retired and the contest to replace her has left an open sore, particularly among Southern California Hispanic Democrats. Governor Jerry Brown is termed out and will retire at the end of 2018. That will reduce the gerontocracy members of the party leadership to House Minority Leader Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi who is under attack at the national level and Senator Diane Feinstein who is about as conservative as a California Democrat can get.

So to repeat myself, here in Democratic California we are likely three general elections (seven years) away from Democratic voters and elected officials understanding the full impact of our nonpartisan blanket primary system. The traditional party system will be meaningless, leaving California Democrats, like California Republicans, with little partisan power within the state or nationally.

What is not reported in the press is that Burton, Boxer, Brown, Pelosi, and Feinstein are essentially "Bay Area" white people while the vast majority of Californian's live south of the Tehachapi Mountains and are the majority of Californian's are not white.

California Democrats have hidden the meaning of the geographical split. The Bay Area generally is far more inclined to cultural liberalism.  Once the Southern California influence gains strength, Hollywood notwithstanding, at the national level the meaning of being a California Democrat will change. And it was California that gave Hillary Clinton here majority in the national popular vote when the California Democratic Party was controlled by a white gerontocracy.

Once those progressive liberals figure out that U.S. political parties exist in name only, the challenge will be for them to quit worrying about the Presidency and U.S. Senate seats, create two or more well-funded national organization and at least one well-funded organization in each state, and then campaign to elect hundreds and hundreds of state legislators and statewide office holders. After they become successful at that, they can then campaign to elect hundreds of members of Congress from the states.

In the meantime, progressive liberals can at least smile while watching large-ego Republican members of Congress who want to be reelected stand in the way of a Neoliberal goal to eliminate anything resembling a national health care program, which existing efforts as they predicted have distorted our economy.

---

¹The use of "these United States" is emphasized to assure an understanding shared by American Neoliberals that the country defined by the Constitution is based upon independent states ceding limited powers to a central government for the purposes of national defense, the protection of the immediate public safety, and facilitation of interstate and international commerce. There is a reluctant acknowledgment of the subsequent amendments beginning with the first 10 known as the Bill of Rights, an acknowledgment which points to the 18th Amendment establishing Prohibition as an example of the foolishness and dangers of tyrannical populism at the level of the central government. This was reflected in the January 2017 Koch network seminar in Indian Wells where fear of Trump as President was evident.

²As Wikipedia explains regarding corporate personhood, beginning in 1818 the U.S. Supreme Court has been recognizing corporations as entities having individual rights granted in law to persons. The introductory paragraph explains: "Corporate personhood is the legal notion that a corporation, separately from its associated human beings (like owners, managers, or employees), has at least some of the legal rights and responsibilities enjoyed by natural persons (physical humans). For example, corporations have the right to enter into contracts with other parties and to sue or be sued in court in the same way as natural persons or unincorporated associations of persons. In a U.S. historical context, the phrase 'Corporate Personhood' refers to the ongoing legal debate over the extent to which rights traditionally associated with natural persons should also be afforded to corporations. In 1886 it was clear that the Supreme Court had accepted the argument that corporations were people and that "their money was protected by the due process clause of the 14th Amendment"—an Amendment that was made to protect African Americans' rights (Zinn 261). Another example is that in Nike v. Kasky, Nike asserted a free speech 'right to lie', while in Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Hobby Lobby asserted a freedom of religion 'right' to exempt itself from aspects of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act." The controversial Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 558 U.S. 844 (2010) held that corporate funding of independent political broadcasts in candidate elections cannot be limited under the First Amendment.

Xi Jinping's 21st Century Silk Economic Belt and Road About California's future if China becomes the world's 21st Century economic center

At the beginning of this month, for two weeks an event took place for which I can find no news coverage in the United States - not even California news sources. Here is how the China Daily described it:

    An annual event dedicated to promoting business and cultural exchanges between China and California, ChinaWeek draws industry and government representatives from Guangdong, Hebei, Inner Mongolia, Jiangsu, Shandong, Shanghai and Chongqing to expand and deepen bilateral trade and investment, said Peter Shiao, chairman of ChinaWeek and its organizer.
    California Governor Jerry Brown, as usual, was upbeat on the state's relationship with China during his keynote speech at Tuesday's California-China Business Summit, an important component of ChinaWeek.
    Brown anticipates closer and deeper collaborations within a wide spectrum of industries and fields between China and California, especially high tech, clean tech, real estate, agriculture, infrastructure and education. "Let's roll up our sleeves to have the work done," said the governor.
    China in the past 16 years has invested $16 billion in more than 370 businesses in California and accounted for 60 percent of international trade activities in the "gateway state", said Shiao, adding that China remains Los Angeles County's biggest trader partner.

Not one American news website story on this gathering can be found if you do a Google news search.

On the other hand, this past week's Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation was given some, albeit mostly dismissive, coverage by the American press, from both mainstream and alt right.

Click on images to see larger versions!

What may have been the most significant political speech of 2017 was a toast at a banquet at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. China's President Xi Jinping in calling for renewing the Silk Road spirit said:

    More than 2,000 years ago, our ancestors, driven by a desire for friendship, opened the overland and maritime Silk Roads and thus started a great era of exchanges among civilizations. Today, we gather here to renew the Silk Road spirit and discuss the Belt and Road development for international cooperation. This is both a continuation of our shared legacy and a right choice for the future.

He also noted that the Belt and Road Initiative embodies the aspiration for inter-civilization exchanges, the yearning for peace and stability, the pursuit of common development and the shared dream for a better life.

Silk Road? Belt and Road Initiative?? 2000 years??? Where is the all important "me" in that????

In considering such a span of human history, it is wise to keep in mind these words from the Polish poet Czeslaw Milosz:

Love means to learn to look at yourself
The way one looks at distant things
For you are only one thing among many.
And whoever sees that way heals his heart,
Without knowing it, from various ills—
A bird and a tree say to him: Friend.

Despite the fact that "selfies" and self-important tweets are all the rage among the consumers of the world, there is no "me" in considering 2000 years, even in or particularly in the World Wide Web. Individual fruit flies and individual humans are equally unimportant over time periods measured in centuries.

Yes there have been individual humans who made a significant continuing impact on humans in time spans measured in thousands of years. It would be fair to say that of the 100,000,000,000± billion folks who have ever lived and are not alive today, 100± individuals made a significant impact that reverberates through history to today. That's 1 out of every 1 billion.

So it's likely that, out of the 7 billion now alive, there are seven individuals out there who will be recognized as someone who still impacts significantly on human life 2,000 years from now.

And not that most of us don't contribute to the cumulative gross mess that is human history. But it is likely that when it comes to altering the course of that history in a meaningful way, this guy is probably one of the seven....

You probably recognize he is not Donald Trump nor any other American. Nor for that matter is he from any European culture. If you are among 95%+ of Americans, just from the picture below you will not be able to place a name...

...with the face of the man in the middle with is wife, China's President Xi Jinping.

On February 11, 2009, while visiting Mexico, then Vice-President Xi spoke in front of a group of overseas Chinese noting that China's task was to keep "its 1.3 billion people from hunger" and regarding the financial crisis affecting the Atlantic oriented world: "There are some bored foreigners, with full stomachs, who have nothing better to do than point fingers at us. First, China doesn't export revolution; second, China doesn't export hunger and poverty; third, China doesn't come and cause you headaches. What more is there to be said?"

That helps put a bit of perspective on his visit to Central Asia and Southeast Asia in September and October 2013, when as China's President he raised the initiative of jointly building the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road.

Additional perspective (for those who live in a country that is less than 400 years old) comes from China's history where writing began around 7000 BCE,  the first empire dynasty emerged around 2100 BCE, and the Shang Dynasty from the 17th to the 11th century BCE created oracle bone script which is a direct ancestor of modern Chinese characters. To make a long story short, around 220 BCE the state of Qin established the first unified Chinese state. Its King Zheng enacted legalist reforms throughout China, notably the forced standardization of Chinese characters, measurements, road widths (i.e., cart axles' length), and currency. His dynasty also conquered the Yue tribes in Guangxi, Guangdong, and Vietnam. The Han dynasty emerged to rule China between 206 BCE and CE 220, creating a cultural identity among its populace still remembered in the ethnonym of the Han Chinese. The Han expanded the empire's territory considerably, with military campaigns reaching Central Asia, Mongolia, South Korea, and Yunnan, and the recovery of Guangdong and northern Vietnam from Nanyue. Han involvement in Central Asia and Sogdia helped establish the land route of the Silk Road, replacing the earlier path over the Himalayas to India. Han China gradually became the largest economy of the ancient world. For more historical detail on the Silk Road click on this image:

Historical extent of Silk Route/Silk Road. Red is land route and the blue is the sea/water route.

Xi's Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st-century Maritime Silk Road - also known as the Belt and Road Initiative, the Belt and Road (abbreviated B&R), or One Belt, One Road (abbreviated OBOR) - is a broad international economic development strategy that focuses on connectivity and cooperation among countries.

The plan covers 65 nations, about 60 per cent of the world’s population and a third of global GDP. China has budgeted $40 billion for the project. The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, which began operations last year with $100 billion in capital, is also expected to fund Belt and Road projects.

The Belt and Road initiative is geographically structured along six corridors, and the maritime silk road:

• New Eurasian Land Bridge, running from Western China to Western Russia
• China–Mongolia–Russia Corridor, running from Northern China to Eastern Russia
• China–Central Asia–West Asia Corridor, running from Western China to Turkey
• China–Indochina Peninsula Corridor, running from Southern China to Singapore
• China–Pakistan Corridor, running from South-Western China to Pakistan
• Bangladesh–China–India–Myanmar Corridor, running from Southern China to India
• Maritime Silk Road, running from the Chinese Coast over Singapore and India to the Mediterranean.

The initiative calls for the integration of the region into a cohesive economic area through building infrastructure, increasing cultural exchanges, and broadening trade. Apart from this zone, which is largely analogous to the historical Silk Road, another area that is said to be included in the extension of this 'belt' is South Asia and Southeast Asia.

Many of the countries that are part of this belt are also members of the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). North, central and south belts are proposed. goes through Central Asia, Russia to Europe. The Central belt goes through Central Asia, West Asia to the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean. The South belt starts from China to Southeast Asia, South Asia, to the Indian Ocean through Pakistan. The Chinese One Belt strategy will integrate with Central Asia through Kazakhstan's Nurly Zhol infrastructure program. (Much of this information is from the Wikipedia entry which offers more.)

From a movement point of view the B&R historical ties looks something like this:

But in terms of world impact it could also be viewed this way...

...or this way:

Click on image to access links to each country.

Attending the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation this past week were the following representatives of non-member nations:

Heads of State:

• Argentina: President Mauricio Macri Chile: President Michelle Bachelet
• Fiji: Prime Minister Josaia Voreqe Bainimarama
• Greece: Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras
• Italy: Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni
• Kenya: President Uhuru Kenyatta
• Philippines: President Rodrigo Duterte
• Poland: Prime Minister Beata Szydło
• Spain: Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy
• Switzerland: President Doris Leuthard

Minister Level:

• Australia: Trade Minister Steve Ciobo
• Brazil: Secretary for Strategic Affairs Hussein Ali Kalout
• Finland:  Minister of Transport and Communications of Finland Anne Berner
• Germany: Minister of Economic Affairs Brigitte Zypries
• North Korea: Kim Yong-jae, Minister of External Economic Relations

Other:

• France: Jean-Pierre Raffarin, chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations, Defense and Armed Forces in the French Senate
• Japan: LDP Secretary General Toshihiro Nikai
• South Korea: Ambassador to China Kim Jang-soo; Park Byeong-seug, National Assembly member for the Democratic Party
• United States: Matt Pottinger, National Security Council senior director for Asia (Who???)

There is a lot of recent history and current activity involved, not all of which has been successful as explained in Wade Shepard's I Spent Two Years On China's Belt And Road, And This Is What I Found. Shepard also provides a proper perspective:

    China takes a long-term view of these investments, and have show that they are willing to exercise the requisite patience. By long-term view, I mean 30, 40, 50 years down the line, not the 5 to 10 years that is roughly where the west’s nearsightedness kicks in.
    China has shown that it is both willing and able to weather the storms of domestic and international politics in order to get what they want in the end.

Shepard is one of those rare American's who, in addition to being able to read and write well above a 6th grade level, is a China expert based upon his travels and study in China. He is currently traveling the New Silk Road doing research for a new book. You can follow his writings through this feed.

Which brings us back to that 2000 year window. As Shepard commented about Americans, we are limited by "the 5 to 10 years that is roughly where the west’s nearsightedness kicks in." That is really generous as much of our business activity is controlled by a 5 to 10 week time frame and generally Americans struggle with a planning attention span of 5 to 10 days.

So it's probably ok that those selfies and tweets are on some electronic device and/or cloud that will certainly and inevitably disappear over the next hundred years. They don't matter, not even Donald Trumps tweets, nor all the self-important news reporters following them.

As explained in an Atlantic article while most post-election analysis cited economic anxiety as the main concern when people chose to vote for Donald Trump, a newer survey paints a different picture - it was cultural anxiety that drove white, working-class voters to Trump.  Sixty-eight percent of white working-class voters said the American way of life needs to be protected from foreign influence and nearly half agreed with the statement, “things have changed so much that I often feel like a stranger in my own country.”

So, the American way of life needs to be protected from foreign influence. Members of the alt-right and Trump tweet about it on their smart phones manufactured in Asia by Asians. But then again so do the members of what is now being called "the Alt-Left" led by Bernie Sanders which is working to take over the Democratic Party.

Meanwhile, The Sydney Morning Herald reported Sunday that Eleven Asia-Pacific nations agree to salvage Trans-Pacific Partnership:

    Eleven Asia-Pacific nations, including Australia, agreed on Sunday to salvage a massive free trade deal that US President Donald Trump pulled out of days after taking office in January.
    Australia's Trade Minister Steve Ciobo pushed for the agreement at a meeting in Vietnam to "launch a process to assess options" to bring the Trans-Pacific Partnership into force.
    New Zealand Trade Minister Todd McClay, who chaired the meeting, left open the possibility of the US rejoining the TPP despite Mr Trump saying he prefers bilateral free trade deals.
    Mr McClay said each country had to consider both economic values and the strategic importance of the agreement "but in the end there is a lot of unity among all of the countries and a great desire to work together to come up with an agreement."

As I explained almost one year ago Sanders and Trump to destroy Pacific Rim states of California, Oregon, and Washington by forcing the United States out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Because the Alt-Left and -Right led American voters (I consider them both among "The Deplorables") wanted their grandchildren to have income and eat, before voting they examined major economic shifts, studying them as much as they possibly could, ignoring their own self-indulgent feelings of stress. So they knew the TPP was a plan to reduce the impact of China on the economies of the Pacific Rim nations and the World over the next 50-100 years - the lifespans of their children and grandchildren.

Except, of course, that isn't what they did because the ignoramuses leading them, Trump and Sanders, still don't know what's happening. As Bill Maher regularly notes, the American voters mostly are stupid, failing to vote their own self-interest mostly because they don't know what that is.

At this point we are facing what I call The Deplorables Map of the Future of World Economics because they at election time assured it (click on it for a larger version):

This economic China-centric world is the future. As the intent of the B&R is explained by The New York Times:

    [China's President] Xi is aiming to use China’s wealth and industrial know-how to create a new kind of globalization that will dispense with the rules of the aging Western dominated institutions. The goal is to refashion the global economic order, drawing countries and companies more tightly into China’s orbit.
    “President Xi believes this is a long-term plan that will involve the current and future generations to propel Chinese and global economic growth,” said Cao Wenlian, director general of the International Cooperation Center of the National Development and Reform Commission, a group dedicated to the initiative. “The plan is to lead the new globalization 2.0.”
    Mr. Xi is rolling out a more audacious version of the Marshall Plan, America’s postwar reconstruction effort. Back then, the United States extended vast amounts of aid to secure alliances in Europe. China is deploying hundreds of billions of dollars of state-backed loans in the hope of winning new friends around the world, this time without requiring military obligations.
    Mr. Xi’s plan stands in stark contrast to President Trump and his “America First” mantra. The Trump administration walked away from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the American-led trade pact that was envisioned as a buttress against China’s growing influence.
    “Pursuing protectionism is just like locking oneself in a dark room,” Mr. Xi told business leaders at the World Economic Forum in January.

As of 2017, China (including Hong Kong) holds $1.324 trillion in U.S. debt derived from our deficit balance of trade. The average American can pretty much figure out where that came from by looking at the stuff around his or her house, cupboards, and closests (as well as staring at that phone in his or her hand). Much of it contains components, or is entirely, made in China. After all it is where the Trump family has their clothing lines made. So President Xi is pretty comfortable loaning a few billion here and there around the world.

But wait. Didn't I say that while the B&R includes about 60 per cent of the world’s population, it only includes a third of global GDP?  And my "Deplorables Map" above doesn't correctly reflect the World as it does not include Europe, particularly the European Union members. After all, the EU is the second largest economy in the world and the world's largest trading block. Of course, Brexit likely will change all that. However, what were talking about here is the area in the square...

...which geographically isn't perhaps the largest block. But nonetheless, it the following map initially would seem to indicate a meaningful portion of the World's economy...

...except... notice the round purple dots on all the countries that are members of China's Belt and Road Initiative and remember as mentioned above that the heads of state of Greece, Italy, Poland, and Spain, plus cabinet ministers from Finland and the United Kingdom attended the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation.

It might not be unreasonable to assume that China's economic policy influence in Europe would increase substantially in the next 50-100 years as the United States abandons its allies like it did in the Pacific Rim.

When contemplating Europe, we have to remember that it is the same distance between Berlin and Beijing as it is between Berlin and the State Capitol of Illinois, Springfield. Far more Chinese citizens live closer to Berlin than Americans. Denver is closer to Beijing than Berlin.

The problem is, our history is Atlantic-centered (except for California, Oregon, Washington, and Alaska). That made sense when the sailing ship was the primary source of transportation between continents. But since the mid-20th Century aircraft altered the reality for everyone except Americans East of the Mississippi and Europeans who still live in the 18th Century.

I get it. Sure the Deplorables of the left and right and the Brexiters feel things have changed so much that they often feel like a stranger in their own countries. But it's long past the time that sailing ships were lobbing cannon balls while Francis Scott Key wrote those sterling versus in the defense of owning slaves. Get over it. There are new problems now. Americans are going to have to adjust or lose out completely by the beginning of the 22nd Century.

Back in January, California Governor Jerry Brown went to the Chinese consulate in San Francisco to speak at a Lunar New Year celebration to reaffirm what he called the state's "great interest" in working with China. As explained in the LA Times:

    "There will be a few side arguments in Washington," Brown said. "Don't worry. When it comes to California and China, we're on the right track, and we're going to stay there."
    California has collaborated closely on climate change with Chinese officials, who have studied the state's programs as they formulate their own. Brown said the state also has benefited from China's production of solar panels, helping to drive down the cost of renewable energy.
    "We are working together with China," he said. "Whatever little differences we have, or whatever big differences, the fact is, we have one world. We have one space we're all connected by."
    Brown's brief comments at the consulate weren't all rosy. Often preoccupied with existential threats , he told the audience that he wanted to make sure they "walk out of here with at least three things to worry about."
    First, he said, "you will suffer" if climate change isn't addressed. Second, nuclear bombs could "get used by somebody," which would be "very bad." Third, the global financial system "might collapse again."
    "That's a lot to worry about," Brown said.

Next month Brown will be in China to attend a climate change conference. Brown previously visited China in 2013 on a trade policy trip. He makes these trips because he knows that China and the U.S. have to take the lead on climate change. He also knows the most serious threat of nuclear war comes from North Korea. He understands that as was true in 2008 the potential collapse of the global financial system will result from U.S. economic policy, the impact of which China is trying to avert.

Finally, he understands that while California's economy ranks, depending on year, between #5-#8 in the world, it couldn't without strong foreign trade as represented by this data:

At the end of the 19th Century, bilateral trade relationships between countries dominated which led to the most murderous century in history. At the end of the 20th Century during which 100+ million people died in wars, multilateral trade relationships between countries became the norm to avoid conflict.

China's leadership understands this world reality and intends to take the leadership role which will be facilitated by the absence of U.S. influence. California's leadership understands this world reality and intends to continue its active role in order to protect the interests of its people, particularly necessary in the vacuum left by the U.S. government.

And if you don't think there is a potential threat, consider this article that appeared in Asian news sources but not American news sources in March 2017 Moscow and Beijing join forces to bypass US dollar in world money market and perhaps you'll begin to understand that isolating the U.S. as Trump touts bilateral trade negotiations could become a disaster for the grandchildren of The Deplorables.

California and Kentucky - A tale of two states From Sen. Henry Clay's Compromise of 1850 to Obama's Affordable Care Act

Californians and Kentuckians have one truth in common - neither State shares a cultural identity with another state based on political history. But Californians and Kentuckians have common interests that were in the spotlight in the last seven days.

One is the close relationship between some folks in Cupertino, California, and folks in Harrodsburg, Kentucky - specifically at Apple's headquarters in Silicon Valley and at Corning's glass plant in Kentucky.

Jeff Williams, Apple’s chief operating officer, explained to a group of Corning employees on the plant floor Friday that the iPhone originally had plastic on the surface, but when Steve Jobs showed a prototype on the stage in 2007, he kept it in his pocket and by the end of the day the surface was covered with scratches.

Jobs decided that the phone, which was to be released in six months, had to have a glass surface. Every time Apple had tested the iPhone with glass, the glass broke when they dropped it. Shatter resistant glass existed only in Corning's lab. But Corning scrambled and the Harrodsburg plant has been making the Gorilla Glass for iPhones ever since.

Apple announced Friday that it plans to invest $200 million in the Corning Gorilla Glass plant in Harrodsburg. The money will come from Apple’s new Advanced Manufacturing Fund, which the company says will invest $1 billion with U.S.-based companies to develop innovative production and skilled jobs.

The previous Saturday was the 143rd running of the Kentucky Derby as noted in newspapers here in the Northern California Redwoods where we celebrate Seabiscuit. This tie to Kentucky goes much further back than 10 years ago. Seabiscuit was foaled in Lexington, Kentucky, on May 23, 1933 and grew up on Claiborne Farm in Paris, Kentucky, where he was trained.

This links a Wikipedia series about Henry Clay
Early life Legal career Speaker of the House War of 1812 American System Missouri Compromise Second Bank of the United States Bid for the Presidency (1824) Secretary of State Corrupt Bargain Charlotte Dupuy U.S. Senator from Kentucky Nullification Crisis Bid for the Presidency (1832) Whig Party Bid for the Presidency (1844) Compromise of 1850 Death Lying in State

California and Kentucky share some history that goes beyond horse racing. California became a state in 1850 because of Kentuckian Henry Clay.

Tensions between the North and South over the issue of slavery were high in the 1840's. By 1850, after the Mexican-American War, how to handle the former Mexican territory occupied by the United States placed a critical strain.

The Compromise of 1850 was formally proposed by Clay, then a Senator from Kentucky, and guided to passage by Senator Stephen A. Douglas, Democrat of Illinois, over Northern Whig and Southern Democrat opposition. It was enacted September 1850:

1. California was admitted as a free state;
2. Utah Territory and New Mexico Territory were organized with slavery to be decided by popular sovereignty;
3. Texas dropped its claim to land north of the 32nd parallel north and west of the 103rd meridian west in favor of New Mexico Territory, and north of the 36°30' parallel north and east of the 103rd meridian west which became unorganized territory. Texas's boundaries were set at their present form. Senator James Pearce of Maryland drafted the final proposal where Texas ceded its claims to land which later became half of present-day New Mexico, a third of Colorado, and small portions of Kansas, Oklahoma, and Wyoming to the federal government, in return for the assumption of $10 million of the old republic's debt. El Paso, where Texas had established county government, was left in Texas;
4. Slave trade was abolished in Washington, D.C. (but not slavery itself);
5. The Fugitive Slave Act was strengthened.

Of particular concern was California and its gold.

I would guess that fewer than one-in-a-hundred-thousand of persons raised in California know about Henry Clay and the Compromise of 1850. Unfortunately, the in-depth teaching of American History in public schools has not been a priority in California where creating student self-involvement was once prioritized under the euphemism "self-esteem."

A failure to understand each other because of a lack of awareness of how historical context alters culture is significant in the United States.  The history is reflected in the differences in the populations. Compare California's racial/ethnic makeup...


to Kentucky's....
Kentucky's population is 85% non-Hispanic White and 8% non-Hispanic Black, which totals to 93% of the population. California is 39% Hispanic and 14% Asian which total to 53% of the population, while 38% of the population is non-Hispanic White and 6% non-Hispanic Black which total to 44% of the population.

It is almost as if the two states have no history in common. And except for Henry Clay having an important role in their histories, they don't have any important cultural history in common.

As I've explained elsewhere, California was a Spanish colony/Mexican territory from the late 1500's to 1849. On the other hand, Kentucky was part of the British colony/U.S. State of Virginia during that 300 year period. Kentucky has no sea coastline but has the most navigable miles of water in the lower 48 states and is the only U.S. state to have a continuous border of rivers running along three of its sides. California is on the Pacific Rim with 3,427 miles of measured coastline.

These different States embraced he Affordable Care Act  ("ObamaCare") but are now responding to the very knotty public policy problem that (1) it requires additional subsidies by the state government and (2) Congress may replace it.

Both the State of California and the State of Kentucky jumped into program enthusiastically. Despite that fact that in 2013 Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell from Kentucky railed against the Affordable Care Act, calling it a “catastrophic failure” for people everywhere, Kentucky's then Democratic Governor Steve Beshear responded: “I have a U.S. senator who keeps saying Kentuckians don’t want this. Well, the facts don’t prove that out."

In Kentucky, more than 400,000 people gained health insurance through the program, with the highest growth rate of Medicaid coverage of any state.

In late 2013, as McConnell pointed out, it was learned that about 280,000 Kentuckians would have to give up their existing insurance policies and enroll in alternatives that comply with the federal Affordable Care Act. Kentucky Department of Insurance spokeswoman Ronda Sloan said individual policies for about 130,000 people would be discontinued, as would small group policies for about 150,000 more.

Beshear’s successor, Republican Governor Bevin, was elected in 2015 on a promise to repeal and replace the healthcare law on the view that thousands of Kentuckians had unaffordable premiums and only one health insurer to choose from.

Bevin explained: “We want this to be a helping hand for people at a time when they need it, but then be able to return to the commercial marketplace.” Last year, Bevin submitted the waiver to restrict Medicaid eligibility by requiring enrollees to work or volunteer at least 20 hours per week and to pay monthly premiums based on income.

In an ideologically Neoliberal proposal Bevin's plan would take away from Medicaid recipients most eye care and dental benefits but then allow recipients to earn them back based on this chart:

Californians, on the other hand, now have Socialist Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders telling us "Please make my life easier. The great state of California can send a message that will be heard all over this country and all over the world if you pass single-payer here.” (He doesn't tell anyone that in Vermont the Governor and the Legislature are locked in battle because under the Affordable Care Act, virtually all teacher health insurance plans must be re-done to start a new plan on January 1, 2018. But hey, nobody cares that Bernie is politically useless in his home state when it comes to solving problems.)

Indeed the "great state of California" is looking at Senate Bill 562, the Healthy California Act, which for all Californians would cover all medical care, including inpatient, outpatient, emergency care, dental, vision, mental health, nursing home care, eliminate co-pays, insurance deductibles and allow Californians to choose their doctor plus referrals would not be required. (It's tempting to say that also for anyone who loses a tooth, regardless of age a State tooth fairy will leave $1,000 under your pillow....)

A nine-member unpaid board appointed by the governor and Legislature would oversee the health system. An advisory committee, consisting of doctors, nurses, consumers and other health care providers, also would guide public policy.

The state would seek waivers from the federal government for Medi-Cal (Medicaid), the Children’s Health Insurance Program, Medicare, and the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act to offset the cost of the program. But how to pay the substantive balance of the cost has yet to be proposed.

The last California single-payer proposal was introduced in 2007. Estimates indicated it would have cost the state $209.8 billion rising to as much as $252 billion in 2015, according a fiscal analysis by the Legislative Analyst’s Office. The plan included an 8% wage tax on employers and 4% on employees. Based on now known medical care cost increases since 2007, the tax for that plan would have to have been raised substantially, probably some number like 12% on both employers and employees. And the plan was not as comprehensive as the new proposal. It was vetoed by then Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Democratic Governor Jerry Brown when in Washington lobbying about the billions his state could lose on the eve of the House Republican vote to repeal and replace Obamacare said regarding SB562: “Where do you get the extra money? This is the whole question. I don’t even get ... how do you do that? This is called ‘the unknown by means of the more unknown.' In other words, you take a problem, and say ‘I am going to solve it by something that’s ... a bigger problem,’ which makes no sense.”

The reality is that Social Security and Medicare are mostly funded by taxes on wages, partly paid by employers and by employees. Make no mistake about it, any single-payer plan in California will require additional such taxes. And no it won't come from "the rich" as California already has a billionaire-income-tax supporting its deficit budget in a significant amount.

It is a deficit budget, worse than expected as Brown’s administration miscalculated costs for Medi-Cal by $1.9 billion in the 2016-17 budget. The Democratic governor called for more than $3 billion in budget cuts in 2017-18 because of a projected deficit he pegged at $1.6 billion for that year. The massive hole in the Medi-Cal budget surprised state lawmakers.

Since it is likely that California will see reductions in federal support for Medi-Cal within the next few years, it's going to be interesting to watch "liberal" Californian's deal with taxes. Because in 2017 the Democrats controlled ⅔'s of the votes in both houses of the Legislature, a very large gasoline tax increase was approved to do badly needed road maintenance. Now a ballot measure has been proposed to have the voters repeal the gas tax increase.

Without a ⅔'s vote in each house of the Legislature any health care taxes, like all California tax proposals, must be approved  by the voters.

Assuming a tax on wages is proposed, because the State has fumbled a lot of programs over the past two decades, it will be interesting to see if the over-65, most of whom wouldn't be taxed, would consider supporting the measure. Or would the Legislature run into a wall old protestors with signs saying "Keep the STATE GOVERNMENT out of my Medicare." My guess is that would happen if the bill continues to propose to interfere with Medicare.

And of course they would have to get it past voters who have good employer-sponsored health plans. What's the slogan going to be - "Trust Us State Officials to Get Healthcare Right!...even though we risked too much with the Affordable Care Act and now can't even pay that bill."

Consider this problem. In order to pay for health care for a child in a poor family whose Facebook page you don't follow, it might prevent you from buying the next iPhone, as you do each year. That could negatively impact workers in Kentucky.

Which interestingly brings us back to Kentucky's Senator, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who according to a newspaper report noted he had nothing to do with Apple’s investment but came to the plant for the announcement to congratulate the company.

“The last thing I look at at night and the first thing I look at in the morning is my iPhone,” McConnell said. “And unlike most people, I think of Harrodsburg, Kentucky.”

So do some people in Cupertino, Senator.  But why do I doubt you ever think of them?