How California’s crisis could lead to a big political shift



California’s wide range of problems — including declining schools, widening inequality, rising housing prices, and a weak job market — shows the urgent need for reform. The larger question is whether there exists a will to change.

Although the state’s remarkable entrepreneurial economy has kept it afloat, a growing number of residents are concluding that the progressive agenda, pushed by public unions and their well-heeled allies, is failing. Most Californians have an exceptional lack of faith in the state’s direction. Only 40% of California voters approve of the legislature, and almost two-thirds have told pollsters the state is heading in the wrong direction. That helps explain why California residents — including about 1.1 million since 2021 — have been fleeing to other states.

California needs a movement that can stitch together a coalition of conservatives, independents, and, most critically, moderate Democrats.

Unhappiness with the one-party state is particularly intense in the inland areas, which are the only locales now growing and may prove critical to any resurgence. More troubling still, over 70% of California parents feel their children will do less well than they did. Four in 10 are considering an exit. By contrast, seniors, thought to be leaving en masse, are the least likely to express a desire to leave.

In some ways, discontent actually erodes potential support for reform. Conservative voters, notes a recent study, are far more likely to express a desire to move out of the state; the most liberal are the least likely. “Texas is taking away my voters,” laments Shawn Steel, California’s Republican National Committee member.

New awakenings

Given the demographic realities, a successful drive for reform cannot be driven by a marginalized GOP. Instead, what’s needed is a movement that can stitch together a coalition of conservatives, independents (now the state’s second-largest political grouping), and, most critically, moderate Democrats.

Remarkably, this shift has already begun in an unlikely place: the ultra-liberal, overwhelmingly Democratic Bay Area. For years, its most influential residents — billionaires, venture capitalists, and well-paid tech workers — have abetted or tolerated an increasingly ineffective and corrupt regime. Not only was the area poorly governed, but the streets of San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose, and other cities have become scenes of almost Dickensian squalor.

Over the past two years, tech entrepreneurs and professionals concerned about homelessness and crime worked to get rid of progressive prosecutor Chesa Boudin. Last year, they helped elect Dan Lurie, scion of the Levi Strauss fortune, as mayor, as well as some more moderate members to the board of supervisors. Lurie, of course, faces a major challenge to restore San Francisco’s luster against entrenched progressives and their allies in the media, academia, and the state’s bureaucracy.

Similar pushbacks are evident elsewhere. Californians, by large majorities, recently passed bills to strengthen law enforcement, ditching liberalized sentencing laws passed by Democratic lawmakers and defended by Gov. Gavin Newsom (D). Progressive Democrats have been recalled not only in San Francisco but also in Oakland (Alameda County) and Los Angeles, with voters blaming ideology-driven law enforcement for increasing rates of crime and disorder.

Critically, the liberal elites are not the only ones breaking ranks. Pressure for change is also coming from increasingly conservative Asian voters and Jews — who number more than 1 million in the state and largely are revolted by the anti-Semitism rife among some on the progressive left. Protecting property and economic growth is particularly critical to Latino and Asian immigrants — California is home to five of the 10 American counties with the most immigrants — who are more likely to start businesses than native-born Americans.

These minority entrepreneurs and those working for them are unlikely to share the view of progressive intellectuals, who see crime as an expression of injustice and who often excused or even celebrated looting during the summer of 2020. After all, it was largely people from “communities of color” who have borne the brunt of violent crime in cities such as Los Angeles, Oakland, and San Francisco. Minorities also face special challenges doing business here due to regulations that are especially burdensome on smaller, less capitalized businesses. According to the Small Business Regulation Index, California has the worst business climate for small firms in the nation.

The shift among minority voters could prove a critical game-changer, both within the Democratic Party and the still-weak GOP. In Oakland, for example, many minorities backed the removal of Mayor Sheng Thao (D), a progressive committed to lenient policing in what is now California’s most troubled, if not failed, major city.

Latinos, already the state’s largest ethnic group, constituting about 37.7% of the workforce, with expectations of further growth by 2030, seem to be heading toward the right. In the last presidential election, Trump did well in the heavily Latino inland counties and won the “Inland Empire” — the metropolitan area bordering Los Angeles and Orange Counties – the first time a GOP presidential candidate has achieved this in two decades.

Back to basics

After a generation of relentless virtue-signaling, California’s government needs to focus on the basic needs of its citizens: education, energy, housing, water supply, and public safety. As a widely distributed editorial by a small business owner noted, Californians, especially after highly publicized fire response failures in Los Angeles earlier this year, are increasingly willing to demand competent “basic governance” backed by a “ruthless examination of results” to ensure that their government supports “modest aspirations” for a better life.

California once excelled in basic governance, especially in the 1950s and '60s under Democratic Gov. Edmund G. “Pat” Brown. The state managed to cultivate growth while meeting key environmental challenges, starting in the late 1960s, most notably chronic air pollution. In what is justifiably hailed as a “major success,” California helped pioneer clean air regulatory approaches that have vastly reduced most automotive tailpipe emissions as well as eliminated lead and dramatically cut sulfur levels.

All of this starkly contrasts with the poor planning, execution, and catastrophist science evoked to justify the state’s climate agenda. Even Pat Brown’s son, former Gov. Jerry Brown (D), recognized that California has little effect on climate. Given the global nature of the challenge, reducing one state’s emissions by cutting back on industrial activities accomplishes little if those activities move elsewhere, often to locations with fewer restrictions such as China and India.

Rather than focusing on “climate leadership,” Sacramento needs to tackle the immediate causes of record out-migration, including sluggish economic growth and the nation’s highest levels of poverty and homelessness. The great challenges are not combatting global temperature rises but the housing crisis and the need to diversify the economy and improve the failing education system. As these problems have often been worsened by climate policies, there seems little reason for other states and countries to adopt California’s approach as a model.

halbergman via iStock/Getty Images

Fixing housing

California now has the nation’s second-lowest home ownership rate at 55.9%, slightly above New York (55.4%). High interest rates that have helped push home sales to the lowest level in three decades across the country are particularly burdensome in coastal California metros, where prices have risen to nearly 400% above the national average. The government almost owned up to its role in creating the state’s housing crisis — especially through excessive housing regulations and lawfare on developers — earlier this year when Newsom moved to cut red tape so homes could be rebuilt after the Los Angeles fires.

Current state policy — embraced by Yes in My Backyard activists, the greens, and unions — focuses on dense urban development. Projects are held up, for example, for creating too many vehicle miles traveled, even though barely 3.1% of Californians in 2023 took public transit to work, according to the American Community Survey. As a result, much “affordable” development is being steered to densely built areas that have the highest land prices. This is made worse with mandates associated with new projects, such as green building codes and union labor, that raise the price per unit to $1 million or more.

A far more enlightened approach would allow new growth to take place primarily outside city centers in interior areas where land costs are lower and where lower-cost, moderate-density new developments could flourish. These include areas like Riverside/San Bernardino, Yolo County (adjacent to Sacramento), and Solano County, east of San Francisco Bay. This approach would align with the behavior of residents who are already flocking to these areas because they provide lower-income households, often younger black and Latino, with the most favorable home ownership opportunities in the state.Over 71% of all housing units in the Inland Empire are single-family homes, and the aggregate ownership rate is over 63%, far above the state’s dismal 45.8% level.

Without change, the state is socially, fiscally, and economically unsustainable. California needs to return to attracting the young, talented, and ambitious, not just be a magnet for the wealthy or super-educated few.

More than anything, California needs a housing policy that syncs with the needs and preferences of its people, particularly young families. Rather than being consigned to apartments, 70% of Californians prefer single-family residences. The vast majority oppose legislation written by Yes in My Backyard hero Democratic state Sen. Scott Wiener banning single-family zoning in much of the state.

Investment in the interior is critical for recreating the old California dream for millions of aspiring households, particularly among minorities who are being driven out of the home ownership market in the coastal metropolitan areas. The only California metropolitan area ranked by the National Association of Realtors as a top 10 pick for Millennials was not hip San Francisco or glamorous Los Angeles, but the more affordable historically “redneck” valley community of Bakersfield.

The numerous housing bills passed by Sacramento have not improved the situation. From 2010 to 2023, permits for single-family homes in California fell to a monthly average of 3,957 units from 8,529 during 1993-2006. California’s housing stock rose by just 7.9% between 2010 and 2023, lower than the national increase (10.3%) and well below housing growth in Arizona (13.8%), Nevada (14.7%), Texas (24%), and Florida (16.2%).

A more successful model can be seen in Texas, which generally advances market-oriented policies that have generated prodigious growth in both single-family and multi-family housing. This has helped the Lone Star State meet the housing needs of its far faster-growing population. A building boom has slowed, and there’s been some healthy decrease in prices in hot markets like Austin. Opening up leased grazing land in state and federal parks — roughly half the state land is owned by governments — could also relieve pressure on land prices. Until California allows for housing that people prefer, high prices and out-migration will continue into the foreseeable future.

Ultimately, California has room to grow, despite the suggestions by some academics that the state is largely “built out.”In reality, California is not “land short,” either in its cities or across its vast interior. Urbanization covers only 5.3% of the state, according to U.S. Census Bureau data, while parks, agricultural land, deserts, and forests make up the bulk of the area.

Diversifying the economy

Even Jerry Brown has remarked that the “Johnny one note” tech economy the state’s tax base depends on could stumble. This would reduce the huge returns on capital gains from the top 1% of filers, who now account for roughly half of all state income tax revenues. This overreliance may be particularly troublesome in the era of artificial intelligence, where tech companies may continue to expand but have less need for people. Indeed, San Francisco County, which boasts many tech jobs, experienced the nation’s largest drop in average weekly wages, 22.6%, between 2021 and 2022.

To expand opportunity and, hence, its tax base, California has to make more of the state attractive to employers. The best prospects, again, will be in inland areas.Today, when firms want to build spaceships, a clear growth industry where California retains significant leadership, as well as battery plants and high-tech and food processing facilities, they often opt to go to Nevada, Arizona, Tennessee, and Texas. Given lower land and housing costs, San Bernardino and Riverside Counties, as well as spots on the Central Coast, should be ideally situated to compete for those jobs.

The current economic pattern creates a situation where AI developers, elite engineers, and venture capitalists may enjoy unprecedented profits, but relatively little trickles down to the mass of Californians. Not all Californians have wealthy parents to subsidize their lifestyle, and few are likely to thrive as AI engineers. To address the dilemmas facing the next generation of Californians, the state needs to focus not just on ephemera, software, and entertainment but on bringing back some of the basic industries that once forged the California dream. In this way, President Trump’s policies could actually help the state, particularly in fields like high-tech defense and space.

In the 1940s, California played a key role in the American “arsenal of democracy.” Today, it could do the same, not so much by producing planes and Liberty ships, but drones, rockets, and space-based defense systems. Indeed, there are now discussions of reviving the state’s once-vaunted shipbuilding industry that buoyed the economy of Solano County — something sure to inspire the ire of the Bay Area’s rich and powerful environmental lobby.

Photo by Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

Improving education

Climate and environmentalism are not the only barriers to California’s revival. No problem is more pressing and consequential than the state’s failure to educate California’s 5.9 million public school children. In fiscal year 2023-2024, California will spend about $128 billion on K-12 public education — an amount exceeding the entire budget of every other state except New York. Despite this level of spending, about 75% of California students lack proficiency in core subject areas based on federal education standards.

Two out of three California students do not meet math standards, and more than half do not meet English standards on state assessments. Overall, less than half of California public school students performed at or above grade level for English language arts (reading, writing, etc.), while only 34.62% met or exceeded the math standard on the Smarter Balanced 2023 tests. The failures are particularly clear among minority students. According to the latest California testing results, only 36.08% of Latino students met or exceeded proficiency standards for English language arts. Only 22.69% met or exceeded proficiency standards in math. Latino students, for example, in Florida and Texas do somewhat better in both math and English, even though both states spend less per capita on education than California.

Not surprisingly, many parents object to a system where half of the state’s high school students barely read at grade level. One illustration of discontent has been the growth of the charter school movement. Today, one in nine California schoolchildren attend charter schools (including my younger daughter). The state’s largest school district, the heavily union-dominated Los Angeles Unified School District, has lost roughly 40% of its enrollment over two decades, while the number of students in charters grew from 140,000 in 2010 to 207,000 in 2022.

In addition to removing obstacles to charters, homeschoolers are part of the solution. California homeschool enrollment jumped by 78% in the five-year period before the pandemic and in the Los Angeles Unified School District by 89%. Equally important, some public districts and associated community colleges, as in Long Beach, have already shifted toward a more skills-based approach. Public officials understand that to keep a competitive edge, they need to supply industrial employers with skilled workers. This is all the more crucial as the aerospace workforce is aging — as much as 50% of Boeing’s workforce will be eligible for retirement in five years. In its quest for relevance, Long Beach’s educational partnership addresses the needs of the city’s industrial and trade sectors.

This approach contrasts with the state’s big push to make students take an ethnic studies course designed to promote a progressive and somewhat anti-capitalist, multicultural agenda. They will also be required to embrace the ideology of man-made climate change even if their grasp of basic science is minimal. A “woke” consciousness or deeper ethnic affiliations will not lead to student success later in life. What will count for the students and for California’s economy is gaining the skills that are in demand. You cannot run a high-tech lathe, manage logistics, or design programs for space vehicles with ideology.

More to come

Conventional wisdom on the right considers California to be on the road to inexorable decline. Progressives, not surprisingly, embrace the Golden State as a model while ignoring the regressive, ineffective policies that have driven the state toward a feudal future.

Yet both sides are wrong. California’s current progressive policies have failed, but if the state were governed correctly, it could resurge in ways that would astound the rest of the country and the world. Change is not impossible. As recent elections showed, Californians do not reflexively vote for progressives if they feel their safety or economic interests are on the line.

If change is to come in California, it may not be primarily driven by libertarian or conservative ideologies but by stark realities. Over two-thirds of California cities do not have any funds set aside for retiree health care and other expenses. Twelve of the state’s 15 large cities are in the red, and for many, it is only getting worse. The state overall suffers $1 trillion in pension debt, notes former Democratic state Rep. Joe Nation. U.S. News and World Report places California, despite the tech boom, 42nd in fiscal health among the states. This pension shortfall makes paying for infrastructure, or even teacher salaries, extraordinarily difficult at the state and local levels.

Without change, the state is socially, fiscally, and economically unsustainable, even if a handful of people get very rich and the older homeowners, public employees, and high-end professionals thrive. California needs to return to attracting the young, talented, and ambitious, not just be a magnet for the wealthy or super-educated few.

This can only happen if the state unleashes the animal spirits that long drove its ascendancy. The other alternative may be a more racial, class-based radicalism promoted by the Democratic Socialists of America and their allies. They have their own “cure” for California’s ills. We see this in debates over rebuilding Los Angeles, with progressives pushing for heavily subsidized housing, as with the case of the redevelopment of the Jordan Downs public housing complex, while seeking to densify and expand subsidized housing to once solidly affluent areas like the Palisades.

California has survived past crises — earthquakes and the defense and dot-com busts — and always has managed to reinvent itself. The key elements for success — its astounding physical environment, mild climate, and a tradition for relentless innovation — remain in place, ready to be released once the political constraints are loosened.

Fifty years ago, in her song “California,” Canada-reared Joni Mitchell captured the universal appeal of our remarkable state, not just its sunshine, mountains, and beaches, but also how it gave its residents an unprecedented chance to meet their fondest aspirations. Contrasting her adopted home with the sheer grayness of life elsewhere, she wrote, “My heart cried out for you, California / Oh California, I’m coming home.”

Editor’s note: This article was originally published by RealClearInvestigations and made available via RealClearWire.

Andrew Cuomo returns, hoping you forgot the body count



During a global pandemic, public officials make life-or-death decisions. In New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) ordered thousands of COVID-positive patients into nursing homes. That decision sparked outrage — and raised serious questions about the value Cuomo placed on human life.

Those questions are all the more salient now that the disgraced former governor is running for mayor of New York City.

If leaders like Cuomo face no consequences for decisions that cost thousands of lives, what message does that send about whose lives count?

Why did he reject alternatives like the Mercy hospital ships or the Javits Center? Why send infected patients into the state’s most vulnerable population?

You don’t need to be a political opponent to see the problem. You just need a working brain. Cuomo knew exactly what he was doing. He signed off on a policy that condemned thousands of elderly residents to die.

Public health experts and elder care professionals raised alarms well before the policy went into effect. They warned about the risks. Cuomo ignored them.

Cuomo’s refusal to adjust course reveals a deeper failure of leadership: He would not admit he was wrong. In a crisis, leaders need flexibility and critical thinking — not stubborn pride. This wasn’t just a bad call. It was a deliberate decision made with full knowledge of the risks.

On March 25, 2020, Gov. Cuomo issued a now-infamous directive. It required nursing homes to accept hospital patients discharged with COVID-19.

The directive read:

There is an urgent need to expand hospital capacity in New York State. ... All NHs must comply with the expedited receipt of residents returning from hospitals to NHs. No resident shall be denied re-admission or admission to the NH solely based on a confirmed or suspected diagnosis of COVID-19.

The stated goal was to free up hospital beds. But the logic collapsed under scrutiny. Nursing homes were already overwhelmed. They lacked the tools, staffing, and infrastructure to contain a deadly, airborne virus.

Instead of isolating the vulnerable, Cuomo funneled COVID-positive patients directly into their midst. The result? Nursing homes became ground zero for death and disease.

The fallout was catastrophic. Thousands of nursing home residents contracted COVID-19, and many died as a direct result of Cuomo’s order. Families lost loved ones who should have been protected — not exposed to a deadly virus. His policy didn’t just endanger the elderly; it revealed a chilling indifference to human life.

During a fiery legislative hearing, Cuomo admitted he never consulted health experts before issuing the directive. That admission exposed a stunning lack of accountability and foresight. And it raised a pressing question: Why did he ignore safer alternatives that could have reduced the risk to nursing home residents?

At the time, viable options were available. The USNS Comfort, a Navy hospital ship, sat in New York Harbor. The Javits Center had been converted into a field hospital. Both were equipped to care for patients recovering from COVID-19 — patients who still needed medical support but didn’t belong in elder care facilities.

Using those resources could have eased pressure on hospitals and spared nursing home residents from exposure. Instead, Cuomo sent COVID-positive patients into the most vulnerable communities. His failure to use safer alternatives wasn’t a mistake — it was gross negligence. It raises serious questions about his judgment and priorities.

At a May 5, 2020, press conference, Cuomo posed a rhetorical question: “How much is a human life worth?” He answered himself: “Life is priceless.” But his actions told another story. By sending critically ill elderly patients into elder care facilities, he treated those lives as disposable.

This wasn’t just a contradiction — it revealed a systemic failure in public health leadership. When government officials treat the elderly as expendable, they destroy trust in the very system they are supposed to uphold. Cuomo had a duty to protect those most at risk. Instead, he put them in harm’s way.

In the aftermath, grieving families demanded answers. They wanted justice for loved ones lost in facilities meant to care for them. But Cuomo’s administration withheld data and dodged responsibility, fueling justified public outrage.

As time passes, the silence grows louder. If leaders like Cuomo face no consequences for decisions that cost thousands of lives, what message does that send about whose lives count?

Cuomo’s pandemic failures should have served as a warning for future leaders. Instead, with corrupt judges in his corner, he walked away untouched. Apparently, if your political connections run deep enough, you really can get away with murder.

In a brazen move, Judge Katherine Failla dismissed the lawsuit against Cuomo, confirming once again that accountability vanishes when the judiciary protects the powerful. No need to investigate the deadly fallout of Cuomo’s nursing home order — just bury the evidence and preserve the status quo.

Well done, your honor! Your loyalty to corrupt politicians is impressive. One wonders what your financial disclosures might reveal.

To every family who lost a loved one because of Cuomo’s reckless, politically motivated policies: You deserved better. He ignored science. He ignored warnings. And worst of all, he ignored the people he was sworn to protect.

The value of human life should never be up for debate. It must guide every decision made by those in power. In a crisis, leaders face moral tests — and we have every right to demand better. Every life is priceless. Unless, of course, you’re Andrew Cuomo, who seemed far too aware of just how lucrative death could be.

Sen. Cruz and GOP colleagues reintroduce constitutional amendment to impose term limits



Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and some of his Republican colleagues recently reintroduced legislation that would amend the U.S. Constitution to limit lawmakers from serving more than two six-year terms in the U.S. Senate or three two-year terms in the House of Representatives.

While the Texas Tribune and other publications have eagerly pointed out that Cruz has exceeded his own proposed limit, the Republican senator has beat the drum for better turnover in Washington for years, first proposing a constitutional amendment to impose term limits in 2017.

After proposing the amendment again with former Rep. Francis Rooney (R-Fla.) in 2019 and with the backing of Republican Sens. Marco Rubio (Fla.) and Mike Lee (Utah) and former Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.), Cruz stated, "Term limits on members of Congress offer a solution to the brokenness we see in Washington, D.C. It is long past time for Congress to hold itself accountable."

Later that year, Cruz said when chairing a Senate Judiciary's subcommittee on the Constitution hearing on term limits,

[In] the 2016 election, the American people made a resounding call to "drain the swamp" that is modern Washington. And sadly this is a bipartisan problem. The American people have lost confidence in Washington, and especially in Congress. It isn't hard to see why. Enmeshed in backroom deals and broken promises, our capital has too often become a political playground for the powerful and the well-connected, for members of the permanent political class looking to accumulate more and more power at the expense of American taxpayers.

"Every year, Congress spends billions of dollars on giveaways for the well-connected. Washington insiders get taxpayer money; members of Congress get re-elected and the system works for everyone except the American people," continued Cruz, who reintroduced his amendment in 2021 and 2023. "This kind of self-interest builds on itself as members spend more time in office. In an age in which partisan divide seem intractable, it is remarkable that public support for congressional term limits remains strong across party lines."

The Center Square reported that Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) introduced the companion resolution of the term limit legislation in the House, stating, "Those of us in Congress ought to serve for a reasonable period of time and then return home to live under the laws we enacted."

There is overwhelming bipartisan support for term limits.

A Pew Research Center survey conducted in July 2023 found that 90% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents and 86% of Democrats and Democratic leaners support limiting the number of terms that members of Congress can serve.

The survey also found that 79% of all respondents signaled support for a maximum age limit for elected officials in the nation's capital.

'Power is an elixir that is hard to put down.'

A January 2023 Congressional Research Service report indicated that whereas during most of the 19th century, the average tenure of members of Congress remained steady, there was a dramatic increase in how long lawmakers spent in both the Senate and House of Representatives.

Whereas the prior House service of incoming Representatives was, on average, 2.5 years in the 19th century, the CRS indicated that has shot up to an average of 9.4 years in the 21st century. Meanwhile, incoming senators averaged 4.8 years of prior chamber service in the 19th century, whereas in the 21st century, that figure has risen to 11.2 years.

While term limits could potentially serve to prevent the solidification of a permanent ruling class in Washington, D.C., they could also spare the country from transforming further into a gerontocracy and spare the American people from rule by potentially medically compromised lawmakers.

Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley (Iowa), the longest-serving senator in the previous Congress and the oldest lawmaker in the Senate chamber who is set to finish his current term at the age of 95, was briefly hospitalized in 2024.

Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell (Ky.), another geriatric lawmaker and the longest-serving Senate party leader in American history, has similarly had health issues in recent months and years, freezing up when fielding questions, repeatedly tripping, and receiving treatment for a concussion.

The late Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein first took office in a 1992 special election and was re-elected five times. Despite clear signs of mental deterioration — signaling at times she didn't know where she was going or where she had been — her aides and allies kept wheeling her into the Senate and allegedly telling her how to cast votes.

A Pentagon-funded study highlighted in 2023 how elderly government officials' mental degradation could pose significant risks to national and global security.

The RAND Corporation's National Security Research Division indicated that as a consequence of people living longer and working later in life, "The workforce might experience a higher prevalence of dementia than in past generations."

"Taken together, we believe that an increasing number of cleared personnel — that is, personnel who hold or have held security clearances — have or will have dementia," concluded the RAND researchers.

Return managing editor Peter Gietl previously noted in a piece on America's "octogenarian oligarchy" that "our present-day leadership seem to have no interest in enjoying their golden years with their families, spending the hundreds of millions they've accumulated. Power is an elixir that is hard to put down."

Cruz's proposed constitutional amendment will require a two-thirds majority vote both in the U.S. House and Senate.

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Senate Democrats rally behind Biden in spite of disastrous debate performance



Shortly before her death, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) asked, "Where am I going?" as she was wheeled back into the Senate. Even though her handlers had to audibly instruct the nonagenarian left partially paralyzed by a bad case of shingles to "just say aye" during votes, Feinstein's colleagues appeared unconcerned about the ethics of carting her around to advance their agenda.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), for instance, said that with Feinstein back, "Anything we do in the Senate that requires a majority is now within reach."

Just as Democratic senators were happy to squeeze a sickly old woman in a compromised mental state for her remaining votes, they are ostensibly trying to keep President Joe Biden's campaign alive in hopes of political advantage.

Besides their understanding that Biden cannot be replaced on the Democratic ticket ahead of the election unless he decides to step down, Senate Democrats appear to be trying to prop up the ruins of his campaign because he still might be their best shot at holding on to power. Vice President Kamala Harris is, for instance, even more disliked than Biden. Besides, a competitive open convention could further tear the Democratic Party apart, tipping the election more for Republicans.

In the aftermath of the first presidential debate — while the liberal mainstream media was hurriedly acknowledging the decrepitude they had suggested for years was an invention of the right — Democrats like Sen. Ben Cardin (Md.) began spinning Biden as a viable candidate, reported the Hill.

"Joe Biden might have had a bad evening, but we don't want four bad years under Donald Trump," Cardin told reporters in Washington, D.C., Friday. "Obviously we were all looking forward to a more — I guess — energetic approach."

'Chill the f*** out.'

"But from the substance, I think the American people recognize they have a choice between a person who understands the importance of our democratic system, understands the importance of the issues that he has pursued over the last four years, his record … versus a person on the other side who continues to make things up and wouldn’t respond to simple questions," added Cardin. "To me it's a clear choice that we need to make sure President Biden is re-elected as president of the United States."

While the debate made clear to many Americans that Biden's cognitive faculties are potentially disqualifying, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) drew a different conclusion, writing, "Tonight's debate made the choice clear: Four more years of progress, or four more years of attacks on our fundamental rights and our democracy. We've got to get out the vote for @JoeBiden, @KamalaHarris, and a Democratic Senate and House!"

Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman (D) compared his post-stroke debate performance with Biden's post-youth debate performance, stressing on X that "a rough debate is not the sum total of the person and their record."

Fetterman noted further that he had been written off following the debate but came back to win by a comfortable margin. "Chill the f*** out," he instructed his fellow Democrats.

When asked Sunday by NBC News' "Meet the Press" whether Biden should drop out of the race, Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock said, "Absolutely not," intimating that he himself had bungled enough sermons as a preacher to warrant cutting Biden some slack.

"Bad debates happen, as President Obama has said. And this was 90 minutes," said Warnock.

Unwilling to admit Biden's decline, Warnock opted instead to paint the president as a paragon of virtue and stress the need to keep former President Donald Trump out of the White House.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (Conn.) echoed his Democratic peers, stating, "This is election is about more than one night's debate performance."

Blumenthal claimed that while in France, he observed the president to be "strong and eloquent." He also downplayed the possibility of another Democratic candidate, emphasizing, "I continue to support Joe Biden over Donald Trump without any reservation, and I think that's the choice for the American people."

The Hill noted that Sen. Jack Reed (R.I.) made clear that he and his Democratic colleagues, who will all serve as superdelegates at the Democratic National Convention, will back Biden unless he calls it quits.

"I thought President Biden started off not with the enthusiasm, etc., necessary but it's a difference between a bad initial debate and a very bad presidency, which Donald Trump can claim — and also a much worse presidency going forward," said Reed.

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Pentagon-funded study points out obvious national security threat: An increasing number of US officials 'have or will have dementia'



A Pentagon-funded study has highlighted how geriatric government officials' mental degeneration could pose a risk to national and global security.

The RAND Corporation's National Security Research Division noted in a report published earlier this year that as a consequence of people living longer and working later in life, "the workforce might experience a higher prevalence of dementia than in past generations."

"Taken together, we believe that an increasing number of cleared personnel — that is, personnel who hold or have held security clearances — have or will have dementia," concluded the RAND researchers.

The Mayo Clinic indicated that age is a major risk factor for dementia, with the risk rising dramatically after age 65.

According to the report, 45% of the federal workforce is over the age of 50 and 15% of all non-season full-time permanent federal civilian employees are retirement-eligible.

A great many individuals presently progressing away from the mean might soon begin experiencing "difficulty remembering new information, poor judgment, impulsivity, disorientation, and behavioral changes."

In other words, they might join the over 55 million persons worldwide who the World Health Organization indicated presently suffer from dementia worldwide, the majority of whom are believed to specifically have Alzheimer's disease.

Whereas with some sufferers, the pain of mental deterioration may be localized, a demented person in the national security workforce could wreak havoc on the global stage should they misplace or volunteer sensitive information.

"The risk that an individual becomes a national security threat because of dementia symptoms depends on many factors, such as the nature of the classified information they hold, for how long the unauthorized disclosure of that information could cause damage (including serious or exceptionally grave damage), and whether the individual is targeted by an adversary," said the report.

A nonthreatening case would be a geriatric with early-stage dementia who has committed to writing everything down in an unsecured notebook. If the notes do not pertain to damaging classified knowledge, then the targeting of the individual and theft of the notebook by bad actors, though embarrassing, would not be the end of the world.

However, if a retired senior intelligence official around Biden's age began divulging the classified details of covert surveillance and other missions they had previously been involved in — perhaps to people in a nursing home — then extant operations, diplomatic efforts, and more could ultimately be compromised.

The RAND researchers stressed the importance of codifying processes by which current and past security clearance holders could be checked for dementia risks, particularly those who have dealt with top secret materials in the past.

Among their more "extreme" prescriptions for handling what they figure will be a worsening problem, the researchers recommended monitoring at-risk personnel based on predictive models; assessing environmental threats to determine the likelihood of bad actors eliciting classified intelligence; conducting cognitive testing; and implementing additional monitoring systems."

Since "workplace protections to prevent ageism and Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act protections for health information" might get in the way, priority should be "to protect the most-valuable assets."

This research is especially timely given that President Joe Biden, who became the oldest individual to ever take the White House three years ago, is running for re-election in 2024, possibly against a Republican opponent only three years his junior.

Biden routinely exhibits signs of cognitive breakdown — tripping over nothing, mistaking his sister for his wife, repeatedly confusing the names of disparate nations, and relying upon cue cards for instructions on how to execute basic functions.

A number of Biden's apparent blunders would also qualify as symptoms of dementia.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, people with dementia have problems with memory; attention; communication; reasoning, judgment, and problem solving; and visual perception beyond typical age-related changes in vision.

Forgetting a family member's name and not being able to complete tasks independently are among the signs of dementia highlighted by the CDC.

Biden is not, however, the only politician in Washington who appears to be struggling with his duties partly as a consequence of his advanced age.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), 90, asked "Where am I going?" as she was wheeled back into the Senate in May after suffering a bout of shingles, which appears to have paralyzed more than just certain parts of her face. Her handlers have made sure to coach Feinstein on how to help shape American legislative history, in one instance audibly telling her during a vote, "Just say aye."

The problem of degenerating gerontocrats is also not a problem limited to one party.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has on more than one occasion frozen in public. His most recent episode prompted Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), an ophthalmologist, to suggest the issue "looks like a focal, neurological event."

Newsweek reported that the 118th U.S. Congress is older than any in American history. Whereas the average voter in the U.S. is 50 years old, the average age of Democratic senators is 65 and the average age of Republican senators is 63.

"Between now and 2040, the senior population is projected to swell by 44 percent, while the 18-to-64 population grows by just 6 percent. And many of those elders will have no qualms about keeping older politicians in office," journalist William J. Kole, author of "The Big 100: The New World of Super-Aging," told Newsweek. "Older Americans' lock on higher office is only going to intensify as the Baby Boomers age into their 100s."

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Stray dog repeatedly escaped from shelter to hang out in a nursing home. Now, he gets to call it his own: 'If it's meant to be, it's meant to be.'



A nameless stranger with a mysterious past found himself incarcerated in a facility in Bellaire, Michigan. While clearly homeless, he nevertheless evidenced a strong sense of belonging. However, he apparently did not feel that he belonged at the Antrim County Animal Control shelter.

The dog, later named Scout — a 65-pound mutt at least 10 years of age about whom little was known except for signs of past abuse and evidence of having been shot in the face — managed to break free of the shelter on multiple occasions, clearing both the shelter's 10-foot chain link fence and a 6-foot privacy fence, then crossing a highway, reported the Detroit Free Press.

"He climbed the chain-linked kennel," Heather Belknap, the shelter's director, told the Washington Post. "There's a six-foot solid vinyl fence around the dog kennels. He jumped over that fence."

This was no mere escape, but a journey somewhere specific: the Meadow Brook Medical Care Facility, a long-term, 82-bed nursing home catering primarily to seniors.

The first time he got out, Scout made his way inside the nursing home and slept in the lobby on a leather loveseat. A nurse found Scout the next morning then called animal control, who acknowledged he had gone missing the night before.

Scout made another great escape just a few nights later. Again, he found his groove on the leather loveseat, and again he slept until caught.

The Free Press indicated that, despite being carted back to the shelter a second time, Scout wasn't ready to call it quits, making his way to his spot in the nursing home a third time just a few nights later.

"He was pretty relentless in his pursuit to be here," Stephanie Elsey, a clinical care coordinator at the facility, told the Post. "He found his home."

Following the dog's third incursion, an employee at the nursing home took Scout home. While the arrangement was not meant to be, it spurred a conversation amongst the nursing home staff concerning the prospect of adopting Scout.

"I’m a person who looks at outward signs, and if it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be," Marna Robertson, the facility's administrator, told the Free Press. "He did that one time, two times, three times, and obviously that's something you should pay attention to. And I asked the staff, 'Well, he wants to be here. Would anybody like to have a dog?'"

The staff evidently answered in the affirmative — to the delight of the residents.

Rhonda Tomzack, an administrative assistant at the facility, said, "I think it reminds them of being home. ... When you're home you have your pets, and you don't get to have that here. Having a dog around makes it feel like home."

Scout has reportedly had the run of Glacier Hill, a unit at the facility housing 20 seniors, since 2017.

In addition to visiting various residents, particularly those liable to give him biscuits, he also comforts the elderly, even if behind closed doors, having long since learned to open them.

82-year-old Shirley Sawyer, one of the residents, said, "He'll always let you pet him and lets you talk to him if you need someone to talk to. ... It's very nice."

Sawyer's brother, Bob Shumaker, also in residence, frequently feigns to be asleep while Scout noses him before Shumaker finally caves and gives him a biscuit.

Despite a clear history of abuse, the dog reportedly responds well to the elderly, particularly the most vulnerable among them.

Robertson told the Free Press, "He certainly has a penchant for the elders. He's very in tune with what they need, especially our very vulnerable population. If they have dementia or if they're dying, he knows that, and he will go and be with them and comfort them. He must've just felt like he needed to be here."

Jenny Martinek, the nursing home's household coordinator, noted, "To each and every one of them, it's their dog."

In honor of Scout, the nursing home has once again kicked off a fundraiser for the Antrim County Animal Shelter.


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