Welcome to Insanity Wrap, your daily dose of the best of the worst. California bleeding businesses, jobs, revenues… is today’s big crazy.
Plus:
- National Archives declares our national archives to be harmful
- Whatever it is Jeb Bush wants you to do, don’t
- Tesla quality control is awful, Tesla fan rejoices anyway
Before we get to today’s big story, here’s a short video to make you lose whatever little faith you might still have in humanity.
This Is Not a Sane World, Exhibit #1,000,006
Jeb Bush and I want conservatives to take action on climate change! pic.twitter.com/4AiSAK71OE
— Benji Backer (@BenjiBacker) September 6, 2021
We will not clap and you cannot make us.
California Bleeding
Stanford Study: More Businesses Have Already Fled California This Year Than in All of 2020
“California,” Brad Polumbo writes, “has regulated and taxed its once-thriving economy into a coma.”
Everyone seems to know someone who has packed up and left the once-Golden State. But two Stanford researchers looked past the anecdotes to find “a damning trend.”
The study also reports that the rate at which businesses are leaving the state is rapidly accelerating. For the first six months of 2021, the rate is nearly twice as high as it was last year. That means more businesses have already left California this year than in all of 2020.
The authors note that this count is, if anything, an enormous underestimate. Many small businesses exiting the state do not receive media coverage and are not required to file compliance reports, so many of their exits go uncounted in the analysis.
Why are businesses leaving? The authors give the exact reasons you’d expect, gentle reader. They cite “high tax rates, punitive regulations, high labor costs, high utility and energy costs, and declining quality of life for many Californians which reflects the cost of living and housing affordability.”
Other than that, how did you enjoy doing business in California, Mrs. Lincoln?
The California Dream is dead, and just like Giuliani’s New York City, Democrats killed it.
There’s an excellent if underappreciated, Billy Joel rocker about 1970s Los Angeles that no longer exists. Here’s the first verse from “Los Angelenos.”
Los Angelenos
All come from somewhere
To live in sunshine
Their funky exile
Midwestern ladies
High-heeled and faded
Drivin’ sleek new sports cars
With their New York cowboys
Americans used to flock to California from the other 49 states to pursue opportunity and an easy-going, live-and-let-live lifestyle.
Now, unless you’ve got a Silicon Valley startup idea, the opportunities are slim, and live-and-let-live has been replaced with a stultifying “progressive” orthodoxy and weaponized Karenism.
Americans still seeking opportunity are leaving for “Texas, Tennessee, Arizona, and other states that have taken markedly different policy approaches,” writes Polumbo.
Americans and foreigners seeking generous and easy-to-get welfare benefits make up what remains of the inflow to the state.
California was once a great place, but Insanity Wrap could see the writing on the wall when we scurried out of there over a quarter-century ago.
Recommended: There’s Good Economic News, But It’s Mostly from Republican-Run States
Your Weekly Dose of Mostly Peaceful Protest
2 people walk out of an Oregon Lowe’s with carts of stolen merchandise.
Employees look on and are unable to do anything. pic.twitter.com/bHBy1M8HVK— Libs of Tik Tok (@libsoftiktok) September 5, 2021
Insanity Wrap isn’t sure exactly what it is these fit and healthy-looking young men are protesting, but we’re certain it must be something so protest-worthy that if you were to ask them, they might even come up with a semi-intelligible answer.
Quote of the Week
National Archives Places ‘Harmful Language Alert’ On Page Hosting U.S. Constitution
Ladies and gentlemen, are National Archives are now a part of the cultural asylum dominating American discourse:
The alert now appears on many pages on the archives.org website, and links to a page entitled “NARA’s Statement on Potentially Harmful Content,” which they define as:
• reflect racist, sexist, ableist, misogynistic/misogynoir, and xenophobic opinions and attitudes;
• be discriminatory towards or exclude diverse views on sexuality, gender, religion, and more;
• include graphic content of historical events such as violent death, medical procedures, crime, wars/terrorist acts, natural disasters and more;
• demonstrate bias and exclusion in institutional collecting and digitization policies.
Bizarrely, the warning does not appear on a page about Jim Crow, which has no fewer than 6 uses of the word “n*gg*r.” Nor does it appear on a page with the word “k*ke.”
There’s a very silly movie that Insanity Wrap very much enjoys.
It’s the first National Treasure movie starring Nicolas Cage.
It’s a not-at-all-believable-but-who-cares modern-day Indiana-Jones-style swashbuckler involving a secret map hidden on the back of the Declaration of Independence stored at the National Archives, and of course, the good guys have to steal it to stop the bad guys from doing their bad guy thing with it.
The movie is charming in no small part because of the pains historian Cage goes through to protect the very document he’s heisted from the Archives.
This means we’ve now arrived at a point when a silly Disney adventure flick shows more respect for our national archives than does our National Archives.
The Craziest Person in the World (This Week)
Manufacturing cars ain’t exactly rocket science, as proven by Elon Musk’s ability to completely remake the launch industry with SpaceX reusable rockets, and his complete inability to nail down Tesla quality control.
“Sounds bad, but for Tesla, it’s good,” probably isn’t the endorsement Quinn Nelson thought it would be, but he’s also genuinely excited about having just spent tens of thousands of dollars on a car with shoddy QC.
Crazy, right?
Your Weekly Dose of Mandated Unity
Ohio judge reverses decision ordering hospital to treat patient with ivermectin
Legislating from the bench is bad enough. But medicating from the bench? Or in this case, denying medication from the bench?
Fuggidaboudit:
An Ohio judge on Monday ruled a hospital no longer had to give a COVID-19 patient ivermectin, reversing a previous decision from another judge.
“While this court is sympathetic to the Plaintiff and understands the idea of wanting to do anything to help her loved one, public policy should not and does not support allowing a physician to try ‘any’ type of treatment on human beings,” Common Pleas Judge Michael Oster said in the court order.
Insanity Wrap will remain agnostic on the efficacy of ivermectin for the Wuhan Flu until more data becomes available.
However, we remain steadfast in our dedication to individual liberty which, yes, includes the freedom to try any medical remedy for what ails you.
If only the Constitution were a much longer and heavier document, Insanity Wrap would recommend whacking Judge Oster upside the head with a rolled-up copy of it.
One More Thing…
That’s a Wrap for today.
Come back next week for another Insanity Wrap…
…assuming we make it that long.
Previously On Insanity Wrap: Let’s Punish People for Getting Vaccinated
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