1) Maybe Trump Needs to "California-Proof" USA

California Governor Gavin Newsom is making splashy headlines with his talk of decoupling the Golden State from Trump's economic policies. 

He has support among many leading Democrats in the Sacramento legislature.
 

"California has come too far and accomplished too much to simply surrender and accept his dystopian vision for America," Senate President Pro-Tempore Mike McGuire (D-North Coast) said in a statement. 

Huh? Dystopia? That's many of California's major cities today. The state has lost more than 3 million residents on the net to red Trumpian states over the past six years.
 

California has among the worst schools, the most income inequality, the most homelessness, the most business flight, the highest energy and gas prices, the most poverty, and the highest income taxes of nearly any state in the nation. 

Gavin, if you want to make California great again, take a page out of Trumponomics.

2) Activist Wisconsin Judge Orders Collective Bargaining for State Workers

You can be forgiven if you thought this fight was settled over a decade ago when Scott Walker's historic collective bargaining reforms (which sent the left into apoplexy and spawned a failed recall effort) were upheld in multiple challenges in federal and state courts.

A liberal judge in Dane County (who signed the Walker recall petition, of course) has out of the blue struck down the law, which has saved Wisconsin taxpayers over $16 billion.
 

Most disturbing, is the activist judge's ruling may survive on appeal, as ideological control of the state Supreme Court is up for grabs in the April 1 election between liberal Susan Crawford and conservative Brad Schimel. The stakes in that one just got raised, dramatically.
 

Speaking of government employees, what's wrong with this picture?
 

Over the past two years, while the government hiring has grown like weeds, manufacturing employment actually fell. Not all government workers are paper pushers by any means. But when the feds are losing $2 trillion, do we really need more Americans on the government payrolls? Remember, it is private workers who pay the salaries of public workers. 

We did a little back-of-the-envelope calculation. What if private-sector hiring had kept pace with government over the past two years? The chart below shows we would have almost 3 million more workers in the productive sector of the economy. That's called crowding out. 
 

Here's an unsurprising but still disgraceful headline:
 

U.S. President Joe Biden's administration has awarded over $100 billion in grants created by its signature climate law, the Inflation Reduction Act, Biden senior advisor for international climate policy John Podesta said.

The administration hopes the spending milestone will help to continue the deployment of clean energy even after President-elect Donald Trump, a climate change skeptic who has pledged to rescind all unspent IRA funds, takes office.

"Crossing the milestone of $100 billion awarded shows just how quickly we're getting these funds out the door and into communities so they can make a real difference for the American people," Podesta told Reuters.

Another senior Biden administration official said the administration is on track to exceed its goal of "obligating" over 80% of available IRA grant funding by the end of Biden's term next month.

"When funds are obligated, they are protected," the official told Reuters. "They are subject to the terms of the contract, so when those contracts are signed and executed, this becomes a matter of contract law more than a matter of politics."

John Podesta is a political operative.  This is also the same administration that could only build 8 EV charging stations in two years, suddenly moving at breakneck speed.

We hope Trump can find lawful ways to claw back as much of this money as possible – on day one. 
 

Who says there isn't anything worthwhile on TV? The new Paramount+ series, "Landman", is produced by Tyler Chandler – the creator of the hit Western series "Yellowstone."

The series is set in West Texas and tells the story of roughnecks and wildcat billionaires that are fueling a fossil fuel boom so big it's reshaping our economy and our geopolitics.

Billy Bob Thornton plays a "Landman" (a guy who acquires mineral and land rights in the hope of finding oil).  A man of few words, he nonetheless becomes eloquent in this clip telling a reporter how the stuff he looks for under the ground makes "our cars and our lives and our planes and everything in our modern world go." Watch the two-minute clip for a stirring defense of the American energy industry, which despite climate naysayers, is the envy of the world.
 

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