Thursday 20 February 2020

Newsom's Threat

I sat and watched a clip this morning of the California 'State of the Union' speech by Governor Gavin Newsom.

His key idea from this?  He wants to fix homelessness in California by find some method (left blank for the most part) to ease the government into a bigger role of forcing (he actually used that word) people into psychiatric treatment.  If you had mental illness and living off the street....they'd mandate an exam for you and forced treatment. 

All of this....circling around the idea that those who are suggested to be unable to care for themselves....would be put into a permanent facility.

Odds of this happening?  I'll make three observations:

1.  The governor will likely only fund this agenda item with twenty-odd million, and stage some type of situation with only 200 folks getting mental facility assignments by some judge.  It'll prove it works but realistically requires over two-billion dollars a year to accomplish. 

2.  If you did make this a legit program?  I would suggest almost 25,000 people throughout the state would be deemed 'helpless' and forced into actual psychiatric treatment.

3.  If this did go to the realistic step of cops picking up people....within ten days....dozens of people per hour....would be leaving the state for other 'safe' locations (Portland, Vegas, Seattle, etc).


Nevada Debate

I would make five observations after watching the debate for the Democrats:

1.  With six 'players'.....this moderator team did a marginal job of keeping this on track and 'organized'. 

2.  'Mini-Mike' Bloomberg just never did take off.  Part of this blame, I'd assign to Senator Warren.  She did a five-star job on the guy.  On the positive side....he did introduce himself and state a few priorities....beyond that, this debate was a massive negative event for him.

3.  The non-disclosure chatter against Bloomberg?  It'll beg for more questions, and it's really too messy for some guy to enter the race and expect this to just disappear.

4.  Joe Biden?  Nothing much to say.  He's finished.

5.  Here at the critical time-point of the entire campaign....someone should have stood out.  No one accomplished that except in the marginal sense of Bernie Sanders pounding the podium. Bernie versus Trump?  Capitalism versus socialism?  You are giving Trump an unbelievable odds to win.

So my final thoughts....there is one single debate left at this point (15 March).  Let's be honest, they should have whittled this down to strictly two people.....Sanders and Bloomberg.  The drama factor at this point (on a scale of one to ten)....maybe a '5'.  If Bloomberg does win, you can discount any of these five folks on the stage from being his VP choice.