People’s Republic rip-off scheme(s)

As mentioned recently, we here at TPOL are bashing California a lot these days.

Here is another: a “parks and recreation” district in Southern California is apparently illegally issuing “tickets” for those idiots who do a “rolling stop” or “California stop,” according to Jalopnik. And collecting more than a million dollars a year – big bucks even in California (except for Holywood and Sacramento, of course).

California is the poster child for extreme government, it seems. Not content with the usual theft of money by State, county, and local governments, they create hordes of special “service” districts to provide all sorts of welfare benefits to the parasites.

No, not the poor under-the-poverty-level types or the homeless or the single-mother families. We are talking about the bureaucrats and the men and women out on the highways seemingly standing around much of the time looking at the traffic.

But generally, even those street and road workers do some work. But in the offices shuffling paper and collecting (and spending) your money?

You do wonder, don’t you? But in California, some of those seemingly lazy workers have their brains working overtime. How? Coming up with more ways to steal more out of your pocket – and everyone else’s.

And frankly, how to make life more miserable. As if wildfires and earthquakes and woke protestors and free-enterprise scam artists weren’t enough.

At this sort of work, the public serpents of California seem amazingly productive. One of their current schemes? Go after Diesel-electric train locomotives! The California Air Resources Board (CARB), the strong right arm of the environist movement in California and beyond) voted to adopt a new rule back in April. The rule will ban locomotive engines more than 23 years old by 2030 and increase the use of zero-emissions technology to transport freight from ports and throughout railyards. It would also ban locomotives in the state from idling longer than 30 minutes if they are equipped with an automatic shutoff.

Nevermind that there are a myriad of problems with this, including a lack of technology to replace Diesel-electric engines with pure electrically-powered locomotives. Never mind that eliminating a large percentage of the nation’s fleet will probably bankrupt even the largest railroads, and force short lines out of business completely. Never mind that will increase the various air contaminants that CARB wants to eliminate, since trucks are the only other option – and electric truck technology is far from mature enough to do that. You can’t just pop out the Diesel engine from the locomotive at the stateline from Arizona or Nevada and pop in a big battery pack. Or run overhead or third-rail electrical powerlines when you are doing fun things like hauling chemicals and fuels and big shipping containers.

But that doesn’t matter to the elite true believers in California. Or apparently, the people who theoretically vote in the politicians who appoint them. (The CARB, despite its power, is appointed and not elected.)

This is another example of the tail wagging the dog: If you can’t run your trains in California, you can’t use them in much of the rest of the nation. It is a matter of logistics and costs.

Again, it doesn’t matter to the powers-that-be in California.

No wonder that even with the border jumpers, California continues to drain population and business enterprises to other states.

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