Matt Baker

[Matt Baker @maxibarker]

@RMOliver1010 Kids and Grands. Otherwise I would be out.

[Matt Baker @maxibarker]

We are hopeless.

[Angeleno Insights @AngelenoInsight]

🚨 THREAD: 10 California programs that cost billions — but no one can explain what they actually do.

This is where your money goes.

And it’s why nothing works.

[Matt Baker @maxibarker]

@SteveHiltonx Sadly, I think you’re giving the California electorate too much credit.

[Matt Baker @maxibarker]

@Gippsnews @bazookajoeOG 💀

[Victor Davis Hanson @VDHanson]

Dr Fauci and Mr. Science

The Fauci files reveal not just a sociopathic narcissist, but also a pathological schizophrenic.

For years, Fauci was assuring the public of Covid narratives that he either knew were untrue, or knew little about.

He posed as a non-partisan, even as he collaborated with the leftwing cable news grandees and liberal columnists to hound his enemies and magnify his godhead.

From the virus’s origins and effects of the lockdowns, to the efficacy of the mRNA vaccinations to the always changing 0/1/2 masks wearing protocols, Fauci used his massive government agency, and sycophantic media, to promote his always fluid narratives by punishing enemies and rewarding friends—on the basis of their loyalty to Dr. “I represent science”.

He seemed to be obsessed with firing White House Covid advisor Scott Atlas, and demonizing Jay Bhattacharya, Sunetra Gupta and Martin Kulldorff—for the crimes of questioning the Fauci party line.

These critics were not radical “let it rip” herd immunologists as the Fauci camp caricatured them, but circumspect, cost-to-benefit doctors and savvy health policy analysts.

Their views, if embraced, might have avoided a multibillion-dollar global shutdown that wrecked economies—especially derailing the booming 4th quarter 2019 Trump economy—increased the death toll, destroyed millions of livelihoods, harmed perhaps permanently the education of millions U.S. children, and was hardly based on the “science”.

And what exactly were the so-called extremist views of Atlas, Bhattacharya, and others?

Healthy children were not at great risk from Covid—but keeping them isolated drained away key resources from the elderly and sick who certainly were vulnerable.

And the nationwide school closures had profound negative effects on children and teens as did the lockdowns on the general population.

Substance and familial abuse soared, small businesses were ruined, and children’s formative educational years were lost.

24/7 mask wearing was neither practical nor necessary as opposed to their beneficial use by health care workers in close proximities.

The experimental mRNA vaccinations may have initially saved lives, but they were not, as billed by Fauci and the pharmaceutical companies, lasting protection from either infectiousness or being infected.

And certainly the repeated booster regimens for some could pose serious health risks.

Herd immunity was not some crank idea, as the Fauci school libeled these experts, but, along with the initial vaccinations, were time-tested medical realities that would mitigate the toxicity of the pandemic.

We have seen a lot of obscene hoaxes recently that changed national events: the loony Jussie Smollett caper; the phony “Steele dossier”; the “51 intelligence authorities” and the Russian-produced Hunter Biden laptop con; and the media fabricated effigy of Joe Biden as “fit as a fiddle”.

But Fauci’s effort to attribute the virus to a bat or pangolin publicly, while privately accepting from his own consultants that it likely was birthed in the Wuhan lab’s gain of function research—which he had helped to support via Peter Daszak—and the policies that resulted from that initial lie, proved literally for thousands a matter of life and death.

[Matt Baker @maxibarker]

@LifeDtf @RetroBayArea Benicia as I recall. Me and the boys would roll down from Petaluma.

[Matt Baker @maxibarker]

@ThrillaRilla369 And what not. Just end the sentence at the last descriptor.

[Matt Baker @maxibarker]

@ABC7 (s)

[Matt Baker @maxibarker]

@SacWalkSafe Don’t tell me McKinley

[Peter Girnus 🦅 @gothburz]

I am the Director of Strategic Planning at the California High-Speed Rail Authority.

I have held this position for seventeen years. In that time I have written four business plans, overseen six revisions, and authored eleven methodology updates. The train has not moved.

There is a hard hat on the shelf behind my desk. It was given to me at the Fresno groundbreaking ceremony in 2015. It is still in the cellophane. I use it as a bookend for the business plan binders. There are four binders. They are substantial. The hat holds them upright.

In 2008, California voters approved Proposition 1A. San Francisco to Los Angeles. Two hours and forty minutes. Fifty-five dollars per ticket. Ninety-five million annual riders by 2030. Total cost: $33.5 billion. Fifty-three percent said yes.

The current cost estimate is $231 billion.

I am sometimes asked to provide context for that figure. The state housing shortage is 2.5 million units. At the California median home price, $231 billion would produce 577,000 of them. The average public school teacher in California earns $95,000. $231 billion is every one of their salaries for eight years. The state has a documented wildfire suppression staffing gap. $231 billion would fund 6,400 additional fire crews for a century. I include these comparisons for context. They are not relevant to my work.

We have built 119 miles of infrastructure. Columns. Viaducts. Grade separations. You can see them from Highway 99 between Madera and Bakersfield. They stand in rows across land that used to grow things. No track runs on them. No train has touched them. Some of them have graffiti now. I have seen the photographs in the quarterly progress reports. I have not visited.

There was an almond grower outside Hanford. She is in our files as Parcel 417, Hanford East. The Authority acquired twelve acres of her property through eminent domain in 2016 for right-of-way clearance. The trees were removed. The soil was graded flat. The right-of-way has been clear for nine years. Nothing has been built on Parcel 417. Her file notes that she attended three public comment hearings between 2014 and 2016. I do not know what she said at those hearings. I know what we said. We called the acquisition "a critical milestone in the project's advancement." I wrote those words for the 2016 Annual Report. They were well-received. Her contact information has been flagged in the Phase 2 preliminary assessment, in case additional right-of-way is required. Phase 2 does not yet exist. Her contact information does.

The original completion date was 2020. The current target is 2032. The route has been revised from San Francisco-to-Los Angeles to Merced-to-Bakersfield. One hundred seventy-one miles. I refer to this as Phase 1.

The French national rail company, SNCF, joined the project as a consulting partner in 2010. They left in 2011. They used the phrase "political dysfunction," which is diplomatic language for a country that built the Eiffel Tower in two years telling you it cannot build your train. SNCF then went to Morocco and built a high-speed rail line from Tangier to Casablanca. Two hundred miles. Operational by 2018. Seven years.

We are in year eighteen. I included the SNCF departure in the 2022 business plan as a "comparative international case study." The lesson I drew was that Morocco has simpler permitting requirements. This is accurate. I did not draw other lessons.

The $9.95 billion bond that voters approved costs the state $647 million per year for thirty years. Roughly $20 billion in total repayment. The bond is being serviced on schedule. $647 million leaves the state treasury every year and arrives in accounts associated with a train that does not carry passengers. It has done this since 2010. The bond repayment is the most functional transit system we have built. It moves $647 million a year. On time. Every time.

In 2019, Governor Newsom said the project "would cost too much and, respectfully, take too long." He then continued funding it. I appreciated the word "respectfully." It acknowledged the problem without producing an obligation to solve it. My team delivered the 2020 business plan revision the following quarter. It was well-received.

The Governor also supported legislation to shield certain cost details from public disclosure. That same year, thousands of pages were removed from the Authority's website. I was not involved in that decision. I was involved in the pages.

Last Friday, a television host told the Governor on camera that the project now costs $231 billion. The Governor said, "No, it's not. It's not." The $231 billion figure is from the 2026 draft business plan. Page 47. I wrote page 47. The Governor then said we had gotten the project "back on track." I noted the phrasing. A rail project that has not yet laid operational track is not, in a strict sense, on one. I did not raise this.

The ridership projection has been revised from 95 million annual riders by 2030 to 36 million by 2060. I updated that figure personally during the 2024 planning cycle. The ticket price has been revised from $55 to $105. Both figures describe a service that does not yet exist.

The State Auditor published a report. The title is: "Flawed Decision Making and Poor Contract Management Have Contributed to Billions in Cost Overruns and Delays in the System's Construction." That is twenty words. We have 119 miles of columns that carry nothing. I read the report carefully. It was thorough. We incorporated its findings into the next business plan revision.

The board was scheduled to vote on the latest business plan on April 29th. The vote was delayed. Additional review was requested. I support additional review.

My pension vests in 2034. The project's current completion target is 2032. If the train is finished on schedule, my position becomes unnecessary two years before my pension matures. The completion date is determined by the business plan. I write the business plan.

The plan says the project should continue. It has always said this. I have never written one that recommended otherwise.

[Walk Safe @SacWalkSafe]

And from this angle at the American River.

[Matt Baker @maxibarker]

@mazemoore No audio and this guy still makes me want to 🤮

[Matt Baker @maxibarker]

@elveton101 @bariweiss @CBSNews 10 likes. I can probably guess where they work.

[Yogi @Houseofyogi]

Unrealized gains tax for Gen-Z:

You buy a Pokémon card for $50.

Someone offers you $500 for it. You say no. You love that card. You're keeping it.

The government says: "Cool, but that card is worth $500 now. You owe us $100 in taxes."
You: "…I didn't sell it."

Government: "Don't care. Pay up."

You don't have $100 lying around. So you're forced to sell the card you love just to pay a tax on money you never received.

Next month? That card drops back to $50.

Your card is gone. Your money is gone. And the government shrugs.

That's a wealth tax on unrealized gains. They don't pay you back the tax...

Now picture this.

Your mom calls you crying. She has to sell the house she raised you in. Not because she can't afford it. She's lived there 30 years. It's paid off.

But some website says it's worth more now and the government says she owes $15,000 she doesn't have.

So she sells your childhood home. The kitchen where she made you breakfast. The doorframe where she marked your height every birthday.

Gone.

To pay a tax on money that was never real.

Now picture the opposite.

Your dad put everything into his small business. For 20 years he built it from nothing. One year the business is "valued" at $2 million on paper. He owes a massive tax bill. He empties his savings. Sells his truck. Borrows money. Pays it.

Next year the market crashes. His business is worth $200,000.

He lost everything to pay a tax on a number that doesn't exist anymore.

Does the government give him his money back?
No.

Does the government give him his truck back?
No.

Does the government care?
No.

They sold this idea as "taxing billionaires." But billionaires have armies of lawyers, offshore accounts, and trusts. They'll be fine.

You know who won't be fine? Your mom. Your dad. Your neighbor with a small business. The farmer down the road who's had the same land for four generations and now has to sell it because dirt got expensive.

You're not taxing wealth. You're taxing people for owning things.

It's like getting a parking ticket for a car you might drive somewhere someday.

They want you to own nothing and be happy. To fund the fraud, waste and abuse of the welfare state they created.

There is enough money. More tax isn't needed. It's all a lie. But you've been gaslit into believing this is a rich vs poor debate.

I hope you understand what's at stake.

[Matt Baker @maxibarker]

@NASCARONFOX Is that coldplay in the background?

[Sam @xwastheone]

Paper money was never supposed to be the money.

It was a receipt.

You deposited gold at a bank.
The bank gave you a note that said:

"The bearer of this note may redeem it for X amount of gold."

That's all a dollar was. A claim ticket.

The paper had no value.
The gold in the vault did.
The paper just made it easier to carry.

This system worked for centuries.
Every major currency was backed this way.
The British pound.
The French franc.
The U.S. dollar.

Then, slowly, governments realized something:

If people trust the paper,
they never come for the gold.
So they printed more notes than they had gold.
Then more.
Then more.

When too many people asked questions,
they closed the gold window.

That was supposed to be temporary.

55 years later, the dollar is still backed by nothing
but trust. And that trust has cost you 97% of your purchasing power.

The receipt became the money.
Global money became trust-based.

And money became nothing but a promise
that nobody has to keep.

[Matt Baker @maxibarker]

@NFL_DovKleiman Richard Splett Productions

[Matt Baker @maxibarker]

@Super70sSports Anything by ZZ Top

[Matt Baker @maxibarker]

@Ronald546198 @NoDMsPerfavore 62 based on the emblem.

[Matt Baker @maxibarker]

@030inNY @NoDMsPerfavore 62 Beetle

[Matt Baker @maxibarker]

@SacWalkSafe This was granddaughters go to when she visits. She’s going to be pi55ed!