Alex Paul

[Alex Paul @puddylex]

@ClayTravis Inverse Kramer applies here.

[Dr Jordan B Peterson @jordanbpeterson]

To the Americans:

I've travelled all over the world. I've familiarized myself with many places, and met many people. And I'm a Canadian, although I’m privileged to reside once again in the States.

And here's something I've noticed, and it’s a key element of America's continuing greatness:

You bloody Americans value success, and you believe in its existence.

This is something that doesn't really happen anywhere else in the world. Even in other free democracies—the United Kingdom; Finland, Sweden, and Norway; Australia, New Zealand and Canada; Germany, France, and the Netherlands (great countries all)—a counterproductive cynicism too often reigns.

Success is equated with exploitation.
Ambition is looked upon with contempt.

This happens sometimes in the United States too—particularly among the miserable progressives, who confuse their resentment, ingratitude and unearned skepticism with wisdom.

But in your great country, by and large, striving is admired and success celebrated.

This means that more people strive and succeed in the US than anywhere else. And it's increasingly obvious. You remain stunningly more innovative and productive than any people anywhere else on the planet.

And so I say, as all should who are fortunate enough to live in the western world, let alone America:

Thank God for the United States.

Thank God for the wisdom of its founders.
Thank God for its faith in the free market and in the natural rights of man.
Happy birthday, you damn Yankees and Southerners.

Long may your admirable country dominate the world.

Long may your freedom and hope provide an example to those suffering everywhere at the hands of their malevolent states.

May your two and a half centuries of unparallelled success be just the beginning.

Your country is the light of the world, and the city on the hill.

Thank God for the USA.

Happy 250th.

Dr. Jordan B. Peterson

[Alex Paul @puddylex]

@TonySeruga Since this happened under the Biden administration, it says to me the DNC does not want Gavin as a contender to be their 2028 candidate. They have something else brewing.

[Kennedy @KennedyNation]

When American POWs tried to sneak her notes with their personal information to tell their families they were still alive, she gave them to the North Vietnamese. Some of them were beaten to death. You are both commies and you can both fuck off.

[Alex Paul @puddylex]

@ScottPresler You deserve a ton of credit. Thank you for rattling the RINO cage! They had better start listening.

[Matt Quan @matthewrquan]

There are approximately 400,000 births a year in California. One quarter is 100,000.

The cheapest box of 100 diapers at Walmart (retail) is $20. Four boxes is $80 or $8 million.

Baby2Baby isn’t paying retail. 50-100% mark up is $6 million or $4 million.

The difference of $2-3.5 million goes to “operations.” Minimum 50% recovery rate.

Baby2Baby’s revenue, expenses, and liabilities spike in election years. Its board are Hollywood actresses, many with connections to Gavin Newsom.

This is at best a mutually supportive fundraising organization for “pink issues.”Same social circles. California shouldn’t have a 10% stake in any “non-profit.”

[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.

[Alex Paul @puddylex]

@DefiantLs His personal politics are Democrat Socialist, but I’d bet his personal finances are Capitalist.

[Barstool Sports @barstoolsports]

The smoke flag is the coolest flag you’ll ever see

AMERICA 🇺🇸

[Alex Paul @puddylex]

@TonySeruga The only explanation is the elected officials that let it happen get a cut.

[Alex Paul @puddylex]

We DO NOT want to be reliant on AI from foreign countries; we need our own. AI dominance/ trust is likely the most important “race” of our lifetime. And when it comes to dominance, other countries won’t be as sensitive to their environment as we will, which already puts us at a disadvantage.

[Alex Paul @puddylex]

@TimRunsHisMouth Because they ascend to a certain point of power or influence and get bobble heads nodding in agreement.

[Alex Paul @puddylex]

@C_3C_3 No facts to provide, but I firmly believe it’s prevalent across the entire United States, not just a couple states. No other explanation.

[Daniel Turner @DanielTurnerPTF]

The years California’s gas tax has increased under Gavin Newsom:

- 2019
- 2020
- 2021
- 2022
- 2023
- 2024
- 2025

Every single year he’s been in office.

Gavin does not actually care about gas prices. He just suffers from Trump Derangement Syndrome.

[Mann Made Cinema @Hotshot_Movie]

You’re all realizing that 90% of the problems plaguing California are not intractable enigmas that require sophisticated political solutions…it’s literally all just corrupt scammers propping up the problems so they can commit fraud. Eliminate the fraud: utopia emerges.

[C3 @C_3C_3]

Want your blood to boil?

The average American works 106 days to cover their tax burden.

3.5 months.

29% of the year.

Goes towards paying taxes. Your time and hard work.

As we see staggering fraud all over America.

The American worker is getting screwed.

Sickening.

[Alex Paul @puddylex]

@Bubblebathgirl That’s like saying I won’t speed, so I don’t need a driver’s license, because I don’t want to speed.

[Nick shirley @nickshirleyy]

🚨 Here is the full 40 minutes of my crew and I exposing California fraud, Minnesota was big but California is even bigger... We uncovered over $170,000,000 in fraud as these fraudsters live in luxury with no consequences. Like it and share it, the fraud must STOP.

We ALL work way too hard and pay too much in taxes for this to be happening. These fraudsters have been able to defraud American taxpayers for years without any pushback from the public and politicians.

It is time to EXPOSE IT ALL and end America's fraud crisis.

[Alex Paul @puddylex]

@BernieSanders Please cite the poll.

[Alex Paul @puddylex]

@sciencegirl Free will.