Posted on 02/07/2026 9:05:10 PM PST by SeekAndFind
In the dystopian novel 1984, George Orwell wrote, “The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”
The true meaning of that line was never more clear than watching the truly bizarre photo op of California governor Gavin Newsom heralding the success of the greatest boondoggle in history: his high-speed train to nowhere.
Without laying a single yard of track after burning $12 billion, Newsom showed a diesel freight train on a conventional track to create the appearance of a working railroad.
I have been writing about this boondoggle for years. Newsom promised years ago that the project would be transformative. It was, but not as he promised.
Voters approved a $9.95 billion bond issue in 2008 after absurdly low estimates of the projected cost. Influential figures and companies stood to make a fortune, and the key was to secure a “buy-in” worth billions, so that it would become increasingly difficult to abandon the project as overruns and delays sent costs soaring.
Now the official estimate of future ridership has dropped by 25% , and it demands billions more to complete a project delayed by decades. Remember that this entire project was meant to create a rail line of only 171 miles. It is projected to exceed $128 billion and could ultimately cost a billion dollars per mile. There are still uncompleted environmental assessments and challenging rail lines through the mountains.
There is still no train and not a yard of track almost 20 years later.
The inspector general, Benjamin Belnap, issued a scathing report on the first phase of the still uncompleted project. That is only the stretch from Merced to Bakersfield which was supposed to be completed by 2033. Belnap wrote:
“With a smaller remaining schedule envelope and the potential for significant uncertainty and risk during subsequent phases of the project, staying within the 2033 schedule envelope is unlikely. In fact, uncertainty about some parts of the project has increased as the authority has recently made decisions that deviated from the procurement and funding strategies that were part of its plans for staying on schedule.”
Rather than deliver on the promise of high-speed rail from Los Angeles to San Francisco, the Merced-Bakersfield line would now cost $35.3 billion, exceeding the 2008 projection for a complete system.
Merced and Bakersfield have a combined population of roughly 500,000. That works out to roughly $22,000 per person, based on state ridership estimates.
However, Newsom still wants to be president even as citizens are fleeing his state in record numbers. The “train to nowhere” is a problem. Even the New York Times is writing editorials on whether Newsom will be the next mistake of the Democratic Party.
Newsom’s response is to arrange for gushing columns like Maya Singer’s embarrassing piece in Vogue:
Let’s get this out of the way: He is embarrassingly handsome, his hair seasoned with silver, at ease with his own eminence as he delivers his final State of the State address…
Newsom’s lanky frame was folded onto a sofa a bit too low-slung for him. This made him lean back—away from me. Or it could be that his body language had nothing to do with ergonomics and is a function of Newsom’s quality of being at once gregarious and aloof.”
It is the type of teenybopper heartthrob coverage that Newsom is counting on from the media. It is not the billions burned on a non-existent railway but his glorious hair and “eminence.”
However, others beyond Vogue readers may be interested in his actual record. Hence, the need to release this absurd photo op that would make a propagandist blush:
“All of the hard work behind us. Now we’re going to see the fruits of that. We’re going to start seeing precisely what you see here. Real tracks, real progress.”
It is like paying for a meal at a restaurant and the Chef charging you ten times what was on the menu, not producing the meal for hours, and then showing you a picture of a different dish as a sign of his progress.
The difference is that Newsom has taken almost two decades to deliver and cut the original dish to a fraction of its original size while increasing the price exponentially.
Californians are now captives on a train to nowhere. The state must continue to burn billions because too much is invested economically and politically. They must ride the train with Gavin Newsom to the very end.
Jonathan Turley is a law professor and the best-selling author of “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.”
I think it’s pretty obvious that “high speed rail” is synonymous with “let’s raid the treasury for our own benefit”.
Kalifornia has several very successful High Speed Programs
High Speed Voter Fraud
High Speed Grift
High Speed Graft
High-Than-High Speed Homeless Industrial Complex
Warp Speed Exodus of Businesses
So IF this thing is ever completed, its current projected cost is $135 billion. That’s over half of the estimated total expenditure that built Japan’s superlative Shinkansen bullet train network. And the Shinkansen, combined with the extraordinary level of Japanese customer service and attention to detail, might just as well be exotic Martian technology compared to what we know will end up being nothing but a slightly faster Amtrak in California.
Newsom is the very personification and essence of a train to nowhere and the Hotel California.
It is, in fact, the greatest bondoggle in human history.
The perfect crime. You can’t call it theft because it’s never finished.
Check their pockets, they’ve stolen the money and so far have gotten away with billions.
You have to pass the budget to see what’s in the budget and who profits.
waste-FRAUD-abuse of taxpayer money. Pre-meditated. Newsom should be in prison for the rest of his life.
I wonder how many people’s pockets that money has lined.
Where’s the accountability?
So far there are exactly 22 miles “substantially completed”!
Some substantial parts of the “Merced to Bakersfield” route have not even started!
If they open something, it will be from “near Merced” to “almost to Bakersfield” stretch!
But give them some credit - laying tracks is the easiest part of this process.
So the engineers decided to lay them at the end.
But Newsome is now, from political reasons, forcing them to put down some tracks, which will sit there for a while, rusting!
The money wasn’t burned, it went straight into the pockets of Dianne Feinstein’s husband, among others.
As a matter of fact even “Merced to Bakersfield” is a boondoggle.
The shortest way from SF to LA would bypass them by a lot.
The route has been designed by politicos, who wanted to get piece of it by routing it their way,
So this train was intentionally routed by quite longer way, which mean that it will cost more to build and and the trains will take longer time to travel.
So thanks to our leaders, the project was wrong, even before they dig anything.
Been hearing about this high speed “train to nowhere” for many years now, but haven’t heard of anybody being jailed for lack of progress on the project. And the money for the project is......???? It must have filled somebody’s pocket, but has been spent before now. This is the very thing I believe that decent folks resent about America..no real justice for many lawbreakers.
China has the best approach to deal with public corruption.
Executions.
It is great for national morale.
Democrats tax money does produce something huh.
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