Discussion thread: politics or other matters

August 19, 2024 • 11:15 am

I’ve generally been avoiding the American news, but I know readers are following it, especially since the Democratic National Convention, whose conclusion is foregone, has started in Chicago. (I’m glad I’m not home, as there will be tons of protests and disruption. I had enough of that in 1968.)

So here’s a discussion thread about politics, or anything else you want to get off your chest. I’ll start it off with a headline from today’s NYT. I dare not even mention my own views any more, as I’ll be given a hiding for saying that I don’t want to vote for either Presidential candidate, and be told off for thereby helping Trump (a misguided view for sure).

Click on the link below to read, or find the article archived here. I’ll give an excerpt. Talk about the election, politics, or anything you want.

An excerpt:

When Hillary Clinton ran for president in 2016, she had more than 200 distinct policy proposals. Four years ago, Joseph R. Biden Jr. had a task force write a 110-page policy document for his White House bid.

Now, Vice President Kamala Harris does not have a policy page on her campaign website.

A last-minute campaign born of Mr. Biden’s depreciated political standing has so far been running mainly on Democratic good feelings and warmth toward Ms. Harris, drafting off legislation and proposed policies from the man she is hoping to succeed.

Democrats’ problem for most of this year appeared to be Mr. Biden himself, rather than his policies. For more than a year, as his poll numbers sank, his aides and loyalists insisted that his legislative record and priorities were viewed favorably by Americans and would ultimately carry him to another term.

Ms. Harris is now testing that original theory — but with a younger, more spirited messenger.

On policy, she has essentially cherry-picked the parts of the Biden agenda that voters like most while discarding elements like his “Bidenomics” branding on the economy. She has emphasized what allies call the “care economy”: child care, health care and drug prices, which directly affect voters’ lives.

The link to the whole article is above.  Didn’t Harris propose some kind of ban on high grocery prices?

As I said, you can talk about anything here, not just politics, but do not diss other commenters or your host, and BE CIVIL. (If you’re a newbie, I recommend reading the posting rules.

Have fun! I’m off to see the animals.

82 thoughts on “Discussion thread: politics or other matters”

  1. Right now I just have a small comment about Kamala Harris’ rather vague proposal to police grocery price gouging. Despite the general surge of positive feelings for the new Democratic candidate, polls show a definite luke warm response to this populist proposal, that being because once you think on it it is not clear how it can be implemented.

    1. Grocery store profit margins are 1-3%. We’re all smart enough to extrapolate what happens if they can’t adjust pricing on their own when externalities occur, especially at a local level.

      Why stop at food prices? If price caps imposed by the federal government are a good thing, then why not do it across the board on all consumer goods?

      Inflation is a monetary issue. Prices are information and operate to incentivize / disincentivize investment and production. For the biologists out there, think of the pricing, demand, and production business cycle in terms of the showshoe hare vs. lynx cycle – when consumers want more of a good than is available prices go up, producers make more of the good until there’s too much for the market to bear at the higher price. Prices then adjust downward and production drops off until demand rises, which causes production to increase and prices to go back up and the cycle repeats.

      Let the free market work on its own without interference from the government. Note: this includes banning crony capitalism practices that also mess with market pricing, such as tariffs, subsidizing favored industries, and regulatory capture.

      Maybe 16 economists dissed Trump’s economic plan, but you’d be hard pressed to find 16 economists (who aren’t marxists) to endorse a national price cap plan. If some did so, I’d put them in the same category as the epidemiologists who said that it was OK to be maskless at BLM marches or biologists who claim that trans men are indeed men.

    4. Stepping up against grocery store price gouging with a show is ironically straight out of the textbook of Hungary’s fascist mafia boss Viktor Orbán. He managed to create an even bigger inflation with his price capping policies (not a problem for him thought, his typical voters are either do not understand trade and business or do not care for various reasons).

      Orbán however has something Harris won’t have. He is pretty much an absolute monarch, no courts striking down his policies, no pesky legislature to impede him.

  2. I don’t particularly like Harris, but Trump’s Project 2025 has some potentially disastrous components, such as filling a large number of positions in the government with loyalists, regardless of their competence. His appointment of mega-donor Louis DeJoy in 2020 has been very bad for functioning of the post office. Imagine him stuffing the EPA, and Department of Education with right wing idiots who want to dismantle their basic functions! Hold your nose and vote for Harris, if your vote makes a difference. Harris has some bad stupid policies, but they can be easily undone compared to the fundamental changes proposed in Project 2025.

    1. To be fair, Trump has explicitly rejected Project 2025, which was not developed by his campaign.

        1. Any disavowal by Trump is merely a dodge to avoid the negative electoral effects of being associated with such controversial program. But it rings very, very hollow. It may not have been developed by his campaign directly, but large numbers of his former staffers and people connected with him have been directly involved in the development and promotion of the Project, and he has already promised to undertake some of the components of the Project (without identifying them as such). The disavowal is mere political expediency and is not believable.

          1. Bullseye.

            It’s remarkable how the right going after Walz for some shading of his (real, long-term) military record. When their candidate is draft-dodger, compulsive liar, and called our fallen soldiers, marines, and sailors “suckers” and “losers”.

        2. Evidence linking Trump with Project 2025: None.
          Evidence that Trump rejects Project 2025: His words, in writing.

          1. Trump’s Agenda 47 overlaps considerably with Project 2025. The latter spells out the implementation of much of the former. He is only lying about not being associated with Project 2025 (even though the majority of the writers are associated with the Trump administration) because he doesn’t want to lose votes.

    2. From AP, a correction on P2025-

      “This corrects an earlier post that was deleted because it misidentified the blueprint as Republican. The Republican Party had nothing to do with its creation, and the Trump campaign has disavowed it, saying he had “no idea who is behind” it and found some of its proposals “ridiculous and abysmal.”

      I find it really interesting that lots of people seem to disregard what the candidate says and does primarily because it conflicts with the image of him that the TV people have been telling us to believe.

      A few days ago, the SF Chronicle put out another article written by one of our betters about revisiting the bleak interior of the USA-
      https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/soleilho/article/dispatches-from-trump-country-19654127.php
      The author sees a lot of normal people doing normal things, and also sees evidence that many of the folks she encounters vote for a different party than she does. She then proceeds to project all kinds of hateful intent on those she sees. To the point of claiming that she risks being a victim of a hate crime if she wore a “Notorious RBG” shirt.
      Which seems just ludicrous to me.

      It all brings me back to camping in the mountains with my Dad. As kids, our fear when getting in our sleeping bags was not really related to the hauntedness of the woods.
      Our jitters were directly proportional to Dad’s ability to tell ghost stories.

      1. I live in the bleak US interior and have never heard of Notorious RBG. I suspect all the other whities one encounters in the numerous small towns across this region also are clueless as to the identity of that person. Wear your t-shirt, no one will pay two seconds of attention.

        1. Beyond that, she is talking about the risks of wearing a t-shirt. Nobody is going to bother you out here for something like that. It is all pure projection.

          Perhaps I do this too much, but it reminds me of another example. I attended a fundamentalist school for a while, when we lived in a place where the public schools were horrible.
          Anyway, at the mandatory chapel sessions, they always went on and on about how the members of the community not affiliated with the church were actively in league with Satan. That the middle aged guy mowing his lawn across the street from the school was obsessed with trying to lure the church members away from God to take their souls. That goes double for the teenager who works in the record store, and all of the seemingly normal people in town.
          The truth, of course, is that the community was filled with lots of normal, decent people. Most of them probably don’t even really believe in Satan, much less make deals with him. Like most people, they are just trying to live their lives and provide for their families. The idea that they were all scheming over believer’s souls was just fantastic projection.

          I suspect one of the biggest historical lessons future people will take away from our era is the amazing results of the DNC controlling so much of the message going out to the normies.
          They have convinced a lot of people that republican campaign slogans and lots of other things, are hate symbols.
          So now, the old guy mowing his lawn is not after our souls, but we notice he is wearing a red baseball cap, so we can presume he wants to put all the Black folks “back in chains”.

    1. For several weeks Rachel has been discussing the potential for election boards, from local to state level, refusing to certify election results. Apparently Republicans have been testing this strategy on small or not terribly significant election results for several years. Barring a landslide, this strategy could cause uncertainty about the election results for months with consequent court challenges, protests and chaos.

      If you are not a Rachel Maddow fan because her TV show is often terribly redundant, or she is too strident, you should still try her podcasts which are very well edited and calmly delivered. Her most recent one, “Rachel Maddow Presents: Ultra”, (free, 8 episodes I think), begins back before WWII and travels up through McCarthyism, examining Nazism in America. The strategies employed are a playbook for the MAGA movement.

      1. Agree! It took me a long time to get through “Ultra”, because I kept falling asleep, but it was really interesting. Many people I had never heard about before.

      2. Rachel is the smartest pundit on television today. We should take her research and conclusions very seriously.

        1. Is that being sarcastic? – I can’t tell. You realize that she won when sued for defamation by OAN when she called them “paid Russian propaganda” because the judge ruled that she was not reporting objective facts but rather spinning her own personal opinion and that as such “a reasonable viewer would not conclude the statement implies an assertion of fact” and “Maddow’s show is different than a typical news segment where anchors inform viewers about the daily news”. In other words, she presents hyperbole and opinion and not objective news. She’s free to present misinformation as entertainment, as is Tucker Carlson, so we as viewers should only take her (and his) words as such.

  5. Harris will probably avoid stating policy positions (even if she as them) so long as momentum continues to build in her favor without them. From the perspective of winning or losing, why change when things are going in your direction? Policy positions will be held close to the vest, as stating them would increase Harris’s surface area as a target of criticism. The less we know, the less there is to criticize. Only when the clamor for policy positions becomes strong enough will she throw a few bones out to us policy hungry d*gs.

    1. Absolutely correct!
      As of today, she’s a generic Democrat and as we can see in the comments here, that means people will vote for her just based on being Team Blue.

      Once she starts putting down specific policy positions and has to answer any questions, her campaign is in trouble. Better to avoid all contact with media to avoid her weakness in impromptu speaking and not put out any policy position that can be refuted. People don’t care what her policy positions are anyway – they’d vote for her no matter what (just as folks were saying that Biden with signs of dementia was better than Trump) because they’re been socially conditioned to think Orange Man Bad. It works the opposite way too of course.

    2. I’m curious, then, what she meant that she didn’t want to just inherit the nomination but to EARN it. To me that meant laying out a program for the American people.

      1. I think she earnestly believes that she earned the VP position and given the way she earned that (by Biden saying he’d pick a Black woman, and she being a high ranking politician who was one), she has also earned the nomination by being in the position to be chosen. Doesn’t make sense to me in terms of the definition of “earning it” but really, does she actually have to work to get the votes of the party faithful?

    3. The Democrats have been screaming at the top of their lungs that Trump is a threat to democracy. He may well be, but this is one more example of how the Democratic Party has undermined democracy this whole time. They hid Joe’s mental state to avoid a primary then they conducted a coronation instead of mini-primary and now they refuse refuse to their reveal policies such that the electorate can make an honest choice other than “she’s not Trump.”

  6. I think comparing Harris’ to Clinton’s or Biden’s situation vis-a-vis policy leading up to the convention is a bit unfair. Both of the latter two ran full primary campaigns against some formidable Democratic opponents, meaning that they had to take policy positions that differentiated themselves from the rest. Harris hasn’t had to do that, but what she has had to do is to introduce herself to voters nationwide in a very short period of time. Furthermore, she has during her tenure in office, supported and promoted a wide variety of popular Biden policies that still resonate with voters. Thus, I’m thinking she’s doing the right stuff at this moment. Introduce herself to voters nationwide, differentiate herself from Trump, and promote policy positions that (not withstanding Biden’ approval numbers) are highly popular.

    1. I compare Harris to NZ’s Jacinda Arden, who became leader of the opposition Labour Party shortly before an election after a series of Labour leaders had failed to improve the Party’s disastrous poll ratings.

      With no change in policies she gave her party an immediate 10% boost in popularity – ‘She’s a woman! She’s a fresh face!’ along with lots of blather about being kind – and thanks to the help of a minor party, despite significantly trailing in the election, became Prime Minister.

      The result was five years of mismanagement, ministerial incompetence, talk but no delivery, profligate spending – some attributable to Covid, media manipulation, occasional authoritarianism, until even supporters in the sycophantic media eventually noticed. On the other hand, she did manage to win a second election with an absolute majority, something no one has achieved in 28 years of Mixed Member Proportional representation elections.

      Will Harris do better or worse? NZ is an insignificant country of no importance to the rest of the world, so few outside our shores are affected by our lousy political choices, but the US matters to everyone.

  7. Glad for WEIT in this regard – I’ll bring some quotes :

    Here’s an unsourced quote that Andrew Sullivan invoked a while back :

    “The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.”

    -Marcus Aurelius

    Another unsourced quote (I’m busy!) that Michael Shermer invoked :

    Let friends be wrong

    -Thomas Jefferson

    …. I think those help settle the mind, at least a bit, because this stuff strikes deep.

    Personally, no matter the outcomes, I’ll count the blessings.

    Looking forward to some glorious DIY Nature photos.

  8. I can understand being anti-Trump. I cannot understand being pro-Harris. That’s in part because the pro-democracy party went anti-democratic to nominate her.

    If ever there was a case for voting the lesser of two evils, this is it, but it still stinks.

    2. We have been over why Kamala was anointed as Biden’s successor. While I can agree that there are salient arguments for doing some sort of fast primary campaign to choose a successor, the arguments for just going with the VP seem better.

      1. Plus, from what I understand, other candidates would not have access to the Biden-Harris war chest?

    3. Too late to worry about your point of ‘anti-democratic.’ Trump is poison bad. Any D. that can beat him is our savior.

    4. The parties are not required to either follow the results of primary elections or even participate in them — except for their own internal rules. They use the primaries as one tool to attempt their primary goal: Winning the election.

      Using primary elections to choose the POTUS candidates is a recent phenomenon in the USA. Not even my entire lifetime.

    5. Negative partisanship is one hell of a drug.
      It defines my vote – for the first time possibly voting “D” without really wanting to.

      The DEI, trans cult, Fergeson/Floyd effects and Palestine got me to this unpleasant place. The latter may prevent me from voting at all: one can only hold one’s nose so tightly to avoid the smell.
      D.A.
      NYC

  9. Which has the greatest chance of occurring:
    1. Riots / protests with property damage after a Harris win?
    2. Riots / protests with property damage after a Trump win?

    1. The winners, Darryl. Same as in sports. The testosterone (et al) associated with winning contributes to rioting and soccer riots. Look which team’s supporters are wrecking the town, always the winners.
      (See Sapolsky from memory).

      That said and other things being equal, it’ll be the Dems who riot – culture trumps biochemistry sometimes. I witnessed post-Floyd rioting from my balcony (in a tony part of town no less), an unpleasant taste of true civic disorder in the US … and I was in Lebanon during great strife in 2006. This – 2020 – was worse.

      Here, a subway sandwich store and a cell phone store were looted and ruined.
      That and the “Floyd Effect” have been the underreported tragedy of the past decade which started with the Ferguson Effect. (see Steve Sailer’s data and Prof Flyer.)

      D.A.
      NYC

      1. I watched the very same destruction of downtown Tucson which the powers that be managed to keep the “in the tank” local media from reporting. Like you, I lived in a downtown apartment. Every bank, ATM machine, storefront, restaurant, apartment building with glass was completely shattered. I have the photos to prove it. My friends (none of whom lived downtown) were stunned. They hit our downtown police station, as well, and we lost huge numbers on the force. That marked the beginning of the end for this bright blue city.

  10. No politics, (sorry) but here’s the top ten jokes from the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

    1. I was going to sail around the globe in the world’s smallest ship, but I bottled it.
    2. I’ve been taking salsa lessons for months, but I just don’t feel like I’m progressing. It’s just one step forward, two steps back.
    3. Ate horse at a restaurant once – wasn’t great. Starter was all right, but the mane was dreadful.
    4. I sailed through my driving test. That’s why I failed it.
    5. I love the Olympics. My friend and I invented a new type of relay baton. Well, he came up with the idea, I ran with it.
    6. My dad used to say to me: “Pints, gallons, litres” – which, I think, speaks volumes.
    7. British etiquette is confusing. Why is it highbrow to look at boobs in an art gallery but lowbrow when I get them out in Spoons?
    8. My partner told me that she’d never seen the film Gaslight. I told her that she definitely had.
    9. I’m an extremely emotionally needy non-binary person. My pronouns are “there, there”.
    10. Keir Starmer looks like an AI-generated image of a substitute teacher.

    hmmmmm Frankly, I’ve seen better puns here at WEIT. The winner did give me a chuckle, but I’m partial to #s 6 & 8 as winner. I don’t understand #7, but I can guess.

    1. No. 10: What does a substitute teacher look like as compared to a regular teacher? Sounds like the equivalent of Bari Weiss pontificating that Tim Walz “looks like a high school teacher.” Exactly how does a high school teacher “look”?

  11. Harris will be Biden turned up to 11. Millions more migrants, higher taxes, sluggish economy, more wars, more anti-semitism, more civic disorder, more regulations on business, more restrictions on the gig economy, more undermining of SCOTUS, trillions more in debt, and very possibly more inflation.

    And nothing will happen on abortion because it is too useful to keep as a wedge issue.

    1. Hate to say it but I think you’re right Lysander.

      I was broadly left until the social manias of the past decade, I’ve always been on the right economically – partly b/c most of my career was on Wall St.

      Many of the disorders you write of though are devolved to states and cities (to my relief). Presidents can’t do as much as people often think.

      I’m sick of “vibes” and deeply sick of “joy”. But I fear that if she opens her mouth we’ll get Trump which is worse economically and socially much worse.
      It isn’t a sexist thing and I resent people accusing me of that in my distain towards Harris – I volunteered and worked for Hillary once. It isn’t sexist to proclaim women can be idiots and narcissists also.
      D.A.
      NYC

    2. As a European, I am all for “more wars”, or to be precise, for decisive contribution of the USA to Ukraine to win its current war with Russia which is largely a result of the USA disarming Ukraine and giving it false promises of safety with the Budapest Memorandum.

      I am also for “more wars” in the Middle East – wars of Israel against the genocidal terrorists who murder Jews for being Jews.

          1. Maybe they are just afraid of him, knowing that he can hurt them if they make him mad and they can’t hurt him back.

      2. And those terrorist organizations are also the enemies of western democracy and all that we value. “Globalize the Intifada!”

    3. You think Biden undermined the SCOTUS?

      Just contrast the Merrick Garland and Amy Barrett nominations to the SCOTUS. Mitch McConnell has undermined the SCOTUS (and the rest of the federal judiciary with his slow-walk of every Obama judicial nomination).

      And it shows in the partisan recent SCOTUS decisions and the dismal approval rate of the SCOTUS by the US population.

  12. “When Hillary Clinton ran for president in 2016, she had more than 200 distinct policy proposals. Four years ago, Joseph R. Biden Jr. had a task force write a 110-page policy document for his White House bid.”

    I think it’s important to ask how much lead time did Hillary Clinton have to prepare 200 distinct policy proposals; how much time did Joe Biden’s task for have?

    And how much time has Harris had?

    1. Thank you, David. So many critical of Harris never address that issue.
      It strikes me that instead of looking at Harris objectively, based on an analysis of her past behaviors, some of her detractors have started out disliking her, then looking for evidence to support that view. Kind of like Christians cherry-picking the bible.

  13. Apart from politics, I’ve wondered about the sort of demographic for readers here. Like maybe the formative decade/regional identity/professional descriptor of anyone inclined to share. I’ll start: 70s/New Englander/Underachiever with a Micky Mouse Master’s

      1. Revisited this because I saw no reaction that first day. I’d hoped for perhaps an anecdotal sample. Out of curiosity.
        “Rude”? “Insult”? How could that be?

        1. Fwiw, I am the underachiever of 70s decade vintage…and this site has been the best sense-maker for me since I found it in 2015

    1. The link doesn’t work but the story pops up. What do you think the judge should have done? Chrystul Kizer pleaded guilty to a lesser homicide charge (which sounds like what we would call manslaughter) instead of taking her chances with the jury on the murder-one charge. A story I found says Wisconsin has a law that allows a trafficked person to use that as a defence in crimes committed while trafficked but, according to Fox, it has not been tested if that law excuses murder of the trafficker. The prosecution intended to argue that it most assuredly didn’t.

      She was also charged with arson and car theft — she burnt his house down and stole his car after killing him — and an offence against Wisconsin’s gun-control laws, all of which were dropped.

      This is one of those cases where it’s hard not to feel at some primitive gut level that the white guy got what he deserved but allowing people to just off their tormentors without having to put their case before a jury doesn’t sit right with me.

      1. Time served and probation. But I admit the judge is probably wiser than me, and perhaps more jail will be helpful to her to improve her life. Who knows?
        If the man had been held in jail and actually punished when he was arrested earlier, he might still be alive. But our justice system doesn’t always seem to follow common sense.

  15. Spoons is a reference to Wetherspoon’s, a chain of pubs often based in redundant buildings such as banks (my local one is housed in a former opera house, later turned into a bingo hall). They are caricatured as cheap boozers for the riff-raff; but in truth they offer good value for beer and food, and they are usually free from piped music. The joke is therefore not a particularly good one.

    Nor, to be honest, are most of the others, although I quite like 2 and 5. Chacon a son gout.

    (Edited: sorry, this was supposed to be a reply to EdwardM at 10 above).

  16. And for a little fun, I can’t get a link to post, but find George Carlin’s “Euphemisms” on YouTube.
    I try to imagine what he would say today about “trans women are women”, among other things.
    (It’s entirely possible I first saw that video thanks to a post or comment here.)

  17. US elections from a nautical eye. No I don’t sail or cruise.
    Harris envokes quite a range of responses, she will do nothing substantial to, she will sink the ship and all who sail in her.
    Personally, the ship might list to port and go round and round but hell, Trump will be all depth charges, fire in the lower deck…Davy Jones locker for all you land lubbers!

    An aside: the British Navy dispite the pressure, will continue to refer to their ships as “her” “she”. Damn the torpedoes, full speed!

    Ok enough…
    In NZ we can vote for a party or a candidate separately… If I don’t like one but like where or what the other is saying/going I can split the vote… risky but it can send a message, voter satisfaction too.
    So… in the US if you liked a Dem or even a Rep candidate and not necessarily in your state, how can you get the message, promote that candidate. To me it seems like a way of improving your candidate selection. People who make sense but not necessarily in your state/party can get the support needed to raise their profile and message. The knock ons could help momentum. If this election round hasn’t shown this in neon, you live under a rock. This dismal situation with the Blue/Red fixation which IS NOT an solely American phenomenon has got to change. It’s world wide.
    Eh…
    Good ships sit in dry dock while the unseaworthy list and flounder when really they should sink. Fish love these wrecks. Yea!
    Raising the candidate bar would raise all the “ships” in the harbour and make for better criticisms and quality of policy. I dispair at all those good people that are willing and able that never get to meaningfully contribute.
    Time to set a new course?

  18. I find it instructive that the city of Chicago is boarded up to protect the Democrats from… Themselves?

    1. I would say from Progressives. Who may claim to be Democrats but are most certainly not liberals. Traditional liberals have to fight a battle on two fronts, the one we’re used to against the right wing, and now against what most people call the “radical left”, aka Progressives.

      This is confusing to many since, as Susan Neiman has discussed, the woke movement “expresses traditional left-wing emotions … [that] are derailed by a range of theoretical assumptions that ultimately undermine them”. In the process they become, among other things, intensely illiberal. These are mostly the folks out engaging in their performative tantrums and occasional acts of violence.

      As an old-school liberal, I am tired of being associated with these people simply because they are classified as “left wing”. Unfortunately I must concede that they have had an impact on the Democratic Party, though I feel confident that this will not be a long-term effect. I do understand that some will consider this optimism to be naive, but I will remain hopeful.

      2. I appreciate the distinctions you’ve described (within the party). I wish I felt more hopeful. From my viewpoint, the destructive, illiberal forces (use whichever labels best work for you. I certainly get what you mean by “classic liberal”. That’s how I’ve typically referred to myself) have infiltrated to such a degree that the rest of the party feels it must kowtow to them. When I hear the nominee talking about giving $25,000 to first time homebuyers and fixing grocery prices, etc, etc… I just cringe. I see the electorate in one big race to the bottom. The paying off of student loans by Biden was the first (maybe second or third) big step in that direction. The candidate who holds out the most prizes (paid for by us!) wins. I’m ranting now. Sorry. This isn’t directed at you, Steven. I just don’t like where this is heading. Nevermind the DEI, genderwang stuff that’s infected science. Ugh.

        1. May I respectfully ask, Jim, to which comment your “+ a large number” is attached?

          For clarification. Just trying to ascertain

          And thank you

    2. See also:
      Fencing off DNC vs the border.
      Requiring ID to enter the DNC vs voting.
      Biden rehashing the discredited tired ‘good people on both sides’ false smear against Trump in the same speech he says Hamas supporters ‘have a point’.

      It all makes it hard to trust the Democrat party leadership.

  19. Disorder rising. Cities overtaken by homeless, druggies, dealers. Petty crime goes unpunished, sideshows (reckless driving), too, and participants often dominate cops who do show up. DAs can’t convict: jurors view Society guilty, perp a victim. Police lack backing by public and pols. Cities fill with those with lesser “stake:” childless, short-termers, tenants, immigrants (arguable; perhaps immigrants have lesser ability or willingness to deal with urban troubles). Rising disorder creates a tide that will one day change, but which meanwhile batters cities and their productivity, to the detriment of USA. How can the tide be tamed before cities burn and hollow out, as in the 1960s?

    1. Our work ethic has been smothered. The thousands handed out during/post pandemic reinforced the notion that you can sit on your ass, call yourself a victim, receive a check and NOT be evicted. This is a rapidly spreading cancer and the drugs pouring across our border are fueling the fire. I feel sick and I haven’t recognized my city or country for years.

  20. Who needs to hear policy when one has a political priesthood to understand such things? Set aside the pride that drives one to “know,” that questions those who have the authority over us. Have faith, my friends, and the Shepherds of our Souls will deliver us from the Evil One. Simply, trust and obey.

    Oh, Kamala, full of joy, in you we hope. Do lead us with your love. Teach us to be silent, to listen with care, to cast all our doubts before you. For we were strangers, and you took us in; we are hungry, and you will have others give us something to eat. And with you, we know, there will be neither Jew nor Greek, male nor female, slave nor free. We will all be as one in equity before you.

  21. Homes. The US is said to be 3m homes short. It’s an issue in almost every major city, esp in California. Should homebuilding be via public supplements? via nonprofits? Should it be “affordable,” or anything? Should it be “inclusive,” which means partly (say 15%) for poor? Or should the private market be freed, even enabled, letting people live where (and with whom) they want in whatever they can afford? (I feel San Francisco awaits the next big one, meaningless gestures meanwhile.)

    1. Reduce regulation. End rent control so it becomes more attractive to build and improve rental housing. End tariffs that inflate the price of material artificially. Create more work visas with a path to citizenship for illegals already in this country so that the construction workforce can be expended and drive down labor wages. Don’t restrict building to affordability – let builders decide. The government could sell off federal land to either builders or private individuals to increase the land supply and thus lower prices. Build, baby, build.

      1. Having once had rent control is like having an extramarital affair. Even if you reform yourself in your own heart and your spouse forgives you she can never really trust that you won’t stray when a future temptation is strong enough, because you’ve shown you will.

        Ending rent control is certainly good policy (or at least a correction of bad policy), as are your other suggestions. It’s just that it may take a long time before people start building rental apartments. Still, the best time to end it was 60 years ago. The second-best time is now.

  22. Frankly, I think writing a policy document is probably a waste of time The media only seems to report the election in terms of personalities. It’s the same here in the UK: the media reports what the leading politicians are doing during the campaign and who they got into arguments with but never seems to say anything about actual policies.

    Tr*mp gets by without taking about policies – he just disses his opponents – and it has been successful for him except in the general election of 2020. Having policies seems so quaint and old fashioned.

  23. I was just reading about the latest proposal to tax unrealized gains. The current plan would only impact people with high wealth ($100 million), but it’s a foot in the door to have it impact a wider range. This is another ludicrous idea from Team Harris.
    Capital gains are already taxed when they are realized (example: you buy for $1 million and sell for $1.5 million, and you get taxed on the $500k gain). The proposal would say that if you bought for $1 million, and it is valued today at $1.5 million even though you didn’t sell, you would have to pay 25% on that increase in value. If you don’t have that kind of cash sitting around, the only alternative is to then sell those assets until you can pay the tax. Most investors do not have cash – they have investment properties or companies.
    If enacted this will drive investment and wealth out of this country. Maybe that’s the goal?

    1. Presumably the floor for taxation of unrealized gains, below which the foot in the door will never go, would be the net worth of the richest (on paper) Democratic Congressperson. Or maybe they’ll be satisfied with getting Donald Trump, and repeal the bill of attainder law once they’ve gutted him of half of whatever he’s got left.

      If large investors had to sell stock to raise cash to pay the tax, stock prices would fall, wiping out a lot of the paper wealth the Democrats want to tax, as well as the paper wealth of even small investors and pension-fund beneficiaries who are going to have that much less to live on in their retirement. And no one would dare buy those artificially depressed shares in hopes of turning a profit when they rebounded because they, too, would be taxed on the unrealized gain, forcing them, too, to sell. Everyone through whose hands the paper wealth passed, even briefly, would end up having to pay tax on it. They only people who wouldn’t have to pay would be losers, the people whom Leftist parties can’t seem to get enough of. (There are, after all, so darn many of them…). But it does strike me that there could be a The Producers-style opportunity for a grand swindle in there somewhere.

Comments are closed.