[Walz] also pushed through a $2.6 billion infrastructure bill—the largest in state history—that will benefit residents and businesses.
This is a news article, not opinion. So the Wall Street Journal reports it as an established fact that taking $2.6 billion from individuals who would have invested it or spent it privately and giving it to government contractors “WILL benefit” residents. In other words, the WSJ is certain that the government will spend this money better than individuals would have. Therefore, a Reagan-style appeal to shrink government should be rejected by essentially all American voters (readers of Democrat-affiliated media, such as the NYT, certainly aren’t going to argue that limiting government spending is beneficial).
Separately, how will the $2.6 billion in Minnesota taxpayer funds be spent? A press release says that “Black, Brown, and Native communities” will benefit more than second-rate white people:
I think this is why sharp-penciled guys such as Paul Ryan have been sidelined or forced out of government and why Congress will never stop borrowing and spending (which also dooms us to at least moderate inflation, I think). If tax-and-spend is great then borrow-and-spend is at least good.
Readers: Are there any candidates running for election this week on your ballot who seriously advocate for a smaller government?
Given the upcoming election this week, I thought it would be a good time to look at how the credentialed class perceives the world. These are the folks who determine what appears in our media and, ultimately, what policies get implemented in Washington, D.C. Where can we find the folks who’ve bubbled to the top of our meritocracy? At the bookstore! The pictures below are from the Barnes & Noble in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, August 4, 2024 (folks in Florida, of course, are not at the heart of national policymaking, but I think this Barnes & Noble is representative of what bookstores nationwide offer to the righteous).
First, a few happy images:
(The Wealth of Refugees (Oxford University Press) is my favorite. There has never been a situation in which Country A has offered to pay Country B for some refugees. Canada doesn’t offer to pay the U.S. for a share of the flow across our southern border, for example. In fact, there are countries that are willing to pay fines to the EU rather than accept refugees, thus suggesting that refugees have a negative value. At market prices, in other words, our four-year-old minivan is worth more than all of the world’s refugees put together. The author (“Alexander Betts is Professor of Forced Migration and International Affairs, and William Golding Senior Fellow in Politics at Brasenose College, at the University of Oxford.”), who no doubt hasn’t been willing to pay to get a refugee in his/her/zir/their own household, apparently has a much more sophisticated way of establishing value than the market.)
Then some delicious schadenfreude about how badly Republicans are doing:
But the core of the political book section is mostly about fear. If we can’t get abortion care at any stage of a pregnant person’s pregnancy on every street corner in every state, that’s a “new [and bad] America”:
American democracy is under “threat” and/or very nearly already replaced by fascism or National Socialism (“Nazi”).
One thing that might help save democracy is making sure that peasants get all of their information from sources approved by the elites:
We also need to get rid of a frightening and dangerous religion, especially if practiced without supervision from city-dwelling Democrats, that threatens our national well-being:
The news isn’t all terrible because some brave souls are fighting back:
A restatement of Joe Biden’s wisdom, “If you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t Black”:
Harvard professors share their wisdom at a $400,000 discount from list price and without the need to reside in a pro-Hamas encampment. From the Amazon page about this book:
They draw on a wealth of examples—from 1930s France to present-day Thailand—to explain why and how political parties turn against democracy. They then show how our Constitution makes us uniquely vulnerable to attacks from within: It is a pernicious enabler of minority rule, allowing partisan minorities to consistently thwart and even rule over popular majorities. Most modern democracies—from Germany and Sweden to Argentina and New Zealand—have eliminated outdated institutions like elite upper chambers, indirect elections, and lifetime tenure for judges. The United States lags dangerously behind.
The only way to preserve our democracy, in other words, is to eliminate most of its institutions because they’re “outdated”. (I guess the nomination of Kamala Harris, for whom nobody voted in a primary, is a decent first step.)
If a peasant were to vote for a conservative this coming week, it is because he/she/ze/they is a fool who has been taken in by a transparent grift:
My take-away is that fear seems to be the best way to motivate someone to buy a book or cast a vote. Peasants are promised almost nothing in exchange for a correct vote, but are threatened with catastrophe if they vote incorrectly.
Suppose that I do send in the requested $60. Kamala Harris has thus far raised $1.4 billion from her billionaire supporters. Will the $60 additional actually change what they can do over the next four days? How? Or is there some other reason for trying to convert me into a financial supporter at the peasant level?
The above email came two hours after a request for $47:
We need everyone, honestly. This is an all-hands-on-deck moment for an expensive final push.
$47 to help get voters to the polls — voters we need to win.
$47 to make sure Trump never returns to the White House.
$47 one last time before the election. For Vice President Harris. For our democracy.
(They say “honestly”. Does that mean that previous statements from Harris and/or Walz were dishonest? Also, “our democracy” is at stake. Is that a message for the truly passionate anti-Trumpers to spend $47 on ammunition?)
At 5:23 pm today:
“our very democracy is at stake”! Where is a Latter-day Thomas Matthew Crooks to save our very democracy?
There were quite a few more today. My favorite has a subject line of “Your neighbors in Cambridge are counting on you!” (the direct mail hucksters have figured out that we moved to Florida; why couldn’t the political machines?)
At 12:14 pm, the price of virtue had fallen to just $1: “That is the donation we’re asking you to make directly to Kamala Harris’s campaign for president today. Yes, we’re lowering our ask to just $1 in the hopes you’ll chip in for the first time.”
So… with just a few days to go before what used to be considered the “big day” (before mail-in ballots and early voting) why does a $1 donation help? Why does a $60 donation help? Is the idea to build habitual donors so that money can be spent on the 2026 election?
(I can’t show any comparable examples from the Trump-Vance campaign because either they aren’t emailing out similar appeals or their computers agree with Harris-Walz’s that I am a Massachusetts progressive Democrat.)
This year we are informed that freedom dies on January 20, 2025 if the Nakba of a Trump victory occurs. Polls show that such a victory is at least possible. Here’s an Obama/Biden appointee and member of the “Harris for President National Finance Committee”:
The “Jewish community” (not to be confused with “Jews”) won’t be safe if Trump is elected (for which Doug Emhoff “slams” Trump; not to be confused with “slaps Trump”). Also remember that Andrew Weinstein’s presence on the Harris for President National Finance Committee disproves the right-wing conspiracy theory that rich Jews control American politics…
Here’s The Jewish Democratic Council of America, reminding us of the “direct threat”:
Donald Trump is an aspiring dictator. His rhetoric and actions echo Hitler, and he has twice now explicitly said that he wants his administration to mirror Hitler’s regime.
His candidacy is a direct threat to Jewish Americans.
Abortion care can be obtained merely by hopping on a Bloomberg Bus to a state, such as Maskachusetts, where abortion care for pregnant people is available at all stages of a pregnant person’s pregnancy. But the Trump Death Camps (TM) won’t be escapable via an interstate trip because they will be established on a federal basis.
Are the elites who warn of dire consequences from a second Trump presidency making a contingency plan in case the unthinkable occurs? Shouldn’t they have aircraft charters and visas set up for Americans to escape between November 6 and January 19? Evacuating the millions (or tens of millions?) who are “directly” threatened by Trump might not be doable without some advance planning, particularly because most countries defend their borders and won’t allow the undocumented to merely stroll across. Israel is plainly out as a destination for Jewish Democrats due to the country’s refusal to surrender to the Islamic Resistance Movement (“Hamas”), the Party of Allah (“Hezbollah”), UNRWA, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Finding a country that wants to receive oppressed Americans could be a significant challenge.
No fewer than 3 out of 130 immediate neighbors have Taylor Swift themes for Halloween decor. Here’s the best one:
And on the other side of the sidewalk:
The nighttime view:
(I hate to brag, but the above photos were taken with my new iPhone 16 Pro Max. Nobody has a better phone than I do and nobody hates to brag more than I do.)
Speaking of night photos, a house with a headless horseperson of unknown gender ID and a dragon (also of unknown gender ID):
A generally scary look:
The grim reaper and three clowns don’t seem to hang together. Can anyone think of a unifying theme? The clowns are animatronic:
Women from an Islamic society?
A neighbor with preschoolers has put an extra stroller to good use:
Try not to schedule your birthday for any time near Halloween… the scene from last weekend:
Go Big or Go Home:
Folks in the adjacent non-HOA Jupiter Heights community are famous for their Christmas displays, but they had a few fun Halloween houses:
I would love to see Jabba the Hutt as the advertising mascot for an Ozempic-style medicine.
One of our neighbors recently suffered a massive flood in their house due to a burst sink supply hose:
Readers: What material do you think we’re looking at here? A vinyl or rubber inside pipe surrounded by braided stainless steel?
All of our houses in this sub-development (within Abacoa) are 20 years old so it is possible that this supply hose had been waiting to fail for 20 years. This plumbing company says to replace the supply lines everywhere in the house every ten years, but also implies that five years is the correct interval:
The general rule of thumb is to replace all your supply line hoses every 5 years as a preventative measure to protect your home against any potential leaks. But since braided supply lines have a rubber core, we recommend that they can be replaced every 10 years.
The Fluidmaster Pro supply lines have a 10-year warranty, which presumably means that replacing after 7-8 years would be smart. A set of two is less than $20, I think, so it wouldn’t cost a lot to hit all of the sinks and toilets in a house.
Does anyone reading this have a Moen Flo AI overlord water shutoff device in his/her/zir/their home? If so, I would love to hear about it in the comments. It seems as though it would have potential to generate hassles, e.g., Family Member A is in the house taking a shower while Family Member B is outside topping off the pool, which looks to the Flo like a one-hour massive leak (it is possible to tell the Flo to sleep for a bit while one is doing something unusual with water). The Flo can be installed outdoors so long as there is an electric outlet nearby and it can latch onto 2.4 GHz WiFi (I think we can meet those requirements).
Another potential source of paranoia is erosion of copper supply lines by hot water recirculation. Apparently the pump has to be sized exactly right, which involves a lot of calculation (example). In an innumerate society such as the U.S., the inevitable result is a lot of houses being built with big pumps thrown at the recirculation system.
The initiative would legalize recreational marijuana for adults 21 years old and older. Individuals would be allowed to possess up to three ounces of marijuana (about 85 grams), with up to five grams in the form of concentrate. Existing Medical Marijuana Treatment Centers would be authorized under the initiative to sell marijuana to adults for personal use. The Florida State Legislature could provide by state law for the licensure of entities other than existing Medical Marijuana Treatment Centers to cultivate and sell marijuana products.
Smart and Safe Florida is sponsoring the initiative. The campaign reported $61.28 million in contributions. Trulieve, a marijuana dispensary company that owns medical marijuana dispensaries in Florida, is the main contributor.
One weed shop had tens of millions of dollars of loose change to kick in, hoping to make a 10X return if the amendment passes? If the measure succeeds, cronies of the state government (the current approved dispensaries) will make huge profits partly due to the fact that it will still be illegal for a stoner to grow his/her/zir/their own dope. My comment on X:
That is beautiful logic. Marijuana is wholesome enough to be sold by the Miami Vice-style bale on every street corner, but the person found with a single plant must be imprisoned. Queers for Palestine is actually easier to understand.
I thought that unlimited calling was great because I would save 50 cents here and there on phone calls to friends. It didn’t occur to me that I would be getting 50 spam calls every day once the cost of making a call was cut to $0. Similarly, I was in favor of marijuana legalization in Massachusetts because I wanted tax dollars preserved for government functions other than enforcing marijuana laws. It didn’t occur to me that weed shops and their advertising would be omnipresent, thus changing the day-to-day experience of living in Boston or Cambridge (or looking at billboards on the various highways).
I hope that this fails! Does that make me anti-Weed? No. I would be in favor of a law that
eliminated medical marijuana (so that kids aren’t exposed to the idea that marijuana is healthful, which would have been risible to 1970s stoners)
allowed people to grow their own marijuana if they so desire, so long as the plants are inaccessible to minors
prevented marijuana businesses from advertising; people would have to find them via Google Maps and similar
required communities to establish zoning rules for where marijuana stores could be located (preferably not in strip malls where kids would be likely to go)
made it easy enough to get into the marijuana business that nobody could make tens of millions in profit simply by being a government crony
TD Bank will pay $3 billion to settle charges that it failed to properly monitor money laundering by drug cartels, regulators announced Thursday.
The fine includes a $1.3 billion penalty that will be paid to the US Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, a record fine for a bank. TD also intends to pay $1.8 billion to the US Justice Department and plead guilty to resolve the US government’s investigation that the bank violated of the Bank Secrecy Act and allowed money laundering.
The US Department of Justice said in a statement that TD Bank had “long-term, pervasive, and systemic deficiencies” in its procedures of monitoring transactions. The Wall Street Journal first reported the news late Wednesday.
In one instance, TD Bank employees collected more than $57,000 worth of gift cards to process more than $470 million in cash deposits from a money laundering network to “ensure employees would continue to process their transactions” and not declare them in required reports, the DoJ said.
Aside from handling drug cartel money, what’s been management’s focus at TD Bank?
On Instagram they want to make sure that “every woman wins”:
On their Diversity and Inclusion web page, veterans are highlighted as a victimhood group in the same cluster as sacred Black female, and LGBTQ2+ (not 2SLGBTQQIA+? The “2” in LGBTQ2+ stands for two-spirt, I think, but somehow the Native American Queers end up last rather than first. White women in the L category displace the Native American victims as with most quota-based programs).
On YouTube, their executives are on a diversity, equity, and inclusion panel:
(They also sponsor a Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Council in another YouTube video.)
Here’s Kamala Harris, a few days ago, referencing Hitler and warning of “unchecked and extreme power” that could soon be wielded by the hated dictator Donald Trump:
Imagine Donald Trump with no guardrails. If reelected, he will claim unchecked and extreme power. pic.twitter.com/QUhb9M2CQ9
(Notice that the person who calls everyone opposed to her a “Nazi” has chosen to wear a brown shirt.)
Is there a way to combine the above warning with Kamala Harris’s worrisome poll numbers in such a way that it isn’t a call for Donald Trump’s assassination? Americans are too stupid/deplorable to save themselves from Nouveau Hitler via the electoral process, according to some polls, which means it will fall to latter-day replacements for General Friedrich Olbricht, Major General Henning von Tresckow, General Carl-Heinrich Rudolf Wilhelm von Stülpnagel, and Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg. Assuming that there is a Nakba on November 5, will it be Pete Buttigieg, fresh back at his/her/zir/their desk from maternity leave, who leaves a briefcase under a conference table at a Trump transition meeting? Who could suspect a smiling friendly Mayor Pete?
Separately, I encountered Donald Trump, fresh from a shift at McDonald’s, and a Secret Service agent, at a neighbor’s house last Saturday night:
Black Americans Rosa Parks and Ruby Bridges took actions in 1955 and 1960 so that Kamala Harris, who apparently identifies as “Black”, could take an action in 2024. (Minor point: If we do want to ascribe a broad social trend to an individual, it was primarily Dwight Eisenhower, whose racial ID is unknown, who engineered the desegregation of the U.S. (via Supreme Court appointments and executive orders).)
Isn’t the installation of a child of two immigrants in the White House an example of discontinuity, not continuity? Or maybe we can say that the natural end stage of the civil rights movement is for Black Americans to accept bit parts in a script written by immigrants and their kids?
As a thought experiment, let’s suppose that every position of power in the U.S. were taken by a dark-skinned immigrant or the child of dark-skinned immigrants. Would that be recognizable as the achievement of goals set forth by 1950s and 1960s civil rights movement leaders? If not, why would Kamala Harris taking over the #1 position of power in the U.S. be considered a civil rights movement achievement, as the above meme implies?
Related:
“Immigration restrictions helped lead to Martin Luther King’s success”: There is much to suggest that the 1924 immigration restrictions started processes that were an important contributor to the success of Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights leaders in the ending of legalized segregation. … the lower immigration and tightened labor markets brought about economic changes that steadily increased the economic and political power of Black Americans and convinced more and more business leaders to shun segregation. The most visible result of reducing immigration was that northern industrialists could no longer fill all their extra jobs with new immigrants and had to finally open them up to the descendants of slavery in the South.
