Category: Politics

COVID-19 survivors speak

by philg

Kellyanne Conway and Melania Trump, both recent victims of COVID-19, managed to recover sufficient lung capacity to speak in Pennsylvania recently. The video is on PBS and a transcript on Rev.

I had never seen a video of Melania Trump before and it was interesting to hear her perspective. Some excerpts:

For the first time in history, the citizens of this country get to hear directly and instantly from their president every single day through social media. I do not always agree with the way he says things but it is important to him that he speaks directly to the people he serves.

The Democrats have chosen to put their own agendas ahead of the American people’s wellbeing. Instead, they attempt to create a divide, a divide on something that should be nonpartisan and non-controversial.

While the President was taking decisive action to keep the American people safe, the Democrats were wasting American taxpayer dollars in a sham impeachment. They cared more about removing our elected president.

Joe Biden attacked President Trump’s decision to put the American people first and closing travel from China. He called it xenophobic hysteria. Now he suggest that he could have done a better job. The American people can look at Joe Biden’s 36 years in Congress and eight years in the Vice Presidency and determine whether they think he will finally be able to get something done for the American people.

Before my husband decided to run for President, the media loved him because they saw the man that I see every day. Someone tough, successful, and fair. … A man who sees potential in everyone he meets, no matter their gender, race, religion, or sexual orientation. … But when he decided to run for the President as a Republican, the media created a different picture of my husband, one I don’t recognize, and treated all his supporters with equal disdain. The media has chosen to focus on stories of idle gossip and palace intrigue by editorializing real events and policies with their own bias and agendas.

Apparently Melania has been paying close attention to events in Washington and beyond. She espouses a traditional (for American politicians) message of prosperity and security:

This election isn’t just about the next year. It’s about the next four years and beyond. It’s about continuing to set this country on a course of real prosperity and success. We can’t and we shouldn’t go backwards. Donald Trump is the man who will lead us and empower us to make that greater future together. Donald Trump will expand and grow the economy and keep us safe.

Joe Biden’s policy and socialist agenda will only serve to destroy America and all that has been built in the past four years. We must keep Donald in the White House so he can finish what he started and our country can continue to flourish.

And she’s kind of humble:

Thank you for taking time out of your day to be here with me.

Readers: Could Melania win a Senate race in her new home of Florida, for example? Rick Scott is 67, which is 20 years younger than Dianne Feinstein. On the other hand, maybe Scott would rather do something else in what would traditionally be considered his Golden Years.

Full post, including comments

What jobs could Biden and Trump do if they fail to win?

by philg

Within a few days we will know whether Biden (78 later this month) or Trump (74) will be available to work in the private sector starting in January.

According to the American voters, whose wisdom can never be doubted(!), these two are the most able administrators in our land. So… what would Trump do if he lost? Go back to chairmanship of his real estate empire? Phil Ruffin is still actively managing his real estate empire at age 85 (and was vigorous enough at 72 to marry Oleksandra Nikolayenko, Miss Ukraine 2004).

How about Biden? Leaving aside lobbying and other jobs that are dependent on connections (not to say “corruption”!), who would want him to start work at their enterprise at age 78? What would Biden be able to do?

How about Hillary Clinton? In November 2016, more than 65 million Americans believed her to be the most able administrator in the land. What has Hillary done since then?

Full post, including comments

Bloomberg tries to buy the elections in Ohio and Florida

by philg

From last month, The absurd conspiracy that Wall Street elites are manipulating American politics:

My Facebook friends like to conjure a bogeyman somewhere in the South or Midwest. He is wearing camo, carrying an AR-15, driving a car with a Trump/Pence bumper sticker, and spouting an absurd conspiracy theory about Wall Streeters manipulating American politics far beyond their coastal elite districts.

Showing just how wrong this conspiracy theory is: “Bloomberg pledges $60M to boost House Democrats” (The Hill). (This will also be great for allaying the concerns of those who believe that rich Jews have too much influence in the U.S.!)

From my inbox today, from MikeBloomberg.com:

Let’s turn Texas and Ohio blue

With four days until Election Day, we’re taking the fight to Donald Trump in two new battleground states.

Earlier this week, Mike announced plans to fund an ad blitz in Ohio and Texas in the closing days of the election. Now, new messages — about the worsening COVID-19 pandemic and Joe Biden’s plans to restore the economy — are hitting the airwaves.

You can help us get the word out. Watch and share the ads we’re running in Texas and Ohio: [links to ads such as this one]

The ads focus on Joe’s plans to “build back better” and Donald Trump’s mismanagement of the COVID-19 crisis. In the last two weeks, COVID-19 cases are up 60% in Ohio, 48% in Texas, and 42% nationwide.

These investments follow Mike’s commitment to spending $100 million in another key battleground state: Florida. That investment has helped mobilize voters and strengthened a COVID-19-responsible ground game to increase turnout for Joe Biden.

What if American voters do decide that an innumerate 78-year-old will, starting in January 2021, crack a medical/scientific/technical problem that has eluded all of the science-following European countries (exponential plague in the fully masked Old World right now)? How enraged are the working class folks who supported Trump going to be regarding the political influence of wealthy American Jews?

A 2015 photo of Chabad in Dallas. They might need to make a huge sign reading “We’re not Bloomberg-style Jews”…

The Fort Worth Japanese Garden (masks optional):

Just imagine how many awesome gardens Americans could have enjoyed if Bloomberg had decided to spend his $billions on gardens rather than on Trump hatred.

Full post, including comments

Mark Zuckerberg uses his $110+ billion wealth to lobby for a tax increase on people other than Mark Zuckerberg

by philg

“California Tax Revolt Faces a Retreat, 40 Years Later” (NYT):

The new initiative, Proposition 15, would amend the state’s Constitution so that properties like offices and industrial parks would no longer be protected by Proposition 13. By creating a “split roll” system, in which residential property would continue to be shielded from tax increases but commercial property would not, backers hope to capitalize on Democratic energy to raise taxes on large corporations without alarming homeowners.

Proposition 15 would raise $6.5 billion to $11.5 billion a year for public schools, community colleges and city and county governments, according to a nonpartisan state agency. The Yes campaign, called Schools and Communities First, is backed by a number of public employees unions and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, the philanthropic organization founded by Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook chief executive, and his wife, Priscilla Chan.

So… Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t want to see higher taxes on all forms of wealth, but only on wealth held in the form of real estate (0.01% of his personal wealth of at least $100 billion?)!

Separately, it turns out that commercial property owners actually don’t pay that much in tax in California:

It is not uncommon for neighbors to pay double or triple the taxes of a similar home on the same block. A recent analysis of property taxes across the Bay Area is rife with eye-popping comparisons, like a $9 million home in an exclusive neighborhood of San Francisco that has lower property taxes than a $331,000 home near an oil refinery across the bay in Richmond.

When Proposition 13 passed, commercial property taxes were almost an afterthought. But since skyscrapers and shopping malls do not change hands as often as homes do, the law has shifted the property tax burden from corporations to homeowners. In 1975, a little under half the property taxes in Los Angeles County were paid by commercial properties. By 2017, commercial properties accounted for just over one-quarter of the property tax roll.

One part of this may be that each commercial property tends to live in its own LLC (oftentimes this is a condition of getting bank/mortgage financing). (So a guy like Donald Trump with multiple properties will inevitably have a complex tax return.) When investors come in and get bought out, the official ownership of the building hasn’t changed (still the LLC). California seems to have a mechanism for updating tax liability if most of the membership interest is swapped out, but I wonder how they enforce this in practice (since membership interest might not be accessible to the California government).

A friend who is a lawyer in Long Beach told me of doing some work for an apartment building owner. While doing this work he discovered that the massive apartment building paid less in property tax than he owed for his modest 2BR house.

As a percentage of residents’ income, California collects the 6th highest percentage of any state (Tax Foundation). On the other hand, the government is not nearly big/rich enough to give voters everything that they want and certainly not to give retired public employees everything that has been promised to them in terms of pensions and health insurance. So the state government will need massive additional revenue. But why not a straight wealth tax on Silicon Valley billionaires?

Full post, including comments

Why is it okay for adults to brag about having voted?

by philg

Voting is supposed to be simple enough for roughly 130 million Americans to do. Yet my Facebook feed is packed with people bragging about having accomplished this act, almost always in non-swing states in which their votes are surely irrelevant. It seems like something that preschoolers would be celebrated for, i.e., accomplishing a task that is straightforward for most adults. (See also Are women the new children?)

Examples:

We voted! Less than an hour in line on a rainy afternoon in NYC – first time for [son] who turned 18 in August! #proudpapa #voteNYC #ByeDon

I voted! My blood pressure went through the roof when seeing all these senior women congregated at the Republican booth! How can any respectable woman or anyone with an iota of moral standing vote for this criminal is beyond me

i VOTED !!! My ballot is now in the drop box at City Hall! [From guy who changed his profile to a Biden-Harris seal of some sort]

Fantastic job! [response to the above]

It was such a stress relief, I took a nap afterwards! [additional response to the above from one of his friends, another purported “man”]

I voted today! Had to show ID. Not a problem. My favorite presidential votes were for my wonderful friend and mentor Ralph Nader in 1996 and 2000.

Should I brag every time that we are able to finish something that was purchased at Costco, a far greater challenge than voting? “We used the last dishwasher pac!” or “We ate the last orange from the box!” or “Mindy the Crippler finished her last green dental chew!”

Maybe you’ll say that the voting braggarts are engaged in a sophisticated program to encourage others to vote (for Democrats!). If so, why didn’t they do that in the offline pre-Facebook world? I don’t remember anyone coming into work and shouting out, to the slaves within the cubicles of the coding plantation, “I voted!”

Full post, including comments

Who is the Big Money candidate this year?

by philg

Hillary was the candidate of Big Money in 2016: “Trump won with half as much money as Clinton raised” (Politico). Trump and “allies” raised only $600 million versus more than $1.2 billion for the wife of the former President (just like in Latin America!).

What’s the story in 2020? And, if Biden does not similarly dominate the fundraising and spending process, to what do we attribute the difference?

“The Two Americas Financing the Trump and Biden Campaigns” (NYT, October 25) includes a map:

Joe Biden has outraised President Trump on the strength of some of the wealthiest and most educated ZIP codes in the United States, running up the fund-raising score in cities and suburbs so resoundingly that he collected more money than Mr. Trump on all but two days in the last two months … It is not just that much of Mr. Biden’s strongest support comes overwhelmingly from the two coasts, which it does. … In ZIP codes with a median household income of at least $100,000, Mr. Biden smashed Mr. Trump in fund-raising, $486 million to only $167 million — accounting for almost his entire financial edge. … Over all, Mr. Biden raised $1.07 billion and Mr. Trump $734 million over the last six months in the 32,000 populated ZIP codes, the analysis shows.

I’ve seen some of this in Maine. In the smaller towns and rural areas, it is rare to see a Biden-Harris sign. Portland, on the other hand, is all rainbow flags, BLM, Biden-Harris, etc. Portland and its suburbs/exurbs contain close to half of the total population in Maine, so the elite high-income city-dwellers need only a handful of votes for Democrats from elsewhere in order to impose their will on the small towners.

Even if the NYT is correct that Biden is getting more money and most of it is coming from rich Americans, we’re still left with the question of why. Is it economic self-interest? If so, based on what? A belief that a bigger government will help lawyers, accountants, doctors, and others with credentials? A belief that expanded low-skill immigration will help elites (see below)? A superior moral compass among the rich? (Hunter Biden getting paid by the Ukrainian oil company while his dad was VP (Senate committee report) was okay, but Trump hotels getting paid by various folks with an interest in government policy while Trump is President is not okay) Something else?

Is it reasonable to infer that if the coastal elites are funding Biden and working class Americans are funding Trump that we can expect the coastal elites to soak up more of the good stuff in the American economy/society after Biden-Harris prevail?

Related:

  • “Yes, Immigration Hurts American Workers” (Politico), a Harvard economics analysis of how low-skill immigration (promoted by Biden) enriches the educated elites with roughly $500 billion per year, nearly all of it on the backs of working class Americans, who receive lower wages (and also pay higher rents and incur other costs from the extra population, but I don’t think the Harvard eggheads factored that in)
Full post, including comments

Post-election Deplorable hunt enabled by mail-in voting?

by philg

I finally dug my way through the two ballot questions (see Should I vote for ranked-choice voting?) and am ready to vote here in Maskachusetts. The instructions that came with my mail-in ballot:

Put your ballot into the yellow ballot envelope and seal the ballot envelope.

Sign the ballot envelope. Print your name and address below your signature.

The ballot envelope also has a personalized name/address sticker on it.

When a person votes in-person in Maskachusetts (generally for a candidate running unopposed or one whose odds of winning are 99.99%), he/she/ze/they fills out a ballot in a private booth and then puts the ballot into a scanner. There is no association between ballot and person.

With vote-by-mail, local officials, nearly all of whom are from one party(!), could assemble a list of citizens (and the undocumented?) who failed to vote correctly. After the election, God willing, this could be the basis for correcting the big error that my Dutch friend said the American elites made in 2016 regarding the Deplorables: “They forgot to take away their right to vote.”

I haven’t seen this discussed much, but as far as I can tell, vote-by-mail means the end of anonymous voting in Massachusetts (not sure how it is done in the rest of the country).

Separately, the towns here have spent what is probably $10,000+ each on voting drop boxes on concrete pads:

People who don’t trust the government-run post office to deliver a local letter within 2-3 weeks can use this box to vote for a bigger government that will take over additional day-to-day functions within society and the economy. People who agree with Joe Biden that climate change is an existential threat to humanity can, instead of walking to the end of their own driveway and putting the flag up on their own mailbox, drive a CO2-spewing vehicle to/from the ballot drop box. They will, of course, vote for bold government action to cut CO2 emissions!

Full post, including comments

How is the Amy Coney Barrett vote going?

by philg

One of my Facebook friends is featured in this image from the Maskachusetts State House (source of more than 50 governor’s orders this year):

My favorite part of this is the Statue of Liberty wearing a mask while holding a sign that reads “yearning to breathe free”.

These handmaids remind me to ask… What’s happening with the Amy Coney Barrett confirmation?

(Separately, the image contains RBG’s dying wish: “My most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new president is installed.” Does that wish, following an 87-year life, remind anyone of (the awesome) Sandra Bullock’s response to “What is the one most important thing our society needs?” in Miss Congeniality? “That would be… harsher punishment for parole violators, Stan.”)

Related:

Full post, including comments

What were Jeffrey Toobin and New Yorker friends doing on their Zoom call?

by philg

The righteous Trump-haters at New Yorker magazine have been in the news lately, but not for their four years of anti-Trump journalism. The story that has excited public interest is mostly about Jeffrey Toobin’s unscripted appearance on camera. What I’m more curious about is the original purpose of the call. From the same VICE article:

Two people who were on the call told VICE separately that the call was an election simulation featuring many of the New Yorker’s biggest stars: Jane Mayer was playing establishment Republicans; Evan Osnos was Joe Biden, Jelani Cobb was establishment Democrats, Masha Gessen played Donald Trump, Andrew Marantz was the far right, Sue Halpern was left wing democrats, Dexter Filkins was the military, and Jeffrey Toobin playing the courts. There were also a handful of other producers on the call from the New Yorker and WNYC.

How was this supposed to be productive? A bunch of Democrats get together and half of them pretend to be Republicans for an hour or two? If you’re a journalist, what is the point of this? Why not simply wait for stuff to happen and then report on it?

(See also “Who is Casey Greenfield and when did she have a child with Jeffrey Toobin?” (The Sun, regarding a Yale Law School graduate who discovered that the real gold was in “Child Support Litigation without a Marriage”); see also a NYT story about this successful plaintiff.)

Let me sample the at-least-daily New Yorker emails that I get. I deleted a bunch of these, but Gmail says that there are 1,394 left that contain the word “Trump”!

From October 23, 2020:

From January 25, 2020, a Letter from Trump’s Washington (he owns the whole city now, not just the lease on one hotel!)…

Immigrants were our last best hope on November 24, 2019:

If only there were some way to replace or dilute the natives with these wonderful people! In the meantime, Trump was going to impeach himself on October 4, 2019:

(Little did Hunter Biden realize at the time that his most formidable enemy was the stripper with whom he’d had sex.)

May 26, 2019:

April 19, 2019:

January 18, 2019:

It was the Russians on October 8, 2018:

Trump mocks a terrified-to-fly survivor on October 3, 2018:

Admittedly, he wasn’t nearly as harsh on Christine Blasey Ford as this Canadian literature professor:

This is a professional career woman? With that little-girl croaky voice and poor-me face and the trembly “I’m going to cry at any moment” narration supposedly because of the trauma of reading out a prepared script about something discussed in therapy and rehearsed dozens, if not hundreds, of times with a legal team and other advisors. A trauma that required putting two doors on a big costly house. Yes, this is the elite professional woman that feminism has created after 50 years of nonstop grievance-mongering.

It was the Russians on July 20, 2018:

On May 1, 2018, we were running short of low-skill Syrians:

Trump was hated by “most of the population” on January 30, 2018:

It was the Russians on September 22, 2017:

On August 18, 2017, shortly before Congress cooperated with Trump to pass the most substantial changes to the U.S. tax code in 20 years(?):

It was the Russians on February 15, 2017:

On February 4, 2017, the magazine was concerned that Americans would stop thinking about “race-related history” and all things LGBTQIA+:

December 29, 2015:

New York was anti-fascist long before it was fashionable!

The passionate curiosity regarding Donald Trump’s net worth goes back at least to July 29, 2015:

Trump won’t win, but he will get in some peoples’ heads… Also, the Greeks need some more of that sweet German cash! July 8, 2015:

Related:

Full post, including comments

Do lobbyists support Biden-Harris or Trump-Pence?

by philg

On a recent trip to Washington, D.C., I drove through Bethesda, Maryland on my way back to the airport. In the neighborhoods where successful government workers might live, Biden-Harris, BLM, and rainbow signs were common. Example:

Within the yards of those who draw a paycheck from the Federal government, not a single Trump sign could be found (but maybe the virtuous removed them?).

How about the lobbyists? I drove through a neighborhood of $2-4 million homes (not quite as nice as the Bethesda house of the climate change alarmist Thomas Friedman). Not a single political sign. It seems as though the Washington elite feels that things will be okay for them regardless of who prevails!

What’s the yard sign situation here in the Boston area? From a public sign forest in the center of Lincoln, Maskachusetts:

Note that one wag had decided to taunt the righteous with a Trump 2020 sign. This was at least the second iteration of the taunt, the first sign that I saw having been removed within 24 hours. By October 18, the Trump 2020 sign was gone, but we learn about a “Local GAY teen (& dad) 4 Biden”:

Why isn’t the local GAY teen’s “mom” (or “daddy #2”?) also “4 Biden”?

Full post, including comments