Trump's Indictment and 2024

I can't see Trump winning the general in 2024. Voters will pick the least worst candidate if there's going to be a rematch of 2020, and while both Biden and Trump are very bad, respondents saw trump was the worst of the worst.

But if Trump is somehow --- only God knows --- reelected to the Oval Office, it will be both a political and legal victory. Team Trump has a plan to dismantle the deep state and streamline power in the hands of the executive. That would be really something to behold. 

We'll see, of course.

Meanwhile, at the New York Times, "Trump’s 2024 Campaign Seeks to Make Voters the Ultimate Jury":

Donald J. Trump has long understood the stakes in the election: The courts may decide his cases, but only voters can decide whether to return him to power.

The indictment of former President Donald J. Trump on charges of conspiring to overthrow the 2020 election ensures that a federal jury will determine whether he is held accountable for his elaborate, drawn-out and unprecedented attempt to negate a vote of the American people and cling to power.

But it is tens of millions of voters who may deliver the ultimate verdict.

For months now, as prosecutors pursued criminal charges against him in multiple jurisdictions, Mr. Trump has intertwined his legal defenses with his electoral arguments. He has called on Republicans to rally behind him to send a message to prosecutors. He has made clear that if he recaptures the White House, he will use his powers to ensure his personal freedom by shutting down prosecutions still underway.

In effect, he is both running for president and trying to outrun the law enforcement officials seeking to convict him.

That dynamic has transformed the stakes of this election in ways that may not always be clear. Behind the debates over inflation, “wokeness” and the border, the 2024 election is at its core about the fundamental tenets of American democracy: the peaceful transfer of power, the independence of the nation’s justice system, the meaning of political free speech and the principle that no one is above the law.

Now, the voters become the jury.

Mr. Trump has always understood this. When he ran for president the first time, he channeled the economic, racial and social resentments of his voters. But as his legal peril has grown, he has focused on his own grievances and projected them onto his supporters.

“If these illegal persecutions succeed, if they’re allowed to set fire to the law, then it will not stop with me. Their grip will close even tighter around YOU,” Mr. Trump wrote to supporters on Tuesday night. “It’s not just my freedom on the line, but yours as well — and I will NEVER let them take it from you.”

Mr. Trump’s arguments have so far been effective in his pursuit of his party’s nomination. After two previous indictments — over hush-money payments to a porn star and purloined classified documents — Republican voters rallied behind the former president with an outpouring of support and cash.

A New York Times/Siena College poll released this week found that Mr. Trump has a commanding lead over all his Republican rivals combined, leading Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida by a two-to-one margin in a theoretical head-to-head matchup. Mr. Trump, even as America’s best-known criminal defendant, is in a dead heat with Mr. Biden among general election voters, the poll found.

About 17 percent of voters who said they preferred him over Mr. Biden supported Mr. Trump despite believing that he had committed serious federal crimes or that he had threatened democracy after the 2020 election.

The prevailing Republican view is that the charges against Mr. Trump are a political vendetta.

Republicans have spent two years rewriting the narrative of the Capitol riots on Jan. 6, reimagining the violent attempt to disrupt the Electoral College vote count as a freedom fight against a Washington “deep state.” The result is that in many quarters of the Republican Party, Mr. Trump is more trusted than the prosecutors, special counsels and judges handling the cases against him.

“Even those who were fence sitting or window shopping, many of them are of the belief that the justice system under President Biden is simply out to get the former president,” said Jimmy Centers, a former aide to former Gov. Terry Branstad of Iowa, a Republican who later served as Mr. Trump’s ambassador to China. “It has only strengthened his support in Iowa, to the point at which his floor is much more solid than what it was earlier this spring.”

Whether Republicans continue to stand by Mr. Trump, as they have for months, remains to be seen in the wake of Tuesday’s indictment.

“At a certain point, are you really going to hitch your whole party to a guy who is just trying to stay out of jail?” asked former Representative Barbara Comstock, a Virginia Republican who lost her seat when suburban voters turned against Mr. Trump in 2018. “There may be another strategy that Republicans could come up with. And if they can’t, I think they lose.”

Strategists supporting rivals of Mr. Trump say that over time, the continued charges could hurt his standing with Republican voters, distract Mr. Trump from focusing on presenting his plans for the future and raise questions about his electability in the general election.

“Even though people will rally around him in the moment, it starts to erode favorablity and his market share,” said Kristin Davison, chief operating officer of Never Back Down, the super PAC backing Mr. DeSantis. “More people will start to look forward.”

Or they may not...

Children Are Facing Learning and Speech Delays Due to Being Masked for Two Years

At AoSHQ, "'Kids are resilient!' -- The only harms we have to worry about are those suffered by the adult teachers!"

Democrats Plot Escape From Biden's Poll Woes

At Politico, "The party’s own polling has the president in the red. Lawmakers know they need to get better at selling his agenda to avert midterm disaster":

Rep. Jared Golden is facing one of the toughest reelection battles in the country. One thing he says doesn’t keep him up at night, though, is President Joe Biden’s sinking approval rating. “I really don't care at all. I've got my own approach to doing things,” the Maine Democrat said, adding that he handily outran Biden in Trump country. “What I know about his approval ratings right now versus my own is that I'm outpacing him by about 30 points."

Golden's nonchalance is rare.

Most Democrats are worried that Biden’s flagging polling numbers — with an approval hovering in the low 40s — will lead to a thrashing at the ballot box. With historical headwinds and a GOP-dominated redistricting process already working against them, they fear that unless Biden pulls out of his current slide, Congress will be handed to the Republicans in next year's midterms.

Even the party's own polling has the president in the red. A poll from House Democrats’ campaign arm earlier this month showed the president down in battleground districts across the country, with 52 percent of voters disapproving of the job he’s doing, according to three party members briefed on the data.

Of course, the election is 11 months away, an eternity in politics. Democrats say once they finally clinch their full agenda, Biden will recover and so too will their prospects for keeping their slim majorities. But there’s plenty of handwringing about where Biden stands. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), for one, said Biden’s recent numbers are “scary.”

“We’re in a difficult period now. One of the challenges we have is, we’ve been legislating this year, as he has,” said Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, whose state represents Democrats’ best chance of picking up a GOP-held Senate seat. “While you’re legislating, you’re not communicating.”

Just three years ago, former President Donald Trump's unpopularity sank the GOP House majority, though a favorable map helped Republicans keep the Senate. Biden and Democrats in Congress may face a similar dynamic next year. They have only a handful of vulnerable Senate seats, but a veritable cavalcade of at-risk House seats.

But even a favorable Senate map might not be enough. Morning Consult found Biden underwater in the battleground states of Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Nevada and Arizona. Democratic senators are generally running ahead of the president, according to the House Democratic campaign arm's poll — the question is, how much they need to do so in order to win.

Democrats acknowledge they have a big problem. Their proposed antidote: Finish the battles over legislating as quickly as possible, then spend their next few months talking up their infrastructure and coronavirus relief laws, as well as their forthcoming social spending bill.

“Maybe it would be the first time that the Democratic Party has ever been disciplined on message,” said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.). “But theoretically we could finish a historic year of legislating for the middle class in the next month and spend all of our next year talking about what we did.”

Still, some fret that even if they do pass Biden’s marquee agenda item — the $1.7 trillion climate and social policy bill — it won’t bring the big bump at the polls that Democrats are hoping for. House Ways and Means Chair Richard Neal (D-Mass.) advised his party to focus on “seizing credit.”

“The messaging challenge is pretty apparent. When you look at the individual parts of what we’ve done, they’re all not just marginally popular, but they’re wildly popular with the American electorate,” Neal said...

 

Terrifying: Biden Is Nominating Soviet-Trained Radicals Now

 From Stephen Green, at Pajamas:

President Joe Biden wants to put an actual Communist — self-proclaimed “radical” Cornell University law school professor Saule Omarova — in charge of the nation’s banking system.

Omarova graduated from the Soviet Union’s Moscow State University in 1989 on the Lenin Personal Academic Scholarship, according to the Wall Street Journal. As recently as 2019, she was still praising the USSR’s economic system as in some ways superior to our own. “Say what you will about old USSR, there was no gender pay gap there. Market doesn’t always ‘know best.'”

As a matter of fact, I will say what I will about the old USSR.

Teachers there were paid the same as doctors — because medicine was considered “women’s work” and both were paid crap numbers of worthless rubles. Sexism and central mismanagement, all in one murderously totalitarian package.

There’s a reason the USSR is defunct and the U.S. isn’t — at least until Omarova gets her way.

Omarova’s goal is the eventual elimination of private banking and the establishment of the Federal Reserve as the nation’s only bank...

Green's referencing this piece at WSJ, "Comptroller of the Economy":

President Biden checked off another progressive identity box last week by nominating Saule Omarova as Comptroller of the Currency. Some Trump appointees were ridiculed for having supported the elimination of their agencies. Ms. Omarova wants to eliminate the banks she’s being appointed to regulate.

The Cornell University law school professor’s radical ideas might make even Bernie Sanders blush. She graduated from Moscow State University in 1989 on the Lenin Personal Academic Scholarship. Thirty years later, she still believes the Soviet economic system was superior, and that U.S. banking should be remade in the Gosbank’s image.

“Until I came to the US, I couldn’t imagine that things like gender pay gap still existed in today’s world. Say what you will about old USSR, there was no gender pay gap there. Market doesn’t always ‘know best,’” she tweeted in 2019. After Twitter users criticized her ignorance, she added a caveat: “I never claimed women and men were treated absolutely equally in every facet of Soviet life. But people’s salaries were set (by the state) in a gender-blind manner. And all women got very generous maternity benefits. Both things are still a pipe dream in our society!”

Sure, there was a Gulag, and no private property, but maternity benefits!

Ms. Omarova thinks asset prices, pay scales, capital and credit should be dictated by the federal government. In two papers, she has advocated expanding the Federal Reserve’s mandate to include the price levels of “systemically important financial assets” as well as worker wages. As they like to say at the modern university, from each according to her ability to each according to her needs.

In a recent paper “The People’s Ledger,” she proposed that the Federal Reserve take over consumer bank deposits, “effectively ‘end banking,’ as we know it,” and become “the ultimate public platform for generating, modulating, and allocating financial resources in a modern economy.” She’d also like the U.S. to create a central bank digital currency—as Venezuela and China are doing—to “redesign our financial system & turn Fed’s balance sheet into a true ‘People’s Ledger,’” she tweeted this summer. What could possibly go wrong?

Ms. Omarova believes capital and credit should be directed by an unaccountable bureaucracy and intelligentsia...

Genunie Communists in a Democrat presidential administration? Who woulda thunk it? 

 

Infrastructure Bill in Peril as Democrats Strain to Unite Party

Tomorrow's going to be a laugh riot as the $3.5 trillion social welfare climate change boondoggle is flushed down the toilet. Some folks online, I've forgotten whom, suggested that Pelosi won't even put the infrastructure bill to a vote tomorrow, so it'll be back to the drawing board.

With luck, Manchin and Synema won't cave. 

At the Wall Street Journal, "Party leaders meanwhile work to bridge gaps between moderates, progressives on $3.5 trillion bill on social policy and climate; Biden’s agenda under threat":

WASHINGTON—Democrats hurtled toward a deadline for passing a roughly $1 trillion infrastructure plan in the House, with the bill’s fate in jeopardy as they struggled to mend intraparty rifts threatening to derail President Biden’s domestic agenda.

Party leaders are racing to unify Democrats around changes to a separate $3.5 trillion healthcare, education and climate package, which progressives want to see advance as a condition of supporting the infrastructure bill in the narrowly divided House. Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) so far has stuck to her plan to bring the infrastructure bill up for a vote Thursday, saying she was taking it “one hour at a time,” though she opened the door to further delay if talks don’t progress.

“We’re obviously at a precarious and important time in these discussions,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said. “Members of Congress are not wallflowers. They have a range of viewpoints. We listen, we engage, we negotiate.”

The Thursday deadline for the infrastructure vote is one of several scheduling crunches Democrats face in the coming days. They are also rushing to pass a stand-alone measure extending government funding, currently set to expire on Friday at 12:01 a.m., through Dec. 3.

Republicans and Democrats in the Senate reached an agreement to pass the spending patch Thursday, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) said, and then send it to the House.

On the eve of the possible infrastructure vote, Mr. Biden met Wednesday evening at the White House with Mrs. Pelosi and Mr. Schumer. Mr. Biden also has held a series of meetings with moderate Democrats in recent days in a bid to lock down their support for the social-policy and climate bill. That, in turn, could mollify progressives’ fears that moderates would block that legislation.

Those efforts so far have fallen short: Critical centrist Sen. Joe Manchin (D., W. Va.) said Wednesday that he didn’t think he could reach an agreement with the White House soon. Democrats need all 50 senators in their caucus to remain united to pass the $3.5 trillion package through a process called reconciliation, which requires just a simple majority rather than the 60 usually needed to advance in the chamber.

Mr. Manchin repeated his concerns about additional spending fueling inflation and called for the bill’s measures to be means-tested. He didn’t outline a possible compromise with other Democrats.

“While I am hopeful that common ground can be found that would result in another historic investment in our nation, I cannot—and will not—support trillions in spending or an all or nothing approach that ignores the brutal fiscal reality our nation faces,” he said in a lengthy statement.

Mr. Manchin’s statement sparked outrage among liberal House Democrats, who said it had expanded the ranks of lawmakers willing to oppose the infrastructure bill, if a vote is held Thursday. Progressives see threatening to oppose the infrastructure bill in the House as a way to pressure moderate Democrats, particularly Mr. Manchin and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D., Ariz.), to agree to the contours of the education, healthcare and climate package.

“This is why we’re not voting for that bipartisan bill until we get agreement on the reconciliation bill and it’s clear we’ve got a ways to go,” said Congressional Progressive Caucus Chairwoman Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D., Wash.).

In comments later Wednesday, Mr. Manchin said he wanted to overhaul the 2017 tax law and continue the expanded child tax credit.

The White House has met repeatedly in recent days with Mr. Manchin and Ms. Sinema. Each has voiced opposition to a bill costing $3.5 trillion. Neither of the two lawmakers, though, have publicly indicated what size bill they would support.

Mrs. Pelosi after initially tying the two bills together, reversed course earlier this week and said that the infrastructure bill would come to the floor Thursday independent of the status of the other legislation. But she changed tack again Wednesday,appearing to condition consideration of the infrastructure bill on an agreement on the social-policy and climate effort.

“I think if we come to a place where we have agreement in legislative language, not just principle, in legislative language, that the president supports, it has to meet his standard, because that’s what we are supporting, and then I think we will come together,” Mrs. Pelosi told reporters Wednesday, referencing the $3.5 trillion proposal.

She held out the possibility of the House delaying a vote on the infrastructure bill for the second time. She previously had reached an agreement with moderate House Democrats to hold a vote on the infrastructure bill this past Monday.

“We take it one step at a time,” she said...

Still more.

Previously: "Kyrsten Sinema Faces a Growing Revolt From Her Former Supporters."

The Authoritarian Left

 From Sally Satel, at Atlantic Monthly, "The Experts Somehow Overlooked Authoritarians on the Left":

No left-wing authoritarians? Are you kidding? Lenin, Mao, Stalin, Castro, Kims? 60s radicals, social justice bullies? @slsatel confirms Keith Stanovich's point that the Myside bias infects everyone, & makes a political monoculture on campus pernicious. https://t.co/ndOpsx5hHG

— Steven Pinker (@sapinker) September 25, 2021

Donald trump’s rise to power generated a flood of media coverage and academic research on authoritarianism—or at least the kind of authoritarianism that exists on the political right. Over the past several years, some researchers have theorized that Trump couldn’t have won in 2016 without support from Americans who deplore political compromise and want leaders to rule with a strong hand. Although right-wing authoritarianism is well documented, social psychologists do not all agree that a leftist version even exists. In February 2020, the Society for Personality and Social Psychology held a symposium called “Is Left-Wing Authoritarianism Real? Evidence on Both Sides of the Debate.”

An ambitious new study on the subject by the Emory University researcher Thomas H. Costello and five colleagues should settle the question. It proposes a rigorous new measure of antidemocratic attitudes on the left. And, by drawing on a survey of 7,258 adults, Costello’s team firmly establishes that such attitudes exist on both sides of the American electorate. (One co-author on the paper, I should note, was Costello’s adviser, the late Scott Lilienfeld—with whom I wrote a 2013 book and numerous articles.) Intriguingly, the researchers found some common traits between left-wing and right-wing authoritarians, including a “preference for social uniformity, prejudice towards different others, willingness to wield group authority to coerce behavior, cognitive rigidity, aggression and punitiveness towards perceived enemies, outsized concern for hierarchy, and moral absolutism.”

Published last month in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, the Costello team’s paper is persuasive, to the point that you have to wonder: How could past researchers have overlooked left-wing authoritarianism for so long? “For 70 years, the lore in the social sciences has been that authoritarianism was to be found exclusively on the political right,” the Rutgers University social psychologist Lee Jussim, who wasn’t involved in the new study, told me in an email. In the 1950 book The Authoritarian Personality, an inquiry into the psychological makeup of people strongly drawn to autocratic rule and repressive politics, the German-born scholar Theodor W. Adorno and three other psychologists measured people along dimensions such as conformity to societal norms, rigid thinking, and sexual repression. And they concluded that “the authoritarian type of human”— the kind of person whose enthusiastic support allows someone like Hitler to exercise power—was found only among conservatives. In the mid-1990s, the influential Canadian psychologist Bob Altemeyer described left-wing authoritarianism as “the Loch Ness Monster of political psychology—an occasional shadow, but no monster. ” Subsequently, other psychologists reached the same conclusion.

The Trump era likely deepened psychology’s conventional wisdom that authoritarians are almost always conservatives; the insurrection at the Capitol earlier this year showed the urgency of understanding the phenomenon. And yet calls to de-platform controversial speakers and online campaigns to get people fired for heterodox views suggest that a commitment to open democratic norms is eroding, at least in some quarters, on the left. Much further along the authoritarian continuum, people purporting to be antiracist or antifascist protesters have set fires and committed other acts of violence since the summer of 2020. These acts stop short of, say, the 1970s bombing campaign by the far-left Weather Underground, but surely call the prevailing wisdom into doubt. (Supporters of revolutionary regimes overseas have demonstrated even more clearly that some people on the left try to get their way through intimidation and force.)

But one reason left-wing authoritarianism barely shows up in social-psychology research is that most academic experts in the field are based at institutions where prevailing attitudes are far to the left of society as a whole. Scholars who personally support the left’s social vision—such as redistributing income, countering racism, and more—may simply be slow to identify authoritarianism among people with similar goals.

One doesn’t need to believe that left-wing authoritarians are as numerous or as threatening as their right-wing counterparts to grasp that both phenomena are a problem. While liberals—both inside and outside of academia—may derive some comfort from believing that left-wing authoritarianism doesn’t exist, that fiction ignores a significant source of instability and polarization in our politics and society...

Adorno? What a clown. *Eye-roll.*

Lots more at more at the link.

Murder Rates Still Up in 2021

The graphs at this piece are staggering. The murder rate surged 30 percent in 2020, by far the highest since the 1960s, if not ever. 

Things are getting back to normal, though rates are still high. Any decent first cut analysis would finger Black Lives Matter for the surge from last year. 

At NYT, "Murder Rose by Almost 30% in 2020. It’s Rising at a Slower Rate in 2021."

At at Fox News, "Violent crime surged across America despite liberal attempt to rewrite narrative: Data show violent crime surged even as property crimes dipped due to COVID-19 pandemic."

Tax the Rich? Okay, But How Much is 'Rich'?

Following-up, "House Democrats Consider 26.5% Corporate Tax Rate (VIDEO)."

One of these days Democrats will describe my income, as a college professor, as "rich." 

Seems like "rich" has been defined down consistently over the last two decades. Four-hundred thousand annually is usually the number you hear, but inflation's never figured into Democrat numbers, so people just making good money, but by no means wealthy (which in my opinion are folks with wealth in the tens of millions, at least), are always caught in the trap, as the clutches of government reach down farther and farther as time goes on.

At NYT, "Proposed Tax Changes Focus on the Wealthy":

So how do you define who’s wealthy?

The latest proposed tax changes from the House Ways and Means Committee essentially say a wealthy individual is someone who earns $400,000 a year or a couple with $450,000 in annual income.

“Rich is just the term we use to describe people who have more than us when we don’t think they deserve it,” said Brad Klontz, a financial psychologist in Boulder, Colo. “The definition of rich is entirely subjective,” adding that “$400,000 is just an arbitrary number — it might make you ‘rich’ in Middle America but middle class on the coasts.”

Four years ago, when the last changes to the Internal Revenue Code were made, the emphasis was on a lower tax rate for corporations and for super-wealthy individuals, particularly those who owned real estate and could profit from a very specific tax-deferral strategy on property.

This time around, corporations aren’t going to be paying significantly higher taxes, at least not as high as some progressives wanted. Instead, the tax legislation focuses on raising revenue from the wealthy.

“All of this legislation is focused on the individual and upping the ante for the wealthy,” said Michael Kosnitzky, a partner at the law firm Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman. “Increasing the corporate tax rate does not get at the wealthy because corporate taxes are paid by the shareholders, who get less dividends, the employees who get less salary, and the consumer, who pays more for goods and services. These proposals get at personal income tax.”

The proposed top income tax rate of 39.6 percent looks like the old top rate of 39.6 percent from 2017. It kicks in at $400,000 of income for an individual and $450,000 for a couple, which is slightly lower than the income level in 2017. Currently, the highest income tax bracket, at 37 percent, starts at $523,600 for an individual and $628,300 for a couple.

But those affected by the new rate would also pay more because there are fewer deductions than there were in the tax code before the 2017 changes.

“You have to look at the effective rate,” said Pam Lucina, chief fiduciary officer and head of trust and advisory services at the financial services firm Northern Trust. “We have far fewer deductions, so that 39.6 percent rate is a much higher rate.”

The one that affected many people was the loss of the full deduction for state and local taxes, or SALT. In the 2017 changes, the deduction was limited to $10,000 and primarily affected people who lived in Democratic-controlled states in the Northeast and on the West Coast, where state income and property taxes are high.

Limiting it brought the U.S. Treasury more money. In 2017, the unlimited deduction cost the federal government an estimated $122.5 billion; the cap brought that number down to $24.4 billion the next year.

The details of the tax proposal are still being negotiated, and lawmakers representing the states affected said they hoped that they could reinstate more of the SALT deduction. One proposal would double the deduction to $20,000, not a wholesale return to what it had been.

The tax that has defined this year’s discussion has been capital gains. The proposal in the legislation — raising the rate to 25 percent, from 20 percent, for people earning over $400,000 — came as a relief to two sets of taxpayers: the very wealthy and anyone who might inherit property.

The Biden administration began the year talking about raising the capital gains rate to the ordinary income tax rate for high earners and disallowing a provision that enables people to inherit property free of capital gains.

The administration’s original proposal talked about having a top capital gains rate of 43.4 percent — the top income tax rate plus the 3.8 percent surtax on investment income that pays for Obamacare — for people earning above $1 million. But most of the attention was drawn to President Biden’s proposal to end the so-called step-up in basis at death — which erases all the taxable gains in assets that are passed on to heirs. Repealing that would have brought in an extra $11 billion in tax revenue annually.

That proposal has since been dropped.

“No loss of the step-up in basis is a big win for wealthy families,” said Edward Renn, a partner in the private client and tax group at law firm Withersworldwide.

But that change wasn’t made to save wealthy families. It was done because the change could hurt families of more modest means who had assets to pass on to their children.

“The provision benefits very wealthy people who have built businesses,” said Justin Miller, the national director of wealth planning at Evercore Wealth Management. “But it also benefits any person who is inheriting a home from their parents and grandparents that could have hundreds of thousands of dollars that could be subject to capital gains tax. It would have impacted a lot of people, not just the top 1 percent or the top 0.1 percent. It would not have been a popular strategy.”

Taxes affecting estates and large gifts have long been ripe for tax changes. One change would bring the estate tax exemption back to the level it was at in the Obama administration. But that isn’t likely to raise more revenue from megamillionaires and billionaires. While the proposed exemption would fall to about $6 million a person from $11.7 million, the estate tax rate would remain at 40 percent. That’s what matters to the largest estates...

 

The Masking of the Servant Class

It's Glenn Greewald, on Substack, "Ugly COVID Images From the Met Gala Are Now Commonplace: While AOC's revolutionary and subversive socialist gown generated buzz, the normalization of maskless elites attended to by faceless servants is grotesque":

From the start of the pandemic, political elites have been repeatedly caught exempting themselves from the restrictive rules they impose on the lives of those over whom they rule. Governors, mayors, ministers and Speakers of the House have been filmed violating their own COVID protocols in order to dine with their closest lobbyist-friends, enjoy a coddled hair styling in chic salons, or unwind after signing new lockdown and quarantine orders by sneaking away for a weekend getaway with the family. The trend became so widespread that ABC News gathered all the examples under the headline “Elected officials slammed for hypocrisy for not following own COVID-19 advice,” while Business Insider in May updated the reporting with this: “14 prominent Democrats stand accused of hypocrisy for ignoring COVID-19 restrictions they're urging their constituents to obey."

Most of those transgressions were too flagrant to ignore and thus produced some degree of scandal and resentment for the political officials granting themselves such license. Dominant liberal culture is, if nothing else, fiercely rule-abiding: they get very upset when they see anyone defying decrees from authorities, even if the rule-breaker is the official who promulgated the directives for everyone else. Photos released last November of California Governor Gavin Newsom giggling maskless as he sat with other maskless state health officials celebrating the birthday of a powerful lobbyist — just one month after he told the public to “to keep your mask on in between bites” and while severe state-imposed restrictions were in place regarding leaving one's home — caused a drop in popularity and helped fueled a recall initiative against him. Newsom and these other officials broke their own rules, and even among liberals who venerate their leaders as celebrities, rule-breaking is frowned upon.

But as is so often the case, the most disturbing aspects of elite behavior are found not in what they have prohibited but rather in what they have decided is permissible. When it comes to mask mandates, it is now commonplace to see two distinct classes of people: those who remain maskless as they are served, and those they employ as their servants who must have their faces covered at all times. Prior to the COVID pandemic, it was difficult to imagine how the enormous chasm between the lives of cultural and political elites and everyone else could be made any larger, yet the pandemic generated a new form of crude cultural segregation: a series of protocols which ensure that maskless elites need not ever cast eyes upon the faces of their servant class.

Last month, a delightful event was hosted by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) for wealthy Democratic donors in Napa — the same wine region of choice for Gov. Newsom's notorious dinner party — at which the cheapest tickets were $100 each and a "chair” designation was available for $29,000. Video of the outdoor festivities showed an overwhelmingly white crowd of rich Democratic donors sitting maskless virtually on top of one another — not an iota of social distancing to be found — as Pelosi imparted her deep wisdom about public policy.

Pelosi's donor gala took place as millions face eviction, ongoing joblessness, and ever-emerging mandates of various types. It was also held just five days after the liberal county government of Los Angeles, in the name of Delta, imposed a countywide mask requirement for "major outdoor events.” In nearby San Francisco, where Pelosi's mansion is found, the liberal-run city government has maintained a more restrictive outdoor mask policy than the CDC: though masks were not required for outdoor exercising (such as jogging) or while consuming food, the city's rules for outdoor events required “that at any gathering where there are more than 300 people, masks are still required for both vaccinated and unvaccinated people.” Though Pelosi's fundraising lunch fell below the 10,000-person threshold for LA County's outdoor mask mandate, it may have fallen within San Francisco's mask mandate. Either way, it appears arbitrary at best: how would The Science™ of COVID risk have drastically changed for those sitting with no distancing, at densely packed tables, if there had been a few more tables of Pelosi donors? The CDC's latest guidelines for outdoor events urge people to “consider wearing a mask…for activities with close contact with others who are not fully vaccinated.”

Trying to find a cogent scientific rationale for any of this is, by design, virtually impossible. The rules are sufficiently convoluted and often arbitrary that one can easily mount arguments to legally justify the Versailles-like conduct of one's favorite liberal political leaders. Beyond the legalities, everything one does can be simultaneously declared to be responsible or reckless, depending on the political needs of the moment. But what was most striking about Pelosi's donor event was not the possibility of legal infractions but rather the two-tiered system that was so viscerally and uncomfortably obvious.

Even though many of the wealthy white donors had no food in front of them and were not yet eating, there was not a mask in sight — except on the faces of the overwhelmingly non-white people hired as servants, all of whom had their gratuitous faces covered. Servants, apparently, are much more pleasant when they are dehumanized. There is no need for noses or mouths or other identifiable facial features for those who are converted into servile robots...

Still more.

 

Newsom Prevailed on Strength of Coronavirus Response, But Failed on Everything Else. His Political Career's Still an Uphill Climb

California sucks. 

Come for the weather. Leave for the braindead leftist public policy failures.

At LAT, "A California in crisis awaits Newsom after landslide win in recall":

SACRAMENTO — Standing in an elementary school classroom in Oakland, Gov. Gavin Newsom paused when asked if he felt vindicated after voters saved his political career the night before and handed him a landslide victory in the recall election.

“I feel enlivened. I feel more energized, and I feel a deep sense of responsibility because people are counting on us and they need us. They need government, effective government,” Newsom said. “I’m also mindful of this: Challenges are in abundance in these positions.”

California voters and Newsom’s political allies stepped up to defend the governor from the GOP-led recall, delivering a win that helps pave the way to his reelection next year. Battle-tested but not bruised, the 53-year-old reaffirmed the mandate he walked into the governor’s office with three years ago after notching what appeared to be an even greater margin of victory Tuesday.

But just as wildfires, punishing drought, record homelessness, a housing shortage, a once-in-a-generation pandemic and a learning curve at the Capitol have challenged much of his term in office, Newsom returns to work facing those same problems and more.

“He has the same things to deal with today that he dealt with yesterday, minus the recall election,” said Dana Williamson, who worked as Cabinet secretary to former Gov. Jerry Brown. “I would think the election gives him a boost of confidence. He’s coming out of this in a stronger place than when he entered it, and it leveled his political playing field.”

With at least $24 million in his 2022 reelection campaign account and an activated army of union volunteers, Newsom will be a formidable incumbent when voters return to the polls next year, raising doubts that a well-known intraparty rival will step up to challenge him.

Newsom could also end up running against a cast of Republican candidates similar to the one he trounced Tuesday, some of whom have already announced their intentions to challenge him.

“There is no reelect after this,” said Dustin Corcoran, chief executive of the California Medical Assn.

Newsom’s campaign framed the recall as a proxy war against Trumpism playing out in a deep-blue state, shifting the focus off Newsom and his own record.

The governor took advantage of Larry Elder’s candidacy to contrast his leadership during the pandemic to the conservative talk show host’s promises to rescind mask mandates in schools and reverse the vaccine and testing rules Newsom ordered for healthcare workers, state employees, and teachers and school staff.

The decision to attack Elder’s position on vaccines proved smart in California and provided Newsom with an opportunity to tap into fears about the Delta variant and frustration with the unvaccinated. A recent preelection poll from the Public Policy Institute of California found strong support for requiring proof of vaccines for large outdoor events and to enter indoor businesses and predicted 80% of likely voters would be vaccinated.

“The campaign seized on that to create a simple choice for voters,” said Ace Smith, one of Newsom’s political advisors.

A week before the election, Smith argued that Sept. 14 would give Newsom “a clear mandate not only against the recall, but for sanity on something as important as public health.”

As a “final seal of approval” for his handling of the pandemic, Newsom’s triumph will also make it harder for Republicans to gain any traction during his reelection campaign with claims that he was too restrictive or took away personal freedom, said Juan Rodriguez, Newsom’s campaign manager.

The first governor in the nation to issue a statewide stay-at-home order, Newsom might be emboldened by Tuesday’s win to accelerate his approach to fighting the COVID-19 pandemic.

Democratic strategist Robin Swanson said many Californians, even Newsom supporters, are still frustrated from the school closures and shuttered businesses. She said the governor would be smart to acknowledge those feelings.

“People want to be heard in elections and the most gracious victors hear what their opponents say and hear what people say who didn’t vote for them,” Swanson said. “That’s how you build the sort of unity and healing that our state needs.”

In his brief election night speech, Newsom said he was humbled and grateful to the Californians who exercised their right to vote and expressed themselves “by rejecting the division, by rejecting the cynicism, by rejecting so much of the negativity that’s defined our politics in this country over the course of so many years.”

He extended more of an olive branch Wednesday...

Keep reading.

 

The Year of the Woke Revolution

It's Lee Siegel, at City Journal, "Year Zero: The roots of the woke revolution":

On the day in March that eight people were murdered in a massage parlor in Atlanta, six of them Asian-American, a Cherokee County, Georgia, police captain gave a media briefing after the alleged murderer was caught. He described the suspect’s motivation as follows: “He was pretty much fed up, and at the end of his rope, and yesterday was a really bad day for him and this is what he did.”

Indignation erupted. How, people cried, could the police captain attribute the murders to someone merely having a bad day? Having determined that the crime was motivated by anti-Asian hatred, the Internet furies concluded that the captain had spoken callously because of his own anti-Asian bias.

Leave aside that anyone who had seen a police movie could recognize as tough-guy talk the captain’s seemingly casual description of an unspeakable act. And never mind that just a few weeks later, President Biden described the slaughter of eight people in a FedEx facility not as a human tragedy but as a “national embarrassment,” as if it had been a messily disputed election. Consider instead what the policeman’s critics cared about. Imagine that the captain had appeared before the media and had said that he believed that the suspect was motivated by anti-Asian hatred and that this hate was the true virus ravaging us all. Would he have been lauded? Yes. But what if he gave this briefing while the suspect remained at large, giving him time to flee? In reality, the entire Atlanta police department was on the scene almost immediately. The suspect was caught shortly after the shootings, before he could harm anyone else. Even if the police captain had been insensitive, why should this matter more than his and his officers’ actions?

Words are crumbling under the weight of moral one-upmanship. One cannot, for example, call both Hitler and Donald Trump “fascists” without the term losing its meaning. But for four years, an imminent fascist revolution sponsored by the Trump movement was a liberal obsession. (Hard to make a fascist revolution, though, without having the military on your side, and Trump spent four years insulting both the military and the state’s intelligence apparatus.) Nor does the term “systemic racism” mean anything if it describes both the structure of apartheid in South Africa and slavery in the antebellum American South and the circumstances we live in today. Apartheid South Africa was systemically racist. Georgia in 1860 was systemically racist. But the New York suburb where I live—Montclair, New Jersey—has a black mayor who succeeded another black mayor; a black superintendent of schools; a black assistant superintendent of schools; several black school principals; a black deputy chief of police; a self-conscious enclave of wealthy black bankers and black lawyers; and accomplished black residents, from a world-famous jazz bassist to a former head of Homeland Security. Montclair is more racially, socially, and economically diverse than any neighborhood in New York City. Yet cries of Montclair’s systemic racism have now swept the town, as well as its public school curricula.... 

... We are now living in a new golden age of American racism. So long as you talk the proverbial talk—and, if you really need extra cover, make the obligatory accusations and issue the compulsory condemnations—you can actually indulge racist impulses. You can inveigh against racism at your local school board meeting and then, a year or two later, quietly move your children into the whitest private school you can find. You can fawn so fulsomely over your white daughter’s black friend that the friend will never return to your house. You can be so excessively polite yet calculatedly distant with black people that you will ensure that none will enter your life. If you are a Coca-Cola executive, you can declaim against the new Georgia voting laws, even as you market your product extra-aggressively in poor black neighborhoods, where the obesity and diabetes caused in part by regular soda consumption has by now afflicted generations of black children. Maybe the hope among Coca-Cola executives is that, thanks to the new rhetoric of morally superior denunciation, you can start addicting liberal white kids in the suburbs, too: “Woke Goes Better with Coke.” And why not? Apple tells me that in order to “protect the environment,” it will no longer include a power adapter and earphones at no extra charge with its new phones. However, Apple will gladly sell them to me.

Excellent piece (emphasis added).

Keep reading.

How Did the Party of J.F.K. Become So Woke and Stupid?

It's V.D.H., at Fox News, "How did the Democratic Party of JFK, Bill Clinton turn into a woke neo-Maoist movement? Democrats used to talk nonstop about the 'working man'."

Biden Administration Walks Back Ties to Extremists Pushing Critical Race Theory in Schools

At Fox News, "Biden admin walks back ties to group pushing critical race theory in schools:'It was an error' to promote the critical race theory handbook said Biden's Department of Education."

An "error." Right. *Eye-roll.*

These ghouls totally back C.R.T., but for their rank political cowardice. 

Tomi Lahren on Outnumbered

She makes a good point on Cuba, and how folks are "finally waking up" to Marxism. 

She's up first. 

Watch (she speaks from the beginning):

Infrastructure! Infrastructure! Infrastructure! (VIDEO)

The statistics are truly mind-boggling!

Portland's seen an 800 percent increase in homicides since last year --- 800 percent! --- and polls are showing that voters are rejecting the soft-on-crime policies of the morally-bankrupt leadership in America's Democrat-run cities. It's pretty freaky, actually. I mean, gearing up for the 2022 election, I can't imagine Democrats having the slightest chance of hanging onto their slim congressional majorities. 

It's gonna be great, and even better if Donald J. Trump is in the running in 2024, even if just for the G.O.P. nomination. Should Trump opt out, Governor Ron DeSantis is looking like the man to beat at this point. I have no idea if Trump could prevail in the general election, but I won't be surprised if Kamala Harris steps aside for Joe Biden because of health reasons. Then the general election, pitting Trump vs. Harris, will be lit! 

Various reports indicate the Dems are in for an epic shellacking, and I'm here for it, lol.

See, "Surging crime rate spells trouble for Democrats in 2022 elections."

A roundup, at LAT, "L.A. cut millions from the LAPD after George Floyd. Here’s where that money is going," and "Biden’s infrastructure plan: Where does the money go, and where does it come from?"

And New York Mag, "Democrats’ Odds of Keeping the House Are Slimming Fast."

At NYT, "The Persistent Grip of Social Class on College Admissions."

As WaPo, "White House to propose $6 trillion budget plan, as administration seeks to reshape economy, safety net."

And USA Today, "Biden declares his 'economic plan is working,' pushes infrastructure plan as the next step."

I'd link WSJ but it's behind the paywall, "Cities Reverse Defunding the Police Amid Rising Crime."

See also, Heather Mac Donald, "Mostly Peaceful Mayhem: Turning a blind eye to violence in Miami Beach, the New York Times previews its post-Floyd-trial coverage."

Tulsi Gabbard: 'Please let us stop the RACIALIZATION of everyone and everything — i.e., racialism (VIDEO)

One of the greatest American patriots alive today, and I say this after thinking she was bonkers for a while during her campaign, but she's been proved right more and more often, especially on U.S. government intelligence scandals, Russia overreach in U.S. foreign policy, the China threat, and now the existential danger (from within) of "woke" racialism --- "racism," racism," racism" --- "you're racist" all-hate Democrat, well, racism.

Watch:

'Ms. Davis, a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army who at the time worked as an insurance lobbyist, said Mr. Reed put his hand on her back, unhooked her bra and touched her leg during a fundraising trip, according to an account she gave to the Washington Post. She didn't immediately respond to a request for comment Sunday night...'

Whoa!

Maybe this dude will set a good example for New York's serial abuser, Gov. Andrew "Emmy Award" Cuomo.

At WSJ, "Rep. Tom Reed Says He Won’t Run for Re-election in 2022: After allegations of inappropriate sexual conduct, the New York lawmaker said he wouldn’t run for governor either." 

Well, That Didn't Take Long: Sharon Osbourne Out at 'The Talk' as Unhinged Leftists Claim Another Scalp Over Imaginary Racism (VIDEO)

So, my wife was on target, naturally. 

Sharon Osbourne is definitely out at "The Talk," and just one quick search for "Sharon Osbourne" on Twitter gives you a glimpse into the radical --- and so "pure" --- left's utter ideological fury over the audacity that this woman might actually stand up for something, that thing being, er, the truth.

Here's my earlier entry, "'The Talk' Extends Hiatus After Sharon Osbourne's 'Controversial' Defense of Friend Piers Morgan (VIDEO)."

And now at OK Magazine, with, what looks like, a bit of actual news on some likely nasty litigation to be forthcoming: "CBS Will Reportedly Have to Pay Sharon Osbourne a 'Sizeable Settlement to Keep Her Quiet' Amid 'The Talk' Investigation." Also, "'It's All Out of Control': Sharon Osbourne 'Not Expected to Return' to 'The Talk' After Shocking On-Air Meltdown, Says Source."

It wasn't a "shocking on-air meltdown." 

Indeed, Ms. Osbourne was freakin' ambushed, and she's right to claim she was set up, for whatever reason, the most likely being that this black race-mongering beatdown queen, Sheryl Underwood, came to the taping all ready to go for the big "you be racist!" backstab --- and the rest is history, or it will be, once we get more on the true juicy details of exactly how this degenerate bull came down.

The kicker is this Don Lemon segment at CNN from the other night (below), which I did not see in real time, in which he "discusses" how "calm" was Ms. Underwood in responding to the "privileged Ms. Osbourne, who shoulda just sucked it up. And further, neither has the "brother" Mr. Lemon, nor the "I ain't never seen no white person who wasn't no racist cracka" Ms. Hill, accepted Ms. Osbourne's apology, which I had not seen until today; and they claimed Osbourne's mea culpa wasn't "really" addressing" the "underlying" issue, which is that if muthaf*ckin' black folks call you out for your "enabling" of alleged "racist" treatment of "people of color" (and a "coloured" royal, no less), then you best be shuttin' the f*ck up, bitch.

And don't forget, Ms Hill was first suspended at then basically fired from  --- after a year of turmoil, and with Ms. Hill brokering some kind of "settlement," er, payoff --- ESPN, after she basically attacked Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones (on Twitter, of course) as the second coming of Confederate President Jefferson Davis. 

And this lady's been bad news for a long time. See the Washington Examiner, for example, "Lessons from Trader Jose and Jemele Hill: Calling everything racist is a really bad way to fight racism."

I'm am done.

I can barely get through Wolf Blitzer's "The Situation Room" anymore, and if I continue to watch the network, it's going to be just to monitor how low Zucker's FUBAR programming will go down the hole of despicable and hysterically deranged leftist racial paranoia (and obvious pro-Biden/Dem "white supremacist" propaganda).

Oh brother, Sharon Osbourne should just turn the tables and retort, "Bitch Better Have My Money." (*Eyes rolling into the back of my head.*)

Blockbuster Maria Bartiromo Opening Segment on Fox News' 'Prime Time' (VIDEO)

I was busy yesterday, but I did catch this opening segment with the fabulous, and most beautiful, Italian-American, Maria Bartiromo. 

Just great stuff, and I hope more and more folks hear, and heed, her message, and shout about these very threatened notions of "liberty" and "opportunity" in the U.S. today, "from the rooftops."

Watch:

Media's Entire Georgia Narrative Is Fraudulent, Not Just The Fabricated Trump Quotes

It's Mollie Hemingway, at the Federalist. 

She's day in and day out, a one-woman wrecking-crew demolishing the endless lies streaming from all the hate-addled (and despicable) leftist media outlets, be they print, broadcast, cable, or whatever. I'm glad she's on our side. 

She's the author, most prominently, of Justice on Trial: The Kavanaugh Confirmation and the Future of the Supreme Court, but also, Trump vs. the Media (Encounter Broadsides Book 51).

Also, my apologies for the light blogging today, but the pace of posting should pick up a bit over the next couple of days, and into the weekend.

Be well.