"Will you shut up, man?"
After Biden refused to say whether he'd pack the Supreme Court, inanely responding that he didn't want to make it an issue in the election while people were trying to vote, Zerohedge warned what would happen if Biden's party claws its way into the White House and a Senate majority:
You see, the hard-left Democrat party views our American political system the same way Turkey president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan viewed democracy before becoming a dictator for life: “Democracy is like a train. We shall get out when we arrive at the station we want.” This time around, once the Democrats win, they will change the rules so they can never lose again.As the t-shirts put it (our modern copybook headings), Trump has his personality issues, but the other side is completely insane. Although we have two rather unappealing personalities in the race, the choice between the parties' ideas couldn't be more stark.
Low expectations
Ed Morrissey argues that Joe Biden should quit while he's ahead:
What else is there left to prove? Biden and his team might calculate that they and the “moderators” can get Trump to say some damaging things in these debates, and that might be true. Of course, Trump can do that without debates, and there’s an almost equal risk for Biden on that same score … theoretically, anyway. His declaration that he won’t take a position on court-packing lest it become an issue in the election was one of the worst dodges in a presidential debate, maybe ever. Biden’s declaration that “the party is me” was also rather risible, especially since he then disclaimed any blame for what his party does or advocates. In a media world with more objectivity, as Jazz noted earlier, Biden’s honesty and integrity would be getting more scrutiny this morning along with Trump’s.
Even if the risk is not the same, neither is the reward. Getting back on stage with Trump changes the expectations game from will Biden fall asleep to will Biden take positions and what are they. It allows Trump to tune his game a bit better, or at least have the opportunity to do so and correct the impression left from this debate. What’s the upside for Biden in a second debate, let alone two more?
Skinflints and Skinflints
Joe Biden has, oh so proudly, released his and his wife's MFJ Federal income tax return. It's revealing, and I have a question for him and for President Donald Trump.
According to their return, their top-line income was $985,233 before their Standard Deduction.
According to their Schedule A, the Bidens gave $14,700 to charity.
That's 1.5% of their income--not even a decent tithe.
On the other hand, Trump has, since taking office, donated 100% of his salary to various causes, even if not to outright charities.
My question: Biden claims Trump isn't paying enough in taxes, but who's the real skinflint, who doesn't care about others, really?
Eric HinesMalingering yeast
My bread has been giving me fits, refusing to rise. I finally read up on proofing commercial dry yeast and discovered that when I add it to some water and a little sugar, I should be getting it to foam so as to double its volume in ten minutes or so. Well, that hasn't been happening!
I figured, since I was getting at least a little reaction, there must be a few yeasts still alive in there, even if most of the package was on strike. The inactive ones don't do any harm, so I just kept increasing the total dried yeast until I got a good double-sized proof, and then used the whole batch in the bread. Voila, a loaf with enough rise to make sandwich bread.
Time Travel
It seems time travel is possible, after all, and all without that altering the (ex-)future folderol. University of Queensland professor Fabio Costa, one of the co-authors of the study purporting to solve the time travel paradox, discussed the "grandfather paradox" in the form of going back in time to prevent the Wuhan Virus patient zero from getting infected in the first place. Apparently, The Universe would take corrective action, and someone, perhaps even the time traveler (who knew The Universe might have a sense of humor), would get infected, anyway.
But the grandfather paradox has long been solved: that well-known physicist, Homer, and his equally well-known colleague, the genealogist Jethro, long ago demonstrated that it's eminently possible to be one's own grandfather, with or without time travel.
Eric Hines
Eek, a tax deduction
I'm shocked, I tell you, to learn that if someone loses $100,000 one year and gains $100,000 the next, the income tax law treats that as though he made nothing in either year. The magic January 1 date is temporarily ignored and the two years net against each other in one big two-year income result that equals zero. That means you pay no tax for one of those years even though on paper you made big bux in that 12-month period. We generally expect an organization like the IRS to play by "heads I win, tails you lose" rules, but in this case the rules are what you might call rational and fair.
This net-operating-loss write-off is known as a kind of "deduction," and deductions are actually available to all of us. Many of us ordinary people have used a "tax avoidance" technique of one kind or another, such as the mortgage deduction. I'll bet you didn't know that, not only is it not illegal, it's not even wrong!
From Althouse:
It's unAmerican to use the phrase "get away with" to refer to following the law. It's like accusing me of speeding when I'm going 75 in a 75 mph zone. I'm not "getting away with" it. I'm going the speed limit! Change the speed limit if that's the wrong top speed. Crimes are the things that have been defined as crimes. It's particularly irksome for a legislator to talk like that — shifting the blame for the legislature's own failures.
Not to rub salt in the wound
So I just saw this over at Ace's place and just had to comment on it:
https://twitter.com/justin_fenton/status/1308851669397053440?s=20
So as someone who works in IT at a media company, something immediately jumped out at me, and let me know if you saw it as well.
Others in power
Rod Dreher writes of his long affection for NPR, and how he was recently driven from it to trying Joe Rogan on Spotify. What resonated with me was the constant battle between people who say "but how can you vote for so-and-so, knowing how awful he and his fellow-travelers are"--from both sides of the aisle.
I am sure Joe Rogan differs from Orthodox Christian socially conservative me in a number of ways, but I would a thousand million times rather live in Joe Rogan World than NPR/NYT World. The stories Joe Rogan lives by are not the stories I live by, mostly, but I would trust Joe Rogan to defend people like me against the Pink Police State that the left seems bound and determined to create. One thing he said in that Douglas Murray podcast that resonated deeply with me: him and Murray agreeing on how insane Trump is, but how people on the left simply cannot grasp that they alarm many center-right people so much that they are less worried about crazy Trump than they are about the crazy left. This seems to be the neuralgic point between my self-described anti-woke liberal reader, and me: that we look at the same things, and dislike the same things, but that he is much more alarmed by Trump than by the woke, while I come down on the opposite side.
Where will each of us be in five years? Will we be able to talk to each other at all? This is not at all a crazy question. This was the story of Spain. It went from the fall of the monarchy and the installment of a democratic republic in 1931 to civil war in 1936, because neither the left nor the right trusted each other, and each came to see liberal democracy as a menace, because it provided a means for the Other to come to power.
Faith and Law
Amy Coney Barrett explains that letting one's own moral convictions interfere with interpreting laws as written and enacted is not a problem confined to traditionally religious people:
“All people, of course–well, we hope, most people–have deeply held moral convictions, whether or not they come from faith. People who have no faith, people who are not religious, have deeply held moral convictions,” Barrett noted. “And it’s just as important for those people to be sure– I just spent time talking about the job of a judge being to set aside moral convictions, personal moral convictions, and personal preferences, and follow the law. That’s a challenge for those of faith and for those who have no faith.”
“So I think the public should be absolutely concerned about whether a nominee for judicial office will be willing and able to set aside personal preferences, be they moral, be they political, whatever convictions they are,” Barrett explained. “The public should be concerned about whether a nominee can set those aside in favor of following the law.”
“But that’s not a challenge just for religious people. I mean, that’s a challenge for everyone. And so I think it’s a dangerous road to go down to say that only religious people would not be able to separate out moral convictions from their duty,” she said.
Supreme Court Nominee
Now there's a move afoot--I have no idea how serious it is--to skip a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the Supreme Court nominee, whomever she might be, and take the matter straight to the floor of the Senate for an up or down vote.
That certainly would be an interesting answer to the Progressive-Democrats' stall tactic of invoking the two-hour rule on Committee hearings (although the rule can be waived on a case by case basis by a privileged motion being voted up).
Hearings aren't required for nominations; they've just been habitually done. The Progressive-Democrats, though, with their performances on the last several Republican nominee hearings, have destroyed the utility of such hearings. On the other hand, skipping the hearing might have negative impacts on some of the more borderline Republicans.
Eric Hines
My take on the Breonna Taylor debacle
With the recent acquittal of two of the two detectives in the raid on the apartment of Breonna Taylor and her boyfriend Kenneth Walker, things are going to get violent in Louisville tonight (and apparently already have). And I think we can all agree that while anger may be appropriate, burning and looting the town is not (and would not ever solve anything). But I have some things to say about the incident that sparked this, and I'll put them below the fold.
U.S. death rate down
I've been wondering if the "death from all causes" rate was going to drop in 2021, as a result of a virus whose defining characteristic may be its ability to carry off vulnerable and/or elderly people with unusually short life expectancies. Are we already seeing the trend begin? The September number took a real dive.
Does this really play the way they think it does?
Kamala Harris's campaign managers are said to be looking forward to her grilling the President's nominee for the Supreme Court, based on her riveting question in 2019 to a candidate (later confirmed) for the U.S. District Court for Nebraska:
“Since 1993, you have been a member of the Knights of Columbus, an all-male society comprised primarily of Catholic men,” Harris began. “In 2016, Carl Anderson, leader of the Knights of Columbus, described abortion as ‘a legal regime that has resulted in more than 40 million deaths.’ Mr. Anderson went on to say that ‘abortion is the killing of the innocent on a massive scale.’ Were you aware that the Knights of Columbus opposed a woman’s right to choose when you joined the organization?”Way to score points. He belonged to an all-male group composed solely of Catholics! Also an all-Catholic group composed solely of men.
If I'd been Ms. Harris's campaign adviser, I'd have suggested that she be less specific about the terrible things the Knights of Columbus believe, maybe sticking with "fringe religious fanatical notions you crazy racists all agree on." Reading out phrases like "abortion is the killing of the innocent on a massive scale" can only cause people, however unconsciously, to entertain thoughts about the moral gravity of this controversy.
"Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of a group that opposes the killing of the innocent on a massive scale?"
Cuomo sounds comparatively sane
It's a tall order, but Don Lemon brings out the rational side of [correction] Fredo Cuomo:
“We’re going to have to blow up the entire system,” Lemon said.
“I don’t know about that,” Cuomo reacted, who argued that Americans just have to vote.
“You know what we’re going to have to do?… You’re going to have to get rid of the electoral college,” Lemon continued. “Because the minority in this country get to decide who our judges are and who our president is. Is that fair?”
“You need a constitutional amendment to do that,” Cuomo replied.
“And if Joe Biden wins, Democrats can stack the courts and they can do that amendment and get it passed,” Lemon shot back.
* * *
“Look, this [S. Ct. appointment] is a short-term win,” Cuomo said. [I]f they get this judge, it’s a win because if he wants people to vote for him, if he doesn’t deliver a nominee and it doesn’t get acted on by the Republicans, they’ve got trouble.”
Cuomo continued, “I know that people say, ‘Well in races that are close.’ Who’s voting or thinking about voting for a Republican who doesn’t want them to pick a judge right now?”
Political Philosophy and Honor
The American Mind just re-posted an interesting essay by this title, by one of Leo Strauss's students, Harry V. Jaffa. Below is their introduction to the essay. Click over to read it.
This September, the American Political Science Association gave its annual Leo Strauss Award for best doctoral dissertation in political philosophy to Elena Gambino for her “‘Presence in Our Own Land:’ Second Wave Feminism and the Lesbian Body Politic.” When the award was founded, Strauss’s student and Distinguished Fellow of the Claremont Institute Harry V. Jaffa wrote that “the prize will…discourage, rather than encourage the emulation of Leo Strauss.” Jaffa is quite roundly vindicated by this latest development, and so we reprint here his essay, originally published in Modern Age, Vol. 21, No. 4, Fall 1977 and reprinted as the appendix to How to Think About the American Revolution (Durham: Carolina Academic Press, 1978) and again in Crisis of the Strauss Divided: Essays on Leo Strauss and Straussianism, East and West (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2012).–Eds.
And it introduced me to a new word:
1. The belief that the human condition can be improved through concerted effort.
2. The belief that there is an inherent tendency toward progress or improvement in the human condition.
Parents Just Don't Understand
And neither do some Senators.
Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D, NY) says it's total BS that the Progressive-Democrat-proposed $1 trillion in Federal Wuhan Virus stimulus monies aimed at State and local governments would benefit public sector unions. Whether public sector unions should or should not benefit is a separate matter.
I'm being generous, though, in suggesting that such an intelligent woman actually misunderstands.
Adding a trillion dollars, or any amount of money, to a budget means—work with me, now—that budget has those added dollars to spend. Earmark the trillion for specific purposes, or bar it from being used for public unions. Do that by sending the money as cash and tracking serial numbers. That still lets the recipient government move a different [trillion] of dollars from a different part of its budget to benefit its public unions. That's the fungibility of money. It can be moved around.
Then the Senator said this in all seriousness:
We need to fund government so that we can continue to grow the economy….
Here are the Constitutionally authorized reasons for funding the government:
to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States
Nothing in there about "growing the economy," not even under that general Welfare part. What is the general Welfare of the United States is explicitly defined by the clauses of the rest of Article I, Section 8.
Indeed, as has been demonstrated over the course of our history and across a broad range of nations, the way to grow the economy is to have a free market, capitalist economy with minimal government involvement.
In fine, the State and local governments don't need the stimulus money; they need to step back, (in many cases) end the lockdowns, and let the private economy function.
Eric Hines
End Threats to Pack the USSC?
I've been thinking about Democratic threats to add seats to the USSC so they can fill them with progressive justices, and I wonder if the best solution is to end that idea with a Constitutional amendment setting a specific number of justices.
That number wouldn't have to be 9. Back in 2018, Glenn Reynolds suggested 59, with the new 50 being chosen by the states' governors and confirmed by the Senate.
But the point would be to stop this "We'll pack the courts!" nonsense.
So what do you think?
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