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Not for me. There’s a reason why the Founding Fathers provided for regional representation as well as direct election. How long do you think that Wyoming and Montana would stay in the Union if they were governed by majorities in Los Angeles and New York?
As for direct initiative, I love it in principle. In actual practice, there’s a real problem with how easily it can be manipulated by the proverbial special interest groups. In this case, there’s reality to that. California’s Constitution is an unholy mess because of the number of amendments made by direct election, constitutional because the proponents of the measure wanted to prevent the legislature from laying hands on some poorly constructed or outdated measure.
I wouldn't give you two cents for all your fancy rules if, behind them, they didn't have a little bit of plain, ordinary, everyday kindness - yeah, and a little looking out for the other fella, too.
Little disagreement on this one. Life and high tech have treated me well, and I am quite concerned with the situation of gig workers. I overtip.extravaganttly and have for years, regardless of quality of service.
I also rate everyone five stars. I don’t like that style of management.
I wouldn't give you two cents for all your fancy rules if, behind them, they didn't have a little bit of plain, ordinary, everyday kindness - yeah, and a little looking out for the other fella, too.
I do believe Newsom’s latest faux pas before the Black audience in Atlanta – vote for me because I’m as dumb as you are – doomed him
I wouldn't give you two cents for all your fancy rules if, behind them, they didn't have a little bit of plain, ordinary, everyday kindness - yeah, and a little looking out for the other fella, too.
Welcome to Universal University – one of my more insightful blog posts, if I do say so myself.
On my latest commute to South Pasadena, the Uber driver, a young guy under 30, told me he was leaving Uber at the end of the month to take a job in Texas flying drones over a wind farm, at about $20,000 a month. He learned the skills necessary completely on line.
Of course that was not all. He had to pass a credentialing test, and there is the rub. Remove diploma, and you are going to have to have some really serious objective examinations in their place. Age, gender, race considerations will not apply, as the exams will be online and completely objective.
I wouldn't give you two cents for all your fancy rules if, behind them, they didn't have a little bit of plain, ordinary, everyday kindness - yeah, and a little looking out for the other fella, too.
I post on Substack these days. A note I wrote, as I watch Andrew Sullivan, Anne Applebaum – paragons of common sense at one time – lose their heads and reputation over Trump. Thunderdome might also take heed.
[TDS in action is that large segment of the opposition that does not want Trump to act in Iran because . . if the action succeeds . . . it would help Trump. That’s to put the cart before the horse, a metaphor that actually does not do justice to how lunatic the inversion of values is.
I am a Trump opponent and will remain so, but of course I hope that the US intervenes in Iran and that it is successful; that the reorganization of Venezuela improves the lot of Venezuelans; that the fragile truce in Gaza holds up; and that – as improbable as it seems – a peace between the Ukraine and Russia can be brokered. If Trump succeeds in all these, or even partially, of course he’d win the Nobel Peace Prize. Who else?
And he will still not get my vote, because he undercuts all this with a deliberate taunting and narcissistic personal style intended to create anger and frustration. He gloats and sneers. It’s the worst Presidential style imaginable.
But I want him to succeed because the world will be far better off he does. There are an increasing number of idiots (no other word) that would like to see all these efforts fail because . . . if they succeed . . . IT’LL HELP TRUMP! Er. . . help him do what, exactly? Opposition to Trump has become an end in itself, and the means is the failure of all sorts of promising schemes, so much the better.
That’s the essence of Trump Derangement Syndrome.]
Applebaum in particular should by rights have applauded the action against Maduro, and the potential against Iran. But because it’s Trump . . .
I wouldn't give you two cents for all your fancy rules if, behind them, they didn't have a little bit of plain, ordinary, everyday kindness - yeah, and a little looking out for the other fella, too.
I’m a little surprised at this. I’m quite an admirer of Vance, whose career is already extraordinary.
I’m much less conversant with a day-to-day politics and most of the posters on this board, but my instinct is that the Democrats are in hopeless shape on almost every substantive issue that matters to the American public, chained to various extremist groups. Their only asset is the personality of Trump, which is why Biden took such extraordinary measures to keep his candidacy alive – and no, I am not being facetious with that last statement.
There is no substance to AOC. She can hardly answer any substantive question coherently. J D Vance, on the other hand, seems to me to be able to advance the Populist agenda that has been in play since 2016, with considerably more finesse and personal charm than Trump could ever muster. His marriage is another asset. I would not ever vote for Trump because of his obvious personality defects. But I would vote for Vance. I think there are great many voters like me.
You can also stop cocktail party conversation with the arresting insight that, should Vance become president, he will come from the most disadvantaged background of anyone since. . . Abraham Lincoln
Trump is not now, and never has been, a threat to the Republic. He is a threat to a system of ordered values that are so dear to the heart of a coterie academic and intellectual elites that they confuse it with the Republic itself. The resemblance to Andrew Jackson almost exactly 200 years ago is uncanny, down to the personality disorder. (Trump is not nearly so cruel, a good thing.)
Finally, while I am holding forth, please stop confusing any of the wealth surcharges now being proposed ith a comprehensive substitution of a wealth base for income that I advanced for many years, until it became apparent that it was an idea too good for the real world. They have nothing in common.
I wouldn't give you two cents for all your fancy rules if, behind them, they didn't have a little bit of plain, ordinary, everyday kindness - yeah, and a little looking out for the other fella, too.
Barack Obama. My favorite President in terms of personal charm – I’d love to meet the guy – but he turned the Party over to academic liberals between 2009 and 2017.
Thus, the Dear Colleague letters, the trans nonsense, diversity (which most Americans approve as a value) calcifying into DEI, defund the police – who needs police on campus? – and all the rest.
I wouldn't give you two cents for all your fancy rules if, behind them, they didn't have a little bit of plain, ordinary, everyday kindness - yeah, and a little looking out for the other fella, too.
I believe Newsom lost the election, and maybe denomination, when he signed the legislation creating a Reparations Commission
Quite apart from the general unpopularity, not to say absurdity, of the concept, there is the prosaic fact that California entered the Union in 1850 as a free state, as a part of a famous compromise. Slavery was prohibited under the California Constitution from day one.
Newsom’s action epitomizes the problem of Democratic candidates. They have to kowtow to the progressive wing to have any standing in the party, but that dooms them in a general election.
I am looking forward to the presidency of Vance, who I think can go forward with a sensible revisionist regime, without all the histrionics and narcissism of the current President.
I wouldn't give you two cents for all your fancy rules if, behind them, they didn't have a little bit of plain, ordinary, everyday kindness - yeah, and a little looking out for the other fella, too.
A little factoid about JD Vance that stops traffic:
Should be become President, which is certainly possible and maybe even probable, he will come from the most disadvantaged background of any President since . . . Abraham Lincoln.
I wouldn't give you two cents for all your fancy rules if, behind them, they didn't have a little bit of plain, ordinary, everyday kindness - yeah, and a little looking out for the other fella, too.
I’ll leave to the judgment of history who is better, who is worse.
It’s for sure Trump is more entertaining.
I wouldn't give you two cents for all your fancy rules if, behind them, they didn't have a little bit of plain, ordinary, everyday kindness - yeah, and a little looking out for the other fella, too.
Mick,
Thanks. Not every comment matters to me. Yours do.
I wouldn't give you two cents for all your fancy rules if, behind them, they didn't have a little bit of plain, ordinary, everyday kindness - yeah, and a little looking out for the other fella, too.
The Note I actually wrote:
https://substack.com/profile/64073585-frank-dudley-berry-jr/note/c-105479033
I included an acknowledgment of Renz. Substance is close to being a victim of its own success. Everyone and his brother has a blog there.
I’ll stand with my advice. You should consider your own.
I wouldn't give you two cents for all your fancy rules if, behind them, they didn't have a little bit of plain, ordinary, everyday kindness - yeah, and a little looking out for the other fella, too.
I’m going to cut and paste the complete Post on substack, of course claiming complete authorship like the sociopathic thief of intellectual property I am.
You should open a blog there. Much larger audience, potentially. Since Bari Weiss began the Free Press there, some three years ago (to which everyone should subscribe), the platform has become THE place for individual pundits.
I wouldn't give you two cents for all your fancy rules if, behind them, they didn't have a little bit of plain, ordinary, everyday kindness - yeah, and a little looking out for the other fella, too.
I think you may have this one reversed.
More likely the assassin chose the occasion for that reason.
I wouldn't give you two cents for all your fancy rules if, behind them, they didn't have a little bit of plain, ordinary, everyday kindness - yeah, and a little looking out for the other fella, too.
I’m not on that much on any side. The problem since 2016 is that coverage of Trump is a combination of apocalyptic- the Republic is ending, if not the world – and categorical imperative – anything, ANYTHING, is justified in opposition to Trump. (That’s how sensible people end up applauding cabals by the national police force against the sitting President, a much more dangerous precedent than anything Trump has done.)
Getting to specifics, no one seems to dispute these individuals had illegally entered the country, which means they are deportable. After that, everything descends into murk.
I do tend to side with the correctness of the judgments here, not out of any great faith in the Trump Administration, but for practical reasons. I’m talking about money. It is expensive to gather prisoners together, charter a plane and fly them several hundred miles abroad, and I am not even counting the payment due to El Salvador. If you think all this happened by random selection, you are welcome to that opinion. It does not jibe with common sense.
(I hate to disillusion you further about my lack of wisdom, but I had pretty much the same opinion of Guantanamo back in the day. It was prodigiously expensive to identify an individual, fly him halfway across the world, and then house him for an indefinite period of time in a federal medium security prison. If you thought for a second that the Bush Administration was picking up random street peddlers and spending that kind of money, you are welcome to that opinion. It is not how police agencies work. Money matters.)
That said, I would very much like to know the process by which the determinations were made, and why they were not tested by a timely habeas petition a long time before the planes departed. No one seems willing or able to report the actual detail on that.
Finally, the reliance of news services on the statements of interested relatives abroad makes me roll my eyes. It’s like the parents of a mass shooter who tell you he always was a good boy. Are you under the impression that gang members do not also hold blue collar jobs? Because many do. At the end of the day, there is no dispute that all of these individuals were here illegally, which somewhat undercuts the upward mobility narrative.
Conclusion? Tentative, as it must be. If the determination of gang affiliation was fairly made, as noted in my first post, transportation to a foreign prison is the best of the bad alternatives, since Venezuela refused to repatriate these individuals. Nuff said.
I wouldn't give you two cents for all your fancy rules if, behind them, they didn't have a little bit of plain, ordinary, everyday kindness - yeah, and a little looking out for the other fella, too.
