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If… she wasn’t a dumbazz who slept her way into politics and can barely answer any questions, let alone understand them… She was Willie Brown’s sidepiece, her highest and best use.
Along those lines, that’s what pisses me off more than anything. I get that the whole #metoo movement was against sleazy men who traded sexual favors for career advancement, and many women had careers that were cut short because they didn’t sleep with married men.
Those guys were sleaze, but it doesn’t say much for the women who chose to sleep with the married men. They get zero opprobrium, no grief at all, for taking that step…which Kamala Harris did. Where was the outrage when she was sleeping with the married Willie Brown and where was the outrage when he gave her two political appointments (and a BMW, as Brown points out) based upon their affair? If a male politician did that, he wouldn’t get elected dogcatcher, and might end up in jail. Why is a female politician sanctified to the point that the press refuses to address it?
To me, that’s the dark side of the #metoo movement. Sleazy guys like Harvey W. go to jail. Women who engaged in that behavior…nothing.
Biden goes on and on about terrible Washington DC crime…all the way back in 1992.
Biden once warned of rampant DC crime — in 1992: ‘Don’t stop at a stoplight’ | Watch
Every president has expanded surveillance. Every. Single. One. Republican and Democrat, particularly when means of digital communications is growing exponentially. why wouldn’t they?
Here’s a poll for you: A majority of California voters support the state’s independent commission rather than allowing lawmakers to draw congressional boundaries.
Newsom faces uphill climb in California redistricting push, polling shows – POLITICO
Sixty-four percent of California voters support keeping the commission, while only 36 percent support returning redistricting authority to the state legislature, according to the poll. It surveyed 1,445 registered voters from July 28 to August 12.
I’m sure having a political appointee in there will make all the new numbers trustworthy.
I don’t recall you making that sarcastic statement after Democratic political appointees. I must be misremembering.
Two thoughts.
First, 38% of all Americans identify as politically independent, compared with 22% in California. I rather suspect that if you lean Democrat, you are registered as a Democrat. Too many benefits accrue to Democrats. I suspect that a higher percentage of California Independents are like me: former Republican who leans Republican, though I vote left depending on the issue.
Why? Because if you’re anywhere near an urban region in this state, it’s dangerous to be a Republican in this state, and you know it. You get canceled, you get outed, you lose your job.
Second, your 2:1 ratio is incorrect. It’s 17:13.
6 facts about U.S. political independents | Pew Research Center
And now Newsom says he is going forward with this. Dems already have 82.7% of CA’s congressional delegation with 45% of the registered voters.
Newsom: California will redraw maps after ‘missed’ Trump deadline
And separately, America has a baby bust (overall). Let’s face it, this has been an issue for decades. My great grandfather was one of 13 kids. My grandfather had four kids. My dad had four kids. I had two kids, and can’t afford any more.
Raising kids is expensive, at least to do it right. When my dad had his four kids, he was responsible for those four, plus two stepkids, six total. He fed us, clothed us, housed us, educated us. All while he played golf both days every weekend (he was a four handicap, terrific golfer). My parents basically let us raise ourselves. My single Mom literally did, she gave me a key to the apartment when I was nine, along with instructions for cooking, cleaning and laundry.
When my two kids were growing up, I played golf once a year and got the stinkeye for doing that — even though it was during the week as part of the company getaway day. I spent the bulk of my free time raising, educating, training my kids. Yes, it paid off, both graduated from Princeton. I’d have had a third child, but I couldn’t afford it financially, and didn’t have much bandwidth physically.
Millions of parents like me. Almost everyone I know has two or fewer kids. I know one guy with five kids, and two families with three kids. That’s it. And so…the baby bust.
Spoiler alert: guess which guest delivered Fallon’s highest ratings in two years?
Jimmy Fallon Scores Highest Ratings in Nearly 2 Years After Greg Gutfeld Interview
I think it depends on how the economy goes. If Trump can successfully thread the needle — lower rates, strong economy, rebuilds American manufacturing, saves Social Security, tariffs don’t hurt the economy, etc. — then it will go well. If not…it won’t.
I hate to say it, but it doesn’t surprise me.
On the other end of the spectrum, there’s some interesting information. Per a Fast Company article, 28.7% of LA construction workforce is undocumented, 17.5% in manufacturing, 16% in wholesale trade, over 15% in retail trade. In Ventura County, 70% of farm workers are undocumented. In Santa Barbara County, it’s closer to 80%.
In sum, 1/3rd of California jobs are held by immigrants. I lived for four years in Michigan, where the rate is 8.7%. In other words, if you want your car washed (and you need it in Michigan because of the salt slush), an American citizen does it. Ditto for housecleaning, landscaping, entry- and mid-level jobs of most kinds. Yes, you pay a few bucks extra per hour. Yes, business owners make less. And yes, an expensive house in California is $10 million, and an expensive house in Michigan is $1 million.
Please don’t waste my time with “American citizens won’t do those jobs.” Yes, they will. Yes, a major part of California’s economic success is built on the backs of immigrants, and Californians loooooooove to virtue-signal their virtue in their virtuous support of immigrants.
Despite its prosperity, California has the second-highest unemployment rate of any state in the country, and have been in the Bottom Five for Worst Unemployment for decades. Imagine my surprise.
Zeihan, geopolitical expert, thinks that while there will be no Canadian/American merger, he feels that individual Canadian provinces are likely to secede, particularly those whose taxes support Quebec. Specifically, he mentioned Alberta and Saskatchewan as the first two to go.
He mentions those two because (a) they’re relatively wealthy and (b) have young populations and (c) Ontario and Quebec have the bulk of the population and (d) the other provinces are dominated by aging, nonprosperous people. Therefore, at some point, it would not be surprising to see those two provinces leave. And if those two go, British Columbia won’t be far behind.
The Canadian constitution does not prohibit secession, incidentally. That’s why Quebec had a quorum on secession from Canada, which was narrowly averted by requiring other provinces to pay additional funds to Quebec.
Zeihan thinks it would be too costly for the USA, so is unlikely to happen. Regardless, it’s an interesting read.
Will the US and Canada Actually Merge? – Zeihan on Geopolitics
The big Biden adjustment happened in August, 2024 confirming an 818,000 jobs decrease, based upon the once-a-year benchmark revision. Statistically speaking, it is the most accurate figure. It corrects for sampling errors, business openings/closings missed in the monthly sample and misclassification of workers to arrive at the most accurate figure.
Incidentally, that 818,000 figure was reduced to 598,000. Not as well published.
What made it notable is that the typical annual benchmark revision is less than 0.1% whereas this revision was about 0.3% of total civilian employed.
Well, duh. It’s a not-very-well-funded Ponzi scheme. The first person to take money out of Social Security paid in a grand total of $20, and she took out $20,000. None of us are going to get a 1000:1 payout any time soon.
There is no hope for a Social Security payout similar to what prior generations received, when they paid in at 1% and 2% and 3%. I paid in 6.15% most of my career and my draw won’t start until I’m 67, five more years…at which point, benefits are likely to be trimmed by 1/4th to 1/3rd.
The point is that at least those grandmas eating government cheese have the government cheese. My cohort won’t even have that. So I want out of the system. And they can keep half the money. I’ll relieve them of my future burden if they give me the other half. Seems like a good offer to me.
Someone floated a tax free, lump sum payment to remove yourself from Social Security. Depending on the amount, I would likely take it and dump it into an index fund. The issue is, outside of the “Magnificent Seven,” returns on the other components of the S&P 500 aren’t that great. Makes you wonder how the economy is really doing. Also, I think some R&D expensing changes have lead to less innovation. If we had cheap energy, I imagine we would get a better ROI.[/quote]
That was me…my comment was that between me and my employer, we have paid in $656,584 into both Social Security and Medicare. I would be happy to forfeit the employer half to the government, and take my remaining $328k — with 0% return, mind you — just to get out of the system.
As for R&D expensing, that area of the law changes fairly frequently. It pendulums…
