Kamala Harris’s pick of running mate Tim Walz is a political gift to Republicans

In what is expected to be a close presidential election in November, Harris bizarrely passed over the governor of the most critical battleground state, Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, a popular Jewish centrist Democrat who advocated for school vouchers and abolished university credentials as requirements for most public sector jobs.

Instead, she chose to elevate a man few Americans had even heard of until last week, whose relatively radical political record in office places him firmly on the far left of the Democrat party, handing a gift to Republicans less than three months out from polling day.

Consider Walz’s long list of policy ‘achievements’ and political stances that have already gifted Republicans with the attack slogans ‘Tampon Tim’ and ‘Make America Burn Again’.

As governor, Walz signed laws that required tampons in boys’ bathrooms in Minnesota schools, and supported legislation that would see parents in effect lose custody of their children if they refused to approve gender reassignment surgery. He declared Minnesota a “trans refugee state”.

During the Covid-19 pandemic he oversaw among the most draconian lockdowns and vaccine mandates in the nation, policies which however popular at the time, haven’t aged well. He even set up a hotline for the residents of his state to snitch on anyone who was breaking the rules. Last year he signed state legislation that permitted abortion up until the moment of birth.

He’s on the record supporting the ‘defund the police’ movement which emerged following George Floyd’s death in May 2020 in Minnesota’s biggest city Minneapolis, during which he waited three days before calling in the national guard to stop riots that caused massive damage and destruction.

His wife Gwen Walz even recalled savouring the moments in solidarity with the rioters. “I could smell the burning tires … I kept the windows open as long as I could because I felt like that was such a touchstone of what was happening,” she later told a journalist when looking back on the incident.

At a time when American concerns about illegal immigration are at an all time high, Walz signed laws as governor that provided free health care, drivers licences and university education for undocumented immigrants. He tried to lift income tax as governor and supported policies to phase out fossil fuels.

Democrats were apparently impressed with his political smarts in coming up last week with the term “weird” to describe Republicans, but his past stances suggest the term might easily be applied to him

For Harris to be successful in November Walz will need to play well in the critical midwestern battle ground states near Minnesota, such as Michigan and Wisconsin, which are considered critical to victory.

Republicans have already started to cast Harris as the ‘most radical candidate ever’, and it’s far from clear her choice of Walz helps to dispel that characterisation.

After all, he’s the creature of the sole state that Ronald Reagan couldn’t win in his 1984 landslide.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/kamala-harriss-pick-of-running-mate-tim-walz-is-a-political-gift-to-republicans/news-story/9273fa96db29a3ca1bb5977e414f28ce

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Josh Shapiro, Another Victim of Unforgiving Identity Politics

Kamala Harris has made her vice-presidential pick, and it is Tim Walz. In doing so, she forewent the popular Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, reportedly her second choice, who is currently presiding over a crucial swing state with two-thirds of independents approving of him.

Any number of reasons could be given to choose Walz, a former teacher and very Midwestern-looking white man, over the young Shapiro, but one clearly stands out: Shapiro’s Judaism and adamant support for Israel.

In the 2000s, much was made of Cuban Americans and how crucial they were to what at the time was the crucial swing state of Florida.

American Cuban policy was disproportionately distorted through the lens of the small minority of emigres who came to disproportionately populate Florida and the city of Miami—and who split very evenly between Democrats and Republicans. They were the “swing minority” of the time.

Judging by the Democrat senator’s action, she and her campaign see a new minority in the new swing states—the Rust Belt of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota that have a large contingent of Arab Americans.

The states themselves, although cycling back and forth between Democrats and Republicans, also have constituencies that elected “Squad” members like Reps. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., and Ilhan Omar, D-Minn.

Notably, both these congresswomen have been vocal in their disdain for Israel, with Omar saying, “Israel has hypnotized the world, may Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel,” and Tlaib calling Israel’s actions in Gaza “genocide.”

Tlaib’s district has 74,449 people who speak Arabic, nearly 10% of the entire district. Omar’s district has some 32,000 people who speak Somali or other languages from that region of Africa.

Many of these voters are livid about America’s participation in Israel’s war against Gaza, with 64% of Muslim voters saying their sympathy “lies entirely or mostly” with the Palestinians (less than 2% support the Israelis).

Shapiro, unfortunately, expressed support for bills that would penalize college students for speaking out or protesting against Israel, even boycotting Israeli-made products, as the boycott, divestment, and sanction movement prescribes.

He said of the protesters: “We have to query whether or not we would tolerate this if this were people dressed up in KKK outfits or KKK regalia.”

Comparing anti-Israel protesters to the KKK is not the best way to curry favor with the Arab American constituency. In truth, however, Shapiro may simply find himself on the wrong end of the contemporary understanding of identity politics that has entrenched itself in progressive Democrat politics.

Growing up in the ’70s and ’80s an age when antisemitism was a crucial issue and Holocaust survivors were assimilating into American culture, Shapiro dealt with a cultural context in which more Americans supported Zionism, or the right of Jews to live in their ancestral homeland, with criticism over Israel’s policies being less prominent.

One 2021 survey found that 38% of Jewish Americans under the age of 40 believe Israel is an “apartheid state,” while only 13% over 65 do.

He perhaps thought the Democratic establishment would have his back as he decried the antisemitism of the campus protesters. In a move of profound confidence (and maybe even arrogance), he revised his employee code of conduct to bar state employees from demonstrating “scandalous and disgraceful” behavior, right after he sent a May 8 email to colleagues calling for “moral clarity” against “antisemitism” and “hate speech.”

Unfortunately, to a particularly mobilized group of progressive anti-Israel voters, accusations of antisemitism are seen as an impediment to their rights to freely demonstrate against what they see as Israeli-committed genocide and American support thereof.

Witold Walczak, the legal director of the ACLU of Pennsylvania, criticized Shapiro for likening protesters to true antisemites: “If an employee off the job posts, ‘From the river to the sea,’ is that something the governor would consider disgraceful and scandalous?” he said.

Shapiro is also harmed by the fact that he himself is Jewish. Although politics is separate from one’s religious beliefs, Walz, who is Lutheran, is less likely to face immediate scrutiny over his reported support for Israel, saying that support for Israel is “not a Democratic or Republican issue,” according to the Minnesota Post.

Certain segments of the Democratic Party are even engaging in speculation of the notion of having too many Jews so close to the president. NBC News reported on the condition of anonymity a Jewish official expressing what he believes are real voter concerns over this issue.

“The two closest people to the president being Jewish—what long-term impact does that have on us?” the official said, referring also to Harris’s husband, Jewish-American lawyer Doug Emhoff.

This is a wild speculation, but it has basis in history: Winston Churchill once warned his prime minister, David Lloyd George, who was serving as minister of munitions, not to appoint an overbalance of Jews to the Cabinet. In a letter to Lloyd George, he wrote, “There is a point about Jews which occurs to me—you must not have too many of them.”

If Harris skipped over Shapiro, a longtime friend and correspondent in the National Democratic Attorneys General Association, because he is Jewish and a supporter of Israel, she would be acknowledging a reality in the Democratic Party: Critical votes in swing states would be lost if she appointed someone perceived to be on the side of Israel.

The anti-Israel protests have made their political mark and have ushered in a new identity politics movement that will reset our country’s social politics for the next generation and beyond.

https://www.dailysignal.com/2024/08/06/josh-shapiro-another-victim-of-unforgiving-identity-politics/

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

http://jonjayray.com/covidwatch.html (COVID WATCH)

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

http://jonjayray.com/short/short.html (Subject index to my blog posts)

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Brits are finally losing their legendary patience

What Matt Goodwin says below is spot-on but what he leaves unsaid is WHY many Third-world migrants are so toxic to Britain.

They come to Britain hoping to acquire a British standard of living and find that to be beyond their grasp. They just do not have the mental, educational and cultural wherewithall to prosper in Britain and that makes them angry.

They feel angry and ignored and blame Britain for that. Letting them into Britain just makes their difference obvious to them and that hurts. So they strike out at the society that denies them what they had expected and can obviously now never achieve

“The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command”,

So wrote George Orwell in his classic book 1984.

This is the quote that came to mind as I watched Prime Minister Keir Starmer and his Labour government struggle to respond to protests that erupted after three girls were brutally murdered by the son of Rwandan migrants.

But why this quote?

Because that's exactly what Keir Starmer and much of the elite class are now asking us to do —reject the evidence of our eyes and ears.

When Keir Starmer first responded to the protests, he could have made it crystal clear that while there is absolutely no place for violence, his government does understand why so many people are so utterly frustrated and fed-up with the state of Britain.

He could have made the point that while everybody in Britain opposes violence it is clear that many people also hold legitimate concerns about the failure of successive governments to control the borders, lower migration, and maintain law and order.

Had he spoken to protestors, it would have become immediately obvious to Starmer and his team that this was not just about mindless violence or even the tragic events in Southport; it is chiefly about people’s concerns over legal and illegal immigration.

And after clips of marauding Muslim gangs attacking white people went viral, both Keir Starmer and Home Secretary Yvette Cooper could also have made it clear that the rule of law will be applied equally, to all groups, irrespective of race and religion.

But they chose not to do that.

Which is why so many people are now even more disillusioned with what they feel is not just a Labour government but an elite class that is deeply biased and out-of-touch with the rest of the country; a class that is more interested in criticising and attacking the British majority than addressing the reasons they feel so utterly disillusioned.

Unlike Keir Starmer, Yvette Cooper, and much of the ruling class, most normal people in this country know full well that these protests do not begin and end with “far-right thuggery”. Only an elite class that has become dangerously disconnected from the rest of the country would see the protests through this incredibly narrow and warped lens.

These narratives are a coping mechanism for an elite that is visibly struggling to make sense of what is unfolding around it, explanations that help it make sense of these troubling and shocking events but which make little sense to everybody else.

Because for much of the rest of the country, for millions of ordinary British people out there, these events are obviously rooted in the disastrous policies the elite class on both the Left and Right has imposed on Britain for much of the last thirty years.

They are rooted in the deliberate decision to pursue mass immigration, to weaken our borders, to usher in unprecedented cultural changes, to fail to integrate newcomers, and then refuse to tolerate any criticism of these policies.

But they are rooted, too, in a palpable sense of unfairness, hypocrisy, and bias when it comes to this elite class —a class that routinely appears more interested in catering to minorities over the majority, attacking rather than listening to the British majority, and violating the British sense of fair play which is absolutely central to our culture.

Many people today, for example, will have listened to Keir Starmer say “people have a right to feel safe in their country” while asking themselves why his Labour government consistently refuse to prioritise the safety of the British people by controlling who is coming in and out of Britain, deporting foreign criminals, and ensuring criminals remain in prison, not letting thousands onto the streets. Had the elite class stopped the boats and controlled the borders people would not be rioting.

Many people, too, will be wondering why the likes of Keir Starmer, Yvette Cooper, Sadiq Khan, and others routinely talk about “hate” and “thuggery” among the British majority while doing all they can to distract us from asking for the real reasons why our children have been blown up at pop concerts, murdered at dance classes, and subjected to industrial-scale, anti-White rape across dozens of English towns.

Many will also be wondering why the elite class has continued to reshape Britain and its institutions –schools, universities, civil service, museums, galleries, and more—around a corrosive identity politics only to now wonder why the British are organising themselves along similar lines. As even Tommy Robinson has asked, if the lesson of the last few years is that competing identity groups can only gain attention, status, resources, and a voice from the elite class by taking to the streets, as BLM and pro-Hamas supporters did, then why would the white working-class not do the same?

And many people will be wondering if Britain really is the successful multicultural society that the Labour Party and liberals tell us it is then why are we are now watching gangs of Muslims roaming the streets chanting “Allahu Akbar!” rather than waving the Union Jack. Is this what successful multiculturalism looks like?

The elite class does not want us to ask these questions because it cannot answer these questions. To spark this kind of national debate about the policies that have been imposed on the country in recent decades risks threatening the power of this class.

Which is why the elite class is now working overtime to channel us into a much more managed and tightly controlled discussion about things the elite class can control.

They want us to talk about regulating social media. They want us to talk about shutting down alternative views, like those on GB News.

They want us to spend our time demonising counter-cultural writers who have been validated by current events as ‘far right enablers’, ‘apologists’ and ‘grifters’, whose voice should no longer be permitted in a tightly controlled public square.

They want us, in short, to talk about anything and everything except how the policies of the elite class have pushed us to this point —to breaking point.

This is why the narratives promoted by the elite class leave us feeling confused, alienated, and disoriented, unsure if what we think is reality really is reality. And this is why so many people in Britain are quietly asking themselves some questions that reflect this creeping sense of confusion, bewilderment, and unfairness.

Is the elite class calling for clampdowns the same class that cheered on protests by the revolutionary Black Lives Matter, which hates the West and praises Hamas?

Is the elite class that was so quick to talk about the legitimate grievances behind BLM rioting across the West the same class that now refuses to acknowledge this “far-right thuggery” is rooted in wider grievances among the British population?

Is Keir Starmer, the man denouncing these protests as “far-right thuggery”, the same Keir Starmer who rushed to Take the Knee days after Black Lives Matter protestors broke the law, injured nearly 30 police officers and defaced national monuments?

And is he the same Keir Starmer who openly praised Extinction Rebellion and leads a government whose MPs have openly socialised and engaged with Islamist extremists?

Is the elite class that is rushing to denounce the protests the same class that remained largely silent as antisemites and Islamists marched up and down the country celebrating the murder and rape of Jews, or simply denying these things took place?

Are many of the towns that are experiencing the most serious violence today, like Rotherham, the same ones where at least 1,400 young white girls were raped by Muslim gangs, a scandal Labour elites said it was “racist” to talk about?

Are the people causally implying that much of the country is “far right” the same ones who tied themselves in knots over whether they should call Hamas “terrorists”?

Are the police chiefs who deny there is two-tier policing the same ones who watched their officers Take the Knee and join Muslim show trials after an autistic boy was threatened for lightly scuffing a copy of the Koran?

The elite class does not want us to ask these questions because to do so would threaten the dominance of a class that is no longer confident and secure in its position. This is why it is now trying to justify even harsher restrictions on free speech, free expression, free assembly, and dissent.

This is why terms like “far right” and “Islamophobia” will now be expanded to silence and stigmatise not only those idiotic thugs who are destroying their own communities but millions of ordinary people who both object to those thugs and the disastrous policies the elite class has imposed on them from above.

This is why we will be told that in order to defend democracy we must not change the direction of travel but rather give up even more of our freedoms and rights, shut down alternative media, deplatform dissenters, and hand even more power to the elite class.

This is why Keir Starmer’s first instinct was not to acknowledge the wider public mood, speak across party lines and set out a plan of action but instead announce tighter restrictions and enhanced state surveillance to manage “the far right”.

So too was it revealing that a senior government advisor, Lord Woodcock, openly called for Covid-style lockdowns to shut down the protests and squash dissent.

And so too was it revealing that even one candidate for the leadership of the Conservative Party suggested the state ban the English Defence League –a street movement that has not operated in any serious way for more than a decade.

In this way, the elite class calls to defend liberalism while simultaneously ushering in a dark new authoritarianism that is not liberal at all. Stifling and suffocating debate, shutting down dissent, and screaming at writers who challenge this groupthink are not the signs of an elite class that is confident and comfortable in its own position; they are the signs of an elite class that can sense it is starting to lose control.

And now many people out there can see it for themselves. So, this is not simply about “far-right thuggery”; this is about the unravelling and disastrous effects of an elite project that’s hollowed out, divided, and weakened Britain over many years.

A project that has subjected the British people and their children to increasing crime, chaos, communalism, the balkanisation of their communities, and increasingly chilling atrocities while simultaneously expecting the British people not to react at all.

What Keir Starmer needs to do —right now— is stop talking only about “far right thuggery” and start talking about violent offenders from all communities.

Starmer and Yvette Cooper need to stop talking only about defending mosques and start talking about defending all of our communities.

They need to stop obsessing about notions of “misinformation” and social media and start recognising that people's concerns about illegal and legal immigration are legitimate and need addressing.

They need to stop pretending two-tier policing has not happened, acknowledge mistakes were made and recommit all public institutions to political neutrality.

And they need to start showing they are dealing with the underlying issues by, firstly, doing whatever necessary to regain control of our borders and slow the pace of immigration and segregation in this country. And they need to start doing all these things now.

Because while the elite class might tell people in Orwellian fashion to ignore the evidence of their eyes and ears, what the events of the last few days reveal is that a rapidly growing number of people in this country are now refusing to play along.

The curtain in this country is being pulled back to reveal not just the mindless thugs who have become useful idiots for the elite class but, more importantly, for a much larger number of people, what the policies of this elite class have done to Britain.

And now that the curtain has been pulled back, and the light has poured in, it cannot simply be closed —no matter what the elite class might tell us.

https://www.mattgoodwin.org/p/no-this-is-not-just-far-right-thuggery

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

http://jonjayray.com/covidwatch.html (COVID WATCH)

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

http://jonjayray.com/short/short.html (Subject index to my blog posts)

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Big medical day today

So no new blog posts. Should be back tomorrow

Harris Gets Caught In A Shameless Lie Right Out Of The Gate

When CNN calls out a Democrat for lying, it’s worth sitting up and taking notice. That’s just what happened last week, after Kamala Harris’ first campaign rally.

“Donald Trump wants to take our country backward,” she said in Milwaukee. “He and his extreme Project 2025 agenda. Like, we know we got to take this seriously. And can you believe they put that thing in writing? Read it. It’s 900 pages.

“When you read it,” she goes on, “you will see Donald Trump intends to cut Social Security and Medicare. They intend to end the Affordable Care Act and take us back, then, to a time when insurance companies had the power to deny people with preexisting conditions.”

CNN, to its credit, read the 900-page document, or at least skimmed it, and in an article headlined “Fact check: Harris falsely claims Project 2025 blueprint calls for cutting Social Security,” it reports that:

The Project 2025 document does not show that Trump intends to cut Social Security; the document barely discusses Social Security at all and does not propose cuts to the program. In addition, contrary to Harris’ suggestion, Project 2025 does not call to ‘end’ the Affordable Care Act or eliminate its protections for people with pre-existing conditions. The document does criticize the Affordable Care Act, especially the law’s expansion of Medicaid, but makes clear it is advocating changes to the law rather than terminating the law entirely. (emphasis added)

In other words, Harris is just making sh*t up.

But that’s not all she’s lying about. The claim that Project 2025 is a “Trump agenda” is also a lie.

Project 2025 is a project led by the Heritage Foundation, which brought together more than 100 conservative organizations to detail a policy agenda that it published in a book early last year called “Mandate for Leadership.” This a guide that Heritage has been publishing every four years since 1980. The purpose is to provide the next administration with an encyclopedia of policy prescriptions endorsed by conservatives. Up until this year, nobody outside policy circles noticed.

Trump himself has repeatedly made it clear that his campaign wasn’t involved in Project 2025 and has lately started calling some of its ideas “extremist.” Which is an unfortunate sop on his part to the left’s coordinated campaign to demonize the policy document.

The Project 2025 lies had gotten so bad that Heritage had to put up an entire page debunking them, and internet memes started popping up making fun of the horror stories being spread, such as the one below.

Last week, the Harris team admitted that it’s been lying about Project 2025.

A campaign official told CNN that Harris “made a deliberate decision to brand all of Trump’s policies” as “Project 2025,” since they believe “it has stuck with voters.”

In other words, lying is fine, so long as it’s for the “greater good” of defeating Trump.

It’s still lying. After Project 2025’s director stepped down, with the Trump campaign cheering that on, the Harris campaign said “Project 2025 is on the ballot because Donald Trump is on the ballot. This is his agenda, written by his allies, for Donald Trump to inflict on our country.” And then it repeated the lie about how it includes “cuts to Social Security and Medicare, repeal of the Affordable Care Act, dirtier air and water, and empowering Trump to destroy American democracy.”

Expect much, much, much more of the same from Harris over the next three months. Just don’t expect the rest of the corporate media to do what CNN did and call her out on any of it.

To view online: https://issuesinsights.com/2024/08/01/harris-gets-caught-in-a-big-fat-lie-right-out-of-the-gate/

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Monthly mortgage payments have more than doubled since Jan. 2021 as Harris bragged we are ‘putting a lot of money in the streets of America’

By Robert Romano

“We gave them a great country with essentially no inflation. And after two years, they drove this country and they drove inflation through the roof. Two years, cost of living went up in some cases by over 50 percent. They say 22 percent. They like to say 22 but it could be much higher and it is much higher depending on what they include. They don't include things like interest rates...”

That was former President Donald Trump speaking at the Bitcoin Conference on July 27, stating that once interest rates and other increases are included, the cost of living has skyrocketed for American households.

Trump is right. There is no question.

In fact, monthly mortgage payments with higher interest rates and greater home values have more than doubled since Jan. 2021, according to an analysis of Federal Reserve and Freddie Mac data. Let’s break it down.

According to the Freddie Mac home price index, home values in the U.S. have increased by 35 percent since Jan. 2021. Meaning a house that cost $250,000 then would go for $337,000 today.

Additionally, 30-year mortgage interest rates have increased from about 2.65 percent on Jan. 7, 2021 to a current 6.78 percent, according to Federal Reserve data.

Using an amortization calculator, that shows if you purchased a home for $250,000 before former President Donald Trump left office, with the low interest rate of 2.65 percent, the monthly payment with principal and interest would be $1007.

Now, say you had to refinance for whatever reason, or get a new mortgage for a home priced at $250,000, at 6.78 percent, the monthly payment rises to $1,626. That’s a 61.4 percent increase.

But home values did not remain the same. With inflation drive up average home values by 35 percent, the home that cost $250,000 in 2021 now costs $337,000. That’s great if you’re selling your home, not so great if you’re buying one.

Then, with the higher interest rate of 6.78 percent, the monthly payment on the $337,000 mortgage rises to $2,192. That is an 117 percent increase in monthly mortgage payments — for the same house!

One impact of these catastrophic cost of living increases is it is killing home sales. In Jan. 2021, existing home sales were at a seasonally adjusted, annualized rate of 6.69 million units sold. Whereas, by June 2024, it is all the way down to an annualized 3.89 million units sold, as 41.8 percent decrease.

As a result, the Fed has had to keep its own interest rate high at 5.25 percent to 5.5 percent in its July 31 meeting as it acknowledged that inflation “remains somewhat elevated.” No kidding.

And so, the cost of shelter in the Consumer Price Index measured by the Bureau of Labor Statistics is up just 21.6 percent since Jan. 2021. It’d be even higher, but Americans cannot afford to move with the crushing inflation.

That is the price of inflation, and the cost of the nearly $7 trillion printed, borrowed and spent into existence in both 2020 and 2021.

Apparently, the $2.2 trillion spent on the overwhelmingly bipartisan CARES Act in 2020 that Republicans and Democrats supported was not enough for the then-incoming President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. Not even as 16 million out of the 25 million jobs temporarily lost during Covid were already recovered by Jan. 2021.

By the time Trump left office, the M2 money supply had already increased by $4.1 trillion, almost 27 percent, from $15.29 trillion in Jan. 2020 to $19.4 trillion in Jan. 2021.

The context was the national and global economy were locked down, schools closed, millions out of work and prices were collapsing. For example, oil briefly went below zero dollars a barrel as Americans stopped driving to work.

No, Biden and Harris wanted an economic stimulus of their own to take “credit” for, and so another $1.9 trillion for the very partisan American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 that only Democrats supported was spent by Congress and signed into law by Biden.

Throwing more fuel onto the fire, Biden then proposed and the Democratic-led Congress passed the so-called Inflation Reduction Act with $891 billion of green energy subsidies and other spending included. Biden signed it and Harris supported it.

By April 2022, the M2 money supply had increased another $2.6 trillion to $22 trillion, a further 13.6 percent.

Making matters worse, the Federal Reserve waited until consumer inflation was already at 7.5 percent in Jan. 2022 and Russia invaded Ukraine in Feb. 2022 exacerbating the global supply chain crisis before it began hiking interest rates in March 2022 to curtail the consequences, intended and unintended, of all the spending. By June 2022, consumer inflation peaked at 9.1 percent.

Note that within a month of the Fed beginning the interest rate hike cycle, the M2 money supply peaked. But the Fed could have acted much sooner. By June 2021, consumer inflation had already crossed to 5.4 percent after Congress acted again. If Congress had not created the additional stimulus in 2021 and the Fed had just begun raising interest rates in the first half of 2021, about half or more of the pain being felt now could have already been alleviated, and President Biden would likely be cruising to reelection.

In other words, there definitely was going to be inflation even if Biden-Harris had done nothing on the fiscal side, which was precisely the thing to do. Congress and the Fed had already primed the pump sufficiently at that stage. But they kept going, along with the Fed, which by that point should have already begun hiking interest rates but didn’t, and so both unnecessarily extended the stimulus all the way through 2021 and into 2022.

And Harris took credit for it. On April 29 at the Economic Opportunity Tour in Atlanta, Ga. Harris stated, unironically, “we are in the process of putting a lot of money in the streets of America…” Yup. We know.

While the American people have been paying the price for all the inflation the entire time, it could be Harris who finally pays the price in November, as voters angry with the status quo say it’s time for a change when they head to the polls. Stay tuned.

Robert Romano is the Vice President of Public Policy at Americans for Limited Government Foundation.

https://dailytorch.com/2024/08/monthly-mortgage-payments-have-more-than-doubled-since-jan-2021-as-harris-bragged-we-are-putting-a-lot-of-money-in-the-streets-of-america/

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

http://jonjayray.com/covidwatch.html (COVID WATCH)

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

http://jonjayray.com/short/short.html (Subject index to my blog posts)

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The SIX fatal secrets about Harris's dirty past, her lies and hypocrisy that she'll wish you didn't know

Just because Joe Biden isn't capable of being president doesn't mean Kamala Harris is.

Yet we are now suffering through another unthinking coronation by the liberal media, their emotional incontinence soiling any iota of critical thought.

The great exhale after pushing out Biden – a president shunted into power by a Democrat elite that knew, all too well, how compromised he was, cognitively and otherwise – has given way not to reassessment but to re-enactment.

Rather than learn from their past, Dems and their establishment enablers are basking in a post-Joe glow while making the same mistake again: unifying behind a candidate who is patently unsuited to the job.

To elect Kamala Harris would be disastrous for many reasons, least of all this: It would mean that America, after realizing that a shadow government may have been in control for the last four years, is perfectly comfortable with electing another figurehead. A puppet.

A healthy political party would be in revolt. But not the Dems, who can assuredly point to Harris's surging poll numbers.

Some surveys already have her overtaking Donald Trump in swing states, while her approval rating steadily rises.

Hollywood loves her. The megadonors are back to the tune of $200 million and counting. The party has coalesced around Kamala while Team Trump finds itself, just weeks after the attempted assassination, on the back foot.

Kamala's ascendancy is a 'sucker punch', according to Trump's running mate J.D. Vance, who was recorded speaking freely at a fundraiser in Minnesota on July 21.

'The bad news,' Vance said, 'is that Kamala Harris does not have the same baggage as Joe Biden… [she] is a lot younger [and] obviously not struggling in the same ways.'

All true. And Trump is already on the defensive, out front making race-baiting remarks about the pronunciation of Harris's first name, blasting her as 'crazy' and seemingly running scared from agreeing to debate her.

Meanwhile, Vance is struggling to dig himself out of the 'childless cat ladies' comment — one that, in a post-Roe era, lands terribly with female swing voters.

So, yes, Trump and Vance are in new terrain. But this Harris bump will end.

Why? Simply put, Kamala Harris is not the best candidate.

She is not the brightest. She is a political hack, a mediocrity who — like her current boss — found herself the beneficiary of luck and timing rather than grit and intellect.

If anything binds Biden and Harris, it's this unfortunate trait: Both seem to know, deep down, that they're frauds. That their ambition long ago outstripped their competence.

It's why Biden is given to cringeworthy displays of what he sees as machismo: The 'make my day, pal' threat to Trump pre-debate, or the oft-told tale of taking down 'Cornpop' at the community pool.

Real tough guys don't tell you they're tough, just as genuinely smart people don't tell you they're smart.

Kamala never seems quite comfortable in her own skin, and that's a fatal flaw in a presidential candidate.

Even her ex-lover Willie Brown, the now 90-year-old former Mayor of San Francisco who helped ease her way into politics, doesn't think Harris has what it takes.

Harris, as he recently told Politico, suffers from 'the Hillary syndrome… people don't like her.'

And when Harris has to speak for herself and do so off-the-cuff, she can't.

Here is just one example of her tautological word salad, after a mass shooting in Chicago in 2022:

'We've got to take this stuff seriously', she said to local press, 'as seriously as you are because you have been forced to take this seriously.'

There's a reason that the HBO satire 'Veep' — in which Julia Louis-Dreyfus played a vainglorious, incurious, power-mad politician who lucked into the Oval Office — is enjoying a resurgence.

'The crazier politics gets,' showrunner David Mandel said recently, 'the more 'Veep' holds up.'

Except 'Veep' never predicted Trump. And it seems at least one party elder had to be dragged over to Team Harris.

Yes, none other than Barack Obama, who called for an open nominating process at the Democratic National Convention in a written statement just hours after Biden announced he would step aside.

'I have extraordinary confidence that the leaders of our party will be able to create a process from which an outstanding nominee emerges,' Obama wrote.

Kamala Harris went unmentioned.

One would think that Obama, of all people, would quickly get behind the candidacy of the first female president, herself black. But no.

'Obama is very upset,' a source told the New York Post last week, 'because he knows she can't win'.

As the liberal media luxuriates in 'Kamalot' and 'Kamalove', let's look at why Obama — despite latterly joining wife Michelle to publicly, awkwardly endorse Harris — might well be distressed.

And why top Dem strategist James Carville says he is sure Harris's high approval ratings will fall once this honeymoon period ends.

'She's going to get slaughtered,' Carville said last week.

And why Squad member Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, days before Biden stepped aside, took to social media to reveal that the party itself had doubts about Harris.

'If you think there is a consensus among the people who want Joe Biden to leave… that they would support Vice President Harris, you would be mistaken,' she said.

Let's count the reasons why.

No.1: Harris owns the border

Despite attempts by the liberal media to claw back Harris's appointment as Biden's 'border czar', it is indisputably true that she was deputized as such.

'Harris, appointed by Biden as border czar, said she would be looking at the 'root causes' that drive migration' – that's a report from Axios dated April 14, 2021.

By the end of this administration, an estimated 10 million migrants will have crossed into the United States illegally.

Among those are potentially hundreds of known terrorists. And then there's the unknown number of 'gotaways' who have evaded border control.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott told Fox News on Monday that Harris has contacted him 'zero times' throughout her tenure.

Here's Harris during her infamous June 2021 interview with NBC's Lester Holt, who asked why she still hadn't been to the border:

Harris: 'We've been to the border.'

Holt: 'You haven't been to the border.'

Harris: 'I haven't been to Europe.' [Awkward cackling] 'I don't understand the point that you're making.'

No.2: She has repeatedly vouched for Biden's physical and cognitive health

Harris has done this for years, insisting as recently as February that 'we have a very bold and vibrant president in Joe Biden… Our president is in good shape, in good health, and is ready to lead in our second term'.

There are only two explanations for this: Either Harris was kept so far out of the president's loop, privy to nothing of importance, that she had no idea he was in such terrible shape.

Or, more likely to my mind, she lied to the American people out of self-interest.

No.3: She's an alleged bully

Since taking office as VP, Harris has had a staff turnover rate of almost 92 percent, according to a top government watchdog.

Such churn-and-burn has apparently been a Harris hallmark throughout her two decades in public service.

She is reportedly well-known for cursing out her staff, for chasing her most talented hires out the door, and refusing to read her briefing books, then exploding at her staff for being unprepared.

'It's clear that you're not working with somebody who is willing to do the prep and the work,' one ex-staffer told the Washington Post in 2021. 'With Kamala, you have to put up with a constant amount of soul-destroying criticism and also her own lack of confidence. So you're constantly sort of propping up a bully and it's not really clear why.'

Again, Harris shares these failings — the alleged lashings-out at loyal staff, the tantrums and the blame-shifting — with President Biden. It all speaks to someone intellectually, interpersonally incapable of executing the most stressful job in the world.

No.4: Even for a politician, she's particularly craven

After accusing Biden of backing historically racist policies during a televised June 2019 presidential debate — causing Biden to reportedly say during a commercial break, 'Well, that was some f***ing bull****', and forever earning the enmity of Jill Biden — Harris, who dropped out of that race with a 3 percent approval rating, accepted his VP slot.

Biden, remember, caved to pressure to select a black woman as his running mate.

She has also shamelessly shape-shifted from being a tough-on-crime prosecutor, who oversaw more than 1,900 marijuana convictions, to a pro-defund-the-police ally.

Now, of course, she's backtracking once more, tacking center, and boasting of her time in law enforcement.

No.5: Zero foreign policy experience and zero backbone

Harris' husband, Doug Emhoff, is Jewish, yet Harris caves to the radicals in her own party, refusing to attend Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's wartime address to Congress last week.

When she finally did meet him, Harris warned Netanyahu that 'I will not be silent' over Gaza and that while Israel 'has the right to defend itself' (how condescending), 'how it does so matters'.

Days later, Hezbollah launched rockets into an Israeli playground, killing 12 children and injuring many more.

No.6: No stated premise or philosophy

'We're not going back' is the emerging Harris slogan, and I will say this – it's ingenious.

It allows the voter to project whatever meaning they like, and for women, many will surely interpret this as a call to restore reproductive rights in full. Such is the minefield the Trump-Vance ticket must navigate.

That said, Harris has no existential reason for running. She has no record, no real cause to show after four years as VP.

Right now, she's running on the fumes of relief and emotion, the attempt to turn her into your 'cool wine aunt', a Gen Z 'brat' who is messy and relatable – but this all has a very short shelf life.

If Kamala Harris can't project confidence, purpose and a real, actionable agenda, she will remain nothing but a figurehead — another empty suit that the true Dem powerbrokers put forward as their latest useful idiot.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13695051/Kamala-Harris-Trump-election-MAUREEN-CALLAHAN.html

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

http://jonjayray.com/covidwatch.html (COVID WATCH)

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

http://jonjayray.com/short/short.html (Subject index to my blog posts)

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Harris’ ‘Equal Outcomes’ Is Dangerous To Your Rights

“There’s an attack right now on diversity, equity, and inclusion… where supposed, so-called extreme leaders are suggesting it’s a bad thing to care about and pay attention to inequities, to say DEI is a bad thing, when in fact, if we want fair outcomes, we must understand what are disparities and then accommodate and adjust for those disparities, if we want equal outcomes.”

That was Vice President Kamala Harris outlining her vision for equity and “equal outcomes” at a panel at Hampton University in Virginia in Sept. 2023.

Equity sounds like such a benign concept, often confused with its sister word, equality. But the two words have very different meanings.

Equality is equal opportunity under the law. Where every American can achieve according to their abilities and the work they put into it regardless of race, color, creed or religion.

Equity means equal outcomes. Where every American is allocated the same amount of wealth regardless of their achievement, effort or value they add.

Harris understands this important distinction because she stated, “if you don’t start on the same base — everybody can have an equal amount — you’re still not going to end up on the same base, right? If we want equal outcomes, we need to take into account not everybody starts out on the same base. And we have to make adjustments.”

Why does this matter?

Because this is no different than Karl Marx’s “From each according to his ability to each according to his needs” in his 1875 Critique of the Gotha Programme.

This is the presumptive Democrat nominee for president, Kamala Harris, on record as supporting equity over equality, where she declared that she wants to “put equity firmly at the center of our economic policy,” as she told U.S. Department of Treasury in Dec. 2021.

While it should not come as any surprise that the left favors redistribution of wealth and the right less so, it used to be rare for a candidate to so blatantly declare the desire to use government to force “equal outcomes.” But post-fundamental transformation neo-Marxism is the new normal and Kamala Harris’ support for equal outcomes should not surprise.

When taken in the context of the insistence by the left that they are “defending” democracy, it is important to remember that true democracy can be explained as two big kids coming up to a third kid and voting two to one to take his bicycle, which was why the Framers settled on a constitutional limited government instead with the separation of powers and property rights duly protected under law.

Vice President Harris’ constant refrain about reimagining the world “unburdened by what has been,” as she told administration officials at the Eisenhower Office Building in March 2022, clearly demonstrates her willingness to use draconian measures to achieve equity through forced redistribution by a government unmoored from constitutionally restrictions.

In this broader context it becomes more obvious that using government to achieve equal outcomes ends the precept of equal treatment under the law, since when outcomes are unequal, whether on the basis of race, sex or something else, the government must, per Harris, “adjust for those disparities.”

Equal outcomes means that the doctor who sacrificed and went to school for a decade receiving extensive training while sacrificing the first thirty years of his or her life to become a brain surgeon should be compensated the same as a drugged out high school drop-out who contributes nothing of value.

Equal outcomes means that the inventor who poured his heart, soul and wealth into creating a new way to convert hydrogen into fuel for private vehicles should have that invention forcibly taken away by the government and made free for anyone to use with the inventor getting no extra compensation or value for his dedication, investment and sacrifice.

Equal outcomes means that everyone playing in the National Basketball Association gets paid the same as anyone in any other job. But, since the decision of who gets to play in the NBA will be made based upon a talent-blind selection system, it is doubtful that anyone would watch it anyway.

Equal outcomes means that the student who studies to get grades to allow them to go to the college of their choice will then be put into a weighted merit-free lottery of all students to determine admissions.

So, under this equity equation why would anyone strive to achieve?

They wouldn’t. This is why societies which try to force equal outcomes fail.

What Kamala Harris and her ilk won’t tell the voting public is that she supports unconstitutional affirmative action college admissions standards which discriminate against Asian-American and white students in clear violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act and the Fourteenth Amendment.

She won’t tell you that equity is the excuse for lowering qualification standards so that underrepresented groups can qualify for a job that they physically cannot perform. In fact, the entire Diversity, Equity and Inclusion movement is designed to force hiring quotas that have little to do with the ability to succeed in the job in clear violation of the Civil Rights Act and the Fourteenth Amendment on the same basis.

And it should surprise no one that a candidate chosen for the Vice Presidency due to the color of her skin and sex, should embrace the same standard that led to her ascension.

Kamala Harris is the completion of the fundamental transformation of America. The only question is whether the country reject her radical ideology — or embrace it.

https://dailytorch.com/2024/07/harris-equal-outcomes-is-dangerous-to-your-rights/

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Don’t Expect New Sanctions on Russia to Do Anything

Although, in the wake of attacks by Iran-supported groups in the Middle East, a senior White House adviser claimed that “extreme sanctions” had throttled the Iranian energy sector, a New York Times investigation reported that the country was still exporting billions of dollars of oil. The investigative report—complete with substantial photographic evidence of sanctions evasion by oil tankers coming from Iranian ports or transshipping oil to other tankers at sea—blows a big hole in the White House narrative of effectively ratcheting up the pressure on Iran for its proxies’ attacks on U.S. military activities in the region.

The Times reported that the end-run around sanctions is occurring by the tankers, insured for liability by a U.S. company, spoofing their GPS locations by broadcasting fake locations while picking up oil at Iranian ports or transferring Iranian oil to other nations’ tankers at sea. Shipowners willing to violate the sanctions get a premium on their normal commissions and importing countries choosing to ignore them—in this case, China—get oil at a cheaper price than normal.

Similar evasion has occurred with trying to limit Russian exports of oil in the wake of its 2022 invasion of Ukraine. In that case, because Russia is such a big oil producer, the aim was not to choke off all its oil exports—which could have resulted in a sustained elevation in the world price of oil, thereby endangering the election prospects of certain Western politicians—but to create a price ceiling under which only Russian oil could be sold. Enforcing this price ceiling regime is difficult too. Spoofing tanker locations and oil transfers at sea can also help hide the origin of Russian oil to evade the price ceiling. The Times also found spoofing on cargoes of sanctioned Venezuelan oil exports.

And economic sanctions on oil exports are not the only ones that can be flouted. Sanctions can be unilaterally imposed or multilaterally promulgated by a cartel of countries. Unless a single country imposing the sanctions has a monopoly (is a single seller) or a monopsony (is a single buyer—in which case unilateral sanctions might substantially raise or lower the price of the product, respectively, thus hurting target country—unilateral sanctions usually are merely symbolic to indicate displeasure with target by the sanctioning nation. Getting other countries to go along with sanctions to form a sanctioning cartel—as the United States normally attempts—can increase the price effects but rarely can completely cut off the target from importing or exporting target products because of the evasion techniques, including those above.

Multilateral sanctions take more time to coordinate and implement than unilateral sanctions and may bite for a while, but then most target countries learn ways to substantially evade them over time. The sanctions against Russia for its invasion (and likely the ones to be imposed for the death of dissident Alexei Navalny), and on Iran and Venezuela for behaviors the United States doesn’t like, have all had some economic effect, but they cannot be evaluated for success solely by short- or long-term economic pain inflicted. They have in fact not radically changed those countries’ actions.

Economic sanctions are economic punishments used to achieve political ends. Even if the sanctions are comprehensive (on all exports and imports of the target nation), very multilateral with many countries participating, and thus inflicting excruciating economic pain for a time, they often fail politically. Sanctions are usually more successful with limited goals—for example, getting a target nation to stop a minor specific behavior. They are usually unsuccessful in achieving major changes in target policy or governance.

Some of the most severe sanctions ever deployed did not compel Saddam Hussein to rescind his invasion of Kuwait in 1990, have not yet motivated Vladimir Putin to withdraw his invasion force from Ukraine, and have not caused Iran or North Korea to end their nuclear programs and behave better internationally. Sanctions from abroad may have had some role in getting South Africa to abandon apartheid, but forces internal to the country were the driving force behind it.

So, if economic sanctions can have a high cost to both sanctioning and target nations and don’t have a high success rate in achieving major political goals, why do countries—especially the United States, the leading user of such tactics—still use them? The answer is that sanctions have symbolic value. In the sanctioning country, imposing sanctions to show concern about the target nation’s policy to the watching international community—and, most importantly, to important internal political audiences—is often a middle ground between a seemingly lame diplomatic protest and an over-the-top military or covert attack on the target.

Many times, policymakers choosing the Goldilocks option of sanctions may not even believe the measures are likely to achieve their political goal or even, considering likely rampant evasion, cause much economic distress on the target; nevertheless, they are relatively sure that the purported economic punishment will serve the symbolic goal of showing that they are “doing something” about the target’s outrageous behavior. The sanctions for Navalny’s death aren’t really aimed at Russia, then; they’re aimed at you.

https://www.independent.org/news/article.asp?id=14847&omhide=true&trk=reltitle

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

http://jonjayray.com/covidwatch.html (COVID WATCH)

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

http://jonjayray.com/short/short.html (Subject index to my blog posts)

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Another deletion

The post here dated 1 July, 2024 has been deletedby Google but it is still available under that date here:

http://jonjayray.com/covjul24.html

J.D. Vance is right, ‘we’re not having enough children’ and plummeting fertility is a ‘civilizational crisis’

“There aren’t enough babies being born in our country… This is a civilizational crisis, and if we’re not willing to spend resources to solve it, we’re not serious about the very real problems that we face.”

That was Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) in 2021 before he was elected in 2022, speaking at the Intercollegiate Studies Institute’s Future of American Political Economy Conference in Alexandria, Virginia, addressing declining fertility rates all around the world that threaten population and economic collapse.

He’s right.

First on the numbers, the amount of newborns is definitely declining, the latest birth rate numbers from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) shows, to 1.61 live births per woman in 2023.

That’s even lower than it was in 2020 during the Covid pandemic, when it was 1.63 babies per woman, according to CDC data, as the U.S., Japan, South Korea and Europe all continue experiencing significant declines.

The drop in fertility has been a long term trend, from 3.6 babies per woman in 1960 to 1.61 babies per woman now in 2023 after birth control was approved by the FDA in 1960, and combined with women going to college, entering the labor force and deferring child-rearing or foregoing it altogether.

Why is this a problem?

If women have fewer than two babies each, the population has to decline, fewer than one and it collapses, and if they have no babies, within a very short generation the human race will go extinct. It’s that simple.

In the meantime, the collapse of institutions is easy enough to witness, with labor shortages for schools, health care, postal workers and so forth as the Baby Boomer retirement wave continues.

And it’s breaking the budget with comparatively fewer taxpayers, with the explosion of the U.S. national debt, now $34.99 trillion. Since 1963 through 2022, the percent growth of revenues has averaged 6.9 percent a year to its present level of $4.65 trillion, according to data compiled by the White House Office of Management and Budget.

In the meantime, mandatory spending including net interest owed on the national debt has grown an average 8.87 percent a year to its current level of $4.64 trillion.

And discretionary spending has grown an average 5.5 percent a year to its current level of $1.735 trillion.

In fact, since 2011, discretionary spending has only grown 1.99 percent a year.

Meanwhile, since 2011, mandatory spending grew an average 7.7 percent a year.

And revenues grew an average 7.26 percent.

In fact, the entire discretionary budget of $1.736 trillion for 2023 could be eliminated right now — eliminating every department, agency and firing every federal employee including the military — and the budget would still not be balanced as the debt grew by $1.855 trillion in 2023.

In the meantime, Social Security will grow from $1.346 trillion to $2.37 trillion in 2033 amid the Baby Boomer retirement wave, a 76 percent increase.

Medicare will grow from $821 billion to $1.84 trillion, a 124 percent increase.

Medicaid will grow from $608 billion to $928 billion, a 52 percent increase.

These are the drivers of the budget, accounting for 52 percent of all federal spending by 2033. Once interest and other mandatory spending is accounted for, mandatory spending will account 77.8 percent of all federal spending, up from its current level of 72.7 percent.

The reason is simple, as the percentage of the working age population over the age of 65 continues to rapidly increase — since 1960, when the FDA approved birth control, it has gone from 16 percent of the population to 26 percent of the population and rising — and with it the $34.5 trillion U.S. national debt, data from the World Bank and the U.S. Treasury shows.

At the same time, as the growth rate of the working age population participating in the civilian labor force has dramatically slowed down thanks to plummeting fertility, so has nominal economic growth, Bureau of Labor Statistics and Bureau of Economic Analysis data shows.

There are two simultaneous outcomes that emerge. First, as the population rapidly ages, so too do Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid expenditures that seniors depend on explode.

In the meantime, thanks to slower growth, revenues will continue not to keep pace with expenditures. Revenues will increase from $4.6 trillion in 2023 to $7.4 trillion, a $2.5 trillion or 51 percent increase over ten years. But expenditures will grow even faster, with outlays growing from $6.37 trillion in 2022 to $9.9 trillion by 2033, a $3.7 trillion or a 55.4 percent increase over the next decade.

The White House Office of Management and Budget projects the national debt to skyrocket to more than $50 trillion by 2033, but that’s low-balling it. The debt has grown by about 8 percent a year since 1980 once recessions and wars are factored. At that rate, it should be about $65 trillion to $70 trillion by 2033 and $100 trillion by 2037 or so, well north of 200 percent debt to GDP.

The reason is because there are comparatively fewer taxpayers versus those receiving benefits as the structural deficit widens due to the drop in fertility.

But that’s enough to make your eyes bleed. Imagine it more simply: If a village has 100 people, 50 men and 50 women, and they only have one child per couple, the next generation will only have 50 people, and 25 the generation after that, who will need to take care of 150 older villagers. It’s unsustainable, and is precisely the trajectory we are headed for.

The saying goes, when you less of something, you tax it, and when you want more of something, you subsidize it.

Towards that end, Vance in 2021 supported a proposal by Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) that would dramatically expand the child tax credit to $6,000 per child under the age of 13 for single parents, and $12,000 per child under the age of 13 for married couples.

Vance said of Hawley’s proposal at the time, “Lot of ideas out there for how to directly help parents instead of giving them only one option. This is a good one.”

That works out to $78,000 of tax credits for single parents and $156,000 for married parents over the first 13 years of the child’s life, a double incentive not only to have children, but to go further and get married.

And on the Charlie Kirk podcast in 2021, Vance further summarized his thoughts that incentives should be used to encourage family formation, stating, “So, you talk about tax policy, let's tax the things that are bad and not tax the things that are good… If you are making $100,000, $400,000 a year and you've got three kids, you should pay a different, lower tax rate than if you are making the same amount of money and you don't have any kids. It's that simple.”

At the Conservative Political Action Conference in March 2023, former President Donald Trump also expressed support for what he is calling “baby bucks,” stating, “We will support baby bonuses for a new baby boom! I want a baby boom! You men are so lucky out there — you are so lucky, men.”

Another approach might be to simply front-load the tax credits into the child’s earlier, pre-school years, for example, $40,000 per baby, with $20,000 upfront and $4,000 a year for each of the following five years. The idea would be to foster a baby boom. Additional consideration could be given to incentivizing marriage, say, an additional $10,000 upfront for married couples having new children.

That could reduce the overall cost, although it would still be costly, $450 billion for every 10 million new babies, assuming equal amounts of single and married households. But that’d still be cheaper than the Hawley proposal, which might come out to $1.17 trillion for every 10 million new babies. It also might be more effective, if by front-loading the credits it results in immediate attempts at child-rearing.

Either approach would ultimately pay for itself, since individuals who work ultimately end up paying in excess of either $50,000 or $117,000 in taxes over their careers. And what we get in return is a growing, more robust generation of Americans.

Currently, about 3.7 million babies a year are born. But with incentives, that can be increased quickly.

It would be inflationary, for certain, as it was in the postwar baby boom. But so are labor shortages that contribute to supply shortages. Overall, a declining population could be deflationary long term, which has its own set of problems as was seen during the Great Depression. And rather than other proposals for universal basic income so that people can work less to pursue hobbies, by focusing on boosting family formation, the goal is to build the next generation of doctors, engineers, plumbers, farmers and so forth. We need not sacrifice our society’s emphasis on education.

To have a sustainable, highly educated country and economy, we need a sustainably growing population that is not dependent on foreign immigration. And as the average age of immigrants continues increasing — the median age of immigrants in 2022 was 47 — at best it is a temporary offset but ultimately contributes to the aging population.

Other alternatives including banning birth control and defunding colleges and universities might be a political lead balloon, not be successfully implemented and destroy the political party that adopted those policies.

It’s all about incentives. And the consequences for not getting the mix of incentives right appears to have dire consequences. In short, if we want to continue to be a growing, prosperous country, it’s time to get busy!

https://dailytorch.com/2024/07/j-d-vance-is-right-were-not-having-enough-children-and-plummeting-fertility-is-a-civilizational-crisis/

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In Brief

* Trump maintains narrow polling lead over Harris: It’s officially the morning after, and Kamala Harris is still Kamala Harris. That’s the finding of the RealClearPolitics average of polls, which shows Donald Trump at 48.9 and Harris at 46.2. That’s nearly a two-point lead for Trump, which is a marked contrast from the final polls before the 2020 election, which had Trump trailing Joe Biden by 3-4 points. Put another way: It’s essentially the difference between a narrow electoral loss for Trump and a landslide victory for Trump. It’s also important to note that Harris polling better than Biden isn’t news. She was already polling better than Biden in multiple polls before she announced her candidacy a week ago. Late last week, Rasmussen, which is historically among the most accurate pollsters, had Trump ahead of Harris 50-43, while a Wall Street Journal poll had the two candidates essentially within the margin of error. But even that poll raised the red flags, noting, “Harris faces significant headwinds. Her tenure as vice president is closely tied to a Biden administration record that includes a chaotic southern border, rising prices and protracted wars in the Middle East and Ukraine.”

* Google accused of omitting Trump assassination attempt in search results: Google is allegedly suppressing search results for the assassination attempt against Donald Trump. When searching Google for “assassination attempt on,” the field would autocomplete a number of famous figures like Ronald Reagan, Bob Marley, or Gerald Ford. But Google tellingly failed to produce Trump among the names listed. This has led to backlash on social media, with the tech giant being accused of engaging in election interference. Republican Senator Roger Marshall (KS) promised that he will “be making an official inquiry into Google this week.” Meanwhile, a spokesman from Google claimed that no “manual action was taken on these predictions.” Rather, the algorithm uses “protections” to prevent Autocomplete from producing things “associated with political violence.” The spokesman added, “We’re working on improvements to ensure our systems are more up to date. Of course, Autocomplete is just a tool to help people save time, and they can still search for anything they want to.”

* California gig workers win: The California Supreme Court just handed a big win to gig workers and a blow to Big Labor. The issue was the passage of Prop 22 back in 2020, which allowed individuals like Lyft and Uber drivers to maintain their worker status as independent contractors rather than being forced to be full employees of these companies. Democrats and Big Labor fought to have Prop 22 overturned, claiming that it was unconstitutional. As independent contractors for Lyft or Uber, these companies would not be required to provide benefits as they would if they were employees. Democrats claimed that this hurt these workers. However, independent contractors noted that forcing them to become employees hurt their freedom to work at their own pace and on their own schedule. The court agreed, issuing a unanimous ruling upholding Prop 22. This ruling has national implications, as Kamala Harris and congressional Democrats want to eliminate independent contract work within the gig industry nationwide by forcing gig workers to be recognized as employees.

https://patriotpost.us/articles/108848-monday-below-the-fold-2024-07-29

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

http://jonjayray.com/covidwatch.html (COVID WATCH)

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

http://jonjayray.com/short/short.html (Subject index to my blog posts)

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The Deceived vs. the Indoctrinated

The American public has been subjected to massive propaganda efforts by both our government and our media for years. It’s important to understand the impact this has on the current presidential campaign.

That starts with understanding the difference between deception and indoctrination.

Those who have been merely deceived may be surprised when the deception is exposed. They may even be angry. But they will change their positions when confronted with facts that contradict them.

The indoctrinated will not.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines “indoctrinated” as “accepting a set of beliefs without question, refusing to consider any others.” For the indoctrinated, those beliefs become part of their identity; they will not let go of them, even when faced with contrary evidence or explicit falsehoods.

Millions of Americans have been propagandized to believe that former President Donald Trump is “literally Hitler” and “a threat to our democracy”; that he will “destroy this country” or “start World War III.” You can provide all the proof to the contrary you want; it will not change their minds.

I’ve had conversations with friends and loved ones who profess to be terrified about the possible perils of another Trump presidency. In those, I point out just some of the actual conduct of the Biden administration:

— Imprisoning Americans and depriving them of their constitutional rights to due process

— Collaborating with Big Tech companies to censor truthful information about the 2020 elections, the origins of COVID-19, the United States’ role in funding gain-of-function research at the international virology laboratory in Wuhan, China, the efficacy of drugs like ivermectin in treating COVID-19, and the illness and deaths caused by the mRNA vaccines that were forced upon Americans

— Fabricating allegations of Trump’s “collusion” with Russia in the 2016 election, lying to a federal court to obtain illegal surveillance warrants and spending upwards of $35 million to “investigate” allegations they already knew were false

— Calling sexually explicit and criminal content on Hunter Biden’s laptop “Russian disinformation,” and keeping it from the American public when they knew it was truthful, in order to impact the 2020 presidential election

— Prosecuting Trump for possession of allegedly classified documents but refusing to prosecute President Joe Biden for the same conduct

— Weaponizing the legal system against the administration’s political opponents

— Actively preventing the enactment and enforcement of laws that protect election integrity (for example, requiring identification and proof of citizenship before voting)

— Botching the withdrawal from Afghanistan and leaving thousands of American citizens and Afghani allies behind, as well as billions of dollars in military material and ammunition left for the Taliban

— Two major wars and $175 billion in taxpayer dollars given to Ukraine;

— Allowing approximately 10 million migrants to cross the border illegally in the past three and a half years, flying and busing them all over the country, housing them and given them monthly stipends, all at taxpayer expense

— Choking off our own energy production, sending the costs of fuel — and thus, everything else — skyrocketing, and creating the worst inflation we’ve had in more than 40 years

What reaction do I get? Blink … blink … “But Donald Trump …”

That’s indoctrination.

I’ve heard other attempted explanations. “Well,” the argument goes, “maybe people don’t care because these events primarily affect those with whom they disagree politically.”

But if that were true, they would be irate when confronted with the negative impact on populations they do purport to care about. For example, the illegal importation of millions of migrants has diverted resources away from America’s poor, our homeless, veterans and those dealing with substance abuse and mental illness. The presence of millions of illegal immigrants also inflates housing costs and depresses the job prospects for America’s working poor, including Blacks and single parents. And inflation affects everyone.

It doesn’t matter.

More compelling proof can be found in Democrat voters’ reactions to the events of the past three weeks that uniquely affected them:

First, Biden’s disastrous performance at the first presidential debate on June 27 exposed the ugly reality that their own party and the press had been lying about the president’s declining mental faculties for years. Had Democrat voters known about Biden’s condition in 2020, they could have chosen a different candidate.

It doesn’t matter.

Second, despite Biden’s adamant insistence that he was staying in the race, the Democratic Party forced him out in a de facto palace coup, had him issue a bland statement on X/Twitter and kept him in seclusion for almost a week.

It doesn’t matter.

Third, they just unilaterally substituted a new presidential candidate — Vice President Kamala Harris — without any participation by the party’s voters at all.

And by the way, this is the third time the Democratic Party has played fast and loose with internal electoral processes to install a candidate over the wishes of their voters, who wanted Sen. Bernie Sanders in 2016 and favored a different vice presidential running mate in 2020.

With few notable exceptions (Black Lives Matter and some donors), none of this seems to matter to Democrat voters.

Harris is already out on the stump, and we’re being treated to glowing press coverage featuring cheering crowds, and puff pieces promoting the many “firsts” associated with her impending victory: the first woman president, the first Indian American president, the first Jamaican American president, the first African American president. (OK, Jamaica is not in Africa, but that doesn’t matter, either.)

Republicans need to understand that they are dealing with a population in which a substantial number are completely unreachable, even by the most unassailable arguments. To reach the rest, the focus of Trump’s campaign must be not on irrelevancies like Harris’ former love life or her lack of children, but on her lack of qualifications, her incompetence and the disastrous policies she favors.

The proof of that — at least for those who aren’t indoctrinated — is ample.

https://patriotpost.us/opinion/108801-the-deceived-vs-the-indoctrinated-2024-07-25

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Trump Calls Tech Support

This weekend, a former Manhattan real estate developer and one-time crypto critic will be in Nashville to speak at Bitcoin 2024, the world’s largest bitcoin conference.

As Forbes reports, “Trump will give a 30-minute keynote address Saturday during the conference’s final day, in a speech that will likely attempt to court voters and capitalize on support he has already received from key cryptocurrency figures like the Winklevoss twins” of early Facebook fame.

Times have certainly changed.

Indeed, it would’ve been hard to imagine, just 10 years ago, that a 78-year-old Republican presidential nominee would be beating the hip, cool, trendy party of Barack Obama at its own technology game. But here we are.

“A sea change is underway in the tech industry,” write Robert Bellafiore and Jon Askonas at City Journal. “It is increasingly not just permitted, but downright fashionable, for technologists to reside on the political right. Moments after the Trump assassination attempt, Elon Musk ‘fully endorse[d]’ the former president. In the following days, venture capitalist and PayPal alumnus David Sacks spoke at the Republican National Convention, leading venture capitalists Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz announced their support for Trump, and Trump tapped former venture capitalist J.D. Vance as his running mate. A new Trump super PAC enjoys the backing of Palantir’s Joe Lonsdale, the Winklevoss twins … and Musk himself.”

We might also consider a recent comment from Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, he of the infamous infusion of nearly half a billion Zuckerbucks into the 2020 election to help get out the vote in the Democrat-controlled urban areas of the narrowly decided swing states. Perhaps, having seen the error in his ways; and perhaps, having seen the electoral writing on the wall; and perhaps, wanting to hedge his bets should a Republican-controlled Congress in 2025 seek to do away with the Section 230 protections that allow social media sites like Facebook to censor conservative speech while enjoying the legal protections of platforms as opposed to publishers — perhaps, given all these factors, Zuck thought it might be wise to send a shoutout to the assassination-dodging, fist-pumping former and perhaps future president.

“Seeing Donald Trump get up after getting shot in the face and pump his fist in the air with the American flag is one of the most badass things I’ve ever seen in my life,” said an admiring Zuckerberg recently, adding, “On some level as an American, it’s like hard to not get kind of emotional about that spirit and that fight, and I think that that’s why a lot of people like the guy.”

According to Trump’s brief Bitcoin 2024 speaker bio, he “announced his support for the American Bitcoin industry in May 2024, advocating for financial freedom and the growth of the U.S. Bitcoin industry on the global stage.” That seems to be the message, then: One party regulates and thereby oppresses innovation and entrepreneurship, while the other party deregulates and thereby encourages the same.

But it’s not just financial freedom; it’s also freedom of speech. The Left’s sordid history of suppression has always irked us, and it likely turns off technologists, too. Big Tech’s dirty work on behalf of the Democrats reached its zenith in the election-rigging censorship of the New York Post’s Hunter Biden laptop story. But things began to turn in 2022, when Elon Musk purchased Twitter and thereby established a free-speech beachhead on social media.

Today, even the history-rewriting, Harris-protecting, Trump-hating shills at Axios are sounding the Trump-Tech alarm:

A significant chunk of the tech industry’s money and power is lining up behind former President Trump. … Silicon Valley was once solidly Democratic, with just a handful of Republican outliers. Now its red camp is growing and throwing around its weight. … Venture capital billionaires Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz each will make donations to Trump’s re-election effort [and] are following hot on the heels of Elon Musk’s announcement that he would endorse Trump and form a PAC to aid his campaign.

Not to be lost in all this is the Trump campaign’s other tech proponent. While he’s most noted for his bestselling memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, J.D. Vance is not only the first Millennial to appear on a major party’s presidential ticket; the retired Marine and Yale Law grad is also the second venture capitalist to do so, Mitt Romney having been the first.

As Bellafiore and Jon Askonas write: “Republican megadonor and Vance mentor Peter Thiel, of PayPal and Palantir, has long been the exception proving the rule of tech’s alignment with liberalism. Not anymore. The nascent ‘tech bros for Trump’ movement demands an explanation.”

That explanation involves the tech industry doing what it should’ve done long ago: protect its own interests as a growing industry. They continue:

The Trump-Vance ticket has shown a far greater openness to new technologies. Trump can tout a track record of cutting regulations. He has promised to “Make America First in AI” by, among other things, creating “industry-led” agencies to oversee AI development. He will speak at a major Bitcoin conference later this month. For his part, Vance hails from the venture capital scene, reported owning six figures’ worth of Bitcoin in his public financial filings, and has taken a strong public stance in favor of open-source AI.

If Donald Trump retakes the White House, it’ll be in large part because he patiently went to work in the past four years growing the Republican base — whether they be blacks or Hispanics or blue-collar workers or safety-conscious suburban moms.

As for Big Tech’s longtime dalliance with the Democrat Party, perhaps they’ve finally been mugged by reality.

https://patriotpost.us/articles/108815-trump-calls-tech-support-2024-07-26

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

http://jonjayray.com/covidwatch.html (COVID WATCH)

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

http://jonjayray.com/short/short.html (Subject index to my blog posts)

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The Shadow Primary: Biden Ends Campaign, Installs Harris As Party Nominee With NO Votes To ‘Save Our Democracy’

It's so offensive when Democrats slander Republicans as a threat to democracy. They are a threat to the Left, no more

President Joe Biden delivered a rare Oval Office address on July 24 withdrawing from the 2024 presidential campaign and leaving the Democratic Party nomination to Vice President Kamala Harris, whom he has already endorsed and who appears to have secured enough support among the party’s convention delegates when they meet next month. Biden said, “I believe my record as president, my leadership in the world, my vision for America’s future, all merited a second term. But nothing, nothing can come in the way of saving our democracy. That includes personal ambition.” So, in order to “sav[e] our democracy,” and to unite the country, Biden said it was necessary to unite his party, many of whom were calling for him to be replaced as a candidate — without voters having any role whatsoever in the decision. This was a speech Biden could have delivered last year, before 14.6 million Americans voted for him in the 2024 Democratic Party primaries — who are now disenfranchised. In fact, about 35 percent of Democrats wanted Biden to stay in the race in the latest AP-NORC poll taken July 11 to July 15. Biden could have cleared the way for an open seat, but he said he wanted to run for re-election and, importantly, Democrats wanted to avoid a divisive primary that would have lowered their chances of winning the general election. So, how to remove Biden but without a primary full of in-fighting? Skip it and then, if necessary, anoint the replacement when there is little to no time to mount a credible challenge the presumptive nominee. This was a shadow primary. How democratic.

“[T]he sacred cause of this country is larger than any one of us. Those of us who cher[ish] that cause cherish it so much. The cause of American democracy itself. We must unite to protect it. In recent weeks, it has become clear to me that I need to unite my party in this critical endeavor… So, I’ve decided the best way forward is to pass the torch to a new generation. It’s the best way to unite our nation.”

That was President Joe Biden, delivering a rare Oval Office address on July 24 withdrawing from the 2024 presidential campaign and leaving the Democratic Party nomination to Vice President Kamala Harris, whom he has already endorsed and who appears to have secured enough support among the party’s convention delegates when they meet next month.

Biden added, “I believe my record as president, my leadership in the world, my vision for America’s future, all merited a second term. But nothing, nothing can come in the way of saving our democracy. That includes personal ambition.”

So, in order to “sav[e] our democracy,” and to unite the country, Biden said it was necessary to unite his party, many of whom were calling for him to be replaced as a candidate — without voters having any role whatsoever in the decision.

This was a speech Biden could have delivered last year, before 14.6 million Americans voted for him in the 2024 Democratic Party primaries — who are now disenfranchised. In fact, about 35 percent of Democrats wanted Biden to stay in the race in the latest AP-NORC poll taken July 11 to July 15. Biden could have cleared the way for an open seat, but he said he wanted to run for re-election and, importantly, Democrats wanted to avoid a divisive primary that would have lowered their chances of winning the general election.

So, how to remove Biden but without a primary full of in-fighting? Skip it and then, if necessary, anoint the replacement when there is little to no time to mount a credible challenge the presumptive nominee.

This was a shadow primary. How democratic.

https://dailytorch.com/2024/07/the-shadow-primary-biden-ends-campaign-installs-harris-as-party-nominee-with-no-votes-to-save-our-democracy/

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Minor parties can save the West

‘Blame Farage for the Tory wipe-out!’ Or so went the rather limp voices in the UK, grasping for excuses following the massacre of globalist politics led by Rishi Sunak.

The desire for sensible conservative and libertarian-minded policy is on the rise, as is the renewal of cultural affection and nostalgia for decades past which appear to us now as the last flush of sunset chased over the edge of Parliament by the long night of left-wing rule.

So, why didn’t the conservatives win? Why isn’t the UK preparing for an age of economic liberalism and spiritual restoration? Why is Keir Starmer – the most radical socialist in a hundred years – strutting around Westminster preening his flock of Marxists?

Don’t blame Nigel Farage.

Blame the soggy wet Tories who valued their power above the needs of the people.

Blame the seat-warmers at the top in ‘safe seats’ who preyed on the long and grand history of the party as security against their reckless and activist politicking.

Blame a sad chain of leaders who refused to carry out Brexit because they, and their ministers, were miffed about spending five minutes standing in line to have their passports stamped instead of fighting to protect British waters from EU trawlers.

Blame the voters who stayed home, happy to watch democracy crumble while billions around the world pray that one day they may have the opportunity to vote.

And blame the voters who did show up, but lacked the courage to vote for principle and instead chose the faux safety of establishment.

If conservatives are to take one lesson from the activist Left, it’s this … we have to fight, as they do. Passionately. Relentlessly. Without fear.

Social media is full of people – nameless people – insisting that democracy is an illusion. Their message? That your vote means nothing. So don’t bother. Stay home. Keep quiet. Separate into whispering groups at the corners of the soon-to-be censored digital realm. There is no future in this approach. Certainly not with both parties cracking down on social media.

Disparaging the vote is usually an expression of despair.

Allow me to assure you of this… Your vote does count. Your vote has power. Provided it is used.

Just as a thousand people in the street can frighten a Parliament, 20 million people at the ballet box can flip a government.

Had UK conservatives voted for Reform, Nigel Farage would have the Opposition. He may even have the government. But they did not. They stayed home. The vote was split not by minor parties, but by a lack of courage.

The disparity between voting share, as raised by Reform to the fury of the Left, is valid. There is something wrong with a political system where the Liberal Democrats can win 3.5 million votes and take home 72 seats, while Reform UK wins 4 million votes but only holds 5 seats. No question, Farage has a point.

There is a similar problem where the disparity of population is such that the towering cities of our nation, where half the residents are new to this country and still finding their feet, hold policy power over the regional areas – the generational farms, growers of our food, and custodians of the natural landscape. Those who have never sown a field should not dictate the tax on a bag of wheat.

Democracy has always been a balancing act to make sure the brutal force of the majority does not overwhelm the rights of the individual and that the cities do not cannibalise the regions with their misguided virtue.

Keeping these scales balanced means the system must be reviewed. It is a review conducted when the public suspects something has gone wrong.

That said, it is interesting that the British press is full of conservatives lusting after Australia’s preferential voting. They assume, wrongly, that preferences would have saved the Tories – or boosted Reform. Neither is true – doubly so in an optional voting system where the most politically radical and enthusiastic show up to vote, which is disproportionately populated by the Left and sectarian groups who deem it a spiritual requirement rather than a democratic calling. It is a behaviour that has entrenched identity politics to the detriment of the wider community.

Australia knows from experience that preferential voting was implemented by the major parties – the uniparty – for its protection. It is a system that seeks to guarantee the supremacy of the establishment, no matter how poorly they perform or viciously they ignore their principles. Unless voters show courage…

While Nigel Farage may not have won as many seats as he would have liked, he did win seats. First-past-the-post makes it easier for minor parties to tip the balance of power and scare the heck out of conservative movements that abuse their legacy.

https://www.spectator.com.au/2024/07/minor-parties-can-save-the-west/

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What to expect in this weekend’s Venezuelan elections

Venezuelans will gear up to vote in what has devolved into an unfair and unfree presidential election Sunday — one that nonetheless offers its citzens the best chance in a decade to get rid of the twenty-five-year-old Chavista regime that brought the oil-rich nation to its knees.

Nicolás Maduro, the man who, among other things, caused a forty-two-place drop in Venezuela’s Press Freedom Index in ten years, will be facing Edmundo González. González, a little known diplomat who served in Algeria and Argentina, became the opposition’s unitary candidate after the government banned María Corina Machado from running. Though “inabilitated,” as Venezuelans put it, this election continues to be a Maduro versus Machado match.

Were the election to lead to Maduro’s exit, the biggest political and economic crisis in the Western Hemisphere — which caused the departure of close to 8 million citizens — would be at the beginning of its end. If not, expect the same story to continue, including the expanding — and Maduro-weaponized — migration crisis, which is affecting countries from Chile to the United States.

Three of the best trusted pollsters in Venezuela show González leading by around twenty to thirty percentage points. If democracy was a reality, the results would surprise no one. The question is: to what extent is Maduro prepared to cheat?

Over the last year, the Venezuelan autocrat has imprisoned half of Machado’s inner circle, used his security forces to harass opposition leaders, tinkered with the voter rolls and disenfranchised millions of its citizens residing outside of the country. On Friday, a flight carrying several former national leaders who were on their way to Venezuela to participate as electoral observers was prevented from taking off from Panama.

“Copa [Airlines] plane carrying [former Panamanian] president [Mireya] Moscoso and other former presidents heading to Venezuela has not been allowed to take off from [Panama’s] Tocumen while they remain on board, due to the blockade of Venezuelan airspace,” said José Raúl Mulino, the Panamanian president. Later that day, nine Spanish deputies were retained and then deported after landing in the Venezuelan port city of La Guaira.

So who’ll be observing? Democracy-loving Chinese officials, the do-nothing UN and a barebones Carter Center mission that will not even check how the votes are counted.

Though Venezuelans still have some hope left, the odds benefit Maduro. He controls the institutions, has survived international sanctions and has ample experience in quashing popular discontent. Yet it would also be foolish to completely rule out a potential transition. For the first time in decades, the opposition is firmly united behind a savvy popular leader with a clear objective. Chavismo, meanwhile, seems mired in divisions.

Maria Corina Machado, one of the most outspoken opponents of chavismo, won the opposition primaries by a 93 percent landslide in October. She toured the country and turned the Venezuelan people from a disillusioned mass into an energized and well-oiled political movement.

Machado’s charisma has been well documented, but her political prowess is also worth noting. She effectively united a fractious opposition, and when Maduro banned her from running, she outmaneuvered the regime into accepting González’s nomination.

For years, Chavismo has kept power thanks to limitless oil money and a stubborn base of supporters. Today, they have neither: Venezuela’s economic collapse eroded their support and sanctions made it harder for them to keep their cronies happy. The swift and ruthless purge of key power players earlier this year showed there’s simply not enough money to keep all leaders happy.

The 2024 election offered Maduro’s best bet to solve the problem. His regime wagered it could “win” an election against an atomized opposition and a disillusioned citizenry, allowing countries to remove sanctions and let the flood of money solve all the internal disagreements within the regime. Yet that clearly hasn’t happened.

One wing of Chavismo seems to be willing to do anything to stay in power, as they have little prospects in a post-Maduro Venezuela. Another wing seems committed to keep power, but are more open to negotiate a settlement if that includes some guarantees and impunity for them. The election is putting this coalition to the ultimate test.

So, what can observers expect? The opposition will get more votes, that we know. What we don’t know is how Maduro, the electoral council and the military react to the electoral defeat.

https://www.spectator.com.au/2024/07/what-to-expect-in-this-weekends-venezuelan-elections/

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

http://jonjayray.com/covidwatch.html (COVID WATCH)

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

http://jonjayray.com/short/short.html (Subject index to my blog posts)

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