Buying votes with your money…

I predicted that the Biden administration would use this “carrot” right up to the midterm election. Guess it starts now:

White House extends federal student loan repayment pause after heavy progressive criticism

This is essentially using taxpayer money (approximately $1.6 TRILLION of it) to buy votes – 45 million of them. With a total voting-age citizen population of ~232 million, this amounts to nearly 20% of the voting population who will be beholden to Biden and the Democrats in the hope that they cancel their student debt.

 And it’s wrong. Let me count the ways:

1) It’s $1.6 TRILLION DOLLARS!!! Are you KIDDING ME? That’s damn near the annual budget of the United States.

2) This isn’t non-existent money, fictional money – it was paid out of the treasury, will have to be made up from somewhere. This amount is equal to collecting ~$5000 from each and every person living in the U.S. – legal, illegal, citizen, non-citizen, woman and child. That’s a lot of money.

3) But, don’t worry! The “Squad” will make the 1% pay! Yeah, THAT’S the ticket… make the 1% pay. For the 1% (this is one out of every one hundred people, for you math-challenged, “math is racist” types), this means an additional tax burden of $500,000 per person (not household). How long before they move somewhere else – and take their job-creating companies with them? How long before Tesla is a Japanese auto manufacturer? Think not? Think Detroit…

4) Only the student’s benefited from the money. Why should others have to pay?

5) How is this any different than someone borrowing money to buy a car, then wanting the government to forgive their loan? Why don’t we just forgive their car and mortgage loans? Wouldn’t that put more money into the economy, just like paying off people’s college loans? Oh, wait… inflation from more money not backed by production flooding the economy…

6) Many of us worked through college to avoid graduating with debt – where’s our check? How about those who paid their debt dutifully, before the Democrats promised to pay? Knowing that politicians were willing to buy my vote by paying off my student loans would certainly encourage people to pay their loans, wouldn’t it (yeah, right!)?

There are many other reasons why this is bad; use your imagination. And your vote!

Damned if you do…

So – let me see if I’ve got this right: South Africans might have milder symptoms from the COVID-19 omicron variant because fewer have been vaccinated? From the “Goats and Soda” (?!?) section of NPR:

Omicron may be less severe in South Africa. That may not be the case for the U.S.

The argument is that – because fewer were vaccinated – more South Africans have had at least some version of COVID. This imparts to them them a better, natural form of immunity and thus reduces the severity of this newer omicron variant.

OK, so why aren’t we reproducing the same results here? Better yet, why can’t we get the best of both worlds? Let those that want to be vaccinated be vaccinated, and let the rest take their chances.  Prioritize hospital beds for those who have been vaccinated. In the end, Darwin will win out and the population as a whole will be better protected. As an added benefit we can stop with all these mandates and reopen our country for business. No more “free money”, extended unemployment, rent moratoriums or bailouts that are destroying our capital and country. Let’s re-open America and put an end to COVID – before we all get too lazy to return to work.

Oh, wait; I’ve seen the JOLTS report. It may already be too late…!

What an O’Toole…

Finton O’Toole is a tool. A left wing propagandist.

Beware Prophecies of Civil War

First: America is NOT a “democracy”; it is instead a constitutional republic. People like O’Toole – who whine about how the U.S. is not acting as a pure democracy, as if that were a bad thing – are wearing thin.

Pure democracies are flawed. In a purely democratic society, without a Constitution that remains beyond the whim of a simple majority, we’d all be subject to limitations on our rights based upon the demands of whomever was in power. Our “rights” would not really exist; any so-called “rights” would be granted by the government on an as-useful basis, subject to the current wave of rhetoric sweeping the voters. Is this what O’Toole would prefer? I imagine so…  so long as his cronies were in power to protect *his* rights.

Our government is also unique in that it represents not only the rights of the people, but also the rights of the states: representation of the people via the House, and the states via the Senate. O’Toole’s implication that the Senate is undemocratic is true – when viewed from the perspective of the people – but irrelevant. The Senate represents the STATES, not the people, and when viewed from that perspective it is democratic (equal representation of the states).

In any event, O’Toole’s argument for “reforming” the Senate (so that it represents the population rather than the states, effectively turning it into just another House) is ludicrous. Why not just go full-on “democratic” and eliminate the Senate all together? Then a small majority could subvert the rights of the minority at will via the House. How would that be any different than delegating Senate seats as O’Toole describes (one per state minimum, the balance by population – just as is done in the House).

Unfortunately, the Senate will likely one day go the way of the dodo bird, moving us closer to the chaos of a “pure” democracy (or democratic republic, as would be the case). It all started with the 17th Amendment, which changed senate seats from being assigned by a vote of state legislators to being directly elected by voters; it may well end with the elimination of the Senate. It’s inevitable – all societies eventually fall, and ours will be no different. I just hope it happens long after I am gone.

BTW: This guy is an Irish drama critic – what does he know (or care) about the U.S. Constitution and its function(s)? Maybe he should be spending his time lambasting his own government instead…

Talk about the “clueless” class…

Get a clue, Joy:

‘The View’ co-host Joy Behar: States could segregate schools again if Supreme Court doesn’t change

This disconnected member of the “too woke to think” class doesn’t seem to know that it’s already happening, driven by liberal educators and their disciples no less:

Calif. university latest to establish black-priority housing

University living space gives priority to black male students, sparking controversy

Washington university creates segregated housing specifically for Black students

Racial Segregation On American Campuses: A Widespread Phenomenon

Try reading something other than your Facebook feed, Joy. You might actually learn something (but maybe not…).

Talk about the “privileged” class…

I wonder if she’ll want to have her school debt cancelled, like Pete Buttigieg’s husband?

Kim Kardashian passes the baby bar exam

Note that she had to take it 4 times before she passed, even though she had two legal advisers and a prep team to help her:

“I failed this exam 3 times in 2 years, but I got back up each time and studied harder and tried again until I did it!!!”

Later in her post, she thanked … her two law advisers, her prep team, and professors.

I wonder how many other students taking this test had a prep team (and still failed 3 times)?

I particularly love this little bit of nonsense:

“Looking in the mirror, I am really proud of the woman looking back today in the reflection,” she continued.

I can see her now:

Kardashian: “Mirror mirror on the wall, who is the most affected Kardashian of all?”

Mirror: You are, my dear. You are. (Sigh.)

Ed. note: The “baby bar” is a 1st year test that many California students who attend an unaccredited law school must take before moving forward in their studies. Read about it here.

Flip a coin

I’ve said it before (here and here), but I’ll say it again: abortion rights and gun control are the flip side of the same coin. The left uses restrictions on gun rights to punish the right, and the right uses restrictions on abortion to punish the left.

Want proof? Here’s a doozy:

Gavin Newsom says he’ll use Texas abortion law as model for gun-control measure

Prediction

Prediction: student loan debt will not be cancelled before the mid-term elections.

Dems again urge Biden to cancel student loan debt as payment restart looms

Once most people with student debt have their debt forgiven they will have no need for this administration and its “free money” policies; they know it’s unsustainable. But the promise of debt forgiveness will keep them voting for Biden and his allies until then.

I mean, let’s be serious – the only thing that will save the Democrats at the mid-term election is the dangling carrot of more free money (only, it’s never free). Over 41 million people currently benefit from the student loan payment moratorium. That’s a lot of carrots… and votes.

Can’t risk the Soma supply…

I wonder if they will give tax breaks to other retail businesses affected by the smash-and-grab crime spree engulfing San Francisco and other Bay Area cities? Probably not…

San Francisco moves to delay its cannabis business tax to give legal dealers a boost

Soma: noun. A drug described in Aldous Huxley’s dystopian novel, “A Brave New World”,  purported to have “all the advantages of Christianity and alcohol; none of their defects.” Read a book, will you?

It’s the criminals, stupid! Episode #872324…

The liberal media and education systems have convinced some that it’s the guns themselves that are responsible for gun crime – as if the criminal intent of their users has no impact whatsoever. No guns, no crimes – Yeah, right.

My evidence of this absurd transformation from blaming criminals to blaming their implements? Read below:

‘We made a mistake.’ Restaurant apologizes for asking San Francisco police to leave

Next we’ll be blaming hit-and-runs and DUI’s on the car manufacturers. After all, without the cars…

Politics of the Supreme Court

I’ve said it before (here and here), but I’ll say it again: gun control and abortion are flip sides of the same coin. Each is used to punish the opposition:abortion restrictions to punish the left, and gun control to punish the right.

But these political blackjacks are typically used by … well, politicians.  So why does it appear that Justice Sotomayer wielded a threat to the 2nd amendment during oral arguments in  Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health? Why was she using a political threat to gun rights while at the same time decrying the politicization of the court?

Here is the passage of concern, where she is arguing that a refusal to back Roe and Casey would signal a politicization of the court. I would urge you to read the entire transcript, or better yet listen to the audio of the arguments:

JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: Will this institution survive the stench that this creates in the public perception that the Constitution and its reading are just political acts?

MR. STEWART: I —

JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: I –I –I don’t see how it is possible. It’s what Casey talked about when it talked about watershed decisions. Some of them, Brown versus Board of Education it mentioned, and this one have such an entrenched set of expectations in our society that this is what the Court decided, this is what we will follow, that the — that we won’t be able to survive if people believe that everything, including New York versus Sullivan — I could name any other set of rights, including the Second Amendment, by the way. There are many political people who believe the Court erred in seeing this as a personal right as — as opposed to a militia right. If people actually believe that it’s all political, how will we survive? How will the Court survive?

Justice Sotomayer is implying that the 2nd Amendment interpretation in Heller could fall victim to politics if Roe is overturned. But you know what’s sad about this exchange? We all know that if she had the votes she would overturn Heller in a heartbeat (Want proof? read her opinion in Maloney v. Cuomo). She’s a political “activist” justice, but she’s essentially claiming it’s unfair to use such tactics on topics she favors.

Can you pronounce “hypocrite”?