Category Archives: politics

Raise the Price

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…of a product, and with that, lower demand for it.  This is the sort of thing taught in high school introductory economics courses.  One way to raise the price is to raise taxes related to it, and to reduce tax deductions related to it.

The Manhattan real estate market [a generally hgh-end market] stumbled in the third quarter of 2019, new reports show, as prices plunged and fewer buyers were willing to purchase higher-priced properties in the wake of two recent tax increases.
The median sales price for properties fell 17% from the same quarter last year…. The average sales price dropped 12%….
Condo sales fell 8%….

Maybe this had something to do with it:

In July, New York City increased its mansion tax—a progressive tax that applies to home sales of more than $1 million—to a maximum of 3.9%, up from a flat-rate of 1%. The tax rates vary from 1.25% for $2 million sales, to 3.9% for sales of $25 million and higher. The city also increased a one-time charge on properties worth more than $2 million—known as the transfer tax.

And maybe the $10,000 cap on state and local tax (SALT) imposed by the 2017 tax reform bill is having an impact.

Yes, Trump Did Commit an Impeachable Offense

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Notwithstanding lawyer and Fox News legal analyst Gregg Jarrett’s hysterical musings to the contrary.

As Jarrett correctly quoted, but mischaracterized, then-House Minority Leader Gerald Ford’s (R, MI) remark on impeachment,

An impeachable offense is whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers it to be at a given moment in history.

Jarrett is right that this isn’t what the Constitution’s authors intended, but it’s what they wrote, and it’s what our Constitution has said ever since.  High Crimes and Misdemeanors were completely undefined by them and by any ratification since.

The Progressive-Democrat caucus in the House is bound and determined to get rid of a President whom they consider to have stolen their personal property—the 2016 Presidential election—and so to prevent him from continuing to squat on their property after the 2020 Presidential election.  In the course of their effort, they are, indeed, denigrating the meaning of every word in that phrase, including the “and.”

They’re after charging President Donald Trump with the heinous behavior of asking the President of a foreign nation to look into the possibility of corruption in his own nation and the possibility of a role that corruption may have played in our 2016 election.  The impeachers insist that President Donald Trump demanded a quid pro quo, withholding military aid funding, against that President complying with the request.  Never mind that the Ukrainian President, Volodomyr Zelenskiy, has said on multiple occasions that he was not pressured at all, or that Ukraine’s Foreign Minister has said Ukraine didn’t even know any funds for military aid had been held up until a month after that telecon.

They’re after, also, charging Trump with the heinous crime of asking the same foreign nation to look into the possibility that a Progressive-Democrat, in his capacity as Vice President, might have extorted that same nation into stopping a corruption investigation into a business on whose board of directors that Vice President’s son sat and firing the Prosecutor General leading it.  That look-into involved a request for help from that nation because the activity occurred in that nation.  Never mind, here, that the impeachers insist that the subject of this requested look must be above investigation because he is a Progressive-Democratic Party candidate for President, not because he might be innocent.

An impeachment is nothing more than a grand jury indictment, and as is well known across a broad range of venues, a prosecutor can indict a ham sandwich if he sees fit.  The foolishness of this impeachment effort; the dishonesty underlying it; the plain, naked politics of the Progressive-Democrats’ effort to preempt the upcoming Presidential election with it—all are palpable and lay bare the nature of it.

Yes, Trump did commit impeachable offenses, as Progressive-Democrats in the House define the terms, and when they do get their impeachment done, they will be exposed for the irrational politicians they are, and for persons bent on their own political gain at the expense of their constituents’ interests and instructions.

Unfortunately, Jarrett’s name-calling and snark-ridden op-ed lends neither the Conservative cause in general nor the Trump matter in particular any credibility at all.

More on Free Speech

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Here’s another example of Progressive-Democrats and Party’s Presidential candidates objecting to free speech.

Senator [and Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate] Kamala Harris said on Monday night that President Trump should have his Twitter account suspended over his tweets about the whistleblower whose complaint has helped launch an official House inquiry into his potential impeachment.

Trump’s terrible crime here? He expressed his desire to meet his accuser, a right all Americans have when accused of wrong-doing.

She went on, paraphrased by Fox News:

Harris said Trump’s latest tweets, in which he called the whistleblower “close to a spy,” is evidence that he is “irresponsible with his words in a way that could result in harm to other people.”
“The privilege of using those words in that way should probably be taken from him,” she added.

Of course, no harm can result “to other people” from such remarks.  Except in the fetid imaginations of the Left.

A President talking directly to ordinary Americans, bypassing the NLMSM Gateway and Party-approved mechanisms—how terrible.

Free Speech

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We’re beginning to see more of the value system that the most progressive candidate of them all, Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate and ex-Vice President Joe Biden, wants to impose on all of us.  His campaign team, led by Anita Dunn (one of ex-President Barack Obama’s early White House Communications Directors) and Kate Bedingfield (Biden’s 2015 Communications Director) of Biden for President, have written to

executives and top political anchors at ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox News, and NBC, including star interviewers like Jake Tapper, Chuck Todd, and Chris Wallace

to demand all of them cut Rudy Giuliani out of his ability to speak to us ordinary Americans via those widely disseminated and watched programs.

We are writing today with grave concern that you continue to book Rudy Giuliani on your air to spread false, debunked conspiracy theories on behalf of Donald Trump.
Giving Rudy Giuliani valuable time on your air to push these lies in the first place is a disservice to your audience and a disservice to journalism

This is as clear an expression of the contempt in which members of the Progressive-Democratic Party hold us ordinary Americans.  Plainly, they think us just too grindingly stupid to decide for ourselves what we’ll listen to or how to think about what we hear, including whether Giuliani’s comments really are false, debunked conspiracy theories.  Or whether it might be Biden, et al., who are distorting the facts.  Biden, with this letter that The New York Times go hold of, has made that contempt explicit.  Again.

Much worse, though, is that this is a demonstration of the overall nature of free speech that the Biden the Presidential candidate is pushing.  Think about the breadth and depth of his assault on our freedom of speech that a Biden administration would inflict on our nation.

NYT provided these images of the Biden team’s letter.

In Which Alphabet may be Getting One Thing Right

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Alphabet’s Google subsidiary is developing a new Internet protocol, and competitors are worried that the protocol would mak[e] it harder for others to access consumer data. Some thoughts on that below.  Congress is concerned, too, and its “antitrust investigators” are looking into the matter.

The new standard modernizes a fundamental building block of the internet known as the domain name system, or DNS. This software takes a user’s electronic request for a website name such as wsj.com and, much like a telephone book, provides the series of internet protocol address numbers used by computers [to provide user access the website].
Google and another browser maker, Mozilla Corp, want to encrypt DNS. Doing so could help prevent hackers from spoofing or snooping on the websites that users visit, for example. Such a move could complicate government agencies’ efforts to spy on Internet traffic. But it could prevent service providers who don’t support the new standard from observing user behavior in gathering data.

Alphabet, via Google, also runs its own DNS service, Google Public DNS, which lends credence to monopoly abuse concerns.  Alphabet also pointed out, in its proposal, that the new standard would

improve users’ security and privacy and that its browser changes will leave consumers in charge of who shares their Internet surfing data.

My thoughts are these:

  • There’s nothing wrong with Alphabet developing any new Internet nav protocol, including this one. I’d expect them to be required to license it, though, much like chip makers are required to license their tech.
  • There’s nothing wrong with alter[ing] the internet’s competitive landscape as the article put some of the concerns. Product and tech development and innovation always alter the existing competitive landscape. That’s to the good.
  • They [cable and wireless providers] fear being shut out from much of user data.… That’s a bit of too bad. They’re not the providers’ data; they belong to the user. It’s exclusively (or should be) the user’s call whether to share his data with any provider or other vendor.

And this:

Mozilla…will move most consumers—but not corporate users who use providers such as Akamai—to the new standard automatically, even if the change involves switching their DNS service providers.

Users better be able to override that switch. Otherwise, this may resume the browser wars between Mozilla/Netscape and Microsoft.  To Alphabet’s credit, if they can be believed, its Google subordinate has no plans to ape Mozilla and compel a change in DNS providers.

Given licensing, the only real concern is this:

[T]he new system could harm security by bypassing parental controls and filters that have been developed under the current, unencrypted system.

That’s fairly straightforward to restore, though.