Because Housing Price Inflation Isn’t High Enough

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California State Senate Leader Toni Atkins (D) wants to exacerbate it with $10 billion more thrown at the State’s housing market to create even more buying demand for this supply-limited product.

Democratic State Senate Leader Toni Atkins on Wednesday unveiled details of a proposal she’s pushing to create a revolving fund that would provide interest-free loans for up to 30% of the purchase price of a home for low- and middle-income households.

Even spreading the money over 10 years would throw $1 billion per year at a housing market that’s already suffering enormous inflation—nearly 12% just since last August—due to the limited supply of houses for sale vs the burgeoning number of buyers, both institutional (viz., Blackrock) and individual.

That won’t add to the inflation of housing cost will it?

I Sympathize

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Ukraine is preparing to put a captured Russian soldier on trial for a variety of war crimes committed over the course of the Russian barbarian invasion of Ukraine, an invasion still in progress. The 21-yr-old soldier stands accused of

fir[ing] several shots from a Kalashnikov rifle at the head of an unarmed 62-year-old man, who died on the spot just a few dozen meters from his own home in the village of Chupakhivka in Ukraine’s Sumy region[.]

Ukraine Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova says the murder occurred on February 28. The soldier is a tank commander, which in the Russian army makes him a junior NCO.

The soldier absolutely stand trial for the crime, and I think the 10-15 years to life in prison should he be convicted is light. This is the sort of crime that should draw capital punishment.

However.

It occurs to me that before those who are no more than foot soldiers are tried for the war crimes they’re accused of committing, their officers—who created the environment within which their subordinates felt free to commit these atrocities—should be tried for their complicity in war crimes.

Unfortunately and especially in the present case, where so many of the Russian barbarian officers have evaded capture (or those few of them remaining have been killed in action), it will be hard to bring the foot soldiers’ officers in, try them, and if convicted, execute them.

Put this 21-yr-old on trial, certainly. But be sure he’s being tried for what he did, and punished suitably for it if convicted; do not use him as a scapegoat for not being able to get at the officers who allowed, if not actively encouraged, these atrocities.

Not Entirely

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In the face of days of threatened violence—the active attempts to terrorize the families of Supreme Court Justices at their homes, which, just incidentally is a violation of Federal law regarding efforts to intimidate judges and force a particular judicial outcome—and actual violence—the firebombing of a pro-life facility in Wisconsin—White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, had this to say:

@POTUS strongly believes in the Constitutional right to protest. But that should never include violence, threats, or vandalism. Judges perform an incredibly important function in our society, and they must be able to do their jobs without concern for their personal safety.

Via a tweet, yet, not even a formal statement.

It’s also an unbelievable claim under any guise. If President Joe Biden (D) really meant that, if he truly had the courage of his conviction, he’d come out and say so himself, formally, in front of the press and us American citizens, instead of hiding behind the skirts of his Press Secretary and using her mouth to pretend to mean these things.

Dodging a Bullet

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Think about the continued protests by abortion activists outside conservative Supreme Court Justices’ homes, protests nakedly intended to force those Justices to change their alleged votes on Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization, votes which might aggregate into significant alteration, if not reversal, of the Court’s prior ruling in Roe v Wade.

Keep in mind that those…protests…are intended to achieve their goal by terrorizing the Justices and, especially, their families.

Keep in mind, also, that both of those—protests to intimidate court officials into producing a particular outcome to a case, and terrorizing the targets of those so-called protests—are plainly illegal:

Whoever, with the intent of interfering with, obstructing, or impeding the administration of justice, or with the intent of influencing any judge, juror, witness, or court officer, in the discharge of his duty, pickets or parades in or near a building housing a court of the United States, or in or near a building or residence occupied or used by such judge, juror, witness, or court officer, or with such intent uses any sound-truck or similar device or resorts to any other demonstration in or near any such building or residence, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both.

The press is rife with videos of the protests and of the protestors. The protestors are easily identifiable in those videos. There are police present whose bodycams also would provide ample identification capability regarding those protestors.

The Department of Justice, though, is studiously silent and determinedly inactive on the matter. No arrests have been made. No indictment proceedings have been initiated. No one has been brought before a judge for arraignment.

Attorney General Merrick Garland is simply refusing to do his job and enforce the law.

We dodged a bullet when we managed to avoid having Garland on our Supreme Court. Imagine the destruction to law, to order, this man could have inflicted on our nation had he gotten that lifetime appointment. He’s being destructive enough in just one year and will wreak plenty of additional havoc on rule of law over his four-year term.

One Way to Make the Question Moot

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The US 5th Circuit Court of Appeals is hearing a case concerning whether the President personally has the authority to suspend new oil- and gas-lease sales. The particular case centers on climate change concerns as the rationale, but the authority is much broader than that, or it’s non-existent.

The State plaintiffs argue that

a 1987 law dictating the ways in which oil and gas leases will be sold stipulates that a sale must be held at least four times annually in states with eligible land. … “…President Biden put his campaign promises above federal law: By executive fiat, he halted oil and gas leasing on federal lands.”

President Joe Biden’s (D) government employee lawyers argue that

the US president is not an “agency” and therefore not subject to the Administrative Procedure Act.

Biden’s argument strikes me as a frivolous quibble, and the States should win, with the Appellate court upholding the district court’s ruling that, in essence, in this sort of context, a President is, too, an “agency,” and so he has no such authority.

The question can be made non-existent in future, though, with a straightforward fix (however politically difficult it might be to enact): at least on Federal property, make oil- and gas-leasing and -permitting a will-issue matter with licensing requirements, including environmental questions and leasing costs, explicitly barred from being used as barriers to leasing and permitting.