The low-wattage Democratic frosh Congresswomen

In today's hearings before the House Oversight Committee, Michael Cohen testified that Donald Trump was a racist. Republican Congressman Mark Meadows then introduced testimony from Lynne Patton, a black woman whom Trump appointed to HUD, to the effect that Trump was not a racist. When freshman Democratic Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib got her opportunity to question Mr Cohen, she read the following remarks:

Just because someone [i.e., Donald Trump] has a person of color, a black person [i.e., Lynne Patton] working for them, does not mean they aren’t racist and [mumble, stumble] the fact that someone [i.e., Congressman Meadows] would actually use a prop, a black woman in this chamber, in this committee, is alone racist in itself.

In other words, even if a Republican President has a black woman working for him, he is a racist. And even if a Congressman, whose nieces and nephews, as it turns out, are people of color, invites a black woman to testify that the Republican President is not a racist, that Congressman is a racist, too. Of course, if the Republican President had not employed and the Republican Congressman had not invited the black woman to testify, they probably would still have been labeled racists. This is because, in the eyes of the new radical leftists of the Democratic Party, Republicans, qua Republicans, are, simply, racists. I guess everything Republicans do is evidence that they are racists!

And yet, one is forced to ask, as Congressman Meadows then did: Isn't calling Ms Patton a "prop" not itself racist? Calling any black woman a "prop" is the equivalent of calling her a "tool" and implies that she is an Uncle Tom incapable of thinking for herself. Isn't that racism of the most vile kind?

After Congressman Meadows had requested that Ms Tlaib's remarks be stricken from the record, Chairman Elijah Cummings, obviously perceiving the outrageousness of his fellow Democrat's accusation, offered Ms Tlaib the opportunity to "rephrase" her statement. The look of exasperation and stunned disbelief on Chairman Cummings' face (at the 1:55 mark in the video) when Ms Tlaib simply offered to reread her racist statement is priceless! "How can she be so dumb?" the Chairman is obviously thinking.

Ms Tlaib then proceeds to reread her statement verbatim, offers to submit it for the record, and then proceeds to deny that she called Congressman Meadows a racist when she so obviously had. Huh?

The upshot is that, instead of proving that Congressman Meadows and President Trump are racist, Ms Tlaib ended up distracting attention from Mr Cohen's testimony and focusing it all on her own racist statements, thereby proving only how clueless and racist she herself is. Congratulations, Rashida, you, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, and Ilhan Omar continue to be the best proof the Republicans have of what dim young lightbulbs are populating the Democratic Party these days.

(One more piece of advice to these Democratic freshman Congresswomen: if you are going to read statements into the record of Congress, learn how to read without stumbling.)

Kamala is just as much an economic quack as AOC

Here is part of an exchange that Kamala Harris recently had with John King during an interview on CNN:

King: Can we afford [the Green New Deal]?

Harris: Of course we can afford it.

King: Two and a half, three trillion dollars a year for Medicare for all, by some studies. Depending on which portions of the Green New Deal you choose to do first ... That’s money. You know what the Republicans are going to say, tax and spend liberals, pie in the sky ...

Harris: One of the things that I admire and respect is, the measurement that is captured in three letters: ROI. What's the return on investment? People in the private sector understand this really well. It's not about a cost. It's about an investment. And then the question should be, is it worth the cost in terms of the investment potential? Are we going to get back more than we put in?

What flippancy and glibness! What utter bombast! With all her talk about ROI and the private sector, you would think Ms Harris was some kind of venture capitalist from Sand Hill Road instead of a two-bit district attorney. Kamala Harris knows as little about calculating ROI as I do, even on minor investments, let alone on an investment of the magnitude of the Green New Deal! And we are supposed to be putting the execution of this enormous financial undertaking into her hands as President?

Investopedia defines the formula for ROI as follows:

ROI = (Current Value of Investment - Cost of Investment) / Cost of Investment

So, in spite of what Ms Harris says, ROI is partially a function of Cost of Investment. And it is agreed by all that the cost of implementing all the proposals in the Green New Deal will be staggeringly high. (The American Action Forum, which is run by Douglas Holtz-Eakin, who directed the non-partisan CBO from from 2003 to 2005, estimates the Green New Deal may tally between $51 trillion and $93 trillion over 10-years.)

Given that the cost will be staggeringly high, the benefits produced by the investment (the Current Value of Investment in the above formula) will likewise need to be staggeringly high in order for ROI to end up being positive. But that is what Ms Harris, in her glib 30 second sound bite, is implying (why else would she even bring ROI up?), in exactly the same way that other California Democrats assured us that California would reap enormous benefits from "investing" tens of billions of dollars (or is the "investment" projected to be hundreds of billions now?) into a high speed rail system. And these California Democrats made these bold-faced assurances for years, right up until the newly elected Democratic governor of California, Gavin Newsom, pulled the plug on the project because the ROI was not materializing while the Cost of Investment was spiraling ever higher.

The simple fact is that, while she pompously touts the ROI of the Green New Deal, Ms Harris is not even willing to provide the numbers we need to calculate ROI, namely, a.) Cost of Investment, that is, some gross estimate of how much it will cost to implement all the proposals in the Green New Deal and b.) Current Value of Investment, that is, some gross estimate in monetary terms of the value of the benefits that will result from the investment. In other words, her entire statement is merely empty rhetoric.

This does not mean that I do not think that climate change is a serious problem that needs to be addressed with a great deal of urgency. Rather, it just means that we need to employ hard-headed solutions in approaching this problem instead of the political fantasies of economic quacks.

It was with this same quackery that Ms Harris suggested in a townhall meeting recently that we do away with the entire private health insurance industry in the United States:

It is inhumane to make people go through a system where they cannot literally receive the benefit of what medical science can offer because some insurance company has decided it doesn't meet their bottom line in terms of their profit motivation. That is inhumane ... Well, listen, the idea is that everyone gets access to medical care, and you don’t have to go through the process of going through an insurance company, having them give you approval, going through the paperwork, all of the delay that may require. Who of us has not had that situation where you’ve got to wait for approval, and the doctor says, well, I don’t know if your insurance company is going to cover this. Let’s eliminate all of that. Let’s move on.

So, according to Ms Harris, Medicare-for-all will automatically, without any kind of burdensome approval process, provide all people (including illegal immigrants?) with access to whatever health care treatment medical science can offer, no questions asked, without any delay. First of all, the claim that there will be no approval process in a single payor healthcare system is simply ludicrous. Just like with a private insurance company, your doctor will need to seek approval from the single payor for certain significant treatments. And, just like with a private insurance company, approval will be denied in some cases. If a single payor system did not have an approval process, we would be talking not about a financially solvent health care system, but about a patient-wish-fulfillment-machine. Just like private insurance companies, a single payor system must ration the scarce and expensive resources of medical care over a large population of patients (which will grow much larger if Medicare-for-all is passed) based on a variety of considerations, one of which most certainly is cost. Secondly, the idea that there will be no delay in providing treatment is also ludicrous. Ms Harris is obviously unaware of the delays that veterans have had to endure in receiving medical care under the government health care system run by the VA. Instead of providing an entirely new Medicare-for-all system (including Medicare-for-all-illegal-aliens?), how about if we fix the existing system for veterans?

One final comment. Following Burke, I am guided by the following principle: as soon as a person starts talking about tearing down the entire system (private health insurance) and replacing it from the ground up (with Medicare-for-all), I know s/he is a charlatan. For, as Burke correctly observed, when you tear down the entire system, what you end up with is not a wonderful new system, but a wasteland. This is because you have destroyed the old system and then you discover that replacing it with a new system from the ground up is frighteningly more complex and expensive -- and oftentimes bloody -- than you ever could have imagined. The French and Russian Revolutions taught us this lesson. And it is with the horrors of the French and Russian Revolutions in mind, that we ought to reject the crazy, utopian, abstract, socialist theorizing of the Kamala Harrises and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortezes of the world.

Bravo, Martina!

Bravo, Martina!

Hopefully, more will stand against this lunacy. (I wouldn't even go so far as to use his/her/its/their/thex/...? preferred pronoun.)

Donald Trump: spawn of Obama

Trump's decision to try to build the wall by declaring a national emergency is just as bad as Obama's various attempts to circumvent regular constitutional channels through executive order.

Right after Trump got elected, I wrote:

In trying to work their mischief, these Democrats have honed powerful new tools like executive orders, international agreements without the force of treaties, the nuclear option (which ends the filibuster and undermines bipartisan comity in the Senate), the reconciliation process, and substantive due process. The Democrats may now argue that the Republicans should refrain from using these tools (and they may be right). But, it must always be remembered that it was ruthless Democrats who first perfected their use. What incentive do Republicans now have to refrain from using these tools when they know that Democrats like the absolutely shameless Harry Reid, if they return to power, will not hesitate to take these tools up again?

Trump's decision to declare a national emergency is just another step away from the normal legislative processes and constitutional procedures that should govern our country. As Nancy Pelosi has already recognized, future Democratic presidents will now be able to use the precedent Trump has established and declare emergencies of their own to achieve their own policy goals. Why should Democrats refrain from using a declaration of emergency if Republicans have used it successfully?

I support The Donald's attempts to build the wall. Nevertheless, I hope the courts block his declaration of emergency, which, like Obama's executive orders, reeks of tyranny:

Within hours of the fire [destroying the Reichstag], dozens of Communists had been thrown into jail. The next day, officials in the Prussian Ministry of the Interior, which was led by Hermann Göring, discussed ways to provide legal cover for the arrests. Ludwig Grauert, the chief of the Prussian state police, proposed an emergency presidential decree under Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution, which gave the president the power to take any measure necessary to protect public safety without the consent of the Reichstag. It would have suspended most civil liberties under the pretense of preventing further Communist violence. There had already been discussions within the Cabinet about enacting such measures. Justice Minister Franz Gürtner, a member of the Nazis' coalition partner, the German National People's Party (DNVP), had actually brought a draft decree before the cabinet on the afternoon of 27 February. When the proposed decree was brought before the Reich Cabinet, Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick, the only Nazi in the cabinet who had a portfolio, added a clause that would allow the cabinet to take over the state governments if they failed to maintain order. Notably, the cabinet would have been allowed to do this on its own authority. Frick was well aware that the Interior portfolio had been given to the Nazis because it was almost powerless; unlike his counterparts in the rest of Europe, he had no power over the police. He saw a chance to extend his power over the states and thus begin the process of Nazifying the country. At an emergency cabinet meeting, Hitler declared that the fire now made it a matter of "ruthless confrontation of the KPD"--a confrontation that could not be "made dependent on judicial considerations." Though Vice Chancellor Franz von Papen objected to the clause giving the Reich cabinet the power to take over the state governments if necessary, the decree was approved. Shortly thereafter, President von Hindenburg signed the decree into law. [from the Wikipedia article about the Reichstag Decree with emphasis added]

Donald, Obama was wrong to use executive orders. Your declaration of emergency is also the wrong tool to use.

AOC has guaranteed her defeat in 2020

In a few short weeks in office, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has all but guaranteed she will lose her seat in Congress in 2020.

Here are a few relevant considerations.

First, in her Green New Deal AOC has proposed that all jet travel in the continental United States be replaced by high-speed rail at the very moment that Gavin Newsom, the Democratic governor of California, the most liberal state in the nation, just applied the brakes to the plan to build a high-speed rail connection between Los Angeles and San Francisco. Said Newsom in his State of the State address:

Next, let’s level about high speed rail. I have nothing but respect for Governor Brown’s and Governor Schwarzenegger’s ambitious vision. I share it. And there’s no doubt that our state’s economy and quality of life depend on improving transportation. But let’s be real. The project, as currently planned, would cost too much and take too long. There’s been too little oversight and not enough transparency. Right now, there simply isn’t a path to get from Sacramento to San Diego, let alone from San Francisco to L.A. I wish there were.

The fact that Newsom is pulling back from high-speed rail is a clear indication that, in spite of all the good intentions of green politicians, a significant commitment to high-speed rail in the United States is simply not economically feasible. And yet, AOC persists in naively promoting this boondoggle that even her most liberal brethren are now backing away from.

Second, AOC has been taking calls from Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the British Labor Party and well-known anti-Semite, while at the same time representing a Congressional district in a metropolitan area well-known for its large Jewish population.

And now comes her opposition to Amazon. According to Quinnipiac, 55 percent of Queens residents were in favor of the tax incentive package to bring Amazon to Queens versus 39 percent who were opposed. When Amazon decided not to come to Queens after encountering the fierce opposition of such politicians as AOC and Democratic State Senator Mike Gianaris, the twit AOC tweeted:

Anything is possible: today was the day a group of dedicated, everyday New Yorkers & their neighbors defeated Amazon’s corporate greed, its worker exploitation, and the power of the richest man in the world.

Worker exploitation? Did you pull that from your copy of the Cliff Notes for Das Kapital? We are talking AMZN here! Even if they are not union members, their workers are probably among the most fairly compensated employees in the world. Besides, AOC, it is highly probable that all of AMZN's buildings would have been LEED compliant, giving your congressional district a head start in making all the buildings in America energy efficient, per your Green New Deal. You could have crowed that you supported the employer who was bringing well-paying green jobs to Queens. But nooooooooooooo! Instead you had to go all "19th century worker exploitation" on Jeff Bezos.

Here's a description from today's WSJ of the reaction of some of those "everyday New Yorkers" to the socialist workers paradise AOC has created by opposing Amazon's HQ2:

Developers with office space in Long Island jockeyed to attract the thousands of workers that were expected, and local residents cheered the promise that new restaurants, fashion boutiques and other new stores would flood the retail-starved neighborhood. Now, suddenly, much of the euphoria is evaporating. ... Elijah Kliger ... said he was considering cutting up to 15 jobs from his business plan. “This is going to be devastating,” he said. “The retail corridors of Long Island City have just showed signs of life. This puts the kibosh on the activity that has been happening."

In the old days, constituents used to cheer when their congressperson brought home the bacon, a new air force base, say, or a new IRS processing facility. Well, AOC just chased the bacon away.

In 2020, another liberal Democrat will run in 14th NY District and remind disgruntled voters of all these considerations, causing AOC to join Beto O'Rourke among the ranks of the most famous ex-Congresspeople alive. If I were that liberal Democrat in the 14th District, I would start campaigning right now! Remind the people that AOC represents not the bright new future of clean high-tech jobs in the 21st century, but the tired old economically infeasible socialist politics, unions, and anti-Semitism of the 19th.

AOC, you have been too busy traveling around the country playing the media darling to pay attention to the real welfare and wishes of your constituents. Your 15 minutes of fame are up.