“Here are the hard truths of our threatening situation with social Security and Medicare. We have a looming major fiscal crisis which no one denies. There are solutions but no politically easy ones and our options get worse with time. Yet every time a working politician suggests considering even mild changes, the formidable senior lobby and AARP erupt in outrage and beat down the hapless reformer. Former allies of responsible reform flee and the status quo Is again preserved. Facts, as they say, are stubborn things. Social Security is by design a mandatory government administered defined-benefit retirement trust, funded by payroll taxes. However the inflows to the trust are insufficient to support the benefits promised and, unlike private pension plans, there is no corpus of funds earning compound interest to make up the difference. Thus the fund will become insolvent in nine years.” (11/10/24)
“It’s time to walk the walk when it comes to the oath to the Constitution, which is currently treated more like an optional guide at best, or toilet paper. Today, we’re breaking down the top-5 crucial steps an oath-KEEPING president should take to radically preserve, protect and defend the constitution – starting now. First, as a quick warmup – let’s first discuss what it means to adhere to one’s oath.” (11/08/24)
“To those living amidst the current political divide, the stories of Lincoln, Douglass, Tubman, Jackson, and Lee take on new meaning — renewed in relevance by the realization that our struggles are not all that different. Amid these giants of America’s Civil War reckoning, one of the more insightful figures is a name not known to many modern ears until recently: Ohio abolitionist Rev. John Rankin.” (11/08/24)
“Lately, Americans have been distracted by a federal-level election. But we’ve also had important state-level matters to attend to during the recent election cycle, including some legislatively referred questions about citizen initiative rights. In my experience, whenever many politicians push for a ballot measure in order to supposedly ‘fix’ an already-established right of citizen initiative, the goal is usually to make it harder for people to get a question onto the ballot. Three questions on state ballots this November exemplify the pattern. Fortunately, voters have rejected the sly politicians’ gambit in each case.” (11/08/24)
“There’s even a name for what investors have been doing since Donald Trump’s election victory on Tuesday: the Trump Trade. But most of the surge in the major indices took place at the opening bell on Wednesday; since then, gains have been modest. You have to dig into the numbers to see who really benefits from a Trump election. With an expected corporate tax cut that goes even deeper than the current 21 percent, everyone will be a winner at some level. There will be some relative losers too: clean-energy companies, for example, and maybe the auto industry if loosened mandates on electric vehicles domestically make them globally uncompetitive.” [editor’s note: As if the Biden regime was any less corrupt – TLK] (11/08/24)
“This week, Politico scooped the news: German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, before meeting NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte in Berlin, informally voiced opposition to Ukraine’s prospects for an alliance membership, suggesting instead a ‘Finlandization’ option — a neutral status like Finland maintained between NATO and the Soviet Union during the Cold War and for the subsequent three decades between NATO and Russia.” (11/08/24)
“Hospitals, hotels, and other businesses have limited power from generators, but fuel is in short supply and will not keep the generators running much longer. Venezuela has provided subsidized fuel to Cuba for two decades, but its own economic crisis has limited how much it can help Cuba in recent years. Meanwhile, fuel from the United States remains unavailable due to the embargo. But the root causes of Cuba’s lack of energy are homegrown. Without private property, socialist economic systems cannot provide the information and incentives necessary to create prosperity.” (11/08/24)
“The US government is attempting to imprison Roger Ver for 109 years for the crime of following his lawyers’ advice. His case represents an unprecedented attack on attorney-client privilege that threatens everyone who relies on professional counsel. Today, Ver sits silenced in Spain, unable to defend himself publicly, while prosecutors use his own lawyers’ records against him—records that show his meticulous attempts to follow the law. This isn’t just about cryptocurrency; it’s about whether any American can safely consult legal counsel without fear of prosecution. If this precedent stands, seeking professional advice could become evidence of criminality.” (11/08/24)
“The 2024 presidential campaign ended pretty much where it began: loathing the never-ending presence of Donald Trump. On the day before the election, The New York Times front page displayed a gaudy editorial (badly disguised as ‘News Analysis’) under the title ‘Torrent of Lies Redefines Political Norms.’ Doesn’t that sound like a hard-charging rerun of 2016? Nothing ever seems to change from the paper that gaudily proclaimed under Trump that ‘The Truth Is More Important Now Than Ever.’ You can point and laugh, since The New York Times refused to admit that Hunter Biden’s laptop full of corruption details was authentic until 2022, and then it acknowledged reality in a story on page A-20, in paragraph 23.” (11/08/24)
“One can be overjoyed by the repudiation of a candidate without being pleased with the opposing candidate’s victory. This election is an occasion for that reaction. An American (or anyone actually) is perfectly justified in taking pleasure in Kamala Harris’s humiliating defeat while anguishing over the intemperate Donald Trump’s impressive win. As I like to say, every election has good and bad news: the losers lost but the winners won. That’s where I am today if anyone cares to know. I rejoice at the defeat of Harris and virtually all that she stands for, while also realizing that some of the grounds for that defeat are themselves to be repudiated.” (11/08/24)
