OMG, Walter Russell Mead for The Wall Street Journal is ENTERTAINED by the tyrant's show

I'm told the band on the Titanic played well right to the very end. 

 

Trump Captivates the Globe

Walter Russell Mead, Wall Street Journal

... It is not merely that his high-wire act supports and intensifies the drama and excitement that made him the dominant figure in American and then global politics for the past decade. It is also that his ability, real or perceived, to change the course of world politics on a whim increases his leverage at home and abroad. When a man can make war or peace, promote or block trade, make you rich or freeze you out, other people do what they can to stay on his good side. ... 

Bernie was the overwhelming first choice in the Iowa Democrat Caucus, and that's all that matters

In the second round, Biden bled out 2,693 votes, Klobuchar 1,288 votes, Yang a whopping 7,041 votes, and Steyer 2,670 votes. All of that is simply rearranging the deck chairs on their Titanic candidacies.

Bernie picked up just 2,155 of these 13,692 "anybody but Bernie" votes, but still he came out on top.

Case closed.

A Jew named Iceberg sank the Titanic

That's Lidiculous!

107 years ago tonight at 23:40 hours some ship in some ocean hit something and sank two hours and forty minutes later, killing a bunch of somebodies

"Improper" drawing of congressional districts is not the problem, improper restriction of the number of districts is

To Fix Our Democracy, First End Gerrymandering:

Gerrymandering, the pervasive practice of drawing congressional districts for political purposes, owns a great deal of responsibility for the dysfunction of our government and the loss of trust among Americans in their government.

This story is a smokescreen obscuring the real problem, which is that Congress voted decades ago to stop the growth of representation. Gerrymandering is simply the problem you face after committing the offense of fixing the number of districts.

By 1930 the number of congressional districts had grown to 435, more or less naturally as required by the Constitution and the Census every ten years. The number would have kept growing, but the natural process was halted, by a bigoted, power hungry Congress.

The very people who are supposed to represent us stopped the growth of representation and fixed it at 435 in the 1920s, because they could.

The original First Amendment, never ratified with the rest of the Bill of Rights for want of but one vote, would have ensured the natural growth of representation with the natural growth of population in perpetuity by a formula. The argument was over the formula, so our forebears punted the problem, and the issue was never settled. Post-WWI, however, alarums began to sound over the expansion of the Congress to include lots of new representatives for America's burgeoning German-American population, so the Congress voted to fix representation at its then current level, 435, so they didn't have to sit next to the evil Hun in their own Capitol. (The Congress also effectively halted immigration, but that's another story).

So in 1930 one US representative held the power of the purse over 283,000 Americans, on average. Fast forward to today and a US representative can steal from 757,000 of us at a stroke, on average. How their power has grown, and how coveted the seats! Now you know why it takes $10 million to win one.

Just to get the ratio back down to 1930 levels, we'd have to have 1,163 congressional districts today instead of the 435 we do have.

Adding them would dramatically reduce the power the current 435 have over us, which is why it doesn't happen. Nancy Pelosi would have to herd 582 cats to get anything done instead of 238. And with 1,163 representatives, it's unlikely Nancy Pelosi would be the Speaker in the first place.

Redrawing the lines of this tyranny which they exercise over us isn't the solution. That's simply rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

The power hungry House is the biggest impediment to our democracy. Ironically, a bigger House is the answer, because it returns power to the people.

Greedy for revenue lost to their business tax cuts, Republicans want to cap 401(k) contributions at $2,400 (they're $18,000 now)

That's right. Republicans want to penalize savers in order to reward business, but they call it stimulating the economy. The owners of business will surely prosper under their plan, but workers will not.

From the story here:

The proposals under discussion would potentially cap the annual amount workers can set aside to as low as $2,400 for 401(k) accounts, several lobbyists and consultants said on Friday. Workers may currently put up to $18,000 a year in 401(k) accounts without paying taxes upfront on that money; that figure rises to $24,000 for workers over 50. When workers retire and begin to draw income from those accounts, they pay taxes on the benefits.

Rumors have circulated for months that negotiators were debating including a cap as a way to help offset the revenue loss from a reduction in business tax rates that Republicans have put at the center of their plan. Reducing contribution limits would be, in effect, an accounting maneuver that would create space for tax cuts by collecting tax revenue now instead of in the future.

This is what you get when you choose to live by the rules of budget reconciliation, rules designed to get around the Senate's 60-vote rule. Under them any tax cut must by definition be temporary and cannot increase deficits over the next ten years. In other words, there is no tax cut. 

Once again it's the Senate's filibuster rule which stands in the way of true reform of anything in this country, along with the ubiquitous discriminatory attitude of government toward money in the case of taxes, some of which (business') is more equal than other (yours).

It's long past the time in this country when the people revolted against this system and demanded a smaller government which spends less. That's where true tax cuts can come from. Anything else is simply rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. 

Phyllis Schlafly passed away yesterday: The 1992 Illinois Mother of the year who almost single-handedly defeated the ERA

Ann Coulter remembers the woman without whom Goldwater and Reagan conservatism might never have been born, here:

Though conservative women in later generations are often compared to Schlafly, all of us combined could never match the titanic accomplishments of this remarkable woman. Schlafly is unquestionably one of the most important people of ... the twentieth century – and a good part of the twenty-first. Among her sex, she is rivaled only by Margaret Thatcher. 

NBC/WSJ poll pulls Trump back to earth, still first in Real Clear Politics poll average with 23.4%, 6.4 ahead of Carson

Trump in the middle of summer was +4 in the NBC/WSJ poll

Trump starts autumn at +1 in the NBC/WSJ poll

Trump's poll average hasn't changed much in the last eight weeks, indicating he's stopped persuading people to join him, while the average spread of his lead has dropped by 39% in the interim. This is because support is firming for candidates below him. 

While the names have changed in second and third, the level of support has improved for the person in second by 33% and remained more or less the same for the person in third over the period. Ben Carson is the most benefited, going from fifth to second, even as Fiorina rocketed up 1060% to take third, replacing Walker who dropped out.

Similarly the persons occupying fourth and fifth have improved their levels of support on average by 42%, but their names have changed, too. Marco Rubio in fourth has improved his support by 85% over the period, but Jeb Bush is the most hurt, going from second to fifth.

Ted Cruz is notably stuck in sixth in both snapshots, with the same average of support. He's persuading no one, either, except maybe so-called values voters to shift their votes around, unaware that they are just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.