David Brooks is not a serious person

 

David Brooks: Donald Trump Is The Most Consequential American Politician Since Ronald Reagan:

 

And the fact that he's reelected and now about to take office and use executive orders to wipe out a lot of things, including the civil service potentially, or parts of it, that's just a gigantic pivot in American history. 

A president who must resort to executive orders is not consequential. The next president can wipe those out, by executive orders.

 

More importantly, there is nothing consequential about presidents who must pass major legislation through reconciliation rules, as Trump had to in 2017, which means the legislation is temporary by definition. Trump must now spend precious second term months on this same issue. He aims to extend his tax cuts for another period under reconciliation rules, which is fine, but that will also be temporary, not consequential.

 

Boehner and Obama made the Bush tax cuts, originally passed through reconciliation, permanent after Obama was re-elected in 2012. That was consequential.

The Bush tax regime is consequential. It makes Trump step and fetch it, just like Obama.

Donald Trump is already hard at work making long lists of all the things he's not going to accomplish as president, which he'll foolishly fritter away his time on

 Ten points about The Swamp.

Seven points about The War on the Drug Cartels.

Trump's saying all this stuff and we don't even know yet if Republicans will win the US House, where they have 214 seats as of right now and lead narrowly in 8 undecided races. If they win them all they'll have 222 seats, with 218 needed for the majority.

If not, well that'll be the end of all ambition, now won't it?

222 at best is a very narrow margin to accomplish anything anyway, a mere continuation of the status quo where Republicans in the House must tread lightly to keep the caucus unified with a very similarly sized narrow majority (220).

What kind of sweep was this? Once again the Trump movement . . . isn't.

It would be easy to call this stuff hubris from Trump. Let's just say he still hasn't learned anything about how to accomplish anything of relatively permanent value. He has NO priorities when everything is a priority. He is, once again, unserious.

The Senate will be in Republican hands, so we'll at least get more judicial appointments who might advance traditional American principles of law and order.

The scuttlebutt is that the first agenda item in Congress will be making Trump's expiring tax reform permanent.

I can imagine him having to waste the entire first year on this. He'd be better off quickly settling for its extension for another ten years under reconciliation rules, and then move along smartly to immigration and energy reforms before the midterms are upon us in 2026, after which he'll be the lamest of lame ducks.

If there's any hope of boosting GDP and improving everyone's pocketbook they've got to make energy reform the priority. And mere immigration enforcement solves an untold number of other problems which bedevil the country, like illegal drugs, crime, and social spending.

Spending bills will come as they will, and should simply aim to starve the federal government of money to shrink it, as could have been the case last time but nothing changed. The beast grows naturally because permanent spending programs are indexed to inflation. That isn't going to be stopped. Growing the economy to pay the bills is therefore job one.

I'm expecting very little positive from this lot, but I do hope J. D. Vance will emerge at the end of it to take us to a better future.

Democrats who say they fear Trump because he's an authoritarian are absolutely comic. Watch for rogue judges to hamstring him just like last time, and Trump will bluster and fume and things will simply muddle along.

But, of course, unforeseen events like wars have a way of intruding and making mooks of us all. Let's hope Trump can finally make a deal to end and prevent them.

"Joy" is the new "Not a serious country"

 

Did you notice how not one word was said in last night's Trump-Harris debate about Kamala Harris' price controls proposal to combat inflation?

ABC's debate moderators made sure NOT to go there, no sir. And they completely avoided making Harris defend her inflation record as Biden's VP and instead joined the attack on Trump, fact-checking him multiple times but not her. Trump had to debate three people.

It was a disgraceful spectacle which he should have known better than to join.

At least Trump called her a Marxist at one point, that was good.

Harris for her part continued to push for the gimmicks which WaPo previously called out: $25k down-payment assistance which will only increase housing prices by $25k; $50k tax credits for starting a business, which is notably a lot more than for the everyday folks Democrats say they care about most (how many of those will later declare bankruptcy and pocket the cash?); $6k child tax credit, an idea stolen from J. D. Vance and bid-up just like student-loan forgiveness in order to buy votes.

It's all just marginal stuff which treats the symptoms and not the causes.

She is not a serious candidate.

 

She's earned nothing, no one voted for her

 Newspaper thinks you earn things with words. Just words.

Not a serious country.

With Acceptance Speech, Harris Earns Her Ascent

Minneapolis Star Tribune

Kamala the confused: Trump is both unserious and a serious threat

 Pick one!

Kamala Harris: Trump Is An Unserious Man, But The Consequences Of Putting Him Back In The WH Are Extremely Serious

 

Methinks she doth protest too much. 

Stephen Curry lol

 NBA super star eyes presidential bid? 'Maybe'...

 

RFK Jr is not a serious candidate for president, ICYMI

 Aaron Rodgers, Jesse Ventura Top RFK Jr's List for Running Mate...

DeSantis Over Before It Started is the truest headline Drudge has posted in a long time

 DeSantis should never have run this cycle in the first place, but once in, you gotta be in it! This withdrawal after one lousy contest is just pathetic. Not being prepared to run through Super Tuesday March 5th is the sign of an unserious candidacy.

But the worst part is DeSantis quits quoting Churchill about having the courage to continue is what counts. DeSantis is not continuing, hello. Doesn't he realize he's implying he has no courage?

This is just awful.

This guy is finished, for good.

 

 

Xi Jinpingpooh masters The Art of Unserious American Political Cycle Maintenance

 

I've wanted Trump to just go away since about January 2019, Newt Gingrich since about 2012

Because it's all "just words", as Barack Obama once said.

 

Tonight Is the Most Important Moment in the GOP Primary

Newt Gingrich, NY Sun

 

If someone hits a home run with language, ideas, and/or attitude, a substantial number of disheartened and despairing anti-Trump donors may notice — and decide to write really big checks.

 

Shocking right? A politician asserting the primacy of politics.

 

Well, "the most important moment" doesn't exist. There is a long series of important moments, when the voters have their actual say in the polling booths of the individual primaries and the elections, at which point the politicians had better deliver on the words, or else.

Most of them don't, but we fall for them every time, and they know it.

But this is most certainly true:

Given all the press coverage early in Mr. DeSantis’ candidacy — and the substantial amount of money he raised — his slide has been the biggest Republican story this year.     

 

Yes, it is the biggest story because Ron DeSantis has consistently delivered on his words in Florida . . .

and the voters nationally don't give a flying fig. 

 

Newt should know better.

 

He followed up his words as a congressman during the 1980s with a Speakership in the 1990s consisting of a temporarily successful if mixed bag of policies. Which is why he, along with Mitt Romney, subsequently never made the big time. You can't run against ObamaCare by promising RomneyCare or HeritageFoundationCare instead. Donald Trump in his hubris never learned the lesson either, squandering away his political capital on overturning it in 2017.

The majority of Republicans now remain content with the feckless entertainer who mouths "just words". They have no appetite for the humdrum of an executive who actually delivers and executes real, lasting reform.

 

This remains a not serious country, ridiculously adolescent to the end. 

The Fed left the Funds Rate unchanged yesterday, and no members of the Federal Reserve Board currently anticipate a rate lower than at present through the end of the year

 They anticipate higher, but not by much, which means more rate hikes this year.

The yield curve aggregate yesterday closed just 4 basis points lower than the current cycle high of 4.674% achieved on March 8th, at 4.671%. That's the sum of the basis points for all US Treasury securities marketed yesterday divided by 13 (ranging from 1-month securities to 30-year).

To say the Fed's response to inflation has been timid would be an understatement.

In the 1980s the Fed's response to core inflation such as we experience today at 5.3% year over year was a Fed Funds Rate in excess of 10%. We're at 5.08%. The yield curve is not steppin' and fetchin' when the big dog won't bark.

This is not a serious country, and is perversely more than willing to inflict the worst tax on all, namely inflation, mostly because the whole damn economy is predicated on 2% inflation, which halves your nestegg in 35 years.

At 5% it does that in just fourteen.

It's criminal.

GOP candidate positions on Ukraine demonstrate nothing but groveling to the anti-war right

 And the kernel there is pretending things that are not true, the mark of an unserious country.

Nikki Haley is simply incoherent. She says we have to win this war, but without more financial assistance. 

“I don’t think we need to put money in Ukraine,” Haley said last week before an audience in Iowa. ... “This is not a war about Ukraine, this is a war about freedom—and it’s one that we have to win,” Haley said. “If we win this war, this will send a message to China, it will send a message to Iran, it will send a message to North Korea, it will send a message to Russia. If we lose this war… they said Poland and the Baltics are next, and you’re looking at a world war.”

Ron DeSantis pretends Russia never invaded and simply has a territorial dispute with Ukraine.

“While the U.S. has many vital national interests—securing our borders, addressing the crisis of readiness within our military, achieving energy security and independence, and checking the economic, cultural, and military power of the Chinese Communist Party—becoming further entangled in a territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia is not one of them,” DeSantis told Fox News host Tucker Carlson this week.

And The Daily Beast isn't wrong about Donald Trump's position, who to this day touts the myth that he is some great deal-maker who can untie the Gordian Knot:

Former President Donald Trump has said he would have let Russia “take over” parts of Ukraine if he were still in the White House.

It is also the case that there is plenty of pretending on the other side, that the West wasn't responsible for the Ukrainian revolution of 2014 which ultimately provoked the current conflict.

Statesmen tell hard truths to their people. But none of ours seem capable of telling even the simple ones, including Joe Biden.

As usual Americans are mentally ill, wanting mutually exclusive things

74% want a no fly zone!

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/exclusive-americans-broadly-support-ukraine-no-fly-zone-russia-oil-ban-poll-2022-03-04/

But fewer than half want the broader war that implies.

 

Not a serious country.
 

 

Former Democrat Donald Trump laughably calls Mike Pence a RINO and is now the mirror image of the 2016 Hillary Clinton who wouldn't accept the election results

It's obvious to anyone who has looked at this issue carefully that Trump's stance isn't a serious position.

Leave aside the question of the powers of the VP. The fact remains that 50 state legislatures certified their votes in Election 2020, making Trump the narrow looser, just as they certified their votes in Election 2016, making him the narrow winner.

Trying to overturn any of that, no matter how justified one may think it might be, is a fool's errand.

That ship has sailed and Popeye isn't going to turn it around. The inertia is simply too great. There is nothing any legislature will "figure out" at this point.

Trump's continued whining about his loss makes him nothing if not the mirror image of Hillary. They are unserious, self-absorbed people who can't accept what's happened to them. Richard Nixon, from whom the election in 1960 was stolen, was a better person than these two ever could hope to be.

They should both just go away.

 

Nancy Pelosi, who has to pass bills to find out what's in them, wonders where the attitude of lawlessness in America comes from

 Story.

Maybe from being "not a serious country"?

I turn on the radio just before the bottom of the hour, and what are Clay and Buck talking about?

 Halloween candy.

Not a serious country.

Clay Travis, whose favorite holiday is Halloween, is the poster child for unserious America

 

Deaths per day in the US from COVID-19 by variant type

News reports say the UK variant became dominant in the US on or about April 1, 2021.

Its reign was brief.

The India variant has dominated since July 1.

It's much too early for definitive statements (50 days) because deaths lag by weeks, but so far the India variant is proving much less deadly but highly contagious.

 

What's interesting is that the UK variant was less deadly and less transmissible than the strains which preceded it for the 456 days from the onset of infections in the US in 2020 through Mar 31, 2021.

 

The numbers so far suggest that the virus has mutated to become less deadly over time, and more transmissible. It needs hosts who are alive to thrive, and the UK variant came and went quickly because it wasn't up to this task, whereas the India variant clearly is:

Calendar 2020 - Mar 31, 2021: 66,838 cases per day; 1,210 deaths per day; case fatality rate 1.81%

Apr - Jun 2021 (UK variant):    34,736 cases per day; 580 deaths per day; cfr 1.67%

Jul - 8/19, 2021 (India variant): 76,320 cases per day; 433 deaths per day; cfr 0.57%.

 

Keep in mind that deaths per day from influenza in the United States average less than 100 over the last ten years. 

A fairer full 3-month comparison will require waiting until at least Oct 1.

 

In the meantime, inhibiting transmission is not a fool's errand. Don't share others' air in enclosed spaces, mask where appropriate, and wash frequently. Increasing numbers of breakthrough cases show that the vaccines are far from foolproof. It is not known whether this is because of the character of the new variant or because the vaccines wear out over time.

 

Public health authorities in the US have been pretty appalling in their performance. We do not test, trace and quarantine anywhere near the way we should, nor do we collect data the way we should. This is a hidden disgrace but is no smaller than the mega public disgrace going on in Kabul right now.

We are not a serious country.

All data is from The New York Times and subject to revision.

Rush Limbaugh reverts to the status quo ante Trump, reads Ben Domenech article on the air caricaturing Capitol MAGA

Here's Domenech, the husband of Megan McCain, daughter of John:

An apolitical viewer of the summer of 2020 would learn one distinct lesson: If you want to be heard, if you want to be listened to, you need to go into the streets, make a ruckus, set things on fire, and tear down icons of America. This disrespect will be welcomed, hailed, and supported if your cause is just and your motives are righteous.

Just about everyone who showed up on Capitol Hill yesterday believed that about why they were there . . ..

Anyone remotely familiar with the sequence of events on Wednesday January 6 recognizes that while Trump was still speaking at 1:07pm, and boring the huge crowd to death far away on the Ellipse, a smaller faction was already over at the Capitol breaking in at 1:03pm. The Blaze's Elijah Schaffer was there documenting the whole thing, and frankly, inflaming the situation as "revolution" when what it was was a juvenile stunt. Just look at the left's similar reaction to the event. This is an elementary playground squabble by grown-ups who never grew up, elevated to national importance by the children running the media and the Democrat Party.

We are not a serious country. But I repeat myself.

The bios of some of these flamboyant mental cases whose pictures you have probably seen after they broke into the Capitol reveal them to be anything but Trumpists, yet Domenech, and Limbaugh, are as content to lump them all together as the GOP House and Senate is to ignore the efforts of Senators Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz to investigate Election 2020 improprieties.

Business as usual. The left and the media caricature the right, and Con Inc. joins right in.

The left wins because the right eats it own. Every. Damn. Time.