El Capitan and the Merced
Follow the Money
With all the talk on Trump being too aggressive with our European allies, consider the map below prepared by Bloomberg. Our NATO allies that we pay to defend from Russia, do a substantial business with Russia in natural gas and other commodities. The same can be said for European investment in Iran. The difference between Trump and previous democrat and republican presidents is that Trump will talk about European hypocrisy in the open without restraint. Is that good or bad? I don’t know, but it is different, and it very well may work to improve U.S. financial and military interests world wide.
California City Will Experiment with $500/Month Universal Basic Income
From the “What Could Go Wrong?” file:
“Stockton is selecting 100 residents to receive the money with no strings attached.”
Money in this context refers to other people’s money. Worth a risk in those circumstances.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg Encased In Carbonite Until Next Court Session
“…WASHINGTON, D.C.—With President Trump now nominating his second justice to the Supreme Court, a lot of attention is being paid to the oldest Supreme Court Justice, Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Critics fear that if Trump replaces her, it would shift the court far to the right. She’s in fine health for now, though, according to the technicians that have frozen her in carbonite until the next term of the Supreme Court.
As Ginsburg was lowered into the carbonite freezing chamber, she bravely looked up at her fellow liberal justices, who said, “I love you.” She reportedly replied, “Huh?”
Ginsburg’s legal aides assured the press that carbonite-freezing is very common for someone her age and should keep her safe and perfectly preserved until she is needed again. As soon as there is another court session, they’ll unfreeze her, and after a brief bout of hibernation sickness, she’ll be back to hearing cases and delivering opinions…” Original Here
Related Tweet of the day:
The Democratic Party left me behind — and I’m not alone
Saritha Prabhu:
“…The real divisions, as I see it, aren’t between Democrats and Republicans, but between the political and corporate ruling class and the national media establishments that support them, on the one hand, and the rest of us. All the other divisions are less consequential.
Politicians from both parties have gotten away with letting down ordinary Americans for decades because millions of Americans are culturally wedded to their tribal political identities of Republican or Democrat, and can’t think outside the box.
Looked at this way, the election of Donald Trump made perfect sense to me. Sixty-three million voters — including African-Americans, Hispanics and Democrats — rejected status quo politics and voted for a strong, rank outsider to shake the establishment from their comfortable perches.
Would President Donald Trump’s supporters have preferred a decent, moral, well-behaved, well-informed populist? Sure, but in dire times, you take the populist who shows up because beggars can’t be choosers, etc…”
Oil News
This looks like the fruit of Trump diplomacy and results from our alliance with the Saudis against Putin’s Russia and their client state Iran.
“…OPEC’s oil output jumps in June as Saudi Arabia opens the taps to tame crude prices…” Original Here
Related story: U.S. Set to Become World’s Top Oil Producer
Related Story with interest to the NATO Summit: Germany is a Captive of Russia
Bridalveil
Cavalry Charge!
Members of the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment’s Horse Detachment conduct the ceremonial last charge during a change-of-command ceremony at Fort Irwin, Calif., June 28, 2018. Army photo by Staff Sgt. David Edge
Trump Picks Brett Kavanaugh
Judge Kavanaugh appears to be a solid man and judge. I salute the president for choosing this man, and I support Judge Kavanaugh for the next justice on the Supreme Court.
Ed Whelan:
“…Congratulations to President Trump on his decision to nominate D.C. Circuit judge Brett M. Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. I very much look forward to Justice Kavanaugh.
Judge Kavanaugh, 53 years old, has compiled an outstanding record during his twelve years on the federal court of appeals in D.C. On what is commonly regarded as the second-most-important court in the country, he has confronted a vast array of consequential constitutional and statutory issues and has written strong, influential opinions. His positions in numerous dissents were later adopted by Supreme Court majorities.
Judge Kavanaugh has been selected to fill the seat of retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy, for whom he clerked — along with Neil Gorsuch — 25 years ago. A graduate of Yale College and Yale Law School, Kavanaugh has dedicated his career to public service. He worked for several years in the Office of Independent Counsel under Ken Starr and then for five years in the White House of President George W. Bush, first in the White House counsel’s office and then in the role of staff secretary. During an interlude in private practice, he headed the Federalist Society’s Religious Liberties Practice Group and wrote two pro bono Supreme Court amicus briefs in support of the cause of religious liberty.
Kavanaugh is a lector at his Catholic parish, where he also coaches his daughters’ CYO basketball teams. He also volunteers with Catholic charities and teaches and mentors in local schools. He is as fit off the court as he is on it: The former captain of his high-school basketball team runs regularly and has won his court’s annual 5-K five times…”
MSNBC Does Not Merely Permit Fabrications Against Democratic Party Critics. It Encourages and Rewards Them
I don’t agree with much that Glenn Greenwald says about politics, but Greenwald is an honest man. You should read this whole piece about liberal media from a liberal journalist.
Glenn Greenwald:
“…During the 2016 primary and general election campaigns, various MSNBC hosts were openly campaigning for Hillary Clinton…”
Shocking study reveals 90% of global plastic waste comes from just TEN rivers in Asia and Africa
So while woke Westerners are beating us over the head about straws and grocery bags, the real source of the problem is elsewhere.
“…A shocking study has revealed 90 per cent of the world’s plastic waste comes from just 10 rivers in Asia and Africa.
As governments around the world rush to address the global problem of plastic pollution in the oceans, researchers have now pinpointed the river systems that carry the majority of it out to sea.
About five trillion pounds is floating in the sea, and targeting the major sources – such as the Yangtze and the Ganges – could almost halve it, scientists claim…”
Millionaires Flee California After Tax Hike
Much of California’s middle-class is gone and the normal-rich are now exiting. That leaves the super-rich and the poor. A situation described in detail by Victor Davis Hanson. This bodes poorly for the golden state.
“…Prop. 30 raised the state’s top income tax rate by more than 29%, increasing it three percentage points from 10.3% to 13.3%, which is now the highest state income tax rate in the nation. Prop. 30 also hiked the tax rate on income between $300,000 and $500,000 by two percentage points (a 21.5% rate increase), and raised the rate on income between $500,000 and $1,000,000 by three percentage points (a more than 32% rate hike).
In 2016, California voters extended the Prop. 30 income tax increases, which were originally scheduled to expire in 2019, until 2030. There will be an effort to extend those income tax hikes yet again prior to their expiration in 2030; book it now.
Varner’s new research examined taxpayers who were and were not hit by the Prop. 30 rate hikes. He found that in the two years before the Prop. 30 tax hike was imposed (2011 and 2012), net in-migration for both groups “was positive and roughly constant.” Yet following 2012 and the passage of Prop. 30, net in-migration dropped for households that were facing an effective tax increase of 0.5 percent or more. The reduction was greatest for households facing the highest effective tax hike, according to Varner and his coauthors.
This isn’t surprising for those who are familiar with other attempts to soak the rich with punitive state income tax hikes on high earners…”
SAN FRANCISCO’S CRISIS LOOKS LIKE NEW YORK’S FUTURE
Liberal Government, or the lack of same?
“…Beautiful, hilly San Francisco has become known as the city where 20 pounds of poop were dumped on a sidewalk last week in a clear bag and remained there for hours. As The Post noted, “human waste-related complaints in San Francisco have skyrocketed 400 percent from 2008 to 2018,” and “In 2017 alone, more than 21,000 reports were received.”
What happened in San Francisco is obvious. It stopped prosecuting quality-of-life offenses and, unsurprisingly, the quality of life for the city’s residents and visitors decreased sharply.
In 2015, San Francisco courts stopped enforcing bench warrants for such offenses. Police continued writing up tickets for public drunkenness or sleeping in parks, but when the accused failed to show up to their court appearance a judge simply dismissed the outstanding warrant.
New York started following San Francisco’s lead in 2016 when Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance Jr. announced his office would no longer be prosecuting offenses such as public urination. Both cities have accepted that they’ll continue to have a large number of people living on their streets and inevitably using their sidewalks as a toilet…”
Why This Fall’s Midterm Elections Might be an “Unexpected” Republican Rout
Blue Wave? Don’t believe everything you hear or read from the MSM.
“…But however skewed Rasmussen’s poll sample might be, that 74 percent number indicates the Democrats are in serious trouble if they actually believe a far-left push is the key to winning those mid-term elections. It isn’t. It is a complete invitation to disaster. The Rasmussen poll isn’t the only one recently offering an indication the Democrats are on the absolute wrong track this year. In another, this one from Reuters/Ipsos, the Dems are cratering among the millennials they’re trying to build their party around — dropping from 55 percent support over Republicans two years ago to 46 percent now. And among white millennials the numbers are catastrophic. Two years ago with white voters between 18 and 34, Democrats held a 47-33 edge over Republicans; now it’s 39-39. And with white male millennials it’s an almost unimaginable swing; what was a 48-36 Democrat advantage is now a 46-37 GOP edge…”
They Have Lost the Argument
John Hinderaker:
“…Remember the good old days when the Left pretended to worry about ‘eliminationist rhetoric’? Now, they don’t even pretend to worry about a Bernie Sanders volunteer trying to murder Republican Congressmen.
Yesterday’s New York Times editorial on the judiciary illustrates how far around the bend the Democratic Party has gone:
‘With Republicans controlling the Senate and the judicial filibuster dead, the Democrats’ odds of denying President Trump a second Supreme Court appointment are slim. Barring some unforeseen development, the president will lock in a 5-to-4 conservative majority, shifting the court solidly to the right for a generation.
This is all the more reason for Democrats and progressives to take a page from “The Godfather’ and go to the mattresses on this issue.’
Trump Derangement, Not Principles, Drives the Jump-Ship Crowd
Think Trump is a poor GOP president? Fine. Think Hillary would be preferable? You’re crazy.
JONATHAN S. TOBIN:
Leaving the party — destroying it to save it — won’t work.
“…As I wrote in March about Boot, and as Charles Cooke has also discussed with respect to Jennifer Rubin (another of my former Commentary colleagues), the issue isn’t so much about how Trump has changed the GOP as how Trump derangement has changed them. Both now take positions that are contrary to the stands they took prior to 2016. If Trump is for something, they’re against it even if they used to support it. If he’s against it, they’re for it even if they used to oppose it…”
Dispatch From the Education Apocalypse
You can’t make this stuff up!
“…Portland State University is offering a course this fall on ‘Ecofeminist Spirituality,’ which combines ‘feminist biblical interpretation’ with the idea that ‘the oppression of women and the exploitation of the earth are related.’ According to the professor, the most radical form of ecofeminism is ‘Socialist Ecofeminism,’ which posits that the capitalist economy exploits both women and nature.
Lesley at Olmstead Point
Lesley and Austin, Yosemite Falls in Background
Pywiack and Mt. Conness
