There's been so much news the last few days that I don't even have the energy to post. It's just stunning the times we are in.

I feel sorry for the sheep.

Excellent decision by the Supreme Court incorporating the Excessive Fines Clause through the Fourteenth Amendment.  The fact that we are still litigating incorporation cases is ludicrous.  I have the decision on my desk waiting to fully digest it.  But I intend to start using it to argue about excessive bail issues.  

AOC Makes Me Laugh

There is an old adage that goes "It is better to stay silent and be thought a fool, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt". It is one that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who seemingly believes every thought that enters her head is worthy of escape through her lips, would do well to heed if she intends to have a long future in politics.

In the clip I linked to from CNN, she is discussing why it's good that Amazon is not bringing its HQ2 to New York, along with 25K jobs that were estimated to average $125K or more in annual salary, and she makes a ridiculous statement, which I've pasted in its entirety below (the clip doesn't capture the full essence of her inanity).

“You know, I think it’s really important that we understand that we need to invest in our economy, but we need to invest in our people, and to give away $3 billion to a company that has a history of worker exploitation that’s paying below what the cost of New York City is not acceptable for us. We need to have good jobs, and they need to come to the table as in — you know, any company that wants to come to New York needs to come to the table as an equal partner, and you look at how Google came to New York; it was not nearly as controversial as this, and I think it’s because of, they were willing to work with local communities. What’s great is that our economy, our local economy, is already growing. So I firmly believe that if we want to take that $3 billion dollars that we were willing to give to Amazon and invest it in our local community, we can do that. We can make those jobs. We can make 25,000 jobs. But we don’t have to give away and allow our subway system to crumble so that Amazon essentially owns a part of New York City. We can create 25,000 jobs with Mom-and-Pops; we can create 25,ooo jobs with companies that are willing to come to the table, but we should not be giving away our infrastructure, our subway system, our schools, our teachers’ salaries, our firefighters’ budgets, to a company that has not shown good faith to New Yorkers. And we can ask for more because we deserve more.”

She has a degree in international relations and economics from Boston University, but she apparently has zero idea how business, economics, taxes, or politics actually work. To parse out this nonsensical buffoonery:

1. "...a company that has a history of worker exploitation that’s paying below what the cost of New York City is not acceptable for us." Yummy, yummy word salad. I'm assuming she means that Amazon hasn't paid its warehouse workers what SHE feels is an acceptable wage, but these aren't warehouse worker jobs she chased away but rather high-paying corporate jobs. Interestingly enough, the fourth-largest contributor to her 2018 campaign was Apple Inc. which has a notorious track record of off-shoring jobs to low-cost countries in Asia that exploit the workers there. How about Facebook being in her Top-30, seeing as they collect and sell a whole bunch of user data that other companies and governments exploit? How about JP Morgan Chase and Wells Fargo, both in her Top 35? Aren't those in the group of Wall Street banks that she rails against? Now, granted, the sums involved weren't huge (between $3K and $10K), but the hypocrisy of her fighting against Big Business while still taking their money for her campaign is just delicious.

2. "...take that $3 billion that we were willing to give to Amazon and invest it in our local community..." What she is failing to realize is that those $3B AREN'T REAL DOLLARS that NYC has to invest in anything. They were tax breaks and incentives to get Amazon to come to NYC with their jobs (and that doesn't count the ancillary jobs to be created for janitorial, security, and groundskeeping staff, not just the 25K they touted) that would have boosted the local economy, generating far more wealth (through taxes and shopping and other expenses by the new employees). Does she not understand that not having a company pay taxes is not the same as having the money on hand to give out to someone else?

3. "We can make those jobs. We can make 25,000 jobs." Of course, being a socialist, she believes the role of government is to create jobs, all of which are beholden to the party that created them, which would be the Democrats. The government, which is not good at creating much of anything effectively or efficiently, doesn't exist to "create" jobs but rather to foster an environment in which businesses, which are good at creating jobs, can operate, and Amazon has proven that it is very good at creating jobs and they wanted to do so in NYC, but she knows better than Jeff Bezos how to create 25K jobs, so Amazon can take their jobs and go away.

4. "But we don't have to give away and allow our subway system to crumble..." You mean the subway system that is already falling apart and that is an international punchline? Sure, it's Amazon's fault that the subway system is crumbling, not the decades-long lack of dedicated funding and mismanagement by elected city officials, and you can spend the $3B on it...oh, that's right, those AREN'T REAL DOLLARS.  Let the crumbling continue...  

5. "We can create 25,000 jobs with Mom-and-Pops." Yup, this is one of the rising stars in the progressive wing of the Democratic Party. If she honestly believes that mom-and-pops, each creating probably no more than 10 jobs apiece, would be able to match what Amazon was going to do, she's a clown, and if you find me 25,000 jobs with mom-and-pops that pay an average of $125K apiece, I'll show you the fever dream of a raging idiot.

6. "...we should not be giving away our infrastructure, our subway system, our schools, our teachers’ salaries, our firefighters’ budgets". Again, no actual money was being given away, but rather incentives to get Amazon to create 25K highly-paying jobs in NYC, which would expand and enhance the tax base, which would put more money into the infrastructure, subway system, schools, teachers' salaries, and firefighters' budgets. Does she not understand that workers, even ones from Amazon, spend money at businesses in the community, and both those workers and businesses pay taxes which in turn pay for the very things she wants to have money for, and by chasing Amazon away, she's giving that money to some other area? The taxes that Amazon was exempted from would pale in comparison to the economic benefits generated by having 25K millennial-age workers spending their money on rent and restaurants and public transportation and income taxes and so on and so on, but she struck a blow for the little guy by furthering class envy, and hey, now that little guy can go get a job at the new Mom-and-Pop convenience store on the corner, and that's just as good, right?

Trust me, I would love nothing more than to see her continue to run her mouth and prove herself a nitwit, but my fear is that cute little speeches like this, which pit her as the spunky underdog against the big mean corporate machine, will only endear her even more to her constituents in NYC and with progressives across the country who buy into her whole "David vs Goliath" mentality.

No, you didn't read it wrong.  While I may not agree with Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren or Kirsten Gillibrand or Kamala Harris, I can respect their positions because they are coming from years of experience.  I loathe AOC.  She's everything that is wrong with politics; all fluff, no substance, but because she's young and social media savvy, she was able to energize a bunch of people and put herself in a position of power that she consistently shows she has no business being in.

I agree that Amazon doesn't have the best track record with some of its facilities, this wouldn't have been one of those.  This would have been a corporate-level building employing educated, trained people making good salaries and benefits.  As well, to restate, she took money from Apple, who off-shored tons of jobs, hid money overseas to avoid taxes, and contracted with sweatshops in SE Asia to make iPhones, but it's convenient how one can look the other way on the offenses of a company when they're giving you cash and vilify another to make a point.

And while I understand the polls were split, she's the face and the mouthpiece of chasing Amazon away now, and the things coming out of her mouth were nonsensical.  She's saying that NYC can create 25K jobs paying $125K each with Mom-and-Pop businesses, which is patently absurd, and that by striking a blow against Amazon, that will benefit all New Yorkers.  Oddly, the representative for the district where the HQ2 would have been located didn't seem to agree with that assessment, as that would have been a big boon to her constituents and her district.

Technically, AOC is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, making Democrat the adjective there, as it describes what kind of socialists that group is comprised of.  Her platform is a socialist wishlist: Medicare for All, federal jobs guarantee, guaranteed family leave, Green New Deal, abolishing ICE, free public college and trade school for all, and a 70% tax rate on those making $10MM or more.  She's a socialist, and don't kid yourself about that.      

As for me, everything's fine here.  There is tons of venom spewed by folks here at Donald Trump, almost all of it deservedly, and usually none at a liberal target, so I'm sure it seems out of place, but she grinds my gears more than any politician in recent memory.  Maybe I was a little harsh, but I felt that her statement deserved to be taken apart and ridiculed, because she is pretty much detached from reality in it.   

Fair enough. I vehemently disagree with your assessment and think you're completely, unequivocally wrong, but fair enough.

Also:


FWIW, I believe Democratic Socialist is to be taken as a single term. And honestly, none of that is radically left philosophically from the last 100 years in our country with the original new deal. It's basically the same contept for the 21st century. Also, all of that sounds great to me, lol. There are economic arguments for most of those actually saving us money and being the more fiscally conservative option overall in the long run. Also, yeah, nobody is actually expected to pay 70% top tier income tax. It's mostly an incentive to invest in your business instead of hoarding wealth, and even in the past when we had higher top tier rates no one actually paid the high amount.

The fears on that stuff are always so massively overblown. Funny how people like to throw around socialism like a bad word, but they love driving on public roads protected by law enforcement officers in a country kept safe by a strong military. You can drive your car to a store to buy FDA regulated safe food to feed your family and not be gouged for power by your monopoly utility provider, and you can call the fire department if rthere is a fire in your house, but darn that socialism!

I know she's just ONE Junior House Member, but dang it if her face and everything she says isn't plastered all over CNN Every. Single. Day.  I'm surprised they haven't started reporting on what she's eating for breakfast yet. 

And since her progressive ideas are also popular with many of the candidates running for POTUS in 2020, she represents a growing portion of the Democrat Party that I fundamentally disagree with, but while you fundamentally disagree with the entire Republican Party, I can at least find some moderates in the Democratic Party that I am not thoroughly against (I don't mind Amy Klobuchar right now).