In explaining the trouble Joe Biden's having convincing regular Americans that his programs are working for them, Matt Stoller also provides the only analysis I’ve yet read that makes me think Joe Biden might not get re-elected in 2024. Key finding: our government hasn’t counted inflation right for decades, because it doesn’t count hikes in interest rates as inflation even though common sense would tell us that it most assuredly is, plus folks don’t feel inflation’s fall from 9 to 3.7% if they’re writing monthly checks for cars and houses they bought when inflation was 9%, or if today's higher interest rates are ballooning their payments! Somewhat less key finding: Joe Biden may be the most anti-monopoly President since FDR, but the judges he’s appointing, well, aren’t, and they’re kinda arrogant about it – though maybe not as arrogant as antitrust lawyers who, I feel compelled to point out again, commit the heinous sin of asserting that the way things have been during their careers is the way they’ve always been.
Ho hum, Whole Foods goes to court to prove they can prevent workers from wearing Black Lives Matter masks – but not because, you know, our First Amendment protects folks from our government and not necessarily from their employer and because we’ve always assumed corporations can dictate worker uniforms more or less absolutely, but because our Supreme Court provides a “clear roadmap” to let Whole Foods do what it likes. I guess they just want to cement our Supreme Court’s insistence that you can actually discriminate on the basis of a “sincerely-held” “religious” “belief,” which isn’t very libertarian of them. But it sure would be a shame if the facts of the case shined even more light on the non-existent complaint that enabled the 303 Creative LLC ruling. It’d be an even bigger shame if Whole Foods, in attempting to argue the merits of their case, accidentally proved the original ruling was unconstitutional!
Finally, this Fatherly article from late 2022 provides awfully good advice on how to deal with a child’s tantrums -- but not just a child’s tantrums, good peoples! “If a child wants attention, the solution is — as long as it's safe — to literally give them no attention, not even negative attention,” “(i)f a child is demanding a tangible, then the best solution is not to give them what they want,” “(t)he appropriate response to an escape-from-demand tantrum where the child doesn't want to put on their pajamas is to force them to do it with you,” hand-over-hand if necessary – notice any parallels to our current political situation? Because these all sound like tactics we should deploy against Republicans just about all the time! Doesn’t matter if they got elected and thus “deserve respect.” Doesn’t matter if they “have power.” Doesn’t matter if any of their constituents threaten their life, or yours, or mine! If we treat Republicans like tantrum-addled kids even one time, America will be a different country.
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