Month: June 2024

Donald Trump also flitted from subject to subject during Thursday's debate, but his primary sin was his ceaseless stream of lies. Here are a baker's dozen of them.

1. Tariffs:

Not going to drive [prices] higher. It’s just going to cause countries that have been ripping us off for years, like China and many others, in all fairness to China — it’s going to just force them to pay us a lot of money, reduce our deficit tremendously, and give us a lot of power for other things.

Flat out lie. Tariffs are paid by the importer, who then has to pass along the cost increase to its customers.

2. Social Security:

This man is going to single-handedly destroy Social Security. These millions and millions of people coming in, they’re trying to put them on Social Security. He will wipe out Social Security. He will wipe out Medicare.

Illegal immigrants aren't eligible for Social Security. In fact, they help Social Security because they pay taxes but never get any of the benefits.

3. Abortion:

If you look at this whole question that you’re asking, a complex, but not really complex — 51 years ago, you had Roe v. Wade, and everybody wanted to get it back to the states, everybody, without exception. Democrats, Republicans, liberals, conservatives, everybody wanted it back. Religious leaders.

Flat out lie. It's simply untrue that "everybody" wanted to overturn Roe. v. Wade.

4. Abortion again:

If you look at the former governor of Virginia, he was willing to do this. He said, we’ll put the baby aside and we’ll determine what we do with the baby. Meaning, we’ll kill the baby.

Former Gov. Ralph Northram never said this, no matter how many times Trump claims it.

5. Illegal immigration:

He decided to open up our border, open up our country to people that are from prisons, people that are from mental institutions, insane asylum, terrorists. We have the largest number of terrorists coming into our country right now. All terrorists, all over the world — not just in South America, all over the world. They come from the Middle East, everywhere. All over the world, they’re pouring in.

There is no evidence that terrorists have crossed into the US via the southwestern border.

6. Foreign affairs:

As far as Russia and Ukraine, if we had a real president, a president that knew — that was respected by Putin, he would have never — he would have never invaded Ukraine.... Just like Israel would have never been invaded, in a million years, by Hamas. You know why? Because Iran was broke with me. I wouldn’t let anybody do business with them. They ran out of money. They were broke. They had no money for Hamas. They had no money for anything. No money for terror.

This is ridiculous. Trump did nothing to deter Putin and nothing to deter Iran.

7. January 6:

Nancy Pelosi, if you just watch the news from two days ago, on tape to her daughter, who’s a documentary filmmaker, as they say, what she’s saying, oh, no, it’s my responsibility, I was responsible for this. Because I offered her 10,000 soldiers or National Guard, and she turned them down. And the mayor of — in writing, by the way, the mayor. In writing turned it down, the mayor of D.C. They turned it down.

Flat out lie. Trump didn't offer 10,000 National Guard troops to anyone on January 6.

8. January 6 again:

The unselect committee, which is basically two horrible Republicans that are all gone now, out of office, and Democrats, all Democrats, they destroyed and deleted all of the information they found, because they found out we were right. We were right. And they deleted and destroyed all of the information.

Flat out lie. The January 6 committee didn't destroy anything.

9. Ukraine:

Joe could be a convicted felon with all of the things that he’s done. He’s done horrible things. All of the death caused at the border, telling the Ukrainian people that we’re going to want a billion dollars or you change the prosecutor, otherwise, you’re not getting a billion dollars.

If I ever said that, that’s quid pro quo. That — we’re not going to do anything, we’re not going to give you a billion dollars unless you change your prosecutor having to do with his son.

Flat out lie. The US wanted Ukraine's top prosecutor fired because he was corrupt. It had nothing to do with Hunter Biden, and in any case, Joe Biden was just the messenger for US policy.

10. Inflation:

He caused the inflation. He’s blaming inflation. And he’s right, it’s been very bad. He caused the inflation and it’s killing black families and Hispanic families and just about everybody. It’s killing people. They can’t buy groceries anymore. They can’t. You look at the cost of food where it’s doubled and tripled and quadrupled. They can’t live. They’re not living anymore. He caused this inflation.

Our recent surge in inflation was caused primarily by COVID shortages. Beyond that, it was most likely caused by rescue packages passed under Trump, which were much bigger than Biden's. And food prices haven't doubled or quadrupled; they've gone up about 20%.

11. Criminal justice:

What he has done to the black population is horrible, including the fact that for 10 years he called them superpredators. We can’t, in the 1990s, we can’t forget that. Super predators was his name. And he called it to them for 10, and they’ve taken great offense at it, and now they see it happening.

Flat out lie. Biden never uttered the word superpredator.

12. The environment:

During my four years, I had the best environmental numbers ever. And my top environmental people gave me that statistic just before I walked on the stage, actually.

Trump was a disaster for the environment. Carbon emissions stopped going down under Trump until 2020, when they dropped solely due to COVID.

13. Fentanyl:

Jake, we’re doing very well at addiction until the COVID came along. We had the two-and-a-half, almost three years of like nobody’s ever had before, any country in every way. And then we had to get tough. And it was — the drugs pouring across the border, we’re — it started to increase.

Fentanyl deaths increased from 70,000 to 107,000 over Trump's term. Cocaine overdose deaths also skyrocketed.

Here are ten short excerpts from answers Joe Biden gave during last Thursday's debate. Reading them on the screen allows you to judge his performance solely by its content without getting distracted by his hoarseness or his facial expressions or any other bits of theater criticism. We're not electing someone to star in Hamlet, after all.

Unfortunately, this does not improve things. It might make them worse.

1. Raising taxes on billionaires:

We’d be able to write — wipe out his debt. We’d be able to help make sure that — all those things we need to do, childcare, elder care, making sure that we continue to strengthen our healthcare system, making sure that we’re able to make every single solitary person eligible for what I’ve been able to do with the COVID — excuse me, with dealing with everything we have to do with—

LONG PAUSE AND BLANK STARE

Look, if—

PAUSE

We finally beat Medicare.

2. Abortion:

Look, there’s so many young women who have been — including a young woman who just was murdered and he went to the funeral. The idea that she was murdered by — by — by an immigrant coming in and (inaudible) talk about that.

But here’s the deal, there’s a lot of young women who are being raped by their — by their in-laws, by their — by their spouses, brothers and sisters, by — just — it’s just — it’s just ridiculous. And they can do nothing about it. And they try to arrest them when they cross state lines.

3. Abortion again:

I supported Roe v. Wade, which had three trimesters. First time is between a woman and a doctor. Second time is between a doctor and an extreme situation. A third time is between the doctor — I mean, it’d be between the woman and the state.

4. Illegal immigration:

Since I’ve changed the law, what’s happened? I’ve changed it in a way that now you’re in a situation where there are 40 percent fewer people coming across the border illegally. It’s better than when he left office. And I’m going to continue to move until we get the total ban on the — the total initiative relative to what we’re going to do with more Border Patrol and more asylum officers.

5. Ukraine:

We found ourselves in a situation where, if you take a look at what Trump did in Ukraine, he’s — this guy told Ukraine — told Trump, do whatever you want. Do whatever you want. And that’s exactly what Trump did to Putin, encouraged him, do whatever you want. And he went in.

6. Black progress:

The facts of the matter is more small black businesses that have been started in any time in history. Number two, the wages of black — black unemployment is the lowest level it has been in a long, long time. Number three, we find them — they’re trying to provide housing for black Americans and dealing with segregation that exists among these corporate — these corporate operations that collude to keep people out of their houses.

7. The economy:

We have covered with — the ACA has increased. I made sure that they’re $8,000 per person in the family to get written off in health care, but this guy wants to eliminate that. They tried 50 times. He wants to get rid of the ACA again, and they’re going to try again if they win.

You find ourselves in a position where the idea that we’re not doing it. I put more — we put more police on the street than any administration has. He wants to cut the cops. We’re providing for equity, equity, and making sure people have a shot to make it. There is a lot going on. But, on inflation, he caused it by his tremendous malfeasance in the way he handled the pandemic.

8. Climate change:

I’ve passed the most extensive, it was the most extensive climate change legislation in history, in history. We find ourselves — and by the way, black colleges, I came up with $50 billion for HBCUs, historic black universities and colleges, because they don’t have the kind of contributors that they have to build these laboratories and the like. Any black student is capable in college in doing what any white student can do. They just have the money. But now, they’ll be able to get those jobs in high tech.

9. Social Security:

The idea that they’re going to — I’m not — I’ve been proposing that everybody, they pay — millionaires pay 1 percent — 1 percent. So no one after — I would not raise the cost of Social Security for anybody under $400,000. After that, I begin to make the wealthy begin to pay their fair share, by increasing from 1 percent beyond, to be able to guarantee the program for life.

10. Golf:

BIDEN: You’re going to see he’s six-foot-five and only 225 pounds — or 235 pounds.
TRUMP: (inaudible).
BIDEN: Well, you said six-four, 200.
TRUMP: (inaudible).
BIDEN: Well, anyway, that’s — anyway, just take a look at what he says he is and take a look at what he is. Look, I’d be happy to have a driving contest with him. I got my handicap, which, when I was vice president, down to a 6. And by the way, I told you before I’m happy to play golf if you carry your own bag. Think you can do it?
TRUMP: That’s the biggest lie that he’s a 6 handicap, of all.
BIDEN: I was 8 handicap.
TRUMP: Yeah.
BIDEN: Eight, but I have — you know how many…

This ad from Donald Trump ran during Thursday's debate. That is, even before Joe Biden's terrible performance:

I don't personally have a strong opinion about Kamala Harris. But that doesn't matter. It's hard to overstate just how long and how intensely Fox News and others have been demonizing her. By now even moderate Republicans are fully convinced that Harris is dangerously incompetent, ultra-liberal, and scary. Most of them are petrified at the prospect of her becoming president.

Needless to say, that prospect is now even scarier than it was before the debate. This is something to keep in mind as you ponder Joe Biden's fate. If Biden drops out Harris is the all but certain nominee, and fair or not, she may be the only Democrat alive with even less center-right support than Biden. And that center-right support is where the election will be won or lost.

California recently passed a bill requiring high school students to take a class in financial literacy in order to graduate. I was curious about just what this entailed, so I took a look at the bill. There are a dozen basic curriculum requirements:

1. Fundamentals of banking for personal use, including, but not limited to, savings and checking and managing to minimize fees.
2. Principles of budgeting for independent living.
3. Employment and understanding factors that affect net income, including worker rights such as:
   • Prohibitions against misclassification of employees as independent contractors.
   • Child labor.
   • Wage and hour protections.
   • Worker safety.
   • Workers' compensation.
   • Unemployment insurance.
   • Paid Sick Leave, Paid Family Leave, State Disability Insurance, and the California Family Rights Act.
   • The right to organize a union in the workplace.
   • Prohibitions against retaliation by employers when workers exercise these or any other rights guaranteed by law.
4. Uses and effects of credit, including managing credit scores and the relation of debt and interest to credit.
5. Uses and costs of loans, including student loans, as well as policies that provide student loan forgiveness.
6. Types and costs of insurance, including home, auto, health, and life insurance.
7. Impacts of the tax system, including its impact on personal income, the process to file taxes, and how to read tax forms and pay stubs.
8. Principles of investing and building wealth, including investment alternatives to build financial security, including tax-advantaged investments such as pensions and 401(k) plans, individual retirement accounts (IRAs), and stocks, bonds, mutual funds, and index funds.
9. Enhancing consumer protection skills by raising awareness of common scams and frauds and preventing identity theft.
10. Identifying means to finance college, workforce education, low-cost community college options, and other career technical educational pathways or apprenticeships. Financing options covered may include scholarships, merit aid, and student loans.
11. Understanding how psychology can impact one’s financial well-being.
12. Charitable giving.

In my usual snobbish way, my first thought about "financial literacy" was: Come on. What are they going to do with the smart kids who will understand everything in the first week and then have nothing to do? But after reading this list my concern is more with how average kids are expected to soak this all up. It feels kind of overwhelming for a C+ 17-year-old.

Plus I wonder who's going to teach these classes. Most adults aren't all that financially literate, after all, and a degree in history or art or English or even math won't help you out much. But I suppose they'll figure it out.

I've seen a surprising amount of confusion over what it means that the Supreme Court has killed "Chevron deference."

But it's not complicated. In the Chevron case 40 years ago, the Court didn't say that federal agencies could just make up their own rules—or that judges couldn't overrule them. Judges can and do overrule agencies all the time.

All the Court said is that judges should defer to agencies if (a) the law is ambiguous, (b) the agency's interpretation is a "rational" and "reasonable" one, and (c) the interpretation is reached through formal proceedings.¹

That's it, and at the time it was published no one considered it an especially big deal because courts had long deferred to agencies anyway on pragmatic grounds—namely that complex modern rulemaking frequently required deep expertise that judges didn't have. Chevron merely changed the grounds for this deference and made it a little more explicit.

It may be, as some people have argued, that the case at hand in yesterday's decision really was an example of egregious overreach by a federal agency. If it was, however, the Court could easily have ruled against the Commerce Department without touching Chevron. They just had to declare that the department's actions weren't a reasonable interpretation of the law.²

In theory, Chevron is neither conservative nor liberal. It's merely a statement about the level of deference courts should show toward Congress and federal agencies, regardless of which party is in power. Nor, as the Wall Street Journal puts it, should it mean that Biden administration priorities are on "shakier legal footing."

In practice, though, it gives the Supreme Court cover to work its will more overtly if federal agencies are being reasonable but the justices don't like the results anyway. And since the Court looks set to be an activist conservative body for a good long time, that means its will is likely to be activist and conservative regardless of what's reasonable.

¹The last bit (limiting deference to formal proceedings) was added in a later case.

²They do this a lot, which makes it unclear just how much impact the end of Chevron will have. In a sense, all the Court did was codify what they've been doing for the past couple of decades anyway.

It's commonplace these days to note with alarm the growing influence of extremist right wing parties in Europe. I think this is generally overblown, but it's worth noting that, to the extent it's true, it's largely because these parties have made themselves over as less extreme. In France, for example, Marine Le Pen took over the fascist National Front and promptly kicked out her racist father; rebadged the party as National Rally; put a lid on overt antisemitism; and reversed course on leaving NATO, leaving the EU, and repealing same-sex marriage.

So the party is now more normie friendly. But in the runup to national elections that start tomorrow the Washington Post asks if the makeover is more than paper thin:

Innuendo, conspiracies and vitriol from National Rally candidates and supporters are amplifying doubts about how much a movement originally rooted in antisemitism and racism has truly evolved.

One candidate competing in the first round of the legislative assembly elections on Sunday suggested that a rival party was financed by Jews. Another claimed that some civilizations remain “below bestiality in the chain of evolution.” Yet another blamed a bedbug infestation in France on “the massive arrival from all the countries of Africa.” One more regularly pays tribute to the man who led the Nazi collaborators in World War II-era Vichy France.

....Like Trumpism, LePénisme remains a safe harbor for anti-vaccine advocates, climate-change skeptics and Putin admirers. And as seen through social media posts and telling asides — as well as through homophobic attacks and racist tirades allegedly committed by Le Pen supporters — National Rally still provides a welcome home for vitriolic thought.

In other words, like Trumpism, a lot of support for National Rally is still motivated by racism. Also like Trumpism, this mostly takes the form of tolerating racism rather than overtly appealing to it. With a wink and a nudge, Le Pen lets her fans know that she's on their side—even as they understand that she can't say so in public.

The only question is how many people actively like this? And how many more are either fooled by the makeover or just don't care that much about a bit of casual racism? We'll find out in the first round of voting tomorrow and the final round a week after that.

This is from the Wall Street Journal this morning:

I'm not picking on the Journal here. They're just one of many. My question is: Why does Elon Musk's every utterance seem to get news play?

In the case of Donald Trump it's understandable. He was president of the United States and might be again. But Musk is just a businessman who likes to talk a lot. Why should anyone care what he thinks about Star Wars or DEI or trans people or immigration or any of the dozens of other subjects he blathers about?

We've been through other phases like this with other people. Sarah Palin. Glenn Beck. Michele Bachmann. Tucker Carlson.

What is it that makes us periodically train our sights on someone and suddenly become desperate to pay attention to everything they say? And why are these people always conservative?

According to a new study, here's our best estimate of the number of premature deaths caused each year by a variety of chemicals:

But wait! I left the two biggest killers off because they wrecked the y-axis. Here's the full chart:

Lead kills more people than every other chemical combined. And drawing from other sources, small air particulates dwarf even lead: Estimates suggest they're responsible for 8.1 million premature deaths every year.

There's been so much going on today that I forgot all about the May inflation report. This is PCE inflation, the measure preferred by the Fed:

As usual, don't put too much stock in a single month's number. That said, this is superlative news. The headline rate is negative, and the core rate, which the Fed cares most about, is only 1.0%.

On the more conventional year-over-year measure, headline inflation dropped to 2.6% and core inflation also dropped to 2.6%. But those numbers incorporate a lot of inertia from 12 months ago, so who cares?

I would sure like to be a fly on the wall of the Supreme Court chambers right about now. The Court's term typically ends in June, but they still haven't released their ruling on Donald Trump's immunity claim. What can they possibly be waiting for? Was there some kind of last-minute change of heart that delayed things? Or what?

Now, there's no law that says the Supreme Court term has to end in June. It just usually does. Hell, there's no law that says they can only publish opinions on weekdays. Maybe the immunity decision will drop at 3 am on Saturday. At this point anything is possible.

What makes this whole thing especially weird is that there's another decision still in waiting: Moody v. NetChoice, which is about whether a state can prohibit social media companies from removing content based on the views expressed. Like the immunity case, this one should be a no-brainer: of course they can't. This kind of state interference with speech is precisely what the First Amendment is designed to prevent.

What does it mean that two easy cases are taking so long? Maybe nothing. But the justices aren't hermits. They know the stakes of the immunity case in particular. They know that Trump's January 6 trial has been on hold for months waiting on them.¹ What are they thinking?

POSTSCRIPT: On a broader note, why is the Supreme Court so weirdly obsessed by secrecy? Why not just tell us when the term will end? Why not publish their schedule for releasing opinions? What possible benefit is there in keeping everyone on the edge of their seats?

¹The immunity decision doesn't affect Trump's classified documents case because it applies only to immunity for actions taken as president. The documents case is about actions he took after leaving office.