April 15, 2024

Sunrise — 6:18.

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Posted by Ann Althouse at 8:30 PM
Tags: , , ,

21 comments:

Lem Vibe Bandit said...

What are the chances the prospective Trump “hush money” jurors have heard about OJ dying and are old enough to remember the term “jury nullification”?

I don’t know. The chances are grim for Trump if they pick married guys and women. Divorce guys I’d imagine would probably be better for him. Blacks and Hispanics are 50/50 even. I know all it would take is one juror but the pressure against that one juror would be too much.

4/15/24, 8:54 PM
West TX Intermediate Crude said...

Tax Day.
Every year, there are proposals for a Flat Tax, another way to soak the productive members of our society for the benefit of the sponges, but in a fairer manner.
It is always understood that people with greater incomes are required to pay higher taxes- it's only fair.
Why is government the only thing that has a higher price for people with higher incomes. A loaf of bread that the grocery store costs the same, an hour of plumber's time costs the same, a ticket to a move, all the same.
Now that I am retired, I pay a lot less for my share of government than I did when I was working. I do not require less government now than I did a few years ago (leaving out the 'entitlement" programs that I paid so much into with every dollar I earned over 50 years).
Congress should make a budget every year. Divide the bottom line of that budget by the number of adults. Every resident of the USA pays that amount. If a resident cannot pay, or declines to pay, liens will be placed on property, or future earnings, or the person can be given an opportunity to work it off in some fashion.
Simple. Fair.

Obviously my recommendation will never be considered. VAT is my second choice, but the income tax must be eliminated by constitutional amendment first.

4/15/24, 9:00 PM
Big Mike said...

I see that the pro-Hamas demonstrators decided to win hearts and minds of ordinary Americans by blocking the Golden Gate Bridge and making people miss their flights from O’Hare. Not a working brain cell In the whole lousy lot of them.

4/15/24, 9:33 PM
Big Mike said...

Today was a red letter day for me. I filled up my car at the local Exxon paying $3.599 per gallon. When Trump was President gasoline at the same gas station was $1.799. So gas is now officially twice as expensive under Biden as it was under Trump.

4/15/24, 9:37 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...

On this day April 15... (in no particular order)

1912 Sinking of the Titanic

2019 The historic Notre-Dame de Paris caught fire

2013 Boston Marathon bombing killed 3

1989 Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield, England, a crush of football (soccer) fans resulted in 96 deaths.

1865 Abraham Lincoln was assassinated at Ford's Theater

1921 Britain's Black Friday

1914 The Ludlow Massacre

2014 More than 200 Nigerian schoolgirls being abducted by the terror group Boko Haram

4/15/24, 9:41 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...

All that to say, it may not have been a good time to start Trump's trial.

4/15/24, 9:51 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...

More "big if true" from Canada: What's coming when cash is no longer king

4/15/24, 10:02 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...

Big if true: "This reportedly happened yesterday in Carlsbad, California. A group of mostly military age males invaded our country illegally via boat and then dispersed throughout the city in cars.

Are any of them on the terror watch list? Do any of them have a criminal history?

We don’t know. We have no clue who’s in our country."

Meanwhile Biden's poll numbers are suddenly better than ever.

4/15/24, 10:50 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...

I have no way of knowing how much of this is true... but I'm seeing a lot of videos of people getting visited by "the FBI" over questions about online posts.

No mainstream media reports about it, of course.

Are they intimidating people, the real vote suppression? They always accuse the other side of the things they themselves start.

4/15/24, 11:05 PM
traditionalguy said...

The rare 9-0 SCOTUS decision written by Amy Barrett has stopped local governments in their tracks from making new comer property owners pay for the existing infrastructure. They can scam the new comers with horrible cost theories for any new infrastructure their building might or might not cause, but it cannot be pure theft like they love to do when stealing anyone’s possessed cash.

At least it’s a tip of the hat to honest Americans. We haven’t seen that in a very long time.

4/15/24, 11:26 PM
gadfly said...

Trump falls asleep during his criminal trial

In case you forgot, “Sleepy Joe” is Donald Trump’s nickname for Joe Biden.

Wake up, Lil' Snoozy, wake up
You've been sound asleep
Wake up, Lil' Snoozy and weep
The trial will soon be over
It's only just four o'clock
And you're in trouble deep
Wake up, wake up, you Creep

4/16/24, 4:16 AM
gadfly said...

traditionalguy said...
The rare 9-0 SCOTUS decision written by Amy Barrett has stopped local governments in their tracks from making new comer property owners pay for the existing infrastructure. They can scam the new comers with horrible cost theories for any new infrastructure their building might or might not cause, but it cannot be pure theft like they love to do when stealing anyone’s possessed cash.

At least it’s a tip of the hat to honest Americans. We haven’t seen that in a very long time

So underground services and streets already laid and paved cannot be charged to new home builders but who does that anyway? Running connecting lines to new houses for sewer, water, gas, electricity, et al will be paid by the new guys as a cost of home building.

Besides the investment in lotted land will always be included in the sale price of the improved land itself because the market will prevail. Unimproved land will always be cheaper.

4/16/24, 4:36 AM
Christopher B said...

The Regional War in the Mideast Is Already Here, Jim Geraghty, NRO - The Morning Jolt

Apparently, the idea is that Iran can launch hundreds of missiles at Israel, but it would be unacceptably escalatory for Israel to shoot back at the missile launchers, air-defense systems, and drone bases, or at any part of Iran’s nuclear-weapons program.

I was reminded of the Biden administration’s position that the Ukrainians should win their war against Russia, but not in a way that involves bombing Russian oil refineries, lest it raise global oil prices and make gas prices in the U.S. more expensive this summer.(He could have made the same observation about more attacks on shipping in the Red Sea.) The Wall Street Journal editorial board recently scoffed, “So Ukraine has to suffer attacks on its territory, but it can’t hit back at its aggressor?”

It’s not hard to see a recurring pattern emerging. The Biden administration has no influence over the actions of Iran, Hamas, the Houthis, Russia — or for that matter, China, North Korea, Syria, Venezuela, or any other hostile actor or state. But it does have some influence over the Israelis, Ukrainians, and other friends and allies. So, all of our efforts to “deescalate” amount to telling our friends to not hit back after they’ve been hit.

Glenn Reynolds did a SubStack post not long ago on the theme that it feels like 1938. There are certainly rhymes. The shine had come off FDR's first term and his landslide victory in 1936 as the country sank into another recession and he floated his plan to pack the USSC. The Japanese were stymied by the Russians in Manchuria, pushing them to look towards the Dutch colony of Indonesia and French Indo-China for the war material need to continue their aggression in China. The European powers permitted Hitler's annexation of the Sudetenland in western Czechoslovakia, and Hitler began his Final Solution in earnest. As VDH noted in his latest book, these border wars eventually merged into WWII. At this point I'd say it was probably inevitable the conflicts would widen since there was no power or alliance willing to step forward to oppose the aggression already underway.

4/16/24, 5:19 AM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...

Say one juror is willing to stick it out for Trump and then he or she remembers what happened to J6 “insurrectionists”.

Who wants to go to jail for Trump?

Trump’s toast.

4/16/24, 5:38 AM
Jamie said...

Congress should make a budget every year. Divide the bottom line of that budget by the number of adults. Every resident of the USA pays that amount. If a resident cannot pay, or declines to pay, liens will be placed on property, or future earnings, or the person can be given an opportunity to work it off in some fashion.
Simple. Fair.

If that budget consisted of only things supported by a majority of Americans, things on which either real social consensus has been achieved or on which there has been votes (for/against candidates publicly supporting the thing or directly on the thing via referendum), maybe.

Not that we have that now. But my point is that virtually no Americans make enough money flat-out to pay "their share" of "our" budget, much less have any money left over on which to support themselves. Our spending is the first problem to solve and I'm not holding my breath.

4/16/24, 6:37 AM
BUMBLE BEE said...

Incompetence or Evil?

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2024/apr/15/ariane-tabatabai-suspected-iranian-agent-working-p/?utm_source=pushly&utm_campaign=pushnotify&utm_medium=subscriber&utm_id=desktop

Never underestimate...

4/16/24, 6:57 AM
Breezy said...

A juror voting to acquit is not an insurrectionist, not even close. Can you imagine the damage to our jury system if a juror was indicted because of their jury vote? Unthinkable mayhem. Sadly though, the Dems enjoy playing with fire.

4/16/24, 6:57 AM
Jamie said...

Unimproved land will always be cheaper.

Your Morning Pedantry Moment:

All other things being equal.

4/16/24, 6:59 AM
Narr said...

April 15, 1986. Memorable because my son was born, and Reagan sent the F111's to bomb Kaddafi.

Good times.

4/16/24, 8:57 AM
West TX Intermediate Crude said...

Jamie-
I did not list your correct concerns because I know that such a tax policy can never be put into place. No chance for grift.
Just for the discussion, I agree, but it will be the best, maybe only, way to get our government pared down to what it should and must be doing, per the Constitution.
There is no call in the Constitution for the government to take money out of the account of Citizen #1 and place it into the account of Citizen #2, with a cut for the bureaucrat, of course. Yet that is what the majority of federal government activity does. Let's get back to defense, border enforcement/immigration, delivering the mail, and maybe national parks. General welfare means general, not a specific individual who is short this month.

4/16/24, 9:04 AM
The Real Andrew said...

Many years ago I read the booklet The Law, by Frederic Bastiat. I can’t remember where I saw it recommended. If I recall, Reagan was a fan of Bastiat.

That booklet completely changed the way I looked at taxes. His argument in a nutshell: If taxation leads to wealth redistribution, then it is governmental plunder. It is legitimized, organizational thievery.

It seems that a majority of taxes (and how they are used) can be described this way.

4/16/24, 12:16 PM

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