Althouse

From "Can governments actually spark a baby boom? These countries are trying. Governments are testing whether a mix of perks, incentives and ideology might reverse shrinking population trends. Here’s what they’ve learned" (WaPo).

Said José Vela III, of the Austin City Council, which voted for a big property tax increase but must abide by Texas law that requires a referendum.

That's the headline in the lead article at the NYT this morning. 

There are still more Democrats registered nationwide than Republicans, partly because of big blue states like California allow people to register by party, while red states like Texas do not. But the trajectory is troublesome for Democrats, and there are growing tensions over what to do about it. Democrats went from nearly an 11-percentage-point edge over Republicans on Election Day 2020 in those places with partisan registration, to just over a 6-percentage-point edge in 2024.... 

"This is particularly pertinent in light of Bowser's dishonest effort (acting on behalf of the restaurant industry lobbyists) to overturn the will of the voters for the second time by repealing I-82. Even though tipping mainly benefits employers by transferring to their customers a large part of the responsibility for paying their staff, it would probably temporarily hurt workers to go cold turkey and just go on a tipping strike (although in the long run getting rid of tipping would help both customers and workers). But what about taking a baby step and reducing the going rate for tips from 20% to 15%? Since tips are now tax free, the net impact on workers should be minimal."

A letter to the Washington Post food critic.

"... in order to help the lower and middle income workers, is that the Radical Left Democrat Lunatics would go around screaming, 'Read my lips,' the fabled Quote by George Bush the Elder that is said to have cost him the Election. NO, Ross Perot cost him the Election! In any event, Republicans should probably not do it, but I'm OK if they do!!!"

I'm reading the NY Post:

"President Trump said Friday he is stripping Harvard University of its tax-exempt status.

“We are going to be taking away Harvard’s Tax Exempt Status. It’s what they deserve!” he said in a Truth Social post.

President Trump signed an executive order Thursday directing the Corporation for Public Broadcasting's board of directors to "cease federal funding for NPR and PBS," the nation's primary public broadcasters. Trump contends that news coverage by NPR and PBS contains a left-wing bias. The federal funding for NPR and PBS is appropriated by Congress....

"Which viewpoints NPR and PBS promote does not matter," the executive order says. "What does matter is that neither entity presents a fair, accurate or unbiased portrayal of current events to tax-paying citizens."

That's a question from the audience, and Bill Maher snaps, "Well, there's no need to shit on Detroit in the question! Detroit's a fine city. Detroit!"

"Remember, Tax Exempt Status is totally contingent on acting in the PUBLIC INTEREST!"

Said Donald Trump (on Truth Social).

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BREAKING: Commerce Secretary Lutnick just confirmed that the Trump Administration is looking to ABOLISH the IRS!

This is not a drill!

Let's get it done! pic.twitter.com/9XdMIkYu2q

— Gunther Eagleman™ (@GuntherEagleman) February 20, 2025

"Tom scaled down his involvement with the site years ago—if the indictment is to be believed, he had a lot of other things on his plate—and today SCOTUSblog is really run by Amy Howe, its main courtroom reporter, and Ellena Erskine, its editor. I see no reason why Amy, Ellena, and SCOTUSblog’s nine regular contributors can’t continue their excellent and invaluable work. I don’t know—and can’t imagine—what’s going on in Tom and Amy’s marriage right now... If Tom and Amy go their separate ways (or even if they don’t), they should squarely place all ownership and control of SCOTUSblog in Amy’s hands.... And as a loyal reader of SCOTUSblog pretty much since its inception, I hereby volunteer to do anything in my power to keep it up and running...."

Writes David Lat, in "SCOTUSblog Founder Tom Goldstein Hit With 22-Count Federal Indictment/A lengthy indictment accuses the once high-flying Supreme Court lawyer of massive tax evasion—tied to multimillion-dollar poker losses and multiple affairs" (Substack).

"... and didn’t proceed. If we decide we need to, we’re going to do the same thing to the math underneath AI."

Said Marc Andreessen, on the podcast "Honestly with Bari Weiss."

Marc Andreessen (@pmarca) says he attended “absolutely horrifying” meetings where Biden’s government vowed to take “complete control” over AI technology:

“They basically said AI is going to be a game of 2 or 3 big companies working closely with the government… We’re going to… pic.twitter.com/REjkfgJkyV

— Honestly with Bari Weiss (@thehonestlypod) December 10, 2024

Here's a transcript of the entire podcast. Excerpt, giving context to the quote above:

He courted the show’s young male audience by floating the idea of eliminating the income tax, talking about mixed martial arts fighters, praising the military skills of Gen. Robert E. Lee and speculating that there was “no reason not to think” there could be life on Mars and other planets....

Why not say he "courted" the old women (like me) by talking about the length of the bed in the Lincoln bedroom and how badly depressed Mary Todd Lincoln was after her son Tad died?

Mr. Rogan seemed to back Mr. Trump’s questioning of election processes, at one point likening those who raised concerns over elections to those who questioned coronavirus vaccines.

“You get labeled an election denier,” Mr. Rogan said. “It’s like being labeled an anti-vaxxer if you question some of the health consequences that people have from the Covid-19 shots.”...

What I thought was so interesting was the first topic: how Trump felt when he found himself suddenly President. If that's not a topic for women, I don't know what is, especially when Trump centered the description on his interest in seeing the Lincoln bedroom and imagining the feelings of Abe and Mary. I loved Trump's (seeming) openness, as he repeatedly described his subjective experience as "surreal."

I'd just watched "What a Way to Go" — the Criterion Channel is featuring Shirley MacLaine movies — and checking Rotten Tomatoes, I saw that Joan Didion wrote a review in the May 1964 issue of Vogue. I could subscribe to Vogue just to read that paragraph, but I found that by calming down and believing in myself, I could read it. It's not much different from reading without one's reading glasses. It's an apt and pithy review. "What a Way to Go" was a big movie in its day, so it deserves the bad reviews it got, but 60 years later, it's fun to look at the stars and the costumes and the sets. The Hollywood that produced it no longer exists. Nothing to get mad at now. Here's a sentence from the contemporaneous NYT review by Bosley Crowther:

Inspired by a Gwen Davis story, which has not swum into my ken, so I cannot tell you how fairly or fouly it has been used, the team of musical-comedy writers is making kookie jokes about a girl whose sad fate it is to marry a succession of burgeoning millionaires.

The "girl" hates money, loves Henry David Thoreau, and only wants to live the simple life, but the movie seems to have been made on the theory that the way to make good art is by spending as much money as possible.

Here's "Charities, Churches and Politics" at the IRS website.

Here's the article, "Biden Tries to Rally Disaffected Black Voters in Fiery Condemnation of Trump."

President Biden sought to rally disaffected Black supporters on Monday with a fiery condemnation of former President Donald J. Trump, linking his predecessor’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election to the nation’s history of white supremacy in what he called “the old ghost in new garments.”

Ghost?! If Trump used the idea of a ghost to scare black people, he'd be accused of trading on the old racist trope. 

"... as the son of Indian immigrants. 'Ramaswamy — a Hindu who grew up visiting relatives in India and was very much ingrained in India’s caste system — supports this as a mechanism to preserve a meritocracy in America and ensure everyone starts on a level playing field,' the document states...."

Asked to comment on the reason for highlighting Mr. Ramaswamy’s religion and background, the super PAC’S chief executive, Chris Jankowski, said in a statement: “We are highlighting that his philosophy of government is a direct reflection of his life experience. When his parents moved here from India, they had an 85 percent inheritance tax. In fact, his support of the inheritance tax is connected to the argument he makes in his book against meritocracy.”

Said President Macron, quoted in "Radical left threatens civilisation in France, says Macron/President speaks out after pension reform protests and attacks on elected officials" (London Times).

Presidential advisers said the term was a reference to Norbert Elias, the 20th century German sociologist who described how self-restraint and social inhibitions had civilised Europe, first in royal courts and then among the rest of the population, in his book The Civilizing Process.

This resonates with me because I once used the word "civilized" in the presence of sociologists and experienced the iciest silence of my entire life. Used it jocosely... I'd thought. 

Macron is said to believe the process has gone into reverse in what one adviser called a “Trumpisation of minds and a denial of reality”. 

Trump gets blame for what the left is doing... in France.  

Wrote the trial judge, Justice Robert R. Reed (State Supreme Court in Manhattan), quoted in "Judge Dismisses Trump’s Lawsuit Against The New York Times/Former President Donald J. Trump, who had sued The Times, three of its reporters and his niece over an investigation into his tax returns, was ordered to pay The Times’s legal expenses" (NYT).

That's the headline for a piece labelled "Opinion" and signed by The Editorial Board of The Wall Street Journal. 

[Taibbi told the House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government] that an IRS agent showed up at his personal residence in New Jersey on March 9. That happens to be the same day Mr. Taibbi testified before the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government about what he learned about Twitter. The taxman left a note instructing Mr. Taibbi to call the IRS four days later. 

It seems to have just been about an identity theft issue, in which case Taibbi is the victim, not someone accused of anything. It's annoying, but not threatening to the taxpayer. The question is just why come to his house about that and why on the same day that he testified in Congress. The WSJ editors say it "raises questions about potential intimidation" and endorse the Committee's request for "documents and communications relating to the Taibbi visit." 

The IRS needs to prove the timing was just a coincidence.

The fear of many Americans is that, flush with its new $80 billion in funding from Congress, the IRS will unleash its fearsome power against political opponents.