Category: Politics

That works out to more than $500 per child per day, and it’s apparently a discount based on this sentence: “Kenneth Wolfe, a spokesman for HHS’s Administration for Children and Families, said the average daily cost per child is ‘approximately $775 per day based on past experience.’”

In comparison, I just checked the price of a Sandals all-inclusive 5-star resort in Negril, Jamaica, and it works out to $300 per person per day ($4200 for a couple, 7-nights). So we could transport the kids there, hire each kid a personal nanny at $90 a day (a desirable job with a solid wage in Jamaica), house them in a 5-star resort with unlimited gourmet meals included, and still cut the price in half from that $775 figure. The older kids can even drink booze for free! (Alcohol is also included at Sandals, and Jamaica has no minimum drinking age.)

In equally daunting math:

$60 million per week is three billion dollars per year – and the number of kids is expected to grow dramatically.

The cited rate of $775 per child per day multiplies out to $280,000 per child per year!

Of course I’m not saying that we shouldn’t take care of the kids, but perhaps we need to improve our efficiency.

A lot.

“After making history by being impeached, (the President) lambasted his political opponents, painted himself as a persecuted hero and skipped his successor’s inauguration as he finished up his single term in office. In a bitter farewell address, he railed on about his many grievances and insisted he had no regrets from his time in office.”

The president in question was Andrew Johnson.

Johnson was still expected to attend the event as of the very morning of that Inauguration Day, but he begged off when his carriage came for him, and stayed in his office until the very last minute of his Presidency. “The last minute” is not a figurative expression in this case. He left the White House at noon, precisely as his term expired.

“I just want to find 11,780 votes”

“He continued to make his case in repetitive fashion, until finally, after roughly an hour, Raffensperger put an end to the conversation: ‘Thank you, President Trump, for your time.’”

Both races are a coin flip. These races are just about dead even and have very few “undecided” voters, so the outcome will hinge completely on turnout.

The challenge is slightly easier for the GOP only because the Democrats have to win both seats to gain Senate control, so the Republicans can hold on if they win either one. For example, they could write off Loeffler, take all the national/outside money they were planning to spend on her, and put it behind Perdue instead. The Democrats have no similar option. They need both.

“It’s called the Covid relief bill, but it has almost nothing to do with Covid. Congress found plenty of money for foreign countries, lobbyists and special interests while sending the bare minimum to the American people. I am asking Congress to amend this bill and increase the ridiculously low $600 to $2,000.”

He’s right on both counts. It’s two kinds of crap

• Crap: The stimulus check is chickenshit
• Other crap: The bill is full of bullshit unrelated to COVID.

I suppose this is true, but doesn’t matter.

Giuliani now exists in a hazy and bizarre Twilight Zone in which none of his criminal actions matter from the beginning of time until January 19th, as long as he doesn’t break any state or local laws.

First of all, if he committed Federal crimes in the past, Trump can pardon him for those.

But more significantly, Rudy may NOW commit any federal crimes he wants to commit. He is quite literally above the law, because any federal crimes he commits between now and January 19th can be pardoned by Trump as he exits – even if Rudy commits those crimes on Trump’s behalf!

All of that sounds incredible, yet it is completely legal and constitutional. (Basically a variant of this already happened with Roger Stone, who committed crimes on Trump’s behalf, then was pardoned by Trump.) Trump and Rudy can now exploit a loophole in the American legal system. The normal constitutional remedy for this type of behavior on the part of the President is impeachment, but there is simply no time to pull that off with a lame duck President. Our founding fathers gave us no mechanism to deal with a President corrupt enough to take that kind of advantage of his final days in office. Apparently they could never imagine that a scoundrel of that magnitude could win the office.

Similarly, it doesn’t matter whether Trump can pardon himself. He doesn’t need to as long as Pence is on board. The same sort of loophole applies to him. He can commit any Federal crime he wants to between now and January 19th, as long as he steps down that day and allows President Pence to be sworn in and issue a Nixon-style pardon to Trump. That’s perfectly constitutional, and comes with an unchallenged precedent in Ford’s pardon of Nixon. The only question is whether Pence is willing to be a faithful lapdog. I guess you can forgive the Founding Fathers for missing this one, because they did not create a system in which the President and Vice-President would be partners. In the 1796 and 1800 elections, they were opponents. (Second highest number of electors became VP). It was not until the 12th Amendment in 1804, about 16 years after the ratification of the Constitution and nearly 30 years after the Declaration of Independence, that the modern system became operative.

According to Gallup, approval of the USA’s leadership is at the lowest point ever in many, many countries, and to make things worse (1) that includes our most trusted allies and (2) those net approval ratings are so low that it may take years or even decades to turn them around, if they can be turned at all.

Germany: minus 83% (6% approve, 89% disapprove)
The UK: minus 60
Canada: minus 65
The Nordic countries: all minus 60 or worse
Other major European powers: between minus 55 and minus 65
Australia and New Zealand: in the high minus 30s.

Among all the free world powers, only Japan continues to hold a slightly positive view of the USA (39% approve, 38% disapprove).

I guess Americans can take some consolation in the fact that our most powerful geopolitical rivals are just as unpopular. The median positive approval for the USA stands at 18%. Russia and China are almost identical at 19% and 17% respectively.

The world now looks to Germany for leadership. (There’s one of the more frightening sentences written in the past two centuries.)

62% of the people of other countries approve of Germany’s leadership. In fact, even Americans have a higher approval of Germany’s leadership than their own! (Germany’s leadership +29, Trump -12, Congress -50.)

Continue reading “Will the USA ever be able to regain its status as the world leader?” →

538’s overview

CNN’s election map

UPDATE:

1. Biden has won Arizona and Georgia.

2. Trump has won Alaska and North Carolina

The final electoral count is 306-232.

Several recounts will happen, but the margins are all far greater than the largest amount ever shifted by a recount.

The lawsuits will not change any results. They are all either lacking in merit or so insignificant as to have no impact on the result.

I’m sure you are well aware that all eyes and everyone’s remaining dollars will get poured into Georgia, where control of the Senate is at stake. Everyone in Georgia is likely to remain as annoyed with their fellow Georgians as we all have been with each other for months, and everyone in the state will be miserable except the TV, radio, print and billboard salesmen, all of whom stand to earn record commissions from the expected deluge of political ads.

UPDATE #13, 11:00 AM EST on Saturday. Joe Biden has won Pennsylvania and (apparently) the Presidency.

• Trump is holding on in North Carolina, and that will not get updated for about a week. Looks safe for Trump.
• Georgia is already planning a recount because the race is incredibly tight. It does appear that Biden will hold on to the state, but it can’t be called.
• Although Fox and the AP called Arizona for Biden, Trump may prove them wrong and win there, because he gets closer every time they count another tranche of ballots. Biden is only ahead by 20,000 with 125,000 left to count. It will go down to the wire.

UPDATE #7. Donald Trump will get more votes than any American has ever previously received in a presidential election – but will lose by at least five million votes. Obviously that means that the voter turnout was immense on both sides. People were very involved and passionate in this election, but it also means that a vast number of Americans love Donald Trump, whose vote total will exceed Obama’s in 2008! Of course, that direct comparison is inappropriate in that Obama got about ten million more votes than his opponent, but the 2020 vote count still reflects Trump’s immense popularity, as well as his immense unpopularity. I disagree with Biden’s claim that America has given him some kind of mandate. The GOP gained seats in the House. The presidential vote was purely a referendum on Trump. We simply rejected an asshole, so Biden’s only mandate is not to be an asshole.

Fox News election maps

538’s live blog