The Fantasyland Of New York City's Discount Grocery Stores

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The Fantasyland Of New York City's Discount Grocery Stores

If you have paid attention at all to New York’s idiotic new Mayor Zohran Mamdani, you probably know that one of his big promises is to open a chain of City-owned grocery stores. These stores, supposedly, will solve the problem of “affordability” of groceries by offering a basket of standard items at prices some 30% below what the other stores charge.

Now I recognize that there has been some substantial inflation in the food sector of the economy in the past few years. In some cases, and for some families, the price increases have been unpleasant or even difficult. However, I submit that there is no way to look at the American food supply and delivery system without seeing it as something close to a miracle for human flourishing.

According to the Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service, the share of disposable personal income spent on food by U.S. consumers in 2025 was 9.7%.

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En Banc DC Circuit Reinstates Funding Of The Most Corrupt Program Ever Enacted

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I recognize that there could be many contenders for the title of the “Most Corrupt Program Ever Enacted.” However, I challenge any reader, or anyone else for that matter, to name any program in the vast federal handout universe more corrupt that the so-called Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund that was created by the Orwellian-named Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, § 60103, and codified at 42 U.S.C. § 7434.

If you have somehow forgotten about this program, it is the one that was the subject of a famous Project Veritas recording, made during the interim between President Trump’s second election in November 2024 and his inauguration in January 2025. In the December 2024 video, an EPA “special advisor” named Brent Efron described a rush in the Biden EPA’s last days to commit huge amounts of funds to friendly non-profits in a way to completely avoid oversight and to make them difficult for the incoming Trump people to claw back. Efron characterized what was going on as “throwing gold bars off the Titanic.”

Upon entering office, the Trump people set out to and then did identify the funds in question — about $20 billion — and promptly rescinded the grants. On August 4 the full D.C. Circuit mostly re-instated the original District Court injunction mandating distribution of the funds.

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The DSA Vision: Does Any Human Being Enjoy Living As A Zoo Animal?

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The DSA Vision: Does Any Human Being Enjoy Living As A Zoo Animal?

Here is a fundamental proposition to which I subscribe: The only thing worth being in life is an adult.

By the word “adult” I have something specific in mind. An adult is someone who, at a minimum, either alone or in a family structure, provides for himself or herself. That’s the minimum. Even more worthwhile is being an adult who also, through effort and within a family structure, creates and provides for a family. Still more worthwhile is being an adult who, after fully providing for a family, also assists others who may need help, beginning with extended family, and potentially then reaching to the broader society and to charity.

The alternative to living as an adult is living as a dependent on others or on society. You are relieved of all responsibilities, and somebody else somehow comes up with whatever you may need in life, be it food or housing or health care. Your own life is no longer burdened by the need to provide for yourself and family, and you can live without stress and without need to fulfill obligations.

In other words, this is the life of a zoo animal. Does any human being actually want to live such a life?

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Don't Forget: There Are Two Multi-Trillion Dollar Pseudoscience Scams

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The news this past week has been filled by Rand Paul’s Senate hearings exposing the extent of the scientific fraud perpetrated by ex-NIAID Director Anthony Fauci in the matter of Covid-19.

First Paul released Fauci’s “diaries,” otherwise known as personal musings recorded in various places on the government’s servers. Then Fauci was compelled to testify, whereupon he invoked his Fifth Amendment privilege more than 100 times and never provided a word of substantive testimony.

However, the diaries on their face revealed numerous instances where Fauci’s public statements were blatant deceptions.

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Big Tech On The Path To Net Zero -- 2026 Edition

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Back in July 2024, I had a post titled “Big Tech On The Road To Net Zero.” Here was the introductory paragraph:

Among the adherents to the cult of climate change, nobody can claim a higher level of sanctimony than the Big Tech behemoths — the likes of Google, Microsoft and Meta. These new economic titans fancy themselves to be totally unlike the dirty and grubby industrial companies of the past, like the steel, automobile or oil producers with their belching smokestacks. Each of these new tech powerhouses loudly proclaims its sacred and unwavering commitment to “net zero” emissions by some early date, typically 2030.

At the time of that post, all three of those Big Tech behemoths, besides maintaining their own supposed paths to “net zero,” were also engaged to one degree or another in censoring and/or de-monetizing and/or downgrading anybody who dared to deviate from the so-called “climate consensus” — whatever that may be.

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Have You Been Nixonmaxxing?

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“Nixonmaxxing” — apparently this is a trendy new term in conservative circles. It refers to a rising level of interest in all things Nixon, particularly among younger conservatives.

Philip Wegmann and Vera Bergengruen report on the phenomenon in the Wall Street Journal of July 18:

The kids are “Nixonmaxxing.”  More than half a century after Watergate, conservative youth are discovering the aesthetic, and adopting the attitude, of the late Richard Nixon. . . . Nixon is being recast as a forerunner of “America First” by a new generation of conservatives: a combative president loathed by the press and besieged by investigators who was brought down by the same establishment they believe targeted President Trump. 

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