Explaining The Kavanaugh Freak-Out

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Unlike plenty of other bloggers, I somehow have not felt the need the past couple of days to spend hours watching the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on the Kavanaugh nomination.  After all, the chance that these hearings will change anyone's mind is about zero.  But I do admit to being surprised that the hearings have gone well beyond the usual tiresome repetition of rehearsed talking points, and into something fairly described as a freak-out, complete with frequent interruptions from paid protestors in the audience, and shouted and overtly hostile demands and questions even from many of the Senators.  Clearly the opposition to Kavanaugh, despite lacking the votes to block his confirmation, cares deeply about doing everything possible to stop him.

Well, I guess that's what you get when the Supreme Court has been politicized.  But for readers who may not understand what it really means for the Court to be "politicized" -- and even for some readers who do, but don't know all the details -- I thought it would be useful to lay out in one place some of the main issues at stake.  Here's the fundamental question:  Will the progressive project to create a world of perfect justice and fairness through government action march forward unimpeded, or will it meet a series of obstacles set up by the Constitution and enforced by the Supreme Court?

The first issue is the most obvious, namely using the Court as a vehicle for enacting into law some current priority of the progressive left that Congress or state legislatures seem unwilling to pass, at least at the moment. . . .

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The Movement To Bring Back Universal Rent Control In New York Gains Steam

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If you follow at all the ongoing disaster in Venezuela, let alone the horrors that continue in places like Cuba and North Korea, you must be completely scratching your head at the stunning revival of the movement for socialism on college campuses and among young people.  And how about the horrors of the Soviet Union, the Stalin purges and intentional famines, the Great Leap Forward of Maoist China, the Cambodian Killing Fields?  Could they really teach so little of anything important in schools these days?

It's a small thing by comparison to the great horrors above, but here in New York City we have our own notable example of the return of delusionism as everything important goes down the memory hole.  I'm talking about the trendy campaign for something called "universal rent control."    Leading the charge are Democratic Party gubernatorial primary challenger Cynthia Nixon and Lieutenant Governor candidate Jumaane Williams.  Over in the legislature, plenty of assemblymen and senators are more than ready to vote for such a thing.  After all, it would be "fair" and would "help struggling families."

Here's the forgotten history, supplemented by my own personal experience. . . .

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Enjoy Your Labor Day!

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It's Labor Day, the last holiday of the summer.  And if you're like me, you're probably taking the opportunity to enjoy a nice warm day with family and friends.  Maybe a walk in the woods.  Maybe a dip in the lake.  Maybe a traditional cookout.  In large part it's just simple enjoyment of the blessings of life; and in part it's also a celebration of the remarkably widespread prosperity that America has brought to its citizens, even regular working people, that is unique in human history.

Or maybe you're a progressive.  In that case, you are probably spending your Labor Day overcome with guilt and shame.

Just a couple of weeks ago I took a look at progressive psychology as revealed in a letter to a New York Times advice column.  The letter writer, who signed him or herself "Whitey," claimed to be overcome with shame by the very fact of being "white":

I’m riddled with shame. White shame. . . .  I feel like there is no “me” outside of my white/upper middle class/cisgender identity.  I feel like my literal existence hurts people, like I’m always taking up space that should belong to someone else. . . .

Many commenters on the web read the letter and thought it had to be a parody.

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Is There Any Real Slum In New York Any More?

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Is There Any Real Slum In New York Any More?

Looking back you have to wonder what I was thinking, but I actually moved into New York City in 1975.  That was approximately the year when New York hit rock bottom.  It was the year that New York City kind-of defaulted on its debt.  Read the details of that episode in the New Yorker here.  The kind-of default was in October 1975, right between when I took the bar exam and found out that I had passed.  What was I getting into?

During the decade of the 1970s New York City lost more than 800,000 people in population, about 10% of the total, going from 7.89 million in the 1970 census to 7.07 million in the 1980 census.  The sharp decline in population meant that large amounts of housing became vacant.  The housing in question was concentrated in certain neighborhoods that were being rapidly overwhelmed by crime and abandoned by productive citizens.  Fires in these neighborhoods became pervasive.  This was the era of "Fort Apache, the Bronx" -- the title of a 1981 movie starring Paul Newman that memorialized that sad and dangerous time.  

The neighborhoods in question were what we would recognize as classic "slums," characterized by a combination of deteriorated housing stock, high crime, vandalism, and destruction that included pervasive arson.  You may recognize the names of some of these neighborhoods:  the South Bronx; Harlem and much of the Lower East Side in Manhattan; and, in Brooklyn, much of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Bushwick, East New York and Brownsville.  Two of the very worst areas were the center of the South Bronx and the most eastern part of the Lower East Side of Manhattan (the area of Avenues C and D).  By the time the mid-80s rolled around, many of the buildings in these areas had been burned out and knocked down, replaced by vacant lots.  Even as the city revived in the 90s and 2000s, new private investment in these areas was minimal to non-existent.  The vacant lots persisted for decades.  Put simply, nobody would invest private money in these places.  It was seen as just too risky.

Which brings me to a couple of postings today at a site called New York YIMBY ("Yes In My Back Yard"). . . .

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A Closer Look At Our Over-Criminalized And Badly Slanted Legal System

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It's hard to think of any good that can possibly come out of the ongoing maniacal efforts to use the criminal law to overturn the results of our last election.  But here's the best I can offer:  At least we are getting a closer look than we usually get at our over-criminalized and steeply slanted legal system.  And maybe a few people are starting to pay attention.  We've let this monster get way out of control.  Can it be reined in?  Maybe a little.

If you are unfamiliar with this subject, you can get a lot of background by reading through my Archives under the tag "Phony Prosecutions."  There are about 60 posts there, covering everything from the extraordinary number of crimes (over 4000 just in the federal books!), to vague statutes, to shakedowns of legitimate businesses, to takedowns of political opponents, to prosecutorial coercion of witnesses, to misuse of civil asset forfeitures, and much more.  

The most recent post, just a couple of days ago noted that Michael Cohen had pled guilty to a violation of the campaign finance law because supposedly the payoff to Stormy Daniels constituted a campaign rather than a personal expense, and therefore Cohen's advancement of same constituted a campaign contribution in excess of the allowed limit of $2700.  However, under the same law, had the same payment instead been made with campaign funds contributed in accordance with the limits in a desperate attempt to avoid criminality, the payment could then just as easily have been prosecuted as misuse of campaign funds for a personal expense -- that's a crime too!  They've got you coming and going!  Everything is a crime! . . .

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Manhattan Contrarian Guide To Campaign Finance Law

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As a sophisticated observer of the political scene and reader of the Manhattan Contrarian, you undoubtedly know why we have strict and intricate campaign finance laws:  They are "to get money out of politics."  Or something like that.

Or are they really about protecting incumbents and putting roadblocks in the way of challengers?  Or, even worse, are they about giving partisan prosecutors some tools to take down inconvenient Republicans while Democrats get a pass?  I'll let you be the judge.

First, the basics of how this works.  Much of which, by the way, you can blame on the recently-departed John McCain, via the so-called McCain-Feingold campaign finance law of 2002.  One of his many mistakes in life -- but then, we all make mistakes.  The central provision of this campaign finance law is that contributions to "campaigns" for federal office are limited in amount, essentially to $2700 per election cycle for an individual or $5400 for a couple.  Obviously, for such a restriction to work, it must then be illegal for a "campaign" to pay "campaign expenses" from a source other than the funds contributed in accordance with the limits.  Equally obviously, since you have raised "campaign funds" for your "campaign" in accordance with strict limits and representations, it must be illegal to use the "campaign funds" for other than "campaign purposes."  And, to make this all work seamlessly, all "campaign expenses" over $200 must be reported and accurately described to the bureaucrats at the Federal Election Commission.  Needless to say, any violation of these rules is a crime.

So let's see how these rules get applied in a few recent examples:

Trump/Cohen . . .

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