☕️ KONG ☙ Thursday, August 29, 2024 ☙ C&C NEWS 🦠

Meet Kamala's economics expert; NYT reports massive democrat corruption in California; guess where Kamala calls home; Telegram founder grounded in France; great Fifth Circuit anti-gun decision; more.

Good morning, C&C, it’s Thursday! I hope you are all keeping it weird. Today’s roundup includes: Kamala Harris tax plan mowed down by CNBC anchors as clueless economic advisor tries defending the indefensible; New York Times blows the lid on massive California democrat corruption story; coincidental Kamala favorite residence, totally not related in any way to the last story; Telegram founder charged with crimes and stuck in France while Facebook skates; and terrific fifth circuit decision holds the line on arming illegal immigrants.

🗞💬 WORLD NEWS AND COMMENTARY 💬🗞

🔥🔥 Financial issues can be complicated, especially when experts get involved. You should let them take care of your money. Meet Kamala Harris’s ‘economic advisor’ Bharat Ramamurti (definitely made-up). Bharat had a bad moment on CNBC yesterday:

CLIP: CNBC anchors swamp Kamala finance expert (1:24).

Mr. Ramamurti is a far-left attorney who recently joined the Kamala campaign. Before that, he was Elizabeth “Pocahontas” Warren’s assistant (Indians hiring each other), and then Biden’s deputy economic director. He focused on forgiving student loans and canceling the fossil fuel industry.

Yesterday Bharat popped up on CNBC to defend unrealized capital gains.

The heart of what folks delicately call Kamala’s ‘economic plan’ (beyond her goofy, unworkable idea for grocery price controls) is the dumbest idea ever proposed by a major presidential candidate, ripped straight from Marxist textbooks, called “unrealized capital gains taxes.”

Here’s how it works: Say you own 100 shares of Tesla stock, which you bought at $100. Then, in December last year, following a rumor that Elon would create a jet-fueled Cyber-SuperTruck, the stock briefly raced up to $250 a share. A few days later on January 2nd, after everybody sobered up and realized it was all just a rumor, the stock fell back to $75, where it stayed ever since.

From your point of view, you’ve lost money. Thanks a lot, Elon. But from Kamala’s point of view, you did very well. Since the stock was momentarily worth $250 right at the end of 2023, you’d owe taxes on annual imputed income of $15,000 bucks (+$150 per share at 100 shares). It wouldn’t matter that the value fell back down again in 2024. That’s a different tax year.

Believe it or not, that’s Kamala’s best example. Stocks are easily valued, since stock prices are listed right on the stock market. But Kamala’s plan gets even dumber than it already looks when you consider how impractical it would be to tax ‘unrealized capital gains’ on other types of assets, like real estate.

How, for tax purposes, are owners supposed to value real estate, when there’s no agreed-on price? Would the government accept the owner’s opinion of the value? Or would they force property owners to get an appraisal every single year, to file with their tax returns? Or would IRS agents, like property tax appraisers, set the value of everything you own?

There are many other problems, least of all that Kamala’s tax proposal is probably outright unconstitutional, because imputed income isn’t actually income. Instead, Kamala’s controversial pet tax looks more like a taking, which is prohibited under the Fifth Amendment without just compensation.

Therefore, it wasn’t surprising that Bharat experienced the verbal equivalent of being pig-piled by the CNBC anchors the instant he started trying to defend Kamala’s indefensible tax plan.

But think about this: the visceral disgust the two CNBC anchors obviously felt was the same reaction anyone who understands money and investing would have about the concept of unrealized capital gains. Lots of financially-literate people ‘get it,’ including a critical part of the Democrat base: high-income individuals, corporate types, and oligarchs.

Here’s how the headlines are showing up in the financial trade press, like FinBold, two days ago:

In other words, Kamala’s economic plan seems almost tailor-made to alienate critical parts of the Democrat donor class.

Two final comments on the way out. First, it’s not even Kamala’s plan, it’s a Biden plan she stole. Stealing other people’s policies is starting to look like a kleptomaniacal Kamala pattern. Second, the plan assures everybody that unrealized gains taxes will only apply to people worth $100 million. So you have nothing to worry about, unless you think the government always says that, and what will actually happen is that rich people will move to Switzerland and the IRS will be ‘forced’ to lower the boom on us regular folks.

Kamala’s unrealized gains tax plan is practically a Trump campaign ad.

🔥🔥 Wait, what? How could this happen? The New York Times of all places ran a top-of-fold story this morning headlined, “How California Became a New Center of Political Corruption. Just wait, it gets much, much better. Or worse, depending on where you live.

The sordid story begins right where you would expect: the mandate-happy Los Angeles City Commission. Commissioner Jose Huizar, 55, who was born in Mexico, educated at Berkeley, Princeton, and UCLA law school, was nicknamed the “King Kong” of LA City Hall. (No, it’s not racist, since he’s Mexican-American.)

Jose controlled the vastly influential Planning and Land Use Management Committee, which approves or denies major real-estate developments across the mega-city. Go big, or go home! Huizar went big:

King Kong Huizar became the third LA City Councilman to be convicted of corruption charges in the last year. A fourth still faces charges. The Times said those four were only part of “a much larger circle of staff aides, fund-raisers, political consultants and real estate developers charged in an extraordinary recent wave of bribery and influence-peddling across California.”

Extraordinary!

Actually, not that extraordinary. It’s kind of ordinary. According to Justice Department reports, during the last 10 years, a whopping 576 public officials in California have been convicted on federal corruption charges, more than New York, New Jersey, and Illinois put together. This explains a lot.

Even more shocking, the Times blamed the corruption superspreader, in part, on —get this— the growing Democrat super-majority:

For Jose’s part, when asking the judge for leniency, Huizar admitted being a bribe-factory, but he was just a poor public servant twisted into a greedy pretzel by crooked bribers:

Apparently, neither Princeton or Berkeley, nor even UCLA law school, prepared King Kong to resist the shiny temptations dangled before him like whatshername, Fay Wray.

California suffers from a complicated corruption problem; coincidentally, it also suffers from a Democrat problem:

It must be pretty bad when things are bad enough for the New York Times to report about bad Democrat behavior. Well, California voters? What are you going to do about it?

🔥🔥 Which brings us back to Candidate Plan B. Guess where Cackle lives? The Wall Street Journal ran a cover story this morning headlined, “Inside Kamala Harris’s L.A. Life: SoulCycle, Hollywood Parties, Annoyed Neighbors.”

Kamala grew up in chic Berkeley, but moved to Los Angeles ten years ago. According to the Journal, a joyful analysis of her daily schedule since infesting the White House in 2021 showed “Harris has been in Los Angeles more than any other location outside of Washington.”

L.A. is literally her second office:

More than anything, Los Angeles is also the hub of Harris’s current fundraising campaign. Of six trips including Los Angeles stops so far this year, every single one included a campaign event. I’m just saying that Los Angeles seems flush with cash for Democrat political campaigns.

The Journal noted that Kamala, as you might expect, regularly helps local L.A. officials with their own campaigns. Only the honest ones, probably.

Now don’t get carried away. I’m not connecting the New York Times corruption story to the Journal’s story about Kamala’s favorite city. I’m just noticing the peculiar confluence of information.

🔥🔥 Politico ran an update story yesterday headlined, “France charges Telegram CEO Pavel Durov, releases him on €5M bail.” Telegram’s chief executive was indicted on six charges and must remain in France. He must report in person to a local police station two times a week.

Durov was charged with managing an online platform to “enable” illegal transactions and “complicity” with child pornography, drug trafficking, and “online hate.” He’s not been accused of doing any of those things himself or even knowing about them.

The article didn’t discuss why other platforms like Facebook aren’t also being investigated.

It’s not like there isn’t abundant evidence that Facebook is doing just what Telegram is accused of doing, but worse. In late December, New Mexico sued Facebook civilly (for money) but didn’t charge anyone criminally:

The Facebook suit doesn’t just allege illegal material on the platform. The lawsuit claims that Instagram and Facebook included features deliberately designed to hook children and contribute to a youth mental health crisis.

In fact, New Mexico’s Attorney General told the judge that the case was not about hosting content at all. Instead, it is about Meta actively and intentionally pushing illegal material—far beyond what Durov’s been accused of doing. Still, no criminal charges have been filed against Meta. And even New Mexico’s tepid civil lawsuit does not include the platform’s chief executive. In March, a New Mexico judge dismissed Facebook’s CEO from the lawsuit.

I can’t wait to find out why Telegram is different.

👨‍⚖️👨‍⚖️ The Associated Press ran a very encouraging story yesterday headlined, “Court upholds gun ban for migrants in US unlawfully.”

In a sane 3-0 decision Tuesday, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a federal law prohibiting illegal immigrants in the U.S. from owning guns, finding it was legal and was Constitutional. "We should not extend rights to illegal aliens any further than what the law requires," U.S. Circuit Judge James Ho, a Trump appointee, wrote in his concurring opinion.

In the latest weird Democrat inversion, liberals are actually arguing for more guns — just for illegal aliens rather than for citizens. I mean, what could possibly go wrong with giving criminal invaders legal weapons?

Never say the Democrats don’t stand up for gun rights. Just, not your gun rights.

The case began with an illegal immigrant from Mexico who was convicted for having an illegal firearm. His far-left lawyers argued that recent Supreme Court cases upholding gun rights precluded his conviction. The Second Amendment!

But on appeal, the 5th Circuit held the plain text of the Second Amendment does not extend to illegal aliens.

A similar case is currently working its way through the Seventh Circuit. In March, an Illinois federal judge found illegals do enjoy Second Amendment rights, and so cannot be prohibited from owing guns. That case is now on appeal in that circuit. If the Seventh decides differently from the Fifth Circuit, then the ‘split’ decisions will be ripe for a Supreme Court appeal.

Outraged liberals have vowed to take their pro-gun case to the Supreme Court. If they do, the question will be about the extent to which people who are not American citizens and have illegally invaded the country enjoy Constitutional Rights. I hope they do appeal. Let’s get that question settled.

Have a tremendous Thursday! And get back here tomorrow morning, for more nutritious and delicious Coffee & Covid.

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