I think the lesson for Democrats is actually worse than this. McAuliffe isn't stupid. He ran this campaign because he thought it was his best hand to play. Voters are dissatisfied with the country's direction, the economy, and not inclined to reward Dems talking up their records.
To do better next year, Dems need better fundamentals on COVID and the economy, and they need to appear more engaged on fixing those fundamentals. Right now, the Biden Admin's emphasis is everywhere else -- climate, Dem wish-list items in the two big spending bills.
The good news for Democrats is there are reasons to think those fundamentals will probably be better next year even if they don't change what they're doing at all. But looking more engaged would still help.
I'm skeptical about how much Virginia-specific education issues actually drove the result. Wasn't the theory those issues were supposed to be especially potent for Youngkin in affluent suburbs? Instead he improved most everywhere, and not *especially* well in Loudoun.
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Comms at Microsoft now apparently involve a lengthy land acknowledgement followed by speakers announcing not just their race but also their height and what color their clothes are.
Land acknowledgements are such nonsense... if you're that concerned, why aren't you giving the land back?
Anyway, talking like a total weirdo is bad in contexts where you're going to have to relate to normal people, such as customers
I don’t think this is right. While a wealth tax would be very likely to go down at this court, this is not quite a wealth tax, and real estate (the constitutionally diciest thing to mark to market) is taxed only on realization. This tax is in an area of real uncertainty.
That said, I would be fascinated to read a Gorsuch opinion on what exactly “direct tax” means
There are two ways the tax can survive: Either mark to market taxation is income tax, authorized by the sixteenth amendment; or, it’s a property tax, but taxes on securities are not direct taxes (remember, real estate is not marked to market in the Wyden plan)
A policy that induces a significant number of police and firefighters to resign before their pensions fully vest is likely to provide a significant fiscal savings. Pension earnings are very uneven, they are stupidly backloaded, and implied total comp is HUGE in late career years.
(This is also a reason I am skeptical that many will make good on the threat...)
This is a problem with how we compensate police AND teachers -- the pension structures that reward specific career lengths (often 20 years for police, 30 for teachers) lock people into jobs they don't like, aren't suitable for, and might otherwise leave...
“cost” is not a synonym for “deficit impact.” Also, I’ll be very surprised if the real deficit impact is $0, but we won’t have clarity on that until there’s a deal.
Try asking yourself, “am I talking like a normal person?”
I continue to find this whole “controversy” to be a category error. Hollywood is full of people with weird-ass ideas about medicine. The solution is not to take medical advice from them, not to deny them employment. nytimes.com/2021/10/11/art…
There are two pathologies here: (1) expert worship and (2) treating the host of Jeopardy! as being some sort of Queen of the Experts
London is back and wonderful, but there are few tourists. You can get marquee tourists sights almost to yourself. This is a great time to do big-city vacations, with good values and light crowds, and actually do the most touristy things. businessinsider.com/i-spent-a-week…
For example, we walked up to Buckingham Palace right as The Changing of the Guard was starting, and I was still able to get right up to the fence and snap this photo. You’ll never find crowds this light again. businessinsider.com/i-spent-a-week…
Also, city hotels remain cheap even while resorts have gotten outlandishly expensive. The average daily hotel rate on Maui in August was $592, up 52% from August 2019. In London, it was $153, DOWN 25% from August 2019. Time to look at city vacations! businessinsider.com/i-spent-a-week…