I haven’t posted about the federal government shutdown and there’s a reason for that. I don’t want to criticize Democrats. Consider this post hortatory.

I think the Democratic leadership needs to get beyond opposing Trump. It’s not enough to hate him and everything he does.

They should propose their solutions for solving the country’s problems, how they’ll work, and why they’re better than the Republicans’ solutions. If it involves cutting federal spending, they should explain what they want to cut. If it involves increasing federal revenue, they should explain how they plan to increase revenue. Vague complaints about “the rich” are not enough. If the plan to increase corporate and personal income tax rates, they need to explain how that will increase revenue rather than, say, impelling companies with large profits and ultra-rich individuals to leave the United States for pastures with lower taxes.

If their solution is increasing economic growth, they need to explain how they’ll encourage that. Historically, that is how the Congress has preferred to operate, i.e. through “stimulus” whether by increasing federal spending or, on the part of Republicans, by cutting taxes. One of the things that was demonstrated rather pointedly during President Biden’s term of office (and continuing into President Trump’s) is that increased federal spending increases inflation and boosts prices.

How do they plan to control our borders and keep illegal immigration at a manageable level?

How do they plan to reduce crime in our cities? Month-to-date in October 18 people have been killed and 57 others shot in Chicago. If that is acceptable they should say so. If they think it is unacceptable, they should propose practical solutions for reducing that number. If they think it’s the best that can be expected, they should say that.

How do they plan to make healthcare more affordable? They have explained that they want to maintain the present level of healthcare subsidies. Increasing subsidies without increasing how much healthcare is provided will cause the price of healthcare to increase farther requiring higher subsidies, etc.

Frankly, I’m not optimistic about any of those solutions or, more specifically, I think that solving our present problems would have been a lot easier if the process had been started 30 years ago.

These events took place on the East Side of Chicago today. Michelle Gallardo reports at ABC 7 Chicago:

CHICAGO (WLS) — A chase involving federal agents led to a crash Tuesday afternoon on Chicago’s East Side, officials said. After the crash, a crowd gathered around agents on the scene.

Chopper 7 was over the scene about 12:10 p.m., and there was a large number of Chicago police squad cars and Border Patrol agents on the scene in the 10500-block of South Avenue N.

A neighborhood resident said a red SUV was being chased by federal agents before a crash in the area.

The Department of Homeland Security said a vehicle, driven by someone living in the U.S. without legal permission, rammed a Border Patrol vehicle that was part of an immigration enforcement operation and tried to drive away.

Border Patrol followed the vehicle for about 30 minutes, and stopped it using a precision immobilization technique, or PIT, maneuver.

Two people, both living in the U.S. without legal permission, tried to run away, DHS said. They were taken into custody.

A white Expedition and the red SUV were damaged.

Surveillance video shows they had been chasing the red vehicle in circles around the neighborhood before the crash.

The report goes on to mention that objects were thrown at the federal law enforcement officers including rocks and other objects. The video above clearly shows one of the officers being struck by a thrown object. Note that the objects were being thrown before tear gas was used.

Throwing things is not protected speech.

In 1948 roughly three-quarters of a million Palestinian Arabs fled or were expelled from their homes in what was to become Israel. That is called al-Nakba, “the disaster”, by Arabs. The term has been popularized and used by some non-Arabs. Whatever else it was it seems clear to have been an instance of ethnic cleansing.

Since October 7, 2023 it is estimated that 1.9 million Arab residents of Gaza have been driven from their homes, sometimes being forced to move multiple times. IMO that would reasonably be termed the Second Nakba. It differs from the first in that it was primarily a predictable outcome of the murderous Hamas raid on southern Israel. It was self-imposed.

Now Hamas and by extension the Palestinians are without allies in the Arab world except, possibly, for a few rich individuals. It is time for the Palestinians and, indeed, all radical Islamists, to recognize that all they will get in return for terrorist attacks are death and destruction. For better lives for themselves and their children they must use peaceful means.

In yet another op-ed in the Wall Street Journal Bob Hellman asserts that the private sector can build roads and bridges without running into the cost overruns that have plagued public sector infrastructure projects for much of the last 50 years:

The delayed-again Gordie Howe International Bridge connecting Detroit and Windsor, Ontario, is North America’s latest infrastructure boondoggle. Built on the Canadian government’s tab but involving U.S. oversight, the bridge had a budget at project launch in 2017 of $4.4 billion. It’s already a year late and $2 billion over budget. No opening date has been set.

Private-sector funding and operation is the answer to these recurring infrastructure nightmares. This would bring discipline and accountability that the government can’t match.

Freeing private investors to help solve America’s infrastructure crisis will require bold local and national political leadership. Solving the political challenges will be the tough part—the capital and the know-how are there waiting.

The initial planning for the 1.6-mile Gordie Howe Bridge started about 25 years ago. After a protracted approval and permitting process, construction finally got under way in 2018, and it was supposed to last a little over six years. But the planned 2024 opening was delayed a full year, only to be delayed again to 2026.

It’s a familiar story. Major infrastructure projects are chronically late, bust their budgets, and are poorly maintained and operated by the bureaucracies that spawned. A highway expansion in Alabama that began at $2 billion quietly creeps toward $5 billion. A new Chicago airport terminal scheduled to open in 2026 won’t welcome its first passengers until 2032. Water systems and transit lines face similar fates.

I agree with him that such projects could be addressed by the private sector. There are a number of questions he doesn’t answer. The most important one is why don’t they? I think it’s because investors find the risks exceed the rewards. I don’t see anything changing that calculus.

A second question is related. Does he actually think that private investors would tackle rural infrastructure projects without massive subsidies? I think that they’d be more willing to tackle urban infrastructure projects with, potentially, millions of users daily. How about rural infrastructure projects?

I must be losing my edge. I don’t believe I understand Paul Ryan’s and Kyle Pomerleau’s proposal for a destination-based cash-flow tax (DBCFT) as an alternative to President Trump’s tariffs in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal. Here’s their description of the tax:

The DBCFT has three important features. First, all investment costs can be immediately deducted rather than depreciated over years or decades. Second, there is no deduction for borrowing costs. Third, a “border adjustment” would subject all imports to a single rate tax while providing all exports with a subsidy at the same rate.

Adopting a DBCFT would finish the job that Congress and Mr. Trump began in 2017 with the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. That legislation made it more attractive to invest in the U.S. by cutting the corporate income-tax rate and introducing temporary 100% bonus depreciation. Mr. Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act built on this by making the expensing provision permanent and temporarily expanding it to manufacturing structures. The DBCFT would make expensing universal and permanent, eliminating all remaining penalties on investment.

A DBCFT’s border adjustment is a smarter way than tariffs to tax imports. Border adjustments are widely accepted tax policy in most of the world. More than 170 countries, including America, use border-adjusted taxes. U.S. state and local sales and excise taxes are border adjusted. As a result, the DBCFT would be much less likely to prompt retaliation from trading partners.

I understand the export subsidy part of it. What I don’t get is how the import part of it differs from a tariff.

One way or another I agree with them that President Trump should work with Congress to enact into law whatever it is we end up with. That’s assuming, of course, that Congress ever comes back into session.

There are no winners in war. One side just loses less than the other. I have refrained from commenting on the ceasefire in the conflict in Gaza because I’m skeptical that it will hold. Since the surviving Israeli hostages have been released I wanted to make some observations about the winners and losers in this conflict.

Winners

• the families and loved ones of the surviving hostages
  This goes without saying. They have yearned for it for two years.
• President Trump
  As we may tire of hearing this is a win for President Trump and he deserves credit for it.

I didn’t list the released hostages themselves as winners because I suspect they will have a long, difficult road ahead of them. They have endured severe physical and psychological hardships during their captivity which will remain with them. Now that they’ve been released some will undoubtedly have “survivor’s guilt” and other forms of post-traumatic stress disorder with which to contend.

Losers

As I see it there are many more losers than there are winners.

• Hamas
  Not only have Hamas’s forces, leadership, and other resources been severely degraded but according to PSR their support among Palestinians has declined sharply.
• the people living in Gaza
  They have suffered innumerable deprivations during the war including food, healthcare, and loss of their homes. I doubt that Gaza will ever return to its pre-2006 state.
• Iran
  I don’t think you can neatly separate the U. S. attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities from the war in Gaza. The cost in money to Iran of those attacks are not the only cost.
• Gulf Arabs
  Something else I do not think can be neatly separated from the war in Gaza is the Israeli attack on Hamas in Qatar. Taken together I suspect that the attack on Iran and Qatar eroded Hamas’s financial support. What has been revealed is that the road to progress in the unrest in the Middle East runs through the Gulf State supporters of radical Islamist violence. Does Turkey still support Hamas?
• The U. S. diplomatic establishment
  Not the least of the losers in the ceasefire and release of hostages is the U. S. diplomatic establishment. To echo the words of Samantha Powers they have been admiring the problems in the Middle East rather than solving them for far too long.

There’s a new Chicago story I wanted to remark on. Tre Ward reports at ABC 7 Chicago:

CHICAGO (WLS) — WGN-TV released a statement Friday after a video showed one of their employees being detained by federal agents in Chicago.

She was later released without charges.

The woman was taken into custody Friday morning near Lincoln and Foster avenues in Lincoln Square, video showed.

A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said U.S. Border Patrol agents were working in the area when the WGN staffer allegedly threw objects at their vehicle.

What actually happened? I don’t know. In this day of picking sides, slanted reporting, phony audio, and AI-generated videos I don’t think we’ll ever know, especially since no charges were filed.

Just about three-quarters of a century ago my parents taught me some very valuable lessons. Speak calmly and politely to law enforcement officers when they are in the course of their duty and, most importantly, don’t resist arrest. These lessons have not apparently been handed down to younger generations.

My opinion about it is pretty simple.

Chanting slogans and carrying placard—protected speech.

Throwing things (regardless of what the things are), spitting on law enforcement officers, pushing LEOs, hitting them or their vehicles with vehicles—not protected speech.

As to the conduct of the federal agents, it looked to me as though they were pretty rough. I believe that’s what’s referred to as “situational control” and it’s what they’ve been taught to do. I don’t think much of it but I avoid those situations.

I didn’t want to let today go by without recognizing that it was my dad’s birthday. Well over his hundredth birthday.

I don’t know what I can tell you about my dad that I haven’t before. How he graduated from high school at 16 and from college four years later—summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, editor of the college newspaper, graduated from law school two years later—law review, received a JD (rare in the those days).

He took a year off to bum around Europe and North Africa. Arrested as a spy in Serbia. Was in Munich on November 9, 1938. Someday I’ll post a picture of the notification from the State Department he received in his American Express box telling him to get the heck out of Europe.

How he couldn’t get a job as a lawyer so wrote editorials for the St. Louis Star, then became an insurance claims adjuster, finally getting hired as an associate with one of the biggest law firms in St. Louis. How he worked there until the firm collapsed in a scandal and then went off on his own.

He was the smartest, hardest-working, kindest, bravest, most loving man I’ve ever known or ever expect to know.

I still miss you, Daddy.

At CWB Chicago Tim Hecke reports:

One of the highest-ranking officers in the Chicago Police Department barred city cops from responding to calls for help from federal agents who reported being surrounded by a large crowd in Brighton Park on Saturday, according to CPD radio transmissions.

CPD Chief of Patrol Jon Hein ordered city officers to leave the area as tensions escalated following the shooting of a woman by Border Patrol agents, supervisors said in recorded radio traffic.

concluding:

A dispatcher relayed that an agent said “he’s one of about 30 armed Border Patrol agents, ICE. They’re being surrounded by a large crowd of people [and he is] requesting CPD. They don’t see any weapons in the crowd.”

“If you guys can immediately head down to 39th Place and Kedzie, please, and go assist them,” the dispatcher urged units leaving the station. “I’m looking on the [cameras], and there are lots of cars.”

Those CPD units responded but, per supervisory orders, stopped a couple of blocks short of where the agents said they were being surrounded. About five minutes later, they were told to leave.

“Just to confirm,” a dispatcher asked, “they were saying that they were being surrounded by that large crowd and they were requesting the police and we’re not sending?”

“Again, those are the orders we’re being given,” the supervisor replied.

Saturday’s shooting marked at least the second time this week that CPD supervisors directed officers to avoid federal enforcement actions involving ICE. On Wednesday, after Border Patrol agents detained a man at the scene of a West Side traffic crash, CPD officers initially responded but were later told to steer clear.

“The [crashed] car can sit in the middle of the street,” one supervisor said. “As long as we’re not over there, it’s all that matters.”

Read the whole thing. The part of the story you are more likely to have heard about happened shortly thereafter which Matt Masterson reports at WTTW:

Chicago Police Superintendent Larry Snelling rejected claims his officers failed to respond to a pair of incidents involving federal agents in the city over the weekend, saying more than two dozen officers were affected by chemical gas deployed by the agents.

Snelling on Monday refuted statements that his officers were told not to respond to the calls for service Saturday, one of which allegedly involved a federal agent shooting a woman and a second that involved vehicles allegedly attempting to “box in” federal vehicles.

“Those who will tell you that our officers weren’t there, say that to the 27 officers who were affected by the chemical agents that were deployed by federal agents,” he said in a press conference.

When asked about Chief of Patrol Hein’s directions, Chief Snelling responded that it was a mistake and he had spoken with Hein.

If true, it was worse than a mistake. It was a crime—obstruction of justice.

At this point I have no idea what actually happened. I only know what different sides are reporting.