There is seemingly no end to the advice that VP Harris and Gov. Walz are receiving from election advisors in the media. At Vox.com Christian Paz recommends abandoning soundbyte attacks on Trump and Vance in favor of something more positive:

The attacks may be sticking — hardening the preexisting views many Americans have toward Trump, Vance, and the national Republican brand.

But they’re no substitute for a forward-looking, positive case in favor of Harris and Walz, according to new polling conducted by the Democratic firm Blueprint and shared with Vox. What must come next is an effort to define Harris by reintroducing the electorate to her track record before becoming vice president and leaving behind the politics and acrimony of the Trump-Biden era.

The new report reveals an interesting and slightly counterintuitive sentiment among American voters at this point in the race. Voters are relieved that there is a new option available for them to pick and feel a “breath of fresh air” — but they don’t really know Harris.

Specifically, beyond hearing attacks on Trump and Vance, they want to hear a positive, uplifting platform from Harris. They are ready for optimism, to hear why she wants to be president, and — even more fundamentally — just learn who she is. Plenty of voters have heard of the vice president, but many don’t know much about her past, her accomplishments, and her life experience, Blueprint’s chief pollster Evan Roth Smith told me.

At Financial Times Chris Giles counsels nearly the opposite:

Some things are unambiguous, among them that Kamala Harris is a better Democratic presidential candidate than Joe Biden. And the US election is still very close. Other matters such as the economic record of the Biden administration are subject to nuance and ambiguity ill-suited to a vicious presidential campaign. Harris should not put the economy at the centre of her campaign.

It is not that the Biden administration’s economic record is poor, but it is complicated. For a start, the public are not convinced by US economic strength. Responding to the long-running University of Michigan consumer sentiment index, even Democrats barely report above average confidence, while the period of high inflation pushed the reading well below long-run norms for independent voters and Republicans.

He goes on to explain that Americans really don’t like inflation.

Walz was the right pick. Walz was the wrong pick. VP Harris should quickly redefine herself. She shouldn’t redefine herself at all. Whatever the advice you can probably find someone giving it.

I will refrain from offering any advice. Although I am certain that some of those expressing jubilance are genuinely delighted that Kamala Harris is 2024’s Democratic standardbearer, I suspect that there is also a certain amount of relief that the 2024 election will not be a rerun of the 2020 election with a less energetic, less mentally capable Joe Biden at the top of the ticket.

This is local news but you may not have heard of it. At WGN Jenna Barnes reports:

DOLTON, Ill. — Mayor Tiffany Henyard’s grip on the reins of Dolton is loosening after the village’s board of trustees voted to freeze spending on village credit cards Monday night.

“That was the main goal — To cut off her access and other operators in the municipality,” said Burt Odelson, one of the attorneys representing the Village of Dolton’s Board of Trustees.

According to attorneys representing Dolton’s trustees, moving forward, expenses on village credit cards will be limited to those approved by the board for the village’s Director of Administrative Services to make.

“This village has so many people with so many credit cards, they’re swiping like crazy and that’s why it had to come to a complete halt,” said Michael McGrath, another attorney representing Dolton’s trustees. “There’s thousands and thousands of dollars for Amazon purchases, for PayPal, for Target, for Walgreen’s, for Jewel [Osco] in the hundreds and thousands of dollars.”

McGrath said that a snapshot of just five-to-six months of spending was revealed in the last couple of weeks by Henyard’s top aide, Keith Freeman, who is now cooperating with the village’s board of trustees.

Freeman has pleaded not guilty to a federal bankruptcy fraud charge and is considered by some trustees to be a potential whistleblower.

At present this is our favorite soap opera. We can hardly wait to tune in to WGN News at 9 to learn the latest development.

I think that black voters expect a certain amount of corruption in government but there is a level of blatant corruption that is simply too much and the people of Dolton have apparently reached it. Dolton is a small town of about 20,000 people, 20% of whom are in poverty. Its population is 90% black. The town is starting to sell off assets to pay its bills.

Update

We can’t wait for the next installment. Former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot will present her findings on the situation with Dolton’s government today.

Speaking of weird, in 1790 90% of the labor force in the United States were dedicated to farming. By 1850 that percentage had declined to about 70% and by 1900 it was less than 50%.

These are the occupations of my ancestors during that period:

Lawyer
Saloon owner
Vaudeville entertainer
Judge
Chiropractor
Engineer
Butcher
Milk broker
Cooper
Laborer
Cigarmaker
Cowboy (as in cattle drives on trails in the West)

That’s pretty different from normal people.

Then we had Biden vs. Trump. Then Not-Biden vs. Trump. Now we have Not-Biden and Not-Vance vs. Trump and Vance.

IMO Gov. Walz was a pretty good pick for VP Kamala Harris’s running mate. He balances her in many ways (race, gender, experience) while being quite compatible with her ideologically. I doubt that he will be as much help in carrying Midwestern states as some are speculating. Minnesota has been safely Democratic since 1976. That is quite different from other Midwestern states. He also brings more firsthand knowledge of China than any president or vide president since, I guess, Herbert Hoover.

I have no idea who will be elected president and I doubt that anyone else actually does, either. The election will be an interesting test several things including the importance of getting out the base.

In a piece at The National Interest Daniel L. Davis has words of caution for the United States:

Israel has an obligation to take actions that ensure its security. If Israeli leaders take risks that result in more attacks against Israel, they must be prepared to deal with that situation. What should not happen, however, is for Tel Aviv to expect the United States Armed Forces to fight alongside the IDF. Washington should not be a party in engaging in military operations that run counter to its national security objectives and could draw it into a new Middle Eastern war.

There is nothing for us to gain and everything for us to lose in fighting a war against Iran. It should be a priority for the White House only to risk losing American servicemen and women if U.S. security is put at risk, not because a foreign government, regardless of how friendly, takes action that is likely to prompt an enemy military response. We must stop choosing war—or one day, it may cost us more than we can imagine.

The second paragraph in particular pretty much encapsulates my views.

The Associated Press reports that Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz has been picked as Vice President Harris’s running mate in the 2024 presidential election:

Vice President Kamala Harris has chosen Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate, looking to strengthen the Democratic ticket in Midwestern states.

My wife reminded me that I had predicted that Gov. Walz would be VP Harris’s running mate shortly after President Biden endorsed her. He’s well-aligned with her politically, has experience in areas in which she is could use some bolstering, and, at least notionally, shores up her Midwestern support.

In a pseudo-Rose Garden campaign in which neither the presidential nor vice presidential candidate gives interviews or even appears publically much, he’ll be fine. In a more, shall we say, dynamic campaign there’s a risk that Gov. Walz will outshine VP Harris.

I need to disagree with the editors of the Wall Street Journal on this one. They write, in criticism of President Trump’s recent remarks on abolishing FICA:

Does anybody in politics understand tax policy these days? The Biden-Harris Democrats want to raise tax rates to Thomas Piketty French socialist levels. Republicans want to cut taxes, but they want to do so for specific groups to buy their votes. They’ve all lost the growth plot.

Mr. Trump’s tax fumbling is especially disappointing because his 2017 cut in tax rates was the policy foundation for the strong pre-pandemic U.S. economy. But so far in this campaign he’s proposing hugely expensive tax cuts for different voting groups that won’t do much for growth.

My specific disagreements are:

1. That there was a boom at all between 2017 and the 4th quarter of 2019 and
2. That cuts in the personal income tax had much to do with GDP growth

Courtesy of the St. Louis Federal Reserve here’s a graph of GDP growth:

and here’s a graph of private investment:

What I see in both of those graphs, noisy as the BI graph is, is a continuation of trend. That’s even clearer when you look at GDP in constant dollars:

It’s even more obvious when you look at real personal consumption expenditures:

Back in 2017 I argued in favor of the cut in the corporate income tax but against the cut in the personal income tax and my reasoning at the time has been completely borne out. The really interesting thing in the graphs above is that the Trump tax cuts did not produce more inflation than they did. Could that be because of the shutdowns?

If your plan is to increase GDP by injecting money into the economy (and producing inflation), why does it matter whether (from an economic standpoint) whether the money is going to the elderly or to the highest income earners?

Like, I think, many Americans I am very discouraged about politics right now. Far too many Republicans persuaded themselves that Donald Trump was someone he wasn’t. Now the Democrats are just as eagerly persuading themselves that Kamala Harris is someone she isn’t. If she is elected, expect a rerun of the major media outlets avoiding covering the White House critically as assiduously as possible while defaming any outlets that do.

I plan to avoid writing any posts in opposition Vice President Harris but I won’t write any in support of her, either.

I wanted to make an observation about the Venezuelan election but rather than try to work it into a longer post I’ll just make the observation

Was Hugo Chavez not democratically elected? His election was certified as free and fair by international observers including the Carter Center. I would submit that when you elect a military dictator to the presidency of your country, you should anticipate that it is likely to be the last free and fair election your country will hold. Complaining that Maduro cheated is about 25 years too late.

Let’s turn to the United States. What do Americans, particularly the U. S. press expect us to do? Our choices are to intervene presumably forcefully whenever any country makes what we consider a bad, undemocratic decision whether that decision is made by democratic means or not or accept that other countries will occasionally do stupid, undemocratic things.

If you choose the former, congratulations, you’re an imperialist. If you choose the latter, bad things will continue to happen. There’s a corollary to our acceptance that people in other countries sometimes make bad choices. We shouldn’t subsidize those bad choices. When you subsidize something you get more of it. Letting Venezuelans cut into the line for immigration is a subsidy.