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The McKinsey Mayor has a plan: Copy the most successful Democratic politician of the last generation. If an inexperienced but inspiring young black man from Chicago could become president, why not an even less experienced, even younger gay man from Indiana? John McCormick reports for the Wall Street Journal reports that "it is Mr. Buttigieg among the top-tier candidates who is trying the hardest to mimic the former presidents campaign style."

There are just two problems. Pete Buttigieg is running a radically different campaign in a radically different time. Where the party's center of gravity was decidedly moderate in 2008, today it is deeply fissured between moderates and a resurgent left. Thus where the Obama campaign could plausibly both promise optimistic, sweeping change and run on moderate policies, the Buttigieg campaign is going straight for moderates by cynically blasting quality leftist policy like Medicare-for-all and tuition-free college with conservative rhetoric.

Despite his smiling persona, Buttigieg, like Amy Klobuchar, is all about falsely telling the American people what they can't have. Call it the audacity of nope.

Over the past few weeks Buttigieg has started several policy fights with the left. He attacked Elizabeth Warren over her support for Medicare-for-all, demanding to know how she would raise taxes to pay for it despite the fact that he has still not fully costed out his own plans, which would certainly require at least several hundred billion per year in new taxes (though the campaign has said repealing Trump's corporate tax cut might pay for his health-care agenda). More importantly, Buttigieg failed to mention that his own plan would be more expensive on net than Medicare-for-all, because it would not have the same leverage over prices and would preserve much of the current duplicative and wasteful structure.

Most recently, Buttigieg has attacked Medicare with tendentious libertarian ideology about choice. "Youre not free if you dont have health care," he said in a recent stump speech, "but you should have the freedom to choose whether you want it." By this view, non-universal Medicare increases choice and is hence better but elides the fact that it would foreclose the choice of a complete system which covers everyone from cradle to grave, without exception. As usual, libertarian choice rhetoric obscures more than it reveals.

Now, this might sound somewhat familiar. Back in 2008, the major health care policy argument was whether the reform that would become ObamaCare should have an individual mandate. And Obama did cynically promise, Buttigieg style, that his plan would not need one, only to put it back in when it came time to pass the bill. But this was a narrow and technical point that only partly obscured that both candidates basically agreed about what needed to be done. Unlike Buttigieg, Obama was not running far to the right of a full-throated Medicare-for-all supporter.

Buttigieg's case against tuition-free college is just as bad. He would zero out tuition only for families making less than $100,000, and reduce it for families making between that and $150,000. His reason: "I have a hard time getting my head around the idea a majority who earn less because they didnt go to college subsidize a minority who earn more because they did." This is utterly disingenuous, and politically poisonous. In fact, it is the ultra-rich who would pay for tuition-free college under both the Sanders and Warren proposals, with a financial transactions tax and a wealth tax respectively.

As historian Eric Rauchway points out, tuition-free college was also the actual reality for most public American colleges for over a century just the kind of universal program that boosted citizen solidarity and fellow feeling. Indeed, back in 1974, Fred M. Hechinger predicted that then-new tuition fees "threaten to turn higher education into an instigator of class warfare," because if the "children of the [poor] are encouraged to attend college tuitionfree or even on a subsistence subsidy as they ought to be then hardpressed middleclass families are likely to react in anger and political vindictiveness."

That is pretty much exactly what happened, as middle- and upper-middle class families with young children now have to scrimp and save for decades to have a chance at affording college or their kids end up saddled with gigantic student loan debt, or both. Now Buttigieg is exploiting that class divide, using education policy that absolutely would benefit the overwhelming majority to drive a wedge between the middle and working classes. "[W]here I come from, three out of four people dont have a college degree," he said recently. "And if the message were sending to them is that you need a college degree in order to get by in life were leaving most Americans out."

The major concrete effect of this duplicity, of course, would be to protect the top 1 percent from taxation, and make post-secondary education more expensive for people not terribly far up the income ladder.

In the 2008 primary, just like health care, Hillary Clinton and Obama basically agreed with the since-abandoned education reform consensus, and it barely came up during the debates. Unlike Buttigieg, Obama was not running far to the right of a free tuition supporter.

Buttigieg's cynical moderation is reflected in his demographic support, which comes overwhelmingly from older whites. Every supporter quoted in the Wall Street Journal article is over 58. Where Obama racked up tremendous margins among the young and minorities with his energetic charisma, the ongoing Morning Consult poll finds that nearly 90 percent of Buttigieg supporters are white, 59 percent over 55, and 35 percent over 65. Just 6 percent of his supporters are black, and 8 percent between 18-29. The famed Obama coalition it is not.

In retrospect, one can see a great deal of cynicism in the Obama campaign of 2008, especially in his subsequent treatment of homeowners. But partly because his presidency was a disappointment, you can no longer promise "hope and change" without actually backing it up with genuinely aggressive policy.

Buttigieg might be rising in the polls with his elderly coalition, but he'll never recapture that Obama magic.

See original here:
Pete Buttigieg and the audacity of nope - The Week

Schools have been always a good source of primary education. Most parents admit their child to school at the age of 3. School is the second home of a child. Teaching is a separate thing and making sure that the student learns is another thing. Schools make sure students learn by giving assignments (assignmentgeek), quizzes, class test, and many other methods.

Furthermore, school plays a vital role in building a childs character. That is one of the reasons why parents should find a good school.

When it comes to school, you will find two types of school. One is public school while the other is the private school. Both schools have different perks. In other words, both schools have pros as well as cons. In this article, we will talk about both the pros and cons of public and private schools.

Private schools owned by people. In simple words, these schools arent controlled by the government. However, the course pattern is almost the same as in public schools. The books might be different but in the end, the course learning outcome is the same.

One of the biggest advantages is that the classes are smaller. This means that the environment will also be small. Since the classroom is small, the teacher can give attention to all students. This will increase the learning process so that students can understand everything.

The private school doesnt only focus on quality education but they also focus on other activities. You will find extra classes such as PE, music class, art class, etc.

However, the curriculum is the same but, in private schools, they design it in a way to make it more challenging than public school.

One of the biggest problems is the fees. A private school charges a lot of money. This is not easy for every parent to afford such expensive schools. Moreover, because of small classes, it is not easy to secure admission in private schools.

The teachers are not qualified in public schools. In other words, mostly teacher doesnt have a teaching degree (which is one of the requirements set by the accreditation board).

Since the school has less space, therefore not many sports activities can be carried out. In a few private schools, your child needs to pass their entrance exam otherwise they wont offer the admission.

Public schools are controlled by the government. This means that the government takes care of everything from classrooms to the quality of education. There are many positive points as well as defects in public schools.

Public school is free for all children. This means that even if parents cant earn that much to pay tuition fees, they can always think about public school. The school is supported by the government. In other words, the government provides all the funds.

There is no need to pick and drop your child because public school provides transportation facilities. They have big busses and they almost cover all the important places in your city.

One of the amazing parts of public school is that they hire qualified teachers. These teachers meet all the requirements such as the degree of teaching, etc. Not to forget about sports activities. Public school keeps students engage in all kinds of activities from sports to art.

In this case, if a child contains disabilities, there is nothing to worry about because public schools also provide special services. Furthermore, they wont charge you a penny for the special services because it is a part of the Exceptional Student Education program.

Since classes have large therefore it will become hard for the teacher to give attention to all students. However, few public schools dont have such a big environment which results in great teacher-student interaction.

Another problem because of a large number of students causes funding problem. The fund (provided by the government) is not much and that is why the quality of education is decreasing day by day because they cant hire teachers.

There is a serious issue of the bad attitude of students towards others. Bullying, fighting, and many other bad behaviors are found in public schools. Last but not least, in public schools, the region cant be expressed.

School is the place where a child receives an education. It is the responsibility of the school to build up childrens character. There are two types of schools, public schools, and private schools. Both schools have different advantages as well as disadvantages. Parents should look up all the pros and cons of both school then decide what which school will be best for their child.

Read more:
Pros and Cons of Public and Private School - The Libertarian Republic

Already home to some of the most expensive, heavily-taxed legal cannabis in the United States, California announced Thursday it would jack up taxes on commercial weed. The move quickly triggered disgust, outrage, and a grim spin on the libertarian koan "taxation is theft."

For a legal market struggling to attract customers, the tax increase is a "brand new extinction event" that "will ultimately lead to retailers not being able to pay vendors or employees," according to Jacqueline McGowan, a cannabis-industry lobbyist with Sacramento-based firm K Street Consulting. We're already seeing that happen" in some California cities and counties with extra taxes piled on top of state tax rates, she said.

Along with potentially strangling the legal market in its crib, excess weed taxes could also have serious unintended consequences for consumers who turn to unregulated and untested illicit-market productsincluding the tainted cartridges believed to have killed at least some of the 47 people lost to vape-related lung illnesses, four Californians among them.

Prop. 64, California's legalization law approved by 57 percent of voters in November 2016, imposed an excise tax and cultivation taxes on weed. (Cannabis sales are also subject to state sales tax; some cities and counties further impose a local tax on weed sales.)

The excise tax amounts to 15 percent of the retail price paid by consumers. Prop. 64 also set taxes at $9.25 per ounce for cannabis flower, and $2.75 per ounce for cannabis "leaves," or trimmost often used as source product for distillates and edibles. The ballot measure gave the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration the authority to tweak taxes to adjust for inflation beginning Jan. 1, 2020. This tax hike represents the first bite at that apple.

For consumers, these forthcoming hikes amount to a "net increase of 12.5 percent" in the excise tax, according to Dale Gieringer, director of the California chapter of NORML, a weed-reform advocacy group.

"Given the epidemic of vaping disease caused by unregulated black market products, this is hardly the time to make legal products more expensive," Gieringer said. "California already has the most expensive legal market in the country. Legal cannabis needs to be made more affordable in order to compete more effectively with the unregulated black market."

The optics of a cash-hungry government squeezing an already strapped industry are bad, but the timingresponding to cries for relief with more taxes amid a vape scareis worse, critics said. It's a "punch in the gut" to the industry that has since the beginning said high taxes would help ensure legalization's failure, according to Josh Drayton, spokesman for the California Cannabis Industry Association. And, unless this increase is reversed and other taxes are lowered, "There won't be an industry to tax in 2021," warned Mikey Steinmetz, CEO and cofounder of cannabis distributor Flow Kana.

The tax increase will also mean higher prices at dispensaries, as players along the supply chain pass on the costs to the public. "This is a consumer-facing tax," Drayton said.

Whatever happens nextbusinesses shedding jobs or closing, investment drying upis also "being watched by other states," he added. The success or failure of California's market will have an impact on how they choose to legalize cannabis, he saidincluding whether they decide to legalize at all, or dismiss the whole thing as a failed experiment.

In a statement, Nicole Elliott, Gov. Gavin Newsom's senior advisor on cannabis, told VICE that Newsom was "interested in partnering" with the Legislature to address taxes as well as other woes squeezing the legal market. What those "cannabis tax solutions" might look like, however, and whether they would include reversing the CDTFA move, remain to be seen.

In a statement, a CDTFA spokesperson said the agency was bound by law to raise taxes in tandem with inflation, adding, "We certainly understand industrys concerns. However, CDTFA does not have the discretion to utilize other factors in adjusting the cultivation tax rates."

But CDTFA appears to have defied lawmakers as well as weed sellers and consumers.

Rob Bonta, who represents Oakland in the state Assembly, authored a tax relief bill this spring that would have reduced the state excise tax from 15 percent to 11 percent. That bill was held in committee in May but could be revivedwith fresh supportwhen the Legislature convenes next year.

In a statement to the Associated Press, Bonta blasted the latest move as "short-sighted," adding that it "ignores the realities that licensed businesses are at the breaking point, with many struggling to survive." Just about every business in America whines about taxes, but in the cannabis industry's case, there is widespread belief that tax bills are too high and legitimately imperil legalization.

"If you punish the cannabis industry with higher and higher taxes when it is trying to live within the law, you invite the persistence and expansion of a cannabis industry that is happy to live outside the law," said Craig Reinarman, a drug policy expert and professor emeritus of sociology at the University of California, Santa Cruz. "The risk in seeing cannabis taxes as a cash cow for strapped governments is that if you increase them enough, you re-create the conditions for the black market that legalization hoped to kill."

If the tax hike left some people scratching their heads, other critics said it shouldn't have come as a surprise.

"I'll just keep growing my own and watch from the sidelines," said Brent Saupe, a Berkeley resident, former Marine, and longtime grower who briefly worked in the legal market as a cultivator, "while shaking my head, trying hard not to say, 'I told you so.'"

Correction 11/26/2019: A previous version of this story misstated the point at which excise taxes have been imposed. We regret the error.

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Here is the original post:
California Just Jacked Up Weed Taxes. The Black Market Could Cash In - Free

While soak-the-rich progressives lead the Democratic presidential field, a new poll released Tuesday shows voters remain skeptical of their socialist policies.

Just 12 percent of likely voters reported preferring a socialist economic system, according to a new Heartland Institute/Rasmussen poll. Sixty-nine percent said they preferred a free-market economic system.

When it came to the 2020 contenders, only 26 percent of likely voters said they would vote for a presidential candidate that identified as a socialist. Fifty-percent said they would not. Its no surprise then that Senators Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who have both openly embraced socialism, scored high unfavorable ratings among respondents with 49 percent and 48 percent respectively.

The poll interviewed 1,000 likely voters of a relatively even partisan distribution by telephone between Nov. 13-14 with a +/-3 percent margin of error.

The Heartland Institute/Rasmussen surveys results corroborate the findings of a wide-ranging survey published by the libertarian Cato Institute in September.

Cato found that 75 percent of Americans rejected the idea that it is immoral for society to allow people to become billionaires, in direct contradiction to Sanders who argues that billionaires have no place in society.

I dont think that billionaires should exist, Sanders said in an interview with the New York Times on the same day of the studys release. I hope the day comes when they dont.

Sanders and Warren have both campaigned as the Democratic primarys most left-wing candidates, each running on a platform to implement a wealth tax and single-payer health care in competition to be the progressive standard-bearer in a crowded field of candidates each pushing the party further left.

While the races frontrunner, former Vice President Joe Biden has attempted to carve out a moderate lane, Biden would be considered the most radical liberal in any other primary prior to the 2020 election cycle for his stances on health care and climate change, illustrating just how far left the party has swung.

The polls however, show that voters arent quite yet buying the socialist fantasyland that Democrats are selling for free on the campaign trail.

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Poll Shows Voters Aren't Buying The Progressive Pitch For Socialism - The Federalist

Jeanne Dietschs Nov. 12 letter against people with libertarian views (Bad actors are why Im not libertarian) has me befuddled.

If I understand her position, being a libertarian means supporting slavery. She further goes on to state that without government, slavery would exist in the United States today. What the ...? Really?

State Sen. Dietsch confuses libertarians with the Democrats. Democratic Party founder Thomas Jefferson loved slaves as both a prolific owner and an early #MeToo participant.

She either has no knowledge of history or intentionally ignores it; the Democratic Southern states held on to slavery until 1865. The New England states and New Jersey were done with the practice by 1804 without big government intervention. After the Civil War, the Democrats continued another century of suppression through the creation of the Ku Klux Klan, enactment of Jim Crow laws, high bars, like literacy tests, to vote and segregation.

Today, the Democratic Party promotes inefficient big brother policies and programs that take away freedom, discourage self-sufficiency and make people reliant on the government for basic needs. Some have stated that such dependency is a modern, benevolent slavery.

In contrast, libertarians promote freedom, individualism, voluntary association, personal responsibility and autonomy. While libertarians have an understandable skepticism of authority and state power, most recognize that a limited government is necessary for things like roads, police and fire.

Recently, the local Democratic party had to change the name of its annual dinner several times to find party leaders who did not kill the natives or use their position to molest and harm women.

So, Ms. Dietsch, with all these bad actors why are you a Democrat?

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Bad actors? You have your parties confused, by Cole Mills - The Keene Sentinel