www.thornwalker.com/ditch/morley_quandaries.htm
 

September 23, 2021
 

Uncle eddie’s quandaries
 

By edward morrison morley

 
(Obviously counterfeit) editor’s note: Mr. morley returns, more befuddled than ever, as he attempts to deal with contemporary political and cultural life in these United States and elsewhere. And in a flagrant flouting of TLD’s style sheet, he has gone and joined the “lowercase movement.” Friendly acquaintances have suggested a correlation between Mr. morley’s increasingly obvious confusion and the fact that he was born on Juneteenth, 1942, just months before President Biden. Apart from the further fact that Mr. morley has no “friendly acquaintances,” he wishes to refute this vicious canard at a later date. Much later. He might also take up charges that he often plagiarizes other people’s biographies, but don’t count on it. When he is not channeling other famous orators in history, Mr. morley tends to his collection of insects, one of the largest in the free world, and teaching his dogs to bite passersby. — NOT Nicholas Strakon

 
WHY IS IT that Algore can zoom across the United States and the entire planet in private jets and still preach to the rest of us about our “carbon footprint” and how we should not contribute to the doom of the planet (including polar bears)?

— Why is it that some people claim they are pro-life, but are enthusiastic about the death penalty? Why is it that some people oppose war and the death penalty, but have no problem with abortion?

— Why is it that Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, and other rich guys think they are paying too little in taxes, but don’t voluntarily pay more on their own and continue to take advantage of tax breaks most of which seem to apply only to rich guys?

— Why is it when the 2021 reports from the Trustees of Medicare and the Trustees of Social Security project that both will be bankrupt in 2026 and 2034 respectively, these problems aren’t even mentioned in Washington? Why is it that at the same time, the Dumbocrats want to increase (you read that right, increase) Medicare costs by lowering the qualifying age to 60 from 65, and adding new vision, dental, and hearing benefits? They also want to create new entitlements for free health care, free community college, free universal pre-kindergarten ed, and free electric cars for everybody (OK, I made that one up. I think they want to abolish private cars entirely), and a bunch of other “human infrastructure, economic measures-that-can-be-passed-by-reconciliation” procedures to end-run the filibuster rule, which will total some $3.7 to $7 billion? (Makes one a little nervous that they can’t be more precise on this.)

On a personal note, when ol’ emm turned 65, he was forced into Medicare (or pay a 12.5 percent yearly cumulative fine) because the gummint deemed the private plan he was under was insufficient because it was a flexible spending account with a high deductible. Even though he was perfectly happy with said plan. The only evident reason for this forcible move to Medicare was that it automatically inflated the number of Medicare people ... which meant that any congress-critter stupid enough to suggest tampering with Medicare could be told “Watch out! There are x zillions of people on Medicare who will vote you out of office.”

— Why is the gummint mandating vaccinations (actually inoculations) for 90 percent of the population of the country yet refusing to even test illegal aliens (call them for what they are), let alone vaccinate them as they are being hustled off across the U.S. of A.?

— Why is it a sacred right for a woman to do what she wants with her body and abort any babies that may come along inopportunely, but she has no right to do with her body what she wants if what she wants is not getting a vaccination (since an unvaccinated person cannot give anyone else COVID 19).

— How is it that Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama can host parties at which almost no one wears a mask, but want to impose masks on everyone else. Ditto for the mayor of San Francisco, London Breed (sic), who was shown without a mask on video at a jazz club in SF along with BLM co-founder Alicia Garza and most of the audience not wearing face coverings mandated by the city.

— Speaking of Alicia Garza, how is it that the BLM leader and socialist/Marxist anti-poverty crusader purportedly has a net worth of over $3 million, a salary of at least $100,000, and numerous housing properties inside and outside of the United States? Interestingly, both Wikipedia and the legacy media are completely silent on any of this, if a recent Net search was accurate. (On the other hand, Garza seems to be a consistent participant in the crusade to change traditional sexual mores and definitions. In 2002, she came out as queer and in 2008 married a transgenderite. Unfortunately they broke up in September 2021.)

— How is it that the Biden gummint wants to restore the federal State and Local Taxes (SALT) deduction, which has allowed residents of high-tax states to offset some of being robbed by their state governments by robbing people who live in lower-tax states. (This was eliminated by Orange Man’s 2017 tax cuts.) Fifty-seven percent of the benefits would go to the upper 1 percent and, according to the Wall Street Journal (September 21, 2021), the top 1 percent would get an average of $35,000 while middle-class taxpayers would get $37. As WSJ columnist William McGurn points out, “So when House Democrats say they won’t vote for the reconciliation bill unless it includes SALT relief, they are saying that they are willing to kill Mr. Biden’s signature piece of legislation unless the bill cuts taxes for the wealthiest 1 percent of their constituents.” I’m shocked! Shock– no, actually, I’m not. (I am shocked that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is questioning the full 100 percent SALT rollback, though she is open to SALT if it doesn’t mean “major tax breaks for extremely high-net worth individuals and billionaires. Why do that?”) A full restoration of SALT would cost the Treasury $88.7 billion in 2021 ... at a point when Sleepy Joe needs every penny he can scrape up.
 

Uncle eddie’s AOC special feature

Let’s pursue the subject of AOC. Why is it that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is considered a “progressive” advocate for the poor when she drives a $50,000 car, goes to $35,000 soirées, has an upscale apartment in Washington, D.C., along with a new apartment in New York City, and has responded to criticisms for wearing an $800 dress and $1,450 earrings by saying, “[D]ressing the part has been an unexpected struggle, but it’s also a way to connect with constituents ...” Or at least the upper 1 percent of them. Why is it that the fact that she actually moved from the South Bronx (=supposedly poor and humble background ZIP code) to Westchester County (=prosperous middle-class ZIP code. Her father was actually an architect.) before she was of school age is obscured or unmentioned by the legacy media that continue to cast her as an indigent former barista?

Why is it that, despite the fact that she was an economics major at Boston College, AOC hasn’t been called on her appalling economic ignorance? In 2018, AOC claimed that under President Orange Man, “Unemployment is low because everyone has two jobs. Unemployment is low because people are working 60, 70, 80 hours a week and can barely feed their family.” At the time, 6 million Americans held two jobs compared to 148 million employed in a single job, thus making up around 4 percent of the workforce. The proportion of workers doing two jobs was actually lower in 2018 than it had been during most of the 1990s and 2000s. And on average, employees were working fewer than 35 hours a week.

Another howler came in 2020 when AOC referred to “the famous economist Milton Keynes.” Milton Keynes is in fact a planned “new city” in England. She later “explained” that she had “confused” John Maynard Keynes and Milton Friedman. It may be that confusing Keynes and Friedman is a frequent error, though no one has bothered to fact-check this.

AOC’s rebuttal to charges that she frequently purveys factual inexactitudes is that this is acceptable because she is “morally right.” On “60 Minutes” in 2019 she said: “I think there’s a lot of people more concerned about being precisely, factually, and semantically correct than about being morally right.... Whenever I make a mistake. I say, ‘OK, this was clumsy,’ and then I restate what my point was.”

On the other hand, she does seem to be a pretty full-on capitalist exploiter on her website’s “Store,” at shop.ocasiocortez.com/products/tax-the-rich-sweatshirt. (Don’t be confused by the aoc.com site, which is for computer gamers.) There you can buy a “Tax the rich” sweatshirt for only $58 (while they last). There is other cool stuff for sale at ocasiocortez.com, including a “Cancel Student Debt” T shirt (for $27, which if your $400,000 student debt was canceled you could easily afford), and a $58 sweatshirt proclaiming, “Drink Water, Don’t Be Racist.” Color Uncle eddie puzzled, but what on Earth does that mean? (I know, I know, a more intensive internet search might resolve that quandary, but Uncle eddie doesn’t have 24-7 to devote to this column. Get a life.)

That’s it for now from Uncle eddie. Stay confused: you might get elected president some day. Ω
 

September 23, 2021
 

(Authentic) editor’s note: Right! That’s the end of this lower-case nonsense, then. — (The real) Nicholas Strakon

 

Published in 2021 by WTM Enterprises.

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