Kamala’s Soviet Nightmare

By John Kass

Aug 21, 2024

In the almost 40 years when I was a reporter, columnist, and editorial board member at a faded (but once great) Chicago metropolitan newspaper, I’d periodically conduct an unpopular experiment on colleagues:

I’d ask them if they’d ever made a payroll while dealing with other bills for electricity, taxes and other operating costs.

In other words: Had they ever run a business?

It seemed reasonable to ask, since journalists were so eager and willing to weigh in on economic matters, from unaffordable teacher contracts to property tax “swaps” and  waxing on profoundly about the importance of “community investment.”  Sometimes I’d ask for a show of hands when I’d run the experiment.

“Have you ever run a business?”

But nobody ever raised their hands.

Nobody.

They just stared, sullenly, as if I were speaking some Mongolian dialect. I finally gave up and stopped asking.

But I realized the truth. Before newspapers went woke, they were flush with cash. They were fat and happy. No one was ever laid off. Newspapers had more money than they could think of spending.

Yet American journalists really didn’t want to be burdened by business issues, by “expenses” and “cost of production” and “profits and loss.”  And they often avoid the most nagging issue of all:

Reality.

And there was a secret to success in American journalism.

Feelings. It was all about expressing feelings. And emotion.

So if you were assigned to write a story about watching the faces of customers at a supermarket who gave up on costly and inflated grocery store items, like milk and bread, or those who couldn’t even afford hot-dogs for a July 4 cookout, you’d be chronicling heartbreak, anger, frustration and despair.

If you didn’t feel their pain, well then, you wouldn’t have any feelings.

Kamala Harris, now the Democrat presidential candidate desperate to distance herself from the disaster of Joe Biden, has feelings.

She is desperate to win. Which is why she called Joe Biden a racist, before eventually sucking up to him and joining his administration.

To separate herself from old Joe, she recently announced a drastic plan: If elected she would use her powers to order the federal authority to control rising inflationary costs.

In other words, government price controls just like the Stalin era, before farmers gave up and famine swept Ukraine. Stalin argued that to make an omelet you had to break some eggs. And his de facto but unofficial publicity agent, the Pulitzer Prize winning Walter Duranty of the New York Times agreed. Some eggs had to be broken, and if millions died of starvation…well, you can’t cry over broken eggs, can you?

“On Day One,” she promised, perhaps forgetting she had been at the top of the Biden administration for more than a thousand days, “I will take on price gouging and bring down costs. We will ban more of those hidden fees and surprise late charges that banks and other companies use to pad their profits.

“We will take on corporate landlords and cap unfair rent increases,” she continued. “And we will take on Big Pharma to cap prescription drug costs for all Americans. Our plan will lower costs and save many middle-class families thousands of dollars a year.”

She’s talking about price controls.

Yes.

Price controls didn’t work for the Soviet Union and Stalin, and the Soviets, like today’s Democrats, had the media eating out of their hands. And then came the famine.

Most of America’s inflation since 2020 has resulted from Kamala Harris, as Vice President, twice breaking Senate ties to approve the American Rescue Plan of 2021 and the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. These didn’t reduce inflation; they caused it, they were the match to the dumpster fire. Dumping trillions of dollars in cash on the the economy and the inevitable happened, and every American who took basic economics knew what would come:

Too much cash chasing too few goods happened. Gas was under $2 a gallon. And then everything started to rise as the inflation tax of too much government spending took hold, and milk and eggs and coffee, beef and bread, everything rising and many Americans were forced to make choices.

There were moms and dads who skipped meals so their kids could eat. We never thought this would happen again in America, but it did. And some senior citizens had to select from medicine or food. It was the Democrats and their selling their “feelings” that got us here.

Not all of the corrupt corporate media was in support of Kamala Harris’ Soviet-style plan. The leftist Washington Post condemned it, as did the much more rational Wall Street Journal.

The Washington Post editorial board condemned the Harris idea as “gimmicks.”  They were too kind.

Rather than “leveling with voters” and saying that “inflation spiked in 2021 mainly because the pandemic snarled supply chains, and that the Federal Reserve’s policies, which the Biden-Harris administration supported, are working to slow it,” the vice president “opted for a less forthright route: Blaming big business,” the Washington Post wrote,

“Ms. Harris says she’ll target companies that make ‘excessive’ profits, whatever that means.”

The Post slammed her idea to dole out $25,000 to help first-time homeowners with their down payments, saying it “risks putting upward pressure on prices.”

Really? If you’re a home-seller you benefit, because that idiocy immediately spikes home prices by 25k and more. But it inflates prices too, by at least that $25,000. And young people can’t afford the cost of a home.

The principle applies when the feds move to subsidize student loans.  Say the daughter of a Hinsdale surgeon has her loan to get a doctorate in gender studies forgiven by Uncle Joe Biden and the spendy Democrats. And so, after forgiveness, who pays for the loan? The bank? Don’t be silly. The electrician or pipe fitter, carpenter or butcher pay. The blue-collar workers who didn’t waste money or time with gender studies are the ones who pay.

Harris isn’t the only economic illiterate in Democrat politics at this week’s Democrat National Convention in Chicago groping around in the dark.

Chicago’s neo-Marxist Mayor Brandon Johnson—the mayor of the panic attacks—wants to run his own government grocery stores, just like Comrade Stalin. Walter Duranty is no longer with us, but the Times has plenty of Kamala press agents. Others moved to Chicago to give Johnson political cover, a nice deal for a moron without a clue.

As Johnson talks about his grocery stores, I think of my dad. My father and my Uncle George were grown men and slaved away for years as waiters and busboys in Chicago downtown hotels, just to scrape enough money together to open a small independent grocery on the Southwest Side in the Gage Park neighborhood. They worked 12 hours a day at least, year after year, no vacations.

I wonder: Since Johnson doesn’t like putting criminals in jail—he supported George Soros prosecutor Kim Foxx—what would he do with shoplifters at his  fancy government City Hall stores?’

Give them hugs?

Or shovel candy bars at them for votes? Or most likely raise taxes on the chumbolones who remain in the city.

My friend, conservative radio host Dan Proft calls the Mayor Johnson grocery stores “Gimmie Dat” stores, since shoplifters will take what they want.

Who pays for the economic illiteracy of Democrat politicians who govern with emotions?

The people pay.

They pay for the gimmicks with higher taxes. And they pay the inflation tax because Harris unleashed inflation by dropping more than a trillion dollars of newly printed cash on the weakened economy, which is why many Americans can no longer afford the extravagance of bacon and eggs. That’s why inflation went up. That’s why the price of eggs and meat and milk are high. The politicians cackle. And the people pay.

The people also pay with increasing violent crime. They pay with fear alone, riding on public transit in the big blue cities like Chicago, with Democrats electing do-nothing Soros prosecutors. The people pay and pay.

Once I thought economic illiterates—among voters and office holders—would benefit by working in the private sector before going into government.

Or at least by watching the cartoon I link to here: from the brilliant 1958 essay written by Leonard Read, “I Pencil.”

But even a simple cartoon is beyond Harris and Johnson.

Harris has never worked in the private sector except for a summer job at McDonald’s. And Johnson was a teacher and union organizer for the real political muscle in Chicago, the Chicago Teachers Union. Democrats say they’re in the giving business, but that’s a lie.

They’re not in the giving business. They’re in the taking business. They use their government clout to do the taking.

Eventually, the people who do the work break down, like overworked mules or donkeys or rusty tractors. And those who make the pencils, and the farmers who grow the beef and vegetables, the chickens and the lentils and the wheat just can’t do it anymore, with or without Walter Duranty of the New York Times.

By then the shelves are empty.

And the people grow hungry. Their children starve.

Don’t you worry about the politicians. Don’t worry about those Democrats. They’ll always be taken care of. Their beaks are always moist. It’s the Chicago Way. And in Chicago, the host city of the Democrat National Convention, they have fat, juicy, six figure public pensions. And plenty of golf. When the bill finally comes due, they’re gone.

They’re never around when the bill must be paid, and especially not economic illiterates like Kamala Harris or Joe Biden or Brandon Johnson. They live charmed lives.

But you’ll be around, won’t you? And if not, your children will be around if you’re gone. The kids are the ones who pay.  They pay for our economic illiteracy and our feelings and our politics. They always pay.

-30-

About the author: John Kass spent decades as a political writer and news columnist in Chicago working at a major metropolitan newspaper. He is co-host of The Chicago Way podcast. And he just loves his “No Chumbolone” hat, because johnkassnews.com is a “No Chumbolone” Zone where you can always get a cup of common sense.

Comments 70

  1. How do you say Loyalty the Chicago Way?

    “It’s the Chicago Way. And in Chicago, the host city of the Democrat National Convention, they have fat, juicy, six figure public pensions. And plenty of golf. When the bill finally comes due, they’re gone.”

    That is faith, family and freedom in Chicago! The Harris/Walz signs will forest the 19th Ward!

    1. Excellent! Had to believe so many are drinking the kool-add being served up by the lefties! It started with the failed public educational system teaching free stuff if good. I truly fear for our children and grandchildren. We, like you, left Illinois after 45 years because of taxes and crime! Breaks my heart to see Chicago circling the drain.

  2. When you mentioned Harris was an economic illiterate the other day, I was briefly startled thinking you were false name calling because the elites are usually very well read, Kamala included. In literature and subjective subjects. But illiterate in ECONOMICS. Thanks for another great read.

    1. Well-read does not mean that the reader can think logically or interpret what they read. “Don’t bother me with the facts, my mind is already made up.” A so-called educated person who is an idiot is still an idiot. Education means nothing without common sense. Anyone who hasn’t worked a day in their life and had to pay bills has no sense of reality.

  3. Growing up on the Southside of Chicago in the 50’s was a great learning experience on leading a humble life, learning respect for our elders, and never expecting more than you earned. So apparent now, many who feel entitled, and those who subscribe to the phrase “its a dog eat dog world and I got my milkbone underwear on”. “Whats in it for me”. It does’nt need to be this kind of world if each person pulls their own load. Kamala chants “equality is everyone receiving an equal outcome”, not equal opportunity but equal outcome. Right out of the Communist playbook. Then she’s chants ” we will stop the price gouging!”. Pray tell, how silly to suggest her administration can regulate this unless under Federal control, hello Manisfesto! Free markets are the American lifeblood, regulation will kill small and large businesses, the people suffer.
    Beyond time to wake up and know what kind of cat prowls in these circles of power. The same cats that are protected by iron cages around the DNC. Let them out of their cage and feel the bite!

    3. Fact is, under communism there are NO equal outcomes. There’s the rich, elitist ruling class; the party apparatchiks who do their bidding; and then everyone else loving one floor above poverty.

  4. “Government has no wealth, and when a politician promises to give you something for nothing, he must first confiscate that wealth from you — either by direct taxes, or by the cruelly indirect tax of INFLATION.” ~ John Wayne

  5. Having lived the Soviet experiment/experience, and price controls under Nixon, … whether it is WIN, price controls, central planning, …, and a society run by “experts”, it all sounds great until lived.

    Then it is a living hell of mismanagement, abuse, cheating, and deprivation. All, unnecessary.

  6. Yes, most journalists are economic illiterates. They think that business and profit are evil, period, and make no attempt to rationally process capitalism.

    “To make an omelet, you have break a few eggs.“ “Where’s the omelet.” – George Orwell, debating some Communist.

    JKN is a rare breed. Journalist and businessman!

    Unfortunately, I think Kamala’s going to win because Trump can’t get away from his insult comic routine, which people have grown tired of. Maybe our country just needs to try socialism and then fail. Then hopefully, after walking down that road, we can turn around. Vietnam did.

  8. Was there ANY mention of what the Dems have accomplished in the last four years on the podium last night? To hear the Obamas talk and others you would think the last four years the Republicans were in office. Joe got his praise on Monday. Bye Joe. The ONLY reason he gets an invite to the planned festivities in January is that he has to be there. Divisiveness? Who has caused that? I guess the America that sits between BOS-NYC-DC and California. Normal people who want to be safe, not worry about their wives and daughters in a mall restroom or on the athletic field competing with someone who “identifies” as a girl but born male so physiologically they are 15-20% bigger and stronger and faster. All happy talk and hammer on those abortion rights. My body my decision. Well what about a decision in the moment to not share your body — but it felt soooooo good. A baby is another human being period. Plenty of early options at the drug store OTC. Your decision to spend four years on gender studies, we’ll get a real job if you can find an opening in your field sbd pay your loan. A giant shell game. Look at the shiny object here while that pea gets shuffled around. Normal values are “weird” and millennia of history and common sense is turned on its ear.

  9. Anxiety is now going grocery shopping. As one who is now in her golden years with that monthly social security check it’s a challenge. Sticker shock is a daily occurrence. I have had to make the decision of what I have to put back. I scowl the adds for best prices. Choices are hard. I grew up with my grandparents. I recall going grocery shopping with grandma. I’d ask could we buy some cookies? The answer was why buy what we can make. So now I am returning to that idea. With that thought I have to figure the cost. Looking at the prices of butter, eggs, chocolate chips.
    So yes in my freezer there is various frozen cookie dough that I have made. More and more I’m doing from scratch. Bread dough is left to rise overnight and made in the morning. In many ways I’m thankful for my grandparents lessons. It’s called survival.
    Thank you for your column.

    1. This. I also can.

      This was supposed to be an “experimental” year in growing things, but it’s fast becoming putting in an autumn planting to harvest.

  10. Quite humorous to see that fat socialist governor (of Illinois, not Minnesota) brag about being a “billionaire,” as though he worked for that rather then simply be born into it. While Trump inherited a good amount of his wealth, he continued to pursue it, dealing with those costs, contracts and everything else the socialists seem to forget about.
    The democrats disgust me. Down here in South Carolina, the land of the free, there is plenty of hushed talk of the dream of cessation. Things are different now- we have the economics on our side, while the North has worthless money pits called cities. When it comes to my home of 62 years, Chicago, we say “let it burn.”

  11. Excellent column. I remember sending care packages of things like flour, sugar, coffee, rubber baby pants to put over diapers, baby bottles, and more to relatives in Estonia when it was occupied by the Soviet Union. The shortages of basics we take for granted were unimagineable. I will never forget how excited my aunt was to see oranges in a store. There were also “valuta” or foreign currency stores where a tourist could buy things such as a nice set of water glasses for one’s relatives that were unavailable to them. Perhaps the politicians could visit some of the migrant shelters and ask some Venezuelans what happened to the economy in their country when certain policies were implemented. Thanks for your insightful writing.

  12. Kass shrewdly describes here key differences in how business works and how leftists try to work it. That difference also accounts for Democrats playing politics more aggressively and successfully than Republicans.

    Politics IS their business, their only business. If you couldn’t possibly run a hardware store or build any legitimate business, how do you get good money? “Work” hard to be a prosecutor who prefers not to prosecute or a university’s Assistant Director of Diversity Hiring. Or mayor of Chicago.

    Great articulation of the left’s economic wisdom last week when Vice President Cackles announced her war against price gouging and pronounced it “price gaging.” Leftists not only don’t know what they’re talking about, now they’re announcing that in the Biden style of not quite knowing how to talk.

  13. About running a business and politics . Many years ago , George Mc Govern tried to open and run a hotel /restaurant . It went bankrupt. George wrote an article for the WSJ in which he laid the blame on regulation , local, state and federal .Too bad he did not have that epiphany before, when he was a congressman and senator , a very liberal senator , for a ten years or so . He might have saved some poor schmuck losing his dream in whirlwind of regulation .

  15. Thank you John Kass for your masterful weaving of reality combed into the blanket of economic illiterates. God bless you John Kass and keep you safe and well.
    Yes, I shall post this article of political faith where ever I can find a home for it and share your words of wealth to who ever would care to read reality. I am afraid there is a great need for that NOW.
    All my best to you and yours,
    Tom

  17. I’m picturing your former colleagues shaking their heads, smirking and mumbling to themselves: “Has HE ever run a business!!??” There is a chasm between corporate price gouging and the (former) Soviet Union (wait, Tucker Carlson said its a workers paradise of cheap abundance, what happened??) Again not sure the same scare tactics are going to make a single Independent vote red, that ship sailed. If the GOP were smart, they would bounce Trump and get Nikki Haley on the campaign trail, she has a shot., Trump doesn’t have a chance.

    1. You are right. I believe Orange Man realizes he can’t win, has an opponent who’s black, Asian, female with a Jewish spouse, and will probably go to jail. That thought and others ie assassination attempt, has caused his decline in campaigning. Plus he is now the old man. He’s old news. Past tense. That act of his is now vaudevillian, OLD, BORING, RAMBLING, INCOHERENT, ETC. Media CONTROLLS THE SPIN. THEY USE TO LIKE HIM SINCE HE SOLD THE MEDIAS COMMERCIAL TIME. Everybody watched this guy since he was refreshingly new. Was like Wm Clinton, a whore monger, who women loved!?!?. Who said women are our equal in intelligence (oooops bet i pay for that statement!!!!!) Go figure.

      1. Mr. Rudd- I think that’s a pretty fair assessment of where Trump now stands. It will be interesting to see how his fading brand fares in November. My sense is Americans are tired of the angry, divisive, counterproductive, and negative style they have been stuck with for 8 plus years now.

        1. It’s tired, old, boring, childish and bigoted. What happened to the “GREAT STOCK MARKET CRASH!!” he predicted if Biden won?? America is tired of the doomsday hyperbole and White Supremacy, time for a new chapter. Shame John doesn’t see it.

  18. Pure Kass gold. I remember the common dinnertime admonishment in the early 1960s during China’s “Great Leap Forward”, to eat everything, as “kids are starving in China”.
    Today, awarded their WTO membership, the Clinton/Bush China manufacturing jobs transfers, and national suicide by socialism, Chinese kids are very likely eating better than many of our own.

  19. A great column.
    Career politicians or bureaucrats never had to worry at night on how to cover payroll or collect on AR to get cash so you can pay expenses. Never had to worry if there is enough cash to keep the lights on. So it should never be a surprise that their approach to the economy is the same. What just gobsmacks me is that we tried price controls in the past and they never worked well. Did we forget the Nixon 70’s? Since 1918 we have seen the failures of socialism, just look south to Venezuela to see it today. If we keep on this same vein we’ll be eating tree bark for Christmas dinner in 2025

  20. “Given the 291 page Congressional report detailing how President Biden benefitted the Biden family business, should the president be impeached before the election?” SERIOUSLY?? There isn’t a shred of evidence contained in that ‘report’ that ladders up to impeachable offense, it would be laughed out of any court in America (well, maybe not Judge Cannon’s..) Complete theater form the GOP, masterclass in wasting MILLIONS of tax payer dollars. A sham.

    1. I suppose the bank records and the testimony by witnesses under oath is a sham as well? Are all the bank records made up? The banks are apparently lying to banking regulators controlled by Biden. If the banking records are untrue, where’s the rebuttal from Biden and his gang? Did all the witnesses commit perjury and miraculously escape prosecution by the Biden controlled Justice Department? There is only sham here sir, and it is you.

      1. Almost 300 pages of debunked threads, disputed testimony, and circumstantial evidence that has failed to directly tie any official action from President Biden to his family’s business dealings. The GOP isn’t even pushing for impeachment, they don’t have the evidence OR the votes, and they know it. Sure, some crazy windbag like MTG will keep playing her part in the political theater, but this was nothing but an expensive waste of time. Sorry you gut sucked into the imaginary narrative, you must be disappointed with the outcome.

        1. You are the one who is getting gut sucked. If Biden’s name happened to be Nixon instead of Biden, the corrupt press would be all over this and Biden/Nixon would have impeached a long time ago. Please explain how Biden and his family accumulated millions of dollars on his various political salaries, never over $250,000.00. It just proves the old maxim – the bigger the crime, more likely the possibility of getting off. Disprove the bank records and the witness’s sworn testimony and I’ll admit I am wrong, which is lot more then you will do, since you are the righteous one, sent by God to enlighten the peasants. If you can’t see the forest for the trees, you must be a Democrat. You are pathetic.

          1. Well, one of is, and it isn’t me. See, the “media” reports news, they don’t put Americans on trial and pass sentencing, that’s called the ‘judicial’ system, completely different. But please, “John C Lisicich” has seen ALL THE EVIDENCE NEEDED!!! Please, share it with the FBI, stop wasting your time here! FYI The GOPs STAR witness Smirnov, awkward, huh? I’m sorry. Say, any idea where Hoffa is buried?? Do you know what a ‘fake smart person’ is?? Look in the mirror..

    2. You, along with your fellow plant Rudd are both nitwits. I wish John would only let paying subscribers post. I’m sure neither of your parents would give you the money to pay for a subscription. Now, both of you get going to McDonald’s to get your Happy Meals. I hear there’s a new toy inside for you goods to play with….

  22. Great column, John and food for thought. I’ve read that Kamala is an authortarian. You need only look at the “I’m speaking” clip from a couple of weeks ago, when hecklers in the crowd disrupted her speech. Her eyes told you everything. She was seething with anger. How dare someone challenge her?!! Why, she is the anointed one, by the grace of Barack Obama!! And yet, people will vote for her because she is a woman and a woman of color. They have no idea the destruction she will cause. Maybe when they end up in bread lines and their 401k’s disappear, they will wish they had voted for Trump.

    1. Is this a joke?? Did you feel the same way when Trump shouted down protestors at his rallies and told the crowd to ‘gram em’ and get them the hell out of here!!” Is that ‘authoritarian” in your eyes? Or is it different because its a big, strong manly man and not a woman??

  23. My grandfather was a proud ‘independent contractor’ ie worked for himself. Owned a typical Chgo bar, he called it a tavern. On a side street: 846 N. Hermitage. Each block had a bar, grocery store and a church. He worked on a relatives pickle farm in IN, I assume he meant cucumbers. Got enuf $$$ and opened up. Was a proud owner. Did well selling booze. My father got him one of first tvs with magnifying lens. For short time he wiped out his competitors since everyone came to watch sports, Sid Caesar, Milton Berle, Red Skeleton shows. Wore a freshly pressed white shirt with cuff links and tie. Wore an apron just like Gleason did on the Joe the Bartender skit.Then the 1st big box store (Goldblatts) started selling booze and his business dwindled. During prohibition was when he did best selling ‘illegal’ hooch. Paid off the polls, cops, city inspectors, etc. Had a cook, cleaning lady, seamstress, drove a Cadillac and sent 3 of 4 kids to university/college in the ’30s, the height of depression. Ah, American capitalism at its best.
    I admired him greatly. When I got out of medical training I joined a private practice medical group. Worked for myself with 5 partners. We ran 3 hospital labs and made a very good living as did the hospital labs as a result of our expertise. Sadly that has gone away for the most part. Obama care has allowed hospitals to form monopolies and screw patients and physicians. Hmmm, I thought monopolies were illegal.
    Finally, didn’t Nixon use price controls. All these years I didn’t realize he was a Commie. Double agent, no doubt!

    1. Mr. Rudd- I realize Obamacare is flawed but always thought the intentions were good. As an experienced (and sounds like very successful) doctor what would you like to see regarding healthcare in America? Should the ACA be dumped? Improved? Should we go back to the system as before the ACA was passed? Or what would be a better plan. I hate big government giveaway programs but is there a way to protect the average Joe from financial ruin if they get seriously sick through no fault of their own other than bad luck? Thanks

      1. Bob
        ACA aka Obamacare was a Trojan horse. It’s main reason for it was to allow hospitals to form monopolies. With that done they started restricting physician private practices of were they could practice. Whereas physicians could practice at multiple hospitals with different hospital business affiliations hospital monopolies restricted physicians from practicing at other hospital monopoly affiliations. This forced doctors to sell their private practices to the hospital monopolies! Now you the patient must wait months before seeing a specialist. Have u ever tried talking directly to a hospital based dr.? Next to impossible.
        Despite what you hear Medicare for all is the way to go. As a physician who dealt with Medicare and as a patient under Medicare for treatment I PREFER Medicare. Private practice physicians that still exist hate it. Bcuz they pay less but Medicare pays the physician as oppose to private insurance that dicks the Dr. around and argues about cost. Medicare says this is what we pay. Take it or leave it. If you take it you do get paid. Not true with private insurance. Healthcare as it is now is going down the tubes as it exists. Since physicians work for the hospital now they obey the hospital. The Hippocratic oath doesn’t exist. The Dr. Does what’s best for the hospital, NOT YOU. IVE SEEN DOCTORS DELIBERATELY WITHOLD CARE FOR ELDERLY PATIENTS WITH THEIR RESULTING SUFFERING AND DYING. HOSPITALS ARE PRACTICING SENIOR GENOCIDE. IVE GOT DOZENS OF CASES IVE SEEN AS A PATHOLOGIST/CORONER. ONCE YOU HIT A CERTAIN AGE CARE IS BEING WITH HELD.

  24. Timely column for sure John! Will America survive as the Demoncrats try Socialism promises to win elections! The frog’s in the pot as Satan is reaching for the knob! Will the voters stop him? 🤔

  25. Good ol’ St. Barack and his silver-tongued oratory skills. He could sell snow to an Eskimo.

    And Michelle, his Black Barbie wife, also of silky voice.

    They sound so sincere when talking about how people shouldn’t take more than they give……as they settle in to a $13,000,000 abode on the Vineyard. I have no qualms about rich folks enjoying the fruits of their labors, but can’t stand the hypocrisy of those same rich folks wagging their fingers at others for being greedy.

    I admit, I was under their Svengali-like spell back in 08, but became one of the millions who went with Trump in 16, again in 20, and will again in 24. Not because I love Trump, (God knows, he’s doing his best to talk people out of voting for him) but because I can’t fathom what this country will look like under a Harris (4th Obama) term.

    Harris’ economic ignorance was put on full display earlier this week, but it simply doesn’t matter to the Dem base. (And they call Trumpers a cult). They’re high on her vibes, like a kid on a sugar high. Immigration? Foreign policy? Domestic policy? Crime? Give ‘em abortion, and they’ll be happy little AWFULs with their soy companions mailing in their D ballots thinking they have the moral high ground.

    I AM however into getting some “hope and change” from what the democrats have wrought upon the American people for the last 4 years. Even if it’s in the form of the hated Orange Man!

    1. “And Michelle, his Black Barbie wife..” Wow. See this is the blatant, out in the open racism readers come to expect in the Kass comment section. You must be proud of yourself. I wouldn’t be.

    2. Mr. MacDonald- Personally I don’t begrudge any ex-president for getting rich after serving provided they do it legally. Just like the very top rock stars, athletes, actors, authors, or CEOs they have reached the absolute top of their profession and have earned their fame and ability to cash in. After serving 4 or 8 years as the most powerful person on earth, their insights are in demand, even if disagreed with by over half the population on any given subject.

      I can understand why you would not want to vote for Harris. But after everything we have seen from Trump, especially after how he handled his 2020 election loss, I think you are unwise to support him again in 2024.

      The peaceful transfer of power is the bedrock of any democracy. How can you support a person that s**t all over that only for his won vanity. I hope you might reconsider.

    3. I too was drawn in by Mr. Obama’s silvery oratory, before I came to realize what a slippery hypocrite he is and was. But the facts of the matter – according to the WSJ citation of a recent Gallup poll – he and his policies remains one of the most popular past presidents with an approval rating of an astounding 63% … only exceeded by JFK, Ronald Reagan and George H W Bush. That is the undeniable, inconvenient reality.

  26. In addition to being a successful seller of his political office, Joe Biden remains a serial liar and plagiarist. Unable to rise to the sheer hubris of her boss, Kamala Harris is merely a thief. She stole the lives of many when she pretended to be a prosecutor, a position she since disavowed. Harris stole President Trump’s ‘no taxes on tips; idea, pretending she had a coherent thought. Now she steals from Stalin and Nixon price controls that always lead to more problems than they solve.

    Stalin starved his people with price controls. Nixon’s price controls turned disastrous when the Arab Oil Boycott raised prices of crude to highs unseen prior to that date. Gas station owners couldn’t pay the higher prices for fuel purchases causing shortages of gasoline. The resulting lines of cars waiting to fuel up resembled Soviet bread lines, toilet paper lines,… Cackling Kamala and CCP-loving Walz want to bring this back like a bad pair of bell bottomed corduroys.

    Kamala’s leftist handlers have never worked in the private sector, but that will not stop these ideologues from telling the private sector how to operate.

  27. My wife has been working since she was 9 years old and her mother stuck her head out the window from their apartment until she made it to the former Groves Bakery at 5355 West North Avenue. I’ve been working since I was 14. My parents were small business owners that allowed them to raise four kids and earned them enough to purchase a boat for summers on Lake Catherine in Antioch. None of us were privileged. We earned what little luxuries we had. Yet Michelle Obama gets up before the DNC last night and proclaims “She (her mother) and my father didn’t aspire to be wealthy – in fact, they were suspicious of folks who took more than they needed.” The crowd went wild. Think about that wording – specifically the word “took.” Very interesting indeed when you consider she and the former president have luxury homes in Massachusetts, Illinois, Washington DC and Hawaii. Maybe they earned the lavish lifestyle, maybe they didn’t. But to cast aspersions on people for aspiring to do better and, yes, acquire things is so anti-American. The nation’s future is dependent upon the hoi polloi recognizing these people are truly phony clowns intent on ruining a system that has brought unparalleled prosperity to a country still in its adolescence. I’m Praying for victory because a shellacking is the only thing that will change the New Bolsheviks – and not just this cycle but many more ahead!

  30. The parable about catching wild pigs comes to mind more with every passing day. John, you know it, but for those who don’t it goes like this:

    To catch wild pigs, find a suitable place in the woods and starting leaving corn in the same spot every day. Soon the wild pigs will find the corn and will return to eat everyday.

    After a week or two, put up one side of a four-sided fence the pigs will not be able to penetrate, but continue leaving the corn. After some initial apprehension, the pigs will continue to come to eat.

    A few weeks after putting up the first fence, but up another at a right angle to the first. Again, the pigs will overcome their apprehension and resume eating.

    A few weeks later, put up a third fence so you have a U-shaped enclosure. Apprehension again, but free eats prevail.

    A few weeks later, put up the fourth fence, this one with a hinge on one side. Wait until the pigs again get used to it and resume eating. When they’re all inside, close the fence. Voila! Bacon!

    This parable is apropos today because the pigs are the public which has been given so much free crap it thinks that’s how things must be done.

    The first fence is the politicians. The second fence is the rich elitists and their corporate allies. Side three is the media. All have been bought off to enslave the populace.

    The fourth fence is the voting public. If we elect the Democrats again, we will be opting to close the gate on ourselves. Voila! Gulags!

  31. John, you don’t have to go back to Stalin and the Soviets to see how disastrous price controls are. We have our own shining home grown American example under Richard Nixon from the early 1970s. Initially everyone cheered. But as time went on the economic inevitable happened: all those controls led to black markets, higher prices and scarcity. The exact opposite of what they were supposed to do. The only folks who benefit from price controls are the bureaucrats; in that an extensive program of price controls requires a large bureaucracy to issue, monitor and enforce the controls … the major expertise of the Democratic Party.

  33. Γιάννη,
    Too many smoking that Hopium sold by Obama and Governor Maximus. (Interesting that Harley named one of their bikes after him – “fat boy!”) And the house of cards collapses as the socialists run out of other people’s money!! Just like where Chicago is heading – Kalifornia already there, and Minnesota not far behind, thankyou Tim Walz. How blind, deaf and dumb are these leftist pols? I guess smarter than the dummies that elected them. Go’s help us all!!

  34. A vote for Harris and Walz in November is a vote for eating zoo animals in the near future.
    The DNC is counting on her skin color to drag her across the finish line first.

  36. I’m very glad Mr. Kass brought up the subject of economic literacy. Far too many Americans don’t have it. This causes them to fall for the Democrat nonsense and we all suffer for that.

    I now live in Wisconsin. The airwaves are full of Harris ads that simply play to economic ignorance.

  37. As always, a great column, John. It would be interesting to survey our current U.S. Senate and House of Representatives asking how many ever worked in the private sector. I bet we would find that less than 10% had one or more jobs outside of government. As a result, they are clueless about how businesses, large or small, are run.

    1. Actually even if they (our representatives) had a clue it would not matter in the least. Why? Because the everyday “rules of the road” stem not from our clueless Congressman – who are at least answerable to the people – but from faceless, unaccountable bureaucrats in the Administrative state like in the FTC for instance. Once achieving their sinecure, those “experts” “legislate” rules and regs (with the full force of law), enforce their mandates and judge via their tribunals (until recently) who violate them as well … all unanswerable to the people: the very definition of tyranny according to Madison.

  38. The economic disaster in which we find ourselves will be resolved when we 1.) End the Fed, and 2.) back our currency with precious metals.

    Government controls are never the answer.

    1. Yeah, ending the Fed was one of Rep Ron Paul’s clarion calls, he thought the Fed was unconstitutional. And a return to the gold standard? Other than Judy Shelton – who has been excoriated for her belief in gold – most economists believe in fiat … and the Fed. But you raise a very interesting point that most (Dems as well as Repubs) want to avoid or denigrate.

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