Mon Blogcast: Robert Bryce; What about hate crimes?; F for Justice Jackson

Just One Thing: I wish more people had this evolution


Zohran Mamdani, the smooth-talkin' good-lookin'

I appreciate her realization but the real thing I take away from this is that younger adults LOVE the leftist grift, the happy talk about free stuff and "rent freeze" and other idiocy that always has massive negative unintended consequences. As the father of a son whose middle name is "Rand", I firmly believe that sometimes a place needs to go through an immense amount of political and economic pain for a lesson to be learned. After that, they'll turn away from socialism...but only for a little while, until that memory fades. Also, as long as universities are causing so much brain damage and proselytizing against common sense and economic liberty, young adults will keep defaulting toward supporting politicians whose viewpoints aren't just wrong, but repeatedly proven wrong by history and, though the same young adults don't care, also utterly immoral. (At least to the extent that you think theft is immoral.)

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One More Thing: Is cereal soup?

This was a topic of debate between me and my son yesterday. What do you think?

email me and tell me... ross @ iheartmedia.com

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Today's Guests

Robert Bryce is one of the nation's (and world's) leading experts on power generation and power grids. He has a GREAT Substack (link below) and we'll discuss his latest note about the fantastic provisions targeting "renewable energy" subsidies in the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act".

The Big Beautiful Bill Torpedoes Big Solar & Big Wind

Robert Bryce | Substack

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Michael Dougherty is DA of Boulder County and candidate for Colorado Attorney General. (I'm not shy about the fact that I encourage every one of my listeners who is a registered Republican to switch to unaffiliated just to vote for Michael in the Democratic primary. The alternative will be the heinous Jena Griswold who must not become our AG.)

Michael and I will talk about "hate crimes" laws which have come up again in the context of the wannabe terrorist who firebombed (although not very successfully) peaceful marchers in Boulder.

Boulder firebombing suspect faces 12 federal hate crimes charges

Michael Dougherty for Colorado Attorney General

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Other Stuff


Big Beautiful Bill stuff

On Saturday night, the Senate passed its first "procedural vote" on the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" (BBB). Then, the Democrats have forced the reading of the full 940-page bill. Sixteen hours later, on Sunday, they got to actual debate. By the time you read this on Monday morning, the Senate might be in or near a "vote-a-rama" (huge series of votes on proposed amendments) and then to final passage, if they have the votes, though that may not be until tomorrow.

Capitol agenda: Thune heads into a perilous vote-a-rama - Live Updates - POLITICO

In the vote-a-rama, this will be a key amendment to watch: Rick Scott drafts key Medicaid amendment ahead of voting marathon - Live Updates - POLITICO

On Saturday, two Republican senators voted "No": Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Rand Paul of Kentucky. Tillis voted against it for the wrong reason: he thinks the Medicaid cuts are too large. (They're the bare minimum, in my opinion.) Paul voted against for the right reason: the bill doesn't cut spending enough and the tax giveaways with "no tax on tips" or on overtime or on Social Security are ridiculous. (But Trump campaigned on them and those provisions aren't going away; the best we can hope for is that they get a "sunset" fairly soon and then don't get reinstated, but I suspect they will get reinstated.)

THEN, Tillis announced that he will not run for re-election. It's the right move. He shouldn't be there as a Republican and I do think a better Republican can win in North Carolina so it's not an obvious Dem pickup if he drops out as, for example, it would be if Susan Collins (R-ME) retired.

Sen. Thom Tillis won't run for reelection in 2026

From the Wall Street Journal, the last part making a point I've been making:

The GOP pickup opportunities are few, so with Mr. Tillis’s departure the Senate is in play for 2026. Oh, and on Saturday GOP Rep. Don Bacon said he won’t run for re-election in his swing Omaha seat. That’s a likely gain for Democrats in the House.
Messrs. Tillis and Bacon didn’t help themselves by echoing Democratic attacks against the GOP’s very modest Medicaid changes. But then Mr. Trump and GOP leaders haven’t helped them or the party by failing to make the moral and fiscal case for those reforms.

There's a lot of good stuff in BBB but the most important issue is federal spending and it doesn't cut nearly enough. Do keep in mind when you see these numbers that these are scored as compared to no change in current law -- which doesn't mean no change in current tax rates because current law has the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act personal income tax rates returning to their 2016 levels. So the "score" for BBB treats an extension of the current rates as if they are a cut from the 2016 rates to the current lower rates. Furthermore, the dynamic effects are likely to be significant and any increase in deficit and debt from BBB will likely be less, maybe MUCH less, than the CBO score predicts. HOWEVER, it's ridiculous that a Republican Congress and a Republican president during a strong economy would propose a bill that doesn't significantly cut the deficit.

Senate's "big, beautiful bill" would add $3.3 trillion in new debt: CBO

Trump, Mike Johnson faces Senate Repoublican opposition on big, beautiful bill

Here's some inside-baseball: Republicans move forward with controversial megabill accounting move - Live Updates - POLITICO

It's partly that Republicans are cowardly (though I have to say they are showing some courage by doing even what they're doing) and it's even more than Trump is not a fiscal conservative. It's actually rather amazing that he's going along with what Dems will paint as "cuts" to Medicaid. These are NOT actual cuts. They're reductions in the rate of growth of the cost of the program...even though it's true that it will kick some people off Medicaid. But read about those "cuts" and tell your friends and don't let Democrats get away with their lies:

Arrington-Guthrie-Letter-Medicaid-hr1

About Those ‘Millions’ Losing Medicaid - WSJ

And consider the insanity of more than 20% of Colorado's population being on Medicaid (up from about 11% in 2010): Medicaid explained: 14 charts that show who is covered in Colorado

From the conservative Dominic Pino writing at the Washington Post:

The first thing to note is that even under Republicans’ current proposal (which is still subject to change), federal Medicaid spending would still increase by around $1.3 trillion over the next 10 years. The budget baseline assumes an increase of just over $2 trillion. Any increase less than that is called a “cut” by budget-scoring standards, but in real life, we know there’s a big difference between slowing a rate of increase and cutting. But I’m not optimistic because Republicans have an opportunity to make more long-lasting structural reforms to the way Medicaid’s burden is shared between the federal government and state governments, and they don’t seem willing to have that fight. It would be worthwhile to put Medicaid on a more fiscally sustainable trajectory and secure benefits for the most vulnerable, but the politics are too difficult.

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The Bezos wedding

My wife calls it a kinda-gross celebrity play-date.

Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez wrap up three-day Venice wedding extravaganza | CNN

Lauren Sánchez and Jeff Bezos Are Married! See Inside Her Final Wedding Dress Fitting | Vogue

A fairly big win for Trump over the weekend: Canada rescinds Digital Services Tax after Trump cuts off U.S. trade talks

It’s in the weeds, but another int’l tax win for the Trump administration: A ‘Revenge Tax’ Victory for Congress - WSJ

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This seems designed to test Trump's willingness (or Israel's) to assassinate Khameni. To be clear, I don't think anything short of an actual Iranian attack on Trump would get Trump to try to kill Khameni. It would violate decades of executive orders against US assassinations of heads of state. For Israel, though, it's a different story. If there's an actual Iranian assassination attempt (not counting a rocket launched from Iran) against Bibi, I suspect he'll order at attempt on Khameni's life: Shiite leader's fatwa labels Trump and Netanyahu 'warlords' amid tensions | Fox News

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This story is a month old but I missed it the first time and I think it's worth mentioning: Denver International Airport employees question CEO about $19,000 business class flights; "Creates a rift" - CBS Colorado

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20 years sounds about right: Co-owner of Colorado funeral home sentenced after guilty plea on federal charges - CBS Colorado

District of Colorado | Colorado Springs Funeral Home Operator Sentenced in Gruesome Fraud Scheme | United States Department of Justice

And another Colorado sentencing:

Denver gang leader gets 33 years in prison for murder conspiracy (gift link; no subscription required)

After pleading guilty, Denver gang leader sentenced to 33 years in prison

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Lane “filtering” is not the same as “lane-splitting”: Motorcyclist killed while lane-splitting, Thornton police say (gift link; no subscription required)

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The likely next mayor of NYC believes that there should be no billionaires: Trump says Mamdani must "behave" if elected NYC mayor or face funds cut

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We’ll all be here one day: How experts help aging Coloradans downsize their possessions - The Colorado Sun

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A tough story for low-income parents, caused in part by yet another (unfunded) federal mandate. Why was this the federal gov't's business anyway? Enrollment freeze forces Colorado child care providers to cut programs, sell property

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A good question: What will inclusive lessons look like after Mahmoud v. Taylor? - Chalkbeat

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Today's Videos

Good doggie

(Translation of text: “Minos” sniffed something off, scratched the truck’s tank, and there it was: 40 kilos of cocaine paste in plastic containers. It came from Bolivia, GNA stopped it in Salta.)

GNA is the Argentinian national police.

A lot of foul language here.

This is an (apparently) famous rapper demonstrating just what the global left has become


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