The young people polled here seem to have an opinion different from the kid featured in the previous post; there's probably room for both views

John Hinderaker, Powerline: The Kids Are Not Alright

My organization sponsors a quarterly poll in conjunction with our magazine. Meeting Street Insights conducts the poll for us. For our Summer issue, we thought it would be interesting to poll young people in Minnesota, which we defined as ages 18 through 34. To my knowledge, no one has done this before. We asked young Minnesotans not about their views on politics or policy, but about their lives and concerns.

The results were stunning. Young people in Minnesota are deeply pessimistic about their futures, and their country’s future. We asked respondents whether their generation is better off economically than their parents’ generation, worse off, or the same. Fully 90% said their generation is worse off than their parents’:

Our pollster was shocked at this finding: “You can’t get 90% of the people to agree on anything.”

Further, young people’s pessimism extends into the future. Asked whether the next generation will be economically better off, worse off, or the same as theirs, 68% said “worse off.”

In other words, the vast majority of young Minnesotans think they live in a country that is in a state of permanent decline. I have no reason to think the results would be much different in other states.

We asked our poll respondents whether they are concerned about a series of issues. Again, the results are striking. The concerns of young people are mostly economic, and fully rational. Eighty-three percent say they are worried about being able to buy a house. Sixty-four percent are concerned about public safety. Sixty percent are concerned about being able to pay off student loans, and 60% worry about being able to buy a car.

Poll respondents overwhelmingly say they will vote in November, and we asked them what issues will determine their votes. The cost of living and the economy predominate:

So, memo to Republican politicians: America’s young people are hurting, and their concerns are entirely rational. They have been devastated by Joe Biden’s inflation and economic doldrums. Don’t pander to them, and forget about global warming and abortion. Talk to them honestly about the economic challenges they face, and explain how conservative policies can make things better. Young people’s votes are up for grabs, and if conservative politicians are smart, they can do what Ronald Reagan did in 1980: make young voters their best demographic.

My thoughts are that we should stop indoctrinating our kids, beginning in Kindergarten, to hate their country and “know” that it was founded by rich white slave owners whose progeny went on to keep all the wealth “created”, by others. Ahmad Alsaleh, the Syrian refugee-new homeowner in the post below was spared that “education”, and has thrived.

We could then remove obstacles to creating wealth, such as the rent controls imposed on young, would-be homeowners mentioned below, and the hundreds of thousands of regulations that do nothing but retard wealth accumulation: the efforts to ban self-employment are just one such example.

Give people hope, and they’ll dare to dream, and the best of them will achieve it. With no hope, why even try?

This is very much NOT an argument for open borders, but it is a reminder that The Land of Opportunity” still exists for the ambitious and hard working

Meet the 19-year-old Maine immigrant who just bought his family a home

Yes, he got a little help from the government, but not much, and that from programs open to non-immigrants as well. Of note, perhaps, the most important assistance came from — gasp — a Republican.

Ahmad Alsaleh is no ordinary teenager. Last month, the 19-year-old closed on his first home.

That alone makes Alsaleh a virtual unicorn in today’s housing market. What makes Alsaleh’s story all the more impressive is the adversity he overcame to get to the three-bedroom home that he closed on last month on Melville Street in Augusta.

After the outbreak of the Syrian Civil War in 2011, Alsaleh, his parents and four siblings fled as refugees to Jordan and got to the United States eight years ago. After two years in Arizona, the family came to Maine through Catholic Charities’ refugee resettlement program.

The charity found them an Augusta apartment, but it was cramped and in poor condition, Alsaleh said. He wanted better than that. His father works part-time and his mother has a disability, so he took it on himself as the eldest sibling to provide a home for the family like they had in Syria.

“[My parents] sacrificed everything in their country for their kids,” Alsaleh said. “It’s not even ‘motivation,’ that’s just a word. You’ve just got to do it. If I don’t carry the family, who else is going to?”

Alsaleh took on three jobs while attending Cony High School and continued to work full-time through his first year of college at Central Maine Community College in Auburn, where he was able to take advantage of a free college scholarship to study business management. 

By the time he was 18, Alsaleh estimated that he had banked about $40,000. He also dedicated himself to learning as much as he could about real estate and investing. Alsaleh joined a Jobs for Maine Graduates program at his high school that connected him with state Sen. Matt Pouliot, R-Augusta, who runs a downtown real estate office focused on the region.

Pouliot, who bought his first home at 20, was immediately impressed by Alsaleh’s ambition. He hired Alsaleh to work at his real estate firm the summer after high school. He then offered to help him search for his family’s home.

“Folks who are refugees from war-torn countries [have] this other level of drive,” Pouliot said. “Ahmad is one of them. He’s like, ‘Hey, nothing’s gonna be given to me in this country. I’m gonna have to earn it.’”

The search was tough given Maine’s tight, inflated housing market. Augusta has had some of the fastest-rising prices in the nation. They remain affordable compared with other areas of Maine, but homes priced under $350,000 are still often going within days of hitting the market.

Once Alsaleh identified the place he wanted, he had to act quickly. Pouliot arranged for him to see the home before showings officially started. Alsaleh put in a $310,000 offer soon after, $25,000 over the asking price.

Alsaleh secured the deal with a first-generation homebuyer loan from MaineHousing that offered him $10,000 in down payment assistance, financial classes and low fixed interest rates. However, the program made it difficult to get accepted for a loan, Alsaleh said, extending the process. He had to appraise his home twice and secure roof repairs before he could close.

It was well worth it, he says. For the first time since they were displaced from Syria, the Alsaleh family now has a place to call their own. Alsaleh is even confident they can reconfigure the house so it has five bedrooms. His mother is most excited about the prospect of gardening and growing her own produce at home.

Alsaleh says that this is just the beginning for him. His next goal will be to retire his parents. This year, he hopes to get his real estate license. Over the next decade, he wants to work his way up to owning his own real estate firm like Pouliot.

>>>

More young people are homeowners in Maine than they are nationwide, according to U.S. Census data. Only about 3 percent of Maine households are headed by people under age 25. Just 28 percent of them own rather than rent their homes, but it’s still only a fraction of Maine’s high homeownership rate of 74 percent.

Both Alsaleh and Pouliot want more young people to see that homeownership is attainable. Investing in a multi-family property could be a good investment for young people, since someone can live in one unit and pay off their mortgage by renting out the others.

“We want as many people to experience the wealth building opportunity of owning real estate as possible,” Pouliot said.

(I’ll take a moment here to point out that Portland, Maine, has already cut off that avenue by imposing rent controls that prohibit increases of more than 5% even to recover costs incurred repairing and restoring older homes — the practice of young couples buying dilapidated duplexes, restoring half to make it rentable, then using that rent to pay for restoring their own half has, according to interviews with several such homeowners that I’ve read, has killed that possibility.)

It's not fair: why should Connecticut always be stuck with the dumbest senators?

locked in the Senate coat closet with only his video games to entertain himself

Sen. Chris Murphy: J.D. Vance Will Help Make America a White Patriarchal Christian Dominated Nation

Sen. Chris Murphy is just a loathsome human being, and he doesn't seem to know it. The day after Donald Trump's attempted assassination, Murphy came out with one of those "what happened was unacceptable, but …" posts so many of which we've seen. 

Murphy spoke with MSNBC's Rachel Maddow on the opening night of the Republican National Convention, after Trump had revealed that his running mate would be Sen. J.D. Vance. Not to resort to hyperbole or anything, but Murphy said Trump chose Vance because he was a cult member who would help Trump make America an "autocratic white patriarchal Christian dominated nation." Way to lower the temperature there, Chris.

One of the commenters on Twitchy writes, “.[Murphy] continues to be a complete and total embarrassment to the State of Connecticut. He somehow manages to make Richard Blumenthal tolerable.”

I can’t agree with that; Blumenthal will never be tolerable, but I will concede that he’s now only the second-dumbest senator from Connecticut.

Battle lines: 2025 Agenda vs Bernie Sander's vision for America; if we must have one or the other, the choice is easy

I’ve had this in my draft folder for a couple of days now while I considered whether to post it. Then I saw just now that Bernie’s giving a stump speech in which he promises to impose a national rent control program, which is what set me off in the first place, so I’ve cut and saved a very long essay on “The Rise and Fall of Socialism” and going with this (much) shorter version.

Biden begins touting 'working-class' agenda on advice of Bernie Sanders: report

President Biden has begun focusing on a ‘working-class’ agenda on the advice of Senator Bernie Sanders, according to a recent report in the Washington Post.

The Post reported on Saturday that Sanders visited the White House on Wednesday to discuss a potential second Biden term. Speaking to the President's closest advisors, the Vermont senator reportedly argued that Biden should focus on a 100-day plan aimed at "working class" voters.

In a social media post on Friday, Sanders claimed that Biden will enact a number of progressive policies – including ending all medical debt and raising the minimum wage – if elected to a second term.

"At a time when the billionaire class has never done better, and when we are experiencing unprecedented income and wealth inequality, President Biden tonight laid out an agenda that begins to speak to the needs of America’s working class," the tweet read.

Sanders also added that Biden would expand Social Security and Medicare benefits, lower the cost of childcare and build more affordable housing if elected, among other initiatives. On Friday night, Biden pledged to end all medical debt at a rally in Michigan. 

Biden Promises National Rent Control

“We’re going to make sure that rents are kept at 5% increase in corporate rents for apartments and the like. Homes are limited to 5%.”

Assar Lindbeck, the late left-wing Swedish economist who for many years chaired the committee that awarded the Nobel Prize, famously said: “In many cases rent control appears to be the most efficient technique presently known to destroy a city–except for bombing.”

Economist David R. Henderson disputes that – he argues based on the experience of Vietnam that rent control is worse than bombing. Either way, it’s really bad.

So istead, they stayed inside, peering out for snipers, while the gunman was ON THAT VERY ROOF (UPDATED)

Here’s the link, but really, is there anything more to be said? This woman still has her job, by the way, because she’s a Friend of Jill’s. Maybe she should look into joining the Friends of Bill’s.

UPDATE: Ok, I take it back — checking the comments on Twitchy, there are some great ones worth reading.

Even NMBC (!) is calling BS. The picture of the roof in question makes it even clearer how “dangerous” this sloped roof was. Hell, even snow wouldn’t fall off that thing, which is something the designers may want to think about.

Gold Bar Bob convicted (Update: Jonathan Turley says DC pols turned their backs on Bob because his type of corruption was so gauche)

I was away today, and just saw this good news:

Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez guilty on all charges in federal corruption trial

Unlike the recent trial of another politician, Menendez was actually guilty of a crime (s): selling his office, and accepting bribes to influence foreign policy. Further, the man was a crook while he was mayor of Union City from 1986-1992, and continued wallowing in graft for the next three years as he made his way up the Jersey Democrqat political machine. Yes, he was just following a time-honored tradition of New Jersey pols, but stashing gold bars in shoes in the closet and hundreds of thousands of cash in his wife’s own closet(s) was beyond the pale, even for the Garden State. Or so it was declared, once he got caught.

Just to balance things out, on the west coast, the Menendez brothers are claiming that newly discovered evidence entitles them to a new trial after 30 years of incarceration. Two for one, so to speak.

Turley:

George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley said Washington elites appear to look down upon Democratic New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez for his “prehistoric” corruption style.

A jury found Menendez guilty of all 16 counts of federal corruption and bribery charges relating to the Egyptian government and three New Jersey businessmen paying him thousands of dollars in cash and gold bars in exchange for information. Turley said the senator’s form of corruption is old-school, as opposed to modern corruption, which often takes the form of influence-peddling.

“His form of corruption views in the beltway as virtually prehistoric,” Turley said Tuesday. “I mean, the idea of getting envelopes filled with cash and cars is really sort of Capone-era corruption stuff. I mean, in some ways, some people have contempt just for the lack of sophistication. That’s not how corruption works anymore… Corruption is influence-peddling, like we’ve seen in the Hunter Biden case, where you have all of these rather curious and dubious positions with millions of dollars being passed through accounts. This is really something that Washington has long ago turned its back on.

Riverside NoPo sale reported

135 Lancer Road came on the market May 31st @$1.250 million, was off the market 10 days later, and closed today at $1.465. That’s pretty much what these 60s houses on a former farm, then golf driving range are going for, so no surprise here.

But … gosh.

NYC buyers.

If you haven't read it, it's on sale cheap today: $7.45

PRIME DAY DEAL: From J.D. Vance, Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis.

Attention campers: this one may be a little too rustic for the Bloomingdale's set, but it's approaching a Filene's Basement price

Creamer Hill Road, 82 acres, one house and nine building lots, has cut its price from $39,500,000 to a mere $24,750,000.

The shadow president is now running the country

A friend of Glenn Reynolds predicted this yesterday:

Earlier today, Trump called for RFK to get Secret Service protection, and a friend messaged me: “Haha, when they do that, our crazy orange former president official becomes shadow chief executive. Making the common sense calls the Biden admin can’t quite manage.”

And later today, they did that, with Sec. Mayorkas announcing that RFK will get Secret Service protection. To which my friend comments: “Prediction: Here through Jan 20  will be the first six months of the second Trump admin.”

What makes Biden look so weak in this situation (as in all other matters) is that he has previously denied six different requests for such protection for his own political purposes. Certainly, the assassination attempt forced his hand, but his handlers must have known as the shots still echoed that, politically they had to give Kennedy protection immediately, and had they acted swiftly, they’d have come through unscathed. Instead, they hemmed and hawed until Trump demanded that they act, and then their reversal made it appear that they were bowing to Trump’s will; bad optics.

John Fund, National Review:

>>>

A Kennedy aide told me that the campaign has already spent $3 million on private security that accompanies Kennedy everywhere he goes. I asked why RFK didn’t have Secret Service protection despite his family history (his uncle, John F. Kennedy, and his father, Robert F. Kennedy, were assassinated).

I got a stunning answer. The Biden Department of Homeland Security has six times rejected requests from the Kennedy campaign to provide such protection. Ironically, it was RFK’s death in 1968 that led the Secret Service to expand its protective coverage to leading presidential candidates. Some Kennedy advisers believe that Biden is worried enough about Kennedy’s support in key swing states as to be satisfied that Kennedy has to allocate millions in scarce campaign dollars to security.

But as the shooting at former president Trump’s latest rally in Pennsylvania has just proven, American politics can be suddenly volatile. Newsweek reports that 775 pages of documents obtained by the Freedom of Information Act detail 34 instances of direct threats and bizarre rants directed at RFK Jr. by various entities and individuals. One promised, on social media, to “kill rfk jr lawfully on USA soil. Bullets right into the head,” while another wrote, “RFK is not immune from a 7.62 caliber bullet.”

Kennedy’s lawyers have sent six letters to U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas formally requesting protection, to no avail. Last month, cousin of RFK Jr. and former House member Patrick Kennedy weighed in with his own request: “I struggle to understand the administration’s persistent refusal to grant Secret Service protection to a presidential candidate deemed by the Secret Service itself to be at elevated risk.”

Even Democrats are starting to question the Biden administration’s preposterous refusal. Colorado governor Jared Polis and Arizona representative Ruben Gallego have demanded protection for Kennedy.

So too have some Republicans. Ari Fleischer, a former White House spokesman for President George W. Bush, says the Biden administration should have provided Secret Service protection to Kennedy “a long time ago.”

Thomas Balcerski, a presidential historian at Eastern Connecticut State University, says the Biden refusal looks both shortsighted and petty: “Giving Kennedy protection would give him political currency. The speculation is that Biden doesn’t want that.”

If that’s true, sadly, it wouldn’t be the first time that our cognitively failing, peevish, and narcissistic president has lashed out at his political adversaries. The attempted assassination of another presidential candidate, one expects, should be enough to alert the president to his folly.