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Four cities in Indiana are suing Netflix and other video companies, claiming that online video providers and satellite-TV operators should have to pay the same franchise fees that cable companies pay for using local rights of way.

The lawsuit was filed against Netflix, Disney, Hulu, DirecTV, and Dish Network on August 4 in Indiana Commercial Court in Marion County. The cities of Indianapolis, Evansville, Valparaiso, and Fishers want the companies to pay the cable-franchise fees established in Indiana’s Video Service Franchises (VSF) Act, which requires payments of 5 percent of gross revenue in each city.

The lawsuit is based on an unusual legal argument and doesn’t seem likely to succeed. Essentially, the cities are claiming that Netflix and similar providers use the public rights of way simply by offering video streaming services over the Internet….

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Three propositions on California’s November ballot would violate our constitutional right to private property; a fourth would violate the individual’s right to nondiscrimination.

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It was about about nine years ago when consulting company BCG first suggested that in a time of out of control spending and soaring debt loads, the only fiscally sustainable “solution” was to implement a wealth tax (see “There May Be Only Painful Ways Out Of The Crisis”).

While the idea was well ahead of its time in 2011, and was quickly shut down in the court of public opinion, several years later none other than the IMF resurrected the idea of a wealth tax, which has only gained momentum in recent months, and despite widespread grassroots pushback, the concept of a “wealth tax” has moved front and center and most recently the chairman of Capital Economics, Roger Bootle, said that the world’s wealthiest could be subjected to higher tax rates as governments scramble to fund spending and repair their economies amid the coronavirus crisis.

Fast forward to today when the ultra-liberal state of California is now ready to take this “socialist” idea from concept to the implementation phase, with the SF Chronicle reporting that a group of CA state lawmakers on Thursday proposed a first-in-the-nation state wealth tax that would hit about 30,400 California residents and raise an estimated $7.5 billion for the general fund.

The proposed tax rate would be 0.4% of net worth (most likely ended up far higher), excluding directly held real estate, that exceeds $30 million for single and joint filers and $15 million for married filing separately.

That will clear out the tech companies that California depends on for its budget toute de suite. It’s amazing how reliably statists always shoot themselves in the wallet with such policies.

Ah, well. Couldn’t happen to a nicer group of people.

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But you knew that.

The Other McCain keeps up with this crap so that you don’t have to.

There is no “crisis.” What there is, apparently, is a paranoid delusion that ORANGE MAN BAD is trying to “steal” the election.

Democrat hopes for stealing the election focus on extensive mail-in ballots, which can’t require photo ID, and that can be manipulated in various ways. The Post Office is key (Don’t laugh. I’m serious.) in this scheme.

You will note that there is no ‘UPS crisis’ or ‘FedEx crisis’. Why? Because those companies exist to provide a service for the public, rather than as a featherbedding enterprise for Democrat-voting public sector union employees, and actual have to be effective and efficient, something that the Post Office is notorious for not being.

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As a senator, Sanders voted for many of the policies that granted billions in subsidies and incentives to Musk and his companies.  For example, Sanders voted for passage of the American Recovery and Investment Act of 2009, which boosted the solar energy tax credit from 10 percent to 30 percent of the cost of a solar installation.

Sanders also voted for the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 that provided tax credits of up to $7,500 to purchasers of electric vehicles. Tesla Motors sold 200,000 electric cars to buyers able to claim this credit.

Senator Sanders and presidential candidate Joe Biden support the “Solving the Climate Crisis” report that was issued in June by the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis. The report calls for extension of the 30 percent tax credit that provided more than $1 billion to SolarCity. It also proposes a national mandate “to achieve 100% sales of zero-emission cars by 2035.” The report calls for billions of dollars in additional subsidies for green energy that would flow to the companies of Elon Musk and other green billionaires.

It appears that billionaires don’t deserve to grow their wealth except when they build green energy companies.

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Harvey Risch says treatment effective in helping people in early stages of disease, especially those with higher risks.

Amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic Yale School of Public Health epidemiology professor Harvey Risch is asserting that the drug hydroxychloroquine, in conjunction with zinc and appropriate antibiotics, can help high-risk patients recover from COVID-19.

Risch draws a distinction between two stages of the illness, noting that while the treatment will likely work quickly during the first stage, it is not effective in helping people who have advanced to the more serious second stage.

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Yesterday, New York governor Andrew Cuomo, who signed an executive order forcing nursing homes in his state to accept patients who tested positive for the coronavirus in March, informed reporters there was no need for an independent inquiry into his deadly mistake because no one can be deemed reliable enough to investigate him.

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Last October, Ibrahim Bouaichi sexually assaulted Karla Dominguez with whom he reportedly had been in a relationship. He was charged with six felony counts and held without bond in an Alexandria, Virginia jail.

In April, a judge, Nolan Dawkins, ordered the release of Bouaichi due to the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic. Bouaichi was 33 years old. The virus probably posed about the same threat to his health as the flu. Moreover, there had been no cases of the virus at the Alexandria jail.

Bouaichi’s lawyers argued that visits to the jail had been curtailed and that they needed to meet with their client. But all trials had been postponed.

The lawyers apparently did not seek relief from the curb on their ability to visit Bouaichi. Instead, they insisted on his release.

Judge Dawkins ordered Bouaichi to stay at home, to leave only to met with his lawyers, and to have no contact with Dominguez, his victim. But the judge did not order electronic monitoring of Bouaichi.

Less than a month after his release, police officers spotted Bouaichi in his car at a Wendy’s drive-through. He rammed his car into one of their cruisers.

For this, he was charged with multiple assault counts and drunk driving. But after spending one night in a Maryland jail, Bouaichi was released on bond.

You can probably guess the rest of the story. In late July, Dominguez was shot to death in Alexandria. The police issued a warrant for the arrest of Bouaichi on the charge of murder. He fled. When the police finally spotted him and moved in for the arrest, he killed himself.

Given the guy’s name, I could as easily put this under Living With Islam.

One of the fundamental tasks of government is to keep its citizens safe. Makes you wonder what we’re paying all of this money for.

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Suspend the price mechanism, put the government in charge, and, sure enough, lo and behold, shortages and quality problems result.

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Mail in ballots belonging to more than 84,000 Democrats in New York City who were seeking to vote in the presidential primary were disqualified according to newly released data from the Board of Elections.

According to the NY Post, the city received 403,103 mail in ballots for the June 23 Democratic primary and the certified results on Wednesday confirmed that only 318,995 of these ballots were counted.

The 84,108 ballots that were not counted represented 21% of the total mail-in ballots.

And this is just among Democrats, so the classic Democrat machine techniques of stealing elections by ballot fraud were presumably not in operation.

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Centers for Disease Control and Prevention pandemic planning documents state non-pharmaceutical interventions such as social distancing are ineffective once a disease infects 1% of a region’s population. Literature on this subject is unanimous worldwide.

…

Nature always finds a way. No respiratory virus ever needed a “lockdown” to dissipate. What it needs is herd immunity, preferably sooner than later, preferably developed by the young and healthy to minimize mortality. Politicians know the disease will eventually leave, yet they strive to convince a critical mass that their actions — modern-day versions of the rain dance — brought about that result. They count on us behaving like renowned psychologist B.F. Skinner’s superstitious pigeons.

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Fifty years after the Public Broadcasting Service launched, we’re still seeing our taxpayer subsidies transformed into Democratic donations in election years. On August 4, the PBS NewsHour hatched a love-in with Jill Biden.

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I suppose any excuse will do.

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The owner of a Virginia smoke shop is outraged that a juvenile who allegedly plotted to burglarize his store “is walking free.” He said Monday that his employee is on house arrest with an ankle GPS for defending himself and the store.

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For decades, schools have taught children the strategies of struggling readers, using a theory about reading that cognitive scientists have repeatedly debunked. And many teachers and parents don’t know there’s anything wrong with it.

The Other McCain has the scoop.

Yesterday, while I was working on an American Spectator column, my office TV was tuned to the House Judiciary Committee hearing where Attorney General William Barr was testifying and the performance by the committee’s Democrats of a loathsome kabuki theatre. Every Democrat unloaded a sort of sermon accusing Barr of various malfeasances — treason, conspiracy, murder, etc. — and then, when Barr would begin to answer, his interrogator would interrupt: “Reclaiming my time!”
Barr remained calm during this abusive treatment. At one point, interrupted by California Democrat Lou Correa, Barr responded: “This is a hearing. I thought I was the one who was supposed to be heard?”

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The coronavirus has made it essential that every transit supporter use the word “essential” in their discussions, as in how essential it is that transit carry essential workers to their essential jobs. Ridership may be down by more than 80 percent, but the remaining 19 percent of riders are really essential, so that makes it essential that we keep giving more subsidies to essential transit agencies.

Transit Is Essential is, in fact, the name of a new paper from the California Transit Association. The paper skips over the whole messy part about why transit is so essential and instead goes immediately to demanding more subsidies. “Another round of emergency funding is critical to preventing significant and permanent reductions in transit services.” In other words, subsidies aren’t just essential, they are critical.

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Democratic New York Rep. Jerry Nadler scolded three Republican congressmen for not wearing masks during a portion of the House Judiciary Committee’s questioning of Attorney General Bill Barr.

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Buy those votes! Buy those votes!

Where were these guys when I had student loans to pay?

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And serves him damned right.

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Transit agencies are stepping up their campaigns for more subsidies to make up for their lack of riders during the coronavirus pandemic. The New York Times reports that, unless Congress forks over billions more than it has already given the agencies, transit systems could experience a death spiral.

Technically, a death spiral takes place if cuts in service cause a loss of customers leading to more cuts in service. But if they don’t have any customers, they can’t spiral much further downward.

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With a hefty severance package and a generous pension, no doubt.

Once they’re gone, perhaps we can recruit some people who value teaching children,

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We have the technology.

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That will flush the rest of them to Florida and points west. Manhattan will be a ghost town.

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Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms is keeping the city’s mask mandate in place, despite an order from the governor that prohibits cities from issuing mask requirements, Newsweek reports.

Let’s have the would-be despot governor fight the would-be despot mayor.

I predict that ordinary citizens will be the losers.

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Judge James Boasberg of the District of Columbia District Court issued a short opinion last week in Standing Rock Sioux Tribe v. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. In it, he instructed Energy Transfer Partners, the pipeline builder, to temporarily cease using its 1,172-mile-long Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL), which ships up to 570,000 barrels a day of crude oil from the Bakken and Three Forks fields of North Dakota to terminals and refineries in Patoka, IL.

The dispute was about a short-stretch of pipeline (1,094 feet) that ran approximately 100-feet below a lake, about one-half mile from tribal lands. From the moment that DAPL was announced, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe mounted a full-scale attack on the venture. The pipeline was seen as yet another affront to its tribal way of life—the latest in a long string of historical injustices undertaken by, or with the blessing of, the United States government. At a more concrete level, the Tribe argued that the pipeline would run through its sacred lands and damage its water supply.

In fact, the pipeline does not cross into the Tribe’s land. Nonetheless, the Tribe sought to exercise its statutory rights to be consulted about the pipeline under both the National Historic Protection Act (NHPA) and the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). In 2015, the Tribe sued the Corps to reroute DAPL away from its lands, and raised multiple objections about the design and site of the pipeline. The objections to the pipeline continued even after it was put into operation in June 2017 without serious incident.

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The Ford was envisioned as a revolutionary leap forward with technological advancements undreamed of when its Nimitz-class predecessors were launched decades ago.

But the ship, the first in the Ford class of supercarriers, has been plagued with a series of mechanical problems that have pushed its price tag into the stratospheric $13 billion range. The Gerald R. Ford has been in the fleet for almost three years but has yet to deploy on a single mission.

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The Caution Against Racially Exploitative Non-Emergencies (CAREN) Act would make it “illegal for people to contact law enforcement solely to discriminate on the basis of a person’s race, ethnicity, religious affiliation, gender, sexual orientation or gender identity,” according to USA Today. Individuals who are victimized by the calls would reportedly be allowed to sue the caller for damages up to $1,000 dollars.

I wonder whether it would apply to ‘noose’ and other race hoaxes.

Veronique de Rugy has some news.

I give you the CARES Act news headline equivalent of “dog bites man” or “water still wet”: “Small Business Loans Helped the Well-Heeled and Connected, Too.”

Seriously, is there anyone who has studied government programs, any government programs, for at least five minutes that is surprised by this news? It reminds me of its cousin headline: “big firms gets small business loans, too.”

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Hundreds of thousands of Chinese students enroll at U.S. colleges and universities each year, and right now, a lot of them are freaking out.

As schools try to figure out how to start the fall semester amid the coronavirus pandemic, some — including Harvard University and the University of Southern California — are opting for online-only instruction. And that means their foreign students will have to leave or transfer, according to new rules issued Monday by the U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agency.

In order to keep their student visas, foreign nationals have to take in-person classes, according to ICE. The new guidelines quickly sparked rage and anxiety in China, which sends more students to U.S. schools than any other country.

Not to mention rage and anxiety amongst college administrators — typically, foreign students pay full freight, and colleges depend on that cash flow to keep in the black.

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The father of a 19-year-old killed in Seattle’s “Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone” (CHAZ) said he received a call from President Donald Trump regarding his son’s death, but not from Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan.

In an interview, Wednesday, Horace Lorenzo Anderson Sr., spoke about the murder of his son and said that Trump reached out after hearing the news. Lorenzo mentioned that Durkan, who allowed for the Autonomous Zone to stay up for weeks, had not yet called him.

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Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois announced on Thursday that she is blocking Senate confirmation of 1,123 senior US Armed Forces promotions until she receives assurances that the promotion of Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, a key witness in President Donald Trump’s impeachment inquiry, won’t be blocked.

Duckworth, a combat veteran who serves on the Senate Armed Services Committee, is seeking written confirmation from Defense Secretary Mark Esper that he has not and will not stop Vindman, a decorated veteran, from being promoted to the rank of Colonel.

Duckworth’s power play, which her office described as “unprecedented in modern history,” takes advantage of unanimous consent procedures in the Senate that are used to efficiently conduct Senate business. Typically, a large batch of non-controversial military promotions, like the ones Duckworth is holding up, would be passed all at once with just a few words exchanged on the floor between Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and whoever is the presiding officer.

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NOT the Babylon Bee.

Steve Sailer.

My wife’s black friend from the office who became a Chicago policewoman told us that she was amazed by the number of calls they went on to adjudicate really stupid domestic disputes, such as the time a man and woman were having an argument over which TV show to watch, so they called 911 to send out a police officer to tell them who was right about which show was better.

So, there are a lot of calls, especially from the black community, demanding the police come out and resolve inane disputes that shouldn’t require a policeman.

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There is really no reason to have a Department of Education; education is none of the business of the Federal government. It was carved out of the old HEW department and made a full cabinet slot in order to funnel money to the teachers’ unions and lock in their votes for the Democrats — it’s pure pork, from start to finish.

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Over the weekend Minneapolis’s FOX 9 broke Tom Lyden’s story of the three Minneapolis city council members who have private security officers protecting them at city expense. Tom’s story is posted here. The video is below.

The three council members are vocal proponents of substituting a Department of Sunshine, Lollipops and Rainbows for the Minneapolis Police Department. They all voted in favor of the ordinance advancing such a proposal last week. I posted a copy of the ordinance here yesterday.

The council members — Andrea Jenkins, Phillipe Cunningham, and Alondra “Arma virumque” Cano — are a little vague about the threats to which they have been subject. Lyden obtained this giggle-inducing quote from Jenkins: “My concern is the large number of white nationalist(s) in our city and other threatening communications I’ve been receiving.” I’m thinking the number of white nationalists in Minneapolis must be smaller than the the number of Minneapolis members in our local chapter of the Republican Jewish Coalition. Considerably smaller.

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Thank God for those strict gun control laws in Chicago, or the place would be like Texas.

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Democrats say Black lives matter but it’s becoming clear they only matter sometimes, which explains why Democrats blocked Tim Scott’s justice reform bill.

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While the broadcast networks spent over seven combined minutes (7:25) Wednesday evening huffing about a D.C. appeals court ordering the case against former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn be dropped, and suggesting that Attorney General William Barr was corrupt, ABC, CBS, and NBC were on a mission to cover up evidence that President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden had a hand in the Russia probe. They also blacked out how Biden had lied about not knowing anything about the investigation.

They wouldn’t do that, would they?

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“You’re the only president in my 23-year career that has actually come down to the border multiple times to look at — assess what actually needs to be done,” president of the National Border Patrol Council Brandon Judd said in a conference with Trump and several other officials, according to the Washington Examiner.

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One of the most pernicious phenomena of modern times is the collusive lawsuit. This is how it works: a left-wing organization sues a government agency that is also controlled by the left. The lawsuit alleges that the agency is obliged to do something that the agency would like to do, but the Democrats can’t get it passed. Then the parties–supposedly adverse, but actually in collusion–“settle” the case by having the agency agree to do what it wanted to do all along. If all goes well, a court enters an order enforcing the settlement. So the net effect is that a policy that the Democrats couldn’t get passed is now a court-ordered mandate. This happens often.

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In Minnesota, Democrats control the House side of the legislature, but Republicans control the Senate. Thus, if police “reform” is to be enacted, the two parties must agree.

They don’t. Republicans are in favor of reform legislation. They back eleven steps including banning choke holds and requiring officers to stop colleagues from using excessive force. Those two measures alone, if followed, would have saved the life of George Floyd.

But Governor Walz calls the Republican proposal “weak sauce.” He and his fellow Democrats demand a more radical bill.

Among the provisions Democrats insist upon are restoring voting rights to tens of thousands of felons (which has nothing to do with police reform) and placing the state’s attorney general, Keith Ellison, in charge of prosecuting police killings. They also demand a ban on “warrior training” which, as I understand it, teaches police officers how to fight off attacks.

Democrats want felons to be able to vote because felons are more likely to vote Democrat than Republican, as the most cursory thought will reveal to be true.  It’s just another case of ‘Let No Crisis Go To Waste’ political maneuvering.

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If you violate federal immigration laws and settle in New York, the state will give you a driver’s license (and lots of other benefits too).

If you work at the New York Department of Motor Vehicles and you comply with a request for information from either Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) or U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), you could be charged with a Class E felony, be locked up for as long as five years, and forfeit many basic rights, including the right to vote.

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Not really news, but a useful reminder.

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More evidence that hugely expensive public taxpayer subsidized pack-em-in-like-sardines transit systems are Just So Fifteen Minutes Ago. (Not to mention breeding grounds for disease and crime.)

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All of them are Democrats, and almost all of them are black.

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If they wanted to give DC residents representation, they merely need to give DC back to Maryland, as the did with the portion that fell in Virginia. The federal government doesn’t need its own Fantasy Island — they don’t do anything with it anyway, now that they have a city administration to give out jobs to black people.

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Senator Durbin, who has been on the public payroll all his adult life, is certainly free to introduce legislation that he regards as better, if he doesn’t like what Senator Scott ( the Only Black Senator) has done.

UPDATE: Sen. Tim Scott Slams Dick Durbin For Calling His Police Reform Bill ‘A Token’

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The Germans argue that they pick up financial slack in other ways, like accepting Syrian refugees. Creating a refugee crisis in Europe was a choice. But it has nothing to do with defense of the continent from … who? Let’s not forget it was Germany that shut down its clean-ish nuclear energy program and made a $10.5 billion Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline import deal with Putin, potentially giving Moscow more political leverage over Europeans than it has had in decades. It is only American sanctions that are holding up the deal.

Germany, incidentally, boasts a $3.948 trillion national GDP while Russia has a GDP of $1.658 trillion. There’s little reason for the United States to continue to subsidize the budget of a nation well positioned to defend itself.

Why are we spending a single dime on keeping troops in Germany to defend against a threat that disapeared THIRTY FARGIN YEARS AGO?