Harris Conflates – Patients Lose

 In a blatant, poll-driven political maneuver, V.P. Harris’ campaign has released its interpretation of Trump’s “concept of a [healthcare] plan” hoping to frighten undecided voters with the threat of loss of medical care.

Harris and her Democrat confreres like Governor Walz conflate the word insurance with the phrase medical care, so people think they are the same. Keep in mind they are not (the same.)  

Using flawed logic, Harris builds on Trump’s stated intention to repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (ACA) warning that by so doing, Trump will take away care from millions of Americans. Furthermore, they say he will nullify protections for the medically vulnerable written into the ACA. 

The facts are as follows. 

Medically vulnerable Americans had effective, state-based programs to address their needs long before the ACA. Washington took control of state programs that were working and then claimed credit for filling a void that did not exist. If the ACA were repealed, states could once again do what they were doing before 2010. 

The ACA halved the U.S. uninsured rate from 15.5 percent in 2010 when the ACA was signed to the present record low level of 7.7 percent. More than 17 million Americans gained government health insurance, mostly through expansion of no-charge Medicaid and a small number via ACA subsidies. At its height in December 2022, Medicaid/CHIP covered 27.8 percent of the population, 92.3 million Americans. Since then, enrollment has declined somewhat. However, actual enrollment is likely to be much higher than officially stated as millions of illegal entrants are being enrolled in states like California and Oregon.

A healthcare system, any system no matter where, exists not to give its people insurance, but to provide care. Harris and her fellow progressives conflate insurance with care leading people to believe they are the same. They strongly imply that having insurance means one gets whatever medical care is needed when it is needed. This is false. Insurance and care work against each other, called the seesaw effect.

As the number of Americans with government-provided health insurance rises, access to medical care declines. Because Harris and the media have so frequently conflated care with insurance, common wisdom says they go together However, following the money trail proves the counter-intuitive notion that they behave inversely. 

In 2023, the U.S. spent $4.8 trillion on healthcare, the system, not on health care, the service, aka patient care. In fact, as much as half of that massive expenditure, $2.4 trillion, paid for activities unrelated to patient care called BARRCOME – bureaucracy, administration, rules, regulations, compliance, oversight, mandates, and enforcement. Those trillions were first-dollars-paid-out: only what was left was available to pay for patient care. 

BARRCOME dollars and patient care dollars are at opposite ends of the seesaw. As Washington passes more regulations, more money goes to BARRCOME and less is spent on patients. This is just as true of government insurance. 

As more money is spent giving no-charge (most definitely not “free”!) Medicaid/CHIP insurance to people, especially when making the huge influx of illegals eligible to enroll, fewer dollars are available to pay nurses, doctors, and facilities. 

Wait times for care get longer and longer until people start dying waiting for care that never comes. Such “death by queue,” documented in people with government insurance such as Medicaid and Tricare, exposes Harris’ falsehood that insurance equals care. 

Ironically, Trump’s intention to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA) will likely increase access to medical care, by making the seesaw reverse its direction. 

The ACA expanded Medicaid enrollment. It simultaneously increased maximum average wait times to as much as 132 days to see a primary care doctor by diverting more money to BARRCOME, taking it from patients. President Obama took $716 billion from the Medicare Trust and thus care for seniors to pay for ACA infrastructure.

As the ACA magnified the seesaw effect and reduced access to care, repealing it could flip the seesaw. As Medicaid rolls are culled to more appropriate levels and more money becomes available for patients, access to care will go UP. 

As long as the seesaw effect remains in force and patients get the leftovers after spending on BARRCOME, our healthcare system will fail in its primary duty to Americans: to provide medical care as needed. 

 

Deane Waldman, M.D., MBA is Professor Emeritus of Pediatrics, Pathology, and Decision Science; former Director of Center for Healthcare Policy at Texas Public Policy Foundation; former Director of New Mexico Health Insurance Exchange; and author of 12 books, including multi-award winning, Curing the Cancer in U.S. Healthcare: StatesCare and Market-Based Medicine

https://www.realclearhealth.com/blog/2024/10/02/harris_conflates__patients_lose_1062455.html

Blue Shield of California bypasses PBMs to slash Humira prices by 90%

 In a bold move to tackle soaring drug costs, Blue Shield of California is pioneering a strategy that bypasses traditional pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) to bring blockbuster drugs to patients at a fraction of the cost. By partnering directly with manufacturers, the insurer aims to dramatically reduce the price of AbbVie's Humira, the world's top-selling drug, by up to 90%.

Blue Shield's agreement with drug manufacturer Fresenius Kabi, an operating company of Fresenius, and Evio Pharmacy Solutions, which facilitated the deal, introduces a new model called Pharmacy Care Reimagined. This approach aims to eliminate the excessive markups often found in traditional PBM models, providing members with better access to biosimilar medications.

The company isn't alone in adopting new strategies to address rising drug costs. The Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Company, part of the celebrity businessman's broader effort to reveal drug price inflation, also sells a version of Humira for $584 for cash-paying customers.

Paul Markovich, CEO of Blue Shield of California, emphasised the company's commitment to change: "We will no longer take part in a pharmacy system that is designed to maximise the profit of participants instead of the quality, convenience, and cost-effectiveness for consumers. Every employer, health plan and payer should be asking – and challenging – their pharmacy benefit managers to offer clinically effective and lower cost alternatives at a transparent price."

Humira's patent expired in January 2023, opening the door for lower-cost biosimilars. However, prices haven't decreased as much as expected in a functioning market, limiting widespread adoption. As such, Blue Shield claims that its plan to introduce biosimilars could lead to savings of up to $1 billion per year for its members.

Starting January 1, 2025, most Blue Shield commercial members using Fresenius Kabi's adalimumab-aacf (a Humira biosimilar) will pay $0 out of pocket. This collaboration is expected to reduce drug spend while potentially increasing medication adherence, benefiting overall care costs and member health outcomes.

https://pharmaphorum.com/news/blue-shield-california-bypasses-pbms-slash-humira-prices-90

Bank Of America Customers Report Widespread Outage, Zero Balances

 Bank of America customers on Wednesday reported having problems accessing their bank accounts or that their account balances currently show $0.

The outage started at around 12:30 p.m. E.T. on Wednesday, according to the tracking website Downdetector.

About an hour later, more than 20,000 user complaints were submitted via the website.

The Epoch Times' Jack Phillips reports that numerous Bank of America users have posted screenshots of empty account balances on social media.

An Epoch Times staff member also reported not being able to log in to their Bank of America account.

Some users on social media stated that Bank of America had not yet alerted them to the issue.

Meanwhile, some users have reported having problems with Zelle, the digital payment system that is used by multiple banks and is owned by Bank of America and several other banks.

It’s not clear how many customers were impacted or when the problem will be resolved.

The Charlotte, North Carolina-based bank has not released details about what’s causing the issue.

On the social media platform X, Bank of America’s team was responding to complaints by asking for additional information.

However, it did not appear that the bank provided information about the nature of the outage or how long it could take to fix.

“Hi, we are sorry to see this. If you’re still experiencing the concern, please click below to let us know. Thank you,” one Bank of America representative wrote on X to a user who expressed concerns about logging in.

Another post said:

“Hello, your concern caught our attention. Please use the link below to connect with us and send additional details. We'd be happy to follow up with you.”

The Epoch Times contacted the company for comment on Wednesday but received no response by publication time.

Last year, fellow banking giant Wells Fargo issued an alert on its website after customers reported not seeing their paychecks and direct deposits in their accounts.

Several users on social media were quick to remind everyone of BofA CEO Brian Moynihan's comments just a few years ago...

“Bitcoin is highly Speculative, you could wake up one day and your account would be worth zero."

And it's gone...

 https://www.zerohedge.com/personal-finance/bank-america-customers-report-widespread-outage

America's Dwindling National Wealth

 by Michael Wilkerson via The Epoch Times,

What is a rich country? In relative financial terms, it is a country whose net investment position is positive. The net investment position reflects how much one country owns of all other countries’ assets, less how much those countries own of it.

Throughout most of the 20th century, the United States’ net investment position was not only positive but also the highest in the world. Those days are over. Today, foreign governments, corporations, funds, and wealthy individuals own tens of trillions more of U.S. stocks, bonds, real estate, and other assets than we own of theirs.

The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) recently released information revealing that the United States’ net international investment position, the difference between U.S. residents’ foreign financial assets and liabilities, hit an all-time low of negative $22.5 trillion in the second quarter of 2024.

Breaking it down, U.S. entities and individuals owe other countries $58.5 trillion. These countries will earn interest, dividends, and capital appreciation over time on those assets. That represents future income and wealth accumulation potential that is flowing out of the United States into other’s hands, way too much to be offset by the $36 trillion in foreign assets U.S. residents hold. We are, in effect, transferring our children’s inheritance to strangers, impoverishing future generations of Americans so that we can consume more ourselves today.

The decline in American wealth is accelerating rapidly.

On the eve of the global financial crisis (2007), the U.S. net international investment position was negative $1.2 trillion, having turned negative just a few years before.

A dozen years later, on the eve of the COVID-19 pandemic (2019), this deficit had grown by $10 trillion to negative $11.7 trillion. Since then, the negative gap has grown by an additional $10 billion in just five years. Of this amount, $6 trillion has been lost in the last two years alone. Let that sink in.

The cause is obvious. As a nation, we are consuming more than we produce, and borrowing to do so. This is true of our government, our corporations, and our households. Each of these groups is over-leveraged and living beyond its means through excessive borrowing enabled by incontinent monetary and fiscal policies alike. We are borrowing from our futures and that of the nation, with no obvious means of repayment.

The cure is as simple as the cause, though painful to follow through on. It requires substantial changes to our economic policies and regulatory framework. First, we must close the over $1 trillion annual trade deficit. Free trade isn’t free if it isn’t fair, and many of our trading partners have not treated the United States fairly. For years now, the United States has been subject to currency manipulation, industrial espionage and IP theft, state subsidies of foreign national champions, artificially low lending rates enabled by foreign central banks, and the closing off of foreign domestic markets to U.S. exports. China, which in recent years has represented between more than a quarter and nearly a half of the U.S. trade deficit, is the most visible example of these problems.

We must rebuild our domestic manufacturing capability.

We cannot keep consuming if we do not produce goods and services that the market demands. This is not an easy or quick process, but an appropriately targeted and structured system of tariffs, along with a sound industrial policy favoring reshoring, would help substantially.

Debt-based money isn’t the source of wealth; production and creativity are.

Americans’ ability to consume should be based not on the availability of cheap credit but on successful U.S. production and sale of something of value for the marketplace. Income produced by prior production and sale works its way into workers and investors pockets alike, enables demand fulfillment, and creates wealth.

At the same time, we must unleash our domestic energy capabilities. There is no such thing as an energy-poor “rich” country. We have abundant natural resources and domestic energy productive capability, but it has been hamstrung by an ideologically driven regulatory regime. Our domestic oil and gas, coal, nuclear, and other resource companies have the ability to energize and empower the world, and to generate substantial national wealth in the process. Let them do their jobs.

Finally, we must balance our budget. We must find a way to exit the deficit–debt–inflation doom loop that has enabled our government to print money at will and spend over $2 trillion a year that it doesn’t have. With $35.4 trillion of national debt, not including liabilities such as Social Security and Medicare, each growing by the trillions each year, the process cannot continue forever. At some point, foreign buyers of U.S. Treasuries will decide they have had enough, as the credit risks are simply too great.

This appears to be a train wreck in slow motion, and it must be averted at all costs. We must not put our heads in the sand and ignore what is happening. It is not too late to change course. But we must accept the gravity of the situation, and unify our national resources around sensible policy objectives, if we have any hope of stopping and then reversing this rapid outflow of our future prosperity.

https://www.zerohedge.com/personal-finance/americas-dwindling-national-wealth

Chemical Cloud Moving Over Atlanta Suburbs Again Prompts Shelter-in-Place Alert

 Residents east of Atlanta were again warned Tuesday to shelter in place if shifting winds push the still-billowing chemical cloud from a chlorine factory fire

opens in a new tab or window over their neighborhood.

A shelter-in-place order had just ended Monday evening for Rockdale County, where the chemical fireopens in a new tab or window sent a huge plume of orange and black smoke into the Georgia sky on Sunday. People complained about a strong chemical smell and haze for many miles around the BioLab plant in Conyers, about 25 miles southeast of downtown Atlanta.

"Due to the weather, the plume is banking down and moving throughout the county. If the cloud moves over your vicinity, please shelter in place until the cloud moves out," Rockdale County officials told residents on social media early Tuesday.

Later Tuesday, Rockdale County emergency officials extended the timeline, recommending that residents shelter in place from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. each night until Friday. They cited weather patterns in the evening and overnight hours, when air quality readings "may dip to concerning levels for those in direct exposure to the plume."

The City of Atlanta said its firefighters continue to monitor the fallout, and urged anyone with "nose, throat, or eye irritation, or difficulty breathing," to call a Georgia Poison Center hotline.

"If you don't have to be outside, if you don't have to be on the roadways, stay home," Rockdale County Board of Commissioners Chairman Oz Nesbitt said at a Tuesday morning news conference.

The fire was brought under control around 4 p.m. Sunday, officials said, but firefighters were still actively engaged Tuesday as the smoldering material kept sending up a plume of now gray-white smoke. The pollution "constantly shifted," and with no strong prevailing wind to disperse it, smelly haze lingered across the Atlanta area.

BioLab's website said it is the swimming pool and spa water care division of Lawrenceville, Georgia-based KIK Consumer Products. Residents around the area expressed frustration that company officials in their public statements didn't specify what "products" were burning.

Atlanta's fire department said it was testing for the presence of chemicals including chlorine, hydrogen sulfide, and carbon monoxide. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) also has been monitoring for "chlorine and related compounds."

Federal officials are investigating what led to the fire and how it has been handled. The sprinkler system showered water onto water-reactive chemicals around 5 a.m. Sunday, Rockdale County Fire Chief Marian McDaniel said. There were employees inside the plant, but no injuries were reported.

Residents north of Interstate 20 were ordered to evacuate on Sunday, while others were told to shelter in place. But residents of Atlanta's densely populated eastern suburbs in DeKalb and Gwinnett counties also reported a haze or the strong smell of chlorine.

Hours passed Sunday before DeKalb emergency management authorities said data suggested the air pollution was "unlikely to cause harm to most people." The DeKalb statement said anyone concerned about breathing the chemicals could stay inside with their homes sealed up and air conditioners turned off.

An EPA statement said "the odor threshold for chlorine is very low, meaning people can smell it at very low concentrations that do not cause harm."

Nesbitt made a point of holding the news conference outdoors Tuesday morning, to show that "it's all right for us to stand out here." But he said "this has happened too many times," and promised to work with state and federal officials to determine what's to be done about the plant, once the immediate crisis is resolved.

Also Tuesday, lawyers for Fannie and Albert Tartt of Conyers, Georgia, filed a lawsuit against BioLab on behalf of the tens of thousands of people who had to evacuate or shelter in place, accusing the company of "reckless and egregious conduct."

"What's especially egregious is that the defendants have been here before -- having exposed this community in a similar fashion over the past 20 years," said attorney Daniel R. Flynn, of the DiCello Levitt law firm, one of several involved in the class action suit.

BioLab did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment about the lawsuit.

There have been other destructive fires at the Conyers complex, which opened in 1973.

In May 2004, multiple warehouse explosions led to a chlorine-laden fire that prompted the evacuation of 300 people, at least nine of whom sought hospital treatment for burning eyes and lungs, the Associated Press reported.

In June 2015, six Rockdale County firefighters were hurt in a fire at the complex, and another fire in 2016 prompted voluntary evacuations, the Rockdale Citizen reported.

In September 2020, a chemical fire prompted authorities to shut down Interstate 20. BioLab workers tried to isolate decomposing chemicals to prevent the catastrophe, but their forklifts slid on the wet floor amid the fumes, and poorly stacked pallets of materials hindered firefighters, nine of whom went to hospitals after inhaling hazardous vapors, the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board determined.

https://www.medpagetoday.com/publichealthpolicy/environmentalhealth/112221

'Judge Rules Against Stem Cell Clinic'

 A federal court has once again ruled against a stem cell clinic, siding with the FDA that fat-derived stem cell treatments are a "drug" and should be regulated as such.

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals determinedopens in a new tab or window that stromal vascular fraction (SVF) -- a mixture of stem cells, other cells, and cell debris spun down from patients' own fat cells -- is a drug, and is not exempt under FDA's "same surgical procedure" exception.

"SVF is now definitively a drug. The FDA can regulate them as a drug throughout the U.S.," Paul Knoepfler, PhD, a stem cell expert at the University of California Davis, wrote on his blogopens in a new tab or window. "This is important for several reasons. In Florida and another state, some patients who received SVF lost their vision. There have been other side effects as well."

Back in 2018, FDA sued the California Stem Cell Treatment Center and the related Cell Surgical Network over its SVF treatments. In 2022, a federal judge in California ruled in favor of the centeropens in a new tab or window, agreeing that those treatments weren't subject to regulation. But the FDA appealed and won this most recent case.

This outcome is similar to that seen in another lawsuit brought by the FDA against Florida-based U.S. Stem Cell Clinic over its SVF treatments. The clinic lost its case in 2019opens in a new tab or window and its appeal was subsequently denied.

Knoepfler called it "the biggest FDA stem cell news in a few years," as there are now two federal court precedents that SVF constitutes a drug.

He also noted that a third case, U.S. v. Regenerative Sciencesopens in a new tab or window, determined that another type of stem cell therapy in which mesenchymal stem cells from bone marrow are subsequently cultured and mixed with an antibiotic before being injected back into patients was also a drug.

"Many have wondered whether this lengthy case and the uncertainty it brought had led the FDA to be more cautious in taking action in the stem cell clinic arena," Knoepfler wrote on his blog. "The main uncertainty now is whether this case could be appealed to the Supreme Court. In the meantime, will the agency be bolder in actions related to unproven cell therapy clinics? I hope so."

The California Stem Cell Treatment Center case was unusual in that one of its founders, Mark Berman, MD, died in April 2022 from causes related to a COVID-19 infection he had contracted that previous January. He had co-founded the center in 2010 and went on to create the Cell Surgical Network, which he ran with partner Elliot Lander, MD.

The center has two clinics, in Beverly Hills and Rancho Mirage. As noted in the federal court decision, the clinics provide "patient-funded investigational research"; they don't take any insurance coverage and patients pay out of pocket. A typical treatment costs $8,900, while a 12-treatment option costs $41,500.

The clinics treat a wide range of conditions, including "Alzheimer's, arthritis, asthma, cancer, macular degeneration, multiple sclerosis, heart problems, pulmonary problems, Crohn's, Parkinson's, and erectile dysfunction," according to the court decision.

Its Cell Surgical Network includes other doctors who follow its treatment protocols and pricing. Those doctors also purchase equipment for isolating cells -- known as the "Time Machine" -- from the company, which costs about $30,000.

Though FDA now appears to have more authority over clinics offering SVF, Knoepfler said it's "possible the clinic industry will pivot and focus more on other cells."

"For instance, we could see adipose cell clinics begin marketing birth-related cell preparations," Knoepfler wrote. "However, the FDA has been very consistent that those therapies are also drugs and I think they are on even firmer legal ground there."

He cautioned, however, that there hasn't been a court precedent against stem cells derived from bone marrowopens in a new tab or window, "which in an unmodified form does not appear to constitute a drug."

https://www.medpagetoday.com/special-reports/exclusives/112228

Life In Kamala's California

by Edward Ring via American Greatness,

It’s election season, and because California is a one-party state, we don’t see very many campaign ads for Kamala Harris. But ballot initiatives are another story. One hotly contested ballot initiative, Proposition 33, if approved by voters, will enable California’s cities and counties to impose rent control. How the rent control advocates make their case is typical. Greed and oppression against hapless, helpless, innocent victims. But the government is here to help!

Ads in favor of Prop. 33 are masterpieces in emotional imagery. One after another, a diverse collection of beleaguered tenants appear on the television screen, each of them repeating the phrase “The rent’s too high.” Another ad promoting a yes vote on Prop. 33 follows the same pattern, but this time, one after another, a collection of forlorn tenants asks, “Where will I live?” while superimposed on the screen is written, “Average Rent, $2,800.”

In both cases, viewers are advised to “vote for rent control.”

The naked dishonesty of these ads is lost on most Californians. They have been conditioned to believe that high home prices and high monthly rents are the result of price gouging by greedy landlords when in reality there is a housing shortage because the Democratic majority in the state legislature has passed countless laws that make it almost impossible to get permits to build homes. No wonder the median price for a home in California is $904,000.

Vote for Kamala Harris and the machine she represents, and watch this happen to the whole country.

If there were a competitive market for housing in California, such as there still is in most so-called red states, housing would be affordable for middle-income people to rent or buy. But it is government greed and overreach, not only at the state level but in every city and county, that has created the housing shortage.

The same phenomenon occurs with gasoline in California, where more than a third of the price per gallon goes to cover taxes, almost all of them for state programs. But instead of backing off of its regulatory war on refineries and in-state producers, the governor is holding hearings on “price gouging” by the refineries, alleging that they engage in deliberate shutdowns for maintenance in order to create shortages and high prices. Never mind that California’s gasoline price fluctuations track in precise alignment with fluctuations in the price of crude oil.

In every essential sector of California’s economy—starting with the fundamentals of energy, water, food, transportation, and housing—out-of-control government regulations have paralyzed investment and innovation. They have rendered the state unaffordable for low and middle-income households, and in response, the state expanded its aid programs and subsidies.

What has happened in California is going to happen to the entire nation if Kamala Harris is elected president, because she is a quintessential example of someone who is a product of the state’s Democratic political machine. What has happened in California is an alliance of unionized state bureaucrats with politically connected businesses seeking government subsidies. Other special interests also benefit—environmentalist lobbyists, social justice activists, public service NGOs, trial lawyers—but the core relationship is a partnership between a government that serves itself and crony businesses that have the economies of scale to withstand the punitive regulations and thrive on the subsidies.

The only honest assertion that proponents of a rent control initiative make in their campaign ads is the fact that rent is too high in California. But rent control will make things even worse. As it is, most developers will not do business in California. Why try to build a subdivision in Silicon Valley, where the permits may take 10-20 years to get approved, when they can go to Texas and get plans approved in 10-20 weeks? Why build anything in a state where at any moment another environmentalist organization can file a lawsuit that will take millions of dollars and several years to resolve?

If Prop. 33 passes, developers of multi-family housing will have to contend with the fact that rental income will not be permitted to keep pace with market rates, something that will not only discourage buyers but also disincentivize any ongoing investments in maintenance and upgrades to the properties. Rent control will make California’s housing shortage worse.

How California has coped with its housing shortage so far is an object lesson of how the government steps in to solve a problem it created and then makes the problem worse. When combining state and local funding, California has easily spent more than $30 billion of taxpayer money on “permanent supportive housing” for the state’s homeless, only to see the population of unsheltered homeless hit 186,000 this year, a new record. The money has passed into the hands of developers, bureaucrats, and service NGOs, and after everyone has taken their cut, the construction costs average over $500,000 per unit, with perpetual costs for management and services for the tenants.

California’s “affordable housing” projects have consumed even greater quantities of state and local tax revenue. Nobody has ever come up with a precise estimate but it’s well beyond the $30 billion spent for the homeless. Estimated spending for affordable housing just in 2023 is over $18 billion. In just one year. This spending comes in the form of subsidies and tax incentives granted to developers who cannot possibly build homes or apartments that people can afford and still make a profit. Then the tenants themselves receive additional taxpayer funds in order to afford their monthly rent.

And yet, this is Harris’s explicit, often stated, “holistic” solution to unaffordable homes and rents. More subsidies to developers to construct “affordable housing” and more subsidies to tenants to pay the monthly rent. Deregulating the industry would quickly end America’s housing shortage, cost taxpayers nothing, and restore the American dream of owning a home. But that wouldn’t benefit the bureaucrats or the cronies that control the one-party machine.

California’s cities may not be quite as bad, at least not everywhere, as conservative critics claim, but they’re undeniably a mess. The City of Oakland is a poster child for local government dysfunction. Losing both of their professional sports teams is a high-profile example of failed leadership. They just lost the Oakland A’s after 57 years of residency. And since 2020, the Oakland Raiders have been the Las Vegas Raiders. Losing these iconic teams is just a symptom of a systemic collapse. The city of Oakland is falling apart. Crime is rampant. The city faces a budget crisis. And meanwhile, they are pioneering payments for “universal basic income” and “universal basic mobility.”

In general, California’s major cities are controlled by social justice activists who don’t have even a remote understanding of how to govern. They attract massive political contributions from the public employee unions representing the workers they’re supposedly going to oversee. And as long as they rubber stamp every wage and benefit demand these unions make, they’re free to pass as many ridiculous ordinances as they wish. After all, the more repressive these cities get on their march towards utopia, the more public servants will be necessary for enforcement.

Such is life in Kamala’s California. State directives now intrude into trivial details of daily life. If you refuse to put your kitchen scraps in your “organics” bin instead of the trash bin, you are a climate denier, and you will be fined. After all, all that discarded broccoli and chicken bones in a landfill might make methane, a greenhouse gas! Similar approbation will fall upon you if you object to the recent ban on plastic bags, and never mind their utility or the fact that almost everything in the civilized world is made out of plastic.

But reality isn’t real in California. Their current attorney general, Rob Bonta, has just sued Exxon for “deceiving the public on recyclability of plastic products.” For Bonta, already salivating over his chances to become California’s next governor in 2026, this is a publicity stunt that may yield a profitable settlement for his agency. But for the rest of us, it is yet another example of a one-party state government that engages in relentless harassment of its productive citizens and companies. California’s Democratic politicians are determined to micromanage every aspect of the economic life of the state’s businesses and households.

Voters in America should understand that this national election is not just about social issues. They are of vital importance, but must not overshadow what else is at stake: our economic freedom. A Harris administration will impose California’s soft tyranny on the entire nation while her cronies laugh all the way to the bank.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/life-kamalas-california