Henry, they have the infrastructure in place already. The utility in DC (Pepco) sends every homeowner a periodic report card showing how much electricity he uses compared to "similar houses in your neighborhood". One would have to be stupid not to see where THAT goes once they get Trump in prison and reinstate proper leadership at the Overlords.

Buckeye "Does this make me a bad person?" I run ten tons of AC on Nantucket with my windows and doors open so we can enjoy the salt air. I run twenty tons of AC in Potomac so my maids are comfortable when we are on Nantucket. If YOU are a bad person, what am I?

About those EPA-Energy Star "suggestions" for thermostat settings. (Every single Prog control law with teeth starts out as an "aha" suggestion.) Tell me the truth. Don't you think those people and the entrenched EPA watermelons were just sitting around drinking beer wondering how, oh how, can we get Americans to buy into the AGW scam once and for all? Somebody probably said "the A**hole deplorables sit in their airconditioned cars and their airconditioned houses, admiring their immaculate green lawns, and over consuming every little thing in single use plastic containers...and they just don't feel the pain. I got it! Let's make them sleep at 82F. That'll bring them around. Problem with getting old is one realizes he has seen every movie and every book plot several times before.

I appreciated Cathy's perspective on the last 50 years of the Catholic Church. They destroyed their brand and took the Main Protestants with them, far as I am concerned.

The common connection between what MM's daughter thinks about church and then Iggy & Jimmy's discussion about "A republic if you can keep it" and the Jefferson-Adams view about this system working for god fearing citizens...gets right to the heart of my dis-affectation to the church of my entire life. I listen carefully in church and swear they are not teaching the values taught when I was growing up or that my wife and I taught all those years teaching Sunday School, or what I believe from all the books I read about what preachers preached since the time of Martin Luther at least. Since the schools are lost and Hollywood is lost, and the MSM is lost, but for what kids learn at our dinner table, I really don't know where they can hear the truth as I learned it. I cannot tell the difference between what I hear in church vs what I hear (if I listened) on CNN or MSNBC. I think SBW nailed it when he said his #1 job is preparing his grandchildren to be the leaders when humanity decides to climb back toward the light.

Mel "I think it’s more likely that “No major convictions means no major deal.” For Barone." EXACTLY the point I have been screeching (I stole that word from Hillary and Warren) since Jan 2017.

Yep Henry. And what mathematicians did you the simple concepts of risk and reward in pools of loans.

MM "Michael Barone...but in my opinion he leaves out a very important component: vote fraud." Because, just like Andrew McCarthy and so many others, Barone simply cannot imagine the rules being broken beyond what ward bosses and Kennedys managed. It is the audacious magnitude of scale that befuddles him.

WeWork is a product of exploding asset "values" as described forever by Iggy, and also by what Mel meant when he warned against ignoring "pricing" in jumping to conclusions about macro economic metrics. In many ways it is my industry, tied to land, bricks, mortar, rents and costs trying to mimic ludicrous "valuations" for companies that produce nuthin and earn nuthin for nobody, never.

THIS "Nevertheless, on Monday FNC chief political anchor Bret Baier tried to provide one by arguing that, no, the 22-year-old network hasn’t changed and is the same now as it’s always been." Is what happens when you spend too much time admiring your image in a mirror under klieg lights. Fem.

Iggy, WeWork has been mesmerizing the youngsters in my commercial real estate circles. We old guys just roll our eyes.

Iggy, other than finding some way for you to again disagree with some conclusion of mine, your 12:22 contains enough for me to agree with to make disagreeing with you difficult. This started with my offering an observation in support of James' and MM's comments about the role of government employees' bad faith and/or competence in the decline of our governance, which Cap'n took off point by informing me that neither the IRS nor the DoJ et al were in the Constitution, and which you now pile on with imagining what the Founders might have been thinking in order to dispute what I said they wrote. But which you then agreed they wrote. The fact is they gave us the tools to unwind the entire system they designed, and two centuries later perhaps half of the country would do that if they could. And no, I don't want to quibble about the size of "half", nor do I want to make the mistake I made last week by calling them "neighbors" since that drew lightning too. I stand by my point. If I could recall what my point was. :-)

Me too, Cap'n.

Cap'n "The IRS isn't in the Constitution. Neither is the DOJ, DOE (both) or EPA. The Post Office is." Understood, but they were anticipated when the Constitution allowed for their creation pursuant to either proper amendments to the document or to laws being passed by Congress and signed by the President, and, post Marbury, not rejected by SCOTUS. And of course since the Constitution was all about protecting the freedoms and liberties of individuals even at the expense of the State, that concept overlays it all.

MM "They are also phonies. I never for one second believed Lois Lerner was interested in administering the IRS according to the Constitution." Narc will remind us of the correct term, but lying in pursuit of the advancement of jihad is a good thing for a Muslim. Why should Progs be any different? And just to quibble, "phoney" is too kind and soft a word.

MM "foolishly believed that federal employees were COMPETENT." No, MM. We foolishly thought they were interested in performing their jobs in conformance with the laws and the Constitution and their oaths of office. Since that was never the case (silly us), perhaps we are better off because they are NOT competent in following Obama's lead in transforming this country. If they had been good at it, Trump would have lost and Hillary would have carried them over the finish line into the Marxist Utopia they imagine.

Rocco "For every so called medical expert that claims Epstein was murdered, there's another claiming..." And they all are missing the point. Allowing Epstein to die before he gave up the truths is no different than letting all the DoJ/FBI/IRS crooks and all the Obama & Clinton crooks destroy their devices and machines before letting them run out the clocks on addressing their own many crimes and felonies. Femall.

I think this is in front of the pay wall and most clearly explains why ignoring Milton Friedman from about fifty years ago charts yet another great highway to Marxism we have been speeding along: https://www.wsj.com/articles/business-roundtable-steps-back-from-milton-friedman-theory-11566205200?shareToken=stbbb2b6a680464b19811153dfefc69a3b&reflink=article_email_share JimNJ said it best in the middle of the night. My business school and early mentoring taught me that keeping all the gears in the machinery of (my) business happy WAS good business. Vesting small gears with "rights" and "seats" and "stakes" and backing them up with courts and government teeth is not any different from rewriting the history of Western Civilization so that other tribes can take stuff from others, or with so muddying the water with lack of accountability in all aspects of government turns it all into an Alice in Wonderland experience. Who is John Galt?

Or you can be younger than both but married to Moochelle. There is a god.

Henry "then justice will have to come in through the window." Where it will be arrested for breaking and entering and sent to prison as a hate crime.

Clarice "MM, can't happen--court must..." But even if it could, it wouldn't happen. Not in this country in 2019. That's not who we are. Our Oligarchs are rolling in cash they stole and laughing at the notion of equal justice ever knocking on their doors.

Marlene, the scary thing is MA has to decide between yet another Kennedy and Markey and that is a tough tough call.

MM, that 100% tariff just doubled the value of Lyle's wine cellar.

To A-mom's point in chief: Make a list of attributes associated with Banana Republics and 'splain to me why we are not already there.

Jane "I just bought a new refrigerator...It was very fun." You need to get out more, girl.