What a kid:
On stepstools
The other day the bulb in the overhead light in my kitchen burned out. I had one of those long-life ones in there, so it had been years since I had needed to change it. Now, however, it was necessary, and because the fixture is fairly high I had to get a stepstool.
That shouldn’t have been a problem. After all, I’ve got three of them, even though my place is rather small. One is a conventional one-rung stepstool that I keep in my kitchen. The second is a two-rung affair that resides in a closet in the bedroom. The third – well, I’ll get to that in a moment.
Standing on the first stepstool, I found I had to really stretch and stretch to reach that bulb. I also found that – now that I’m no longer twenty years old – I felt a bit less stable doing this than in earlier years. But although I managed to finally get that bulb out, I couldn’t quite get the new one in. The fixture kept swinging and eluded my attempts, and I realized I had to get up high enough to hold onto the side of it with one hand while I screwed the bulb in with the other.
Enter stepstool number two, the one with two rungs and a little bar on top to hold onto. I got that one out of the bedroom closet and lugged it to the kitchen. But there I discovered that I wasn’t quite high enough and also that, if I held onto the bar for stability, I still had the swinging fixture problem.
Then there was the third stepstool. That was the one I had trouble finding; I hadn’t used it in years, and it was larger. I knew it probably was in one of the closets, but they are pretty well jammed with stuff and I just couldn’t see it, even with a flashlight.
That stepstool looks like this. Note how tall. Note the high bar. A great stepstool indeed – and it was the first gift Gerard ever gave me.
Yes, an odd gift. But Gerard was no dummy; he knew what he was doing. This gift came to me in January of 2006, when he and I were somewhat acquainted but were not yet romantically involved. I had written this post about a difficult day I’d had full of petty annoyances, and it included the following:
Oh, actually, today wasn’t so bad. It’s just that when I was about to start working on today’s post at my computer, the power went out.
… Oh, right, the toilet will only have one flush in it – I forget why, but something to do with a pump. And in the winter, the cold starts seeping in within minutes, reminding me that lingering around the house would not be a good thing. The computer, the post? Fagettabout it. Time to leave and go about the other business of the day.
Ah yes, time to leave. Leave. And then I remember: that wonderfully convenient electric garage door opener has to be disabled. Now, how do I do that, again? Each time it happens, I have to learn anew–get out the manual and the flashlight (even though the day was young, it was so dark a flashlight was needed to read the diagrams).
Then, out to the garage. Piece of cake. Just pull that red lever dangling from a rope on the ceiling, and then lift the garage door manually, the old-fashioned way. But the red lever is just an inch out of my reach, even when I stand on tiptoe. I can unlock the door to the house, go back to the closet and get out the stepstool. But really, is it necessary? And by now I’m late. So I decide to jump and grab the lever at the top of my jump. I used to be quite the leaper, having been a ballet dancer/teacher not so very long ago …
Well, I guess it’s been longer than I thought between leaps. Or maybe I’m not used to leaping on a concrete floor. Because somewhere between up and down (it didn’t seem to be on the landing; it seemed to happen in the air) I got a sudden sharpish pain in the ankle that went down the foot.
Expletives undeleted, I hobbled around the garage, and found that I could at least walk, although with pain. So I set off.
There was more to the post, but that was the gist of it. About five days later a large package arrived in the mail. What could it be? It was the stepstool, with some sort of clever message from Gerard. It most definitely was an endearing thing as far as I was concerned.
Fast forward to now. I finally found the thing hiding in a closet, hauled it out, and discovered it to be the absolutely perfect instrument for installing that lightbulb. It got me way up there in a way that felt secure enough that all I had to do was to lean my legs and lower torso against that top bar, hold onto the light fixture with one hand, and screw that bulb in with the other. Voilà, mission accomplished!
The gift that keeps on giving.
On fraudulent unemployment benefits
So far, DOGE has uncovered seemingly-fraudulent unemployment benefits, 80% of which have been centered in three states. Bet you can guess what those states might be.
Yes, they are New York and California – and I’ll get to the third in a moment. One would expect California, however, just on the basis of population alone because it’s the most populous state in the US. New York is not number two in population, however; that’s Texas, and number three is Florida. Then comes New York.
What’s the third state in the fraud sweepstakes? Why, Massachusetts of course (those who live in New England probably know why I wrote “of course”). And yet Massachusetts is only number sixteen on the population list.
What do these three states also have in common? This:
Fox News points out that California, New York, and Massachusetts are all governed entirely by Democrats, holding what’s known as a “Democratic trifecta” — control of the state legislature and governor’s office. They also hold a “Democratic triplex,” meaning Democrats occupy the top three statewide executive positions: governor, attorney general, and secretary of state.
Fancy that.
Much more at the link if you want some of the details.
It all makes me wonder how the left criticizes this, because criticize it they do. One method of which you are almost certainly already aware is to say that Musk is an (unelected!) lying liar who lies and whose motive is to steal. Another is to simply ignore the topic. Still another is to say that the amount of fraud is really peanuts in the great scheme of things.
But in terms of this particular story about unemployment benefits fraud, we have this extremely odd explanation from the NY Times. I had some trouble reading the whole thing because of the firewall, and there may have been some that I missed although I think I got it all.
The headline and subtitle of the piece – probably the only part most people will read, anyway – serve to ostensibly debunk DOGE’s findings, or at least partially debunk them: “Musk’s Latest Fraud Finding Isn’t What It Seems: His team found cases of seemingly fake people receiving unemployment benefits. But that fake data exists for a reason.” For the headline readers, that’s probably enough to make them decide it’s just nasty old Elon lying again, nothing to see here. But reading the piece gives you this sort of thing:
“Your tax dollars were going to pay fraudulent unemployment claims for fake people born in the future!” Mr. Musk posted on X, his social media platform. “This is so crazy that I had to read it several times before it sank in.” …
These were, indeed, probably fake people — but in a different way than Mr. Musk seemed to realize. It was also most likely a case of his team discovering fraud that had already been discovered by someone else.
What? So there was fraud but Musk wasn’t the first to discover it? Do the American people really care about that aspect – and why did the early fraud-detectors seemingly do nothing to end it?
More:
The issue dates to early in the pandemic when millions of Americans surged onto state unemployment rolls in an unprecedented expansion of the safety net. The emergency aid program enacted during President Trump’s first term was also susceptible to fraud. As many as 15 percent of unemployment claims were fraudulent, often using stolen identities.
Yes, I think we already knew that. I recall reading at the time that there were not enough safeguards against fraud in this program that was rushed though. My assumption was that there would be plenty of fraud, and I even seem to recall reading that there indeed was fraud.
More:
To preserve records of that fraud and protect victims of the identity theft, the U.S. Labor Department encouraged state agencies that administer unemployment benefits to create “pseudo claim” records — in effect, to tie real cases of fraud in their data to make-believe people. The implausibility of the records was the point. Agencies were seeking a way to keep track of fraud claims while detaching them from the identities of innocent people who might one day apply for unemployment benefits themselves.
If I understand that, then these claims were fraudulent and the fake birth dates were “flags” for the fraudulent claims. So it’s not as though the agencies didn’t notice that a child or a person who was 150 years old was making a claim that was obviously false. It’s that the fake birthdates were assigned to mark the probably fraudulent claims – claims which were paid. Nor was this money ever recovered, as far as I can tell.
More:
The cases they cite probably do refer to real instances of people fraudulently receiving benefits, said current and former unemployment officials with the Labor Department and state work force agencies. But it is not the case, those officials said, that a hapless government was duped into doling out benefits to people it didn’t realize weren’t even born yet.
It seems that what the piece in the Times is saying is that the fraud was very real but that the government wasn’t as stupid as it seems from the evidence of the fake birthdates – that those were intentional. But what most people care about is that there was and is fraud, and that the government paid fraudulent claims and that these “people” are still on the rolls. The fact that previous administrations may have known this (but did nothing about it) isn’t really the point. And the fact that most of this occurred in those three states remains informative.
Of course, this isn’t just about fraudulent unemployment benefits. We also have this sort of thing:
DOGE also reported this week that since 2023, the U.S. Border Patrol (under the Biden administration) has paroled over 6,300 individuals flagged on the FBI’s terrorist watchlist or with criminal records into the country with “minimal screening.” Though their paroles have now been revoked, all received Social Security numbers and could access federal benefits. Among them:
– 905 received Medicaid, including 4 on the terrorist watchlist ($276K paid out)
– 41 collected Unemployment Insurance ($42K total)
– 22 received federal student loans ($280K)
– 409 got tax refunds in 2024 ($751K)
– An undisclosed number received SNAP (food stamps)Under the Biden administration, it was routine for Border Patrol to admit aliens into the United States with no legal status and minimal screening
Perhaps all of this is part of the reason for the fact that the GOP’s reputation has risen among working class voters:
According to a post-tariff Quinnipiac poll, Democrats and Republicans are now tied at 33% on the question of which party “cares more for the needs of people like you”—a dramatic shift after more than three decades of Democratic dominance on the issue. Enten added context to just how historic these numbers are, “Back in 2017, before the midterms, Democrats led by 13 points. In 2005, it was a 23-point lead. Even in 1994—a big year for Republicans—Democrats led by 19,” Enten noted. “Now? A tie. The Democrats, long seen as the party of the people? No more.”
On Passover and liberty
[The following is an edited version of a previous post.]
Tonight is the beginning of the Jewish holiday Passover. This is the second Passover to take place with hostages still in Gaza, and therefore Passover – one of the deepest and most significant of all Jewish holidays – takes on even more depth and significance.
I’ve long been impressed by the fact that Passover is a religious holiday dedicated to an idea that’s not solely religious: freedom. Yes, it’s about a particular historical (or perhaps legendary) event: the liberation of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. But the Seder ceremony makes it clear that, important though that specific event may be, freedom itself is also being celebrated.
A Seder is an interesting experience, a sort of dramatic acting-out complete with symbols and lots of audience participation. Part of its power is that events aren’t placed totally in the past tense and regarded as ancient and distant occurrences; rather, the participants are specifically instructed to act as though it is they themselves who were slaves in Egypt, and they themselves who were given the gift of freedom, saying:
“This year we are slaves; next year we will be free people…”
With hostages still in Gaza, the connection is obvious and powerful.
Passover acknowledges that freedom (and liberty, not exactly the same thing but related) is an exceedingly important human desire and need. That same idea is present in the Declaration of Independence (which, interestingly enough, also cites the Creator):
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.
It is ironic, of course, that when that Declaration was written, slavery was allowed in the United States. That was rectified, but only after great struggle, which goes to show how wide the gap often is between rhetoric and reality, and how difficult freedom is to achieve. And it comes as no surprise, either, that the Passover story appealed to slaves in America when they heard about it; witness the lyrics of “Let My People Go.”
Yes, the path to freedom is far from easy, and there are always those who would like to take it away. Sometimes an election merely means “one person, one vote, one time,” if human and civil rights are not protected by a constitution that guarantees them, and by a populace dedicated to defending them at almost all costs. Wars of liberation only give an opportunity for liberty, they do not guarantee it, and what we’ve observed in recent decades has been the difficult and usually failed task of attempting to foster it in places with no such tradition and with neighbors dedicated to its obliteration.
We’ve also seen many threats to liberty in our own country – more potent in the last couple of decades. This is happening despite our long tradition of liberty and the importance Americans used to place on it.
Sometimes those who are against liberty are religious, like the mullahs. Sometimes they are secular, like the Communists or their present-day Russian successors. Some of them are cynical and power-mad; some are idealists who don’t realize that human beings were not made to conform to their rigid notions of the perfect world, and that attempts to force them to do so seem to inevitably end in horrific tyranny, and that this is no coincidence.
As one of my favorite authors Kundera wrote, in his Book of Laughter and Forgetting:
…human beings have always aspired to an idyll, a garden where nightingales sing, a realm of harmony where the world does not rise up as a stranger against man nor man against other men, where the world and all its people are molded from a single stock and the fire lighting up the heavens is the fire burning in the hearts of men, where every man is a note in a magnificent Bach fugue and anyone who refuses his note is a mere black dot, useless and meaningless, easily caught and squashed between the fingers like an insect.
Note the seamless progression from lyricism to violence: no matter if it begins in idealistic dreams of an idyll, the relinquishment of freedom to further that dream will end with humans being crushed like insects.
Dostoevsky did a great deal of thinking about freedom as well. In his cryptic and mysterious Grand Inquisitor, a lengthy chapter from The Brothers Karamazov, he imagined a Second Coming. But this is a Second Coming in which the Grand Inquisitor rejects what Dostoevsky sees as Jesus’s message of freedom (those of you who’ve been around this blog for a long time will recognize this passage I often quote):
Oh, never, never can [people] feed themselves without us [the Inquisitors and controllers]! No science will give them bread so long as they remain free. In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet, and say to us, “Make us your slaves, but feed us.” They will understand themselves, at last, that freedom and bread enough for all are inconceivable together, for never, never will they be able to share between them! They will be convinced, too, that they can never be free, for they are weak, vicious, worthless, and rebellious. Thou didst promise them the bread of Heaven, but, I repeat again, can it compare with earthly bread in the eyes of the weak, ever sinful and ignoble race of man?
Freedom vs. bread is a false dichotomy. Dostoevsky was writing before the Soviets came to power, but now we have learned that lack of freedom, and a “planned” economy, is certainly no guarantee even of bread.
I think there’s another very basic need, one that perhaps can only really be appreciated when it is lost: liberty.
Happy Passover!
Open thread 4/12/2025
Roundup
(1) Colorado enacts an extreme anti-gun law.
(2) We’ve got our high-flow showerheads back – for now:
Trump changed the definition back to what it used to be. The Times brands this some kind of activist invasion into people’s right to have low water pressure in their showers.
California has stringent low-flow rules for showerheads, and I remember – now it can be told? – that Gerard circumvented that by installing some sort of black-market showerhead in his rented house in Paradise. I wonder whether the showerhead survived the fire; I don’t recall seeing it in the ashes, although I saw the twisted satellite dish and the metal legs of the ironing board.
(3) Kamala Harris is talking about establishing a policy institute.
(4) Another day, another illegal alien sex offender busted:
… Immigrations & Customs Enforcement has just picked up an illegal alien and convicted child sex offender in Fairfax County, Virginia – after a county judge suspended his sentence and set him back out on the street. ICE detainers for this goblin have been ignored by county authorities.
I can’t imagine that Virginia’s position is highly popular.
(5) German freedom of speech – an oxymoron? See this:
In Germany, a newspaper editor has been fined and sentenced to seven months in prison for posting a meme:
“The Bamberg district court in Bavaria sentenced Deutschland-Kurier editor David Bendels this week to seven months in prison on probation and a fine of nearly sixty per cent of his annual income, or 210 ‘daily rates’, for posting an image on social media of Interior Minister Nancy Faeser holding an altered sign.”
And what did the altered sign say? Why, “I hate freedom of speech”.
I guess truth is not a defense in Germany.
So at the moment, the trade war seems to be with China
Accent on the phrase “at the moment.” But I do think it’s highly possible that was the intent all along.
China announced on Friday that it will raise tariffs on U.S. imports from 84% to 125%, further escalating the trade war between Washington and Beijing.
The move is largely symbolic. As former Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross told Fox News host Larry Kudlow on Thursday night, once tariffs hit 50%, further increases have limited practical impact. At that point, Ross explained, leaders effectively signal that they no longer seek a trade relationship. …
China expert Gordon Chang joined Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo on Thursday morning to discuss the mounting conflict between China and the U.S. Chinese President Xi Jinping, he claims, is in an increasingly difficult political position because he can’t do what “absolutely” must be done which is to open up the lines of communication.
“Picking up the phone and calling President Trump would be the economically rational thing to do,” Chang said, “but Xi Jinping has configured the Chinese political system so that only the most hostile answers are considered to be acceptable, which means he’s boxed himself in.” …
“The Chinese don’t have any cards in this,” he explained. “They’re only holding a pair of twos and Trump has a royal straight flush. The Chinese think they can intimidate Trump, they can coerce him into surrendering preemptively.” But Trump is not backing down. …
According to the report, the U.S. and Panama have formally entered into a new defense and security agreement designed to strengthen oversight of the Panama Canal—an initiative Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth described as essential for countering China’s expanding influence in the region.
Is Chang correct? I don’t know. This is not my field of expertise, as I’ve often stated. But it makes sense to me that the goal – or at least one big goal – is to put the squeeze on China. Much of what we get from them is shoddy consumer goods, but there’s also rare earths (do I hear Greenland? Australia? or even the US itself see this) and pharmaceuticals (do I hear India?).
NOTE: See also this.
And our resident condescending British friend has been talking about the bond market. For those who might be curious about that, please see this for some background in terms of the Trump/Vance administration.
Open thread 4/11/2025
The House was busy today
It passed the SAVE Act, which requires proof of citizenship to register to vote in federal elections, plus the removal of non-citizens from voter rolls.
I’m not 100% certain that this law will stand – even if it manages to pass the Senate, which is a big “if”. States have usually been the arbiters of voting rules, although Congress has some say in federal elections and this bill is merely an amendment to a previous voting act passed by Congress. So if it passes in the Senate it might very well become the law.
Just a few short years ago its elements would have had wide bipartisan support. No longer, although it has nominally bilateral support because four Democrats voted yes: Rep. Ed Case (HI), Rep. Henry Cueller (TX), Rep. Jared Golden (ME), and Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (WA).
In other actions, the House passed a budget resolution:
The House of Representatives passed a budget resolution, which gives President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful” bill its first win.
However, it once again shows Republicans are not as committed to cutting spending as they claim.
NOTE: DOGE has also been busy – very very busy:
Here’s what the investigation revealed:
24,500 people, allegedly over 115 years old, claimed $59 million in benefits.
28,000 supposed children between the ages of 1 and 5 claimed $254 million.
9,700 claims from people with future birth dates totaled $69 million.
On tariffs: what is Trump thinking?
Trump: genius, or not-so-amiable dunce?
In my opinion – somewhere in-between but so far in terms of results on all fronts closer to genius and definitely an unusual person. The left and all his other enemies either don’t understand Trump at all or pretend not to in order to portray him as a complete dummy as well as very dangerous. Maybe he is very dangerous to them, if their specialty is grift-by-government.
But it’s also true that Trump takes risks, which is often frightening even to those who don’t hate him. And it’s also true that to win in The Art of the Deal you can’t make your intentions completely known, because if at times you’re bluffing you must seem as though you’re not. After all, that’s what bluffing is about.
When Trump put a hold on huge tariffs yesterday (except for China), the MSM headlines were all about him capitulating, blinking, being weak. Then again, the action may have been (and probably was) part of his plan, which at the moment seems focused on squeezing China. See this for a fuller explanation. See also this for the way the MSM and the left are managing to frame it.
And this thread has a lot of revealing reactions. For example from Bill Ackman:
This was brilliantly executed by @realDonaldTrump. Textbook, Art of the Deal.
And from Greg Price:
Yes, totally caved by… *checks notes*…. successfully using his leverage to bring the nations of the world to the negotiating table for fairer trade deals while realigning global trade against China.
From Peter Schiff:
It looks like Trump has already surrendered in what may go down as the shortest global trade war in history. I guess once he saw how badly the U.S. was losing, he needed to find a graceful way to save face.
Does Schiff really think Trump expected that his opening move would be the end of it? I very much doubt it. But even if Schiff is correct, the fact that Trump could and would back down and change course somewhat in the face of a bad result would be a good sign, wouldn’t it?
I’ll give the last word to Ted Cruz, on the “angels and devils on the president’s shoulder” – one of them being himself (the portion I’ve cued up is just a couple of minutes):
NOTE: In somewhat related news, inflation reports are good.
For those who this Easter season are mourning the demise of Russell Stover pectin jelly beans
They were the best, the very best. And now they’re gone.
I’m speaking, of course, of the world’s best jelly beans, IMHO the only type of jelly bean worth eating. I’ve written about the original Russell Stover version here. But a couple of years ago they became difficult to find, and by last year it was clear they were no longer being made. They’re still not being made, and I doubt that will change.
But these are almost the same. Maybe they even are the same. I don’t know, because I’m going on memory, and memory can play tricks on us. But even if not exactly the same, they’re close enough – although significantly more expensive and only obtainable through online order.
I bring you the pectin jelly beans from the Vermont Country Store:
The ones in the photo are mine, safely arrived and prior to the big feed. You can order some here. And no, I don’t even get a commission, just the joy of spreading the word as a public service.
An astute and kindly reader also let me know the pectin jelly beans are available here as well. They’re even a little less expensive – but alas, they’re out of stock for this year.
Enjoy. Your dentist will thank you.