Tag: finance

By Erika Adams of Eater.com,

Across the country, restaurants have been decimated by the pandemic. But according to a new survey conducted by the New York State Restaurant Association, in partnership with the National Restaurant Association, New York restaurants are hurting more from the economic crisis in comparison to the industry nationwide.

According to the survey — which polled 6,000 restaurant operators, including 238 in New York, over the last two weeks of November – 54 percent of NY restauranteurs say it is likely that they will close in the next six months if another federal relief package does not come through, compared to 37 percent nationwide.

Nearly 60 percent of NY operators say they are considering going into hibernation until the pandemic is over, compared to 36 percent nationwide.

The operating landscape has been extremely tough for NYC restaurateurs throughout the pandemic. Restaurants in the city are currently operating at 25 percent indoor capacity with a 10 p.m. nightly curfew, but Gov. Andrew Cuomo has warned that indoor dining could be completely banned starting next week.

Overall, the National Restaurant Association estimates that one in six restaurants across the country have already permanently shuttered due to the economic crisis amid the pandemic. If the estimate is accurate, that would mean that 8,333 restaurants, including 4,500 establishments in NYC, have permanently shut down so far, according to the New York State Restaurant Association. However, the true number of restaurant closures during the pandemic may not be fully known for years.

2020 has been an intense year and it also shows in the most common search terms in the U.S., revealed by Google. 

As Statista’s Katharina Buchholz details below, the coronavirus pandemic, the presidential elections and the Black Lives Matter protests dominated headlines and search requests.

You will find more infographics at Statista

The coronavirus was the subject of three out of the top five most common search terms and had cash-strapped Americans look for ways to get their hands on stimulus checks and tax refunds.

The elections had people asking Google why Nevada was taking so long. President-elect Joe Biden was the most searched person, while soon-to-be Vice President Kamala Harris came in third. Searches for David Blake, George Floyd and antebellum show that people were eager to read about Black Lives Matter protests and race relations.

2020 also had its lighter moments, with Cardi B. Song “WAP” heading the definitions section and Americans feeling the continuous need to check that Kansas City is – in fact – in Missouri.

Authored by Pat Buchanan via Buchanan.org,

When the Electoral College meets Monday, it will almost surely certify former Vice President Joe Biden as the 46th president of the United States. And he will take the oath of office Jan. 20.

There is, nationally, a growing if grudging realization of that reality.

Yet millions of Americans will refuse to accept the legitimacy of that election and its outcome and will continue to believe, with President Donald Trump, that it was “rigged.”

“Was the 2020 election stolen by the establishment to get rid of a president, Donald Trump, whom it loathed?” will be debated decades hence — as are questions such as, “Did FDR have advance knowledge the Japanese were going to attack?” and, “Did Lee Harvey Oswald act alone in Dallas?”

That perception that something was afoot first arose in the minds of millions in the hours after the election on Nov. 3, when 83% of Republicans polled by Gallup said they did not believe reports of Trump’s defeat.

Things perceived as real are real in their consequences.

And there was justification for that perception.

Who was not stunned to learn that as Trump seemed to be pulling ahead in the voting count on Nov. 3, suddenly, around midnight, the vote counting appeared to stop in the crucial swing states, and we were told it would begin again early the next morning? Why the halt?

Again, things perceived as real are real in their consequences.

The Washington Post reports this week that, midway between Election Day and Inauguration Day, only 27 congressional Republicans would acknowledge Biden’s win. Some 220 GOP members of the House and Senate — 88% of Republicans serving in Congress — would not say who won the election.

And Trump continues to fight on, millions behind him, to persuade public officials in such battleground states as Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada to withdraw their certifications.

He is said to be working the phones to get Republicans in Congress to reject the designation of Biden as president.

He has joined a suit by 17 states’ attorneys general to have the Supreme Court accept Texas’ argument that late alterations in the voting processes in four swing states be declared unconstitutional and illegal.

Among the more credible charges is that, due to the pandemic, late changes were made in the voting processes of states, especially with mailed-out and mailed-in ballots. The contention is that votes cast as a consequence of changes done contrary to state laws or constitutions should be thrown out. Most of those votes came from the urban precincts where Biden’s margins were massive.

While some 50 lawsuits filed in Trump’s cause may have been rejected in courts, the hourly allegations of fraud in the collection and counting of ballots have given credence to a generalized belief that Trump was cheated of votes he received and Biden received votes that were illicitly cast.

Where will this leave us Jan. 20?

American politics will be even more poisoned and polarized than it has been for the last four years. Tens of millions of Americans will see themselves as disfranchised and believe that the greatest champion they have had in decades was illegally driven from power by the same deep state-media conspiracy he fought for four years.

Reinforcing this perception is the sudden revelation this week that Biden’s son Hunter is indeed the target of a federal tax investigation.

That is a story the mainstream media not only refused to cover but sought to bury. And it further buttresses a widespread belief that the mainstream media were in the tank for Biden and will use the power they have to fix the outcome of future American elections in favor of the establishment to which they belong.

For scores of millions of Americans, the mainstream media have lost any credibility and moral authority they once had.

The media have spent four years promoting the falsehood that Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump conspired to steal the 2016 election, a charge for which the two-year Robert Mueller investigation could not find any substance at all. They championed the cause of impeachment of Trump over a single comment in a phone call to the president of Ukraine.

And all the while, they painted Trump as racist, sexist, homophobic and treasonous, and his followers as torch-carrying deplorables.

The hypocritical calls from the mainstream media today for us all to come together, after the atrocities they perpetrated, boggle the mind.

Amazing. And now that the Democrats appear to have captured the White House, the message is, “Can’t we all just get along?”

What lies ahead?

Some see secession. But though secession is unlikely, a secession of the heart has already taken place in America.

We are two nations, two peoples seemingly separated indefinitely. Can a nation so divided as ours, racially, ideologically, religiously, still do great things together, as did the America of days gone by, to the amazement of the world?

At a point where the individual investor is now empowered (read: can put themselves into a 7 figure margin call overnight by writing options on a brokerage app that literally had a “cheat code” for unlimited money), it looks as though the world of high fee money management could be coming to an unceremonious – and permanent – end.

We have already been noting over the past 18 months that hedge fund, brokerage and ETF fees have all been plunging. It looks as though that trend of demand for lower fees isn’t going to stop anytime soon. 

More than half of all asset managers will be reducing charges next year, Bloomberg noted this week. It comes at a time when average fees in places like Europe have already hit record lows. The move comes as investors continue to rotate out of actively managed funds and into passive funds. The average fee in Europe has fallen about 33% since 2013 to 0.69%, the report notes.

Shawn McNinch, managing director of investor services and head of U.S. sales at Brown Brothers Harriman, commented: “Managers need to reflect and take a hard look at themselves. The challenge for mid-sized managers is to really focus on where they’re different and where they can add value.”

 

The cheapest passive funds in Europe saw inflows of $12.3 billion this year through October, which compares to outflows of about $2.5 billion from active funds. 

The competition is so stiff that even ETF heavyweights like Vanguard are feeling the pain. “Net flows to Vanguard’s funds have slowed in 2020 as rivals roll out similar products,” Bloomberg says, which has cause the company to put some of its global expansion plans on hold. 

More than 33% of managers surveyed out of a group of 50 executives that manage $18 trillion said they would consider starting new passive funds or ETFs this year to help offset the money that is being pulled from active funds. McNinch noted: “People are looking at ETFs differently than they were five years ago. Now managers are really embracing ETFs as a structure itself, because they can create active products within those.”

Recall, we noted this summer that hedge fund fees had joined ETF fees and were in “free fall”. Hedge funds, suffering from poor performance and shrinking business prior to the pandemic – are also trying to lower fees to combat what is being called a potential “terminal decline”. 

 

Our report this summer highlighted “specials” funds are offering to attract new business, including one fund in London that was foregoing performance fees until a high water mark is hit and another in Hong Kong is was offering “full-loss insurance” to cover all losses. Even well known manager Kyle Bass told his clients he would only charge 20% if he earns triple digit returns. 

Paul Singer’s Elliot Management Corp. also lowered their fees in exchange for locking up investor capital for longer amounts of time. The company has a share class that will lower investor fees to 1.5% from 2%. Redemptions for this class are spread out over 18 months. The goal for hedge funds, as we noted months ago, is now less about growth and more about survival. 

Earlier in the summer, we noted that the Robinhood-inspired shift to zero fees affected not just hedge funds – but the entire industry.

The shift was captured beautifully in a series of Tweets from Bloomberg’s Morgan Barna, CFA earlier this year.  She showed how trading volume spiked significantly in Q1 and Q2 of 2020, obviously attributable to the Covid lockdown and the introduction of new “traders” who have followed the herd, led by Barstool Sports’ Dave Portnoy, into the market.

She also showed how Schwab has seen its revenue per trade collapse over the last 5 years, as the brokerage has tried to keep pace (or in some cases lead the charge) for lower commissions to help bring in new clients. 

For all intents and purposes, commissions no longer seem to exist for stock trades and have been almost totally priced out of the industry.

In March of last year we also documented  one of the first negative fee ETFs. 

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours)

The state of Texas argued in a filing to the Supreme Court on Friday that the four states it is suing didn’t address “grave issues,” instead “choosing to hide behind other court venues and decisions.”

Texas sued Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, and Wisconsin in the nation’s top court this week, alleging that the states unconstitutionally changed election laws, treated voters unequally, and triggered significant voting irregularities by relaxing ballot-integrity measures.

The states “violated statutes enacted by their duly elected legislatures, thereby violating the Constitution,” the lawsuit alleges.

Officials from the defendant states filed briefs Thursday urging the Supreme Court to reject the suit.

The request “to exercise its original jurisdiction and then anoint Texas’s preferred candidate for President is legally indefensible and is an [affront] to principles of constitutional democracy,” Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro wrote.

“Texas is unable to allege that Wisconsin itself did anything to directly injure Texas’s sovereign interests,” Wisconsin Attorney General Joshua Kaul added.

In the new reply, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and other state attorneys said the defendant states “do not seriously address grace issues that Texas raises, choosing to hide behind other court venues and decisions in which Texas could not participate and to mischaracterize both the relief that Texas seeks and the justification for that relief.”

“An injunction should issue because Defendant States have not—and cannot—defend their actions,” they added.

Texas is not asking the Supreme Court to reelect President Donald Trump, according to the filing, nor does it seek to disenfranchise lawful voters.

“To both points, Texas asks this Court to recognize the obvious fact that Defendant States’ maladministration of the 2020 election makes it impossible to know which candidate garnered the majority of lawful votes. The Court’s role is to strike unconstitutional action and remand to the actors that the Constitution and Congress vest with authority for the next step,” the lawyers argued.

“Inaction would disenfranchise as many voters as taking action allegedly would. Moreover, acting decisively will not only put lower courts but also state and local officials on notice that future elections must conform to State election statutes, requiring legislative ratification of any change prior to the election. Far from condemning this and other courts to perpetual litigation, action here will stanch the flood of election-season litigation.”

The case has brought a flurry of action from around the nation. Thirty-nine states have chosen a side, with 18 attorneys general siding with Texas and 20 siding with the defendants.

Republican Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost backed neither party and opposed the relief sought by Texas, while state lawmakers in Pennsylvania and other states filed briefs against their own attorneys general.

In a filing late Thursday, outgoing Montana Gov. Steve Bullock, a Democrat, filed a brief in support of the defendants. That was the last brief filed before Texas lodged its reply.

In another entry on Friday, Citizens United, Citizens United Foundation, and The Presidential Coalition filed a motion for leave to file a brief in support of Texas. The two nonprofits and political group asserted that Texas has suffered serious injury that can be redressed by the relief sought.

Ivan Pentchoukov and Jack Phillips contributed to this report.

Congress has passed a stopgap government funding measure via voice vote, which will fund operations for another week as Congress works to reach spending and COVID-19 relief deals. The measure will head next to President Trump’s desk, which he will need to sign into law before Saturday to avoid a government shutdown.

The bill will extend funding through Dec. 18 as lawmakers hash out what’s shaping up to be a $1.4 trillion package to keep the government running through the end of Sept. 2021 – though they’ve failed to agree exactly how the funds will be used, according to CNBC.

Despite the most frantic efforts in months to craft a coronavirus rescue package, Congress has several major disputes to resolve to reach a deal. Millions of Americans await help as an uncontrolled outbreak ravages communities across the country and leads to food insecurity unseen in years.

If lawmakers cannot pass relief legislation in the coming days, about 12 million people will lose unemployment benefits on the day after Christmas. An eviction moratorium and family leave provisions put in place earlier this year will also expire at the end of December. –CNBC

At present the largest stumbling blocks remain over Democratic demands regarding state and local municipalities receiving pandemic relief, vs. liability protections which would shield employers from COVID-19 related lawsuits.

Democrats, meanwhile, have criticized the White House’s most recent $916 billion aid offer endorsed by GOP leadership, which doesn’t include additional federal unemployment insurance funding, yet does include a $600 direct payment – half of what Democrats are seeking. Instead, the left has placed their support behind a $908 billion package crafted by a bipartisan group which would include a $300 weekly federal jobless benefit but not direct payments.

In what should come as a shock to precisely no one, New York’s Governor Andrew Cuomo (famous for pissing away hundreds of millions of dollars in Tesla’s Buffalo boondoggle), thinks he’s such a great allocator of capital that his state needs to raise taxes. The Democrat playbook is becoming a bit predictable, isn’t it?

This, of course, comes while businesses and private citizens are moving hand over fist out of the state in favor of states like Florida and Texas, where there is no personal income tax.

Cuomo made the comments on Wednesday of this week when he was asked about the deficit created for his state by the Covid-19 pandemic. “Mr. Cuomo didn’t specify which taxes the state would look to increase, and his aides didn’t answer subsequent questions,” the Wall Street Journal reported. That’s some high quality leadership if we’ve ever seen it.

The state had adopted a budget in April that was dependent on further Federal relief that has not yet materialized. Now, Cuomo is saying that even if the Federal relief happens, tax hikes are still on the table. 

Currently, both sides of the aisle once again seem gridlocked on getting any type of stimulus deal done, with a punt of the issue into 2021 becoming more likely as the days pass by.

New York has blamed the pandemic for a $13.5 billion drop in state revenue from the state’s pre-pandemic projections and the state is predicting an $8.7 billion deficit for the fiscal year starting in April. We wonder if Cuomo and his merry gang of legislators have done the math on exactly how much more state revenue they stand to lose by forcing more people out of the state with higher taxes, versus what they stand to gain from another hike. We’re sure they haven’t. 

Cuomo said on Wednesday: “If Washington gives us some of it, then we’re going to have to redo a budget, we’re going to have to raise taxes—I believe we’re going to have to raise taxes, at the end of the day, in any event. The question is, how much in tax?”

The state is projected to bring in about $60 billion in personal income taxes next year, which accounts for about half of its revenue. About half of the state’s personal income tax comes from the highest 2% earners in the state. 

Republicans have stood at stark odds with Cuomo on the issue, while businesses continue to warn that higher taxes could prompt them to leave the state.  Senate Minority Leader Robert Ortt, a Republican from Niagara County, said: “New York is one of the highest taxed states in the nation, and raising taxes will result in the continuation of the exodus from this state.”

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

I have been skeptical in the past of the charges brought against Mark and Patricia McCloskey by Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner given the countervailing rights of gun possession and home protection in Missouri. I felt that a case could be maintained as a charging matter but I still fail to see how such charges could be proven at trial or sustained on appeal.  Now, a court has removed Gardner as prosecutor for fundraising on the case.

The couple challenged Gardner’s participation after learning that she used the case to attract donors. It was a disturbing pitch for contributions since critics allege that Gardner dropped charges against the protesters and prosecuted the homeowner to curry favor with liberal voters and activists.

Circuit Judge Thomas Clark II ruled that Gardner had undermined the integrity of the case and left the appearance of having “initiated a criminal prosecution for political purposes.”

He wrote that “[l]ike a needle pulling thread, she links the defendant and his conduct to her critics. These emails are tailored to use the June 28 incident to solicit money by positioning her against defendant and her more vocal critics.”

The entire case seems to be now equal measures of law and politics.  Republican Missouri Gov. Mike Parson has stated he would pardon the McCloskeys if they are ultimately convicted. Frankly, it would be useful to have the underlying issues resolved in the courts.

As discussed earlier, it is not unlawful to be outside of one’s home on your property with a lawful weapon. This is particularly an important defense for Mark McCloskey  if he is not shown pointing the weapon intentionally at any individual.  Indeed, we have seen the same type of weapon displayed in public in rallies (like those against the lock-down orders) and protests (like some in the “autonomous” zone in Seattle).  Existing footage shows Patricia McCloskey pointing the weapon.

However, a complicating factor is that Missouri is a state with a Castle Doctrine law and these guns were lawfully possessed.  The law states, in subsection 3,  that deadly force cannot be used unless “[s]uch force is used against a person who unlawfully enters, remains after unlawfully entering, or attempts to unlawfully enter private property that is owned or leased by an individual.” However, no lethal force was used here. It was threatened.

That raises two questions.  Is the law triggered by entry on the property as opposed to entry without the home?  Also, does the law implicitly support the show of force to deter entry.

Some have cited the 2016 case of State v. Whipple, which interpreted subsection 3 is not giving  “the occupier, owner, or lessee authority to stand his ground and use deadly force without having a reasonable belief that such force is necessary to defend himself or a third person from what he reasonably believes to be the use or imminent use of unlawful force.” However, the McCloskeys are alleging that they were threatened directly, the protesters were already trespassing, and that the breaking of the gate constitutes a reasonable basis for their fear.

None of this excuses the display of weaponry in the case by the McCloskeys, but the ambiguity and conflicts between the applicable laws would have led many prosecutors to decline prosecution. The pursuit of felony (rather than misdemeanor) charges further fueled criticism that Gardner used the case for political purposes before her recent reelection.

The problem in the Gardner matter is recurring for both state prosecutors and judges who run for office. They appeal to voters based on their records but that can easily cross the line in the use of criminal cases for popular appeal. That is particularly the case with a pending case. Few prosecutors would have done what Gardner did in using a current case to raise money for herself in the election.

All of a sudden, the world of New York City Commercial real estate could be standing on shaky ground.

Aside from the fact that Mayor Bill de Blasio has actively turned Manhattan into a (crime infested) ghost down through a combination of his pandemic response and his “social justice” policies, the city’s iconic commercial real estate may wind up looking far better from the outside than it does on the inside.

This is because a host of major corporations, including names like Goldman Sachs, are leaving new year in favor of states like Florida and Texas. Kathy Wylde, president of the Partnership for New York City told Bloomberg: “All the banks, insurance companies and hedge funds are considering options.” 

In New York, the amount of office space available for rent in Manhattan has now hit the highest level in 2003, as subleases have “flooded” the market. This is on top of local stores and restaurants which have been struggling mightily throughout the course of the year. Even Broadway remains shuttered.

Jeff Blau, chief executive officer of Related Companies, the developer of the Hudson Yards project, told Bloomberg: “This is an important reminder to policy makers that we can’t take jobs for granted, even those that have been here for generations.”

Speak a little louder, Jeff. We’re not sure De Blasio is getting the message.

Liberal politicians have been driving citizens out of their cities and states all year – as we have documented in cities like Chicago and states like California – due to an increasing embrace of higher taxes and more regulation, all while acting as authoritarian lockdown hypocrites (see here and here) and embracing defunding the police.

Two days ago we reported that Florida was being referred to as “Wall Street South” after Goldman Sachs had decided to move some operations to West Palm Beach. Goldman’s move could wind up blazing the path for other financial firms who have considered a similar move. Florida does, after all, offer “better weather and no state income tax”. 

 

The Covid pandemic has shown many businesses firsthand that they can go without some of the commercial NYC office space they may have once thought was integral to their business. Goldman, specifically, is looking at office space near Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach, we noted. They could join Carl Icahn, who also recently decided to move his firm to Florida, and Citadel – who, we noted earlier this year, had already set up a makeshift trading floor at a hotel when the pandemic started. 

 

While de Blasio stands idly by and watches his city go to ruin, Florida would be the beneficiary of new money and diversified jobs (the state is primarily tourism and service jobs) as a result of these firms needing to hire their rank-and-file workers locally. 

Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams spoke out against Goldman this week, stating: “New York grew Goldman Sachs into the international behemoth that it is today with our wealth of talent, tax breaks, and the exciting energy only New Yorkers can provide. Goldman should be asking how it can help our city during this unprecedented crisis, not turning its back on us.”

We’re sure that’ll change their mind. 

Maria Ilcheva, a professor and assistant director of planning and operations at Florida International University’s Jorge Perez Metropolitan Center, said: “In terms of economic impact, it carries a lot of weight — not in terms of jobs but in terms of the wages it pays. When other firms see that move, it may have a snowball effect.”

 

And it won’t just be tax revenue that slides in New York. Commercial real estate will also likely take a large hit. Currently there are “8 to 10 financial services companies seriously considering” a move to Palm Beach County, the report notes. Two of these firms are considering office space of at least 50,000 square feet each. 

Authored by Andrea Widburg via AmericanThinker.com,

In the world of Democrat politics, there are no coincidences. With that principle in mind, it’s possible to understand why Democrat media outlets are suddenly reporting about Hunter Biden’s corruption, a story that spills over onto his father. The first is to get ahead of potential breaking news about Hunter’s imminent arrest. The second theory is the one Monica Showalter advanced: The leftists used Biden to attain the White House (or so they believe) and are now ready to get rid of him. Having a criminal son may be just what the Obama/Harris camp needs to make that happen. And if there’s any doubt about this theory, an article in The New York Times seems to lay it to rest. 

We conservatives remember how, in October, the media and the tech tyrants conspired to block any reports about Hunter Biden, whether those reports were the Senate Intelligence Committee’s findings about the $3.5 million Hunter received from the wife of a Russian politician, or the shocking details of political corruption, drug addiction, and sexual debauchery contained on his hard drive.

Well, to ordinary people, these stories were shocking. To the media and the tech tyrants, these stories were potential dangers to Joe Biden’s candidacy. They had to be stopped – and stopped they were. Twitter and Facebook, the two biggest social media tech tyrants, refused to allow any reports to circulate and banned people, including President Trump’s press secretary, from their platforms when they refused to bow down to this censorship.

News outlets derided the reports about the Biden family’s corrupt dealings, all of which implicated Joe Biden as the man who pimped out his addled son for huge sums of money, as non-stories. That’s not an exaggeration. It’s explicitly what NPR’s public editor said:

Likewise, CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, who’s served as a shill for every tyrannical regime on earth, insisted that, because she was a real “journalist,” it was not her job to investigate stories. Instead, it was only her job to determine whether the results of other people’s investigations met her standards. The Hunter Biden story did not:

Of all the media deceit and propagndizing disseminated in the lead-up to the election to justify their refusal to report on the Hunter Biden documents — despite knowing they were genuine and not from Russia — this on CNN from @camanpour may be the most amazing: pic.twitter.com/mkI4Jtd4SN

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) December 10, 2020

When President Trump tried to bring the story to Americans’ attention during the first presidential debate, Biden snapped back that it was Russian disinformation, a lie that the media and tech tyrants enthusiastically disseminated

Joe Biden cited the Politico story with former intelligence officials saying the Hunter Biden story was Russian disinformation during the second debate.

Turns out, Hunter’s business dealings with China had been under investigation since 2018.

Nice work @NatashaBertrand pic.twitter.com/HZnqJ0xmCz

— Greg Price (@greg_price11) December 10, 2020

Suddenly, though, the media is releasing information about the criminal investigations into not both Hunter Biden and Joe’s brother, James Biden. As the above tweet notes, these investigations have been ongoing for years. We also know that a sizable number of voters would have passed over Biden for Trump had they known about Biden family corruption. So, what gives? Why are Hunter and, by extension, Joe himself, suddenly fair game?

It could be that bad things are about to come down from the FBI. After all, Trump did promise that “a lot of big things” will happen soon. The sudden flurry of reports about the Bidens could just be the Democrats’ way of getting ahead of the story so that, if Hunter is shown doing the perp walk, they can say that it’s “old news.”

However, it’s equally likely that the Democrats are making plans to get Biden out of office as quickly as possible – or perhaps, sideline him before he’s even sworn in (assuming, of course, that Biden hangs onto that president-elect title). As Monica Showalter pointed out on Thursday, Biden is not making leftists happy. He’s filling his possible administration with corporate insiders, he wants a former military officer to head the defense department, and he’s continuing to show a very rapid cognitive decline. He’s offering Clinton-era politics with a side of dementia and that is not what the hard left side of the party wants.

In any event, the goal, always, was to get Kamala into the White House. It didn’t and doesn’t matter that the voters don’t like her — as demonstrated by the fact that even her home state of California didn’t like her and her early retreat from the primaries. What matters is that she, unlike both Hillary and Joe, is Barack Obama’s true third term.

Harris is as hard left as they come and willing to do whatever it takes to maintain power. While Joe Biden, despite his corruption and his shift to the hard left, still cherishes some residual notions about the Constitution, Kamala is not hindered by such old-fashioned ideas:

FLASHBACK: Kamala Harris laughs when Joe Biden brings up the fact that the Constitution would prevent the President from taking Executive Action to confiscate guns.

I wonder how they both feel about this issue now. pic.twitter.com/33NjAnL5Ic

— Benny (@bennyjohnson) August 13, 2020

With Americans at large finally learning that Hunter Biden and James Biden are crooked and that Joe is the big, corrupt tree from which these rotten apples fell, there’s going to be lots of pressure on Joe to retire as quickly as is politely possible. It’s The New York Times that gives the game away. On Thursday, it published a positively wistful article entitled “Investigation of His Son Is Likely to Hang Over Biden as He Takes Office: Unless the Trump Justice Department clears Hunter Biden, the new president will confront the prospect of his own administration handling an inquiry that could expose his son to criminal prosecution.” The opening paragraph, speaks of Biden in a “no-win situation” that could be “politically and legally perilous,” and the report continues in that vein. The subtext is clear: Leave. Leave now.

Joe served his purpose by being the bland front person for a full leftist assault on the White House. Now it’s time for him to go. And while his handlers may reward him for a job well done with the pleasure of the inauguration, you can be sure that they’ll pressure him to do what he promised to do, which is to invent a respectable disease and quit ASAP.