Thoughts On A Sunday

While the calendar and the weather say it’s still summer, one sign of fall’s approach that is unmistakable is acorns, specifically acorns as they fall from the oak trees. It happens every year, starting towards the end of August and picking up as we progress through September. Most years the number of acorns falling are nothing spectacular. But the past two years have seen huge numbers of acorns falling, sometimes so much so it sounds almost like rain. But there is also the ‘thud’ when they hit the roof, the ‘bang’ when they hit the roof of a car or truck, or the ‘smack’ when they hit the driveway or road. There are pieces of acorn all over road, crunching under the tires as we drive along the road.

Another sign of the fall’s impending arrival is the foliage starting to change color. There isn’t much in the way of change yet, but the swamp maples are usually the first to change and I’ve seen a few already starting, with some sections of the tree already changing from green to red. I’ve also seen some of the birches, those ‘stressed’ during the April Nor’easter this past spring, changing earlier than the rest of them.

We won’t see peak foliage until early October, something I plan to take in from the Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout as that’s one way to see it all without having to worry all that much about leaf peeper traffic on the roads.

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We’ll be experiencing a ‘twofer’ Tuesday night with a combination of a “super moon” and partial lunar eclipse. A super moon is when the moon is closer to the Earth which makes it appear larger than usual. Add in the partial lunar eclipse which will take place for about a half-hour between 10:15 and 10:45PM and it’s a nice twofer.

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This has certainly been true around here.

Housing prices have jumped more than 30 percent under Biden-Harris administration.

The majority of voters believe in the American dream but find it less attainable, a new poll found, thanks to sky-high housing prices, which have jumped more than 30 percent under the Biden-Harris administration.

The poll, conducted in July by the Rainey Center think tank and released through a report this week, found that although 54 percent of Americans believe in the American dream, 66 percent say it has fallen further out of reach. Respondents cited home ownership as a top source of pessimism—57 percent said owning a home has become less attainable over the last decade, compared with just 19 percent who said it's become more attainable.

Home prices have skyrocketed under the Biden-Harris administration, with the median price for an existing home jumping a whopping 17 percent in 2021. Housing affordability has since emerged as a top issue for young voters in November's election, polling shows.

Thirty percent? Around here, it’s closer 100%.

Checking the comments from the Instapundit post that linked the above article certainly seems to back up some of what I’ve seen regarding housing costs, with prices having doubled or more. They also back up the poll’s findings about housing costs.

The out-of-reach housing costs are having a negative effect on the economy, particularly for those looking for work. How can they take a job knowing they may not be able to afford a place to live. That’s certainly been the case here as we have lots of job openings but applicants can’t afford to move here if they take the jobs. It’s a Catch-22 that I have no doubt a Harris administration will make even worse.

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You know it’s bad when CNN is blasting the Harris campaign for spreading misinformation while at the same time aligning “herself with the kind of authoritarian logic that dictators throughout history have used to justify censorship, claiming it's necessary to protect the public from so-called disinformation.” It appears to be a “Do as I say, not as I do” moment for Harris. CNN lists a number of creatively edited video clips the campaign has used to make false claims about Trump and his running mate, J.D. Vance.

A couple of examples:

The first post mentioned in the article falsely implied that Trump was confused about where he was during a rally in Pennsylvania by showing him mention North Carolina. In reality, he was acknowledging North Carolina supporters in the crowd. Another post falsely implied Trump was confused about his location again during an Arizona speech, but omitted the context that he was discussing Pennsylvania’s immigration issues.

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Kamala's campaign also lied about Sen. JD Vance. The campaign posted a clip suggesting he supported privatizing veterans' healthcare, but the full quote showed he advocated for more flexibility while maintaining federal care. Another post falsely tied Trump’s monument-damage penalties to Project 2025, "But the full video of the rally shows Trump was not even talking about Project 2025 or his future plans."

There are a number of other examples of other misinformation put forth by the Harris campaign. As the saying goes, Read The Whole Thing.

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If we need yet another example of just how off track the Pyrite State has gone, there’s this one that has caused a foreseeable problem because of its energy policies. What is ‘this’?

The Hollywood Bowl had to cancel a concert because California’s electrical grid was so strained it caused a power outage in the area.

What did they expect when California has dismantled so much of its generation capacity all in the name supporting “Green Energy”?

The bill arrived because California chose to ignore reality in order to advance green energy initiatives based on dubious climate change theories. One of the first areas hit by a recent heat wave that overwhelmed the southern California power grid was directed at a Mecca of the environmentalist movement: Hollywood.

That seems appropriate, somehow. The ones who have pushed the unsustainable ‘feel good’ policies are some of the ones who suffer from the effects of those same policies. It might also explain why Hollywood studios are “moving to Las Vegas in which Nevada does a better job of providing reliable power to residents and businesses.”

I expect the problem will only get worse as California’s grid goes fully green. On the other hand, now that in increasing flood of businesses and residents are leaving the Pyrite State for greener pastures, the problem may solve itself. At the point the last businesses and last US citizens depart California, the green electrical grid will be able to supply all the power required for the few die hards, illegal immigrants, and government tools still living there. Maybe.

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Gee, this is a surprise...NOT.

It appears that yet another point that Donald Trump brought up during the debate that was “fact checked” by moderator David Muir and declared to be untrue was actually correct.

During the debate Trump stated “Crime here is up and through the roof. Despite their fraudulent statements that they made. Crime in this country is through the roof.”

Trump was correct, as Crime Prevention Research Center president John R. Lott Jr. wrote in a detailed piece published the next day:

In fact, Trump was correct about the increase in crime under Biden. While violent crime fell by 17 percent under Trump, Biden has seen it rise by 43 percent.

Muir doesn’t understand what the FBI is measuring. The FBI counts the number of crimes reported to police. Trump was right that less than half of police departments are now giving that data to the FBI, but, more importantly, Trump was discussing what was happening to total crime, not just the number of crimes reported to police.

But as it turns out, new data released by Joe Biden’s Dept. of Justice on Thursday essentially made Trump’s point for him:

The DOJ’s survey from the Bureau of Justice statistics is self-reported instances of violent crime over the last six months — meaning that it includes crimes that may not have been reported to police.

The annual National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) showed total instances of reported violent crime — including rape, robbery and aggravated assault — is up from 5.6 per 1,000 in 2020 to 8.7 per 1,000 in 2023.

The highest recent rate of violent crime was in 2022, when the survey tracked 9.8 instances per 1,000 people over the age of 12.

The rate of rape increased from 1.2 per 1,000 in 2020 to 1.7 in 2023, while robbery went from 1.6 per 1,000 in 2020 to 2.6 per 1,000 in 2023, and aggravated assault rose from 2.9 per 1,000 in 2020 to 4.5 per 1,000 in 2023.

This has me wondering how many other ABC “fact checks” are in error as well? We already know the Harris campaign has no problems with creative editing video to make it seem that Trump said ‘X’ when in fact he said “Y”. We also know ABC has no issues with overtly covering for Harris and inserting itself into the campaign, acting more like a propaganda organ rather than nominally neutral news media.

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where summer weather remains, our boating season continues, and where Monday is coming back again.