Apropos of nothing: some things are more important than veep debates

Of Hezbollah, strikes and toilet paper shortages

Longshoremen on a New York dock load barrels onto a barge on the Hudson River. Photograph by Lewis Hine, c. 1912. -Wikipedia

I’m assuming most of you dear readers watched at least part of the vice presidential debate last night. It was utterly predictable. Republican nominee J.D. Vance, an experienced debater from his days at Yale Law School, was smooth, largely in command and rarely stumbled. Democrat Tim Walz looked nervous and faltered a bit, but regained his poise during the last hour of the debate. Vance as the clear victor, though I might add that the exchanges were noticeably polite and relatively substantive. I suspect that’s because you-know-who wasn’t there.

The whole event felt inconsequential, in part because vice presidential debate winners rarely influence the outcome of presidential elections. You can ask Sen. Lloyd Bentsen, who thrashed Republican Sen. Dan Quayle in 1988 with his “Senator, you’re no Jack Kennedy” line. About four months later, Sen. Quayle became Vice President Quayle because voters preferred George H.W. Bush over Michael Dukakis.

Here’s one of the best takes on the debate I’ve seen this morning.👇

Click on image for link to Kirstol’s piece:

JD Vance’s Version of Trump Is Better Than the Real Thing -Molly Ball, Wall Street Journal (free link)

Fact-checking the vice-presidential debate between Vance and Walz -Glenn Kessler, Washington Post (free link)

Trump's decompensation was the big debate day story

And finally, we have Noel Casler’s take on the debate.

'Smooth Operator'

Casler is a writer and comedian who worked with Trump for several years on the set of Celebrity Apprentice, where, Casler said, the future president would often snort adderall to help him get through his teleprompter scenes. Casler argues that Vance was not merely performing for an audience of one:

He was subtly, and not so subtly, signaling to the GOP to look beyond Trump and to behold what a leader with a slicker approach would deliver to them … the V.P. nominee was performing for the hierarchy of MAGA itself and the folks who write the checks as much as he was attempting to please its current leader.

Will that get him in hot water with the boss? Anthony Scaramucci thinks so:

Could US get drawn into Israel’s war?

Workers clean up a hotel in Israel that was struck by Iranian missiles yesterday. -Screengrab via CBC

But the vice-presidential debate also felt irrelevant because of a couple of other events going on in the world that could have a much more profound consequences on our lives. There was little talk in the debate about the unfolding crisis in the Middle East, where Iran launched a massive retaliatory missile attack yesterday against Israel.

Iran’s action, in response to Israel’s assassination of the leader of the Iranian-sponsored terrorist group Hezbollah, prompted an Israeli incursion into southern Lebanon, where eight Israeli soldiers died yesterday

My concern is that the conflict will spread to the point that Israel is effectively fighting a war on three fronts. It is one thing to be attacking terrorist organizations such as Hamas to Israel’s south and Hezbollah to its north, but it is quite another to be engaged in elaborate military conflict with Iran, which has expansive armed forces, and access to billions in oil money and advanced weaponry.

In batting down the incoming missiles, Israel received extensive help from U.S. warships in the Mediterranean. This is the danger I see. Not only could the conflict escalate, but the US could get drawn further into it with each upsurge. As explained by Axios (via the much-loathed “Smart Brevity”):

There is also extensive speculation among analysts, and even Israeli officials themselves, that “Iran’s oil facilities [could be] a likely target, but some say targeted assassinations and taking out Iran’s air defense systems are also possibilities,” Axios further explains.

What happens if Iran begins a ground attack against Israel, either using its own forces or those of its proxies in Syria. I have little doubt that the US would get drawn into such a conflict, likely with actual boots on the ground.

Makes me glad that my son is no longer in the Marines.

As election looms, dock strike could cripple the economy

Much has been made of the post-pandemic inflation that ate away at the buying power of the middle class. My family definitely felt it. But earlier, as the COVID-19 pandemic asserted itself in March of 2020, consumers had to deal something else: the scarcity of certain goods, especially paper products and sanitizing agents.

Now the ongoing strike by 45,000 members of the International Longshoremen’s Association, which began yesterday, threatens to revisit the hoarding panic on us again. The consumer stockpiling of toilet paper has already begun here in Texas.

Predictably, the White House is taking the side of the union. The union, which represents workers at 14 East and Gulf Coast ports, is seeking a $5-per-hour wage hike each year over six years, or a 77% raise. Under the union's proposal, workers would make $44 for the first year of the contract, $49 for the second and up to $69 in its final year. One 2019-2020 report found that about one-third of New York’s longshoremen were making in excess of $200,000 per year by taking on extra shifts.

But here’s the kicker: they want protections from automation. In other words, they want protection from the inevitable and they don’t want their employer to become more efficient. One of the reasons shipping executives embraced automation in the first place was the militancy of the unions. That — and yes saving money on overhead — was why shipping containers and giant cranes were introduced in the 1960s.

I have sympathy for some union strikes. But this one is like trying to stop the tide from coming in. Automation is inevitable, and when unions try to stop it, they only increase the incentive for further automation.

Now, it’s time for me to go out and get me some toilet paper.