Democrats appear rattled that they could lose Senate, House, and presidential elections if Vice President Kamala Harris is transparent about policy solutions to reverse the administration’s failures.

Harris, who has not held an unscripted press conference for 26 days since joining the race, is facing calls to not only remain hidden from the press but to keep her proposed policies a secret as she prepares to deliver economic proposals in North Carolina on Friday.

Originally Posted At www.breitbart.com

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U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris is reportedly planning to introduce a price control scheme for food and groceries in America should she be elected – an alarming proposal to hear as a Venezuelan, who experienced the rampant shortages and economic chaos of price controls in the flesh.

I lived through the majority of the past 25 years of the disaster known as Venezuela’s socialist revolution, having only been able to flee from Venezuela a couple of months ago. Throughout the past 20 years or so, late socialist dictator Hugo Chávez and then his successor, Nicolás Maduro, signed off on several iterations of price controls in the same style as Harris’s reported policies, each one more disastrous than the last.

The prospect of buying things “cheaper” due to price controls may seem enticing. Who wouldn’t love to save a couple dollars here and there, especially under Bidenflation, which every single one of my American friends has been slammed by. But roughly two decades of price controls in Venezuela ultimately gave forth to severe shortages, rationing, corruption, and just unpleasant experiences and misery all around.

Get ready for the “joy” of bread lines!
Don’t exceed your coconut rations!
Black markets are so brat! pic.twitter.com/sU9IqvBXmN

— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) August 15, 2024

It got so bad that the Maduro regime, while still officially implementing price controls, has quietly stopped enforcing them for the most part. They have not publicly said why but, maybe, they finally realized how disastrous it is.

Venezuela’s price control disaster is a two-decades-old tale that began in early 2003. At that time, Hugo Chávez established severe price controls and imposed strict profit margins on meat, chicken, cheese, sugar, coffee, beans, milk, and other items. I remember that, for a time, the plan seemed to “function,” but this only lasted for so long and, by the late 2000s, shortages of the regulated items were commonplace. The price controls, together with inflation, led to situations where a kilogram of onions was more expensive than a kilogram of meat.

It’s very simple, really: who would want to produce and sell items at a loss? And if you do, how long can you sustain that? Not for long.

By 2011, Chávez doubled down on price controls. In addition to what was already subject to price regulations, Chávez added water, fruit juice, soap, bleach, dishwasher soap, detergent, toiletries like shampoo soap and deodorant, toilet paper, and even diapers to the list.

The new price control scheme sought to punish “capitalist” traders who “speculated” against the people by further imposing disciplinary actions should they disrespect the profit margins established by the socialist regime. Chávez said that the regulatory scheme was a new mechanism for the “transition to socialism” and a socialist economy that puts an end to the “vices of capitalism.”

Hugo Chávez died in 2013, but unfortunately, the price controls did not die with him.

If Chávez had doubled down on price controls before dying, Maduro tripled down on what he inherited. The rest is a tale you may already know: severe ID-based rationing of the regulated items and the implementation of fingerprint scanners to further clamp down on regulations, and just sheer socialist absurdity.

To give you an example of how bad it all got with price regulations, in 2015, Maduro regime officials came up with a convoluted math “formula” to set a regulated price for eggs. The price was unrealistic and unsustainable by all measures, to the point that I vividly remember my mother telling me not to throw away the cardboard packaging that the eggs came in because, without it, a nearby market would not sell us eggs. The eggs were so over-regulated that they ended up costing far less than the two pieces of cardboard.

The price regulation of toiletries led to personal situations where I had to get some of them through an off-market “dealer.” These exchanges, often taking place at a street corner near my old apartment, felt like I was doing some shady illegal stuff like purchasing drugs — but no, there I was, buying bar soap to wash my hands and shower, a luxury for when there was actually running water, but that’s a whole other tale.

In late 2018, I went to this store near my home that sold toiletries, perfumes, and other goods in search of soap and shampoo. During those days, the National Guard had staged an “intervention” on the store and they were only letting people purchase one item regardless of what it was. After a long, long line, I ended up only being able to purchase something that was not exactly shampoo, but it would have to do for both me and my brother to wash our hair with.

The price regulations also hit medicine, leading to severe shortages of even the most basic pills, as no one could realistically manufacture them at a loss forever. This led to inhumane situations where I could not even find Omeprazole for my mom’s stomach woes, or antacids during the times when she was receiving chemotherapy for her liver cancer  — an incomplete treatment, by the way, as the Maduro regime, which controlled medicine imports, had long caused a health crisis through socialist mismanagement and stopped importing certain treatments. Maduro’s policies condemned thousands, including my mother, to death due to a lack of the complete required life-saving treatment. This continues to this day.

Antacids were also hard to find after the Maduro regime banned them alongside other items to prevent protesters from using them. As I could not find antacids, all I could do was give her water with baking soda.

The ID and fingerprint-based rationing of items also created an informal bartering system. For example, I was entitled to purchase a certain amount of diapers or baby food per week. I had no need to purchase either of them because there were no babies in my family, but there were parents who needed them.

What was common practice during those days was that I’d spend my weekly diaper allotment for someone else, who would in turn buy something I needed from his or her weekly allotments. Then, once we were out of the eyes of the National Guard or police, we’d trade the items and settle monetary differences.

What was the socialist regime’s “solution” to this? Demanding that parents show their babies’ birth certificates to be eligible to purchase diapers.

RELATED: Billboard of Maduro Set Ablaze Amid Venezuelan Election Protests

If you as a company would not produce toilet paper (at a loss), what was the Maduro regime’s response? Forcefully occupy your factory to make it produce toilet paper at gunpoint, leaving you with the losses.

Certain food companies that produced regulated items like rice or Venezuela’s flagship corn flour were able to offset some of the losses by also producing variants or other products that were not subject to the regulation, such as a specialized corn flour mixture to make cachapas (a sort of corn pancake). The Maduro regime responded to this practice by banning the production of said items.

As I mentioned, these regulations, while still active, are not being enforced, as the Maduro regime has other pressing matters to worry about, such as negotiating with the Biden administration or stealing sham elections. This means that toilet paper, eggs, and other once hard-to-find items can now be easily found on shelves, but for capitalist U.S. dollars instead of socialist bolivars.

If you need another example of the consequences of price controls, look to Cuba’s Castro regime, which announced new price controls in July as part of its “war-time economy” proclamation that seeks to “save socialism” in Cuba, a nation ruined by six decades of price communism.

Argentina, under the socialist government of alleged wife-beater Alberto Fernández, also insisted on price controls throughout Fernández’s disastrous presidency, claiming they would help fight off inflation — which they didn’t. President Javier Milei eliminated the price controls in January, among other policies eliminating socialist economic micromanaging, and inflation in Argentina has dramatically reduced every month as a result.

Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.

Originally Posted At www.breitbart.com

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Vice President Kamala Harris will outline sweeping new federal subsidies for first-time homebuyers Friday when she addresses a rally in North Carolina.

Bloomberg reports the 2024 Democratic presidential nominee will propose offering as much as $25,000 for first-time homeowners as down payment aid via funding provided by taxpayers.

Under the program, more than one million first-time home buyers who have a two-year history of on-time rent payments would be eligible for “down-payment support” and leverage into a purchase.

The plan to subsidize housing demand followed an earlier announcement Harris wanted to impose government-controlled pricing on grocery stores in order to protect American consumers from grocery store price hikes, as Breitbart News reported.

Get ready for the “joy” of bread lines!
Don’t exceed your coconut rations!
Black markets are so brat! pic.twitter.com/sU9IqvBXmN

— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) August 15, 2024

Harris’s housing proposal, which is designed to ease the progress of young buyers onto the property ladder, has sparked critics to ask: Won’t every home-seller just increase their sale price by $25,000?

Harris will apparently offer details on the plan during a speech in Raleigh, North Carolina, according to campaign officials.

The initiative would only be open to individuals who have consistently paid their rent on time for at least two years as Harris seeks to stop the fall in homeownership the Biden administration has been party to.

Biden has overseen a historic drop in homeownership expectations among renters. https://t.co/rjgVPvVBoE

— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) May 6, 2024

“For many Americans, paying rent and other bills makes it nearly impossible to save for a down payment, effectively locking them out of the housing market,” Harris’s campaign said in a statement. “This plan will give them the opportunity to own a home and build wealth.”

The vice president’s office has not yet disclosed the full mechanics of how the $25,000 support will be delivered, though it is anticipated to be a direct grant rather than a tax credit, the Maine Wire reports.

No indication has been given of the exact sum total the government is expecting to disperse in the taxpayer-funded handout or how this will impact inflation.

Follow Simon Kent on Twitter: Follow @SunSimonKent or e-mail to: skent@breitbart.com

Originally Posted At www.breitbart.com

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Michael Jordan had come out of his brief retirement to lead the Bulls to the best-ever season at the time, winning the first of what would be a “three-peat” of NBA championships.

Crime was down. The economy was soaring. Notorious slums were being cleared, hopefully to be replaced by mixed-income developments.

A guy named Daley was the mayor. A guy named Obama had yet to be elected to anything.

I was 19 years old, and I was covering the Democratic National Convention for Harvard’s college radio station. It was easy to commute to the United Center — the House That Michael Built — from my parents’ home in the Near North suburb of Skokie.

I interviewed Al Franken and Ariana Huffington. I bumped into one of the Baldwin brothers, who mistook me for someone else and invited me to a party. I tried to hang out with Bill Maher, who made fun of me.

Chicago had never been better.

Perhaps everyone remembers their youth that way. I had great summer jobs, dividing my time between an internship for Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun (D-IL), and an internship for National Public Radio’s local affiliate. I dated a girl from the office; we made out on the beach all night.

But teenage nostalgia aside, Chicago really was better then. There were problems — poverty, gangs, bad schools — but things seemed to be getting better.

There were a couple of shadows. One was 1968, the last time Democrats had held a convention in Chicago. That had been a disaster, as anti-war protesters clashed with police outside. Party bigwigs — none bigger than Daley Sr. — shut down the activists, who had seen one of their heroes, Sen. Robert Kennedy (D-NY), assassinated in L.A. Radicals hoisted a Viet Cong flag in Grant Park.

Voters saw the chaos in Chicago and turned to Republican Richard Nixon.

The other shadow was in my office — or, rather, the Senator’s office. She had disappeared on an unannounced trip to Nigeria, which was then run by a murderous dictator. When she returned to Chicago, she was hounded by the media. No one wanted to be seen with her onstage — least of all President Bill Clinton. He had survived Whitewater, thus far; the Lewinsky affair had not yet come to light. He was on top of the polls; the Senator could only bring him down.

The convention was smooth, and easy. It had its moments of drama: a wheelchair-bound Christopher Reeve speaking to the delegates; the grand balloon drop at the end. And it was a triumph for the Democratic Party, and for the City of Chicago.

Daley was following Clinton’s “new Democrat” policy formula: a focus on economic growth, with a strong social safety net. The old welfare state, like the housing projects, was being dismantled. A bright new future beckoned.

Nearly thirty years later, Democrats seem to think they can coast on Chicago’s past glory. Its skyline remains magical; Lake Michigan is still a brilliant, inviting blue.

But everything else has changed.

Crime is out of control; Chicago is the murder capital of America. The infrastructure is crumbling; the schools are worse than they have ever been. Taxes keep rising, but they can never hope to cover the city’s unfunded pension liabilities. Anyone who can move is leaving.

What changed? Daley ran a corrupt regime, but understood voters would overlook corruption if services were good. Enter Rahm Emanuel, who brought an air of suburban entitlement and could not get along with the city’s fractious constituencies.

He was replaced by the atrocious Lori Lightfoot, who let the Black Lives Matter riots run wild. Voters rejected her last year — only to elect Brandon Johnson, who is even more radical.

There is no hope for change.

Chicago is in a political death spiral, common to one-party systems throughout the Third World. One failed left-wing politician is followed by another; the idea of electing a Republican, or even a moderate Democrat, is unthinkable.

Free speech does not exist: Donald Trump was prevented from speaking in the city in 2016 by a left-wing riot that had the support of local leaders. Pro-Palestinian mobs threaten to turn the city upside down when the Democrats arrive.

Biden personally chose Chicago as the city in which he would accept the Democratic nomination. No one is quite sure why.

Illinois’ votes in the Electoral College are a foregone conclusion. Obama came out of Chicago — sort of — but now he lives among the elite on Martha’s Vineyard.

Boeing left. Billionaire Ken Griffin left and took his company with him. Even the Chicago Bears are thinking of leaving — for the suburbs. And Biden has left — the 2024 race, not Chicago.

Chicago is the perfect backdrop to the Democratic National Convention — if the goal is to warn of the tragic results of rule by the Democrats.

There is no turning back; not even repeated federal bailouts can save the city. A fiscal Great Chicago Fire looms — and bankruptcy may be the only solution for the city, and the state, cutting out the cronies and starting over.

I’ll still make time for the beach. But good luck to Kamala Harris in making her case in Chicago.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of “”The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days,” available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of “The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency,” now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.

Originally Posted At www.breitbart.com

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During an interview on the Charlie Kirk Show, Marlow referred to a video in which Frontlines reporter Kalen D’Almeida questioned several supporters of Harris at a rally in Phoenix, Arizona, and asked them what Harris’s accomplishments were. Marlow noted that among the reasons listed as to why people were supporting Harris, none of the people listed a “single accomplishment.”

“What Kamala Harris’s greatest accomplishment has been as VP?” D’Almeida asked one man.

“Uhm, I mean honestly, I’m not too into politics, I’m just here for the vibe,” the man answered.

A second man stated, “Becoming the first female vice president.”

“So, becoming, just becoming the vp is the best accomplishment?” D’Almeida asked, to which the person responded, “Yeah, absolutely.”

“Being a good person,” a woman told D’Almeida, to which another woman agreed and added that Harris seems “really good for women.”

“Harris is there with the energy, she has a lot of enthusiasm, so it’s important to get behind her,” the second guy added.

Marlow interjected to point out that “so far” voters had stated they supported Harris for her “vibe,” because she was “good for women,” and that she “won the vice presidency.”

“So far, we’ve got vibe, so the main thing is she’s got a good vibe. She’s good for women, which presumably means she likes abortions. I don’t know if it’s necessarily good for women, how she rose to the top. People like her, so she’s got enthusiasm, which is, a lot of this is astroturfed by the media. Which is – recall, she didn’t even make it to Iowa in the 2020 primary – and that she won the vice presidency, which you know, some of you in the audience might not think that that is a great accomplishment for a number of reasons. So far, that’s it. Not a single accomplishment. She’s got a great vibe and she won.”

When asked about their favorite policies from Harris, one lady admitted that she wished she knew “more about” Harris’s policies.

“My favorite policies, oh my gosh,” one lady said. “See, I wish they would tell us more about that because I honestly don’t know. I know she’s done some good work with immigration even though they say opposite.”

“What do they say?” D’Almeida asked.

“Well, what is it, she’s the ‘border czar’,” the lady answered, mockingly, as she seemed to assume the right would. “And, it’s her fault that all these immigrants are coming over, you know, to cross the border right now, which I don’t think they are.”

One person stated that they did not think there was “an issue with the border at all,” while admitting that “illegal immigrants are coming to America.” The person stated that they feel America is about “letting people come in and do what they’d like.”

“Yeah, I feel like yes, illegal immigrants are coming to America, but that’s what America’s all about, is to come to America and live that American dream,” the person explained to D’Almeida. “Because America isn’t just for the whites, it’s not just for the blacks, it’s not just for the Mexicans. It’s for everyone around the world, we’re supposed to be a country of letting people come in and do what they’d like. I mean, I understand that they say the border crisis is causing all these drug issues and it’s causing crime, but in my opinion, there’s crime everywhere. You can go to New York, you can go to Canada, you can go anywhere across the world and there’s going to be crime regardless.”

“We’re seeing record levels of citizenship for immigrants – that are being announced by Democrats,” Marlow interjected. “Now, I’m all fine with immigration if it is for people we know are going to be helping the country. That’s not what we’re getting right now. We’re getting illegal immigration and then we’re getting people getting fast tracked, then they and their progeny become Democrats. That’s the goal. That’s what we’re seeing. That is the immigration policy of the [Biden-Harris administration.] These people are acting as though they’re not sure there’s an illegal immigration crisis, [and] that is an indictment of our media.”

Originally Posted At www.breitbart.com

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