The U.S. is at war — a war that Trump had warned against; and UFOs/drones are again seen over New Jersey. But Senator Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.) has something else on his mind, something a little closer to home: regulating grocery store pricing and marketing.
He has co-sponsored S. 3892, dubbed the “Stop Price Gouging in Grocery Stores Act of 2026.”
What is price gouging? Selling or offering items at a “grossly excessive price,” which the Federal Trade Commission is tasked with defining. But Luján’s real focus seems to be his distrust of surveillance in stores, which he fears will be used to adjust prices individually.
He somehow doesn’t mention why stores have increased surveillance of customers.
One word: thievery.
But Lujan isn’t alone, fecklessly fighting the food-market market. In Washington State and elsewhere, socialists and other politicians are trying to force grocers to stay open, even if their corporate owners have good reason to shut down a specific store. Seattle’s new mayor, Katie Wilson, says Seattle must not “allow giant grocery chains to stomp all over our communities, close stores at will, and leave behind food deserts.”
A south Tacoma neighborhood Safeway closed, so a state senator cooked up a bill to “give communities time to respond to grocery store closures.”
Truth is, of course, that grocery stores operate on slim margins. The more regulations piled on, and the more criminals you throw at them, the fewer groceries your community will have.
And the “liberals” who vote for such nonsense? They will not like the Mamdani stores they are left with — the subsidized product deserts that only now look good . . .
In socialist dreams.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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5 replies on “Thought Deserts”
The most important thing in the world is ignored by you!
Instead of closing, be a perfect opportunity for the inclined city governments to just purchase the failing store from the owners. Saves the owners being stuck from trying to unload no-longer-profitable real estate. Lets the city be in charge of hours, prices, and overhead. Lets the city take over and manage the consequences that they are so anxious to impose on citizens. And keeps the store operating, which is the desire of the meddling officials.
Putting the city in charge of managing the grocery store is a sure fire way to guarantee its closure. The city would have to tax all of its residents to pay for a single unprofitable location that it has purchased.
How many grocery stores are standalone, even in a city? In the suburbs many grocery stores are in shopping malls. Grocery stores that are closed are replaced by more profitable businesses, such as gyms or specialty stores. Nothing lasts forever.
Yeah. That would work. (jk)
But at least make the *officials* do this with their personal money.
Elsewhere, previously, I have suggested that the word “eventual” be used as an ideologic designator, for those whose underlying principles would, given time, lead them eventually to become overtly of some ideologic sort, even if presently they denied being of that sort, perhaps with felt sincerity.
For example, progressives have no principle, other than logical exhaustion, for halting the increasing use of the state to regulate aspects of life. They are thus eventual totalitarians, even if they do not want totalitarianism to-day.
The usual tell of an eventual this-or-that is a history of saying “We don’t want G! We only want F!” when yester-day she said “We don’t want F! We only want E!” and the day before she said “We don’t want E! We only want D!” and so forth. We know what they will say to-morrow.
Barack Hussein Obama so inflamed the passions of the left that they began to rush much faster, often leaping beyond what would have been intermediate demands, and even sometimes admitting that they saw no reason ever to halt. And, even as many denizens of America were swept-up in this eventually totalitarian madness, others began consciously to face the fact that the left would eventually want each-and-every next step.