[DO NOT MISS THE IMPORTANT UPDATE AT THE END]

Outrageous:

Hillary Clinton on Tuesday will unveil several policy proposals for lowering child-care costs that were crafted in part by her daughter, Chelsea, including a plan to guarantee six weeks of paid maternity leave..

Progressive Democrats, in particular, have long seen a mandated expansion of the social safety net as desirable, while conservative Republicans see it as anathema to their attempts to shrink government spending and give companies more control over their leave policies.

Clinton campaign officials said Tuesday morning that the Democratic presidential nominee will propose a plan for paid leave that they believe can gain bipartisan approval. While details of the proposal remained unclear ahead of Clinton’s speech, the officials said it wouldn’t cost taxpayers anything more; instead, it would be financed through savings achieved by eliminating fraud in the unemployment insurance program.

This is, of course, insane on several levels. Government holding a gun to the head of an employer interferes with the market economy and is certain to cause increased disemployment (Peter Boettke’s term, about which more in a future post) if not outright unemployment. If the proposal is to make this another federally funded entitlement, as reports suggest, (by eliminating waste! fraud! and abuse!), then it’s just more spending.

And one annoying detail: why do we care that the candidate’s daughter had a hand in this, given that she has no proven policy experience? Are they just trying to groom her for a future in politics? Haven’t we had enough dynasties in this country already?

This is why so many people are considering voting Trump: because this sort of insane socialism shows why we can’t put another leftist in the central seat of power after the last eight years.

IMPORTANT UPDATE: Wait, I’ve just been handed this piece of paper. [Patterico reads piece of paper silently to himself. His lips are moving. Dramatic pause.] Um. It turns out that the proposal is actually Donald Trump’s. The quote above has been altered to make it read as if it were Hillary’s proposal. Also, it is Trump’s daughter Ivanka, not Chelsea Clinton who played a role in fashioning this big-spending proposal.

Well, that’s different.

[guest post by Dana]

Powering through the narrative:

Salon wants you to know that all women power through, whether athletes, actresses, or presidential candidates:

Clinton’s health has been a front and center topic of public speculation and armchair diagnoses for several months now, all couched in the vague concern about whether this woman — this woman with actual political experience and knowledge — is less qualified to run the country than her Twitter-troll reality-show-star opponent. It’s a popular old ploy: Ladies, aren’t you too weak to do this stuff? Why don’t you just sit down and have a lemonade and leave the heavy lifting of running the world to the menfolk, dear? To which I say: You have got to be kidding me.

Powering through is what women do. Last month, Chinese Olympic swimmer Fu Yuanhui managed to shock the world by admitting that she’d had her period and had been feeling “a bit weak and really tired” during a medley relay. It was as if the reality that most of the 12- to 55-year-old female population of the planet still manages to get stuff done every single month was a revelation.

Three years ago, Jennifer Lawrence was diagnosed with pneumonia at the height of awards season, and though she scaled back some on her public appearances, she still managed to show up looking stellar in time to pick up her “Silver Linings Playbook” Oscar. Tony Award winner Kristin Chenoweth has asthma — even if you might not have been able to tell from the lung power she exerts in her tireless stage and TV work.

Oh, and Olympian and skating star Kristi Yamaguchi has asthma, too. And earlier this year, Lena Dunham shared a candid Facebook post about her endometriosis and her need to take a brief beat to rest, while acknowledging, “So many women with this disease literally don’t have the option of time off and I won’t take it for granted.”

But I am reminded of the unattractive response by notable women to a man who has to “power through” life every single day:

“Could you have gone after what you see as his hypocrisy by pointing out what he did in that rape case, what he did in these other cases, without the stark image of the empty wheelchair, which seemed to be trying to point people towards his own supposed disability?”

–Dana