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To Kill The Golden Goose

A weekend topic starting with the Post Register on Idaho. “As more people visit Island Park each year and more homeowners are turning their properties into short-term rentals. (Island Park’s year-round population was 262 in the 2020 Census.) Tourism in the Greater Yellowstone Region has skyrocketed in recent years and Island Park, a key gateway to Yellowstone National Park, has not been spared from that trend. Many of the area’s part-time residents have turned their homes and cabins into income properties. It’s estimated there may be as many as 1,000 short-term rentals in Island Park, but only 60 percent are said to be properly permitted.”

“‘It is so disheartening when you see someone on their four-wheeler chasing a moose through your private property because they wanted to try and get a better picture of it,’ said Teri Ehresman.”

“Many Island Park residents point to the Idaho 2017 Legislature’s House Bill 216 as a key factor in many of the issues regarding short-term rentals. The bill, which became law in January 2018, was intended to protect property rights by preventing cities and counties in Idaho from enacting or enforcing any ordinance that would prohibit a short-term rental from certain parts of their jurisdictions.”

The Red Rock News in Arizona. “The 2020 US Census found that Sedona’s popula­tion again fallen to 9,684, below our historical high of 10,192 in 2000 and below 10,031 residents in 2010. Our growth rate is -3.5%. We Sedona residents have lost the legal ability to vote on our community plan because the changing conditions of our city is pushing our population to leave for other communities, some nearby.”

“While some residents may want to point the finger at the glut of vacation rentals pushing out long-time renters, the population drop began long before the passage of Senate Bill 1350 in 2015. Short-term rentals exacerbate the problem, but did not cause it.”

“However, we can legitimately make the case that due to the lack of affordable housing, the high cost of living, the exodus of families, especially working class families, being replaced by an influx of part-time second homeowners and well-off retired singles and couples without children at home means we have suffered a loss of input on our local democ­racy. Demographic changes have consequences.”

The Del Norte Triplicate in California. “Concerns over noise and a lack of affordable housing have put short-term rentals under scrutiny in Del Norte and Curry counties.The influence of STRs date back to the 1950s, but their market influence wasn’t widely felt until Airbnb put them in the spotlight a little over a decade ago. ‘We are essentially at a crossroads with the issue of vacation rentals,’ said Betty Crockett, Curry County’s planning director, during a Dec. 1 Board of Commissioners workshop meeting. ‘They are a positive influence in promoting tourism and bringing dollars to the community for the people that own vacation rentals and the businesses that serve the vacationers, however some have become conduits for nuisance violations and neighbor complaints.'”

“So far, a majority of STRs are either lightly regulated or not regulated at all. Vacation rental owners in Curry County are supposed to apply for a county business license and pay a 7 percent transient lodging tax, but according to Crockett, of the 400 vacation properties in the county, only 100 of them have current business licenses and 300 pay the required transient lodging tax during the peak season summer months.”

“‘Essentially, they are unregulated,’ Crockett said. Across the Oregon border and into Del Norte County in Northern California, officials appear to have an even stronger hands off approach. A 10% transient occupancy tax is authorized under State Revenue and Taxation Code section 7280, but that’s levied on those occupying a room or rooms ‘in a hotel, motel, inn, tourist home or house, or other lodging for a period of 30 days or less.'”

“Read a little further on the county’s website, and it states that business licenses for short term rentals are not required. ‘Regulating short term rentals of single family homes – the county has not taken a stance on that,’ said Heidi Kunstall, the community development director for Del Norte County.”

“The influence of the so-called short term rental effect on long-term housing and neighbors who live near them, however, may still be out shadowed by its popular and lucrative juggernaut.”

The Ukiah Daily Journal in California. “What do you think of the idea of Mendocino County restricting and/or regulating so-called short-term rentals (STRs), rented mostly by vacationing tourists. What about the right of property owners to rent housing units? The Mendocino Coast’s economy is mainly fueled by tourism, so the conversion of affordable housing to short-term vacation rentals comes as no surprise. At the BOS meeting on Nov. 16, the Supes took up the issue due mainly to some Coasties arguing for regulation, if not outright banning of STRs.”

“John Gorman reminded the Supes that some property owners rely on short-term rentals for income, saying, ‘You don’t want to kill the golden goose here, just screaming, deny all rentals.'”

“Johanna Jensen, a member of the Housing Action Team, explained her group had surveyed employees. She said, ‘From the employees’ survey, a full quarter of them said that they are impacted by short term vacation rentals …  vacation rentals are not contributing any skills or benefit for anybody, and the bed tax collected is only diverting from the established lodging industry. The number of vacation rentals on the coast is absolutely disgusting. People moving here from the Bay Area are driving prices up and local greedy landowners and homeowners are cashing out, displacing local service workers, including medical and first responders.'”

The Coast River Business Journal in Oregon. “Since December 2020, the average sale price of a home has increased by over $100,000 in Astoria, according to realty data. It’s a similar situation throughout the North Coast, with six-figure increases in Cannon Beach, Gearhart, Manzanita and Warrenton. A county housing study conducted in 2019 found that there was an oversupply of houses needed for local residents, but that short-term rental interests have been purchasing over half of new properties and driving up prices.”

“‘We also are seeing a lot of climate refugees,’ said Andrea Mazzarella, a Realtor with Vesta Realty Group. ‘People that are afraid that their neighborhood or house is going to burn down in California with the next wave of fires so they want to move someplace greener and wetter, and presumably safer from forest fires that are happening every year in Eastern Oregon and south of us in California.'”

“She also gets frequent calls from people hoping to buy a second home, often in Seaside and Cannon Beach. Some want to invest in Airbnb, but are met with Clatsop County’s recent vacation rental license moratorium.”

From Boulder Weekly in Colorado. “City governments have stepped in and created their own housing vouchers—often in partnership with nonprofit organizations and landlords—to fill the gap. One such program that garnered lots of praise in its infancy back in 2017 was Lower-Income Voucher Equity (LIVE) Denver, an ambitious plan to help some 400 moderate-income families—those earning between 40 and 80 percent of area median income—get into empty market-rate apartments.”

“‘Because at the time that we were designing the LIVE Denver program,’ says Erik Soliván, ‘Denver had some 30,000 vacant units in the metro area—not just within the city, but within the metro area—that were vacant because they were built to meet a market demand purely at the quote unquote luxury end.'”

From CBS 4 in Colorado. “Two new programs from Frisco city council are intended to curb what is being described as an absolute crisis in housing. On Monday before her interview with CBS4, councilmember Melissa Sherburne says she took stock of just how high prices have risen. ‘The median home price right now is $827,000. That’s all housing units. For a single family home it’s 1.3 million,’ Sherburne explained.”

“That’s why city council has opted to try out two new plans. First, an incentive for property owners looking to rent their homes as short term rentals to consider long term rentals instead. Frisco city council is now hoping to achieve a 50% occupancy rate for it’s units in town, which it says will help keep track of progress and make sure it’s plans are effective.”

The Record Eagle in Michigan. “The house off of Meadowfield Lane is beautiful. Tucked into the woods off a main junction in Harbor Springs, it boasts a fireplace living room, a large yard perfect for playful children, and an easy commute to some of the region’s most beautiful natural treasures. Last year, it sold for $262,000 by a local elementary school teacher to a Wayne County businessman. It was remodeled with a mid-century touch and at least two additional bunk-beds before being listed on AirBnB by its new owner.”

“Since then, the home-turned-getaway is among the most popular short-term rentals in the region, bringing in passive profits for both its owner and an out-of-state rental management company, Evolve, which takes a 10 percent cut — the same rate Evolve charges to manage more than 100 northwest Michigan listings.”

“Data from InsideAirBnB show the number of listings in the northwest Lower Peninsula quadrupling in recent years. From Leelanau to Emmet counties, 4,210 AirBnB listings appear on the company’s site, up from fewer than 1,000 at the beginning of 2018. Grand Traverse County accounts for a quarter of the region’s listings, with hundreds of rentals cramped into Traverse City proper.”

“‘They are coming in with gobs of money,’ said Yarrow Brown, executive director for Housing North. ‘What’s happening nationwide is it’s becoming a more corporate opportunity. It’s not a couple having a second home doing AirBnB. It is a corporation signing up properties and renting them out — and making a lot of money.'”

“‘Come on vacation, leave on probation.’ That’s the saying referenced by Chuck Korn, Garfield Township’s supervisor, when he recalls the first complaints about short-term rentals. It hasn’t entirely stopped short-term renters. The township issues between 20 and 30 letters per year to homeowners who try to convert their home into a rental, according to data from the township’s planning commission. Some tell Korn their realtor led them to believe renting the property was legal.”

“Brown also is concerned that quick, cash buys from short-term rental investors are driving up area home prices for others. Sometimes, cash buys that go for above listing price can reset neighborhood housing prices, raising them in relation to that purchase. ‘The million dollar question is how is this impacting the real-estate prices, too?’ said Brown.”

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This Post Has 113 Comments

  1. ‘Many Island Park residents point to the Idaho 2017 Legislature’s House Bill 216 as a key factor in many of the issues regarding short-term rentals. The bill, which became law in January 2018, was intended to protect property rights by preventing cities and counties in Idaho from enacting or enforcing any ordinance that would prohibit a short-term rental from certain parts of their jurisdictions’

    Before some poster gets his libertarian sensibilities in a wad, again we see this mess was created by guberments. As in Arizona, they bribed the state clowns and stopped places like Sedona from regulating STR. Now they are 20% of the town and as a partial result, it’s emptying out. It’s not the only reason, but it’s part.

    1. STR destroyed the economy, and more importantly, the character, of every ski town in Colorado.

      LMFAO@ the entitled twits who live there or visit there and complain about a 20 minute wait for someone to make them a latte, because there are no coffee baristas left.

      STRs are a cancer everywhere they happen.

      1. STRs are a cancer everywhere they happen.

        Here in Lake Country, the taxes are so high on lake front houses that many owners rent them out by the week in the summer just to be able to keep them. The mere mortal people live away from the lake.

    2. So on one side we have cities like Santa Monica, Austin, San Francisco, NYC, New Orleans, Honolulu, etc. On the other side are states like Florida, Idaho, and Arizona, and you are aligned with the liberal cesspools. Interesting. Maybe it’s just me, but if my beliefs on any subject aligned me with the most progressive regions of the country and were contrary to the conservative regions, I would have my head examined post haste.

      1. You must be delusional if you think Idaho is aligned with anything liberal! The issues don’t separate by political belief or party! Being thrown into the center of local businesses having to close early because they can’t high for lack of housing or hour waits for restaurants isn’t political and residents in this mostly conservative area are done with the disregard for our beautiful area. Tourism is great, even STR are fine but when it takes over the housing for workers because greed takes precedence guess what both sides of the aisle are working together to help slow it down and regulate it. Throughout the country corporate interests are now taking a look at buying up homes for investment opportunities….no connection to the communities and certainly not regard for what it does to a community!

  2. ‘It is so disheartening when you see someone on their four-wheeler chasing a moose through your private property because they wanted to try and get a better picture of it’

    You can read the article for more of the local objects, photos of parking and litter. But this brings up an issue: these people are there to potty! With tequila shots in both hands. It’s not typically some bird watching couple from Japan.

    2. Yes. Seems they rip up at others’ properties and neighborhoods ‘cause they can’t do it at home, or in a normal hospitality setting. And it’s a patterned behavior not an anomaly.

      1. Many of these people do trespass and are shocked when asked to leave the property! They think their in the forest and have no concept that we also have neighborhoods!

  3. ‘A county housing study conducted in 2019 found that there was an oversupply of houses needed for local residents, but that short-term rental interests have been purchasing over half of new properties and driving up prices’

    Half!

    ‘From Leelanau to Emmet counties, 4,210 AirBnB listings appear on the company’s site, up from fewer than 1,000 at the beginning of 2018. Grand Traverse County accounts for a quarter of the region’s listings, with hundreds of rentals cramped into Traverse City proper’

    “‘They are coming in with gobs of money…What’s happening nationwide is it’s becoming a more corporate opportunity. It’s not a couple having a second home doing AirBnB. It is a corporation signing up properties and renting them out — and making a lot of money’

    The way I see it, this is phony money searching for yield, and finding a way to die. But a recurring theme: they spot an angle to exploit. Break the law, say they’re disrupting. Oh but if the can bribe a guvnah, we’re all for the law! When it turns to sh$t, they bring in lawyers. This big corporate involvement turned what was a craigslist thing last decade into the monsters we have today.

    1. It seems like once the pandemic squatters rights end, we may have no shortage of rental properties to choose from, as everybody wants to be a landlord these days. Who needs to deal with the hassles and expenses of homeownership, when you have a generous landlord willing to take on the headaches in order to compete for your rental income?

  4. ‘back in 2017 was Lower-Income Voucher Equity (LIVE) Denver, an ambitious plan to help some 400 moderate-income families—those earning between 40 and 80 percent of area median income—get into empty market-rate apartments’

    ‘Because at the time that we were designing the LIVE Denver program,’ says Erik Soliván, ‘Denver had some 30,000 vacant units in the metro area’

    Yeah, you got 30k empty airboxes and you need a guberment program to put 400 families in em.

    ‘Frisco city council is now hoping to achieve a 50% occupancy rate for it’s units in town’

    Now that’s a shortage right there.

    1. Real Journalists say Denver has 6,000 homeless. What the real number is is incalculable, but it’s visibly worse than I’ve ever seen in the decade plus I’ve been there.

      Vote like California, become California.

      1. One thing I thought about having followed these guys for years: given the crap construction and the amount of it, there’s only one way it can end and that’s total collapse of their RE market. It might be happening now, maybe a year or 3, but it will happen.

    1. Both. I well remember the 90’s when everyone was marching around in circles mindlessly chanting “Bill Gates! Microsoft! Windows!” As a software engineer, I knew OS/2 was a superior system, but people only listen to the TV, not to actual flesh and blood other people trying to explain things to them. Obviously matters have not improved since then.

      1. I met 2 or 3 people in the early 2000s who worked for Microsoft. The corporate culture struck me as cultish.

      2. IMO the late 90s were the Dark Ages for Apple. My lab advisor was an Apple fan, but all they did was crash and they weren’t compatible with the department’s shared printers. I chose a Windows machine for my first home PC. Then along came the iMac. No floppy drive, expensive separate cables. Oh, but it had celebrity commercials and came in “tangerine.” That was the final nail. I boycotted Apple for 13 years until I broke down and got an iPhone. I still won’t even look at their laptops.

  9. Many of the area’s part-time residents have turned their homes and cabins into income properties. It’s estimated there may be as many as 1,000 short-term rentals in Island Park, but only 60 percent are said to be properly permitted.”

    All of these STRs function as commercial hotels in residential areas, and should be taxed and regulated accordingly to eliminate their unfair advantage over hotels.

    1. Exactly. And calling them a STR and income properties defies their genuine residential use. They are in fact commercial and not residential.
      A one night or one week stay does not qualify one as a ‘resident’ BUT if it did, a landlord would need a residential eviction notice to remove someone from occupancy. I don’t know about laws in each state but in California, where I have expertise, residential and innkeeper laws for eviction are separate processes under separate laws.

  10. “However, we can legitimately make the case that due to the lack of affordable housing, the high cost of living, the exodus of families, especially working class families, being replaced by an influx of part-time second homeowners and well-off retired singles and couples without children at home means we have suffered a loss of input on our local democ­racy. Demographic changes have consequences.”

    The gold collar criminals at the Fed have turned housing, a basic human need, into just another speculative asset – and are still pumping up an already insane housing bubble by purchasing $40B a month in mortgage backed securities. We are going to pay a terrible price for letting these Keynesian fraudsters control our money issuance and monetary policy as the financial reckoning day bears down on us.

    1. We are going to pay a terrible price for letting these Keynesian fraudsters control our money issuance and monetary policy as the financial reckoning day bears down on us.”

      10% inflation and moving higher

    2. They are trying to tiptoe away from their insane printing press binge.

      History suggests the punchbowl removal process never works out well for the highflying gamblers who responded to the Fed’s gambling incentives, but maybe this time is different?

        2. I like this one even more:

          “Gentlemen, I have had men watching you for a long time and I am convinced that you have used the funds of the bank to speculate in the breadstuffs of the country. When you won, you divided the profits amongst you, and when you lost, you charged it to the bank. You tell me that if I take the deposits from the bank and annul its charter, I shall ruin ten thousand families. That may be true, gentlemen, but that is your sin! Should I let you go on, you will ruin fifty thousand families, and that would be my sin! You are a den of vipers and thieves. I intend to rout you out, and by the Eternal God, I will rout you out.”

          — Andrew Jackson, 1835

          I love that phrase: breadstuffs of the country.

  11. “So far, a majority of STRs are either lightly regulated or not regulated at all. Vacation rental owners in Curry County are supposed to apply for a county business license and pay a 7 percent transient lodging tax, but according to Crockett, of the 400 vacation properties in the county, only 100 of them have current business licenses and 300 pay the required transient lodging tax during the peak season summer months.”

    The STR industry has bought off corrupt local city councils to turn a blind eye to their conversion of residential housing into commercial lodging while driving up housing prices for the community. The voters need to wake up & reclaim their communities & city councils from these STR speculator parasites.

  12. ‘Regulating short term rentals of single family homes – the county has not taken a stance on that,’ said Heidi Kunstall, the community development director for Del Norte County.”

    I bet Heidi gets a cash-stuffed brown envelope each month from the STR mafia to keep things that way.

  13. “John Gorman reminded the Supes that some property owners rely on short-term rentals for income, saying, ‘You don’t want to kill the golden goose here, just screaming, deny all rentals.’”

    Get a real job, speculator scum. A golden goose creates wealth through value-added production, where STR rentals do nothing of the sort.

  14. ‘What’s happening nationwide is it’s becoming a more corporate opportunity. It’s not a couple having a second home doing AirBnB. It is a corporation signing up properties and renting them out — and making a lot of money.’”

    This is only possible thanks to the Fed flooding the financial system with created-out-of-thin-air Yellen Bux & gifting them at NIRP to its Wall Street accomplices like BlackRock, while destroying the purchasing power & standard of living for the 99 percent.

  16. Jupiter Florida is receiving more than it’s share of Democrat voters who have crossed the boundary formerly know as the international border separating Mexico and the United States this year.

    I had four such twenty something gentleman behind me in line at Walgreens last night. I had to check an item I had so I tried to be polite and let them to go around me. The young MS13 looking lads had no idea what I was saying or gesturing, I would have thought someone saying go ahead, nobody is going to stop you would have been the one thing they would have learned in their adoptive welfare state but that was clearly not the case. They looked at me and each other, spoke Spanish, looked puzzled and worried at the same time and I wasn’t sure if they were going to run out of the store, stab me or read a memorized statement about being asylum-seekers fleeing violence and persecution from their home country.

    Maybe if someone was frisking me to see if I was carrying fentanyl they would have known to go around me.

    1. I am seeing them throughout Sarasota. It is decimating. It takes a western mind to create and keep western civilization. To think what our ancestors sacrificed, invented, created — to give us this marvel of a standard of living and then to see the intentional destruction is a protracted grieving process. I fought this fight against sowers if sh1t Traitor Ted Kennedy for years and his 1965 immigration act, where it all started and has now accelerated.

  17. The globalists & their Quislings are crafting the narrative to support their scheme to purge the Armed Forces of Trump supporters and any heritage Americans who take seriously their oath to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign & domestic. We’re gonna need a bigger gulag….

    Three retired generals warn of a CIVIL WAR if 2024 election results are not accepted by sections of the military following a ‘Trumpian figure’: Demand leaders of Jan. 6 are brought to justice

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10324435/Generals-warn-divided-military-fuel-new-CIVIL-WAR-theres-coup-attempt-2024-election.html

    Three retired US generals warned Friday that America’s divided military could fuel a new civil war if there’s another coup attempt after the 2024 election because ‘more than 1 in 10 of those charged in January 6 attacks had a service record’.

    Former Army Major Gen Paul Eaton, former Brigadier Gen Steven Anderson and former Army Major Gen Antonio Taguba made the worrisome claim in a column for The Washington Post.

    1. you would think they should have more important things to worry about

      The DF-ZF, designated by Pentagon as the WU-14, is a hypersonic missile delivery vehicle that has been flight-tested by China seven times, on 9 January, 7 August and 2 December 2014; 7 June and 27 November 2015; in April 2016 and twice in November 2017. The system is operational as of 2019.

      1. Citizen! Turning our Armed Forces into a social engineering testbed is far more important than being able to fight & win wars! Forward!

        Air Force goes woke and allows the use of gender pronouns in email signatures, saying it’s ‘authorized but not required’

        https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10325235/Air-Force-goes-woke-allows-use-gender-pronouns-email-signatures.html

        The United States Air Force is authorizing the use of gender-neutral and gender-specific pronouns in email signature boxes.

        The Air Force made it clear that allowing for emails to end with he/him, she/her and they/them would be allowed in a memo on December 9.

    2. Obama purged over 300 high ranking naval officers and that was just a start.
      Our savior may be the jab. The holdouts appear to be informed libertarians.

      1. Our savior may be the jab. The holdouts appear to be informed libertarians.

        Aren’t they getting the boot, too?

        That would leave jabbed incompetents “defending” the country. And many of those will eventually be too ill to serve.

  18. Oh dear….

    China’s property distress sours steel sector in warning sign for economy

    https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/chinas-property-distress-sours-steel-sector-warning-sign-economy-2021-12-19/

    BEIJING, Dec 19 (Reuters) – Debt problems at a major Chinese property developer have now spilled over into a vital artery of the nation’s industrial engine – the steel sector – and started to ripple through to other critical parts of the world’s second-largest economy.

    1. China’s real estate construction implosion will have many layers of ripple effects, as they have socially engineered one of the most real estate dependent economies in the history of Planet Earth.

  19. Democrat-Bolshevik officials are a classy bunch.

    Portland’s Cop-Hating City Commissioner, Jo Ann Hardesty, In Trouble With Creditors Again

    https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/jeff-reynolds/2021/12/17/portlands-cop-hating-city-commissioner-jo-ann-hardesty-in-trouble-with-creditors-again-n1542311

    For the second time in recent years, Jo Ann Hardesty has been sued by a bank for non-payment of a debt. This may be the least of her problems, however. Her response, naturally, is to create a diversion by suing the City of Portland and the Portland Police Bureau. When one looks past the diversion and examines her history, one can clearly see a pattern of mismanagement in Hardesty’s personal life, along with several incidences of breaching organizational trust. This begs the question: how responsible can she be as a public servant?

    The most recent lawsuit concerns a credit card debt Hardesty appears to have blown off, leading to a simple suit in circuit court to obtain a judgment and enforce repayment. If negotiations for repayment fail, such a judgment is often followed by court orders for wage garnishment, bank account garnishment, or even a property lien.

    1. City Commissioner, Jo Ann Hardesty:
      -Previous Lawsuits
      -Traffic Tickets
      -Gambling?
      -Substance Abuse?
      -The NAACP Issue
      -The Hit And Run

      Synopsis: You can take Jo Ann out of the ghetto, but you can’t take the ghetto out of Jo Ann.

  21. I’ll be masked for Christmas
    You can count on me
    Please have snow and mistletoe
    And COVID-19 home test kits by the tree

    Christmas Eve will find me
    Where Omicron gleams
    I’ll be masked for Christmas
    If only in my dreams

  22. WHAT IS THE FED?

    The Federal Reserve, “the Fed”, is the central bank of the United States of America that was created in 1913 by Congress. It is a banking cartel that has a government-granted monopoly on the creation of money and credit. The Fed literally loans “money” (Federal Reserve Notes) into existence. Federal Reserve Notes are paper promises backed by nothing of intrinsic value and they are only functioning as money because the government forces them on the public through legal tender laws. Federal Reserve Notes are referred to as dollars but are not. The definition of a dollar is a weight of silver (371 grains). To put it simply, the Fed is a group of banks running a national criminal counterfeiting racket with the protection of the government.

    http://endthefed.org

    1. It was a banker heist. There is no reason to borrow money from a private banking cabal and pay interest in money loaned to the US Treasury. That bill passed on the late eve of December 24, 1913 when only a few Congress were present. It was planned that way because it would not have passed with a fully seated Congress.
      Woodrow Wilson later lamented signing the Bill, stating he believed he sold out his countrymen.

  24. CDC Massively Inflated Number of ‘Vaccinated’ Americans

    by Chris Menahan | Information Liberation
    December 19th 2021, 9:41 am

    State and local officials say it’s improbable that 37 million Americans got one shot without completing their inoculations. Instead, they say, the government has regularly and incorrectly counted booster shots and second doses as first doses, a dynamic the CDC acknowledged in a statement.

    “The truth is, we have no idea,” said Clay Marsh, West Virginia’s Covid czar.

    https://www.infowars.com/

  26. “The 2020 US Census found that Sedona’s popula­tion again fallen to 9,684, below our historical high of 10,192 in 2000 and below 10,031 residents in 2010. Our growth rate is -3.5%.”

    Sedona seems to be heading in the same direction as California is heading…South.

  27. Imagine if the Catholic Church was led by a pontiff with actual moral authority, unlike the globalist-installed, pedo-protecting leftist charlatan that’s filling that role today.

    “A Global Coup Has Been Carried Out Across the World – Has Destroyed the Very Foundations of the Rule of Law” – Archbishop Vigano’s Message to America (Transcript and Audio)

    https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/12/italian-archbishop-vigano-sends-message-american-people-2/

    Italian Archbishop Vigano sent a message to the American people. He continues to speak out against the globalist threat this Christmas season.

    DEAR AMERICAN PEOPLE, DEAR FRIENDS, for two years now, a global coup has been carried out all over the world, planned for some time by an elite group of conspirators enslaved to the interests of international high finance. This coup was made possible by an emergency pandemic that is based on the premise of a virus that has a mortality rate almost analogous to that of any other seasonal flu virus, on the delegitimization and prohibition of effective treatments, and on the distribution of an experimental gene serum which is obviously ineffective, and which also clearly carries with it the danger of serious and even lethal side effects. We all know how much the mainstream media has contributed to supporting the insane pandemic narrative, the interests that are at stake, and the goals of these groups of power: reducing the world population, making those who survive chronically ill, and imposing forms of control that violate the fundamental rights and natural liberties of citizens. And yet, two years after this grotesque farce started, which has claimed more victims than a war and destroyed the social fabric, national economies, and the very foundations of the rule of law, nothing has changed in the policies of Nations and their response to the so-called pandemic.

  28. Stamp yer little feet, Little Red Lyin’ Hood. Stamp ’em, stamp ’em!

    Furious Jen Psaki is blindsided by Joe Manchin’s ‘sudden and inexplicable’ decision to kill Biden’s $1.75 trillion Build Back Better spending bill: Democrat ‘refused’ to take call from the White House minutes before announcing position live on TV

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10326209/Democrat-Joe-Manchin-says-hes-NO-President-Bidens-Build-Better-agenda.html

    3. ‘Let’s be clear: Manchin’s excuse is bulls**t,’ Representative Ilhan Omar tweeted on Sunday. ‘The people of West Virginia would directly benefit from childcare, pre-Medicare expansion, and long term care, just like Minnesotans.’

      Angry Donkey!

    4. Psaki is furious at Manchin’s supposed broken promises. Problem is, they believed that Manchin promised to vote for a $1.7-Trillion-BBB-no-matter-what’s-in-it. So they figured, all we go to do is get BBB down to $1.7 trillion-no-matter-how. So instead of taking out all the programs he didn’t like, they took out a couple programs and then simply cut the funding from 10 years to 2-3 years.

      But Manchin didn’t fall for it (he said as much on Fox). Manchin didn’t really care about the total cost. He wanted a lot of programs OUT entirely. Not just the big stuff, but probably a lot of the little porkies we never heard about. That’s why he’s saying No.

      The funniest part was Bernie Sanders screeching that Manchin will have to “explain to the voters of West Virginia” why blah blah. Heh, West Virginia went 70% for Trump. Manchin doesn’t have to explain 💩. And I suspect that Manchin actually read the entire bill, unlike most of the Dems.

      (On a side note, I’m starting to believe that it’s Psaki who’s actually running the country behind Biden. She’s supposed to be the President’s mouthpiece, but she’s acting far too independently for that.)

  29. Gloom, Despair & Agony…

    https://youtu.be/ZAAKPJEq1Ew

    By Allie Malloy and Maegan Vazquez, CNN

    Updated 6:30 PM ET, Thu December 16, 2021

    (CNN) President Joe Biden on Thursday warned people who are not vaccinated against Covid-19 are looking at a very bleak and dangerous winter if they do not get their shots soon.

    “I want to send a direct message to the American people: Due to the steps we’ve taken Omicron has not yet spread as fast as it would have otherwise done,” Biden said in remarks at the White House following his Covid-19 briefing Thursday.

    “But it’s here now and it’s spreading and it’s gonna increase. … We are looking at a winter of severe illness and death for the unvaccinated — for themselves, their families and the hospitals they’ll soon overwhelm. But there’s good news: If you’re vaccinated and you have your booster shot, you’re protected from severe illness and death,” the President added.

    Biden also called on individuals to get vaccinated to protect the country’s economic recovery.

    2. “Just two jabs, and you’ll be immune!”

      “OK, just two jabs, and if you get infected, it won’t be that bad.”

      “OK, just two jabs and a booster and you’ll be ‘protected’, we promise!”

      “OK, you’ll probably need boosters for the rest of your life, but only once a year, we promise!”

      “OK, maybe twice a year. Oh, and the jab won’t protect you from the variant du jour, but the booster, which in theory is the exact same cr@p, but at a lower dosage, will protect you.”

      “And please ignore the VAERS numbers or Pfizer’s safety report. We know that they look very bad, but you’re just a layperson and couldn’t possibly understand what they mean.”

    3. CDC decides to “not recommend” J&J shots, but isn’t pulling them off the market. They’re popping champagne corks at Pfizer. I’m glad I got two J&Js in me before they try to shove me with a mRNA booster. Now it’s time for Omicron to peak and be over. I give it until Easter.

      1. CDC decides to “not recommend” J&J shots, but isn’t pulling them off the market.

        The CDC’s goalposts not only have wheels, but they are motorized.

      1. I thought it was the lack of staff at assisted living facilities, so the hospitals have nowhere to discharge these vulnerable patients?

      3. They have been lying about hospital bed shortage since day 1

        Gee, the Ministry of Truth has been lying through its teeth? Knock me over with a feather!

        We all know that they want a needle in every arm. It’s why they publish stories about:

        Antivaxxers who get sick and die.
        Unvaxxed who get very sick and who “beg people to get the jab”.
        How the overwhelming majority of hospitalized are unvaxxed (which is certainly a bald faced lie)
        How hospitals are “bursting at the seams with covid patients”
        Etc.

        It’s all about fear mongering. And I hate to say it, but it works. After holding out for a year, my sister succumbed to the propaganda and got jabbed in November. And now she has heart palpitations and other arrhythmias.

      4. FWIW: Johns Hopkins has been involved in decades of pandemic simulation exercises, including Event 201. The “Latest News & Resources” on their Coronavirus Resource Center are from Trusted News Initiative partners.

        1. Yes! I’d be extremely leery of anything coming out of John Hopkins. I’d put them in the same company as the CDC and WHO.

    5. even CNN switching jerseys on “covid cases” as a relevant metric
      watch as the truth becomes too large to hide behind the pandemocratic narrative

      “hospitalizations,” likely to be the new stat of choice, are even slipperier than cases and have even greater potential to mislead.

      “vaccinated vs unvaccinated” is being wildly misrepresented in the US by using severely incomplete electronic records systems that fail to count those vaccinated at drug stores or pop up clinics or even at your own doctor in many cases. they look nothing like the data from any trustworthy country.

      they also do not discern between “in hospital for covid” or “in hospital with asymptomatic or unthreatening covid as an incidental issue” or the other big one “picked up covid nosocomially in the hospital as a trace infection.” all are extremely profitable for hospitals to find and generate access to new billing codes, federal funding, and insurance pools. hospitals are literally mining for it.

    1. Not only low water levels, but among a variety of issues there is also a significant volume of silt build-up along the bottom of the outlet channel leading up to the dam itself.

    2. Those drainage tunnels are simply huge. I’ve seen them in person and they are simply mind boggling in size.

    1. The Financial Times
      Pensions industry
      Cash flush US corporate pension plans pour billions into safety of bonds
      Booming equities mean schemes are on course to be fully funded for the first time since the financial crisis
      Roaring markets have improved the financial health of US pension funds, which have responded by banking the gains
      © Bloomberg
      Nicholas Megaw in New York 15 hours ago

      America’s largest corporate pension plans are pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into the bond market and out of riskier assets like stocks after soaring equity prices helped plug their funding gaps for the first time in over a decade.

      Industry experts estimate that as much as 10 per cent of assets in the $3tn corporate pension industry have been transferred to less risky assets since the start of the coronavirus pandemic due to a recent surge in the financial health of pension plans. Their “insatiable demand’‘ is helping to prop up prices for high-quality debt.

      Since the start of 2020, the average funded ratio of the 100 largest corporate plans in the US has jumped from 88 per cent to 98 per cent, and is on track to soon pass 100 per cent for the first time since the 2008 financial crisis, according to pension advisory firm Milliman. Funded ratios measure the value of a pension plan’s assets relative to how much it will have to pay out in future.

      “Not only have markets helped funded ratios improve, but corporate plans have taken action by banking those gains,” said Martin Jaugietis, co-head of Americas pensions at BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager.

      Jaugietis said that about 80 per cent of BlackRock’s corporate clients have sped up “de-risking” since the start of the pandemic because they now have less need to chase big returns. On average, plans have moved between 8 to 10 per cent of their assets into fixed income. A similar pattern across the entire industry would be equivalent to between $250bn and $300bn of inflows into bonds.
      …

    2. If pension funds are reallocating from stocks to bonds, and the Fed is preparing to take away the alcohol-infused punch bowl, what exactly is propping up the stock market these daze?

  34. Goodnight to all from deep inside Region IV in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics of Bidonea (USSRB)

    “I consider it completely unimportant who in the party will vote, or how; but what is extraordinarily important is this—who will count the votes, and how.”

    Joseph Stalin

  35. We don’t seem to complain as much as we used to on this blog about state and municipal union goons and their gold plated pensions.

    Well, sometime the goons get the tables turned on them:

    A COVID-19 vaccine mandate and passport in Boston — just as virus cases and hospitalizations surge ahead of Christmas — will likely spark a legal fight from unions and other groups.

    Boston Mayor Michelle Wu on Monday is set to announce a slate of new coronavirus vaccine policies as the highly contagious omicron variant quickly spreads and COVID-19 hospitalizations spike.

    Wu wouldn’t specify the new vaccine policies when asked on Sunday, but city unions over the weekend told their members about a “major change” in particular: City employees will have to get vaccinated, and they can no longer test out of the vaccination mandate. The workers could get fired if they don’t get the shot.

    So, not only “no jab, no job”, but for the non fully vested “no pension”. And the unions are not happy about this, not one bit, and are going to try to fight it.

    Sounds like the firefighters, cops and paramedics have a front row seat to the vaxx injury carnage festival and know that the vaxxes are neither safe nor effective.

    Shana Cottone, an organizer of Boston First Responders United, said her group is ready to “take this to court if we have to.”

    “We implore her (Wu) to leave the testing option in place. Testing has been that middle ground,” Cottone said. “Can the city afford to lose tenured, well-trained, experienced police officers, firefighters and EMTs? These are the people who would be terminated.”

    Will the unions go on strike? I hope so.

    1. as … COVID-19 hospitalizations spike.

      Your MSM is misleading readers to believe that Omicron is causing the spike in hospitalizations. No, the spike in cases is Delta cases from Thanksgiving travel, and the hospitalizations which follow. For Omicron info, South Africa is in the lead and the UK is next. Take Vitamin D, folks.

      1. the spike in hospitalizations

        Consider that the number of beds has been in decline so that the spike in hospitalizations is actually a spike in percent of capacity with fewer staffed beds. The hospital capacity is always a measure of scheduled nursing staff, not physical beds.

        Ironic that firing of unvaxxed heroes can be advertised as a spike in OMICRON.

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