I Was Willing To Sacrifice Unnecessary Purchases To Own A House, But What Have I Gained?

1. ‘submitting false bank statements, fictitious checks for child support and alimony, and other documents that inflated their income. The Federal Housing Administration, which insured many of the loans, spent $486,000 to protect some of the borrowers from foreclosures when they were unable to make their payments, prosecutors said’

   That’s a mighty a$$ pounding FHA, but won’t make a dent in 100 bad loans.

   1. “$486,000”

      How much foreclosure protection does less than half the resale value of a single, bubble-priced, used California McMansion buy?

2. [What follows is a non-housing related article.]

   Greenland Surface Temperatures Fall for 20 Years in Fresh Blow to Climate Alarm Narrative

   https://wattsupwiththat.com/2024/11/26/greenland-surface-temperatures-fall-for-20-years-in-fresh-blow-to-climate-alarm-narrative/

   Further evidence that surface temperatures across Greenland have been cooling for around 20 years has emerged with the recent publication of findings from a group of Thai scientists and mathematicians. Processing 31,464 satellite recording from 2000-2019 over the entire area, they found that the average temperature fell by 0.11°C. This is said to indicate a “non-significant change in LST [land surface temperature]”. The latest evidence of actual cooling over a significant area of the Arctic will not be news in scientific circles since it backs up previous findings of recent temperature falls. But the information is of course kept out of the mainstream since it casts doubt on the key Net Zero scare about soaring sea levels caused by the catastrophic melting of the Greenland ice sheet.

   There are some crumbs of comfort for alarmists since the Thai authors found that the ice-free sub-regions of Greenland are warmer than the ice-covered sub regions. But perhaps not – the authors attributed it to “population density”. Urban heat yet again corrupting the temperature data, even in Greenland. The illustration below charts the temperature record for all areas of Greenland.

   [A chart appears here …]

   The World Economic Forum recently reported on a study that predicted a “total collapse” of the Greenland ice sheet within a few months. This suggestion is only slightly more ludicrous than the scares routinely published to induce mass psychosis in populations with the aim of promoting a collectivist command-and-control Net Zero solution. The recent farce around the COP in Baku showed the conspiracy operating in plain sight. Stop the developing word developing with hydrocarbons, then invent a number of fake scares such as island states disappearing beneath the waves. Everyone knows this and most of the other scares are false as scientists have shown on numerous occasions, but no matter. Invent some ridiculous composite figure – say $250 billion a year, or $1.3 billion by 2035 – then pretend your taxpayers can be rinsed even though the only country that could conceivably afford it is leaving the party in January.

   All of this means that genuine attempts to explain the science around the climate changing are stuck in a ‘settled’ narrative hellhole. The corals can grow like topsy in record amounts on the Great Barrier Reef and the Arctic sea ice can show a small decade-long recovery. Meanwhile, mainstream media and politics prefer to take their cue from characters like ‘Jim’ Dale, who points out of the window and attributes every puff of wind to a human cause.

   Nowhere is this lack of scientific inquiry more evident than at the two Poles of the Earth. Antarctica has barely warmed during 70 years of detailed observations, while the situation in the Arctic, as we can see, is complex and open to many interpretations. The Thai mathematicians stick mainly to their statistics and find “no evidence of warming over ice-free and ice-covered areas”. But they do note earlier work by a group of Japanese scientists (Matsumura et al. 2021) that suggested the Central Pacific El Niño Southern Oscillation teleconnection played a “key role” in recent summer Arctic climate change.

   The Matsumura team found a recent slowdown in Greenland ice loss and warming. The El Niño role is also thought to have helped the recent overall Arctic sea ice recovery. Changes around Greenland can be attributed to “natural variability, rather than anthropogenic forcing”, note the scientists. “Most climate models were unable to reasonably simulate the unforced natural variability over Greenland,” they added.

   As we can see, Antarctica is another difficult place to get a good scare going due to a decades-long lack of any warming. Fears of a ‘tipping point’ are often heard after natural melting and ice breaks in western Antarctica. But late last year, the Daily Sceptic highlighted a paper by a group of international scientists that found significant recent cooling across the entire area. The paper was published by the American Meteorological Society and it observed a 2°C fall in the 20 years to 2018. During the spring season, the fall was a massive 1.84°C every decade, while the winter reduction came in at 1.19°C over the same time period. As is usual when temperatures drop, the carbon dioxide blame game is laid aside and answers are sought in natural climate variations. In this case it was noted that temperatures in the eastern Pacific equatorial region had dropped over the last 20 years under review.

   Again don’t expect the climate models to have much idea about what is happening in the real atmosphere. There is said to be “no robust agreement” among the models on the important sea temperatures driving the western Antarctica air temperature.

   1. Just like a watermelon: green on the outside, red on the inside.

   2. “…the average temperature fell by 0.11°C.”

      Is that alot? What was the normal range of variation in the Greenland average before climate change was a thing?

      The daily temperature range where we live is 11°C, which is 100 times that amount.

      1. The article was discussing the average temperature drop over a period of twenty years, not the daily temperature range.

         1. She also said Buditaslim, an immigrant from Indonesia, is a volunteer worker in low-income neighborhoods and has suffered from HIV/AIDS for many years.”

            Do the crime, do the time. Personal circumstances do not change culpability. More of the liberal “find the root cause” cr*p.

         2. Of course.

            My point was that articles like this report changes in long-term temperature averages as prima-facie evidence of some kind of global catastrophe without any reference to whether the magnitude of the reported changes are large enough to even matter.

3. [Another non-housing related article …]

   The Libs Are Not Alright.

   Political fearmongering has real psychological consequences.

   https://americanmind.org/salvo/the-libs-are-not-alright/

   In the wake of Donald Trump’s crushing victory over Vice President Kamala Harris, social media has been flooded with videos of apartment- or vehicle-bound neurotics screaming, banging pots and pans in sheer disbelief, packing their belongings, or generally convulsing as if Kristallnacht were upon us. The American public has been introduced to the 4B movement, in which liberal women appropriate a South Korean sex strike because justice.

   To be sure, social media is at best a caricature of real life. Only the most dramatic individuals will shave their heads for “reproductive rights” (read: for likes), but most people do not express themselves in quite such a hyperbolic register. That said, in this case the memes are imitating real life. Not every ex-Kamala voter is experiencing a full-scale breakdown. But judging based on my own clinical observations as a practicing therapist, I think it may well be true that a significant number of young American leftists are going through a collective mental health crisis.

   I speak from some experience, having spent multiple hours per day over the past few weeks hearing from clients about the damage inflicted upon their psyches “by the Trump win.” This is their account of things. My own opinion, however, is that someone has subjected these kids to psychic trauma. But it wasn’t Donald Trump.

   First Things

   I usually begin each appointment by reminding clients of our previous appointment, whereupon the client usually picks up where he or she left off, telling me about personal struggles, generational dynamics, or relationship problems. But since Trump’s victory, a startling number of clients have simply pivoted to another subject entirely. Usually I hear some variation of “I just can’t. I just can’t,” before I am told, with some incredulity that it needs saying, that it is impossible to focus on anything other than THE ELECTION.

   When, after listening to a client’s political fears, I gently suggest that we should now get back to discussing his husband’s death, cocaine use, crushing panic while driving, infidelity, or what have you, I am waved off as if we needed a full clinical hour to talk about Trump, WW3, reproductive rights, or a future daughter’s reproductive rights. Maybe the most jarring comment I heard was from a client who expressed relief that a close relative had already died and thus escaped “this sh*t that’s about to go down.”

   One truism I’ve observed in my practice is: “you love what you pay attention to.” I am not saying that my clients spend $180 to talk about the election because they don’t care about their addiction, spouses, etc. But I am saying that they are choosing to prioritize, and therefore nourish, their hatred for Trump. This of course increases their distress, which increases their hatred. This is not a vicious cycle they all just stumbled into by unfortunate happenstance. They were taught incessantly—by friends, by online forums, by figures they trust in the media—that Trump trumps all.

   Spiraling Out

   Practitioners of what’s called positive psychology will often talk in terms of clients’ tendency to fixate on either an external or an internal locus of control. Different individuals will either instinctually take responsibility for problems that arise, or defer responsibility to another person, system, or institution. A teenage boy who gets caught with weed, if his natural locus of control is internal, will admit fault and responsibility even if everyone else on the soccer team tried it at the party. A boy whose natural inclination is external will cite peer pressure, or insist that his friends’ parents said it was fine. Although one type of locus isn’t necessarily better than the other, the external locus of control does tend to foster victimhood. Often it needs to be counterbalanced by inward focus in order to facilitate agency and improvement. Taking radical responsibility for one’s issues is a key engine of change.

   I have been working with some of my clients for quite some time now, and many have gradually learned to shift their locus of control inward. This has aided them in their mental health pursuits. But one common trait I have noticed amongst my Trump-focused clients is that, when the Orange Man comes up, they dart instantly back to an external locus of control. After the election, many of them have taken notable steps backward in our work together. One client even reverted to a cocaine habit after three months of sobriety because “What’s the point now?”

   Another client who struggles with depression reported just sitting in bed to “rot” for two days straight. Others have threatened to cut off their parents because they don’t know how they can possibly have another conversation with family members who voted for Trump. These clients are spiraling back out to an external locus of control.

   The tragic element in all these cases is that these fragile individuals have been violently interrupted in their healing progress by a completely imaginary evil, projected in Hitler-moustachioed IMAX across the pages of The New Republic, blared from the anchor’s desk on CNN, and generally beaten into the heads of everyone in their immediate circle of trust. And though I personally make a principle of never sharing my political beliefs, some therapists actually encourage their clients’ persecution complexes by adopting an overtly ideological approach, attributing trauma to “systems” of racism, sexism, or homophobia. The effects of this are as you would expect. It is the opposite of helpful.

   The Stanford- and Harvard-trained psychiatrist Dr. Paul Conti has qualified what exactly, good mental health means. According to Dr. Conti, someone who exemplifies good mental health, and therefore someone who can be considered “well-adjusted,” cultivates an attitude of gratitude and a feeling of personal autonomy. Keeping this definition in mind, one does not need to be a trained psychotherapist to understand how mental health has deteriorated so grievously in the past 20 or so years, especially among those who lean Left.

   When parents, teachers, university professors, and statesmen espouse a rhetoric of ingratitude and dependence, it is no wonder why much of the public suffer from anxiety, depression, and compulsion. Of course, we will laugh at the libs of TikTok shaving their heads and screaming in their cars. But we have to realize this is not the worst of it. If anything, those who engage in such spectacles may have more promise, given that they are more than likely to be opportunistic actors who abandon their political ideas as lightly as they take them up. But we should not laugh at those who break their sobriety, or plunge into isolation because of the Trump victory. They are truly sick, and ideological bad actors have preyed off their desperation for personal clout, terrorizing them with confected fears and then discarding them to suffer the psychological consequences.

   There’s a mental health crisis in this country—on this we can all agree. But the peddlers of Trump Derangement Syndrome don’t seem to care that their cynical, apocalyptic politics bear no small part of the blame.

   1. ‘Maybe the most jarring comment I heard was from a client who expressed relief that a close relative had already died and thus escaped “this sh*t that’s about to go down”

      There’s always a silver lining.

   2. When, after listening to a client’s political fears, I gently suggest that we should now get back to discussing his husband’s death, cocaine use, crushing panic while driving, infidelity, or what have yo

      So, crazy, damaged people vote for the Left. Knock me over with a feather.

      Sounds like this shrink has a gravy train of brittle people he will never be able to help, never mind “cure”. Anyway, as far as I can see, therapists are nothing more than people you pay to be your friend.

      1. “Sounds like this shrink has a gravy train of brittle people he will never be able to help, never mind ‘cure’.”

         I know a person who went broke running a physical therapy business in part because she was successful at curing ailing people. Curing a person of an ailment means no repeat business from that person.

         She was relentlessly in search of new customers and most months was driven into the red because she could not find enough of them to keep her business alive.

         1. Yup, a physical therapy program should last a few months at most. It might not meet all the objectives, but at some point the insurance will say “that’s enough”.

            Meanwhile, psychotherapists have “patients” for years. Today’s version of blood leeches.

            1. Hollywood types are perennial “patients” and yet most of them seem totally nuts.

            2. They are nuts because they are Hollywood types. One must be nuts to pay some of the prices these nuts pay in order to even get shot at an audition.

            3. “Meanwhile, psychotherapists have “patients” for years.”

               Worth it if the bird is happily put-n-out and not sh*t in the bed. 🙂

         2. You can buy exercise bands, a TENS unit, a heating pad, and find a couple YouTube videos and PT is now DIY, at least for minor ailments like tendonitis. For the more major stuff best to go to the pros.

            1. The “pros” don’t cure mental illness. They monetize it. TDS will be the richest vein of all.

            2. The “pros” don’t cure mental illness. They monetize it. TDS will be the richest vein of all.
               You nailed it, I already tried to convince my buddy he contact several online mental health companies. MA in education with College teaching experience, this should be enough to get a return call/email. He has TDS so he thinks I am an A$$ for mocking these people.
               But I was serious about these positions being potentially lucrative and working from your house.

   3. There’s a mental health crisis in this country—on this we can all agree. But the peddlers of Trump Derangement Syndrome don’t seem to care that their cynical, apocalyptic politics bear no small part of the blame.

      From their perspective this isn’t a bug, it’s a feature.

      1. John Paul II aptly called this is “the culture of death”.

   4. Kamala Not Doing Well – Mark Dice
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pTwbMo101o
      * uploaded 4-hrs ago, 9-min, 43-sec

      1. The Stelter bit was heart warming, didn’t realize how much I missed those. 🙂

   5. “they are choosing to prioritize, and therefore nourish, their hatred for DJT”

      TDS needs to be professionally studied, and probably added to the DSM-V. I’m not being facetious. Examples:

      1. Medical professionals suppressed HCQ and IVM as potential COVID treatments for the sole reason that DJT simply could not be allowed to have a success. They knew on some level that patients could DIE. And yet, they chose to nourish their hatred of DJT instead.

      2. The NYC elite and media elite, for example Oprah, loved DJT… until he said chose the side of the working class. They turned on him like hungry hyenas, even though he has not changed his policies — or even his exaggerated speech patterns — in the past 40 years.

      3. Traditional Republicans turned into Never-DJTers almost overnight. He trusted them and they leaked and sabotaged his first term. Bill Kristol and the Cheneys were so infected with TDS that they joined the trannies and commies.

      What is going on here? None of this appears to be normal, or even a normal grief cycle. Surely there are some young psych grad students who could conduct some interviews and try to figure this out.

   6. I’m willing to help them pack.

   7. Shame on me, I’m enjoying the f*** out of it!

4. [Yet another non-housing related article …]

   NYT & Bloomberg Bury Rutgers Study Showing DEI Makes People Hostile.

   https://www.zerohedge.com/political/nyt-bloomberg-bury-rutgers-study-showing-dei-makes-people-hostile

   Corporate media outlets have buried, downplayed, or otherwise shelved a new study which reveals that “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) policies cause people to become ‘hostile’ – essentially seeing racism where none exists.

   The new study from the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) and Rutgers University found that people exposed to DEI talking points about race, religion and gender form integroup hostility and authoritarian attitudes towards others.

   “What we did was we took a lot of these ideas that were found to still be very prominent in a lot of these DEI lectures and interventions and training,” said NCRI Chief Science Officer Joel Finkelstein, a co-author of the study. “And we said, ‘Well, how is this going to affect people?’ What we found is that when people are exposed to this ideology, what happens is they become hostile without any indication that anything racist has happened.”

   Researchers exposed 324 participants to two sets of reading material; a racially-neutral text about corn, or the writings of race-baiters Ibram X. Kendi or Robin DiAngelo. The participants were then exposed to a racially neutral scenario in which a student was rejected from college.

   [A chart and some other stuff appears here …]

   The implications of these findings cannot be downplayed. DEI programs have become a fixture in workplaces, schools, and universities across the United States, with a 2023 Pew Research Center report indicating that more than half of U.S. workers have attended some form of DEI training. Institutions collectively spend approximately $8 billion annually on these initiatives, yet the NCRI study underscores how little scrutiny they receive. While proponents of DEI argue that these programs are essential to achieving equity and dismantling systemic oppression, the NCRI’s data suggests that such efforts may actually be deepening divisions and cultivating hostility.

   This context makes the suppression of the study even more alarming. The New York Times, which has cited NCRI’s work in nearly 20 previous articles, suddenly demanded that this particular research undergo peer review—a requirement that had never been imposed on the institute’s earlier findings, even on similarly sensitive topics like extremism or online hate. At Bloomberg, the story was quashed outright by an editor known for public support of DEI initiatives. The editorial decisions were ostensibly justified as routine discretion, yet they align conspicuously with the ideological leanings of those involved. Are these major outlets succumbing to pressures to protect certain narratives at the expense of truth?

   Research cited in the report highlights how many DEI programs rely on untested theories or unverified self-reports, with little oversight or accountability. A 2021 meta-analysis found that some initiatives not only fail to reduce prejudice but actually exacerbate it, fueling resentment and perceptions of unfairness. The NCRI study’s findings echo these conclusions, suggesting that far from fostering inclusion, DEI programs may perpetuate a cycle of suspicion and punitive retribution.

   Yet, as troubling as the study’s findings are, its suppression may be even more consequential. The decision to withhold this research from public discourse speaks to a larger issue: the growing entanglement of ideology and information. In a moment when public trust in institutions is already fragile, the media’s role as a gatekeeper of information becomes all the more worrying. When powerful outlets like The New York Times and Bloomberg withhold stories of such significance, they fracture trust with the American people.

   1. Corporate executives probably thought they could implement DEI programs in their firms to placate activists. Since they believe that all employees are basically equivalent and fungible that they could hire some DEI’s with no ill effect. That is until they discovered that it was actually affecting the ability to perform the firm’s mission and profit.

      1. I know a person, a white male, who sings the praises of DEI because the company he works for hired people unsuitable for the job and thus, by default, made him look good by comparison.

         If an employer is desperate to get a task done then he/she will assign this task to a person he/she can rely on. In this case this person was that white male. According to him assigning a task to him guaranteed that the task would be completed; Assigning the task to a person unsuitable to the job would probably result in an excuse – a reason – of why the task couldn’t be completed.

         1. I know a person, a white male, who sings the praises of DEI because the company he works for hired people unsuitable for the job and thus, by default, made him look good by comparison.

            The jokes on him, because the DEI’s were still getting the lion’s share of raises, bonuses and RSU’s. And to add insult to injury your friend had to work extra hard to put out the fires the inept DEI’s would start, then watch as they would get all the credit, accolades and promotions.

            1. The joke was not on him, the joke was on the DEI employees and the managers of the company.

               First of all, he loved his job; Most of the DEI employees hated theirs. Each workday can be wonderful experience if one loves his job and a bitch of a day if he/she doesn’t.

               Secondly, as he put it, he was in the “Catbird Seat”; He had the CAPABILITY of performing the job while the RESPONSIBILITY was left to the managers. This made life easy for him and a bitch for the managers.

            2. Did he enjoy attending all the classes where an obese POC from HR would shout that he was the problem?

               The problem with being in the cat bird seat is that sometimes you can’t put put the fires the inept make, and sometimes you are blamed for it.

               As for the DEI’s being miserable, were the raises and bonuses not big enough? Or was it because deep inside they knew they were frauds?

            3. “Did he enjoy attending all the classes where an obese POC from HR would shout that he was the problem?”

               As a matter of fact, he did. He soon realized that the C Suite folks running the company had lost their minds and surrendered to that fact. This is when he decided to relax and “go with the flow”. He began to tell people that he worked for “Comedy Central”.

               “The problem with being in the cat bird seat is that sometimes you can’t put put the fires the inept make, and sometimes you are blamed for it.”

               As he saw it the fires were the manager’s problems, not his. The managers TRIED to make these problems his problems, but this didn’t work.

               “As for the DEI’s being miserable, were the raises and bonuses not big enough? Or was it because deep inside they knew they were frauds?”

               The DEI folks didn’t get many raises or bonuses because such nifty things were not earned by them. And, yeah, they were miserable because deep inside they knew they were frauds; They were working jobs that they were unsuited for. This may have not been their fault because they may not have known what the requirements of the job entailed but it WAS the fault of management because THEY DID know what the requirements of the job were.

         2. He began to tell people that he worked for “Comedy Central”.
            Now That’s funny. I think a lot of people can relate to “working at comedy central” at one time or another in their life.

   2. The basic premise of the DEI belief ,is to destroy our country ,as we know it, and start over with their beliefs ,That’s what showed through , and we won, that’s good

      1. We will adapt and overcome that is our nature.

   3. The signs that appeared outside the restrooms at my workplace during the Pandemic indicating that anyone of whatever gender could use the restroom of his choice made some of my female colleagues become hostile.

      1. Did they still vote for Camletoe?

         1. Of course.

         2. No.

5. Realtors are liars.

   1. And every closing is a crime scene.

6. “I Was Willing To Sacrifice Unnecessary Purchases To Own A House, But What Have I Gained?”

   This is what people who think that home prices will just flatline don’t understand. So many have stretched themselves micro thin just to get into a home they don’t like because they think they have to get on the “property ladder”. The only reason they are there is the promise of appreciation in value. Flat lining does them no good and when that sinks in a majority will bail out. A Ponzi needs to Ponzi.

   1. I spoke with a young person the other day. He said that he had given up any hope of ever owning a shack. I told him that prices were just starting to drop and that he needs to be very patient. He remained skeptical.

      1. I didn’t buy until I was a month shy of age 41. I probably could have bought earlier, but I wanted a stable job. If he can buy a house below his means, he should still be able to build up substantial equity by the time he retires.

      2. I watch one particular Lennar development in my hood very closely. I always watching recorded sales, not list price. They just had their first sub 500K closing on this tract ever (it started during Covid). It closed at 479k. Even Zillow shows the listing history on this one being 590K this summer. 100k haircut with incentives.

   2. “The only reason they are there is the promise of appreciation in value.”

      …aka FOMO.

7. Are you holding out hope for lower mortgage rates in 2025?

   1. Option Traders Bet on Deep Treasury-Market Selloff Within Weeks
      Edward Bolingbroke
      Tue, November 26, 2024 at 1:30 PM PST 4 min read

      (Bloomberg) — A bearish tone is taking hold in the market for interest-rate options, suggesting that bond traders are bracing for Treasury yields to surge anew in the coming weeks.

      There has been steady demand for bearish hedges using Treasury-option put structures in January contracts on 10-year notes, which expire Dec. 27. Positioning has also been building over the past couple of days in the February options, which expire Jan. 24, the week of President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration.

      Open interest, or the amount of outstanding positions held by traders, has been building specifically between the 107.50 and 109.50 put strikes in the January and February options. Those levels target a 10-year yield range of approximately 4.45% to 4.75%, relative to roughly 4.3% now. The upper bound of that span would push the yield above its 2024 high of about 4.74%, touched in April.

      On Tuesday, an even more bearish position traded, targeting a yield as high as 4.9%, for a premium of $2.5 million. The benchmark yield hasn’t been that high in more than a year.
      …
      https://finance.yahoo.com/news/option-traders-bet-deep-treasury-213000746.html

   2. Debt donkeys gonna donk.

   3. Why options traders believe Treasury sell-off is incoming
      Benchmark yield climbs to highest in more than a year.
      NOV 27, 2024
      By Edward Bolingbroke

      A bearish tone is taking hold in the market for interest-rate options, suggesting that bond traders are bracing for Treasury yields to surge anew in the coming weeks.

      There has been steady demand for bearish hedges using Treasury-option put structures in January contracts on 10-year notes, which expire Dec. 27. Positioning has also been building over the past couple of days in the February options, which expire Jan. 24, the week of President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration.
      …
      https://www.investmentnews.com/industry-news/why-options-traders-believe-treasury-sell-off-is-incoming/258380

8. [I find this article amazing in that Hollywood is actually (and finally) presenting an alternative point of view regarding alternative sources of energy.]

   ‘Landman’ clip goes viral slamming renewable energy: ‘There is nothing clean about this’.

   https://www.yahoo.com/news/landman-clip-goes-viral-slamming-000037697.html

   A clip from Billy Bob Thornton’s new show “Landman” went viral on X for slamming the use of renewable energy like wind turbines, that are intended to combat the effects of climate change.

   “They use clean energy to power the oil wells?” Kayla Wallace’s character said in the scene of the show.

   “They use alternative energy. There is nothing clean about this,” Billy Bob Thornton’s character said.

   “Please, Mr. Oilman, tell me how the wind is bad for the environment?” Kayla Wallace replied.

   Thornton’s “Tommy Norris” responded, “You have any idea how much diesel will have to burn to mix that much concrete or make that steel and haul this s–t out here and put it together with a 450-foot crane? You want to guess how much oil it takes to lubricate that f—ing thing? Or winterize it? In its 20-year lifespan, it won’t offset the carbon footprint of making it. And don’t get me started on solar panels and the lithium in your tesla battery.”

   “Landman,” a rural America drama created by Taylor Sheridan and Christian Wallace, details the life of the billionaire Norris family as they interact with power players in the oil rig industry in West Texas.

   Sheridan, the creator of the hit TV series “Yellowstone,” announced he had plans for “Landman” back in 2022. The show is based off the podcast Boomtown, a documentary series about oil rigs in west Texas and the wealthy people that own them.

   “If Exxon thought them f—ing things right there were the future, they would be put all over the g–damn place,” Thornton’s “Tommy Norris” added.

   The scene sparked a debate on X, which saw users praising and criticizing the clip.

   “Taylor Sheridan’s new show ‘Landman’ hits Billy Bob Thornton with an epic monologue,” Alex Thorn, head of Firmwide Research at Galaxy, posted.

   “Hate to fact check this but the carbon payback period is 6 months to two years,” said Troy Cross, a professor of Philosophy and Humanities at Reed College.

   “Sorry, I am absolutely not buying this claim. Do you seriously think that anyone can produce wind turbines using only wind energy?” replied Tom Nelson, the producer of Climate: The Movie.”

   “From an educational standpoint, if you watch just one scene from the new series Landman starring Billy Bob Thornton, this should be it. Spread it far and wide,” Texas Alliance posted on X.

   Patricia Shouker, founder and CEO of Energy Bridge Global, seemed to agree with Texas Alliance’s post, replying with the “100” emoji.

   “Landman,” which also features stars Demi Moore and Jon Hamm, is set to hit Paramount+ this month.

9. Because you don’t know how much it’s gonna be and whether you’ve got the savings for it and I own two units so I’m gonna be hit twice,’ said Andrea Trevino, a Singer Island resident.”

   Sucks to be you, Andrea.

   1. and I own two units so I’m gonna be hit twice.
      Sell one, and get on with your life and quit B$tchin.

10. “…The residents of Rock Springs Vista are now left trying to figure out their next move as their HOA voted in favor of increasing their community’s fees by 168%….”

    Another Wednesday, another out-of-control holding costs story.

    The folks of Rock Springs might as well drive their cars into the nearest sand dune. They will be digging out forever.

    1. Or they could just do nothing (as usual) and the sand dune will come to them. 🙂

11. ‘I want our monthly assessment to be reasonable and I also want it to be able to fund our community. About 80% of the people who live in our community are retired or disabled and on a fixed income.’

    The Rolling Stones – You Can’t Always Get What You Want (Official Lyric Video)

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krxU5Y9lCS8

12. Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) needs to be officially recognized as a national mental health emergency, along with a crash program to rebuild and reopen insane asylums and mental institutions for those so afflicted. Naturally, the severely mentally ill should be barred from voting.

    https://x.com/EndWokeness/status/1861769051141234969

13. Sanity is returning. Next we need accountability, and consequences, for all those who foisted the scamdemic and its criminal “mandates” on us.

    https://x.com/liz_churchill10/status/1861602487200784557

14. The Party of Tolerance and Inclusivity needs to be pried off the levers of power, and their creepy Orwellian partners in tyranny and censorship need to go to prison.

    https://x.com/WallStreetMav/status/1861771964031156415

15. Democrat mega-donors who drank the DNC and globalist scum media Kool-Aid were salivating at the kickbacks & graft they stood to rake in during the Harris regime. Instead, they’re out a ton of money, and their volcanic rage at realizing their campaign contributions were squandered by a horrible candidate who never had a hope in hell of getting elected is beautiful to behold.

    https://www.yahoo.com/news/mega-donor-democratic-overspending-disqualifies-120352369.html

    1. Cameltoe’s political career is over. There has been some chatter of having her run for California gov, but I’m sure some Dem dealmakers fear she could blow that as well.

       1. It’s telling that this babbling moron is the best the Democrat-Bolshevik’s had to offer as a “choice.”

          1. The Dems have a very shallow bench. Who do they have? A couple of little-known governors like Shapiro, I guess. If they had anyone better than Special K, they would have put him/her up for it. And they would have won without the $100M campaign fund head start.

          2. I think Newsom would have been a better choice for them. He looks young and is articulate (no word salad). But he is male and white, so he didn’t fit the narrative. Sure, he had his California baggage, but any blue state governor would have similar baggage. By 2028 he won’t be governor anymore, so they might run him in 2028. Some think that Shapiro could be the candidate, but by 2028 the Dems will have officially declared the tribe to be the spawn of the devil.

             1. “But he is male and white, so he didn’t fit the narrative.”

                But his southpaw might’ve helped.

       2. Felt kinda sorry for her, she seems like a nice lady, getting her strings, or whatever pulled this way and that, way out of her “water’ ……Maybe she’ll luck up , and ole Joe will keel over before the inaugeration , she’d get her spot,in history, and pay and protection , even for a day or a week of being President ,stranger things have happened

          1. Maybe she’ll luck up , and ole Joe will keel over

             Jill will go onto Weekend at Bernie’s mode before handing the WH over to Cameltoe.

             1. The big fear I have is if Joe has a stroke. The rumor is that he’s already had one mini-stroke. That was in Las Vegas, when he supposedly contracted COVID. The rest of him is healthy enough to last another two months.

             2. As the healthcare available to our politicians is so much better than available to the general public, I expect Joe to make it far past the finish line.

16. ‘One Singer Island condo resident told us several weeks ago she had been hit with a $70,000 special assessment. ‘It was $70,000 for concrete work, plumbing work, all that and it’s still going on’

    It’s still way cheaper than renting Mona.

    1. I looked up those condos on Google Maps/Zillow. It’s a 1977 10-story high-rise, probably luxury for its time. Stunning views. Units are $600K-800K+, with an $1480 HOA/mo. $70K unit might be reasonable if they neglected maintenance for long enough.

       1. $1480 HOA

          Cue in the Critical Drinker’s maniacal laugh.

          1. “…$1480 HOA…”

             For $1480, I would expect hookers and champagne Fridays in the community room.

             1. For $1480, I would expect hookers and champagne Fridays in the community room.
                Amen

17. “…The residents of Rock Springs Vista…”

    Get a loan on the tax return and, “Put it on Red.”

18. The mass exodus of viewers from the globalist scum media is reminiscent of how discredited Soviet propaganda outlets like Pravda and Trud became defunct as millions of former sheeple started seeing right through their lies, omissions, and misinformation.

    https://www.mediaite.com/tv/just-in-msnbc-loses-almost-half-its-viewers-in-stunning-post-election-ratings-report/

19. Make the 1st Amendment Great Again, and hold accountable the globalist scum & their creepy Orwellian big tech accomplices who trampled on it during the scamdemic.

    https://revolver.news/2024/11/trump-stuns-disinformation-cartel-with-pro-free-speech-fcc-nominee/

20. Weird …..lasering off a huge blue face tattoo….what was he thinking,………..or not

    https://www.facebook.com/reel/421555334357426

    1. Must be 25-yrs ago that we had young man in town with his face covered in rings and tattoos. His girlfriend, and mother of their child, worked at our local Subway sandwich shop while he collected SSDI because he was apparently unemployable.

21. What happens when a Waymo gets confused?

    PHOENIX — As more cars with empty driver seats are hitting our streets, there are growing safety questions about how humans and robots are “sharing” the road.

    Truck driver Shabani Kwizera uses a loading dock next to a central Phoenix Waymo hub. He posted to TikTok about a semi crash with a Waymo last month in the driveway to the complex.

    “[The tractor trailers] stop right here to check on the traffic,’ Kwizera said on the video panning the camera to the center of the driveway. “These Waymos came from the back and to the right side. The driver didn’t see it by the time he was turning – the Waymo was on the blind side.”

    Kwizera said the truck smashed the Waymo as it turned right. The autonomous car had black scrape marks across its front, driver-side panel. Based on what he witnessed, Kwizera said a human driver would have accommodated for the truck’s turning radius and blind spot.

    “They’re going to give us space so we can turn, but what happened with Waymo is they do not give us space,” he said. Phoenix police told ABC15 they investigated this crash.

    The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is looking into 31 reports of crashes and alleged traffic violations involving Waymos. In letters to the self-driving car company last spring, federal safety regulators asked for extensive documentation. One NHTSA letter said the autonomous vehicles had “unexpected driving behaviors” that “may increase the risk of crash, property damage, and injury.” The letters also described “collisions with clearly visible objects that a competent driver would be expected to avoid.”

    “The industry had been getting pretty much of a pass on all the annoyances and problems and loose ends,” said Phil Koopman, an associate professor at Carnegie Mellon University who’s studied self-driving car safety for 25 years.

    He is closely watching the federal investigation and Waymo’s two voluntary recalls earlier this year after crashes in the Phoenix area.

    “People could no longer say, well, nothing’s going wrong. Leave us alone. You’re getting in the way of progress,” said Koopman.

    https://www.abc15.com/news/local-news/investigations/what-happens-when-a-waymo-gets-confused

22. Airbnb to let tenants rent out properties

    Airbnb is launching a scheme that will allow tenants to sub-let their rental properties amid criticism the website is driving up prices and fuelling a housing crisis.

    The property portal said the scheme is designed to make it easier for tenants to become Airbnb hosts, as long as the property remains their primary residence.

    It is currently only available to commercial landlords, not individual landlords and their tenants.

    However, estate agency Knight Frank warned that without verification measures in place, the initiative could leave landlords at risk from tenants who list their properties without approval.

    Gary Hall, head of lettings at Knight Frank, said: “We currently have the issue of tenants who Airbnb their properties across London without permission.

    “Airbnb needs to do more to make sure it is done with the permission of the landlord. At the moment there is abuse, and we don’t want the problem to get worse.”

    The majority of tenancy agreements ban sub-letting by the tenant, however an investigation by The Telegraph found that council tenants were illegally letting homes on Airbnb for £9,000 a month.

    https://www.yahoo.com/news/airbnb-let-tenants-rent-properties-132639627.html

    1. The Telegraph found that council tenants were illegally letting homes on Airbnb for £9,000 a month

       Council housing is welfare housing. The local government (the council) owns the flats.

       Why would anyone pay 9000 pounds a month to live with deadbeats?

23. New leader of L.A. homeless programs is out following questions about her oversight in OC during Andrew Do scandal

    A newly hired executive brought on to lead all homelessness programs at L.A.’s homeless services agency has exited after less than two weeks on the job.

    Lilly Simmering was no longer working at the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) effective Friday, according to Paul Rubenstein, a spokesperson for the agency.

    Her exit from the agency came three days after Lindsey Horvath, chair of the L.A. County Board of Supervisors, told LAist she had raised concerns to LAHSA’s CEO about the decision to hire Simmering.

    Before her brief time at LAHSA, Simmering oversaw a county government department in Orange County that paid out millions of taxpayer dollars to an out-of-compliance nonprofit now embroiled in a fraud scandal involving former O.C. Supervisor Andrew Do.

    Simmering’s departure also falls in the midst of increasing pressure on LAHSA, as the agency is embroiled in a high-profile legal battle and fallout from an audit released last week that found serious accounting problems.

    LAHSA is a taxpayer-funded agency jointly overseen by the county and the city of L.A. Its annual budget currently stands at $875 million.

    When she was Orange County’s second-in-command, Simmering oversaw a department that paid millions to a nonprofit led by Do’s daughter, Rhiannon Do. Andrew Do was a county supervisor at the time — he has since pleaded guilty to a felony in a scheme to steal millions of the taxpayer dollars he directed to the group.

    Under Simmering’s leadership in O.C., records show the department continued to pay $166,000 per month for more than a year after Simmering was notified in February 2022 that Rhiannon Do was the group’s executive director, according to emails LAist obtained through a public records request. Rhiannon Do was 20 years old at the time and a law student at UC Irvine.

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/new-leader-of-l-a-homeless-programs-is-out-following-questions-about-her-oversight-in-oc-during-andrew-do-scandal/ar-AA1uOX1Q

    1. It’s all graft. All these programs could be cancelled and no one would notice.

       A lot of people need to be arrested, tried, sentenced and imprisoned.

       1. And some math to illustrate just how deep the graft really is:

          $875mm/75,312 [1] ~= $11.6k per homeless / year.

          About $1000/mo/per homeless for what? Water bottles and needles? And keep in mind that there are many additional (probably dozens) of NGO ‘non-profits’ with CEO’s who make $800k+/year salaries [2]

          [1] Per Google: According to the 2024 Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count, 75,312 people were homeless in Los Angeles County on any given night:

          [2] Per KFI AM 640 radio, John Kobylt show earlier this summer.

24. Schools are bracing for upheaval over fear of mass deportations

    “The kids are still coming to school, but they’re scared,” said Almudena Abeyta, superintendent of Chelsea Public Schools, a Boston suburb that’s long been a first stop for Central American immigrants coming to Massachusetts. Now Haitians are making the city home and sending their kids to school there. “They’re asking: ‘Are we going to be deported?’” said Abeyta.

    If immigration agents were to arrest a parent dropping off children at school, it could set off mass panic, said Angelica Salas, executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights in Los Angeles. “If something happens at one school, it spreads like wildfire and kids stop coming to school,” she said.

    More than two dozen superintendents and district communications representatives contacted by The Associated Press either ignored or declined requests for comment.

    “This is so speculative that we would prefer not to comment on the topic,” wrote Scott Pribble, a spokesperson for Denver Public Schools.

    The city of Denver has helped more than 40,000 migrants in the last two years with shelter or a bus ticket elsewhere. It’s also next door to Aurora, one of two cities where Trump has said he would start his mass deportations.

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/trump-promised-mass-deportations-educators-worry-fear-will-keep-immigrants-kids-from-school/ar-AA1uP8lO

    1. Families can be deported together, especially Haitian kids coming in on CBP-1 app, who wouldn’t be citizens.

       I wonder how many of these school kids are anchor babies? If they are old enough to be in school, then their parents would have had to jumped the fence prior to 2017 or so.

    2. My North Carolina teacher relative told me that her district set up a special program for invader teens, with the goals of teaching them literacy and conversational English, nothing more. The district set them up at an old elementary school to keep them separated from the rest of the students (wise choice).

       Anywho, my relative tells me that this special school is a nightmare. The students, especially the Venezuelans, are violent thugs and the teachers are afraid to go to work. In an ironic twist, most of the teachers are not Americans, they are mostly from South America. They took the job because there was extra pay. Now they want out.

       1. My North Carolina teacher relative told me that her district set up a special program for invader teens, with the goals of teaching them literacy and conversational English, nothing more

          It is helpful if the slaves are at least conversational in English. Makes commerce move quicker.

    3. “If something happens at one school, it spreads like wildfire and kids stop coming to school,” she said.

       Sounds like a feature, not a bug.

       If you are legally here you have nothing to fear. I keep being told the Biden-Harris illegals all have legitimate asylum claims and paperwork that is 100% in line with the law.

       So, why the panic? Is someone lying?!

25. Presidents have used immigration ‘parole’ since the 1950s. Now it could disappear under Trump

    Half a million Cubans, Haitian, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans were welcomed by President Joe Biden using a legal tool known as humanitarian parole, granted for seven decades by Republican and Democratic administrations to people unable to use standard immigration routes because of time pressure or their government’s poor relations with the U.S.

    President-elect Donald Trump appears certain to dismantle this legal tool, saying during his campaign that he would end the “outrageous abuse of parole.”

    Trump made anti-immigration rhetoric a key part of his campaign, warning that he would kick out hundreds of thousands of migrants who entered the country under Biden programs.

    “Get ready to leave because you’re going to be going out real fast,” Trump said.

    A giant group of people with tenuous legal status formed under Biden and many now expect their protections to vanish with a stroke of a pen. Those protections include Biden’s parole efforts; his support for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program; parole for people who entered the country on a border appointment app called CBP One and his expanded use of a law to shield people from deportation — known as Temporary Protected Status.

    The U.S. has a thicket of complicated immigration laws that drive many to enter the country illegally but parole allows the president to admit people “for urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit.”

    Since 1952 it has been ordered 126 times by every president, except for Trump, according to the pro-immigration Cato Institute.

    The Trump administration could revoke parole for everyone who has it, said Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council.

    More than a million people have been granted parole under Biden, including tens of thousands of Afghans and Ukrainians.

    Biden introduced parole for Venezuelans in October 2022 and expanded it in early 2023 to include Cubans, Haitians, and Nicaraguans. These countries refuse to take back most citizens deported from the U.S.

    Kyle Varner, a 39-year-old doctor and real-estate investor from Spokane, Washington, says he has spent $150,000 on plane tickets, housing and other costs for 47 Venezuelans he’s sponsored over the last two years. Now he is desperately saving as much money as possible to pay immigration attorneys that could figure out a way for the Venezuelans to stay after Trump takes office.

    “I am very alarmed,” Varner said.

    Mass termination of migrants’ two-year parole terms would be subject to legal challenge but the Trump administration could simply halt new admissions and just wait until beneficiaries’ status expired, Reichlin-Melnick said.

    Another possibility, said Charles Kuck, a former president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, is that the Trump administration could find a relatively easy way to deport people granted parole because there are official records of them and their sponsors.

    “Those are the easiest people to be in rounding up because the government knows where they live,” said Kuck.

    That is why Venezuelan Ireswa Lopez is already thinking of leaving the U.S. when her parole expires in March 2025.

    Lopez, 48, was having a hard time working at a family butcher shop in Venezuela, where food is scarce and water often contaminated. She learned that there was a program to come to the United States legally, and with a cousin’s sponsorship she flew to Miami in January 2023.

    Although she has found a job at an Atlanta children’s day care, she says, “I am leaving.”

    “Staying illegally is not in my plans,” she said.

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/presidents-have-used-immigration-parole-since-the-1950s-now-it-could-disappear-under-trump/ar-AA1uMWT7

    1. The Mexican media is losing its collective mind over the impending deportations and tariffs. It is a full blown panic now.

       1. I am impressed that the Mexican president implicitly said she believes Mexico has a right to sell drugs to addicts.

          If Trump wants to play for keeps, he should find a way to either cut Mexico off SWIFT or at least tax remittances by 50% or more. The illegals ought to pay their fair share.

          1. I am impressed that the Mexican president implicitly said she believes Mexico has a right to sell drugs to addicts.

             That has been a long used trope in Mexico: the problem is demand in the US, not Mexico supplying it. Therefore Americans need to get their act together. Not our fault.

             1. Therefore Americans need to get their act together.
                They have a valid point. We do.

          2. SWIFT or at least tax remittances by 50% or more.
             Wow, never thought of that. Of course, there are other methods to send money but we could sure make it more of a pain and limit the amounts.

    2. Like any priviledge, if you abuse it, it gets taken away and everyone suffers. In the past we were never a “Papers, Please” country, but we will be soon. Fine with me. I have ID on me at all times.

26. MSNBC going on rant about loss of business claiming “We Are the Media.” Attacking alternative media, as not the “media”.

    The One World Order Corporate fake news, funded by biggest Mega Corps, especially Big Pharmacy, and collusion to censor dispute of Narratives by Biden/Harris Administration.

    Fake News claiming anything but their fake narratives were false, disinformation, and misinformation.

    The evidence shows repeated fraud, lack of reporting, disinformation, misinformation, and censorship of dispute to MSN Monopoly Corp sponsored News, causing rejection by viewers.

    Fraudster Powers that Be pissed that there is massive rejection to their ongoing fraud fake news.

27. Conservatives love him. Liberals disdain him. For residents of Maine town, it’s more complicated

    When Donald Trump was elected president earlier this month, Caroline Pryor’s mind turned immediately to the man who lives down the road — Leonard Leo.

    Few people in America have done more to advance conservative causes than Leo. Years ago, the then-unknown conservative lawyer began executing a plan that has helped reshape the U.S. courts and Republican politics, an effort that culminated in Trump’s first term with the appointment of three conservative Supreme Court justices.

    The success moved Leo out of the shadows, turning him into a hero to conservatives and a villain to liberals. But for his neighbors on a sparsely populated island off the coast of Maine, the equation is more complicated. Leo and his family moved to Mount Desert Island in 2020, seeking a relatively anonymous life among its unpretentious year-round residents. A refuge it has not turned out to be.

    The conservative’s presence — despite significant charitable giving to local nonprofits and big spending locally — has generated fissures in a place known for tranquility. That anxiety has only spiked since Trump’s victory.

    “It feels very personal,” said Pryor, a 65-year-old who has lived on the island for four decades. “He comes to a small quiet community in the very northeast corner of the country and does this evil, far-reaching work that is going to affect so many millions of people, but he wants to just live this anonymous, quiet life.”

    Those feelings were on display on a brisk morning in October, just two weeks before November’s election. With sunlight flickering through the yellowing leaves, Pryor and a dozen other people — mostly women — gathered outside Leo’s estate to protest during the island’s annual marathon.

    They came armed with a cartoonish life-sized puppet of Leo, a rainbow arch for runners to pass through and blue and pink chalk with which they scribbled slogans — “You Are Amazing, Leonard Leo Is Not” — across the road. They rang cowbells as a boombox blasted Dolly Parton, Taylor Swift and Queen.

    “We are making people on the island aware of who he is, and they might question taking his money,” Mary Jane Schepers, one of the protesters, said as she urged runners to flip off Leo’s home. “They are taking dirty money.”

    https://kesq.com/news/2024/11/26/conservatives-love-him-liberals-disdain-him-for-residents-of-maine-town-its-more-complicated/

    1. Such is the state of liberal tolerance, i.e. non-existent.

28. Gavin Newsom has a plan to boost Central Valley jobs. Experts aren’t sure it’ll be effective

    Experts were mixed on the potential effectiveness of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s new plan to promote higher-paying jobs in the Central Valley, where the economy hasn’t seen the sort of growth other parts of California have enjoyed.

    Newsom on Monday made the second of three planned appearances in the Central Valley to tout his “California Jobs First” plan, which his office expects to publish in the new year.

    Sen. Roger Niello, a Fair Oaks Republican and frequent Newsom critic, derided the recent economic initiative announcement as political course-correction in the wake of Kamala Harris’ loss to Donald Trump and Newsom’s low approval ratings.

    “Clearly the governor is concerned that 10 counties in California that previously voted blue, voted red this time,” Niello said, referring to the gains that Trump made in the Nov. 6 election.

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/gavin-newsom-has-a-plan-to-boost-central-valley-jobs-experts-aren-t-sure-it-ll-be-effective/ar-AA1uOcZX

    1. Gavin Newsom has a plan to boost Central Valley jobs. Experts aren’t sure it’ll be effective

       Unless it involves massive deregulation it won’t work.

29. Trump won about 2.5M more votes this year than he did in 2020. This is where he did it

    It’s a daunting reality for Democrats: Republican Donald Trump’s support has grown broadly since he last sought the presidency.

    In his defeat of Democrat Kamala Harris, Trump won a bigger percentage of the vote in each one of the 50 states, and Washington, D.C., than he did four years ago. He won more actual votes than in 2020 in 40 states, according to an Associated Press analysis.

    Certainly, Harris’ more than 7 million vote decline from President Joe Biden’s 2020 total was a factor in her loss, especially in swing-state metropolitan areas that have been the party’s winning electoral strongholds.

    But, despite national turnout that was lower than in the high-enthusiasm 2020 election, Trump received 2.5 million more votes than he did four years ago. He swept the seven most competitive states to win a convincing Electoral College victory, becoming the first Republican nominee in 20 years to win a majority of the popular vote.

    Harris fell more than 50,000 votes — and 5 percentage points — short of Biden’s total in Wayne County, Michigan, which makes up the lion’s share of the Detroit metro area. She was almost 36,000 votes off Biden’s mark in Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania, and about 1,000 short in Milwaukee County, Wisconsin.

    It wasn’t only Harris’ shortfall that helped Trump carry the states, a trio that Democrats had collectively carried in six of the seven previous elections before Nov. 5.

    Trump added to his 2020 totals in all three metro counties, netting more than 24,000 votes in Wayne County, more than 11,000 in Philadelphia County and almost 4,000 in Milwaukee County.

    While turnout in Maricopa County, Arizona’s most populous as the home to Phoenix, dipped slightly from 2020 — by 14,199 votes, a tiny change in a county where more than 2 million people voted — Trump gained almost 56,000 more votes than four years ago.

    Meanwhile, Harris fell more than 60,000 votes short of Biden’s total, contributing to a shift significant enough to swing the county and state to Trump, who lost Arizona by fewer than 11,000 votes in 2020.

    “It’s still all about the economy,” said North Carolina Democratic strategist Morgan Jackson, a senior adviser to Democrat Josh Stein, who won North Carolina’s governorship on Nov. 5 as Trump also carried the state.

    “Democrats have to embrace an economic message that actually works for real people and talk about it in the kind of terms that people get, rather than giving them a dissertation of economic policy,” he said.

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-won-about-25m-more-votes-than-in-2020-some-in-unexpected-places/ar-AA1uNjiJ

    1. But, despite national turnout that was lower than in the high-enthusiasm 2020 election

       The one where FJB seldom came out of the basement?

       1. Yes, and the one with 12-15 million excess votes.

       2. DJT’s popular vote win can be attributed to

          1. Libertarian party self-imploding
          2. RFK Jr. giving up his candidacy.

          However, I think DJT would still have won the EC without them, but it would have been a squeaker.

30. Trump’s latest tariff plan aims at multiple countries. What does it mean for the US?

    President-elect Donald Trump has identified what he sees as an all-purpose fix for what ails America: Slap huge new tariffs on foreign goods entering the United States.

    On Monday, Trump sent shockwaves across the nation’s northern and southern borders, vowing sweeping new tariffs on Mexico, Canada, as well as China, as soon as he takes office as part of his effort to crack down on illegal immigration and drugs.

    He said he would impose a 25% tax on all products entering the country from Canada and Mexico, and an additional 10% tariff on goods from China, as one of his first executive orders. He said the new tariffs would remain in place “until such time as Drugs, in particular Fentanyl, and all Illegal Aliens stop this Invasion of our Country!”

    Though Vice President Kamala Harris criticized Trump’s tariff threats as unserious during her failed bid for the presidency, the Biden-Harris administration retained the taxes the Trump administration imposed on $360 billion in Chinese goods. And it imposed a 100% tariff on Chinese electric vehicles.

    Indeed, the United States in recent years has gradually retreated from its post-World War II role of promoting global free trade and lower tariffs. That shift has been a response to the loss of U.S. manufacturing jobs, widely attributed to unfettered trade and an increasingly aggressive China.

    Before the federal income tax was established in 1913, tariffs were a major revenue driver for the government. From 1790 to 1860, tariffs accounted for 90% of federal revenue, according to Douglas Irwin, a Dartmouth College economist who has studied the history of trade policy.

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/trump-s-latest-tariff-plan-aims-at-multiple-countries-what-does-it-mean-for-the-us/ar-AA1uNke1

31. To use a common phrase these days, the coming Trump presidency will not only be an “inflection point” for U.S. domestic politics but for U.S. foreign policy as well. This should not be surprising since it is domestic priorities and domestic public opinion that, in the last instance, determine a country’s stance towards the outside world—what is called its “grand strategy.” The last time the United States experienced the kind of transformative event in foreign affairs that is coming on January 20, 2025, is 83 years ago when President Franklin D. Roosevelt brought the United States into World War II. FDR had a hell of a time overcoming isolationist sentiment and may well have failed had the Japanese not bombed Pearl Harbor and changed public sentiment overnight from isolationism toward global engagement.

    The grand strategy that Roosevelt inaugurated can best be called “liberal internationalism.” Following the end of World War II and the beginning of the competition with the Soviet Union, that strategy was consolidated as “containment liberalism” by President Harry Truman, and it has been the guiding approach of every administration ever since, with the exception of the Trump administration from 2017 to 2021.

    Liberal internationalism had its hard and not-so-hard versions, the former often termed containment liberalism or neoconservatism. But whatever their differences when it came to rhetoric or implementation, the differences between liberal internationalism and neoconservatism were matters of nuance, not substance. The rhetoric was lofty but the subtext of the rhetoric of liberal internationalism was making the world safe for the expansion of America capital by extending the political and military reach of the U.S. state.

    The grand strategy of liberal internationalism, however, became mired in its own ambitions, its first major setback occurring in Southeast Asia, with the U.S. defeat in Vietnam. Toward the end of the twentieth century, globalization, the economic component of liberal internationalism, led to the unmooring of U.S. capital from its geographical location in the United States as American transnationals went out in search of cheap labor, resulting in the massive loss of manufacturing jobs in the United States and the building up of a rival economic power, China. Power projection, the military prong of the project, led to overextension or overreach, with the ambitious effort of President George W. Bush to remake the world in America’s image by carrying out the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq during Washington’s so-called “unipolar moment” in the early 2000s. The result was a debacle from which the United States has never recovered. Both the crisis of globalization and the crisis of overextension paved the way for the rebirth of the isolationist impulse that broke to the surface under Trump’s presidency in 2017-2021.

    Only in retrospect can one appreciate how radically the isolationist, anti-globalist, and protectionist foreign policy of the first Trump administration broke with liberal internationalism. Trump, among other things, tore up the neoliberal Trans-Pacific Partnership that both Democrats and Republicans championed, considered NATO commitments a burden, demanded that Japan and Korea pay more for keeping U.S. troops and bases in their countries, trampled on the rules of the World Trade Organization, ignored the IMF and World Bank, negotiated the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan with the Taliban, and broke the West’s united front against North Korea by stepping across the DMZ to pat Kim Jong Un on the back on June 30, 2019. Some have said that his foreign policy was erratic or chaotic, but there was an underlying logic to his supposed madness, and this was his felt need to play opportunistically to an important part of his white, working-class and middle-class base that felt they had had enough of bearing the burdens of empire for the sake of the American political and economic elites.

    For Trump, there is a second chance to remake U.S. foreign policy beginning on January 20, 2025, and it’s unlikely he’ll allow partisans of the old regime spoil his efforts a second time. In this regard, one must not be fooled by the pro-expansionist or interventionist rhetoric or record of some of his cabinet picks, like Marco Rubio. These folks have no fixed political compass but political self-interest, and they will adjust to Trump’s instincts, outlook, and agenda.

    Probably the world leader that Trump admires most is Hungarian strongman Viktor Orban. Indeed, Trump and Orban form a mutual admiration society. Prior to the elections, Orban was channeling Trump to the world. On the question of America’s relations with the world under a second Trump presidency, Orban had this to say:

    ‘[M]any people think that if Donald Trump returns to the White House, the Americans will want to retain their world supremacy by maintaining their position in the world. I think that this is wrong. Of course, no one gives up positions of their own accord, but that will not be the most important goal. On the contrary, the priority will be to rebuild and strengthen North America. ..And America’s place in the world will be less important. You have to take what the President says seriously: “America First, everything here, everything will come home!”… For example, they are not an insurance company, and if Taiwan wants security, it should pay. They will make us Europeans, NATO and China pay the price of security; and they will also achieve a trade balance with China through negotiations, and change it in favour of the US. They will trigger massive US infrastructure development, military research, and innovation. They will achieve – or perhaps have already achieved – energy self-sufficiency and raw material self-sufficiency; and finally they will improve ideologically, giving up on the export of democracy. America First. The export of democracy is at an end. This is the essence of the experiment America is conducting in response to the situation described here.’

    https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/11/27/trump-isolationist-by-instinct-unpredictable-in-action/

    1. Only in retrospect can one appreciate how radically the isolationist, anti-globalist, and protectionist foreign policy of the first Trump administration

       Translation: closed borders, protecting our own and minding our own business is raycis and makes us worse than nahtzees, or something like that.

32. SoCal Mayor Fears Police Could Face Criminal Charges for Helping Deport Immigrants

    A Southern California mayor sounded an alarm Nov. 25 that complying with federal deportations could violate California’s sanctuary law and put police officers in his city at risk of losing their jobs and their pensions.

    Mayor Bill Wells of El Cajon, about 40 miles from the Mexico border in San Diego County, claims the city police face misdemeanor charges in California if they cooperate with federal authorities to deport illegal immigrants.

    Although El Cajon is not a sanctuary city, California’s sanctuary law prohibits cooperation with federal immigration officers in most cases.

    In a social media post Monday, Wells said his city intends to comply with federal authorities despite the risk, but hopes to get clarification from state Attorney General Rob Bonta before deportations begin.

    “No officer should have to choose between doing their duty and jeopardizing their future,” Wells posted. “As mayor of El Cajon, I’m doing everything in my power to protect our officers and stand against these dangerous [state] policies.”

    The city’s police chief alerted Wells to the conflict, he said. “I talked to our chief, who was the one who informed me that the officers themselves were at risk,” Wells told The Epoch Times on Tuesday. “That was a new piece of information for me to have.”

    Wells said he plans to participate in the deportation process in a Nov. 20 social media post.
    “With all the talk of sanctuary cities and states, let me make this perfectly clear: El Cajon is NOT a sanctuary city. We will do everything in our power to assist the federal government in removing criminals from this country,” he stated in the post last week.
    He reiterated his position Tuesday. Wells, who also founded a Mayors for Safe Cities group in 2017, is hoping to meet with Tom Homan, Trump’s former ICE director and nominated border czar for his incoming administration.

    “I’m trying to arrange a meeting with myself and Tom Homan and will be asking for the feds to give us some resources to protect ourselves for complying,” Wells said. “It is my intention to find a way to comply with federal law.”

    Homan, who does not require a Senate confirmation before starting his new job, would be in charge of the nation’s borders. He has already made public statements about his policy against sanctuary jurisdictions.

    Wells is drafting a letter to send to California’s attorney general for clarification of the law and hopes the City Council will approve of it Dec. 11, he said.

    While immigration hasn’t crippled the city, Wells said there are “a lot of people on the streets that we don’t know where they came from.” The city’s schools are also extremely impacted, he added.

    https://www.theepochtimes.com/us/socal-mayor-fears-police-could-face-criminal-charges-for-helping-deport-immigrants-5766811

    1. Tom Homan

       The Mexican media is apoplectic over him and the fact the he isn’t waiting until Jan 20th to begin preparation plans. They are already losing their minds, no doubt over the prospect of having millions dumped back into their country.

       Commie Claudia is publicly claiming she will fight back if a trade war breaks out. If that happens there could very well be a massive peso devaluation, which in Mexican politics is the kiss of death. Sheinbaum’s term is 6 years, but there will be midterms in 2026 and MORENA could get whacked in congress should the peso devalue and Mexico go into a depression.

       She was no doubt counting on a Harris victory, with lots of US investment as the US disentangles itself from Chinese trade.

33. “Take the 55-floor Bank of America Plaza, which was appraised at about $605 million a decade ago. But now? It’s $188.9 million, meaning the tower has lost two-thirds of its value, as reported by Bloomberg. And the tower is relatively full, with 79% of space leased as of July.”

    Is 21% vacant alot?

    1. “Is 21% vacant alot?”

       Not these days. Most commercial landlords would love to have 79% of space leased, right now. I personally know a couple of C-RE management firms in San Jose, that make their living charging a percentage of the lease and/or rents collected, and they’ve already let go most of their employees, and they’re barely holding on by their finger nails and prayers. Meanwhile, the homeless and thieves own downtown after sunset. This is Silicon Valley!!

34. TDS is real, & it’s spectacular.

    https://x.com/Liberacrat/status/1861441242116104382

    1. TDS is real, & it’s spectacular.
       Her covid comment about still taking lives got my attention.
       Last year, towards the end of 2023, my MD told me he had 2 men die of Covid and a 3rd on a morphine drip who was going to die soon. All 3 were in their 90’s. So yeah, I guess some people are still (2023) dying of Covid.

35. ‘A Breakers Row condo with its own cabana sold for $12.5 million, which is down from its last sale in April 2021 when it went for a recorded $13.75 million. But before you start rending clothing or turning on the Hallmark Channel for a binge cry, there is one magic word that will make it all better — divorce. Sad but true. So, don’t read into the price cut’

    All Time High Larry.

36. ‘The jump that we are experiencing from $278 to $416 is enormous…I want our monthly assessment to be reasonable and I also want it to be able to fund our community. About 80% of the people who live in our community are retired or disabled and on a fixed income’…‘Most of our expenses are unavoidable’…‘Republic services, water, plumbing, we inherited an absolute disaster of plumbing from our previous board’

    I want to thank Kara and Marcus for today’s HBB Pitfalls of Commie Urban Living™.

37. ‘Residents on Waterloo Place in Elphinstone, East Lothian, say the smell caused by the regular trips is unbearable at times while the noise generated by the tankers can go on for hours…Drummond, whose home backs onto the collection site, said some Mondays the visits go on all day. He said: ‘After the weekend, in particular, they make several trips and can be here from 9 in the morning until late afternoon pumping out the sewage. It can create a smell and is noisy, it makes using our garden impossible and we are concerned it will carry in until the summer as there seems to be no solution coming forward to solve the problem. It beggars belief that houses on this estate were signed off and people allowed to move in without all of them being connected to a mains sewage’

    One of the great things about being a loanowner Graham is you can paint the walls any colour you like!

38. ‘Tsavalas, the founder of real estate group Adrian William, said this year’s spring had offered the best buying conditions since late 2022 – after rates had risen in quick succession. Home sales had typically attracted four to five interested buyers over the winter, but this dropped to one to zero in spring’

    Zero? Wa happened to my red hotcakes Adrian?

39. ‘To one side, a towering garbage mound looms over the complex, while the wind howls through the corridors of unoccupied towers…A security guard stationed at the entrance explains that the proximity of a massive garbage mound and a JJ (jhuggi-jhopri) colony has deterred prospective buyers. ‘People visit to see the flats, but almost always leave disappointed, even though the flats are being offered at a discount,’ he says. Selvam captures the sentiment shared by the handful of people there: ‘This place had potential, but at this price, in this location, who would choose to live here?’

    It has lots of potential PT. A big plus is you can just toss yer sh$t on the garbage pile from the balcony. Imagine how much time that would save!

40. With so many great ways to bet on Bitcoin, is buying it pretty much like real estate investing, that is a one-way ticket to unimaginable riches?

    1. Tech
       Wall Street launches new ways to bet on bitcoin
       Published Mon, Nov 25 2024 2:54 PM EST
       Updated Mon, Nov 25 2024 3:14 PM EST
       MacKenzie Sigalos

       KEY POINTS

       – In January, spot bitcoin ETFs began trading, which opened the door to more mainstream investors.

       – Last week, options on those spot crypto products finally started to go live on the Nasdaq and NYSE, and CBOE Global Markets is set to list its first cash-settled bitcoin ETF options Dec. 2.

       – Creating this new margin framework around bitcoin means investors will be able to get more exposure to the asset class relative to how much cash they’re investing.
       …
       https://www.cnbc.com/2024/11/25/wall-street-launches-new-ways-to-bet-on-bitcoin.html

41. These Condos Are So Much Harder To Sell (GTA Condo Real Estate Market Update)

    Team Sessa Real Estate

    16 minutes ago TORONTO

    This episode looks at the current GTA Condo Markets – Toronto, York Region & Peel Region for the week ending Nov 20, 2024. We also discuss how even the best of tenants can be unpredictable and could complicate your transaction.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKDGAJNkUpI

    14 minutes.

42. Oh God, here it goes again. MSN attacking Musk with Russian Operative accusations, with no proof. Same old Russian hoax, different day.

43. Incoming Trump border czar Tom Homan weighs in on Denver mayor’s comments on mass deportations

    Next 9NEWS

    Nov 25, 202

    Trump’s pick for border czar said the incoming administration will cut off Denver’s federal funding if the city doesn’t comply with a mass deportation effort.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qD_o1fovivE

    2:34.

44. Are you missing out on the latest Treasury bond rally? It’s not too late!

    1. Treasury Yields Have Dipped. It Isn’t Too Late to Buy Bonds.
       Story by Jacob Sonenshine • 4h

       Treasury bonds look appealing, especially because the bond market is signaling that yields won’t move much higher.

       The 10-year Treasury yield is down to 4.26% from a multi-month peak of 4.47% hit this month. At that level, buyers rushed in, sending the bond’s price upward and its yield downward.
       …
       https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/treasury-yields-have-dipped-it-isn-t-too-late-to-buy-bonds/ar-AA1uSh51?ocid=finance-verthp-feeds

    2. Postelection Rally Pushes Dozens of Stocks into Overvalued Territory
       Tesla, Visa, and UnitedHealth are among the stocks that are now expensive.
       Bella Albrecht
       Nov 15, 2024
       …
       https://www.morningstar.com/stocks/post-election-rally-pushes-dozens-stocks-into-overvalued-territory

    3. US 10-year yields drop to 2-week low as bonds rally on Bessent pick
       By Stefano Rebaudo and Tom Westbrook
       November 25, 20243:51 AM PST
       Updated 3 days ago
       A bronze seal for the Department of the Treasury is shown at the U.S. Treasury building in Washington, U.S., January 20, 2023. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque/File Photo
       Nov 25 (Reuters) –

       U.S. Treasuries rallied on Monday as investors cheered the selection of Scott Bessent as Treasury Secretary, who is expected to keep a leash on U.S. deficits and deliver a moderate approach on tariffs.

       Bessent is seen as a voice for markets in incoming U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration and as a fiscal conservative.

       Benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury yields , up 80 basis points since September, fell 6 basis points to 4.35%, after hitting 4.326%, the lowest level since Nov. 12.
       …
       https://www.reuters.com/markets/rates-bonds/us-10-year-yields-drop-2-week-low-bonds-rally-bessent-pick-2024-11-25/

45. Kamala it’s time.

    Just one more shot. OK I’m ready.

    Democrats release short video of Kamala Harris on X

    1 day ago

    https://youtu.be/b9i2EWl3Yvo?si=sy0hAVStimrpCI50&t=31

    1. If Kamala decides to run again in four years I’ve found the perfect song for her rallies.

       https://youtu.be/sDf0IwXoOmY?si=zRFPc7rp40kTkpKI&t=215

46. Gunther Eagleman™
    @GuntherEagleman

    A bunch of White liberal women went to a lake for a “primal scream” to vent about Trump winning.

    These people are not mentally stable.

    8:37 AM · Nov 27, 2024

    https://x.com/GuntherEagleman/status/1861766333160993165

47. Is your state becoming less desirable over time?

    1. Florida
       Housing Market
       Hurricanes
       Florida Home Sales Plunge As Sunshine State Becomes Less Desirable
       Published Nov 26, 2024 at 1:50 PM EST
       Updated Nov 26, 2024 at 3:13 PM EST
       By Aliss Higham
       US News Reporter

       Florida’s housing market is cooling down as investors stray away from the Sunshine State because of hurricanes, insurance costs and new safety measures making the state a less desirable place to live.

       According to a new report by Redfin, investor purchases fell most in Fort Lauderdale with a decline of 23.8 percent year over year in the third quarter of 2024. Miami has experienced a 19.4 percent decline in the same period, whereas West Palm Beach investor purchases have dwindled by 16 percent, and Orlando has been hit by a 13.3 percent drop.

       The state has also experienced an overall drop of 10.2 percent in home buying from October 2023 to October 2024. The average number of days a home remains on the market has also increased by more than a third to 67 days, up from 44 days in October last year. Despite this, the median sale price is up 1.3% year on year to $410,000.

       Redfin said the drop off in purchases by investors is for the same reasons individual buyers are becoming wary of the state. Florida’s housing market has been hit by numerous setbacks of late, including extreme weather, high insurance costs and a myriad of new safety regulations pushing up homeowner association costs.
       …
       https://www.newsweek.com/florida-home-sales-plunge-1991806

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