There Is A Lot Of Buyer Regret Right Now

1. Realtors are liars.

   1. Realtors are liars.

2. ‘It’s very clear that China is facing a very difficult domestic situation,’ she says. ‘We’ve talked at length about the balance sheet recession, the fact that you can’t really stimulate away the excess in real estate that has been built over decades’

   Not only that Sonja, it was a big bazooka that got them the excess in the first place.

   1. Pooh Bear & the corrupt, tyrannical CCP that has led China to ruin need to go the way of Assad.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oy1MKfqaaWo

   2. I have been reading that some Chinese people are going beyond stamping their little feet when they get the short end of the stick, and are plowing their cars into crowds of people.

      1. People who have nothing left to lose, lose it. Add to that the destruction of morality after decades of Communist rule, with no regard for human life, and you will see mayhem as those pushed beyond desperation take out their rage on society.

         1. People who have nothing left to lose

            That must be the case, as I expect that anyone who does that will get a bullet into the back of their skull. And they won’t be sitting on death row for years, submitting appeal after appeal. I’ll bet they will be dealt with within less than a week.

3. Among the 4.85% of existing homes in the D.C. region that are vacant, 33% are empty because they are rentals between tenants — the number one reason.

   “Between tenants” – is that like being “between jobs,” i.e. unemployed? Greedy landlords better get to sawin’ and slashin’ if they want to stem the bleeding from their carrying costs.

4. ‘some residents think the county’s infrastructure has not kept up with the influx of residents and projects like Sunset Canyon would generate more problems along State Route 347, a roadway with a notorious reputation for heavy traffic and dangerous crashes’

   I’m not familiar with this highway, but the entire area is a death trap on wheels. I’ve driven through many times and really bad wrecks happen all the time. The stupid 4 lane interstate 10 especially. When there is a wreck, it can take hours for it to untangle. You can’t go around it, and no shortcuts. Yet they keep approving thousands of shacks.

   And there’s the dust storms! Jeebus what a sh$thole.

5. ‘Uninformed buyers saw cheaper prices [in the summer] and figured they better buy now so that they could own a piece of South Florida. There is a lot of buyer regret right now.’”

   Welcome to Schlongville, population: you.

6. “Leader of the residents’ group, Linda Duval, said her property was her investment.

   When I think of speculator scum hemorrhaging money on their shacks, I feel joy.

7. About half of Aussie mortgage holders polled in recent research by comparison site Finder.com.au revealed they were struggling to meet the repayments on their homes.

   Gosh, I’m starting to think getting up on that housing ladder isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

8. “There are 5.6 million homes in the 50 largest United States metropolitan areas currently sitting vacant, including 123,000 in the D.C. metropolitan area. Among the 4.85% of existing homes in the D.C. region that are vacant, 33% are empty because they are rentals between tenants — the number one reason.”

   Something is wrong with this picture. Could it be that home prices have been inflating so fast in recent years that it penciled out for investors to buy and hold empty homes until selling them later for a tidy capital gain? There is no need to bother with pesky tenants when prices are rising fast enough.

   1. Municipalities need to be slapping vacancy taxes on the speculator scum to disincentivize withholding shelter from those who need it.

9. “The consumer cannot overcompensate for the weakness that we are now seeing unfold – in particular in the real estate space – which has been for a long period of time, one of the largest contributors to Chinese growth.’”

   Luckily for U.S. real estate investors, nothing similar could ever happen here.

10. This Week’s South Florida Deal Sheet: Miracle Marketplace Sells For A $30M Loss

    Chicago-based Heitman sold the Miracle Marketplace retail property for $62M, $30M less than what the company bought it for in 2013. The buyer, an entity tracing to South Florida-based IMC Equity Group and Alan Lipton, secured the retail center with new debt of $42.5M from Pacific Coast Bankers’ Bank that matures in November 2034, according to the Vizzda database.

    The six-story building at 3301 Coral Way is leased to Burlington, DSW, Marshalls, Five Below, PetSmart, Hooters, Nordstrom Rack and LA Fitness. The property was built in 1989 on 3.5 acres.

    https://www.bisnow.com/south-florida/news/deal-sheet/this-weeks-south-florida-deal-sheet-miracle-marketplace-sells-for-a-30m-loss-127126

    1. It was only Yellen Bux. Easy come, easy go.

11. Katrina survivor’s advice for H-T columnist: Sell ruined condo, leave Sarasota | Letters

    I can empathize with Herald-Tribune columnist Carrie Seidman over her post-hurricane miseries.

    I lived through a similar experience post-Hurricane Katrina: 8 feet of water in my home, roof damage, vandalism, etc. (“I bought a Sarasota condo to simplify my life. It hasn’t. At all,” Dec. 6).

    Our homeowners association was torn asunder. The lucky residents were bought out by the government. The unlucky ones sold up very cheaply.

    We tried to donate our villa to charity. They would not take it.

    One homeowner refused to pay the association dues and penalties. The association sued the homeowner. The judge ruled in favor of the homeowner and the rest of us had to pay up.

    We were in limbo for two years. We went through three appeals with our insurance company.

    My advice for Ms. Seidman’s physical and mental health is to sell the condo and move far away.

    Stephen Gergatz, MD, Sarasota

    https://www.yahoo.com/news/katrina-survivors-advice-h-t-130134281.html

    1. Call it a hunch, call it an intuition, but I’m starting to think that buying a condo maybe isn’t cheaper than renting.

       1. I would NEVER buy a property under an HOA.

          1. “I would NEVER buy a property under an HOA.”

             On my list when I was looking to buy a shack was a CBS house with a hip roof, city water and sewer, a fenced back yard all came after number one which was … NO HOA

             1. Sorry, Jeff. Can you tell me what a CBS house is? custom-built shack?
                TYVM, –Geezer

             2. CBS house

                My name isn’t Jeff, but I’m a friend. That’s a concrete block structure.

12. Oh dear….

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/yourmoney/housing-market/article-14162469/fears-real-estate-crisis-spreading-florida-western-city-condo-fees-skyrocket.html

13. Man accused of duping Filipino churchgoers into investing in video Covid-test tech to plead guilty

    A man in the San Fernando Valley of California has agreed to plead guilty to wire fraud, after prosecutors accused him of running a multimillion-dollar Ponzi scheme targeting local Filipino community members, including senior churchgoers.

    Sylvein William Maximilian D’Habsburg XVII, 48, has been accused of taking more than $5.9 million from victims over the course of several years. It was all under the guise of investing in his two tech companies, prosecutors wrote in the plea deal, with D’Habsburg making several claims including that his technology could detect Covid-19 infection based on video.

    At one point in 2020, D’Habsburg convinced a victim to wire $224,378.43 to his bank account in the name of BAI intelligence, prosecutors wrote in the plea deal reached with the defendant. He then used the money to buy luxury cars like a vintage Rolls Royce and rare antiques, court documents said.

    D’Habsburg, who’s also of Filipino descent and changed his name from Sylvein Scalleone, is expected to face a maximum of 20 years in prison, according to the agreement filed last week for the federal felony fraud charge.

    In a statement to NBC News, D’Habsburg’s attorney Bryan Thomas said that his client “vehemently denies” running a Ponzi scheme.

    “Mr. D’Habsburg has admitted to making false statements regarding the financial status of the business and that is what he has accepted responsibility,” Bryan Thomas, D’Habsburg’s attorney, said in a statement before referencing D’Habsburg’s company BAI Intelligence, which is a company focused on experimental Covid-19 testing. “However, BAI technology is not a Ponzi scheme and he has not plead guilty to any charges regarding the performance of his company.”

    Licelle Cobrador, executive director of the Filipino American Legal Defense and Education Fund, called the allegations “mind-boggling,” given D’Habsburg’s shared background with his victims.

    “For Filipinos, when you identify as another Filipino, there’s an automatic affinity. They would just be more trusting,” Cobrador said, adding that the allegations suggest D’Habsburg “took advantage of that bond.”

    According to the plea agreement, the wire fraud started back around January 2018 and continued through at least June 2023. D’Habsburg appeared to target fellow Filipinos, the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Central District of California said.

    During the presentations, D’Habsburg would allege that he’d already received $500 million in investments from big names including Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan, Joel Osteen and the Harvard University endowment, the plea agreement said. Additionally, D’Habsburg would claim that former secretaries of state, Mike Pompeo and Hillary Clinton, had consulted with him about his AI technology.

    Beyond the two vintage Rolls Royces, D’Habsburg also splurged on a pair of Italian-carved Giltwood thrones from the 1800s, a Venetian baroque-style throne chair from around 1890, paired Italian marble columns that date back to the 12th to 13th century, along with high-end clothing and other valuables, the plea deal said.

    https://www.yahoo.com/news/man-accused-duping-filipino-churchgoers-002153124.html

    1. They call congregations “flocks” for a reason. Baaaaaaa!

       1. LOL

14. When will the global debt bomb explode?

    https://finance.yahoo.com/news/fiscal-debt-binge-world-biggest-120000047.html

15. Meriton Group founder Harry Triguboff calls for increased immigration levels without relying on China

    Aussie billionaire developer Harry Triguboff believes the solution to the housing crisis is increasing immigration levels but urges the government to not rely solely on China, but aim for a broad range of cultures.

    The 91-year-old Meriton Group owner and managing director shared his vision for the country while speaking with Mark Bouris on his Straight Talk podcast.

    Mr Triguboff said immigration was vital to ensure the Australian housing market thrived in the long term. “We need more immigration because if we have no migrants, it’s very difficult (to build),” he said. “I can’t even imagine how we do it now. I say we would collapse.”

    However, Mr Triguboff warned about the impact focusing on Chinese immigrants would have on the broader community. “Chinese are wonderful migrants but if we bring many of them they will take over,” he said. “They are all young, many Australians (are) old. They (the Chinese) will live longer.”

    https://www.news.com.au/national/politics/meriton-group-founder-harry-triguboff-calls-for-increased-immigration-levels-without-relying-on-china/news-story/68cbda3757e9aa584c378fd11922c560

    1. “Chinese are wonderful migrants but if we bring many of them they will take over,” he said. “

       What if those migrants are the PRC’s 5th Column for a future invasion aimed at grabbing Australia’s land mass & resources, with Australia’s globalist quislings serving as witting collaborators?

       Tomorrow, When the War Began Official Trailer (2010)

       https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KaX0F8GojI&t=52s

16. [Pssssssst … a lot of those weather stations that can measure temperatures to one-hundredth of a degree centigrade do not exist.]

    Massive Cover-up Launched by U.K. Met Office to Hide its 103 Non-Existent Temperature Measuring Stations.

    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2024/12/09/massive-cover-up-launched-by-u-k-met-office-to-hide-its-103-non-existent-temperature-measuring-stations/

    Last month, the Daily Sceptic highlighted the practice at the U.K. Met Office of inventing temperature averages from over 100 non-existent measuring stations. Helpfully, the Met Office went so far as to supply coordinates, elevations and purposes of the imaginary sites. Following massive interest across social media and frequent reposting of the Daily Sceptic article, the Met Office has amended its ludicrous claims. The move has not been announced in public, needless to say, since drawing attention to this would open a pandora’s box and run the risk of subjecting all the Met Office temperature claims to wider scrutiny. Instead, the Met Office has discreetly renamed its “U.K. climate averages” page as “Location-specific long-term averages”.

    Significant modifications have been made to the new page, designed no doubt to quash suspicions that the Met Office has been making the figures up as it went along. The original suggestion that selecting a climate station can provide a 30-year average from 1991-2020 has been replaced with the explanation that the page “is designed to display locations that provide even geographical coverage of the U.K., but it is not reflective of every weather station that has existed or the current Met Office observation network”. Under the new page the locations are still referred to as “climate stations” but the details of where they are, exactly, have been omitted.

    The cynical might note that the Met Office has solved its problem of inventing data from non-existing stations by suggesting that they now arise from “locations” which may or may not bear any relation to stations that once existed, or indeed exist today. If this is a reasonable interpretation of the matter, it might suggest that the affair is far from closed.

    Again we are obliged to the diligent citizen journalist Ray Sanders for drawing our attention to the unannounced Met Office changes and providing a link to the previous averages page on the Wayback Machine. The sleuthing Sanders has been on the case for some time, having discovered that three named stations near where he lives, namely Dungeness, Folkestone and Dover, did not exist. The claimed co-ordinates for Dover placed the station in the water on the local beach as shown by the Google Earth photo below.

    [A photo appears here …]

    As a result, Sanders discovered from a freedom of information request that 103 of the 302 sites marked on the climate averages listing – over a third of the total – no longer existed. Subsequently, Sanders sought further information about the methodology used to supply data for both Folkestone and Dover. In reply, the Met Office said it was unable to supply details of the observing sites requested “as this is not recorded information”. It did however disclose that for non-existent stations “we use regression analysis to create a model of the relationship between each station and others in the network”. This generates an estimate for each month when the station is not operating. Each “estimate” is said to be based on data from six other stations, chosen because they are “well correlated” with the target station.

    In the case of Dover, the nearest ‘station’ is seven miles away at non-existent Folkestone followed by Manston which is 15 miles distant. By “well correlated” perhaps the Met Office means they are in the same county of Kent. No matter, computer models are on hand to guide the way.

    Ray Sanders had sent details of his findings to the new Labour science minister Peter Kyle MP and the recent Met Office changes may have been promoted by a discreet political push. At the time, Sanders asked: “How would any reasonable observer know that the data was not real and was simply ‘made up’ by a Government agency?” He called for an open declaration of likely inaccuracies of existing published data “to avoid other institutions and researchers using unreliable data and reaching erroneous conclusions”.

    The Met Office also runs an historical data section where a number of sites with long records of temperature are identified. Lowestoft closed in 2010 and since then the figures have been estimated. The stations at Nairn Druim, Paisley and Newton Rigg have also closed but are still reporting estimated monthly data. “Why would any scientific organisation feel the need to publish what can only be described as fiction?” asks Sanders.

    The original Braemar station in Aberdeenshire has recorded temperature data since Victorian times. Due to its interesting topography surrounded by high mountains, it recorded the U.K.’s coldest temperature of -27.2°C in both 1895 and 1982. In summer, the temperature can soar as the heat stays trapped. A new site, some distance from the original, was set up in 2005 and in common with Met Office procedure was labelled Braemar 2 to reflect both distance and climatological differences. In the historical data section of the Met’s website, Braemar 2 is shown supplying data back to 1959. “For reasons I find difficult to understand, the Met Office has chosen to highlight a spurious merging of two notably different data sets for an illogically defined period that fails to represent either site,” observes Sanders.

    The recent changes made by the Met Office to its climate average pages shows that the state-funded operation is fully aware of the growing interest in its entire temperature recording business. This interest has grown because the Met Office is fully committed to using its data to promote the Net Zero political fantasy. But it is silent on the biggest concern that has been raised of late, namely the promotion of temperatures, accurate to one hundredth of a degree centigrade, obtained from a nationwide network where nearly eight out of 10 stations are so poorly sited they have internationally-recognised ‘uncertainties’ as high as 5°C.

    1. [Here is a related 8-minute video concerning the goings-on with NOAA temperature data …]

       https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cF16lDtSVrU

       1. [Here is another related video. This one is a bit over two-minutes long.]

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8NHTuzEVBE

17. The growing backlash to DEI and ESG in the U.S. is affecting Canadian companies as well

    Canada, meet Robby Starbuck. The online activist takes credit for pressure campaigns that have prompted multiple U.S. companies to scale back or eliminate their diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies and practices. Companies such as Deere & Co., Harley-Davidson Inc., Molson Coors Beverage Co. and Walmart Inc., have all said they’ll change hiring practices, pull out of relationships with equity groups or cut funding for pride parades.

    “We’ve now changed policy at companies worth over US$2-trillion, with many millions of employees who have better workplace environments as a result,” Mr. Starbuck posted Nov. 25 on X, after he said his meeting with Walmart executives prompted a host of changes, including their decision not to extend a five-year, US$100-million philanthropic commitment to fighting systemic racism the retailer made in 2020.

    “Companies can clearly see that America wants normalcy back. The era of wokeness is dying right in front of our eyes. The landscape of corporate America is quickly shifting to sanity and neutrality. We are now the trend, not the anomaly.”

    https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-dei-esg-backlash-canadian-companies/

18. Trudeau says Canada will respond to any new U.S. tariffs, citing past retaliation

    Mr. Trudeau told the Halifax Chamber of Commerce on Monday that tariffs at this level would have a “devastating” impact on the Canadian economy, while also damaging the U.S. economy and driving up prices for American consumers.

    Ottawa would “respond to unfair tariffs in a number of ways, and we’re still looking at the right ways to respond,” Mr. Trudeau said in his most expansive comments to date on Canada’s approach to dealing with a possible trade war with the United States.

    If it does come down to retaliation, Canada will likely follow a similar playbook to 2018, according to Steve Verheul, who was the country’s chief trade negotiator during the last Trump presidency.

    “It’s really trying to target specific regions of senators or influential people and try to hit them there, which is why we went after certain types of whiskeys,” Mr. Verheul said.

    https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-trudeau-says-canada-will-respond-to-any-new-us-tariffs-citing-past/

    1. certain types of whiskeys

       Canada imposes a duty of 100% on whisky already.

19. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Monday that Americans “are beginning to wake up to the real reality that tariffs on everything from Canada would make life a lot more expensive” and said he will retaliate if Donald Trump goes ahead with them.

    Trump later responded by calling Canada a state and Trudeau the governor. Trump seemed to respond to Trudeau’s comments with a post on social media late Monday, in which he noted Trudeau’s recent dinner at Mar-a-Lago where some said Trump joked about Canada becoming the 51st state.

    “It was a pleasure to have dinner the other night with Governor Justin Trudeau of the Great State of Canada. I look forward to seeing the Governor again soon so that we may continue our in depth talks on Tariffs and Trade, the results of which will be truly spectacular for all! DJT,” Trump posted on Truth Social.

    https://www.yahoo.com/news/trudeau-says-americans-realizing-trumps-004845327.html

20. How much did insider trader extraordinaire Nancy Pelosi profit from her financial relationship with UnitedHealthCare?

    https://x.com/Bubblebathgirl/status/1866184672285282590

    1. Yep, those grants have extra in there that must loop right back to the senator signing-off on the grant, e.g., “blind-trust” Pelosi.

21. Whipping up Illinois Republicans

    Incoming Ohio Republican Sen. Bernie Moreno stopped in Illinois for a Republican holiday gathering and gave some insight about Donald Trump 2.0, immigration and his beef with the Inflation Reduction Act.

    “We’re going to resolve immigration in the first 40 to 60 days,” Moreno told the Republican-centric crowd over a lunch of chicken Milanese and whipped potatoes at Gibson’s in Oak Brook on Friday.

    Moreno will be Ohio’s first Latino senator after ousting Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown last month in the most expensive Senate race ever at $441 million.

    The who’s who of Illinois Republicans were in a celebratory mood in spite of their tough spot as the state’s underdog party. The event was hosted by businessman Jay Bergman, Superior Ambulance Service CEO David B. Hill III and Kirkland & Ellis’ Sandy Perl and Richard Porter, who sported “Let’s Go Brandon” socks (a hat tip to the anti-Biden meme), and organized by Victoria Login and Sara Karlovics of LW&Co.

    Moreno’s big win gives them hope. The Ohio Republican was well received, though he did make one comment that fell flat with the crowd.

    He criticized the Inflation Reduction Act because it gives $7,500 incentives to those who buy electric vehicles. “So Ken Griffin can lease an electric Rolls Royce that costs $600 grand and get $7,500 in tax subsidies. Do you think he needs it?”

    It’s not Just Ken Griffin. Rich Chicago residents are losing their shirts on real estate: “Wealthy homeowners in the Windy City are selling at a loss—and looking for someone to blame. … When Griffin, after selling a portion of his Chicago penthouse for a dramatic 44 percent loss last month, was quick to take a shot at its purchaser [Gov JB Pritzker], blaming ‘failed political leadership in Illinois’ for rising crime and declining luxury real-estate values in the Windy City,” by The Wall Street Journal’s Katherine Clarke.

    https://www.politico.com/newsletters/illinois-playbook/2024/12/09/whipping-up-illinois-republicans-00193243

22. Mexico’s president said Monday that much of the money gained by eliminating independent oversight and regulatory agencies will go to the army to fund a rise in soldiers’ pay.

    The announcement by President Claudia Sheinbaum is the latest in a a series of new and unusual funding sources to pay for the country’s increasingly influential military.

    Last week, Mexico’s Congress approved charging every cruise ship passenger a $42 immigration fee, with much of that money also going to the armed forces.

    Under Sheinbaum’s Morena party, since 2019 the military has been given powers to build and run everything from railways, airports and airlines in Mexico, and some of those projects appear to be losing money.

    For over a century before, Mexico’s armed forces were very limited in their actions, restricted from taking any role in politics and didn’t have many business interests. But that all changed under Sheinbaum’s predecessor, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who saw the army as a loyal, unquestioning ally and a safeguard for his political and policy legacy.

    López Obrador, Sheinbaum’s political mentor, also made the armed forces, and the quasi-military National Guard, the country’s main law enforcement forces.

    In late November, Mexico’s Senate voted to eliminate seven independent regulatory and oversight agencies, a move that critics warn will cement the ruling party’s power and avoid outside scrutiny.

    Sheinbaum called it a money-saving measure, arguing that the government can more efficiently handle functions like freedom of information requests, anti-monopoly enforcement and energy-market regulation.

    However, critics and foreign investors and critics fear this could open the door to favoritism and a lack of transparency.

    And earlier this month, Mexico’s Senate — controlled by the president’s Morena party — voted to charge cruise ship passengers $42 per head for port calls, drawing sharp criticism from the tourism industry.

    Moreover, many of the military-run projects appear to be big money losers, which may help explain the government’s urge to find extra funding for the armed forces.

    For example, one of López Obrador’s pet projects — the “Maya Train,” a tourist line which runs in a loop around the Yucatan Peninsula — has drawn only 20% of the ridership expected when it was proposed.

    The Maya Train started service on Dec. 16, 2023. While it’s not completely finished — two relatively little-used stretches are scheduled to enter service later this months — the most popular and heavily-travelled parts of the line are already in service.

    As of Dec. 8, authorities announced the train line had carried a little more than 600,000 passengers in its first 51 weeks. That is only one-fifth of the 3 million passengers authorities had claimed it would carry per year.

    On Monday, the government announced a “package tour” deal in which another military-run, money losing project — the government-owned Mexicana airline — would offer flights to stations along the Maya Train line.

    The flight would take off, of course, from another military-run project, the new Mexico City Felipe Angeles airport, which is just starting to break even because the government forced cargo planes, and some passenger flights, to use it.

    Mexico’s ruling Morena party is already running enormous budget deficits to fund its favorite building projects like railways and oil refineries — some of which are being built by the army. The government is desperate to find new revenue sources.

    https://apnews.com/article/mexico-president-army-funding-projects-e6ad34e863414c47f5180be63cefccdc

    1. At some point she’s going to break and start printing extra pesos.

    2. I read the low passenger train article in the Mexican media. That said, the Tren Maya is also intended to transport cargo to the Riviera Maya region, as highways have become congested with trucks.

       There was a lot of opposition from environmentalists over the train, which runs through the Yucatan jungle. There is also concern that there could be long term structural issues, with train tracks sinking into the soft soils.

    3. On Monday, the government announced a “package tour” deal in which another military-run, money losing project — the government-owned Mexicana airline

       The original Mexicana went bankrupt over a decade ago. I still don’t understand why the military is trying to bring it back. AeroMexico is the flag carrier.

23. McDonald’s where Luigi Mangione was caught receives enormous backlash following call-in from employee

    Published 15:15 10 Dec 2024 GMT

    Some are accusing the employee of being a ‘snitch’ and are encouraging others to ‘boycott’ the restaurant

    Olivia Bridge

    The McDonald’s restaurant where shooting suspect Luigi Mangione was arrested is being flooded with bad reviews in an apparent show of support for the arrested man.

    The 26-year-old was then taken into custody after being spotted in a McDonald’s restaurant in Altoona, Pennsylvania on Monday (December 9), after an employee reportedly recognized him and called the police.

    Now, the fast-food restaurant is facing some bizarre backlash as several one-star reviews have been posted to the McDonald’s restaurant’s Yelp and Google reviews within the past 24 hours.

    One review posted 19 hours ago at the time of writing read: “The staff accused me of assassinating a CEO. Incredibly unprofessional and class-traitor staff.”

    Negative comments of a similar nature have since been rolling in, as another accused the McDonald’s joint of being a ‘fed hotspot’ and alluded to officers trawling the area and ‘looking for an excuse to arrest citizens’.

    In a dark take, others appear to be rallying around Mangione by posting unrealistic stories and jokes – and accusing the restaurant of employing ‘snitches’ while encouraging others to ‘boycott’ the place.

    One review read: ‘Fire all the rats working here’ while another echoed ‘service was terrible’ with ‘rats everywhere

    A third also said: “Dog food, rats everywhere.’

    Meanwhile, Yelp has stalled reviews for the Altoona fast-food restaurant on its site, citing ‘unusual activity’ after ‘increased public attention’.

    One Yelp reviewer wrote: “The fries were sad and cold, like that snitches heart. Pretty depressing atmosphere too. Feels likes someone might rat out on you.”

    https://www.unilad.com/news/us-news/luigi-mangione-arrest-mcdonalds-bad-reviews-242567-20241210

    1. McDonald’s responded with a statement to Luigi Mangione supporters.

       https://youtu.be/-Vm5w8KRqAQ?si=urNGkmhkmlcUFnU0&t=80

24. In Arcadia and Temple City, Asian American voters fueled gains for Trump

    After months of waffling, longtime Democrat Edmund Liu swung to Donald Trump because of the smash-and-grab down the street.

    When Liu first moved to the U.S. from China, he was drawn to the Democratic Party because he saw it as immigrant-friendly.

    But he began to question his allegiance after more than a decade in Arcadia, an affluent suburb at the foot of the San Gabriel Mountains that is home to many Asian immigrants. The tab for celebratory dinners with his extended family often approached four digits, and his paycheck as a software engineer wasn’t stretching as far as before.

    Then, about a week before the Nov. 5 election, he saw videos on social media of people in black hoodies running with handbags out of a second-hand luxury store in the Westfield Santa Anita mall while a security guard filmed passively.

    “It’s about five minutes driving from my home, and it is like one minute of driving from the Police Department. I was like, ‘That’s ridiculous,’” said Liu, 55. “I was like, ‘OK, I made up my mind, and that’s it.’”

    This year in the Arcadia and Temple City areas, which are both majority Asian, Liu’s political shift was common among Asian American voters. Many expressed despair about the direction of the country in the last four years, citing crime, the economy and illegal immigration as reasons to give Trump a chance.

    Arcadia Mayor Michael Cao, who has heard repeatedly from constituents irate about smash-and-grabs, the price of groceries and other problems a part-time suburban politician is ill-equipped to address, expected the move away from the Democratic Party.

    “They felt like no one was listening, and they felt like they just needed a change,” said Cao, who is not registered with a political party and declined to say how he voted.

    James Zarsadiaz, an associate professor of history at the University of San Francisco, said some voters were also likely responding to an uptick in anti-Asian sentiment during the pandemic.

    “Republicans have been able to seize on these fears to say, ‘Hey, we are the party of law and order,’” said Zarsadiaz, who is writing a book on Asian American conservatism. “It’s like a perfect storm to have some Asian American voters rethink their loyalties to the Democratic Party.”

    Jeff Chang, a 52-year-old insurance broker whose family moved to the U.S. from Taiwan in the 1980s, said the recent smash-and-grabs helped swing his vote.

    “When did it become OK?” said Chang, who has lived in Arcadia since 2007. “It shouldn’t be OK.”

    This year, Chang voted Republican for the first time. He says he doesn’t always agree with Trump’s statements but thinks he is better equipped to deal with crime and illegal immigration.

    Grace Liu, 60, who runs an international trading company, thinks that Trump, as a successful businessman, is capable of turning the country around, especially with Musk by his side.

    “Trump’s ability to solve problems — no one can compare to him,” Liu said in Mandarin.

    Liu, who came to the U.S. from Shanghai and has lived in Arcadia for more than 20 years, said she was motivated to vote for the first time because the U.S. has become a “complete mess” in the last four years, from its standing in the world to public safety issues to the border.

    “Why did we come to America? The No. 1 thing is freedom,” she said. “If it’s too unsafe, how can you have freedom?”

    Suki Xie also voted for the first time, casting her ballot at an Arcadia public library on election day along with her parents, brother and sister-in-law.

    All were first-time voters, and all voted for Trump, said Xie, 36, who runs a dried seafood business and is originally from the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou.

    Xie is worried about crime, including the smash-and-grab at the Santa Anita mall and break-ins at her friends’ businesses.

    “I’ve been in the U.S. for so many years, and until now, I’ve never had this feeling like I’m afraid to leave the house at night,” she said in Mandarin.

    Xie said she welcomes more people from China joining the local community, but she has concerns about the migrants who gather at the Fatty Ding strip mall in Monterey Park to look for work, which she said could take jobs from locals and isn’t fair to those who have waited 10 or more years to immigrate legally.

    Inflation is also out of control, Xie said, with the price of food, gas and other necessities seeming to suddenly spike.

    “We’ve talked with a lot of friends, saying we hope that if we change a president, change a party, let’s see if a new way of governing can change this society,” she said.

    https://www.yahoo.com/news/arcadia-temple-city-asian-american-110012871.html

25. On a recent chilly afternoon, about a half dozen men were clearing snow from a commercial office building in town. The roofing company owner asked to be identified only as Julio, because he is undocumented. He said he has been doing construction work in the U.S. since 1989, most of that time in Mammoth Lakes.

    His company has 15 employees, he said. He also has three kids, all U.S. citizens; his oldest is an officer for the California Highway Patrol.

    He’s not worrying much about the talk of deportations, he said, in part because he sees no point in stressing about something he can’t control. But he also said he thinks Trump is a rational businessman who must know how much undocumented laborers add to the economy.

    And Trump is in construction, Julio joked, so, “I’m pretty sure he’s got some undocumented people working for him, too.”

    In fact, while Julio was put off by the sweeping, derogatory comments Trump made about Mexicans during the campaign, he thinks Trump is “a pretty good president.” He’s right about deporting people who come across the border illegally “looking for free stuff,” Julio said.

    “I’ve been working my ass off,” Julio said. “I pay all my medical bills out of my pocket, my dentist, my vision. I didn’t get any low-income housing, because I don’t think I need it.”

    He hopes Trump will spare hard workers, like him, who “make the country stronger,” he said. But he’s fine with deporting lazy people.

    “Whoever doesn’t benefit the country, kick them out of here,” he said.

    https://www.yahoo.com/news/day-without-mexicans-mammoth-locals-110008748.html

26. Keir Starmer is kidding himself that this policy will save him from Nigel Farage

    Comforting though it may be for Labourites to believe Sir Keir Starmer can woo floating Reformer voters back with the promise of more housing, the issues which motivate Farage supporters go deeper than this or access to the NHS.

    Beneath all of this lies a tremendous sense that national cohesion has gone in Britain.

    This is not the fault of immigration per se, but mass immigration without integration, leading to parallel communities without time for new arrivals to bed-in.

    Indeed immigrants are not to blame for this. Those who journey to Britain, either legally or illegally, are just following their obvious self-interest in bettering their lot.

    But Labour’s almost certain continuation of an open-door policy – with or without more houses being built – is going to catalyse support for Reform UK.

    Farage backers are not all focused on material problems like housing. Instead it is something less tangible, a loss of belonging, or at least a sense the nationhood many remember has been eroded.

    Still, what pulls voters to Farage – and what is creating three-way marginals nationally and driving Reform to second place in one recent poll – is not at its heart about housing or access to public services, although this may be in the mix.

    It is a sense that a house divided against itself cannot stand, and Britain is now a house divided, unable to unite its various communities, and instead of working to integrate those already in Britain, piling in even more people who cannot possibly be integrated at this rate.

    The fault lies with politicians and many in the business world. Farage understands this and Reform’s language of nationhood speaks to the betrayal many feel across the country.

    Labour only has one route to woo voters back and that is to develop a Left-wing case for strong borders, and in so doing guard workers’ rights and salaries (which are driven down by low wage immigration), while prioritising the needs of working class communities (of all colours).

    Failure to do that – regardless of whether more houses get built (and frankly the targets in place are far too low) only guarantees Reform’s rise continues.

    https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1986776/keir-starmer-nigel-farage

    1. Labour only has one route to woo voters back and that is to develop a Left-wing case for strong borders

       Get rid of Starmer and swing to the center is one option. Double down on the insanity is another. Being that elections are not until 2029 they might be a bit cocky for now.

       Starmer’s problem is that he needs other people’s money to make good on his promises, and that is in short supply these days.

       1. The way these things have been playing out is the globalist scum start adopting the far right policies. Germany is like Trump on immigration now! Even the EU have started deportations. Trudeau is kicking out the students too.

          Reform is winning in the by elections, the polls and it gets a lot of play in their media. They are also doing well in Scotland and Wales. Starmer is dead last in leadership polling.

27. Why has the killing of a U.S. health insurance CEO caused so much online glee?

    “The American healthcare system is a leading example of an institution that, under political protection, redistributes income upward to hospitals, physicians, device makers and pharmaceutical companies while delivering among the worst health outcomes of any rich country.”

    That’s from Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism by Anne Case and Nobel economics laureate Angus Deaton. The 2020 book’s main theme is the remarkable increase in deaths from drugs, alcohol and suicide experienced by the American white working class over the last two decades, a phenomenon the duo were the first to document and try to explain.

    However, much of the book is devoted to a related phenomenon, namely a U.S. health care system they call “a cancer at the heart of the economy, one that has widely metastasized, bringing down wages, destroying good jobs, and making it harder and harder for state and federal governments to afford what their constituents need.”

    The authors argue that “the industry is not very good at promoting health, but it excels at promoting wealth among healthcare providers.” They call this the “reverse Robin Hood redistribution” or the “Sheriff of Nottingham redistribution.” A large part of that redistribution is through the health insurance industry: white-collar gatekeepers taking an outsized bite out of the U.S. economy.

    I thought about all this after a health insurance chief executive was gunned down last Wednesday on a Manhattan street. Memes and hot takes quickly spread online, with many seeing the killing of Brian Thompson, chief executive officer of UnitedHealthcare, as a source of humour, mirth and payback.

    Yes, it’s partly because people become their worst selves on social media, and the algorithms reward extremists. Nothing new there. But it’s also because private hospitals and private insurers, the gatekeepers of the U.S. health system, are sources of enormous popular anxiety, bitterness and anger.

    The situation is such a widespread source of fear that KFF Health News, part of the non-partisan KFF health think tank, has long published a regular feature called “Bill of the Month.” You know the TV show, American Horror Story? This is American Health Insurance Horror Story.

    Here are some recent headlines: “Her Hearing Implant Was Preapproved. Nonetheless, She Got $139,000 Bills for Months”; “She Paid Her Husband’s Hospital Bill. A Year After His Death, They Wanted More Money”; “Toddler’s Backyard Snakebite Bills Totaled More Than a Quarter Million Dollars”; “A Mom’s $97,000 Question: How Was Her Baby’s Air-Ambulance Ride Not Medically Necessary?”

    In 2015, nearly one-quarter of emergency medical visits were followed by a surprise out-of-network physician bill, according to KFF. A 2022 federal law, the No Surprises Act, scaled back surprise bills but also created a new administrative nightmare of disputed bills: In the law’s first 18 months, insurers and health care providers filed 490,000 arbitration claims against one another.

    The sad irony, as Ms. Case and Mr. Deaton wrote, is that “American healthcare is the most expensive in the world, and yet American health is among the worst among rich countries.”

    https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/commentary/article-why-has-the-killing-of-a-us-health-insurance-ceo-caused-so-much-online/

    1. It’s not capitalism, and it’s not socialism. It’s the worst of the worst aspects of both, with even more worseness piled on top of that.

       Designed to benefit only the Parasite Class. The Coin Clippers.

       I paid CASH for a small dermatology procedure several years ago, and was told it was more expensive to pay cash than to bill insurance, because they didn’t know how to “code the transaction” for billing or some other BS.

       You’re Coin Clippers. All of you. You produce nothing.

       1. I pay cash at the dermatologist and save money. When I’m talking to the doctor, he’s aware of that and when we discuss things, it’s just a transaction. No pressure to get something done cuz ‘insurance covers it.’

          BTW, why is everybody so pissed about health insurance? That was all solved with obamies ‘signature achievement’, wasn’t it?

28. Days after the presidential election, Kelley Glover started having nightmares that would jolt her from sleep. Her subconscious conjured large monsters that were chasing people. But she did nothing to help them escape to safety. She looked on with sadness from a distance.

    “They weren’t after me – they were going after everybody else,” Glover said of the creatures in her dreams. “I was just sitting there witnessing it and shaking my head.”

    It became clear to the 55-year-old Pflugerville, Texas, resident that she needed to let go of some of the angst she had experienced since the early morning hours of Nov. 6, when news outlets projected that former President Donald Trump had defeated Vice President Kamala Harris in the race for president.

    She is meditating again after years of neglecting the practice. She and friends are walking 8 miles on weekends. She is part of a drum circle that discusses how music can help heal the trauma stuck in our bodies. She’s watching more “House Hunters” on HGTV.

    Like millions of other Black women, Glover felt deep dismay as polls closed across the country and key states were being called for Trump.

    Many of them didn’t expect the outcome, especially given the Harris campaign’s apparent momentum. It raised over $1 billion in three months; held rallies that attracted upwards of 75,000 people each; notched an eviscerating debate performance; gathered high-profile celebrity endorsements; and planted Harris-Walz lawn signs, even in conservative enclaves.

    “When the results came down that night and the next day, we were all just flabbergasted because we did not just feel like she was going to win – we knew she was going to win,” Vanessa “Vee” Richardson, 58, of Ashburn, Virginia, told me. “We just didn’t feel like she could lose.”

    Harris wasn’t offering a radical transformation of America. But her appeal to many Black women voters included her empathy, decency and their belief that she would honor the office of president with dignity.

    All the more reason people like JeDonna Dinges, a 61-year-old metro Detroit e-commerce retailer who knocked on door after door for Harris, were dismayed to see a majority of white women pick Trump for president.

    “White women get a no-confidence vote from me,” Dinges said. “I have given up. How many times do they have to show us who they are? They voted by basically the same margins. This is not a fluke. This is not a one-off. Now there’s so much hand wringing and so much pearl clutching.”

    “So much of this allyship is performative, and I am just tired,” Dinges told me. “After George Floyd was killed, they put out a Black Lives Matter sign, or they changed the profile picture on their Facebook page to a black square. You drive by those homes now and the Black Lives Matter signs are gone.”

    https://ca.news.yahoo.com/column-black-women-theyre-exhausted-100617800.html

    1. You drive by those homes now and the Black Lives Matter signs are gone.

       The mood of the county has shifted right. The insincere suburban virtue signalers understand that signs supporting BLM mark the occupants as termites in the foundations, which might cause neighbors to treat them accordingly.

    2. But her appeal to many Black women voters included her empathy, decency and their belief that she would honor the office of president with dignity.

       Nah, they were expecting free sh!t if she won.

       notched an eviscerating debate performance

       Uh, no, she crashed and burned. She couldn’t be interviewed because she would spew incoherent word salads, even when tossed softballs by Oprah Winfrey.

    3. “…given the Harris campaign’s apparent momentum.”

       Wuh happened to all that kinetic energy? LMAO!!

       1. In summary: Everything about them was a lie.

    4. “After George Floyd was killed…”

       How about too many fentanyl laced suppositories in his rectum?

       And don’t forget that a police officer doing his job is sitting in prison as a public sacrifice to palliate ghetto tensions. Even his department’s Chief of Police perjured himself regarding their own neck restraint training.

    5. They had joy and Liz Cheney. Kamala was brat. I’m shocked that Trump pulled it out.

29. Democrats Have a Pod Save America Problem

    With the dust now settled on the presidential election, dismayed Democrats have begun taking stock, which is not to be confused with taking accountability. How should the party respond to its decisive second loss to Donald Trump, who left office in 2021 with the lowest approval rating of all time?

    One answer that seems to be coming resoundingly from Barack Obama-era veterans is a return to Obama-style politics. That was made clearest in an uproar-raising episode of Pod Save America, which featured 90 minutes of Kamala Harris’ four most senior campaign directors talking about what went wrong to contribute to Harris’ defeat.

    The very long conversation was dominated by former Obama 2008 campaign manager David Plouffe and Obama 2012 deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter—both of whom came off the bench to helm Harris’ campaign after Biden dropped out—talking with Dan Pfeiffer, who took over Plouffe’s old job as a senior adviser to Obama. Jen O’Malley Dillon and Quentin Fulks, both of whom were on the Biden and Harris campaigns, were present, too. To round things out, Jon Lovett, Jon Favreau, and Tommy Vietor, the hosts of Pod Save America, also all worked in the Obama White House.

    In short, this was the Obama wing of the Democratic Party talking to itself, and what did it find? Herein lies the controversy: Those campaign stalwarts found that, by and large, they did a great job on Harris’ campaign, that the race was basically unwinnable, that frustrated Democratic voters—who can’t believe that they got swept by the least popular president in American history—are being unfair and uncharitable to the strategists’ efforts in what was a very compressed campaign season.

    This, despite the fact that the Harris campaign parlayed a truly unbelievable $1.5 billion, a massive cash advantage, into the first Democratic popular vote loss in 20 years. Harris was unable to move one single state in her direction (all 50 went more toward Trump than in 2020), and, according to pollster Patrick Ruffini, the first since 1932 to not flip a single county.

    Meanwhile, Democratic vote share collapsed in blue strongholds, as base Democratic turnout dipped substantially. That comes as no surprise, as seemingly the entire campaign was pitched toward courting mythical right-leaning moderate voters, a very Obama-style political maneuver. This was the justification for Harris spending so many days on the campaign trail with Republican Liz Cheney. Harris did perform better in those swing states where she campaigned and spent lavishly than in those places where she did not, but those Nikki Haley–voting Republicans simply did not materialize in winning numbers.

    Yes, there were tough headwinds; incumbent political leaders all over the globe lost in record numbers this year. But as the New York Times reported in the days before the election, the Harris campaign’s affiliated super PAC was alarmed by senior Harris campaign staff’s insistence on focusing so intensely on Trump’s character and warning of his fascist tendencies in the final stretch. That decency message—a very Obama-style flourish—was being favored over a more pugilistic, economic-policy-forward message. “Purely negative attacks on Trump’s character are less effective than contrast messages that include positive details about Kamala Harris’s plans to address the needs of everyday Americans,” an email from the super PAC read.

    When the campaign tapped Obama himself to hit the trail, he leaned so far into the decency messaging that he set about scolding Black male voters who dared not vote for Harris. As a demographic group, Black men went on to nearly double their support for Trump over 2020.

    The failure of the “Trump Is Bad” approach implicates Pod Save America, too. According to nearly every campaign postmortem, the ecosystem of sort of sloppy right-wing podcasts played a critical role in elevating Trump, swamping the influence of the podcast which is the brightest beacon of Obama-style politics, and—in an ideal world—would have figured as the Democratic answer in this media environment. The Pod Save America episode with the Harris staffers was met with a firestorm of criticism online from commenters and journalists who bristled at the self-satisfied tone and lack of soul-searching. Needless to say, the pod did not save America.

    The results are clear: The Democrats need to do something really different. And yet the Obama wing of the party, which basically took over Harris’ campaign, now insists that the only solution is a return to even more Obama-style politics: more moderation, an embrace of big money and friendlier dealings with Wall Street and Silicon Valley, and a less combative stance toward Republicans. It’s the line of thinking that led Harris to refuse to commit to keeping President Joe Biden’s Federal Trade Commission chair Lina Khan, who has gone after Big Tech and Big Pharma—or just hammer corporate greed in any way, at all. This was a clear break from the Biden presidency.

    “We have to dominate the moderate vote,” said Plouffe on the podcast, of his prescription for the future. “And I think as we look ahead towards ’26 and ’28 … we obviously have to get some of that back, we can’t afford any more erosion there.” Maybe I’m missing something, but the post-loss diagnosis sure seems like “We did everything right” and the post-loss prescription seems to be “More of what we just did.”

    David Axelrod, the former chief strategist on both the Obama 2008 and Obama 2012 campaigns, is pushing for the same thing. He recently began advocating for former Obama chief of staff Rahm Emanuel to be reinstated as the Democratic National Committee chair. Emanuel is perhaps best known for his willingness to go to war with the party’s left flank, rather than Republicans, and his colorful contempt for unions.

    And yet, not even Emanuel himself seems to believe in the efficacy of Obama-era policy and politics. In a pretty stunning CNN interview this week, Emanuel went off on the legacy of policy decisions he and his former boss had a direct role in implementing.

    “The Iraq War, in which the American people were deceived, spent trillions of dollars, thousands of soldiers lost their lives … people were deceived and lied into a war and not one person responsible for that deception ever was held accountable,” he said. “Six years later, the financial industry lies to the American people, people lose their homes, their livelihoods, and the bankers are screaming for their bonuses. Nobody held accountable.”

    Of course, it was the Obama administration, and Emanuel himself, that proudly chose the route of no accountability for these actors, for both the Iraq War and the financial crisis, stressing a need for comity with Republicans and Wall Street and a desire to turn the page.

    Interestingly, Harris campaign adviser Cutter built her national reputation as an adviser to Obama Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, where, according to the New York Times, “she protected Geithner’s fragile reputation and tried to spin unpopular policies like the Troubled Asset Relief Program and the A.I.G. bailout.” The TARP program was perhaps the most scandalous bank bailout program of all, one that was meant to prevent the foreclosure crisis but ended up as a Wall Street bonanza rife with fraud, and did substantial damage to Americans’ view of their own government.

    For good reason, Democrats pine for the days of Obama where the top of the ticket was beloved by Americans. But Obama was a singular political talent, and going back to Obama-era political strategies won’t solve the problems facing Obama-less Dems. While Obama himself cruised through two presidential elections, Democrats not named Obama got obliterated in that period: In the eight years he was president, the party lost a total of 15 state House chambers, 14 state Senate chambers, 960 state legislative seats, 10 governorships, 62 seats in Congress, and 11 seats in the Senate.

    President Biden, despite his profound personal unpopularity, almost certainly had the party closer to a winning program: his economic populist approach, his antitrust agenda, his embrace of unions, and his broader social spending were all taken up by the Trump campaign at some level, bespeaking an obvious popularity that was backed up by polling. This has not gone unnoticed by some of the biggest boosters of centrism. New York Times opinion columnist David Brooks recently posited that maybe “in order to win working class votes in an era of high distrust, the Democrats have to do a lot of things that Bernie Sanders said they should do.”

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/democrats-have-a-pod-save-america-problem/ar-AA1vyjUb

    1. The candidate svcked
       The campaign svcked
       The campaign managers and staff svucked
       The veep choice svucked
       The policies and platform svucked
       The economy svcked
       Their crdibility svcked

       1. The veep choice svucked
          I don’t know about ole Tim. I found him very entertaining.

30. “That’s because of what Sawyer has dubbed the problem property ‘doom loop”

    In Denver, public consumption of fentanyl and meth are legal.

    Zero consequences, because it is the “progressive, compassionate” way.

    1. I attended a concert at Boettcher recently. Parked in the garage with some trepidation. The car was still there when the concert was over.

       1. I don’t go downtown much, and certainly not at night. The fentanyl and meth are everywhere now in Arapahoe County. Once you recognize the symptoms, you instantly know “that’s a drug corner” or “that’s a drug camp” and there’s zero real consequences to any of it.

          Sweep it out and it regroups a few blocks away*

          * except in Douglas County, they won’t tolerate this kind of sh*t down there

31. Now you have our attention on homelessness. That’s the message elected officials in six Phoenix metropolitan-area cities are sending their fed-up constituents less than a month after Arizonans overwhelmingly adopted Proposition 312, a first-in-the-nation law that holds government accountable for the rampant crisis.

    Last week, the Mesa City Council voted unanimously to ban urban camping on public property, while the city of Tempe said it would more strictly enforce its existing urban camping ban. Mesa and Tempe joined Goodyear and Surprise, who both enacted similar bans in November, as well as Phoenix and Scottsdale, who did so over the summer. These policies generally prohibit individuals from camping in public places, on public property, and within 500 feet of a school, childcare facility, shelter, or park.

    In explaining its strict enforcement of the camping ban, Tempe pointed to Prop 312, a first-in-the-nation law designed by the Goldwater Institute to compensate property and business owners for damage created by the homelessness crisis. When government fails to provide public safety services—resulting in lawless dens of destruction plagued by vandalism, public urination and drug use—Prop 312 ensures law-abiding Arizonans can get their tax dollars back.

    After years ignoring the pleas of residents and business owners forced to pay the price for a homeless crisis they did not create, elected officials have no choice but to change their tune.

    Over the summer, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the so-called “judge-made right to vagrancy,” ruling in Grants Pass v. Johnson that it isn’t unconstitutional for cities to enforce laws against public camping. As Goldwater President and CEO Victor Riches wrote in the Wall Street Journal, “Cities across the country now have no excuse not to clean up their streets. But when they refuse to do so, residents can force action on crimes related to homelessness.”

    That’s what happened in Phoenix, where property and business owners sued the city, with Goldwater’s help, for maintaining a public nuisance in an open-air homeless encampment called The Zone. After a state court judge ordered the city to clear The Zone last year, many of those same property and business owners advocated for Prop 312 to stop any future mayor and city council from recreating The Zone or anything like it.

    Law-abiding residents of cities across the nation have lost faith in government to provide the public-safety services their tax dollars are supposed to fund. Consider how the city of Phoenix spent over $180 million to address the homeless crisis (only a fraction of which is publicly accounted for), only for the number of homeless people in Phoenix to rise 92% between 2018 and 2023.

    It’s a crisis of confidence. But Prop 312 has already proven highly effective at incentivizing municipalities to crack down on lawlessness.

    They don’t have any other choice.

    https://www.goldwaterinstitute.org/proof-of-concept-arizona-prop-312-is-already-forcing-action-on-homelessness/

32. I just love the Polar Bear and the Zebra in this video.

    Apache Indian Boom Shack a Lak

    https://youtu.be/ayOAkLleOJE?si=NsfQNaHY649JkDaf

    1. El General, Tu Pum Pum, Festival de Viña 1993

       https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A94HqBkq-jo

       1. That video doesn’t have any Polar Bears or Zebras.

33. Nigel Farage sends ‘INVITATION’ to Elon Musk to ‘get involved’ in Reform as pair ‘open negotiations’

    GBNews

    4 hours ago

    ‘Looks like Farage is now in open negotiations with Musk about when Musk may be able to get involved with the Party.’

    Christopher Hope highlights a conversation between Elon Musk and Nigel Farage on X today, in which the former has asked when he can get involved with Reform.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hU4DURcBsp4

    9:18.

34. Younger, more radical-left Democrat-Bolsheviks – mostly “people of color” – are impatient to crowbar the corrupt, crony-capitalist, Old Guard, self-hating white DNC relics off the levers of power so they can get their fair share of the payola from Democrat patronage & graft rackets & foreign aid kickbacks.

    https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/rcna183515

    1. ‘Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., a 35-year-old member of the progressive “squad” who is often mentioned as a future presidential hopeful, is taking on a more senior colleague, Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., 74, who is battling esophageal cancer and was just elected to his ninth term.’

       “If she wins, it’s the end of seniority,” said a House Democrat who has served decades in Congress.’

       Often mentioned, this is the first time I’ve heard that.

       ‘A Democratic committee staffer made the case for seniority, arguing that the House GOP system — in which committee chiefs get three-term limits, requiring waivers for fourth terms — is a “hot mess” as new leaders tend to clean house and rid the staff of institutional knowledge. The GOP rules have also prompted numerous institutionalist leaders to retire from Congress entirely rather than accept demotions after their tenures are up.’

       “I know Congress looks like a bunch of clowns, but actually it takes experience to do things well,” the staffer said.’

       1. who is often mentioned as a future presidential hopeful

          She would be our Keir Starmer.

       2. “…often mentioned as a future presidential hopeful…”

          Gasp!! I haven’t heard that. Don’t be fooled by those tiddies!

35. ‘Some owners are hoping to sell their units rather than comply, others are walking away, and still others are looking to investors to bail them out. Longtime analyst Peter Zalewski, founder of Miami-based real estate consultancy Condo Vultures, calls it the condo cliff. ‘I would compare it to what we saw in during the Great Recession, which is effectively zombie buildings. These are the units where a small minority are going to have to basically bear the cross or pay for everyone else who’s not able to pay, whether they can’t or they choose not to pay’

    He’s right, it is just like the 2000’s. Mass distress all of a sudden with no end in sight. But prices are way higher and the airboxes are 20 years older, as are the boomers, so it is different this time.

36. ‘when residents reach out about properties that their owners have abandoned — resulting in garbage on lawns, fires started by squatters looking for shelter or crumbling infrastructure — councilmembers often can’t fix the situation…That’s because of what Sawyer has dubbed the problem property ‘doom loop,’ where there are so many city agencies involved that no one agency can actually help residents effectively’

    Central planning!

37. ‘Silber pleaded guilty in August to falsifying financial records to get $74M in Fannie Mae financing for a project in Cincinnati’

    There are these things called audits. Sound lending!

38. ‘Founded by Choo in 1992, Ashcroft has built thousands of homes, condos, apartment and retirement units in and around Ottawa. The Ashcroft Homes Group operates largely through four divisions: Ashcroft Homes develops residential units; Alavida Lifestyles builds and operates retirement homes and seniors’ residences; Envie develops and operates student accommodation; and reStays operates luxury short-term rentals. Collectively, they own about 1,000 residential units and employ more than 500 people, mostly within the city of Ottawa. In his affidavit, Choo said the company developed serious ‘liquidity shortfalls’ in early 2023’

    1000 igloos in the land of every rising values. And they’re broke.

39. ‘Leader of the residents’ group, Linda Duval, said her property was her investment. ‘I didn’t realise at the time that the service charge would cripple me,’ she said. ‘When I become a state pensioner, which is not going to be that long, the service charge is going to be more than a mortgage’

    Fair is fair Linda, it was way cheaper than renting.

    1. Linda needs a sugar daddy.

40. ‘research revealed homeowners were responding with desperate moves to break from their existing loans. It follows a dramatic increase in property listings, with many states recording their highest volume of September and October listings in more than 15 years. Part of that bounce has come from investors offloading rentals they can no longer afford…Whitten said Aussies had overstretched themselves and were looking for reprieve. ‘Interest rates are hitting households hard and many are looking for a way to reduce the pressure,’ he said. ‘Interest rates have remained fairly steady since November but many haven’t adjusted to the higher repayments’

    Wa happened to my shortage Dick?

41. Some Sellers Start Accepting Major Losses (Toronto Real Estate Market Update)

    Team Sessa Real Estate

    19 minutes ago

    In this episode, we look at the current Toronto Real Estate Market specifically the detached home prices and market trends for the week ending Dec 4, 2024. We also discuss how at this time of the year, we are seeing sellers who have tried to sell for a better part of the year accept lower pricing to get a sale before the year ends.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ca4t0Jz-wA

    17 minutes.

    1. At 4:20 he talks about this 2024 buyers ‘big loss’ and ‘if you bought in the last zero to two to three years, there’s a big chance you’ll be taking a loss if yer selling right now.’

42. Do you remember?

    When the 2020 election was stolen? The 2020 election was stolen.

    1. According to comments on X it would appear that these agents provocateurs are already seeking a pardon from Biden. I’m not sure that a crime as serious as swinging a presidential election can simply be admonished. Stay tuned… 🙂

43. “Do you remember?”

    “When the 2020 election was stolen?”

    https://youtu.be/hKQLKlHf2gI?si=FIrxdXLTWWF8XRdx&t=107

44. Few things are as satisfying as seeing Democrat-Bolshevik termites in the foundation fall victim to the breakdown of law and order they’ve been promoting.

    https://nypost.com/2024/12/08/us-news/anti-cop-activist-begs-cops-for-help-when-everything-she-owned-was-stolen-in-san-francisco/

45. #Nuremberg 2.0 can’t come soon enough.

    https://x.com/liz_churchill10/status/1866728206193267176

46. A UFC fighter is Canada’s boldest patriot.

    https://x.com/AtRealBen/status/1866317098370404448/photo/1

47. No matter how much you hate the globalist scum media, it isn’t nearly enough.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14180101/rachel-maddow-unitedhealthcare-ceo-shooting-suspect-luigi-mangione-donald-trump.html

48. Does anyone who lives in the real world really believe that inflation is “only” 2.7 percent?

    https://x.com/TheChiefNerd/status/1866843020592611803

    1. Last time inflation was out of control the middle-east was at war.

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