It’s Like This Cascading Waterfall Of Bad News
A report from Fox 13 Tampa Bay in Florida. “Hurricane victims are still waiting for insurance checks more than six months after the storms, and some like Wayne Thompson say state reforms are not helping as lawmakers hoped. He is disabled with nerve damage to his spine in his legs. Thompson has been living in his damaged home since Hurricane Milton peeled off the roof, collapsed his ceiling and doused his home with torrential rain in October. He tried seeking assistance from FEMA but said he only received a $300 check for groceries. ‘I got all my documents, went to FEMA, and FEMA said we can’t help you. You have insurance. I’m, like, well, they’re not helping me.’ In March, his insurance did send a payment for repairs, but Thompson says it was far below the estimates he could find to do the repairs. The payment also went to his mortgage company, which did not release all the funds under the circumstances. ‘I just got a phone call from my mortgage company. They had the nerve to ask when am I going to fix the house, so I protect their investment,’ he said. ‘So, I went to a dealer and sold my car, I sold clothes, shoes. About $16,000 I was about to come up with on my own.’ But he still thinks it’s nearly $27,000 short. ‘I hate to say it’s on purpose, but it seems like it was built for the insurance company, not us.'”
Ice Cream Convos on Georgia. “Angela Oakley is all in when it comes to her latest venture—real estate. But on the May 11 episode of ‘The Real Housewives of Atlanta,’ things got real when the Bravo star revealed just how deep she is financially tied up. While checking in on one of her remodeled homes, Angela shared that she’s flipped several properties. The problem? None have sold yet. ‘It’s just that the price that we are positioning them at hasn’t been the most welcoming to the market, because I haven’t sold any of them yet.’ Then came the jaw-dropper: ‘I’m in debt $2 million, so I am in some deep s**t with these houses.’ Angela was hopeful that her latest listing would be the one to finally cash out. But when frenemy Kelli Ferrell came by to see the property, her reaction was…less than encouraging. ‘I don’t know, girl. I don’t know if you’re gonna get $3 million for this,’ Kelli laughed when Angela revealed the asking price.”
The New York Post. “Film director Baz Luhrmann is once again testing the Manhattan luxury market, relisting his Gramercy Park townhouse for $13.99 million — a steep discount from its original $19.99 million asking price in March 2022, The Post has learned. The five-story, 8,500-square-foot residence has cycled on and off the market over the past three years, weathering a series of price cuts. Luhrmann purchased the Anglo-Italianate property in 2017, at 243 E. 17th St., for $13.5 million and spent several years renovating it with his signature theatrical flair.”
From Pro Publica. “Ronald Carver was skeptical when his investment adviser first tried to sell him on an ‘ugly houses’ investment opportunity eight years ago. But once the Texas retiree heard the details, it seemed like a no-lose situation. Carver would lend money to Charles Carrier, owner of Dallas-based C&C Residential Properties, a high-producing franchise in the HomeVestors of America house-flipping chain known for its ubiquitous ‘We Buy Ugly Houses’ advertisements. Carver started with a $115,000 loan in 2017. And sure enough, the interest payments arrived each month. The deal seemed so good, Carver talked his elderly father into investing, starting with $50,000. As the monthly checks arrived as promised, both men increased their investments. By 2024, Carver estimates they had about $700,000 invested with Carrier. Then, last fall, the checks stopped. The money Carver and his father had invested was gone.”
“Carrier is accused of orchestrating a yearslong Ponzi scheme, bilking tens of millions of dollars from scores of investors, according to multiple lawsuits and interviews with people who said they lost money. The financial wreckage is strewn across Texas. As early as 2020, Carrier had begun taking out multiple loans on individual properties — some of which he never owned. In cases reviewed by ProPublica, as many as five notes were recorded against a single property, far exceeding the property’s value. ‘It’s incalculable the amount of damage this guy did,’ said one investor who lost about $1 million and asked not to be named to avoid embarrassment and not to interfere with a criminal investigation into Carrier’s scheme. ‘He’s ruined some lives.'”
The Union Tribune in California. “Victims of domestic violence. Human trafficking survivors. Formerly homeless residents. More than 460 households in the city of San Diego — amounting to well over 1,000 children and adults — are set to lose the rental aid they receive from the federal government by as soon as next summer, local officials said this week at a public hearing. The commission currently helps cover rent for around 17,000 households through a variety of programs, all of which are federally funded. Five years ago, each family got an average of $876 a month. By this year, the total had shot up to more than $1,400. Even the Biden administration wasn’t fully covering San Diego’s tab, leaving the commission to dip into its reserves. Natalie Raschke, a mother of four who has spoken publicly about becoming homeless during the pandemic, told council members that her family relied on a voucher. ‘Some people still aren’t back from COVID,’ she said through tears during the public comment period.”
The Globe and Mail in Canada. “In a first amid what real estate experts say is a Vancouver-area condo market meltdown, a long-established development company has terminated its presales efforts for a major project and returned purchasers’ deposits. Karen West, vice-president for marketing and sales with Boffo Developments Ltd., said the company launched the first of what is meant to be a four-tower, 1,200-unit development last July. Only 44 units of the 318 in the first tower sold between July and December and then sales just dropped off completely in the new year, so the company reluctantly decided to pause the project, return deposits with interest, and wait for better conditions, said Ms. West.”
“‘It’s like this cascading waterfall of bad news,’ said Ryan Berlin, chief intelligence officer at Rennie Marketing, one of Greater Vancouver’s major presale marketing companies. Rennie laid of 25 per cent of its staff late last week and Mr. Berlin said many people are not expecting the market to start functioning anywhere near normal for two years. In metropolitan Vancouver, there are currently 2,500 condo units completed and unsold and that number could climb to 3,700 by the end of the year, said Mr. Berlin. One problem many buyers are having is that their units are being assessed at less than what they paid for them, which means banks are reducing the amount they will lend and buyers are having to make up the difference with additional cash of their own, said Mr. Berlin.”
“Some are simply walking away from very large initial deposits. That is prompting some pushback from developers. In Toronto, developers have initiated more than a hundred lawsuits in efforts to get their full purchase price from presale buyers. According to statistics available in Toronto, there were 23,918 in the pipeline or completed in the first quarter of 2025 for the Toronto-Hamilton area. Of those, about 1,900 were completed and ready to be moved into. It’s expected that number will rise to 2,400 by the end of the year. Prices have declined 10 per cent to $1,524 a square foot compared to the peak in 2022, according to Bullpen Research and Consulting. Vancouver prices have also come down. Nothing in downtown Vancouver, currently the most expensive part of the region, can get more than $1,800 a square foot, said Mr. Berlin. At the pre-COVID peak, developers were sometimes asking up to $3,000 a square foot for luxury condos downtown.”
Norran in Sweden. “The crisis and subsequent bankruptcy of battery manufacturer Northvolt, in Skellefteå is severely impacting the city’s housing market. When the first round of lay-offs was announced, we saw an increase in terminated rental contracts. Then there was another spike following the bankruptcy in March, says Anna Ersson, head of customer relations and marketing at Skebo. It’s a stark contrast to just a few years ago, when Northvolt’s arrival and expansion helped overheat the housing market and triggered a wave of planned new developments. It’s in newly built housing that Skebo is seeing the most pronounced effects. Those who moved to Skellefteå to work at Northvolt were primarily given apartments in new developments. And that’s also where we’re seeing the most terminations and the highest number of vacancies, says Ersson. ‘It’s definitely a slower market right now. Bidding wars are almost non-existent. We track the difference between asking price and final sale price, and over the past four weeks, bids in Skellefteå have dropped by an average of –1.6 percent,’ writes Karin Grundeus from SBAB’s property site Booli in an email.”
From Vietnam.net. “In the first quarter of 2025, the low-rise housing market in Hanoi saw a clear downward trend in prices of villas, rowhouses, and shophouses. According to Savills, primary villa and rowhouse prices fell 14 percent, averaging VND282 million per sq m and VND239 million per sq m, respectively, while shophouses dropped 12 percent to VND278 million per sq m. The quarterly decline in primary villa and rowhouse prices in Hanoi, according to Do Thu Hang from Savills Hanoi, is due to new project launches in suburban areas offering lower prices compared to previous projects.
This Post Has 34 Comments
‘Luhrmann purchased the Anglo-Italianate property in 2017, at 243 E. 17th St., for $13.5 million and spent several years renovating it with his signature theatrical flair’
Sounds like yer gonna take a mighty a$$ pounding Baz.
maybe should have left off the theatrical flair!
See the theatrical flair here:
https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/243-E-17th-St-APT-1-New-York-NY-10003/451010911_zpid/
FYI Baz Luhrmann was the director of “Moulin Rouge” back in 2001 (The Nicole Kidman one). So I was expecting a clown show. But actually it’s quite tasteful and subdued. But I hope you like stairs.
quite tasteful and subdued
I thing “functional” is not a word in this decor but I suppose in these lofty class heights, appearance and “look at what I can afford” is the overriding concern.
I hope you like stairs
The bubbled wall paper on the stair risers looks pretty stupid.
Helps cushion you as you fall down those slick stairs and tumble. So you might break your neck but you won’t have any unsightly bruises. 🙂
Just pop in an Acorn.
Acorn Stairlifts The World’s Leader in Stairlifts
https://youtu.be/X3wqil-R7bc?si=bb2Nc9lltnO6zgdx&t=25
Now that’s a walk-in closet* that Imelda Marcos would appreciate!
* see image #20 of 44
‘The financial wreckage is strewn across Texas. As early as 2020, Carrier had begun taking out multiple loans on individual properties — some of which he never owned. In cases reviewed by ProPublica, as many as five notes were recorded against a single property, far exceeding the property’s value. ‘It’s incalculable the amount of damage this guy did,’ said one investor who lost about $1 million and asked not to be named to avoid embarrassment and not to interfere with a criminal investigation into Carrier’s scheme. ‘He’s ruined some lives’
That’s some sound lending right there.
‘The commission currently helps cover rent for around 17,000 households through a variety of programs, all of which are federally funded…Natalie Raschke, a mother of four who has spoken publicly about becoming homeless during the pandemic, told council members that her family relied on a voucher. ‘Some people still aren’t back from COVID,’ she said through tears’
I did mention during minor respiratory illness that guberment would regret telling everybody to quit paying their bills.
The gubment never seems to regret anything- just the taxpayers!
What are the odds that at least half that 17,000 are illegals?
16,999 of them
4 kids living off of me. I agree with most everything political on the right except birth control….we need another government Apollo mission but on all forms of birth control. Way too many people have 3-4 with just a basic job…anything goes wrong in their lives we pay, I pay….I’m tired of it.
don’t forget the perverse incentive you get more bennies with no man in house
‘It’s like this cascading waterfall of bad news,’ said Ryan Berlin, chief intelligence officer at Rennie Marketing, one of Greater Vancouver’s major presale marketing companies. Rennie laid of 25 per cent of its staff late last week and Mr. Berlin said many people are not expecting the market to start functioning anywhere near normal for two years’
https://scamcouver.wordpress.com/2013/12/
2013: The Scam Reviewed
This blog serves as a personal alter for eviscerating and laying bare the entrails of that overabundant local ruminant, the bovis sanctus siccus –the temperate sacred cow. It’s a messy job on a good day. But given the distended fecal sacks of our holy bovines, retching is not uncommon.
Has Scamcouver been successful in this regard? Probably not: at the end of the day there’s not much to be said about a slab covered in offal.
“Chimera” (an imaginary monster comprised of grotesquely disparate parts; a fanciful mental illusion or fabrication) was the most popular search term driving traffic to the blog. Some others:
bob rennie is an asshole
“They had the nerve to ask when am I going to fix the house, so I protect their investment”
That one is for all y’all who think you “own” your home.
[Bummer!]
Edible cricket farm funded by Liberals fails, owes massive debt
https://truenorthwire.com/2025/05/edible-cricket-farm-funded-by-liberals-fails-owes-massive-debt/
A company backed by federal funding to kickstart edible crickets for human consumption in Canada is now facing serious financial trouble and has been placed under receivership by a creditor.
Aspire Food Group, an “alternative protein” company specializing in cricket farming, has been placed under receivership by Farm Credit Canada, a Crown corporation that provides financing to the agricultural sector.
In July 2020, Aspire Food Group successfully obtained a $8.5 million taxpayer-funded grant from the federal government to help develop their cricket farms.
Two years later, Aspire would open the world’s largest edible cricket production facility in London, Ontario, seeking to reach 100 per cent production capacity by early 2024.
Despite Aspire’s ambitious goals, the cricket plant faced significant challenges in finding a market for its product, having to lay off 67 per cent of its workforce in November 2024.
Since May 2024, the London plant remained at or below 50 per cent production capacity, having a hard time finding a market for their edible crickets.
As a result, Aspire failed to generate positive earnings and has required numerous cash injections to maintain operations.
Aspire now owes Farm Credit Canada $41.5 million despite receiving significant financial support from the federal government, in addition to owing $1 million in unpaid property taxes.
After efforts to pay off creditors and return to profitability, Aspire still failed to maintain a $1 million cash balance, violating their credit agreement with Farm Credit Canada.
FTI has been appointed the receiver of Aspire, who will seek to liquidate the company’s assets to pay off its debts.
The announcement of Aspire being placed under receivership comes after the company and the federal government received significant backlash for their attempt to convince Canadians that eating bugs is a viable alternative source of protein.
While most of the plant’s production went to creating pet food, around ten per cent of the company’s product was dedicated to human consumption.
The World Economic Forum has spearheaded the push for bug consumption, controversially encouraging people to begin eating bugs as a means to fight climate change.
My nearby organic market discontinued their cricket shelf over a year ago.
Humans do not eat bird and reptile food. Just because these creeps want you to eat insects and fake chemical food doesn’t mean its good or that human should eat it.
I feel sorry for the pets eating it in the pet food.
All the so called solutions to climate change, Panademics, etc are off the charts absurd.
So , food that has sustained humans forever is all of a sudden a existential threat to the climate. This is one of the more insulting frauds that they are peddling.
Block out Sun, suck up carbon emissions, take killer vaccines, chem trail toxins, on and on.
Its all a incredible fraud to usher in a One World Order dictorship based on contrived or manufactured global emergencies.
Just keep on saying the lies and censor any dispute to it , and the masses in fear will comply to anything.
There is a serious fraud taking place from PCR testing, to bogus vaccines , to block out sun, to zero carbon emissions by 2050. Trust the Science and their models and all the shit they are just making up.
Solutions that are so absurd and ridiculous , but that’s their narratives.
Nobody wants to eat bugs and insects as a main stay diet, or fake chemical food. Nobody wants to be poisoned by chem trails, have the Sun blocked out and be mandated to take bogus vaccines and medications.
Nobody wants to own nothing and eat bugs under 24/7 surveillance control grid by technology and have no freedoms , as in slavery.
These Powers that Be and their vision of Sustainable Earth
future is nothing more than a criminal Cult trying to steal earth and life from humans ,
A small group of fraudulent creeps psychopaths want to rule the world and control or own all resources and consumption and subject humans to their planned dictorship and deprivation. And they want governments to partner with them on their power grab. That’s it, they have more than admitted it.
My pet eats it willingly, if it scurries across the floor it is going to be consumed in one gulp. One time he ate an entire lizard whole. I was like WTF??
Berkeley Finally Learns the Truth About the Homeless Crisis… Almost.
https://archive.ph/t3z1I#selection-791.0-791.69
“It has reached the point now where it is an actual humanitarian crisis,” Greg Gurnick, a Berkeley property owner, told the San Francisco Chronicle this week. He’s talking about Ohlone Park, where tents, needles, and human waste now crowd out the dog walkers. The crisis is real — but it isn’t just in the tents. It’s in the nonprofits and agencies that are supposed to help.
Gurnick and others formed a group called Save Ohlone Park, bombarding — as the paper put it — “the Berkeley mayor, City Council, city manager, police and fire departments with emails and calls about what they describe as unsafe and unsanitary conditions in a public space.”
Their concerns include “rising crime and loud fights involving encampment members, rodent droppings and rotting food littering the grass, and campfires they worry could spark a larger blaze.”
“It is not good for anybody,” Gurnick continued. “The dog park users, the neighborhood, the tenants, the residents, the businesses, or the people camping in the park. I feel really bad for them.”
Well, yes — Gurnick is right to “feel really bad for them,” and he’s also right to call homelessness in California “a humanitarian crisis.”
But if there’s anything worse than what Californians won’t do to help the homeless, it’s what they do instead.
Last year, the very same Chronicle reported that one of the city’s largest homeless housing providers misused taxpayer funds. Auditors found it lacked key financial controls and engaged in practices that “heightened the risk of fraud.”
Translation: Very little help reached the streets, but plenty of pockets got lined.
In Los Angeles this year, “the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted to pull more than $300 million out of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, a city-county agency that oversees contracts for an array of homeless services.” According to the same Los Angeles Times report, the decision followed “two scathing audits which identified lax accounting procedures and poor financial oversight at the homeless authority, also known as LAHSA.”
Now even the feds are getting involved with forming a criminal task force to investigate potential fraud and corruption involving local homelessness funds — and warning that arrests might be coming.
California might be the worst, but it’s far from alone. The New York Post recommended in December that the city “Cut off the shameless nonprofits making bank off NYC’s homeless services.” In D.C. last year, the founder of a group for “homeless LGBTQ+ youth” pled guilty “for moving COVID-19 relief money to private offshore accounts.”
The Homeless-Charitable Complex doesn’t exist to get people off the streets but to suck up tax dollars.
Yet the real crime is what we don’t do.
Temporary homelessness will always be with us, as bad times, bad luck, or the occasional bad decision catch up with some of our most vulnerable. We often do a decent job of helping those people get back on their feet, but we certainly could and should do better.
And Another Thing: It would be nice if certain jurisdictions didn’t allow male sexual predators into the women’s shelters. If there’s one thing that’s going to keep a homeless single mom from getting help, it’s the threat of a man in a skirt in the cot next to hers. But I digress.
The real humanitarian crisis is that chronic homelessness is almost always the result of mental illness, drug addiction, or both. One condition tends to feed off the other, particularly for PTSD sufferers forced to self-medicate with whatever they can find on the streets.
“Letting drug addicts, of which most homeless people are, pee on sidewalks and camp under overpasses isn’t helping them,” is how my RedState colleague Bonchie put it on Sunday. “It’s certainly not helping society.”
What’s required is simple, if not easy: institutionalization for the truly mentally ill and real rehab for addicts who aren’t.
Berkeley residents have taken the first step and admitted that the city has a problem. But are they willing to get serious about it? Or will they just shuffle people in need to treatment from one city park to another, lining pockets along the way?
Skellefteå
Interesting place. It’s right on the Arctic circle, but it’s got an American-style layout with suburbs. I guess they’re going to experience American-style BK in a one-company town too.
“He exhausted his insurance policy coverage for temporary lodging and returned to his home, while his family found other places to sleep.”
This was a chilling read. The proverbial deck is stacked against the policy holder who has little choice since insurance is compulsory.
The sad thing is that none of it is rocket science and they get savages fresh off the boat to do it in most of the U.S. Why can’t Florida organize cheap roof repair? It’s just tar paper and sticks, people.
Democrats have long focused on immigration when courting Latino voters in states like Arizona, Nevada, New Jersey, and Florida, where generations of Mexican, Cuban and other Latin American immigrants have settled and gained permanent legal status.
But Donald Trump’s victory in the 2024 presidential election and the rightward shift of Latino voters have some liberals reconsidering traditional wisdom.
“People do care about it, but they don’t vote on it. They vote on the economy,” said Patricia Campos-Medina, a labor activist who ran for the U.S. Senate last year in New Jersey and is now advising U.S. Rep. Mikie Sherrill, one of the Democrats running for governor in next month’s primary.
Liberal strategists, organizers and some politicians are urging Democrats to focus on the economy in this year’s elections rather than on immigration. Some argue a broad economic message would be more effective with the wide range of nationalities and experiences in the Latino community rather than customized efforts based on perceived cultural or political interests.
Last year, Trump, a Republican, made inroads in heavily Puerto Rican areas of eastern Pennsylvania and turned South Texas’ Rio Grande Valley while improving his numbers along Florida’s Interstate 4 corridor. His message to Latinos focused heavily on the economy and border security.
“Latino operatives have been saying, ‘Don’t treat us all as a monolith,’” said Tory Gavito, who co-founded Way to Win, a progressive group formed after Trump’s 2016 win that recently conducted focus groups with Latinos who skipped the 2024 election. “They were pretty monolithic.”
“Where we fell short was failing to fully appreciate the bread-and-butter economic issues that were driving them,” said Tom Perez, a former Democratic National Committee chair who advised President Joe Biden. He is now co-chair of the American Bridge 21st Century, a group that does opposition research on Republicans. “Many folks felt like we were too focused on identity politics and not focused enough on the cost of eggs, the cost of gas, the cost of living.”
Alex Berrios, co-founder of the organizing group Mi Vecino, which mobilizes Latino voters in Florida, Arizona and Maine, said Democrats focused too much on using buzzwords and trying to micro-target specific nationalities. The result, he argues, left voters feeling as though the party’s message was staged.
“It’s like they were saying, ‘Let me get my Venezuelan script out,’” Berrios said. “No. The first thing is just be relatable.”
https://fox5sandiego.com/news/politics/ap-politics/ap-to-reach-latinos-some-democrats-pivot-to-talk-more-about-the-economy-and-less-about-immigration/
Mexican immigrants at a crossroads
At an Indianapolis church parking lot, 38-year-old Juan prepared for an upcoming performance on Good Friday. He wasn’t nervous to play the main part in the crucifixion story. A few dozen familiar faces made up the crowd, including his brother, dressed as Pontius Pilate, and his wife, who would be one of the weeping women of Galilee.
And while the Via Crucis gives him hope, he understands he’s not immune from the forces making it more difficult to live with every passing day — pushing his wife, their children and the rest of his friends and family into the shadows.
“I’m worried they will take me away and separate me from my children,” Juan said.
Juan and Rosaura crossed 20 years ago, separately. While they are living in the U.S. without legal permission, their five children are U.S. citizens. Juan works in construction, while Rosaura is a stay-at-home mom and takes the family to The Children’s Museum and the Indianapolis Zoo to watch the dolphin show.
This spring, Rosaura, who is 37, was unloading her children from her car outside Target when a man rolled down his window and yelled, “Go back to where you came from!”
She considered selling the house and starting over again in Mexico. But Juan told her, “This is your children’s country.”
It’s also a country for Dreamers, like Paula. She was a child when she arrived in the U.S., which made her eligible for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. But DACA does not grant permanent residency, and Trump tried to end the program in his first term.
Paula has been married to her husband, who is a U.S. citizen, for nine years. She is eligible for a green card. But with rising fears about green card-holders facing deportation, Paula worries a green card is just the new DACA.
She’s seen U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents ramp up activity under Trump, with more immigrants being deported and green card holders detained. Even U.S. citizens are not immune; a judge found a teenager in Arizona was wrongfully held for 10 days despite his citizenship, while a man born here with parents from Mexico was handcuffed by ICE agents at a Philadelphia car wash.
But at the Marion County Jail, which is run by the Marion County Sheriff’s Office, at least 400 immigrants have been detained at some point for ICE, according to jail records obtained by Mirror Indy. More than a third of them were from Mexico.
Paula is afraid her father will become one of them. He’s been stopped before for driving infractions like failing to come to a complete stop and having a broken tail light. Each is a reminder that the next time could be the last, putting an end to their life together in Indianapolis.
She and her husband have decided not to have children. They want to dedicate their time and resources to Paula’s parents instead. That means giving up monthly brunch dates and downsizing their apartment to save up for an emergency fund.
And they are also considering moving to Mexico, and trying to convince her parents to do the same.
“My parents are scared to go to the gas station because my dad might be stopped,” Paula said. “That’s not why they came here. They came here to give me everything, and it’s my turn to give it back to them.”
https://mirrorindy.org/indianapolis-mexican-immigrants-trump-border-crossing-indiana-ice-deportations/
Rancho Palos Verdes landslide has slowed with below average rainfall, but costs continue to mount
Below average rainfall this year has slowed the landslide in Ranchos Palos Verdes, but some parts are still moving roughly 4 inches a week, city officials reported Tuesday.
While that’s good news compared with the same period last year and in 2023, when the land was moving at twice the rate, the latest numbers highlight how the slow-moving disaster continues to ravage the area, forcing dozens of families to abandon their homes.
Responding to the destruction has been a huge drain on the city’s finances, costing roughly $17.5 million just on dewatering wells so far this fiscal year. On Tuesday, the City Council postponed a vote on about $1 million in additional spending on maintenance of the wells — which have so far extracted 200 million gallons of water — as well as a landslide drainage study. Instead, the council sent both items to the landslide committee for further deliberation.
“ Given what’s been spent, that’s almost like a drop in the bucket,” said Councilmember George Lewis. “But for this city, a million dollars is a ton of money. It is a ton of money for us.”
Landslide response efforts have already eaten up a significant portion of the city’s budget. This fiscal year, officials are poised to spend almost the same amount of money it takes to run the entire city — around $39 million — just on the landslide area.
Compounding the problem is the fact that Rancho Palos Verdes is poised to lose out on federal dollars earmarked for the landslide after President Donald Trump announced that he was canceling a grant that helps communities prepare for natural disasters.
The city had been planning to receive around $2.3 million from the program, which Mayor David Bradley said would go toward installing hydraugers to pump water from the ground, dry out the layer of bentonite clay — which acts as a sort of slide when wet — and stabilize the land movement.
https://laist.com/news/climate-environment/rancho-palos-verdes-landslide-has-slowed-with-below-average-rainfall-but-costs-continue-to-mount
Do California Trump Supporters Have Buyer’s Remorse? Not So Far
President Donald Trump has flooded the first 100 days of his second term with a flurry of executive orders. His policies have included mass federal layoffs, sweeping tariffs, an overhaul of the country’s immigration system, the elimination of DEI initiatives and efforts to curb transgender rights.
However, many Californians remain enthusiastic about the direction of the country under Trump’s leadership. Among California Republicans, 75% approve of how the president is handling the job.
Asked how they feel about the president’s policies in his first three months, Trump voters across the state, from San Diego to Humboldt counties, told KQED they are “ecstatic,” “elated,” “thrilled” and “proud.”
Shannon Kessler, 56, San Luis Obispo
“I’m really pleased with his policies and presidency. It’s what I was hoping for when I voted for him,” said Shannon Kessler, a mom to a now-graduated track and field athlete.
Kessler feels the country now has an administration that will stand up for girls. As a former student-athlete, she doesn’t think it’s fair for transgender athletes to compete in girls’ and women’s sports.
In March, Gov. Gavin Newsom, in a conversation with conservative activist Charlie Kirk, called transgender participation in women’s sports “deeply unfair.”
“I agree with him on that, but he has done nothing to change that,” Kessler, a real estate agent, said of Newsom’s comment. “He could set an example and take action to protect girls. He’s the father of girls.” She wants to see Newsom push Democratic legislators to support bills like one that would have banned transgender athletes from girls’ sports, locker rooms, bathrooms and dorms.
As a fifth-generation Californian, Kessler said she’s seen the state burden its residents with “extreme regulations” on housing and water rights. She’s glad to see Trump dismantling the Environmental Protection Agency and taking power away from “out-of-control three-letter agencies.”
Kessler is among the nearly 40% of Californians who voted for Trump. She said she’s resentful that Democratic leadership has vowed to fight the administration and doesn’t feel represented when she reads about Newsom and Attorney General Rob Bonta building up a war chest of taxpayer dollars to sue the Trump administration over policies like tariffs, dismantling federal agencies and withholding research grants.
“It offends me that they’re supposed to be my representatives,” she said. “That doesn’t represent me at all. Why do you want to fight with your government? Why don’t you just work with them?”
Emma Valdez Garrison, 19, Fresno
“As a woman who lives in California, we’ve created such a dangerous climate for young women,” said Emma Valdez Garrison, a 19-year-old political science major at California State University, Fresno. “Seeing a president and a man who’s standing up against the invasion of our country is something that I’m personally really excited to see.”
Garrison supports Trump’s push for colleges and universities to eliminate DEI in their hiring and admissions processes. “It brings back merit-based hiring and performance-based hiring,” she said.
Recently, a woman in Garrison’s sorority shared a trans visibility day post on the group’s social media page.
“For a long time, as a sorority, they’ve promoted ideas that are really woke and against what the majority of the girls in the house believe,” Garrison said. “A lot of girls felt like they couldn’t say anything because federally it was accepted.”
But after Trump was inaugurated, Garrison said she and other women in their sorority felt emboldened to speak out.
“We finally felt confident enough to say we’re against this as a sorority,” she said. “It’s no longer going to be something that we as a sorority post or celebrate.”
Garrison is also relieved to see Trump targeting undocumented immigrants and issuing mass deportations. Her grandmother immigrated to the United States from Mexico when she was 21.
“She did it the legal way. She did it the hard way. It cost her a lot of money. It cost her a lot of time,” Garrison said. “It was a big sacrifice for her to become a United States citizen.”
She said her grandmother feels it’s unfair when unauthorized immigrants receive certain benefits.
Kim Durham, 68, Sacramento
“I am glad to see the corruptness exposed,” Kim Durham said, referring to the federal agencies scaled back or gutted by Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.
“I’m not saying [Musk’s] done a perfect job,” Durham said. She thinks DOGE will have to revisit some of their cuts and consider re-employing some workers. She believes the administration had to move quickly to make sufficient progress in four years. “Unfortunately, they’re going to have to let a lot of good people go, too, if we’re cutting back on the government.”
In response to Musk’s efforts to slash federal staffing and budgets, protestors have targeted the billionaire’s electric car company, vandalizing Tesla vehicles and charging stations and holding “Tesla Takedown” demonstrations across the country.
“I’m extremely disheartened to see the level of evil that’s being generated against Elon Musk [and] the Tesla dealerships,” Durham said.
Durham’s daughter and son-in-law are both police officers, and she’s concerned by how politicized the job has become. The “defund the police” movement, in her view, has discouraged people from entering the police academy and contributed to challenges in police recruitment and retention.
“Defund the police has done a lot of damage here,” she said. “A police officer ought to be able to do his or her job to protect the people, regardless. It shouldn’t be such a political thing.”
Having worked in the print and shipping industry for 25 years, Durham noted that her company purchases much of its paper and ink from overseas, including China.
As a result of Trump’s tariffs, currently up to 145% against China, Durham’s employer is looking to adapt by purchasing from different countries or offering customers digital marketing options.
But Durham’s not worried. In the short term, she anticipates the tariffs will harm the business and may even reduce her income. But in the long term, she hopes they will encourage timber industries and paper mills to reopen in America — providing more jobs and bolstering the economy.
“I think it’s gonna hurt for a bit,” Durham explained. “I’m willing to lose a little bit myself for the country that I’d like to see my little granddaughter here enjoy.”
https://www.kqed.org/news/12039390/do-california-trump-supporters-have-buyers-remorse-not-so-far
A co-worker at my former Interior employer called yesterday saying he took the buyout a few weeks ago. Sounds like the “project experience” in the office is heading for exits as the schitt show is too much to handle. BTW, breakfast this morning was $50 for two omelet plates, coffee and the tip; no kidding!
So if I was a banker I could create cash out of thin air and loan it out to buy hoses, cars, boats etc. and be paid back with real earned $ dollars + interest?
The book, “Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again,” is due to be released on Tuesday.
https://thedailybs.com/2025/05/13/worse-than-we-thought-new-tell-all-details-wheelchair-bound-joe-bidens-decline-epic-press-coverup/
I’m sure it’s loosely based on the parable from Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” where two swindlers trick the emperor into buying a non-existent suit, only for a child to point out that the emperor is actually naked during a public procession.
There’s a glaring issue with the presidency in this country. In 2015 the Republican party came out and said the party chooses the candidate, not the primary voters. Meaning no Trump. Then the same season the Democrats came out and said the party chooses the candidate, not the primary voters. Meaning no Sanders. Then last year, ‘My Butts Been Wiped’ failed at an assassination attempt and somebodies at the DNC pulled the plug on him and inserted Harris. No votes involved in any of these situations. Not even a public discussion, they just did it.