From SecState Marco Rubio, after revoking a whole boatload [sic] of foreign student visas from pro-Hamas types:
“We gave you a visa to come and study and get a degree, not to become a social activist.”
More like this, please.
Tag: Evil Bastards
Revenue Streams
As any fule kno, when a government is strapped for cash they will perforce come up with new ideas for “tax revenue streams” (a.k.a. “innovative methods to steal money from the public”). Needless to say, they can’t just come out and say “we’re going to steal more of your money” because that might lead to public hangings…
…sorry, I went off to a warm and happy place there for a few moments.
Anyway, the theft has to be concealed beneath a maskirovka of some sort, and the best one (apart from “national interest”) is “public health”, which shouldn’t fool anybody but it does, repeatedly and regrettably.
Examples of this abound, the latest being that of Head Thief, U.K. Division — sorry, I meant Chancellor of the Exchequer — Rachel Reeves, who wants to tax (wait for it) milkshakes.
The Chancellor has drawn up plans to impose a sugar tax on milk and yoghurt-based beverages for the first time, after concluding that they are damaging public health.
The levy will drive prices up by as much as 24p per litre, with officials expecting 93 percent of drinks on the market to be affected unless they change their recipes.
I think the British public should express their rage profound disappointment at this proposal by reverting to an age-old mechanism:
But they won’t, because as long as it’s for people’s health, you see, it’s acceptable. (That sound you hear in the background is the bleating of sheep.)
Quote Of The Day
Sent to me by Reader Greg S., this little pearl from Julius Malema, head of South Africa’s Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) political party:
“I’m willing to condemn murder, but not of white people.”
Fair enough; but I’m likewise willing to condemn political assassination, but not of Julius Malema.
See how that works, asshole?
Quote Of The Day
From Pam Geller:
“Islam’s modus operandi is as follows: when Muslims are in a minority in countries to which they have migrated they claim Islam is a religion of peace. Once their numbers increase they start to agitate for considerations unavailable to non-Muslims in those countries under the guise of obtaining civil liberties. When they gain power it’s, ‘Do as we say or we will kill you.’ That is how a country loses its culture, its values and its traditions.”
This taken from here, which follows on from several articles on Islamist expansion and Shari’a promotion, mine included.
My opinion? It’s time we put an asterisk on the First Amendment, in that “religion” paragraph.
At Last, Some Good News
According to some official-sounding stats:
Americans are no longer moving to Southern boomtowns
Reasons?
The cost of living has jumped, thanks to rising mortgage rates, skyrocketing home prices, and higher fees for insurance and HOAs – particularly after a string of natural disasters.
Now that the influx of newcomers has slowed, the housing markets in these cities are feeling the squeeze. Annual double-digit price jumps are no longer a sure thing.
Home prices that once seemed unstoppable are leveling off – and in many cases falling. Homebuying demand is plunging, and in some places, inventory is surging.
Places like Tampa, Dallas and Austin were once seen as affordable alternatives to high-cost cities like San Francisco and New York, but now the gap in housing costs between big-city job centers and Sun Belt metros has shrunk.
Well yes, in terms of the “unstoppable” housing prices, that was caused most of all by this influx of Californians, New Yorkers and other migrants who arrived here in the South flush with the proceeds of their overpriced real estate and were willing to pay the prices asked by sellers. (I should point out that my old Plano house sold for the asking price and was listed for eighteen hours before being snapped up by a Californian family, who paid the ask after having been involved in bidding wars in previous homebuying attempts. I should also point out that my 4BR 3BR house would have cost $1.4 million for a comp in northern California, instead of the $395k I was asking for mine. No wonder they jumped on it.)
Anyway, the good news for us in northern Texas:
Dallas – one of several Texas cities that boomed during the Covid-19 pandemic – saw a net inflow of around 13,000 residents in 2024, also down from 35,000 the year prior.
Thank fuck. The fewer liberal assholes moving here, the better for all of us.
Something else is interesting:
Now that many companies are requiring workers to come into the office, fewer people have the freedom to move – and some people who moved to the Sun Belt during the pandemic are returning to big cities.
I guess all those empty office blocks in L.A. and San Francisco need to be refilled.
And the people who paid those sky-high prices for our Texas houses who are now being forced into selling them? The houses that once sold within days can now stand unsold for months, or longer.
Forgive me for not shedding any tears. And my compadres over in Florida may share my delight.
Cornerstone, Dislodged?
Looks like the Trumpistas are aiming their harpoons at another whale:
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin said that the agency will review the agency’s endangerment finding — the “holy grail of the climate change religion” that has created over a trillion dollars in regulatory impact.
Wut dat? Breitbart explains:
The finding stated that greenhouse gas emissions are an alleged threat to public health and welfare.
And when you look at the data which supposedly supports the finding, it, like most other “environmental” data, is a bunch of codswallop.
The EPA proceeded in an unorthodox manner. Slicing and dicing the language of the statute, it made an “endangerment finding” totally separate from any actual rulemaking-setting standards for emissions from cars. EPA argued it had the authority to do this because Congress didn’t specifically forbid it from taking this approach. By taking this approach, the endangerment finding intentionally ignored costs of regulations that EPA knew would follow from the finding — and indeed ignored any other policy impacts of those regulations.
Results (that you or I would care about)?
Diana Furchtgott-Roth, the director of the Center for Energy, Climate, and Environment at the Heritage Foundation, said that the EPA regulations that arose from the endangerment finding have contributed to automobile prices to rise from $23,000 in 2009 to nearly $50,000 now.
The EPA has relied on the endangerment finding for seven vehicle regulations that reportedly have an aggregate cost of more than one trillion dollars, according to the agency’s own regulatory impact analyses.
We all knew that enviro-bullshit was behind so much of the price increases — that, and the raft of “safety” regulations that accompanied them.
My message to Sec. Lee Zeldin:
Get rid of that stuff.
Me, I’d like to see the FedGov refund some of that trillion-dollar price increase to everyone who bought cars and trucks — internal-combustion-driven cars and trucks, that is — from 2009 until today.
Why? Because it was taken from these buyers by government malfeasance.
And if our current government wants to “claw back” some of that money from the people and organizations who instigated this swindle, that would be fine, too.
