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And New York wants to tax empty second homes.
New York wants to tax empty second homes. Here’s what happened in cities that tried it.
Genuinely didn’t think their stupid ideas could get any stupider. The Progressives have reached bottom and have started to dig.
Yes and no. The big donors, post-2024 election said absolutely not, no more bad money after her. Representatives from each of the Big Six Democrat Support Groups (Tech, Wall Street, Hollywood, Academia, Media, BigLaw) all said she was done, stick a fork in her, she’s cooked.
And yet…all you need is one billionaire to back her. Just one. She did get a lot of votes last time, she did learn a lot. She’s still…well…Kamala, and that can’t be fixed. And I think other Democrats have better chances, though Beeg Dawg is right, they don’t have much bench, and they’re all competing to see who can achieve the greatest distance from the American political mainstream.
This article says it’s down to Newsom and Harris.
It’s already a two-person race for the 2028 Democratic nomination
Is it really, though?
Kamala Harris is unelectable, in my view. She and AOC are tied for the most incoherent national-level politicians. Either would be a disaster. She disappeared quickly as she dropped out of the 2020 Democratic primaries even before loony Marianne Williamson.
Newsom might be even more unelectable. Last June, the LA News likened Gavin Newsom to Bill Clinton. Most recently, Chris Hayes of MS Now and the NYT’s Ross Douthat made a compelling case that Newsom is more like Hillary than Bill:
- Like HRC, he’s the ultimate lib, the libbiest lib who ever libbed…even though he’s not actually that liberal.
- The Democratic base doesn’t trust him, because he’s essentially a centrist
- Swing voters thing he’s a far-left liberal.
Basically, the worst of both political worlds.
Cost savings, tax increases. The usual. We’ll see if NYC breaks.
That’s a great rule of thumb. My practice has always been to hire great people or people of great potential, lightly manage them and get out of their way. Eleven CXOs in my business trained under me, my coaching tree so to speak.
I always had their back if they brought me a problem, issue, or concern. On the other hand, if I hear about it from an attorney, then my ability to help you is limited.
One Friday, I got a call from our COO (my boss) stating that I needed to have a call that afternoon with our CEO and our CHRO. That tightened up my O ring, let me tell you. Turns out, my head of marketing technology had inadvertently forwarded an extremely sensitive information package to a competitor. And she tried to hide it. And talented though she was, we had to let her go. I still think she’s the most talented person in that role in the industry. Couldn’t save her, wouldn’t try.
I do believe Newsom’s latest faux pas before the Black audience in Atlanta – vote for me because I’m as dumb as you are – doomed him.
Apparently, Newsom’s (and other Democrats) faux pas actually is an exposed pattern that Yale and Princeton researchers have uncovered, Cydney Dupree (Yale) and Susan Fiske (Princeton). They published a peer-reviewed study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology with the conclusion: White liberals systematically present themselves as less competent when speaking to Black audiences than when speaking to white ones.
It even has a name: “Competence downshift.”
They analyzed 74 speeches given over 25 years of presidential campaign speeches and they found that Democratic candidates consistently used fewer words associated with intelligence, ability, and status when addressing Black crowds. Republican candidates showed no such pattern. The difference was not random. It was consistent, measurable, and unique to white liberals.
<p data-t=”{"n":"blueLinks","t":13,"a":"click","b":76}”>When Newsom collapses that distinction to claim kinship with a Black audience in Georgia, he is not being vulnerable. He is borrowing from their story without having to pay for it.</p>He also ticked off the LGBTQ community by stating that the Democratic Party needs to “be more culturally normal” and “less prone to spending a disproportionate amount of time on pronouns and identity.”
Newsom is touring Southern states. It’s exposing some hurdles in his path to 2028.
That would be my preference. Problem is that they will get skewered in the primaries, as everyone competes to see how far left they can be, how much money they can spend that they don’t have. At one time, the Democrats reflected the American melting pot; e.g., we’re all in this together, we’re all fairly equal, we have equal opportunity, we want to be judged on our character, united we stand, divided we fall, etc. Today’s Democratic party is a mosaic, or as P. J. O’Rourke used to say, a “compendium of nits and quarrels.” Their big challenge is that they don’t like or support each other very much, but their unspoken agreement is that they will support everyone’s cash grab.
It’s why Biden got elected. He was the lone, sane, moderate (so to speak) voice in the room, at least moderate compared to the Socialists — speaking of whom, Mamdani looks 100% clueless. Didn’t that deficit coming? Why not? Raising taxes on the middle class? Of course you have to. Ask Margaret Thatcher how well that worked out when she did a “poll tax.” That’s what drove her out of office.
Maybe Shapiro squeaks through. I’d prefer Beshear, he’s more likely to be both conciliatory and pragmatic and moderate. I was a bit surprised to see Buttigieg ID’d as a moderate, but…I get it.
Karl Rove says Newsom’s single greatest weakness heading into 2028 is his horrific record as California’s governor:
- 32nd on the economy
- 36th in pre-K-12 education
- 43rd in public safety
- 42nd on fiscal stability
- 45th on growth
- 46th on employment
- 50th for opportunity
- 50th for quality of life
- Housing cost literally twice the national average. Only Hawaii and District of Columbia are more expensive.
Emerson college poll indicates that Republican Steve Hilton leads California gubernatorial candidates:
- Hilton, 17%
- Riverside county sheriff Chad Bianco (R) 14%
- Eric Swalwell (D) 14%
- Katie Porter (D) 10%
- Tom Steyer (D) 9%
Hilton also picks up the most independent support at 22%.
Two more items on AOC…
She tried to bash Trump for kidnapping a head of state “just because the nation is south of the equator.” Umm…Venezuela is north of the equator there, Ms. Geography Major.
She tried to fact-check Rubio on American cowboys coming from Spain…claiming the first cowboys were Mexican and Black. Actually, Rubio was right…here’s the clean lineage:
- Spain brought the key ingredients to the Americas in the 1500s: horses, cattle, ranching laws, and horsemanship (much of it shaped by Iberian traditions).
- In New Spain (Mexico and the Spanish borderlands—Texas, New Mexico, California, etc.), ranch work evolved into the vaquero system (from vaca, “cow”).
- Those vaqueros were the first true “cowboy-style” cattle workers in North America, and they were often Mexican/Spanish-colonial people, including mestizo and Indigenous vaqueros, and later Black and Indigenous cowhands as the cattle economy spread.
- The iconic U.S. cowboy of the 1800s borrowed a ton directly from that vaquero world: lasso/rope work, saddles, chaps (from chaparreras), spurs, branding practices, and even a bunch of vocabulary.
So: the roots are Spanish (through colonial Mexico), the first cowboy culture in North America was vaquero, and the American cowboy is essentially a later remix that spread north and east from that base.
Zohran is inheriting a $12 billion city deficit in a city which has the highest taxes in the country. Can’t wait to see how he addresses it. NYC faces $12B budget deficit, drawing comparison to 2008 financial crisis – as Zohran Mamdani uses dire forecast to push taxing the rich His comptroller said that overwhelming spending is the problem, so of course Mamdani wants to increase taxes on the rich…
Budget deficit is currently down to $5.4 billion. Mamdani has planned a 9.5% property tax increase along with a $1 billion withdrawal from the city’s reserve funds. State law requires a balanced budget. Higher-than-expected tax revenues from the COVID era are now gone, and the generous federal aid has (as you might expect) vanished.
Mamdani has also called for raising taxes on corporations and wealthy New Yorkers to fund his expansion of city services.
Katie Porter polling second behind…Eric Swalwell. I’m assuming that Swalwell has ditched the Chinese spy he was squiring.
Katie Porter’s chances of winning California primary: Poll
- Swalwell, 23%
- Porter, 14% of Democratic votes, 10% overall
- Tom Steyer, 12%
- Xavier Becerra, 6%.
Republican Steve Hilton has 38% of Republican vote, Chad Bianco has 37%.
