"Truly transformative" "The chance of a lifetime"

(Satire)

(Not Satire): Once rivals, Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders are now partners in power 

Bernie, to whom Biden has pledged “his full backing”, is a life-long communist who in 1969 cut sugar cane in Cuba as a volunteer in the “Venceremos Brigade”, and in 1988 honeymooned in Moscow. He is a member of and was the candidate of the Democratic Socialists of America. Here’s part of their platform: who they are, and what Bernie stands for:

Capitalism is a system designed by the owning class to exploit the rest of us for their own profit. We must replace it with democratic socialism, a system where ordinary people have a real voice in our workplaces, neighborhoods, and society.

We believe there are many avenues that feed into the democratic road to socialism. Our vision pushes further than historic social democracy and leaves behind authoritarian visions of socialism in the dustbin of history.

We want a democracy that creates space for us all to flourish not just survive and answers the fundamental questions of our lives with the input of all. We want to collectively own the key economic drivers that dominate our lives, such as energy production and transportation. We want the multiracial working class united in solidarity instead of divided by fear. We want to win “radical” reforms like single-payer Medicare for All, defunding the police/refunding communities, the Green New Deal, and more as a transition to a freer, more just life. 

We want a democracy powered by everyday people. The capitalist class tells us we are powerless, but together we can take back control.

By the way, if you worry about what the AP has become, and what it feeds to every small-town paper in America, read the full article. a paean to the Democrat Regressives and our new masters. From pre-K through adulthood, there’s an indoctrination campaign being run against Americans 24-hours a day.

PSAKING BACK:

LA County to citizens: “vaccines obviously don't work, nor do masks, but get the jab and put on your face diapers anyway, because we say so”.

she who must be obeyed: “Doctor” Barbara Ferrer $550,000 per, but who’s counting?)

Los Angeles County Reinstates Its Unscientific, Reactionary Indoor Mask Mandate

Led by Not-That-Kind-of-Doctor Barbara Ferrer, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health announced Thursday that an indoor mask mandate will be reinstated – regardless of vaccination status – because of a “surge” in cases and the Delta variant in the county. The surge is so concerning that residents will be allowed to go maskless for two more days (yes, that’s sarcasm).

“Oh, and remember that bullshit we fed you about locking y’all in your houses “just until we flatten the curve, and prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed? Yeah, we lied about that, too.”

From the (liberal) ABC News:

That “Not that kind of doctor” link sends you to a previous Red State post: This lady is the Jill Biden of public health. But she’s Hispanic, so ….

“Here at RedState we have also pointed out that our public health “experts,” particularly Dr. Anthony Fauci, are not infallible deities, and that doctors aren’t qualified to run the entire country.

“In “Doctor” Ferrer’s case, she’s not an epidemiologist or virology expert. She’s not even a medical doctor, as KABC’s John Phillips discussed on his radio show Wednesday. Her educational resume, from a bio published at USC, where she was a panelist at a “Safe Schools” symposium:

Dr. Ferrer received her Ph.D. in Social Welfare from Brandeis University, a Master of Arts in Public Health from Boston University, a Master of Arts in Education from the University of Massachusetts, Boston, and a Bachelor of Arts in Community Studies from the University of California, Santa Cruz.

“What in the world is a Bachelor of Arts in Community Studies, besides a waste of money? Apparently it is the first step on a career path to becoming a “nationally-known public health leader,” as USC says (emphasis added):

Dr. Barbara Ferrer is a nationally‐known public health leader with over 30 years of professional experience as a philanthropic strategist, public health director, educational leader, researcher, and community advocate. She has a proven track record of working collaboratively to improve population outcomes through efforts that build health and education equity.

As Red State notes, a medical degree is hardly a guarantee that we’ll get sound advice on epidemiology, but I’d prefer the country be run by a senile old man and his clown parade than a power-mad communist community organizer. Unfortunately, right now we have both.

I’m off to price an F-15.

PSAKING BACK: Our federal government is on board: “Yes, vaccines can kill you, but get them anyway. And oh, we need better messaging.”

Did Jen Psaki just claim that vaccines "can still kill you"?

A moment later she says that "we need to be clear and direct about our messaging." pic.twitter.com/OY1tlAM2zZ

— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) July 14, 2021

This is why I still wear my Fauci diaper in supermarkets — don’ wanna hurt nobody’s feelings

Gov. Northam (D., VA) and friend demonstrate the new, woke way to interact with sensitive black folks

No smiling: Some of Robin DiAngelo’s black friends have told her they prefer open hostility to niceness

Mid-country sale, approaching 2007 cost, but not quite yet.

22 Stony Wylde Lane, purchased for $6,537,500 in ‘07, sold today for $6.290. The owners added a pool and other amenities, and adding those expenses to transaction costs and inflation …. Still, it’s been worse, and may well be again.

For $6 million, I’d want a chimney that didn’t smoke

It's not our oldest listing, but it's venerable

11 Hedgerow Lane, which began at $7.450 million in 2012, has been marked down today to $3.990. Even at Ogilvy pricing, I never understood that first price, but maybe this one will do it. The owner has decamped to places south, so here’s your chance to throw a lowball bid at it and gauge his enthusiasm for continued ownership of a house 1,000 miles away from (his new) home.

And speaking of a return to earth ...

The owner of 184 Parsonage Road paid $2.995 million for it in 2005 (4 days on the market, full price), totally renovated it, and returned it to the market in 2011 at $4.695. After ten years spent alternating between attempts to sell and various rentals, it sold yesterday for $3.134.

On duty since 2017, the Zebra may finally get a well-deserved rest

I'd been wondering how long the government would let its monopoly be challenged; not long, it turns out

“Hey, you can’t just do that!”

FAA threatens to shut down SpaceX

Elon Musk has been rockets and satellites for a fraction of NASA’s cost, and his Starlink Internet service is on schedule to go global within a month, threatening the cable/broadband monopoly shared by the states, the feds, and their commercial captives.

Couple those interests with the Left’s desire to us to a neolithic Garden of Eden, and you get this:

An FAA official revealed yesterdaythat the agency has not approved the launch tower that SpaceX is building for its Starship/Superheavy rocket in Boca Chica, Texas, and threatened that if disapproved the government would force the company to tear it down.

The Federal Aviation Administration warned Elon Musk’s SpaceX in a letter two months ago that the company’s work on a launch tower for future Starship rocket launches is yet unapproved, and will be included in the agency’s ongoing environmental review of the facility in Boca Chica, Texas. “The company is building the tower at its own risk,” an FAA spokesperson told CNBC on Wednesday, noting that the environmental review could recommend taking down the launch tower.

The FAA last year began an environmental review of SpaceX’s Starship development facility, as Musk’s company said it planned to apply for licenses to launch the next-generation rocket prototypes from Boca Chica. While the FAA completed an environmental assessment of the area in 2014, that review was specific to SpaceX’s much-smaller Falcon series of rockets.

This revelation from FAA officials is most interestingly timed, coming on the same day as this garbage article about the terrible environmental damages some activists imagine SpaceX’s launch facility might someday cause. As is usual for a mainstream news source, the article makes no reference to the wildlife preserve that surrounds the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where we have empirical proof for more than a half century that a spaceport does no harm to the environment and actually acts to protect it from development.

Nor was this the only such attack article in the past two days. Here is just a sampling:

• Boston Review: Lost in Space

• The Independent: The global super-rich are taking joyrides in space as our precious planet burns

• Jacobin: Leave the Billionaires in Space

While the last two op-eds above are partly in response to Richard Branson’s suborbital flight on July 11th, their timing and linkage to the FAA’s revelation yesterday is no accident. Forces in and out of government that are strongly hostile to private enterprise and its ability to get things done are working together hard to squelch the new renaissance in commercial space, precisely because it shows how successful capitalism and freedom are compared to the bloated, wasteful, inefficient government-run space programs that we have been saddled with for decades and have gotten us nowhere during that time.

SpaceX apparently has decided that it is better to ask forgiveness than wait for permission, knowing that if it depends on the approval of these leftist control freaks it will never get anything built. Building the tower now makes it very hard for government bureaucrats to rule against it. The company knows that what it is doing is incredibly popular with the general public. To block their effort in so public and destructive a way would send tsunami waves through government that would wash over the FAA and crush it.

SpaceX and Elon Musk should be warned however. A victory in this battle is not assured. America is now filled with people who hate freedom, despise and resent the achievement of others, and now control a powerful and wealthy government that they eagerly use to squelch what they hate. And they have clearly been moving aggressively in the past year to do so. Space X is not immune from such attacks, and could easily find itself squashed.

A listing renewed

NYT, June 22, 1928: GREENWICH, Conn. Archie M. Andrews of Chicago and Pasadena, a well-known yachtsman, has purchased the residence here of Harry H. Frazee, New York theatrical producer. Mrs. Andrews, who has been living in New York City recently, already has taken possession. The property was held at $300,000. Mr. Frazee purchased the residence about two years ago. Known as Freestone Castle, it was built some twenty years ago. Mayor Walker of New York frequently has visited Mr. Frazee here. The sale was made by Allaben & Co., Inc.

The listing for 17 Hemlock Drive expired yesterday and it’s back up today. 1913 construction, with a 13,500 sq. ft. main house and an additional 6,500 sq. ft. dedicated to servants quarters and assorted other dependencies. 4 acres, $9.850 million.

With Leona Helmsley dead, I’m not sure there’s a buyer for this stonepile. Someone did buy it in 2017, paying $5.5 million on its 2015 asking price of $11, but are there any more like him around?

The listing hints that this property’s highest and best use may be four condo units which can be built here, but whether that means built inside the castle, or on the grounds after the buildings have been razed is unclear, to me. Either way, you probably have lots of time to figure it out.

New agent, same price, but also the same nice house

125 Cat Rock has changed brokers, but remains at $3.795. I toured this house when it was new in 2012, and was impressed by the quality of its construction. It sold that year for $3.950, and sold again in 2018 for $4.250, so it has a history of being wanted.

Here’s what I had to say about it back in 2018 when it came up for resale; no sense recreating real estate prose.

125 Cat Rock Road, new today at $4.495 million. I can't speak to that price, really, because that's currently a soft spot in the market, but I remember being greatly impressed by this house when it was new in the fall of 2012, and it sold then after just 73 days, for $3.950 million. 2012 wasn't a great time for sales in that price range, either, which speaks well of this home's appeal. 

Located in an inconvenient part of Cat Rock — the middle — but that's offset by its excellent construction, and its comfortable layout When I toured it at its broker open house back then, I noticed that even the utility closets had been trimmed out with baseboard. A minor detail, but that's what impressed me: no one but the builder would notice, yet he went to the expense of doing it anyway. 

Not wild about the high-ceilinged master bedroom, but that's a quibble, given the quality and beauty of the rest of the house (we'll cast a benign eye over the home theatre in the basement - those were as popular in those days as Nehru jackets and avocado refrigerators were in the '60s, so what's a builder to do?).

If this house is within your price range, I'd suggest you check it out this weekend. Worth the trip. 

Palmer Lane, Riverside, sale price reported

15 Palmer Lane, listed at $3.290, sold yesterday for $3.090. A 1987 so-so build, desperately in need of updates, but let’s not quibble when we’re slumming in this modest price range.

It does come with a deeded easement affording a nice view of Old Greenwich Harbor, a height restriction on new construction on the lot below; a hindrance that drove the burdened son of the grantor nuts when he went to replace his own house). So there’s that.