The W Lyon Farm resurgence continues

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I’ve posted here before on the rise, fall, and rise again of this development on our west side, but here’s another example; 405 W Lyon Farm, priced at $1.695 million, has sold for $1.875. It sold for just $1.3 in 2018, $1.650 in 2015, and $1.870 in 2007. And notice the days on market (“ADOM”) for those previous sales: 650 days for that 2018 sale at $1.3 after starting at $1.750 in 2016; 223 days for the $1.6 sale in May, 2015, starting price $1.795.

Chart of the Day

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…. By matching that data to percentages of students at each campus who receive Pell Grants (which are awarded to students from moderate- and low-income families), we came to an unsurprising conclusion: Pro-Palestinian protests have been rare at colleges with high percentages of Pell students. Encampments at such colleges have been rarer still. A few outliers exist, such as Cal State Los Angeles, the City College of New York, and Rutgers University–Newark. But in the vast majority of cases, campuses that educate students mostly from working-class backgrounds have not had any protest activity. For example, at the 78 historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) on the Monthly’s list, 64 percent of the students, on average, receive Pell Grants. Yet according to our data, none of those institutions have had encampments and only nine have had protests, a significantly lower rate than non-HBCU schools.

From Rand Paul to RuPaul. Or, How to go from garnering 3% of the vote to 0.003% in one easy nomination

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Trump accepted the Libertarian Party convention’s invitation to appear and was roundly booed, especially when he told them, "You can keep going the way you have for the last long decades and get your 3 percent and meet again, get another 3 percent."

Sp, having rejected Trump (and even that ultimate whack job, RFK, Jr,), the delegates went with one of their own, a Mr. (?) Chase Owens. Here he is:

A lot of conservatives, including myself, hold libertarian leanings, but the party has grown increasingly as strident and as insistent on purity as the farthest-left Marxists, and, always irrelevant on a national scale, it’s now just a laughable organization to be ridiculed and then ignored. Trump doesn’t need them, but they might have benefitted had they joined him, however grudgingly.

Two unrelated videos that I ran across this weekend

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well, i think they are

You can skip ahead on this next one, but you really have to watch (at least most of) the the entire 3 minutes to fully appreciate the surprise ending:

"I had no knowledge of my son Hunter's business dealings"

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oh, for heavens sake, did i say that?

Joe and Hunter Biden used a visit to Sandy Hook memorial service to set up secret meet with Chinese over $10m-a-year deal, new emails reveal


Hunter Biden used Joe Biden's appearance at a Sandy Hook memorial service to arrange a meeting between his dad  and his Chinese business partners, new texts reveal.

The messages come from a fresh tranche of documents released by Congress on Wednesday, given to them by IRS agents who investigated the First Son.

On December 12, 2017 Hunter wrote on the Chinese messaging app WeChat to Liu Yadong, a top executive at Chinese oil giant CEFC, to arrange a meeting with his father.


Hunter Biden used Joe Biden's appearance at a Sandy Hook memorial service to arrange a meeting between his dad  and his Chinese business partners, new texts reveal.

The messages come from a fresh tranche of documents released by Congress on Wednesday, given to them by IRS agents who investigated the First Son.

On December 12, 2017 Hunter wrote on the Chinese messaging app WeChat to Liu Yadong, a top executive at Chinese oil giant CEFC, to arrange a meeting with his father.

The texts to set up a meeting with Joe came after months of negotiation about the Biden family's involvement in the deal with the Chinese government-linked company, in exchange for $10 million a year.

In July 2017 Hunter sent 'threatening' texts to CEFC official Runlong Zhao demanding he follow through on the $10 million deal, and noting his father's involvement.

'I am sitting here with my father and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled,' Hunter wrote, in text messages obtained by the IRS investigators and published by Congress last year.

Weeks later, on August 3, 2017, Hunter texted CEFC associate Gongwen 'Kevin' Dong that he wanted a '[$]10 M per annum budget' and that 'the Bidens are the best I know at doing exactly what the [CEFC] Chairman wants from this partnership.'

At the time Joe Biden held no government post. He had left the vice-presidency the previous year and wouldn't be elected president until 2020. 

The new whistleblower documents released on Wednesday also appear to show that in November 2017, Hunter set up a group text conversation on the encrypted messaging app WhatsApp with his father and uncle, who was also a partner in his multi-million-dollar deal with CEFC.

Hunter marked one of the contacts in the three-person WhatsApp group as 'Jim Biden' and the other as 'Dad'.

Along with Yadong's WeChat messages about setting up a meeting with Joe, the House Ways and Means Committee published a photo of Yadong's business card, which describes him as CEO of CEFC Global Strategic Holdings, with an address at the United Nations Plaza in New York City.

Yadong helped run CEFC's sham charity, used by its chief Patrick Ho to funnel bribes to foreign officials. Ho was convicted of the bribery in 2018.

Joe Biden gave a different version of events back in 2018:

WASHINGTON — President Biden denied Wednesday that he interacted with his relatives’ foreign business associates — despite photos and other evidence of him doing so — as the House of Representatives prepares to vote on authorizing an impeachment inquiry.

Biden denounced as “lies” reports that he met with son Hunter Biden and brother James Biden’s contacts despite confirmation he interacted while vice president with their Chinese, Kazakhstani, Mexican, Russian and Ukrainian associates.

“I did not. And it’s just a bunch of lies. They’re lies. I did not. They’re lies,” the 81-year-old president said in response to a question from The Post.

Biden’s blanket denial is contradicted by records from Hunter’s abandoned laptop, as well as published photos and numerous witness recollections.

Of course, Biden can no longer remember that he’s president*, let alone his son’s name, or having ever met with Hunter’s business associates, but still, it’s not a good look.

*2021:

*2022, 2023

Biden again refers to his VP as 'President Harris' - Fox News

Jan 11, 2022 President Biden Tuesday referred to his vice president, Kamala Harris, as "President Harris" in yet another verbal flub by the gaffe-prone leader. "Last week, President Harris and I stood in the ...

And:

Biden again calls VP 'President Harris' at Stanley Cup celebration

Nov 13, 2023 WASHINGTON — President Biden referred to Vice President Kamala Harris as "president" at a Monday White House event honoring the Stanley Cup-winning Vegas Golden

When you have clueless city dwellers edit your reporting, only bad things can happen — such as triggering silly, irrelevant posts like this one

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Fox News has posted an article today on the sporting goods retailer Bass Pro Shops, and why not? It’s a slow news day, after all, but they chose to illustrate the piece with a stock photo of commercial cod fishery boat off of what appears to be Iceland and seem to identify it as a “Bass Tracker”. In fact, Bass’s “Tracker” boats are small, fast skiffs designed and built for pursuing freshwater bass on small lakes and ponds.

The Tracker as depicted by Fox:

The actual Bass Pro Shops Tracker:

If Fox’s photo editor weren’t so lazy, thrx could simply have lifted a picture from the Bass Pro’s website, as I have done. But sadly, I doubt that editor has any idea that “boats” come in different sizes and serve different purposes, which would be on par with the media’s understanding of firearms.

Spitting on the graves of better people than they’ll ever be

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another ivy league institution down

Aren’t you glad you’re paying the tuition debts for these self-absorbed, ignorant children who claim to be your betters? Of course, if they feel they owe no general debt to those who created and preserved this country at the cost of their lives, is it fair to ask them to take responsibility for their personal borrowings?

I wonder how smart it is to remind the public that he's used the state's judicial power to attack and torment his chief political enemy?

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“We are a nation of law – my law!”

Biden intends to inject himself (publicly — he’s been there all along behind the screen) into the Trump verdict. The millions of true Trump haters will cheer, but they’ve been cheering since the FBI raids and show trials began; it strikes me that, from polls I’ve read, a majority of Americans see these trials for what they are, and the White House piling on will just drive home the point that our Department of Justice has become a partisan tool, rather than the independent agency we all pretended to believe it was.

Maybe all will go swimmingly for the gang, but Biden’s handlers’ jubilance at the prospect of finally jumping into this farce strikes me as incautious.

And praising the judicial system now, when Hunter’s gun trial is set to begin in two weeks, may also pose a bit of a trap. Of course, the First son is to be tried in D.C., so the outcome: acquittal, is almost guaranteed, but a tad risky nonetheless.

More on our vigilant citizen patrols

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Twitchy’s got the latest

Scoop: Leonard Leo Caught Flying 'Appeal to Heaven' Flag

We know from MSNBC that "a Christian nationalist flag has been flown by Supreme Court Justice Sam Alito, right-wing activist Leonard Leo, and evangelical extremist House Speaker Mike Johnson." The Alito flag was flying last summer, but it's topping the headlines now as the media ensures we all know the flag is flown by MAGA insurrectionists.

We told you Christian nationalism was going to be the next white supremacy — it's the biggest threat to our democracy.

Leo was the longtime president of the Federalist Society. ProPublica ran a story in October called, "We Don’t Talk About Leonard: The Man Behind the Right’s Supreme Court Supermajority." And now, thanks to a tip from a "nearby resident," ProPublica has discovered the "Appeal to Heaven" flag flying outside of Leo's home in Maine. It sounds like Leo's neighbors are as unhinged as Alito's.

Leonard’s been the target of angry Maine (and visiting) loonies since he bought a house on Mount Desert Island back in 2018, and their ire only increased when the Dobbs decision came down — Leonard’s a Catholic, and unlike the guy in the White House who also claims membership in the Mackerel Snapper branch of Christianity, he opposes abortions.

The Pine Tree Flag (or the An Appeal to Heaven Flag) was one of the flags used during the American Revolution. The flag, which featured a pine tree with the motto "An Appeal to Heaven", or less frequently "An Appeal to God", was used by a squadron of six schooners commissioned under George Washington's authority as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army beginning in October 1775.

The pine tree is a traditional symbol of New England. The phrase "appeal to heaven" appears in John Locke's Second Treatise on Government, where it is used to describe the right of revolution.

The flag is the official maritime ensign for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, though the script was removed in 1971. It was used by state navy vessels in addition to privateers sailing from Massachusetts.[3]

The phrase "Appeal to Heaven" is a particular expression of the right of revolution used by British philosopher John Locke in his Second Treatise on Government. The work was published in 1690 and refuted the theory of the divine right of kings. In chapter 14:[6]

And where the body of the people, or any single man, is deprived of their right, or is under the exercise of a power without right, and have no appeal on earth, then they have a liberty to appeal to heaven, whenever they judge the cause of sufficient moment. And therefore, though the people cannot be judge, so as to have, by the constitution of that society, any superior power, to determine and give effective sentence in the case; yet they have, by a law antecedent and paramount to all positive laws of men, reserved that ultimate determination to themselves which belongs to all mankind, where there lies no appeal on earth, viz. to judge, whether they have just cause to make their appeal to heaven.[7]

Appeal to Heaven and Locke

Locke's enlightenment-age works on the topic of the philosophy of government were well-known and frequently quoted by colonial leaders in the 1760–1776 period prior to American independence. Locke's writing that most influenced the American philosophy of government was his Two Treatises of Government, and has been used to defend the secularization of American political structures.[8] Richard Henry Lee, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, saw the Declaration as being copied from that work. Locke was not only one of the most-cited political philosophers during the Founding Era (~1776 to 1779), but also the single most frequently-cited source in the years from 1760 to 1776 (the period leading up to the Declaration of Independence).[9]

Prior to Colonel Reed's suggestion and Massachusetts General Court establishing the Pine Tree flag as the standard of the Massachusetts navy, "an appeal to Heaven" or similar expressions had been invoked by the Massachusetts Provincial Congress in several resolutions, Patrick Henry in his Liberty or Death speech, and the Second Continental Congress in the Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms. Subsequently, the phrase was used again by the Second Continental Congress in the Declaration of Independence.

And this is a nice comment to the Xr’s post: