A Harris Presidency: Biden writ large(r)

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I had a post that I was working on yesterday in my draft folder, but this video just surfaced that pretty much sums up who and what this dreadful creature it. So I’ll go with that, and I’m including my half-finished draft just in case you’d like some further links to her past. The video is sufficient, though.

Politico summarizes (some of) the Left’s new darling’s positions:

Harris would drastically alter the use of public lands, and her plan calls for “immediately halting all new fossil fuel leases on federal lands and waters” and aggressively protecting and restoring public lands so they are public net carbon sinks by 2030. She would also use existing authorities, such as the Antiquities Act, to protect 30 percent of the nation’s lands and oceans by 2030.

And the plan would amplify international climate leadership by rejoining the Paris climate accord and issuing a new ambitious emissions reduction pledge and strategy.

How much would it cost?

Harris’ campaign says the plan would provide “$10 trillion in public and private funding” over the next decade to stave off the worst impacts of climate change. But it does not say what portion of spending would come from public sources, nor does it offer a breakdown of its spending like some of her Democratic rivals’ plans do.

However, one clear spending priority is $250 billion over five years for upgrading drinking water infrastructure.

How would it work?

Many of Harris’ proposals would require Congress to pass new legislation and funding allocations. But the California Democrat says she’ll use executive authority wherever possible to begin implementing her plan on day one of her presidency. Among other priorities, Harris vows to “end federal support for the fossil fuel industry” through executive action where possible and says she’ll oppose new fossil fuel infrastructure projects.

Some of her plans, like reengaging on international climate negotiations and incorporating environmental justice principles into federal decision-making, could be accomplished through executive action.

As a senator, she was an original co-sponsor of the non-binding resolution defining the Green New Deal, a blueprint for a large-scale mobilization aimed at transitioning the U.S. to 100 percent clean energy within a decade while providing people with job guarantees and “high-quality health care.” She was joined by liberals such as Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.).

Harris also said she was “prepared to get rid of the filibuster” to pass it in the face of GOP opposition to climate action. And she said in 2019 that there was “no question I’m in favor of banning fracking,” the technology that has fueled a U.S. oil and natural gas boom and enriched economies in places such as North Dakota, west Texas and Pennsylvania.

Complete ban on fracking, $10 trillion for “Green New Deal”

'Free college tuition for all two-year colleges, and free tuition at four-year colleges for “the poor and middle class”.


Well, look what's back on the market

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808 North Street has resurfaced, this time asking $9.995 million. We’ll hope this owner does better than the poor chump he bought it from in 2020 for $5.3 million (I say “chump” because that owner had paid Stanley Cheslock, of all people*, $11.35 million for the place in 2000, and then spent eleven years, 2009-2020, attempting to resell it, beginning at $11.750 and ending so ignominiously at the aforesaid $5.3).

*A brief recounting of Mr. Cheslock’s two-decade long series of misadventures at 309 Taconic Road can be found in this 2021 post

A killing on North Street (7/24 : UPDATE: Apparently there WAS a killing here, but it was sellers who were the homicide victims)*

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420 North Street was priced at $5.295 million and it took 82 days to find a buyer willing to pay $4.9 million. That might seem to be a disappointment, but the sellers paid $3.575 million for it (in a bidding war that began at $2.999) on May 27, 2022, put in a pool, dolled up the kitchen and spread some more gray and black paint around, all of which couldn’t possibly had cost anything close to the $1.625 million they just pocketed, Even subtracting commissions and other transaction costs, this was a tidy payoff for just two years of ownership; especially when $2 million of that 2022 purchase price was borrowed money.

*Details to follow, but I’m told that their renovations cost far more than I imagined; that’s mind-boggling.

I wonder how they pulled this off?

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Coming on the market, probably Thursday, is 7 Heusted Drive, priced at $2.950 million; no basement, because it’s in the AE flood zone, and there’s nothing in the third floor .Interestingly, this property sold in 2007 for $1.695 million, when it held a teardown on 0.23 of an acre. Somehow, the lot was subdivided and a this house was built in 2008 on 0.11 of an acre. This is in the R-12 zone, meaning that minimum lot size is 12,000 sq. ft. and the maximum FAR allowance is 0.350, yet this lot is just 4,791 sq. ft, and that FAR allowance would allow a structure of just 1,509 sq.ft; this one is 3,556. Even the original lot of 0.23 —10,018 sq. ft. — was non-conforming, and would have allowed a house of only 3,156 sq.ft.

The subdivision and the construction were clearly legal: the property sold in its present size in 2016 for $1.795, and title companies and buyers’ lawyers don’t tolerate unlawful non-conforming purchases, especially when there’s money being loaned out and debt incurred. I’m just curious how it was done.

In case you need reminding of who we're fighting against ...

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(The last 30 seconds or so say it all)