Return of the Primitive

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Life will again be nasty, brutish and short

Arroz con racket: Brooklyn restaurant at center of illegal migrant-driven food-vending scheme

A dingy Brooklyn restaurant with a laundry list of revolting health violations is at the center of an illegal vending scheme involving dozens of migrant women, who hawk meals made in its filthy kitchen on street corners across the Big Apple, The Post has learned.

With growing concern over such unregulated and potentially dangerous operations popping up citywide, The Post tailed about a half-dozen pollo peddlers — illegal migrants mostly from Ecuador — who have commandeered choice spots to sell $10 plates of chicken and rice.

The food originates in a Dominican joint called Guisa’o Restaurant in Bushwick, where up to 50 migrants at a time squeeze into a tiny kitchen to cook the grub, which is then delivered in coolers by van to the illegal street sellers.

Histrionic prose aside (and it is the NY Post, after all), this is a typical example of the collision between modern western civilization and the third world. These immigrants would have fit in perfectly in mid-19th Century New York, when this was how food was prepared and sold by and to the Irish and other rough peasants. But our society, if not the Irish, adopted rules governing hygiene, minimum housing standards, and working conditions, and then enacted taxes and licenses, and hired people to enforce them. Landlords and food vendors must pay for all these higher standards; whether that’s an improvement over the freewheeling 1800s can be debated, but that’s the reality of the social contract we have evolved.

Except for the illegals, who do not feel bound by that contract, nor are they being obliged to by the government to which we surrendered some of our rights as free citizens so that they would enforce its terms. Filthy, unsanitary restaurants are just the tip of what these criminals have brought back into our modern world, and the deterioration is accelerating.

A fond farewell (except for the dumb Minnesotans who reelected him as their governor in 2022) to the weirdest, gayest VP candidate ever

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Oh well, he’ll soon be just another forgotten unsuccessful vice presidential candidate rummaging in the trash bin of history. Does anyone remember Hillary Clinton’s running mate in 2016? I certainly didn’t, and had to look him up.

do you know who i am?

I could almost feel sorry for them; it sucks to try to run a business in a command economy (UPDATED)

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you will build your beautiful new battery factory there. but check in next week; that may change.

Poor carmakers: the political commissars running their countries issued a 10-year plan, a great leap forward: “you will produce only electric vehicles in 10 years, starting at a minimum of 20% today. Comply, or go out of business.”

What were automakers to do? They caved; research on new ICE engines was halted, thousands of workers were laid off, and billions of dollars were spent building new factories and (trying to) develop new manufacturing techniques and technology. They have now been forced into an unsustainable business model: produce cars consumers don’t want and won’t buy, and offer them nothing that are willing to purchase.

I don’t see how our present automakers survive this debacle (which has long been the dream of those who want to abolish private transportation). Even if they federal government backs off, eight states already have the same 2035 deadline, and those will remain. And if a carmaker wanted to retrench and resume building internal combustion engines, how will it attract the required capital to rebuild when investors know that the next shift of the wind will make the product illegal again? It’s the same dilemma faced by energy companies: No one will sink money into developing a mine today, when the process to get it up and running will take 15-20 years, and there can be no guarantee that the commissars will allow it to open when it’s finally completed. (Fortunately for the west, China has all sorts of mineral mines operating, and its leaders will gladly sell it to us no matter how our relationship is going.) Power plants, same thing.

No one likes uncertainty, especially business, yet we now have an economy that’s entirely dependent on the fickle whim of politicians. That’s not just a zero-growth plan, it’s one for deindustrialization.

Exactly as planned.

UPDATE

John Stossel: Destructive Environmentalists

…         Physicist Mark Mills wonders why anyone would try to open a mine in America today. "Why in the world would you put millions, maybe billions of dollars at risk, spending those decades to get a permit, knowing there's a very good chance they'll just cancel a permit? How in the world do you build mines in America knowing that that's the landscape you have?"

        Well, you don't.

        America now ranks second to last in the time it takes to develop a new mine -- roughly 29 years. Only Zambia is worse.

        "You start applying for permits," says Mills, "You're going to be waiting not months, not years, but decades!"

Read the whole thing

Green Energy has always been about the graft (UPDATED)

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Biden-Harris Admin Races To Dish Out $25 Billion for Green Energy Before Trump Takes Office, Sparking Fraud Fears

The Biden administration is in a hurry to finalize more than a dozen green energy loans worth more than $25 billion before President-elect Donald Trump takes office in mid-January—a frantic effort that lawmakers and industry officials are warning could lead to fraud and abuse of taxpayer money.

Through the Department of Energy's Loan Programs Office, the administration is working to finalize a total of 16 pending loans worth a total of $25.1 billion, a Washington Free Beacon analysis found. Those loans figure to be in serious jeopardy—Trump repeatedly vowed to "terminate" green energy spending on the campaign trail—and, in recent weeks, Biden officials have picked up the pace finalizing pending commitments.

Over the last two months, the Loan Programs Office closed on seven loans worth $5.9 billion, including two that were closed after the election. Those two loans went to EV battery component plants in Michigan and New York. By comparison, the office closed on five loans worth $6.5 billion during the prior 27 months.

The quick pace carries risks, Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee ranking member John Barrasso (R., Wyo.) and House Energy and Commerce Committee chairwoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R., Wash.) told the Free Beacon.

"Now that the election is over, the Biden administration wants to triple the amount of money passed out to politically connected firms," Barrasso said. "Congress and the incoming Trump administration will act to ensure taxpayer dollars aren’t wasted on insider payoffs and green pipe dreams."

"President Biden’s Department of Energy is rushing billions of dollars out the door as a last-ditch effort to advance its failing rush-to-green agenda," added McMorris Rodgers. "This effort only increases the risk for Solyndra style waste and abuse—which is why the administration should immediately end its reckless spending spree."

Of course, the global warming profiteers are not just in the United States. Yesterday, the deserving poor of the world managed to extract a promise from developed (western) countries to loot their people and hand over $300 billion a year so that these petty crooks can replenish their Swiss bank accounts. The thieves had initially and indignantly demanded $1.2 trillion, so I’m sure our betters will announce the latest holdup as a victory for the people who’ll be paying this money. Hooray for Robin Hood.

Cop29 signs off $300bn climate deal after poorer nations stage walk-out

UPDATE: Someone agrees with me

Third-World Grifters Reject Climate Deal on Wealth Transfer

The Conference of the Parties(COP)29 ended in anger as the developing nations rejected an agreement by the wealthy nations that would have given the greedy little grifters $300 billion in funding for projects to combat climate change.

It's a "disaster," some of the representatives claimed. The $300 billion in aid would come "from a wide variety of sources, public and private, bilateral and multilateral, including alternative sources." 

Nigeria branded the deal "a joke." Ralph Regenvanu, envoy for the island nation of Vanuatu, stated: "The dollar amounts pledged and the emissions reductions promised are not enough. They were never going to be enough. And even then, based on our experience with such pledges in the past, we know they will not be fulfilled."

Regenvanu has figured it out. The industrial West is not going to give a blank check to third-world kleptocrats without strings attached. 

That's exactly what the developing nations and their NGO lobbyists wanted. They're angry because their demands for yearly $1.3 trillion in no-strings-attached grants were rejected.

That's $11 trillion over the next decade. And we're not supposed to ask what they're going to use it for.

…

“We are disappointed with the outcome, which clearly brings out the unwillingness of developed-country parties to live up to their responsibilities." India’s Chandni Raina added, “India does not accept the goal proposal in its present form.… The goal is too little, it is too distant. It is 2035, too far gone.”

India has the third-largest carbon footprint of any nation on Earth. They are the fifth richest country by GDP. What are they showing up at COP29 with their hand out for?

India is acting as if it's still a developing country. They can get away with it because the definition of "developing country" hasn't changed since 1992 when the first COP was held.

…. The election of Donald Trump has thrown the entire climate change industry into chaos.

“I’m not sure we will have a better situation next year because of the geopolitical situation,” said Ana Toni, the climate negotiator for Brazil. Brazil will host COP30 next year.

Trump is right to reject the entreaties of these grifters. The Climate Action Network (CAN), which represents more than 1,900 organizations in 130 countries — all in line to receive a healthy slice of that funding — is beside themselves.

CAN executive director Tasneem Essop could barely hold back the tears.

“This has been the most horrendous climate negotiations in years due to the bad faith of developed countries. This was meant to be the finance COP, but the Global North turned up with a plan to betray the Global South."

Had they been peacefully protesting the COVID lockdown, Trudeau would have jailed them, frozen their bank accounts and confiscated their vehicles

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Three, out of thousands of rioters were finally arrested, and that was all. But Trudeau did join Great Britain in vowing to arrest enemy of these pro-Hamas thugs, because that’s who Trudeau is, and that’s who Starmer is.

Trudeau Confirms Canada Will Arrest Netanyahu Upon Visit After World Court Order

Well, this is ominous

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The Wall Street Journal:

Hard to believe, but Donald Trump on Friday night nominated a favorite of teachers union chief Randi Weingarten as his Labor Secretary. Why would Mr. Trump want to empower labor bosses who oppose his economic agenda and spent masses to defeat him?

Mr. Trump’s regrettable choice is Oregon Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer. Ms. Weingarten on Thursday tweeted her support for the freshman Republican. Teamsters President Sean O’Brien, who spoke at the Republican National Convention, has also been pulling for her. In a Truth Social post, Mr. Trump said she’ll work toward “historic cooperation between Business and Labor.” But Ms. Chavez-DeRemer has backed union giveaways like the Pro Act, which are not “cooperation.”

Stephen Kruiser:

I'll get to the Pro Act in a moment. For the moment, let us focus on the fact that Randi Weingarten is a vile human being. She was the face of school closures during the COVID-19 pandemic, and championed keeping them closed far longer than even the other tyrants thought was necessary. Weingarten wrecked a generation of public school children, forcing them into a brutal game of "catch up" that many will never win.

Then she lied about her role in all of that. 

She's Team Trump with the Chavez-DeRemer choice though: 

When one of the most clinically insane leftists in America thinks that a Republican politician did a good thing, it means that the Republican just did a clinically insane leftist thing. 

For any conservative who had high hopes for the Trump 47 administration, Weingarten's approval of Chavez-DeRemer's nomination undoes a lot of the goodwill that had been built up. That's not the worst thing about this choice, however. Chavez-DeRemer (an annoying name to type repeatedly, by the way) is one of only three Republicans in the House to support the execrable PRO Act. Its full title is: The Richard L. Trumka Protecting the Right to Organize Act. 

The PRO Act is a sop to Big Labor that got its start with California Assembly Bill 5 (AB5) back in 2018. AB5 was a major effort to upend the freelancer-driven gig economy — specifically rideshare companies like Uber and Lyft, which had long been targets politicians who are funded by labor unions. My Townhall Media colleagues in California would have been adversely affected by AB5 as well. The bill was so noxious that the left-leaning California electorate passed a proposition in 2020 that carved out exceptions to AB5. 

AB5 was one of the worst ideas to come out of California's progressive fever dream, and the PRO Act seeks to make a version of it federal law. 

The PRO Act is the latest attempt in Big Labor's years-long effort to do away with secret ballots in union voting and do things via an insidious process called "card check" which, per the Wall Street Journal, will implement "a coercive process whereby organizers confront employees individually and relentlessly, at work and at home, until they sign a petition card. If the union can collect cards from half of the workforce, it gets certified without a vote." In other words, it legalizes union thuggery. 

Card check was one of the big issues that we were fighting against back in the Tea Party days. It remains such a high priority for the unions that they're still working on making it law over a decade later. 

…. This choice … is so stunningly awful that I have to wonder how many other lefties have his ear. 

It's a most sobering thought. 

(Some) Republicans don’t like the nomination,

Trump’s labor pick is ‘toxic’ anti-conservative RINO who is too close to unions, critics allege: ‘Not serious’

But, as usual, the RINOs love her:

[She] received the full-throated support from House Republican leadership for her Labor Secretary nomination, including Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and Majority Whip Rep. Tom Emmer (R-MN). 

And from Reason:

Will Trump's Labor Secretary Pick Be a Big Win for Public Sector Unions? Opinion

As a member of Congress, Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R–Ore.) teamed up with Vice President Kamala Harris and teachers union bosses to push a proposal that would effectively override state-level reforms to limit the power of public sector unions—like those championed by Republicans in Wisconsin and Florida.

That might seem like it would make Chavez-DeRemer an unlikely choice for secretary of labor in a Republican administration. But President-elect Donald Trump is reportedly considering giving her exactly that gig.

Politico reported earlier this week that Chavez-DeRemer was "in the mix" to run the Labor Department, and she has the backing of some high-profile labor union leaders including Teamsters President Sean O'Brien. Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), tweeted approvingly of Chavez-DeRemer's consideration for the job on Thursday.

The outpouring of support for Chavez-DeRemer from labor unions probably reflects her record as one of the most pro-union Republicans in Congress. She's one of three House Republicans to endorse the Protecting the Right to Organize Act (PRO Act), a grab bag of big labor agenda items that would extend some of California's awful independent contractor regulations nationwide, abolish so-called "right to work" laws in the 27 states that have passed them, and expand the powers of the National Labor Relations Board, among other things.

She's also one of a handful of Republicans to cosponsor the Public Service Freedom to Negotiate Act, which is best described as a federal power grab that allow public sector labor unions (like the AFT) to force their will on states that have limited the power of those unions. As Dominic Pino notes at National Review, the bill would "effectively rewrite labor-relations law in roughly half of the states, many of them Republican-governed, which currently either prohibit collective bargaining by public employees or don't explicitly authorize it."

And jut to round out the day and signal the return to business as usual, Trump added this additional nomination today: Trump picks Dr. Janette Nesheiwat as nation's next surgeon general. Fox News thinks she’s just wunnerful; I have my doubts. Not as horrible an appointment as selecting a pal and ally of Nancy Weingarten, but everyone in the public health business during COVID has no credibility in my mind.

Was all the sturm und drang during this election year for naught?

Quisling weeps

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(photo courtesy of susie)

Greenwich’s Dan Quisling and the fellows in his “the election was no mandate” Gin & Tonic Republican crowd might want to consider this:

[M]ore Americans now say the GOP best represents their interests than those who say it is the Democratic Party who does so. About half of Americans say Republicans best represent "people like them" compared to 43% who say so about Democrats — a shift from recent years when the Democratic Party was believed to be more representative of "people like them." 

No mandate, Dan? What’s really happened is that the country, especially your former party, has moved on, leaving you behind on your couch, plotting how to regain the control you’ve lost. How sad.

PJ Media’s Ben Bartee has observed the same old guard reaction to the election, but on q larger, significant scale, and has thoughts:

Congressional RINOs Thwarting Trump’s Agenda Need to Pay the Political Toll

Donald Trump in 2024 dominated the popular vote and the Electoral College, massively outperforming even the pundits’ most bullish predictions.

He delivered the Senate and the House.  

He stitched together a brand-new GOP coalition that might, if the base isn’t betrayed as it usually is by both parties, deliver victories for years to come.

He is the undisputed leader of the party.

He has a mandate, which is to actually #DraintheSwamp this time around, to clear out the special interests that rob and manipulate and persecute the American public, and to restore law and order to all sectors of society — including to the most prolifically criminal class of them all: the ones at the top.

Many Senate Republican dinosaurs — careerists who were there long before Trump and hope to remain after he’s gone, up until they’re being wheeled around by a staffer like Diane Feinstein’s corpse was before it finally gave up the ghost — don’t like or respect American voters to exemplify any due deference to the executive branch.

…. While corrupt and immoral, these people are not stupid; they can sense their institutional power threatened by a strong, populist executive like Trump, so their instinct is to play passive-aggressive defense. They know they can’t come out and denounce Trump fully because it would cost them dearly — look what happened to Liz Cheney in her own state — so they settle for shivving him in the back at every turn.

And corporate media is giddy to help them out under the auspices of checks and balances.

Via Politico (emphasis added):

While much of the GOP has become a Trump subsidiary, there are still some Senate Republicans who consider themselves members of a co-equal branch of government and take their Advise and Consent duty seriously…

The challenge will not just be how willing they are to thwart Trump, but whether they will be willing to do so with more than one nominee. It’s one thing to rise up with safety in numbers and block, say, Matt Gaetz’s nomination as attorney general should it reach the floor. It’s quite another to torpedo Gaetz and then take down another, let alone two or three, more Trump appointees.

It’s worth watching, though, because this same bloc of Republican lawmakers would also be the most likely to reemerge later in Trump’s term to selectively challenge him on issues (tariffs or foreign policy come to mind) or an inevitable power grab.

Greenwich RINOs believe that their day will come again; I’m guessing — hoping, anyway — that they’ll end up in the elephant graveyard with their GOP betters instead.

More on Alice

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to the dump to the dump to the dump dump dump!

Brother Gideon having nothing better to do today, he has sent along a more complete obituary of Alice Brock that adds a bit more to her life beyond the Great Alice’s Restaurant Massacree. All very nice, but, although it’s sort of mean to slight the woman, the really interesting part of the article is that it reprints the original police blotter article detailing the arrest of young Arlo on November 29, 1965. The events are exactly as described in the song. Astonishing.

(Go to the link to see the newspaper article in larger type).

From FWIW's Taos correspondent, breaking news of a price cut in Riverdale

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The Bronx mansion of the late lyrical poet Stanley Moss sees a nearly $1M price cut mere months after his death

Nov. 22, 2024, 12:06 p.m. ET

In The Bronx, a 10,000-square-foot mansion formerly owned by the late poet Stanley Moss is on the market again with a new — and discounted — asking price, The Post has learned.

The writer, who died in July at age 99, attempted to sell this half-Gothic, half-Colonial Revival home in 2023 for $4.5 million, but that was an artist’s delusion, Leslie Hirsch of Christie’s International Real Estate told The Post.

“Now that Mr. Moss passed away and it’s being handled by his estate, they’re motivated to sell it,” said Hirsch, who relisted the property, which stands in affluent Riverdale, for $3.79 million on Friday.

Dubbed the Henry L. Atherton Villa after its original builder, 5247 Independence Ave. is on arguably the most famous street in the Riverdale Historic District, which has 34 residences. John F. Kennedy Jr. himself lived at 5040 Independence Ave. in the 1920s, according to history archives.

While only minorly renovated in the last few decades, the three-story house is in good shape and can easily accommodate updates like central air-conditioning, Hirsch said.

What it lacks in modernity, it makes up for with views. A rear deck and balcony look past Riverdale Park, across the Hudson River to the Palisades, and a porthole in the third-floor bathroom gives the perfect peek at the George Washington Bridge.

“The sunsets are unbelievable,” Hirsch added.

I wouldn’t know what a “lyrical poet” was if he bit me on the ass, but I’m sure that our far more erudite Taos correspondent both knows what they are and who Stanley Moss was (I thought he was a British race car driver). And good for him; I just report on real estate, and Moss (used to) own some.

YOU’ll PROBABly need a step ladder to enjoy this view, but hey, what do you expect for under $4 million?