Category: Journalism

Wall Street Journal warns New Yorkers not to move to Florida

by philg

New York-based journalists love to write about how New York taxpayers shouldn’t flee to Florida and skip paying 14.8 percent state/city income tax, 8.9 percent sales tax, and 16 percent estate tax (vs. 6-7 percent sales tax in FL and 0 percent income/estate). Here’s a recent example, “The Worst Housing Market in America Is Now Florida’s Cape Coral”:

The median home price soared nearly 75% to $419,000 in three years, transforming the character of this middle-income community that for decades has catered to retirees and small investors. … Home prices for Cape Coral-Fort Myers have tumbled 11% in the two years through May

So the prices went up about 56 percent, over a five-year period. That’s before adjusting for Bidenflation. What happened in the U.S. overall? Prices went from 218 to 331 (source), a rise in nominal dollars of 52 percent:

In other words, for people who bought a house five years ago (the average tenure in a house for an American is about 12 years), what the WSJ calls “the worst housing market in America” outperformed the U.S. residential real estate market overall.

What Zillow shows is that the Cape Coral market was more volatile than the national average:

So Cape Coral actually has been a bad market for home-flippers who had the misfortune to buy in at the peak, but for the typical Cape Coral homeowner it has been a better market (albeit, not by much) than the average U.S. real estate market. What about for the elites who put the Wall Street Journal together? How has their Manhattan real estate done by comparison? Zillow:

(“New York County”=Manhattan)

So Cape Coral is objectively speaking the worst housing market in the U.S. (reported as fact/news by the Wall Street Journal rather than as opinion). At the same time, people who owned property in Manhattan fared far worse over the past 6 years or almost any time window within those 6 years.

Related:

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Harvard’s latest win in court and the New York Times

by philg

“Judge Rules Trump Administration Illegally Canceled Harvard Funding” (NYT):

Harvard University won a crucial legal victory in its clash with the Trump administration on Wednesday, when a federal judge said that the government had broken the law by freezing billions of dollars in research funds in the name of stamping out antisemitism.

The ruling may not be the final word on the matter, but the decision by Judge Allison D. Burroughs of the U.S. District Court in Boston was an interim rebuff of the Trump administration’s campaign to remake elite higher education by force.

What does the multi-page article lack? Any background information on this judge. Her Wikipedia page:

Allison Dale Burroughs (born 1961) is an American lawyer and jurist serving as a United States district judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts. She was appointed in 2014 by President Barack Obama. She is most notably known for rejecting the lawsuit Asian students brought against Harvard’s race-based admissions in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard (2019).

It wasn’t worth mentioning, in other words, that her previous ruling in favor of Harvard, allowing them to continue to discriminate by race, was overturned by the Supreme Court. Nor did the NYT have space for “Obama-appointed” anywhere in the article, despite the fact that justice right now seems heavily dependent on whether a judge was appointed by a Democrat or a Republican president (all three Supreme Court Justices appointed by Democrats, for example, said that it was constitutional for Harvard to sort applicants by skin color).

Update: The Wall Street Journal does the same thing, e.g., in “Harvard’s Pyrrhic Legal Victory” (editorial) and “Trump Administration’s Cuts to Harvard Funding Are Unconstitutional, Judge Rules” (“news”).

(Note that I personally don’t understand why Harvard, which officially says that inequality is “one of America’s most vexing problems” is willing to accept any federal money. Harvard is a rich institution in a richer-than-average state. One would think that they’d seek money from the Massachusetts state government and ask that all federal money be redirected to less-wealthy universities in poorer-than-average states, e.g., University of Michigan.)

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How does the Gaza Health Ministry operate with no food, building, electricity, or Internet?

by philg

Today’s question is how the Gaza Health Ministry operates. This organization is as authoritative for progressives today as Anthony Fauci was during coronapanic.

We are informed by CNN that Gazans are starving. Maybe if they walk 10 miles they can get a few scraps, but probably they will be shot by Israeli “snipers” if they approach the feeding stations. We are informed by the New York Times and CNN that all buildings in Gaza have been destroyed. We are informed that Gaza has no electricity or Internet. So a group of people (the “Ministry”) with no food, no building, and no Internet manages to work together all day every day and produce reliable precise-to-six-digits statistics and press releases. Here’s a recent example from taxpayer-funded PBS… “Over 60,000 Palestinians have died in the Israel-Hamas war, Gaza’s Health Ministry says”:

Over 60,000 Palestinians have been killed in the 21-month Israel-Hamas war, Gaza’s Health Ministry said Tuesday. The ministry, part of the Hamas-run government, said the death toll has climbed to to 60,034, with another 145,870 people wounded since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack. … An additional 14 Palestinians were killed while attempting to access aid near the American and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Fund site in central Gaza, according to local hospitals. … Gaza, which has teetered on the brink of famine for two years

A starving double-chinned woman and a starving man (gender assumed based on wearing of abaya/hijab or not) in a yellow shirt with an ample belly lead off in this August 21, 2025 video from the Guardian:

Underneath the video, the journalists quote the ministry that works without an intact building, food for its employees, or Internet yet gathers precise statistics:

On Sunday, the Gaza health ministry said eight more people had died of malnutrition and starvation, raising deaths from such causes to 289 people, including 115 children, since the war started.

From the Islamic Republic of Minneapolis, “Gaza Health Ministry says more than 63,000 Palestinians killed as Israel-Hamas war drags on” (Star Tribune, August 29, via AP):

Gaza Health Ministry says more than 63,000 Palestinians killed as Israel-Hamas war drags on.

But they don’t say where this ministry is located or where its press releases are to be found?

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Parallel universes in New York Times and New York Post

by philg

According to the print version of the New York Times, New York City is mostly peaceful and the principal hazards to human happiness are the continued and persistent existences of Donald Trump and the state of Israel:

The parallel universe version of Manhattan covered by the New York Post is a war zone in which people carry rifles as they walk along the sidewalk:

(The gun violence, which never would have happened if Kamala Harris had been elected president, occurred at 6:30 pm yesterday and Southwest Harbor, Maine is a bit far from any printing plant so some of the discrepancy might be explained by logistics.)

As long as we’re on the subject of our media heroes, here’s a CNN story about purported starvation in Gaza in which a woman with a double chin was selected as to illustrate the story:

Screenshot

What am I doing in this nearly-all-white corner of Maine, you might ask? Waiting for BIPOC Climbing Night:

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New York Times reminds us that the ACLU protects individuals’ 2nd Amendment rights

by philg

Even the games section of the New York Times can be educational. What organization protects your individual right to “keep and bear arms”? The same ACLU that helped Amber Heard express herself is “defending individual rights” (Autocheck enabled so we know that this answer is consistent with dogma):

Related:

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WSJ: Open borders make the U.S. rich and also Social Security is going broke faster than expected

by philg

Happy Independence Day for those who celebrate our traitorous rebellion against legitimate British rule and a total tax burden of 2 percent of income, not a penny of which the British ever spent outside of North America (the Brits spent a huge amount of treasure defending the white immigrants from Native Americans who objected to being replaced via white immigration).

Since a country is defined primarily by its people, let’s take a look at two perspectives on low-skill immigration today. Both perspectives are from the same newspaper, one from when Joe Biden was still running for reelection on the basis of what the media reported to be his perfectly sharp mind. The second is a recent piece, published during the Trump Dictatorship v2.0.

June 2024, Wall Street Journal:

Immigration Is Behind the Strong U.S. Economy

The U.S. population is aging, and millions of baby boomers retire each year. We can expect that absent immigration, we would have a decreasing working-age population and shrinking employment for decades to come—especially considering the low fertility rate. … immigrants help the economy in a few other ways. First, immigrants are more likely to be of working age than their U.S.-born counterparts, so they can help support American retirees through their labor and taxes. Second, immigrants bring innovation that helps the economy grow.

June 2025, Wall Street Journal:

Social Security’s Potential Insolvency Date Moves Up One Year

With an aging U.S. population and a smaller share of American workers who pay into it, Social Security could become unable to pay full retirement and disability benefits in 2034, one year earlier than reported last year, the program’s trustees said Wednesday. … The report also said that Medicare’s hospital-insurance trust fund would be able to pay 100% of benefits until 2033, three years earlier than projected in last year’s report. At that stage, the fund’s reserves would be depleted and the income going into the program would be able to pay 89% of total scheduled benefits.

We had four years of open borders under the Biden/Harris/WhoeverWasActuallyInCharge administration and at least 10 million migrants who enriched us economically as well as culturally. We had SARS-CoV-2, a virus that killed nearly 1 million over-65 Americans who were, according to #Science, otherwise in perfect health and would have been collecting Social Security and Medicare for 10 additional years. Despite these massive tailwinds, Social Security and Medicare are running out of money faster than expected?

I wonder if this changes the calculation of the optimum time to begin drawing on Social Security. Traditionally, healthy people are told to wait until age 70, three years beyond Full Retirement Age (67 for those born in 1960 or later), in order to maximize the payout. But if benefits are likely to be cut in 2034, it might be smarter for a 67-year-old in 2025 to begin taking Social Security right now.

See also “Immigration does not solve population decline” (Aporia):

The thing is: immigrants age too. This means that while immigration can definitely reverse population decline, it can’t do much for population aging. Assuming immigrant age-structure and fertility remain constant, the difference in the working-age share of the population in 2060 between zero net migration and 2019 levels of migration in the United States is… 2% (57% vs 59%).

The good news for those who believe that working age migrants will solve all of our fiscal problems: “Kilmar Abrego Garcia brought back to US, appears in court on charges of smuggling migrants” (ABC). Also “Ohio man hid horrific role in 1994 Rwanda genocide to enter US, arrested after years on the run: DOJ” (New York Post). Imagine the taxes that Vincent Nzigiyimfura, admitted to the U.S. at age 49 and currently aged 65, will be paying after he serves the 30 years in prison that our wise government overlords are currently attempt to impose on him.

Loosely related, residents of Westfield, Maskachusetts who appear to have a personal stake in Social Security benefit levels hold a whites-only “No Kings” protest:

Also, it is never appropriate to conduct a fiscal analysis when considering immigration. If you’re not a hater you have to support open borders. Sticker on a mailbox outside a coffee shop in Boise, Idaho, yesterday:

Love has no borders.

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New York Times says that “slut” is not an English word

by philg

Happy International Whores’ Day, a month late, to those who celebrate. Vaguely related… let’s look at #Truth from the New York Times vs. what the stuffy academics at the Oxford English Dictionary have to say about the word “slut”:

From Orwell’s 1984:

“You haven’t a real appreciation of Newspeak, Winston,” he said almost sadly. “Even when you write it you’re still thinking in Oldspeak. I’ve read some of those pieces that you write in the Times occasionally. They’re good enough, but they’re translations. In your heart you’d prefer to stick to Oldspeak, with all its vagueness and its useless shades of meaning. You don’t grasp the beauty of the destruction of words. Do you know that Newspeak is the only language in the world whose vocabulary gets smaller every year?”

Winston did know that, of course. He smiled, sympathetically he hoped, not trusting himself to speak. Syme bit off another fragment of the dark-coloured bread, chewed it briefly, and went on:

“Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it. Every concept that can ever be needed, will be expressed by exactly one word, with its meaning rigidly defined and all its subsidiary meanings rubbed out and forgotten. Already, in the Eleventh Edition, we’re not far from that point. But the process will still be continuing long after you and I are dead. Every year fewer and fewer words, and the range of consciousness always a little smaller. Even now, of course, there’s no reason or excuse for committing thoughtcrime. It’s merely a question of self-discipline, reality-control. But in the end there won’t be any need even for that. The Revolution will be complete when the language is perfect. Newspeak is INGSOC and INGSOC is Newspeak,” he added with a sort of mystical satisfaction. “Has it ever occurred to you, Winston, that by the year 2050, at the very latest, not a single human being will be alive who could understand such a conversation as we are having now?”

Circling back to International Whores’ Day, it seems that Sean “Diddy” Combs has been found guilty of “transporting people for prostitution”. This is exactly the activity to which Snoop Dogg, one of our official heroes, has freely admitted (example in which he describes a bus that went from state to state). If Combs is sentenced to prison while Snoop Dogg is the official ambassador for the LA Olympics how can we square that with any concept of justice?

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Los Angeles is peaceful and also too dangerous for a platoon of soldiers to walk around

by philg

Reason to love Legacy Media #479… we are informed that

  • Los Angeles is peaceful and therefore the (defunded?) LA police did not require any assistance
  • Los Angeles cannot be safely traversed by a group of soldiers clad in body armor and armed with M4 rifles (maybe they could be safe in this peaceful city if enclosed within an M1 Abrams tank or Bradley Fighting Vehicle?)

From the Financial Times:

A growing number of military veterans and serving officers have spoken out against President Trump’s decision to deploy marines and National Guard troops to LA, calling it a misuse of executive power that puts soldiers’ lives at risk

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New York Times offers a new immigrant-rich history of jet engines

by philg

“The U.S. Deported This Chinese Scientist, in a Decision That Changed World History” (New York Times, May 30, 2025):

In 1950, though it didn’t know it yet, the American government held one of the keys to winning the Cold War: Qian Xuesen, a brilliant Chinese rocket scientist who had already transformed the fields of aerospace and weaponry. In the halls of the California Institute of Technology and M.I.T., he had helped solve the riddle of jet propulsion and developed America’s first guided ballistic missiles.

The immigrant invented the jet engine, then? The Wikipedia history of the jet engine credits various English and European engineers, notably Frank Whittle, with most of the “riddle-solving” work done more than 20 years prior to 1950.

I wonder how many more years it will be before all textbooks relate a history of science and technology in which all innovations are from migrants, the 2SLGBTQQIA+, women, and Engineers of Color.

Below, Qian Xuesen’s Gloster Meteor.

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Why isn’t Mohamed Sabry Soliman called “Colorado father”?

by philg

Kilmar Abrego Garcia is “Maryland father” according to our esteemed journalists. From the Journal of Popular Studies, for example:

Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland father who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador by the Trump administration due to an “administrative error,” is “alive and secure” in prison, U.S. officials shared.

Mohamed Sabry Soliman is referred to as “Egyptian man”. As the father of five, wouldn’t it be fair to say that Mr. Soliman earned the “Colorado father” sobriquet? From New York, for example:

When authorities arrived on the scene, they arrested Mohamed Sabry Soliman, a 45-year-old Egyptian man from El Paso County

(“Mohamed of El Paso” would also have worked as a moniker?)

NBC:

The wife and five children of an Egyptian man accused of throwing Molotov cocktails at people in Boulder demonstrating for the release of Israeli hostages

I still can’t figure out why we needed to have these seven Egyptians (Mohamed, his wife, and their five children) as neighbors while we did not necessarily need the other 115 million Egyptians. What is our selection process? Plainly, since we haven’t eliminated our asylum offer, we want to run a shelter for stray Egyptians, but we accept only some of the strays. We accepted Mohamed Sabry Soliman and his six family members because he supports the Muslim Brotherhood, which the Egyptian government seeks to suppress? Or was there some other rationale?

Loosely related… what one enthusiast was able to learn about Mohamed Sabry Soliman via careful examination of his online profile:

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