Category: Massachusetts

Should my friend apply to a Massachusetts town for permission to turn his house into a for-profit migrant shelter?

by philg

A friend owns a 6,000-square-foot house in our former suburb of Lincoln, Maskachusetts. Loyal readers might remember the 2019 post Harvard graduate discovers that the suburbs are packed with narrow-minded white heterosexuals:

The old white guy who led the First Parish church in our suburban town, a union of Congregational and Unitarian, retired. The Millionaires for Obama on the church hiring committee found Manish Mishra-Marzetti, a young Indian-American (Indian from India, not Indian like Elizabeth Warren) to become the new minister (in 2015). He, his husband, and their two adopted kids (characterized as “African American” in the video link below) moved into our midst.

On paper, at least, this guy is exactly the kind of person that the residents say that they want to assist and/or get to know better. He’s the child of immigrants. His skin is nearly as dark as a Virginia Democrat headed out for a party. He identifies as LGBTQIA. He organized trips to our southern border to assist migrants. He sermonized against the evils of Trump and Trump supporters.

I don’t think that I’ve written about it here, but some years ago there was a non-profit org that applied for zoning permission to turn a house in the town into a halfway house for, I think, mentally disabled adults. The halfway house would receive massive amounts of state funding for each person served. Democrats on the town discussion list went nuts. Each email started with praise for the idea of this kind of taxpayer-funded service and ended with the thought that it would make a lot more sense to operate such a house in some other town or city within Maskachusetts. If memory serves, the righteous managed to kill the proposal despite some sort of state law that ostensibly neuters local opposition.

My friend has a love of irony and he’ll soon be moving out of this house and into a tax-free Deplorable-rich state. Before he goes, though, I suggested that he have some fun by applying for zoning permission to operate a state-funded for-profit migrant shelter. His house would become home to four families of enrichers. As there is just one kitchen, the migrants would receive professionally cooked meals prepared in the central kitchen by paid staff. The migrants are undocumented and may not be able to get driver’s licenses and the town isn’t walkable. Thus, transportation would be provided by volunteers and also a paid service. Residents of Lincoln claim that they love Black people (cue the BLM signs on nearly every lawn that lasted at least until progressives transitioned to Queers for Palestine). Telegraph that the residents will be exclusively Haitian by including Haitian Creole-speaking wellness coaches and yoga instructors in the budget and asking the town for permission to have a 2’x4′ English/Haitian Creole sign in front.

Readers: What else could be added to this proposal to make it more expensive to taxpayers (yet still plausible and in line with what Maskachusetts taxpayers are currently paying for sheltered migrants) and more objectionable to the townsfolk who are the first to say that they love and support migrants and People of Color?

Based on “Massachusetts spending over $15k per month per family on migrant housing and transportation” (Fall River Reporter), my friend’s Lincoln Migrant Shelter would enjoy revenue of $60,000 per month ($720,000/year). Let’s assume that property tax is $30,000/year and two full-time people can do driving, shopping, cooking, and cleaning ($200,000/year). USDA says that the monthly cost of food on a “liberal plan” is about $400 per person so that’s another $60,000ish for the groceries (assume four “families” = 12 people). If we figure $40,000/year for maintenance and insurance, that’s about $400,000/year in gross profit for the enterprise. That’s a 20 percent return on investment if the house is worth $2 million.

Related:

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Hispanic Heritage Month at the science museum

by philg

I hope that everyone has fully prepared for National Hispanic Heritage Month, which starts today.

Friend’s daughter at the Boston Museum of Science: “Why are all of the signs in Spanish when everyone here is white or Asian?”

From August 2021, when Marjorie Taylor Greene was suspended from Twitter for falsely saying that the vaccinated righteous could still be infected by SARS-CoV-2 and transmit the virus (CBS), “Museum of Science, Boston Announces Vaccination Mandate for All Staff, Volunteers”:

The Museum of Science, Boston, one of the world’s largest science centers and New England’s most attended cultural institution, announced today a requirement that all employees and volunteers are to be vaccinated against COVID-19, effective September 13. The policy is in response to overwhelming scientific evidence of the vaccination’s safety and effectiveness in combating COVID-19.

Museum president Tim Ritchie spoke about the importance of the Museum setting an example as a trusted community resource:

“In early 2020, we closed our doors because the world was fighting a pandemic about which we had little knowledge and against which we had limited defense. Now, thanks to the wonders of science, we have the tools and expertise to eradicate this virus from our communities. We just need to act together.

Also… “Pride Celebration Weekend” at the museum for kids:

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A Massachusetts Kamala voter solves what she perceives as the “Israel-Palestine Problem”

by philg

We walked to a friend from Maskachusetts shortly after the noble Gazans made the news for amputating a young American citizen’s arm, holding him hostage for 11 months, and then executing him shortly before he would have been rescued by the IDF. Hersh Goldberg-Polin was 23 years old, was not serving in the Israeli military, and “was reportedly working with an initiative that was using soccer to bring Israeli and Palestinian children together” (Wikipedia).

As with other Democrats, the murder of Hersh Goldberg-Polin did not dampen her enthusiasm for voting for Kamala Harris, who has pledged to continue funding Hamas (via UNRWA, a funding path that Donald Trump cut off and Joe Biden restored in 2021; unless the October 7 attacks cost more than $1 billion it is fair to say that the Biden-Harris administration funded 100 percent of it with our tax dollars). She did volunteer her belief that there was an urgent need to “solve the Israel-Palestine Problem”. I asked her why the Maskachusetts Righteous sympathies were there rather than with Black Lives Matter or American Women, two victimhood classes that had previously generated large rallies. She said that Democrats were still passionate about these causes, but couldn’t remember any BLM events post-October 7, 2023. I asked why the failure of the Palestinians to achieve their 1948 military goals made them more sympathy-worthy than any of the 1.5 billion residents of Africa, about whom she had never expressed any concern. She said, “I guess I hear more about the Palestinians in the news.”

What was her plan for resolving the conflict? She believed that Palestinian children were being indoctrinated by a message of Jew-/Israel-hatred in their schools (funded by US and EU taxpayers, of course) and that the solution was to bring them to the U.S. so that they could instead be indoctrinated by American schools (also funded by US taxpayers so perhaps this isn’t a huge change from a financial point of view). I didn’t point out that Queers for Palestine and similar rallies all around the U.S. show that there is plenty of “destroy Israel” energy among those who go through American K-12, but I did ask “Why would the typical Palestinian go to the trouble of having 5 kids and then just give them up voluntarily to American do-gooders running a reeducation scheme in which Christianity and Judaism have equal status to Islam?” Our Massachusetts Kamala voter said, “the parents can come too if they want.” I pointed out that, given Gaza’s world-leading population growth rate, almost every adult there has at least one minor child and, therefore, she was proposing that the entire population of Gaza be admitted to the United States to become American citizens. She said that it was indeed her expectation that the majority of Gazans would come to the U.S. I then pointed out that 50,000 babies had been born in Gaza during the recent battles (not to say “war” since that started in 1948 and the Palestinians have never accepted any kind of peace; there has been a continuous officially declared war going for 76 years now). Wouldn’t a new crop of Hamas warriors, therefore, be born soon enough and be able to carry on the fight even if most of their older brothers, sisters, and binary-resisters were peacefully voting for Democrats in Michigan? She didn’t seem to have considered the possibility that Gazans left behind, still getting unlimited food, education, health care, etc. free from UNRWA, would continue the Palestinian tradition of off-the-charts fertility. (See “Reproductive decisions in the lives of West Bank Palestinian women: Dimensions and contradictions” (2017, Global Public Health):

Palestinian women have one of the highest fertility rates in the world, averaging 4.38 births per woman. However, Palestinian fertility patterns are distinct from those of other developing nations, in that high fertility rates coexist alongside high levels of education and low levels of infant mortality – both of which have been established elsewhere as predictors of low total fertility rates.

).

I share this conversation because I thought it was an interesting window into the mind of a Kamala Harris voter. The best way to heal the world is a further expansion of low-skill immigration to the U.S.

Separately, given the success that Hamas has enjoyed after taking and killing American hostages what happens to U.S. citizens in other parts of the world going forward? Since taking American hostages Hamas has secured from the Biden-Harris administration (a) promises of continued funding, (b) a $230 million pier (admittedly washed away quickly), (c) support for the Hamas-sought “permanent ceasefire” that leaves Hamas leaders alive and well and permanently in charge of Gaza, (d) pressure on Israel for a long delay in the IDF operation in Rafah, which turns out to be where at least one American hostage was held and killed (see “Harris warns it would be a ‘mistake’ for Israel to invade Rafah” (CNN, March 25, 2024)) and “Kamala Harris says Israel assault on Rafah ‘would be a huge mistake’” (Guardian)), and (e) diplomatic recognition by a variety of purported U.S. allies and military client states as leaders of their own sovereign nation (“Spain, Norway and Ireland formally recognize a Palestinian state as EU rift with Israel widens” (AP)). What’s the downside to taking American hostages in the Biden-Harris era?

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A quiet escape from the Maskachusetts Millionaires Tax

by philg

The peasants revolted in 2022 by updating the Massachusetts constitution so that a progressive income tax rate system could be introduced in the progressive state. The higher 9 percent rate initially applies only to those who earn at least $1 million per year so it is the “Millionaires Tax”. Here’s a recent Wall Street Journal article about some unreasonably rich douches seeking to unload their $16 million 13,550-square-foot house.

Here’s the quiet escape part, buried towards the end:

They recently purchased a home in Vero Beach, Fla., and they also have homes in New York City and Marion, Mass.

I’m going to guess that they end up spending at least 183 days per year in Vero Beach!

What kind of person lives in a 13,550-square-foot house spewing energy out of four walls and a roof in the midst of what Democrats tell us is a “climate crisis” and an “existential threat to humanity”? A big donor to progressive causes! The New York Post has an article about the owners Lawrence Rand and Tiina Smith showing up at a fundraiser for a “left-wing” group that is also funded by George Soros.

Related… a tweet from the union that represents America’s smartest and best-educated workers:

(the first time that anyone had to pay the new Maskachusetts tax was April 15, 2024, so I’m not sure why a higher-than-expected revenue in Year 1 of the new tax “proves wrong” those who said that the rich would move; packing up and moving might take a few years to organize; the one thing that I think the above AAUP post proves is that very few university professors expect to earn over $1 million in 2024 dollars)

A report from Boston University (April 2024) says the following:

MA rate of outmigration is rising rapidly, impacting population, size and workforce composition

Growing exodus of prime age workforce and higher income earners

Higher income earners are leaving MA with over half earning 1.3 to over 2.6 time the state average

Over the last decade, the Top-5 destinations have remained consistent: Florida, New Hampshire, Maine, North Carolina and Texas

Southern states are gaining the lions share of adjusted gross income

Florida gained $1.77 billion (42% [of the adjusted gross income that fled])

The BU nerds didn’t point out that migrants living in public housing are likely going to call Maskachusetts home forever!

(The BU analysis purports to have a number for outmigration in 2023, but I don’t see how this could be reliable. My understanding is that IRS data is the gold standard and the latest IRS data covers 2022 (see this recent WSJ article, for example; “Florida gained about twice as much income in 2022 from other states as it did in 2019”).)

I propose that we check back in 2028 to see what has happened with high-income Massachusetts residents during 2023-2026 (using IRS data). My theory is that it takes 2-3 years for a rich person to move. A peasant can throw the contents of his/her/zir/their 1BR apartment into a U-Haul and drive to a 1BR apartment in another state within a few months of deciding to move. The rich person, on the other hand, may have a lot of connections to unwind and might need to wait for a suitable house to be built in the destination state.

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Maskachusetts Democrats try to understand their new neighbors

by philg

A Massachusetts Democrat’s Facebook post earlier this month (the woman who’d repeatedly expressed alarm regarding climate change was about to board a transoceanic flight, apparently; she’d also previously posted in favor of masks and was about to share a confined space with more than 300 potentially infected humans):

Some comments from fellow Democrats:

  • Migrant crisis [it is a “crisis” when the U.S. is being enriched at a faster pace than under the hated dictator Trump]
  • More mistreatment of immigrants. … [and then after a rare hater who snuck into the exchange points out that “They came here illegally”] Artificially preventing the incorporation of this latest wave of Americans into our fully American diaspora, as is the obviously racist purpose of this outrageous policy we are here witnessing, fully ignores the hard won history of all our (?) ancestors who have, and will continue, to make this nation a better (not worse) place because of their efforts, and abilities. If that’s “mansplaining” then please understand the actual truth delivered by this enlightened man! … I am, however, most interested in the opponents of Democracy, itself, and how they must be squirming in regards to the overwhelming election of Mexico’s first female president, who also happens to be its first Jewish president
  • [response to the above] super exciting to see her elected! She is also an ecologist!! This can only be good for Mexico and the world.
  • shameful
  • Wow. I didn’t know about this. How awful for these families!

For reference, the new president of Mexico, referred to above:

Related:

  • “Worried about coronavirus while having sex? Wear a mask, says a new study” (CNN, June 2020, about a study done in Massachusetts (at Harvard Medical School!)): “…it appears that all forms of in-person sexual contact carry risk for transmission of the virus,” said Dr. Jack Turban, study lead author and resident at Harvard Medical School, where he studies the mental health of transgender youth.
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Identifying as Asian in an elite Maskachusetts school

by philg

From a friend in the Boston suburbs:

[Asian-American son] applied to be a student advisor and was turned down. He was perplexed as he has the highest GPA in the [expensive private] school of 500 students and gets along with everyone. He is a volunteer for the Special Olympics and helps people without being condescending. Everyone likes him. Even girls invite him to their birthday parties. He later found out that two of his black friends who didn’t apply got it. They said the school reached out to them and talked them into doing it, so they applied and were selected.

(Deplorable failure to capitalize Black in original. I can verify the father’s high opinion of this kid’s personality. He’s super smart, relaxed, athletic, and never brags.)

Different friend in the Boston suburbs:

guys, after several months of constant assault by [the wife], [the son] got himself a date to the prom

his sister tried everything – called him an incel

what’s the difference between [my wife] and a pitbull?

at some point, the pitbull lets go.

The future prom king is tall, fit, and looks great by my standards (i.e., is not old). I had previously asked him why he wasn’t exploring the public high school female population. He said, “I don’t agree with their value system. They say that you’re not sophisticated if you haven’t slept with at least five people before graduating high school.” I replied, “Well, if that’s all it takes then we can go down to the nearest bathhouse tonight and you can have sex with five guys in a couple of hours.” (The family has not invited me back into their home.)

Related… (NBC)

Helms Ategeka, a top Head-Royce School student, was accepted to 122 colleges and received $5.3 million in collective scholarships.

“I feel really lucky that there are people out there, that there are institutions out there that see the value that I have to give,” Helms said.

Helms believes it was his nearly 10 extracurriculars, spanning from choir to theater to starting his own club, along with his 3.9 GPA that set him apart on paper.

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MIT bureaucrats try dialogue with pro-Hamas students

by philg

A follow-up to Talking with a pro-Hamas college student…

The righteous at MIT have been demanding that the university cut any and all research ties with universities inside the Zionist entity. The demand has been backed up with demonstrations, including an encampment. From May 6:

I’m not sure if these translations are accurate, but here’s what the students and friends were saying in Arabic:

(Fortunately, they threatened Zionists with death and did not burn any rainbow flags, a hateful act that would have resulted in a 16-year prison sentence. And why are they wearing masks if they chant “the masks are off”?)

Here’s an email sent today to all MITers from the president:

At my direction, very early this morning, the encampment on Kresge lawn was cleared. The individuals present in the encampment at the time were given four separate warnings, in person, that they should depart or face arrest. The 10 who remained did not resist arrest and were peacefully escorted from the encampment by MIT police officers and taken off campus for booking.

They warned them three times and didn’t follow up and were surprised that the 4th warning was also ignored? Paging the psych department!

The encampment began on Sunday, April 21, in violation of clear Institute guidelines well known to the student organizers. It slowly grew. Though it was peaceful [see AP video, above], its presence generated controversy, including persistent calls from some of you that we shut it down. While we asked the students repeatedly to leave the site, we chose for a time not to interfere, in part out of respect for the Institute’s foundational principles of free expression.

…

On Monday, May 6, judging that we could not sustain the extraordinary level of effort required to keep the encampment and the campus community safe, we directed the encamped students to leave the site voluntarily or face clear disciplinary consequences. Some left. Some stayed inside, while others chose to step just outside the camp and protest. Some chose to invite to the encampment large numbers of individuals from outside MIT, including dozens of minors, who arrived in response to social media posts.

Late that afternoon, aided by people from outside MIT, many of the encampment students breached and forcibly knocked down the safety fencing and demolished most of it, on their way to reestablishing the camp. In that moment, the peaceful nature of the encampment shifted. Disciplinary measures were not sufficient to end it nor to deter students from quickly reestablishing it.

Wednesday, May 8, was marked by a series of escalating provocations. In the morning, pro-Palestinian supporters physically blocked the entrance and exit to the Stata Center garage though they eventually dispersed. Later, after taking down Israeli and American flags that had been hung by counter protestors, some individuals defaced Israeli flags with red handprints, in the presence of Israeli students and faculty. Several pro-Israel supporters then entered the camp to confront and shout at the protestors. Throughout, the opposing groups grew in numbers. With so many opposing individuals in close quarters, tensions ran very high. The day ended with more suspensions – and a rally by the pro-Palestinian students.

Thursday, May 9, pro-Palestinian students again blocked the mouth of the Stata garage, preventing community members from entering and exiting to go about their business, and requiring that Vassar Street be shut down. This time, they refused directions from the police to leave and allow passage of cars. Their action therefore resulted in nine arrests.

Here’s my favorite part:

Sustained effort to reach a resolution through dialogue

We tried every path we could to find a way out through dialogue. In various combinations, senior administrative leaders and faculty officers met with the protesters many times over almost two weeks. This sustained team effort benefited from the involvement of at least a dozen faculty members and alumni who have been supporting and advising the protestors, and, in the final stages, a professional mediator who was meeting with the students.

These academic bureaucrats imagined that their credentials would be effective and that the anti-genocide righteous would change their minds and say “oh, actually genocide is okay.” I wish that we could have hooked up an MRI machine to their brains and received a download of their thought process! Given the facts according to the pro-Hamas folks (the Zionist entity is committing genocide against peaceful Palestinians for no reason) how would they be persuaded by words any more than Gazans themselves would be persuaded by mere words to give up on their goals of liberating Al-Quds, destroying the Zionist entity, and establishing a river-to-the-sea Palestinian state?

How about at University of Florida? A neighbor’s son is just home from his semester there. I asked what he thought about the pro-Palestinian protests on campus. “I haven’t seen any,” he responded. “I think those are at Columbia.”

Related:

  • “FSU police, sprinklers put damper on Pro-Palestinian student protest, occupy Landis plans” (Tallahassee Democrat): [Florida State University] police made the students — members of Tallahassee Students for a Democratic Society — take down a handful of tents that were set up for a mere five minutes on the grassy space predawn due to FSU regulation 2.007, which prohibits camping on university lands, according to a university spokesperson. … During the protest, student speakers also expressed how FSU has not acknowledged Arab-American Heritage Month this April or shared any statement to show support to Arab and Muslim students of the university.
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The child support plaintiff sends her condolences

by philg

A friend’s sister recently died of cancer at age 62 (despite Joe Biden’s pledge to eliminate cancer). He had previously been sued by the mother of the people who used to be his children. As is conventional in Maskachusetts, she was able to obtain a court order that her child support profits be guaranteed in the event of his death via life insurance. The successful plaintiff learned of her kids’ aunt’s death via the kids and reached out to her former defendant… to ask for confirmation that his life insurance that would benefit her was up to date.

Speaking of Maskachusetts and cash… (source):

Matt Gorzkowicz, Healey’s budget chief, said officials believe most of the unexpected revenue was generated by the state’s new surtax on annual income exceeding $1 million — the so-called millionaire’s tax — and collections from capital gains, all money that state officials largely can’t use to balance the budget as a whole.

This is the first year that MA is living its principles of taking from the rich to give to the poor. Previously the state constitution required a flat rate tax (I guess that also enables taking from the rich and giving to the poor because the rich paid a lot and didn’t receive much in the way of services). I wonder if those who are subject to the 9% rate (previously they paid 5%) will eventually wander up to New Hampshire or down to Tennessee, Florida, or Texas, thus restoring revenue to its previous percentage of state GDP. This has been the pattern with federal tax rates over the decades, i.e., a roughly constant percentage of GDP extracted despite wildly varying rates:

(Note that the Federal government went on a “wartime footing” in the 1940s, with taxation ramping up from 5 percent of GDP to 20 percent and then has stayed on this wartime footing ever since!)

Friends who live in what Zillow says is a $2.5 million house in the Boston suburbs are in the process of negotiating the purchase of a $4 million to-be-built house here in Jupiter. They’ll pay the millionaire tax on their way out partly because they bought their house in 2007 for $1.45 million. Adjusted for official inflation and expected realtor commission, it is actually worth about the same as what they paid (which means they’ve lost money when you factor in maintenance and pre-sale repair expenses and they’ve lost huge $$ if you compare to the S&P 500), but they’ll have a fictitious capital gain that is larger than the $500,000 married couple exclusion for a primary residence:

Massachusetts is still getting money from them, even more than before, but the bureaucrats aren’t privy to their escape plans. I.e., the state government is on a sugar high, at least with respect to them, and the inevitable crash will come in 2025 when the new house is finished and the Pack Rats are loaded up.

Circling back to the original topic… it’s important to remember that a human in his/her/zir/their 60s is like a 9-year-old dog and that cancer can strike either kind of animal at any time. Get that estate plan tuned up and, unless you love progressive political schemes more than your own children, have a way to move out of Massachusetts (16 percent state estate tax) as soon as the first cancer diagnosis is received!

Related:

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Birth control pill sculpture wins a prize at a suburban Boston public high school

by philg

Here’s a prizewinner from the AP Art class at the Lincoln-Sudbury (Maskachusetts) public high school:

(I blacked out the student-artist’s name in case she one day becomes a Deplorable.)

I’m not sure if “penis made from birth control pills” is the title of the work or if it has a title at all.

Science shut down the high school in question completely or partially for 1.5 years. Part of this period was “hybrid” in which students gathered two mornings per week and then retreated to their suburban bunkers. Presumably SARS-CoV-2 was told not to spread during these handful of hours, but the virus would have rejected a demand to refrain from spreading during a full school week.

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New Maskachusetts program to make income inequality look more extreme than it is

by philg

I’m not sure how anyone comes up with a Gini coefficient of income inequality in the U.S. given that we have so many means-tested taxpayer-funded “not welfare” welfare programs. A person with zero income making the U.S. look extremely unequal may yet have the spending power to occupy a $60,000/year apartment, consume $30,000/year in health insurance, buy groceries, own a smartphone with service, and enjoy high-speed Internet at home via the new “free broadband” program.

There’s a new challenge in Maskachusetts… “Making Transit More Affordable: MBTA Board Approves Low-Income Fare Program to Benefit Riders in 170+ Communities” (MBTA.com):

… the MBTA today announced that the MBTA Board of Directors has unanimously approved the MBTA’s plan to implement a reduced fares program for riders with low-income. This program, which has been a topic of research and planning by the MBTA and many partners for the last decade, is an exciting improvement for fare equity.

The new program will provide riders who are aged 26-64, non-disabled, and have low income with reduced fares of approximately 50% off on all MBTA modes. Program participants will demonstrate eligibility via existing enrollment in programs with a cutoff of 200% of the federal poverty level (or lower).

The MBTA estimates the cost of the program to be approximately $52-62 million (including administrative costs, operating costs to meet induced demand, and fare revenue loss).

Without this program, a resident of Lockdown Land with 201% of the federal poverty level in income would be considered better off than someone with 200%. But with this program, the higher income person actually will have less spending power, assuming that he/she/ze/they ever uses public transit.

On net, any program likes this makes the quoted numbers on income inequality in the U.S. misleadingly extreme, which is good news, I suppose, for any political party that thrives by stoking envy.

Apropos of transportation, a friend of a friend’s hangar here in South Florida, complete with C1 Corvette and Nissan Fairlady Z (“Datsun” for Americans at the time):

And a photo of an almost-finished house that I snapped after departing from this airport:

(Jupiter Island, not to be confused with Jupiter; Intracoastal Waterway in the foreground and Atlantic Ocean in the background.)

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