Category: Massachusetts

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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Maskachusetts spends 6.5X to feed the undocumented compared to what the native-born receive

by philg

A little Migrithmetic today…

A Maskachusetts resident with no W-2 or 1099 income gets $291 per month in SNAP/EBT (“food stamps”). Someone who walked across the border recently gets $1920/month in taxpayer-funded meals ($64/day). “How much is Massachusetts spending to shelter and feed migrants and homeless? I-Team obtains vendor contracts” (CBS):

Massachusetts has not been shy about how much money the shelter and migrant crisis is costing taxpayers. The I-Team looked into where some of the money is being spent, obtaining vendor contracts for services and hotels, including a no-bid contract for $10 million for a company providing meals.

WBZ first reported finding dozens of migrant families sleeping at Logan Airport, and the state is housing hundreds of others in overflow shelters like the one at Melnea Cass Recreation Complex.

But these locations do not include the thousands of homeless and migrants living in hotels and motels. So just how much money is the state paying for lodging?

Records obtained by the I-Team show the state has 17 contracts for housing totaling more than $116 million. Those contracts are only for fiscal year 2024 and end in June.

In some cases, the hotels are collecting money from the state for three meals a day, $16 for breakfast, $17 for lunch and $31 for dinner. That means $64 dollars a day per person.

Also covered by the Deplorables at the Daily Mail under the headline “Boston’s migrant shelter luxury: State pays $16 for breakfast, $17 for lunch and $31 for dinner as they live in hotels for free after entering the US illegally”. (A headline that will brighten any hotel owner’s day! You can choose 100 percent occupancy with migrants or raise your rates as former competitor hotels remove their inventory from hotels.com and similar.)

Meanwhile, state-sponsored media says that Texas has unwisely spent $1,450 per migrant to send them to Democrat-run cities and that it is “inhumane” to send a human to where he/she/ze/they can get weekly abortion care and gender affirming surgery. (If an all-Democrat state or city is a model society, second in virtue only to Hamas-run Gaza, why is helping someone to relocate there “inhumane”?)

It is tough to get an all-in number for what Massachusetts spends on migrants’ housing, health care, and food, but the estimated cost is $400 per day per migrant in New York City (source). In other words, after four days, taxpayers in NYC have spent more on each of their new neighbors than Texas spent to send them to NYC. (We are informed that migrants reduce crime and enrich host cities and countries economically and culturally, so NYC will ultimately come out ahead on its $146,000/year investment in each migrant.) Presumably the costs are similar in the Boston area.

A friend who likes to take full advantage of the McDonald’s app and refuses to spend more than about $5 per meal showed me a typical receipt:

In other words, a Migrant family of three could have enjoyed a delicious lunch for less than $1.50 per person had they been willing to walk through the miserable Boston weather to the nearest Scottish restaurant.

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Maskachusetts dumping migrants into a Black neighborhood

by philg

“[Lockdown and forced vaccination mayor of Boston Michelle] Wu acknowledges ‘pain’ of state plan to use Roxbury rec. center as overflow shelter site” (Boston.com):

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu responded to Gov. Maura Healey’s potential plan to use the Melnea A. Cass Recreational Complex in Roxbury as an overflow shelter site for migrants. Wu said she is working closely with the state to find solutions amid the ongoing migrant crisis, but expressed some frustration around the idea of using the Cass complex.

“For the first community where this is being proposed to be Roxbury, a community that over so many decades has faced disinvestment, redlining, disproportionate outcomes, it’s very painful,” Wu said during an appearance on WBUR’s “Radio Boston” Monday morning.

Amid historic levels of migrations, the emergency shelter system in Massachusetts has been under stress for months. Healey declared a state of emergency last year, and instituted a 7,500-family cap on the system. For months she has been pressuring federal officials and lawmakers to give Massachusetts more funding to deal with the crisis and make it easier for migrants to obtain work permits.

But the flow of migrants into the state shows no signs of slowing. More than 600 families were on a waitlist for emergency shelter as of Friday, and dozens of families have been forced to sleep at Logan Airport.

When I arrived at MIT in 1979, Roxbury was a Black neighborhood. This history describes what a hater might call a population replacement:

By the early 1970s, a combination of declining property values in Roxbury and rising values in the South End and discriminatory home lending practices had conspired to push Boston’s black community into Roxbury. As Latinos moved into Boston in greater numbers in the 1970s and ’80s, Roxbury became more heterogeneous. In 1990, the neighborhood was 79 percent African American, 14 percent Latino and 3 percent white.

[in 2019], Roxbury is 53 percent black, 28 percent Latino and 12 percent white.

It seems that there is no room for migrants in Weston, Wellesley, Dover, Concord (a sanctuary city), Lincoln, Newton (a sanctuary city), or other nearly-all-white towns with 1-2-acre zoning minimums. Maybe Newton doesn’t make sense because the teachers are on strike and migrants are entitled to a U.S. taxpayer-funded education (teacher strikes are illegal in Massachusetts, but 98 percent of the Newton teachers voted to break the law; apparently, they can’t be fired from their union job even when they violate the law).

Related:

  • America’s Welcomer-in-Chief is visiting Jupiter, Florida today! “President Biden heads to Jupiter, Miami for high-priced campaign events” (WPTV): “On Monday night, the White House announced he “will participate in a campaign reception in Jupiter” at an undisclosed location at 2 p.m. after arriving at Palm Beach International at 12:15 p.m. … Details on the Palm Beach County visit are being kept tightly quiet, but it is likely to be a pricey event.” (a border open to low-skill migration enriches American elites by about $500 billion per year in pre-Biden dollars: Harvard study using pre-Biden levels of immigration as well as pre-Biden dollars (i.e., it is probably closer to $1 trillion/year for the rich today))
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Somerville, Maskachusetts votes for permanent Hamas rule of Gaza

by philg

“Somerville City Council calls for ceasefire in Gaza” (Boston Herald):

The Somerville City Council is requesting President Biden to call for a ceasefire in Gaza but stopped short of endorsing a measure calling for the dismantling of Hamas and the administration of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Roughly 500 supporters packed Somerville City Hall on Thursday, crowding the Council Chamber and two overflow rooms to make their voices heard that fighting must come to an end in Gaza.

Councilors deliberated for well over two hours before approving in a vote of a 9–2 resolution that received multiple amendments. It explicitly calls for an “enduring ceasefire, provision of life-saving humanitarian aid in Gaza, and the release of all hostages.”

If there is an “enduring ceasefire” doesn’t that also mean enduring rule by the Islamic Resistance Movement (“Hamas”)? Separately, the parallelism here is tough to miss:

Councilor Kristen Strezo proposed an amendment demanding the dismantling of Hamas as well as the dismantling of the Netanyahu administration.

From state-sponsored public radio/TV:

Somerville is the first city in Massachusetts to call for a ceasefire, according to the local advocacy group Somerville For Palestine. Other local governments, including San Francisco and Minneapolis, have also passed resolutions. Cambridge City Council will hear its own ceasefire resolution on Monday, and it’s expected to pass.

I would love to see one of these cities take the next logical step and vote to have Hamas officials come over and govern a city here. If Hamas is an ideal government for Palestinians then why isn’t it an ideal government for Americans, both documented and undocumented?

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Socialists run out of other people’s hospital beds in Massachusetts

by philg

“The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money,” said Margaret Thatcher. She didn’t count on the U.S. Congress and Federal Reserve being willing to print however much was deemed necessary to achieve the ruling party’s goals.

One thing that the technocrats couldn’t print, however, is hospital beds. With just a trickle of undocumented immigrants over the past couple of years (compared to the flood that Texas has received), it seems that Massachusetts is running out of health care system capacity.

“‘Capacity disaster’: Mass. General Hospital says it needs more beds to combat ‘unprecedented crisis’” (Boston News 25):

Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston announced Friday that it has been dealing with an ongoing “capacity disaster” and that it’s in desperate need of more beds to help combat the “unprecedented crisis.”

The hospital has been operating every day for the past 16 months in “Code Help” or “Capacity Disaster” status, despite the worst days of the COVID-19 pandemic being a thing of the past, a spokesperson for the medical center said.

According to the hospital, “Code Help” occurs when inpatient beds and monitored hallway stretchers are full, and “Capacity Disaster” is triggered when the emergency department is full, all hallway stretchers are being used, and there are more than 45 inpatients boarding in the emergency department awaiting a hospital bed.

What do the technocrats have to say about this kind of situation? It can all be fixed with a technocratic solution. “How to keep people out of the emergency room; Help for immigrants in arranging primary care visits leads to substantial drop in ER visits and costs, a new study shows.” (MIT News, 9/23/2023):

“This program is fairly low-touch and minimalist, yet it had a meaningful effect,” says MIT economist Jonathan Gruber, co-author of a new paper detailing the study’s results.

Separately, as the authors note in the paper, extending formal health insurance to undocumented immigrants “remains politically untenable” for the most part. On the other hand, jurisdictions might examine if other approaches increase care while, in this case, lowering emergency room traffic.

“There’s this tendency with health care to think that if you give people health insurance, you’re done,” Gruber says. “This study is saying the right system combines insurance as financial protection with other kinds of [tools].” He adds: “There is just huge potential to use data and science to get people to where they need to be in terms of getting the most efficient care.”

With data and science, all problems can be solved!

From the hospital itself…

Related:

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