From Bloomberg here:
The historic Gold Coast, featuring 100-year-old mansions, opulent condos and designer boutiques, has lost some of its most illustrious residents and appeal in recent years as the city’s high taxes and crime encouraged the wealthy to relocate. Those staying in Chicago are opting for more modern homes in trendier areas, leaving Gold Coast properties sitting on the market for months.
Now a plan to boost taxes on the sale of homes of $1 million or more could further depress deals in the neighborhood, whose residents include the billionaire Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker. Known as the “mansion tax,” the measure will be on the ballot during the Illinois primary on Tuesday. ...
It’s unclear what impact the tax will have on property prices and whether it will generate the revenue that the mayor’s office expects. Los Angeles passed a similar measure increasing transfer taxes for properties over $5 million in 2022, but the measure only generated $142 million, a tiny fraction of the over $900 million it was expected to bring in. ...
The Gold Coast currently has 113 homes on the market at $1 million or more, according to Zillow. Only Streeterville, directly south of the Gold Coast and along the famous Michigan Avenue shopping strip, has more.
In the broader area of the Near North Side, which includes the Gold Coast and Streeterville, homes over $1 million have spent an average 123 days on the market, almost double the average in the rest of the city, according to Chicago Association of Realtors data collected from 2021 to 2023.
Story here:
San Carpoforo Beach has no restrooms or trash cans . . ..
Here.
Nobody wants to talk about the shit-hole progressives have made out of Portland, which first came to light nationally when the place erupted after the death of George Floyd.
The hallmark of progressive rule in Portland is that the justice system in their hands won't prosecute crimes, so the police are demoralized and now have interminable staffing problems. Who wants to arrest the same people over and over again knowing they'll just have to arrest them again over and over?
The murder rate in Portland is 1.85 times the US rate.
The robbery rate is 2.85 times the US rate.
The assault rate is 1.8 times.
The burglary rate: 2.56 times.
The theft rate: 2.7 times.
The motor vehicle theft rate is 5.3 times the US rate.
There are nearly 11 times the crimes per square mile overall in Portland than the national median.
First, Chicago.
Chicago is not the "Midwest".
Chicago remains firmly left-wing under new mayor Let's Go, Brandon Johnson.
It didn't just suddenly turn left this week.
The shit-hole will just get shittier under Johnson, instead of get slightly less shitty under Vallas.
As for Wisconsin, OK, the Wisconsin Supreme Court is now in the hands of four lunatic Democrat wymyn vs. three Republicans. Republican Dan Kelly was indeed resoundingly defeated, but by a nakedly partisan Democrat whose campaign may result in successful calls for her to recuse herself in certain future cases.
Abortion was indeed her campaign issue, but her main objective is rolling back former Governor Scott Walker's anti-government-union efforts.
But Kelly's defeat was a mixture of Republican stupidity combining with Democrat knavery.
Kelly was a Walker appointee, not a winner in his own right. He didn't win his seat in the first place, and he lost it in 2020. MAGA Republicans were STUPID to go with him a second time.
National Republicans: Note Well. Don't be STUPID in 2024 and go with an already defeated candidate.
And don't let Democrats select your candidate. Especially by putting him on trial.
The Wall Street Journal KNOWS Democrats spent $1 million to get the once-defeated Kelly nominated again in the primary instead of Jennifer Dorow, whose son became a political liability which unfortunately canceled her strong conservative record in the minds of enough voters.
Dorow, after all, had put away parade killer Darrell Brooks for life without parole. She is also allied with Chief Justice Clarence Thomas in her skepticism over Lawrence v Texas. But she gone.
Republicans in Missouri once let Democrat Senator Claire McCaskill select their candidate to run against her there. Now Republicans in Wisconsin have made the same stupid mistake and paid the same stupid price.
Meanwhile, Republicans more broadly in Wisconsin still firmly dominate its representation, the only state from Trump's 2016 Upper Midwest WI-MI-PA trifecta to do so.
They own the Assembly 64-35, and now the Senate 22-11. The GOP House delegation in Washington from Wisconsin is 6-2 Republican, the Senate 1-1.
Wisconsin's GOP is hardly on the ropes, but the Wall Street Journal seems to think a Wisconsin Senate going Republican 21-12 because Mequon could have just as easily narrowly voted Democrat in a special election would have been a catastrophe.
Yes, Republicans nationally would be wise politically to stand for abortion compromise where abortion absolutism would result in defeat as in Michigan, but note that Michigan's Senate and House are still only narrowly Democrat, 20-18 and 56-54. Politics is the art of the possible, but bad candidates like the Dan Kellys and Donald Trumps of the world are no longer possible.
The Wall Street Journal should just say so.
The Midwest is not going left, just anti-Trump because he did not follow through on his promises to the working class, about which The Wall Street Journal cares nothing.
And by the way, Democrats don't care either.
I hope Ohio's J. D. Vance is paying attention.
A third world shit-hole of problems, problems, problems.
My electric power went out Tuesday night at about 11pm.
It is still out.
Over 81,000 customers, just of Consumers Energy, remain without power four days after a line of storms came through.
The utility runs ads on the radio incessantly saying "Count on us"!
It spends more time and money trying to get consumers to curtail electric usage than it does providing it.
It decommissions coal fired generating capacity and then turns around and buys electricity from Indiana. Under Democrat Gretchen Whitmer we are increasingly like California.
The utility is a cruel joke, especially this week as humidity levels soared with the heat. Indoor temperatures at night above 80 degrees F make for miserable sleeping, when sleeping occurs at all.
The air is full of the sound of generators, day and night. Lines are long at gasoline stations where people wait to fill their cans to get them through another night.
Green energy isn't green, and the power company doesn't provide it, green or otherwise.
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