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?

Because the point of all these poverty plans is graft for politicians and their friends, not actual results

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still with us

The same can be said for government agencies and programs that claim to address the global warming hysteria, education, agriculture, military preparedness, space exploration ….

The cities are no better: in 2016, LA soaked its taxpayers $1.2 billion to pay for 10,000 new units of bum housing; by 2020 only 278 units had been built, to the tune of $563,000 per apartment.

LA's Homeless Housing Now Costs More Than Some Luxury Condos

And that hasn’t improved by 2024 — quite the opposite, in fact:

LA’s latest homeless housing project, at nearly $600K a unit, opens in Skid Row

Proponents hope the first of two high-rises, dubbed Weingart Towers, will be a model to follow

According to his PR flak,

Mayor Garcetti has stepped up with our State and County partners to house thousands of our homeless neighbors at an unprecedented rate. And we will use the model we've built to house thousands more in the coming months. The Mayor will always keep pushing to create more shelter capacity, so that we can bring unhoused Angelenos indoors right now. While we do that, we must also keep our focus on building permanent supportive and affordable housing as cost-efficiently as possible .…”

Sure, the government could help young families buy their first house (not that that’s a good idea), but they can figure out a way to do that without others being taxed to pay for that assistance. On the other hand, the gentleman below has absolutely no hope of ever becoming a useful member of society, let alone a taxpayer, and therefore he’s more deserving, no?

Finally

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23 Pleasant Street, Riverside, (link fixed now) currently priced at $1.995 million, has a contract after several lengthy stays on the market. It asked for the same $1.995 million in 2018 and eventually dropped to $1.895 before the listing was allowed to expire at the end of that year. It came back in 2019 at $1.595 dropped to $1.495, and again expired, in December 2020.

So it took a hiatus until March of this year and lo, the Riverside market has improved, so even though it was priced all the way back to its unsuccessful 2018 price of $1.995, it has found a buyer.

A vey nice house inside, but it lacks a garage, and Pleasant Street itself was probably so-named by its developer to disguise the fact that it is immediately adjacent to I-95: “Who ya gonna believe, the sign post or your own lyin’ ears?”