The stupid Leftist dream of "affordable housing"

The dream is not stupid but the means Leftists use to address it invariably are.  Read the article below and I will add some comments at the foot of it

Cambridge has emerged as ground zero in the struggle to create more affordable housing amid Greater Boston’s sizzling real estate market.

Sure, other communities — Newton and Arlington among them — are debating controversial zoning changes that could spur taller, bigger buildings. And in Boston, city councilors are weighing a new tax for high-end properties that would funnel money to affordable-housing construction.

But a step that the Cambridge City Council could take might be considered even more radical.

City officials are essentially deciding whether to establish an entirely new citywide zoning code, but one that just applies to 100-percent affordable residential projects.

Developers of these affordable units would be able to build taller and denser projects than what would normally be allowed in a particular neighborhood. Apartment buildings could go up in places currently limited to just one- or two-family homes.

The proposal drew passionate pleas from both sides during a City Council committee hearing on Wednesday. To many people, this zoning change is a long-needed concept that should be replicated in other Greater Boston cities to keep up with the intense demand for housing. To others, it’s the kind of well-intentioned urban planning that could wreck a neighborhood.

The truth is, Cambridge already does more than most communities. About 15 percent of the city’s housing stock is considered affordable, compared to a statewide average of nearly 10 percent.

But affordable-housing developers, many of them nonprofits, say this dramatic zoning change could be essential to compete in a city where 1,100-square-foot condos can hit the market for nearly $1 million.

SOURCE 

Who the heck do these Leftist clowns think is going to build in these rezoned areas?  Building any new building runs big financial risks so the final project has to be very profitable before any builder is prepared to leap in.  And how is it going to be profitable if the owner can charge only "affordable" rents.  I predict that one of two things will happen:

 1) Nothing new will be built in the areas concerned as builders look elsewhere for profitable projects;

2).  New projects will be built but the rents will be "affordable" to only a token degree.  No other outcome is possible

What is needed to get housing costs down is deregulation in general and ending land use restrictions in particular, both of which are anathema to the control freaks of the Left

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The Insane Want to Run the Asylum

By Rich Kozlovich

The left is insane.  How do I know that?  It's real easy. Leftism has been a massive failure from its very beginning with the French Revolution and the resulting "Terror" the ruling class imposed on French society. A totalitarian pattern that's been repeated with every socialist dominated society.  So, to keep insisting on repeating the same mistakes over and over again and expecting a different outcome is insane.  At least that's what Einstein thought, and I agree!

Currently, there's a "clown car" of leftist loons running to become President of the United States in 2020.  What are they promoting?

Every one of them wants to abolish the Electoral College, pack the Supreme Court, lower the voting age to 16, create new states by splitting up California, recognizing Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia as states, in order to create more Democrat Senators, impose a New Green Deal that will destroy the economy all the while claiming it will "reinvigorate the workforce" , demonstrating a complete lack of economic clarity.

They work to stop prosecutions on illegal aliens who've committed crimes claiming it's discriminatory. How can anyone not think this is complete nonsense?  Have we lost our minds? Why would the Supreme Court have to hear this?

These people have committed crimes. First, they're here illegally and secondly, they're stealing someone else's identity.  They're criminals! Why is that so hard to accept?  But leftist logic declares it discriminatory.

In spite of the fact student loans have, destroyed the affordability of a college education they want to forgive all those loans and make college free. Can you imagine how the costs would skyrocket then?

They insist that Global Warming is man made and is going to destroy the world in twelve years. Prince Phillip said something like that fifteen years ago.  He also said there were only months left before we were past the point of no return.  Amazing! He's still flying around the world and living the good life. But in the sane world,  time is on the side of those of us who've taken an opposing view.

Islamists have practically taken over the Democrat party to the point many have a legitimate fear we're facing a new holocaust in the near future.

As for those who claim to be conservatives - what a confused lot!

Many who refer to themselves as conservatives are lost because they're not real conservatives with firm moral and intellectual foundations.

 "Democrats talk about legalizing marijuana, murdering babies, welcoming Jihadists, seizing our guns, Soc. Sec. payments to illegals, demanding the popular vote over the Electoral vote and supporting ignorant Marxist puppet loons like AOC who wants everything free for all with no idea how to pay for it, short of the common tactic used by all governments… steal it from the producers. This applies to Bernie and the high cheek boned, blond Indian Princess, Elizabeth Warren. While other Democrat contenders may lurk in the shadows, they only try to out promise the other guy with what they would do with our money. These are simple people, you know, Morons."

How could any legitimate conservative feel they're "wandering in the wilderness" or "culturally powerless" in the face of all that?  Every one of these initiatives should all be a fuse that light fires in every real conservative.  The rest are all phonies and traitors to the very concept of conservatism, like John Kasich, John, McCain and a host of others.  All with stunningly slippery moral convictions.

As I see it, as a society we have four options.

Ignorance, which is fixable.

Stupidity, which is ignorance coupled with complacency.

Insanity, which is unavoidable if you accept their conclusions
- or -
Clear rational thinking which means accepting the reality that to be on the left is irrational and misanthropic, morally defective and everything these leftist loons say are lies of commission and lies of omission.

Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius (121 – 180 C.E.) once noted; "The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane."  How much more important is it to keep the insane from turning society into an insane asylum with they, the lunatics in charge?

SOURCE 

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The Left Is Doubling Down on Schemes to Pack the Supreme Court

I am pretty sure the court itself would disallow "packing"

Anything the left can’t control, it aims to destroy.

From campaigns to abolish the Senate to the growing movement to upend the Electoral College after Hillary Clinton’s defeat in the 2016 presidential election, progressives have few qualms about getting rid of long-standing constitutional institutions.

Now they’re doubling down on their efforts to wage war on the Supreme Court.

Former Attorney General Eric Holder said Thursday that Democrats should consider court-packing during an appearance at Yale, noting that he would try to add two seats if he were president.

The left has relied on the Supreme Court to solidify its policy gains over the past half-century in particular. Now it faces the prospect of an originalist-leaning institution overturning some progressive precedents.

Left-wing groups are openly advocating that the next Democrat president pack the Supreme Court to expand the number of justices behind the now traditional nine.

Politico reported that one initiative, appropriately named “Pack the Courts,” is trying to get 2020 presidential candidates to sign onto a pledge to do just that.

“At Demand Justice, we strongly believe that reforming the court—especially by expanding it—is the cornerstone for rebuilding American democracy,” said Brian Fallon, director of Demand Justice and a former Hillary Clinton press secretary, according to Politico. “The Kavanaugh court is a partisan operation, and democracy simply cannot function when stolen courts operate as political shills. We are thrilled to work in coalition with the team at Pack the Courts to undo the politicization of the judiciary.”

Some Democrats, at least initially, have resisted the court-packing temptation.

However, the left will exert enormous pressure on Democrats to buckle under the power of a left-wing base that is unconcerned about preserving institutions that they see as standing in the way of social justice.

This partisan attempt to pack the court under the guise of “reform” is nothing new. When Justice Anthony Kennedy—often seen as a swing vote on the high court—retired, some progressives immediately jumped in to make the case that it was time to use full-blown court-packing once they return to power.

The fact that progressives made this argument before Justice Brett Kavanaugh even sat on the high court shows that there wasn’t really a deeper problem with “the Kavanaugh court” other than the fact that it now contained more originalists.

One has to imagine too that if President Donald Trump simply took the left’s advice and started carrying out his own court-packing, they would denounce him as a tyrant.

However, it’s far too much to expect intellectual consistency in this matter. The Supreme Court as traditionally constituted is a threat to the left’s ability to radically transform America.

It must be destroyed.

While this brazenly partisan attempt to blow up the Supreme Court has certainly been an uncommon phenomenon in recent political debates, it’s not entirely unprecedented.

The Constitution actually says nothing about the number of Supreme Court justices, who serve for life, or more specifically “during good behavior.”

In the early 19th century, the Supreme Court’s size changed a few times with little fanfare. In part due to the lesser capacity of the federal government in those days, the court wasn’t seen as powerful and important as it is today.

The high court settled into having nine justices in 1869, and has stayed that way ever since.

Only once was this number seriously challenged after that time. President Franklin Roosevelt infamously attempted court-packing in the 1930s.

When the Supreme Court struck down many of his cherished New Deal programs, FDR threatened to pack the court with new justices. Specifically, he requested that Congress allow him to appoint a new justice for every current justice over 70.

Roosevelt cited age and caseload as the reasons to carry out his plan. But as popular as FDR was in 1937, the country responded negatively.

The plan was met with fierce resistance. Democrats had almost unprecedented control of Congress, but many lawmakers recoiled at the idea of bludgeoning the Supreme Court and undermining its independence.

At a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Erwin Griswold, a professor at Harvard Law School, said dramatically in 1937, according to Smithsonian Magazine:

"There are at least two ways of getting rid of judges. One is to take them out and shoot them, as they are reported to do in at least one other country. The other way is more genteel, but no less effective. They are kept on the public payroll but their votes are canceled"

Many Americans saw FDR’s move as a naked power grab, not unlike Thomas Jefferson’s attempt to impeach Federalist justices when he was president (which didn’t go well).

Almost paradoxically, these perceived partisan attacks on the court have served to strengthen its reputation in the American mind, for good or ill.

But can we be so sure that the country would be united in thwarting such a brazen scheme today?

Openly embracing socialism was once thought unthinkable in mainstream American politics, too.

For now, the movement to pack the court may just be a palliative to soothe the anger of the left-wing base. However, if these ideas ever came to fruition they would cause further damage to the notion that we live under a constitutional system that puts laws over men.

Sen. Burton Wheeler, a staunch Democrat ally of Roosevelt, gave perhaps the most succinct reason to oppose such a court-packing scheme in a 1937 speech:

"Create now a political court to echo the ideas of the executive and you have created a weapon. A weapon which, in the hands of another president in times of war or other hysteria, could well be an instrument of destruction. A weapon that can cut down those guarantees of liberty written into your great document by the blood of your forefathers and that can extinguish your right of liberty, of speech, of thought, of action, and of religion. A weapon whose use is only dictated by the conscience of the wielder"

It’s certainly correct to worry about the power of the Supreme Court, which has become distended compared to the original intent of the Founding Fathers.

But taking a partisan ax to the way the court is structured won’t fix the problem.

SOURCE 

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Democrats' Orwellian 'Equality' Act

House Democrats reintroduced their so-called "Equality Act" last week. The bill would add "sexual orientation" and "gender identity" to the protected classes under the Civil Rights Act of 1964. However, as The Heritage Foundation explains, "Where the original Civil Rights Act of 1964 furthered equality by ensuring that African-Americans had equal access to public accommodations and material goods, the Equality Act would further inequality by penalizing everyday Americans for their beliefs about marriage and biological sex. Similar sexual orientation and gender identity laws at the state and local level have already been used in this way."

Frankly, the "Equality Act" would step all over Americans' First Amendment rights. Heritage further highlights five specific groups who would be harmed should the act ever become law: employers and workers, medical professionals, parents and children, women, and nonprofits and volunteers. In other words, the law would directly impact virtually everyone living in America.

This ill-conceived legislation is the kind of heavy-handed, government-forced thinking that many have long warned against. The law would not merely protect those individuals expressing new sexual "norms" or gender "identity" from suffering physical harm; rather it seeks to force all Americans to accept and embrace leftist ideology. It would compel speech. We have already seen examples of this reality, where in Virginia just last year a high-school teacher was fired for his refusal to address a gender-dysphoric individual by their preferred pronoun. The teacher argued that to use a pronoun contrary to the biological sex of the student went against his faith, as it would be engaging in a lie. He noted that he believed God created human beings and furthermore determined their biological sex, and therefore the teacher was not free to ignore this reality or pretend otherwise.

Democrats claim the law would ban discrimination, but the reality is that it would simply insert a new and much more dangerous discrimination — a kind of discrimination that runs counter to the Liberty all Americans share under the Constitution. It would effectively create a more "equal" classification of individual whose status would trump the freedom and rights of others. The truth is, this law is not about equality at all; it's about using the power of government to force others into conforming to the immoral ideals of a protected class. It is in fact evil.

SOURCE

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