June 9, 2026

DISPATCHES FROM THE BLUE ZONES: More than 10,000 applicants vie for 15 affordable apartments in Seattle.

More than 10,000 applicants are vying for 15 rent-reduced apartments under a new Seattle affordable housing program funded by a city tax on workers who make more than $1 million a year.

Amazon, Microsoft and other companies fought the tax, but voters approved it in a 2025 referendum.

The program was expected to create only several hundred apartments a year, as the so-called social housing developer constructed new buildings.

But the first allotment of apartments is even smaller because the social housing developer decided to buy an existing luxury apartment building and won’t require tenants to leave.
…
The Social Housing Developer announced last month that it purchased a 150-unit building by the Pike Place Market for around $60 million.

It looks to me like The Social Housing Developer used taxpayer money to buy a luxury apartment building because the profits are better, and that they’ll get around to the less lucrative affordable housing stuff sometime between mañana and inshallah.

Posted at 2:47 pm by Stephen Green

ROGER SIMON: Who the Hell Is Nithya Raman?

I worked in Hollywood. I wrote for newspapers and websites. I knew politicians, journalists, studio executives, activists, and assorted crackpots of every description.

I arrived when Sam Yorty from the San Fernando Valley was mayor. All of us smartypants film-and-drama-school wannabe literati thought he was a yahoo. I lived through Bradley, Riordan, Hahn, Villaraigosa, Garcetti, Bass (from afar—by then I had left), and others. I watched Hollywood transform, newspapers shrink, neighborhoods burn, homelessness proliferate, and the city grow from a sprawling postwar metropolis into something quite different.

Yet when Nithya Raman emerged as a serious contender for mayor, my first reaction was not approval or disapproval.

It was: “Who the hell is Nithya Raman?”

Well, now I know her politics are supposed to be on the far, far left of the Democratic Party as she heads into a runoff against merely far-left (one far) former Fidelista incumbent Mayor Karen Bass, whom Ms. Raman endorsed (before Nithya did or did not throw in the towel, depending on who you believe).

Speaking of which, it’s hard to believe she actually beat out Mr. Pratt. The redoubtable Dan Greenfield has a good analysis of that —‘The LA Mayoral Election is Being Stolen”. Subtitle: “How does the third-place candidate win the majority of late-arriving ballots?”

To be fair, it’s good to see L.A. awarding someone for being extremely competent at her job — that job being to increase the “Homeless Industrial Complex” to a size that would make the Manhattan Project seem like a neighborhood 7-Eleven:

Tweet continues, “in 2017, [Raman] ran for city council in 2019 on a ‘fix homelessness,’ promptly firehosed infinite taxpayer cash at other ‘homeless non-profits,’ and now suddenly says ‘it’s not okay for people to be sleeping on the streets.’ ‘We can fix this’? Yeah, we can, if the ‘we’ doesn’t include you.”

Posted at 1:35 pm by Ed Driscoll

YES:

“This is YOUR identity politics. Never was ours. Maybe in the south when it was run by Democrats but not for most of the nation.”

Posted at 1:29 pm by Stephen Green

IF YOU’RE MENOPAUSAL, DON’T WAIT: Does HRT Actually Protect the Heart After Menopause? “The Penn State data suggests estrogen-based hormone therapy improves several key cardiovascular markers. But the protective effect depends heavily on timing. Benefits appear most significant when treatment starts within 10 years of menopause or before age 60. After that window, the calculation changes.”

Posted at 1:00 pm by Glenn Reynolds

FINGERS CROSSED, I SUPPOSE:

One the one hand, riots are bad. On the other, they tend to turn off normies who don’t much care for them or for convicted murderers.

Posted at 12:58 pm by Stephen Green

OTHER PEOPLE’S MONEY: Newsom targets undocumented Californians with new healthcare cost increase.

At the end of 2023, Gov. Gavin Newsom framed it as a matter of principle when under his administration, California became the first state in the nation to pay for undocumented immigrants to use Medicaid.

“In California, we believe everyone deserves access to quality, affordable health care coverage – regardless of income or immigration status,” Newsom said in a statement to ABC News at the time.

People flocked to the system, with about 1.5 million undocumented Californians using the state’s Medi-Cal healthcare by November 2025. But now Newsom and fellow Democrats in Sacramento are walking back on their promise to provide healthcare access to all.

Lawmakers have slashed the program in a series of cuts over the last year with more expected to come. In January, the state froze any new undocumented adults from applying for the program. Dental benefits for undocumented people are set to expire in July. And Newsom’s latest budget proposal, released in May, calls for increasing premiums from a planned $30 to $50 for undocumented people starting in July next year.

Illegal aliens paying a lousy $50 premium for taxpayer-subsidized insurance, and SF Gate frames it as “It’s getting harder for undocumented people in California to get insurance.”

You cannot despise these people enough.

Posted at 12:43 pm by Stephen Green

OLD AND BUSTED: #FIGHTFOR15.

The New Hotness? McDonald’s testing AI at the drive-thru.

A robotic voice may soon be taking your order at the drive-thru.

McDonald’s is testing out an artificial intelligence-based operating system called ArchIQ, the company announced this week. The voice-activated AI system is being tested at five locations around the country, Restaurant Business Magazine reports.

A franchisee showed off a demo of the technology, nicknamed Archy, on X. The video shows ArchIQ taking orders in English and Spanish.

While it’s currently in a test phase, the franchisee, who posts under the popular account McFranchisee, said “every McDonald’s in the US” is getting a technology upgrade in anticipation of the new tech.

More here: “Taco Bell and Wendy’s previously announced that they had launched their own AI-powered drive-thru ordering systems. [Jonathan Maze, editor-in-chief of Restaurant Business, told ABC News that] the trend could significantly reshape the industry in the years ahead. ‘You can imagine a future five, 10 years down the line, where no orders at McDonald’s are actually taken by a human being,’ he said.”

As a wise man once said, “the real minimum wage is always zero, regardless of the laws, and that is the wage that many workers receive in the wake of the creation or escalation of a government-mandated minimum wage, because they either lose their jobs or fail to find jobs when they enter the labor force.”

Posted at 12:30 pm by Ed Driscoll

GIVE IRELAND BACK TO THE IRISH: Sudanese migrant arrested after ‘attempted beheading’ in Belfast.

A Sudanese man has been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder after a knifeman appeared to try to behead a man in Belfast.

The suspect has been taken into custody after the victim suffered “significant injuries” to his face, neck and back in what police called a brutal attack.

The injured man, a resident of the area in his 40s, is being treated in hospital, where his condition is described as serious.

Footage shared on social media – which is too graphic to publish – appears to show the knifeman, in his 30s, pinning the man to the ground before repeatedly stabbing him in the head.

The video shows three apparently local men intervening, one hitting the attacker with a wooden hurling stick as others kick him to try to force him to release his victim.

Police revealed the suspect had been granted leave to remain after crossing the border from Dublin.

Asst Chief Constable Ryan Henderson, of the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), told a press conference: “My understanding is that the individual was given leave to remain in Northern Ireland, but I know that colleagues in the Home Office will be confirming the exact details of the status in the coming days and hours.”

There is “no information” to suggest the attack was terror-related, the police chief added.

Well, I’m really glad it wasn’t a terror-related attempted beheading.

Posted at 12:14 pm by Ed Driscoll

R.I.P. GORDON WOOD:

He debunks the 1619 Project here. The woke was so strong then that he had to go to the World Socialist Website to find someone who’d run it.

Posted at 12:00 pm by Glenn Reynolds

I’D HATE TO SEE HER GO; SHE RUNS A TIGHT SHIP: Susie Wiles on reported White House departure: ‘I am not going anywhere.’

“After an accomplishment filled week by President Trump, I have the pleasure of reading a piece of Friday fiction, courtesy of the Daily Mail,” Wiles wrote on social platform X.

“To be crystal clear, I am not going anywhere. I am honored and proud to serve President Trump, proud of our team and remain fully committed to advancing his agenda on behalf of the American people.

The Daily Mail, citing five sources, reported Friday that Wiles was preparing to leave the administration after the November elections. The longtime GOP operative ran Trump’s successful 2024 campaign and is the first woman to serve as White House chief of staff.

The Daily Mail, eh?

Posted at 11:41 am by Stephen Green

FRAUD ALL THE WAY DOWN (COLORADO EDITION):

It’s difficult to imagine a reason not to investigate improper payments except for being in on the action.

Posted at 11:25 am by Stephen Green

I’VE SEEN THE VIDEO, AND IT ISN’T EASY TO WATCH…:

…but if it “radicalizes” just one more Briton into rejecting his country’s cultural destruction, then it’s worth it.

Visegrád 24 posted it here.

Posted at 10:54 am by Stephen Green