Maggie's Farm

We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.

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Wednesday, January 29. 2025

Wednesday morning links

"you can still find interesting and potentially valuable houses out in
the sticks. And you can turn them into real investments, if you turn
them into a part time job for yourself. I did it recently, and made a
900-percent profit on the deal. Tax-free, too, because as long as you
live in it for at least two years before you sell it, you can make
$250,000 before capital gains taxes kick in. Or $500,000, if you’re
married, which I highly recommend."


The Left Never Runs Out of Reasons to Complain


Andreessen: Substack And Elon Musk's Twitter Takeover Broke The Social Media Censorship Dynamic


Trump Puts an End to Taxpayer-Funded Child Mutilation


Trump Administration Offers Buyouts to Millions of Federal Workers


Dismantling The Administrative State Is A Critical Task Requiring Great Effort


The Short Arm of Trump’s Diplomacy. Plus. . .DeepSeek gives
America a paradoxical gift, San Francisco sours on ‘harm reduction,’
Google Maps adopts ‘Gulf of America,’ and more.


Trump's Fight Against Online Censorship Quickly Goes Global


DeepSeek AI Shows You Can’t Compete With China and Outsource Development to China

Posted by Bird Dog in Hot News & Misc. Short Subjects at 08:00 | Comments (13) | Trackbacks (0)

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I did a gut rehab while living in the house. Created a temporary kitchen in the basement. Rigged up a shower surrounded by tarps on the back patio. It's doable. But every day you have seal the other room doors with tape and finish the day with a shop vac else the plaster/framing/trim work dust will drive you crazy. Also, living in the sticks would drive me crazy. I like riding my bike to grocery stores/doctor appointments/libraries/parks.

$250K capital gain exemption is fine for the sticks but getting smaller and smaller in metro areas: $800K median home price in my Denver neighborhood on a house I payed $60K for 35 years ago. No wonder geezers are staying put in their too-big houses.
#1 CapitalistRoader on 2025-01-29 09:59 (Reply)
The trick to long term capital gains taxes is to stay below the minimum income so they don't apply to you. Not hard to do for most people, especially if it's a one-income married family or retired people.
#1.1 jack walter on 2025-01-30 13:44 (Reply)
QUOTE:
Andreessen: Substack And Elon Musk's Twitter Takeover Broke The Social Media Censorship Dynamic

Musk uses his control of X to throttle content based on his partisan positions.

QUOTE:
LEX FRIDMAN: Fundamentally, the government should not exert any kind of pressure, even soft pressure, on companies to censor.

MARC ANDREESSEN: They can't. It's not allowed.

That is incorrect. The President also has the right to free speech. While the President can't coerce using the power of government, the President (and his agents) can certainly jawbone using the bully pulpit. It's a question of degree—which brings up norms of behavior. Meanwhile, Trump calls disfavored media, "enemies of the people" and threatens to pull their broadcast licenses or even jail them.
#2 Zachriel on 2025-01-29 14:19 (Reply)
"Musk uses his control of X to throttle content based on his partisan positions." No. He stopped promoting LW propaganda. X does sometimes throttle tweets with links. but there is no evidence that has anything to do with the partisan identity oof the tweeter.

"Meanwhile, Trump calls disfavored media, "enemies of the people" and threatens to pull their broadcast licenses or even jail them." The Biden admin. threatened platforms with negative consequences for not censoring political speech the admin disliked. That is unconstitutional. Get back to me about Trump when he is making such threats to specific platforms to those platforms by name. BTW, the statements the Biden admin wanted censored were harmful to them and factually accurate.
#2.1 James4HJ on 2025-01-29 18:17 (Reply)
James4HJ: The Biden admin. threatened platforms with negative consequences for not censoring political speech the admin disliked.

In Murthy v. Missouri, the Biden administration was sued under the claim of coercion. The administration said it only made requests, not demands. The appeals court found some evidence the government may have overstepped (the “question of degree” raised above), but the case was tossed by the Supreme Court.

James4HJ: Get back to me about Trump when he is making such threats to specific platforms to those platforms by name.

It doesn’t have to be a specific platform to be a violation of the First Amendment, such as if a president threatens to use the power of government to retaliate against his critics generally; but Trump has specifically threatened ABC and CBS with government retaliation.
#2.1.1 Zachriel on 2025-01-29 21:00 (Reply)
Again Quibble-DickZ make another biased assertion they can't backup with the facts.

https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2025/01/28/trumps_fight_against_online_censorship_quickly_goes_global_1087285.html
#2.1.1.1 Zachinoff on 2025-01-30 01:38 (Reply)
Amazing. You're justifying the government's direct, active attempts, sometimes wildly successful, to decide what should and shouldn't be seen on media.

Once again you're more worried about Trump's hyperbole than Biden's actual ACTIONS and the results therefrom.

Murthy was tossed because of STANDING. Look up that word if you have to. Clearly you do.

You're truly a mewling mealy mouthed authoritarian-cheering unserious pipsqueak.
#2.1.1.2 SK on 2025-01-30 04:29 (Reply)
SK: You're justifying the government's direct, active attempts, sometimes wildly successful, to decide what should and shouldn't be seen on media

The claim above that the president can’t criticize the media is itself contrary to the First Amendment. However, the president doesn’t have the right to use the power of government to coerce. Trump’s direct threats to punish critics using government power are clear violations of the First Amendment—regardless of whatever you allege Biden did.

Only by acknowledging this point can you make a reasonable argument about Biden’s actions, which arguably violated norms at the least. You seem to assume that the president can’t jawbone or use the bully pulpit.
#2.1.1.3 Zachriel on 2025-01-30 06:55 (Reply)
You are hopelessly blinded by your ideology.

People from the admin calling up, as one example, Facebook and screaming and cursing at them--Zuckerberg's words, not mine--to suppress inconvenient information, is not the "bully pulpit", or "criticizing the media". That's the best you can come up with? Of course what's really happening is that you're trying to make the argument about something it isn't, which is typical for you. But thanks for the laugh!

For you to still be on this crusade to justify what the Biden admin did, after the "Twitter Files" and all the other fine journalism done by people like Taiibi, Weiss, Kirn, regarding not just that outrage but the moving highway of FBI, CIA etc ghouls to social media companies (James Baker, anyone?) and "disinformation watchdogs" is pretty pathetic. Of course when you expose yourself only to that which supports your biases...

Even the mainstream media have written post mortem assessments critical of what happened--you just won't accept it.
#2.1.1.3.1 SK on 2025-01-30 12:37 (Reply)
DeepSeek AI competing and outsourcing to China... US manufacturers have tried that in Japan in the 70-80's and lost to Japanese tool makers as well.
When manufacturing CEO's think short term profits over long term survival, they tend to cheat the stock investors and employees.
#3 indyjonesouthere on 2025-01-29 15:24 (Reply)
Trump calls the media that, because they are. How many licenses has he actually pulled, to date? How many reporters has he actually put in jail, to date? Anything less than a positive integer value is a non-story, isn't it, unless the story is about you, complaining.
#4 Aggie on 2025-01-29 15:29 (Reply)
Aggie: Trump calls the media that, because they are. How many licenses has he actually pulled, to date?

Threats of government retribution for speech are a violation of the First Amendment.
#4.1 Zachriel on 2025-01-29 15:43 (Reply)
Don't remember Quibble-DickZ whining about government retribution during the Biden administration's war on conservatives and conservative speech.
In fact they encouraged it.
#4.1.1 Zachinoff on 2025-01-29 17:20 (Reply)

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