Has A Bone To Pick With The Bones
Dec. 9th, 2025 02:00 amRead Has A Bone To Pick With The Bones
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A guy comes over to the customer service desk and immediately starts screaming.
Customer: "My wife choked on the bones of a fish I got at your fishmongers! Get me the manager now!"
The store manager was absolutely not someone you would bother for a random customer issue without a good reason, so I tried to get more info.
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Mamdani won. So why aren't the wealthy fleeing New York City?
Dec. 9th, 2025 01:01 amOne of the silliest preelection narratives around the New York City mayoral race was the supposed fear that a victory by democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani would spark an exodus of the city’s wealthy elite.
Billionaire investor and all-around Trumpian asshole Bill Ackman was typical of the lot, crying on X this past summer that both businesses and wealthy people had “already started making arrangements for the exits.” Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy, another obnoxious MAGA bro, claimed he might move his company out of New York “because I hate the guy.” His grand plan? Move to New Jersey. Equally high-tax, equally liberal. So … yeah.
Grocery mogul John Catsimatidis, who runs the Gristedes and D’Agostino Supermarkets chains, also threatened a move to New Jersey.
“We may consider closing our supermarkets and selling the business,” the 76-year-old entrepreneur told The Free Press. “We have other businesses. Thank God, we have other businesses.”
And it wasn’t just right-wingers. New York’s Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul fretted about a potential Mamdani win because “I don’t want to lose any more people to Palm Beach. We’ve lost enough.”
Experts have been rolling their eyes at these threats all along.
“There is tax-induced mobility. It’s not non-existent but it’s very small,” Quentin Parinello, a tax expert, told ABC News.
In major cities like New York, people value the arts, business opportunities, and the ability to hire talent. ABC’s reporting includes several researchers making the same point: While the wealthy love to complain and posture, they rarely follow through.
“Movement of rich people on the basis of tax differentials is relatively small,” said Northwestern University professor Jeffrey Winters. “It’s very common for them to threaten to move. The risk is grossly overstated.”
Think of everyone who said they’d move to Canada if Donald Trump won the presidential race. Talking is always easier than acting.
Still, the New York Post—being the right-wing tabloid it is—keeps trying to manifest this fantasy.
“‘Mamdani effect’: Miami realtors report 166% spike in inquiries from wealthy NYC residents,” blared a recent headline. But even the story immediately contradicts itself: “Manhattan luxury contracts actually jumped 25% in November… a surge some brokers said shows ‘there is no Mamdani effect.’” The only sources in the Post story claiming otherwise are Miami real estate agents who make money convincing New Yorkers to relocate.
And since the Post didn’t bother providing raw numbers, that “166% spike” could literally mean inquiries went from three to eight. A phone call isn’t a move. Honestly, the number is almost certainly made up.
Related | Can progressives ride Mamdani’s momentum into the midterms?
As for real numbers?
“Sales of luxury homes in Manhattan jumped in November, countering fears that the election of Zohran Mamdani as mayor would drive out wealthy residents,” Bloomberg reported. Buyers signed contracts on 176 homes priced at $4 million or more, up 25% from the month prior. These included condos purchased for around $24 million each. Not exactly a market in retreat.
There’s an even more telling statistic: Luxury housing inventory is down.
“[I]nventory actually fell 16% in the luxury market from October 2024 to October 2025, indicating that there is no flood of New Yorkers selling their homes and leaving town,” reported USA Today. If the wealthy were running for the exits, inventory would be skyrocketing. Instead, it’s tightening.
Of course no one likes paying higher taxes. Even those of us who believe in a functional government don’t enjoy writing the check every year—we just see it as the cost of a society that works. So it’s natural for wealthy New Yorkers to gripe about an extra 2% tax on incomes over $1 million (which likely won’t happen anyway; Albany leaders seem uninterested in backing Mamdani’s campaign proposal).
But the reality is that New York City’s wealthy residents get a lot for what they pay. Another Bloomberg story features David Bahnsen, a Republican wealth manager who sits on the board of the conservative National Review. He despises the city’s liberal politics, calling them “contemptible.” And while he frets about potential tax increases, he isn’t going anywhere.
Bahnsen openly acknowledges that New York gives him advantages he can’t get anywhere else—the clients, the talent, the nonstop drive of the place. What really hooks him, he says, is “the energy of the city, the ambition.” That spark doesn’t exist in the low-tax red-state enclaves conservatives claim are paradise. Certainly not in Florida.
And he’s not just staying—he’s thriving: morning jogs in Central Park, Broadway shows, dining out every night, walking 40,000 steps on a typical weekend, even working out of offices that are steps from the Museum of Modern Art. Sounds pretty good, actually.
And that’s really the dynamic at play: The wealthy stay because New York gives them a lifestyle they can’t replicate anywhere else. The city’s appeal isn’t just the museums, the theater, the restaurants, or the talent pool—though all of that matters. It’s the density of opportunity. It’s being in a place where the most ambitious people in the world cross paths every single day. Deals get made over coffee because everyone who is anyone is already there. Entire industries cluster on the same few blocks. For people with the freedom and means to take advantage of all that, the cost of living is simply baked into the price of admission.
For them, the taxes aren’t a deterrent because New York City delivers something tangible in return: world-class public amenities, a creative and economic ecosystem unmatched anywhere in the country, and an energy that makes even the most stubborn conservative wealth manager admit the city is worth it. As Bahnsen said—perhaps after skimming another anti-tax screed in the magazine he bankrolls—Central Park alone is “worth the cost of living in the city.”
And he’s right. Where else can you step out of a skyscraper, walk a few blocks, and be surrounded by 843 acres of urban wilderness, all maintained and accessible because New Yorkers collectively pay for it? And nothing Mamdani has proposed threatens any of that.
But NYC’s price of admission isn’t the same for everyone. The amenities, energy, and opportunity that make New York irresistible to the wealthy don’t trickle down—they get walled off by the city’s staggering cost of housing, child care, transit, and daily life. If you can’t buy your way into the version of the Big Apple that’s thriving, you get squeezed into the version that isn’t. And eventually, you get pushed out entirely.
Related | ‘Make halal eight bucks again’: Zohran Mamdani has the blueprint
Northwestern University professor Winters highlights that point.
“We are worried about the outflow of the very wealthiest people… when in fact the biggest outflow of people is among those who can’t afford even the basics of staying there,” he warned.
The rich aren’t fleeing Mamdani’s New York. But the working class and the struggling middle class? They’ve been leaving for years because the price of admission keeps rising while their access to the city’s prosperity keeps shrinking.
That is the energy Mamdani tapped into. That’s what led to his resounding victory.
And that is New York City’s real challenge in the years ahead.
Cartoon: Drug dealers in Trump's America
Dec. 9th, 2025 12:59 amA cartoon by Drew Sheneman.
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Netflix, this game was always rigged
Dec. 9th, 2025 12:00 amSurely, Netflix knew how this would all play out.
Yes, while Friday saw Netflix announce it would pay $72 billion for Warner Bros. Discovery’s film and streaming businesses, that news was obliterated on Monday when Paramount announced its hostile bid, going directly to shareholders with a deal that would give them $17.6 billion more in cash than the Netflix deal.
Since Paramount has already paid the customary Trump tax—an eight-figure bribe to his future presidential library—they appear better equipped to win regulatory approval for the deal.
And these days, it’s the regulatory approval, not the money, that may matter most.
Normally, political writers do not have to keep abreast of the blow-by-blow details of media mergers, but now that those mergers happen only if Trump wants them to, we get to think about this all the time.
The Netflix deal wasn’t just some tentative offer that had been floated by Warner Bros. Rather, the Netflix and Warner Bros. boards had both voted to accept the deal.
However, Paramount has enough money to go right to the Warner Bros. shareholders and offer to shower them with more cash. It also has enough influence with Trump to try to tank the deal in a regulatory way.
Netflix almost certainly knew that, which is why co-CEO Ted Sarandos made a pilgrimage to the White House in November to discuss the deal with Trump. Sarandos left the meeting thinking that “Netflix wouldn’t face immediate opposition from the White House” over the deal, according to Bloomberg.
To be fair, the opposition wasn’t immediate, so Sarandos was partly right. But why on earth would anyone believe, nearly a year into Trump’s second term, that Trump is someone who would keep his word? Sarandos did show the proper deference by approaching the throne and begging, but Netflix was far behind Paramount in the sucking-up-to-Trump department.
It isn’t just that Paramount had previously shown its eagerness to do Trump’s bidding and turn CBS News into what is basically TrumpTV. Paramount is also far better-equipped to compete in this stupid, corrupt process because CEO David Ellison’s daddy, Oracle founder Larry Ellison, is a big Trump ally, getting huge multibillion-dollar deals like an amorphous AI infrastructure partnership and a stake in the deal that could see TikTok’s algorithm pivot to the right.
Paramount also made sure to tuck a treat for the extended Trump family into its Warner Bros. bid: Son-in-law Jared Kushner’s investment firm, Affinity Partners, is helping to finance Paramount’s bid.
Altogether, David Ellison was likely not just blowing smoke when he was telling people in October that Paramount would be the only buyer the Trump administration would approve of.
Trump himself paved the way for Paramount’s bid, remarking on Sunday that if Netflix bought Warner Bros., the resulting huge market share “could be a problem.” Trump also said that he would be involved in the approval process, which suggests he will put his thumb on the scale. And Kevin Hassett, director of the National Economic Council, doubled down on the threat Monday, saying that the Department of Justice would be examining the proposed Netflix-Warner Bros. deal “for quite a while.”
To recap: If Netflix buys Warner Bros., that raises antitrust concerns, but if Paramount—which owns everything from Paramount Pictures and CBS News to Nickelodeon, MTV, and more—does so, it’ll probably be just fine.
This isn’t to make light of sincere antitrust concerns. Increased media consolidation is a genuine issue as billionaires gobble up more and more information and entertainment sources, increasing prices while decreasing choices.
But the Trump administration doesn’t care about market share so much as it cares about using the necessary, once-normal tools of oversight to force companies to their knees. Paramount long ago showed just how willing it is to do so voluntarily, so why shouldn’t it expect to be rewarded here?
Republican gushes at Trump over bailout needed due to his tariffs
Dec. 8th, 2025 11:55 pmDuring a White House roundtable on Monday, Rep. Austin Scott of Georgia professed his love for President Donald Trump after the administration announced a $12 billion bailout aid package for farmers hurt by Trump’s chaotic trade wars.
Scott: Thank you very much, president. We love you. ... A country that can't feed itself doesn't know what freedom is. And so thank you for making sure that our farmers have the tools that they need so that we as a country can feed ourselves.
A daily roundup of the best stories and cartoons by Daily Kos staff and contributors to keep you in the know.
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This little sweetheart first appeared at the feral feeding station in late October, running off the moment the door opened. By the next day, she was waiting with the colony but too scared to eat from their bowl, so she got her own little pile. It was immediately clear she wasn't a true feral. She wanted pets, wanted to be picked up, and was heartbreakingly thin. After posting online, calling shelters, and checking for a microchip with no results, it seemed no one was looking for her.
She stayed in the basement for a few days while introductions were prepared. At her first vet visit, she weighed only 6.1 pounds, but she tested negative for everything. Three weeks later, she'd already gained a pound and a half. She let her new hooman clip her nails, brush her fur, and even clean her teeth without fuss, proving she'd definitely been a pet before.
Now she's settling beautifully into the home she chose. She's getting along with the older resident cats, cuddling on the couch, playing under doors, and acting like she's lived there forever. A warm future awaits her.
Allergic To Working
Dec. 9th, 2025 01:00 amRead Allergic To Working
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Coworker: "I was working with [Other Coworker] yesterday and she was sick, so I got whatever she's got."
Me: "[Other Coworker] wasn't sick yesterday, she just has seasonal allergies."
Read Allergic To Working
More Than 200 Environmental Groups Demand Halt To New US Datacenters
Dec. 9th, 2025 01:10 amRead more of this story at Slashdot.
Unpleasant AI-generated McDonald's ad depicts Christmas misery
Dec. 8th, 2025 11:44 pm
It's hard to believe it's real, and I'm not talking about the uncanny AI world of McDonalds' new Christmas ad, but the fact of its existence. The ad's theme is how terrible Christmas is, and it depicts various mishaps and accidents ruining the holiday. — Read the rest
The post Unpleasant AI-generated McDonald's ad depicts Christmas misery appeared first on Boing Boing.
Olive And Let Die
Dec. 9th, 2025 12:00 amRead Olive And Let Die
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I look up and see that he has a mouthful of olives.
Me: *Politely but sternly.* "Bud… this stuff isn't for you."
In response, he flicks the olive juice off his fingers at my face.
Read Olive And Let Die
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Trump To Bail Out Farmers With Our Tax Money Again
Dec. 8th, 2025 09:42 pm
The Trump administration is set to unveil a long-awaited farm aid package on Monday, according to a White House official, offering $12 billion in assistance to a key base of support that largely voted for the president and were hit hard by low crop prices and the impact of the president’s tariff tantrums. Some farmers have experienced buyer's remorse as the administration's policies created financial pressures. So now, Trump is going to throw some Socialist dollars at the farmers who are struggling financially due to the president's policies.
Trump creates a problem. Puts a temporary fix on the problem he created, then takes credit. I feel like we've seen this happen before. And we are paying for this. All of us. This wouldn't be necessary if Americans weren't caught in the crossfire of Trump's tariffs in the first place.
Bloomberg reports:
The aid will include up to $11 billion in one-time payments to crop farmers under the Department of Agriculture’s newly designed Farmer Bridge Assistance program, while the remaining is reserved for crops not covered under the FBA, according to the official, who asked not to be identified as the information isn’t public.
Congress will cut Hegseth's travel budget until he releases boat strike videos
Dec. 8th, 2025 10:22 pm
Congress is telling Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth: Show us what happened on September 2, or your trips get cut.
That's the day a U.S. strike hit an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean, followed by a second strike that killed two survivors. — Read the rest
The post Congress will cut Hegseth's travel budget until he releases boat strike videos appeared first on Boing Boing.
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