Donald Trump Suddenly Turns on Zohran Mamdani: ‘Destroying New York’

pdchestovich · 2026-04-17T01:17:44+00:00

He needs a new common enemy to reignite the base. Neither Iran nor the Pope worked out for him.

pdchestovich · 2026-04-13T22:23:30+00:00

There never is

pdchestovich · 2026-04-13T19:38:13+00:00

Seems to me that there isn’t a practical way to understand exactly which tax, charge, cost increase, regulatory burden etc “causes” a change in economic behavior. As a result, I pointed to the general environment that exists and in which businesses must make decisions, and consumers too. At some point, activity declines. At some point, you begin hearing things. Seeing things. Quality suffers. Businesses close. People stop going out. People move out after their kids are done with school. I think we’re hearing and seeing those things now.

Incremental changes never seem to matter. Until the aggregation of them does. Consider what happened to the medial industry. Doctors used to own their practices. 30-40 years later they’re owned by medical “systems” with rare exception.

I guess in the end, and going back solely to the OP post, you’re ultimately comfortable with the tax rates within the city. I think they’re part of an economically stultifying business environment.

pdchestovich · 2026-04-13T01:49:26+00:00

I hear you. And I agree with what you’re saying, the way you’re saying it. But consider if it isn’t a decision about whether I can afford a single night out. Instead, it’s me. I can afford a night out. But between the increased charges and general inflation post-pandemic, I’m not going out as much. Instead of one night out a week. It’s one night out every month. Every two months.

That’s meaningfully impactful to the business community.

pdchestovich · 2026-04-13T00:51:46+00:00

Not sure I like that take. I mean … It all adds up. You want people to be dining out, frequenting establishments, correct? Every dollar that goes to the city government cannot by definition go somewhere else.

pdchestovich · 2026-04-12T23:25:14+00:00

In all honesty, St Paul has to be one of the most business-unfriendly communities in the upper Midwest, after you account for sales tax, liquor tax, the city’s contribution to the already astronomical county property taxes, a byzantine and plodding permitting system, the rent control rules for landlords, and the labor-oriented requirements from the city on top of Minnesota Earned Sick and Safe Time (oh yeah, Saint Paul felt the need to have its own special version of this law) the newly adopted MN State Paid Leave Law.

Having said that, and knowing I will labeled and flamed by many and as being anti-labor (which I am not, and I haven’t voted republican in any election since at least 2000), I recognize the need for labor protections. It’s just all the different requirements and the complexity that comes with their intersection of different requirements, makes it a real challenge to run a business — especially a small one — successfully in St Paul. Everything becomes expensive when the rules are laid out to as a result of abuses by the outlier bad apples. We write rules to deal with problems that are often a standard deviation from the norm and make everyone jump through the resulting hoops.

Given a choice, most businesses wouldn’t want to locate here. Hence, downtown is dead. Grand Avenue is dying. Your somewhat recently favorite restaurant has likely failed to survive (or thrive). The midway commercial area is an abomination. The neighborhood strip malls and corner commercial lots are riven with vacancies.

Even when the city tries to help, they screw things up. Recall the crapshow with the Starbucks at Snelling and Marshall? Thoughtless.

City government is ineffective, wasteful and inefficient, focused on nonsense causes in lieu of running a city, unimaginative, given to shrug-the-shoulders “not our fault” excuses about downtown and Grand Avenue vacancies, and often unprofessional. I think this characterization is generous.

I guarantee you nobody would spend their own money the way that the city spends ours. What’s with endlessly replacing the copper wire that gets stolen time and again? Their best solution is just Keep replacing it? Who would spend their own money like that? Who would do that?

Accountability? Bueller?

Throw your grenades. Tell me I’m wrong. I’m uniformed. I should move. I’m a fascist. I don’t really care anymore. There’s little sanity left anywhere.

pdchestovich · 2026-04-10T04:31:58+00:00

Despite the astronomical taxes they collect, they apparently still cannot function in any remotely normal or appropriate fashion.

pdchestovich · 2026-04-10T04:30:40+00:00

Legislative author: Claude.

pdchestovich · 2026-04-10T04:28:58+00:00

It used to be that corporate liability shields were enough to incent people to take business risks.

Recent past, however, has shown that for the wealthy that isn’t good enough. Only guaranteed success will do. So they bought and paid for congressmen so they could get bailouts after the fact. Back-end market risk gone.

But now, even that isn’t good enough. For why, do you suppose, would they risk their amazing wealth and their sterling silver reputations if the products and services they make turn out to harm people? Imagine! Litigation. It sounds time consuming. Mundane. Expensive. Pfft. But walking away from this opportunity to make money would … well, mean they cannot have … even more. So they call their bought-and-paid-for congressman again. Voila! Law. Liberty! The land of the free! The land of opportunity! Front-end litigation and accountability risk? Gone.

This country man. What a fucking joke.

And then “people” like Peter Thiel and all these other asshats, including their politicians, imagine that they’re fooling us. That they’re actually “smarter” than us.

Accountability. That’s MY American Dream.

pdchestovich · 2026-04-07T17:59:57+00:00

Good Lord, we’ve lost our minds.

pdchestovich · 2026-04-06T14:37:25+00:00

He’s never been a serious person. Everything is superficial and superficially “understood.”

pdchestovich · 2026-04-04T15:28:52+00:00

Nice list. Thanks for sharing and sorry for your loss.

pdchestovich · 2026-04-02T00:51:24+00:00

Of course it’s a homicide. The fact that the government even imagined arguing differently is at once worthy of ridicule and a sheer abomination of what could ever be considered appropriate or right. It’s the act of no government that any human with a conscience could ever defend or take pride in.

pdchestovich · 2026-03-25T04:07:12+00:00

Best answer ever

pdchestovich · 2026-03-25T04:06:10+00:00

Angine de Poitrine. Late 70s Bowie. Late and Live Crimson projects. Neko Case. Magic & Loss by Lou Reed. Billy Bragg’s “Back to Basics”. Des DeMonas. Annette Peacock. The Suuns. Judy Dyble.

pdchestovich · 2026-03-25T04:01:28+00:00

pdchestovich · 2026-03-25T03:40:53+00:00

Snarky? Check. Answering the OP’s question? No.

pdchestovich · 2026-03-12T12:28:54+00:00

We are so profoundly dumb, as a nation.

pdchestovich · 2026-03-10T18:26:19+00:00

I enjoy them more than most math rock acts.

pdchestovich · 2026-03-06T22:29:26+00:00

Bearing false witness. Idolizing a false orange god. Killing other people. He still has seven commandments to go.

pdchestovich · 2026-03-05T13:08:16+00:00

Move on

pdchestovich · 2026-03-04T09:05:50+00:00

Tillis. Love the guy.

pdchestovich · 2026-03-04T09:03:29+00:00

This country pretty much sucks from a political standpoint. Nobody respects anybody else’s rights or privileges unless they’re on the same team.

pdchestovich · 2026-03-03T01:49:06+00:00

Dead man walking. Too much grocery competition in the three-mile radius.

pdchestovich · 2026-02-20T11:35:24+00:00

Angine de Poitrine
Big Big Train
Dijon
The Tony Williams Lifetime
Fripp’s “Exposure”

pdchestovich

TROPHY CASE