Florida Property Taxes, The Rosetta Stone & Woke Women – Top 3 Takeaways July 21st, 2025
Takeaway #1: A guarantee
Babe Ruth’s called shot. JFK’s moon shot. Reagan’s demand to tear down the Berlin Wall. All remarkable calls that led to remarkable moments in American and world history. Blaise Ingoglia is no Babe Ruth. Ending property taxes in Florida isn’t exactly a “moon shot”. However, on a relative level, the impact throughout the state of Florida might be the equivalent locally of tearing down the Berlin Wall. On Friday, in my first interview (and his) since taking the job of Florida’s CFO and Chief Fire Marshall, in a can’t miss interview that you should listen to if you missed it, called his shot. He guaranteed that you and me will be able to vote on eliminating property taxes for homestead properties in the state of Florida next year. I hope that it proves true. Mean property tax bills in Palm Beach County, for example, are now approximately $4,000 per year. The savings would be huge, but also the principle behind it is huge. As I’ve always argued – the most unAmerican tax that exists is a tax on property. Do you ever really own your home if a government can take it away from you for not paying additional taxes on it every year? But if Blaise’s promise is correct, by 2026 you may truly own your home and save huge money too.
Takeaway #2: The Rosetta Stone
At this stage of the Epstein conspiracy drama, following AG Pam Bondi’s push to release the grand jury testimony in the case on Friday, the most interesting figure to me isn’t who you might think it would be. It’s a figure who has transcended both political ideologies throughout his career, and happens to know pretty much everything Jeffrey Epstein. No, it’s not Ghislaine Maxwell, as I said last week: The best evidence there’s ever been that Jeffrey Epstein potentially wasn’t murdered as part of a criminal coverup conspiracy, is that his literal partner in crime Ghislaine Maxwell is still with the living. In fact, there’s no doubt that she knew more about the victims than Jeffrey did day-to-day. That's worth considering if you’re on the conspiracy track but hadn’t considered that. But here’s the next point as far as the potential for Maxwell testimony goes. Would it even matter? As in, would either side (those who believe the DOJ, and those who think it’s a conspiracy) trust what Maxwell would have to say? No, the person is the Dersh. Many have forgotten that Professor Alan Dershowitz, a hero to both the left and the right at varying points in his career, was Jeffrey Epstein's attorney. As Dersh dished last week: Epstein never created a ‘client list’. And as for the names involved in salacious activities, they...don’t include any current officeholders. In fact, Dershowitz said people would be largely underwhelmed if they knew everything. That to me is particularly compelling because it suggests that the DOJ is likely telling the truth and that there’s unlikely to be a grand conspiracy. Btw, Dershowitz flat out said any of the theories about Epstein working for intelligence agencies is bunk. He said if that were true it would have been huge, and he would have used it to get him off the hook. However, on Fox News Sunday Dersh did say he thinks Maxwell should be granted immunity to testify to Congress in the Epstein case. He called her the Rosetta Stone – so there’s that.
Takeaway #3: Air ball
So, I don’t care about the NBA, let alone the WNBA. No amount of attempted social promotion will change that (actually – the rebellious nature in me if anything further rejects the league by way of social promotion effort). The ever woke Caitlan Clark or Angel Reece certainly won’t change that. I’ve not watched an NBA game since 1994, I’ve not watched a WNBA game, ever. These things will not change. If either league does it for you – more power to you. However, if the idea is to try to actually grow the sport -they could not be doing worse. While going through the news over the weekend I saw that the woke women of the WNBA took the opportunity of the All-Star game to engage in a labor protest – with all participants wearing shirts saying: Pay us what you owe us. Now no one ever accused professional athletes of collectively being the sharpest tools in society – however in the grand scheme of athletic stupidity this move ranks up there. First, there’s the dynamic that turns people like me off from certain sports and certain leagues. Politics. The narrative that women are underpaid in society is and, has historically been demonstrably false. As has been demonstrated time and again, when accounting for job choice, experience, education, and other compensable factors, the adjusted pay gap is 98 cents on the dollar – or in other words less than 2%. And that I’ve previously been able to illustrate is a matter of men being far more willing to negotiate for higher salaries than women. But anyway, as the all-stars of the WNBA attempted to play the gender card at the all-star game, here’s the deal and it’s a pretty big one. They had better hope that they don’t get what they asked for. That’s because if the players of the WNBA got paid what they’re worth it would be nothing. Actually, it would be worse than nothing. In the 28-year history of the WNBA – the league has never turned a profit. There’s not another enterprise that I’ve been able to find that has a longer track record of never turning a profit but still being in existence. In other words, the WNBA is probably the worst business in modern American history. What’s more is that as the social promotion effect to grow the league has taken hold, with greater distribution, etc. - the losses have only grown. The average annual loss of the WNBA was $10 million, however last year – with the onset of Caitlin Clark and company – the losses jumped to $50 million. So, the woke women of the WNBA beware. If you got what you asked for, you’d be wearing different shirts. Oh, and looking for different jobs in businesses that actually make money.