“How can anyone govern a nation that has two hundred and forty-six different kinds of cheese?” – Charles de Gaulle (attributed)
Ah, France! [Insert lazy paragraph describing France in in terms of classic cliches including food, wine, cheese, sex, cigarettes and surrender.]
Yes, you’ll do nicely, Cliched French Guy Clip Art
In addition to those classic French attributes, another time-honored French tradition is “widespread rioting,” which they’ve been celebrating over the last few weeks. What they’re protesting is French President Emmanuel Macron’s decision to force through an unpopular bill to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64.
French President Emmanuel Macron ordered his prime minister to wield a special constitutional power Thursday that skirts parliament to force through a highly unpopular bill raising the retirement age from 62 to 64 without a vote.
His calculated risk set off a clamor among lawmakers, who began singing the national anthem even before Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne arrived in the lower chamber. She spoke forcefully over their shouts, acknowledging that Macron’s unilateral move will trigger quick motions of no-confidence in his government.
The fury of opposition lawmakers echoed the anger of citizens and workers’ unions. Thousands gathered at the Place de la Concorde facing the National Assembly, lighting a bonfire. As night fell, police charged the demonstrators in waves to clear the elegant Place. Small groups of those chased away moved through nearby streets in the chic neighborhood setting street fires. At least 120 were detained, police said.
Similar scenes repeated themselves in numerous other cities, from Rennes and Nantes in the east to Lyon and the southern port city of Marseille, where shop windows and bank fronts were smashed, according to French media. Radical leftist groups were blamed for at least some of the destruction.
The unions that have organized strikes and marches since January, leaving Paris reeking in piles of garbage, announced new rallies and protest marches in the days ahead. “This retirement reform is brutal, unjust, unjustified for the world of workers,” they declared.
Macron has made the proposed pension changes the key priority of his second term, arguing that reform is needed to keep the pension system from diving into deficit as France, like many richer nations, faces lower birth rates and longer life expectancy.
Macron decided to invoke the special power during a Cabinet meeting at the Elysee presidential palace, just a few minutes before the scheduled vote in France’s lower house of parliament, because he had no guarantee of a majority.
French President Emmanuel Macron chose on Thursday to shun parliament and impose his unpopular pension reforms via a special constitutional power, the so-called “Article 49.3.”
The procedure has been regularly used in the past by different governments. But this time it’s drawing a lot of attention and prompting much criticism because of the massive public opposition to the increase in retirement ages.
Here’s a look at how and why the special power is used.
WHAT’S ARTICLE 49.3?
Article 49, paragraph 3 of the French Constitution provides that the government can pass a bill without a vote at the National Assembly, the lower house of parliament, after a deliberation at a Cabinet meeting.
In response, lawmakers can file a no-confidence motion within 24 hours. If the motion gets approval from more than half the seats, the text is rejected and the government must resign.
If not, the bill is considered adopted and passes into law. Since the Constitution was established in 1958, only one no-confidence motion was successful, in 1962.
Charles de Gaulle (him again) rammed through the Constitution of the Fifth Republic because he wanted a stable central government and, compared to some other European states (I’m looking at you, Italy), it’s largely achieved those goals.
The thing is, Macron is probably right in that the French welfare state needs an older retirement age for the entire system to stay solvent (at least for a while longer). But the way his proposal was passed also emblematic of the deficit of democracy in the EU generally and France specifically. That old saw about democracies only lasting until people figuring out they can vote themselves largess from the public treasury is largely right, and in this, as in so many, many things, Eurocratic elites have decided the peasants simply can’t be allowed to derail the plans of their illustrious betters.
As of this writing, Macron just survived a no confidence vote over the issue. So France may well have bought itself a little more time before inevitable national bankruptcy. But every maneuver like increases French anger over the obvious democracy gap, and, as the Grand Tour lads have noted, the French can be exceptionally bloody minded over expressing their disapproval of laws they hate.
Sunday and Monday this week, I gathered up all my dead branches from the ice storm along the curb in advance of Tuesday’s announced neighborhood-wide branch pickup. I know it’s going to take some time, but it’s Friday and I see no signs that brush has been cleared from anyone’s curbs…
He said ESG poses a threat to the American Economy and individual economic freedom, he further said it’s an attempt for corporate’s elite to discriminate against those who do follow a particular “ideological agenda.” His proposal will outlaw this.
“By applying arbitrary ESG financial metrics that serve no one except the companies that created them, elites are circumventing the ballot box to implement a radical ideological agenda. Through this legislation, we will protect the investments of Floridians and the ability of Floridians to participate in the economy,” DeSantis said, at the news conference.
Heh. “Federal District Court Judge Orders Illinois to Show Examples of Every Newly-Banned Firearm.” (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
Maybe they should spend more time on schools instead. “Not A Single Student Can Do Math At Grade Level In 53 Illinois Schools.”
“Judy Monro-Leighton, one of three women who accused now-Justice Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault, was found to have lied during a congressional investigation and is now being charged with making materially false statements and obstruction.”
Nicaragua’s scumbag commie government sentences Roman Catholic bishop Roland Alvarez to 26 years in prison for “treason” for daring to stand up for Catholics and refusing to be exiled.
What began as a trickle is now a flood: the US government is using the banking sector to organize a sophisticated, widespread crackdown against the crypto industry. And the administration’s efforts are no secret: they’re expressed plainly in memos, regulatory guidance, and blog posts. However, the breadth of this plan — spanning virtually every financial regulator — as well as its highly coordinated nature, has even the most steely-eyed crypto veterans nervous that crypto businesses might end up completely unbanked, stablecoins may be stranded and unable to manage flows in and out of crypto, and exchanges might be shut off from the banking system entirely. Let’s dig in.
For crypto firms, obtaining access to the onshore banking system has always been a challenge. Even today, crypto startups struggle mightily to get banks, and only a handful of boutiques serve them. This is why stablecoins like Tether found popularity early on: to facilitate fiat settlement where the rails of traditional banking were unavailable. However, in recent weeks, the intensity of efforts to ringfence the entire crypto space and isolate it from the traditional banking system have ratcheted up significantly. Specifically, the Biden administration is now executing what appears to be a coordinated plan that spans multiple agencies to discourage banks from dealing with crypto firms. It applies to both traditional banks who would serve crypto clients, and crypto-first firms aiming to get bank charters. It includes the administration itself, influential members of Congress, the Fed, the FDIC, the OCC, and the DoJ. Here’s a recap of notable events concerning banks and the policy establishment in recent weeks:
On Dec. 6, Senators Elizabeth Warren, John Kennedy, and Roger Marshall send a letter to crypto-friendly bank Silvergate, scolding them for providing services to FTX and Alameda research, and lambasting them for failing to report suspicious activities associated with those clients
On Dec. 7, Signature (among the most active banks serving crypto clients) announces its intent to halve deposits ascribed to crypto clients — in other words, they’ll give customers their money back, then shut down their accounts — drawing its crypto deposits down from $23b at peak to $10b, and to exit its stablecoin business
On Jan. 3, the Fed, the FDIC, and the OCC release a joint statement on the risks to banks engaging with crypto, not explicitly banning banks’ ability to hold crypto or deal with crypto clients, but strongly discouraging them from doing so on a “safety and soundness” basis
On Jan. 9, Metropolitan Commercial Bank (one of the few banks that serve crypto clients) announces a total shutdown of its cryptoasset-related vertical.
More at the link. I’ve long been skeptical of cryptocurrency advocates assertion that crypto provides a useful alternative to government-backed fiat currency. But it sure looks like the federal government is acting like that’s the case…
An important message about eternal truths from well-known biologist Fred Rogers:
TRIGGER WARNING. ⚠️ This is the most upsetting thing you will see all weekend. pic.twitter.com/eVLPZ3J3RI
CRT-pushing commie Angela Davis finds out that one of her ancestors was on the Mayflower.
A British farmer reviews Clarkson’s Farm. He says despite obvious setup bits, a lot of it (like the unexpected catastrophes and intractable town council bureaucracy) rings true.
“Biden’s job growth is mostly immigrants working for low wages.” Also this: “The Department of Homeland Security has been issuing an unknown number of two-year work permits to illegal immigrants, which will keep them in the workforce suppressing wages and fanning the flames of discontent amongst Americans unable to find jobs until the next presidential election.” What the hell?
“Disinformation Inc: State Department bankrolls group secretly blacklisting conservative media.”
The Department of State has funded a deep-pocketed “disinformation” tracking group that is secretly blacklisting and trying to defund conservative media, likely costing the news organizations vital advertising dollars, the Washington Examiner can confirm.
The Global Disinformation Index, a British organization with two affiliated U.S. nonprofit groups, is feeding blacklists to ad companies with the intent of defunding and shutting down websites peddling alleged “disinformation,” the Washington Examiner reported . This same “disinformation” group has received $330,000 from two State Department-backed entities linked to the highest levels of government, raising concerns from First Amendment lawyers and members of Congress.
“Any outfit like that engaged in censorship shouldn’t have any contact with the government because they’re tainted by association with a group that is doing something fundamentally against American values,” Jeffrey Clark, ex-acting head of the Justice Department’s Civil Division, told the Washington Examiner. “The government or any private entity shouldn’t be involved with this entity that’s engaged in conduct that is either legally questionable or at least morally questionable.”
GDI compiles a “dynamic exclusion list” that it feeds to corporate entities, such as the Microsoft -owned advertising company Xandr, emails show. Xandr and other companies are, in turn, declining to place ads on websites that GDI flags as peddling disinformation.
The Washington Examiner revealed on Thursday that it is on this exclusion list. The list includes at least 2,000 websites and has “had a significant impact on the advertising revenue that has gone to those sites,” said GDI’s CEO Clare Melford on a March 2022 podcast.
GDI has identified that the 10 “riskiest” news outlets for disinformation are the American Spectator, Newsmax, the Federalist, the American Conservative, One America News, the Blaze, the Daily Wire, RealClearPolitics, Reason, and the New York Post.
Another huge story that the news media has done it’s best to ignore: a toxic derailment in East Palestine, Ohio. The blew it up to prevent a BLEVE and ended up releasing Phosgene gas. That’s carrying your World War I reenactment too far.
90-year California Democratic Senator old Dianne Feinstein to retire after 2024. But…
A few hour later she was evidently unaware she had retired. Increasingly, “crazy” or “senile” seem to be the two most common flavors of the Democratic Party…
Life expectancy in the United States last year dropped to its lowest point in a quarter century, and it’s not all because of Covid.
Last year saw a 5% decline in life expectancy for Americans, dropping to under 77 years of age.
And while some experts want to try to tie the drop to Covid-19, the numbers reveal that there’s much more at work here than people being killed by the China Virus. There’s another epidemic that is killing Americans at an alarming rate: The Opioid Epidemic.
From the Wall Street Journal:
Covid-19 was the third-leading cause of death for a second consecutive year in 2021, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday, and a rising number of drug-overdose deaths also dragged down life expectancy. Overdose deaths have risen fivefold over the past two decades.
The death rate for the U.S. population increased by 5%, cutting life expectancy at birth to 76.4 years in 2021 from 77 years in 2020. The CDC in August released preliminary estimates demonstrating a similar decline. Before the pandemic, in 2019, life expectancy at birth in the U.S. was 78.8 years. The decline in 2020 was the largest since World War II.
While the drop coincides with the Covid pandemic, the increased numbers aren’t caused by the disease alone.
The leading cause of death in the US is still heart disease and cancer.
Then there’s the opioid epidemic.
The country during the pandemic has recorded more than 1.2 million excess deaths, which is a measure of all deaths beyond prior-year averages and can represent both undercounted Covid-19 deaths and collateral damage from other causes, including more overdoses. The CDC put the final count for 2021 overdose deaths at about 106,700, a record that is 16% higher than the prior year. The final count differs from a preliminary count for last year that topped 108,000 because the CDC in its final counts doesn’t include overdose deaths that occurred among non-U. S. residents.
Opioid deaths increased because of lockdowns.
People locked in their homes are more likely to have heart disease.
Thousands and thousands and thousands of people missed cancer screenings and got lesser treatment thanks to lockdowns.
As we covered here at NTB recently, the excess deaths we are seeing aren’t because of Covid, but the lockdowns.
n August of this year, I reported that Moderna is suing Pfizer and BioNTech for infringing patents that are key to Moderna’s mRNA technology platform that was used to develop the covid vaccine.
In response, Pfizer has now countersued Moderna.
The ongoing legal battle now sees Pfizer and its partner BioNTech reject its rival’s claims it copied the shot.
Pfizer has accused Moderna of rewriting history, and dubbed its lawsuit ‘revisionist history’.
Manhattan-based Pfizer requested from a federal court in Boston that Moderna’s lawsuit be dismissed.
Pfizer and its German partner, BioNTech, fired back at Moderna on Monday in a patent lawsuit over their rival Covid-19 vaccines.
They are seeking dismissal of the lawsuit in Boston federal court and an order that Moderna’s patents are invalid and not infringed.
We need effective biotech companies that are not infected by politics or social justice. Unfortunately, those don’t appear to be the companies we have.
Pfizer asserts their vaccine technology was arrived at through independent research.
Everything you need to know about the motives and methods of the 21st-century Left can be learned from studying 20th-century Communism. What Mises said about Marx and Engels, and the ad hominem quality of their rhetoric — slander and insults, rather than actual arguments — was even more true of Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, et al. Having once seized power, the Bolsheviks immediately proceeded to suppress all potential rivals. Within a month, they established the Cheka (predecessor of the NKVD and, later, the KGB) and appointed Felix Dzerzhinsky as its leader. Eight months later, the Red Terror began in earnest, and within a matter of weeks, the Bolsheviks had summarily executed more victims than were sentenced to death in the entire preceding century by the Tzarist regime
Snip.
The other day I wrote a piece about how the Left can’t argue anymore. My thesis was pretty simple: because they have owned the cultural means of production so long they have lost the need for or ability to argue things logically.
I still believe that. Having rarely been exposed to a conservative argument that [they] haven’t been able to dismiss merely through repeated ridicule the Left pretty much only engages in ad hominem attacks. Even very smart prominent Lefties . . . seem incapable of doing much more than insulting their opponents any more. It all boils down to Bad Orange Man or MAGA simps. . . .
But I ran into a slightly different perspective on the matter while cruising Twitter, and I think it deserves consideration: sometimes, at least, the person throwing out an absurd take isn’t actually hoping to convince you of anything. They are, rather, trying to discredit the source and do nothing more. The ad hominem attack is the only point — to destroy the credibility of their opponent, without actually convincing you of any particular argument.
Thus the need to label anything that refutes The Narrative as “disinformation.”
State Rep. Brian Harrison (R-Midlothian) filed proposed legislation to prohibit state tax dollars from being used to pay for gender modification procedures.
House Bill 1029 states, “No funds authorized or appropriated by State law shall be expended for any gender reassignment.”
“Just as the Hyde Amendment, which has enjoyed bipartisan support for almost 50 years, bans tax dollars from funding abortions, I’m proud to file a bill which protects Texans from being forced to pay for their neighbor’s sex change,” Harrison said in a statement. “Irrespective of how anyone views these procedures, it should be uncontroversial that tax money should not fund them.”
Harrison added that the bill was filed in response to a statement made by President Biden’s Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra that public money should be used to provide these procedures to those who want them.
On the same theme: “Kristi Noem’s Health Department Fires Transgender Group Ahead of ‘Gender Summit.'”
South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, a Republican, directed her state Department of Health to terminate a contract with The Transformation Project, a transgender activist group that is hosting a “Gender Identity Summit” next month, after The Daily Signal drew the governor’s attention to the summit and the group.
“Gov. Kristi Noem is reviewing all Department of Health contracts and immediately terminated a contract with The Transformation Project,” Ian Fury, Noem’s chief of communications, told The Daily Signal on Friday. “The contract was signed without Gov. Noem’s prior knowledge or approval.”
Fury sent The Daily Signal a copy of the document dissolving the state contract.
“South Dakota does not support this organization’s efforts, and state government should not be participating in them,” Noem told The Daily Signal in a statement provided by Fury. “We should not be dividing our youth with radical ideologies. We should treat every single individual equally as a human being.”
Fury said that The Transformation Project had not complied with its state contract. The organization had failed “to submit required quarterly reports for two consecutive quarters,” among other violations.
All funding to any radical social justice group should be cut, and the people responsible for funding them fired for cause.
The very progressive and liberal nation of Sweden is showing that they still have at least a little bit of common sense in health leadership.
Sweden has decided to cut ties with WPATH, the World Professional Association of Transgender Health because they’re a bunch of activists.
Swedish health authorities have officially broken ranks with the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) with the announcement that gender clinics will no longer be attempting to perform experimental sex changes on under-18s but will instead offer “psychological support to help youth live with the healthy body they were born with.”
According to an article published in the Swedish medical journal Läkartidningen, new guidelines will be published before the end of the year advising against puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgery for under 18s. This is in direct contrast with the WPATH Standards of Care 8 (SOC8) released earlier this year which advises affirmation and medical intervention as the first line of treatment for gender-confused minors.
Sweden is rejecting these recommendations because it’s clearly an extreme measure to do sex change operations on minors.
However, the Biden admin has told us that they’re totally on board with the radical recommendations.
I’m shocked, shocked to discover that two-time loser Democrat Stacey Abrams is bad with money.
Despite surpassing her 2018 fundraising record, Stacey Abrams’s 2022 Georgia gubernatorial campaign fell into deep debt due to reckless expenditures, according to staffers and operatives who worked on the failed campaign.
The campaign still owes more than $1 million to vendors, Abrams campaign manager Lauren Groh-Wargo confirmed to Axios.
Some of the campaign’s lavish expenditures included the rental of a home near Piedmont Park in Atlanta, which Abrams envisioned as a “hype house” for TikTok videos but which was ultimately underutilized, staffers told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Some aides occupied the empty large house as a work space. It can now be rented for $12,500 a month, the publication noted.
The campaign’s youth outreach strategy also proved pricey. Against the better judgement of many staffers, who found the idea irresponsible, Abrams launched a pop-up shop and “swag truck” to hand out merchandise, such as T-shirts and hoodies.
Abrams burned through cash on polls that ended up being inconsequential and consultants whose contributions were unclear, staffers also said.
Many employees in the campaign were given generous salaries compared to other candidates’ teams. For example, the campaign advertised paid canvasser jobs at $15 an hour, higher than the typical rate, according to a Georgia Tech blog discovered by the Journal-Constitution.
Benefitting from glossy, identity-focused coverage, Abrams brought in nearly $98 million as of early November. Yet, her campaign nearly ran out of money in the final stretch. Most of the 180 full-time staffers who worked for her were told they’d receive their last paycheck just a week after Election Day, according to Axios.
YouTube has banned the official Pornhub account, which boasted more than 900,000 followers, after repeated violations.
The platform’s move comes in the wake of other Big Tech companies, like Meta/Instagram and TikTok, removing such accounts. Other corporations, like Visa, Mastercard, Roku, Comcast, Unilever, Kraft-Heinz, and PayPal, have also cut ties with Pornhub.
“Upon review, we terminated the channel Pornhub Official following multiple violations of our Community Guidelines,” YouTube spokesperson Jack Malon said, according to Variety. “We enforce our policies equally for everyone, and channels that repeatedly violate or are dedicated to violative content are terminated.”
MindGeek, Pornhub’s parent company, has been hit with multiple lawsuits from survivors of child sex trafficking who claim videos of their abuse were platformed on the pornographic site.
A ban on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) offices within institutions of higher education has been filed in the Texas House.
State Representative-elect Carl Tepper (R-Lubbock) filed House Bill (HB) 1006 that requires higher education institutions in Texas to “foster a diversity of viewpoints [and] maintain political, social, and cultural neutrality.”
The teeth of the bill command these universities to “demonstrate a commitment to intellectual freedom and viewpoint diversity” by eliminating DEI offices or anything like them “beyond what is necessary to uphold the equal protection of the laws under the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.”
It also allows anyone to bring forth civil action against an entity for violation of the prohibition, something Tepper confirmed was modeled after a similar mechanism within the Texas Heartbeat Act.
Additionally, the definition of “expressive activities” protected under state law is expanded to include “published or unpublished faculty research, lectures, writings, and commentary.”
Tepper told The Texan, “These offices have been out of control for a while now and people are getting really frustrated with them.”
State budgets for Texas and California are in the news, and once again the two largest states in the union are headed in opposite directions:
In Texas, lawmakers are wrangling about what to do with a $27 billion surplus.
The Texas Legislature is in for a fight over how to spend its expected pot of money from inflation-driven record consumption tax collections.
Trying to direct the Legislature and the Texas House specifically often resembles herding cats — 150 members with 150 different ideas on how the $27 billion projected surplus should be appropriated.
Comptroller Hegar indicated this week that the total might grow even more by the New Year. He will provide an updated certified revenue estimate in January.
Whether it grows or not, the sum will be a large pot with which the Legislature can do a lot.
The foremost suggestion is to buy down property taxes through ramped-up compression of local ad valorem tax rates.
Gov. Greg Abbott has called for spending “at least half” on “the largest property tax cut ever in the history of Texas.” Lt. Governor Dan Patrick first called for using $4 billion to cut taxes and then upped that to possibly more than half of the total.
The Legislature already has $3 billion earmarked for a buydown next session from holdover American Rescue Plan Act funds.
That’s the estimated deficit Gov. Gavin Newsom and state lawmakers will confront when crafting a budget for the upcoming fiscal year, the Legislature’s nonpartisan fiscal advisor announced Wednesday.
The projection marks a stunning reversal from back-to-back years of unprecedented prosperity: The budget for California’s current fiscal year clocked in at a whopping $308 billion, fueled by a record $97 billion surplus that was by itself enough to treat every state resident to a $7,500 vacation. The year before, Newsom and lawmakers approved what was at the time a record-busting $263 billion budget that included a $76 billion surplus.
Snip.
The Legislative Analyst’s fiscal outlook doesn’t take into account soaring inflation rates or the increasingly likely possibility of a recession. Due to inflation, “the actual costs to maintain the state’s service level are higher than what our outlook reflects,” the analyst’s office wrote. The estimated $25 billion deficit thus “understates the actual budget problem in inflation-adjusted terms.” And, if a recession were to hit, it would result “in much more significant revenue declines,” meaning California could bring in $30 to $50 billion less than expected in the budget window.
I don’t think there’s any “if” about a recession anymore.
For a while California’s tech and entertainment industry strengths were outrunning its massive blue state economic mismanagement and green energy delusions. That’s no longer the case.
The problem with the blue state model is that they either run out of other people’s money, or people take it with them when they move before the state can take it away. Still others leave to avoid the outrageous cost of living. No wonder U-Haul ran out of trucks to leave the state.
Budgets are hard to balance even in good times, given competing priorities and political factions. It becomes much harder in a recession. And it becomes nearly impossible when you try to fund not only the regular Democratic Party graft and fraud, but social justice madness and green energy delusions.
Which is why so many Californians are getting out while the getting is good…
The Pennsylvania House of Representatives voted on Wednesday to impeach controversial Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner (D-PA).
Five lawmakers, including three Republicans and two Democrats with constituencies in Philadelphia, formed a committee to investigate Krasner earlier this year. Members of the lower chamber voted by a margin of 107 to 85 in favor of impeaching Krasner, enabling the Pennsylvania Senate to remove the official with a two-thirds majority.
“Texas Democrats Blame Lackluster Midterm on 2021 Election Reform, Redistricting, and Poor Border Messaging.” Note that the word “policies” appears nowhere in the article…
The partisan index for Texas counties. Republican counties tended to get slightly more Republican while Democratic counties got slightly less Democratic.
A study conducted by criminologist Michael Smith of the University of Texas at San Antonio shows that 56 percent of individuals charged with violent crimes or weapons law violations in Dallas are released on bail or their own recognizance. That figure includes about 75 percent of offenders charged with weapons law violations, about two-thirds of those arrested for aggravated assault, and 34 percent of those arrested for murder.
Smith examined 464 arrests from 2021 and followed the cases through May 15 of this year. The dataset included all (109) arrests for murder, 25 percent (73) of arrests for robbery, 25 percent (154) of arrests for aggravated assault involving a family member, 10 percent (67) of arrests for aggravated assault not involving a family member, and 10 percent (61) of arrests for weapons law violations.
Almost a quarter of those released were arrested again within the course of the study. The average length of time between release and the second arrest was 148 days.
Disney shares are down 40 per cent this year, and last week’s quarterly report makes for grim reading. Disney’s expenses and operating losses are skyrocketing. Even the hugely popular Disney+, which continues to gain in subscribers, made an operating loss of $1.47 billion – more than double its loss last year. An internal memo last week announced job cuts and a hiring freeze.
Perhaps it is no coincidence that Disney’s troubles arrive in a year when the company has been distracted by politics. Indeed, it seems to have gone into overdrive to promote woke causes, both on screen and off.
Most infamously, in March, Disney waded into a bruising political battle with Florida governor Ron DeSantis, over his Parental Rights in Education Act. The law, now enacted, bans ‘classroom instruction’ on issues of ‘sexual orientation or gender identity’ for Florida schoolkids under the age of 10. Although the law has the overwhelming support of parents, from across the political spectrum, it sparked fury in media circles. Critics were quick to dub it the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ law, arguing that it ‘marginalises LGBTQ+ people’.
Disney was only too happy to join in the chorus of denunciation. The act ‘should never have passed’, said Disney in a statement. ‘Our goal as a company is for this law to be repealed by the legislature or struck down in the courts.’ Disney also pledged to donate $5million to organisations opposed to the law. But DeSantis hit back. He revoked a special tax status that Disney’s Florida theme parks had enjoyed since 1967.
Disney’s growing reputation for championing woke causes is costing it more than just its tax exemptions. It is now clearly damaging its relationship with audiences. As recently as March 2021, Disney’s public-approval rating was 77 per cent. But a September poll finds approval for Disney has now fallen to only 51 per cent among all Americans. And it has fallen into negative territory among Republicans. As pollster Chris Wilson notes: ‘It is highly unusual for a family entertainment company to find itself outside the good graces of so many Americans.’
Higher inflation, widespread corruption in the federal government, the Bank of England makes Liz Truss blink, and Muslims take exception to Dearborn Public School’s gay agenda. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
The Journal reviewed more than 31,000 financial disclosure forms and analyzed more than 850,000 financial assets and 315,000 trades to shed light on any conflicts of interest among more than 12,000 senior career bureaucrats and political appointees. Its investigation found that “thousands of officials across the U.S. government’s executive branch disclosed owning or trading stocks that stood to rise or fall with decisions their agencies made.”
“Across 50 federal agencies ranging from the Commerce Department to the Treasury Department, more than 2,600 officials reported stock investments in companies while those companies were lobbying their agencies for favorable policies, during both Republican and Democratic administrations,” the Journal reports. “When the financial holdings caused a conflict, the agencies sometimes simply waived the rules.”
The federal employees weren’t even subtle about it. Per the Journal, “More than five dozen officials at five agencies reported trading stocks of companies shortly before their departments announced enforcement actions against those companies, such as charges or settlements.”
That’s sus.
To get an understanding of how shady this behavior is, consider examples from a few specific agencies. At the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), for example, the Journal found that “more than 200 senior officials… or nearly one in three, reported that they or their family members held investments in companies that were lobbying the agency.”
Similar corruption plagues the Department of Defense, where, per the investigation, “officials in the office of the secretary or their family members collectively owned between $1.2 million and $3.4 million of stock in aerospace and defense companies, on average, during years the Journal examined. Some owned stock in Chinese companies while the U.S. considered blacklisting the companies.”
Sometimes there’s a major story out there you don’t have time to really pay attention to, and such is the case with the UK “mini-budget”/Bank of England story. Basically, new UK PM Liz Truss and her Chancellor of the Treasury Kwasi Kwarteng went “We’re going to cut taxes despite soaring inflation” and the Bank of England (which evidently said that UK pension funds were hours from collapse last week) went “No you’re not.” Well, Truss just blinked, Kwarteng is out, and now the UK government is going to raise taxes.
Here’s a video explainer of the complexities of the Bank of England intervention in the bond market.
I’ll still trying to wrap my mind around the phrases “pension fund margin call” and “unlimited quantity” of short term repo liquidity reserves.
The Biden administration’s new technology restrictions are already causing disruptions in China as US semiconductor equipment suppliers are telling staff based in the country’s top memory chip maker to leave, according to WSJ, citing sources familiar with the matter.
State-owned Yangtze Memory Technologies Co. has seen US chip semiconductor equipment companies, including KLA Corp. and Lam Research Corp., halt business activities at the facility. This includes installing new equipment to make advanced chips and overseeing highly technical chip production.
The US suppliers have paused support of already installed equipment at YMTC in recent days and temporarily halted installation of new tools, the people said. The suppliers are also temporarily pulling out their staff based at YMTC, the people said. –WSJ
It’s hard to overemphasize how badly screwed China’s chip industry is with this latest move. Semiconductor equipment not only needs regular maintenance, but extremely specialized expertise when something goes wrong and your yields crash, wizards who can look at a wafer defect chart and determine by experience what’s gone wrong with which tool. Without support and spare parts from the western semiconductor equipment giants, expect yields to start crashing in a matter of months, if not weeks, especially if Applied Materials and Tokyo Electron join the pullout.
The IRGC may be mobilizing retired servicemembers and other affiliated officers to suppress protests in Tehran on October 15.
Protesters have killed more Iranian security personnel in the current protest wave than in any previous wave in the regime’s history according to regime statistics.
Anti-regime protests occurred in at least 11 cities in seven provinces.
Social media accounts that are representing themselves as youth groups organizing and coordinating protests called for countrywide unrest on October 15.
Snip.
Social media accounts that are representing themselves as youth groups organizing and coordinating protests called for countrywide unrest on October 15. Dozens of social media accounts are presenting themselves as provincial components of a broader youth movement aimed at overthrowing the regime. The movement does not appear to have a central headquarters or hierarchy—at least on social media—and some of these groups’ rhetoric is notably disjointed from the others. These accounts claim to have a presence in multiple Iranian cities, including Tehran, Karaj, Neyshabour, Hamedan, Shiraz, and Ahvaz. Some of these accounts called for protests in Khuzestan on October 14, which did materialize in three different cities across the province on that date. Another account claimed that it had activated “sabotage groups” to destabilize the regime on October 14. The Tehran Neighborhood Youth group currently has the most followers and has posted for the longest period of time, possibly suggesting that it inspired copycat accounts based in other cities.
Some of these groups are presenting themselves as having moved from protest organization to coordinating phase one insurgency attacks.
In private, Democratic party officeholders are super racist.
But they’ll arrest parents and take their children if you fail to bow to their transexual madness. “Virginia Democrat Bill Would Criminally Prosecute Parents Who Don’t Affirm Their Kids As Transgender. Previous attempt at the bill was co-sponsored by a senator who served jail time for having sex with a teenager.”
A Virginia Democrat lawmaker says she will introduce legislation to have parents criminally prosecuted if they do not “affirm” their child as transgender. Teachers and social workers would report parents to Child Protective Services under the bill envisioned by state Delegate Elizabeth Guzman (D-Fauquier).
Guzman told WJLA that “It could be a felony, it could be a misdemeanor, but we know that CPS charge could harm your employment, could harm their education, because nowadays many people do a CPS database search before offering employment.”
Guzman, a social worker, went public with her plans to introduce the bill a week after The Daily Wire reported that a National Association Of School Psychologists official named Amy Cannava boasted that she was working with an unnamed state delegate matching Guzman’s description to craft such legislation. “I want to see a kid in a home with food and shelter and insurance and support, but I also don’t want to lose kids to death,” Cannava said, adding that “I will not deny the fact that I have put parents in their place in my office or at school.”
Cannava is also affiliated with a group called the Pride Liberation Project that said it would pick up trans and gay teens who didn’t like their parents, and “work with other supportive adult organizations in the region to find you someone who can provide you a kind and affirming home.”
A similar bill was quietly introduced in 2020 by Guzman and four other Democrats immediately after they took control of the legislature in the 2019 elections. It redefined the term “abused or neglected child” to include one whose parent “inflicts, threatens to create or inflict, or allows to be created or inflicted upon such child a physical or mental injury on the basis of the child’s gender identity or sexual orientation.”
The sole Senate sponsor of the 2020 bill was Joe Morrissey, who served prison time for contributing to the delinquency of a minor after sleeping with his teenage secretary. He accepted a plea deal after initially being indicted on possession of child pornography and other charges.
You know who else hates rolling out the gay agenda to public schools? Muslims.
The only religious people the left is truly scared to offend are Muslims. Criticizing Muslims is completely off the table according to the left’s rules of engagement, so if Muslims are upset about something, the amount of twisting, back-bending, and acrobatics the left will perform in order not to offend them will be something to see.
So when hundreds of Muslim parents, upset at gay porn in the school libraries, showed up to a school board meeting in Dearborn, Mich., and it devolved into shouting and chaos with board members running away and gay protesters being chased to their cars, the fallout was absolutely hilarious. The headline in the Detroit Free Press after the event went haywire was “LGBTQ and Faith Communities Struggle for Unity.” BAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Can you imagine what the headline would have been if it were a Baptist church chasing gay protesters to their cars? “Fascist White Supremacist Book Burners Bash Gay Man in Parking Lot,” or “Rabid Religious Zealots Terrorize Gay Man Defending Right to Read,” or something equally terrible. I don’t know about you, but I’m enjoying this disaster.
Enjoy this thread and all the videos in it. I know I did.
Shouting between various factions as groups take over Dearborn public schools board meeting. Board members have left. Unclear if they are coming back or if meeting will restart. Heavy police presence. pic.twitter.com/XIMEqIRR1X
Problem: Too many Germans are voting for a rightwing party the left disapproves of. Solution: Ban it. Thank God banning other political parties in Germany has never had any negative consequences…
Speaking of things that could never possibly have any negative consequences, Balarus dictator and Putin toady Alexander Lukashenko decrees that all price increases are forbidden. Enjoys those coming goods shortages, Belarussians. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
Florida Surgeon General releases study showing heightened cardiac death rates for men ages 18-39 after taking the Flu Manchu mRNA vaccine. So Twitter banned him. Thou Shalt Have No Other Gods Before The Narrative. (They later reinstated him.)
Ukrainian troops shoot down a cruise missile with a MANPADS.
Alex Jones ordered to pay $965 million to Sandy Hook families. As I noted last week, Alex Jones is an unreliable loon, but that judgment seems excessive and punitive merely for running his mouth.
Remember: When it seems like grant money is handed out mainly to be raked off as graft, that’s only because it frequently is.
Federal officials are calling it one of the largest pandemic fraud cases in the country —which is quite a feat considering the billions stolen from the Paycheck Protection Plan and billions more stolen in Unemployment Insurance. But here we are: 49 people have been arrested in connection with the Feeding Our Future fraud case, and the list could be growing.
According to a Fox affiliate, “authorities alleged the massive fraud scheme took at least $250 million from the federal child nutrition program — money that was intended to help feed children during the COVID-19 pandemic.”
One of the more prominent names on the list of fraudsters, Mohamed Noor, is a community journalist and owner of a media company in Minneapolis. Noor was charged earlier this week for stealing federal money meant to help fee low-income families —nice guy, Mr Noor.
Moor is the owner of Xogmaal Media Group, one of the companies that fraudulently received and misappropriated Federal Child Nutrition Program funds.
Mohamed, who’s widely known as Deeq Darajo, was trying to flee the country to avoid prosecution —luckily, he was apprehended.
From The Sahan Journal:
Xogmaal used Feeding Our Future as a sponsor to receive federal funding for meals through the federal Child and Adult Care Food Program.
Federal prosecutors say Deeq Darajo is the cousin of Abdikerm Eidleh, a former Feeding Our Future employee who federal prosecutors allege took more than $3 million in kickbacks from food sites to enroll them in the Child Nutrition Programs.
The charges say a Feeding Our Future employee expressed concern about enrolling Xogmaal in the Child Nutrition Programs in February 2021.
“We took a lot of organization [sic] that don’t work with children or are advocate, [sic] I am just realizing that now,” an unnamed employee wrote to Feeding Our Future Executive Director Aimee Bock in an email, according to the charges. “For example Xogmaal is a TV show program. They have no interest with children. These are the things we need to clean up.”
“Bock still submitted Xogmaal’s application to the Minnesota Department of Education, which administers the Child Nutrition Programs for the state, according to the charges. Soon Xogmaal claimed to be feeding 1,000 children a day, seven days a week. By April 2021, Xogmaal claimed to feed 1,500 kids a day, seven days a week, according to the charges.”
But Xogmaal wasn’t feeding any children. Instead, Xogmaal received close to $500,000 in food-aid money —$387,000 of this was sent to shell companies controlled by Abdikerm.
FYI: This Mohamed Noor, Mohamed Muse Noor, does not seem to be the same as former police officer Mohamed Noor, who recently did time for manslaughter of an unarmed woman, or Democratic State representative Mohamud Noor.
You can’t tell your Noors without a scorecard.
But back to the Noor at hand, what sort of media company was Xogmaal? One focused on Somali issues, in the Somali language. Click on the contact us link, and you can see the fine attention to detail the firm displayed.
Nothing screams “quality” quite like “Lorem ipsum.”
I thought to myself “What are the odds that the people involved in this scam are making donation to Democratic candidates? I’m guessing pretty good.”
At least nine of the 48 people accused of defrauding the government of $250 million meant to feed hungry children have donated to Democratic officeholders in Minnesota.
The number is likely higher and Alpha News is working to confirm the identities of additional defendants.
Campaign finance records show 42-year-old Liban Yasin Alishire donated $2,500 in May of this year to the reelection campaign of Attorney General Keith Ellison.
Alishire listed Hoodo Properties as his employer, which was a shell company he created to purchase luxury items and real estate with money he stole from the government, according to an indictment.
Snip.
Liban Yasin Alishire
Attorney General Keith Ellison: $2,500 (5/27/22)
Abdinasir Mahamed Abshir
Sen. Omar Fateh: $1,000 (6/6/21)
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey: $1,000 (7/27/21)
Minneapolis Council Member Jeremiah Ellison: $600 (12/20/21)
Asad Mohamed Abshir
Sen. Omar Fateh: $1,000 (6/6/21)
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey: $1,000 (7/27/21)
Abdihakim Ali Ahmed
Sen. Omar Fateh: $1,000 (6/6/2021)
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey: $1,000 (7/27/21)
U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar: $2,700 (3/31/2021)
Ahmed Abdullahi Ghedi
Sen. Omar Fateh: $1,000 (6/6/21)
Minneapolis Council Member Jeremiah Ellison: $600 (12/20/21)
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey: $1,000 (7/27/21)
U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar: $2,700 (2/23/21)
Salim Ahmed Said
Sen. Omar Fateh: $1,000 (6/6/21)
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey: $1,000 (7/27/21)
Minneapolis Council Member Jeremiah Ellison: $600 (12/20/21)
Abdulkadir Nur Salah
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey: $1,000 (7/26/21)
Minneapolis Council Member Jeremiah Ellison: $600 (12/20/21)
Abdikadir Ainanshe Mohamud, previously served on Mayor Frey’s community safety working group
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey: $1,000 (7/26/21)
Abdi Nur Salah, former aide to Mayor Frey
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey: $1,000 (7/27/21)
Hmm, it’s like all of them have something in common…
If you see “community activists” committing fraud, it’s a good bet that donations to Democrats are not far behind.
California is (still) broke, Stacey Abrams is (still) not very bright, Joe Biden tried to deal gas to the commies, and the FBI can’t be bothered to investigate such trivia as “sex crimes involving children.” It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
Remember how the State of Texas came in with record revenues and a $27 billion surplus? Well, the flip side is California, which just saw 11% personal income tax revenue drop. Funny how chasing away productive taxpayers through punitive taxation and insane over-regulation isn’t a recipe for success…
Republicans on the House Oversight and Reform Committee have obtained bombshell documents proving that Joe Biden was deeply involved in the family business of selling American natural gas to the Chinese–while he was planning to run for President. According to multiple whistleblowers, the Biden family made promises to those who worked with them in 2017 and onward that they would “reap the rewards in a future Biden administration.” These explosive revelations “pose national security concerns,” Oversight Republicans proclaimed Tuesday night.
The Biden clan enriched itself by selling the natural resources to a Chinese firm closely affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)—just a few years before the cost of gas in the United States hit record highs, the Oversight Republicans stated.
In a letter to United States Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), the ranking Republican on the Oversight Committee, alleged that according to whistleblowers, Joe Biden was heavily involved in this treachery.
“This comes to light at a time when the cost of natural gas is at a 14-year high and Americans struggle to pay their energy bills,” Comer wrote in the letter to Yellen. “The President has not only misled the American public about his past foreign business transactions, but he also failed to disclose that he played a critical role in arranging a business deal to sell American natural resources to the Chinese while planning to run for President.”
Comer sent a letter to Yellen in July complaining that the Treasury Department was restricting access to over 150 Suspicious Activity reports (SARs) on Hunter Biden, amid explosive revelations that came out from Biden’s “laptop from Hell,” and iPhone.
On Sept. 2, 2022, the Treasury Department stated in a letter to Committee Republicans, that the SARs may be provided “upon a written request stating the particular information desired, the criminal, tax or regulatory purpose for which the information is sought, and the official need for the information.”
In response, Comer said that “based on the documents provided in this letter, we request all SARs from Biden family transactions, including those involving President Biden, related to transactions with Chinese entities. We are concerned that the President may have compromised national security in his dealings with the country most adverse to U.S. interests—China. These SARs will inform our analysis of this matter.”
Comer said Oversight Republicans have obtained a “presentation” emailed to Hunter Biden’s firm Hudson West III LLC (Hudson West) on December 13, 2017. The document, translated from Mandarin Chinese, is titled, “Overview of the U.S. Natural Gas Industry Chain, and is concerned with selling American natural resources to China.”
“Jiaqi Bao, who created the presentation, was previously an employee of the CCP, and worked for Hunter Biden’s corporate entity Hudson West,” the letter states.
Comer provided Yellen with two maps that were part of a presentation emailed to Hunter Biden. The maps include sophisticated analysis written in Chinese, and show the United States carved up based on natural gas reserves “with particular emphasis on Pennsylvania, Louisiana, Texas, Oklahoma, and Wyoming.”
“The emails that accompany the transmitted maps reveal a plan to sell natural gas reserves to China via the same corporate entity branded on the presentation-Hudson West III LLC (Hudson West)–set up by Hunter Biden with officials from the Chinese company CEFC, at the time, one of the largest oil companies in China,” the letter stated.
I have only skimmed this dog's breakfast of a complaint, but what popped out at me for the parts I looked are were the lack of damages allegations, much less ones against NY, the plaintiff. You cannot sue if you did not suffer a loss. None are pleaded in the parts I looked at. 3/
So, the initial motion to dismiss will not be heard before the midterm – the real mission was accomplished by filing suit in time to influence the election, but not so early that this garbage case could be tossed out before the election.
FBI investigations of child sex abuse claims are no longer a priority with all these conservatives and Trump supporters they need to prosecute for WrongThink…
Of all big American cities, San Francisco seems to have had the longest, closest look at what happens when you let the radical left wing of the Democratic Party run your city for decades on end. A half century of Social Justice has turned San Francisco into a literal shithole filled with drug-addicted transients shooting up and defecating on city streets.
Now shop owners in the Castro District, the heart of gay San Francisco, have reached the breaking point and are threatening to withhold taxes unless something is done.
Business owners in San Francisco’s Castro district have absolutely had it with the city’s inaction over burglaries, vandalism, and violent homeless people camping on the sidewalks in front of storefronts and residences.
As the American Thinker’s Olivia Murray notes:
San Francisco has an established reputation as a capital for fringe culture and leftism, much of which converges in the enclave of Castro. The first “Drag Queen Story Hour” event ever took place in the Harvey Milk Memorial Branch Library in the neighborhood and was “well received.”
Now, under Democrat leadership, the iconically left community is ready to take drastic measures toward radical American patriotism. Three days ago, the San Francisco Chronicle reported:
For years, business owners in San Francisco’s Castro district have complained to city officials that homeless people struggling with mental illness and drug addiction have wreaked havoc on the neighborhood. Now, merchants say the situation has gotten so bad that they’re threatening to possibly stop paying city taxes and fees.
The threat arises from a letter drafted and sent to city officials by the Castro Merchants Association on August 8. According to co-president Dave Karraker, if the calls are neglected, the response will be civil disobedience, including refusal to pay taxes.
Karraker said:
If the city can’t provide the basic services for them [businesses] to become a successful business, then what are we paying for? You can’t have a vibrant, successful business corridor when you have people passed out high on drugs, littering your sidewalk.
No, no, you can’t, which is why conservatives suggest not incentivizing criminality and drug use, nor electing D.A.s who hail from domestic terrorists and despise law and order like Chesa Boudin.
First a school board revolt over Critical Race Theory, now a Howard Jarvis-esque tax revolt among business owners over the crime and disorder the radical left has inflicted on San Francisco.
The good news is that if a tax revolt can happen in San Francisco, it can happen anywhere. The bad news is, it took 58 years of uninterrupted Democratic Party rule for citizens to reach their breaking point. (San Francisco’s last Republican mayor left office on January 7, 1964. Since then, Democrats (including the Reverend Jim Jones) have had complete control.)
As the infection of Social justice has metastasized throughout the Democratic Party, even the most basic, fundamental aspects of city governance (enforcing the law, maintaining public order, protecting life and property) have become ideologically impossible to maintain.
To have one-party Democratic rule in your city is to ensure its eventual destruction.
