It’s been a week of petty frustrations, with simple things like paying for online transactions made impossible by websites that send out the wrong information despite the right information being on file. Speaking of frustration, Americans continue to be battered by high inflation, blacks continue to abandon Biden, and it turns out that the Pope might, just might, be Catholic after all.
A hotter-than-expected consumer price index report rattled Wall Street Wednesday, but markets are buzzing about an even more specific prices gauge contained within the data — the so-called supercore inflation reading.
Along with the overall inflation measure, economists also look at the core CPI, which excludes volatile food and energy prices, to find the true trend. The supercore gauge, which also excludes shelter and rent costs from its services reading, takes it even a step further. Fed officials say it is useful in the current climate as they see elevated housing inflation as a temporary problem and not as good a measure of underlying prices.
Supercore accelerated to a 4.8% pace year over year in March, the highest in 11 months.
Tom Fitzpatrick, managing director of global market insights at R.J. O’Brien & Associates, said if you take the readings of the last three months and annualize them, you’re looking at a supercore inflation rate of more than 8%, far from the Federal Reserve’s 2% goal.
According to a Wall Street Journal Swing State Poll, blacks, especially black males are abandoning Biden in huge numbers.
While most Black men said they intend to support Biden, some 30% of them in the poll said they were either definitely or probably going to vote for the former Republican president. There isn’t comparable WSJ swing-state polling from 2020, but Trump received votes from 12% of Black men nationwide that year, as recorded by AP VoteCast, a large poll of the electorate.
That’s an 18 percentage point swing, minimum, for black males, if the national results and the swing state voting is similar.
By confirmed, I mean those who said they intended to vote for Trump.
The gap is even larger if we factor in undecided voters. Biden is down by a massive 30 percentage points vs 2020.
Good: A teacher helping her son with homework. Bad: A teacher helping her son force female students into sex trafficking. “Klein Cain High School cosmetology teacher Kedria McMath Grigsby is accused of helping her son, Roger Magee, force the troubled teens into prostitution.”
Investigative science writer Paul Homewood last year discovered considerable tampering in 2022 with the recent CET record. He initially found that in version one, the summer of 1995 had been 0.1°C warmer than 2018. In version 2, the two years swapped places with 1995 cooled by 0.07°C and 2018 warmed by 0.13°C. Alerted to these changes, Homewood then analysed the full record from version 1 to 2, and the graph below shows what he found.
As can be seen, the adjustments up to 1970 are small with ups and downs offsetting each other. Homewood then found that the years from 1970 to 2003 had been cooled markedly, followed by significant rises to 2022. Homewood concludes that “unfortunately it is part of a much wider tampering with temperature globally – and the tampering is always one way, cooling the past and heating the present”. Given that we now know that the Met Office has been using class 4 statistics for two thirds of its database since 2006, the recent higher adjustments would seem to call for clarifying explanations from the state-funded Met Office.
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has announced his interim charges for the Senate, a set of 57 issues he is calling on Senate Committees to investigate and research ahead of the legislative session next year.
The list of charges runs the gamut of issues conservatives have called on the legislature to address, including property tax relief, protecting Texas land from hostile foreign ownership, and strengthening laws preventing electioneering by school districts and other political subdivisions.
Some of the biggest reform proposals, however, have been reserved for higher education.
Patrick has asked the Higher Education Subcommittee to study and make recommendations regarding the role of ‘faculty senates’, antisemitism on college campuses, as well as to review the implementation of a new state law banning DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) in state universities that went into effect earlier this year.
“The Senate’s work to study the list of charges will begin in the coming weeks and months. Following completion of hearings, committees will submit reports with their specific findings and policy recommendations before December 1, 2024,” said Patrick.
When you think Houston Democratic Congresswoman Shelia Jackson Lee has already said the stupidest thing she possibly can, she goes out and proves you wrong.
Thanks to New York City’s idiotic rent control laws, not only would a hotel guest refuse to pay rent or leave, but a court actually ruled that he was the owner of the hotel.
First class stamps are going up to 73 cents. Thanks, Joe Biden.
If the commies running Vietnam accuse someone of a crime, I don’t automatically trust them, but Truong My Lan may actually be guilty.
Behind the stately yellow portico of the colonial-era courthouse in Ho Chi Minh City, a 67-year-old Vietnamese property developer was sentenced to death on Thursday for looting one of the country’s largest banks over a period of 11 years.
It’s a rare verdict – she is one of very few women in Vietnam to be sentenced to death for a white collar crime.
The decision is a reflection of the dizzying scale of the fraud. Truong My Lan was convicted of taking out $44bn (£35bn) in loans from the Saigon Commercial Bank. The verdict requires her to return $27bn, a sum prosecutors said may never be recovered. Some believe the death penalty is the court’s way of trying to encourage her to return some of the missing billions.
The habitually secretive communist authorities were uncharacteristically forthright about this case, going into minute detail for the media. They said 2,700 people were summoned to testify, while 10 state prosecutors and around 200 lawyers were involved.
The evidence was in 104 boxes weighing a total of six tonnes. Eighty-five others were tried with Truong My Lan, who denied the charges and can appeal.
All of the defendants were found guilty. Four received life in jail. The rest were given prison terms ranging from 20 years to three years suspended. Truong My Lan’s husband and niece received jail terms of nine and 17 years respectively.
Snip.
By 2011, Truong My Lan was a well-known business figure in Ho Chi Minh City, and she was allowed to arrange the merger of three smaller, cash-strapped banks into a larger entity: Saigon Commercial Bank.
Vietnamese law prohibits any individual from holding more than 5% of the shares in any bank. But prosecutors say that through hundreds of shell companies and people acting as her proxies, Truong My Lan actually owned more than 90% of Saigon Commercial.
They accused her of using that power to appoint her own people as managers, and then ordering them to approve hundreds of loans to the network of shell companies she controlled.
The amounts taken out are staggering. Her loans made up 93% of all the bank’s lending.
According to prosecutors, over a period of three years from February 2019, she ordered her driver to withdraw 108 trillion Vietnamese dong, more than $4bn (£2.3bn) in cash from the bank, and store it in her basement.
That much cash, even if all of it was in Vietnam’s largest denomination banknotes, would weigh two tonnes.
I've been waiting 29 years to tell this story about OJ and his days at USC. Now that he's dead (may he burn in hell) I have a story that I signed an NDA for that is no longer valid. I was a junior at USC working in Topping Student Center on campus in 1995. I was an administrative…
Numerous commentators—especially those defending President Biden’s economic record—have puzzled over why Americans are sour about the state of the U.S. economy. Unemployment rates have returned to pre-pandemic lows, commentators correctly point out, and the official rate of inflation is declining. So why are Americans ignoring the view of many experts that the economy is doing well?
According to a striking new paper by a group of economists from Harvard and the International Monetary Fund, headlined by former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, the answer is that Americans have figured out something that the experts have ignored: that rising interest rates are as much a part of inflation as the rising price of ordinary goods. “Concerns over borrowing costs, which have historically tracked the cost of money, are at their highest levels” since the early 1980s, they write. “Alternative measures of inflation that include borrowing costs” account for most of the gap between the experts’ rosy pictures and Americans’ skeptical assessment.
“Backlash Is Real‘: DEI Exodus Gains Steam Across Corporate America.”
The unraveling of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” initiatives was seen on the state level, as Red states rushed to ban DEI programs in 2023. Google, Facebook, and other tech companies slashed DEI staff by late last year. Early this year, universities began rolling back diversity programs, while Harvard President Claudine Gay was demoted.
DEI was doomed to fail, and corporations have been quickly scrambling to abandon mindless and profitless diversity programs with Marxist roots. The latest earnings call data shows that “DEI” mentions have collapsed from their peak in 2021, according to Axios, citing data from AlphaSense.
In January, Johnny Taylor, president of the Society for Human Resource Management, told Axios that corporate executives are fed up with DEI.
“The backlash is real. And I mean, in ways that I’ve actually never seen it before,” Taylor said, adding, “CEOs are literally putting the brakes on this DE&I work that was running strong” since George Floyd’s murder in early 2020.
Kevin Clayton, senior vice president and head of social impact and equity for the Cleveland Cavaliers, said the chief diversity officer role was all the rage across corporate America after Floyd’s murder. He said companies filled these positions “out of gilt,” and hiring wasn’t the best.
Axios noted, “Some businesses are cutting back funding, trimming DEI staff — and even considering pulling back on things like employee resource groups comprised of workers of various races, ethnicities or interests.”
The pushback on DEI is finding momentum across corporations and universities. Subha Barry, former head of diversity at Merrill Lynch, told Bloomberg last month: “We’re past the peak.”
Let’s hope so.
No one at the wheel: “Biden Reportedly Has No Idea He Issued ‘Trans Day Of Visibility’ Proclamation.”
Gen Z hates the lousy Biden economy and favors Trump over Biden. Though a word to those Gen Z sorts who complain about a 9-5 schedule being “unnatural”: A “natural” schedule is performing backbreaking hunter/gatherer or subsistence agriculture work from dawn to dusk 6-7 days a week and dropping dead before you turn 40…
Ukrainian drones hit a Russia drone production facility at Yelabuga, Tatarstan, which is almost 1,000 miles inside Russia, using a drone that looks a whole lot like a light aircraft.
Ukraine hits another Russian airbase with over 40 drones, and presumably took out even more Su-34s.
Whoops, make that three Russian airbases hit. including reports of three Tupolev Tu-95 “Bear” bombers damaged. (Yes, Russia still has a propeller-driven bomber in service. It can carry nuclear weapons and launch cruise missiles.)
Gun crimes evidently mean being released without bail if the perp is an illegal alien.
“Cost estimates more than double to replace failing Austin arts center building.” Note the “Extended community engagement: $1 million” which is code for “Payoffs to leftwing activists.” (Hat tip: Dwight.)
“Paxton Seeks to Investigate Boeing Parts Supplier, DEI Initiatives. Attorney General Ken Paxton is seeking to investigate Spirit AeroSystsems after public outrage involving Boeing’s aircraft manufacturing issues.”
Boeing stated in 2022 that “for the first time in our company’s history, we tied incentive compensation to inclusion.”
Boeing’s 2023 Global Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion report explains that “diversity must be at the table for every important decision our company makes – every challenge we face, every innovation we design. Equity, diversity and inclusion are core values because they make Boeing — and each of us individually — better.”
According to the report, racial and ethnic minorities now hold 41.4 percent of jobs in the U.S. Boeing Commercial Airplanes Unit, and 28.3 percent in the U.S. Boeing Defense, Space, and Security. In 2022, U.S. racial and ethnic minorities made up 47.5 percent of new hires at Boeing.
You know what I want at the table for every important Boeing decision? Planes not falling out of the sky.
Intel lost $7 billion last year. Intel has a technology roadmap to get its process tech back on track, but failure to execute on previous nodes is what got them into this mess.
In addition to having fingers in the pie in Syria and Yemen in addition to their proxy war with Israel, Iran also has to deal with Sunni Baluch separatist organization Jaish al-Adl (“Army of Justice”) on their own territory, where they killed at least 11 Iranian security force members.
“Belew, Vai, Levin and Carey Play 80’s King Crimson.” Sign me up. Edited to Add: Crap, tickets went on sale for the Austin show in September TODAY. I was just barely able to snag two tickets in nosebleed…
DEI — the identity-obsessed dogma that goes by “diversity, equity, and inclusion” — has now trained Google’s new AI to refuse to draw white people. What’s even more alarming is that it’s also infected the supply chain that makes the chips powering everything from AI to missiles, endangering national security.
The Biden administration recently promised it will finally loosen the purse strings on $39 billion of CHIPS Act grants to encourage semiconductor fabrication in the U.S. But less than a week later, Intel announced that it’s putting the brakes on its Columbus factory. The Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) has pushed back production at its second Arizona foundry. The remaining major chipmaker, Samsung, just delayed its first Texas fab.
This is not the way companies typically respond to multi-billion-dollar subsidies. So what explains chipmakers’ apparent ingratitude? In large part, frustration with DEI requirements embedded in the CHIPS Act.
Commentators have noted that CHIPS and Science Act money has been sluggish. What they haven’t noticed is that it’s because the CHIPS Act is so loaded with DEI pork that it can’t move.
The law contains 19 sections aimed at helping minority groups, including one creating a Chief Diversity Officer at the National Science Foundation, and several prioritizing scientific cooperation with what it calls “minority-serving institutions.” A section called “Opportunity and Inclusion” instructs the Department of Commerce to work with minority-owned businesses and make sure chipmakers “increase the participation of economically disadvantaged individuals in the semiconductor workforce.”
The department interprets that as license to diversify. Its factsheet asserts that diversity is “critical to strengthening the U.S. semiconductor ecosystem,” adding, “Critically, this must include significant investments to create opportunities for Americans from historically underserved communities.”
The department does not call speed critical, even though the impetus for the CHIPS Act is that 90 percent of the world’s advanced microchips are made in Taiwan, which China is preparing to annex by 2027, maybe even 2025.
Handouts abound. There’s plenty for the left—requirements that chipmakers submit detailed plans to educate, employ, and train lots of women and people of color, as well as “justice-involved individuals,” more commonly known as ex-cons. There’s plenty for the right—veterans and members of rural communities find their way into the typical DEI definition of minorities. There’s even plenty for the planet: Arizona Democrats just bragged they’ve won $15 million in CHIPS funding for an ASU project fighting climate change.
That project is going better for Arizona than the actual chips part of the CHIPS Act. Because equity is so critical, the makers of humanity’s most complex technology must rely on local labor and apprentices from all those underrepresented groups, as TSMC discovered to its dismay.
Tired of delays at its first fab, the company flew in 500 employees from Taiwan. This angered local workers, since the implication was that they weren’t skilled enough. With CHIPS grants at risk, TSMC caved in December, agreeing to rely on those workers and invest more in training them. A month later, it postponed its second Arizona fab.
Now TSMC has revealed plans to build a second fab in Japan. Its first, which broke ground in 2021, is about to begin production. TSMC has learned that when the Japanese promise money, they actually give it, and they allow it to use competent workers. TSMC is also sampling Germany’s chip subsidies, as is Intel.
Intel is also building fabs in Poland and Israel, which means it would rather risk Russian aggression and Hamas rockets over dealing with America’s DEI regime. Samsung is pivoting toward making its South Korean homeland the semiconductor superpower after Taiwan falls.
To be fair, Intel has had fabs in Israel since since 1996, and Tower Semiconductor has had fabs in Israel since the 1980s. Poland, to the best of my knowledge, has never had a fab.
In short, the world’s best chipmakers are tired of being pawns in the CHIPS Act’s political games. They’ve quietly given up on America. Intel must know the coming grants are election-year stunts — mere statements of intent that will not be followed up. Even after due diligence and final agreements, the funds will only be released in dribs and drabs as recipients prove they’re jumping through the appropriate hoops.
So in the name of embedding the racist poison of social justice, the CHIPS Act, ostensibly designed to increase America’s share of cutting-edge semiconductor manufacturing, is actually driving new fab construction out of America.
A year after its censorship programs were exposed, the Global Engagement Center still insists the public has no right to know how it’s spending taxpayer money…
The State Department is so unhappy a newspaper published details about where it’s been spending your taxes, it’s threatened to only show a congressional committee its records in camera until it gets a “better understanding of how the Committee will utilize this sensitive information.” Essentially, Tony Blinken is threatening to take his transparency ball home unless details about what censorship programs he’s sponsoring stop appearing in papers like the Washington Examiner:
The State Department tells Congress, which controls its funding, that it will only disclose where it spent our money “in camera”
A year ago the Examiner published “Disinformation, Inc.”, a series by investigative reporter Gabe Kaminsky describing how the State Department was backing a UK-based agency that creates digital blacklists for disfavored media outlets. Your taxes helped fund the Global Disinformation Index, or GDI, which proudly touts among its services an Orwellian horror called the Dynamic Exclusion List, a digital time-out corner where at least 2,000 websites were put on blast as unsuitable for advertising, “thus disrupting the ad-funded disinformation business model.”
Mega-bank JP Morgan has officially left a $68 trillion investor coalition that is “focused on pressing the world’s biggest emitters of greenhouse gases to decarbonize,” according to Bloomberg.
In other words, the “fight” to decarbonize is imploding.
JP Morgan said it is leaving the Climate Action 100+ because it has “made significant investments in developing its own climate risk engagement framework”, the report says. The bank claims to have 40 professionals now focused on sustainable investing.
And the damage for the Climate Action 100+ may only be getting started. Lance Dial, a Boston-based partner at law firm K&L Gates LLP, told Bloomberg: “I wouldn’t be surprised if we see more defections, especially given that there’s now a cost, such as potential litigation, that wasn’t there when companies joined.”
He added: “Attorneys general have subpoenaed firms about their membership of these groups.”
Remember that Chinese invasion we talked about earlier in the week? Republican U.S. Representative Tony Gonzales thinks it uses Sinaloa cartel.
In FY 2023, over 37,000 illegal Chinese aliens were encountered at the porous southern border, with an additional 20,000 having crossed since October when FY 2024 began. The federal data shows that the United States is seeing foreign invaders from more countries than ever before.
According to Rep. Tony Gonzalez (R-Texas), he believes the illegals crossing into California may indeed be staying there, he told the Daily Mail.
“As I’ve spoken to different agencies about why some communities [groups of migrants] to one place and others go another, one: it depends on what cartel controls that pipeline,” Gonzalez said.
‘It’s very clear that the Sinaloa Cartel is the one controlling that operation and sending Chinese more toward the California corridor…California/Arizona corridor that they control. That’s half the equation.’
Another theory: “[Oriel Ortega], the former director of Panama’s border patrol told The Epoch Times that the United Nations’ migration agenda is behind the chaos at the U.S. southern border and that U.N. partners are making things worse instead of better.”
More “refugees” behaving badly, with Eritrean, East African, gangs battling it out at an opera house in The Hague.
Results: “Six of Ohio’s eight largest cities experienced a drop in gun crime after the state allowed its citizens to carry a concealed weapon without a permit.”
Farmers blockaded Paris to protest the impossible mandates being handed down to them by both Paris and the EU in the name of fighting “global warming.”
“Farmers are laying siege to Paris, as they put it, at eight points around the capital. And they say they won’t budge until the government gives them more concessions.”
“We need one of our French celebrities to do the same thing as Jeremy Clarkson.”
He said Clarkson “exposed the red tape in relation to the environment. Everything he explained, we’re going through in France.”
“It’s about bureaucracy, it’s about the European Union.”
He says farmers in the UK are still waiting for promised post-Brexit support.
“Everything in relations to environmental requirements is exactly the same in France, maybe even worse.”
“We are fed up with the admin, which is excessive in our country with regards to our work, the red tape that France adds in addition to the EU requirements.”
The farmer interviewed says they (i.e. FNSEA, the largest French farming union) have a list of 140 demands. Try as I might, I can’t find a list of those demands, in English or even French. This seems to hit on key grievances, but there’s a fair amount of highfalutin generalities in the English translation. This seems to be a key point: “In Europe, the very philosophy of the Green deal which assumes degrowth needs to be reviewed to restore visibility to farmers.”
If previous demands from other Eurostrikers are any guide, the demands are probably a mix of good (stop with the green insanity, lower taxes and eliminate red tape) and bad (more subsidies).
The French farmers said President Emmanuel Macron’s government now needed to act fast on its pledges, which have included scrapping plans to raise tax contributions on tractor diesel, an easing of pesticide regulations, a pause on new fallow land rules, and more safety checks on food imports.
If you had told some one five years ago that “French farmers will be hailing Jeremy Clarkson as a hero,” no one would have believed you…
Happy Black Friday, everyone! (Here’s my prepping/gift guide, if you haven’t seen it already.) I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. Some interesting international election results, unreasonable gun control legislation gets struck down in two different states, more legal trouble for Houston Democrats, and a weed company goes bankrupt. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
The average price American families will have to pay to celebrate Thanksgiving with a traditional dinner will be the most expensive in history after years of sky-high inflation that experts attribute partially to President Joe Biden’s policies, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
The price of all goods has risen dramatically under Biden following a period of sustained high inflation, which peaked at 9.1% in March 2022 and has since remained elevated, measuring at 3.2% in October, while the index for food rose 3.3% year-over-year for the month. The total increase in costs for a Thanksgiving dinner is about 26% since the beginning of Biden’s term, culminating in the most expensive Thanksgiving dinner in history.
Don’t buy the cookies. “Girl Scouts To Host Training Sessions On ‘Internalized Racism,’ ‘White Supremacy Culture.'” (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
In a surprising turn of events, Argentina has elected the libertarian outsider Javier Milei as its new president. The hotly contested presidential run-off saw Milei defeating left-wing candidate Sergio Massa — a consequential shift in the country’s political landscape. Massa brusquely conceded on Sunday night, stating, “Milei is the president elected for the next four years.”
The victory of Milei, a self-proclaimed “anarcho-capitalist,” introduces an unconventional leader with what are considered to be radical economic views relative to Argentina’s neighbors. His campaign, characterized by anti-establishment rhetoric and metaphorical gestures such as wielding a chainsaw to show his fervor for cutting taxes, resonated with voters frustrated by Argentina’s economic decrepitude, including triple-digit inflation. One of Milei’s key proposals is the adoption of the U.S. dollar as Argentina’s national currency, an unprecedented move for a country of its size (Argentina is home to some 45.8 million people).
Massa — a lifelong politician and representative of Argentina’s left-wing political establishment — emphasized his government’s actions to address inflation during his tenure.
But Milei’s appeal, particularly among the younger generation, suggests a desire for change to break free from the cycle of economic crises.
Milei’s victory has produced excitement and concern alike. While some see him as the catalyst for much-needed economic reforms, others fear the potential austerity measures tied to his plans, such as shutting the central bank and slashing spending. Despite the uncertainty, Milei’s supporters view him as the only viable option to break the political status quo and address Argentina’s persistent and extreme economic challenges.
The election is not just a political shift but also a generational one, with Milei’s popularity among the youth reflecting a desire for a new direction. The effect of Milei’s win extends beyond Argentina’s borders, potentially influencing trade relationships, especially with his criticism of China and Brazil and his preference for stronger ties with the United States. As for the U.S., the hour is late, and we’ll take all the friends we can get, and Argentina is doubly welcome because the Millennium must be nigh if a libertarian won an election outside of New Hampshire.
Note: Linking to MSN rather than NRO because the latter has now raised it’s war against ad-blockers to obnoxious levels. Year-by-year, the TDS-infected NR has become ever-more sad and useless.
Geert Wilders, the Dutch populist whose anti-Islam comments have led to death threats, could become the next leader of the Netherlands following an election upset for his Freedom Party (PVV) on Wednesday.
After 25 years in Dutch politics without holding office, Wilders was set to lead coalition government talks and has a good chance of becoming prime minister.
An exit poll on Wednesday evening showed the PVV in a clear lead, 10 seats ahead of its closest rival, Frans Timmermans’ Labour/Green Left combination.
“We will have to find ways to live up to the hopes of our voters, to put the Dutch back as number one”, Wilders said in his first response, adding that “the Netherlands will be returned to the Dutch, the asylum tsunami and migration will be curbed.”
Maryland is one of 14 states that require background checks for all firearm purchases, whether or not the seller is a federally licensed dealer. Since 2013, Maryland has imposed an additional requirement on handgun buyers: They must first obtain a “handgun qualification license,” which entails completing at least four hours of firearm training and undergoing a seemingly redundant “investigation” aimed at screening out people who are legally disqualified from owning guns. According to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, that process, which can take up to 30 days, violates the Second Amendment.
In a decision published on Tuesday, a divided 4th Circuit panel concluded that Maryland’s handgun ownership licensing system is not “consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation”—the constitutional test that the U.S. Supreme Court established last year in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen. Writing for the majority in Maryland Shall Issue v. Moore, 4th Circuit Judge Julius Richardson notes that Bruen “effected a sea change in Second Amendment law,” making a variety of gun control laws newly vulnerable to constitutional challenges. Maryland’s handgun licensing law is the latest example.
Speaking of unconstitutional gun laws being struck down: “It turns out that bullets are an essential part of a gun, and limiting the number of rounds in a gun violates the Oregon constitution. A county judge in Oregon made that decision on Tuesday overturning Measure 114, a citizen-passed measure that outlawed what gun grabbers call ‘high capacity magazines’ and required that Oregon serfs get a permit to be allowed to purchase a gun.” (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
Funny how no Arab nation wants to take in Palestinians. They know the simple truth: They suck.
The Palestinians tried to take over Jordan in the 1970s, leading to the late King Hussein declaring war on them and driving them out. They were booted from Kuwait after collaborating with Saddam Hussein’s forces before the Gulf War. They set off a powder keg in Lebanon, a nation that has yet to recover from its brutal civil war that lasted 15 years. No Arab country wants these people because they bring instability and trouble.
Outgoing Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner gets to enjoy a new host of scandals on his way out.
As term-limited Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner finishes his final days at the helm of the state’s most populous city, a new set of scandals have emerged over city contracts and a dispute over who will pay for a book touting the mayor’s legacy.
In the most recent dustup, an investigation by Houston’s KPRC 2 discovered that city contracts for much-needed water repairs were awarded to two relatives of Houston Public Works (HPW) employee Patrece Lee, including one for $4.5 million to Lee’s brother, who had only created his company six months before the city council approved the “emergency contracts.”
When KPRC reporter Amy Davis attempted to question Turner about the issue at a public event last week, Turner became irate and told his communications director to escort Davis from the room.
“You are not going to get away with this,” said Turner to Davis. “You are rude.”
Late Friday, HPW Director Carol Haddock announced that the employee had been placed on leave while the city’s Office of the Inspector General investigated the allegations.
In another contract scandal, Houston Landing media reported last week that the Midtown Redevelopment Authority had referred information to law enforcement on a since-fired manager who allegedly steered more than $4 million in taxpayer-funded landscaping contracts to himself and another contractor.
The latest developments came hard on the heels of Turner’s squabble with Houston First Corporation, the city’s marketing organization. During the “State of the City” luncheon last September, hosted by Houston First, attendees were given copies of Turner’s book “A Winning Legacy,” which celebrates the mayor’s accomplishments during his eight years in office.
As first reported by Bill King, Turner told President and CEO Michael Heckman that Houston First must pay a $123,979 invoice for the 600 copies, but Heckman refused, saying it was not in the corporation’s budget and not an appropriate expense. Houston First Chairman David Mincberg later told FOX 26 that the corporation would develop a strategy to raise private funds to pay for the books.
Controversy has also surrounded Turner’s management of city finances. Last year, Controller Chris Brown warned that the city was using $160 million in federal COVID-19 relief funds to plug budget holes and even to cover ongoing expenses.
Speaking of governments in trouble for spending Flu Manchu funds on other priorities, Germany is also in trouble for pulling the same trick after their high court told them to stop. As Europeans, spending within their means is unacceptable, so they’re now plotting to suspend debt limits…
Texas Governor Greg Abbott endorses Donald Trump for President. This is interesting in that Abbott is a careful, cautious Republican, who might be more ideologically inclined to endorse Ron DeSantis or Nikki Haley. That Abbott has endorsed Trump indicates he thinks Trump is a lock for the 2024 nomination. He may be right.
“Stacey Abrams’ Brother-In-Law Arrested, Accused Of Human Trafficking, Choking Underage Girl…Jimmie Gardner, a well-known Georgia-based youth motivational speaker, is accused of human trafficking, lewd or lascivious touching, and battery…According to the Tampa Police Department, Gardner invited a 16-year-old girl to his hotel room in the early hours of Friday, offering to pay her for sexual acts.” Sounds like the wrong sort of youth motivation…
London mayor Sadiq Khan’s much-hated, rent-seeking “Ultra-Low Emission Zone” scheme uses cameras and vans to catch and fine people using gas-powered cars a hefty £12.50-per-day in order to make clear to ordinary Londoners of limited means just how much he holds them in contempt “fight climate change.”
But a group of Londoners has found an innovative and amusing way to nullify the snooping cameras:
It turns out those dinosaur costumes are just the right height to block the snoop cameras.
A herd or pack of T-Rexes is evidently called “a terror.”
The ULEZ has recently been extended even to outer boroughs like Bexley. “There are lots of people in this sort of borough that are low income. So the reality of this is that if you have a vehicle that isn’t compliant, you may not be in a position where you can afford to: A.) Pay the charge, or B.) Buy a vehicle that’s compliant.”
“I’m shocked it’s come to this.”
“In central London you’ve got tubes, you’ve got trains. We simply don’t have that out here.”
“The people that this affects most of all [are] people at the bottom end of the social ladder.”
“I’m 75 and I’m coming out to to help the people that can’t afford to pay the £12.50. This is why we’re doing this.”
When radical leftwing city officials push insane, impossible policies, are they merely engaging in virtue signaling, hope to profit off graft for the issue, or want to inflict as much pain on ordinary Americans as possible?
Two Texas cities are participating in an emissions-cutting program that seeks to end meat and dairy consumption.
According to the organization, “C40 is a global network of nearly 100 mayors of the world’s leading cities that are united in action to confront the climate crisis.”
Although largely funded by Democrat billionaire Michael Bloomberg, C40 has other donors including FedEx, Google, and the Clinton Foundation.
Both Austin and Houston are listed as participating cities, with “membership operat[ing] on performance-based requirements, not on fees.”
Houston is a “Megacity,” according to the C40 membership ranking. Megacities are “Cities that show exceptional climate leadership at the global level, and have an urban population that currently/is expected to exceed 3 million or more people by 2030.”
Austin is in the “Innovator” membership category, which includes “cities that show exceptional climate leadership at the global level, but do not meet the population/size criteria of a Megacity.”
Altogether, the participating cities make up a quarter of the global economy.
According to C40 Cities Executive Director Mark Watts, “As always, C40 has adopted a science-based approach and that science is clear: average consumption-based emissions in C40 cities must halve within the next 10 years. In our wealthiest and highest consuming cities that means a reduction of two-thirds or more by 2030.”
Watts stated this in a report from C40 Cities in 2019 entitled, “The Future Of Urban Consumption In A 1.5°C World.” The report lays out “ambitious targets” for cities to meet regarding the urban consumption of building materials, food, clothing and textiles, private transportation, electronics, and household appliances, as well as private aviation travel.
The report defines “ambitious targets” as the following:
“Target level of ambition for consumption interventions that is more ‘ambitious,’ based on a future vision of resource-efficient production and extensive changes in consumer choices. This level was typically informed by expert judgment rather than existing research.”
Under meat and dairy consumption, the ‘ambitious target’ would be 0 kilograms of either for all citizens.
Of course, the idea that a large city in Texas is going to give up meat is absolutely bonkers. Barbecue is one of the biggest civil religions in Texas, only slightly behind football. You might as well ask Frenchmen to give up wine. And I’d really like to see leftwing apparatchiks attempt to close down every taqueria in Houston, as the beat-downs they’d receive would be epic.
We could ask why liberals continually push policies that they would hate living under themselves, but we all know the answer to that: They’ll never live under the rules they apply to others. You have to give up private vehicles and all air travel in the name of global warming, but they’ll feel no compunction in continuing to jet off to Davos because they’re special. The Gavin Newsoms of the world will always eat at the French Laundry, no matter how much they slam you for daring to leave your house to buy a hamburger.
Rules are for the little people. Nancy Pelosi will never give up here freezer full of high-end ice cream, but she’ll happily castigate you for daring to ignore the dictates of the ruling nomenklatura.
Those pushing eating the bugs will never have to eat the bugs themselves. The point is to make you eat the bugs…
The Europhilic, farmer-oppressing, climate cult-believing government of The Netherlands has fallen over immigration policies.
The Dutch government collapsed on Friday after failing to reach a deal on restricting immigration, which will trigger new elections in the fall.
The crisis was triggered by a push by Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s conservative VVD party to limit the flow of illegal immigrants to the Netherlands, which two of his four-party government coalition refused to support.
“It’s no secret that the coalition partners have differing opinions about immigration policy. Today we unfortunately have to conclude that those differences have become insurmountable. Therefore I will tender the resignation of the entire cabinet to the king,” Mr. Rutte said in a televised news conference.
Tensions came to a head this week, when Mr. Rutte demanded support for a proposal to limit entrance of children of war refugees who are already in the Netherlands and to make families wait at least two years before they can be united.
This latest proposal went too far for the small Christian Union and liberal D66, causing a stalemate.
Mr. Rutte’s coalition will stay on as a caretaker government until a new administration is formed after new elections, a process which in the fractured Dutch political landscape usually takes months.
News agency ANP, citing the national elections committee, said elections would not be held before mid-November.
Opposition parties in the Netherlands were pleased with the fall of the Rutte IV Cabinet. BBB frontwoman Caroline van der Plas tweeted a photo of herself smiling asking others to show the face they made when they heard the news.
“Goodbye Rutte, Kaag and the rest!” writes PVV leader Geert Wilders. He said he has requested a parliamentary debate.
PvdD leader Esther Ouwehand hopes for “the definitive end of the Rutte era.” She said, “Unprecedented that the prime minister created a new crisis in an attempt to save his own skin.”
Rutte’s government is the one that tried to seize land from farmers to prevent them from farming as part of their global warming/anti-meat/land seizure agenda. That government deserved to fall. Actually, what it deserved was having angry farmers armed with torches and hay rakes track members down in the streets and thrash them within an inch of their lives, but the Dutch haven’t been much in the revolution business since 1648.
From this remove, it would be nice if the elections could pave the way for a BBB/PVV Euroskeptic coalition focused on property rights, abandoning insane climate change mandates, restricting Islamist immigration, and protecting free markets and free speech. But European politics seldom proceeds along such (to us) logical lines.
A Chinese company based out of Hong Kong which paid at least $3 million to several members of the Biden family has since been revealed to have ties with the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
According to the Daily Caller, State Energy HK Limited sent $3 million via wire transfer to Robinson Walker LLC, a company run by an associate of the Biden family named John Robinson Walker. The wire transfer took place in March of 2017, shortly after Joe Biden’s term as Vice President came to an end, according to a report released on Thursday by the House Oversight Committee.
One of the direct subsidiaries of State Energy HK is State Energy Group International Assets Holdings Limited (SEIAH). At the time of the wire transfer, SEIAH’s chairman was Ren Qingxin, who previously worked for the CCP as a representative at a business organization.
Shortly after the $3 million transfer, Ren was succeeded in his leadership position by Lei Donghui, who had been a member of the CCP since 2002, where he served as Secretary General of the International Engineering Business Bureau of China State Construction (CSC). CSC has since been designated by the Department of Defense as a “Communist China military company.”
Subsequently, the $3 million sent to Robinson Walker was then transferred to four different members of the Biden family: Joe Biden’s son Hunter, brother James, daughter-in-law Hallie, and a fourth unidentified family member, the Oversight Committee reports. The transfers were sent in several transactions, both to the family members directly and to several of their companies, including Owasco PC, JBBSR Inc, and RSTP II, LLC.
The previously-unknown involvement of Hallie – the widow of Biden’s elder son Beau, who later became Hunter’s girlfriend after Beau’s death – has proven to be one of the biggest bombshells yet in the GOP’s investigations into Biden family corruption.
Dutch Farmer’s Party poised to win 16 or 17 seats in parliament thanks to opposing that country’s mad global warming anti-meat mandates. “The Boer-Burger Beweging (BBB), or Farmer-Citizen Movement, is set to become the largest party in the country’s senate, winning more seats than Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s ruling conservative VVD party.”
Red Guards come to Maine. “Kristen Day said students affiliated with one of RSU 14’s Civil Rights Teams harassed her daughter. When her daughter refused to speak about her sexuality, two students affiliated with the club began to bully her and call her homophobic.” (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
Eric Weinstein on Joe Rogan about what really happened with Kayne West. He suggests that West’s Hitler comments were simply him trying to channel Thomas à Kempis.
