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27 Mar 16:46

THE NEW SPACE RACE: Boeing, NASA target May 1 for first crewed flight of Starliner to the space stat

by Stephen Green
Jts5665

Hope it works better than Boeing's other products.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: Boeing, NASA target May 1 for first crewed flight of Starliner to the space station.

Because this is a test flight, Wilmore and Williams, both astronauts with military test pilot experience, will perform some manual maneuvers during the trip to the ISS as well as on the return to Earth. Most of these actions won’t be needed during routine ferry flights to the station outside of emergency situations.

“What’s really kind of cool about Starliner is that it’s very much a pilot’s spacecraft. It’s really maneuverable,” Lammers said. “There’s close to 50 reaction-control and orbital maneuvering jets on it and there’s a stick. And what’s really cool about it is, when you have astronauts that are pilots, they really gravitate towards using it.”

Godspeed…

27 Mar 14:17

Saving Democracy From Itself: The Democratic National Committee Moves To Block Third Party Candidates

by jonathanturley

Below is my column in the New York Post on a reported plan of the Democratic National Committee and allied groups to try to block third-party candidates from the 2024 ballot. The contradiction is stunning as these groups raise money to “save democracy” by limiting democratic choice. In the meantime, the leading third-party candidate Robert Kennedy, Jr. will be reportedly announcing his running mate this week.

Here is the column:

The last time that the Chicago Democratic Convention was held in Chicago in 1968, the resulting riots led to one of the greatest Freudian slips in American politics. Mayor Richard Daley declared “the policeman isn’t there to create disorder; the policeman is there to preserve disorder.”

The Democratic National Committee has now added its own gem: the Democratic Party is not here to preserve democracy, it is here to prevent democracy.

That’s because the DNC is seeking to block third party candidates from ballots — Robert Kennedy Jr., Cornell West, and Jill Stein. All three are liberal and are considered a threat to Joe Biden.

This effort will likely include any ticket put forward by the No Labels group, seeking a moderate alternative to the two parties.

Mary Beth Cahill, the former interim DNC CEO, and long-time DNC staffer Ramsey Reid  will lead this effort. According to media reports, former Buttigieg campaign aide Lis Smith will lead the effort with another Buttigieg alumni, Matt Corridoni. This effort includes not just a public campaign against Kennedy and Stein as spoilers, but “legal action” to solve the problem by denying voters a choice.

The media does not appear at all alarmed or critical of the effort to limit democratic choice. The Washington Post stated clinically “Democrats are taking third-party threats seriously this time.” Taking it seriously appears to mean using legal means to keep them from the ballots.

It is true that the main political parties have challenged qualification signatures and paperwork in the past. However, the reports indicate a systemic effort geared toward reducing the choices for voters. What is striking is that this is coming from democratic groups and the DNC, which are raising money on the “save democracy” narrative.

The contradiction is spellbinding. On the same sites promising to oppose the third party candidates, the DNC and other groups push the narrative that only the Democrats are working to protect the right to vote.

The Post reports that Democrats have studied the Hillary Clinton campaign and vowed not to allow third party candidates to drain away millions of voters as they did in 2016. Of course, the comparison is particularly telling because in both 2016 and 2024, the DNC chose the least popular Democratic candidates. Polls showed that Clinton was the worst possible candidate for the party, but the Clintons had control over the DNC and state party organizations.

Of particular concern is the fact that Trump beat Hillary Clinton in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan by only 67,000 votes. In just those states, Libertarian Gary Johnson and the Green Party’s Stein received more than half a million votes.

Rather than actually pick a candidate that most citizens want, the DNC wants to replay the 2016 strategy of forcing the choice between two evils in a Biden-Trump choice. That can only work reliably if there is no other choice for citizens tired of the duopoly and the political (and media) establishment. So Kennedy, Cornell, and Stein just have to go.

I am one of those misguided voters. Years ago, I wrote a column saying that I was tired of voting for the lesser of two evils — leaving every election as a moral hazard. I am prepared to vote for candidates from the two main parties in any given election, but I will only vote for the candidate who I believe is the best of candidates to be president. We are played as chumps by a political and media establishment in every election system. Over two decades ago, I pledged to vote for the best candidate, even if they are with a third party.

The DNC is reportedly to be joined in this effort by a well-financed array of groups including the liberal think tank Third Way (which has filed complaints with secretaries of states); American Bridge (a Democratic opposition operation), and Clear Choice (a super PAC composed of “allies of President Biden”).

While these groups work to limit the choice of voters, the effort continues in Florida, Georgia, Washington, and New York to keep Trump in court until the election, including a possible trial running up to or even through the election.

There is hope that this multi-front effort will be the winning ticket, particularly if the ultimate ticket denies voters any other choice.

The open discussion of these efforts in the media illustrates the contempt for voters, who need to be protected from their bad choices. I have previously compared the underlying assumptions to a type of electoral Big Gulp law. Before they were also struck down, these laws sought to take away the dietary choices of citizens because they were making the wrong choice in the view of experts.

Activists are now big gulping the election. Voters cannot be trusted with something as important as democracy.

President Biden has said “make no mistake: Democracy is on the ballot for all of us.” Of course, he could end this effort by denouncing further ballot cleansing (something he refused to do when Trump was removed by the Colorado and Maine ballots). It appears that the last thing that democracy needs is free democratic choice.

Jonathan Turley is an attorney and professor at George Washington University Law School.

 

27 Mar 01:27

Neuralink | Paralyzed man posts on twitter, just by thinking.

by Kane
27 Mar 00:12

THIS IS THE WAY TO BET ON “HATE CRIMES:” Palestinian ‘hate-crime’ hoax: Statistics show that a

by Glenn Reynolds
26 Mar 23:53

NEXT UP ON COMPANIES THAT HATE THEIR CONSUMERS:  Hasbro Just Ended Dungeons & Dragons Forever [

by Sarah Hoyt

NEXT UP ON COMPANIES THAT HATE THEIR CONSUMERS:  Hasbro Just Ended Dungeons & Dragons Forever [VIDEO]

26 Mar 23:51

THE ISSUE IS NEVER THE ISSUE. THE ISSUE IS ALWAYS THE REVOLUTION. Proof eco-extremists don’t wan

by Glenn Reynolds

THE ISSUE IS NEVER THE ISSUE. THE ISSUE IS ALWAYS THE REVOLUTION. Proof eco-extremists don’t want to fix the problem, they want to tear down society.

This week, Harvard University has shut down a Bill Gates-funded geoengineering experiment. The controversial Stratospheric Controlled Perturbation Experiment, or SCoPEx, run by professors David Keith and Frank Keutsch, aimed to study the potential future implementation of geoengineering by crop dusting sulphuric acid into our stratosphere. Nice.

Even if you put aside the almost instant validity such an experiment would give to conspiracy theories like chemtrails and HAARP, it still sounds a bit too much, playing with our thin air like that — in an unprecedented, and potentially catastrophic, manner, too.

But let’s not kid ourselves. The plug wasn’t pulled over fears of playing fast and loose with the venusformation of Earth’s atmosphere.

Nor was it due to the Harvard faculty’s occasional (yet frequent) dalliance with plagiarism or concerns over the lack of diversity within the ivory tower.

No, according to the MIT Technology Review, it was something else entirely: “Even studying the possibility of solar geoengineering eases the societal pressure to cut greenhouse gas emissions,” it clarified.

Not only are you not supposed to solve the problem. You’re not supposed to think about solving the problem. Because the problem is the source of their power.

26 Mar 23:46

AND NOW FOR SOME GOOD EDUCATION NEWS: Classical ed — seen as ‘a white child’s education’ — is thri

by Stephen Green

AND NOW FOR SOME GOOD EDUCATION NEWS: Classical ed — seen as ‘a white child’s education’ — is thriving in the Bronx.

Are the liberal arts conservative?, asks Emma Green in a New Yorker story about the revival of “classical education.” A growing number of classical-ed charter and private schools are offering “a traditional liberal-arts education, often focusing on the Western canon and the study of citizenship.”

Unlike many traditional public schools, “classical schools prize memory work, asking students to internalize math formulas and recite poems,” she writes.

Reading lists aren’t trendy. “One New York City public-high-school reading list includes graphic novels, Michelle Obama’s memoir, and a coming-of-age book about identity featuring characters named Aristotle and Dante,” writes Green. “In classical schools, high-school students read Aristotle and Dante.”

At Brilla, a charter-school network in the South Bronx, the middle school is calm and phone free, she writes.

“Classical education is often seen as a white child’s education,” says Stephanie Saroki de Garcia, who co-founded Brilla using the slogan: “This is what the elite get.”

Yet Brilla, located in the poorest neighborhood of the Bronx, is filled with English Learners from Central America and West Africa, writes Green. Nearly 90 percent of students come from lower-income black and Hispanic families.

Brilla students attend a daily character class, “where they talk about how to live out the different virtues reflected in the texts they read,” she writes. Most classical schools emphasize ethics, not just academics.

More like this, please:

26 Mar 23:43

Newest vehicle emission standards rattling car dealers amid slumping demand

by The Center Square Staff
By January, with no response from the Biden administration – and their numbers growing to over 5,000 dealerships – a second letter was sent urging the president to “slam the brakes.”
22 Mar 20:37

In August 2021, when IRS investigators were preparing to meet with Kevin Morris, the CIA intervened to stop the interview. The CIA summoned two DOJ officials to CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia for a briefing regarding Mr. Morris. At that meeting, it was communicated that Mr. Morris could not be a witness in the investigation.

by Kane
22 Mar 15:20

THAT ISN’T SUSTAINABLE: Most Carmakers Lose An Average Of $6,000 On Every Electric Vehicle They Sell

by Stephen Green

THAT ISN’T SUSTAINABLE: Most Carmakers Lose An Average Of $6,000 On Every Electric Vehicle They Sell. “We estimate that most OEMs currently lose around $6,000 on each EV they effectively sell for $50,000, after accounting for customer tax credits. We also estimate that OEMs will only be able to close half of this cost gap by making the right technology choices; economies of scale as automakers ramp up production will help, too, but they won’t make up the difference. Then there is the impact of looming Chinese imports to consider; market prices will likely contract further, exacerbating the profitability challenge. At some point, it will become untenable for OEMs to lose money on every vehicle they sell.”

Sounds like a bloodbath in the making but Biden is all-in, regardless: The EPA Is About to Outlaw Your Car.

21 Mar 20:28

DUMBEST MANAGEMENT MOVE SINCE DYLAN MULVANEY: Users ditch Glassdoor, stunned by site adding real na

by Glenn Reynolds

DUMBEST MANAGEMENT MOVE SINCE DYLAN MULVANEY: Users ditch Glassdoor, stunned by site adding real names without consent. “Glassdoor, where employees go to leave anonymous reviews of employers, has recently begun adding real names to user profiles without users’ consent, a Glassdoor user named Monica was shocked to discover last week.”

21 Mar 20:27

K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: California teen dies from brain injuries from high school fight, mom claims.

by Glenn Reynolds

K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: California teen dies from brain injuries from high school fight, mom claims. “Juarez, a single mom of two, claimed Mejia often returned home covered in bruises after she enrolled at the public school in south LA eight months ago. The distraught mother allegedly took pictures and documented her daughter’s injuries to report them to school officials and campus police, but her pleas for help reportedly went unheard, according to KTLA. . . . The grieving mother blamed the tragedy on the school after she reported the videos to the officials and claimed nothing was done with the bullies.”

Well, it’s not as if they’d misgendered her.

21 Mar 16:28

Secret RCMP report warns Canadians may revolt ‘once they realize how broke they are.’

by Kane
21 Mar 16:28

Why did Wikipedia delete this part of the 1966 strategy to tank a nation that's getting lots of chatter online? 🤔

by Not the Bee
Jts5665

That seems like confirmation that the strategy is being followed...

In 1966, American sociologists Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven outlined a strategy for toppling the United States, and it's gone viral this last week. See if you can spot why.

21 Mar 16:19

THE EXODUS IS HERE: $1.8B Sony movie studio backed by Mark Wahlberg approved for Summerlin.

by Glenn Reynolds
20 Mar 23:18

"It's Not About Trump": American CJ Hopkins, Charged Again in Germany, Describes Global Censorship Effort

by Matt Taibbi
Jts5665

Is Germany retreading the path of tyranny?

The German people are famous for putting everything in print, even things they shouldn’t, and in this instance at least, American playwright and author CJ Hopkins is glad. “The irony,” he says, laughing. “The Germans, always documenting everything.”

In a letter from the Berlin Prosecutor’s file on Hopkins, the Bundeskriminalamt (BKA, analogous to our FBI) acknowledges receipt of a document from a government office describing an effort to have tweets deleted. “The Hessen Gegen Hetze reporting office,” the highlighted portion reads, “has already initiated measures to delete the relevant post on the social network”:

Hopkins reached out to me after listening in disgust to the Murthy v. Missouri Supreme Court hearing Monday. Standing was a big issue: our government said plaintiffs like Drs. Jay Bhattacharya and Aaron Kheriaty lacked definite proof that the government was responsible for suppressing their speech. No such issue exists in CJ’s case, as you can see.

Hopkins also wanted Americans who might be up in arms about the specter of legalized censorship in their own country to see that the phenomenon has also spread to virtually every Western democracy, often in more extreme forms than we’ve seen so far in the United States.

CJ’s unique insight involves his ludicrous German case, which as you’ll read in the Q&A below has taken bizarre turns since we last checked and will now go to trial yet again. As an expat following the American situation from afar, he’s seen how the authoritarian tide is rising in similar or worse ways all around the globe.

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Hopkins is facing the business end of the German version, among the worst. As detailed last June, he was charged with “disseminating propaganda, the contents of which are intended to further the aims of a former National Socialist organization.” The crime? Using a barely detectible Swastika in the cover image of his book, The Rise of the New Normal Reich. Far from “furthering the aims” of Nazism, he was criticizing them by comparing Nazi methods and laws to those of modern health authorities. The offending image:

Hopkins went to trial in January and delivered an impassioned plea to the court. “Every journalist that has covered my case, everyone in this courtroom, understands what this prosecution is actually about,” he said. “It has nothing to do with punishing people who actually disseminate pro-Nazi propaganda. It is about punishing dissent, and making an example of dissidents in order to intimidate others into silence.”

Though the judge was clearly not a fan of Hopkins — a courtroom account by Aya Velázquez, which I recommend reading, described how the judge said CJ’s statements were “ideological drivel,” just “not punishable by law” — he won on the law.

After acquittal, he was made aware that technically the case wasn’t over, because thanks to a quirk of German jurisprudence, the prosecutor had a week to file an appeal. Hopkins was unconcerned. “I doubt he will [re-file]. He made a total fool of himself in front of a large audience yesterday,” he wrote. “I can’t imagine that he will want to do that again.”

Bzzt! Wrong. The prosecutor re-filed charges. The prosecutorial theory in the Hopkins case was based on a bizarre interpretation of hate crime, essentially asserting that if you have to think about an image to realize it’s satire, it can’t be allowed. If that idea spreads, it would make comedy or even sharp commentary impossible. This is why his indictment, and the similar investigation of Roger Waters, are really serious moments. Not to be heavy-handed, but eliminating the loophole for satire or mockery is exactly what Waters meant by “Another Brick in the Wall.” Before you know it, it’ll be too high to see over:

MT: You got charged again?

CJ Hopkins: No… I got acquitted. I went to trial on the 23rd of January, and I wrote this up and I’ll send it to you so you can just look at the whole account. But at the trial I made a big aggressive statement that people republished all over the place. The judge acquitted me, and then called me all kinds of names and then put on her covid mask and stalked out of the courtroom. She called me a Schwurbler, which in German is kind of an idiot, I guess a babbler or someone.

Anyway, I read that statement, which pissed them all off, but she said, “Okay, you’re an idiot, but that’s not against the law, so you’re acquitted.” So I thought, “Great. This is over. I’m acquitted.” The prosecutor had no case whatsoever, and it was really embarrassing, and I figured it was all done, but my attorney reminded me: oh no, the prosecutor can appeal. Which he did. So now I’m facing another trial in appeals court. It’s not new charges, it’s the same charge, but the prosecutor’s appeal of my acquittal.

MT: The double jeopardy thing isn’t big in Germany, I take it?

CJ Hopkins: No.

MT: Are they going to make a different argument?

CJ Hopkins: I have no idea what they’re going to do. They have no argument… I mean, they put my tweets up on an overhead projector, like we were back in high school, and interrogated me about whether the Swastika was on top of the mask or behind the mask, that sort of thing. The prosecutor’s argument was basically, “We don’t believe that Mr. Hopkins is a Nazi, or pro-Nazi, we don’t believe he was trying to spread Nazi propaganda, but he nonetheless spread Nazi propaganda. because his tweet” – and this is a great part of their argument – “because if people saw his tweets, they would have to stop and think for a minute to figure out what they meant.”

MT: Essentially you can’t have satire, because that requires a person to have at least one thought.

CJ Hopkins: You can’t make people think. You’ve got to have beat-you-over-the-head messaging. I think the whole point of this… I’m sure it’s like the plea-bargain thing in the States. They figure if they hit you with a 3,600 Euro fine, you’re going to pay three times that much to fight it in court, so you’re just going to pay the fine and go away. I don’t think they ever expected to end up in court, and I have no idea what the prosecutor is doing with this appeal. The judge a few weeks later submitted a written verdict, which is strongly in my favor. She pretty much reiterated my attorney’s arguments and made it absolutely clear that what I did falls under the exceptions to the statute, and there’s nothing here to prosecute. Nonetheless, the prosecution’s going ahead.

MT: Did you have much Western news coverage?

CJ Hopkins: Right before the trial I had you, then Neue Zürcher Zeitung, which is the big paper of record in Switzerland, and James Kirchick at The Atlantic, who was a big help. I think it put a lot of pressure on the judge. My lawyer made her aware that Germany was being portrayed as a laughingstock in the international press. Aside from The Atlantic, it was all independent alternative media.

MT: In the Murthy Supreme Court case in the States Monday, there was an issue with what they call “traceability.” I see you don’t have a traceability issue, with this document from your case file?

CJ Hopkins: Exactly. That’s why I sent it to you. Unquestionably, this is a government office, directly involved with removing the tweets. The other thing that I was going to say, is that I’m looking at things like the Supreme Court case from a non-U.S. perspective. I’m outside of it. I’m watching the legislation that’s getting rolled out in Ireland and the UK and what’s happening to me here and what’s going on in the States, and it’s so obviously much broader than just a red-blue political story in the US. This is happening throughout the Western democratic countries.

I’m just desperate to get that across to people. I think it’s so easy for people to get locked into what’s going on in their own country and not see the bigger picture.

MT: What’s an example?  

CJ Hopkins: There was just a piece in The Herald, in Scotland. The police were being trained there on how to crack down on abusive hate speech. According to this new legislation that’s rolling out and in the training manual, they were saying this could take place in comic performances or stage plays. People are being arrested in the UK for protest signs.

If I can just put one little bug in your head, Matt, to whatever degree you can tweak people and let them know: “Hey, it’s not just Trump and the Democrats and the liberals and the woke people and all that.” This is happening all over the West, in all these different countries. I think that’s one thing that my case does, it provides folks with an opportunity to remind them that this is happening all over. The old rules don’t apply.

MT: Good luck with your case.

CJ Hopkins: Take care.

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20 Mar 21:17

HMM: Keto diet found to slow early stages of Alzheimer’s disease in mice.

by Glenn Reynolds
20 Mar 20:46

This team of "Squatter Hunters" uses squatting laws to reacquire homes for their owners because the authorities are useless 💪

by Not the Bee

Flash Shelton found his calling in life after his father passed away in 2019 and squatters took over his parents' house in northern California.

20 Mar 18:04

GOODER AND HARDER, CALIFORNIA: Sophisticated ‘burglary tourists’ fly from South America to rob w

by Ed Driscoll

GOODER AND HARDER, CALIFORNIA: Sophisticated ‘burglary tourists’ fly from South America to rob wealthy homes, LAPD says.

In the desert around Scottsdale, Ariz., on Monday, police officers hunted for a member of an international heist ring suspected of swiping jewels and luxury goods from homes across Los Angeles. Using helicopters and drones, they eventually found him hiding under a tree.

The wanted man, it turned out, was a 17-year-old from Chile.

Authorities say the teenager and his two adult accomplices later admitted to breaking into multiple homes, part of a growing trend of “burglary tourism” from South America.

The Los Angeles Police Department said the teenage fugitive was first arrested Feb. 29 in Pacific Palisades along with three other Chileans as they cased homes in the wealthy enclave. Police tracked down the crew after a security camera captured the license plate of their 2024 Hyundai Tucson amid a series of burglaries across East Hollywood.

Increasingly over the last five years, police officials say, thieves from South American nations have entered the U.S. for the purpose of committing robberies. In the case of Chile, authorities suspect some criminals are taking advantage of the tourist visa system, which does not require a background check for travelers. Once in the country, police say, they plan heist sprees and fence the loot before dispatching their earnings back home.

LAPD Deputy Chief Alan Hamilton told The Times that South American theft groups are not new in L.A., but they have become more active in recent months.

Although crime statistics show burglaries are on the decline overall, Hamilton said: “The number of crimes tied to these kind of crews are way, way up.”

Unexpectedly. Or as John Nolte asks, “Why wouldn’t these gangs target wealthy neighborhoods in Democrat-run cities? Democrat-run cities are now magnets for every terrible thing in the world: an invasion of illegal aliens, violent criminals, burglaries, drug abuse, and pervasive homelessness. The moment you tolerate this behavior, you invite more of it. FYI: we don’t have these problems out here.”

But just think of the problems you do have!

20 Mar 16:47

FIGHT THE POWER: Texas yanks $8.5B from Larry Fink’s BlackRock in ‘massive blow against the scam

by Stephen Green

FIGHT THE POWER: Texas yanks $8.5B from Larry Fink’s BlackRock in ‘massive blow against the scam of ESG.’

The State of Texas is terminating a massive $8.5 billion investment with trillion-dollar asset manager BlackRock over the state’s determination that the firm is engaged in a boycott of energy companies.

In an announcement first shared with FOX Business, Texas State Board of Education Chairman Aaron Kinsey said the so-called Texas Permanent School Fund (PSF) had delivered a notice to BlackRock on Tuesday, informing the New York City-based firm of the action.

According to Kinsey, the move was made in accordance with a 2021 state law that seeks to distance the state and its large public purse from financial institutions boycotting the oil and gas sector.

Why should Texas do business with its destroyers?

20 Mar 15:46

Eat the Rich: Warren Plan Would Impose Wealth Tax, Captivity Tax, and $100 Billion for Increasing Tax Audits

by jonathanturley

The wealth tax is back.  We have previously discussed the constitutional and policy concerns surrounding the push by Democrats like Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) to introduce a wealth tax that would start with billionaires. It would not likely end there. The law would also apply the same type of California approach to wealthy families fleeing the tax grab with a huge “exit tax” so that there is no escaping from tax vortex. In addition, under the Ultra-Millionaire Tax Act, Warren and others would add $100 billion to increase tax audit and investigations.

The captivity tax highlights the wealth-redistribution mindset underlying Warren’s “experiment.” Warren thrilled audiences for years by telling the rich she was coming after “your Rembrandts, your stock portfolio, your diamonds and your yachts.” In one Democratic debate, she got applause by rubbing her hands together after stating that she would take some of the wealth of fellow candidate John Delaney, a self-made millionaire worth $65 million. She has now made good on that threat.

The reintroduction of Ultra-Millionaire Tax Act would add a 2% tax on households worth $50 million to $1 billion and a 3% tax on households worth more than $1 billion.

Warren is again repeating that talking point of President Joe Biden that billionaires pay less than the average citizen in taxes. That has been repeatedly challenged. The claim is based on dubious accounting. A commonly cited White House study from September, 2021 included unrealized capital gains in its analysis – something that neither wealthy nor middle class citizens are taxed on. Warren and Biden want that to change but it is a false measure on the current tax burden.

It is also worth noting that “the top 1 percent’s income share rose from 22.2 percent in 2020 to 26.3 percent in 2021 and its share of federal income taxes paid rose from 42.3 percent to 45.8 percent.”  The top 50 percent of all taxpayers paid 97.7 percent federal income taxes,. The bottom 50 percent paid the only 2.3 percent.

We previously discussed the push in California to impose a retroactive tax on the many citizens and companies fleeing that state due to its high taxes and other problems. Warren wants to do the same nationally. So if businesses are fleeing the country due to these policies, they would have to essentially pay for the freedom in a type of captivity tax.  It is incredibly short-sighted.  We need these businesses and we will not be able to coerce them into saying by trying to make it more expensive to leave. Indeed, the captivity tax only magnifies the impression of a tax system that is becoming an extension of the eat-the-rich rhetoric used by Warren and others.

Politicians have long turned to the “Eat the rich!” battle cry when things are not working out politically or economically. When struggling in the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) pledged a wealth taxdeclaring that she was coming after “the diamonds, the yachts, and the Rembrandts too.” Then-New York City Mayor Bill DeBlasio, another Democratic contender at the time, was barely registering in the polls when he promised that “we will tax the hell out of the wealthy.”

The Warren proposal would turn the eat-you-rich rhetoric to an all-you-can eat tax plan for the government.

There are major constitutional concerns raised by the plan to tax unrealized capital gains. However, this is clearly playing well with much of the base of the party.

The Wharton Budget Model at the University of Pennsylvania did find that Warren’s legislation would raise $2.7 trillion in revenue but it would also reduce capital by 3.1%, depress average hourly wages by 1.2% and reduce gross domestic product (GDP) by 1.2% in 2050.

20 Mar 13:19

Woke doctors thought a tool that accounts for ethnic differences in kidney function was racist, so they removed it and screwed up the entire kidney transplant database 😑

by Not the Bee

Modern medicine has known for years that there are some basic physiological differences between ethnicities that require different types of healthcare.

20 Mar 13:15

THE DEEP STATE: Elon Musk reveals Twitter had FBI ‘portal that auto-deleted all comms’ after 2 weeks

by Stephen Green

THE DEEP STATE: Elon Musk reveals Twitter had FBI ‘portal that auto-deleted all comms’ after 2 weeks.

He added that the move struck him “as a FOIA violation, a Freedom of Information Act violation…because you shouldn’t be able to delete orderly things after two weeks.”

Musk also revealed that “there’s a little-known agency in the state department called the Global Engagement Center, which most people have never heard of, but they might have been the single worst offender because they demanded the suspension of over 250,000 accounts which I think all Twitter largely complied with.”

“The suspension demands were so broad that they accidentally demanded a suspension of a journalist on CNN and an elected Canadian politician. It was just an incredibly broad swath.”

Meanwhile, at the New York Times: It Turns Out the ‘Deep State’ Is Actually Kind of Awesome.

19 Mar 19:58

I HAD BEEN ASSURED THE SCIENCE WAS SETTLED: There is no Dark Matter and the Universe is Twice as Old

by Stephen Green

I HAD BEEN ASSURED THE SCIENCE WAS SETTLED: There is no Dark Matter and the Universe is Twice as Old as We Thought.

Gupta went on to state that if the universe is 26.7 billion years old as his team believes, “the Universe does not require dark matter to exist.” I’m obviously nowhere near smart enough to grasp everything these eggheads are talking about, but the layman’s explanation for this part of it boils down to missing data. Previous studies all suggested that the universe is expanding faster than it should be based on the amount of physical matter we are able to observe in space. That’s why physicists had to dream up dark matter (and its corresponding partner, dark energy) to explain what was being observed. But the vastly larger universe now being posited would allow for the apparent motion of all of the heavenly bodies.

Dark matter always seemed like a cop-out to me — insisting that something invisible must be there to make the theory work, instead of figuring out what might be wrong with the theory.

If Gupta is correct, now we just need to figure out how we got the age of the universe so wrong…

19 Mar 14:18

The Conclusion Humans Drive Atmospheric CO2 Increases Is Undermined By Carbon Isotope Data

by Kenneth Richard

“From modern instrumental carbon isotopic data of the last 40 years, no signs of human (fossil fuel) CO2 emissions can be discerned.” – Koutsoyiannis, 2024

It is routinely claimed that a telltale sign human emissions (fossil fuels) have irrevocably altered the atmospheric CO2 concentration is a declining trend in carbon isotope 13 (δ13C), considered an interruption of natural carbon cycle processes.

But new research examining isotopic data from four observation sites (South Pole, Mauna Loa, Barrow, La Jolla – regarded as “global” in their coverage) indicates there is no isotopic pattern consistent with a human fingerprint.

“The standard metric δ13C is consistent with an input isotopic signature that is stable over the entire period of observations (>40 years), i.e., not affected by increases in human CO2 emissions.”

In fact, not only has the input isotopic CO2 signature not been declining as proposed by those who believe humans are fully responsible for the increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration, but, according to multiple detection techniques using both modern data and paleo data extending to the Little Ice Age (16th to mid-19th century), δ13C [input] has actually been increasing.

This directionality is the exact opposite of what is supposed to happen if fossil fuels were driving atmospheric CO2 increases.

“…for the longer subperiod lengths, 20 and 30 years, the tendencies are clearly increasing, opposite to the hypothesis that they are caused by fossil fuel emissions”

“…the trends are small and always positive, again contradicting the fossil fuel origin of the phenomenon”

“…from period B to C [1899-1976 to 1977-1997], we note an increase in δ13C [input,  from -13.9‰ to -12.9‰], contradicting the fossil fuel origin of the phenomenon”

Image Source: Koutsoyiannis, 2024
19 Mar 13:53

Jack Smith must now decide whether to allow jurors to peruse through every single (personal) classified document found at Mar-A-Lago or give jurors PRA instructions that would (effectively) order the jury to automatically acquit President Trump.

by Kane
18 Mar 19:43

ABOUT TIME: Landmark moment as birth control pill goes on sale online in US for first time TODAY – f

by Stephen Green
17 Mar 22:12

WATCHING THE SAUSAGE BEING MADE: ‘Hoax-Making in Progress:’ You Know Biden/Media Are Panicking With

by Ed Driscoll

WATCHING THE SAUSAGE BEING MADE: ‘Hoax-Making in Progress:’ You Know Biden/Media Are Panicking With Latest Fake Story Pushed About Trump. “Other useful idiots, like Bill Kristol, jumped aboard, spreading this absurd lie, saying that you had a “moral and civic obligation to vote against him (he later edited his tweet to remove the video). ABC, CBS, Yahoo, and NBC then all jumped aboard the propaganda train. Here’s a sample — the only one in there that was honest in the title was The Daily Beast.”

16 Mar 18:37

THE PURPOSE OF A SYSTEM IS WHAT IT DOES: Universities Are Making Us Dumber.

by Glenn Reynolds

THE PURPOSE OF A SYSTEM IS WHAT IT DOES: Universities Are Making Us Dumber.

16 Mar 14:37

USAID 'Disinformation Primer' targets gamers, advertisers, memes, 'right not to be disinformed'

by Greg Piper
State Department component acknowledges the "inherent contradiction between the democratic ideal of free speech and the regulation of online content," and risk of giving authoritarians another excuse to crack down.