Jts5665

CIA HARDEST HIT: Taliban successfully eradicates poppy cultivation: Report. Afghan poppy cultivation, which long provided most of the world’s heroin supply, flourished for decades due to US intervention in the country.

#JOURNALISM:

Billionaire Biden campaign donor Pierre Omidyar financed the "misinformation reporting" portal used by the Department of Homeland Security to flag social media posts for removal during the 2020 election, new document shows https://t.co/P7H6yXPirw

— Lee Fang (@lhfang) June 9, 2023

TAURINE: Nutrient found in high-protein foods helps slow aging in animals — and maybe humans, too.

HMM: Coincidence? Trump Indictment Drops Same Day Biden Bribery Docs Revealed.

ELECTION INTERFERENCE: Trump Indicted in Miami.

NEWS: Trump writes on Truth Social that his attorneys have been informed that he has been indicted in the classified docs probe

He says he been summoned to appear at the Federal Courthouse in Miami on Tuesday, at 3 PM pic.twitter.com/m88oBnG3SX

— Alayna Treene (@alaynatreene) June 8, 2023

Question: Does this mean the Democrats are afraid of him? Or that they want him to be the nominee and figure an indictment will cement his support?

HMM: China May Be Headed for a Lost Decade.

The apparent failure of the Chinese economy to regain its past rapid economic growth path following the ending of the Covid restrictions should have come as no surprise to those who had been paying attention to the bursting of the Chinese housing and credit market bubbles. This is especially the case considering that those bubbles exceeded the size of those that preceded Japan’s lost economic decade in the 1990s and that preceded the U.S. recession of 2007-2009.

Chinese non-public-sector credit has increased by more than a staggering 100% of gross domestic product since 2008, according to the Bank of International Settlements, since 2008. Meanwhile, housing prices in relation to incomes in a number of major Chinese cities increased to levels exceeding those in London and New York, a study by Harvard’s Kenneth Rogoff found.

Anyone doubting that the Chinese housing and credit market bubble has burst need only recall that last year Evergrande, along with 20 other Chinese property market developers, defaulted on its debt. They also might take note of the fact that Chinese housing prices have declined in each of the last 12 months and that a number of major local governments are now running into difficulties in repaying their debt as land sales have screeched to a halt.

This is all not to say that China is likely to experience a U.S.-style bust led by a housing and credit market collapse. Rather, it is to say that the Chinese government’s efforts to prop up the housing market and the ailing local governments will leave little credit available for the more productive sectors of its economy. That in turn threatens to usher in a lost Chinese economic decade a la Japan’s of the 1990s.

China can’t afford to lose a decade if they have any hope of beating the “grow old before they grow rich” prophecy.

This kind of tone-deaf incompetency can't be accidental. It has to be deliberate. Has to be.

ABOLISH THE FBI: FBI asked Twitter to censor journalists on behalf of Ukraine.. “What was particularly of note in this attempt was the direct targeting of journalists who were not toeing the line on the war in Ukraine. I happen to (mostly) support Ukraine in its efforts to defeat Russia’s aggression, for the simple reason that Ukraine was clearly the victim of the conflict. That doesn’t mean that Ukraine has the right to expect that every person in the United States should be drafted into their war effort, and it certainly doesn’t justify the suppression of basic rights at the behest of the US government on behalf of an ally.”

THE PERFECT UNDERSTATEMENT DOESN’T EXIS–:  GOP Primary Voters Don’t Want Mike Pence.

In 2022, a Michigan man shot an old woman in the back as she was leaving his property, narrowly missing her spine, because he considered her a right-wing extremist.

THE COMPREHENSIVE CASE AGAINST RENOMINATING TRUMP: Qunn Hilyer: A Trump nomination would bring GOP victories to a screeching halt.

Trump’s laziness and incompetence are confirmed by those who were closest to him. When a single disgruntled former staffer hurls accusations at his former boss, such complaints may be dismissed as sour grapes. But when numerous former aides, each of high independent stature, all recount the same serious horror stories of an out-of-control president, reasonable people should believe them. Former Gens. H.R. McMaster, James Mattis, and John Kelly, two-time Attorney General William Barr, and longtime foreign policy leader John Bolton were Trump’s “best men.” But he drove them all away to tell harrowing tales of catastrophes averted only because Trump was so easily distracted that he did not follow through on his worst instincts.

JOHN KERRY, REPORTING FOR DOOTY: Kerry compares climate battle to D-Day.

While Kerry said there were key differences between the fight against Nazi Germany and the battle to ease global warming, there are similarities.

“Make no mistake, just as that was a fight for the future as much as anything we have ever faced, what we are seeing now is the same,” he said.

Kerry said the world was now in a decisive decade and the price of failure could carry greater consequences than those faced during the D-Day landings if the right choices are not made.

“What is also clear right now is we can also win this fight, but it requires the same level of innovation and mobilisation that was required back then by those in the greatest generation,” he said.

Unlike the fight against Hitler’s forces, the climate battle is not one against a single enemy, Kerry reasoned. “Today’s threat comes from all of us. It comes from the result of the things we do or avoid doing,” he said.

The moral equivalent of war has been the organizing principle of the left since the start of the 20th century, trapping them in the moral equivalent of a quagmire, with no sign of an exit strategy in sight. In response, Tim Blair is succinct: If radical environmentalism is refighting WWII, “Fair enough. Nuking Hiroshima it is, then.”

Barring that, when does Kerry demand his fellow elites curtail their private plane usage? And when does he order DC to give up its air conditioning?

Most of us, when we go out fishing, just hope to take a couple of blue gill or bass out of the water and call it a day.

The story is incredible: Mt. Everest climbing guide Gelje Sherpa was leading a private client to the top of the gigantic and dangerous mountain when he spotted a dude who was clearly dying only about 500 yards from the summit.

WELL, YES: Solar panels – an eco-disaster waiting to happen?

“The world has installed more than one terawatt of solar capacity. Ordinary solar panels have a capacity of about 400W, so if you count both rooftops and solar farms, there could be as many as 2.5 billion solar panels.,” says Dr Rong Deng, an expert in solar panel recycling at the University of New South Wales in Australia.

According to the British government, there are tens of millions of solar panels in the UK. But the specialist infrastructure to scrap and recycle them is lacking.
Energy experts are calling for urgent government action to prevent a looming global environmental disaster.

“It’s going to be a waste mountain by 2050, unless we get recycling chains going now,” says Ute Collier, deputy director of the International Renewable Energy Agency.

“We’re producing more and more solar panels – which is great – but how are we going to deal with the waste?” she asks.

Plus this from Rowan Atkinson: I love electric vehicles – and was an early adopter. But increasingly I feel duped.

The first article was published by the Beeb, the second was in The Guardian — what’s up in Britain?

GOODER AND HARDER, SAN FRAN: Owner of SF’s Largest Hotel, the Hilton Union Square, Is Walking Away, Surrendering It to Lender.

Another bit of bad news for downtown San Francisco arrived Monday morning with the revelation that the investment firm that owns the Hilton San Francisco Union Square and Parc 55 hotels is walking away from its debts and giving up hope on a return of SF’s convention market.

Virginia-based REIT Park Hotels & Resorts has opted to cease payments on a $725 million loan, as the SF Business Times reports today, essentially surrendering over 2,900 hotel rooms and hospitality facilities to its lender. This includes the 1,921-room Hilton San Francisco Union Square, which is San Francisco’s largest hotel, occupying an entire city block, and one of the country’s largest hotels outside of Las Vegas.

Park Hotels & Resorts is also giving up on the 1,024-room Parc 55, citing the continued debt burden of the two hotels on its portfolio, and multiple factors that have made the SF market less desirable for their business.

“After much thought and consideration, we believe it is in the best interest for Park’s stockholders to materially reduce our current exposure to the San Francisco market,” said Park Hotels CEO Thomas J. Baltimore in a statement. “Now more than ever, we believe San Francisco’s path to recovery remains clouded and elongated by major challenges, both old and new: record high office vacancy; concerns over street conditions; lower return to office than peer cities; and a weaker than expected citywide convention calendar through 2027 that will negatively impact business and leisure demand.”

Related: San Francisco Falls Into The Abyss. “No major American city has failed at the same level as Detroit, whose population dropped from 1.85 million people in 1950 to about 630,000 today. Move over Detroit, here comes San Francisco, which lost 6.3 percent of its population between 2019 and 2021, a rate of decline larger than any two year-period in Detroit’s history and unprecedented among any major US city.”

UNEXPECTEDLY: Wealth Taxes Result in Rich People Fleeing, Turns Out.

If your net wealth is approximately $135,000 or more and you live in Norway, you’ve long been subject to a 0.85 percent wealth tax. That rate has, as of this year, been hiked to 1.1 percent by the center-left government, and even more gobs of cash will be taken from rich people worth roughly $1.8 million, who will be taxed at a rate of 1.3 percent.

Unfortunately for the Norwegian lefties—and their American counterparts who argue for similar taxes to be instituted here—this wealth tax hasn’t really generated the revenue they’d expected. It has instead resulted in rich people boarding their superyachts and leaving those fjords behind forevermore.

Per the Norwegian newspaper Dagens Næringsliv, 30 of the country’s multimillionaires and billionaires left the country last year in advance of the wealth tax hike. “This was more than the total number of super-rich people who left the country during the previous 13 years, it added,” noted The Guardian. “Even more super-rich individuals are expected to leave this year because of the increase in wealth tax in November, costing the government tens of millions in lost tax receipts.”

“Bad luck.”

AGING: Lifechanging new drug could extend human life by 30%, study finds. “The senolytics developed at the Mayo Clinic, when administered, effectively purge the bloodstream of senescent or ‘zombie’ cells. These cells are implicated in numerous diseases and detrimental aging aspects. The study reveals that the elimination of senescent cells leads to a significant increase in the production of a protective protein known as a-klotho.”

GOOD: Vermont school board pays family punished for speaking against biological male in girl’s locker room. “The Vermont School Boards Insurance Trust will pay $125,000 in damages and attorneys fees under the settlement to Travis Allen and Jessica Allen on behalf of their daughter, Blake Allen, as well as their attorneys with the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative legal nonprofit.”

BECAUSE THE ECO-OBSESSION IS STUPID, AND THERE’S NO AFRICAN AUDIENCE FOR WOKE VIRTUE-SIGNALLING: Why Africa is turning its back on the eco-obsessed West: The developing world needs rapid growth, not lectures on sustainability. “The Western democracies appear united in their support for Ukraine, but they may also be losing the bigger, more consequential battle for the loyalties of the developing world. Virtually no developing country – including democracies like India, Brazil, Nigeria and South Africa – has chosen to take steps opposing Russia’s aggression (in fact, South Africa may have joined Iran in sending weapons to Moscow). This is a stark reflection of the West’s waning influence. The West is losing not because the developing world wants to genuflect to Vladimir Putin, or to his liege lord, Xi Jinping. Instead, we are seeing a growing disconnect between Western ‘values’, including on critical issues like food and energy production, and the needs of developing countries, many of which have struggled since the pandemic. In a period of steadily rising costs, countries such as Egypt, Pakistan and India are refusing to sanction Russian oil, allowing Moscow to match its pre-war oil exports. China has also boosted its oil purchases from Russia, as demand hits record levels. Unlike the affluent West, people in these countries still believe in future growth.”

In the West, on the other hand, yammerheads are talking about “degrowth.” And unfortunately, they have influence.

All the AI enthusiasts are out there talking about how we're all about to lose our jobs to some chatbot, but then when the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA) jumped on board with that fad, they quickly found out why trying to save money by getting rid of your humans is a bad idea.

HMM: Fentanyl can be weaponized, but preparation could minimize the damage. “The widely-available drug fentanyl, already the number one killer of Americans under 50, could be weaponized and used for terroristic mass poisoning, according to health experts at Rutgers and other institutions. ‘Before fentanyl, the only viable mass poisons were rare and difficult-to-access agents such as cyanide or nerve agents,’ said Lewis Nelson, chair of the Department of Emergency Medicine at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School and senior author of the new Frontiers in Public Health paper. ‘Fentanyl can be just as deadly if properly disseminated, and it’s ubiquitous. A motivated person could readily obtain enough to potentially poison hundreds of people—which, uncut, would fit easily onto a teaspoon.'”

Don’t forget to add Narcan to your trouble kit.

There is nothing holier than a Victim. No person holds a more exalted place in our culture than the Victim. Rules which must be followed by the ordinary are allowed to be broken by Victims. Indeed, we insist on this. There is no other way to remain on the right side of the law than being on the wrong side.

The woke mayor of New York City Eric Adams, who replaced the self-avowed communist mayor of NYC, recently signed a law that bans discrimination “based on someone’s weight or height in employment, housing and public accommodations.”

Similar laws banning “discrimination” based on sex, race, favorite masturbatory position (a.k.a. sexual orientation), age, veteran status, and a long, a very long, list of other items, already exist. I don’t know how long the inventory is, which varies by municipality, but I do know it only ever grows: no trait is ever removed.

Yet being accused of illegally “discriminating” becomes more difficult the longer these lists are, as we’ll see.

First, it is almost impossible to prove that an employer has discriminated against a potential employee because, say, she was too fat. As long as the employer keeps his mouth shut, and says something vague like “I don’t think you’re the right fit for our company,” or the firm has some written policy like “More blubber, more flubber”, then proof cannot be had.

The Cult of Equality knows this, which is why they define proof as statistical. That move is why you must break the law and honor the Victim.

Discrimination does not have to be proved in individual cases. It need only be asserted that the designated Victim is “under-represented”. I won’t show the math, but it should be easy to see that as the number of Victim classifications grows, the chance of breaking the law must only increase. Even if no one is “discriminating”.

And that even assumes all peoples are equal, which is blatantly false.

It is easy to imagine situations that, as Victims proliferate, it will be impossible not to be guilty of “discrimination.” The smaller the Victim group is, as a percentage of the population, the more difficult it is for every employer or organization to have just that percentage (or more) of Victims as employees or members. There are so many black women “lesbian” migrant Victims to go around, for instance.

Therefore, there are only three ways to avoid being persecuted—or rather prosecuted—for discrimination: (1) claim Victim status for yourself, (2) eliminate all standards, or (2) discriminate.

The first choice works, and is so obvious no examples are needed. But it’s not a ploy available for large public companies and organizations.

My favorite sentence in the propaganda announcing Adam’s new law highlights choice (2): “Adams said in a release that the law will ‘level the playing field’ for residents and create more inclusive workplaces.”

He’s right. Removing standards absolutely flattens all heights. No non-Victim group can be allowed prominence, which hurtfully demonstrates superiority over Victims. Because, inevitably, that superiority is thought possible only because one is discriminating against Victims. Victims are famously inferior—else they would not be Victims—and so if you hired only the superior, you must discriminate to boost the inferior.

Removing standards is insufficient, as we will now see: (3) is the only option.

To staff your company, you might think a good non-discriminatory strategy is to take the first people who walk in the door. No standards are applied, except for showing up. No discrimination has taken place. “Look how pure my heart is,” says the employer, “I have taken everybody without regard to any status, except being alive.”

Alas, that will fail and the employer will find only heartbreak—because discrimination is defined statistically. If he takes the first people who show, then he will almost certainly run afoul of proportional representation.

To make the grade, he must therefore discriminate! The law says Thous Shalt Not Discriminate On Race. Yet to prove his innocence, he must discriminate on Victim race. The law says Thou Shalt Not Discriminate On Blubber. To prove his compliance, the employer must discriminate by weight. There is no other way to get to proportional representation. One must necessarily have quotas.

Adams himself discriminates, and boasts of it. He has hired mostly (only?) Victims to run his city government, and announced to all that he did so on purpose.

He may have used for his model the White House. They bragged of hiring a black woman “lesbian” Victim for a propaganda slot. They boasted of nominating a black woman Victim to SCOTUS. Even though discriminating along these categories is illegal.

All companies do this. I hear a radio commercial regularly for Comerica Bank, triumphantly announcing that women (whose sex makes them Victims) now outnumber men, and that “minority” (i.e. Victim) employees soon will outnumber non-Victims. This is illegal. Yet they must break the law or face prosecution for breaking the law.

To not break the law and be found to have discriminated, it is essential—there is no escaping it—that one break the law and discriminate. But only to award Victims. Especially those Victims most unable, because this group is least able to merit their positions and allow the company to reach sacred proportionality.

This is why we are doomed unless we repeal the Civil Rights Act. Which won’t happen. Thus…

Subscribe or donate to support this site and its wholly independent host using credit card click here. Cash App: $WilliamMBriggs. For Zelle, use my email: matt@wmbriggs.com, and please include yours so I know who to thank.