Posts on Wednesday, February 7, 2024
With the same tenacity shown by the legendary outlaw himself, Utah lawmakers are once again trying to turn the site of the childhood home of Butch Cassidy into a state monument. [SNIP] Despite previous failed attempts to seek a designation for the site, the resolution sponsored by Rep. Carl Albrecht reads "that it is in the best interest of Piute County to preserve and maintain the Butch Cassidy home as a state monument." [SNIP] Cassidy worked closely with his partner — "Sundance Kid" Harry Longabaugh. The two were immortalized in a 1969 film starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford.
Disney fans battered by inflation are hitting the “Cancel” button in droves.
The Disney+ streaming service lost 1.3 million subscribers worldwide during the last three months of 2023 as a steep price hike took a toll on fans’ wallets. In the U.S. and Canada alone, the streamer bid goodbye to 400,000 customers — Disney+’s largest-ever reported domestic decline.
The drop represents a major hit for Disney, which has been pouring billions of dollars into its streaming services without yet reaching profitability.
Disgraced former Baltimore District Attorney Marilyn Mosby sobbed in court Tuesday as she was convicted of mortgage fraud — a verdict that could carry decades in prison.
The Democrat served in office from 2015 until she lost her 2022 reelection bid after being indicted on perjury and mortgage fraud charges related to the withdrawal of funds from the city’s Deferred Compensation Plan. (snip)
Mosby, 44, was indicted on both the perjury and mortgage fraud charges in January 2022, and was found guilty of the perjury in November 2023.
Last week, a court in Hong Kong ordered that Evergrande, China’s massive property developer, must be liquidated. Real estate accounts for about one-quarter of China’s GDP, and Evergrande isn’t the only troubled part of the Chinese real estate sector. While I’d always like to see China constrained, not only is a collapsing China dangerous, but the real estate collapse also reminds us of what’s happening domestically.
Business Insider reported on Evergrande’s liquidation, which has long been expected and which will be carried out in an orderly fashion. The assets are valued at $245 billion (which I suspect is inflated), while the company’s debts are $300 billion.
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The Republican and Democratic parties have distinct strengths within different subgroups of the U.S. population. However, Democrats have lost ground among some of their traditionally stronger support groups while gaining ground with others. This is based on analysis of Americans’ party preferences, which includes those who identify as Democratic or Republican and those who are independent but lean toward either party.
Joe Biden was in New York City, hitting three fundraisers on Wednesday.
I really have to wonder what kind of money he's getting when he talks to dead people and his brain is always breaking. But perhaps they don't care. He says astonishingly bad things, and you can hear the seals in some of these Democratic events just clap or cheer obediently. The first of his fundraisers was at the private home of Larry Linden, the former managing partner of Goldman Sachs. But if the people were following along, Biden didn't seem to understand what he was saying.
Bloomberg's Jennifer Jacobs noted that first, he said that there was
American deaths at the hands of illegal aliens “should not be politicized,” Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who is facing impeachment, told the Washington Post this week.
In a long profile by the Post, Mayorkas is featured as a victim of attacks by Republican lawmakers. This week, House Republicans fell just shy of the majority needed to approve articles of impeachment against Mayorkas, though leadership has vowed to try again.
One of the reasons House Republicans have sought to impeach Mayorkas, as the Post notes, is the federal government’s inability to protect Americans from illegal immigration. Last year, for example, Mayorkas recalled having to face Angel Mom Elisa Tambunga.
More than 150 Chinese nationals have snuck into the US illegally every single day since October, according to startling new CBP statistics.
Among the record numbers of migrants flooding the southern border, Chinese illegal immigrants made up the fastest-growing faction of border crossers last year.
The 2023 fiscal year reportedly saw over 37,000 Chinese migrants encountered at the border - with a staggering 20,000 more since October, when the 2024 fiscal year began. The surge forms part of an uncontrollable wave of migrant crossings that has stretched border resources thin. U.S. Customs and Border Protection has tracked over 1 million migrant encounters since fiscal year 2024 began,
‘Consumers Are Weary’: McDonald’s
Shares Tumble After Executives Acknowledge
Price Inflation replies
Shares Tumble After Executives Acknowledge
Price Inflation replies
McDonald’s executives have finally acknowledged that their $18 Big Mac meals and other inflated prices are putting off lower-income customers.
“We certainly know consumers are more wary or weary of pricing,” Chief Financial Officer Ian Borden told investors during a Monday earnings call.
The transcript of the conversation, which Business Insider obtained, also revealed that CEO Chris Kempczinski said that McDonald’s customers — especially those making less money — are placing smaller orders than in previous years.During an October earnings call, company executives told investors that the price increases “largely hadn’t put customers off,”
A Garnerville man and a Mount Vernon man were among 70 current and former employees of the New York City Housing Authority charged Tuesday with allegedly accepting cash payments from contractors in exchange for Housing Authority contracts, according to Damian Williams, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York.
Williams said in a news release that 66 of the 70 defendants were arrested Tuesday morning in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and North Carolina. The charges were the largest number of federal bribery charges given on a single day in the history of the U.S. Justice Department.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released a report Wednesday projecting that federal budget deficits will skyrocket to well over $2 trillion per year in the next decade.
The baseline in the CBO’s annual budget and economic outlook covers the 2024 to 2034 period and projects that the budget deficit will rise from about $1.6 trillion in 2024 to $2.6 trillion in 2034, with deficits topping $2 trillion each year after 2031.
As a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) – or the size of the U.S. economy – the deficit rises from 5.6% of GDP in 2024 to 6.1% of GDP in 2034. That comes after the percentage briefly
Is 2024’s presidential battleground bigger than we think? So focused on the past, we have been overlooking the present’s obvious. Former President Donald Trump’s polling numbers indicate his support is not just deeper but regionally broader than expected. If this is true, it has major November implications.
The 2016 and 2020 elections pivoted on five states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. In 2016, Trump won them all, and the presidency’s determining electoral vote was 306 to 232. In 2020, Biden won them all, and the electoral vote was 306 to 232. Throw in 2020’s additional close states of Nevada (which Biden won) and North Carolina (which Trump
BOSTON — Gov. Maura Healey on Wednesday nominated an appeals court judge and former romantic partner with whom she shared a home for several years to an open seat on the state’s highest court. Massachusetts Appeals Court Associate Justice Gabrielle R. Wolohojian would serve as an associate justice of the Supreme Judicial Court if her nomination is approved. Wolohojian is the second nomination to the state’s highest court by Healey, the first woman and first open member of the LGBTQ community to be elected governor of Massachusetts. “There is no one more qualified or more well prepared to join the
WASHINGTON — Within 48 hours of the release of a long-awaited immigration and foreign aid bill he had championed, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s Republican conference rejected his pitch to support it, knifed the deal and left it for dead.
Just four Republicans voted for it. In the end, even McConnell backtracked and voted against the package that he had helped develop. It was a jarring moment on Capitol Hill that pointed to a changed landscape: The Kentucky Republican, a one-man power center for more than a decade, is seeing his influence with fellow senators wane as his party continues to transform into the right-wing populist mold of Donald Trump.
A commander from Kataib Hezbollah, an Iran-backed armed group in Iraq that the Pentagon has blamed for attacking its troops, was killed in a US strike on Wednesday, the US military said.
"(US) forces conducted a unilateral strike in Iraq in response to the attacks on US service members, killing a Kataib Hezbollah commander responsible for directly planning and participating in attacks on US forces in the region," a statement from the military said. It did not name the commander. It added that there were no indications of civilian casualties.
Two security sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the commander was Abu Baqir al-Saadi, killed in a drone strike
Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, after suffering a humiliating loss in the Nevada primaries, complained that former President Donald Trump “rigged” the race to prevent her from making a decent showing.
Haley’s comments come weeks before the much-anticipated South Carolina primaries. Given that this is her home state, it will be a critical race that could decide the future of her candidacy.
During an interview, a reporter asked if her loss in Nevada would hurt her campaign. Haley responded, claiming that the race was a “scam” and explained why her campaign did not direct any spending in the state.
Life can be tough anywhere for anyone, but especially in a Democrat-run big city that prides itself on wokeness and soft on crime policies that revictimize business owners and residential neighborhoods alike over and over again. This has been especially notable in iconic American cities like San Francisco, where smash and grabs, car thefts/break-ins, rampant homelessness, street-pooping, and open-air drug use are now the norm, and where there is such disrespect for law and order that even the police department has faced burglary attempts at some of its locations.
Oakland is another one of those California cities run by Democrats that has seen a marked decline in quality of life
The White House is bracing for the special counsel's report on Joe Biden's mishandling of classified documents, fearing it could contain details and photos that would embarrass the president.
The report by special counsel Robert Hur will be made public in the coming days after a year-long investigation. Biden will not face criminal charges, the Washington Post reported.
However, it's unclear to what extent the report will criticize the president and his aides regarding their handling of classified material that was found in the Penn Biden Center in Washington, D.C. and in his garage at his Wilmington, Del., home.
Polling suggests Texas Governor Greg Abbott has a positive level of support for his border policies as his office continues to be at odds with the Biden administration over using razor wire.
Exclusive polling conducted for Newsweek by Redfield & Wilton Strategies indicates Abbott has 51 percent support among voters in Texas for continuing to erect razor wire on the border. The poll was conducted from February 1-3 among 814 eligible voters in Texas. The Supreme Court ruled in January that federal border agents can be allowed access to key areas along the Rio Grande River, the border with Mexico, and cut razor wire
Search and rescue crews are looking for a missing military helicopter carrying five Marines, the U.S. Marine Corps (USMC) said Wednesday.
The CH-53E Super Stallion helicopter in question departed from Creech Air Force Base outside of Las Vegas, Nevada, on Tuesday night, and was headed to Miramar, near San Diego, California, before it went missing, ABC News reported.
The chopper, along with its crew, were “reported overdue” to Marine Corps Air Station Miramar later that same night, prompting USMC to request help from the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department (SDCSD) and Civil Air Patrol.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) told Breitbart News exclusively that Democrat President Joe Biden’s speech on Tuesday, in which he blamed former President Donald Trump and “MAGA Republicans” for the border crisis Biden created, was “offensive.”
“It was offensive,” Johnson said in a Wednesday afternoon phone interview when asked to react to Biden’s address. “I don’t think anyone is buying it. Everyone understands this all changed dramatically when he walked into the White House. Now, we’ve shown, and we continue to show the American people step-by-step, how he and Mayorkas orchestrated this. There is a reason why only 18 percent of Americans in the latest polls approve
Before I get into my analysis, I want to make it clear I believe that anyone who wants a civil war to happen in the U.S. is dangerously naïve, insane, or working for one of America’s enemies. Imagine a Russia-Ukraine-type conflict in the U.S.
Thanks to Hollywood, most Americans believe that rebellions can be started and won by small ragtag groups of patriots, freedom fighters, insurrectionists, or everyday common folk. All you need are pistols, assault weapons, bows and arrows, and maybe a few Molotov cocktails. Blow up the Death Star, and the problem is solved.
But that is not how it usually works. Revolutions require armaments, soldiers,
Perhaps the most embarrassing moment of Nikki Haley’s entire political career occurred Tuesday night in the Nevada Primary, and President Trump was not even on the ballot.
While the Nevada Primary was essentially a beauty contest with no actual delegates at stake, it offered Haley an opportunity to claim a “win.” She was the lone “major” candidate on the ballot.
The only other people on the ballot were long-departed candidates such as Mike Pence and Tim Scott. Voters also could select “None of These Candidates.”
A member of the corporate media accidentally reported that His Fraudulency Joe Biden’s obvious mental decline is so pronounced he’s probably adopted the strategy of hiding from the media.
During a segment on doomed CNN’s doomed CNN This Morning, someone named Salena Mohsin, who identifies as Bloomberg’s senior Washington correspondent, was asked about President Roomba skipping what has become a traditional presidential interview prior to the Super Bowl.
“[H]im saying no to something that he’s expected to do, a serious interview, he can really get his message out to an audience, just sitting, waiting for him, waiting for his message, is telling,” Mohsin said, adding, “Is it because he can’t handle it?”
Controversial talk show host Tucker Carlson could be subjected to sanctions from the European Union due to his activities in Russia, a new report says.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has been interviewed by Carlson, the Kremlin confirmed Wednesday. It is Putin's first interview to a Western journalist since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine two years ago. Carlson released a video from Moscow on Tuesday in which he said he would be interviewing Putin, less than 24 hours later, the Kremlin confirmed the sit-down took place. Former Belgian Prime Minister and current member of the European Union Parliament Guy Verhofstadt told Newsweek as the Russian president is considered a 'war criminal'
Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected the terms of a ceasefire in Gaza proposed by Hamas and rebuffed US pressure to move more quickly towards a mediated settlement to the war, saying there could be no solution to Israel’s security issues except “absolute victory” over the militant group.
The Israeli prime minister also confirmed that the Israel Defense Forces had been instructed to commence operations in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where the population has been swelled by hundreds of thousands of displaced people.
In a sharp rebuff to the Biden administration and the visiting US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, Netanyahu said it would require months more fighting before Hamas was defeated.
Rescuers are searching for five U.S. Marines after a missing helicopter on which they were flying was located on Feb. 7.
The helicopter was found by searchers in Pine Valley, California, at 9:08 Pacific Time, according to a spokesperson for the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing.
The Marines have still not been located. (snip)The Marines departed on a CH-53E Super Stallion helicopter from Creech Air Force Base in Clark County, Nevada, and were supposed to land at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in California on Feb. 6, a Marines spokesman said.
When the aircraft was reported as overdue, search and rescue efforts started.
The Fani Willis side show in Donald Trump's Georgia election trial is the gift that keeps on giving. (snip) While the Fulton County DA claimed that her relationship with Nathan Wade didn't begin until after she paid him all that taxpayer money - despite the fact that Wade filed for divorce the day after he was hired.
According to a new filing, "witnesses will testify" that Wade "cohabitated with Ms. Willis at an AirBNB in Hapeville that was paid for by tax payer money" which served as a "safe house" for their relationship, which began in 2019 - three years before Willis and Wade said it began.
The Seer of seers and the Prognosticator of prognosticators is no longer Punxsutawney Phil, that cute little creature who lives in Gobbler’s Knob—it’s the collective group of conservative satirists and jokesters.
You may or may not have seen it, but back in October, a video that purportedly showed Greta Thunberg promoting “environmentally-conscious” warfare spread rapidly across the web...Here’s this, from an article written by Hope Hodge Seck, and published by the National Defense Magazine in their latest February issue:
Electric Vehicles — As Tactical EV Plans Take Shape, Army Charges Ahead; Marines Stay Cautious
Immediately upon taking office, Joe Biden reversed President Trump’s “stay-in-Mexico” policy. Under that policy, immigrants seeking asylum were required to stay in Mexico or their home country while applying for asylum in the United States.
The alternative – followed by the preceding Obama Administration – is for the immigrants to enter the country with the proviso that they have to show up for a hearing some months or years in the future to determine their asylum claim. Of course, many immigrants never showed up for their hearings, and simply remained in the country illegally.
US Secretary for Transportation Pete Buttigieg posted on X (formerly Twitter) to say that all current vehicles require the driver to be engaged "at all times".
However, one driver admitted his video was a prank.
Tesla and Apple have been contacted for comment. Videos posted online show people in the drivers seats of cars which have an autonomous mode, while wearing the Apple headset over their eyes.
Nikki Haley hasn't been faring well in the GOP primaries thus far (to put it mildly). But she appeared to have a foolproof plan for Nevada. While everyone else who bothered to run is competing in the caucus tomorrow, Haley was the only prominent candidate to enter their name in yesterday's primary. As it turns out, that plan didn't work out very well either. Haley managed to lose by a significant margin to "None of these candidates." The "none of the above" option drew more than 60% of the vote in a race with very sparse turnout. (NY Post). President Biden emerged victorious in Nevada’s Democratic primary Tuesday,
Disney Still 100% in on DEI
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Did you think that Disney had learned its lesson?
Silly you! Disney's problem wasn't only skin deep--it's entire C-Suite and management structure is steeped in ESG and DEI ideology, and it will take a lot more than massive public criticism, losing billions of dollars, and a political beating to change course. The simple fact is that Disney has been captured by the Woke Mind Virus, and like a Zombie, it can take a lot of damage before it falls down and gives up.
Elon Musk, as you can see, got a leaked document that specified Disney's mandatory targets for content, creatives, and line employees.
On their face the targets look
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen sidestepped questions about whether her department ordered surveillance of consumer purchases and transactions. Yellen was asked Tuesday during a hearing whether the Treasury Department instructed financial institutions to monitor legal purchases for signs of "extremism," as claimed in a House Judiciary Committee letter last month. "Has Treasury — including FinCEN or federal banking agencies like the Fed, FDIC, OCC — instructed financial institutions to search Americans' legal transactions in attempts to surveil their purchases?" Republican Missouri Rep. Ann Wagner asked Yellen. “Well, we received the letter from you, I believe, on this topic, and we intend to investigate and to respond," Yellen responded.
Damn the Polls
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Last week, The National Pulse reports that Trump is leading in all seven battleground states. Pop the cork! Trump wins... Not yet, anyway. This isn’t to suggest that Trump boosters shouldn’t be heartened by polling data and trends favorable to 45. Apart from hardcore progressive Kool-Aid drinkers, who believes that their lives are better off after three years of doddering Joe Biden? Four more years of the Enfeebled One would transform the Republic into Oakland.
Yet what did we learn from polling in 2016, 2020, and 2022?
Former President Donald Trump continues to face legal charges on his return path to the presidency, while current President Joe Biden carries his age, fading mental acuity, and charges of corruption as he seeks a second term. So who has the edge now in the head-to-head electoral matchup for 2024? Thanks to solid independent voter backing, Trump still edges out Biden, the latest I&I/TIPP Poll shows.
Trump wins 43% of the overall vote, while Biden gets 41% in the national online I&I/TIPP Poll, taken from Jan. 31-Feb. 2, with 1,266 registered voters participating. The poll has an overall +/-2.8 percentage-point margin of error.
Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley suffered an embarrassing defeat in Nevada's primary on Tuesday, finishing behind ballots marked "none of these candidates" by supporters of Donald Trump, according to Edison Research.
Haley, the last remaining rival to frontrunner Trump for the Republican presidential nomination, was the only major Republican candidate contesting the party's Nevada primary on Tuesday. Trump was not on the ballot. U.S. President Joe Biden easily won Nevada's Democratic presidential primary after dominating his party's first nominating contest in South Carolina on Saturday.
The IRS said it is poised to reap hundreds of billions of dollars of additional tax revenue by going after overdue and unpaid taxes, far beyond what was previously anticipated, thanks to funding from the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).
The new analysis, released Tuesday by the Treasury Department and the IRS, estimates that tax revenues are expected to rise by as much as $561 billion from 2024 to 2034, thanks to stepped-up enforcement made possible with money from the Democrats' IRA, which became law in August 2022.
Ronna McDaniel, chairwoman for the Republican National Committee (RNC), has reportedly told former President Donald Trump that she will step down from her position following the South Carolina primary later this month.
Should Ronna McDaniel follow through on her alleged pledge to leave, the former president will then reportedly promote the chairman of the North Carolina Republican Party, Michael Whatley, as her replacement, according to several sources who spoke with the New York Times. A new election will take place within the committee.
The sources said that Trump prefers Whatley due to the two reportedly aligning with each other on views about the 2020 election being allegedly “stolen.”
As we reported earlier, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled against former President Donald Trump in his appeal on presidential immunity from prosecution. The three-judge panel affirmed the ruling of the District Court in the matter. The appeal delayed the start of the election interference case that had been set for March 4. Now, it should be noted that even though the ruling went against Trump, just the filing of it bought him some time, as George Washington law professor Jonathan Turley explained.
“The most practical impact of this appeal was indeed the delay that it caused. It was very important