Yesterday Georgia, today Texas? Businesses may decide it’s wiser to go back to their previous habit of being apolitical if there are consequences from both sides of the aisle for speaking up, instead of just one.
[FoxNews] The governor and lieutenant governor of Texas both sounded off Thursday after corporations including American Airlines criticized the state GOP’s proposal for revising voting laws in the Lone Star State.
The Texas Senate approved the bill earlier Thursday. It calls for changes to voting hours, the number of voting machines at polling places and would give the state greater authority over local-level elections, the Dallas Morning News reported. The bill now moves on to the Texas House.
Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, defended the bill as an attempt to "protect election integrity," the report said.
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, also a Reoublican, slammed corporate critics for getting involved in the state’s policy debates, and called out American Airlines specifically.
"Texans are fed up with corporations that don’t share our values trying to dictate public policy," Patrick said in a statement. He also claimed that an American Airlines lobbyist "admitted that neither he nor the American Airlines CEO had actually read the legislation."
The lieutenant governor added that the same airline had opposed a 2017 proposal regarding transgender athletes participating in scholastic sports.
Other corporations speaking out against the Texas election legislation included Southwest Airlines and Dell Technologies, both based in Texas.
#7
There was a comment yesterday about the GA bill in the lower house being, in essence, political posturing because it needed the Senate and Gov to approve before it was effective. That is true, but think of it as loading your gun before that walk to the OK Corral. Helps to be ready if you're going to pull the trigger. Or as perhaps a better metaphor, think of it as racking your shotgun behind a door that someone is trying to get in. It can, on occasion have a most salutary, warning effect.
#10
think of it as racking your shotgun behind a door that someone is trying to get in.
Georgia apparently racked that shotgun in 2018, when they actually passed a law that the governor signed. But then he waived enforcing it, kind of like shooting at their feet but intentionally missing them. This means Progressive posturing companies across the country will ignore anything coming from Republicans anywhere until it is actually enforced. And it will have to be expensive to the targets and repeated against other companies until it hurts the entire group of such companies.
The other side of the equation is that conservative consumers will preferentially buy superior products at a given price point even if the company’s philosophy clashes with theirs, no matter how loudly they might announce their boycott at the moment. In contrast, progressive consumers will be fanatically loyal to companies whose stated politics aligns with theirs, no matter how bad or overpriced the products. Corporate executives are keenly aware of this dichotomy, as Mr. Wife demonstrated when last I complained that all this political posturing is a bad business decision contrary to the principles during the first 150+ years of our erstwhile employer’s history.
This is brilliant. If it works - and I for one don't see what could go wrong - we'll be able to replace those thousands of National Guard troops surrounding the Capitol with US Park Service Rangers. Likewise the Secret Service and personal protective details for politicians and tech millionaires.
[KATU] A group of Portland city commissioners countered a $2 million proposal supported by Mayor Ted Wheeler to address gun violence with a plan of their own that calls for nearly $5 million in spending this year.
The 10-point plan comes weeks after Mayor Wheeler urged his colleagues to support the proposal from faith and community leaders that directed more than $1.6 million dollars to the Portland Police Bureau to set up a patrol unit focused on gun violence.
Wary of more police funding, Commissioners Carmen Rubio, Mingus Mapps, and Dan Ryan shared a proposal that included $1.4 million to expand the Portland Park Ranger Program. Park rangers are unarmed, non-sworn employees who work in parks across the city. The commissioners' proposal adds 24 full-time positions to the program. Here comes Commissioner Hardesty. We've had her here before. If you haven't seen her photo, do yourself a favor and don't go looking for it. She thinks the streets of Portland are full of white supremacists in big trucks who are out to get her, which is why she called the cops before she defunded them. Also, her car has been parked out in front of her house for six months because the battery is dead.
"This proposal is the kind of collaborative problem solving I expected from our historically diverse council where the majority are grounded in community. This City Council understands the urgency in acting to mitigate gun violence and we are taking action. I am in full support of this proposal and hope council will bring this to a vote as soon as possible," Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty said. Good try on the buzzwords, Commissioner, but no cigar. You got "collaborative", "diverse" and "mitigate", but you missed "inclusive" and, glaringly, "equity". A participation trophy at best.
[BREITBART] During an interview with ESPN aired on Wednesday’s "SportsCenter," President Joe The Big Guy Biden ...46th president of the U.S. You're a lyin' dog-faced pony soldier... said he would "strongly support" Major League Baseball moving its All-Star Game out of Atlanta over Georgia’s election law and said that "today’s professional athletes are acting incredibly responsibly" in leagues like the NBA.
Host Sage Steele asked, "Mr. President, what do you think about the possibility that baseball decides to move their All-Star Game out of Atlanta because of this political issue?"
Biden responded, "I think today’s professional athletes are acting incredibly responsibly. I would strongly support them doing that. People look to them. They’re leaders. Look at what’s happened with the NBA as well. Look at what’s happened across the board. The very people who are victimized the most are the people who are the leaders in these various sports. And it’s just not right."
Posted by: Fred ||
04/02/2021 00:00 ||
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#1
SPORTS, MEDIA, ENTERTAINMENT SOCIAL EVENTS, RELIGION, THE LEGAL SYSTEM and etc...are now all politicized.
How about sticking to your Job Description:
SPORTS ---> Play Ball, NOT Politics
MEDIA ---> Report News, not create it or be part of the news.
ENTERTAINMENT ---> Just act your role/part. Quit running to the camera for free face time to promote movies, a dying career, or a lame book deal. Just do good things with the $10-40 Million you make per acting gig.
SOCIAL EVENTS ---> have a Political FREE Wedding, Birthday and Community Parade.
RELIGION ---> Stick to your Holy Book preach Morals and understanding. NOT Politics and Acceptance of things in direct conflict with your Holy Book.
THE LEGAL SYSTEM (cops and courts) ---> Adhere to your OATH OF OFFICE and State Constitution.There is no room for Politics in JUSTICE.
#2
...Interestingly, Stacey Abrams ("I shoulda been Governor!!!") is urging people NOT to boycott GA, ostensibly because it'll hurt the people they're trying to help most.
The word I think we're looking for here is "bullsh*t".
Her Enormity knows perfectly well that a full-on attempt at a boycott would piss off waaaaaaaaaaay too many people that she needs to rely on if she wants to have a chance in 2022.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
04/02/2021 11:44 Comments ||
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#3
Half surprised they haven't gotten on Atlanta's/Milwaukee's/Boston's ball club nickname "Braves".
I would imagine the real information about drug and physical abuse related to professional athletes has been compiled, including the times law enforcement 'knew who he was' and let him go.
What if people realize the only time pro athletes get in any trouble is when they do something so egregious it must be reported, like Tekken punching a gal in the hotel elevator, shooting themself in the leg at a New York club, or a murder suicide on game night. What if people realize all those PR deals, save a few honest birds, are compensation for getting in trouble but avoiding the application of common law; a community service for the union if you will.
Also according to 'Biden' they should stay on lockdown so no fans anyways, so where would they go? Wokeplace, MI? Underthethumb, CA? Byanymeans, NY?
#5
"...acting incredibly responsibly"
Sure: compared to the Biden Crime Family's standards, pro athlete-thugs and louts are incredibly responsible. Without a doubt.
#11
So Major League Baseball is punishing deep blue Atlanta? I can live with that. Question: Will they be able to find new venues for the draft announcements and all-star game in time, or will they just announce that it’s safer to do the draft virtually again this year, skipping the game altogether?
#12
#3 Half surprised they haven't gotten on Atlanta's/Milwaukee's/Boston's ball club nickname "Braves".
Posted by: Clem 2021-04-02 12:00
The 2019 game was nearly yanked from Cleveland because MLB was touchy about the team's name - a name that, at the time, literally no one was complaining about. Atlanta will be next, don't doubt it.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
04/02/2021 20:08 Comments ||
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#13
Personally, I hope all professional sports die at this point. I don't give two turds about a bunch of whiny, narcissists playing games for obscene amounts of money, ESPECIALLY when they pontificate about ANYTHING outside their sport. Nothing more than a bunch of criminals and druggies and if they all up and died, my life would only get better.
Enough of this bread and circuses garbage economy.
American junk culture including sports is just another tool of suppression by our Oligarchs, deployed to prevent Americans from rediscovering self-reliance and embracing traditional values and Western culture.
[THEFEDERALIST] Republican Sens. Chuck Grassley and Ron Johnson are asking the Biden administration to hand over intelligence documents concerning Hunter Biden’s foreign business deals and his associates at a Chinese energy company who are suspected of ties to the communist regime."It’s imperative that Congress better understand the relationship Ye Jianming, Gongwen Dong, and Patrick Ho had between and among themselves, with the communist Chinese government, CEFC China Energy, and their activities in the United States, including those relating to the Biden family," the letter concludes, asking for the documents by April 14.
Hunter’s "close association" with these men, the senators argue in the letter, is cause for concern. Not only was Ho charged and convicted of international bribery and money laundering in 2018 after working for Ye’s China Energy Fund Committee, but the suspected counterintelligence threat also reportedly relied on James Biden, President Joe The Big Guy Biden ...46th president of the U.S., who gives the geriatric a bad name... ’s brother, and Hunter for paid legal guidance and support.
"Indeed, Hunter Biden was well aware of Patrick Ho’s links to the communist Chinese government, specifically its intelligence services," the letter notes, citing information discovered on Hunter’s laptop in 2020 naming Ho, "the f-cking spy chief of China." Emails on the laptop also suggested that the Biden shared "office space with Chinese nationals and entities linked to the communist regime and its military demands."
The request comes just months after the senators released a report detailing Hunter and the Biden family’s shady overseas financial ties, "including with the wife of the former mayor of Moscow and individuals with ties to the Chinese Communist Party."
Posted by: Fred ||
04/02/2021 00:00 ||
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[THEFEDERALIST] The New York Times
...which still proudly displays Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize... reported on March 27 that Syrian-born Colorado mass shooter Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa had been on the FBI’s radar before he murdered 10 people in a grocery store.
"The suspect’s identity was previously known to the F.B.I. because he was linked to another individual under investigation by the bureau, according to law enforcement officials," the Times says.
According to a police affidavit, six days before Alissa shot 10 people to death, he purchased a pistol. That would have required him to pass a federal background check also run by the FBI. It seems the FBI is not very good at this "stopping mass shooters" thing.
This is not an anomaly in the FBI’s history. It in fact appears to be a pattern of negligence. During the Barack Obama I inhaled. That was the point... presidency, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., grilled FBI Director JamesThe spine of the FBI is the rule of law Comey The disgraced, except in his own mind, former head of the FBI... about the "known wolf" problem — of 14 Islamist attacks in the U.S. during Obama’s tenure, the FBI had been aware of at least 12 before the violence erupted like lava from a volcano, and did nothing.
For example, the 2009 Fort Hood shooter, who killed 13; the Boston Marathon bombers of 2013 who killed three and injured 264; and the Pulse nightclub shooter who killed 49 people and maimed 53 more. All were known to the FBI and several had been interviewed by the FBI before they went on killing sprees.
The FBI had also been warned numerous times about the Parkland, Florida school shooter, before he killed 17 and injured 17 more in 2018. It also knew beforehand about the 2018 Nashville, Tennessee Waffle House shooter, who killed four and injured two more, and the 2020 Nashville RV bomber.
While the FBI has been failing to stop terrorist attacks by known threats like these, it has conducted numerous political operations on behalf of Democrats. The ones we know about include Crossfire Hurricane’s use of federal spy power to affect election outcomes and prevent effective governance by elected Republicans. That operation included spying on Fox News.
In 2020, the FBI sent 15 agents to investigate a rope tied in a loop that hysterical people alleged was a "noose" after a black NASCAR driver was assigned a garage with the rope as its door pull. The FBI investigation determined the rope had been in the same shape and spot since at least 2019.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/02/2021 00:00 ||
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#1
Defenestration is option. Just removing bad bureaucrats is a start
#3
Well, the article points out the problem. Not seeing a lot of solutions in it, though.
Issues:
1) what legal protections does the organization have that prevent it from being disbanded?
2) How can it's political support from CongressCritters, et al, be dealt with?
3) how can it's legitimate functions be continued without interruption?
4) How can a successor organization or organizations be insulated from political pressure and favoritism so we don't end up in the same place?.
#5
A New Zealander, Trevor Loudon, has an article that appeared in The Epoch Times as well as at a website entitled "We the People Convention" and NTD. He outlines 9 steps to save America from Socialism. Here.
Other ideas that might help.
(1) Constitutional Convention to limit the Supremacy Clause and to establish term limits for Congress Members and the Supreme Court.
(2) More use of the 10th Amendment to strengthen State's Rights,
(3) Follow the rule of law. Eliminate the two-tier system of justice that has emerged over time.
[Federalist] Obama-era Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood took $50,000 in undisclosed foreign cash while he was still in office in 2012 because he was "suffering financial difficulties," Axios reported on Wednesday.
The cash came to LaHood as a loan from Virginia businessman Toufic Baaklini, an associate to Lebanese-Nigerian billionaire Gilbert Chagoury, who conspired to funnel foreign money into U.S. elections. The Department of Justice noted that LaHood purposefully refused to mention the loan on government ethics forms "because LaHood did not want to be associated with Chagoury," which was unrelated to a larger scheme of making illegal campaign contributions to U.S. politicians. Prosecutors say he also "understood at the time" who the money was coming from but "made misleading statements to FBI agents" during the investigation anyway.
LaHood paid a $40,000 fine for his ethics violation after he signed a nonprosecution agreement and repaid the loan. Chagoury, the mastermind of the foreign dollars donation scheme, however, paid more than $1.8 million as part of a deferred prosecution agreement, noting that he paid "approximately $180,000 to individuals in the United States that was used to make contributions to four different federal political candidates in U.S. elections."
"According to a deferred prosecution agreement with the government, Chagoury accepted responsibility for his role and conduct that resulted in violations of federal election contribution laws between June 2012 and March 2016 and agreed to cooperate with the government’s investigation," the DOJ press release reads. "Chagoury entered into the agreement on October 19, 2019, and he paid the fine in December 2019."
Baaklini paid a $90,000 fine related to the scheme, and another associate, Joseph Arsan, paid $1.7 million in penalties as well as to resolve a tax probe concerning money "he held in foreign bank accounts."
While it is unclear from the DOJ’s press release which candidates benefitted from Chagoury’s plot, the billionaire has a regular contribution history with the Clinton Foundation and gave "nearly half a million dollars to a Clinton-aligned voter registration group during President Clinton’s 1996 reelection campaign." Baaklini also made multiple donations to "GOP campaigns and party committees," including Trump, and gave $2,700 to re-elect LaHood’s son to the House of Representatives.
[NYPOST] "It’s not a plan that tinkers around the edges," President Joe The Big Guy Biden ...46th president of the U.S. Sleazy Dem mschine politician, paterfamilias of the Biden Crime Family... said Wednesday in Pittsburgh of his $2 trillion "American Jobs Plan." No freaking kidding: It’s half of his master plan to utterly remake the nation in the name of recovery from the pandemic.
America is reopening thanks to vaccines developed in record time, and the economy is all set to return to the pre-COVID boom. Rather than get government to get out of the way as everyone gets back to work, Biden aims to spend unprecedented sacks of cash to grow the government and let Democratic interest groups gorge.
Step Two, his "American Families Plan," drops in a few weeks with another $2 trillion in spending. This comes on top of his $1.9 trillion so-called "COVID relief" package — and the $4 trillion Congress OK’d last year, a quarter of it still unspent.
"This is the moment to reimagine and rebuild a new economy," the White House says. Why, other than the fact that Democrats think they can get away with it?
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said in February — before Biden’s first big bill passed — that the economy will reach its previous peak by mid-year, no new federal cash baths needed.
But then, Biden’s proposal isn’t about letting Americans get back to building their own lives. It’s not even actually an American Jobs Plan, it’s a con job to sell America on central planning.
As for the infrastructure that’s supposedly at the plan’s center: Even the White House doesn’t pretend that more than a third of the money would go for roads, bridges and so on, and it could be as little as 5 percent.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/02/2021 00:00 ||
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#1
By coincidence, I stumbled over an old Poul Anderson book, Industrial Revolution (1963). The plot: North America is taken over by the Social Justice Party and private enterprise is attacked as not being equitable. The military is suborned to support them, to avoid massive budget cuts required due to all the new social programs. All of this is in a SciFi setting but his prescience w/r/t the underlying trends is disturbing.
[NYPOST] If there is one thing Joe The Big Guy Biden ...46th president of the U.S. We hold these truths to be self-evident. All men and women created ... by the — you know — you know, the thing... and the Democrats truly love, it is spending your money.
In Pittsburgh on Wednesday, Biden rolled out a plan to spend $2 trillion over the next eight years, supposedly on infrastructure. When Congress passes something this big, you can be sure that they are hiding a lot of mischief in the fine print. For example, Biden is trying to sneak in a provision that would overturn dozens of states’ laws to force workers to join unions against their will.
Mitch McConnell calls the plan "a Trojan horse," with 94 percent of the spending on things other than roads and bridges. Lots of the spending is on "Green New Deal" boondoggles such as wind and solar energy and electric cars. Biden plans to remake the energy sector just as it has made the United States energy independent and created a huge share of the nation’s jobs over the past decade.
Everything that comes from Washington, DC, costs more than the price tag, but if you take that $2 trillion number at face value and combine it with the $1.9 trillion Biden and the Democrats already spent in their COVID relief bill (most of which had nothing to do with COVID relief), we’re talking $31,758 of new spending for every household in the United States. That’s more than all the wealth of all the nation’s billionaires put together.
And that’s on top of our annual $4.48 trillion budget, and before you add in another $2 trillion in education, childcare and social program spending reportedly on the way soon. Alexandria Boom Boom Ocasio-Cortez Dem Congressgirl from da Bronx in Noo Yawk and leader of the Mean Girl Caucus in Congress. One of the Great Minds of the 21st Century, she is known as much for her innaleck as for her dance moves. She is all in favor of socialism, even though she's fuzzy on the details. She was the inventor of the Green New Deal, though she doesn't talk about it much anymore... says of the Biden plan, "This is not nearly enough." Given that the median household income in the United States was $65,712 before the pandemic, Biden is on his way to blowing through an entire year’s budget for every family in the country. When the president calls this a "once-in-a-generation investment," he means that after he’s done, we will be broke for a generation.
see also
Biden to announce up to $4 trillion infrastructure plan with massive tax hikes
Guess who gets stuck with the bill? Biden says he will raise taxes on corporations, although even his pencil-pushers admit that they need 15 years’ worth of taxes to cover the first eight years’ worth of spending.
That means we will still be paying for this until Biden’s 94th birthday, and Nancy San Fran Nan Pelosi Congresswoman-for-Life from the San Francisco Bay Area, born into a family of professional politicians. On-again-off-again Speaker of the House. It's not her fault when they lose, but it's her accomplishment when they win. Noted for her heavily botoxed grimace and occasional senior... uhhh... moments... ’s 96th.
Biden promised on the campaign trail that nobody making under $400,000 a year would see a tax hike. Well, we all know that taxes on corporations end up getting paid by their customers, their workers, and their shareholders. That’s a lot of people who make less than $400,000 a year. Then again, at the rate Biden is spending money, who knows what a dollar will be worth in 15 years?
Posted by: Fred ||
04/02/2021 00:00 ||
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#1
I don't see future generations losing much sleep over repudiating debts they never agreed to take on.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
04/02/2021 10:29 Comments ||
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#2
...just invoke the 13th Amendment banning involuntary servitude.
#4
At the end of the second Bush Presidency the national debt was somewhere around 10 trillion. Today, its north of 30 and climbing for the stratosphere. The only conceivable way to pay it off is a mix of massive inflation and draconian budgetary restraint since inflated future dollars will be more abundant to pay off the past debt. Clearly Bidet is clueless that the uKalorama Kompound thinks the first part serves the strategic goals of their allies in Peking and Tehran to further destroy the main enemy and Great Satan. As for ruining our children’s future, they are fine with that too, after all, most of them are white and therefore by definition racists.
[BREITBART] Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte (R) signed a bill on Wednesday banning sanctuary cities, which effectively act as safe havens for illegal immigrants colonists, across the state, promising "immigration laws will be enforced in Montana."
Per the law, local enforcement agencies will be required to abide by federal immigration law or face penalties for noncompliance. The law grants the attorney general authority to bring a civil action "to compel compliance by a state agency or local government." Violators may have grants withheld and could face fines of "$10,000 every five days that the state agency or local government is not in compliance with the provisions," per the measure.
"We are a nation of laws, and immigration laws will be enforced in Montana. Criminal, illegal aliens who pose public safety threats to our communities have no sanctuary in Montana," Gianforte told the Daily Caller prior to signing the bill
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
...46th president of the U.S. 
...46th president of the U.S., who gives the geriatric a bad name...
The disgraced, except in his own mind, former head of the FBI...
...46th president of the U.S. 
