[FoxNews] British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has promised to institute a national service requirement should the Conservative Party win the general election on July 4.
"The appeal of the idea is particularly geared to more right wing voters who might have been leaning to vote for the Reform Party and may now switch back to Conservative," Alan Mendoza, co-founder and executive director of the Henry Jackson Society, told Fox News Digital.
Sunak last week announced that the U.K. would have a general election, catching many in his own party off-guard. He made the announcement alone, standing in the rain outside the prime minister’s residence at 10 Downing Street while the 1997 Labour Campaign theme "Things Can Only Get Better" played in the background.
Sunak has since then started laying out his proposal for the next phase of his government should he win the general election — a feat that appears increasingly difficult as the polling puts the rival Labour Party ahead by around 20 points and the Conservatives look to replace some 77 MPs who have decided not to run for re-election, according to The Institute For Government.
Chief among the prime minister’s proposals is the eye-catching national service requirement, which the U.K. abandoned as a practice around 60 years ago: The last mandatory service requirements occurred after World War II and ended in 1960.
The previous national service requirement meant 18 months of military training and four years on the reserve list, which would allow the government to draft citizens on short notice, according to the BBC.
#1
Slave labor is always cheaper. You spend decades destroying national identity and the wonders of Western Civilization and then expect them to put their lives on the line. You exist to serve this ship the state, row well and live.
[JustTheNews] California Gov. Gavin Newsom is seeking to delay a healthcare worker minimum wage increase that will cost the state $4 billion this year alone as the state faces a budget crisis.
Among Newsom’s proposals to cut the deficit from $73 billion to $7 billion are tying the state’s healthcare minimum wage increases, which would hike the wage to $23 per hour this June cost the state $4 billion in just the first year, to the financial position of the state’s general fund and exempt state facilities. The state’s minimum wage is $16 per hour, which means the increase would raise base labor costs by 44%.
“The Administration is … to add an annual 'trigger' to make the minimum wage increases subject to General Fund revenue availability, clarify the exemption for state facilities, and make other implementation clarifications,” wrote the governor in his January budget proposal.
State Sen. Maria Durazo, D-Los Angeles, author of the state’s $25 per hour healthcare minimum wage, which would be fully phased in by 2026, submitted an “urgent” bill to delay the wage from taking effect for another month as negotiations on the wage’s implementation continue.
The law increases the minimum wage for employees at employers with more than 10,000 full time or equivalent employees, or facilities in counties with more than 5 million residents, and applies to any employee in the health sector, including “food service staff” and “gift shop staff.”
California recently adopted a $20 per hour minimum wage for the fast food sector, a move that small businesses say effectively creates a new minimum wage for them as well given that they are in competition with fast food companies for the same pool of minimum wage workers. The $23 per hour, and ultimately $25 per hour, healthcare minimum wage would likely bring up labor costs for small businesses further, says National Federation of Independent Business California Director John Kabateck.
California health and labor advocates pushed back against California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposal to cut in-home nursing and care assistance for illegal immigrants from this year’s budget, which has cut an estimated $73 billion deficit to $7 billion.
California's In-Home Supportive Services, which provides in-home personal care and assistance for elderly and disabled individuals with 283 hours per month of assistance with tasks such as bathing, dressing, housework, and meal preparation.
To be fair, that’s much cheaper than moving them to a skilled nursing facility, which I understand charge about $10,000/month for the same level of care.
The governor proposed spending $9 billion on IHHS for fiscal year 2024-2025, a $1 billion increase from the year prior. The nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office, a state-funded, non-partisan agency, notes beneficiaries are “responsible for hiring and supervising a paid IHSS provider — oftentimes a family member or relative” at an estimated $17.95 per hour.
While Medi-Cal was expanded to cover all illegal immigrants starting in January of this year, the governor’s proposed cuts would maintain said individuals’ access to most Medi-Cal services but drop IHHS coverage provided through Medi-Cal.
“This proposal is both harmful and xenophobic, potentially pushing immigrant families deeper into poverty,” wrote the left-leaning California Budget and Policy Center in opposition to the governor’s proposal. “These cuts could also lead to increased state spending on nursing home care in the long run.”
The California Department of Social Services, which administers IHHS, told the Los Angeles Times just 3,000 illegal immigrants have been authorized for IHHS, and that 1,500 are receiving IHHS program benefits.
With state leaders aiming to expand Medi-Cal to all Californians, system beneficiaries are already struggling to find doctors to treat them as the state faces doctor and care provider shortages.
California’s expansion of Medi-Cal coverage to all illegal immigrants between 26 and 50 years old is expected to add 700,000 beneficiaries at a cost of $3.4 billion per year. Newsom has vowed to fund the program expansion despite the state’s budget crisis.
“We also want to maintain our health care expansion across the board, regardless of ability to pay, regardless of pre-existing conditions and your immigration status,” Newsom said in his revised May budget proposal.
With one in four Californians expected to be 60 or older by 2030, costs for IHHS and other programs for elderly Californians are expected to increase as relatively fewer workers are paying taxes to fund these programs. Experts say this may not be sustainable, especially with declining births leading to fewer future workers.
The California Teacher's Association (CTA), the state's powerful progressive teachers union, launched an ad against the liberal governor last week after Newsom proposed slashing funding for public schools by $12 billion over the next few years to narrow the state's budget shortfall.
"California classrooms face a monumental crisis, tens of billions of dollars in cuts to public education over the next three years, bigger class sizes, thousands of teachers laid off, essential resources like counselors, nurses and special education aides, gone," the narrator says in the 30-second ad.
[AmmoLand] Alliant Powders has recently suspended shipments of its smokeless powders for reloading. Alliant is the source of such old standards as Bullseye, Unique, and 2400, as well as the more modern Reloader series of powders.
First, there is worldwide pressure on ammunition production capacity because of all the ammunition being consumed in ongoing conflicts, especially in Ukraine. The materials used to make propellants for artillery rounds are the same as those used to make small arms propellants. Many countries have ramped up production of ammunition and its precursors, including most of Europa ...the land mass occupying the space between the English Channel and the Urals, also known as Moslem Lebensraum... and the U.S.
The primary production bottleneck seems to be nitrocellulose. Nitrocellulose for propellants can be obtained from various plant fibers, including forest products. However,
a woman is only as old as she admits... the preferred source is cotton. The bottleneck is in the plant’s capacity to convert cotton into what is called "defense-grade" nitrocellulose.
Alliant is owned by Vista Outdoor, which also owns several other companies that produce loaded ammunition, including CCI, Federal, and Remington. Alliant sources its propellants from Sweden, Switzerland ...home of the Helvetians, famous for cheese, watches, yodeling, and William Tell... , Canada, and the Radford Army Arsenal in Virginia.
Because the ammunition manufacturers under the Vista umbrella are stressed in obtaining the propellants they need for their production, Vista appears to have made the business decision to commit all of the Alliant propellant capacity to Vista ammunition manufacturers. Thus, Alliant withdrew from shipment and sold propellants for reloading.
The ammunition marketplace seems to be recovering from a shortage of loaded ammunition and small arms primers. Prices are relaxing from the recent highs, and retail shelves are mostly well stocked. However,
a woman is only as old as she admits... Alliant’s withdrawal from the reloading powder market will likely stress supplies of propellant for reloaders. Further, reloaders who have worked up and used favorite loads of Alliant powders may need to shift to using other brands and products.
#1
MNC Capital Increases Proposal to Acquire Vista Outdoor to $37.50 Per Share
DALLAS, March 25, 2024--(BUSINESS WIRE)--MNC Capital Partners, L.P. ("MNC") today announced that it has submitted an increased all-cash proposal to acquire Vista Outdoor, Inc. (NYSE: VSTO) ("Vista" or the "Company") for $37.50 per share, or approximately $3.0 billion. Vista’s shares were trading below $30.00 per share when MNC made its initial proposal on February 19, 2024. MNC's $37.50 per share proposal values Revelyst at $1.1 billion, a 93% premium to Vista's own $570 million implied Revelyst standalone value from its Investor Presentation dated February 1, 2024.
From Business Wire 03/2024
Posted by: Cleared Cookies Lost Nic ||
05/29/2024 8:13 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Cost driven businessmen cut excess capacity to the bone in a drive for profitability, then are surprised to find that they don't have any excess capacity.
Strange how that works.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
05/29/2024 8:27 Comments ||
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#3
1st of all - history seems to be repeating itself again. There were ammo and powder/primer shortages when Obama was coming up for his re-election also. Then again, for the Hillary/Trump run up to election.
[ConservativeTreehouse] Governor Phil Bryant: "I’m the campaign finance director for Donald Trump in Mississippi, so we raise money. I’ve talked to a number of very wealthy individuals that God has blessed that say I can’t give money to Donald Trump because the FBI will show up at my door."
One of the more sad, albeit predictable, aspects to the politicization of American justice institutions is that there’s less and less shock associated with the dropping of pretenses. Many people on these pages and in the discussions across the internet warned several years ago that downstream from the weaponized government was going to be an end-point era where all trust was dissolved. We are essentially at that point now.
While both wings of the UniParty apparatus in DC played together in the creation of the post 9-11 surveillance state, it was the Obama administration who added the weaponization knob based on political ideology.
Weaponizing the DOJ and FBI via the Intelligence Community (2012 and beyond) was an outcropping of the previous weaponization of the IRS and regulatory system (2009 to 2012). When I discuss this issue with people, I like to draw attention to the Obama and Eric Holder continuum.
The National Security Division of the DOJ (DOJ-NSD) was created by Eric Holder specifically to function as a weaponized agency, using FARA (Foreign Agent Registration Act) as the tool for the surveillance and targeting. While the NSD system was being put into place (2009/2010), Main Justice requested the CD ROMs from the IRS containing the Schedule-Bs of every 501(c-4) political organization. The DOJ quickly settled the class action lawsuit brought by conservative groups.
With the spotlight on the Cincinnati office (Louis Lerner), Obama moved his Chief of Staff Jack Lew into position as Treasury Secretary. The DOJ under Eric Holder then moved away from using the IRS and began to using the NSA database (weaponized FISA-702 authority) in 2012.
[Epoch Times] Green Bay City Clerk Celestine Jeffreys, a Democrat, has not been following the recommendations of the Wisconsin Election Commission (WEC) or obeying Wisconsin election law. Last month, she formally admitted to the WEC in a legal filing that she has not been conducting thorough investigations into all voters with undeliverable election day registration (EDR) postcards, nor has she been inactivating the voters’ registrations or referring their names to the district attorney, as required by statute.
Ms. Jeffreys claims in the filing that "she was unaware that she was required to do each of these things."
Even I don’t believe her. Nobody is that ignorant.
She promised the WEC that she would do better.
So long as anyone is looking, anyway.
In Wisconsin, people can show up at the polls on election day, register, vote, and have their votes counted before the addresses they presented are verified.
As a belated safeguard, Wisconsin law requires the WEC to mail postcards to the addresses provided by EDR voters as a post-election attempt to verify their validity. The address verification process is completed after their votes are counted and certified.
[GEO.TV] As the hush money trial of former US President Donald Trump ...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and whatever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States... is nearing its conclusion, both parties have started their closing arguments.
The 77-year-old was indicted last year in March for paying hush money to Stormy Daniels in 2016 before the presidential elections.
During the closing remarks, Todd Blanche, who is Trump’s attorney, said that the former president is innocent, questioning the credence of the testimony by Michael Cohen ...sleazy lawyer who worked for Trump as his ''fixer,'' then turned on him after the Stormy Daniels shakedown. Mikey told about six hundred different stories, most of them contradfictory and some physically impossible. In August 2018, Cohen pleaded guilty to eight counts including campaign-finance violations, tax fraud, and bank fraud. As Alvin Bragg's star witness against Trump, he admitted on the stand to enbezzling from the Trump Organization... "We see you paying close attention to the evidence all day every day, and we really appreciate that," Blanche added.
"I started out by saying something that I’m going to repeat to you right now. It's as true right now as it was on April 22. And that is President Trump is innocent. He did not commit any crimes, and the district attorney has not met their burden of proof — period. The evidence is all in," Blanche said.
"The evidence should leave you wanting more. You should want and expect more than the testimony of Michael Cohen," Blanche stated.
Defense attorney Todd Blanche maintained that the case is about documents, not Stormy Daniels. He said: "It’s a paper case. This case is not about an encounter with Stormy Daniels 18 years ago."
"An encounter that President Trump has unequivocally and repeatedly denied occurred," the Republican’s lawyer said.
"You cannot convict President Trump of any crime beyond a reasonable doubt on the words of Michael Cohen. They were lies. Pure and simple," Blanche said.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/29/2024 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11142 views]
Top|| File under:
#4
Judge will allow prosecution to present 'evidence' in final argument.
This is reprehensible. Wonder what the jury will think of it.
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
05/29/2024 9:07 Comments ||
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#5
They surely know a "conviction" will be thrown out on appeal. It's the felony conviction media headlines they want. A horse that can be ridden for months, possibly years.
#6
My biggest fear is that they know it will be overturned but force a conviction and the judge immediately remands him to prison and bail denial. Much easier to assasinate him in prison.
[Epoch Times] The U.S. government is "looking closely" at the possibility of vaccinating farm workers and others in close contact with the virus, according to Dawn O'Connell, the assistant secretary for preparedness and response at the U.S. Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response.
In the European Union, the European Commission’s Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority is working on a joint procurement of CSL Seqirus’s vaccine to "potentially prevent a pandemic" sparked by individuals exposed to infected birds and animals, spokesman Stefan De Keersmaecker said.
A spokeswoman for CSL, which has contracts for pandemic influenza vaccines with 30 governments, said the company has been in talks with several governments about procuring vaccines since 2022.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved a CSL influenza A vaccine in 2020, based largely on immunogenicity and safety results from a small clinical trial of 319 people.
Dr. Peter McCullough, an epidemiologist based in Texas, said on the social media platform X that without larger trials, it’s not possible to know whether the vaccine is safe or effective in humans.
The formulation for the CSL shot has been updated to more closely match the bird flu, which is an influenza A virus.
U.S. officials said recently that they’re planning to produce 4.8 million doses of the updated CSL vaccine. European health officials also said they were in talks to acquire CSL’s shot.
The decision on how and when to use the vaccine will hinge on evidence of increased transmission, severity of disease, cases in people with no link to a dairy farm, and mutations in the virus, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Principal Deputy Director Nirav Shah said.
The agency says on its website that the government is developing bird flu vaccines "in case they are needed."
Human exposure to the virus in poultry and dairy operations could increase the risk that the virus will mutate and gain the ability to spread easily in people. Vaccines that perform poorly can also increase that risk.
Posted by: Bobby ||
05/29/2024 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11132 views]
Top|| File under: Tin Hat Dictators, Presidents for Life, & Kleptocrats
#1
Workers will refuse. Will walk off the job. End of story.
#2
You did notice that groups who had previously encountered genocide, many African Americans (NFL players excluded), and senior government officials seem to have escaped the VAX problem.
#5
The agency says on its website that the government is developing bird flu vaccines "in case they are needed."
Another point for the conspiracy theorists.
They've been ringing the Bird Flu bell my entire life. But now, on the heels of the Covid, suddenly...
Here's one: everyone working in this part of Agriculture who is worth their paycheck will refuse, be dismissed, and then replace with illegals who get an exemption. Profit! Now Tyson says eat ze bugs because there is an unexpected shortage of healthy protein because production fell off for some reason.
[JustTheNews] The contractors behind the Pentagon's most expensive weapon system continue to deliver engines and aircraft late, a trend that has worsened in recent years, according to a new report.
The U.S. Government Accountability Office, which serves as the research arm of Congress, found that late deliveries were partially caused by manufacturing issues and a shortage of parts for the U.S. Department of Defense's F-35 Lightning II, a stealth strike fighter.
The F-35 Lightning II is the most advanced and costly weapon system in the U.S. arsenal. The Pentagon estimates the F-35 program will cost over $2 trillion to buy, operate, and sustain over its lifetime. The program was already behind schedule.
"The program, however, is also more than a decade delayed and has cost $209 billion more than originally planned," according to the GAO report.
Lockheed Martin is the prime contractor for the F-35 aircraft and Pratt & Whitney is the prime contractor for the engine. The F-35 program completed initial operational testing and achieved full-rate production in March 2024. Nearly everything the two contractors delivered in 2023 was late.
"The program continues to experience production delays," according to the report. "Specifically, the contractors delivered all engines and almost all aircraft late in 2023."
Pratt & Whitney did not deliver any engines on time in 2023. Most were more than two months late, on average. In 2022, the average delay was one month late. Defense Contract Management Agency officials said hardware issues were responsible for late engine deliveries over the past year. Late engine deliveries have yet to affect aircraft production due to an engine inventory buffer, according to the report.
Lockheed Martin delivered 91% of aircraft late in 2023. That's the highest proportion of late deliveries over the past six years and is almost double the percentage of late deliveries in 2022, according to the report. The report cited a shortage of parts and manufacturing issues, among other problems.
The cost of the F-35 program has increased. Specifically, sustainment cost estimates have increased 44%, from about $1.1 trillion in 2018 to about $1.58 trillion in 2023. One reason for the increase in cost estimates is the extension of the aircraft's service life. The Pentagon plans to use the F-35 through 2088.
[JustTheNews]
An F-35B enroute from Fort Worth, Texas, to Edwards Air Force Base, California, crashed after a refueling stop at Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico. The pilot safely ejected. Safety is our priority, and we will follow appropriate investigation protocol. - Lindsay Wilson, Lockheed Martin - cite.
#8
The whole "Wonder Weapons" feel to our outrageously expensive defense hardware reminds me of the quote often attributed to Stalin. "Quantity has it's own form of quality." The MIC wants to sell next-gen Maseratti's for every weapons need when most of the time, a good, solid Ford F150 fits the needs for the next land war, perhaps far closer to home than anyone used to imagine?
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.
...the land mass occupying the space between the English Channel and the Urals, also known as Moslem Lebensraum...
Ms. Jeffreys claims in the filing that "she was unaware that she was required to do each of these things."
...sleazy lawyer who worked for Trump as his ''fixer,'' then turned on him after the Stormy Daniels shakedown. Mikey told about six hundred different stories, most of them contradfictory and some physically impossible. In August 2018, Cohen pleaded guilty to eight counts including campaign-finance violations, tax fraud, and bank fraud. As Alvin Bragg's star witness against Trump, he admitted on the stand to enbezzling from the Trump Organization...
In the European Union, the European Commission’s Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority is working on a joint procurement of CSL Seqirus’s vaccine to "potentially prevent a pandemic" sparked by individuals exposed to infected birds and animals, spokesman Stefan De Keersmaecker said.
The decision on how and when to use the vaccine will hinge on evidence of increased transmission, severity of disease, cases in people with no link to a dairy farm, and mutations in the virus, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Principal Deputy Director Nirav Shah said.
