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Democratic California Governor Gavin Newsom threatened possible legal action against oil companies in a Tuesday tweet complaining about the high cost of gas in his state.

“CA drivers have paid an average of 30 cents more per gallon. There’s no identifiable evidence to justify that. I’m demanding an investigation. If oil companies are engaging in false advertising or price fixing — legal action should be taken,” Newsom tweeted.

Clueless in Sacramento.

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Well, actually, they just stood outside and pouted, but still.

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As you might expect, it did not go well.

I doubt that Maxine Waters could balance her own checkbook, much less grasp digital currencies.

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The pedestrian bridge that collapsed over a busy Miami street last year, killing six people, was doomed by a fatal design flaw, federal authorities concluded in a scathing review on Tuesday. The errors led to unusually severe cracking in the concrete that should have worried engineers and prompted the closure of the roadway below for safety.

Instead, Southwest Eighth Street, an eight-lane thoroughfare adjacent to Florida International University, remained open. The $14 million bridge, which was under construction by the university to connect students to the neighboring city of Sweetwater, fell on top of motorists waiting at a red light, crushing their cars under 950 tons of concrete and metal.

“The bridge was talking to them,” Robert L. Sumwalt, chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, said with evident exasperation at a board meeting in Washington. “It wasn’t just talking — it was screaming that there was something definitely wrong with this bridge. Yet no one was listening.”

I know, let’s put these people in charge of our health care.

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Democrat Daniel J. Hunt (whose last name was surely a playground favorite) introduced “An Act regarding the use of offensive words,” which would fine individuals $150 for a first offense, while repeat offenders would face a $200 fine, up to six months’ imprisonment, or both.

Problems? What problems?

Cambridge civil rights attorney Harvey Silvergate says Hunt’s bill isn’t legal.

“If it’s challenged in court, it will take minutes for a judge to see through it,” said Silvergate. “It doesn’t have a prayer of surviving, so why should the Legislature even burden us — the citizens, the press and the courts — why would they burden us with this nonsense? Surely they must have more important things to do.”

More important than Democrat virtue-signaling? I think NOT.

UPDATE: Twitter Mentions Of State Rep. Who Wants To Outlaw The Word ‘Bitch’ Predictably Filled With People Calling Him A Bitch

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I guess these people just can’t read, or perhaps they believe that they can just wish the First Amendment away.

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The Seattle Public Schools Ethnic Studies Advisory Committee (ESAC) released a rough draft of notes for its Math Ethnic Studies framework in late September, which attempts to connects math to a history of oppression.

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Prediction: Nobody will get fired, nobody will go to jail.

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Chicago teachers are striking for the third time in seven years. The Chicago Teachers Union has rejected what Mayor Lori Lightfoot says is “the most lucrative CTU package in its history.” The union shunned 5-year, 24 percent teacher raises and continues to demand more, including thousands in new hires and additional benefits like affordable housing.

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Two U.S. jet fighters bombed an American military base in Syria Wednesday to keep Turkey from taking control of the facility, the U.S. military said.

The decision to conduct a pre-planned airstrike on the base formerly used to train U.S.-allied Kurdish fighters — LaFarge Cement Factory — came after Turkish fighters began to move in on the facility, according to Col. Myles Caggins, a spokesman for the U.S.-led campaign against the Islamic State.

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Too extreme for the ACLU? Whoa.

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Demonstrating once again her laser-like focus on representing the interests of her constituents in Queens, AOC flew to Denmark recently on an airplane that burned an enormous amount of fossil fuels. This no doubt thrilled those who live in her congressional district, who have plenty of time to follow their congressperson’s heroic exploits closely because they don’t work at an Amazon distribution center. AOC believes that it’s all about her constituents – it’s not about her, as you can tell from her statements to those assembled in Copenhagen….

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In its 92-year history, the Strand, a New York institution and one of the world’s largest independent bookstores, has endured everything from the Great Depression to the explosion of Amazon.

It is a cruel irony, then, that having survived against the odds, the latest potential threat to the third-generation family business comes from an organisation whose purpose is supposed to be to protect.

The Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) announced in June that it had granted the Strand’s home – an 11-storey building between Manhattan’s Greenwich and East Villages – landmark status, despite vocal opposition from its owner who warned it would “destroy” the popular store.

‘Landmark status’ is a favorite proglodyte tool for confiscating somebody’s property without the compensation required by the 5th Amendment. It is quintessentially fascist.

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So the victim, an illegal alien from Honduras, wants a green card, but is surprised that the judge set his/“her” attacker free? Oh, and the United States can’t even enforce our own border — because that would be racist — but yet we’re supposed to be enforcing “hate crime” laws?

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Local authorities arrested Antonio Ulises Perez, a 38-year-old illegal alien from El Salvador, in Oklahoma County in September on the suspicion that he raped a woman. However, the Oklahoma County Sheriff’s Office did not honor a detainer request ICE lodged and allowed him to be released Wednesday, according to a Thursday ICE press release. Ulises Perez then immediately traveled to the woman’s house, ICE said.

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Not really news, but a useful reminder.

There is nothing about being a government employee that makes you either smarter or more ethical then some random homeless guy. Those who work to give more power to the government always ignore that simple fact.

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Drip… drip… drip….

The Unmasking continues.

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Oops.

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All told, the U.S. government spends $20 billion annually on farm subsidies, with approximately 39 percent of all farms receiving some sort of subsidy. For comparison, the oil industry gets about $4.6 billion annually and annual housing subsidies total another $15 billion. A significant portion of this $20 billion goes not to your local family farm, but to Big Aggie.

(Note that this $20 billion annual farm subsidy figure doesn’t take into account the 30+ years of ethanol subsidies to the corn industry nor export subsidies to U.S. farmers issued by the USDA.)

The government never properly explains why this is. Certainly small farmers are growing their crops at enormous risk. However, it’s not clear that agriculture is any different than other high-risk industries – especially because the United States is blessed with some of the most fertile farmland in the world, and a highly skilled labor force.

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The underlying anxiety here is that the Army has tried and failed repeatedly to modernize its Reagan-era arsenal over the past 30 years — the problem Army Futures Command was created to fix. Armored fighting vehicle programs, above all replacements for the Bradley troop carrier, have been particularly fraught. The Future Combat Systems family of vehicles, which included a lightweight Bradley replacement, was canceled in 2009, while the Ground Combat Vehicle, a better-armored and correspondingly heavier Bradley replacement, was cancelled in 2014. The Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicle is the Army’s third swing at this ball.

Maybe the Russians have something we could buy. They don’t seem to be having these problems.

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Over the years, senior Navy weapons developers have explained some of the key areas of modernization focus; these include new coating materials to make the submarines stealthier, new antennas for longer-range, more accurate undersea surveillance missions and new “quieting” engine propulsion technology, among other things.

All of these technologies, in fact, already exist in the USS South Dakota attack submarine — the most advanced submarine ever to be delivered to the Navy. The new boat, which is now operational, began as a prototype, test-bed platform to evolve these new technologies. What all of these USS South Dakota innovations also amount to is that, Hanson said, they are informing both Block V as well as current conceptual discussions now underway regarding a future generation Virginia-class submarine now only in early conceptual development – called Block VI. Block VI, according to Hanson, is not likely to begin to materialize until the mid 2020s.

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I’d likd to have the IRS investigate Chuck Schumer. As a New York Democrat politician, if his closet doesn’t have any skeletons in it, he’ll  be the first in history.

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The “Blue Bowl” is a fundraiser for the family of Sgt. Ron Helus, an officer killed in a 2018 mass shooting. But Thousand Oaks Police Chief Tim Hagel decided it wasn’t a go after learning that Republicans had been invited, Los Angeles Fox News affiliate FOX 11 reported Tuesday.

California is turning into a classic one-party totalitarian state. The sooner we get them to secede, the better.

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Explicit racism, thy name is Democrat.

Scott Johnson at Power Line does a deep dive.

Federal district court judge Allison Burroughs has upheld Harvard’s racially discriminatory admissions policy in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard (embedded below). Long story short: Harvard’s discrimination is all in a good cause. Asian-Americans are only incidental victims and they aren’t treated any more poorly in the process than white students. Harvard doesn’t mean anything invidious by it.

…

The principle of equal treatment was adopted as the law of the land in the great civil rights legislation of 1964 and 1965, or so we foolishly thought at the time. It may even have been the law for a minute or two. Then the federal government began building the whole edifice of affirmative action and racial preferences that we live with today and that has been addressed by the Supreme Court in a number of important cases. Certainly insofar as higher education is concerned, the affirmative action regime and the treatment of students based on the color of their skin are entrenched more deeply than ever under the shibboleth of “diversity.”

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I am very familiar with transcripts of presidential phone calls since I edited and processed dozens of them when I worked for the NSC. I also know a lot about intelligence whistleblowers from my time with the CIA.

My suspicions grew this morning when I saw the declassified whistleblowing complaint. It appears to be written by a law professor and includes legal references and detailed footnotes. It also has an unusual legalistic reference on how this complaint should be classified.

From my experience, such an extremely polished whistleblowing complaint is unheard of. This document looks as if this leaker had outside help, possibly from congressional members or staff.

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Hammertech..

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The next step in the Proglodyte Puritan plan to make sure nobody anywhere has a pleasant life.

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I guess that’s why so many of their graduates make it on Wall Street and the Supreme Court.

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For the last several years, we have been covering the grade-changing scandal in Baltimore City Public Schools (BCPS). Administrators, teachers, and parents continue to come forward about the widespread fraud that allows children to graduate, even though they’ve missed school or failed classes.

The problem is not just that they aren’t learning anything, but that they’re getting the same credential as those who have, a credential that is used for employment and further education decisions.

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Good. California has been leadig the rest of the country by the nose on auto emission standards for too long. These necessarily become the de facto national standards because auto makers aren’t going to make two types of cars, one that meets California standards and one that doesn’t. (Think of why you can’t buy a non-low-flow toilet any more….)

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The United States government Tuesday sued Edward Snowden for proceeds from his new book, saying that the former National Security Agency contractor failed to submit his memoir for government review before publication.

“We will not permit individuals to enrich themselves, at the expense of the United States, without complying with their pre-publication review obligations,” Assistant Attorney General Jody Hunt said in announcing the lawsuit.

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The House Oversight and Reform Committee began an investigation Monday into Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao over whether she is using her office to benefit her family.

The way every member of the Congressional Black Caucus always does.

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Illinois Supreme Court Justices chose Anne Burke as their chief on Sept. 10. One could almost hear the gears turning on the Chicago machine, a hobbled but still functioning apparatus now in the sights of federal investigators.

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This is what happens when you depend on the government to provide your health care.

UPDATE: When Government Runs Health Care (Cal Thomas)

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In other words, self-employed Americans enjoying moderate success will enjoy a particularly swift kick in the nuts under a Warren administration.

Professor Umbrage is after your wallet. Not really news but a useful reminder.

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And I’d like to apologize to the United States for Alenxandria Occasional Cortex.

In a rightly-ordered society, such twits would neither be elected to a legislature nor feel that they had some right to speak for the entire country.

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No doubt because it did such a great job of making New York City so unaffordable.

Hey, y’all, plenty of cheap nice housing in Texas.

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I guess she things that single payer is already here.

UPDATE: She’s Crazy and Married to a Democrat

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Some good news for a change.

Former National Security adviser Michael Flynn is refusing to cooperate with the Democrat-controlled House Intelligence Committee’s demand for testimony and documents, according to Politico, citing a Monday letter by Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA).

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Thank God for those strict gun control laws, or the place would be like Texas.

Democrats: Party of Fear – Party of Hate – Party of Death

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Uh, that would seem to be their job….

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Compare the actions of the southern states versus the Federal government prior to secession.

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How triggering (pun intended).

Don’t you remember all those guys in black hoods beating people up on the streets of the Left Coast?

Oh, wait, that was AntiFa….

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Honestly, I’ve never heard of a judge telling a prosecutor “You have to prosecute this.”

This is what it’s come to — District Attorneys are now essentially Antifa themselves, and judges have to overrule their decisions that lily-white upper middle class Antifa thugs shouldn’t have their records so much as blemished.

Well, there’s justice, and there’s National Socialist Justice. Never the twain shall meet.

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Once government employees were allowed to unionize, the natural result of unions giving Democrats a solid block of votes in return form super-sweet pay and benefit deals was inevitable.

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Democrat Senator demonstrates that progressive totalitarian impulses are never far below the surface.

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Yeah — all those black guys doing the drive-bys? Republicans, obviously!

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The inadvisability of sending one’s children to a government school, especially in a Trending Blue state such as Colorado, receives yet another pointed example.

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California is turning itself into a foreign — and hostile — country.

Perhaps we just ought to let it go.

Take the wall with us, though.