Read it.

In the movies, safe deposit boxes are magic: Located in bank vaults, they’re depicted as the most secure things in the universe. Thieves targeting safe deposit boxes must plan for decades and bring in dozens of experts. If a character wants to keep something absolutely safe (whether it’s jewels or important documents), they stick it in a safe deposit box and no force in the universe can disturb it.

Unfortunately, that isn’t actually true. Safe deposit boxes aren’t very safe; banks increasingly regard them as more trouble than they’re worth, and they’re not well-regulated. There are exactly zero federal laws covering safe deposit boxes, and they largely operate in the murky world of lease agreements. And if you actually read the (probably very brief) rental agreement you sign with the bank, you’d likely discover that the bank has restricted its liability to a ridiculous level.

Most surprisingly, according to the Office of Comptroller of Currency (OCC) your bank can “drill” your safe deposit box open (removing the contents) under a wide range of conditions, including court orders and search warrants, failure to pay fees, because of branch closure—or because the bank messes up their records. So if you have a safe deposit box and it gets drilled, what can you do?

Notice the question on your Federal tax return about whether you have a safety deposit box, which (if you answer honestly) tells them that there is something there to drill for.

Blogging will be light and variable until they are resolved. My apologies.

Female Boxer Refuses Bout Against Transgender (Fake Woman) Opponent

The Root Cause of the Insanity on College Campuses Is Older Than You May Think

3 Conservative Justices Dissent As Supreme Court Refuses To Reinstate Florida Drag Show Law

Virginia Dems Seek to Establish Abortion as Right

Up In Smoke: California’s Largest Pot Distributor Collapses Amid $17 Million In Unpaid Taxes

EU’s Digital Identity Wallet Is An Electronic Leash With Which Brussels Wants To Control Its Citizens

Democratic machine looms large in race to unseat Menendez (Washington Poop)

Transgender woman footballer quits and threatens to sue for discrimination because rivals refuse to compete against her after she left opponents ‘terrified’ and broke knee of a player ‘blocking her shot’ (UK Daily Mail)

Stop Funding University Programs Contrary to US Interests

Winsom Newsom’s Kamala Word Salad Recipe

‘Decolonisation’: A Polite Word for Ethnic Cleansing

Trans Swimmer Sets NJ Women’s School Record

NYC Mayor Cuts Migrant Funds to Spare NYPD, FDNY, Sani. Dept.

Thousands Sign Petition to Boycott Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade Over Trans Agenda

Trump: Dems’ Opposition to Voter ID Exposes Them

NBC Poll: Gun Ownership at Record High  Gee, I wonder why.

Federal appeals court strikes Maryland handgun rule (The Hill)

Federal Court Rules Against Maryland’s Gun License Law

Read it.

MEPs, bored between negotiations on arms deliveries to Ukraine, have found a new enemy: the wooden boxes used for Camembert. These little wooden rounds that contain one of the jewels of French gastronomy are under threat from the zeal of Brussels officials, who accuse them of a crime that is unforgivable these days: they cannot be recycled.

Victor Davis Hanson.

Of course, Americans had long known that something had gone wrong at their colleges. They had increasingly encountered college graduates who were poorly educated in basic skills and lacked general knowledge—and yet highly politicized, and intolerant of different views and opinions. Ignorant but arrogant is a sad way to start an adult life.

College, the public knew, has certainly eroded from our cherished idea of a four-year idealized respite from adult employment. It once was intended to be a place where youth learned to be open-minded, tolerant, skilled, and eager to learn the nature and traditions of Western civilization, art, literature, languages, philosophy, and history.

Instead, all too often “college” has now descended into a six-to-seven-year misadventure that nationwide often results in only half those enrolled ever receiving degrees. Nearly all sink deeply in student debt. And yet for all the borrowed tuition money, few prove capable of writing analytically, speaking articulately, or knowing the general referents, past and present, of their very civilization.

Rotten apple: New York dubbed ‘least free state’ in country in new study (Fox News) Worse than California? There’s an accomplishment.

New York continues to be ranked one of the ‘least free’ states, new survey shows (Fox Business)

How Free Is Your State? (Cato Institute) Not very, I’m guessing.

NY ranked ‘Least Free State,’ with high taxes, debt, regulation: study (N.Y. Post)

NBC News Loves Deep State: Laments GOP Halting ‘Coordination’ Between FBI, Social Media

Newsom Ad Targets DeSantis’ Six-Week Abortion Ban  I guess he’s running for President.

Conservative Think Tank Reveals Best, Worst States For Freedom In Education

Senate Dems stake their 2024 hopes on last 2 red-state incumbents (Politico)

D.C. Combating Car Thefts, Carjackings With Dashcams, AirTags

¡Afuera! WashPost TRIGGERED ‘Far-Right’ Javier Milei Won Argentina Presidency

Obama’s Diversity Push in Air Traffic Controllers Is Eventually Going to Get People Killed

Do Or DEI? Federal Judge Finds Policies Are Mandatory And Unconstitutional In California Case

Wisconsin Governor Vetoes $2 Billion Republican Tax Cut

Even Census Bureau Is Pushing Radical Gender Ideology

Why TSA’s Implementation of Facial Recognition Is More Dangerous Than You Think

The New American Credo: When The Truth Hurts, Lie

Cardi B Turns On Democrats: “B**ch, We’re Going To Be Drowning In F**king Rats” 

Read it.

The voting machines America is currently using need to go. They breed mistrust, and there’s a reason for that: They are not trustworthy. They are also inherently undemocratic.

No, I’m not talking about 2020–well, not as such. I’m talking about all the past elections since we started using these machines, as well as all the future ones until we come to our senses.

The recent Presidential election in Argentina had 30,000,000 paper ballots, and they were all counted (and the result reported) within one day. But no American county can do that.

The use of insecure, un-auditable voting machines appears to be designed to encourage fraud.

Denver spends millions on transporting migrants to other parts of US (Fox News)

NYC’s Adams Urges Rich: Fill Budget Gaps Amid Migrant Costs (NewsMax) Rich to Adams: Send them back where they came from–we’ll give you money for that.

Oregon’s First-in-the-Nation Drug Decriminalization Law Faces Pushback

Investigators Found Fire and Safety Hazards on Land Under I-10 in Los Angeles Before Arson Fire

Lessons from Britain’s National Extinction—Its Deep State Is As Bad As Ours

Americans’ Trust in Scientists, Positive Views of Science Continue to Decline  Hardly surprising, as science becomes more and more politicized.

Let The Donor Revolution Begin

Cats Are No Match for New York City’s Rats

Yet Another Leftist Journalist Arrested On Child Pornography Charges

San Francisco Mayor Reminds Everyone To Get Their Christmas Shoplifting Done Early (Babylon Bee)

Gang crisis shaking Sweden  And they are heavily Muslim.

Dorothy Bishop on the prevalence of scientific fraud

No One Wants to Pay Anymore

Read it.

“Milton Friedman isn’t running the show anymore.” The sentiments underlying Joe Biden’s mid-2020 statement would be affirmed today not only by center-left American opinion but also those significant segments of American conservatism that have fallen seriously out of love with free markets.

Friedman died on November 16, 2006. His influence at that point upon economics and economic policy remained considerable. Friedman’s ideas on topics ranging from school choice to monetary policy were a major reference point for the American right, but also parts of the left. Exemplifying the latter was former Treasury secretary in the Clinton administration Larry Summers. He went from regarding Friedman as a “devil figure” in his youth to seeing him as someone whose ideas on many subjects merited respect.

The awe in which Friedman was held started unraveling after the 2008 financial crisis, and there’s little question that some of his ideas lost traction over the subsequent decade. That is part of the background to a new biography of Friedman. In Milton Friedman: The Last Conservative, Jennifer Burns, a Stanford history professor and research fellow at the Hoover Institution where Friedman spent the last three decades of his career, has authored a comprehensive study of the economist’s life in the world of ideas.

Read it.

John wrote here Sunday about the “National Vote Compact” (NVC), the proposal of the goo-goo (“good government”) reformers to get around the electoral college by having a majority of states agree to award their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote. I agree with John that it is a loopy idea, though I’d love the spectacle of California someday having to cast its electoral votes for a narrow Republican national popular vote winner when the present system would elect a Democrat with California’s lopsided electoral vote bloc. I’m sure the compact would go down well in that case.

Read it.

It is striking how ‘far-right’ has become an all-purpose insult in Europe and the West. It is a label slapped on anybody who stands outside the narrow conformism of woke politics. Whether it’s parents protesting against drag queens preaching trans ideology to children, or citizens concerned about anything from the EU’s crusade against cars and farmers to the imposition of vaccine passports or mass migration, they are all apparently ‘far-right’ now.

The message is always that ‘these people’ are basically scum, beyond the limits of respectable debate, and should not be engaged with. Instead they should be cancelled, arrested or banned altogether.

Little wonder then that the police, politicians and media seized with relish on the ‘far-right’ counter protest in London on Armistice Day last weekend. They focused on a few hundred white working-class football fans who briefly skirmished with police near the Cenotaph on Whitehall (before respecting the two minutes’ silence for the war dead), as a welcome distraction from facing the truth about the massive ‘peaceful’ pro-Palestinian demonstration up the road, which was really an anti-Israeli, often antisemitic, hate march.

Read it.

The Jews are just a warm-up. Many people have made this observation, but this is a nice data point: earlier this year, Minnesota’s legislature enacted a statute that requires “Ethnic Studies” to be incorporated into every single class from kindergarten through 12th grade. Including math and biology.

And Minnesota is not alone. The “Ethnic Studies” dodge started in California, but it is expanding across the country. And “Ethnic Studies” is just one arrow in the Left’s quiver. The teachers’ unions have converted our public schools into anti-American propaganda centers, and this was well underway long before “Ethnic Studies” came along.

Read it.

When I see hundreds of thousands of people demonstrating, rioting, carrying signs, organized and following some kind of leadership, I always wonder: who paid for this? In the case of the anti-Semitism that currently is sweeping across America, there seems to be a pretty simple answer.

…

In general, the radical left is not a grass roots movement. It exists due to the largesse of a tiny number of rich leftists.

Read it.

In 1957, Albert Memmi addressed the question of the Left’s relationship with terrorism in his book, The Colonizer and Colonized. Memmi was a Tunisian Jew, equally committed to socialist Zionism and anticolonialism. The Left tradition, he observed, “condemns terrorism” as “incomprehensible, shocking and politically absurd. For example, the deaths of children and persons outside the struggle.”

But Memmi’s suppositions were outdated even as he wrote. The history of the modern Left’s romance with terrorism—not the “old-fashioned” version aimed at czars or imperial officials, but the kind directed against unarmed civilians—had already begun. It started with the Algerian War and gained momentum throughout the 1960s, ’70s, and beyond with the emergence of the Red Brigades, the Baader Meinhof Gang, the Irish Republican Army, the Japanese Red Army, the Weathermen, and the panoply of organizations included in the Palestine Liberation Organization and, especially, its Rejectionist Front. The latter held pride of place: “For the Sixth International, the Palestinian resistance is a banner … an inspiration for the revolt of the dispossessed, both in its ends and in its means,” proclaimed Mohamed Sid-Ahmed, a prominent Egyptian leftwing intellectual and activist.

It was at this time that the oxymoronic and ethically repellent concept of what the late Middle East scholar, anti-colonialist, and socialist Fred Halliday criticized as “progressive atrocities” gained credence on the Left, particularly within the Palestinian movement and among the groups supporting it. Of course, the Palestinian national project—like Zionism—has always contained a variety of ideologies ranging from peaceful coexistence to the elimination of the other. (The latter tendency is appallingly prevalent among many members of Benjamin Netanyahu’s current government.) But it is no exaggeration to say that the Palestinian movement, even before the founding of Israel in 1948, has been defined by terror more than any other, and that terrorist groups have always been prominent within the movement.

Groups fear faculty that defended Hamas could set California standards: ‘Institutionalization of antisemitism’ (Fox News)

Suppose They Threw a Cage Match Between Fascism and Democracy and Nobody Cared (Slate)

“Extremely Painful” NYC Budget Cuts Will Lead To Fewer New Police Hires, Reduced Trash Pickups  But not less immigration nor less government nannying.

ABC, CBS OMIT Arrest of Suspect In Death Of Pro-Israel Protester, NBC Weirdly Sandwiches Coverage Between Other Stories

NPR Host Inskeep Asks Jeffries About ‘Extreme Right Wing,’ Avoids Talk of Democrat Radicals

Don’t just be horrified. Ban AR-15s, bump stocks and large magazines. (Washington Poop)

Playbook: The case for triangulation on immigration (Politico)

The hidden biases at play in the U.S. Senate (Washington Poop) “People of color get significantly less representation than White voters. And that’s not the only way the Senate is skewed.”  The Narrative, straight up.

Nebraska Teen Slits Son’s Throat, Reddit User Blames Lack of Abortion Access

Target Doubles Down, Faces Conservative Backlash As ‘Woke’ Christmas Decor Hits Shelves

CBS News Reporter Faces Possible Contempt Charges

How UN Undermines Parental Rights by Pushing Gender Ideology

The View, Ed. Secretary Cardona Decry State Control of Curriculums

Good Guys (and Gals) With Guns Still Out There, as These 12 Examples Show

Teachers Conference Lecture Declares Math a ‘Tool of Oppression’

Newsom Is Mandating Education in Disinformation—While Spreading It Online

MCC: EU Abuses LGBT Rights to Discipline and Undermine Member States

New York Times.

It has been 20 years since scientists put together the first rough draft of the human genome, the three billion genetic letters of DNA tightly wound inside most of our cells. Today, scientists are still struggling to decipher it.

But a batch of studies published in Science on Thursday has cast a bright light into the dark recesses of the human genome by comparing it with those of 239 other mammals, including narwhals, cheetahs and screaming hairy armadillos.

By tracing this genomic evolution over the past 100 million years, the so-called Zoonomia Project has revealed millions of stretches of human DNA that have changed little since our shrew-like ancestors scurried in the shadows of dinosaurs. These ancient genetic elements most likely carry out essential functions in our bodies today, the project found, and mutations within them can put us at risk of a range of diseases.

EU Launches Online Platform To Attract Millions of Labor Migrants

UN Condemns France Over Homeschooling Ban

Make St. Nicholas More Moroccan, Says Belgian Mayor

BKA Report: Sharp Uptick in Violent Crime Committed by Migrants Against Germans

Democrats Introduce Bill To Restrict And Track Ammo Sales While Criminalizing “Straw Purchases”

Maryland Teachers Union ‘Milking’ Taxpayers While Test Scores Plummet 

Judge Blocks California Colleges’ Inclusion Rules

Gavin Newsom Gave Millions to Mosques that Cheer the Annihilation of Jews

This Anti-Israel Terrorist Organization Found A Home In A Left-Wing Nonprofit

Oakland A’s Move to Las Vegas Approved  Fleeing California–and California taxes.

Absolute Nonsense: Obama Again Claims To Be First Amendment Absolutist While Supporting Censorship

Anheuser Marketing Chief Out as Bud Light Sales Tank

Mo. AG Seeks Accountability for Soros-Backed Attorney

The Postcolonial Left’s Blindness to Islamic Homophobia  The term ‘useful idiots’ applies.

ZMan lays it out.

The concept of the uniparty has been around a long time, long before political hucksters started using it as catchphrase. The fear of the major parties conspiring with one another to shortcut the will of the people goes back to the 19th century. On the one hand, the two parties should compromise, but on the other hand they should be competing for the approval of the voters. The line between cooperation and conspiracy is not easy to define, but it is assumed to exist.

In the modern age, the uniparty idea has mostly circulated on the Right, because conservatives keep voting harder but always get more of the same. When the Republicans win, they immediately fink on their voters. When they are in the minority, they bend over backwards to help the Democrats. The uniparty in this context is a way of saying that both parties serve the same master. The master can be whatever you like, but it is not the American people.

The truth is the uniparty has been in control since the end of the Second World War when America emerged as a global empire. The “Cold War consensus” was an agreed upon moral framework in which both parties operated. They could tolerate the eccentric oddball here and there for color, but the two parties made sure the people in important position were fully onboard with the consensus. The disputes within the consensus were about how to reach the shared goals.

Quilette.

In September, a new statue of Felix Dzerzhinsky was erected in the Moscow suburbs outside of the headquarters of Russia’s foreign intelligence service, the Sluzhba Vneshney Razvedki (SVR). Dzerzhinsky was the Polish creator of one of the world’s great repressive political machines. In 1917, he had been instructed to create the SVR’s forerunner, known then as the Cheka, by Lenin himself, who much admired the toughness of the man who became known as Iron Felix. The organisation would be called many names—the GPU, OGPU, NKVD, MGB, KGB—and it is now split into the SVR and the domestic Federal Security Service or Federalnaya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti (FSB).

Iron Felix was Heinrich Himmler plus competence.

Read it.

Initially introduced in the 1980s to reduce labor costs, self-service machines transferred the work from employees to customers. They gained popularity in supermarkets in the early 2000s, especially during the pandemic, as they allowed shoppers to avoid close contact with others, according to the Yahoo report.

However, retailers are now reassessing self-checkout due to its association with increased merchandise losses, both from accidental errors and deliberate theft, a phenomenon known as “shrink.”

I don’t go into a store to do the work that store employees ought to be doing. I’m surprised they haven’t started forcing shoppers to restock the shelves for them.

Read it.

Our historically twisted view that wars don’t happen here at home, interrupted by Pearl Harbor and Sept. 11, 2001, may require our immediate and stone-cold sober attention.

Our borders have been wide open since Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas took up his post in 2021 with over seven million illegal immigrants invading us since his confirmation.

As incredulous as it is, he still hasn’t been impeached.

California program to lease land under freeways faces scrutiny after major Los Angeles fire (Associated Press)

Arson Damaged Vital LA Freeway

This Checkered Terrorist Durag Is Literally Exploding on the Fashion Scene. Is It More Than Just an Inti-FAD-a?

Watch: Officials Grilled Over San Fran’s ‘Miraculously’ Spotless Streets For Xi Visit

DC Mayor Declares Public Emergency as Crime Spirals Out of Control

Watch: UPS Driver Carjacked In ‘Grand Theft Auto-Style’ Robbery Near DC

MEET THE NEW BOSS: George Soros’ Son Alex Takes Over $25-Billion Leftist Empire. Here’s Why He Could Be Even Worse

Italian Leftists Move To Block Albania Migrant Outsourcing Deal

Macho Joe Scarborough Said He’d Beat Up Capitol Tourist—But Appalled By Senate Scrap

Read it.

Howdy — this is not a religious commentary, as I leave that (mostly) to the members of their respective organizations.

The Pope exists in the real world and is an influential force in human affairs, and so this atheist feels more than qualified to comment on that basis. This is the same basis on which I approve of Protestant reforms (raised Protestant) despite having no religious charter for my views. Also, I find some Protestantism more agreeable than others. So much for my preferences — that’s not the point. Wars have been fought over this stuff, nations dissolved and founded, and from my admittedly atheist perspective, most religious wars are just ordinary wars for power and security (or personal glory) using a different label than the other options of race, ethnicity, nation-state, geography, or “vocation” (meaning a given people’s way of getting on).

I remember when liberty had a great ally in a sturdy and forthright man of a Pope. Reagan, Thatcher, John Paul II — those were heroic leaders united in a global crusade against the pure evil of Communism, winning WWIII without plunging the planet into fire.

Marginal Revolution.

In Washington-speak the “Inflation Reduction Act” requires HHS to “negotiate” drug prices for Medicare Part D and Part B to establish a maximum “fair” price. In reality there is no negotiation–firms who refuse to negotiate are hit with huge taxes. The “negotiation” if you want to call it that is “your money or your life” and fairness has little to do with it. The IRA also requires very costly inflation rebates, i.e. a price control/tax. In essence, the IRA is a taking; for drugs with a large Medicare market it is similar to abrogating patents to 9 years for small molecule drugs and 13 years for biologics. For the included drugs there will be a significant reduction in revenues. Moreover, we don’t yet know whether the plan will be extended to more and more drugs. There is significant uncertainty affecting the entire market. What will be situation in 10 years? Will the US be like Europe?

Read it.

A November 3 post on X (formerly Twitter) from J.K. Rowling caught my eye recently. It was her comment on the decision of an Australian court to mandate that the ‘preferred pronouns’ of people identifying as transgender be used as a “matter of respect” to ensure “public confidence in the proper administration of justice.” As Rowling noted: “Asking a woman to refer to her male rapist or violent assaulter as ‘she’ in court is a form of state-sanctioned abuse. Female victims of male violence are further traumatised by being forced to speak a lie.” Indeed, forcing a woman to refer to the man who abused and raped her as ‘she’ seems a particularly grotesque form of gaslighting.

Rowling’s comment gets to the heart of something that is not commented on often enough: the manifest cruelty of the transgender movement. I’m not referring here to the mobs of trans-identified men that so often threaten violence towards women who dare to speak out—or, as in the case of Posie Parker’s visit to New Zealand earlier this year, actually perpetrate it. Nor am I speaking of the torrent of vile threats of rape that women like Rowling face from these vicious men in dresses. I mean the cruelty of the practices and policies imposed by those in power on women and girls in the name of the transgender movement, which have swept virtually every Western country in under a decade.

Gaza hospitals caught on front line of Israel-Hamas war (BBC)

Israel calls on Hamas to surrender Shifa hospital base as US strikes Iran proxies in Syria (Fox News)

Israeli Forces Near a Struggling Hospital They Say Covers a Hamas Complex. (N .Y. Times)

Charts show a stark difference in the human cost of Israeli-Palestinian conflicts over the years (CNBC)

Drastically Different Narratives Emerge Centered On Shifa Hospital’s Mounting Deaths

More than 180,000 people across France march against soaring antisemitism amid the Israel-Hamas war (Associated Press)

Media Worst: Israel’s Enemies Get Away With Murder—And Human Shields and Genocide

Jewish families leaving synagogue ‘targeted’ by pro-Palestinian demonstrators (UK Telegraph)

Another Snapshot Of Kiev’s Military Collapse: But It Ain’t Over Yet

Anatomy Of A Paris Demo

This Progressive Dark Money Behemoth Could Face Criminal Charges Over Anti-Israel Protest (Washington Free Beacon)

These Mosques Pray for the Annihilation of Jews. They Also Receive Money From the Biden Administration.

US, South Korea Plan Against North Korean Nuke Threat  Funny  how North Korea wasn’t a problem with Trump as President.

US Launches 3rd Round Of Airstrikes On Eastern Syria, But ‘Deterrence’ Failing  Remind me why we have troops in Syria.

This Is Not Your Grandfather’s Anti-Semitism

German Tax Dollars to Pay For Mosques?

Why Didn’t MIT Expel Violent Students?

WEAPONS: Adaptations

SUBMARINES: Borei-class SSBN submarines

Antisemitism, Good and Evil (Depending on Who Does It): Fault Lines in French Politics

EU Condemns Hamas’ Use of Human Shields; Tells Israel to Exercise ‘Maximum Restraint’

The Collapse of Russia’s Navy: The Four Seas Problem

Ivy League Student Arrested for Stealing Israeli Flag

Broadcast Networks Used Hamas as a Source in 66% of Evening Newscasts

New York Times Touts ‘Human Rights Advocates’ ‘Scoff’ at Israel, Like They’re Unbiased?

Why the Left Hates Israel and America

We were interviewing a Palestinian farmer. Then the drone and soldiers appeared (NPR)

Let’s Stop Paying Beijing to Steal Our Gene Code

Arrests on Campus

New Chinese institute lures top U.S., Western scientists to obtain advanced American technology

Video roundup

The absolution of Hamas

AP unfamiliar with Hamas way of war

3-Year Old American Among US Hostages In Gaza, White House Confirms “The American toddler’s parents were killed by Hamas during the Oct.7 attacks.”

‘Where Are You?’: Israeli Hostage Families Call Out Women’s Rights Groups, Silent on Kidnappings

Authorities in DC Preparing to Ensure Safety, Security at ‘March for Israel’

Alumni to Harvard: Address Antisemitism or Lose Donations

CNN Refuses to Ask Al Shifa Hospital Doc About Hamas’s Base Underneath

Suella Braverman, Britain’s hardline home secretary, fired as ex-PM David Cameron makes surprise return to government (CNN)

Wolves have returned to California after nearly 150 years. They bring an unexpected problem (The Guardian)

Four L.A. Sheriff’s Department Employees Commit Suicide In A 24 Hour Period

High Stakes And A Simple Choice: “I’m 94 Years Old & Saddened By What I See Happening To America”

Disney+ Will Shut Down in December, Losing Hundreds of Millions

San Francisco Slammed for ‘Band-Aid’ Clean-up Ahead of APEC

Liberals Using Museums to Push ‘Woke’ Marxist Agenda

10 Of New York’s 72 Billionaires Have Left Due To Taxation Since 2019

Marvel-ous Bomb: Disney’s Latest Social Engineering Attempt Is Box Office Flop

Petition Slams Macy’s Parade for LGBTQ Agenda

EU May Force Fast Food Companies To Use Washable Dishes

Anti-Free Speech Google Spent Billions Hiding Feature from Users

Stop Drinking the Political Kool-Aid, America: Voting Will Not Save Us

Police, Protesters Clash at Atlanta Training Center

Britain: Land of Anarchy and Tyranny

Newsom Assures Homeless They Can Resume Pooping On Sidewalks Once His Boss Leaves (Babylon Bee)

Obama Portrays Himself as ‘First Amendment Absolutist…’ Then Issues Disclaimer

Iowa Leads Way on Education Freedom

EU Official Hopes X Will Face “Peer Pressure” to Hire More Censors

Migrant Says ‘American Dream Doesn’t Exist Anymore’

Steve Sailer.

Remember the Education Reform juggernaut right before the Great Awokening? Various billionaires announced that to end racial inequality, All We Had to Do Is to Fix the Schools and that they’d just been to a conference in Aspen where they had a brainstorm about exactly how to do it, usually involving teaching public school students to think more like billionaires. Or something.

But that didn’t much work, although some Back to Basics efforts like KIPP seemed to do some good for some poor kids of good character. But then came the Great Awokening and it became racist to attribute racial gaps to anything other than Systemic Racism and to suggest any remedies other than jobs and cash handouts for blacks.

The Foundry.

Gov. Greg Abbott called the Texas legislature into a fourth special session on Tuesday with the aim of expanding K-12 options for families. Over the past few years, lawmakers from across the country have empowered families to find the best school for their children. Abbott, a Republican, seems resolved to create similar opportunities for Texas students.

Dems Suffer Flashbacks As 2016 ‘Spoiler’ Jill Stein Announces White House Run

The Globalist Vision: “15 Minute” Prison Cities And The End Of Private Property

EU Moves Forward With Digital ID Despite Security Concerns And Potential For Abuse

D.C. CVS Hiding Toilet Paper Amid Theft Wave

Oregon Decriminalized Hard Drugs. It Isn’t Working  Depends on what you mean by ‘working’–natural selection works every time.

San Francisco: Clean For Xi, Not For Thee

Los Angeles County Approves New ‘Office Of Food Equity’

Federal Judge Orders Trial for Ga.’s Dominion Voting Machines

Israel says it’s ready to evacuate babies from Gaza hospital as fighting rages (Reuters)

‘Please stop this.’ Gaza’s hospitals are failing under the weight of war. US medical groups are scrambling to help (CNN) Tell Hamas. They started it.

Gaza hospital nearly at its breaking point as it operates without power (CBS)

Israel is bombing hospitals in Gaza with Israeli doctors’ approval (Al Jazeera)

WaPo Drops Bombshell On The Nord Stream Pipeline Sabotage Narrative: A Ukrainian Colonel, Covert Ops, & The CIA’s Shadow

Reporters Demand Use of Terms Like ‘Genocide,’ ‘Ethnic Cleansing’ to Describe (Defame) Israel

Thousands to March in France Against Anti-Semitism

Germany Set to Double Its Ukraine Military Aid Under Scholz Plan

CBS Helpfully Repeats ‘Surge’ of Islamophobia’ Press Release from Radicals at CAIR

Salafist Agitators in Basel and Zurich

Remembering Remembrance Day

WARPLANES: Israel Again Updates AH-64s

CHINA: China Coping with Calamity

Scottish National Party leader criticised for holding wreath upside down and refusing to sing national anthem at Cenotaph

Two Scenes From Yesterday’s Protests

Israeli President Isaac Herzog: Arabic ‘Mein Kampf’ Exposes ‘Real War We Are Facing’

Russia Begins Evacuating Some 600 Citizens From Gaza Strip

Cain Calls For Ceasefire After Killing Abel (Babylon Bee)

Palestinians ‘Disappointed’ Hezbollah Hasn’t Escalated A Northern War On Israel

Hamas envisioned deeper attacks, aiming to provoke an Israeli war (Washington Poop)

“Antisemitism Has No Place Here” – Harvard President Condemns “From The River To The Sea” Phrase After 1600 Jewish Alum Pull Donations  Money talks.

Scott Johnson at Power Line.

All things considered, Peggy Noonan must be the worst columnist in the United States. That is a rash judgment, I concede. She certainly has a lot of competition over at the New York Times. For the combination of fatuity and self-love, however, she must be in a class by herself.

Peggy Noonan has become a great disappointment.

Trump Swing-State Lead Expected To Hold Until 3 A.M. On Election Night (Babylon Bee)

Sweeping Raids, Giant Camps and Mass Deportations: Inside Trump’s 2025 Immigration Plans (N.Y. Times) Democrats plan the same thing, except for white people.

Trump’s D.C. Trial Strategy: Do Everything to Delay Until After 2024 Election (The Messenger) Amazing how many people on the Left are convinced that they know what Trump plans to do. I wonder where they got that information–and whether they washed their hands afterwards.

Still Living Rent-Free in Their Heads

Stephen Miller: Trump will implement ‘spectacular migration crackdown’ (The Hill) God, I hope so.

‘Church Shouldn’t Be Political,’ Says Pastor With BLM, Pride Flags On Building (Babylon Bee)

“Have You Lost Count Yet Of The Number Of Things In Our Country That Are Broken?”

Alarmed by Off-Year Losses, Mainstream Republicans Balk at Abortion Curbs (N.Y. Times) Principle is all very well, but we can’t let it cost us power and money.

Gun Owners Score Major Legal Victories On Pistol Braces and Ghost Guns 

Regulating crypto might end it. And that’s just fine. (Washington Poop) After all, something that can’t be tracked and controlled by the government (that is, the Democrat Crust) can’t really be of any benefit. (Russia’s Finance Ministry Says (Again) That The Digital Ruble Will Replace Cash)

Bay Area Counseling Service Hosts Meet-Ups for Adults and Minors To Discuss Gender and Sexuality  At taxpayer expensed, natch.

Businesses Fleeing Crime-Ridden ‘Blue’ D.C.

Not Married, No Kids: The Rise Of China’s ‘Single’ Culture  Sounds like what the Wokerati have in mind for the U.S.

‘Facts Matter,’ Cruz Battles Maher on Left’s History of Election Denialism

Steve Fast: How Did Ronna McDaniel Become RNC Chair?

San Francisco Clears Homeless And Cleans Sh*t-Covered Streets For World Leaders Next Week  So: They can do it, they just don’t want to.

Adam Carolla: Gavin Newsom Is a ‘Sociopathic, Tyrannical Dictator’

Germany approves global minimum corporate tax  Corporations do not pay taxes. Their customers pay the taxes; corporations merely collect the taxes. Governments like ‘corporate taxes’ because it allows them to tax their people twice (or more) while pretending that they are Socking It To The Rich. Don’t be deceived.

Ruth Marcus and the Alarmed, Oblivious Washington Post

Bill Maher’s Pissed Off At ‘Progressive’ Pandering Using “Victims Or Victimizers” Reductivism

Only 15% of Californians can afford a home, new data shows

N.Y. Times.

Sarah Camino had been in a relationship for two years when she found out she was pregnant. The father, whom she met while they were both working at a restaurant in Times Square, was initially excited. But he had been using drugs lately, and had been fired from his last four jobs; when she ventured that she was scared she might wind up raising the child alone, he got defensive and walked out. She and her daughter now live in Florida with her parents, and he is not a part of their lives.

Sounds as if they’re better off for it.

Ms. Camino, a beautician and hospitality worker, checks all the boxes of the demographic that has been targeted for advice in recent months by an array of columnists and authors, who have argued for the promotion and prioritizing of marriage, sometimes for the sake of overall happiness, but more often for the sake of children’s well-being.

With the results as you see them.

She’s a 37-year-old single mother without a college degree. She cares deeply about her child’s happiness and about providing her with a good future.

But not enough, apparently, to get married first.

When I asked what she made of the advice to get married, though, she was skeptical. “I don’t think things are perfect like that,” she told me. She had planned to stay with the father, but that’s not how it happened. “I didn’t think he was gonna leave me like this,” she said.

Better yet, ask men whether they would want to marry a Modern Woman. I certainly wouldn’t.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

— John McCrae

This is one of the many poems I memorized in my younger days. Back when this was still America, children were encouraged to read (and memorize) significant poetry (“The Highwayman”, “The Raven”, “Ulysses”, “Recessional”, etc.). Worrying about pronouns and ‘climate change’ doesn’t leave a lot of bandwidth for anything else, unfortunately.

Read it.

For most normal businesses or organizations, an employee expressing support for Adolf Hitler is a clear red line with no second chance. Not, however, for the New York Times, which has rehired a freelancer previously exposed by HonestReporting for his pro-Hitler, pro-terrorist social media posts.

In 2022, HonestReporting’s investigative work exposed several journalists covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as being virulent and unapologetic antisemites. As a result of our reporting, several mainstream media outlets decided to cut ties with them.

This included freelance filmmaker Soliman Hijjy (also spelled Sulaiman Hejji) who we uncovered as having praised Adolf Hitler on Facebook in 2012. “How great you are, Hitler,” Hijjy wrote on the social media site, sharing a meme featuring the Nazi mass murderer. Six years later, he doubled down: in a caption accompanying a picture of himself, Hijjy stated he was “in a state of harmony as Hitler was during the Holocaust.”

Glamour Magazine Names Transgender Model Among ‘Women of Year,’ Drawing Online Ridicule

Tuberville’s Effort to End Pentagon Abortion Policy Backed by Veterans on Heritage Foundation National Security Team

Oregon Trains Teachers to Promote ‘Equitable Math,’ Dismantle ‘Systemic Inequities’ in the Classroom

“Younger Voters Have Turned Against The Governor”: Berkeley Poll Reveals Record Number Of Californians Disapprove Of Newsom

ABC News FREAKS OUT Over Potential Manchin ‘No Labels’ POTUS Run

American Elections Are About Abortion Now (N.Y. Times) Certainly if Democrats have anything to say about it.

Speaker Mike Johnson to NYC: Dump ‘sanctuary’ policies to get migrant money (N.Y. Post) How about no money and don’t care about ‘sanctuary city’ policies–let them stew in their own proglodyte juice.

ECB Finally Admits Its “Temporary” Asset Purchases Are Really Permanent

Kimmel Hires Drag Queen To Speculate About Cruz’s Nipples To Children

Former Rep. Adam Kinszinger Says He Would Back Christie Over Other Republican White House Hopefuls  (The Messenger) RINOs of a feather flock together.

Princeton Professor Calls Sex with Animals “Thought-Provoking”

Trans Anomaly: Nashville Shooter’s Manifesto Suggests an Inconvenient Aspect of ‘Gender-Affirming Care’

TikToker Teaches ‘How To Practice Abortion as a Magical Ritual’

Brian Stelter Plugs Fox-Frying Book on MSNBC, No Talk of CNN’s Kisses from Hamas

DC Restaurant Chain Shuts Down Over Surge in Violent Crime, Costs

Miss Universe Owner Files for Bankruptcy After Accepting Transgender Contestants

Zman turns over a rock.

The Republicans have been vexed by one primary complaint for close to a decade. The people they want to swindle into voting for them do not like them very much. In fact, they went so far as to vote for the one guy the party said was off-limits in 2016, Donald Trump. Despite the party’s best efforts to rid themselves of this troublesome man, the rank-and-file voters still prefer him over whatever the party offers as an alternative.

In other words, the party’s complaint is that the voters refuse to support the blocks of wood the party is selling and they support the guy they hate. This turned up in the local elections yesterday, where the Republican Party underperformed again. They even put up a based black guy in the Kentucky governor’s race, but the Democrat still won, in a state that is reliably Republican. In Virginia, the party failed to win the state house, despite their claims about the governor’s popularity.

Ohio voters will approve constitutional right to an abortion, CNN projects (CNN)

Income inequality in Europe: Which countries have the highest and lowest disposable income? (EuroNews)

Droves of Californians are moving to Texas. Here’s the life they are finding (L.A. Times)

California’s homebuyer exodus continues. But this region remains a national hot spot (Sacramento Bee) Oh, is it wildfire season again?

Why people are leaving California for Arkansas (Fox News)

Police Won’t Confirm Authenticity of Alleged Manifesto of Nashville Shooter (Daily Signal)

Newsom’s Money in SC Sparks More Talk of 2024 Run (NewsMax)

3 States Sue FDA for Allowing Abortion Pills to Be Shipped Via Mail (Daily Signal)

3 Absurd Claims About the Lewiston Shooting Made by Gun Control Activists (Daily Signal)

“Tough Place”: Implosion Of Downtown San Francisco Forces McDonald’s To Close After 30 Years

Macron’s Party Scrambles for Support for Immigration Reform

You Get Nothing: Google Abandons Building 15,000 Homes In San Francisco

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear hopes to show Democrats can win even if Biden is unpopular (ABC News)

Trans-Obsessed PBS Gushes Over ‘Hero’ Caster Semenya, Alleged ‘Female’ Runner

OF COURSE: CNN, MSNBC Won’t Touch the Nashville Shooter’s Tranifesto

Nets Suppress MASSIVE Caravan Headed To U.S. Southern Border

Best Way to Change Trans Policies in Sports? Women Refuse to Play

Satan on the Ballot in Virginia

Donald Trump expected to appear in $250m civil fraud trial in New York (The Guardian)

What to expect when Trump takes the stand in civil fraud trial (MSNBC)

What to watch when Donald Trump takes the stand in New York civil fraud trial (CNN)

Donald Trump, known his whole life for ruthless approach to real estate, set to answer for fraud in historic Monday testimony (N.Y. Daily News)

Tips for Questioning Trump Under Oath — From Someone Who’s Done It (Politico)

Appeals Court Freezes Trump Gag Order Issued By Out-Of-Control Woke Judge

Trump Campaign Fights For Place On Michigan Ballot

Trump and His Lawyers Dare NY Judge to Throw Him in Jail (Rolling Stone)

Ivanka Is Not Going to Save Trump in His New York Fraud Trial—and He’s Not Going to Save Himself (Daily Beast)

Trump under oath: Six things to watch for as the former president testifies (Politico)

Trump Indictments Haven’t Sunk His Campaign, but a Conviction Might (N.Y. Times) They hope, they hope, they hope….

Playbook: Trump testimony kicks off a jam-packed week (Politic0)

Donald Trump’s Gift To Adam Schiff (The Atlantic)

Trump administration considered ideological ‘screenings’ of noncitizens (The Guardian) Works for me.

Trump, on witness stand, derides judge, denies fraud and talks of castles and windmills (Politico) But what did he say? That would be news. This is just gossip.

New Twitter Files Show Twitter Knew Truth About Russia-Gate Hoax

How democracy dies, right here in America (The Hill) In the Narrative media, ‘democracy’ means ‘Democrat vote fraud’.

How states are using legislative privilege to drag out redistricting lawsuits (PBS) Democrats are objecting to Republicans doing the sort of partisan redistricting what Democrats always do when they’re in power.

Court rulings will fuel more gerrymandering — here’s how (The Hill) It’s only ‘gerrymandering’ when Republicans do it, of course.

How states are using legislative privilege to drag out redistricting lawsuits (PBS)

The 7th Circuit Holds That AR-15s Aren’t Protected By The Second Amendment

Anheuser-Busch Studio Head Exits Company Amid ‘Bud Light Situation’

Fake Breasts, Laser Hair Removal, and Facial Feminization: California Taxpayers Bankroll $4 Million Worth of Gender-Affirming ‘Enhancements’ for Prisoners, Including Four Death Row Inmates

“These People Are F**king Nuts And You Should Be Calling Them Out”: Bill Maher Snaps At Neil deGrasse Tyson Over Woke College Campuses

Obama’s Subtle Tactics of Division

Report: Sen. Sanders Staff Deputy Moves to AOC’s Team  Movin’ on up.

Watch Live: First Three Pages Of Transgender School Shooter’s Manifesto Leaked

Who falls for fake news? Psychological and clinical profiling evidence

Wikipedia admin unmasks self as sockpuppet of other admin banned in 2015

Newsom Signs $25 Minimum Wage Law For ALL Hospital Workers, Finds Out Afterwards It Will Cost California $4 Billion  Mostly they don’t even bother to find out the cost.

The Nashville Shooter’s Transfesto Finally Leaks

6 Bizarre Examples of How Voter Registration Fraud Happens

Time for Scrutiny of DEI Policies of Administrative Office of US Courts, Judicial Conference

Planned Parenthood Says Proper Term For Unborn Baby Is Now ‘Womb Colonizer’ (Babylon Bee)

ZMan sums it up.

There has always been a circular logic to wartime propaganda, going back to the Greeks. The bad guys are bad because they are the enemy, and they are the enemy because they are bad. What makes them bad, of course, is they do things we would never do, and they never do the things that we know good people are supposed to do.

Fast forward to the present and villains are either Hitler or Bull Connor, who have morphed into a Janus like creature that haunts every conflict. The foreign villains are always going to be Hitler, while domestic villains are the generic racist. Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden were Hitler, despite the obvious differences, while every white conservative is a fledgling Bull Connor. Donald Trump managed to be both, despite his Zionism and love of black people.

The language of public discourse now sounds like wartime propaganda because we now live in the age of emotivism. The term “emotivism” comes from an early 20th century school of ethics that claimed all ethical sentences are actually expressions of emotional attitude, as in positive or negative. When a speaker says something is good or bad, he is not stating an objective fact, but merely expressing his own emotional attitude toward the object in question.

Blinken meets Palestinian leader in West Bank, stepping up Mideast diplomacy as Gaza war escalates (Associated Press)

Blinken rebuffs calls for immediate Gaza ceasefire (Reuters)

Israel-Hamas war live: Palestine president calls for ‘immediate ceasefire’ (Al Jezeera)

Hamburg airport remains closed as police deal with ‘hostage situation’ (Reuters)

CNN Spreads Fake News In Order To Label Israeli Airstrikes ‘War Crimes’

Greene to reintroduce Tlaib censure resolution after genocide comments (The Hill)

Zelensky Complains War In Gaza Is “Taking Away The Focus” From Ukraine  Oh, ya think?

“Allahu Akbar, Fu*k Joe Biden!”: Enraged Pro-Palestinian Protesters Gather Outside White House

A Ukrainian Missile Strike on a Shipyard in Crimea Damages a Russian Ship

Russia Says it Test-fired an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile from a New Nuclear Submarine

Majority Support For Muslim Migration Ban As 3 In 4 Germans Say Newcomers Hate Western Society

Queers For Palestine: Identity Politics At Its Most Absurd

IDF: Hamas Using Children as ‘Human Shields,’ Hiding, Attacking From Playgrounds

Non-Jews Putting Up Mezuzahs as Jews Take Them Down

Turkey Recalls Ambassador To Israel, Holds Netanyahu Personally Responsible For Gaza Atrocities

Zelenskyy Pushes US for More Aid, Invites Trump to Ukraine

Unethical Gaza Reporting Cuts Crucial Context

Trump: Prosecute Migrant ‘Charities’ for Human Trafficking

Blinken Tells Abbas He Asked Israel To Use ‘Smaller Bombs’ On Gaza

Hamas Leader: ‘Alliance’ With North Korea a Way to Strike US

CNN SOTU: Bernie Refuses To Condemn Tlaib ‘From The River To The Sea’ Video

US Rolls Out 50th Weapons Package For Ukraine

Police Find No Evidence That Israel Supporter Attack UNC Muslim Student With Knife

The German State Pays the Jizya

ON POINT: America Faces Multi-Front Proxy Warfare

ON POINT: Turkey’s Erdogan Applauds Hamas’ Terror: Is Erdo’s ‘Middle Man’ Sham Kaput?

Federal appeals court upholds Illinois assault weapons ban (The Hill)

Federal appeals court upholds sweeping Illinois gun ban (Chicago Tribune)

Federal court upholds Illinois ban on assault-style weapons (WTVO WQRF)

US appeals court upholds Illinois assault weapons ban (Reuters)

Conservative-loved ‘Sound of Freedom’ Streams on Amazon

Republicans, fed up with Tuberville, plot ways to bust his military blockade (Politico)

John Fetterman unleashed: ‘I’ve already been dead once’ (Washington Poop)

Biden DOJ Pushing Supreme Court Case To Nullify Pro-Gun Ruling

9 Ways To Scare Off Californians Looking To Move Into Your Neighborhood (Babylon Bee)

FLASHBACK: An Election So Biased, Even the Media Had to Admit It

Leftist Journos Push Hamas Propaganda as Fact, Compare GOP Speaker to David Duke

California Governor Wants To Spend $640,000 Each For 10,000 Mental Health Beds

NBC Tries To Argue Being Pro-Abortion Is Conservative

New J6 Footage Shows Ray Epps Whispering To ‘Baked Alaska’: “We’re Here To Storm The Capitol”

The DNC’s 2024 Convention City is Drowning in Illegal Aliens

California wants to end Cupertino’s tax deal with Apple  Democrats in government never see a deep pocket without trying to pick it.

Read it.

If you think offering migrants luxury hotel rooms, free meals, laundry service, transportation, health care, and immigration lawyers is excessive, just wait until they can vote.

Amazon Founder Bezos to Move From Seattle to Miami (NewsMax) Even the Woke don’t want to go broke in the high-tax Left Coast.

PBS’s Amanpour Loves ‘Renegade’ Kinzinger: ‘Are You Pro-Democracy or Against It?’

Va. Students Protest Transgender Bathroom Policy

Guess Which Stories Media Literacy Firm Ad Fontes Didn’t Rate After Gaza Hospital ‘Bombing’

A Recipe for Big Government: ‘Food Insecurity’

Judge: Release Oregon Inmates Without Attorneys

Supreme Court takes up NRA coercion claim against former New York official (NBC News)

High Schoolers’ Resistance to Trans Restroom Policies Grows as Walkouts Multiply

Spike in Gun Sales Attributed to Hamas Attack, Maine

High School Students Chase Abortion Advocates off Property, Burn Contraceptives They Left Behind