Obama’s Daughter Removes Last Name As Her Stage Name

Interesting…

Usually the link with past presidents is an asset.

Malia Obama Is Now Going by This Stage Name – E! Online News, 2024/02/21

Malia Obama is voting for a fresh start.

As her Hollywood career takes off, Barack and Michelle Obama’s oldest daughter has dropped her last name in favor of her middle name, officially going by Malia Ann for her newest film project The Heart.

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Although the former president and first lady are now movie moguls, Michelle and Barack did not attend the 2024 Sundance Film Festival earlier this month, when Malia, 25, made her red carpet debut at the premiere of The Heart.

That’s even more interesting.

Why would they not be there for her red carpet debut? Even if it was only one of them?

The one thing for which I gave credit to Obama, was being a family guy. This makes me wonder a bit.

First Dog #2 Is Out

Major was #1… now Commander is out.

The staff and security are finally safe.

Biden gives away Commander after dog drew blood with attacks on Secret Service at White House, vacation home: documents – NY Post, 2024/02/21

President Biden has given first dog Commander to relatives, the White House said Wednesday following revelations of more brutal attacks on Secret Service employees — including a case in which White House tours were suspended to mop up blood from the floor of the East Wing and another attack where an agent suffered a “severe deep open wound” at Biden’s Delaware vacation home.

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In another newly revealed attack, on June 15, 2023, Commander bit an agent “inside of the Kennedy Garden” adjacent to the East Wing, where the first lady’s office is located, as they were walking to the driveway to help move parked trucks.

“Video of the incident shows [the agent] enter the Kennedy Garden while Commander, who was off the leash and on the opposite side of the garden at the time, run at a high rate of speed towards [the agent and] jump towards [the agent] and take [them] to the ground,” a report says.

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There are now 24 documented instances of dog attacks on the Secret Service during Biden’s tenure in office, in addition to reports of attacks on White House staffers.

24 attacks?? WTH

Kids are troubled… dogs are troubled… country is troubled…

Can Biden have a positive impact on anybody?

All that money he got from Ukraine & China… he can’t hire a competent dog trainer?

Texas Celebrates Taking Control Of Island From The Cartels

Texas Celebrates Taking Island Back From Cartel After Military Operation – Newsweek, 2024/02/21

Texas officials are celebrating the seizure of an island near the United States-Mexico border described as a “safe haven” for cartel drugs and weapons.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced Friday that work has begun on an 80-acre military facility to provide some 1,800 soldiers to better defend the southern border from illegal migrants, extending along the Rio Grande and six miles south to Shelby Park. The plan was mocked on Tuesday by Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who called it “politicking” and not a “serious” response to record levels of illegal immigration.

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The island, situated across a stretch of land in the Rio Grande in Texas’ Starr County, was secured by the Texas National Guard and Department of Public Safety last November. It was a site of automatic gunfire and continuous violence, she said.

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“They had literally a safe haven to stash weapons, drugs and people,” said Buckingham, a former state senator who was elected to her current position in 2022. “Tons and tons of migrants coming across.”

Texas officials also discovered explosive devices and weapons illegal in the U.S., as well as a “massive amount of drugs that could kill every man, woman or child a couple times over.” She was referring to fentanyl.

Good to hear.

Enough fentanyl to kill everyone a couple of times over… wow.

Mom Has Crusade To Remove Drug Sold At Gas Stations After Son’s Death

My 19 year-old son died after taking ‘gas station heroin’ to treat his migraine – now I’m fighting for it to be banned in every state – UK Daily Mail, 2024/02/16

An Alabama mother is urging health officials to ban a toxic supplement sold in gas stations, after her 19 year-old son died after taking it to ease his migraine.

Johnathon Morrison, from Trafford, Alabama, fatally choked on his own vomit in February 2019 after taking pills containing tianeptine – otherwise known as ‘gas station heroin’.

The Food and Drug Administration has previously warned about the grave harms of the substance, which is most commonly found in an energy-boosting’ product called Neptune’s Fix.

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Following her son’s death, Kristi Terry was determined to get the substance banned in Alabama – and a year later, the state became the second to make the drug illegal.

Now, tianeptine is banned in eight states, but Ms Terry wants to increase that number.

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FDA officials say tianeptine can deliver a high similar to that achieved from some opioids, but warned many patients quickly get hooked because they can rapidly build up tolerance against the substance.

Health officials also warn people who consume tianeptine can suffer from confusion, sweating, a fast heartbeat, blood pressure spikes, nausea, vomiting and agitation.

With those side effects, it sounds like it should be banned. However, her son’s issue is below.

Ms Terry told Vice her son ‘had no clue what he was taking. They told him that it was all natural, herbal and that it was like a powerful Tylenol.’

He took several pills at a time over the next few hours, eventually overdosing.

JP Morgan Chase & Black Rock Separate From UN Climate Alliance

JPMorgan, BlackRock drop out of massive UN climate alliance in stunning move – NY Post, 2024/02/15

JPMorgan Chase and institutional investors BlackRock and State Street Global Advisors announced Thursday that they are quitting or, in the case of BlackRock, substantially scaling back involvement in a massive United Nations climate alliance formed to combat global warming through corporate sustainability agreements.

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The stunning announcements come as the largest financial institutions in the US and worldwide face an onslaught of pressure from consumer advocates and Republican states over their environmental, social and governance (ESG) priorities.

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Climate Action 100+ was formally established in December 2017 at the UN as a way of aligning the world’s largest private sector financiers of greenhouse gas producers. Since the association was created, it has grown to include more than 700 financial institutions that are collectively responsible for a staggering $68 trillion in assets under management.

The group — which is overseen by a nongovernmental steering committee comprised of ESG activists — calls for members to engage companies on “improving climate change governance,” curbing carbon emissions and strengthening climate-related financial disclosure policies. Its actions have largely taken aim at investments benefiting the oil and gas industry, while boosting green energy investment strategies.

This is surprising, but good. States have been putting the pressure on these companies in various ways because of their involvement in these global climate groups.

An Estimated 7.2 Million Illegal Migrants Have Entered The Country On President Biden’s Watch

7.2M illegals entered the US under Biden admin, an amount greater than population of 36 states – Yahoo/Fox News, 2024/02/20

Nearly 7.3 million migrants have illegally crossed the southwest border under President Biden’s watch, a number greater than the population of 36 individual states, a Fox News analysis finds.

That figure comes from U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which has already reported 961,537 border encounters in the current fiscal year, which runs from October through September. If the current pace of illegal immigration does not slow down, fiscal year 2024 will break last year’s record of 2,475,669 southwest border encounters — a number that by itself exceeds the population of New Mexico, a border state.

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“This unprecedented surge in illegal immigration isn’t an accident. It is the result of deliberate policy choices by the Biden administration,” said Eric Ruark, Director of Research for Numbers USA, a nonprofit that advocates for immigration restrictions.

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Biden has called on Congress to pass new laws he claims would let him solve the border crisis. He endorsed a bipartisan deal in the Senate that included an “emergency border authority” to mandate Title 42-style expulsions of migrants when migration levels exceed 5,000 a day over a seven-day rolling average. It would have also limited the window for people to apply for asylum, provided immediate work permits for asylum seekers and funded a massive increase in staffing at the border and more immigration judges.

But conservatives tanked the deal in the Senate after House Republicans declared it a non-starter. They argued the bill would have normalized record-high levels of illegal immigration and said Biden currently has all the authority he needs to reenact Trump’s policies and secure the border.

Let’s be honest… this is an invasion. I assume this is being done for electoral purposes… sort of like a denial-of-service attack on a network server where the server is flooded with requests and normal operation is cut off.

San Francisco Decides To Reinstate Teaching Algebra To 8th Graders

Back in 2014, San Francisco stopped teaching Algebra I in the 8th grade.

They are are now reversing that decision.

SFUSD will bring back algebra to middle schools but parents upset by long rollout – San Francisco Chronicle, 2024/02/13

Algebra 1 will once again be back in San Francisco middle schools starting this fall, the school board decided Tuesday, but many of the parents fighting to get it there remained angry and frustrated at what will be a three-year rollout.

The board voted 6-1 to offer the course to eighth graders during the school day next year in about a third of the district’s 13 middle schools and six K-8 schools. Students at the remaining schools will be able to take it either through a supported online class or through summer school.

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District officials said adding Algebra 1 to eighth-grade course offerings at every school wasn’t feasible for the fall, given a shortage of qualified teachers and adequate lead time.

They don’t even have adequate brain power to teach the kids. More downstream effects of liberal policies that are toxic to humanity.

As usual, the liberal logic failed the people it intended to help.

District officials pulled the course out of middle school 10 years ago, saying they wanted to delay tracking students into separate math sequences until high school, an effort they hoped would push more disadvantaged students into higher math courses. The results were disappointing, district officials said. Parents argued the move only held back high-achieving students.

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History…

June 2016 – Why Did San Francisco Schools Stop Teaching Algebra in Middle School? – Priceonomics, 2016/06/20

While SFUSD insists that its new approach does not compromise the rigor of its education, but ensures that all students enter high school with the same mathematical foundation, many parents see the district’s new standards as a dumbing down of the curriculum. As one angry commenter asked on an online petition website: “All the talk about American kids being behind in math and science, and now SFUSD makes a move to keep the most advanced math students from making progress?”

The district was wrong. The angry commenter was correct.

The question of whether students should be ushered through that gate in the eighth or the ninth grade may seem like a small one, but it touches on a fundamental question in education policy: should schools push over-achievers ahead if that means leaving some students behind?

This is a flawed question. Achievement should never be held back. You teach kids based on where they are.

Opinion: Obama Spying + Journalists Denying = Media Companies Dying

No outrage, no readers – Substack/Don Surber, 2024/02/16

The New York Post reported, “The U.S. Intelligence Community asked foreign spy agencies to surveil 26 associates of Donald Trump in the run-up to the 2016 election, which triggered the allegations that the former president’s campaign had been colluding with Russia, according to a report.

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So, not only did Obama use the FBI spy on Donald Trump, but Obama through his henchman Brennan, leaned on foreign governments across the world to dig up dirt on The Donald.

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The use of the intelligence agencies of the Anglosphere to try to tilt the election — and to cover up the FBI’s spying on Trump and 26 associates — is the scandal of the century as it obliterates the whole Russian Hoax and gives reason to believe that if they got away with using the FBI as Obama’s NKVD, then they had no reason to believe they could not get away with fixing the 2020 election.

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The lack of outrage reveals the media does not hold government officials accountable, as the media claims. The media aids and abets crimes by the federal government. Not only has the media ignored the scandal of using the FBI to spy on political opponents, but the media engaged in the cover-up.

The media lauded and heaped Pulitzers upon the New York Times and the Jeff Bezos Post for promoting the Russian Collusion Lie — also known as the Russian Hoax — that Democrats used to rationalize the spying. When Trump pulled back the curtain and showed the Obama administration lied and spied, the media denied.

The is the ultimate article on Team Obama spying on Team Trump, and why the mainstream news media is hemorrhaging big time. Much more at the link.

Also the PDF memo authorizing the UK to facilitate surveillance over the incoming Trump administration back in 2016 recently was leaked to the internet.

It states that surveillance on Team Trump was requested by Team Obama on August 28, 2016. The request was approved on September 15, 2016. The letter below was requesting a 90 day extension of the surveillance.

ISA-94: Application For Renewal Of Warrant To Surveil 725 5th Ave, New York, NY, USA 5th And 26th Floors – UK GCHQ, 2016/11/17

Biden Administration Snubs Chase CEO Dimon After Stating Trump Was Right

White House vents at America’s top banker Jamie Dimon for backing MAGA: ‘No Oval Office invites’ – NY Post, 2024/02/09

Jamie Dimon, CEO of America’s largest bank JP Morgan Chase, has been iced out of the White House’s good graces after apparently endorsing Republican policies and calling Donald Trump “kind of right,” The Post has learned.

The self-identified Democrat has been labeled “MAGA curious” by White House insiders after telling Democrats to “respect” Trump’s supporters during an eyebrow-raising live TV interview at the Davos, Switzerland, World Economic Forum in January.

“If you look at, just take a step back, be honest. He’s kind of right about NATO. Kind of right about immigration. He grew the economy quite well… tax reform worked. He was right about some of China,” Dimon, 67, told CNBC’s Squawk Box.

Those comments were the death knell in what was already a tense relationship between Dimon and President Joe Biden sources told The Post — particularly after Dimon urged Democrats to support Haley in the GOP primary at the 2023 DealBook Summit in November.

This is where we are in today’s political discourse. It’s not about the best for America anymore. It’s my team versus your team. The divisive atmosphere continues to harm the country.

California: Restaurant Owner Says Crime Epidemic Is The Worst She Has Seen

Frightened Oakland restaurant owner calls city’s crime epidemic ‘worst I’ve ever seen’ – Fox Business, 2024/02/16

Stories about high-profile companies in Oakland closing shop or hiring extra security have made grim headlines in recent months. But it’s not just corporations that are feeling the crunch of increased crime in the Bay Area.

One local Oakland restaurant owner bluntly told Fox News Digital that the city where she’s spent nearly all her 45 years is “the worst I’ve ever seen it.”

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Weyanti Ahmed, who runs Y’s Choice restaurant in the city’s Jack London district near the waterfront, says the developments show Oakland won’t begin to thrive until it makes serious changes. The neighborhood has been beset by rising crime, forcing local hubs to close or raise prices in response.

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“There’s just not enough police presence in Oakland,” she said. “Especially in our area, like downtown, Jack London, it’s a tourist attraction. So it only makes sense for a lot of the crimes to happen there, because they know a lot of tourists are down there.”

One woman told local outlet KTVU last year the once-vibrant district was turning into a “ghost town,” recounting seeing cars broken into in broad daylight while she walked her dog. Another man said, “this could be a vibrant community but it ain’t right now.”

“Defund the police? That don’t work,” he said.

Yeah – that defund the police thing didn’t work, but millions of people fell for it.

This is not by accident.

These are all little pin pricks in the national economy. It is not sustainable to continue to lose cities – which were large centers of economic prosperity.

If left unchecked, it’s economic death. People in their communities need to deal with this.

It starts with how you vote and who is representing you in government. Will people keep doing the same thing and electing the same types of people?

Department Of Energy Finds Large Reserve Of Lithium In California

World’s Largest Lithium Reserve Discovered Beneath California’s Salton Sea – Oilprice, 2023/12/28

The U.S. Department of Energy has made its second major lithium discovery this year, both of which promise to make the country self-sufficient in the critical battery metal for decades. The DoE has discovered a massive lithium deposit beneath California’s Salton Sea, holding an estimated 18 million tons of lithium.

According to the DoE, with expected technology advances, the Salton Sea region’s total resources could produce more than 3,400 kilotons of lithium, worth up to $540 billion and enough to support over 375 million batteries for electric vehicles (EV)—more than the total number of vehicles currently on U.S. roads.

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The DoE has acknowledged that the United States currently has limited capabilities to extract, refine, and produce domestically sourced lithium. Indeed, the country typically imports nearly half of the lithium it consumes, almost all coming from Chile and Argentina.

For those pushing for electric vehicles, this is a good report. Hopefully it can be used domestically for the creation of jobs.

Shooting Incident Occurred At Joel Osteen’s Lakewood Church

Brief details – it happened before the start of the Spanish church service in the middle of the afternoon.

Suspect was a woman – shot dead by a TABC officer (off-duty I assume or doing side work for the church)

5 yr old child was with suspect – shot and injured, likely by police

57 yr old man – shot and injured

It didn’t happen in the main sanctuary to my knowledge – but in a room or area near the elevated entrance on the west side of the building.

More details below identifying the shooter…

Who was the shooter killed at Lakewood Church? – KHOU Houston, 2024/02/12

An armed woman was killed Sunday after walking into Lakewood Church and opening fire, according to police.

Multiple independent sources tell KHOU 11’s Jeremy Rogalski that Genesse Ivonne Moreno, 36, was wearing a trench coat and a backpack when she entered the church with a child and a long rifle. The child was also shot and was taken to a hospital in critical condition, police said.

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Moreno had a criminal history dating back to 2005, and previously identified as Jeffery Escalante, according to a Texas Department of Public Safety records search. Prior arrests include failure to stop and give information, assault of a public servant, assault causing bodily injury, forgery, possession of marijuana, theft, evading arrest unlawful carrying weapon.

Oh great – another shooting incident with a transgender person with with prior drug use. That is a toxic mixture for humanity.

New York: Illegal Migrants Quietly Collecting Taxpayer Welfare Funds

Thousands of migrants in NY quietly collecting ‘welfare’ through Hochul rule change – NY Post, 2024/02/10

The Hochul administration is quietly using taxpayer dollars to gift cash payments to thousands of migrants who don’t qualify for typical welfare assistance, The Post has learned.

The cash windfall was made possible by the state Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance modifying its “Safety Net Assistance” program’s eligibility rules in May to include non-citizens with pending applications for legal asylum status.

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SNA is a state program similar to welfare, and it has historically provided cash payments to needy New Yorkers who don’t qualify for conventional public assistance, including single adults, childless couples, and families of persons abusing alcohol and drugs.

Recipients typically get monthly checks totaling hundreds of dollars and must only use the money to help pay rent and utility costs or purchase clothing or other necessities.

The rule change is the latest in a long list of moves by the city and state to roll out the welcome mat for migrants – including Mayor Adams’ new $53 million pilot program to supply migrant families with pre-paid credit cards to purchase food and baby supplies, critics said.

Let’s think about what’s going on here – aside from the obvious observation that the tax payers are getting clobbered funding this illegal activity.

Gov. Abbott of Texas has been sending illegal migrants by bus to New York, Chicago, and other areas. There has been numerous public complaints, primarily by NYC Mayor Adams, that Abbott needs to stop sending the illegals to his area. However, it hasn’t stopped New York from funding the illegals with cash and benefits.

On the one hand, many locals are upset at the city for how the illegal migrants are benefiting more than the taxpayers are benefiting – and they should be upset.

On the other hand, flooding the illegal migrants with cash and benefits will make it more difficult to remove them as time progresses – which is what government Democrats want for their votes (not necessarily to make their lives better). Is Abbott part of the problem here?

California: Rising Minimum Wages Resulting In Higher Prices At Chipotle

Chipotle says to expect ‘substantial’ price increases in California after minimum wage hike – MSN/NY Post, 2024/02/22

Chipotle customers in California should prepare for “significant” price hikes after the state recently approved minimum wage increases for fast food workers, one of the company’s top executives told shareholders this week.

Jack Hartung, Chipotle’s chief financial and administrative officer, told investors on an earnings call on Tuesday that the price hikes are necessary to keep up with increasing labor costs.

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California’s new minimum wage law, which pays fast food workers $20 an hour, is set to go into effect in April.

The state’s estimated half-a-million fast food employees had been earning $16.21 an hour before Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, signed into law AB 1228, which also authorizes a panel to raise the minimum wage by up to 3.5% a year depending on inflation.

Wait – it’s not just the raising of minimum wages to $20/hr… wages can be raised every year. Then further in the article, a representative from McDonald’s chimes in.

McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski warned in October that the Big Mac maker would also need to hike the price of its menu items in California.

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Kempczinski admitted on an earnings call with Wall Street analysts on Monday that low-income customers making less than $45,000 a year have largely stopped ordering from McDonald’s.

In other words, prices are too high for low income earners. This will continue to spread over the years as wages increase.

The World’s Largest Offshore Wind Power Provider Cuts Projects and Cuts Jobs

Offshore wind firm Orsted cuts investment, capacity targets after review – Reuters, 2024/02/07

Orsted, the world’s biggest offshore wind farm developer, trimmed its investment and capacity targets on Wednesday and paused dividend payouts as part of a major review.

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It also said it would reduce capital expenditure in the coming three years by 35 billion Danish crowns ($5.05 billion), pause dividends for 2023-2025 and sell assets worth around 115 billion crowns towards 2030.

In addition, it announced plans to cut as many as 800 jobs and exit markets in Norway, Spain and Portugal.

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Orsted also said its Chairman Thomas Thune Andersen will step down.

What else is going on?

Orsted withdraws from contract for Maryland offshore wind farm – National Wind Watch, 2024/01/26

Orsted A/S withdrew from an agreement with regulators in the US state of Maryland to sell electricity from a big offshore wind farm it’s planning to build in the Atlantic Ocean.

It’s the latest step for the Danish firm to reconfigure its portfolio of American projects after soaring costs forced it to take billions of dollars of write downs last year. Orsted’s executives plan to update investors on Feb. 7 on how they will reset the company after the setbacks.

The prices set in the power contract for the Skipjack Wind project were no longer viable because of inflation, high interest rates and supply-chain problems, the Danish company said late Thursday.

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The nascent US offshore wind industry is struggling to adjust to higher costs, raising concerns about its future. Developers have been forced to recalculate the figures for proposals originally modeled years ago, with some delayed or even canceled.

Last year, Orsted canceled two US offshore wind projects and recorded $4 billion in impairments.

The fact of the matter is twofold. One, the wind power industry needs government subsidies to survive. It can’t seem to operate on its own. Two, it will never provide the reliable energy that nuclear and fossil fuels provide.

For now, this attempted move to wind power is a failure that’s eating up government funds.

CBO Projects National Debt To Eclipse $54 Trillion In A Decade

U.S. Debt on Pace to Top $54 Trillion Over Next 10 Years – MSN/NY Times, 2024/02/07

The United States is on a pace to add nearly $19 trillion to its national debt over the next decade as the mounting costs of an aging population and higher interest expenses continue to weigh on the nation’s fiscal outlook, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said on Wednesday.

An aging population? The population is always aging. If anything we have a ton of illegal migrants that Democrats are trying their best to integrate and keep them here.

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The projections for the nation’s finances come as Congress faces another deadline next month to agree on federal spending legislation to keep the government running. Lawmakers are also engaged in a heated debate over providing more aid to Ukraine and Israel and whether to expand the child tax credit and restore expired business tax breaks.The budget office projected that the annual deficit will grow to $2.6 trillion in 2034 from $1.6 trillion this year, adding $18.9 trillion to the national debt during the decade. By then, the debt is projected to surpass $54 trillion.

Interest rates have surged to two-decade highs over the past year, making borrowing costs an increasingly significant contributor to the national debt.

From 2024 to 2034, the United States will spend more than $12 trillion alone on interest costs. Starting next year, net interest costs will be larger as a share of the U.S. economy than at any time since the federal government started keeping records in 1940, according to the budget office.

Ultimately, no one knows what the future will be. The best practice is to plan to balance the books every year. Of course the debt rise when balancing the books is NEVER practiced.

Can A President Unilaterally Close The Border?

The answer is yes when certain conditions are met. No laws need to be passed. It can be a matter of the President and the Department of Homeland Security. A short write-up was done by the Congressional Research Service back in 2019. I assume this is still valid unless and laws were changed since then.

Can the President Close the Border? Relevant Laws and Considerations – Congressional Research Service, 2019/04/12

Does the executive branch have authority to “close” the southern border?

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Little federal case law addresses these questions. Although recent media articles discuss at least four occasions when past presidents have restricted operations at ports of entry on the southern border, those executive measures apparently did not prompt legal challenges that required federal courts to assess the Executive’s authority for the measures. The measures taken on at least one of the occasions covered in the articles—the aftermath of President Kennedy’s assassination in 1963—may have constituted a full closure of ports of entry on the southern border for much of the afternoon and evening of November 22, 1963. On another occasion, President Reagan ordered the closure of nine ports of entry “for a matter of days” after the abduction of a Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent in Mexico in 1985. On two other occasions—President Nixon’s “Operation Intercept” in 1969 and President George W. Bush’s post-9/11 measures—the restrictions consisted primarily of extensive inspections that brought border traffic to a standstill, according to the reports.

Federal statutes grant the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) general authority over operations to secure the border and specific authority to close temporarily “any . . . port of entry” when necessary to protect national interests. Other statutes give the President broad authority to suspend the entry of non U.S. citizens. Together, these statutes probably authorize a range of targeted executive measures to close a port of entry or to restrict operations at some ports, at least in some circumstances.

Lawsuits would likely accompany any attempt of a Republican president to close the border, but as mentioned above – it has been done four times in the past.

It’s Been A Year Since The Train Derailment In Ohio… Has Anything Changed?

Since Ohio Train Derailment, Accidents Have Gone Up, Not Down – Yahoo/NY Times, 2024/01/31

After a freight train carrying hazardous chemicals derailed a year ago in East Palestine, Ohio, forcing the evacuation of hundreds of residents and upending life in the town for months, the rail industry pledged to work to become safer, and members of Congress vowed to pass legislation to prevent similar disasters.

No bill was passed. And accidents went up.

This implies that better safety comes through government force. But that’s not always the case. It seems as though the rail companies have been taking their time to, hopefully, make sure they address the problem adequately. And if that can happen without any government interaction, that would be even better.

Rail companies say that they have taken steps since the disaster to reduce accidents, including using new technology and improving safety training, and that those changes have begun to show results.

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Jefferies said the railroads had taken several steps after the East Palestine accident to improve safety. Previously, the industry required that railroads stop and remove a rail car if a wheel bearing’s temperature hit 200 degrees Fahrenheit. In July, the association required that action at 170 degrees.

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CSX, the third-largest railroad, reported a 31% increase in accidents in the 10-month period. Bryan Tucker, a spokesperson, said the company’s safety performance had been “challenged” by its hiring of many new employees after the pandemic, but last year it bolstered its training, and that contributed to a steep drop in accidents in the fourth quarter.

…
On its approach to East Palestine, the train that derailed did not pass an overheated-bearing detector for nearly 20 miles, suggesting that if there had been more detectors, with shorter distances between them, the problem might have been picked up earlier, perhaps averting the derailment.

Norfolk Southern added two detectors near East Palestine, resulting in an average of 11 miles between the detectors, said Connor Spielmaker, a spokesperson. Across the busiest parts of its network, Norfolk Southern has added 115 detectors since March, and with more additions it expects the average distance between detectors to fall to around 11 miles from 13.9 miles by the end of this year, he said.

World Health Organization Says There Is No Scientific Support For Gender Changing Surgeries For Kids

WHO Quietly Admits There’s No Solid Scientific Backing For Giving Children ‘Gender Affirming Care’ – The Daily Caller, 2024/02/02

The World Health Organization (WHO) announced that it would not be issuing recommendations on “gender affirming care” for children or adolescents, citing the lack of scientific literature addressing it.

The WHO is in the process of developing guidelines for the “health of trans and gender diverse people,” but has declined to extend those guidelines to people under the age of 20, according to a Jan. 15 document released by the agency. Scientific findings on the long-term consequences of child sex changes are “limited and variable,” according to the WHO.

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The WHO defines anyone between the ages of 10 and 19 as an adolescent, according to its website.

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Of the 21 members of the panel, only eight are doctors and seven are transgender, Fox News Digital reported.

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The WHO joins a growing body of international health authorities who have expressed increased skepticism of prescribing hormones and sex change surgeries to minors. Healthcare authorities in the United Kingdom, Sweden, Norway, Finland and France, among others, have recommended greater caution in providing child sex changes, according to U.S. News and World Report.

Meanwhile, many states in the U.S. continue full speed ahead ruining the lives of children with “gender affirming care”.   God will judge all in according with their deeds.

Recalled CPAP Machine Tied To Over 500 Deaths

FDA says 561 deaths tied to recalled Philips sleep apnea machines – CBS News, 2024/02/04

The FDA said that since April 2021 it has received more than 116,000 medical device reports of foam breaking down in Philips CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) machines and BiPAP sleep therapy devices. That includes 561 reports of death, the agency said Wednesday.

The Dutch medical device maker has recalled millions of the breathing machines amid reports they were blowing gas and pieces of foam into the airways of those using the devices.

…
The grim tally comes days after Philips said it would stop selling the machines in the U.S. in a settlement with the FDA and the Justice Department expected to cost roughly $400 million, the company disclosed in a regulatory filing.

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Philips in late 2023 agreed to pay at least $479 million to compensate users of 20 different breathing devices and ventilators sold in the U.S. between 2008 and 2021. Claims for financial losses related to the purchase, lease or rent of the recalled machines can be now be lodged in the wake of a proposed class-action settlement reached in September.

If you purchased this CPAP machine, go to the link for details about how you can file a claim and be compensated.

Legacy Media Journalists Continue To Be Laid Off

Over 500 journalists were laid off in January 2024 alone – Politico, 2024/01/24

Over 500 journalists were laid off from news outlets in January, according to a new report released Thursday, as many organizations continue to struggle financially.

The layoffs reflect the grim state of the news business. In January alone, the industry — including print, broadcast and digital media — saw 538 announced layoffs, according to the report from Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

The job cuts come after an already bleak year. The news industry shed 3,087 digital, broadcast and print news jobs in 2023 — the highest annual total since 2020, when 16,060 cuts were recorded.

I don’t want anyone to be laid off and out of a job. However, the journalism industry is changing with the various platforms on the internet. The legacy media outlets are no longer the main source of information. Another problem with the legacy media outlets is their content is biased and does not completely convey what’s true. If these people are not reporting the entirety of what they know to be true, the public, over time, will see that and not trust them.

The positive for these journalists is that the technology is there for them to use in a multitude of ways in order to help support themselves.

Updates From Trump Legal World

A couple of Trump court articles…

Jack Smith’s Trump Case Removed From Court Docket Raises Eyebrows – Reason, 2024/02/02

Donald Trump’s scheduled start date for his federal 2020 election obstruction trial being removed from the public calendar has sparked intrigue and rumors from MAGA loyalists of the former president.

Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is overseeing the case—where Trump has pleaded not guilty to four charges under Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into the events which led up to the January 6 attack—originally set the start of the trial for March 4.

However, it has long been suspected that the start of the proceedings would be pushed back, as the case is on hold while the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit decides whether Trump should be immune from prosecution since the charges against him relate to his time in office. Despite hearing arguments on January 9 about whether the former president can cite absolute immunity to dismiss Smith’s case, it is unclear when the three-judge panel at the appeals court will make a decision.

It has now been revealed, as first reported by The Washington Post, that the March 4 trial date for Trump’s 2020 election case no longer appears in a public calendar at the federal court in Washington D.C., with the administrative move a sign that the trial will be delayed pending the immunity appeal process.

Whoa… need to see some of the fallout from this before discerning what the angle is here.

Did they figure out it was useless? Did it expose themselves to more scrutiny? Is there a change in strategy moving forward?

The chances that Trump will be a convicted felon by Election Day have dropped – Vox, 2024/02/01

Delays have piled up in federal court proceedings in the District of Columbia case about Trump’s attempt to steal the 2020 election and the Florida classified documents case against Trump, making it unclear whether either case will go to trial before November. (For the DC case, the hold-up is higher-court appeals; for Florida, it’s a slow-walking judge.)

Meanwhile, the Georgia election case has recently been consumed by scandalous allegations about Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, which throw the future of that prosecution into question. A judge will soon consider whether Willis and her office should be disqualified. He could decide not to do that, but even then, a trial date has not yet been set in the complex case.

That leaves the New York hush money case as the only trial that still seems on track. It’s currently scheduled to begin on March 25 — but first, on February 15, a judge will consider whether the felony charges against Trump there are legal.

The upshot is that Trump’s only trial this year could end up being the New York one — the least substantively significant of the four.

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So Election Day could come and go with most of Trump’s legal jeopardy unresolved — and, if he wins, some of those delays could become permanent, since he’d almost surely shut down the federal investigations targeting him.

It’s not looking good for the orange man to be in an orange jumpsuit by the election.

Biden Admin Extends Low Income Tax Credit for Electric Vehicle Chargers for Martha’s Vineyard Residents

Biden admin extends EV charger tax credit to ‘low-income’ Martha’s Vineyard – WPDE Florence, 2024/01/31

The Biden administration, in a push to make electric vehicles (EVs) more practical, is offering a tax credit for car chargers to a portion of Martha’s Vineyard by classifying it as a “low-income community.”

The sun-splashed Massachusetts island is known as a playground for wealthy elites, with median home prices in the area hovering around $1.5 million, according to Rocket Homes.

I’m sorry – is this tax cuts for the rich from Democrats ??? I’m shocked [NOT]

The tax cuts amount to 30% of the cost of the equipment. The tax is furnished through the Dept. of Energy, so I don’t believe there need to be a vote on this.

If you ever had a question about the high expense of EV ownership, the rich folk want tax credits to make ownership palatable.

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IRS code specifies an area qualifies as low-income if it has a poverty rate of 20% or more. Areas with a median income below that of 80% of the nearest metropolitan area or state can also qualify. This allows affluent areas to still qualify as low-income as long as they are located in significantly richer areas.

These people can design any loophole they want into the tax codes.

This is why a flat tax (with 2 or 3 tiers) with no behavioral considerations should be adopted.

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Toyota Chairman Akio Toyoda last week doubled down on his distaste for electric vehicles, claiming the push for such products should come from consumer demand rather than government preference.

Buy Toyota…

China Experiencing Slowest Non-Pandemic Growth In 40 Years

Chinese stocks have lost $6 trillion in 3 years. Here’s what you need to know – CNN Business, 2024/01/23

Over the past three years, about $6 trillion — equivalent to roughly twice Britain’s annual economic output — has been wiped off the value of Chinese and Hong Kong stocks.

The Hang Seng index has crashed 10% so far this year alone, while the Shanghai Composite and Shenzhen Component indexes are down 7% and 10% respectively.

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The world’s second largest economy is plagued by a myriad of problems. They include a record downturn in real estate, deflation, debt, a falling birthrate and shrinking work force, as well as a shift towards ideology-driven policies that has rattled the private sector and scared away foreign firms.

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China’s economy grew 5.2% in 2023. That was its slowest pace of expansion since 1990, with the exception of the three pandemic years through 2022. International economists widely expect the country’s growth to slow further this year to around 4.5% and drop below 4% in the medium term.

While that may seem reasonable for a major economy, it is far below China’s double-digit growth of the past decades. The country may be staring at decades of stagnation to come, analysts have said, as the slowdown is structural in nature and won’t be easily reversed.

People’s expectations seem unrealistic at times. You can’t have double digit growth every year.

Volvo Cutting Funding To Electric Vehicle Affiliate

Volvo, an Early Electric Car Adopter, Cuts off Funding for EV Affiliate Polestar – MarketWatch, 2024/02/01

Volvo Car said it won’t provide further funding to Polestar, the electric-car maker it created with Volvo’s Chinese owner Geely–the latest EV retrenchment by the global auto industry.

The auto industry’s pivot to electric vehicles has been rocked by setbacks this year, just as a flood of new battery-powered models is hitting showrooms.

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Volvo and Geely founded Polestar as a stand-alone EV maker, separate from Volvo’s substantial in-house effort to go electric. Through a special-purpose acquisition company merger, the two listed it on Nasdaq in 2022.

Volvo has provided Polestar with loans totaling $1 billion. On Thursday, it said it will extend the repayment period for the existing convertible loan by 18 months to the end of 2028. But it said it would be concentrating its financial resources on Volvo’s own needs.

I am sensing it’s going to be a tough year for the EV industry.