Muda69

https://mises.org/wire/three-lies-theyre-telling-you-about-debt-ceiling So, the next Time Joe Biden or Janet Yellen go on television to insist the US has never defaulted, know that you are being lied to. Three: Default Is the End of the World Any talk of default is sure to bring predictions of economic devastation. Those who have lived through a financial crisis or two will know how this works. As soon as signs of trouble in the economy appear, the regime lines up "experts" to tell us that unless the government is empowered to spend endlessly on bailouts and "stimulus," then the economy will collapse, unemployment will surge, and hell on earth will ensue. The taxpayers certainly heard this repeatedly in 2008 and 2009 as the regime insisted it must be free to hand over trillions of dollars in bailout funds to wealthy bankers and auto makers and financiers. We were told that the central bank must be able to print up trillions of dollars so as to buy up government bonds and mortgage-backed securities to pad the balance sheets of the investor class. We were told this would "fix" the economy. Naturally, when the recession turned out to be the worst since 1982, the "experts" then said—without any evidence whatsoever—things "would have been worse" without all their bailouts. We're hearing the same thing now about possible default on the $32-trillion national debt. "Give us new debt ceiling increases with no strings attached" appears to be the constant refrain. Without this carte blanche, we are told, there will be economic catastrophe. But it is all the same scare tactics the regime trots out every time it wants a new series of bailouts or immense amount of new spending. Trump hysterically said the same thing when he demanded passage of his $2.2 trillion covid "rescue plan." We're told there is no alternative, and any opposition is "reckless." Rather, we must approve any and all new spending now and deal with the consequences later. But "later" never comes because the strategy is always to just kick the can further down the road. To not do so, the experts insist, will destroy the economy. Well, the time has come to start doubting this narrative and demand that the federal government start being more honest about its runaway and unpayable debt. And yes, today's massive federal debt is unpayable. It's not even manageable. For an example of how it is unmanageable, just look at how interest on the debt is gradually consuming all other federal spending. With interest rates rising, debt service is ballooning. According to an analysis from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget: It's clear at this point that the only strategy the federal government the Federal Reserve have for dealing with this is to inflate away the dollar with easy money so as to bring interest rates back down and pay back the debt in devalued dollars. Paying back debts with devalued dollars is a type of default, but this method helps hide the fact. Make no mistake: when the US government chooses to manage its debts by inflating away the dollar, it is defaulting. A more honest and rational approach would be to explicitly default. Rather than trying to dishonestly inflate away the debt obligation, a less deceptive federal government would simply admit that it can only afford to pay back its debt at some reduced amount: say, 90 cents on the dollar, or less. Naturally, this would cause interest rates to surge as has occurred in the past when the US has defaulted. This, however, would simply be the process of bringing interest rates more into line with the real risks that go with investing in government debt. The current political status quo, however, is built around protecting investors—rather than the taxpayers who ultimately pay all the bills—from risk. This method of turning debt into inflation is attractive to governments and their Wall Street enablers because it shifts the burden of runaway spending to ordinary savers and consumers. They are the ones who pay the real price of de facto inflationary default through price inflation, unaffordable homes, stagflation, and falling real wages. When the experts who oppose any sort of explicit default insist that default would bring disaster, what they really mean is that it would bring disaster for their friends on Wall Street and in the government. The experts prefer the status quo which is a slow-motion inflationary disaster that's playing out in the household budgets of ordinary Americans. This is the America we have left for our children and grandchildren. We should all be ashamed and dismayed.

https://reason.com/2023/05/24/the-war-on-tamales/ Impossible indeed. My spouse has told me about numerous tamale and other Mexican-type food sellers peddling their wares in Frankfort via Facebook and other types of social media. Good for them, I bet what they make is delicious.

Randi Weingarten Only Taught for 3 Years. She's Getting 15 Years of Public Pension Anyway.: https://reason.com/2023/05/23/randi-weingarten-only-taught-for-3-years-shes-getting-15-years-of-public-pension-anyway/ While Ms. Weingarten's collecting such an extravagant pension for such few years actually teaching children is corrupt and wrong, the statement about student's not being her top priority is correct. The head of a labor union, by it's very nature, should have it's members as the top priority. Frankly students should be an afterthought. That public sector unions like the AFT love to crow "they are in this for the students' is disingenuous at best, and outright lie at worst.

Another great example of FBI politicization: https://spectator.org/the-federal-bureau-of-intimidation/

This is a GID old school opinion, circa probably around 2008 or so. I like it.

Unhappy at the finish line: California high school athlete gives big thumbs down after being pushed out of state finals by trans runner as parents clash with protestors - 'that is disgusting': https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12109103/California-high-school-athlete-gives-thumbs-4th-place-finish-trans-competitor-took-2nd.html This is madness.

https://www.indystar.com/story/sports/high-school/2023/05/22/ihsaa-tournament-success-factor-a-decade-in-is-it-working-indiana-high-school-sports-class/70235896007/ Note: Story is behind a paywall Ping pong balls. Promotion and relegation is still a better system.

Yes, I do: https://mises.org/library/decriminalize-average-man If you reside in America and it is dinnertime, you have almost certainly broken the law. In his book Three Felonies a Day, civil-liberties lawyer Harvey Silverglate estimates that the average person unknowingly breaks at least three federal criminal laws every day. This toll does not count an avalanche of other laws — for example misdemeanors or civil violations such as disobeying a civil contempt order — all of which confront average people at every turn. An article in the Economist (July 22, 2010) entitled "Too many laws, too many prisoners" states, Between 2.3m and 2.4m Americans are behind bars, roughly one in every 100 adults. If those on parole or probation are included, one adult in 31 is under "correctional" supervision. As a proportion of its total population, America incarcerates five times more people than Britain, nine times more than Germany and 12 times more than Japan. By contrast, in 1970, less than one in 400 Americans was incarcerated. Why has the prison population more than quadrupled over a few decades? Why are you, as an average person and daily felon, more vulnerable to arrest than at any other time? There is a simple answer but no single explanation as to how the situation arose or why it continues to accelerate out of control. The answer: a constant flood of new and broadly interpreted laws are criminalizing entire categories of daily life while, at the same time, the standards required for arrest and conviction have been severely diluted. The result is that far too many people are arrested and imprisoned for acts that should not be viewed as criminal at all or should receive minimal punishment. In some cases, the violated laws are so obscure, vague, or complicated in language that even the police are ignorant of them. In other cases, outright innocence is not sufficient to escape the brutality of detention. Some Sample Cases (Note: the following examples are selected to illustrate the wide range of criminalization that is occurring and so their circumstances differ significantly from each other. Nevertheless, they share certain factors: the criminalization of harmless, trivial acts; the enforcement of unreasonable rules; the severity with which any noncompliance is punished; the indifference to the human devastation wrought by law.) In 2005, while a passenger in his family car, Anthony W. Florence was mistakenly arrested for a bench warrant on traffic tickets he had already satisfied; the proof of payment he carried was to no avail. During seven days in jail, Florence was strip-searched twice, even though the guards admitted they had no reasonable suspicion of contraband. He was otherwise deprived of rights; for example, guards watched him shower and forced him to undergo a routine delousing.1 Eventually released, the attempt to get justice has taken Florence years. On October 12, the United States Supreme Court is scheduled to hear Florence v. Burlington, et al., in which the question is "whether the Fourth Amendment permits a jail to conduct a suspicionless strip search of every individual arrested for any minor offense no matter what the circumstances."2 According to his lawsuit, Florence is joined by people who were similarly treated after being arrested and jailed for such crimes as "driving with a noisy muffler, failing to use a turn signal, and riding a bicycle without an audible bell."http://images.mises.org/icons/pdf.png In 2003, "three pickup trucks" with "six armed police in flak jackets" pulled up to 66-year-old George Norris's house in Texas. Norris was detained for four hours while they ransacked his home and confiscated 37 boxes of possessions without offering a warrant or an explanation. In March 2004, Norris was indicted under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species for "smuggling" the orchids he had ordered and paid for to run a side business. Norris was thrown into the same cell as a suspected murder and two suspected drug dealers.3 The Economist reports, Prosecutors described Mr. Norris as the "kingpin" of an international smuggling ring. He was dumbfounded: his annual profits were never more than about $20,000. When prosecutors suggested that he should inform on other smugglers in return for a lighter sentence, he refused, insisting he knew nothing beyond hearsay. He pleaded innocent. But an undercover federal agent had ordered some orchids from him, a few of which arrived without the correct papers. For this, he was charged with making a false statement to a government official, a federal crime punishable by up to five years in prison. Since he had communicated with his suppliers, he was charged with conspiracy, which also carries a potential five-year term. Unable to pay legal bills, Norris pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 17 months. For bringing prescription pills into prison, he was thrown into solitary confinement for 71 days. But "[t]he prison was so crowded … that even in solitary he had two room-mates." In 2000, a poor kid from foster care named T.J. Hill thought he had found a path to success when he received a wrestling scholarship to Cal State Fullerton. School did not work out, and he was arrested in 2006 for possession of psilocybin (mushrooms). He was put on five years' probation with a suspended imposition of sentence. In other words, if he completed his probation successfully, he would not have a criminal record.4 In November 2008, he left the state and a warrant was issued for his arrest. Although the original charge was minor and no further illegal activity occurred, T.J. was jailed on $100,000 bail to prevent flight risk. His family has spent thousands on legal fees. Now well known for his volunteer work with children, even police officers are hoping T.J. escapes more jail time. As one of them said, "He's a good guy. He's changed lives." Whether he will be allowed to continue doing so or will become dehumanized through a senseless, brutal imprisonment waits to be seen. Such stories abound. Most share characteristics with the foregoing three. For example, the criminal activity being punished is trivial and violates no one's rights. The crimes are mala prohibita rather than mala en se. The first refers to crimes that exist only because rules were passed to control people's nonviolent behavior, like the buying of orchids; the second refers to crimes that exist because the acts are intrinsically wrong, like rape. Another characteristic shared: the punishments are extreme and any attempt to correct them is often ruinously expensive in terms of time and money. But the ultimate punishment is usually the police record that follows these "criminals" for life, shutting off worlds of opportunities. Ask yourself, How different am I from Florence, with his paid-up-but-still-punished traffic tickets? Or from Norris, who accidentally purchased a harmless but illegal flower? Or from T.J. who made a mistake by breaking a malum prohibitum law against drugs? If something similar happens to you or your children, do you want the lives of those you love to be destroyed by clerical error, understandable ignorance, or a youthful mistake? With every passing law, that prospect becomes more probable. What Path to Justice? Even thinking about how to shift a government system toward freedom or justice can be exhausting. The penal system is particularly daunting because its raw brutality seems to leave no room for reason. Fortunately, the best approach may be to address the penal system's precursors: the legislatures that create laws, the law enforcement and judiciaries that impose them. Without fundamental change at the early stages, effective change at the final stage of imprisonment is unlikely. "The penal system is particularly daunting because its raw brutality seems to leave no room for reason." Libertarianism has evolved sophisticated theories of what constitutes a proper justice system and how to implement it. One of the most popular theories is based on restitution, rather than retribution or punishment. Restitution is the legal system in which a person "makes good" on a harm or wrong done to another individual and does so directly; if you steal $100, then you pay back $100 and reasonable damages directly to the victim of your theft. You do not pay a debt to society or to the state by going to prison. You do not undergo "punishment" other than the damages assessed. You make your victim "whole" — and, perhaps, a bit more for his trouble. Restitution is inherently self-limiting in how much the perpetrator is processed by the system. Beyond what is necessary to guarantee that the harm or wrong is repaired, there is no need for a perpetrator to relinquish any of his rights. A thief need not be caged to pay back $100 plus damages; all he needs to do is pay it back. There is no need for the currently huge prison industry nor the degradation of society that accompanies it. To accomplish this, legal scholar Randy Barnett advocates sweeping away the entire criminal justice system. In its place, he proposes to establish a broadened civil-court system that adjudicates civil liabilities and damages. Many critics object to the pure restitution model; for example, they claim restitution cannot adequately redress crimes like murder. Whatever the merits of such objections, it is clear that restitution can address the great majority of harms and wrongs. Moreover, if an action required the presence of an actual victim whose person or property had been injured, then most current laws would fall off the books. Prisons would be spacious.5 Small Steps toward Justice Fortunately, smaller steps than outright revolution can offer relief to many people suffering from the injustice of our legal and penal systems. These steps include A sunset provision attached to all new or amended laws. This is a clause that provides an expiration date for a law unless action is taken to renew it. Today most laws are in effect indefinitely. The elimination of civil-contempt imprisonments, which most commonly occur in family courts; men who are unable to pay court ordered spousal or child support are imprisoned for "contempt" without a trial or appeal process, and for whatever term is set by a judge. This converts the penal system into a debtor's prison. The America legal system is distinguished from most other Western ones in permitting such imprisonment. The elimination of a double standard under the law for those involved in law enforcement. For example, the elimination of personal immunity for the willful wrongdoing of police officers on duty and for district attorneys who pursue blatantly flimsy cases. Such immunity skews incentives toward brutality and overprosecution. Reinstatement of the mens rea safeguard. Mens rea means there was no "guilty mind" when an act occurred and, so, there was no crime although civil liability may well exist. For example, if a man bumps into another car without noticing it, he should not be charged with leaving the scene of an accident. He is civilly liable but not criminal so. Currently, there is a concerted attack on mens rea so that people are deemed criminally "guilty" despite their intent.6 Establishment of an "ignorance-of-the-law" defense. This differs from mens rea. For example, if a man knows he hits a car and leaves the scene, an "ignorance" defense would be "I didn't know doing so was illegal." It would be an invalid defense because everyone in our society is reasonably deemed to know that the destruction of property is wrong. But it is currently impossible for anyone — including the police — to know the content of every law. The principle that "ignorance of the law is no excuse" comes from 17th-century philosopher Thomas Hobbes who addressed willful ignorance of laws that were well-known or a matter of common sense. Thus the claim "I didn't know rape was wrong" is an invalid defense while "I didn't know buying an orchid was wrong" would probably be valid even to Hobbes. The elimination of criminal charges for all nonviolent "wrongdoing" toward law-enforcement agents. Such charges include obstruction of justice, lying to the police, and peacefully resisting arrest. The decriminalization of all drugs A return to the traditional rules of statutory interpretation by which criminal statutes are narrowly construed. Today, not merely criminal laws but seemingly unrelated ones, such as the Commerce Act, are being stretched to include a wide range of so-called violators as criminals. The list could be much longer. But the implementation of any one of the foregoing and simple protections of justice could save misery or ruination for many thousands of innocent people. Conclusions Why are such reforms unlikely to occur? Legislators have a strong incentive to call constantly for more laws and stricter enforcement. Until a large enough voter or protest base has been victimized by the law and demands change, politicians are rewarded for continuing that call. Being "hard" on crime is not merely a vote winner but also gives the state apparatus, on which the hands of legislators rest, much greater social control. Meanwhile, the asset forfeiture that often accompanies arrests can turn a tidy profit, not merely for the state but especially for the police departments that absorb the assets. Moreover, hordes of unionized people now have well-paying, plush-benefited jobs in the legal and penal systems. If 90 percent of arrests and imprisonments were eliminated then 90 percent of those jobs might disappear. And so you and your children are likely to continue living under the constant threat of arrest by an arbitrary power against whom you either have no defense or a defense that could be ruinous. You will continue to live in a police state.

https://apnews.com/article/nfl-jim-brown-03d88c7da08840a0921ae8d8dd0a6aaa Truly an American Icon, period. He will be missed.

Which I still puzzled as to why that didn't happen, unless there was some kind of conference bylaw to prevent it.

Too many laws. As the opinion piece states:

Really? What valuable services does the FBI provide that local and state law enforcement agencies cannot, other than a seemingly endless stream of federal tax dollars?

Thanks for the news. So that this yet unnamed conference appears to have reached the magical 6 members, what will it be called? Sure wish these 5 schools hadn't abandoned the Sagamore moniker to the likes of the other 3 three, something that has yet to be explained.

Hence the need for it to be abolished. Does the USA need a political instrument that can deprive individuals of their personal freedom on the whim of some apparatchik? (And I use that particular word for a reason).

https://mises.org/wire/end-fbi Durham went on to conclude that Rather, the FBI engaged in a “lack of analytical rigor, apparent confirmation bias, and an over-willingness to rely on information from individuals connected to political opponents.” All in all, the Durham report paints a picture of a highly unprofessional FBI that apparently greenlights investigations based on agents' political agendas and on politically convenient rumors. Durham sums it up: The FBI and Justice Department “failed to uphold their mission of strict fidelity to the law.” The report was so damning that even CNN's Jake Tapper admitted it is "devastating to the FBI," and that the report's conclusions serve as additional reminders that FBI agents—including many in leadership—played key roles in promoting the "Russiagate" myth. This was the false narrative that the Trump administration had worked with the Russian regime to rig the 2016 election. The myth fueled years of Congressional investigations. The media used the FBI investigation as justification for years of speculative attacks on the Trump administration. The debunked Russiagate story even earned some reporters a Pulitzer prize. The whole affair has helped illustrate how FBI agents—like central bankers, CDC bureaucrats and Pentagon generals—are highly political technocrats, and hardly dispassionate "public servants" slavishly devoted to professionalism and accuracy. Maintaining this façade, however, has long been an important aspect of FBI training and policy. Durham himself takes as a given that the FBI should act to "reduc[e] the risk of reputational damage" to the FBI. Not surprisingly, then, one aspect of Durhams condemnation of the FBI is the "severe reputational harm" done of the bureau as a result of its participation in promoting the myth of Trump-Russia collusion. Let's hope Durham is correct. Severe reputation damage for the FBI is just what is needed since the FBI generally enjoys a high degree of public approval that is wholly unjustified. It is well past time for a more realistic assessment of the FBI for what it is: an unnecessary, unconstitutional, and incompetent agency. Moreover, FBI agents have long displayed a contempt for basic human rights, and instead function as a partisan federal "secret police" designed to protect the powerful at the expense of ordinary Americans. This organization should be decentralized, defunded, stripped of its powers, and ultimately abolished. There is nothing the FBI does that military intelligence and state and local police cannot do on their own. The FBI: A Long Record of Criminality and Failure The long FBI tradition of disregarding the law to get the "bad guys" provides far too many examples to fully recount here. James Bovard, however, in his article, "The FBI's Forgotten Criminal Record" reminds us of many shameful FBI efforts from arresting dissenters during wars, to burning women and children to death at Waco. There was also, of course the illegal FBI efforts against peace activists under COINTELPRO and countless cases of blackmail, intimidation, and illegal spying. Bovard has also cataloged how the FBI routinely ignores the law in its own investigations, and instead employs tactics long used by organizations we could accurately describe as "secret police." He writes: Arguably even worse than the FBI's routine casual relationship with the law is the FBI's record of failure against real criminals. Most notable, of course, is how the FBI botched investigations of Al-Qaida. In his book Enemies of Intelligence: Knowledge and Power in American National Security, Richard K. Betts notes that the CIA had a central role in the federal government's failure to prevent 9/11, yet the FBI's incompetence was perhaps the most extensive. He writes: Not only does the FBI disregard the law when the law stands in the way of blackmailing law-abiding citizens, but the FBI doesn't even know the law when it comes to investigating actual terrorists. Compare this lackadaisical attitude toward Moussaoui with the alacrity and gusto with which the FBI went after the non-terrorists in Waco, or how the FBI has gone after small-time trespassers and vandals who participated in the January 6 riot. Not much has improved at the FBI in the 20-plus years since 9/11. The FBI never took any responsibility for its 9/11 failures, and its ineffectiveness and incompetence was rewarded with larger budgets and more power. The FBI now spends its time targeting parents who express political views to school boards in a way the FBI doesn't like. The FBI also spies on Catholic parishes deemed to be engaging in various thought crimes. Not satisfied with its own lack of accountability and corruption, the FBI also provides means for local police forces to skirt the law. In recent decades many local governments have attempted to enhance police accountability by putting limits on police immunity and requiring the use of devices such as body cams. The FBI, however, provides local police with a way of getting around these laws. The Federal government has invented "joint task forces" which deputize local police to work with the FBI and other federal agencies. Simone Weichselbaum notes how these de facto federal agents need not use body cams and employ a lower standard in the use of force. It's also a cash cow for local bureaucrats, as USAToday has shown: Given the special treatment that FBI agents enjoy, it's not a shock that it turns out many FBI agents are straight-up thieves. For example, the FBI seized an estimated $86 million in cash from hundreds of safe deposit boxes at U.S. Private Vaults in a March 2021 raid. Court documents now show that in order to get the warrant to pull of this heist, the FBI lied to the judge who issued the warrant. Moreover, the FBI "omitted from their warrant request a central part of the FBI’s plan: Permanent confiscation of everything inside every box containing at least $5,000 in cash or goods, a senior FBI agent recently testified." It is unclear whether anyone was actually charged with any real crimes as a result of this mass seizure of property. This enthusiasm for seizing private property without any criminal conviction is not rare. The FBI has been central to the Federal government's seizure of $50 billion of private property from private citizens, most of it with no judicial oversight. When it's not stealing cremated ashes and family heirlooms, the FBI is busy pushing crackpot theories such as "911 call analysis." The FBI has spent years hosting "trainings" for local police officers in which police personnel are taught that 911 calls can analyzed to determine the guilt of people who call to report the deaths of loved ones. There is zero research or science behind this FBI-endorsed fad. Of course, if you're concerned about real criminals, don't expect any help from the FBI. The FBI has recently settled with families and victims of the 2018 Parkland, Florida shootings following the FBI's failure to follow up on tips about the gunman. The FBI admits it didn't follow its own protocols. Perhaps most notorious in recent years is the FBI refusal to investigate Larry Nassar, the man now serving 100 years in prison for sexually assaulting underage girls. The FBI ignored pleas to investigate for two years, and victims are now suing for $130 million in damages. In response to all this, the FBI is always full of excuses about how they are reforming things, and putting new "policies" into place that will fix everything. Senior officials, however, are virtually never fired or disciplined, and the FBI enjoys growing budgets year after year. The true record, however, is of an unresponsive agency that ignores real crime and focuses on politically expedient and politically rewarding non-crimes such as "seditious conspiracy." This is all the more distressing because the FBI is so thoroughly unnecessary and pointless. Even if we ignore the fact that there is no provision in the US constitution for a federal police force, it is nonetheless apparent that the FBI, which now bills itself primarily as an intelligence organization, is simply duplicating the work of countless other organizations in this respect. There are at least 18 intelligence organizations current being funded by US taxpayers. Further, prosecuting any real crime does not require an additional layer of federal law. Fraud, theft, murder, and assault are all already illegal in every single US state. If a huge continent-spanning police force is necessary to keep law and order, how is it that Europe somehow manages to survive without a Europe-wide police? Data sharing organizations like INTERPOL—which is staffed by agents with no power to arrest or launch their own investigations—somehow manage to work. The FBI will no doubt argue that it brings valuable resources to cash-strapped police forces when more resources are needed. The FBI only has access to these resources, however, because the federal government extracts more than $10 billion dollars from state and local taxpayers first, and then hands it over to the FBI to "help" the locals. The Durham report is only the latest indication that the true nature of the FBI. In a 2020 essay, Angelo Codevilla examined the rot at the core of the FBI. He goes far too easy on the FBI in early decades, but he was right enough when it came to the present state of the agency. He wrote: This assessment is now more correct than ever. Mr. McMaken is spot on. The FBI needs to be abolished. There is nothing it does that cannot be done, or is currently being done, by local or state level law enforcement agencies.

https://mises.org/wire/putrid-underbelly-woke-capitalism Flaherty was interrupted by a Berkshire representative and pleaded to the chair (Buffett) to be allowed to continue. Buffett agreed that Flaherty could continue but warned him of the three-minute time limit for shareholder proposals. Flaherty then proceeded to throw down the gauntlet, until his microphone was shut off: At this point, Buffett declared from the stage: “You crossed the boundary.” Two security guards grabbed Flaherty by either arm and escorted him from the room. Flaherty was arrested and charged with trespassing. The arrest of the Berkshire shareholder, apparently for merely mentioning Jeffrey Epstein in connection with Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, coincided with a series of Wall Street Journal articles exploring Epstein’s calendar and a trove of Epstein emails and other documents. The Wall Street Journal revealed numerous Epstein meetings with high-profile contacts, long after Epstein served time for soliciting a child prostitute and was registered as a sex offender. Represented in Epstein’s calendar and emails are such notables as William Burns, director of the Central Intelligence Agency since 2021; Bill Gates, Microsoft founder and philanthropist; Jess Staley, former Barclay’s CEO; Reid Hoffman, cofounder of LinkedIn; Larry Summers, professor and former Harvard University president; Woody Allen, filmmaker; and Noam Chomsky, leftist MIT linguistics professor, among others. These and other meetings may reveal that many businesspersons and woke philanthropists were ensnared by a child sex trafficker. The scene at the Berkshire annual meeting also followed on the heels of the lawsuit filed against JPMorgan Chase by the US Virgin Islands. Attorneys for the US Virgin Islands claim that the bank materially aided Epstein in his child sex trafficking scheme and is seeking damages for their clients. Four billionaires have been subpoenaed in the case so far, including Google cofounder Sergey Brin; Hyatt Hotels CEO Thomas Pritzker; real estate tycoon and owner of U.S. News and World Report Mortimer Zuckerman; and venture capitalist and Hollywood agent Michael Ovitz. Curiously, the US Virgin Islands has also attempted, without success, to serve a subpoena to Google’s other cofounder, Larry Page, whose whereabouts remain unknown and who obviously does not want to be found. It should be remembered here that Google has represented the leading edge of woke capitalism, with its leftist ranking algorithms and its employment of “machine learning fairness” that corrects for so-called algorithmic unfairness by misrepresenting reality with affirmative action results. Clearly, Google’s founders did not rely on algorithms to identify and eliminate pedophiles from their list of business contacts. While the US Virgin Islands asserts that JP Morgan Chase facilitated and possibly bankrolled Epstein’s pedophilia ring, US Republican lawmakers have claimed that the US’s largest bank has a penchant for cancelling the accounts of conservative and religious groups. The bank maintained its financial relationship with Epstein until 2013, long after he was convicted of sex crimes, yet recently cancelled the accounts of such groups as the National Committee for Religious Freedom. The bank’s touted “diversity and inclusion” policy has apparently included pedophiles but excluded avowedly Christian groups. Much more has and could be said about why high-profile businesspersons, philanthropists, academics, and even intelligence officers had relationships with Jeffrey Epstein. For example, some have claimed that Epstein and his partner Ghislaine Maxwell were Israeli spies who ran a honey-trap operation to steer US policies in Israel’s favor and against US interests. As the Wall Street Journal asked: But the main question for our purposes is: How is that nearly all major corporate heads and influential members of society have simultaneously gone woke? Could it be that whoever controlled Jeffrey Epstein sets the agenda through the use of blackmail, directing these corporate heads and other leaders to convert to wokeness, while steering their philanthropy to designated ends, including the funding of critical race theory and the LGBTQIA+ agenda? In other words, is our capitalist class controlled by whoever oversaw Epstein’s thirty-year entrapment operation? In addition to revealing the moral rot that has permeated the US establishment, the Epstein connections also show that those who claim the woke moral high ground, and impose woke policies on the rest of us, are perhaps the most corrupted people on the face of the earth. The plot thickens. The corruption is everywhere.

https://reason.com/2023/05/13/beware-the-christian-prince/?comments=true#comments Kind of scary stuff here. And I don't understand where some of these people get the idea that Trump is this "Christian Prince". There is nothing remotely Christian about the man.

Hmm. I wonder what the level of photoshopping going on here is?

https://www.indystar.com/story/sports/high-school/2023/05/15/major-free-throws-rule-change-coming-to-ihsaa-basketball-next-season-nfhs-indiana-high-school/70219398007/ This is baloney. The last thing Indiana High School basketball needs is to become more like the NBA game.

I'm sure Satanists are offended by "Devil" mascots.

All proud schools with great basketball traditions.

Smart choice.

How is a family moving out of Avon or Brownsburg to Danville or Lizton/Pittsboro a 'leftover'? Families move all the time for all types of reasons. Are they somehow told by the Avon or Brownsburg government school system that they are not worthy of the educational and extracurricular opportunities offered there, so they should move?