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Liz Peek: Twitter vs. Musk — who is lying in battle over social media company’s future?

Posted By on July 9th, 2022

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/twitter-musk-lying-battle-social-media-company-future

Elon Musk wants out of his deal to buy Twitter. The world’s richest man claims that Twitter’s management is in “material breach” of various provisions in the purchase agreement and that the company has made “false and misleading representations” about its business. Management denies Musk’s complaints.

Musk wants to know how many active daily users on Twitter are actually “bots” – or fake accounts. He says management refuses to turn over information that could accurately determine the number. Since 90% of the firm’s revenues come from advertising, the information is critical to advertisers, and to valuing the company.

Management says only 5% of its ADU (average daily users)  are spam, and claims it kicks one million bots off the site each day; as recently as May, CEO Parag Agrawal claimed the number of fake accounts ejected was half a million. The lack of consistency is not reassuring.

Who is telling the truth? My bet is on Musk.

After all, who has more to lose? If Twitter’s management is found to have fudged its numbers, heads will roll and the stock will collapse. If Musk’s charges turns out to be a phony excuse to bow out of an overpriced deal, the billionaire’s reputation will take a hit, for sure. But the brilliant Tesla and SpaceX founder is already considered erratic; few will be surprised by his about-face. Yes, there is that pesky billion-dollar fee that either side may owe for torching the transaction; Musk can afford it.

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

The Administrative State Moves To Show Who’s Boss On Energy Policy  Francis Menton

Posted By on July 9th, 2022

https://us7.campaign-archive.com/?e=a9fdc67db9&u=9d011a88d8fe324cae8c084c5&id=879099a3d6

Last Thursday, June 30, the Supreme Court issued its decision in West Virginia v. EPA, holding that, absent a further explicit statute from the Congress, the EPA did not have the authority to orchestrate its planned fundamental restructuring of the electric power generation sector of the economy. More generally, the Supreme Court stated that in cases involving “major questions,” including regulations that affect large portions of the economy, the government must demonstrate “clear congressional authorization” to support a sweeping effort to regulate.

Do you think that such a Supreme Court decision might cause the various regulatory bureaucracies to slow down and reconsider a little before plowing ahead with other dubious plans for fundamental economic restructurings? That’s not how these bureaucracies work. And such is most particularly the case with regard to regulators of the energy sector, sometimes known as “climate change” arena, where the bureaucrats are burning with a righteous religious fervor that they believe entitles them to cast the evil sinners into the fires of hell.

And thus, contemporaneous with the Supreme Court’s decision, several agencies promptly doubled down on efforts to strangle the oil and gas industries with regulatory restrictions, essentially daring the courts or anyone else to stop them. Thousands of pages of statutes give them thousands of arguments to claim they have the “clear congressional authorization,” any one of which arguments might stick. They are now out to show who’s boss.

EPA Administrator Michael Regan wasted no time in getting a statement out on the afternoon of June 30. Excerpt:

[W]e are committed to using the full scope of EPA’s authorities to protect communities and reduce the pollution that is driving climate change. . . . EPA will move forward with lawfully setting and implementing environmental standards that meet our obligation to protect all people and all communities from environmental harm.

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From Constitutional Republic to Socialism to Globalism to Feudalism by Linda Goudsmit

Posted By on July 9th, 2022

https://goudsmit.pundicity.com/26308/from-constitutional-republic-to-socialism-to

goudsmit.pundicity.com  lindagoudsmit.com 

Globalism is a replacement ideology that seeks to reorder the world into one planetary Unistate, ruled by the globalist elite themselves, of course. Globalism has declared war on the nation state, and cannot succeed without collapsing the United States of America. The tactical strategy is the incremental movement of America from constitutional republic -> socialism -> globalism -> feudalism. The target is your children. This is how it works.

Every natural force on Earth from fire to nuclear energy has the potential for construction or destruction. This inherent duality presents man with moral choices between construction and destruction. Traditional Judeo-Christian morality deems construction good and destruction bad. What happens when the accepted foundational morality of society is challenged by a competing narrative that insists construction is bad and destruction is good? Let’s find out.

Societies as small as families and as large as nation states are organized by accepted principles codified into written or unwritten laws accepted by member units. When societies abide by the accepted rules they are considered to be at homeostasis – they are at peace and in balance. When a competing narrative intrudes, the society becomes destabilized and must either accept or reject the competing ideology to regain balance, peace, and homeostasis.

Traditionally, American culture derives its stability and moral authority from its Judeo-Christian tradition, Constitutional law, and parental authority in the family unit. God, government, and family are the triptych of American culture and the foundations for America’s extraordinary ordered liberty. America’s triptych is the artwork of American greatness and portrays the triad that supports our unparalleled freedom and prosperity.

CHARLOTTE'S NEWS WEB, ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Where Science Ends and Morality Begins By Tom McCaffrey

Posted By on July 9th, 2022

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/07/where_science_ends_and_morality_begins.html

“[When] it comes to the gas prices, we’re going through an incredible transition that is taking place that, God willing, when it’s over, we’ll be stronger and the world will be stronger and less reliant on fossil fuels when this is over.”  So said President Biden on May 23.

We are left to assume that today’s astronomical prices at the pump ($6.78 for hi-test in California town yesterday) are only temporary and that prices will return to lower levels after the transition to wind and solar is completed.  But this is pure fantasy.  Wind and solar power are far more expensive sources of energy than fossil fuels.  That’s why coal, oil, and gas became our predominant sources of energy in the first place.  The only reason there are wind and solar to speak of is that the government has subsidized their development with taxpayer dollars.

But why would environmentalists want Americans to spend more on energy?  Because they believe that wealth is the great enemy of the environment.  People in poor countries don’t mar the natural landscape with superhighways and factories and shopping malls and skyscrapers.  “In fact, giving society cheap, abundant energy would be the equivalent of giving an idiot child a machine gun,” wrote Stanford professor Paul Ehrlich in 1975.1

Environmentalists’ desire to halt development of the natural landscape is plainly visible in their restricting of the water supply in California.  Since 1970, the population of California has increased 100 percent, but the volume of water in her reservoirs has increased only 26 percent.2  The last major dam in California was built 42 years ago.  Environmentalists fight the construction of every new water project, including even desalination plants, which could be a source of virtually unlimited water for Californians.  But more water would mean more people, more wealth, and more transformation of the landscape.  (It would be a mistake to attribute California’s water shortage to radical environmentalists; in California, garden-variety environmentalists have simply enjoyed more power to enact the standard green agenda than their comrades elsewhere.)

BOOKS Comments turned off

EXCERPT:”We’ll Be Back: The Fall and Rise of America” by Kurt Schlichter 

Posted By on July 9th, 2022

https://amgreatness.com/2022/07/08/well-be-back-but-will-trump/

EXCERPT:”We’ll Be Back: The Fall and Rise of America” by Kurt Schlichter 

There are a few things you can rely upon. The sun will come up in the east. You will be expected to pay taxes. The third season of a given Netflix or HBO series that began promisingly will suck, mostly because the plot will get woke. And Joe Biden will make Jimmy Carter look like Ronald Reagan. 

Biden has to fail. Besides being stupid, which probably gave him a solid head start on his senility, he adheres to an ideology that not only never succeeds in bringing prosperity or freedom but cannot do so if it wishes to continue. Things will get worse and worse, and all the legacy media tap-dancing in the world is never going to convince Americans that 20 percent inflation is a good thing and proof of a booming economy. He is going to screw it up, and there is going to be a huge opening for a Republican in 2024. And, hopefully, it will not be a terrible Republican. 

IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

Who Speaks for Migrants? By Thaddeus G. McCotter

Posted By on July 9th, 2022

https://amgreatness.com/2022/07/08/who-speaks-for-migrants/

The Biden Administration swaps “cages” for trailers, where migrant detainees starve, suffocate, and expire.

When the swamp’s officials advocate a specific policy, it is wise to remember that the more illogical their statement is, the more political their statement is. Often, the official grasps that his statement on behalf of a desired policy is not supported by the facts; consequently, he attempts to conceal its failings beneath a mask of emotion, not infrequently aided by the media’s connivance. The official’s hope is that listeners’ virtuous feelings—such as altruism, compassion, and righteous indignation—will obscure their ability to comprehend intellectually the argument’s fallacies and the policy’s damage. 

It would be tempting to call the official a liar and, indeed, many are. Still, many truly believe that while their argument is specious, magically, any impact of the desired policy will prove beneficial. Yet, when officials’ illogical, emotional arguments are accepted despite a citizenry’s better judgment, the fallout from those policies are not only impractical and injurious, they can prove lethal—and often for those who had no say in the fallacious argument and the implementation of its policies.

There is no more dire and vivid example of such illogical, political, emotional statements, disingenuous arguments, and their deadly consequences than the Biden Administration’s immigration policy.

As Melanie Arter of CNSNews.com reports, the recent discovery in San Antonio of 53 migrants who died in “what is considered to be the deadliest human smuggling incident in U.S. history” has raised the Biden Administration’s “record” of migrant deaths on its watch to over 700 men, women, and children.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Wanting the Iran Nuclear Deal for the Wrong Reasons by Majid Rafizadeh

Posted By on July 9th, 2022

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18681/iran-nuclear-deal-reasons

The EU partly wants the deal so it can buy oil and gas from the Iranian regime.

The EU also appears to want the nuclear deal in order not to lose its other economic relationships and trade with the ruling mullahs of Iran. Despite US sanctions, European countries are still trading with Iran; the Biden administration has yet to hold them accountable.

According to the Financial Tribune, Germany is Iran’s top trading partner, and Italy comes in second.

By reaching a nuclear deal, the Biden administration may think that it can claim a foreign policy accomplishment and a political victory, as the Obama administration did, by arguing — falsely — that it had finally curbed Iran’s nuclear program and prevented the Islamic Republic from obtaining nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, that was about as accurate as Obama’s claim – which he repeated 37 times — that “If you like your healthcare plan, you can keep it.”

After the 2015 nuclear deal, however, the ruling mullahs of Iran were not only gifted a newfound global legitimacy. The removal of sanctions also generated billions of dollars in revenue for Iran’s military institution, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, as well as for Iran’s militia and terror groups. The regime used those revenues to expand its influence throughout the region, especially in Syria, Yemen, Lebanon and Iraq….The Iranian-armed Houthis ratcheted up their efforts to cause death and destruction in Yemen, and Hezbollah escalated its involvement and control of large swathes of Syrian territory. The region also saw a greater propensity for Houthi rocket launches at civilian targets in Saudi Arabia, the deployment of thousands of Hezbollah foot soldiers in Syria, and the constant bombardment of southern Israel with Hamas rockets funded by Iran.

The objective of any nuclear deal with a rogue state ought to be anchored in completely and permanently halting that regime from obtaining nuclear weapons. The objective should not be to further empower and embolden it, or to facilitate it becoming a nuclear state.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Critical race theory, transgenderism and ‘diversity, equity and inclusion’ are destroying our military By Tony Lentini

Posted By on July 9th, 2022

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/07/critical_race_theory_transgenderism_and_diversity_equity_and_inclusion_are_destroying_our_military_.html

Military recruitment in the United States is way down at the same time as the Biden Administration is driving out so-called “White supremacists” (anybody who voted for Trump or believes in the Constitution), those opposed to taking the COVID vaccine due to religious or health concerns or natural immunity, and people who refuse to use the preferred pronouns of gender activists.  The result of all this is a neutered and divided military increasingly unable to fight and win wars.

Recent polling by the University of Chicago found that two-thirds of Republican and Independent voters and 51 percent of self-described “very liberal” voters agree that the U.S. government is “corrupt and rigged against everyday people like me.”  Trust in all our institutions is falling and the military is no exception.

A December 2021 survey by the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute determined that Americans’ strong confidence and trust in our military had declined from 70 percent to 45 percent over the previous three years with 11 percent of that collapse happening just since February 2021, a month after President Biden took office.  The disastrous pullout of American troops from Afghanistan in the summer of 2021, leaving Americans, allies and more than $7 billion dollars in weapons and equipment behind, also played a part in the steep decline.  Our increasingly “woke” military is losing the hearts and minds of the American people.

Young Americans join the military for a variety of reasons, but patriotism is a common element.  Critical Race Theory (CRT) indoctrination is now required throughout our Armed Forces, including at our military academies.  CRT teaches that our nation is systemically racist and that all White people are essentially evil.  It decries our Founding Fathers, our Constitution, our institutions, our capitalist economy and our entire way of life as irredeemably bigoted. 

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Is the EU driving the first nails into the Green Energy coffin? By Andrea Widburg

Posted By on July 9th, 2022

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/07/is_the_eu_driving_the_first_nails_into_the_green_energy_coffin.html

One of the most obvious effects of the Green Energy movement is that it is profoundly regressive insofar as it returns those nations that embrace it to a pre-modern era. That would be an era that looks pretty in BBC productions but that was, in reality, filthy, disease-ridden, and both very cold and very dark. A recent European Union vote to classify natural gas and nuclear energy as sustainable (i.e., “green”) energy suggests that, having gotten a glimpse into the abyss, pragmatism is beginning to triumph over the mindless “green” ideology that has governed the left for so long.

Germany, which dominates the EU, is also the nation that has made the greatest strides in implementing the “green” agenda. The results of abandoning reliable fossil fuel and replacing it with renewables have been problematic. For some years now, Germany has been facing rolling blackouts and, in 2021, it decided to teach people how to use flowerpots and candles to provide heat during the winter when the electricity is gone:

It’s not just Germany, although it’s been the first and the worst. In early 2021, when a cold snap caused a huge demand for power across Europe, the entire European electrical network almost collapsed. While that specific power outage wasn’t due to problems with renewables, people paying attention to the push to end coal and go to renewables got very worried:

While this event hasn’t been linked to a surge in renewable power, as Europe replaces big coal and nuclear stations with thousands of smaller wind and solar units — just as sectors electrify to reduce emissions — incidents like this will become more frequent.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Why we’ll all miss Boris He had more élan than any prime minister since Margaret Thatcher Roger Kimball

Posted By on July 9th, 2022

https://spectatorworld.com/topic/all-miss-boris-johnson-united-kingdom-macaulay-byron/

“As I say, there is a lot to criticize about Boris’s performance. But he got a few big things right and his entertainment value was unparalleled. Boris’s hour strutting and fretting upon the stage reminds me of something Santayana says about the Englishman in Soliloquies in England. “It will be a black day for the human race when scientific blackguards, conspirators, churls, and fanatics manage to supplant him.” Noted.”

I think that Thomas Babington Macaulay had the last word about Boris Johnson’s forced resignation as prime minister of the UK: “We know no spectacle so ridiculous,” Macaulay wrote, “as the British public in one of its periodical fits of morality.”

Macaulay’s line needs to be slightly adjusted, it is true, because, ridiculous though public displays of puritanical moralism are, in this case it was mostly Boris’s colleagues in Parliament, not the public at large, that suffered that unbecoming fit of morality. Indeed, throughout it all, Boris — a politician with more élan than any prime minister since Margaret Thatcher — remained popular with the public. He was especially popular, I think, with the American public.

And why not? In the sea of squishy gray on gray that is the political establishment, Boris stood out as a vibrant, technicolor force of nature. He was probably better educated and more amusing than any PM since Churchill. It somehow seems appropriate that Macaulay made his famous comment in the context of a review of a book about Lord Byron. The scolds didn’t like Byron either.

On most of the big issues, I was at one with Boris. The biggest of the big issues, in my view, was Brexit. I do not think that partial recovery of British sovereignty would have happened absent his support.