European farmers are reshaping the political landscape across the Atlantic just months before the EU’s parliamentary elections.
recently I stumbled across the fact that, indeed, there is still such a thing as government cheese. In fact, there's a whopping huge amount of it, hidden away in caves in Missouri, and what's more, according to this March 2023 article in the Science Times, the story behind government cheese is a brilliant example of how screwed up things get when the government fiddles with markets.
Missouri cheese caves are deep within the Ozark Mountains' heart under Springfield. Made of converted limestone mines, the caves are perfectly kept at 36 degrees Fahrenheit to give an ideal environment for storing stockpiles of government-owned cheese.
It all started in the 1970s when the U.S. suffered from a national dairy shortage which was made worse by 30% inflation on dairy products. In response to the economic crisis, then-President Jimmy Carter decided to spend money on the dairy industry to encourage dairy production.
The government set A [sic] new policy where a two-billion-dollar budget was allotted to subsidize dairy products over the next four years. This plan was favorable to farmers but also led them to overproduce dairy products. The farmers became motivated to produce as much dairy as they could because they knew that whatever was not sold on the market would be bought by the government. //
Most dairy products were converted to cheese because they have a longer shelf life. By the early 1980s, the government-owned more than 500 million pounds of cheese. Because of this, the next U.S. President, Ronald Reagan, had to pass a law in 1981 enacting the public distribution of government-owned cheese. //
In the years that followed, the demand for cheese declined, but the production rate remained the same as the government continued to support dairy producers. As of 2019, the collection comprises almost 1.4 billion pounds of surplus cheese in the U.S.
So, the federal government, with your tax dollars, has produced 1.4 billion pounds of cheese and has it stored in caves in Missouri. //
All the cheese is still there, presumably awaiting another Ronald Reagan, who will crack open the cheese vaults and give back to the American people the cheese that they have, after all, already paid for. The problem is, that dumping a billion-and-a-half pounds of cheese on the market will have a brutal effect on cheese prices and American dairy farmers. It's difficult to see a good way out of this mess now. Once again the federal government has tossed a bunch of taxpayer money after a problem that would have resolved itself if just left alone. Forty years later, we are still paying for it. //
I'll keep saying it until I turn blue: Markets aren't perfect, but they generally get things right if they are left alone. The problem is that the government just can't leave them alone. And this is what happens.
Anya Bidwell, an attorney with the Institute for Justice, the organization representing Gonzalez claims the city arrested the former councilmember as retaliation for her constant criticism of the mayor and other officials.
“In America, we don’t arrest our critics," she said.
The arrest led to Gonzalez’s lawsuit against the city, which invoked qualified immunity, a legal doctrine that protects government officials from civil liability unless it is established that they violated a Constitutional right.
The Supreme Court’s eventual ruling on this case could reach far beyond Castle Hills. It could redefine the landscape of free speech and government accountability. Depending on how the court decides, it could become harder for government officials to use their positions to punish those who criticize them.
Warren, along with leftist Democrat Reps. Pramila Jayapal (WA) and Brendan F. Boyle (PA), have reintroduced the Ultra-Millionaire Tax, which would impose a wealth tax and captivity tax ("exit tax"), and would also allot $100 billion for increasing tax audits on the the wealthy.
As law professor, author, and political commentator Jonathan Turley called it in a Wednesday column, an "Eat the Rich" plan. As you might imagine, Turley isn't a fan of a wealth tax — and that's just the beginning.
The wealth tax is back. We have previously discussed the constitutional and policy concerns surrounding the push by Democrats like Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) to introduce a wealth tax that would start with billionaires. It would not likely end there. //
It is worth noting that the top 1 percent’s income share rose from 22.2 percent in 2020 to 26.3 percent in 2021 and its share of federal income taxes paid rose from 42.3 percent to 45.8 percent.” The top 50 percent of all taxpayers paid 97.7 percent federal income taxes,. The bottom 50 percent paid the only 2.3 percent.
Even more stark, in 2021, the bottom half of taxpayers earned 10.4 percent of total adjusted gross income and paid 2.3 percent of all federal individual income taxes, while the top 1 percent earned 26.3 percent of total AGI and paid 45.8 percent of all federal income taxes.
Let’s not pretend this is about countering communist China or protecting Americans. It’s about using CCP tactics here at home. //
Namely, the push to “ban” TikTok is a thinly veiled scheme to force ByteDance to sell to a U.S. company. The purpose of forcing a sale should be obvious. If a U.S. firm owns TikTok, the federal censorship industrial complex can use the platform as it has used virtually every other social media company: to spy on and manipulate American citizens. //
The suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story, which was banned from Twitter, Facebook, and most other social media platforms almost as soon as it was reported, was only possible because of the leverage that federal intelligence agencies had over these social media companies.
Over the past year, we’ve learned more and more about the depth and breadth of collusion between Big Tech and the federal government, which views social media companies as proxies that enable it to censor and manipulate American citizens. Anything that cuts against the deep state’s preferred narrative is labeled as “misinformation” that must be suppressed, censored, or banned. Instead of doing this directly, the intelligence community dragoons social media companies into carrying out these tasks, and the effect is the quashing of free speech online.
Make no mistake, this is the goal of the movement to “ban” TikTok. How else to explain the effort to force a TikTok sale? If the goal was really to ban TikTok (because the CCP uses it to collect data on American citizens, or because it’s harmful to its users’ mental health, or both) then Congress would have simply passed a bill that banned the app from stores and web-hosting services in the United States. It could have been a straightforward, one-page bill.
The US Department of Energy (DOE) has proposed new energy efficiency standards for distribution transformers. Almost all transformers produced under the new standard would feature amorphous steel cores that are, according to the DOE, significantly more energy efficient than those made of traditional, grain-oriented electrical steel. //
Portland General Electric has two critical points in its response to the delusional DOE.
First, Mandating a complete overhaul of transformer production during a severe shortage is basically insane. //
Second, the amorphous core transformers are significantly larger, leading to a host of technical issues that would jack up energy costs even more. //
An example for size comparison is that a 25KVA pole mounted amorphous core transformer is roughly the size of a 50KVA steel core transformer. This illustrates how much larger the new amorphous core transformers would need to be.
…This triggers a host of related issues that utilities would need to address. //
There is only one Grain-Oriented Electrical Steel (GOES) core maker in the United States (Butler Works, owned by Cleveland-Cliffs). That plant says that the rule is placing its operation in jeopardy.
Indiana is making deals to sell land to a gravely adversarial threat country, and hiding its actions.
Doing something that fast for the benefit of the people isn't something Congress is known for.
That means something fishy is going on.
Sure enough, a poison pill was found, and leave it to Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie to find it. As he pointed out on Tuesday, the TikTok ban is actually a "trojan horse" that would effectively give the executive branch power to ban pretty much anything on the internet he doesn't like.
The so-called TikTok ban is a trojan horse. The President will be given the power to ban WEB SITES, not just Apps. The person breaking the new law is deemed to be the U.S. (or offshore) INTERNET HOSTING SERVICE or App Store, not the “foreign adversary.”
Thomas Massie @RepThomasMassie
·
The so-called TikTok ban is a trojan horse.
The President will be given the power to ban WEB SITES, not just Apps.
The person breaking the new law is deemed to be the U.S. (or offshore) INTERNET HOSTING SERVICE or App Store, not the “foreign adversary.”
https://docs.house.gov/billsthisweek/20240311/HR%207521%20Updated.pdf
8:17 AM · Mar 12, 2024
In other words, this bill would give the government, namely the executive branch, broad powers of censorship over the internet. Websites like Telegram and VPN programs would take a hit for starters. What's also worrisome is that "foreign adversary" is not a clearly defined idea, which means this could be something left up to the opinion of the President.
It should be noted that Massie also posted a follow-up tweet pointing out who is completely untouchable in this bill. See if you can't figure out who it is just by the language.
Thomas Massie @RepThomasMassie
·
Replying to @RepThomasMassie
If you think this isn’t a Trojan horse and will only apply to TikTok and foreign-adversary social media companies, then contemplate why someone thought it was important to get a very specific exclusion for their internet based business written into the bill:
9:19 AM · Mar 12, 2024
[Amazon.com] //
Rand Paul @RandPaul
·
🧵‼️ The lengths some in Congress will go to for more authority and control over Americans’ freedom of speech never ceases to amaze me. The TikTok bill recently advanced by the House would endanger the 1st amendment and empower the federal govt to ban social media platforms…
3:45 PM · Mar 9, 2024 //
Wade Miller
@WadeMiller_USMC
·
Follow
Here @MSNBC helpfully makes it clear their disdain for Christians in America.
She says that if you believe that your rights come from God, you aren’t a Christian, you are a Christian nationalist.
Somehow they seem to not mention that our own founding documents make this… Show more
1:08 PM · Feb 23, 2024 //
According to the Founding Fathers, our rights came from God.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
Per The Rights of the Colonists:
These [rights] may be best understood by reading and carefully studying the institutes of the great Law Giver and Head of the Christian Church, which are to be found clearly written and promulgated in the New Testament.
Lastly, per John Quincy Adams:
[T]he Declaration of Independence first organized the social compact on the foundation of the Redeemer’s mission upon earth. …[and] laid the cornerstone of human government upon the first precepts of Christianity.
They float the term "Christian nationalist" to scare the public from those who believe their Lord and Savior is Jesus Christ, and that, yes, our rights do come from God. The majority, if not the overwhelming majority of Christians believe that, whether they identify as nationalists or not. //
If Christianity ever becomes the minority in America, you will never hear about the religion from left-wing networks again because they will have achieved their goal.
There are several lessons that the federal government can learn from the experience with fiscal rules in the states. First, a strong federalist system is required to restore fiscal sanity. This requires devolution of federal programs to state and local governments. The experience with welfare reform reveals that state and local governments can deliver these services more efficiently than the federal government.
Devolution must be accompanied by greater fiscal autonomy, shifting tax and expenditure powers from the federal government to state and local governments. Fiscal autonomy for state and local governments would restore the strong federalist system envisioned in the Constitution. //
Recent research discovered that more than the required number of states called for such a convention of states in 1979, yet Congress failed to act. Legislation introduced in Congress this year (H.C.R. 24) would require Congress to fulfill its obligation under Article V of the Constitution to certify and count state resolutions and call the convention.
Non-profit organizations are now working with state legislators in an appeal to the Supreme Court for a Declaratory Judgement that would require Congress to record and count the applications. State legislators and citizens must now step up and demand that Congress set the time and place for such a convention as required under Article V. That may be our only recourse to restore dynamically growing credence capital and fiscal sanity.
The time for action is now.
they were released on their own recognizance, which means police have nothing to arrest them on, on the assumption – which they have to operate on – that they’ll be back for their [March 4] court date.”
“The chances of that happening when four people get on a bus with false names and head for the city that literally you can cross the street into the Mexican border is probably unlikely,” he added. //
This is what "criminal justice reform" and defund the police have brought us – get-out-of-jail-free cards for criminals in cities like the Big Apple, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. The phrase, “do the crime, serve the time” seems like a distant memory. Now it’s more like, “do the deed, get quickly freed.” //
Weminuche45
21 minutes ago
anarcho-tyranny:
The law is powerless to help you, but it can still harm you.
In simple terms, anarcho-tyranny is when the state stops upholding its end of the social contract and uses its monopoly on violence for its own ends.
Apropos of nothing, I'm thinking "The Russians, the British, the Australians and the Chinese…" sounds like the beginning of one of these "…walked into a bar" jokes.
(I must have it on my brain. Half an hour ago, i watched a video on the "Sumerian dog walks into a bar…" world's-oldest-joke meme. I didn't even know it was a thing, an honest-to-God 4,000 year old joke written in cuneiform, on a clay tablet. And nobody understands the punchline. Archaeological mystery).
Imagine my disappointment 🙂
In compensation for that, Here's a paranoid thought (of my own devising), for the enjoyment of budding conspiracy theorists…
The idea that the moon landing was faked, did not originate with some guy fond of tinfoil headgear.
Stay with me…
Instead, the US Government has a secret Conspiracy Theory Facilitation Program… tasked with devising the most floridly paranoid and deliberately wackdoodle "theories" possible, and then setting them free… (which are almost guaranteed to flourish, in the wild, among the nut-jobs roaming the streets of America).
These wacky ideas are planted and nurtured to create a default public perception, a conditioned herd-reflex, so that when the shadowy powers really DO need to "conspire" for nefarious purposes (maybe blow up some buildings to create a useful massive shift in public opinion, idk) …it's just that much easier to discredit the troublesome skeptic who happened to notice some really glaring loose ends …
But when he tries to tell a fellow citizen, they think "crazy dude living under a freeway overpass"
Skeptic is quite aware of this, and clams up.
Hmmm…
We used to shut away our mentally ill fellow citizens in asylums, keeping these tortured souls hidden from view. And medicating them with drugs to reduce the intensity and craziness of their hallucinations.
But then we had a top-down policy shift, taking away their thorazine, shutting down their treatment facilities, and casting the frightened inmates out into the streets. Supposedly because this is more humane and dignified. It also happens to be cheaper. They now live under freeway overpasses. And they panhandle. They are in our faces at stoplights and outside store entrances.
This doesn't make sense, unless… unless…
OMG
That's why the skeptic clammed up. I didn't actually call him a nut-job, but I looked at him like he was like a homeless crazydude and excused myself to supposedly refresh my drink. I acted like he had an infectious disease…
It's almost like i was conditioned to react that way…
And they've taken 1984 off of the recommended reading list for highschool students. Orwell who?
Nahhh….
[DISCLAIMER: The above is just sarcasm or humor or an exercise in creative writing. I promise, swear and affirm that I one-hundred-percent disavow all of the crazy Un-American thoughts therein. Keep this bag away from small children, it is not a toy. This product contains chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer or other reproductive harm. The government is always our friend. I pledge allegiance to the flag! Groupthink is my Co-pilot]
Apropos of nothing, I'm thinking "The Russians, the British, the Australians and the Chinese…" sounds like the beginning of one of these "…walked into a bar" jokes.
(I must have it on my brain. Half an hour ago, i watched a video on the "Sumerian dog walks into a bar…" world's-oldest-joke meme. I didn't even know it was a thing, an honest-to-God 4,000 year old joke written in cuneiform, on a clay tablet. And nobody understands the punchline. Archaeological mystery).
Imagine my disappointment 🙂
In compensation for that, Here's a paranoid thought (of my own devising), for the enjoyment of budding conspiracy theorists…
The idea that the moon landing was faked, did not originate with some guy fond of tinfoil headgear.
Stay with me…
Instead, the US Government has a secret Conspiracy Theory Facilitation Program… tasked with devising the most floridly paranoid and deliberately wackdoodle "theories" possible, and then setting them free… (which are almost guaranteed to flourish, in the wild, among the nut-jobs roaming the streets of America).
These wacky ideas are planted and nurtured to create a default public perception, a conditioned herd-reflex, so that when the shadowy powers really DO need to "conspire" for nefarious purposes (maybe blow up some buildings to create a useful massive shift in public opinion, idk) …it's just that much easier to discredit the troublesome skeptic who happened to notice some really glaring loose ends …
But when he tries to tell a fellow citizen, they think "crazy dude living under a freeway overpass"
Skeptic is quite aware of this, and clams up.
Hmmm…
We used to shut away our mentally ill fellow citizens in asylums, keeping these tortured souls hidden from view. And medicating them with drugs to reduce the intensity and craziness of their hallucinations.
But then we had a top-down policy shift, taking away their thorazine, shutting down their treatment facilities, and casting the frightened inmates out into the streets. Supposedly because this is more humane and dignified. It also happens to be cheaper. They now live under freeway overpasses. And they panhandle. They are in our faces at stoplights and outside store entrances.
This doesn't make sense, unless… unless…
OMG
That's why the skeptic clammed up. I didn't actually call him a nut-job, but I looked at him like he was like a homeless crazydude and excused myself to supposedly refresh my drink. I acted like he had an infectious disease…
It's almost like i was conditioned to react that way…
And they've taken 1984 off of the recommended reading list for highschool students. Orwell who?
Nahhh….
[DISCLAIMER: The above is just sarcasm or humor or an exercise in creative writing. I promise, swear and affirm that I one-hundred-percent disavow all of the crazy Un-American thoughts therein. Keep this bag away from small children, it is not a toy. This product contains chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer or other reproductive harm. The government is always our friend. I pledge allegiance to the flag! Groupthink is my Co-pilot]
Nayib Bukele @nayibbukele
·
We are HONORED to receive your attacks, just days before OUR election.
I would be very worried if we had your support.
Thank you 🙏🏼
Rep. Ilhan Omar @Ilhan
I led Members of Congress in sending a letter to @SecBlinken urging action on threats to democracy in El Salvador.
The State Dept must review its relationship with El Salvador and defend democratic values. The Salvadoran people deserve free and fair elections without fear of…
12:49 PM · Jan 31, 2024 //
Not only was Omar humiliated by Bukele, but X's Community Notes feature also stepped in to set the record straight.
"El Salvador’s democratically elected president Nayib Bukele won the 2019 election with a 54% majority," the community note read. "Under his leadership El Salvdor’s murder rate has fallen 93% and he currently has a 91% approval rating amongst El Salvadorian citizens."
Despite Bukele's popularity and incredibly successful efforts in turning one of Latin America's most dangerous countries into one of its safest, Omar and her Democratic colleagues had the nerve to go after Bukele's effective, albeit uncompromising, style of leadership. //
Maximus Decimus Cassius GeoMcGeo
an hour ago
A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear. ~ Taylor Caldwell
Our enemies are not foreign, they are domestic
The US military is almost entirely dependent upon China and Russia for a metal used in many military applications, such as explosives and armor-piercing bullets. The metal is antimony, and China currently owns 53 percent of the world's supply. However, it processes over 80 percent of antimony ore through contracts with other producers. The US's last source of antimony, the Stibnite mine in Idaho, ceased operations in 1997.
It isn't just the military that relies on antimony, though it does appear insane to import the key element in manufacturing modern military munitions from your most likely adversary; the private sector is also heavily reliant on the metal.
This issue has hit the front burner of Capitol Hill. The House Armed Services Committee is investigating the status of the Defense National Stockpile, which is charged with maintaining a strategic reserve of rare minerals. Our stockpile and the infrastructure to operate it will largely cease to exist by 2025 unless urgent action is taken.
Crap like this simply validates the idea that we are ruled by fools and buffoons. Congress has nearly sold off the stockpile of to, according to Defense News, " over the past several decades to fund other programs."
The stockpile was valued at nearly $42 billion in today’s dollars at its peak during the beginning of the Cold War in 1952. That value has plummeted to $888 million as of last year following decades of congressionally authorized sell-offs to private sector customers. Lawmakers anticipate the stockpile will become insolvent by FY25.
“A lot of what happened is Congress just getting greedy and finding politically convenient ways to fund programs that they weren’t willing to raise revenue for,” said [Massachusetts Democrat Seth] Moulton.
anon-lwil Dagwood
28 minutes ago
“The urge to save humanity is always a false front for the urge to rule it”
- H. L. Mencken
They don't want to save us; they want to dominate and control us.
Fujitsu software bugs that helped send innocent postal employees to prison in the UK were known "right from the very start of deployment," a Fujitsu executive told a public inquiry today.
"All the bugs and errors have been known at one level or not, for many, many years. Right from the very start of deployment of the system, there were bugs and errors and defects, which were well-known to all parties," said Paul Patterson, co-CEO of Fujitsu's European division.
That goes back to 1999, when the Horizon software system was installed in post offices by Fujitsu subsidiary International Computers Limited. From 1999 to 2015, Fujitsu's faulty accounting software aided in the prosecution and conviction of more than 900 sub-postmasters and postmistresses who were accused of theft or fraud when the software wrongly made it appear that money was missing from their branches.
Some innocent people went to prison, while others were forced to make payments to the UK Post Office to cover the supposed shortfalls. So far, "only 93 convictions have been overturned and thousands of people are still waiting for compensation settlements," a BBC report said. //
A Financial Times article said that the public inquiry "heard in December last year that the Post Office's lawyers had rewritten Fujitsu witness statements."
The FT article also said the Post Office, which used prosecution powers available to private corporations in the UK, obtained 700 of the 900 convictions. The other convictions came in cases brought by Scottish prosecutors. The scandal may lead to reforms of the private prosecution system that lets organizations take people to court.
Heritage Foundation and Heritage Action for America President Dr. Kevin Roberts was invited to the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) annual conference in Davos, Switzerland, to appear on a panel about “What to Expect from a Possible Republican Administration” on Thursday.
In an op-ed penned ahead of the conference, Roberts wrote that he accepted the invitation to deliver the global elites a message. “Davos must accept the moral virtues, practical benefits, and natural rights of nations, families, and individuals to govern themselves,” Roberts wrote, or “‘We, the People’” will “take matters into our own hands.”
Roberts certainly delivered that message. When asked about who will likely join a new Trump administration, Roberts said it will be those who wish to destroy “the grasp that political elites and unelected technocrats have over the average person.”
“The agenda that every single member of the administration needs to have is to compile a list of everything that’s ever been proposed at the World Economic Forum, and object to all of them wholesale,” he added. //
The Heritage Foundation president aptly pointed out that the WEF elites, “the media, the academy, government agencies, international organizations, corporations, and the arts,” don’t actually care about preserving “democracy.” They fear Trump because a Trump presidency poses an existential threat to their power — and Roberts did nothing to alleviate that fear. //
Roberts also condemned elites for scaring people into believing “so-called climate change” is an “existential” threat to humanity and pointed out that Davos’ “solutions” to the supposed climate crisis are killing people. “More than a billion people in the world have been lifted out of poverty in the last 35 years because of fossil fuels,” Roberts explained. Yet climate alarmists are shutting down energy production to replace it with insufficient green energy.
“China,” Roberts added, is “the No. 1 adversary not just to the United States, but to free people on planet Earth. Not only do we at Davos not say that, we give the Chinese Communist Party a platform.” //
“I think President Trump, if in fact he wins a second term, is going to be inspired by the wise words of Javier Milei, who said that he was in power not to guide sheep, but to awaken lions,” concluded the president of Heritage. “That’s what the average American and the average free person on planet Earth wants out of leaders.”
The kind of person who will come into the next conservative administration is going to be governed by one principle, and that is destroying the grasp that political elites and unelected technocrats have over the average person.
He really laid down the hammer with this remark:
The thing that I want to drive home here, the very reason that I'm here at Davos, is to explain to many people in this room and who are watching, with all due respect, nothing personal, but that you're part of the problem.
Blake @_BlakeHabyan
·
New: Klaus Schwab Opens The World Economic Forum Annual Meeting By Speaking About The Importance Of ‘Rebuilding Trust’:
“There’s a fundamental need to embody trusteeship, which means to care for the greater good.”, Schwab says.
Why would The World Economic Forum… Show more
7:23 PM · Jan 16, 2024
Interesting choice of words. Trusteeship implies you have some responsibility and or control over us when we are a free people — you don't have such a relationship over us, except in your mind. And when people use the term "greater good," one thinks Communism and/or someone is about to try to sell you something you don't want.
Elon Musk didn't think much of what Schwab had to say; he's called him out in the past.
Elon Musk @elonmusk
·
The real issue is that Klaus wants to be emperor of Earth. He certainly dresses for the part!
And the policies that seem to emerge from this gathering don’t seem to make for an exciting future.
7:47 PM · Jan 17, 2024 //
Laocoön of Troy
23 minutes ago
Ya' know...God must be laughing at us. Who knew that Western Civilization and liberal democracy may end up being rescued by Musk...rumored to be an atheist or agnostic? Or perhaps JK Rowling or Rogan or Jordan Peterson or even Dershowitz?
God works in a mysterous way...his wonders to perform...