Sunday, December 10, 2023

California Law Would Fine Retailers For Only Having ‘Girl’ And ‘Boy’ Toy Sections



California retailers that refuse to incorporate “gender-neutral” toy sections could face hundreds of dollars in fines from the state under a new law that takes effect Jan. 1.

Any California department store that has 500 or more employees and sells childcare items will be required to feature a “gender-neutral” section “regardless of whether [the toys] have been traditionally marketed for either girls or for boys,” thanks to a new law signed by Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom. Lawmakers claimed the new requirements are based on the state’s civil rights statutes.

“Any department store that fails to create a gender-neutral section could face a $250 fine for the first violation,” the New York Post reported, “and a $500 fine for any subsequent violations.”

Harmeet Dhillon, a California attorney and member of the Republican National Committee (RNC), issued a clarion call to challenge the state mandates.

“If any affected toy retailer wants to challenge this law,” she wrote on X, “call me.”

The New York Post editorial board mocked the new law in a Thursday op-ed.

“California is facing a crime crisis across its major cities, a population exodus driven by high taxes and woke policies, and a host of other thorny problems,” the board wrote. “Naturally, Golden State lawmakers opted to focus on the urgent issue of not enough gender-neutral toys.”

Of course, no law prevents parents from buying their child existing toys marketed for the opposite sex.

In August, retail giant Target reported the chain’s first quarterly miss in six years after the company debuted controversial apparel celebrating transgenderism and designed by a self-professed Satanist.

In Newsom’s debate on the merits of red state vs. blue state policy with Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis last week, DeSantis scored his strongest points on stage when he slammed California’s obsession with sexualizing children. When moderator Sean Hannity of Fox News brought up Florida’s parental rights bill — which Democrats dishonestly branded as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill — DeSantis went on offense. The new law bans teachers from introducing sexual topics like LGBT ideology in kindergarten through third-grade classrooms.

“The role of the school is to educate kids, not indoctrinate kids,” DeSantis said. “It’s not to impose an agenda, it’s to do the basics.”

“What we’ve said in Florida is it’s inappropriate to tell a kindergartner that their gender is a choice, it’s inappropriate to tell a second grader that they may have been born in the wrong body,” DeSantis added. “California has that. They want to have that injected into the elementary school.”



X22, On the Fringe, and more- December 10

 



Decorated my family's big new tree today. It's very beautiful.

Also, ION Television will be reairing classic NCIS Christmas episodes tonight.


The Future’s Zero-Sum Game


Let’s imagine that a complete societal collapse occurs in the near future.  With New York high school students hunting down their teachers for supporting Israel, the FBI continuing its own hunt of J6 political protesters, and rising violent crime throughout the United States, this scenario does not seem so remote.  

Unfettered illegal immigration and the replacement of Western civilization with a suicidal devotion to some amorphous, multicultural pustule have shattered the unifying bonds of a shared culture.  Institutionalized racism in the form of government, academic, and corporate DEI initiatives that have replaced merit with skin color and oppression index scores has divided the population even further.  The demonization of mainstream political opinion as “extremist,” “far right,” or even as prima facie evidence for “domestic terrorism” has ensured that roughly one-half of the body politic can no longer express its views without threats of criminal sanction and career retaliation. 

Any American who opposes Marxist globalism, Deep State imperialism, bureaucratic tyranny, or central bank money manipulation is labeled a threat.  Any American who strenuously defends free speech, religious liberty, private property, the right to self-defense, and any other personal freedom that guards the individual against intrusions from the State is labeled a threat.  Any American who objects to the global elites’ obsession with “global warming” or who believes real science is never capable of reaching a dogmatic “consensus” is labeled a threat.  In other words, the U.S. government and its globalist allies view at least a couple hundred million Americans as “enemies of the State.”

In functioning democratic republics, vicious ideological disagreement does not normally set a nation on fire.  Political factions with great hostilities toward each other can coexist when political outcomes are determined by a set of agreed-upon rules.  Democratic elections, republican virtues such as civil respect for political minorities, and constitutional safeguards that ensure the preservation of individual rights all foster a kind of governmental fairness that allows even polarized societies to flourish.  However, when certain speech is censored as “hateful” or as “misinformation,” when the criminal justice system selectively prosecutes individuals based on their political affiliations, when nobody has any faith in the legitimacy of an election’s outcome, and when constitutional rights are regularly disregarded or overridden by the State, then peace breaks down quickly.

When the normal release valves for civil disagreement disappear and the State chooses to perpetually torment certain citizens for their beliefs, those victims of the government’s authoritarianism are left in a social wilderness.  The deprivation of their civil rights within the governing system leaves them with a choice: to abandon their principles and avoid persecution or to operate beyond the constraints of the system.  Whenever and wherever such a choice has been foisted upon a population, civil conflict becomes the unavoidable result. 

What makes our circumstances particularly incendiary is the extent to which the American “ruling class” has taken sides.  Corporate oligarchs, the entrenched bureaucratic government, and the State-controlled press have joined together to push extremely divisive moral, economic, and political worldviews upon the American people.  By doing so, they have not only burned the bridges responsible for maintaining cultural peace but also destroyed any potential off-ramps that might allow these institutions to alter course as future events transpire.  

In the past, multinational corporations could expect liberty-minded Americans to more or less respect the movements of “free markets,” even when they disagreed with the outcomes, such as the offshoring of American jobs to more business-friendly environments.  Now, however, after not only witnessing China and other foreign adversaries buying up companies and properties in their own backyards but also enduring transnational behemoths haranguing Americans for not sufficiently embracing “transgenderism,” electric vehicles, “white privilege,” limitless immigration, and other tenets of the “woke” faith, a substantial percentage of formerly “free market” Americans subsequently view the financial class with irate suspicion.  

Instead of facilitating the free trade of goods and services, large companies have revealed themselves to be exclusively interested in long-term monopoliesgovernment partnerships, and social control.  Corporate oligarchs have chosen to proselytize Americans into accepting the World Economic Forum’s trans-human, technocratic, feudalistic project of global management, and, by doing so, they have made themselves enemies to all freedom-supporting human beings.  While defaming anyone to the right of Marx as a “fascist,” corporate boardrooms’ incestuous relationship with government-wielded power has brought fascism back to life.  Freedom-minded Americans now know that neither corporations nor the governments that they furtively control are their friends. 

If and when civil order breaks down, there will likely be no circumspect public division between those “elites” who betrayed liberty and those “elites” who did not.  Because of the overwhelming unanimity of “elite” support for the Marxist globalists’ program of radical change (or the noticeable silence of those companies, politicians, and institutional parties in the face of this civilizational onslaught), when the fire finally rages, it will consume all.

The central bank money printers, corporate kings, “global warming” zealots, government technocrats, clandestine security services, and bureaucratic authoritarians have created a quintessentially zero-sum game.  Therefore, when regular people are finally forced to defend their way of life against tyrannical aggression, they will conclude that no person in a position of authority today is without some guilt.  The graveyard of burned bridges and detonated off-ramps all around us has ensured that there will be no future “safe space.”

In a discussion with Tucker Carlson, astute public policy critic Michael Shellenberger says bluntly, “We know that the pillars of civilization are cheap energy, meritocracy, law and order, and free speech, and all four of those pillars are currently under attack.”  Because of governments’ sustained offensive against the very pillars necessary for prosperity and peace, there is a widening gulf separating the priorities of global “elites” and the general populations that they insist on ruling.  Shellenberger looks at the “climate change” conference now taking place in Dubai and sees it as nothing less than “an anti-human death cult.”  Carlson agrees and concludes, “It’s not environmentalism.  It’s the snarling face of tyranny.”

Americans have a history with tyranny — their national ethos is predicated upon its destruction.  For two and half centuries, Americans have celebrated their ancestors’ victories over the British Empire and the creation of a new country hostile to aristocratic entitlements and founded on a sincere devotion to the protection of individual lives, an individual’s liberties, and an individual’s ownership of private property.  

Now Americans are waking up to a collectivist nightmare that devalues individual life and discards individual liberty as a relic from the past.  As the U.S. government takes increasingly unconstitutional and un-American actions against its citizens, the public is grudgingly accepting the distasteful reality that tyranny not only quietly returned to America’s shores many decades ago but also did so through a united front that includes central bank money-printers, a stealthy army of national security forces, a permanent D.C. Deep State, and a cabal of Wall Street financial “elites.”  While the State-owned-and-operated press corps betrayed their journalistic duties to guard Americans’ freedoms and reveal objective truths, those with the largest megaphones accepted lucrative deals to become the government’s slavish spinmeisters and propagandists.  Even religious leaders have become mouthpieces for Marxist globalism’s “anti-human death cult” now in full swing.  

What this means is that when social collapse occurs, it will be widespread and devastating and will require a great deal of endurance to make it to the other side.  However, Americans are in much better shape than those nations of people who have no history of self-government, respect for personal property, or devotion to human liberty.  Already, small towns of people are organizing for future calamity by speaking clearly about their agricultural resources, potential monetary needs, and capacity for self-defense.  Soberly preparing for the globalists’ planned destruction is how we will all survive.



U.N. Climate Scientists Want Your Government To Answer To Them Instead Of You

A handful of U.N. scientists said they want ‘the right to make policy prescriptions and, potentially, to oversee their implementation.’



Several scientist members of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) want more influence over governments to bring about their radical and potentially deadly climate policies. “Five lead authors of IPCC reports” insisted “that scientists should be given the right to make policy prescriptions and, potentially, to oversee their implementation by the 195 states signed up to the U.N. framework convention on climate change,” The Guardian’s Arthur Neslen reported Thursday.

“At some point we need to say that if you want to achieve this aim set by policymakers then certain policies need to be implemented,” said IPCC Vice-Chair Sonia Seneviratne. The “policies” Seneviratne is referring to are “fossil fuel cuts and phaseouts,” reported Neslen.

“Fossil fuel cuts and phaseouts” is a terrifying proposition. Green energy, such as wind and solar power, has proven to be unreliable and insufficient. And fossil fuels save lives. You’ve probably heard climate fearmongers warn that climate change will cause mass deaths, but climate disasters have been a threat to survival for all of humanity. What has saved people from dying at the hands of the climate has been technological innovation, such as the use of fossil fuels. Energy from fossil fuels provides people with heating, air conditioning, weather warning systems, durable buildings, and mass irrigation. Thanks in part to fossil fuels, climate-related disaster deaths have been reduced by 99 percent compared to 100 years ago. To ditch fossil fuels entirely for green energy right now would leave millions of people at the mercy of the elements, causing climate-related deaths. 

Still, scientists like Gert-Jan Nabuurs, who helped write three IPCC reports, are upset that they don’t have enough authority to implement their disastrous agenda. “The IPCC’s critical, independent and guiding roles seem to be less and less evident,” he complained to The Guardian, before admitting “[a]s they decline, countries seem to be exerting a larger and larger influence.”

Nabuurs is right that governments around the globe have taken a vocal interest in enacting policies in the name of combating climate change. But as long as those politicians travel to climate summits in gas-guzzling private jets, it’s clear they care more about accumulating power for themselves than following their own “environmentally conscious” standards.

During the U.N.’s 2014 climate conference in Paris, U.N. Climate Chief Christina Figueres admitted that the conference aims “to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the Industrial Revolution.” But industrialization not only saves lives from climate-related disasters, it lifts people out of poverty and raises the standard of living. 

This “change” Figueres is referring to is a transition to fewer freedoms and lower standards of living. Governments already provide tax breaks and other subsidies to mega-corporations eager to profit off the shift to an “eco-friendly” utopia. Under these conditions, journalist Joel Kotkin pointed out in The Spectator, “a wannabe electric-vehicle maker like Rivian, which has negligible sales and consistent losses, can be valued higher than General Motors, which sells almost seven million cars and has $122 billion (£90 billion) in revenues each year.”

Such a system means corporations in crony partnership with the government become richer, and regular people become poorer. Annihilating the fossil fuel industry will cost countless jobs. More people will be impoverished by wildly expensive green energy costs, and some will likely be priced out of traveling or even heating their homes.

All these ideas, from eliminating gas stoves to banning meat, controlling thermostats, and limiting people to three new items of clothing per year, serve to eliminate regular people’s freedoms, not CO2 emissions.

The Guardian article showcases how much climate-crazed scientists and politicians want to be in charge of “solutions” to the supposed “crisis” at hand, because a perceived emergency is an opportunity to centralize authority. Think of the emergence of the post-9/11 security state or the annihilation of civil liberties during Covid. Those incursions upon our civil liberties should be a lesson not to hand the climate cultists the Fauci-like power to implement their draconian climate measures.



Republican Candidates Should Spend The CNN-Moderated Debates Trashing CNN

What might Republican voters think of CNN moderating the next two debates?



This story has been updated to reflect that the RNC did not partner with CNN for this debate, but will be voting on whether to release candidates from their exclusivity agreement.

Imagine there was a national “news” network designed to tear down a major political party and antagonize its voters as domestic extremists whose very existence endangers democracy. Now imagine candidates from said political party co-opted that same network to run not one, but two presidential debates days before the first primaries. Such is the case with Republicans working with CNN to run the next two presidential prime-time showdowns in January.

Hours after the final four candidates competing to replace former President Donald Trump as the party standard-bearer stepped down from the debate stage in Alabama, CNN announced the network will program the next two forums.

“The first debate will take place on January 10 at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, less than a week before Iowa caucusgoers weigh in on the Republican presidential race,” CNN reported. “The second debate will be January 21 at St. Anselm College in Goffstown, New Hampshire.”

What might Republican voters think of this choice of network — which became the go-to outlet for the partisan operatives on the Jan. 6 Committee — to moderate the next two debates? Will they be concerned that the network known for its endless promotion of the Russia hoax is now in charge of facilitating what could be the final forums for the Republican primary? Or is it the network’s fascination with smearing Republican voters as white supremacists that’s most offensive?

While the debates are not officially sponsored by the Republican National Committee (RNC), the party “is expected to announce this week it will release candidates from its requirement that prevents them from participating in non-RNC-sanctioned debates,” according to CNN.

The remaining Republicans in the race should respond with a decision to boycott the debate. In all likelihood, however, only Trump will stay off the stage. Those who do attend should collectively use the airtime to trash the network that’s become emblematic of everything wrong with corporate media, Gingrich-style. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich was one of the first presidential candidates to successfully capitalize on disparaging the media in a campaign. At the 2012 Republican debate in South Carolina, Gingrich embarrassed the network for opening the presidential forum with a salacious question about the candidate’s previous marriage.

“The destructive, vicious, negative nature of much of the news media makes it harder to govern this country, harder to attract decent people to run for public office, and I am appalled that you would begin a presidential debate on a topic like that,” Gingrich said. The former speaker of the House was the Republican front-runner by the following week.

In November, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy arguably won the NBC-moderated debate by condemning the network’s complicit coverage of the Russia hoax and demanded that RNC Chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel resign over her choice of outlet to run the forum. In what became the standout moment of the evening, Ramaswamy called out debate moderator Kristen Welker from the stage:

Think about who’s moderating this debate. This should be Tucker Carlson, Joe Rogan, and Elon Musk. We’d have 10 times the viewership, asking questions that GOP primary voters actually care about, and bring in more people to our party. You think the Democrats — I mean we’ve got Kristen Welker here — you think the Democrats would actually hire Greg Gutfeld to host a Democratic debate? … Kristen, I’m gonna use this time — because this is actually about you and the media and the corrupt media establishment — to ask you about the Trump-Russia collusion hoax that you pushed on this network for years. Was that real, or was that Hillary Clinton made-up disinformation? Answer the question, go.

Welker was left speechless as NBC was confronted with its corrupt coverage on its own network. CNN deserves the same treatment.



What Hunter Biden Spent Money On Instead Of His ‘Fair Share’ Of Taxes, Alimony, And Child Support

Hunter had plenty of money to spend on taxes but chose to waste his millions on an ‘extravagant lifestyle’ and escorts.



Special Counsel David Weiss announced on Thursday that he charged Hunter Biden with three new felony counts of tax evasion and six misdemeanor counts of failure to pay taxes.

The charges did not mention any punishment for the president’s son over his role in the Biden family’s international influence-peddling scheme but they did offer more details about the lavish lifestyle that payments from foreign oligarchs fueled for the youngest Biden.

Financial documents included in the 56-page indictment show Hunter had plenty of money to spend but chose to waste millions on an “extravagant lifestyle” instead of paying his “fair share in taxes,” making alimony payments to his ex-wife, or sending money to his fourth child Navy Joan Roberts.

Weiss’ charging document specifically states that Hunter “continually stonewalled the production of financial records” to both his ex-wife and his baby mama in an attempt to avoid paying them.

The nature of Hunter’s latest charges should anger President Joe Biden who has a long history of insisting that the “super wealthy” need to pay their taxes.

The Democrat campaigned on the rhetoric during the 2020 race, repeated the mantra several times after taking office, and even used it during the rally to kick off his 2024 reelection campaign.

Biden’s scrutiny for tax evaders, however, likely doesn’t apply to his “super wealthy” son. Between 2016 and 2019, Hunter raked in millions, was on the payroll of several Biden family shell companies, received an unreported $83,000 a month to sit on the Burisma board, and was even gifted an $80,000 diamond by the chairman of a Chinese Communist Party-linked energy company for “introductions alone.”

Hunter’s spending habits hardly resemble those of a normal American. The bulk of his money, approximately $1.6 million between 2016 and 2019, fell under a category labeled “ATM/Cash Withdrawal.” A deeper dive into Hunter’s purchases shows he paid for “drugs, escorts and girlfriends, luxury hotels and rental properties, exotic cars, clothing, and other items of a personal nature,” often labeling them as business expenses instead of personal ones.

“In short, everything but his taxes,” the indictment states.

Records show that in 2018, which saw a grand total of more than $1.8 million in spending, Hunter spent an average of $2,115 in cash a day and made $772,548 worth of ATM withdrawals.

Hunter’s next biggest expense that year, racking up $383,548, was “payments to various women” including at least one to an exotic dancer and another $11,500 to an escort instructed to stick around for two nights.

Hunter’s suspicious spending on the opposite sex was closely followed by “clothing and accessories” for $151,459 and “adult entertainment,” which totaled $100,330 and included a pricey membership at a sex club disguised as a “golf member deposit.”

In 2019, Hunter owed $581,713 to the federal government for his 2017 filings. Instead of paying off that balance, he blew more than $600,000 of his funds “on personal expenses.”

While Hunter fended off a paternity test and demands by ex-stripper Lunden Roberts that he pay child support for their daughter, who was born out of wedlock, he spent more than $156,000 on women, more than $27,000 on the commercial sex industry, and more than a combined $79,000 clothing, health, and beauty purchases.

Biden knew his son was under investigation for tax crimes as he was hypocritically calling for Americans to pay up. The IRS’s sweeping investigation into Hunter’s finances, however, never stopped POTUS from telling voters that he’s “very proud” of him.

Given the president’s history of backing his son through the publicization of his nude photos, his drug abuse, his deadbeat dad behavior, and corruption allegations, it will be no surprise if Joe shuns any questions about the latest indictment as a “private matter” that he’s unwilling to condemn or discuss.



Sheila Jackson Lee Loses Race for Houston Mayor. It Wasn't Even Close and Reactions Are Great


Nick Arama reporting for RedState 

We have good and bad news to report. 

First, the good news for the people of Houston, Texas.

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) was running to become mayor of Houston. But she found herself in a difficult race with the powerful state Sen. John Whitmire, also a Democrat. She got the endorsement of Hillary Clinton, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY). 

But even with those heavy hitters coming out for her, she still lost. Badly. 

Houston held the run-off election on Saturday, and Whitmire just completely trounced Jackson Lee by almost 30 points. 

Whitmire stressed reducing crime, so he immediately had a leg up on the progressive Jackson Lee. 

Plus, she also did herself in with a couple of different controversies, including a profanity-laden video that was released, showing her cursing out and berating her staffers. 

Warning for graphic language: 

Not exactly the person you want to put in charge of a major city. 

Then on top of that, the election was scheduled for Dec. 9, but she put out a video encouraging people to come out and vote on the wrong date-- Dec.7. Not only would that potentially confuse voters, but it shows what kind of a leader she would be for the city if she can't even get such a basic thing right on an ad that is presumably heavily vetted. 

Given this loss, one has to fear for the staffers, I think it isn't going to be a good night for them. 

But how great that the people of Houston aren't going to have to deal with her. 

Now, the bad news. She still has until Monday to file to run again for her House seat. So now that she lost, I would expect her to file. 

Only one question remains: Are they sure she lost? I mean, did they count the votes cast on Dec. 7 yet?!

Warning for graphic language: