U. S. Government Concerns Grow Over EPCOT’s New Offering
Why did the government feel that EPCOT might present a threat to homeland security? According to heavily redacted FBI files, the Bureau had major concerns, particularly about the China pavilion at World Showcase. As such, FBI agents closely monitored all of the delegates on World Showcase.
EPCOT’s China pavilion/Credit: Disney Parks
According to a post at MuckRock, EPCOT’s World Showcase “initially called for cultural installations from nine countries” and was “intended to be the ultimate harmonious international village, a shining example of global unity. Naturally, the FBI had a problem with it.”
While this has been going on since 1982, when Epcot opened, there seems to be an increase in their presence there. Why?
Per Muckrock:
The Tampa field office [of the Federal Bureau of Investigation] seemed concerned that any terrorist organizations operating within or around the participating nations, “Canada, France, China, Italy, Japan, UK, West Germany, Africa, and Mexico,” would converge on EPCOT.
Real good job there, FBI. You were so busy chasing and spying all those dangerous EPCOT delegates that you completely missed the 9/11 terrorists training at TWO nearby flight schools. Bravo! /s
If they are still there and have increased their presence, why? Shouldn’t they be along the Mexican border to help with the onslaught of illegal immigrants pouring across our southern border?
Oh, wait, the illegals are future Democratic voters. Carry on.
So why are Californians who stayed and those who arrived during that same time among the happiest folks in America?
It might be that they are among the select who can afford to live in this state, where the median housing price of more than $700,000 puts California among the top three priciest places in the nation. Its most populous county, Los Angeles, even tops the statewide median price figure by about $100,000.
Strikingly, research indicates it’s not the most expensive places in California that are happiest. Atherton, whose people average out as America’s wealthiest, does not make the top 10 list of the happiest spots in the nation, while six other California cities are on that list, as reported by the website smartassett.com.
Those six include the happiest city, Sunnyvale, hard by the headquarters of Apple and Google in the heart of the Silicon Valley; Fremont, where most Teslas are built, ranked fourth; with the Sacramento suburb Roseville seventh, San Jose eighth, the Los Angeles bedroom suburb of Santa Clarita ninth and Irvine in Orange County rounding out the top 10.
Among the happiness measures the study used were the percentage of individuals earning more than $100,000 per year, living costs as a percentage of income, violent crime rates, life expectancy and the number of poor mental health days reported.
Sunnyvale ranked first because 62.5% of its residents earned more than $100,000 (highest in the nation) and only 5% lived below the poverty level, third lowest nationally.
No. 10 Irvine ranked high in every category, with more than 45% of residents earning more than $100,000 and living costs consuming just 38% of income. Violent crime is also very low there, at 51 incidents per 100,000 population for the last year, and citizens reporting poor mental health on just 11.3% of their days, with average life expectancy almost 83 years.
By contrast, the happiest place in Texas, the Dallas suburb of Plano, with 288,000 population (about double the size of the Los Angeles suburb of Torrance), saw about one-third of its populace earn more than $100,000 and cost of living expenses eat up 40.3% of income, even though housing prices are far lower than in Irvine.
Some might say that there’s too much emphasis on money in this study. But a 2021 University of Pennsylvania study found a direct link between happiness and income growth.
Another major factor in happiness, as shown by many studies, is marriage: The higher the percentage of married people in a locale, the happier the average person will be.
And among the top 10 happiest cities in the smartasset.com report, the majority of adults were married in all but one — Arlington, Virginia, which came in second on the overall happiness index.
Still, despite its strong showing on happiness, California has seen slightly more than 1% of its people depart for other states over the last three years. Again, the primary factor is money, if the state’s Finance Department is to be believed.
That department hangs responsibility for most of the population loss on housing prices. Prices are too high for most Americans to buy in, even if they sell off fully paid-off homes in other places. High prices also cause many Californians to sell and move to larger, cheaper homes elsewhere, in many cases pocketing hundreds of thousands in the process. It’s hard to argue with buying larger quarters surrounded by more open space, all at lower cost.
These moves have been eased by the great workplace shift that’s occurred almost simultaneously with California’s largest-ever population losses. With vast numbers of white collar workers now able to work remotely from almost anywhere, and still keep their high-paying jobs, it’s completely expectable that some will move out of state, and some have.
But if legislative strategies designed to make housing here denser come to reality, it’s also expectable that some prices will drop and allow more people to move here and enjoy the lifestyle that makes this state dominate the list of happy places.
Demonstrators gather at the Martin Luther King, Jr Memorial to mark Juneteenth in Washington, DC (Getty)
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The case for slavery reparations seems to be growing louder every day. This week, indigenous representatives from twelve Commonwealth countries called on King Charles to begin the process of paying reparations. The King has personally expressed sorrow for the suffering of slaves and Buckingham Palace has said that it is taking the issue of reparations “profoundly seriously.” Earlier this year, a former BBC journalist committed to sending £100,000 ($126,000) in aid to the Caribbean to atone for her own family’s historical links to the slave trade.
The voluntary role that many Africans played in the transatlantic slave trade is ignored
The central thesis of slavery reparations is that white majority countries owe money to ethnic minorities as their ancestors may have enslaved others or benefited from a slave-system economy.
There is a problem with this though: ultimately, the great evil of slavery was practiced by all inhabited continents and all races. And there will be almost no one alive today in the world who doesn’t have an ancestral link to the slave trade. This fact collapses the modern-day reparations argument.
Take the Afro-Omani slave trader Tippu Tip, who in 1895 was reported to have seven plantations and own 10,000 slaves. He was one of the largest slavers in all of East Africa.
Tip, alongside countless fellow indigenous Africans, would capture slaves in village raids or as prisoners of war, and they would be sold at the African coast to outside traders or fellow Africans within the subcontinent. Tip’s own home country Zanzibar (now part of Tanzania) was, although small in size, a large trading empire. In 1859 alone, 19,000 slaves were imported there from the East African Coast.
Long before the transatlantic slave trade began, slavery was commonplace in many parts of the globe. As al-Tabari, the Muslim scholar, showed in the mid-ninth century, the Basra port at al-Ahwaz alone had about 15,000 enslaved workers. Even in New Zealand, Māori chiefs enslaved prisoners of war — occasionally going as far as eating them in tribal feasts. The further you go back in history the longer the list of slavers grows, including everyone from the Ancient Egyptians to the Shang dynasty in China.
Given that many of the nations now calling for reparations also enslaved and sold others, the reparations argument when brought to its logical conclusion would have to demand that descendants of African slavers owe reparations to those who may have been the victims of slavery.
This argument could even be applied to the white descendants of the victims of the Barbary slave trade. Though undoubtedly far smaller than the transatlantic slave trade, the Barbary trade still saw over a million Europeans captured by North African pirates in slave raids between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries.
So why is this devastating blow to the reparations argument often ignored? Politically, it seems that although we generally accept that slavery was universal in ancient history, we often pretend that only European powers practiced slavery from the sixteenth century onwards, when this is clearly not the case. Meanwhile, the voluntary role that many Africans played in the transatlantic slave trade is also ignored.
Generally the European powers, with the exception of Portugal, lacked the resources to delve deep into the African continent for slaves. They were instead met at the coast by willing traders looking to make a profit by selling their fellow man. Though it is undoubtedly true that the rise of the transatlantic trade encouraged the growth of African slavers, this does not excuse those who took part in the trade.
Nor did slavery end in Africa when European colonialists were removed from the continent. When the Portuguese were forced off the East African Coast in 1699 by the Imam of the Omani Empire, he himself owned about 1,700 slaves.
The same is true for colonies outside Africa. In the early 1820s, Brazil broke away from the Portuguese Empire. Despite its later anti-slavery treaties with the UK, Brazil would continue importing about 750,000 slaves between 1831-1850. In 1844 it refused to renew the Anglo-Brazilian anti-slave trade agreement. Brazil’s slave trade only effectively stopped after 1850 when the UK formed a naval blockade in its coastal waters.
During the age of abolition led by Britain, the king of Dahomey (a West African Kingdom in modern day Benin) reportedly protested to a British officer that:
“The slave trade has been the ruling principle of my people. It is the source of their glory and wealth. Their songs celebrate their victories and the mother lulls the child to sleep with notes of triumph over an enemy reduced to slavery.“
Some independent African nations and empires continued to allow slavery well after abolitionism in Europe. This was especially true in the eastern side of Africa where it was more difficult for the British to influence local politics and for the Royal Navy to enforce abolition.
From the 1860s onwards, Bemba chiefs in northeastern Zambia traded ivory and slaves for guns. As the supply of elephants for ivory depleted, the chiefs moved to selling even more slaves. In Barotseland, the monarch Lewanika was considered king of the Barotses, a South African ethnic group. From the beginning of his reign in 1878 until the region became a British protectorate, oral sources claim that up to a third of his subjects were slaves.
There is no question that the Euro-American trade in slaves — which began with Portugal and later included other colonial powers such as France and Britain — was huge in size. This evil should never be forgotten.
But neither should we forget that people from all parts of the world, races and religions took part in what was one of the most horrid systems in human history.
In many parts of the world today, slavery is still rife. Rather than trying to create division by blaming people for the sins of their ancestors, we should instead come together to try and solve the problems we face today.
This article was originally published on The Spectator’s UK website.
This photo shows the California State Capitol building. (File photo by Anda Chu, Bay Area News Group)
Views: 7
California business owners received an unpleasant surprise in filing their taxes this year — the state of California has defaulted on its $18.5 billion federal unemployment insurance loans, and as a result, every employer in California is being forced to pay additional federal taxes to make up the difference until the loan is repaid in full. If you found this news baffling, you’re not alone. I did too.
Federal unemployment insurance loans were essential to helping Californians weather the COVID-19 pandemic, and in fact, most states participated in the federal loan program. As the state mandated business closures for months on end, these payments helped Californians who were out of work to put food on the table and keep the lights on. However, out of the 22 states that were forced to take federal loans during the pandemic, California is one of only four to fail to repay its loan, and it owes the largest amount of any state by far.
When states across the country received loan-free federal aid as a result of the federal government’s unprecedented emergency spending packages, most chose to use at least a portion of those funds to pay back the federal loans they’d been forced to take to support their unemployment programs. California received $15.3 billion in federal Coronavirus Relief Funds, but allocated none of it to repaying its outstanding loans.
Even more baffling is the fact that last year California declared a historic $97.5 billion budget surplus after passing a $300 billion budget in May. That budget surplus was enough money to repay the federal government loan more than five times over. Instead of making the fiscally prudent decision to pay off the debt with part of this vast surplus, California has instead allowed its loan obligations from the Federal Unemployment Trust Fund to go unfulfilled for two years in a row, triggering a provision that transfers responsibility for repaying the debt from a state government to that state’s employers.
As a result of California’s failure to repay its debt, millions of our state’s employers will be required to pay penalties to the federal government this month in the form of higher Federal Unemployment Act (FUTA) taxes. FUTA imposes a 6% gross federal unemployment tax rate on the first $7,000 paid by employers for each employee. This results in a maximum federal tax of $420 per employee per year. Typically, California employers receive a credit which reduces the tax paid per employee to only $42 per worker per year.
When a state fails to repay federal unemployment insurance loans it takes from the Federal Unemployment Trust for two or more consecutive years as California has done, the FUTA credit is reduced for that state, meaning every businesses in the state is forced to pay progressively more in FUTA taxes for each year the state remains delinquent on its loans. After five years, a different FUTA credit reduction calculation kicks in, levying an even bigger penalty on the state’s employers and its economy.
The last time California was in arrears on these Title XII loans, it took seven years to repay them, meaning that in the final year of repayment (2017), every employer in California was forced to pay an extra $147 per employee in FUTA penalties. That amounted to thousands of dollars for the average small business that could have instead been used to grow employment in our communities.
Small and large companies in California alike are already reeling from economic instability, high interest rates, and skyrocketing inflation. They’re also still struggling with supply chain fluctuations and recovering from one of the longest state-mandated COVID-19 economic shutdowns in the country. Forcing a higher tax burden on our employers as a result of California’s gross fiscal mismanagement will undermine job creation and drive prices even higher.
To add insult to injury, it is notable that better fraud enforcement by the Employment Development Department alone could have repaid the state’s federal loans.
A LexisNexis data analysis performed by the reporters at KCRA showed that California paid out at least $32.6 billion and counting in fraudulent disability and unemployment compensation during the pandemic, much higher than the department’s publicized $20 billion number. But by either statistic, the state would have had more than enough to repay its loans from the federal government if it had only administered its programs correctly.
It was the state’s own actions that shut down businesses and caused much of the resulting unemployment that California faced, and yet it is our small businesses that will once again be forced to pay the penalty for California’s mismanagement. Forcing Californians to pay higher federal taxes because of the state’s failure to either prevent rampant fraud or repay its debts in a year when the state had a multibillion-dollar budget surplus is nothing short of theft. This baffling mismanagement of our state’s finances is totally unacceptable, and our small businesses and employers should not be forced to pay the price. I am leading eleven members of the California congressional delegation in sounding the alarm on this issue and calling on Gov. Gavin Newsom and the California Legislature to act immediately and repay California’s outstanding federal unemployment insurance loans to prevent this burden from unfairly falling on California employers. It is the state’s duty to take fiscal responsibility for its actions. Failure to do so could jeopardize the financial stability of millions of California’s small employers.
Blame Macron for Europe’s migrant crisis, not Meloni. To have accused Italy of mishandling it could be construed as hypocrisy of the highest order.
France and Germany have fallen out again after the French interior minister Gérald Darmanin accused Italy’s prime minister Giorgia Meloni of incompetence in her handling of the migrant crisis. In response, Itay’s foreign minister, Antonio Tajani, has canceled a meeting in Paris scheduled for Friday and he is demanding an apology from Darmanin for his “vulgar insults.” Meloni has put on hold her own visit to Paris, which was due to take place next month, according to the Italian press.
It’s not the first time the interior minister has outraged a neighbor. Twelve months ago, Darmanin was accused of wrongly laying the blame for the chaos that erupted in Paris during the Champions League final on Liverpool fans. In fact, they and the Real Madrid supporters were the victims of the lawlessness that has come to characterize the French capital in recent years. It took many weeks before Darmanin issued an apology through gritted teeth.
It’s not Meloni Darmanin should be attacking but the leader of his own country
His latest blunder is more serious, given the gravity of the situation in the Mediterranean: so far this year an estimated 40,000 migrants have crossed into Italy. This is having ramifications for France with a record number of unaccompanied minors breaching their border with Italy in March.
But instead of trying to work together to resolve the crisis, Darmanin used a radio interview on Thursday morning to attack Italy. Asked about recent comments made by Marine Le Pen’s National Rally party regarding the worsening crisis on the Franco-Italian border, Darmanin retorted, “Madame Meloni, a far-right government chosen by Madame Le Pen’s friends, is incapable of solving the migration problems on which she was elected.”
Darmanin first angered Rome in November when he and Meloni had words following Italy’s refusal to allow an NGO migrant vessel to dock. France directed the ship to one of its ports, but not before the Italian prime minister criticized Darmanin’s “aggressive, incomprehensible and unjustified” reaction towards her country.
Tajani’s visit to Paris was supposed to be part of the reconciliation process, but that now lies in tatters thanks once more to Darmanin.
“The insults towards the government and Italy uttered by minister Darmanin are unacceptable,” announced Tajani in a tweet. “This is not the spirit in which common European challenges should be addressed.”
His French counterpart, Catherine Colonna, clearly embarrassed by the row, spoke subsequently to Tajani on the phone. “I told him that relations between Italy and France are based on reciprocal respect, between our two countries and their leaders,” she said. “I hope to be able to welcome him in Paris soon.”
Many commentators in France were surprised Darmanin survived the Stade de France scandal, and this latest diplomatic disaster will once again raise questions over his suitability for office. His petulant comments are perhaps an indication of the huge strain he is under, domestically and internationally. The police handling of the pension reform protests has drawn criticism from home and abroad, most recently from the United Nations. Then, last week on the Indian Ocean island of Mayotte (a French Department), Darmanian was humiliated by a local court which put a stop to his attempt to evict illegal immigrants.
To have accused Italy of mishandling a migrant crisis could therefore be construed as hypocrisy of the highest order, a point made by Jordan Bardella, the president of the National Rally.
“With Gérald Darmanin as minister of the interior, France is beating all immigration records,” he tweeted. “A record that disqualifies him from giving the slightest lesson in firmness to our Italian neighbors.”
As undiplomatic as Darmanin’s remarks were, they hit a nerve in Rome, where there is growing despair at the soaring numbers of migrants landing on their shores. Last month, Italy declared a six-month state of emergency. But what unfolds in southern Europe will inevitably have repercussions in France and Britain, two of the most popular destinations for those making the voyage across the Mediterranean.
France’s response to all this seems to be insults and inertia; in February, Darmanin made a great play about the tough new immigration bill that would address the crisis. It was supposed to be presented to the Senate in March; then it was pushed back to the early summer. Last week, prime minister Elisabeth Borne announced it won’t be examined until the fall at the earliest. She cited a lack of cooperation between the governing Renaissance party and the center-right Republicans as the reason for its delay; their support will be needed in parliament. In reality, the division is within Macron’s own party, many of whom are opposed to any stringent crackdown on illegal immigration.
Herein lies the bitter truth for Darmanin, one of the few ministers in Macron’s government who genuinely understands the seriousness of the migrant crisis. It’s not Meloni he should be attacking but the leader of his own country. Macron has been in office longer than most EU heads of states, and since the departure of Angela Merkel in December 2021 he has regarded himself as the Union’s senior statesman. He therefore should take the initiative in co-ordinating a robust response to the chaos in the Mediterranean.
That was the ambition outlined by Macron in one of his first major speeches as president in September 2017. In an address entitled “Initiative for Europe,” Macron stressed both the urgency of the situation and the need for co-operation.
“In the coming years, Europe will have to accept that its major challenge lies there,” he said of the migrant crisis. “So long as we leave some of our partners submerged under massive arrivals without helping them manage their borders; so long as our asylum procedures remain slow and disparate; so long as we are incapable of collectively organizing the return of migrants not eligible for asylum, we will lack both effectiveness and humanity.”
But Europe has proved incapable of accepting the challenge. The number of migrants grows, and so do the insults between member states. Instead of effectiveness and humanity there is just ineffectiveness and humbug.
This article was originally published on The Spectator’s UK website.
This is why the DOJ is doing anything and everything to stop Trump.
Trump is crushing both Biden and DeSantis. Also DeSantis is crushing Biden. This is not me saying this, but the latest Washington Post/ ABC News Poll. Yes information coming from the MSM.
President Trump is crushing Joe Biden and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) in a new Washington Poll/ABC News poll released at midnight. Trump leads Biden in a head to head match-up 49%-42% among supporters and leaners in the general election and bests DeSantis 51%-25% in a field of six potential GOP primary candidates with the others in single digits. The poll also shows DeSantis beating Biden by a similar margin, 48%-41%.
Black and Hispanic support for Trump has increased substantially from 2020, with 27 percent of Black voters supporting Trump, compared to 12 percent in 2020. 43 percent of Hispanics support Trump compared, to 30 percent in 2020.
ABC/WP POLL: More say Trump did a better job handling the economy than Biden has so far
Who do you think did a better job handling the economy?
Black and Hispanic support for Trump has increased substantially from 2020, with 27 percent of Black voters supporting Trump, compared to 12 percent in 2020. 43 percent of Hispanics support Trump compared, to 30 percent in 2020.
Joe Biden’s wet nurses clearly did a poor job of vetting the audience as a heckler managed to derail his speech, which was annoying, because Biden was planning on derailing it himself, probably. Except this time the heckler was a federal judge. Biden’s attempts at calming the situation failed, leading to a slightly exasperated and condescending ‘hush up, boy!’
Things could only have gotten more awkward if the judge were Muslim and it was supposed to be an Eid celebration. Wait, it was?
Ah, for the days when Muslims could shut a president up by throwing a shoe.
School board settles religious discrimination suit against Christian university after blasting ‘Jesus’ values One school member was concerned about ACU’s agenda to advance the values of Jesus Christ.
An Arizona School District settled a religious discrimination case Thursday two months after it was accused of illegally terminating a contract while its members blasted the Christian “Jesus” values of a university.
The Washington Elementary School District was sued in March for allegedly impugning on the religious rights of Arizona Christian University for terminating a partnership that had been ongoing for 11 years after multiple board members attacked them for their religious beliefs.
On Wednesday evening, the board restored a contract with the university. A settlement agreement also likely will include that the district will be responsible for thousands in legal fees.
Alliance Defending Freedom, who represented the university, said the school board “showed blatant hostility to ACU’s beliefs” when it questioned how one could “be committed to Jesus Christ” and yet, at the same time, respect LGBTQ students and board members.
Washington Elementary School District (Washington Elementary School District)
One of the board members mentioned in the suit, Tamillia Valenzuela, describes herself as “a bilingual, disabled, neurodivergent Queer Black Latina… who loves a good hot wing (but only with the right ranch) and things that sparkle.”
“My concerns, [is] when I go to Arizona Christian University’s website, [they are] ‘committed to Jesus Christ, accomplishing his will and advancements on earth as in Heaven,'” she said. “While I full-heartedly believe in the religious freedom and people being able to practice whatever faith that they have, I had some concerns regarding looking at this particular institution… And I think it’s a really good time for us to take a moment and really pause about where our values lie.”
“Part of their values is… [to] ‘transform the culture with truth by promoting the Biblically-informed values that are foundational to Western civilization, including the centrality of family, traditional sexual morality, and lifelong marriage between one man and one woman,'” she said.
Washington Elementary School Board voted for a motion to dissolve their partnership with Arizona Christian University. (Fox News Digital)
“Because if we’re bringing people in whose mission [has]… been with their institution’s education that very plainly on their website… that above all else, it was to influence people to Biblically-minded. How does that hold space for people of other faiths? How does that hold space for our members of the LGBT community? How does that space for people who think differently and do not have the same beliefs,” she said.
School board member Kyle Clayton blasted the university for “teaching with a Biblical lens.”
“I, too, echo what Ms. Valenzuela said when I… looked into not only their core values, but the statement of faith… [which they] ask their students to sign and live by,” he said. “Proselytizing is embedded into how they teach. And I just don’t believe that that belongs in schools.”
Arizona Christian University sued a district for allegedly violated their First Amendment rights. (Curtesy of Arizona Christian University )
ADF Senior Counsel and Vice President of U.S. Litigation David Cortman of Alliance Defending Freedom said, “By discriminating against Arizona Christian University and denying it an opportunity to participate in the student-teacher program because of its religious status and beliefs, the school district was in blatant violation of the U.S. Constitution, not to mention state law that protects ACU’s religious freedom.”
“At a time when a critical shortage of qualified, caring teachers exists, the Washington Elementary School District board did the right thing by prioritizing the needs of elementary school children and agreeing to partner once again with ACU’s student-teachers.”
Oh my! No more Whopper? Burger King to Close 400 Stores Nationwide. So BK who’s been around since 1954 is cutting back on the number of stores? Most of the locations like McDonalds and Wendy’s are franchise. So that will be interesting to see how this is done.
The popular fast food chain Burger King plans to close up to 400 restaurants before the end of 2023, TODAY.com confirmed.
This week, the CEO of Restaurant Brands International Inc., which owns Burger King, said they are preparing to close between 300 and 400 locations.
The CEO, Joshua Kobza, said in a call announcing Q1 earnings results, that the company “historically” closes “a couple hundred” Burger King restaurants each year.
So far this year, several large Burger King franchisees have filed for bankruptcy: Illinois-based Toms King, Michigan-based EYM King, and Utah-based Meridian Restaurants Unlimited.
According to a Restaurant Brands International release announcing the earnings, 124 Burger Kings have already shuttered this year, bringing the total number in the United States to fewer than 7,000.
She saw the screw ups, but did nothing to fix them. FOX.
Views: 22
Ding Dong the CDC Witch is gone. Don’t let the door hit you in the Ass. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky announced Friday she is stepping down from her role. Praise the Lord. All she did was ignore science and go with Junk Science. She will not be missed.
Walensky just continued the Panic. The Pandemic really started to end in January of 2021. But the Biden Administration, WHO, CDC, FDA, and the NIH created a two year panic.
Walensky stated several times that they had consulted parents’ needs for the guidance despite her calendar showing ONE 30-minute meeting. And while parents were granted just one session, teacher unions had constant access to her and other high-level CDC officials while influencing last-minute changes to the guidelines. Good riddance to bad rubbish.
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