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Elections Links from other news sources. Opinion Politics Reprints from others.

Trump Endorsements in Ohio Reflect Sea Change.

Trump strong in Ohio. Newsmax Photo

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Trump Endorsements in Ohio Reflect Sea Change.

As former President Donald Trump was under legal fire and rumors swelled of another indictment, Sen. J.D. Vance and a virtual who’s who of Ohio Republicans endorsed him for the presidential nomination in 2024.

The list of endorsements, released by the Trump campaign Tuesday morning, includes two of the three Republicans vying for the U.S. Senate nomination next year, five of Ohio’s 10 GOP U.S. Representatives, and State Treasurer Robert Sprague.

While two of the Senate hopefuls — Secretary of State Frank LaRose and businessman Bernie Moreno — weighed in with strong endorsements of Trump, the third major GOP contender was not on the list and is unlikely to be on any future list of Trump supporters.

State Sen. Matt Dolan, who disparaged Trump’s claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election, ran for the Senate nod in 2022 with the backing of much of the more moderate GOP “establishment.” He ended up third behind Vance and former State Treasurer Josh Mandel, both of whom ran as Trump Republicans. (First-time candidate Vance actually got Trump’s endorsement in the primary).

Along with House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, the Trump supporters in Ohio’s GOP U.S. House delegation are Reps. Mike Carey, Max Miller (a former Trump White House staffer), Bill Johnson, and Troy Balderson.

“No elected officials — not even in the state House or Senate — are backing [Ron] DeSantis or anyone else,” said a Columbus-area GOP activist who requested anonymity. “There is a fear of getting a Trump-backed primary challenge.”

A poll from Ohio Northern University shows that among likely GOP primary voters, Trump holds a hefty lead with 64% of the vote, followed by entrepreneur and Ohio native Vivek Ramaswamy with 12%, and Florida Gov. DeSantis 9%.

Trump’s strength among Ohio Republicans reflects a sea change in the party. In 2016, then-Gov. John Kasich defeated Trump in the primary by 46% to 35%, with the rest going to Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas.

Kasich subsequently refused to endorse Trump and, in 2020, was a high-profile Republican for Biden.

The Ohio presidential primary will be held March 19.

John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax.

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Links from other news sources. Reprints from others. The Courts

Sweet. Fifth Circuit Reverses Lower Court ATF Pistol Brace Ruling.

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Sweet. Fifth Circuit Reverses Lower Court ATF Pistol Brace Ruling. We have this from the Fifth Circuit.

“We move on to plaintiffs’ claim that the Final Rule violates the APA’s procedural and substantive requirements. On that front, plaintiffs establish a substantial likelihood of success on the merits. The ATF incorrectly maintains that the Final Rule is merely interpretive, not legislative, and thus not subject to the logical-outgrowth test. The Final Rule affects individual rights, speaks with the force of law, and significantly implicates private interests. Thus, it is legislative in character,” the panel stated.

The circuit court also homed in on the differences between the ATF’s Proposed Rule and its Final Rule. It said that the difference between the two “violates the APA” and pointed out that “the Proposed and Final Rule must be alike in kind so that commentators could have reasonably anticipated the Final Rule.”

 

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Back Door Power Grab Biden Cartel Corruption Crime Links from other news sources.

Judge Releases Hunter Biden Plea Deal. Now that’s news.

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Judge Releases Hunter Biden Plea Deal. The judge who bitch slapped Hunter has released the full transcript of the under the table deal the government did with Hunter. We have this from Newsmax.

Noreika also released the diversion agreement, which included that the U.S. agreed to “not criminally prosecute Biden, outside of the terms of this Agreement, or any federal crimes encompassed by the attached Statement of Facts (Attachment A) and the Statement of Facts attached as Exhibit 1 to the Memorandum of Plea Agreement filed this same day.”

The Republican heads of three House committees on Monday announced in a letter they will investigate the circumstances surrounding Biden’s failed plea deal, the New York Post reported.

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History Life Reprints from others.

Iconic Joshua Trees threatened by wildfire spreading across Mojave Desert

The York Fire has burned more than 80,000 acres.

Visits: 22

The York fire burns in the Mojave National Preserve in California on Sunday, July 30.

Reported by CNN. (Sometimes they do good work.)

Firefighters battling a large whirl-spawning wildfire in California and southern Nevada are facing challenging conditions as the blaze spreads and threatens iconic desert Joshua trees.

The York Fire – already California’s largest fire of the year – has burned more than 82,000 acres as of Wednesday morning, fire officials said. It began Friday in the New York Mountains of California’s Mojave National Preserve and crossed state lines into Nevada on Sunday.

Crews have been battling the flames under unpredictable wind patterns and unrelenting heat, authorities said. They’ve also been trying to not disturb desert tortoises – federally listed as a threatened species – in part by trying to avoid their burrows.

The fire, among dozens burning around the country under scorching temperatures, has been fueled by extreme conditions that have made it more dangerous and difficult to control, fire officials said Monday night. The York Fire was 30% contained as of Wednesday morning.

The York Fire has burned more than 80,000 acres.

The blaze has spawned fire whirls – “a vortex of flames and smoke that forms when intense heat and turbulent winds combine, creating a spinning column of fire,” the Mojave National Preserve said Sunday. As the fire-heated air rises, cold air dashes to take its place, creating a spinning vortex rising from a fire and carrying aloft smoke, debris, and flame – also referred to as a fire tornado in some cases.

Firefighters also were seeing 20-foot flames in some areas, according to Mojave National Preserve authorities.

The fire is also threatening groves of Joshua trees – the branching, spiky plants of the Mojave Desert that can live more than 150 years.

“It will take a lifetime to get those mature Joshua trees back,” Laura Cunningham, the California director of the Western Watersheds Project, told CNN affiliate KVVU. “Some are fire resistant, and if the flames are not too hot, they will stump sprout out or reseed.”

“This is pretty devastating,” Cunningham said.

The Mojave National Preserve has been seeing an increase in fire frequency over the past decade due to a combination of wet winters and increasing levels of invasive grasses, fire officials say on Inciweb, a clearinghouse for US fire information.

“If an area with Joshua trees burns through, most will not survive and reproduction in that area is made more difficult,” the National Park Service says. “Wildfires could also result in the loss of irreplaceable resources in the park, like historic structures and cultural artifacts.”

In 2020, a 43,273-acre wildfire burned through the Joshua tree woodland of California’s Cima Dome, destroying as many as 1.3 million Joshua trees and leaving behind a plant graveyard, according to the National Park Service.

Firefighters braving intense desert heat to stop the York Fire’s spread in the Mojave National Preserve are among more than 11,000 wildland firefighters and personnel assigned across the country, the National Interagency Fire Center said Tuesday.

Fifty-six active, large fires were burning in 11 states as hot and dry conditions persist throughout the US, the center said Tuesday. More than 1.1 million acres have burned across the US in 2023 as of Tuesday, the center said.

Emerging desert tortoises pose unique challenge

Firefighters were aided by a brief but heavy downpour early Tuesday as they worked to contain the York Fire. More rain moved across the area early Wednesday and may give firefighters an additional boost.

But rain in the Mojave Desert, which is seasonal and scarce, “poses a unique challenge to firefighters,” the Mojave National Preserve said.

Desert tortoises – federally listed as a threatened species – become especially active on wet summer days, emerging from their burrows to drink rainwater.

“Fire crews carefully balance fire suppression with resource protection. They will be on the lookout for desert tortoises, making sure to avoid burrows and active individuals,” the Mojave National Preserve said.

The good news is that most desert wildlife can move to safety when fire approaches, park officials said.

“Resource staff at Mojave National Preserve anticipate that the York Fire has caused minimal damage to critical tortoise habitat and has likely affected few individuals since tortoise observations in the fire area are rare,” preserve staff said.

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Biden Cartel Corruption Crime Elections Government Overreach How sick is this? Links from other news sources. Opinion Politics Reprints from others. The Courts The Law

Attorney John Lauro: Trump Is Being Criminalized For Objecting To The Way That 2020 Election Was Handled.

Corruption at the highest level.

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Attorney John Lauro: Trump Is Being Criminalized For Objecting To The Way That 2020 Election Was Handled.

This writer ( Right or Wrong ) has decided that the Trump indictments are nothing but cover for the Biden Cartel possible crimes. I’ve decided, that after today to pretty much ignore these falsehoods. Now if there is something that’s newsworthy I’ll comment on it. But there’s so much news out there that’s news worthy. Enjoy the article below.

Trump attorney John Lauro spoke to FOX News host Bret Baier on Tuesday following the announcement of another indictment against the former president. Lauro said Trump is being criminalized for questioning whether the 2020 election was conducted in a valid way.

Lauro said when this case goes to trial, “we’re going to be representing not just President Trump, but every single American that believes in the First Amendment and believes in your ability to redress and bring grievances to Congress.”

“It’s not just issues of fraud,” Lauro said of the 2020 election. It’s also the fact that procedures were changed, undeniably so, that procedures at the state level were changed without the ability of the legislature to weigh in. And what President Trump was raising when he asked Vice President Pence to send it back to the state legislatures was to give the legislature in each state of those contested states one last chance to make a determination, because the reality is that the state legislatures in every state has the ultimate responsibility ability for qualifying electors.”

“What Mr. Trump did was exactly constitutionally precise and in order,” he added.

“Nothing was done in a way that wasn’t constitutionally permissible,” he said. “It’s all politics. It’s all politics. And if we’re criminalizing politics, what’s going to happen when the Republicans are next in office? Think about the pressure that’s going to be put on a Republican president to go after and indict sitting Democrats now in Congress or in statehouses for their political views.”

Transcript, via FOX News:

BRET BAIER, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: We need a whiteboard for all of this. It is like planes going into La Guardia with this legal situation.

But the person who’s dealing with this case joins us now. John Lauro is former President Trump’s lead attorney on this specific case. He joins us with his first public reaction.

John, thanks for being here.

JOHN LAURO, ATTORNEY FOR FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Good evening.

BAIER: You heard what the special counsel said. You have read the indictment. Your client’s been talking about it quite a bit today on TRUTH Social.

Your thoughts on this?

LAURO: It’s a terribly tragic day that we find ourselves in, where political speech now has been criminalized, where an existing Justice Department, Merrick Garland, has a boss. His name is Joe Biden.

And Joe Biden is running against Donald Trump and losing currently. And now we have that Justice Department indicting President Trump for actions that he took as the executive — as the chief executive of the United States with respect to public policy matters.

So, now we have the criminalization and the weaponization of public policy and political speech by one political party over another. And it’s not surprising when it comes. It comes on the heels of unbelievable allegations against Mr. Biden and his son, as well as the fact that Donald Trump is leading in the polls right now.

And now we have what essentially is a regurgitation of the allegations in the January 6 report, which was highly political. It really reads no differently. So it’s really an astounding document, because, for the first time in American history, a former president is being prosecuted by a political opponent, who wields the power of the criminal justice system, for what he believed in and the policies and the political speech that he carried out as president.

This is unprecedented. It affects not just Donald Trump. It affects every American, who now realizes that the First Amendment is under assault. It’s under attack by the Biden administration. We now have a political incumbent who is attacking Americans for their beliefs, attacking Americans for their speech, and attacking Americans for their politics.

This has never happened in the history of our country, and it’s playing out right now.

BAIER: Yes, John, let me read from the indictment, and you can respond to this specifically.

It says: “The defendant lost the 2020 presidential election. Despite having lost, the defendant was determined to remain in power. So, more — for more than two months following the Election Day, November 3, 2020, the defendant spread lies that there had been outcome-determinative fraud in the election and that he had actually won. These claims were false, and the defendant knew that they were false, created an intense national atmosphere of mistrust and anger and eroded public faith in the administration of the election.”

LAURO: I would like them to try to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Donald Trump believed that these allegations were false.

What did he see in real time? He saw changes in election procedure in the middle of the game being carried out by executive-level — people at the state level, election officials, but not the state legislatures.

He had an advice of counsel, a very detailed memorandum from a constitutional expert who said: Mr. President, these states are complaining about what happened. You, as the executive, have the ability to ask Vice President Pence to pause the vote on January 6, have these states audit and recertify, and, that way, we know ultimately who won the election.

And that’s the only thing that President Trump suggested. There’s nothing unlawful about that. He was entitled to do that, as the chief executive officer carrying out the laws, and nothing about that was obstructive.

It was quite interesting that Mr. Smith talked about the violence on Capitol Hill. He’s not being charged with that. There’s no allegation that President Trump incited any violence or did anything to cause any violence. Just the opposite. He’s being indicted for free speech.

He’s being indicted for objecting to the way that the 2020 election was carried out. And any American that takes that view should be equally concerned, are they next? Because the reality is that, if a president can be indicted for free speech, then anybody can be indicted.

So, when this case goes to trial, we’re going to be representing not just President Trump, but every single American that believes in the First Amendment and believes in your ability to redress and bring grievances to Congress.

And that’s exactly what people were doing. You had these alternate electors that said to the Congress: We have serious doubts about what happened in the 2020 election. We’re bringing these grievances to you. Listen to us.

That’s being criminalized now. Don’t forget, we had an extraordinary set…

BAIER: Yes.

LAURO: … of circumstances in 2020.

We had the COVID virus. We had laws being changed in the middle of the game. And Donald Trump had every responsibility and every right to raise these issues.

BAIER: To your point about what he believed, I talked to the former president a few weeks ago at his place in New Jersey about other things, but the 2020 election came up.

BAIER: You lost the 2020 election.

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Bret, you take a look at all of the stuffed ballots, you take a look at all of the things, including things like the 51 intelligence agents.

BAIER: There were recounts in all of the swing states. There was not significant, widespread fraud.

TRUMP: Bret, we’re trying to get recounts, real recounts…

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: … number of votes cast.

BAIER: There were investigations. Widespread corruption, there was not a sense of that.

There were lawsuits, more than 50 of them, by your lawyers, some in front of judges — judges that you appointed…

TRUMP: Bret, are you ready? Look at Wisconsin.

BAIER: … that came out with no evidence.

TRUMP: Wisconsin is — Bret, Wisconsin has practically admitted it was rigged. Other states are doing the same right now. And it’s continued on. It was a rigged election.

BAIER: There have been reviews of every potential case of voter fraud in six battleground states, and they found fewer than 475 cases. It was not affected.

TRUMP: You know why? Because they didn’t look at the right things, Bret.

BAIER: OK. Are you going to…

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BAIER: My point in showing that is that he is pushing back on June 20 on that front.

John, when it says that he knew that the election was lost and it quotes people that they have interviewed, what’s the pushback to that?

LAURO: Very easy and very simple. It’s not just issues of fraud. It’s also the fact that procedures were changed, undeniably so, that procedures at the state level were changed without the ability of the legislature to weigh in.

And what President Trump was raising when he asked Vice President Pence to send it back to the state legislatures was to give the legislature in each state of those contested states one last chance to make a determination, because the reality is that the state legislatures in every state has the ultimate responsibility ability for qualifying electors.

So, what Mr. Trump did was exactly constitutionally precise and in order. There was nothing illegal about that. And he was required to take steps as president of the United States to ensure that that election was held in a valid way.

All of that now is being criminalized. The one thing I will say, though, in 2020, Mr. Trump’s campaign had a few weeks to gear up and present evidence, and it was very difficult. We now have the ability in this case to issue our own subpoenas, and we will relitigate every single issue in the 2020 election in the context of this litigation.

It gives President Trump an opportunity that he has never had before, which is to have subpoena power since January 6 in a way that can be exercised in federal court.

BAIER: What you’re talking about, the states, the states did that. Each individual state certified the elections. They were signed by the governors, many of them Republican governors, and many of them Republican secretaries of state, that signed off and certified those election results before they came to Washington, D.C., and we had what was January 6.

LAURO: Right.

BAIER: So, what you’re talking about was done. It was certified.

LAURO: No. No, I’m sorry, but — but you’re missing what Professor Eastman’s advice was.

Professor Eastman said that the state legislatures had not opined and weighed in on the changes that had been done in those various states. And…

BAIER: But each one of those states since that time — now we’re talking about two years later — has not reopened those cases.

They have not — some of them have had audits, but they have not reopened the 2020 election from that point of view. And some of them are Republican legislatures.

LAURO: Yes. And it’s never been presented to the states.

Now what we’re going to have is not just a civil trial, but a criminal trial for Mr. Trump exercising his right to speech. So there may be disagreement about what happened, but the bottom line is, we’re now treating this as a criminal case, rather than, as we’re doing, Bret…

BAIER: Yes.

LAURO: … talking about this in the context of politics and free speech. And — and…

BAIER: Yes. Well, let’s talk about legal for just a second, John.

LAURO: Yes.

BAIER: And you are specifically running point on this case.

And according to our legal analysts…

LAURO: Oh…

BAIER: Is that true?

LAURO: Along with Todd Blanche.

BAIER: Yes.

LAURO: Yes, we’re co-counsel on it, definitely.

BAIER: On the other cases, is it legally somebody else, like, for the documents case? Are you also on that?

LAURO: I’m not on that team. I’m concentrating on the First Amendment issues. I’m concentrating on this case, which is a direct attack on our constitutional principles, only this one.

BAIER: Will you run point in Georgia, if an indictment comes down in Georgia?

LAURO: No. No.

BAIER: Somebody else.

LAURO: Absolutely. There are other groups working on that.

Obviously, there’s coordination around the country. And all of this is being done in the middle of an election season where Donald Trump is winning. So, you have a series of criminal cases that are being brought and serially brought out on a regular basis now, with only one objective in mind, and that’s to interfere in this election cycle, which is now under way.

BAIER: What about the stories that these campaign funds are now paying for legal fees and it’s — and you’re running out of cash in that front?

LAURO: Well, I’m not involved in that.

But the bottom line is, the way that they’re trying to take out Donald Trump is through the legal process. So, he’s being forced to spend money on legal defense which should be spent on the discussion of critical ideas and critical issues. People want to hear the issues. They don’t want to relitigate 2020.

And that’s exactly what the special counsel — I should say Merrick Garland. Merrick Garland and the Biden administration had to sign off on this indictment. And what they have really done is invited now a relitigation of 2020, but this time in a criminal court, which is unprecedented.

No sitting president has ever been criminally charged for his views, for taking a position. And, by the way, is there any doubt there’s two systems of justice in the United States? Was Hillary Clinton prosecuted for the Russian hoax? Were those individuals who said, don’t worry about the Biden — the Biden laptop, because it’s just Russian disinformation, are they being prosecuted?

No. Only one person in America is being prosecuted for his political beliefs. And that should send a chill, a warning to every single American who one day wants to get up and say, this is what I believe in. I disagree with the Biden administration, but these are the beliefs I have, because every person who does that now is subject to a potential criminal case.

BAIER: Last thing.

According to this indictment, they believe that that argument would empower every losing politician to do what former President Trump did, and by using what they call in this indictment false information to stir up people, that the system then breaks down.

It’s — I’m paraphrasing, but, essentially, that’s what it says in this indictment.

LAURO: So, what they’re saying is, politicians may use hyperbolic speech or excessive speech in some way and stir up people, and we’re going to criminalize that.

Good luck in the United States, if that’s where we’re heading. Good luck, because the reality is that everything that Mr. Trump requested to be done was done with the advice of counsel, was done with lawyers giving him advice. Those lawyers are going to come in and testify.

Nothing was done in a way that wasn’t constitutionally permissible. It’s all politics. It’s all politics. And if we’re criminalizing politics, what’s going to happen when the Republicans are next in office? Think about the pressure that’s going to be put on a Republican president to go after and indict sitting Democrats now in Congress or in statehouses for their political views.

And then we have this vicious circle once the criminal justice system has been politicized.

 

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Uncategorized

You need proof? Hunter and Joe having access to the same account.

Corruption runs in the family.

Visits: 19

You don’t need to look far to see how the DOJ ( Even under President Trump ) was acting to protect Joe Biden. And it continued in January 2021. A inquiry of Impeachment would fill in more of the blanks.

Most damning: Hunter Biden has never denied these accounts. And, other than his now non-credible assertions that he never discussed business with his son, neither has Joe Biden.

In one 2019 text message, Hunter Biden whines to his daughter Naomi that he has had to “pay for everything for this entire family for 30 years”; he adds, “Unlike pop, I won’t make you give me half your salary.” 

Other evidence that Joe benefited from Hunter’s purported corrupt dealings is contained in emails that document Hunter in 2010 paying for repairs and upkeep to Joe’s house while the latter was V.P.

Hunter’s business partner Eric Schwerin emailed Hunter that he received Joe Biden’s “Delaware tax refund check,” indicating access to and likely management of the vice president’s finances. Also, as the New York Post reported last year, “In May 2018 during a drug and alcohol binge in Los Angeles, Hunter Biden accidentally transferred around $25,000 to an escort named “Gulnora.” He was immediately visited by the Secret Service — suggesting that the money came from a joint account with his father. Hunter received a series of text messages from a former agent who repeatedly urged him to come out of his hotel room and reminded him “this is linked to Celtic’s account.” “Celtic” was Joe Biden’s Secret Service code name when he was vice president.” Not many grown adults co-mingle their finances with their parents. 

 

Calls for impeachment inquiry are no longer ‘fringe’: Ameshia Cross

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Biden Cartel Corruption Opinion Politics

Now this is news. Jonathan Turley Responds to Devon Archer Testimony. Not some to do about nothing protest in 2021.

Turley discussing corruption. FOX Photo.

Visits: 24

Now this is news. Jonathan Turley Responds to Devon Archer Testimony. Not some to do about nothing protest in 2021. Jonathan was all over the other day talking about one of the greatest corruption scandals in the history of Washington.

Never in this countries history have we seen such open corruption by a political figure. What’s amazing is that this family has been doing it for four decades.

 

Turley on all of this.  it is still a crime to lie to Congressional investigators, you don’t need to put him under oath. What we now know very clearly is the president has been lying. He has been saying for years he hasn’t discussed the business dealings of his son, he has had no involvement or knowledge. That was previously contradicted. People forget about people like Tony Bobulinski, who said he actually is who actually sat down with the vice president and discussed business with the vice president. There are audiotapes of the president discussing business dealings in the press. This further demolishes those denials but the question is now: why was the president lying? It is fairly clear now he was part of the brand and the brand was influence peddling. He was the object of the influence peddling. It was influence and access to him, and the way you sell it is to have him pop into meetings and dinners showing I’m a phone call away, so you can ink that deal with my son.

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How funny is this? Links from other news sources. Reprints from others. Uncategorized

Joe Biden’s New Shoes Raise Serious Concern: ‘Is He Going to Wear Them Everywhere?’

President Joe Biden rides his bike in Gordon's Pond State Park in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, on Monday. (Jim Watson - AFP / Getty Images)

Visits: 52

Joe Biden’s New Shoes Raise Serious Concern: ‘Is He Going to Wear Them Everywhere?’

This article is from The Western Journal.

Are President Joe Biden’s shoes the latest clue to his growing incompetency?

As you may have seen recently, the octogenarian president has been spotted wearing Sketchers slip-ons without socks on a few occasions recently. What you may not know is that he seems to like these shoes — a lot. In fact, he likes them so much that he’s been spotted with them in a suit, in business casual and even on the beach.

As a Twitter user pointed out in a Sunday tweet, this is the latest shot of the president in what appear to be Sketchers Ultra-Flex 3.0 slip-on shoes. It’s worth noting that, according to Politico, Biden didn’t know he was being photographed by the media, who stayed along the water line when the first family visited Rehobeth Beach in Delaware this weekend.

https://twitter.com/NoVA_Campaigns/status/1685839645815267329/photo/1

“On Sunday, as the Bidens arrived at Delaware’s Rehoboth Beach, they were kept high atop the dunes. The press pool noted some details of what they wore — bright blue shorts, a navy blue shirt, hat and sneakers for the president; a white top, blue skirt, hat and flip-flops for the first lady — but little else. They observed the Bidens parking themselves on some beach chairs beneath an umbrella and beginning to read. Then after 12 minutes, they were escorted away and waited in vans for the next three hours until the Bidens headed home,” Politico reported.

“So when photos of the shirtless president on the beach started lighting up the internet, it came as something of a surprise to the journalists in the pool vans — and to the White House.”

Not a pleasant one, at that. Granted, few men over 35 should probably be showing off their beach bod, but the mound of flesh combined with the backwards baseball cap (gramps is trying to imitate the cool kids 30 years ago!), aviator shades and the Sketchers made the shot truly bizarre.

But, as the same Twitter user noted, the president’s been wearing the same shoes quite a bit recently.

With a suit? Check. With khakis? Check. And without a shirt at all? Check. (Maybe he got the 7-Eleven sign wrong: If you have shoes but still no shirt, you’re not going to get service, either.) The Sketchers first became a hot topic of debate after a New York Times photographer noticed them last month.

That picture led to a debate over the propriety of sneakers without socks, including this invaluable contribution from one half of the liberal Krassenstein brothers, proving yet again there’s no issue a Krassenstein can’t turn into clickbait:

Image

Image

The New York Times and Conservatives are now reporting that Joe Biden boarded Air Force One today without socks on with his sneakers. A simple 30 second reverse image search in Google would have found out that Biden was wearing a $90 pair of Skechers Slip-ins: Ultra Flex 3.0.…

Embedded video

 

 

 

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Daily Hits. Links from other news sources. Reprints from others.

Headline News. Some of the stories making the news.

X doesn't mark the spot. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

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Headline News. Some of the stories making the news.

 X no longer marks the spot. Yesterday, workers took down the giant glowing X sign installed Friday at the San Francisco headquarters of the Elon Musk-owned company formerly known as Twitter. Neighbors had complained about the brightness, and city officials said they had been told the sign was temporary. In other news at the recently renamed company, it has threatened to sue researchers who track hate speech and found that it had increased on the social media platform since Musk took over, claiming they are harming the business.

 It’s getting harder to get a loan. A Fed survey released yesterday shows banks are being stingier when handing out cash, thanks to all those interest rate hikes. A net 51% of banks said they’d raised their standards for large- and medium-sized business loans last quarter, up from 46% during Q1 and the highest since 2008 (not counting the pandemic). For consumer loans, more banks than last quarter said they had upped credit card loan standards, but not as many banks tightened auto loan standards. Banks expect standards to keep getting stricter, with most reporting they’ll continue to raise the bar across loan categories.

 California wants to know what your car is doing with your data. California’s new privacy regulator—the only agency in the US devoted solely to privacy issues—has announced its first investigation, and it plans to probe whether your smart car is too smart. The watchdog’s enforcement division plans to examine what manufacturers are doing with the data collected from internet-connected autos, including location data that is highly sought after by advertisers, info on driver behavior coveted by insurance companies, and data from cameras and apps.

ENERGY

1st all-new US nuclear reactor in decades goes live

Homer reading about building nuclear reactorThe Simpsons/20th Television via Giphy

Homer Simpson’s expertise is wanted down South: Georgia’s Plant Vogtle has taken a brand-new reactor online, the company that operates it announced yesterday.

The first built-from-scratch nuclear reactor to get turned on in the US in decades is supplying electricity to Georgia, Florida, and Alabama, with capacity to power up to 500,000 homes and businesses.

The new reactor is part of a larger expansion at Vogtle, which already had two operational reactors and will add a fourth one by next spring…if everything goes according to plan. But things haven’t so far: The new reactor went live seven years later than planned, and costs ballooned from $14 billion to nearly $35 billion.

The delays and cost overruns have led some experts to oppose new nuclear plant construction as impractical, but the public is warming up to the energy source. Recent polls show the highest level of support for nuclear power in a decade. It currently supplies almost 50% of US carbon-free electricity, and many experts believe it’s an essential clean energy supplement to wind and solar.

Other countries are also going nuclear…two new nuclear energy projects were announced in Canada this month, while China plans to build at least six to eight new reactors a year.—SK

        

FROM THE CREW

The Crew

Robot revolution? Not quite. You can breathe a sign of relief—AI isn’t replacing your job just yet. Instead, MIT researchers are hopeful we can work collaboratively with ChatGPT, DALL-E, and more. Check out Tech Brew’s take on what AI can and can’t do—and assess its potential implications in your field of work.

RETAIL

What would you pay for a Birken stock?

Birkenstock sandal in display window.John MacDougall/Getty Images

Wearing the chunkiest, ugliest shoes has always been in fashion for some. But now it’s clog girl summer, and Birkenstock is bracing for a possible September IPO that would value the company anywhere from $8 billion to $10 billion, according to Bloomberg.

Birks have always been lurking. The German sandal has enjoyed several waves of popularity since it first arrived in the US in the ’60s, including in the 90s and 2000s when the brand proved it wasn’t just for Deadheads as mega celebrities wore them. And just like other perfectly horrendous footwear options (Crocs just reported a record $1 billion of revenue for the second quarter and is valued at ~$6.7 billion), Birks are back.

  • Birkenstock’s revenue jumped about 29% to $1.3 billion last year.
  • Celebs like Kendall Jenner are rocking Birks this summer, and the sandal even made it in a couple of scenes of the new Barbie movie, which Bloomberg reports helped boost recent sales.

It’s by design: Two years ago, Birkenstock was acquired in a deal that valued the company at roughly $4.9 billion by L. Catterton, the private equity firm backed by LVMH, the luxury conglomerate that keeps Bernard Arnault constantly trading spots with Elon Musk on the list of richest people in the world. Since the acquisition, the brand has collabed with high-end designers like Dior and Manolo Blahnik.

Looking ahead…sources told Bloomberg that the timing and size of the IPO haven’t been nailed down yet, but the potential plans are another sign that market debuts are making their own comeback.—MM

        

GRAB BAG

Key performance indicators

A celebrity saying "they quit"Francis Scialabba

Stat: Who better to deliver the news that you’re quitting your job or want out of your relationship than a celebrity like Flavor Flav or Brian Cox (though those ones may be NSFW)? Some people are so keen to avoid an awkward  “It’s not you, it’s me” conversation that they’re using Cameo to pay famous faces to relay these messages instead: In the past three years, the pay-for-celeb-video service has received close to 5,000 requests that included “divorce” and ~2,000 with “break up,” according to the Wall Street Journal. The service has also been used at least 1,000 times to put in two weeks notice, per the WSJ.

Quote: “Delisting every asset other than bitcoin, which by the way is not what the law says, would have essentially meant the end of the crypto industry in the US.”

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong has never been shy about his disagreement with the SEC over whether cryptocurrencies should be viewed as securities (he says no). And in a recent interview with the Financial Times, he said the agency made it an easy choice for his company to fight for that view in court since, before suing, the agency demanded that the exchange stop trading in any crypto token besides bitcoin. The agency’s case against Coinbase is one of several it has pending that ask courts to weigh in on that existential question for crypto in the US.

Read: How an academic tome about trauma became a bestseller. (New York Magazine)

NEWS

What else is brewing

  • The US Women’s National Team drew Portugal 0–0, meaning they’ll advance to the knockout round at the World Cup. But it was nervy.
  • Sad news: Angus Cloud, the 25-year-old actor who played Fez on Euphoria, has died. And Paul Reubens, the actor best known for creating the character Pee-wee Herman, also died, at age 70, after battling cancer.
  • Taco Bell was hit with a proposed class-action lawsuit claiming the chain advertised its Mexican Pizzas and Crunchwraps as having more than double the fillings they actually do.
  • A zoo in China has denied claims that its bears are really people in bear suits after videos surfaced of the bears standing on two legs.

 

 

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Elections Links from other news sources. The Courts

Winning. Trump Immune From Suit for Election Comments Made in Office.

The man, the myth the legend. Winning.

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Winning. Trump Immune From Suit for Election Comments Made in Office. A poll worker in Delaware County, PA. Filed several lawsuits against former President Trump in reference to comments he made while President.

A Pennsylvania state court judge ruled that presidential immunity is broad enough to protect Donald Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was rigged, even if he didn’t really believe the conspiracy.

Judge Michael Erdos in the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas on Monday granted Trump immunity on two claims made in a 2021 lawsuit by voting-machine supervisor James Savage.

Savage claimed Trump damaged his reputation by falsely claiming he tampered with the 2020 election result, which resulted in death threats and two heart attacks.

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