kayakcook

🚨After receiving a briefing from a Senior TRUMP Administration Official on the status of the Iran negotiations (someone in the know & not just speculating), I can tell you the following: -USA IS NOT GIVING IRANIANS MONEY FOR NOTHING. All speculation and propaganda to the contrary is false. Some hardline elements of Iran’s govt (IRGC) have pushed fake stories & propaganda to try to kill this negotiation. -Iran deal is NOT done (95%, but still haggling over some language). No deal being signed today. May be a few more days before this is done. -Iran will NOT get any money or sanctions relief up front. -Iran must turn over nuclear stockpile to get anything. USA position is that failure to meet deal commitments means Iran gets nothing. -Long term USA objective is preventing Iran from having nuclear weapon. -Initial deal point is to re-establish free flow of commerce by reopening Strait of Hormuz. Deal should have 2 phases: Step 1 - Open Strait of Hormuz. Give world economy breathing room. Iran agrees to give up enriched uranium. Step 2 - Get the nuclear material turned over. Only then can Iran get sanctions relief. Bottom line: goal is to make a deal that lowers costs for Americans, calms world energy markets, and guarantees that Iranians cannot have a nuclear weapon over the long term. We aren’t there yet. Iran takes forever to get you a response on even small things. But we are close although it still could be a few days. “If we get what we are demanding, this is going to be a historic deal,” SAO says. SAO sounds prepared to do no deal at all if all Iran will do is a “bad deal.” SAO admits deal could fall apart yet. But if a deal is reached, SAO expects very senior USA admin officials to take part in a signing ceremony of some sort. Iran has agreed in principle to the framework but there are still a couple points USA isn’t satisfied with. 95% done. But literally changing words sometimes requires days in Iran’s system. Haggling over language. But USA feels like we have a commitment on nuclear stockpile and on opening Strait of Hormuz. If IRAN doesn’t deliver on commitments, they get nothing. “Iran’s ability to project power is a lot more limited than it was two months ago,” SAO says. “Their industrial base for building ballistic missiles has been substantially destroyed.”

Curva de Laffer En un restaurante bullicioso de Washington en 1974, el economista estadounidense Arthur Laffer tomó una servilleta y trazó una simple curva en forma de campana. Frente a varios funcionarios de la Administración Ford, entre ellos Dick Cheney y Donald Rumsfeld, ilustraba por qué subir los impuestos no siempre aumentaba la recaudación del Estado. La idea no era nueva, ya la habían esbozado pensadores como Ibn Jaldún en el siglo XIV o Adam Smith, pero aquella servilleta la convirtió en símbolo de la economía de la oferta. Laffer argumentaba que la relación entre tipos impositivos y recaudación fiscal no es lineal: existe un punto óptimo más allá del cual mayores gravámenes desincentivan toda la actividad económica y terminan reduciendo los ingresos públicos. La curva parte de dos extremos evidentes. Con un tipo impositivo del 0 %, la recaudación es nula porque no hay impuestos. Con un tipo del 100 %, la recaudación también es cero porque nadie tiene incentivo para trabajar, producir o invertir si el Estado se queda con todo. Entre ambos polos, la recaudación sube al principio conforme aumentan los impuestos, alcanza un máximo en algún punto intermedio (el famoso t*) y luego desciende a medida que los gravámenes ahogan la economía. La forma exacta de la curva depende de la elasticidad de la renta imponible: cómo responden las personas y las empresas a los cambios en los incentivos. No se trata de una receta mágica con un número fijo, sino de una verdad económica básica. Los impuestos alteran el comportamiento humano. Esta observación, aparentemente elemental, se vuelve demoledora cuando se traslada a las sociedades reales. Los regímenes socialistas y colectivistas del siglo XX actuaron como si la curva no existiera. Creyeron que podían exprimir a la población con tasas marginales cercanas al 100 %, bajo la forma de expropiaciones, controles de precios, nacionalizaciones y redistribución forzosa, sin que la base productiva se encogiera. Pensaron que la gente seguiría trabajando, innovando e invirtiendo aunque el fruto de su esfuerzo fuera confiscado en nombre de la «justicia social». La actividad económica se ocultó, se desincentivó o emigró. En la Unión Soviética, las granjas colectivas y la planificación central generaron estancamiento crónico porque los productores no veían beneficio en esforzarse. En Cuba, Venezuela o la Nicaragua sandinista, los «impuestos» implícitos, expropiaciones, regulaciones asfixiantes y corrupción estatal, empujaron la economía hacia el extremo derecho de la curva. La recaudación formal cayó, la informalidad y el mercado negro explotaron, y el Estado tuvo que recurrir a más represión y emisión monetaria para sostenerse. La hiperinflación venezolana no es solo mala gestión; es el colapso de los incentivos cuando el sistema tributa (y expropia) más allá del punto óptimo. Los arquitectos del intervencionismo contemporáneo repiten el mismo error con sofisticación retórica. Elevan impuestos sobre la renta, el capital y las empresas argumentando «solidaridad» mientras ignoran que cada punto adicional por encima de cierto umbral reduce inversión, innovación y empleo. Prefieren el relato moralista a la evidencia empírica: recortes de impuestos en períodos como la era Reagan o las reformas de oferta en varios países mostraron cómo bajar las tasas podía, en contextos de altos gravámenes previos, aumentar la recaudación al expandir la base económica. Pero para ellos admitir esto equivaldría a reconocer que la prosperidad no se decreta desde arriba, sino que surge de dejar a las personas retener más de lo que generan. La curva de Laffer no es una herramienta de la derecha ni un dogma; es una descripción de la realidad humana. Los individuos responden a los incentivos. Cuando el costo marginal de producir se acerca al beneficio marginal retenido, la producción se contrae. Los sistemas que pretenden ignorar esta dinámica terminan financiando su «paraíso igualitario» con deudas, inflación o coerción abierta, hasta que la economía real se contrae y el castillo de naipes se derrumba. La historia demuestra una y otra vez que no hay atajo. Solo las economías con impuestos razonables y predecibles logran sostener altos niveles de recaudación sin matar la gallina de los huevos de oro. Los demás solo acumulan ruinas y excusas.

@SawyerMerritt @SpaceX What’s the point of being on the purchase side of this IPO as a retail investor? History shows IPOs benefit early investors, or employees who want to convert some of their shares to cash, but buyers always have entry points downstream from the IPO at much better entry points.

I’ve been asked by many to create one comprehensive post explaining how to prepare for @SpaceX’s IPO if you use one of the brokerages listed in SpaceX’s S-1 filing to allocate IPO shares to retail investors. Here it is: Fidelity: 1) $500,000 minimum account balance required to participate (including IRAs, individual, etc, but excluding 401k). 2) Enter an indication of interest. The indication of interest provides Fidelity with the maximum number of shares a customer is interested in purchasing. 3) Confirm your indication of interest shares on Fidelity's website after the registration statement has been declared effective and the offering has priced, which is typically after 7 PM ET on the night of pricing. Indications of interest may not be confirmed prior to the registration statement being declared effective and the offering pricing established. By confirming your indication of interest, you are placing an order to buy shares at the offering price. If you do not confirm your indication of interest, you will not be eligible for an allocation of shares. 4) Allocation of shares will occur on the morning following pricing and is usually complete before 9:30 AM ET. An alert will be sent once allocations are complete, and you can check your account to determine whether you were allocated shares. If you receive an allocation of shares, you must have adequate funds available to settle the purchase in the settlement date which is typically the trade date plus one business day. 5) You may increase your indication of interest up through the close of the indication of interest period. You may decrease or cancel an indication of interest until share allocation takes place. Once share allocation takes place, your indication may not be canceled or modified. Charles Schwab: 1) $100,000 minimum account balance required to participate (including IRAs, individual, etc, but excluding 401k). 2) On Schwab's website, under the Trade tab, select the IPO page to view the Calendar of Offerings, a list of upcoming IPOs. Once the IPO offering window opens (expected first week of June), investors will have the ability to submit a Conditional Offer to Purchase (COTP), also known as an Indication of Interest, from this page. 3) During an IPO's open COTP window, select Start COTP to review offering details and the preliminary prospectus. Then select the green button to proceed to the Eligibility Questionnaire, which is required to confirm investors meet eligibility criteria and are not restricted (per FINRA rules) from participating. After completing the questionnaire, you'll be able to indicate how many shares you're interested in purchasing based on the price range provided. Select Confirm to submit the COTP. 4) After the COTP has been submitted, regularly monitor the IPO page, which will indicate the Status of Your Conditional Offers to Purchase (COTPs), the expected pricing date, and current pricing status, plus any changes in the prospectus. When the IPO has been priced, you will affirm your COTP. You must affirm your COTP once the effective price is established in order to be eligible to purchase shares. To do so, select Affirm Now to review and finalize the share quantity. Robinhood: 1) There's no minimum account size requirement, but you must have enough buying power to cover your requested shares if you are allocated any. You must have an individual brokerage account. Retirement, custodial, and multiple investing accounts are not eligible for IPO Access. 2) Make sure IPO Access is enabled in your Robinhood app. Turn on your IPO notifications so that Robinhood notifies you when the SpaceX IPO comes online. 3) Request Shares: Once the IPO is announced and available, you can request shares through the app or website. This is a request for IPO shares. By placing a conditional offer to buy (COB), you’re asking for the opportunity to purchase a quantity of shares at the IPO price. An investor may place, edit, or cancel a COB after the initial price range is published and before the confirmation period ends. 4) Allocation is random and not guaranteed. The number of shares you request factors into how many you actually get, but it doesn’t affect the likelihood that you’ll get any allocation. You may get all, some, or none of the IPO shares you request. E*Trade: 1) E*TRADE does not publicly list a specific minimum account size required to participate in IPOs, but contact them to double check. That said, allocation priority for “hot” IPOs may still favor larger or more active accounts in practice, even if there’s no official minimum balance requirement. 2) Be a U.S. resident, have an active E*TRADE account (Individual, Joint and IRAs are all eligible) and complete the investor profile questionnaire. 3) Sign up for IPO alerts. 4) Submit a conditional offer to buy ("COB"). As part of this submission, you specify the number of shares and the maximum price you are willing to pay per share. COBs can only be submitted via the New Issue Center. A COB may be submitted once an offering is listed as "open" up until the status is changed to "closed." COBs that have already been submitted may be amended or cancelled after an offering is "closed" up until the status is changed to "allocate." At this point, no further changes may be made to a COB and you are bound by the terms of your COB. If there is no material change in an offering, customers will not need to reconfirm their COBs. If you have submitted a conditional offer, you must have available buying power to cover the full amount of your conditional offer in the account through which you submitted the conditional offer. 5) Shares are allocated to eligible accounts as a proportion, or percentage, of the size of their COB. The percentage is based primarily on the number of shares provided to E*TRADE for sale to its customers and the size of the overall demand for shares from E*TRADE's customers. Given the expected high demand for this offering and the limited availability of shares available for sale to E*TRADE customers, many COBs may not be allocated shares (according to E*Trade). Additionally, in many instances, allocations will be significantly smaller than the size of shares requested in a customer's COB. 6) E*TRADE makes its allocations after the pricing of the overall offering but before the stock begins trading. E*TRADE will inform customers via alert or email whether they have been allocated shares. Any allocation should be reflected in the relevant customer account once that allocation has been processed by E*TRADE. Sofi: 1) There is no minimum account balance/size requirement. Have an active Self-Directed Invest account. 2) Go to the “IPO Investing” section in the app or website 3) Select the IPO 4) Complete the IPO suitability questionnaire 5) Submit an “Indication of Interest” (IOI), which is basically a non-binding request for shares. 6) When the IPO is officially priced, SoFi will notify you to confirm your order. NOTE: Don’t be surprised if you receive fewer IPO shares than you requested, or none at all. Demand for the limited number of IPO shares available to retail investors will likely be extremely high, and each participating brokerage will only receive a limited allocation of shares to distribute to retail investors. For our international friends, keep in mind that @SpaceX said in their S-1 filing that allocations will also be made to retail investors by the underwriters, which include: • Goldman Sachs • Morgan Stanley • Bank of America • Citigroup • J.P. Morgan • Barclays • Deutsche Bank Securities • RBC Capital Markets • UBS Investment Bank • Wells Fargo Securities • Allen & Company • Cantor • Needham & Company • Raymond James • Societe Generale • Stifel • William Blair • BTG Pactual • ING • Macquarie Capital • Mirae Asset Securities • Mizuho • Santander so you can try reaching out to one of these places if you have assets with them and you may be able to request an allocation of some shares. I've already seen that happen with some Goldman Sachs clients. Lastly, and I stated this in a previous post, @SpaceX specifically stated in their S-1 filing that any purchase of their Class A common stock in this offering through these platforms will be at the same IPO price, and at the same time, as any other purchases in this offering, including purchases by institutions and other large investors, which means any retail investors that are lucky enough to get allocated some SpaceX IPO shares will pay the same price as the big guys. This will likely be the largest retail IPO share allocation in history, by far. If you have more questions, reach out directly to your brokerage and/or bank. And no, this post wasn't written by AI lol. Not financial advice.

Cute meme… but here’s my perspective as a Black American who is tired of emotional manipulation replacing serious discussion. I absolutely acknowledge the evil of slavery in American history. That filthy Democrat stain was real. But I also refuse to pretend every modern failure in Black America traces back only to 1865 while ignoring what is happening right now in our neighborhoods. I live where these democrat policies land. I see: fatherless homes failing schools overdose epidemics crime normalized young men without direction businesses leaving and politicians showing up every election cycle with more symbolism instead of measurable results. The question many of us are asking now is simple: If you Democrats care so deeply about Black suffering… why are the cities they’ve controlled for 40, 50, even 60 years still collapsing? Why are so many Black children trapped in dysfunction generations later? Why are law abiding Black families forced to live among chaos while elites lecture us about “equity”? And on reparations… serious people ask serious questions: Who pays? Who qualifies? How far back? What about mixed ethnicity Americans like myself? What about Black immigrants whose families were never enslaved here? What about descendants of abolitionists? Those are not hateful questions. Those are logical questions. What I want is not performative guilt politics. I want: safe neighborhoods strong families ownership discipline excellent schools economic mobility and truth. No government check can repair a civilization that refuses to confront cultural collapse honestly. That is where I stand. #SilentMajoritySpeaks #AStoneGroove

🚨Alert!!! 🎸 New Spencer Pratt Music Video just dropped. Late night drive music. Neon lights. Heartbreak. Regret. VUELVE A MÍ is out now. 🌃🔥 Probably my most cinematic one yet. 🎬 Watch here: #VuelveAMi #LatinMusic #Cinematic #Trending #MayorofLA #Storytelling #MusicVideo #AIArt #VisualStorytelling #Hope #CityOfDreams #SpencerPratt #VibeVideo #LosAngeles #MovieME @spencerpratt @MayorOfLA

In Auschwitz, my mother taught me three rules. Not stories. Not prayers. Rules. The kind that kept you alive. Rule one: Never make eye contact with a guard. Rule two: Never show that you are sick. Rule three: Never, ever, lose your bowl. I was five years old. I memorized them the way other children memorize nursery rhymes. The bowl was a small tin thing. Dented. Scratched. It held whatever thin soup they gave us once a day. If you lost your bowl, you had no bowl. If you had no bowl, you had no ration. If you had no ration, you understand. I guarded that bowl with everything I had. I slept with it. I held it against my chest during roll call. I knew where it was every second of every day. Then one morning, I fell into the latrine. There is no delicate way to say this. The latrines in Auschwitz were wooden boards with holes cut into them over a pit. The holes were large. I was very small. I was in a hurry. I slipped. I went in up to my neck. The smell. The cold. The rats. I do not need to describe it. Your mind already knows. My mother tried to pull me out. She could not. I was slippery and she had no strength. None of us had strength. We had not eaten properly in months. She called out. Other women came. Together they pulled me free. Someone found a hose. They sprayed me down in the cold air while I stood there shaking. I did not cry. Rule number one in Auschwitz was the same rule everywhere, do not attract attention. But I got sick. Very sick. The kind of sick that comes from rats and filth and cold water and a body that has nothing left to fight with. And I remembered Rule Two, never show that you are sick. I hid it from everyone. From the guards. From the other children. Even from my mother, because I knew if she knew, she would do something. And doing something in Auschwitz got you killed. But someone saw. I do not know who. I do not know why they helped me instead of reporting me. I never knew. They took me to a room, a makeshift hospital. I lay in a bed, a real bed, not a wooden bunk, for the first time since we had arrived. I do not remember much of what happened next. The fever blurred everything. Days passed like smoke. When I came out, I still had my bowl. I had held it even in the latrine. Even in the fever. Even in the dark when I did not know where I was or what day it was. My mother looked at me when I came back. She looked at the bowl. She did not say anything. She just nodded, the way she nodded when something had gone the way it needed to go. People ask me what survival looks like. I tell them, sometimes it looks like a five year old girl climbing out of a latrine in a death camp, covered in filth, shaking with cold, still holding her tin bowl. Because she knew that the bowl was the difference between eating and not eating. Between living and not. Because her mother had told her. And she had listened. I am Tova Friedman. I fell into a latrine in Auschwitz at five years old. I came out still holding my bowl. Tova. #NeverForget #Survival #DaughterOfAuschwitz #ShesStillHere #TheirNamesLiveOn

Marc, remember, all that Ag land is taxed. So, at a minimum, growers need to find a way to expense the tax. And, when properties pass to heirs, the tax is often stepped up in basis, and the need to offset the cost of the tax increases. Let’s not be surprised that landowners find a way to generate income from their land using resources at hand, such as water, to pay that tax.

I blame datacenters.

𝐌𝐀𝐌𝐃𝐀𝐍𝐈’𝐒 $𝟕𝟎 𝐌𝐈𝐋𝐋𝐈𝐎𝐍 𝐆𝐎𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐍𝐌𝐄𝐍𝐓 𝐆𝐑𝐎𝐂𝐄𝐑𝐘 𝐒𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐄𝐒 — $𝟑𝟎 𝐌𝐈𝐋𝐋𝐈𝐎𝐍 𝐅𝐎𝐑 𝐎𝐍𝐄 — 𝐇𝐀𝐕𝐄 𝐏𝐑𝐈𝐕𝐀𝐓𝐄 𝐆𝐑𝐎𝐂𝐄𝐑𝐒 𝐏𝐀𝐍𝐈𝐂𝐊𝐈𝐍𝐆 “𝘐𝘧 𝘐 𝘭𝘰𝘴𝘦 30%, 𝘐’𝘮 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘣𝘭𝘦. 𝘐 𝘸𝘰𝘯’𝘵 𝘣𝘦 𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘱𝘢𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘵. 𝘐 𝘸𝘰𝘯’𝘵 𝘣𝘦 𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘱𝘢𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘬𝘦𝘳𝘴.” — 𝘓𝘶𝘯𝘢, 𝘢 𝘏𝘢𝘳𝘭𝘦𝘮 𝘨𝘳𝘰𝘤𝘦𝘳 𝘰𝘧 45 𝘺𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘴 Mamdani’s city-owned grocery plan, and the people it’s about to flatten: — The price tag: he wants $70 million for five city-run stores, with the single Harlem location, La Marqueta, carrying 𝐚 $𝟑𝟎 𝐦𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐚𝐠 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐞 — roughly four times what a normal supermarket costs to build. — The rigged field: the government stores pay 𝐧𝐨 𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐭, 𝐧𝐨 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐭𝐲 𝐭𝐚𝐱𝐞𝐬, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐧𝐨 𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐞𝐬, all of it covered by taxpayers, so they undercut the private grocers who pay all three. — The casualties: independent and minority-owned grocers say they’ll 𝐥𝐨𝐬𝐞 𝟑𝟎 𝐭𝐨 𝟒𝟎% 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐫 𝐜𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐬 and go under — Luna, who built his store over 45 years, says he couldn’t make rent or payroll against subsidized competition. — The shut-out: the owners 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝𝐧’𝐭 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧 𝐠𝐞𝐭 𝐚 𝐦𝐞𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐚𝐲𝐨𝐫 — their one opening is a city council hearing next week. This is the oldest socialist trick there is, dressed up as compassion. The city taxes a man who spent 45 years building a grocery store, then uses his own money to open a competitor that never has to pay rent, taxes, or utilities. Economists already project the flagship store loses money year after year — $30 million to build something designed to bleed cash and bury the businesses that actually work. That isn’t lowering grocery prices. It’s nationalizing a block of the economy and calling it kindness. 𝐀 $𝟑𝟎 𝐦𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐛𝐮𝐢𝐥𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐥𝐨𝐬𝐞 𝐦𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐲 — 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐛𝐮𝐫𝐲 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐠𝐫𝐨𝐜𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐰𝐡𝐨 𝐝𝐨𝐧’𝐭.

Hey @BernieSanders -- I need your help. Seriously. I have a student. Young man, just graduated, earned his welding certifications, 18 years old. Knows how to do real work, produce a real product, contribute something tangible to this country. Good kid. His family kicked him out the day he graduated. Homeless. No safety net. Just his certs and whatever he could carry out the door. Now, Senator, YOU are the guy I always hear talking about this. You have built your ENTIRE career on the idea that when someone has more than they need, and someone else has nothing, the people with excess have a moral obligation to help. Government redistribution. Take from those who have, give to those who are in need. You have said this for FORTY YEARS. So I am coming to you. Sincerely. This kid needs a roof. You own three houses, Senator. One in Burlington. One beachfront property in North Hero, Vermont. One in Washington, D.C. He needs ONE. You believe in this, right? This is literally the core of everything you preach. A skilled young man -- someone who will actually WORK, who actually PRODUCES something, unlike people whose career highlight is naming three post offices -- has nothing. And you have three properties sitting there. So here is where I get a little confused, Senator. See, I thought maybe you would just... hand him one. Lead by example. Be the change. But then I remembered you just spent $221,000 in a SINGLE QUARTER chartering a Bombardier Challenger 604 -- that is $15,000 AN HOUR -- to fly around the country on your "Fighting Oligarchy" tour. Because, as you so eloquently put it when asked about it: "You think I'm gonna be sitting on a waiting line at United?" No apologies. So let me make sure I have this right. The government should redistribute wealth to help people like my student -- but YOU personally, with three houses and a private jet habit, are too important to inconvenience yourself. Got it. Quinn's Law Twenty-Five. Go look it up. I'll wait. You are not a champion of the Proletariat, Senator. You are a SNOLLYGOSTER of the first order -- a cacafuego who has built a career selling a product he has never once used himself. A gascon. All promises, no precipitation. Cloud without rain for forty years running. Socialism does not lift people out of poverty. It never has. What it DOES produce -- reliably, historically, every single time -- is people exactly like you. Three houses. Private jets. No apologies. We call those people oligarchs, Senator. I believe you have used that word yourself. Recently. From a $15,000-an-hour airplane. But what do I know -- I am only a science teacher whose student is sleeping on someone else's floor tonight while the self-appointed champion of the working class decides which of his three vacation homes to visit next. IF you agree: LIKE this post so the algorithm shows it to people who need to read it. SHARE this. COMMENT below -- Do you think Bernie is obligated to offer this kid a room? Tell me. 👇 JOIN Bski's Classroom community on X or YouTube. @JoJoFromJerz @GuntherEagleman @catturd2 #MAGA #Veterans #Trump

🚨 JUST IN: Fraud Czar JD Vance just dropped a BOMBSHELL saying Nick Shirley has been 100% VINDICATED, $90M in fraud has been raided in Minnesota, and more is coming "In one of the most horrifying cases charged today, a recipient who needed 24-hour care was supposed to be receiving exactly that through a Minnesota Medicaid benefit program. But he received nothing...he was found dead." "One day before this man died, the fraudster in question had tried to bill for the non-existent services, the services that if they had been provided, this man might actually be with us today!" "I was shocked when I watched @nickshirleyy's bombshell investigation of migrant fraud in Minnesota, which called attention to the now infamous Quality Learing Center." "This morning, the ringleader of the $250 million Feeding Our Future Fraud Scheme in Minnesota was sentenced in federal court to over 40 years in prison, bringing justice to the countless schoolchildren and families she had scammed. And on top of that, today, federal law enforcement launched a massive raid in Minneapolis!" "Across the city, agents have arrested 15 people for suspected fraud that amounted to $90 million." "In 2018, Minnesota tried to provide housing services for the homeless. They estimated that the cost of the program would be $2.5 million a year. By 2024, the program had exploded to $104 million annually, and almost all of that, almost all of it, was because of fraud." "As a result, the state had to shut down the program and can no longer provide those services to Americans in need!" "The victims in the cases announced by DOJ today also include disabled Americans who rely on community support to live full, independent lives." "If you're committing fraud, our task force will find you. We'll come after you, and we will not rest until justice is served. Don't defraud the American taxpayer."

𝐁𝐋𝐀𝐂𝐊 𝐂𝐎𝐌𝐌𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐀𝐓𝐎𝐑 𝐎𝐍 𝐏𝐑𝐄𝐒𝐒𝐋𝐄𝐘’𝐒 ‘𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐘𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐁𝐔𝐈𝐋𝐓 𝐎𝐍 𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐁𝐀𝐂𝐊𝐒’: 𝐒𝐋𝐀𝐕𝐄 𝐋𝐀𝐁𝐎𝐑 𝐖𝐀𝐒 ~𝟏𝟐% 𝐎𝐅 𝟏𝟖𝟔𝟎 𝐆𝐍𝐏 “𝘌𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺 𝘣𝘪𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘺 𝘸𝘦 𝘦𝘯𝘫𝘰𝘺 𝘵𝘰𝘥𝘢𝘺 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘣𝘶𝘪𝘭𝘵 𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘣𝘢𝘤𝘬𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘣𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘬 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦. 𝘐𝘯 1860, 𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘵 12 𝘵𝘰 13% 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘎𝘕𝘗 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘥𝘪𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘭𝘺 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘴𝘭𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘭𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘳. 𝘈𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘵 15% 𝘰𝘧 𝘣𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘬 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘪𝘯 𝘴𝘰𝘶𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘯 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘴. 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘯𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘩 𝘸𝘢𝘴 22 𝘮𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘱𝘰𝘱𝘶𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯, 65-70% 𝘰𝘧 𝘎𝘕𝘗, 𝘥𝘰𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘶𝘧𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘧𝘰𝘰𝘥 𝘤𝘳𝘰𝘱𝘴. 𝘚𝘵𝘰𝘱 𝘭𝘺𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘩𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘺.” — 𝘵𝘩𝘦_𝘫𝘦𝘧𝘧𝘦𝘳𝘺𝘮𝘦𝘢𝘥, 𝘰𝘯 𝘤𝘢𝘮𝘦𝘳𝘢 The historical receipts Jefferymead put on the table against Ayanna Pressley: — The arithmetic foundation: in 1860, 𝐬𝐥𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐥𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐫 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐝𝐮𝐜𝐞𝐝 𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐱𝐢𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐥𝐲 𝟏𝟐-𝟏𝟑% 𝐨𝐟 𝐔𝐒 𝐆𝐍𝐏. The remaining 87-88% came from free labor in the north, free labor in the south, immigrant labor, manufacturing, finance, shipping, railroads, and commerce. — The population split: 22 million in the north vs 9 million in the south. 𝟏𝟓% 𝐨𝐟 𝐛𝐥𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐀𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐧𝐬 𝐥𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐝 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐧 𝐬𝐥𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐬. The other 85% lived in northern free states where their labor was paid. — The 𝟒𝟎𝟎-𝐲𝐞𝐚𝐫 𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐡 𝐜𝐨𝐫𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧: Pressley said 400 years of labor. First slaves arrived in 1619. Civil War ended 1865. Total: 246 years. By 2019 (400 years after 1619), the US had elected a Black president and seated a Black Supreme Court justice. The number is wrong by 60%. — The reframe Jefferymead is offering his own community: 𝐟𝐨𝐜𝐮𝐬 𝐨𝐧 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐛𝐥𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐀𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐧𝐬 𝐧𝐞𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐃𝐎 𝐠𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐝, not what they should be receiving as restitution for a number that was inflated. Played a role. Did not play the role. What gets missed in the reparations debate is the math Jefferymead just walked through. The Pressley framing requires “everything” to have been built on slave labor; the historical record requires “roughly an eighth.” The political project depends on inflating the smaller number to claim ownership of the larger one — and Jefferymead just refused to participate in it from inside the community Pressley claims to speak for. 𝐒𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐚𝐢𝐝 ‘𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠.’ 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝟏𝟖𝟔𝟎 𝐆𝐍𝐏 𝐬𝐚𝐢𝐝 ‘𝐭𝐰𝐞𝐥𝐯𝐞 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐜𝐞𝐧𝐭.’

On January 6th I followed the crowd into the Capitol and shouted. Police stood by the whole time, hanging out with us and sometimes directing us places. At one point near the House Chambers I was walking downstairs when a trio of some special section, secret service looking men started pointing guns in my direction. Confused and annoyed, I walked the other way and when I saw a normal police officer asked him why they were doing that. He informed me a protestor (Ashli Babbit) had been killed, and advised me to leave the building. I walked towards the exit and after a short rest on the bench I left. I harmed nobody and damaged no property that day and complied with all police orders. What I received for that was a pre-dawn raid at my parents house, where my 1 month post-partum wife and I were staying, on Biden's first day in office. His DOJ had signed the order to arrest me 3 hours after his inauguration. In the subsequent weeks I received death threats online and harassing phone calls, something that would be ongoing for the next few years. I was banned from Meta and Paypal. My wife and I were both debanked by PNC and banned from Airbnb. My wife was detained at the airport for hours with our newborn daughter. I was charged with 4 misdemeanors and the 1512 unconstitutional felony. The government offered to drop the misdemeanors if I pled to the felony. The felony was a lie, so I refused and went to trial. At trial the prosecution for 2 days straight was allowed to show footage to the jury of things that occurred around the Capitol I wasn't present for "for context." When we asked to put forward footage that contradicted the prosecution's "context" we were not allowed. They could show what they wanted, we could not. Police officers were then put on the stand for the next 2 days who cried about their experiences. I had no idea who they were. They admitted they never saw me or interacted with me. Nevertheless like every other J6er, I lost, and was sentenced to 4 years and $22k in fines and restitution. Yet even after the Supreme Court overturned the felony, the judge would not let me out until my misdemeanor sentences of a year were maxed out. Because she can't count she actually kept me in longer - to the extent she intervened at the last minute to make the prison release me on a Sunday, something that is against BOP rules. My family sat outside the prison gates the Friday before practically the whole day waiting in vain because of this pettiness. But the government wasn't satisfied with their pound of flesh: after my release they took me back in for resentencing, to attempt to have me resentenced after the fact to my misdemeanors consecutively, so I'd be taken from my family again and have another 1.5 years behind bars. This time I won, as they had no legal precedent and it skirted on violating double jeopardy since I had served my full prison time. Even still, it cast a cloud over the holidays and cost me another 20k my family couldn't afford. People ask whether prison was bad, and yeah of course prison sucked. It was a hard and violent place. I was present for a stabbing, and was lucky to avoid two fights and a race war. But dealing with Biden's DOJ and the DC Judiciary was the real trauma - they would grind down your spirit by weaponizing the legal system and use the endless procedure to bankrupt you. I had nightmares for months after release that I had somehow been hit with new charges. By the time I was pardoned by President Trump, I had spent literally every single day of Biden's presidency either in prison or under some form of supervision. I had incurred over $300k in legal fees and over $1 million in lost business. It was a reign of terror, and yet it was a mere foreshadowing of what they had planned for anyone else who opposed them under Kamala. The country should never forget it.

Unreal. The DAY I released this video detailing how Karen Bass and Nithya Raman are paying unscrupulous NGOs to increase drug use & hand out needles, one of these NGOs on Karen's payroll gets busted for distributing fentanyl. Karen Bass is destroying LA with your $. VOTE NOW!!!

This article is smaller in scope than usual, but I was genuinely curious about why the usual pro-democracy groups were involved in Block the Merger campaign.

Bob Woodson was an American hero, a courageous voice for truth, and a faithful friend. His impact on this nation and on countless lives will not be forgotten. He will be deeply missed. ❤️

Adys Lastres Morera is the sister of the Executive President of GAESA, the Cuban military-controlled financial conglomerate that steals millions in aid for the Cuban people at the behest of the regime. Morera was managing real estate assets and living in Florida, while also aiding Havana's communist regime, until I terminated her permanent resident status. I am pleased to announce that today, she was arrested and is now in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. There will be nowhere on this Earth - much less in our country - where foreign nationals who threaten our national security can live lavishly.

Please do a quick read of this. It’s short, well written, and will remove a bit of wool from over your eyes.

I am confused. I genuinely, spectacularly confused. @grahamformaine, I thought you were a socialist? No, really — I am asking sincerely. Because what you just described — "they want you to own nothing, they want you to rent your car, your house, your ENTIRE LIFE from a billionaire class that owns everything around you" — Sir. THAT IS THE LITERAL DEFINITION OF SOCIALISM. That is not a critique of the right. That is the World Economic Forum's "You Will Own Nothing and Be Happy" pitch. That is Karl Marx's endgame, word for word. The "billionaire class" you are screaming about? In EVERY socialist country in human history — the Soviet Union, Maoist China, Castro's Cuba, Maduro's Venezuela — that billionaire class IS the government. The party. YOUR TEAM. The people whose policies you are out here campaigning to implement. You just walked up to a podium and accidentally argued against your own platform. Congratulations. I have seen more self-awareness in a goldfish at feeding time. Quinn's Law Number 17: "Being a liberal is the art of standing on one's own head and telling the rest of the world that they are upside down." Sir, you are practically doing a handstand. And then — bless your heart and your clearly nonexistent brain cells — you pivoted to screaming "FASCISM." Masked agents. Kidnapping. Military adventures weaponized against political enemies. What you are describing as fascism is called ENFORCING EXISTING FEDERAL LAW. That concept is in Article II of the Constitution, which I am starting to suspect you have never read. You know what your party did for four years? Used the FBI to target nearly 100 Republican organizations. Surveilled political opponents. Weaponized the DOJ against a presidential candidate. Senator Grassley has the receipts. But sure. Tell me more about fascism, you absolute mountebank. The irony is so thick you could spread it on toast. You are a snollygoster with a microphone and a campaign banner, running on dial-up in a fiber-optic world, telling the crowd that the thing your ideology LITERALLY PROMISES is the thing you are going to protect them from. I would not trust you to run a lemonade stand at a county fair, much less a U.S. Senate seat. Here is a civics note, free of charge: The road to a government-controlled economy where citizens own nothing is NOT paved by conservatives. It is paved by every progressive policy that replaces personal ownership with state dependency — the same dependency model Democrats have been running since the antebellum South. Different century. Same play. Different chains. But what do I know — I am only a science teacher who has actually read Marx, Engels, the Federalist Papers, AND the Constitution, which is apparently four more books than you have gotten through. --- IF you agree: LIKE this post so the algorithm shows it to people who need to read it. SHARE this COMMENT below — name ONE socialist country where the PEOPLE ended up owning everything. I will wait. JOIN Bski's Classroom community on X or YouTube. @JoJoFromJerz @GuntherEagleman @catturd2 #MAGA #Veterans #Trump

Bien de Giffen En la Escocia victoriana de finales del siglo XIX, un economista muy observador llamado Robert Giffen notó algo que desafiaba todo el sentido común de las curvas de demanda convencionales. Entre las familias más pobres, cuando el precio de las papas, el alimento básico y barato, subía, su consumo no disminuía; aumentaba. La razón era brutalmente sencilla. El encarecimiento reducía tanto el poder adquisitivo real que los hogares ya no podían permitirse siquiera pequeñas cantidades de carne o alimentos más caros. Para sobrevivir, destinaban aún más de su menguado presupuesto a comprar el bien inferior que, pese a todo, seguía siendo el más asequible. El efecto ingreso negativo devoraba al efecto sustitución. Nacía así el concepto de bien de Giffen: un bien inferior cuya demanda crece paradójicamente cuando su precio se eleva, porque la pérdida de renta real obliga a consumir aún más de lo barato y prescindir de lo menos asequible. Esta anomalía, lejos de ser una curiosidad de laboratorio, revela una verdad profunda sobre cómo responden los seres humanos a los incentivos distorsionados cuando su margen de maniobra cae al mínimo. Los regímenes socialistas y las políticas redistributivas contemporáneas han reproducido este fenómeno a escala masiva, aunque jamás lo reconocerían. Con subsidios generosos, controles de precios y programas de «ayuda» estatal expandida, crean exactamente las condiciones del bien de Giffen: reducen el costo percibido de la dependencia mientras erosionan simultáneamente la capacidad de generar ingresos independientes. Cuanto más «barato» se vuelve permanecer en el sistema, gracias a transferencias, vivienda protegida, atención sanitaria disfrazada de gratuita y subsidios cruzados, mayor es la cantidad de personas que consumen ese «bien inferior» llamado asistencia estatal y menor la que invierte esfuerzo en salir de él. El efecto ingreso negativo es demoledor: la renta real disponible para el trabajo productivo se contrae, los salarios netos después de sustraer impuestos y desincentivos se vuelven menos atractivos y la trampa de la pobreza se profundiza. «Más ayuda» no reduce la pobreza; la hace más cómoda y, por tanto, más demandada. Venezuela, con sus bonos, sus bolsas CLAP y sus subsidios energéticos, vio cómo la población dependiente del Estado crecía al ritmo que colapsaban los incentivos productivos. Argentina bajo el peronismo recurrente repitió la receta: controles de precios que abarataban artificialmente ciertos bienes básicos terminaban generando colas más largas y mayor reclamo de más controles y más subsidios. El círculo se cierra entonces. La «solución» empeora el problema que supuestamente resuelve. En contraste, los mercados abiertos operan con bienes normales y superiores. Cuando el precio de un bien sube, la gente busca sustitutos, innova o produce más. La competencia y la propiedad privada disipan rápidamente los errores locales. Nadie necesita un subsidio creciente para motivar al panadero a hornear más pan; basta con que pueda quedarse con el fruto de su esfuerzo. La curva de oferta responde, la de demanda se ajusta y la pobreza se reduce por creación de riqueza, no por repartición de escasez. La izquierda contemporánea, con su fe en el Estado como gran nivelador, sigue tropezando una y otra vez con esta paradoja económica. Cada nuevo programa de «justicia social» que abarata la dependencia termina aumentando la cantidad de dependientes, exigiendo presupuestos aún mayores y justificando más intervención. El bien de Giffen se convierte en política pública permanente. La lección es tan clara como incómoda. Cuando se manipulan los precios relativos y se socializan los costos del fracaso personal, no se combate la pobreza; se convierte en un bien de demanda creciente. Y el presupuesto público, como la cesta de la familia irlandesa, termina dedicando una porción cada vez mayor a comprar más de lo mismo que supuestamente debía desaparecer.

A Seattle judge said we couldn't show the faces of the 33 Antifa & anti-Israel radicals who caused over $1 million in damage to the brand new engineering building at UW in May. So here are their faces & names: Tayler Hart Max Rulff Zachary Wallaced-Wells Jade Wu, Jessica Schutz Luisa Ortega Subdiaz Ginger Newberry Kimaya Mahajan Gina Liu Lea Keating Akira Junyaprusert Anna Hattle Julia Fraczek Cade Jackson Jonas Piper Ty Park Lucy Zern Tasbeet Iman Ricardo Colon-Galvez Roberta Collison Ella Tunduwani Zainab Chattha Riley Centerwall Catherine Brown Brett Anton Claire Berger Yasmin Ahmed Yafate Yared Geneveve Konijisky Finn Brown Bailey Keen Lucas Nichols-Mcauslan and Sam Sueoka. It was all a matter of public record long before the judge made the ruling. KOMO News made this handy collage. Please share