<North Carolina's Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson announced his candidacy for governor last week, making him the second Republican to join the race, according to reports.

"Today, we make it official. I am running for governor of North Carolina," Robinson said to the crowd of supporters at the Ace Speedway in Altamahaw, Yahoo reports.

Robinson said voters want a governor who has "lived through the struggles of everyday North Carolinians."

"I know what it's like to grow up poor in a household mired by alcoholism, violence, and I certainly know what it's like to lose a job from no fault of your own. You desperately need it," Robinson said.

"I know what it's like to face financial hardship or lose your house, or declare bankruptcy. I know what it's like to lay awake at night, that gnawing feeling keeps you up wondering how you're going to pay your bills," he continued.

As Yahoo reports, Robinson noted that his election as North Carolina's first Black lieutenant governor in 2020 "is a testament that anything in our state and nation is possible."

Following his announcement, a video surfaced from Robinson’s speech at the 2021 North Carolina Republican Party State Convention. In the clip, he tells Black people "It is you who owes" reparations, The Black Wall Street Times reports.

"If you wanna tell the truth about it, it is you who owes. It is you who owes,'" said Robinson.

"Why do you owe? Because somebody in those fields took stripes for you. Somebody had to walk through Jim Crow for you. Somebody fought wars and died for you. Somebody lived less than because they didn't have what you have, and they did it for you," Robinson explained.>

<When Silicon Valley Bank was busy imploding earlier this year, and depositors were pulling their money out of shaky lenders to put it in safer-looking banks, the joke was that everyone was going to end up banking with JP Morgan. Now that the US uber-lender has agreed to acquire most of First Republic, another stricken bank, the gag is even less funny.

Make no mistake, this is yet another bailout. First Republic – like SVB and Signature Bank before it – was seized by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) before the sale was hastily arranged. The regulator has agreed to share the burden of any losses, which are expected to cost the FDIC something in the order of $13bn.

Jamie Dimon, JP Morgan’s chief executive, wanted to make it crystal clear whose idea this all was: “Our government invited us and others to step up, and we did.” The bank’s finance chief double underlined the point on a call after the acquisition was announced: "We did not seek out this deal.”

How did it come to this? Just under two months ago we passed the 15-year anniversary of the investment bank Bear Stearns being rescued from collapse by JP Morgan amid the global financial crisis. One of the key lessons then was that many banks had become “too big to fail”.

Getting the biggest lenders to swallow up smaller rivals was therefore seen as somewhat perverse at best and positively counterproductive at worst.

Over the subsequent decade and a half, global financial regulators have had countless meetings in airless rooms trying to figure out how banks could be safely wound down in other ways without jeopardising the wider economy.

Lenders are undoubtedly far better capitalised than they were in the lead up to the financial crisis. Nevertheless, as we saw with the collapse of Credit Suisse, strong capital and liquidity ratios offer meagre protection if depositors and investors take fright.

Regulators have also introduced new forms of debt that can be written off in a crisis and should – in theory – protect depositors in the event of even pretty large losses. Thanks to lobbying by many mid-sized US banks, this only applied to the largest lenders. And so, Dimon has been asked to ride to the rescue once again.

We may have only suspected it before the wobbles of the last few months but now we know for sure: following almost 15 years of intense effort, the authorities remain concerned that, when push comes to shove, even quite small lenders would make too much of a mess were they to be allowed to die a natural death.

Financial regulators are often accused of fighting the last war. There are elements of truth in that. For example, derivatives fell out of favour following the financial crisis while government debt was considered a safe haven. But part of SVB’s problem was that it held too much government debt. This lost value as interest rates rose. Ideally, the bank’s management team should have hedged some of that risk with, you guessed it, derivatives.

But at times it seems like regulators are actually fighting an unwinnable war. Banks use liquid liabilities (deposits) to fund relatively illiquid assets that are hard to value (everything from mortgages to derivatives). This is simultaneously both their raison d’etre and their fatal flaw. It means banks are inherently unstable and prone to failure; you can make lenders safer but never completely safe.

Charles Goodhart of the London School of Economics recently highlighted what he called the trilemma of financial policy. Everybody wants sustained growth, low inflation and financial stability. The trouble is, it's almost impossible to maintain all three for long....>

Nice try--the lurker <does not> get to dictate content here.

<....Following the financial crisis, loose monetary policy helped to boost growth. But financial stability was maintained less by new regulations than the fact that interest rates were so low. When central banks were blindsided by high inflation they started to increase rates, financial fragilities started bubbling to the surface.

The recent travails of banks on both sides of the Atlantic augur for a period of tighter regulation as policy makers double down on their current approach. But this has big downsides. It may calm the markets for a time but it will also increase the cost of lending, especially to SMEs, and may even push the economy into a recession. “It is, at best, only a very short-term solution and will increase systemic risk in the longer term,” says Goodhart.

Policymakers are always trying to strike a balance: tighten the rules and slow economic growth or loosen constraints and deal with more frequent crises. This calculation is complicated because it's not binary: tighten the rules too much and the risk might spill out into the less regulated shadow banking system and cause who-knows-what problems.

So what’s the alternative? The first step, according to Goodhart, is for regulators to stop kidding themselves that they can identify and measure – much less manage – all the risks in an infinitely complex financial system. This is the flawed thinking that underpins post-2008 regulatory policy and is the reason why – as we have seen with SVB, Credit Suisse and now First Republic – it has failed.

Such an approach essentially means almost all banks are protecting themselves against the same risks in the same ways. Stress testing, for example, looks at whether banks have the financial wherewithal to withstand specific scenarios. But when something unexpected happens, as it has a habit of doing, everyone gets spooked and the whole herd stampedes in the same direction. In this way, regulation can actually increase systemic risk.

Far better, Goodhart argues, for regulators to encourage new entrants to the financial industry and a variety of different business models. That may be easier said than done. For one thing, the current high regulatory burden makes it next to impossible for new entrants to break into the industry. For another, if one business model proves to be particularly lucrative, what’s to stop a slew of copycats?

That being said, he’s definitely right that we need a rethink because the status quo clearly isn’t good enough. Time to head back to those airless rooms.>

Nah, as someone who drinks but sparingly, I prefer to leave those rough mornings to someone who is better at them, like yourself--more practice and all that, don't you know.

<A Philadelphia Phillies announcer made a hilarious gaffe on Monday night when attempting to read a bobblehead promotion on the air. The slip up resulted in an accidental lewd remark, which has now gone viral on social media.

The mistake came in a matchup between the Phillies and Dodgers, with the bobblehead giveaway set to honor former Philadelphia legend Dick Allen.

Allen spent the first seven seasons of his MLB career with the organization, being named an All-Star in three of those campaigns. He’d later return to Philly at the end of his Major League tenure, spending two of his final three seasons in the City of Brotherly Love.

In 1964, he was named Rookie of the Year after leading the league in runs scored and total bases. He hit a career-best .318 that season.

The corner infielder also played for the Cardinals, White Sox, Dodgers, and A’s.

The team plans to honor Allen with a bobblehead promotion later in the season. Unfortunately, the initial introduction of that giveaway came out in the worst possible way.

Phillies announcer Kevin Stocker tried to read off the promotion in a recent game, but his on-air attempt failed miserably.

Fans online were quick to react.

One person wrote, “To be fair, he was kinda doomed from the start.” It certainly seemed that he was set up to fail with that line.

Another follower commented, “Ribs hurting in laughter over that one. I. Can’t. Breath.”

Even the co-host in the booth couldn’t control his laughter, which made the scene that much funnier. This would be the most memorable moment for the announcer as the Phillies would lose the game, 13-4.>

<After announcing Tucker Carlson's departure in late April, Fox News didn't get into specific reasons for firing their top-rated host. But reportedly, Carlson had alienated Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch himself, and the Murdochs came to view Carlson — high ratings and all — as a liability.

According to Media Matters' Matt Gertz, the website has obtained a copy of a behind-the-scenes video in which Carlson is seen telling Fox Nation's Piers Morgan, "If we're going to talk about sex, I'd love to hit some of the fine points of technique, but you know, but it's your show. It's totally up to you."

Morgan responds, "We can certainly talk about your sexual technique, especially after your tanning testicles last week."

Gertz notes that in the video, Carlson "is wearing the same outfit he wears in the video for an April 2022 interview on Morgan's TalkTV show."

"They discussed Morgan's criticism of Meghan Markle, Carlson's 'gut feeling' that former President Donald Trump wouldn't seek reelection and whether Carlson himself would run, and Elon Musk's then-pending takeover of Twitter," Gertz recalls.

In a different behind-the-scenes video that Media Matters obtained, Carlson is seen vehemently criticizing Fox Nation, Fox News' streaming service, as "hard to use" and technologically flawed.>

<The Memphis Grizzlies have informed controversial guard Dillon Brooks that he won't be brought back "under any circumstances," according to Shams Charania. Brooks, a second-round pick in the 2017 NBA Draft, has spent his entire career with the Grizzlies and will be an unrestricted free agent this summer.

Per Charania, Brooks' antics and poor play during the Grizzlies' first-round playoff loss to the Los Angeles Lakers were the breaking point for the team.

After the Grizzlies' Game 2 win, Brooks delivered a bizarre postgame press conference in which he took multiple shots at LeBron James, calling him "old" and "tired" before adding, "I poke bears. I don't respect no one until they come and give me 40 [points]." That, to little surprise, did not go well for him nor the team.

In a Game 3 loss , Brooks was ejected for hitting James in the groin, and in a pivotal Game 4 defeat, Brooks was burned twice by James on key buckets at the end of regulation and overtime. On the offensive side of the ball, Brooks' inability to knock down shots (10-of-42 from 3-point land in the series) caused serious problems for the Grizzlies. Furthermore, he repeatedly declined to speak to reporters toward the end of the series, earning a $25,000 fine.

But while this high-profile playoff series put Brooks center stage, he has been building notoriety for some time. During the second round of the playoffs last season he delivered a foul that broke Golden State Warriors guard Gary Payton II's elbow, and was suspended for a game. Earlier this season he was involved in a number of other unnecessary incidents, including hitting Cleveland Cavaliers star Donovan Mitchell in the groin (ejection and suspension), shoving a camera person to the ground ($35,000 fine) and surpassing the technical foul limit (two separate one-game suspensions).

While none of those moments are good or helpful for the team, it's possible to overlook them if the player is producing, as Brooks did in the last few seasons. This campaign, however, was rough; he averaged 14.3 points, his fewest since his second season in the league, and shot a career-low 39.6 percent from the field. In the Grizzlies' first-round playoff loss, he was even worse, putting up 10.5 points on 31.2 percent shooting.

Brooks is one of the better perimeter defenders in the league, but that can only get you so far when you cannot make shots and cause problems on and off the court for your team. He should find another spot this summer in free agency, but it's no surprise the Grizzlies were ready to move on.>

<Axios reported Tuesday that alleged inappropriate behavior by management at NBCUniversal may extend far beyond former CEO Jeff Shell, who was fired Sunday for allegedly sexually harassing CNBC correspondent Hadley Gamble.

Gamble had a consensual relationship with Shell for more than a decade but later filed an internal complaint alleging the veteran executive sexually harassed her. After an outside counsel review, NBCU and its parent company Comcast found that Shell violated company “principles and policies,” leading to his termination.

Now, new allegations have come to light against two more NBCU executives. Axios reported that, according to sources, Gamble alleged former CNBC vice president and international managing editor Patrick Allen called Gamble the C-word in front of two other CNBC employees; and that CNBC international president and managing director John Casey “was complicit in creating a toxic workplace culture where employees feared speaking out about harassment.”

Allen left CNBC in 2023 and could not be reached for comment, according to Axios. Comcast hasn’t commented on whether it is looking into the allegations against Casey or Allen. Axios’s Sarah Fischer added, “It is unclear whether NBCU and its parent Comcast have found that CNBC executives committed any wrongdoing.”

Gamble anchored CNBC’s Capital Connection from its headquarters in Abu Dhabi beginning in 2018. Axios said its sources indicated Gamble’s contract was not renewed this year, which “motivated her in part to speak out about harassment allegations now.”

The NBCU revelations add to what has been a tumultuous month for cable news: Fox News settled with Dominion Voting Systems for $787.5 million before firing its primetime star, Tucker Carlson; and CNN fired CNN This Morning co-host Don Lemon. Fox faces another defamation case from Smartmatic and two cases from Carlson’s former booker and producer.>

Curious, is it not how all this comes out after the news that Gamble's contract will not be renewed. She could bang the boss for better than a decade; has she been cast aside in favour of someone younger?

Oh, just a few days ago Rdb claimed to be leaving this website -- on multiple pages.>

Guess <Rdb> should be sentenced to hell for not leaving.

Hahahahaha!!

<....Don't punish me again for reporting reality. Don't reward Rdb for making a mess of this place. The more you coddle that fool the more it's going to continue.>

Seems to me it is more'n okay when you spam useless pages of opening lines--remember how you cried when I called you down?

<A racially charged and bloodthirsty text sent by Tucker Carlson about the assault of a protestor by Trump supporters was reportedly a key factor that precipitated the anchor’s shock exit from Fox News last week.

The New York Times reported Tuesday night that the discovery of Carlson’s message, and the language it contained, “set off a panic” amongst Fox executives on the eve of the defamation trial brought by Dominion Voting Systems against the cable news network.

Carlson’s text, published in full by the Times, was sent the day after the Jan.6 U.S. Capitol attack and was a reaction to a video clip of an assault that occurred weeks earlier. In the text, Carlson reacts to three Trump supporters beating one lone protestor. It is unclear what race the protestor was. “Jumping a guy like that is dishonorable obviously. It’s not how white men fight,” Carlson writes. “Yet suddenly I found myself rooting for the mob against the man, hoping they’d hit him harder, kill him. I really wanted them to hurt the kid. I could taste it,” the text published by the Times said.

Later in the text, Carlson admonishes himself for his bloodlust. “I’m becoming something I don’t want to be,” he writes. “The Antifa creep is a human being. Much as I despise what he says and does, much as I’m sure I’d hate him personally if I knew him, I shouldn’t gloat over his suffering. I should be bothered by it.”

He concluded, “I should remember that somewhere somebody probably loves this kid, and would be crushed if he was killed. If I don’t care about those things, if I reduce people to their politics, how am I better than he is?”

The Times reports that the Fox board saw the text the day before the Dominion trial was set to begin, and they were worried that it would become public during legal proceedings, particularly if Carlson was called to the stand. Fox ultimately settled the Dominion suit for $787.5 million.

Citing people with knowledge of the situation, the Times reports that the text, part of redacted court filings, was yet another factor pushing Fox to jettison Carlson, the most popular anchor on cable news.

The Hollywood Reporter has reached out to Fox News for comment.

The Fox board’s dramatic reaction to the text might seem at odds with the commentary Carlson regularly pushed on his Fox News show. Carlson’s show has been accused of mainstreaming white nationalist talking points such as the overtly racist “great replacement theory.”

In 2018, in a segment on Tucker Carlson Tonight, Carlson said that immigration makes the United States “dirtier,” a comment he later doubled down on. The controversy led to an advertiser backlash that saw brands such as Pacific Life Insurance, TD Ameritrade, IHOP, the United Explorer credit card, Just For Men and Jaguar Land Rover pull their ads from Fox News.>

<<macK> Yes, yes, quite, but "gladly *what* that hand?". This a case of MVS - Missing Verb Syndrome - which usually accompanies a deep reluctance to undertake activity of any kind. The chessic equivalent is naturally related, and a Dirty Rat could well be a symptom. As a World Champion of Inertia, I know the turf -- though actually I only reached the Inertitude Interzonal before I was defeated by a combination of ennui, tedium, kinetic inertia, hyperstability, supersaturation, anomie, obsolescence, stuckism, anti-tory conservatism, and the shock of encountering cultures where 'mañana' was seen as hyperactive.

On the other - heh - hand, this could be a case of <Gladly the Cross-eyed Bear> Syndrome, a rare combination of Mondegreens and hand-eye-thorax coordination.

Breton - originally Bert No, and an uncle of Doctor No - has sometimes been regarded as the primordial French Ouanquère, mais c'est pas possible.

Le hand est le main chance. And, as an old saying almost sez, <Fingers were made before fingerforking>.

'Made' in the evolutionary sense, that is.

I had a fascinating discussion this evening with a friend, talking about Saint Anselm's Ontological Proof of God's existence, and its influence on Kant.

Each of us assumed that both of us were spoofing and making it up as we went along -- "Aha, I 'ave 'ere a refutation greater than which no refutation can be conceived, therefore, um, contraception is a grave sin" -- sort of thing.

But he went to the trouble of looking it up afterwards, and the odd thing is that we both knew what we were talking about, even though we didn't know it at the time.

Did I mention that the Irish Gaelic term for contraception is 'frith-ghiniunach', pronounced 'friggin eunuch'?

<A battle has been brewing between e-commerce giants and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) — and once again, millions of Americans are stuck in the middle.

Online shopping giants like Etsy, eBay and StubHub — and the third-party payment networks they use, including PayPal, Square and CashApp — have called on Congress to give relief to millions of online sellers by raising the income reporting threshold on IRS form 1099-K.

The American Rescue Plan of 2021 lowered the 1099-K reporting threshold from $20,000 over 200 transactions to just $600 from any number of transactions, effective January 1.

Nearly 40% of Americans sold items online early in the pandemic, netting about $1,800 on average, according to a MoneyMagnify survey. For those who continue to sell goods on sites like Poshmark, Facebook Marketplace or Etsy to make some extra cash, here’s what you need to know about the new tax rules.

What is the new rule?

The American Rescue Plan of 2021 requires third-party settlement organizations and credit card companies — including payment apps — to report payments for goods and services if they exceed $600 per year.

What that means is if you sell handmade jewelry, art or home décor on Etsy and your transactions total $600 or more in 2023, Etsy will send you a 1099-K form that you should use to report your income to the IRS.

The same rule applies if you sell any personal items online like a car, refrigerator, furniture, stereo or even clothes — and your transactions for the year add up to $600 or more.

And keep in mind that if you sell personal items for more than what you originally paid, that's what's known as a capital gain — and you'll face taxes on it. You should report this income on IRS form 8949, schedule D and via your 1099-K if you meet the IRS's threshold.

However, if you make a loss on the sale of a personal item — like say you bought a coat for $300 and later sold it on Poshmark for $200 — that loss isn't deductible. If you receive a 1099-K for loss-making transactions, the IRS says you should make offsetting entries on form 1040.

IRS receives backlash

The Coalition for 1099-K Fairness, a group of online marketplaces opposing the new rule, believes the new $600 rule is “unfair,” burdensome and confusing for the many casual sellers and gig economy workers across the country.

“Millions of Americans have sold an item online, and many of these sellers use those funds for critical needs such as food, medicine and bills and are not running a business,” the coalition argues.

The $600 rule was originally planned for introduction on Jan. 1, 2022, but the IRS announced an eleventh-hour delay — pushing implementation back by one year “to help smooth the transition and ensure clarity for taxpayers, tax professionals and industry.”

This came after certain politicians and groups like the Coalition for 1099-K Fairness called for the rule change to be scrapped and for “common-sense tax regulations to govern the resale market.”

In January, Rep. Carol Miller re-introduced the Saving Gig Economy Taxpayers Act with the support of 13 Republican colleagues to reverse the “unwarranted and unfair” lowering of the 1099-K reporting threshold....>

<....“An American getting rid of old exercise equipment from his garage online now qualifies as a salesman of workout equipment, a teenager babysitting the neighbors’ kids is in the childcare business, and roommates who split rent are now property managers, and are all eligible to be taxed by the IRS,” she said when introducing her counter-legislation.

“The Saving Gig Economy Taxpayers Act will protect Americans who use online payment platforms, gig economy workers and small e-commerce sellers from being taken advantage of and will ensure they continue to have access to reliable income streams.”

Tax prep tips

The 1099-K tax law change has ticked off online sellers — to the point that 69% of people surveyed who sold goods online in 2021 said the new rule would deter them from doing so, according to the coalition's 2022 survey of online sellers.

“If you sell your ticket on Ticketmaster now, you’ll receive a 1099-K form if the amount is over $600 which is bull—-... I pay taxes when I buy the damn ticket and now I have to pay taxes when I sell the ticket,” one Twitter user vented in a series of tweets.

This $600 rule shouldn’t stop you from earning a little extra cash by selling items online, as long as you keep records of all your transactions, including original receipts and how much you sold your items for.

You should also keep track of any fees you pay to the online marketplace, as well as any shipping costs and bank fees. If you’re selling handmade crafts or services, you should record the cost of your materials, equipment and work space as these expenses can be subtracted from your net profit.

If you receive a 1099-K for the first time, the last thing you want to do is overpay on your taxes.

If you’re not sure how to report your income on the 1099-K form, you can get help from a tax prep professional or financial planner who can guide you through the process.

Most online marketplaces have also issued 1099-K advice to help you understand the new rules and the IRS has published some helpful tips.

Finally, using tax software can also help to ease your tax filing burden and help you take advantage of all the tax credits and money-saving opportunities available to you.>

<Artificial intelligence will be dangerous in the hands of unscrupulous people, according to Microsoft Corp. Chief Economist Michael Schwarz.

“I am confident AI will be used by bad actors, and yes it will cause real damage,” Schwarz said during a World Economic Forum panel in Geneva on Wednesday. “It can do a lot damage in the hands of spammers with elections and so on.”

AI “clearly” must be regulated, he said, but lawmakers should be cautious and wait until the technology causes “real harm.”

Artificial intelligence tools have come under increased scrutiny as their use exploded in recent months following the debut of ChatGPT. Policymakers are trying to pressure companies to implement safeguards around the emerging technology.

“Once we see real harm, we have to ask ourselves the simple question: ‘Can we regulate that in a way where the good things that will be prevented by this regulation are less important?’” Schwarz said. “The principles should be, the benefits from the regulation to our society should be greater than the cost to our society.”

On Thursday, US Vice President Kamala Harris will meet with the chief executive officers from Microsoft, Alphabet Inc. and OpenAI Inc. to discuss ways to reduce the risk of harm from AI technologies.

Microsoft is working to erecting guardrails to help mitigate the potential danger from AI tools, Schwarz said. The company is already using OpenAI’s ChatGPT in its Bing search product, and Google released its rival Bard chatbot in March.

Schwarz warned that policymakers should be careful not to directly regulate AI training sets. “That would be pretty disastrous,” he said. “If Congress were to make those decisions about training sets, good luck to us.”

Despite the risks, AI can help make humans more productive, he said. “We, as mankind, ought to be better off because we can produce more stuff with less work.”

AI will revolutionize the way most businesses operate, he said, adding that it will take time.

“I like to say AI changes nothing in the short run and it changes everything in the long run,” Schwarz said. “That is true for every single technology that came before.”

AI is expected to be a key driver of turbulence in global labor markets and will play a role in changes for nearly a quarter of global jobs, according to a WEF report published this week.>

As a kibitzer said in a different context of a now mercifully deleted post: <evil lurks>

<Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas voted to end federal tenant protections that his billionaire benefactor’s company says threatened its real estate profit margins, according to corporate documents reviewed by The Lever. Thomas did not disclose his relationship with real estate billionaire Harlan Crow, nor did he recuse himself from the 2021 case, despite its potential impact on Crow Holdings.

Now, rent control — which Crow Holdings’ documents also say threatens the company’s business — could come before Thomas, and there is no indication he would recuse himself if it does.

Recent reporting by ProPublica found that Thomas failed to disclose two decades’ worth of luxury gifts provided by Crow, as well as Crow’s purchase of properties owned by Thomas, in apparent violation of longstanding federal ethics rules.

Crow Holdings’ financial disclosures about eviction moratoria and rent control — coupled with revelations that Thomas was accepting lavish, undisclosed gifts from Crow — contradicts the notion that the conservative justice never ruled on matters related to his benefactor’s business.

Crow Holdings did not respond to The Lever’s request for comment.

“May Be Particularly Susceptible”

In August 2021, Thomas was one of the six justices who voted to strike down a federal administrative moratorium on evictions, originally enacted in September 2020 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to halt the spread of COVID-19. In June, Thomas was one of four justices who voted to end the moratorium — but the majority voted to leave it in place because it was set to expire the following month.

In July, between the two rulings, Crow Holdings — which owns apartment buildings, student housing, and manufactured housing nationwide — was cited in congressional testimony for being one of the country’s most frequent eviction filers, despite the moratorium.

In March 2020, Crow Holdings Capital, the firm’s investment arm, warned investors in a financial filing that the pandemic was already leading to “substantial governmental intervention” that could end up “substantially eliminating market participants’ ability to continue to implement certain strategies or manage the risk of their outstanding positions.”

This March, Crow Holdings Capital made its interest in ending eviction moratoria explicit, telling investors that its business “may be particularly susceptible to economic effects driven by a pandemic such as COVID‐19, including risks related to tenants being unable to pay rent (particularly with respect to residential, retail and office properties), federal or state restrictions on rent pricing, rent increases, or eviction moratoriums.”

“A Long-Term Eviction Moratorium Was Never The Right Policy”

At the time of Thomas’ 2021 vote, Ken Valach, the CEO of Crow Holdings’ development arm, was serving as the vice chair of the National Multifamily Housing Council, a lobbying group pressing the federal government to end the moratorium.

“A long-term eviction moratorium was never the right policy,” the group said in a statement. “It does nothing to speed the delivery of real solutions for America’s renters and ignores the unsustainable and unfair economic burden placed on millions of housing providers, jeopardizing their financial stability and threatening the loss of affordable housing stock nationwide.”

That same year, another Crow executive was a member of the Real Estate Roundtable, a nonprofit think tank that also opposed the eviction moratorium.

Bloomberg recently reported that Thomas did not appear to recuse himself in a 2005 Supreme Court case involving Trammell Crow Residential, in which Crow Holdings owned a minority stake.

In the coming months, the rent control issue flagged by Crow Holdings could be before Thomas and the high court.

A group of New York landlords are preparing to petition the Supreme Court to overturn the city’s rent stabilization laws after losing a recent case. Such a ruling could endanger rent-control laws nationwide.>

Prop that Thomas will recuse himself: off

<The old cultural imperialism was supposedly greedy corporatism like Disneyland, McDonald’s, and Starbucks sprouting up worldwide to supplant local competitors.

But these businesses spread because they appealed to free-will consumer demand abroad. They were not imposed top down.

The U.S. presence in Afghanistan collapsed in August 2021 amid the greatest American military humiliation in modern history. A billion-dollar new embassy was abandoned. Hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of new infrastructure at the huge Bagram Airbase was dumped.

We still do not know how many billions of dollars of sophisticated new weapons were left to the Taliban and now are making their way through global terrorists’ marts.

Yet, in our skedaddle, the LGBTQ flag still flew high from our new Kabul embassy. A George Floyd mural was prominent on city streets.

And gender studies programs – to the tune of $787 million in American subsidies – were showcased at Kabul University, in one of the most conservative Islamic countries in the world.

Rainbow flags and Black Lives Matter banners have hung from our embassy in South Korea.

Such partisan cultural activism is a diplomatic first.

The woke Left has now weaponized the country’s diplomatic missions abroad to advance highly partisan and controversial agendas that can offend their hosts, and do not represent the majority of American voters at home.

American foreign policy toward other nations seems now to hinge on their positions on transgender people, LGBTQ promotion, abortion, climate change, and an array of woke issues from using multiple pronouns on passports to showcasing transgender ambassadors.

The Biden Administration in January 2022 stopped the EastMed pipeline. That joint effort of our allies Cyprus, Greece, and Israel sought to bring much needed clean-burning Mediterranean natural gas to southern Europe.

Apparently, our diplomats felt it violated our own New Green Deal orthodoxies. So we imperialists interfered to destroy a vital project of our closest allies.

The White House manifesto called the “National Strategy on Gender Equity and Equality” offers a blueprint for how to massage nations abroad to accept our values that are increasingly at odds with much of the world’s.

Do Americans really believe that embracing drag-queen shows at military bases, abortion to the moment of birth, transgender men competing in women’s sports, and the promised effort to ban the internal combustion engine are effective ways to ensure good relations with the United States?

No wonder the Biden Administration’s new cultural imperialism is proving disastrous for a variety of reasons.

One, these imperialistic and chauvinistic agendas are pushed abroad at the very time the respect for the U.S. military is at an all-time low. It was humiliated in Afghanistan. It is now unable to recruit sufficient qualified soldiers. Its stocks of critical weapons are depleted.

The Pentagon leadership of Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley, along with Joe Biden, do not radiate competence.

But they do exude woke pieties....>

Rest is a-comin'....

<....While we offend Middle East oil exporters and Central Europeans, China allies with Russia and Iran. India and Turkey triangulate away from the United States. Sanctimonious hectoring while appearing weak is a bad combination.

Two, these warped standards are incoherent. Is an abortion-on-demand, totalitarian China therefore an ally? How could we damn supposedly non-woke Saudi Arabia as we begged it to pump more of its non-green oil before the 2022 midterms?

Some of our most loyal allies are in Eastern Europe – Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Romania. These countries have experienced traumatic histories on the front lines against Islamic Ottoman expansionism, czarist and Soviet aggression, and German Nazi bullying and invasion.

They are democratic and pro-American. Yet they are now targeted by our woke imperialists because they remain steadfast as the most religious and traditional of our European allies.

Yet these nations would be more likely to dispatch credible forces for NATO’s defense than many of our left-wing, woke, and militarily less capable Western European nations.

Three, most of the 7.9 billion people in the world are not woke. They are aspiring to obtain a modicum of the luxury and affluence taken for granted in America.

The rest of the planet worries whether it will have enough food, energy, security, and shelter to live one more day. For most, the incessant, woke virtue-signaling from affluent Americans comes across as the whiny bullying of pampered, self-righteous – and increasingly neurotic – imperialists.

Four, traditionally the party that controls the State Department does not politically weaponize its embassies with wedge issues that have not won majority support among Americans.

Such abject politicalization rattles and alienates foreign nations. They do not want to be drawn into the American Left’s internal propaganda efforts that they know are bitterly controversial inside the United States.

<Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R) said Wednesday that it is "very likely" that articles of impeachment will be introduced in connection to an alleged pay-for-pay scheme involving President Joe Biden (D) when he was V.P.

In a "breaking news" video released by Greene, she said America "deserves to see what Joe Biden - as vice president and now as president, and his family members - what they have been doing and what it's doing to this country." She claims a whistleblower came forward to reveal records that purportedly tie Biden "directly to foreign nationals in an alleged pay-for-play scheme to influence policy decisions."

"What we're finding out now, there will very likely have to be new articles of impeachment with new information added," Greene noted, referring to the articles of impeachment she filed against Biden on the day he took office.

In the video, Greene also points to a letter sent Wednesday by Senator Chuck E. Grassley and Representative James Comer to FBI director Christopher Wray on the subject. The letter states that they need a form from Wray in order to fully prove the allegations.

"It has been alleged that the document includes a precise description of how the alleged criminal scheme was employed as well as its purpose," the letter says. "The DOJ and the FBI appear to have valuable, verifiable information that you have failed to disclose to the American people."

Greene added that she is "looking forward to full cooperation" on the GOP investigation, and that they are maintaining the privacy, safety, and security of the purported whistleblower

"All of you deserve the truth," Greene said, noting that Americans deserve to know the facts regardless of which side of the political spectrum they find themselves.

"What a treachery and betrayal," the sitting congresswoman from Georgia added.>

<Bestselling author Stephen King called out Republican lawmakers for focusing on attacking President Joe Biden and Hunter Biden instead of taking action to stop mass shootings.

Boebert earlier this week posed for a photo holding a T-shirt calling an AR-15-style gun a “cordless hole puncher” one day after that same type of weapon was used to kill five people in Texas, including a child.

Greene last year implied a series of mass shootings could’ve been staged.

“It almost sounds like it’s designed to persuade Republicans to go along with more gun control,” she said at the time.

Her office later insisted that “all the Congresswoman did was ask about the timing.”

The Gun Violence Archive has counted 192 mass shootings so far in 2023.>

How many of his books have dealt with violence and/or shooting? His most recent book "Billy Summers" deals with PTSD and an Iraqi-Vet.

C'mon Steve, You are the one writing and giving studio the OK for like "Carrie"? "Cujo", "Shining", "It", "Stand By Me" (little teenagers and dead body)? and your write 'horror'... Maybe prison horror that won some Oscars is more your style.

C'mon Steve... No wonder I grew up and stopped buying/reading you books/sheet. Hey, Steve, You like writing Gerald's Game???

<Billionaire Harlan Crow paid private-school tuition for US Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s grandnephew, ProPublica reported, adding to a string of revelations about benefits received by Thomas from the Republican megadonor.

ProPublica said a bank statement filed in the school’s bankruptcy case showed a $6,200 payment from Crow to cover one month’s tuition for Mark Martin at Hidden Lake Academy, a private boarding school in northern Georgia. Thomas was the boy’s legal guardian and has said he raised Martin like his own son.

The publication also quoted a former administrator at the school as saying Crow paid Martin’s tuition the entire year he was there. Thomas didn’t list the tuition payments on his annual financial disclosure reports, although he did list a gift from another friend for Martin’s education on a 2002 report.

Thomas didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment conveyed through a spokeswoman. A Thomas confidant, Washington lawyer Mark Paoletta, said on Twitter that Crow paid tuition for a year at the Georgia school as well as for a year at Randolph-Macon Academy, a military school in Virginia.

“This story is another attempt to manufacture a scandal about Justice Thomas,” Paoletta said. “But let’s be clear about what is supposedly scandalous now: Justice Thomas and his wife devoted twelve years of their lives to taking in and caring for a beloved child — who was not their own — just as Justice Thomas’s grandparents had done for him.”

Paoletta said federal law didn’t require Thomas to disclose the payments. Paoletta also said that Crow, who attended Randolph-Macon, made the payments directly to the schools.

Crow’s office said in an emailed statement that he and his wife have provided financial support to many at-risk students.

“It’s disappointing that those with partisan political interests would try to turn helping at-risk youth with tuition assistance into something nefarious or political,” his office said.

ProPublica previously reported that Crow treated Thomas to lavish vacations and private jet flights for more than two decades and paid money to Thomas and his relatives in an undisclosed real estate deal.

The two men have been friends since 1996, according to Crow. Thomas joined the court in 1991.>

<Failed Georgia Republican senate candidate Herschel Walker’s improper solicitation of a billionaire donor revealed in emails obtained by The Daily Beast have shocked campaign finance experts, the outlet reports.

Walker in communication with donor Dennis Washington sought hundreds of thousands of dollars for his own personal business, The Daily Beast reports.

Washington complied with Walker's request for the funds, thinking the contributions were political, the report said.

The emails, which have been verified as authentic by a person with knowledge of the exchange, specifically shows Walker requested $535,200 be wired directly to that undisclosed company, HR Talent, LLC, the report said.

Roger Sollenberger writes for The Daily Beast, “In the best possible circumstances, legal experts told The Daily Beast, the emails suggest exponential violations of federal fundraising rules; in the worst case, they could be an indication of more serious crimes, such as wire fraud.”>

<The Florida House passed two bills Wednesday that target Walt Disney World’s monorail and a development agreement the resort enacted with the former board of its special district, further escalating state Republicans’ year-long battle with Disney even after the company has alleged in court the GOP’s attacks violate Disney’s First Amendment rights.

Key Facts

The GOP-controlled House passed two pieces of legislation, HB 1305 and SB 1604.

HB 1305, a broader transportation bill, targets Disney through an amendment that says the state shall create safety rules and perform safety inspections for “privately owned and or operated fixed-guideway transportation systems” located in special districts that have boundaries in two counties.

The amendment was designed to target the monorail system in Walt Disney World, which—like Disney’s theme park rides—the company has previously been able to control inspections for itself, and Republicans pointed to issues with the monorail like a fatal crash in 2009 to justify the move.

The bill passed in a 83-32 vote—over the concerns of Democrats who argued it was politically motivated against Disney—and will now go to Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) to sign, after the Senate passed the bill on Tuesday.

SB 1604, which passed the House 75-34, would nullify a development agreement Disney enacted that gave the company broad power over developing land on its property, which was made with the former board of the special district that oversees Disney’s property before that board was replaced with DeSantis appointees.

The bill—which the Senate has already passed, but must now approve changes to—would prohibit such agreements if they’re enacted within three months of laws that modify how special district board members are elected, and give boards four months to review agreements after taking office and decide whether to adopt them.

Crucial Quote

“When are we going to stop playing whack-a-mouse because our Governor is big mad that he got outsmarted by Disney?” Democratic state Rep. Anna Eskamani, who represents Orlando where Walt Disney World is located, said during debate on SB 1604, as quoted by Florida Politics.

Chief Critic

Disney has not yet responded to a request for comment on the legislation passed Wednesday, but the company has defended its development agreement as lawfully enacted and sued DeSantis and his special district appointees in federal court, taking aim at the state’s “relentless campaign to weaponize government power against Disney in retaliation for expressing a political viewpoint unpopular with certain State officials.”

What To Watch For

DeSantis and Florida Republicans have also suggested that in addition to the monorail, the state will also take control of inspections for Disney’s rides. The company—along with other major theme parks like Universal Studios Orlando and SeaWorld—is right now allowed to inspect its own rides under a carveout in state law that allows that for theme parks with more than 1,000 employees and in-house inspectors. Any new regulations for Disney’s rides are expected to only apply to Walt Disney World and not to other large theme parks in the state.

Key Background

DeSantis and Florida Republicans have been feuding with Disney since March 2022, when the company openly opposed the state’s Parental Rights in Education law, known by critics as “Don’t Say Gay.” The state initially took aim at Disney by getting rid of its special district—then known as Reedy Creek Improvement District—altogether, before backtracking and enacting legislation that just renamed the district to the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District and replaced the board with DeSantis appointees. Reedy Creek had been overseeing Walt Disney World since the 1960s, functioning in a similar fashion to county governments and overseeing infrastructure like road improvements, utilities, waste management, building permits and emergency services. The special district is separate from Disney, but the company was able to exert a significant level of influence as its major landowner, including electing its former board. The discovery of the development agreement by DeSantis’ new board revived Republicans’ attacks on Disney, leading to the new legislation passed Wednesday and more aggressive moves by the board to exert control over Disney’s land. After Disney sued the state—filed minutes after the board voted to void the development agreement—the board countersued Disney in state court Monday in a further effort to throw out the agreement.>