The United States is facing an unprecedented confluence of security threats, according to FBI Director Christopher Wray, who said the agency is deeply concerned about the simultaneous rise in terrorism, cybercrime, foreign election interference, and espionage activities by adversarial powers.
Speaking to reporters from The Associated Press at the FBI’s Minneapolis field office on Aug. 21, Wray said he’s “hard-pressed to think of a time” in his career “where so many different kinds of threats are all elevated at once.”
“I worry about the combination of that many threats being elevated at once, with the challenges facing the men and women in law enforcement more generally,” Wray said, pointing out the stark statistic that law enforcement officers are being killed in the line of duty in the United States at a rate of about one every five days.
Wray declined to go into detail about any specific investigation or threat but noted that the FBI is concerned about Chinese espionage and intellectual property theft, foreign election interference, artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled threats, and terrorism.
He said better cooperation between law enforcement agencies is a key part of confronting the unprecedented security landscape.
Wray added that he hopes that the U.S. tech industry, in particular its developments around cutting-edge AI, can also play a role in helping protect Americans from AI-enabled threats coming their way.
The FBI director’s latest remarks build on his previous warnings, including that China-sponsored hackers are poised to hit U.S. infrastructure at any time with a “devastating blow” to induce panic and that the FBI is increasingly concerned about the potential for a coordinated terror attack on the U.S. homeland.
From the specter of terrorism to the growing menace of cyberattacks, Wray’s warnings reflect the findings of several key national security reports, including a 2024 White House report of the Cybersecurity Posture of the United States and the Director of National Intelligence’s 2024 annual threat assessment and its National Counterintelligence Strategy.
Foreign intelligence threats to the United States are unprecedented as foreign adversaries deploy various tactics to focus on a range of possible targets, according to the counterintelligence strategy report.
It warns that the Chinese communist regime and the state of Russia pose “the most significant intelligence threats,” adding that these leading adversaries are working together more often to amplify threats to the homeland.
“An expanding array of actors are attempting to steal national secrets, sensitive data, intellectual property, and technical and military capabilities, and undermine and disrupt U.S. foreign policy and intelligence operations,” the strategy document warns.
Foreign intelligence entities are actively trying to compromise U.S. infrastructure crucial to health, safety, and the economy, per the document. They also aim to influence U.S. policy and public opinion, targeting government, commercial firms, defense contractors, think tanks, and academic institutions to obtain sensitive information.
The report on the cybersecurity posture of the United States identifies five key trends, each posing distinct challenges to national security and the country’s broader digital ecosystem.
“Nation-state adversaries” have increasingly targeted critical infrastructure, not just for espionage but as a strategic leverage point, per the report. Ransomware attacks have also grown more sophisticated, posing ongoing threats to national security and economic stability as attackers refined their tactics to outmaneuver defenses, it adds.
Moreover, the exploitation of complex supply chains, the rise of commercial spyware, and the rapid advancement of AI presented new risks, the report warns, while highlighting the need for robust cyber defense strategies.
The intelligence community’s annual threat assessment additionally highlights the ongoing proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear threats from North Korea, as well as the potential for interstate conflicts in regions including the South China Sea.
This Is The Chart That Keeps Japanese Policymakers Up At Night
Japan has a demographic crisis that started in 2017 and picked up steam in 2020 and will accelerate from there into at least 2050… as a high life expectancy and a low birth rate has created an unprecedented aging population.
As a simple and effective measure of that ‘crisis’, we look at the old-age dependency ratio measures the number of people over the retirement age of 65 for every 100 working-age people.
The higher dependency ratio means fewer workers are supporting a growing number of retirees, which strains social security systems, healthcare, and pension funds. This situation could lead to economic stagnation or decline unless addressed through policy changes like increasing immigration or boosting birth rates.
Japan has had a rapidly rising old-age dependency ratio for several decades and has the highest ratio currently at 54.5.
Meanwhile, Germany is the runner-up in the top 10 economies with a distant second-place dependency ratio of 41.4.
At the same time, the United States maintains a relatively low old-age dependency, with a ratio of 31.3, which places it seventh among the top 10 economies.
By 2050, Japan will maintain the highest old-age dependency ratio of the group, moving from 54.5 to a staggering 80.7.
In an effort to head-off such a high ratio, Japan is has put policies in pace to attract young immigrants and migrant workers.
However, despite government incentives, cultural shifts towards later marriages, fewer children, and more women entering the workforce have not significantly reversed the trend in Japan (or many other nations).
Italy, which is facing similar demographic pressures, will move from distant third to a close second, moving from a ratio of 40.9 to 74.4.
China, because of the results of the one-child policy and low immigration, could surpass the U.S. by 2050 with a ratio of 47.5.
Taxpayer-Funded Oregon Group Offers $30,000 To Home Buyers… As Long As They’re Not American Citizens
Only days after it was announced that California will be pushing a bill to give illegal aliens access to zero down, no payment home loans, it has been revealed that a taxpayer-funded group out of Oregon called Hacienda CDC is already offering non-citizens a $30,000 home assistance loan for new homebuyers through a program called Camino a Casa.
Screenshots from the Hacienda website posted by X user Oregon Citizen note:
“Only for people who are not American citizens…”
“Clients work closely with financial coaches and HUD-certified housing counselors throughout the entirety of the homebuying process. In addition to mortgage readiness and financial fitness workshops, we provide various opportunities for down-payment assistance…”
What do you think Oregon friends? Should non citizens and undocumented citizens be given $30,000 for down payments to buy a home here in the state of Oregon? Check out the requirements! ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/riGm6AuMGJ
Hacienda CDC is funded in part by Business Oregon, which is a state institution that manages state and federal tax dollars for economic development in Oregon. Business Oregon’s director is Sophorn Cheang, who is also a coordinator for the Oregon governor’s “Racial Justice Council.” As Business Oregon mentions in her bio:
“Prior to her work with the Governor’s Office, Cheang served as Senior Community Development Manager and Director of the Asian Family Center for the Immigrant and Refugee Community Organization, where she developed and directed culturally specific programs and services for immigrants and refugees; mobilized diverse community leaders across the state to address social and racial injustices; and performed other strategic planning and advocacy work…”
The funding is funneled through the Economic Equity Investment Program (EEIP), an equity-based beneficiary project established through the Economic Equity Investment Act (SB 1579), which the Oregon legislature passed in 2022. The organization receives millions in Oregon state taxpayer money and federal taxes through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), according to its recent annual report.
Hacienda CDC works with credit unions that offer mortgage loans for non-citizens who cannot get a social security number. Instead, these credit unions use an IRS loophole by processing the mortgage with Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers (ITINs).
As Fox News argues, programs like these appear to be an attempt by progressive institutions and politicians to buy a new voting base. They offer vast incentives to illegals, give them special treatment through a two-tier system (as we have seen in the UK), eventually secure their citizenship through sweeping amnesty bills and then register them to vote Democrat.
Oregon is offering $30,000 for illegal aliens to buy homes. This program is not open to American citizens. Only illegals.
If this trend continues it could be less than a decade before legal citizens and conservative are completely sidelined within their own country by an army of foreign mercenary voters, mostly from third-world countries. Good luck winning local and state elections let alone federal elections ever again.
Beyond the election issue, there is the ongoing problem in US housing. Millions of illegal migrants pouring into the US under the Biden Administration have escalated a housing shortage and exacerbated an already existing inflation crisis. With upwards of 2 million (or more) migrants crossing the border illegally every year, there is an endless supply of non-citizens trying to access welfare programs and housing programs they have never paid a cent into. Meanwhile, real American citizens are struggling with a 30% increase in home and rental costs in the past four years.
Bringing home prices down would be a matter of increasing supply without building new homes with inflated material costs. The easiest way to do that would be to either kick out as many illegal immigrants as possible, or force international corporate buyers like Blackstone to dump their distressed mortgage holdings (or do both).
However, as long as blue states continue to incentivize illegals with access to welfare programs and easy money and as long as the federal government continues to refuse to do it’s duty and protect the southern border, there is little chance of stopping the steady flood on non-citizens. The “great replacement” continues.
Fast-food restaurants survive by providing affordable, quick, and convenient meals, but cost inflation is now pushing their business models to the brink.
It has become more expensive to eat out over the past five years, with food away from home increasing by 30 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In just the past year, the cost of eating at a fast-food restaurant has increased by more than that of a full-service restaurant.
Within the consumer price index, the limited-service meals category (food that is ordered at a counter and taken to go) rose by 4.3 percent year over year in July. By comparison, full-service meals (sit-down restaurants with wait staff) increased by 3.8 percent over the same period.
Mcdonald’s was recently stung by reports that it was charging $18 for a Big Mac, prompting the company’s president to issue an open letter in May.
“I can tell you that it frustrates and worries me, and many of our franchisees, when I hear about an $18 Big Mac meal being sold—even if it was at one location in the U.S. out of more than 13,700,” McDonald’s USA President Joe Erlinger wrote, noting that the average price of a Big Mac across all U.S. franchises had gone up by 21 percent since 2019, from $4.39 to $5.29 today.
According to a McDonald’s “myths vs. facts” sheet, the company increased average menu prices by about 40 percent over the past five years, which is in line with the increase in the firm’s costs. Employee salaries have gone up by 40 percent since 2019, and food and paper costs went up by 35 percent during the same period, the company stated.
At some point, however, customers will question the value of fast food, compared to alternatives such as full-service restaurants or eating at home, industry experts say.
“People like going to Subway to grab lunch. It’s cheap, it’s quick, it’s easy, it’s good. But they question whether they want to pay $12.99, or $14.99, for what used to be an $8.99 bundled meal,” Gary Pryor, a former owner of restaurants and food production companies and a business consultant at Waters Business Consulting Group, told The Epoch Times.
According to a May survey of 2,000 U.S. adults by Lending Tree, price hikes have caused 78 percent of Americans to view fast food as an increasingly unaffordable luxury. And while three-quarters of Americans say they typically eat fast food at least weekly, nearly two-thirds say they are now eating it less due to rising prices.
Chipotle increased menu prices four times between 2021 and 2023, according to an American Institute of Economic Research report by economists Thomas Savidge and Andrew den Boggende, prompting a backlash from customers who also accused the chain of reducing portion sizes. Viral complaints by diners circulating the internet prompted then-CEO Brian Niccol to assure customers in a Fortune interview in May that portion sizes had not changed.
Niccol left Chipotle on Aug. 13 to take the helm at Starbucks, which is also struggling. Starbucks reported in its third-quarter fiscal 2024 results that sales were down by 3 percent, driven by a 5 percent decline in the number of customer transactions, although there was an average 3 percent increase in what each customer paid at the coffee chain.
McDonald’s reported in July that its quarterly sales were down by 1 percent worldwide and by 0.7 percent in the United States. At the same time, its operating income decreased by 6 percent, indicating the company’s difficulties with both income and expenses.
Getting Squeezed
“Restaurant owners are really stuck between a rock and hard place, whether it’s Chipotle, which doesn’t franchise, or McDonald’s, which does,” Thomas Savidge, a research fellow at the American Institute for Economic Research, told The Epoch Times.
“The last thing they want to do is raise menu prices any more than they have over the past couple of years. But ultimately, there’s going to have to be some painful choices made.”
The more obvious options for fast-food restaurants are higher prices, smaller portions, or less staff, which often means longer lines and a less pleasant dining experience, he said.
The industry is currently racing to figure a way out of the current situation.
McDonald’s CFO Ian Borden said on the company’s April 30 conference call that “everybody’s fighting for fewer consumers or consumers that are certainly visiting less frequently.”
“We’ve got to make sure we’ve got that street-fighting mentality to win,” he said.
Cratering sales led Subway last week to call what was reported to be an “emergency meeting” of the 19,000 franchisees of its North American sandwich shops to discuss price promotions, discounts, and other ways to increase customer traffic.
The industry is at a “crossroads,” according to Michael Podolsky, CEO and co-founder of an online review platform and consumer advocacy group.
“While these brands remain strong players, consistent issues with customer service, food quality, and pricing are causing consumer dissatisfaction,” Podolsky told The Epoch Times. “Addressing these concerns will be critical for staying strong on the market, otherwise, consumers might switch to a better quality dining experience at similar or slightly higher prices.”
Searching for Solutions
Some restaurants are getting creative in their search for solutions.
This includes Taco Bell offering Happier Hour, when drinks are discounted to bring more customers in during slower hours. It includes customer loyalty programs such as MyMcDonald’s Rewards, which can award frequent customers points toward free meals.
Wendy’s CEO Kirk Tanner told investors in February that the fast-food chain was considering instituting a “flexible pricing” system, which would adjust menu prices based on customer demand, similar to “surge pricing” spikes charged by Uber during rush hour. This sparked protests from customers, as well as accusations from Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) of “price gouging,” prompting Wendy’s to issue a statement saying it wouldn’t implement the practice.
While the fast-food industry looks for solutions to remain profitable as its costs continue to rise, restaurants are being hit by not only escalating costs for food, energy, and materials but also by wage hikes. Wage expenses are typically between 25 and 30 percent of total costs for fast-food restaurants.
On April 1, California increased the state minimum wage to $20 per hour for fast-food employees, in a growing trend of states mandating higher labor costs. Currently, 29 U.S. states now have a minimum wage at or above $10 per hour, according to data collected by the Economic Policy Institute. This compares to the national minimum wage of $7.25 per hour, which has not increased since 2009.
In addition, 15 states now have a minimum wage above $14 per hour, or approximately double the federal rate. Seven states—Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Wyoming—have no state minimum wage, although in those states, the federal minimum applies.
Many restaurants unable to pass these costs on to diners simply close.
Based on data collected from Google maps and tracking the number of locations that were listed as “permanently closed,” a restaurant services company called Snappy calculated that 1,040 fast-food restaurants had closed in California in the four months since the state’s $20 minimum wage took effect, compared to 315 that had closed in 2024 prior to the wage hike.
Other restaurants are looking to invest in automation to increase worker efficiency and cut staffing levels. According to a February 2023 survey by the National Restaurant Association, 58 percent of restaurant operators said they intended to rely more on automation in the coming years to reduce the need for human workers.
Entry-Level Jobs Going Away
For many lower-skilled or entry-level workers, however, restaurants often provided an entry point into the labor market, allowing them to build skills and experience toward higher-paying jobs.
“Employers are going to be hesitant to take on an unskilled employee and bear the cost of teaching them a skill,” Savidge said. “They’re going to be less willing to take a risk on those new, inexperienced employees who are looking to build up job experience and enter the job market.”
While the inflation growth rate has slowed over the past year, price pressures remain throughout the food industry, which is now also facing an increasingly cost-conscious consumer.
“They’re spending money on their vacations or things, but eating out at fast food is not a valuable proposition for a family of five people when it’s costing $100,” Pryor said.
And beyond the struggle to keep menu prices down, there is the pressure on fast-food restaurants to provide meals with the same speed and efficiency, even as they try to cope with staffing issues.
“Costs don’t always get translated in menu prices,” Savidge said. “Sometimes, the cost is sitting in a really long drive-through line, waiting 20 minutes to just take your order there.
“That in itself is a cost—the value of your time.”
Thanks, Biden-Harris: Map Shows Worst Housing Affordability In America
Buying the average American home today involves a much larger slice of people’s income—mainly realized under the Biden-Harris administration. Shortly after the Biden-Harris team took office in 2021, housing affordability began to slide, then collapse.
The biggest theme in the real estate market in the last 3.5 years has been high mortgage rates and record-high home prices, which have kept home ownership out of the reach of millions of Americans—stuck in the renting economy.
Tight housing supplies have driven up housing prices across the country. However, failed Bidenomics unleashed an inflation storm, which forced the Federal Reserve into an interest rate hiking cycle that was one of the driving forces behind the affordability collapse.
Even as overall inflation moderates, the latest data from the National Association of Realtors shows affordability conditions have yet to improve, still trending at record lows. The Biden-Harris team spent the last 3.5 years championing Bidenomics.
Kamala Harris 367 days ago: “That is called Bidenomics! Ha ha ha! That is called Bidenomics and we are very proud of Bidenomics!” pic.twitter.com/gOxPZvxTCk
Fast forward to today, Harris admits Bidenomics has failed.
KAMALA: “We believe in a future where we lower the cost of living.”
She has been in office for 3.5 years — over which the average American family has lost an extra $26,000 paying for the increased cost of living. pic.twitter.com/NfQtLIpn4s
Meanwhile, the Biden-Harris team offered no real solutions to cushion Americans in some of the worst housing affordability conditions in a generation.
But last week, Kamala Harris unveiled her housing plan. Given the continued affordability crisis, this is just a few years too late for Democrats.
Anyway, the think tank Hoover Institution pointed out that Harris’ housing plan “does not address the most important reason why housing is expensive: high construction costs. Instead, the plan significantly subsidizes housing demand, which will put upward pressure on housing costs.”
“One of the biggest demand subsidizers in the proposal is to provide $25,000 to first-time home buyers,” the think tank said, adding, “Based on the information Harris provided, I expect about 20 million US renters would be eligible and apply for this program if Harris wins the presidency.”
As Hoover pointed out in the note titled “The Unpleasant Arithmetic of Kamala Harris’s Housing Plan,” Harris’ plan concentrates on subsidizing demand, not improving supply. Thus, government subsidies would only supercharge demand and worsen the unaffordability crisis by sending prices higher.
This leaves us with Nick Gerli, CEO of research firm Reventure, who showed on X what prospective buyers need regarding salaries for the most basic homes on a state-by-state level today.
Not surprisingly, Californians must earn more than $200,000 annually to afford the average home.
Housing affordability in California has become so bad that the typical buyer now needs to earn over $200,000/year just to afford a basic house.
That’s by far the worst affordability in America.
Interestingly, prior to the pandemic, you only needed to make $93k in order to buy… pic.twitter.com/R7eBh8kxBx
Gerli provided an informative graphic on a state-by-state basis of the incomes needed to afford basic homes.
The focus here should be on the collapse of housing affordability under Biden-Harris’ watch. The administration offered zero policies to address the crisis effectively. Yet Democrats under Harris want to address the crisis by subsidizing housing demand, which would only worsen the situation by sending prices higher. This is clown world.
U.S. District Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin on Aug. 21 dismissed a lawsuit against social media platform X brought by people with disabilities who were fired by the company after Elon Musk bought it.
Dmitry Borodaenko, an engineering manager who was with X until late 2022, said the firings violated the Americans With Disabilities Act by treating disabled workers differently from others.
Borodaenko did not provide evidence to support this position, Martinez-Olguin ruled.
“Borodaenko fails to show how employees with disabilities were treated differently by Twitter’s broad return-to-the-office policy and increased workload,” she said.
“Borodaenko’s theory improperly relies on the assumption that all employees with disabilities necessarily required remote work as a reasonable accommodation.”
Borodaenko brought the case, and two other disabled former employees were later named as additional plaintiffs.
Arguments against X, formerly known as Twitter, partly rested on the experience of Hana Thier, one of the additional plaintiffs. According to the new ruling, Thier was improperly added after a different judge permitted Borodaenko to file an updated complaint.
Plaintiffs had alleged that Musk was “openly hostile towards disabled employees and insinuated that they were lazy,” and that he had “tweeted that a disabled former Twitter employee used his disability as an excuse not to work.”
Musk later apologized to the worker, who has muscular dystrophy, “for [his] misunderstanding of [the employee’s] situation.”
The plaintiffs also highlighted how Musk quickly reversed previously broad work-from-home policies after buying X, and said any employees who remained with the company would have to be exceptional people and work long hours.
While Musk’s comments “may contribute to a showing of animus, they fall short of illustrating how the new return-to-the-office and increased workload policies treated employees with disabilities differently than similarly-situated employees,” Martinez-Olguin said.
Accusations that Musk’s policies significantly discriminated against disabled workers and are not justified by business necessity also fell short, the judge said.
The allegations presented in the updated complaint “are nothing more than conclusions devoid of factual support,” she said, adding later that “the new allegations fail to move the needle to plead a plausible disparate impact claim.”
The earlier version of the suit had been dismissed but Borodaenko was allowed to file a new version.
The claims “were previously dismissed by the court because plaintiffs failed to allege facts to plausibly state a claim for relief under a theory of either disparate treatment or disparate impact disability discrimination,” X lawyers said. “These same defects remain in the” updated complaint, they said.
The judge dismissed the lawsuit but said that Borodaenko could file an amendment complaint that adequately fixes the failings within 28 days.
Lawyers for X and the plaintiffs did not respond to requests for comment.
Supreme Court Allows Arizona To Require Proof Of Citizenship For State Votes, But Not For Congressional Or Presidential
Today the Supreme Court cleared the way for a provision of Arizona law that requires proof of citizenship to register to vote in state rolls, the first time the high court has weighed in on a voting dispute in the run-up to the presidential election.
The order means Arizona election officials must reject state registration forms if voters don’t provide documentation of citizenship. In other words, Arizonans newly registering to vote for the coming election will have to provide copies of one of several documents, including a birth certificate or a passport, in order to prove their citizenship.
However, the justices kept on hold provisions of the law that could have disqualified voters who register separate federal forms from casting ballots in a presidential contest in person or by mail. In other words, Arizona voters can still register using a federal form, without proof of citizenship, and vote in the presidential contest.
Which, in light of recent revelations about noncitizens voting in various elections, and the Democrats’ push not to require voter id for presidential elections, is downright bizarre.
The high court’s 5-4 action, split along gender lines with men voting for and the women against, follows an emergency appeal by the Republican National Committee and lawmakers in Arizona, which is considered a key swing state in the election.
Conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett, along with liberal Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, said they would have denied the request from Arizona lawmakers. What is notable however, is that Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Neil M. Gorsuch said they would have gone further and allowed the federal-form provisions of the 2022 law to take effect.
In other words, another SCOTUS appeal may be all it takes to prevent widespread cheating in the Nov presidential elections.
The decision did not include any legal reasoning, which is common in such emergency applications. But there were signs that the court was divided over the issue, and that Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh may have split their votes between two factions.
Republicans have made noncitizen voting a focus in 2024,amid revelations that it is increasingly prevalent. They are pushing a national proof of citizenship bill, and a handful of states have measures related to noncitizen voting on November’s ballot.
Why is this such a critical issue? As noted on X, over 40,000 people have registered to vote in federal elections in Arizona without providing proof of citizenship. In the 2020 election, Joe Biden narrowly defeated Donald Trump in Arizona by just over 10,000 votes. In other words, in the handful of swing states that will decide the outcome of the Electoral College, where the margin of victory can be in the thousands or even hundreds of votes – every singleillegal vote matters, which is why Democrats are fighting tooth and nail to preserve the ability for non-citizens to keep picking the next president!
While Republicans say the measures are necessary to prevent cheating and allowing noncitizens to cast ballots for Democrat candidates who allow millions of illegals to enter the country no questions asked, Democrats have decried the efforts arguing that they are intended to preemptively question the legitimacy of the upcoming election.
The efforts could result in eligible voters being removed from voting rolls, Democrats argue, which of course is idiotic since one needs an id for virtually any activity in the US, yet somehow voting should be excluded. They say the measures are ultimately about revving up conservative voters on the hot-button issues of immigration and voter fraud.
Speaking to the deep-left Washington Post, Richard Hasen, a UCLA law professor and alleged election law “expert”, said the court’s action would “make it moderately more difficult” for some voters and “for no good reason, because noncitizens are not voting in large numbers.” Well, if they are not voting in large numbers then it’s not an issue, and requiring those who do vote in large numbers to present an id is hardly a problem in a country where one needs an ID to enter a nightclub, buy a drink or drive a car.
Sensing which way the wind is blowing, Democrats are scrambling to make a huge issue out of the long overdue requirement to show some proof of citizenship when voting for, well, anything. Wendy R. Weiser of the Brennan Center for Justice’s democracy program said the change in registration requirements three months before the election will result in a scramble for voters, election officials and voting rights groups.
“There needs to be a massive education effort for people who do not have documentary proof of citizenship for them to understand the correct way to register to vote if they want to be able to vote in the federal elections,” Weiser said. “There’s a real risk of confusion when there are two different voter registration forms.”
Well, Wendy, if people do not have documentary proof of citizenship – say a driver’s license – by voting age, one can safely say they are illegal aliens and have been carted into the US, mostly likely in the deep of night on Biden airlines, for one purpose and one purpose only: to cheat in the November election.
Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes (D) agreed. He emphasized that state election officials would abide by the court’s decision and “implement these changes while continuing to protect voter access.”
Gina Swoboda, chair of the state Republican Party praised the decision, calling it a “tremendous victory for every Arizona voter who demands confidence that our elections are protected from non-citizen interference. The Supreme Court’s ruling ensures that Arizona can uphold the integrity of its elections.”
The Biden administration and a number of Arizona groups sued to block the law in July 2022, arguing that the federal National Voting Rights Act of 1993 and a 2018 consent decree between the state and the League of United Latin American Citizens, preempts the Arizona law’s requirements related to the federal voter registration form. The act requires voters to attest they are citizens under penalty of perjury but does not require them to submit proof.
Under that agreement, applicants who cannot show proof of citizenship on their state forms would still be registered to vote if their citizenship could be proved through documents from Arizona’s Transportation Department.
Those challenging the law also pointed to a 2013 Supreme Court ruling that said states violate the Voting Rights Act if they reject a federal voter registration form by requiring a person to submit proof of citizenship. Republicans argued that the ruling does not apply in the current case.
A trial court judge blocked the Arizona law in 2023, citing the rationale put forward by the Biden administration and the state groups. The Republicans then asked the Supreme Court to put the district court’s decision on hold pending an appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit. They also requested a prompt ruling, saying the state has an Aug. 22 deadline to resolve litigation related to the election because counties need to begin printing ballots.
“The district court’s injunction is an unprecedented abrogation of the Arizona Legislature’s sovereign authority to determine the qualifications of voters and structure participation in its elections,” the Republicans wrote in their filing.
U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth B. Prelogar argued on behalf of the Biden administration that “judicial intervention at this stage would undermine the orderly administration of the election.”
In a hilarious attempt to downplay the risk of millions of illegal aliens illegally voting in the November election, the abovementioned socialist rag Washington Post said that “noncitizen voting is illegal in federal elections and allowed only in some local municipalities and jurisdictions.” Oh, so it’s only “some” then… and since it is illegal to do something, well clearly nobody will do it. Might as well avoid double checking. And while we are at it, we should also allow everyone to drive a car on the honor system, just tell the cop you have a driver’s license somewhere, just not with you.
Trump has repeatedly claimed, not without justification, that noncitizen voting cost him the 2020 election and narrowed his margin of victory in the 2016 presidential contest.
The punchline: a handful of cities, including that socialist hellhole Washington, D.C., allow noncitizens to vote in municipal elections. And since nobody checks if those same noncitizens also vote in presidential elections (because “it is illegal to do so” so may as well trust them), it is guaranteed that millions of unqualified votes are cast each and every year for Democrat candidates, which is also why Democrats are doing everything in their power to allow half of Latin America in the US so actual legal votes are forever drowned out by the army of “free shit” illegals coming here for the promise of a better life, funding by other honest working taxpayers and legal American citizens, as long as they vote for Kamala.
The good news: this fall, Wisconsin, Iowa, Kentucky and Idaho will vote on ballot measures to enact constitutional bans on noncitizen voting. How these measures are not ironclad in every state, boggles the mind.
Suezmax Tanker Crew Forced To Abandon Ship After Missile Attack In Red Sea
The X account for EUNAVFOR ASPIDES, the European Union’s military operation committed to ensuring freedom of navigation and maritime security in the Red Sea, reported that the crew of a Suezmax tanker—the largest type of oil tanker capable of transiting the Suez Canal—was forced to abandon ship after “coming under attack.”
Greek-flagged oil tanker MV Sounion was bombarded in what earlier reports stated was a missile attack about 77 nautical miles west of the Yemeni port of Hodeidah, an area controlled by Iran-backed Houthis.
EUNAVFOR ASPIDESdispatched a naval vessel to Sounion after the attack. While rescuing the crew, gunners on the warship destroyed a kamikaze boat drone.
On August 21, the MV SOUNION, which had not asked for EUNAFVOR ASPIDES 🇪🇺 protection, came under an attack in the South Red Sea area and lost its engine power.
Following a request from the master, the operation dispatched a ship in order to rescue the crew.
While approaching the area, the EUNAVFOR ASPIDES ship destroyed an Unmanned Surface Vessel (USV) that posed an imminent threat to the ship and the crew. All on board the MV SOUNION were subsequently rescued and are being transported to Djibouti, the nearest safe port of call.
The Financial Times reported the tanker “was set on fire and left drifting by a series of attacks on Wednesday, including three missile strikes,” noting that “no group has claimed responsibility for the attacks.”
EUNAVFOR ASPIDES warned the tanker is carrying 150,000 tonnes of crude and now “represents a navigational and environmental hazard,” adding, “It is essential that everyone in the area exercises caution and refrains from any actions that could lead to a deterioration of the current situation.”
On August 21, the MV SOUNION, which had not asked for EUNAFVOR ASPIDES 🇪🇺 protection, came under an attack in the South Red Sea area and lost its engine power.
Following a request from the master, the operation dispatched a ship in order to rescue the crew.
Here is footage of the warship destroying at least one suicide boat drone.
📍 Sud de la mer Rouge
➡️ Assistance au navire MV Sounion victime d’une attaque et évacuation des 29 membres d’équipage.
➡️ Destruction d’une embarcation piégée menaçant l’opération de secours.
Contribution à la liberté de navigation et la sûreté maritime de Suez à Ormuz au sein… https://t.co/ARygBhgUfPpic.twitter.com/NuvuTCe4qZ
— Armée française – Opérations militaires (@EtatMajorFR) August 22, 2024
Since its implementation at the start of the year, the Biden-Harris administration’s Operation Prosperity Guardian has been a disaster. The mission to bolster freedom of navigation and regional security in the region has failed, with dozens of merchant ships attacked by Houthis, sparking a global supply chain shock across the shipping industry.
Container rates…
A significant concern about the failing Operation Prosperity Guardian is that it threatens to undermine American credibility and maritime security globally. China is closely watching…
The man who fired shots at former President Donald Trump during a rally in Pennsylvania had encrypted accounts in multiple countries, according to a member of the U.S. House of Representatives task force investigating the attempted assassination.
“We haven’t learned much about those overseas accounts,” Rep. Michael Waltz (R-Fla.) told a press conference in Chicago on Aug. 21. “We do know they were in … Belgium, New Zealand, and Germany.”
Waltz is on the “Task Force on the Attempted Assassination of Donald J. Trump.”
FBI officials previously disclosed that Crooks used encrypted messaging applications.
“Why does a 19-year-old kid who is a health care aide need encrypted platforms, not even based in the United States, but based abroad, where most terrorist organizations know it is harder for our law enforcement to get into?” Waltz asked.
He said that the question had not yet been answered.
Waltz and other members were preparing later Wednesday to receive a briefing from FBI officials on the agency’s probe into the attempted assassination of Trump on July 13.
He said that task force members have been discussing how authorities should be sharing information as they uncover it, not waiting until final reports on the investigations are ready.
“They need to be releasing information as they come across it because this wasn’t an isolated incident. The threats are continuing,” Waltz said.
The FBI and U.S. Secret Service did not respond to early morning requests for comment.
Waltz highlighted the recent charges against a Pakistani national. That man, Asif Merchant, has been charged in connection with a foiled plot to assassinate public officials in the United States. Authorities alleged he gave $5,000 as an advance payment to individuals he thought were hitmen, but were undercover FBI agents.
Waltz also said he was disturbed that the officials who constructed the security plan for Trump’s July rally have not been disciplined.
Acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe Jr. told Congress in July that discipline may follow out once the agency finishes its internal probe into the situation.
“That roof should have had better coverage, and we will get to the bottom of if there were any policy violations,” he said at one point.
Rowe added later that he would not provide real-time updates on disciplinary measures but would “at a high level provide at least some type of statement that people are being held accountable.”
Kimberly Cheatle, who was the Secret Service’s director before stepping down after Trump was nearly assassinated, said on July 22 that the Secret Service’s initial report about rally security would be ready in 60 days.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general is also conducting an investigation.
With Merit Back At The Fore, MIT’s Black Enrollment Plummets, Asian Share Leaps
The composition of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s incoming freshman class is vividly reflecting the effect of the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision banning affirmative action — with the share of spots given to black people down sharply, while Asian enrollment has jumped. “Every student admitted to the class of 2028 at MIT will know that they were accepted only based upon their outstanding academic and extracurricular achievements, not the color of their skin,” Edward Blum, who founded the Students for Fair Admissions group that was victorious in the Supreme Court case, told the New York Times.
MIT’s class of 2028 is only 5% black compared to 15% for the class of 2027. Hispanic and Latinos comprise 11%, down from 16%. The white share dropped a percentage point — from 38% to 37%. As anticipated, the big winners are Asian applicants, who, despite being minorities themselves, were abused by the affirmative action regime. Asians represent 47% of the new class, up from 40%. (The numbers don’t add up to 100% because of students whose heritage spans more than one group.)
Talking to the Times, MIT president Sally Kornbluth described the class of 2028 with notes of sorrow:
“The class is, as always, outstanding across multiple dimensions. What it does not bring, as a consequence of last year’s Supreme Court decision, is the same degree of broad racial and ethnic diversity that the MIT community has worked together to achieve over the past several decades.”
In other words, if Kornbluth could have it her way, MIT’s freshman class wouldn’t have as many Asians — merits be damned.
MIT is the first major university to release demographic stats on its entering class, so there will be more shoes to drop in the coming days and weeks. MIT’s numbers will serve as something of a benchmark — if other universities show much smaller changes, they’ll face accusations that they’re finding other ways to discriminate against Asians for the benefit of blacks and Latinos — and perhaps litigation as well.
In the wake of the Supreme Court ruling, advocates of rigged admissions seized upon language in the decision that seemed to leave a back door open for factoring race into acceptance considerations. The court said applicants should still be free to draw attention to their race if they did so in the context of describing their life experiences — such as dealing with discrimination.
Many highly selective schools have jumped on that angle. Johns Hopkins’ application, for example, asks applicants to “tell us about an aspect of your identity (e.g. race, gender, sexuality, religion, community, etc.) or a life experience that has shaped you as an individual…” Rice University asks, “What perspectives shaped by your background, experiences, upbringing, and/or racial identity inspire you to join our community of change agents at Rice?” To encourage applicants to emphasize their race, Sarah Lawrence even cites the Supreme Court decision in an essay application prompt, the New York Post reported.
Do you approve or disapprove of Supreme Court’s ruling on affirmative action?
MIT, however, seems to be an exception. Duke economist Peter Arcidiacono, who served as an expert witness for Students for Fair Admissions, told the Times he said he was pleasantly surprised to conclude MIT didn’t choose a new way to rig the game against Asians. “From the looks of it, MIT basically just took race out of the equation,” he said.
However, at least one data-driven observer feels even a 5% black share of MIT’s newest class indicates some kind of intervention to on their behalf:
As the race-specific freshman class enrollment figures start trickling in, keep these data in mind so that when you see blacks are 5% of a class at a highly-selective school (as they are at MIT) you’ll realize that these schools are still engaging in affirmative action. pic.twitter.com/GytDbJhv77
