Authored by Brad Jones via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Guaranteed income programs for transgender residents in San Francisco and Palm Springs have raised the eyebrows of some critics, who say they are a misuse of public funds and discriminatory.

Erin Friday, a co-leader of Our Duty, a group that protests the gender transitioning of minor children and young adults, told The Epoch Times the programs could indirectly promote prostitution and other crimes by prioritizing transgender convicts and sex workers.

“Trans-identified people need mental health assistance, not unrestricted cash,” she said.

San Francisco Mayor London Breed announced the launch of the Guaranteed Income for Transgender People (GIFT) program on Nov. 16 to provide “economically marginalized transgender people with unrestricted monthly guaranteed income as a way to combat poverty.”

The city and county will provide $1,200 a month in guaranteed income for 18 months to 55 transgender residents at a cost of about $1.2 million.

“The program will prioritize enrollment of Transgender, Non-Binary, Gender Non-Conforming, and Intersex (TGI) people who are also Black, Indigenous, or People of Color (BIPOC), experiencing homelessness, living with disabilities and chronic illnesses, youth and elders, monolingual Spanish-speakers, and those who are legally vulnerable such as TGI people who are undocumented, engaging in survival sex trades, or are formerly incarcerated,” according to the GIFT website.

Friday, an attorney, said Our Duty is exploring legal challenges to the program, which she says is “both racist and discriminatory on the basis of sex and gender.”

With health insurance providers mandated to provide gender transition treatment to those who seek it, and nonprofit groups such as Planned Parenthood offering cross-sex hormones at a nominal fee, Friday said trans-identified people should not be entitled to more money than other impoverished segments of the population.

The poverty rate in California was estimated at approximately 12 percent in the fall of 2021, according to the Public Policy Institute of California, with 29 percent living near or below the poverty line. The poverty rate for seniors 65 and older was 16 percent, “markedly higher” than younger adults at 12 percent and children at 9 percent.

In addition, public funds should not be spent to promote “an ideology that supports cancer-and-sterility-causing experimental hormones on children and removal of healthy body parts,” Friday said.

She urged parents in other states to “be on the lookout” for similar policies being implemented in their cities, since others may also be planning similar pilot programs in the hopes of starting a nationwide movement, she said.

Greg Burt with the California Family Council, a religious organization based in Fresno, told The Epoch Times in a Nov. 18 statement the programs are discriminatory and counterproductive.

“It implies transgender poor are more valuable and deserving of help than those who are not,” he said.

Giving money to poor people who identify as transgender with no accountability or limitations on how the money is spent isn’t compassionate because it harms the people it seeks to help, he said.

“The policy is foolish because it will incentivize the poor to identify as transgender to get the $1,200. There is no medical test or visual identifier to know who is transgender,” he said.

Mayors for Guaranteed Income

Aside from the GIFT program, Breed has led two other guaranteed income pilot programs, including the Abundant Birth Project for pregnant women who are black or Pacific Islanders, and a $6 million universal basic income program for local artists affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The initiatives are part of the California Guaranteed Income Pilot Program, which plans to provide grants totaling $35 million for pilot programs across the state. Each program must be funded with at least a 50 percent match by local governments or organizations.

According to the City of Palm Springs, it’s also part of a broader plan by Mayors for Guaranteed Income, an organization founded by former Stockton Mayor Michael Tubbs in 2020 that now has more than 80 supportive mayors in at least 29 different states. The group includes 23 mayors in California, including San Francisco’s Breed and Palm Springs’ former Mayor Christy Holstege.

“Between the pilots that have already started disbursements and those that are in the works, our coalition will provide more than $200 million in direct, unconditional relief to everyday Americans,” the organization states on its website.

The organization lists as its donors Jack Dorsey’s #startsmall, California Community Foundation, Carol Tolan, W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Arrow Impact, Bloomberg Philanthropies, The California Wellness Foundation, Silicon Valley Community Foundation, Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, and Wells Fargo Foundation.

Palm Springs

The Palm Springs City Council voted unanimously in March to set up a guaranteed income program that would pay transgender and non-binary residents up to $900 a month. The council allocated $200,000 to two organizations, DAP Health and Queer Works, to develop the guaranteed income plan and apply for a share of the state funding.

Mayor Lisa Middleton, who is openly transgender, voted to support the program at a March city council meeting but expressed doubts about whether the city should fund it or not.

“For the record, I strongly support reform of our poverty programs,” Middleton said. “I do not believe that guaranteed income programs as they are currently envisioned will be able to succeed and scale up to the level of the problem that they are attempting to address, nor do I believe that placing income maintenance programs within municipal government broadly is an appropriate public policy step. Notwithstanding that statement, I’m prepared to vote for the $200,000.”

However, Jacob Rostovsky the founder and CEO of Queer Works, indicated the city is expected to provide an additional $1 million to $1.2 million, according to a city staff report. The anticipated state grant and financial support from donors will cover 40 to 50 percent of the $2 million project.

Randy Economy, a Republican who resides in Coachella Valley, told The Epoch Times the mayor and council of Palm Springs have taken the city from “LGBTQ friendly” to a “much more radical place.”

In 2017, Palm Springs became the first city in the nation with an all-LGBT city council.

“Using the transgenderism situation as a political social experiment city by city is absolutely nonsensical and dangerous,” Economy said.

An openly gay man “who happens to be a Republican in California,” Economy said he left the Democratic Party about 20 years ago because of its “bizarre obsession with sexuality and gender.”

“What we’ve seen in cities with predominant majorities from one persuasion or the other, whether it be racially dominant … or in this case, dominated [by] … the LGBTQ community, just because they got elected, they feel they’ve been given a green light to be able to go ahead and promote their agenda, their will, their entire philosophy—on the entire community that they represent,” he said.

Economy played a lead role in the recall effort against California Gov. Gavin Newsom, and he ran unsuccessfully in the June 7 primary election for the District 4 seat on the California State Board of Equalization.

He also opposes subjecting children to gender identity issues inside or outside of the classroom.

“It has gotten to the point where it’s socially acceptable and routine to take a 5-year-old or a 7-year-old and [allow] them to start [gender] transitioning,” he said. “To me, that’s reprehensible. It’s cruelty to the children to put them through such a horrendous situation until their minds mature and develop. I understand the issue because I’ve seen it happen, and kids need to be kids.”

Drag Queen Laureate

The day after San Francisco Mayor London Breed announced the GIFT program, she issued a press release requesting applications for the city’s first drag queen ambassador.

The Drag Laureate program will support a drag performer to promote the city’s “LGBTQ+, arts, nightlife and entertainment communities,” according to the release.

California state Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) sponsored the program in his prior elected office as a county supervisor.

“San Francisco’s Drag Laureate program is a wonderful celebration of our drag queens,” Wiener said in the release. “Drag performers are an amazing representation of the LGBTQ community and they contribute so much to our city. I’m thrilled about the launch of this program, and excited to see who is crowned Drag Laureate.”

British feminist Kellie-Jay Keene recently staged a protest against Wiener’s promotion of drag queens at a pumpkin carving contest for families in San Francisco that Mayor Breed attended. Keene, who opposes the transgender movement, was in the city as part of her Let Women Speak U.S. tour.

Wiener is the author of several controversial legislative bills supporting the transgender community and “gender-affirming care.” One of his bills, Senate Bill 107, will shelter parents of trans-identified youth who seek to avoid prosecution for child abuse in other states, making California a trans sanctuary state. Democrat California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the partisan bill into law in September despite widespread opposition and no support from Republicans in the legislature.

Transgender and Non-Binary Population

The Williams Institute at the University of California–Los Angeles studied data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and found about 42.7 percent of people in the U.S. who identify as transgender and nonbinary are teenagers or young adults, according to a report released in June 2022.

Youth ages 3 to 17 currently comprise about 18 percent of the transgender-identified population, up from 10 percent in previous estimates.

More than 1.6 million adults (18 years and older) and youth (ages 13 to 17) identify as transgender in the United States, or 0.6 percent of those ages 13 and older, the institute reports.

In California, about 1.93 percent of 13- to 17-year-olds identify as transgender, compared to 0.7 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds, 0.5 percent of 24- to 64-year-olds, and 0.34 percent of people 65 and older. The number of adult Californians who identify as transgender is 150,000 or 0.49 percent of the total state population.

The Williams Institute research also found the racial composition of people who identify as transgender generally reflects the racial makeup of the general population, though the estimates “mirror prior research that found transgender youth and adults are more likely to report being Latinx and less likely to report being White compared to the U.S. population.”

The mea culpa tour for Sequoia Capital, who lost $150 million in the FTX blowup, continues. 

The venture capital firm reportedly apologized to its fund investors yet again last Thursday in a conference call, vowing “to improve its due diligence process for future investments”, Bloomberg wrote this week, citing people familiar with the matter.

Bloomberg called it a “rare moment of contrition for Sequoia”, who has had a successful track record investing in companies like Apple, Google and Airbnb. 

And what a surprise: the firm said that now, post-FTX blowup, it “would be able to push harder to have even early stage startups’ financial statements audited by one of the Big Four accounting firms”, Bloomberg wrote.

If only someone had thought about due diligence before FTX blew up…

Regardless, recall that back on November 10, we reported Sequoia had written down the entire value of its stake in FTX, a little over $210 million.

“We are in the business of taking risk,” Sequoia wrote in a message to investors seen by Bloomberg. “Some investments will surprise to the upside, and some will surprise to the downside.”

For a larger list of investors that lost money in FTX, consult our November 10, 2022 writeup here. 

Here is the note we sent to our LPs in GGFIII regarding FTX. pic.twitter.com/Cgp1Yxk1pz

— Sequoia Capital (@sequoia) November 10, 2022

Authored by Lorenz Duchamps via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Bill Gates, chair of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, confirmed that he was moved to an undisclosed location for safety reasons amid security concerns in connection to the 2022 midterm elections.

While speaking on KTAR News 92.3 FM’s “Arizona’s Morning News” on Nov. 21, Gates noted that the condition hasn’t interfered with his work in the state’s election system.

“I’m not in hiding … but I’ll put it this way. When the sheriff suggests that I spend the night somewhere else, I do it,” Arizona’s top election official told the station.

Gates was asked on the show to describe what the incident has done to him and his family emotionally, and also if he’s considering leaving public office following threats of violence.

“I’ve been an elected official since 2009 and here’s the reality: You’re not going to make everyone happy,” he said. “I was elected and was privileged to be reelected by my constituents in 2020 and I’m going to continue to serve.”

Gates said disruption to his family “has been minimal,” adding that the issue has been “blown out of proportion.” He also underscored that the situation did not have any impact on his official duties.

“This isn’t about me at all. I’m going to be fine. My family is going to be fine. This is not impacting me doing my work on the election, or generally, any one of the 50 lines of business that we’re in at Maricopa County,” Gates said.

“Threats of violence should never be normalized, of course, and I am, in particular, more concerned with our elections workers who have been dealing with this … not only here in Maricopa County but, really, nationwide for the past two years,” he added.

Jason Berry, a Maricopa County spokesperson, told CNN that Gates moved locations after there was a specific threat made against him on an undescribed social media platform. He was under the protection of the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office and stayed at the undisclosed location for just one night.

The incident occurred as the state’s most populous county has been criticized after widespread problems with ballot-tabulation equipment were reported on Election Day at approximately 70 of the county’s 223 voting centers.

A judge in Maricopa County who was asked to adjudicate an emergency motion (pdf) filed by the Republican National Committee (RNC), as well as GOP gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake and U.S. Senate candidate Blake Masters, said that the GOP did not “have evidence there was a voter who was precluded the right to vote” in connection to the tabulation problems.

Arizona AG Investigation

Lake, a candidate backed by former President Donald Trump, criticized the way Maricopa County ran the Nov. 8 elections, proclaiming on Nov. 19 that she will become governor after the office of Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich demanded explanations about Election Day problems in the county.

Meanwhile, Republican Arizona Attorney General candidate Abe Hamadeh is suing his opponent and a slew of election officials over what he alleges were widespread “errors and inaccuracies.”

Officials in at least 15 counties have “caused the unlawful denial of the franchise to certain qualified electors, erroneously tallied certain ballots, and included for tabulation in the canvass certain illegal votes in connection with the election for the office of Arizona Attorney General,” Abe Hamadeh, the candidate, said in the complaint.

That includes Maricopa County officials improperly disqualifying ballots cast by people who, as a direct result of poll worker errors, were incorrectly listed as voting previously in the midterm election, Hamadeh added.

“Immediate judicial intervention is necessary to secure the accuracy of the results of the November 8, 2022 general election, and to ensure that candidate who received the highest number of lawful votes is declared the next Arizona Attorney General,” the complaint states.

The filing was lodged in Maricopa County court.

The Arizona attorney general race is headed to a recount, according to Katie Hobbs, the state’s secretary of state, due to the slim margin separating Hamadeh from Democrat candidate Kris Mayes.

Mayes is leading by just 510 votes out of more than 2.5 million cast, according to an unofficial tally from Hobbs’s office.

Mayes and Hobbs, who were named as defendants in the new suit, did not respond to requests for comment. A Maricopa County spokesperson did not immediately return an inquiry.

Problems

Maricopa County officials have acknowledged problems with tabulation equipment, saying the problem affected 30 percent of all voting centers in the county and an estimated 17,000 ballots.

On election day the officials said that voters could place their ballots in a secure box to be counted later. Other options included “checking out” of the poll site and casting a ballot at another location, or utilizing an early ballot if one was possessed.

Both of the latter options required poll workers to properly list the voter as checking out, or leaving the site without casting a ballot, but some workers “were unaware of the process,” the new complaint alleges.

“This pervasive and systematic error directly and proximately resulted in three recurring scenarios in which qualified electors were unlawfully and unconstitutionally disenfranchised,” it added.

Hamadeh and the Republican National Committee, which joined in the legal action, say that at least 146 voters who should have been checked out and who later went to another location were required to vote using provisional ballots, which they say will not be counted because the voter was erroneously listed as having already voted.

At least 273 other voters who should have been checked out utilized early ballots but those ballots will not count because of the same issue, the Republicans said.

Maricopa County Board of Supervisors Chairman Bill Gates, a Republican, failed to outline the steps voters had to take if they left the sites at which there were problems in a widely-viewed Election Day video that featured officials acknowledging for the first time the issues with tabulators, the complaint noted. He did not mention checking out but merely said people could “go to a nearby voting center.”

“Chairman Gates’s instructions foreseeably resulted in the disenfranchisement of a significant number of qualified electors who followed his instructions,” it says. “By inducing voters to leave polling locations and then denying-through a consistent and erroneous practice of failing to properly implement ‘check-out’ procedures-these qualified electors their right to duly cast a ballot for tabulation, the Maricopa County Defendants engaged (through their election boards) in cognizable ‘misconduct,’ and wrongfully excluded valid and legally sufficient votes from the canvass line the race for Arizona Attorney General.”

Other Issues

Other issues include officials allegedly violating the law when they sought to verify early ballot signatures.

Officials must, when receiving a mail-in ballot, compare the signature on the envelope containing the ballot with the signature of the voter on record. If the signatures don’t match, the ballot is invalid unless the voter “cures” the problem within three to five days, depending on the type of election.

A number of the ballot envelopes had mismatched signatures but were still counted because county officials determined the signature matched the signature on a different document other than the registration record, which violates state law, the complaint alleges.

The issue happened across multiple counties, the Republicans say.

They also alleged that in the duplication process—triggered when a ballot is too defective to be read by a tabulator—officials incorrectly transcribed some of the selections in the attorney general race, which led to an inaccurate vote count.

“Arizonans demand answers and deserve transparency about the gross incompetence and mismanagement of the General Election by certain election officials. I will not stop fighting until ALL voters receive justice. See you in court,” Hamadeh said in a statement.

Ronna McDaniel, chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, said that the committee was “proud to join in this legal action.”

“Maricopa County’s election failures disenfranchised Arizonans,” she said. “We’re going to court to get the answers voters deserve.”

Authored by Katie Spence via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Nov. 19 acknowledged “underwhelming performances” by Republicans in the midterm elections and contrasted the losses elsewhere with what he called a “true Republican landslide” in Florida.

“We added four new Republican Congressmen to the U.S. House of Representatives from the state of Florida,” DeSantis told attendees at the Republican Jewish Coalition in Las Vegas on Saturday.

“We secured supermajorities in the Florida legislature—the most Republicans we have ever had in Florida’s history.”

At a time when Republicans are questioning what happened to the promised midterm elections’ “red wave” and what to do going forward, DeSantis clearly and elegantly stated that in Florida, Republicans are appealing to freedom, fighting against the “woke mind virus,” and implementing common-sense legislation. As a result, Republicans, Independents, and Democrats voted for a red wave in Florida.

“We won, by double digits, Miami-Dade County!” DeSantis said of his Republican win in the previously Democrat stronghold.

He added that if Republicans want to win future elections, they must follow his example in Florida.

Blueprint to Win

According to DeSantis, Republicans were successful in Florida’s midterm elections because “Florida really has a blueprint for success.” Specifically, he explained that his “blueprint” includes exercising authentic leadership that doesn’t bend to the shifting whims of society.

“The job of a leader is not to stick your finger in the wind and try to contort yourself to wherever public opinion may be trending at any given moment. No, the job of a leader is to set out a vision. To execute that vision. To show people that it’s the right vision, and to deliver concrete results. And when you do that, the people respond,” DeSantis stated.

He continued by giving the example that Florida has millions more people than New York, but New York’s budget is “over twice the size of our budget in Florida.” Despite that, DeSantis claimed that when New Yorkers move to Florida, they remark on Florida’s much better roads, services, and infrastructure.

DeSantis added that in Florida, K-12 schools are performing better than in New York, Florida has a record budget surplus—and it does all of that without a state income tax and one of the lowest tax burdens in the country. He said that the government wants people to succeed in Florida, and they adopt legislation to make that possible and attract people to the state.

Plus, DeSantis said, in Florida they don’t let red tape and bureaucracy prevent them from getting the job done.

A Return to Sanity

Expanding on why he thinks Republicans in his state did well in the midterms, DeSantis said Florida “stood out as the free state” over the past few years. He stated that during the height of the COVID-19 lockdowns, his administration refused to “descend into some type of Faucian dystopia” and instead respected people’s rights.

That included refusing to force people to close their businesses, keeping schools open, and standing against vaccine mandates. DeSantis added that those decisions resulted in attacks from the mainstream media and government officials worldwide, but his administration stood firm.

DeSantis went on to say that leadership requires standing against such attacks and said he was happy to take those “arrows” to protect his constituents. He said when people witnessed that, it drew them to Florida because it was a “refuge of sanity.”

As part of that “refuge of sanity,” DeSantis said Florida chose law and order over rioting and disorder. He said that when riots broke out in 2020, he immediately called out the National Guard to quash them. Then he moved to enact legislation protecting the police and their funding and said that anyone who riots in Florida isn’t getting a “slap on the wrist” but instead gets the “inside of a jail cell.”

DeSantis added that if any prosecutors try to pick and choose which laws to enforce, he immediately removes them from their posts.

Further, DeSantis said to resounding applause that Florida has chosen “education over indoctrination” and noted that Florida protects parental rights over their children. He said his administration believes parents have a fundamental role in raising their children and, as a result, he’s expanded school scholarships, so parents have more choices in education.

Pointedly, DeSantis stated that schools are not a place for “ideology” and said Florida banned Critical Race Theory in K-12 schools. He added that in Florida, they don’t teach children to hate themselves or each other and instead teach the history of the United States and what it means to “be an American.” The governor said he wouldn’t allow inappropriate content in elementary school, referencing the gender ideology curriculum.

All of this, DeSantis said in conclusion, is his administration’s willingness to stand against the “woke mind virus” that’s destroying society. He said people see the insanity of “woke ideology,” his administration’s appeal and return to common sense, and his “courage to lead,” and that’s why Florida experienced a red wave.

“Guess what? When you stand up for what’s right, when you show people you’re willing to fight for them, they will walk over broken glass barefoot to come vote for you. And that’s exactly what they did for me on Nov. 8 in record numbers,” DeSantis said.

He finished by saying that people respond to “strong leadership,” and if Republicans want to win going forward, they need to remember that to attract voters from across the political sphere.

Lost Red Wave

Before the Nov. 8 election, many political models estimated a red wave of up to 45 House seats because of President Joe Biden’s unpopularity, the struggling economy, and the past precedent of the majority party losing seats in a midterm. That didn’t pan out, however.

Instead, while Republicans managed to eke out a slim majority in the House, they lost at least one seat in the Senate—the Senate runoff results in Georgia could exacerbate that or return the Senate to a 50-50 split. Consequently, the 2022 midterms were considered a decisive win for Biden and his administration.

Read more here…

Authored by Dorothy Li via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Michael Bloomberg, chair of the Pentagon’s advisory panel, apologized to attendees at an economic forum hosted by his company after former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s speech that singled out the communist Chinese regime.

Bloomberg issued the apology on Nov. 17 at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum hosted by his corporation in partnership with the Singapore government.

“Some may have been insulted or offended last night by parts of the speaker’s remarks referencing certain countries and their duly elected leaders,” Reuters reported Bloomberg said.

“Those were his thoughts and his thoughts alone, not cleared in advance by anyone or shared with me personally,” Bloomberg told the conference, referring to Johnson’s remarks.

“To those of you who were upset and concerned by what the speaker said, you have my apologies,” he added.

According to the version released by Johnson’s spokesperson, the former prime minister described China and Russia as “two former communist tyrannies” to the gathering of business leaders, academics, and government officials from dozens of countries.

“Let’s look at Russia and China. The two former communist tyrannies in which power has once again been concentrated in the hands of a single rule, two monocultural states that have been traditionally hostile to immigration and that are becoming increasingly nationalist in their attitudes,” Johnson said, according to his spokesman.

Johnson said China and Russia “are willing to show a candid disregard for the rule of international law, and two countries that in the last year have demonstrated the immense limitations of their political systems by the disastrous mistakes they have made.”

The spokesperson said Johnson’s criticism was only against the Chinese authorities, not the country or Chinese people.

The Epoch Times reached out to Bloomberg LP for comment.

Bloomberg, founder of Bloomberg LP, the parent of Bloomberg News, didn’t specify whether his apologies were for the Chinese people or the communist regime.

The billionaire has previously landed in the headlines for defending the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). In 2019, the entrepreneur said the party’s top leader Xi Jinping “is not a dictator.”

“The Communist Party wants to stay in power in China, and they listen to the public … Xi Jinping is not a dictator. He has to satisfy his constituents, or he’s not going to survive,” Bloomberg said in a television interview with Firing Line in September 2019.

Bloomberg was asked several times about his comment when he ran for U.S. president in 2020, and the former New York mayor avoided pinning the label of “dictator” on Xi.

Xi has become the country’s most powerful leader since the first ruler Mao Zedong. Last month, Xi secured a record-breaking third term in office and installed allies in the Party’s top decision-making body during the 20th National Congress, further tightening his grip over the party and the country.

In the opening remarks at the conference last Thursday, Bloomberg praised China’s vice chairman Wang Qishan, who attended via video link, as a “troubleshooter” and “problem solver.” The billionaire noted he met Wang almost two decades ago, when Bloomberg served as mayor of New York and Wang was mayor of Beijing.

Bloomberg’s apology raised concern among activists who pointed to his position in the U.S. Department of Defense.

Read more here…

While spending time with family and friends at Thanksgiving remains important for many Americans, the cost of that indulgence has never been higher, up a stunning 20% from last year to $64.05 for the classic feast.

The cost for the classic meal was the most affordable in the South – $58.42, followed by the Northeast – $64.02, Midwest – $64.26 and West – $71.37.

“General inflation slashing the purchasing power of consumers is a significant factor contributing to the increase in average cost of this year’s Thanksgiving dinner,” said AFBF Chief Economist Roger Cryan.

“Farmers are working hard to meet growing demands for food – both here in the U.S. and globally – while facing rising prices for fuel, fertilizer and other inputs,” said Cryan.

Over the past two years, the grocery bill for a traditional Thanksgiving dinner has risen by 36.6%. All these changes are illustrated in the following chart from PoliticalCalculations blog:

In the chart, we’ve ranked the cost of the individual items and groupings used by the Farm Bureau for their traditional turkey dinner menu from high to low according to their 2021 cost as you read from left to right. We’ve also tallied the cumulative cost of the meal, with the totals for each shown on the far right side of the chart.

Ranking the data this way lets us see that the increase in the cost of turkey is once again responsible for most of the year-over-year increase in the cost of the meal. Here we see the cost of a 16-pound bird rose by 20.7% to $28.96 in 2022. This single item alone accounts for over 46% of the year-over-year increase in the total cost for the meal. Since 2020, the cost of turkey has increased by $9.57, making up 56% of the realized increase in Thanksgiving dinner ingredient costs over that time.

Meanwhile, only the price of cranberries fell compared to last year, dropping by 13.8%. Every other Thanksgiving dinner items increased in cost during 2022.

Among those items, a 1-pound veggie tray of carrots and celery registered the smallest year-over-year price increase of 7.3%. Every other item’s cost was up significantly, recording double-digit year-over-year price increases ranging from a low of 11.2% for sweet potatoes to a high of 69.4% for a 14-ounce package of cubed bread stuffing.

During the last ten years, the cost of a traditional Thanksgiving dinner held steady within a relatively narrow range between $46.90 (2020) and $50.11 (2015). Thanks to the cumulative effect of President Biden’s inflation, celebrating Thanksgiving with a traditional turkey dinner has never been more costly for Americans.

Of course, the Biden administration was quick to ascribe blame for this record surge in the cost of Americans’ most traditional meal.

A USDA memo this month said turkey prices will be higher because of this year’s outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI), which led to the death of 8 million turkeys in 2022. But USDA also said “Russia’s war on Ukraine and drought across the United States” are other factors that are “pushing up the price of Thanksgiving staples.”

USDA told Fox News Digital that both the COVID pandemic and “Putin’s Price Hike” have boosted food prices around the world, and said Russia’s move against Ukraine cut off a “critical supply” of wheat, corn, barley and other grain. Russia’s war in Ukraine plus the pandemic have putt “pressure on food prices,” USDA said.

As a reminder, a year ago, the St.Louis Fed offered this little beauty of a tweet, suggesting Americans switch from Turkey to Tofurkey to save some cash…

As of the third quarter of 2021, a hearty Thanksgiving dinner serving of turkey costs $1.42.

A tofurkey (soybean) dinner serving with the same amount of calories costs $0.66 and provides almost twice as much protein.

Keep in mind that this plant-based meal would be almost 3 times larger by weight than the poultry-based meal and may either keep you at the dinner table longer or provide you with more leftovers.

Remind us again who was responsible for soaring poultry and soybean prices back then?

Spot the turkey…

Submitted by QTR’s Fringe Finance

To be honest, it’s kind of hard to try and entertain the innuendo and rumors that Democrats and the media are working to do damage control on behalf of Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of now-bankrupt crypto exchange FTX, because the idea is just so reprehensible.

But they sure do keep giving us ammunition to make that suggestion, don’t they?

Bankman-Fried and House Financial Services Committee Chair Maxine Waters

Bankman-Fried – the second biggest donor to Democrats behind George Soros – has all but admitted that he squandered billions of dollars of other people’s money carelessly, writing “I fucked up” on Twitter in a mea culpa about two weeks ago, days after a run on his exchange exposed it to be a shell of what many perceived it to be.

Institutional investors in FTX have written their stakes in the firm to $0.

The $5 billion bank-run on FTX that started it all has many everyday crypto investors worried that their “investments” with FTX are total losses. For many, it was their life savings.

Since then, Bankman-Fried’s former company continues to be at the center of extremely shady circumstances. It has seen a “substantial amount” of its assets go missing in the days after its blowup.

The lawyer hired to oversee the liquidation of FTX, who also was in charge of the same task for Enron, has said “he’s never seen a company in worse shape than FTX.”

“I have over 40 years of legal and restructuring experience. I have been the chief restructuring officer or chief executive officer in several of the largest corporate failures in history. . . . Never in my career have I seen such a complete failure of corporate controls and such a complete absence of trustworthy financial information as occurred here.”

Get 50% off: If you enjoy this article, would like to support my work, I would love to have you as a subscriber and can offer you 50% off for life: Get 50% off forever

To add insult to injury, Bankman-Fried has also admitted that his entire persona of being an altruist was a ruse, calling it a “dumb game we woke westerners play.”

Now widely accepted by the public and most in the financial industry to have committed a massive $30 billion fraud that has spawned innumerable comparisons to Madoff and Enron, it’s unclear to me what more of an admission of guilt is needed to extradite Bankman-Fried to the United States and place him under arrest.

I know I’m not the only one who can hear the drumbeat of potentially covering up for Bankman-Fried beating a little louder with every day that goes by and he isn’t shown being paraded off somewhere in handcuffs.

Instead, the only photo I have seen of Bankman-Fried since his firm’s blowup has been one of him meandering around a grocery store in the Bahamas.

For historical reference, Bernie Madoff was arrested on December 11, 2008.

On December 11, 2008, financier Bernard Madoff is arrested at his New York City apartment and charged with masterminding a long-running Ponzi scheme later estimated to involve around $65 billion, making it one of the biggest investment frauds in Wall Street history.

His arrest came two days after he admitted to his brother that he was running a fraud.

“On December 3, he told longtime assistant Frank DiPascali, who had overseen the fraudulent advisory business, that he was finished. On December 9, he told his brother Peter about the fraud.”

Between the beginning of December and his arrest on the 11th, he also confessed to his sons, who “turned him in”.

This means, at the maximum, it was 11 days between Madoff being “turned in” and being arrested.

For reference, FTX collapsed around November 8, 2022 and Binance turned down the company’s bailout on November 9, 2022. Bankman-Fried admitted to “fucking up” on November 10, 2022 and FTX filed for bankruptcy on November 11, 2022, which means it has already been 11 days since the bankruptcy filing – and nearly 2 weeks since the firm’s collapse.

In the interim, instead of Bankman-Fried being brought to justice in the United States, we find out that “members of the House are requesting testimonies from Bankman-Fried, top executives from FTX and Alameda at a hearing in December.”

“The fall of FTX has posed tremendous harm to over one million users, many of whom were everyday people who invested their hard-earned savings into the FTX cryptocurrency exchange, only to watch it all disappear within a matter of seconds.

Unfortunately, this event is just one out of many examples of cryptocurrency platforms that have collapsed just this past year. That’s why it is with great urgency that I, along with my colleague ranking member McHenry, announce the Committee’s intention to hold a hearing to investigate the collapse of FTX.”

Rep. Maxine Waters

Not at a criminal court – at a congressional hearing. Not anytime soon – in December.

In the interim, we are being treated to a cushy response from the media, who has hailed Bankman-Fried as anything other than a criminal. The New York Times wrote a widely criticized puff piece on Bankman-Fried 3 days after FTX filed for bankruptcy.

The Washington Post’s take was that he was a pandemic fighter:

For a party that seems to absolutely loathe billionaires, Democrats and their friends in the media sure are taking it soft on Bankman-Fried.

Key democrats also took it soft on Theranos founder and former billionaire Elizabeth Holmes. After she drove an $8 billion fraud into the ground and was found guilty in a court of law, Democrat Cory Booker even wrote a letter pleading for a light sentence for her. Try to keep your lunch down while reading this:

Now, what do these two frauds have in common?

—

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The White House has unveiled another $400 million in defense aid to Ukraine, which is also to include urgently needed generators as the national energy grid has been severely degraded by Russian airstrikes, leaving at least 10 million people without power. 

This brings military aid committed thus far to more than $19 billion in weapons. Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced Wednesday in a statement, “Pursuant to a delegation of authority from the President, today I am authorizing our twenty-sixth drawdown of U.S. arms and equipment for Ukraine since August 2021. This $400 million drawdown includes additional arms, munitions, and air defense equipment from U.S. Department of Defense inventories.” 

“This drawdown will bring the total U.S. military assistance for Ukraine to an unprecedented level of approximately $19.7 billion, since the beginning of the Administration,” the statement continued.

Blinken underscored that the US coordinated the new aid with partner nations, “including the £50 million in air defense systems offered by UK Prime Minister Sunak,” according to the State Dept. readout.

Meanwhile, there remain growing concerns over the US and Western partners greatly depleting their own stockpiles, as The Independent observes: 

The continued push of weapons to Kyiv is raising questions about how long the U.S. and partner nations can continue to sustain the fight without an impact to military readiness. Many European nations have already expressed that they have pushed forward all the excess they can afford to send.

The White House push for more defense aid comes as the administration grows nervous about GOP objections. “The flow of weapons comes as the Biden administrations seeks to pass an additional $37 billion in military and humanitarian aid for Ukraine during the post-election session of Congress, before Republicans take over control of the House in January,” The Independent writes.

The Pentagon has lately emphasized it is prioritizing getting the Ukrainians ready for the harsh winter months. There’s also a push to keep providing advanced anti-air systems to protect against attacks on the electricity stations and facilities…

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin says the 2 NASAMS air-defense systems provided to Ukraine by the US have “a 100% success rate” against Russian missiles thus far. Delivery was this month. (Remarks from the start of another meeting of Ukraine’s partners to source arms for the war.) pic.twitter.com/rhIgXIRzIk

— Andrew deGrandpré (@adegrandpre) November 16, 2022

Currently an estimated half the national electricity grid has been degraded or destroyed due to repeat waves of Russian airstrikes. Parts of the capital on Wednesday were even said to lack water, which emergency services are working hard to restore.

As we discussed last night, Sam Bankman-Fried has now demonstrated that he is both a pathological liar and a sociopath, the kind who in “explaining” to his employees how he stole billions (over $4 billion according to new FTX CEO John J. Ray) from the now bankrupt FTX, an act which left it insolvent and without liquidity, called it “loans” which were “generally” not used for “large amounts of personal consumption” (just “small amounts” used for such trivial items as $40 million penthouses and private jets).

And the only reason we don’t officially call him a criminal just yet, is because he has not yet confirmed he used client money from his exchange to fund his personal hedge fund, an act which would cost any other individual decades in jail… but not prominent democrats like SBF or Jon Corzine, of course. Plus it’s the US legal system’s job to do that, not ours. Although we are growing increasingly skeptical this prominent Democratic donor will ever see the inside of a courtroom.

It’s not just us: with much of the entire world demanding to know how this corpulent 30-year-old still has not been thrown in prison, or at least charged with a variety of crimes, the NYT just confirmed to the entire world what a farce the one-time paper of record has become, and how it is willing to whore itself out for clicks – not to mention prominent Democrat donors – because moments after SBF tweeted that he will be speaking with Andrew Ross-Sorkin moderated NYT “summit” on Nov 30…

I’ll be speaking with @andrewrsorkin at the @dealbook summit next Wednesday (11/30). https://t.co/QocjPtCVvC

— SBF (@SBF_FTX) November 23, 2022

… Sorkin quickly confirmed as much.

A lot of folks have been asking if I would still be interviewing @SBF_FTX at the @nytimes @dealbook Summit on Nov 30…

The answer is yes. 👇

There are a lot of important questions to be asked and answered.

Nothing is off limits.

Looking forward to it… https://t.co/lShAqXLKGS

— Andrew Ross Sorkin (@andrewrsorkin) November 23, 2022

And so, instead of being under arrest, SBF will instead be treated like a luminary alongside other such other Democrat icons as Zelenskyy (who according to some may have been intimately familiar with FTX fund flows in the past year) and of course the woman who along with Ben Bernanke and Jerome Powell, made it all possible by blowing the biggest asset bubble of all time: Janet Yellen.

And while we are certain that the NYT – which we assume is done writing puff pieces on behalf of SBF after it became a laughing stock last week – would be quick to mercilessly cancel and expel from its “prestigious” conference anyone who had misgendered some post-op transsexual, it is willing to give this thieving pathological liar and sociopath a forum in which to profess his innocence to the entire world, and by association with other Democrat “celebrities” such as this one…

…  to boost his standing within a legal system that is clearly as much as joke as the venue that he will be sharing with the following individuals:

Here are all the other “top business and policy leaders” at the NYT whitewashing summit:

• Eric Adams, New York City mayor
• Ben Affleck, Artists Equity C.E.O.
• Sam Bankman-Fried, FTX founder
• Gerry Cardinale, RedBird Capital Partners founder, managing partner and C.I.O.
• Shou Chew, TikTok C.E.O.
• Larry Fink, BlackRock chairman and C.E.O.
• Reed Hastings, Netflix founder and co-C.E.O.
• Andy Jassy, Amazon president and C.E.O.
• Van Jones, CNN host, author and Dream.Org founder
• Scarlett Lewis, Jesse Lewis Choose Love Movement founder and mother of Sandy Hook shooting victim, Jesse
• Mike Pence, 48th vice president of the United States and author of “So Help Me God”
• Benjamin Netanyahu, former Prime Minister of Israel, current leader of the Likud party
• Priscilla Sims Brown, Amalgamated Bank president and C.E.O.
• Secretary Janet L. Yellen, U.S. Department of the Treasury
• President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine
• Mark Zuckerberg, Meta founder, chairman and C.E.O.

The shocked, stunned and simply disgusted reactions are still coming in:

“SBF needs to go to jail!”

The New York Times: pic.twitter.com/ynSzdFdl0Q

— Dr. Parik Patel, BA, CFA, ACCA Esq. (@ParikPatelCFA) November 23, 2022

The @nytimes event right? Makes sense. 😂😂😂 https://t.co/mgMhc0YNrA

— Dave Portnoy (@stoolpresidente) November 23, 2022

I’ll be speaking with @SBF_FTX at the @dealbook summit next Wednesday (11/30) by hiding in one of the bathroom stalls and surprising him while he’s using the urinal.

What questions should I ask him?

— davis 🐺🦊 (@basedkarbon) November 23, 2022

How did this dude steal billions of dollars and is now speaking at a summit as a free man?

Make it make sense.

— Chairman (@WSBChairman) November 23, 2022

let’s hop on a spaces right now.
Just me and you, 1 on 1.

— Bitcoin Archive 🗄🚀🌔 (@BTC_Archive) November 23, 2022

That CNBC, the NY Times and far-left extremist Andrew Sorkin would be protecting, apologizing for and promoting this guy is zero surprise. https://t.co/xhGh0gePV0

— John Tuld (@BradHuston) November 23, 2022

FTX SBF is scheduled to speak at a @nytimes business summit with Andrew Sorkin, after defrauding clients billions of dollars. More proof that paid off politicians grant you amnesty.

— TaraBull (@TaraBull808) November 23, 2022

SORKIN: “Internet trolls are scapegoating Sam, but we should celebrate entrepreneurs even when they fail. There’s nothing illegal about taking big risks.” https://t.co/mB9KkFsRdt pic.twitter.com/FKyTtdsfl9

— Bitcoin is Saving (@BitcoinIsSaving) November 23, 2022

My theory is that Andrew Sorkin is a sensible guy disgusted by the ruling class who tries to insult it by showing how bad it’s leading figures are. He’s surprised no one gets it but at least he makes a lot of money until that happens. https://t.co/ii9pGTz3R0

— P.C. Outsider (@PhilOutsider) November 23, 2022

PERFECT—ANDREW ROSS SORKIN IS MORE FULL OF SHIT THAN SAM IS. https://t.co/Y5PsRaRgVu

— INVESTMENT HULK (@INVESTMENTSHULK) November 23, 2022

“So, what’s your favorite color lol”

— litquidity (@litcapital) November 23, 2022

Damage control is in overdrive. We can’t be the only ones observing this? This is outrageous. https://t.co/OCTOMeOY3D

— Autism Capital 🧩 (@AutismCapital) November 23, 2022

“This can’t get any worse!”

Universe: “LOL, watch me!”

— Helin ULKER (@beautyofhelin) November 23, 2022

Hey @andrewrsorkin, can you also please invite AG Merrick Garland to the summit: we’d love to see him shake hands with SBF https://t.co/twLcOLQUtP

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) November 23, 2022

When SBF flies safely back to the Bahamas after attending the @dealbook summit pic.twitter.com/qgYCyQMlUA

— Ramp Capital (@RampCapitalLLC) November 23, 2022