San Fran Police Recruitment Drops 72% From 2019 Despite $112,000 Rookie Salary
San Francisco is (believe it or not) having trouble recruiting new police officers. After all, who wants to try and be the police in a ‘woke’ city where lawlessness is encouraged and the police are hated just for doing their jobs?
Things have gotten so bad in the Bay Area that the city is now trying to entice rookie officers with a massive starting pay of $112,398 per year – and the city is still having trouble finding new officers for its force, according to Yahoo/Bloomberg.
According to the report, San Francisco’s police force faces a severe recruitment crisis, with only 26 recruits joining in 2023, a 72% drop from 2019 and the lowest in over a decade.
The city’s police staff has declined by 13% since 2020, from over 1,800 to just under 1,600, the report says. Currently, only 23 trainees are at the academy, with no certainty of graduation. The six figure payday offer for new San Francisco cops marks the highest for rookies in major U.S. cities, surpassing Chicago’s $88,746 after 18 months.
Ted Schwartz, acting police chief in Ithaca, added: “Twenty years ago, we would have hundreds of people knocking down our door to be police officers. That’s not true in our society anymore.”
San Francisco, despite cutting $120 million from police budgets under protest pressure, isn’t alone in struggling to recruit officers. Cities like Arcata, Ithaca, and Chicago are offering up to $50,000 bonuses, while Alameda, California, leads with a $75,000 bonus and a starting salary of $113,654, more than San Francisco.
Chuck Wexler, the executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, commented to Bloomberg: “These bonuses sound more like sports teams than a civil service position. I’ve never seen anything like it. It feels like desperation.”
In 2022, police officer resignations surged by 47% and retirements increased by 19% compared to 2019, reveals a survey by the Police Executive Research Forum, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, covering nearly 200 police agencies.
Airbus A330 Flight Cancelled After Passenger Spots 4 Missing Fasteners On Wing
“Well, at least it’s not a Boeing.”
That was likely the thoughts of everyone in the Boeing C-suite, exhaling a collective sigh of relief, when the latest airline safety mishap began making its rounds through the newscycle Monday.
That news was the cancellation of an Airbus A330 flight bound for New York after 41 year old passenger Phil Hardy looked out the window and noticed “screws missing from the plane’s wing,” according to the New York Post.
The plane, set to take off as Flight VS127 from Manchester Airport, had “four missing fasteners,” according to the report.
Hardy, a frequent flyer, said: “I’m a good flyer, but my partner was not loving the information I was telling her and starting to panic, and I was trying to put her mind at rest as much as I could.”
He continued: “I thought it was best to mention it to a flight attendant to be on the safe side.”
Engineers showed up to examine the plane and the flight was eventually cancelled.
A representative for Virgin Air said the flight was cancelled to “provide time for precautionary additional engineering maintenance checks, which allowed our team the maximum time to complete their inspections.”
They continued in a statement: “The safety of our customers and crew is always our top priority and this was not compromised at any point. We always work well above industry safety standards and the aircraft is now back in service.”
An Airbus chief wing engineer said the panel was supplemental and was secured properly: “Each of these panels has 119 fasteners, so there was no impact to the structural integrity or load capability of the wing, and the aircraft was safe to operate.”
“As a precautionary measure, the aircraft underwent an additional maintenance check, and the fasteners were replaced,” he concluded.
The Supreme Court voted 5–4 vote to allow U.S. Border Patrol agents to remove razor wire that was set up along the U.S.–Mexico border by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott while a legal challenge plays out.
In a brief order, the high court vacated a ruling issued in mid-December by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh voted to deny the application to vacate that lower court injunction, which would have prevented Border Patrol agents from removing the barrier.
Chief Justice John Roberts as well as Justices Amy Coney Barrett, Ketanji Brown Jackson, Elena Kagan, and Sonia Sotomayor sided with the Biden administration. No one provided an explanation for their vote.
The order represents a win for President Joe Biden’s administration, which has struggled to curb illegal immigration into the United States since he took office in 2021, amid an ongoing battle with Mr. Abbott, a Republican, over the border. The administration had filed an emergency request to the Supreme Court and argued that Texas was blocking federal agents from carrying out their duties.
In arguments to the high court, Biden administration lawyers claimed that the barrier prevented agents from reaching illegal immigrants who already entered the United States. Lawyers for the state of Texas, however, have said that Washington has not been able to secure the border as Mr. Abbott’s administration set up razor wire fencing under the Operation Lone Star plan.
They argued that the razor wire blocks agents from gaining access to “the very border they are charged with patrolling and the individuals they are charged with apprehending and inspecting.”
“Like other law-enforcement officers, Border Patrol agents operating under difficult circumstances at the border must make context-dependent, sometimes split-second decisions about how to enforce federal immigration laws while maintaining public safety,” Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar wrote to the Supreme Court. “But the injunction prohibits agents from passing through or moving physical obstacles erected by the State that prevent access to the very border they are charged with patrolling and the individuals they are charged with apprehending and inspecting.”
In the application, she also rejected the idea that federal agents have done anything illegal or improper.
“Border Patrol agents’ exercise of discretion regarding the means of enabling the apprehension, inspection and processing of noncitizens in no way suggests that they cut wire for impermissible purposes,” the solicitor general wrote.
In court papers, the administration also said that, in any case, federal immigration law trumps Texas’s efforts to stem the flow of migrants into the country.
That was submitted after the Fifth U.S. Court of Appeals sided with Texas several weeks ago, saying that “the public interest supports clear protections for property rights from government intrusion and control.”
Earlier this year, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican, filed a lawsuit against the Biden administration and multiple federal agencies and officials for destroying the razor wire. He and other state officials have argued that federal agents cut the wire to help groups crossing illegally through the river before taking them in for processing.
“Federal agents have developed and implemented a practice of destroying Texas’s concertina wire to encourage, induce, and assist thousands of aliens to illegally cross the Rio Grande and enter Texas,” he said in a release in October. “Federal agents in some cases attempted to ease aliens’ ability to illegally climb up the riverbank into Texas by attaching ropes or cables to the back of pickup trucks. Federal agents regularly cut new openings in the wire fence, sometimes immediately after Texas officers have placed new wire to plug gaps in fencing barriers.”
Mr. Abbott also has authorized installing floating barriers in the Rio Grande near Eagle Pass and allowed troopers to arrest and jail thousands of migrants on trespassing charges. The administration also is challenging those actions in federal court. A federal appeals court last month forced federal agents to stop cutting the concertina wire. Large numbers of migrants have crossed at Eagle Pass in recent months.
In a separate case, the U.S. Fifth Court of Appeals in December ordered Texas to do away with a 1,000-foot-long buoy barrier in the Rio Grande, also designed to block illegal immigration. The court sided with the Biden administration, which argued that the barrier makes the Rio Grande difficult to navigate.
This month, Texas denied entry to Border Patrol agents around Shelby Park in Eagle Pass after Mr. Abbott said that the state won’t allow agents “on that property anymore,” widening a dispute with the Biden administration.
“We said, ‘We’ve had it. We’re not going to let this happen anymore,’” the governor said earlier this month, referring to the dispute.
SEC Idiots Deliberately Turned Off Multi-Factor Authentication Ahead Of Most Humiliating Hack In Agency’s History
While we already knew the reason behind the most humiliating hack in SEC history – when one day before Gary Gensler was forced to capitulate and approved the first batch of spot Bitcoin ETF (betraying his Sith master, Pocahontas under intense pressure from Larry Fink), the regulator’s X account was hacked and reported what would be news one day later – moments ago the SEC confirmed that i) an unnamed person changed the password for the agency’s account after gaining control of an agency employee’s phone number via a simple “SIM Swap” to make the false post on Jan. 9, and more importantly ii) the reason why the hack was even possible in the first place is that the multifactor authentication of its X account was disabled last July and wasn’t re-enabled until after the incident, to wit:
“While multi-factor authentication (MFA) had previously been enabled on the @SECGov X account, it was disabled by X Support, at the staff’s request, in July 2023 due to issues accessing the account. Once access was reestablished, MFA remained disabled until staff reenabled it after the account was compromised on January 9. MFA currently is enabled for all SEC social media accounts that offer it.”
In other words, the idiots at the SEC voluntarily made it easier for any outside hackers to gain access to their account, by deliberately turning off their 2 factor authentication, which as Bloomberg’s James Seyffart notes, is far worse than never having it turned on in the first place!
The full statement is below; it’s amazing the SEC managed to publish it without fucking everything up.
January 22, 2024: Statement by an SEC Spokesperson to the Media:
We are providing the following update on the January 9, 2024, unauthorized access and activity (the “incident”) on the @SECGov X account:
SEC staff are continuing to coordinate with several law enforcement and federal oversight entities, including the SEC’s Office of Inspector General, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the Department of Justice, and the SEC’s own Division of Enforcement.
Two days after the incident, in consultation with the SEC’s telecom carrier, the SEC determined that the unauthorized party obtained control of the SEC cell phone number associated with the account in an apparent “SIM swap” attack. SIM swapping is a technique used to transfer a person’s phone number to another device without authorization, allowing the unauthorized party to begin receiving voice and SMS communications associated with the number. Access to the phone number occurred via the telecom carrier, not via SEC systems. SEC staff have not identified any evidence that the unauthorized party gained access to SEC systems, data, devices, or other social media accounts.
Once in control of the phone number, the unauthorized party reset the password for the @SECGov account. Among other things, law enforcement is currently investigating how the unauthorized party got the carrier to change the SIM for the account and how the party knew which phone number was associated with the account.
While multi-factor authentication (MFA) had previously been enabled on the @SECGov X account, it was disabled by X Support, at the staff’s request, in July 2023 due to issues accessing the account. Once access was reestablished, MFA remained disabled until staff reenabled it after the account was compromised on January 9. MFA currently is enabled for all SEC social media accounts that offer it.
And these are the cartoonishly incompetent morons (and porn addicts) tasked with keeping US investors safe.
David Rogers Webb (DRW) is a financial expert and former global money manager who lives in Sweden.
Recently, DRW revealed the game plan of globalists like Klaus Schwab who publicly predicts, “You will own nothing . . .” According to DRW, this is not some idle threat but a complicated active plan demonic Deep State globalist central bankers have been working on for decades. DRW has explained this theft in a free book and documentary called “The Great Taking.” It is a stunning plan to steal almost all wealth and legally not be required to pay one red cent for it.
The plan is in the process of unfolding now. DRW explains,
“The core of what I am showing here is about securities, stocks and bonds. I also go into the good old fashion way of doing it, which is taking anything encumbered with debt.
That’s been done for centuries. They create a cycle where there is a fall in price, and then anyone who is in debt is in trouble, and the collateral is taken.
This was the big hammer in ‘The Great Taking 1.0,’ which was the Great Depression.
In this go-around, ‘The Great Taking 2.0,’ that is taking things that are not encumbered with debt…
There is very sophisticated subterfuge that has been put into place…
They have worked for half a century to put this in place. So, it is quite deliberate. This is not an accident.”
The privately owned stocks and bonds in brokerages are now collateral backing up the massive $2 quadrillion in derivatives in the world.
DRW calls this a “sleight-of-hand” in regulations that changes ownership of securities in a severe financial meltdown, which is already planned.
Actual owners of securities have no idea they are about to be robbed of their wealth. DRW says,
“The public had property rights to these stocks and bonds, and they turned that into a contractual claim. So, they have no rights or standing in a bankruptcy.
Then, the collateral is transported into the ‘Central Clearing Parties,’ which are set up to fail. They are actually preparing for that.
When those fail, it is the secured creditors behind that derivatives complex that have ‘Super-Priority’ to take that collateral.
This is what is meant by ‘You will own nothing.’ This is sleight-of-hand to take people’s assets to underpin these financial contracts…
I say derivatives are not real things, but they can be used to take the real things through this construct…
They are using these vast pools of client securities…as the collateral underpinning all these derivative contracts…I think their goal is simply to take all the stuff, and it is taken free of payment.”
This is not just simple greed. It is war, and we are being attacked in ways we have never seen before such as the CV19 bioweapon vax that has already murdered millions of people globally. DRW says,
“This is a full spectrum ‘Hybrid War’ because it is not a war between nation states. Russia has been held up as a boogeyman…
In the book (The Great Taking), I show is a very elaborate structure put in place and implemented by the CIA, The Federal Reserve and the Department of State.
This is not being run by the Chinese or the Russians. This is the central banks…
They are trying to collapse everything… we are in a war, and there are going to be big disruptions…We are all in danger now.”
DRW says the best way to protect yourself is to get out of debt and stay out of debt.
He also suggests you may want to sell your stocks and bonds now, and pay off your house or any debts you have.
DRW says, “It’s better to get something now than get nothing later.”
There is much more in the 1-hour and 9-minute deep-dive on how central banks plan on stealing everything in the next financial crisis. This is a crisis that is coming much sooner than you have been told.
Join Greg Hunter of USAWatchdog.com as he talks with David Rogers Webb, who is a financial expert and author of the free new book and documentary called “The Great Taking” for 1.20.24.
David Rogers Webb wants to wake up as many people as possible to get them prepared. There is also a chance that this global theft of Biblical proportions might be stopped. This is why DRW is putting everything out to the public free of any charge what-so-ever. You can get both the book and documentary of “The Great Taking” for free by clicking here.
Haley Plays Race Card, Claims Segregated Beauty Pageant Discrimination In 1980s
Nikki Haley isn’t just a pro-war neocon who wants to track everyone on the internet.
She’s actually a victim, you see. A victim of racism…
Appearing on NBC Sunday, Haley spun quite the yarn over just how hard it was to be a ‘brown’ Indian girl growing up in the deep South.
“We were the only Indian family in our small southern town. I was teased every day for being brown. So anyone that wants to question it can go back and look at what I’ve said on how hard it was to grow up in the deep South as a brown girl,” she said.
Read that again. Haley was teased every single day of her lifefor the crime of being brown.
In fact, poor Nimrata says she was rejected from a beauty contestbecause she wasn’t black or white.
“If you wanna know what it was like growing up, I was disqualified from a beauty pageant because I wasn’t white or black, because they didn’t know where to put me. So look, I know the hardships, the pain that come with racism.”
Watch:
NEW: Nikki Haley is not only playing the ‘woman’ card, but is now playing the race card, says she was made fun of every day for being brown.
Haley also claimed she was ‘disqualified’ from a beauty pageant because she wasn’t white or black.
Yet, as Candace Owens points out – Haley would have been competing in the 1980s…
“Were there segregated beauty pageants then? If not, why would they not know where to put her?” She asks, adding “If so, how was the mixed-race Vanessa Williams crowned Miss America in 1984?”
This is very confusing to me. Nikki Haley was born in 1972. I’d assume it was at least the 80’s before she tried to enroll in a beauty pageant. Were there segregated beauty pageants then? If not, why would they not know where to put her?
If so, how was the mixed-race Vanessa… https://t.co/Io4a8jrjCg
Milei Exposes The Path of Destruction For The West
Big corporations and global leaders adhere to and assume the growing interventionism and the advance of socialism because, for politicians, it is an excellent way of perpetuating their power and control over citizens, while multinationals tolerate it because they have enough financial muscle and size to absorb the pernicious effects of the massive rise in public debt and monetary imbalances, public spending, taxes, barriers to trade, and progress.
They all know that the burden of interventionism falls entirely on small businesses and families, destroying the middle class in the process. The wealthy can escape the negative impact of monetary debasement and confiscatory taxes. People with salaries and small entrepreneurs cannot.
Who suffers the constant erosion of real disposable income from those gigantic and wrongly called government “stimulus plans” that never stimulate anything but bureaucracy, leaving a massive trail of debt and impoverishment caused by increased inflation and ever-increasing taxes? The middle classes and small businesses.
Why do global leaders accept a rising trend in destructive policies that they know will fail? There is a perverse incentive. Business leaders who should value the success of productive investment and free markets are afraid that the interventionist cancelling crowd will attack them and, therefore, prefer to look elsewhere or even finance the advance of anti-freedom ideas in the hope that the mob will let them work and invest in peace. Others believe they may keep their market share and avoid the threat of competition if they stay close to political powers. It doesn’t work. They do not leave them alone, and leaders lose more than they gain when they fall for cronyism. Whitewashing Marxist collectivism does not stop it. It is no surprise to see how this neocommunism disguised as social justice attacks with even greater cruelty those companies and leaders who embrace their false messages. Just like wokeism often cancels and destroys its most staunch defenders, Neomarxism does the same with corporations and business owners because its objective is full control.
The West is in danger, and Javier Milei explained this in detail at Davos, crushing the consensus narrative.
“It should never be forgotten that socialism is always and everywhere an impoverishing phenomenon that has failed in all countries where it’s been tried out. It’s been a failure economically, socially, and culturally, and it has also murdered over 100 million human beings,” he said.
However, the most important point of his speech for me is to remind people what socialism is.
“I know, to many, it may sound ridiculous to suggest that the West has turned to socialism, but it’s only ridiculous if you limit yourself to the traditional economic definition of socialism, which says that it’s an economic system where the state owns the means of production. This definition, in my view, should be updated considering current circumstances. Today, states don’t need to directly control the means of production to control every aspect of the lives of individuals. With tools such as printing money, debt, subsidies, controlling the interest rate, price controls, and regulations to correct so-called market failures, they can control the lives and fates of millions of individuals. This is how we come to the point where, by using different names or guises, a good deal of the generally accepted ideologies in most Western countries are collectivist variants, whether they proclaim to be openly communist, fascist, socialist, social democrats, national socialists, Christian democrats, neo-Keynesians, progressives, populists, nationalists, or globalists. Ultimately, there are no major differences. They all say that the state should steer all aspects of the lives of individuals. They all defend a model contrary to the one that led humanity to the most spectacular progress in its history.”
This is critical because the average citizen has been led to believe that massive money printing, piles of new regulations and laws, rising public debt, and constant interest rate interventions are capitalist or neoliberal policies, when they are tools of statism to accelerate the rising size of government in the economy.
Socialism does not seek progress; it seeks control. Large companies that fall into the trap of buying socialism suffer the same attack and further deteriorate their ability to create value and wealth.
Milei destroyed all the current myths in one speech at Davos, and millions watched in awe because it was obvious that he was telling the truth.
And that, coming from Argentina, he knows what he is talking about. When one speaks with Argentine citizens, they often remind us all that they “come from the future.”.
The example of Argentina is obvious. Between 2007 and December 2023, the world looked to the other side in the face of a massive increase in poverty and inflation. They even had the audacity to justify that inflation was due to exogenous factors, not massive money printing, and that poverty was miscalculated, exculpating socialist governments from any responsibility.
The left’s shocking silence in the face of the humanitarian and ecological disasters created by the Socialism of the XXI Century governments in Venezuela, Nicaragua, Argentina, and other countries shows that they could not care less about the welfare of citizens or the protection of the environment but used seemingly harmless causes to take power and destroy the economy. Why? Because the goal of any socialist leader is to create poor hostage clients who depend on a state in which those leaders become obscenely rich as the country goes down.
Do not be mistaken; statism does not seek the redistribution of wealth from the rich to the poor, but the accumulation of the wealth of the nation in the hands of a few politicians.
Thankfully, Davos Milei was an undeniable success, and this shows that not all is lost. According to the World Economic Forum page, ten times more people watched his speech than all other leaders combined. Socialist leaders like Spain’s Sanchez bombed with less than 5,000 views. No, businesses do not depend on the state. There is no welfare state without powerful and productive enterprises, and there are no public services if private wealth is not created. There is no public sector without a thriving private sector. Progress does not depend on a crony, extractive, and confiscatory state but on a strong civil society of free individuals with independent institutions that act as a counterweight to political power. Legal certainty and investor attractiveness, or respect for international law, do not happen due to the generosity of political leaders, but thanks to free markets and independent institutions that limit political power. The world does not progress due to big governments, but despite the obstacles they put in place,
Milei crushed it by telling the truth.
Those who remained silent for years about Argentina’s economic ruin now fear him.
Socialism is an impoverishing system that has failed and should not be defended out of fear of retaliation.
Milei reminded companies that they are the heroes of poverty reduction and progress and that the left only uses environmental and gender excuses to impose totalitarianism.
Milei reminded everyone at Davos that Argentina’s ruin is not a coincidence or a fatality, but the result of years of implementing the same interventionist policies that many at Davos have defended or tolerated.
Behind The Tech Meltup: A One-Time Chinese Chip Buying Frenzy To Frontrun Export Curbs
It’s not the first time the market has been fooled by a burst of Chinese chip buying (to frontrun US sanctions), and extrapolating a new golden age in semiconductors.
Last summer, both the Nasdaq and the SOX exploded higher after the March bank failures and peaked on August 1 before rolling over and tumbling to a 5 months low in October. August 1 was also the date that the FT reported what was really happening behind the scenes:
“China’s imports of semiconductor equipment have surged to record highs ahead of the implementation of export curbs by US allies. Chinese customs data shows the country’s chip production tool imports in June and July totalled nearly $5bn, up 70 per cent from $2.9bn in the same period last year.
Most of the imports came from the Netherlands and Japan, two countries that have imposed export restrictions on chipmaking equipment as they work with the US to slow China’s technological advancement.
The restrictions mean buyers of some tools will have to apply for licences from the Dutch and Japanese governments, raising concern among Chinese chipmakers. Japan started enforcing its restrictions on July 23, while the Dutch curbs will come into effect on September 1.
It wasn’t just Europe: “China’s chip equipment purchases from other places, including Singapore and Taiwan, have also contributed to record imports from those countries.“
Of course, just as it became clear that what was driving the supposed tech “renaissance” was not some paradigmatic, pervasive “AI” buying spree, but a one-time event, that’s when tech peaked, with chip stocks unable to regain their August highs until year end.
And then… everything happened again, and so instead of calling last summer’s euphoria a “one-time” event, it would be more accurate to call it what it was: a “two-time event”.
Indeed, days after a bizarrely strong preannouncement by Taiwan chip giant TSMC arrested a tech rout and sent the Nasdaq (and S&P) to all time high, tech is once again flying. And yet, there is a strong sense of deja vu about all this…
Here’s why: for those who missed it, last Wednesday TSMC soared premarket after signaling a return to “healthy growth” this year, adding to what Bloomberg called were “signs of recovery in the chip sector”, even as profit actually fell again. But none of that mattered: what With AI as the main driver, the company said it sees revenue growing as much as 25%, similar to what it said last summer when there was a flood of chip buying.
However, just like last summer, we now learn that instead of some second wind in AI chip purchases, the culprit behind both the late-2023 tech meltup and the TSMC guidance bonanza was – you guessed it – China. As Bloomberg reports, China’s imports of chipmaking machines jumped late last year as firms ramped up investment in an attempt to get around US-led efforts to hobble the nation’s semiconductor industry.
Imports of the machinery used to make computer chips rose 14% in 2023 to almost $40 billion — the second largest amount by value on record in data going back to 2015, according to Bloomberg calculations based on official customs data. The increase came despite a 5.5% drop in total imports last year, underscoring the importance that the Chinese government and the nation’s chip industry have placed on becoming self-sufficient.
Chinese chip companies are rapidly investing in new semiconductor factories to try and advance the nation’s capabilities and get around export controls imposed by the US and its allies. Those curbs are making it harder for Chinese companies to get access to the machines needed to make the most powerful chips — and slowing the development of China’s high-tech sector, which is seen as a threat to the US.
But while the full-year number of China chip imports was clearly off the charts – as we already know – it’s what happened in year end that sparked the latest leg of the meltup:
In December, imports of lithography equipment from the Netherlands jumped almost 1,000% from a year earlier to $1.1 billion as firms rushed to buy ahead of the start of Dutch restrictions this month.
And there you have it: the burst in Chinese chip buying was nothing more than frontrunning of the latest round of draconian curbs, this time focusing on ASML.
Even before those curbs came into effect, Dutch company ASML Holding NV had canceled shipments of some of its top-of-the-line machines to China at the request of the US government, Bloomberg reported earlier this month. The cancellations came weeks before export bans on the high-end chipmaking equipment came into effect.
Translation:China’s one- two-time chip buying burst is now over, and the hangover will follow, including an admission from TSMC in a few months it was terribly wrong with its euphoric forecast. Meanwhile, investors will continue buying tech stocks and lifting the chip sector, oblivious that both China and Europe are contracting and there is zero organic growth in semi demand, leaving only the US to play hot potato with the narrative that somehow the chatGPT algobot will change the world and every tech company will be spending tens of billions in capex to prepare for the coming AI golden age. Spoiler alert: watch as the market gets rugpulled when one after another Magnificent 7 company not only does not boost CapEx but cuts it – to save cash for buybacks – as the great AI myth crashes and burns.
ExxonMobil is suing two activist investor groups in a Texas district court, aiming to block their climate proposals from going to a vote at the annual shareholder meeting later this year in the first such direct complaint to court instead of to the SEC.
Exxon filed late on Sunday a lawsuit at the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas against U.S. activist investor Arjuna Capital and shareholder activist group Follow This. Those two investors have filed a proposal for Exxon’s shareholders to vote at the annual general meeting on May 29 to have Exxon commit to further emissions reductions, including Scope 3 – emissions from the product it sells.
Exxon is seeking for the first time a judgment from the court to exclude a proposal for an upcoming shareholders’ vote. Previously, the supermajor, and other publicly traded firms, have sought SEC advice on the merits of proposals to be included in the proxy statement for the shareholders meeting.
Arguing its case in the Texas district court, Exxon says that “Defendants are asking Exxon Mobil to change its day-to-day business by altering the mix of—or even eliminating—certain of the products that it sells,” as carried in The Wall Street Journal.
The goal of Arjuna Capital and Follow This is “to force Exxon Mobil to change the nature of its ordinary business or to go out of business entirely,” the supermajor says.
Exxon also argues that the two activist investors have “become shareholders solely to campaign for change through shareholder proposals that are calculated to diminish the company’s existing business.”
These investors “are aided in their efforts by a flawed shareholder proposal and proxy voting process that does not serve investors’ interests and has become ripe for abuse.”
Exxon also says in the complaint that under SEC rules, a firm can exclude a proposal from shareholder vote if it is basically the same as previous proposals of the past five years and doesn’t meet the criteria to be resubmitted.
Last year, a proposal to establish a Scope 3 emissions target and reduce hydrocarbon sales was rejected by Exxon’s shareholders with 89.5% votes against and 10.5% votes in favor. The threshold for resubmitting the proposal is 15% of votes in favor.
“Diverse But Incompetent”: Comedian Rob Schneider Pens Open Letter Calling Out ‘Drag Queen’ CEO Of United Airlines
DEI started to (finally) make its way into the public’s crosshairs following the embarrassing testimony of several Ivy League college professors about the events in Israel on October 7th.
The discussion was ratcheted up a notch after a door from an Alaska Airlines plane detached mid-air, leading many to raise questions about whether or not DEI hiring standards at Boeing were negatively affecting the company’s output.
Even more recently, United’s CEO Scott Kirby was accused of being a drag queen and additional questions were raised about how the airline prioritizes safety for its passengers and employees.
This is Scott Kirby, the CEO of @united. He’s a drag queen and has been incorporating drag into @united.
One person not waiting around for answers from the airline is actor and (former) United 1K frequent flyer Rob Schneider, who took to X last week to send a message to Kirby that he would no longer be flying United.
“Dear Scott Kirby CEO @UnitedAirlines and Drag Queen practitioner, I regret to inform you that I will no longer allow my family to fly on your airline as you have clearly placed ‘diversity’ of pilot hiring above safety of passengers and crew,” Schneider wrote.
He continued: “As evidenced by the near aviation catastrophe of UA Boeing 777 flight 1722 from Maui to San Francisco Dec 18th 2023, where your diverse but incompetent flight crew didn’t know which flaps were causing its near disastrous dissent, coming within 750 feet of killing every one aboard your United Airline.”
Schneider also claimed that many United employees supported his criticism: “I cannot tell you how many @UnitedAirlines employees have personally thanked me for my valid criticism of your careless and life threatening leadership. I look forward to your swift dismissal by UA’s board of directors before your inane actions cause the deaths of hundreds of men, women and children. After your inevitable firing you can get back to your true passion, your Drag Queen performances.”
Dear Scott Kirby CEO @UnitedAirlines and Drag Queen practitioner,
I regret to inform you that I will no longer allow my family to fly on your airline as you have clearly placed “diversity” of pilot hiring above safety of passengers and crew. As evidenced by the near aviation…
Aviation expert and former Federal Aviation Administration safety team representative Kyle Bailey told Fox News this week: “Diversity really has nothing to do with safe travel.”
Meanwhile the FAA’s own DEI hiring plan states: “diversity is integral to achieving FAA’s mission of ensuring safe and efficient travel across our nation and beyond.”
The Department of Transportation responded: “Safety is the FAA’s top priority and drives all decisions. The diversity and inclusion language that is being cited here is the exact same today as it was under the Trump Administration and previous administrations before that.”
It continued: “Like many large employers, the agency proactively seeks qualified candidates from as many sources as possible, all of whom must meet rigorous qualifications that, of course, will vary by position. The FAA employs tens of thousands of people for a wide range of positions, from administrative roles to oversight and execution of critical safety functions.”
