The Drag From China’s Property Crisis Will Only Become Bigger
By Charlie Zhu and Helen Sun, Bloomberg markets live reporter and strategists
Three things we learned last week:
1. A protracted slump in China’s property market is hampering the broader economy’s recovery. Official data showed manufacturing activities contracted in November, while the services sector also lost momentum. A surprise pickup in a private manufacturing gauge was met with skepticism.
The latest data show there’s no end in sight for the crisis, with the decline in China’s home sales worsening. Homebuyer sentiment remained weak amid uncertain employment and income prospects, according to Fitch Ratings. Concerns over developers’ home delivery weighed on the market as more firms faced liquidity issues, analysts led by Karl Shen wrote in a report.
Neither infrastructure construction nor high-end manufacturing can fill the missing demand from a lack of home purchases, Wu Ge, chief economist at Changjiang Securities Co., wrote in a note. Wu previously worked at the central bank’s monetary policy department.
What’s worse, policy push to have banks offer a lifeline to developers is adding more pain to the financial sector. Lenders, which have already been suffering from soaring bad loans and record low net interest margins, face the prospect of big losses and job cuts.
2. China was left out in the everything rally that lifted global assets in November, underscoring the depth of pessimism. The CSI 300 benchmark closed near its weakest level of the year on Friday, even after a report that a state entity has purchased ETFs lifted stocks off their session lows.
Efforts at one of China’s largest investment banks to silence bearish commentary deepened investor worries about a lack of access to transparent data and research. A rally in equities traded on the Beijing Stock Exchange, which has been an outlier in the sluggish market, also lost steam.
Still, some investors are spotting opportunities. Fidelity International is timing a re-entrance into the market as Beijing prioritizes growth, while Franklin Templeton sees valuations as too attractive to ignore.
3. Amid all the gloom, the emergence of a new technology giant suggests the country is still a dynamic market. Shares of PDD Holdings Inc., an eight-year-old e-commerce platform, surged after reporting a near doubling in revenue. Its market cap outstripped Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. last week in a landmark shift for the country’s tech industry.
More of those valuable startups originating from China may become available for public investment. Fast-fashion retailer Shein is said to have filed confidentially with US regulators for an initial public offering that could take place next year.
A key issue in Moore v. United States is whether income has to be realized to be taxable. An amicus brief in the case was filed by Professors of linguistics who did a 1913 search of the use of the words “income” and “derived” from the Sixteenth Amendment and found that overwhelmingly Americans thought income has to be realized to be taxable. The online dictionary of etymology concurs as follows:
Online Etymological Dictionary:
income (n.)
1300, “entrance, arrival,” literally “a coming in;” see in(adv.) + come(v.). Perhaps a noun use of the late Old English verb incuman “come in, enter.” Meaning “money made through business or labor” (i.e., “that which ‘comes in’ as payment for work or business”) first recorded c. 1600. Compare German einkommen “income,” Swedish inkomst. Income tax is from 1790, introduced in Britain during the Napoleonic wars, re-introduced 1842; in U.S. levied by the federal government 1861-72, authorized on a national level in 1913.
The United States should lose this case. Income literally has to “come in” before it is taxable both as the word was used in 1913 and based on its etymology.
We recently discussed the runaway grade inflation at Harvard where roughly 80 percent of grades were As. Now the Yale Daily News is reporting the same percentage of As. Indeed, the percentage is virtually identical. Harvard is handing out 79 percent agrees where Yale is apparently more rigorous at 78.9.The report is apparently an embarrassment to the university since the dean of Yale College said that professors are not adhering to guidelines for grading.Yet, this could hardly be a surprise to the dean since these grades are reported and issued by the records office.
Indeed, this average is reportedly down from the prior year where 81.97 percent of students were given As. So not getting an A at Yale meant that you were in the bottom 20 percent of the class.
That means that for virtually all of the students at Yale there was a three-grade system that runs from A+, A, and A-.
The percentage was higher in the African American Studies department at 82.21 percent. However, it was the Gender Students department that showed that 92.6 percent of grades were in the A range. So only 7 % of students did not receive an A in gender studies.
For employers and other universities, it renders the grades from Yale meaningless in judging the capabilities and record of students.
They are not apparently alone.
At Spellman College, economics professor Kendrick Morales was fired after objecting to the school raising his grades without his consent, even after massively increasing the grades.
Morales worked for two years at Spellman and taught two upper-level courses. In one class, he added a 28-point grade bump for one test at the request of his department chair.
When students overall bombed the final, Morales “pre-emptively” raised them 36 points so that a student receiving a 57 would receive an A. Yet, even with that increase, 44 percent of that class would still fail. Indeed, they had failed, but Morales says that Undergraduate Studies Dean Desiree Pedescleaux bumped up the students’ grades again without his approval.
He was later fired.
The allegations not only raise questions over the academic standards at Spellman, but the violation of academic freedom.
Grade inflation is only the latest sign of how school administrators have lost control of universities and colleges. It also reflects a growing expectation of students in terms of higher GPAs.
It is easy to say that this is the byproduct of the “trophy generation,” but this is not their fault. Years ago, I had an interesting conversation with one of my classes over this negative image and one student said that they never wanted participation trophies. She noted it was my generation that wanted them to have them, not the kids. Another student said that she would routinely throw away trophies as meaningless and insulting.
The same could well prove true for grades that they will become worthless and discarded if this trend continues. That will undermine a critical role of universities in evaluating the performance of students. That role not only helps future employers. It is even more important in offering students a true appraisal of their work. Often students will pursue degrees for the wrong reasons and not consider other fields that may be better suited to their talents and interests. If you are getting nothing but As in your economics or gender studies course, there is little reason to consider alternatives.
When John F. Kennedy was given an honorary degree at Yale, he quipped “it might be said now that I have the best of both worlds. A Harvard education and a Yale degree.” It turns out that both now come with the same 80 percent likelihood of receiving an A. The question is not the degree but the education at either school with such grade inflation.
Media trust among Americans has reached its lowest point in six years.
Gallup began its survey on media trust in 1972, repeating it in 1974 and 1976. After a long period, the public opinion firm restarted the polls in 1997 and has asked Americans about their confidence level in the mass media – newspapers, TV, and radio – almost every year since then.
Americans’ confidence in the mass media has sharply declined over the last few decades.
Trust in the mass media
% Great deal/Fair amount
% Not very much
% None at all
1972
68
24
6
1974
69
21
8
1976
72
22
4
1997
53
31
15
1998
55
35
9
1999
55
34
11
2000
51
37
12
2001
53
33
14
2002
54
35
11
2003
54
35
11
2004
44
39
16
2005
50
37
12
2007
47
35
17
2008
43
35
21
2009
45
37
18
2010
43
36
21
2011
44
36
19
2012
40
39
21
2013
44
33
22
2014
40
36
24
2015
40
36
24
2016
32
41
27
2017
41
29
29
2018
45
30
24
2019
41
30
28
2020
40
27
33
2021
36
29
34
2022
34
28
38
2023
32
29
39
In 2016, the number of respondents trusting media outlets fell below the tally of those who didn’t trust the media at all. This is the first time that has happened in the poll’s history.
That year was marked by sharp criticism of the media from then-presidential candidate Donald Trump.
In 2017, the use of the term ‘fake news’ rose by 365% on social media, and the term was named the word of the year by dictionary publisher Collins.
The Lack of Faith in Institutions and Social Media
Although there’s no single reason to explain the decline of trust in the traditional media, some studies point to potential drivers.
According to Michael Schudson, a sociologist and historian of the news media and a professor at the Columbia Journalism School, in the 1970s, faith in institutions like the White House or Congress began to decline, consequently impacting confidence in the media.
“That may have been a necessary corrective to a sense of complacency that had been creeping in—among the public and the news media—that allowed perhaps too much trust: we accepted President Eisenhower’s lies about the U-2 spy plane, President Kennedy’s lies about the ‘missile gap,’ President Johnson’s lies about the war in Vietnam, President Nixon’s lies about Watergate,”
MICHAEL SCHUDSON – COLUMBIA JOURNALISM SCHOOL
More recently, the internet and social media have significantly changed how people consume media. The rise of platforms such as X/Twitter and Facebook have also disrupted the traditional media status quo.
Partisans’ Trust in Mass Media
Historically, Democrats have expressed more confidence in the media than Republicans.
Democrats’ trust, however, has fallen 12 points over the past year to 58%, compared with 11% among Republicans and 29% among independents.
According to Gallup, Republicans’ low confidence in the media has little room to worsen, but Democrat confidence could still deteriorate and bring the overall national reading down further.
The poll also shows that young Democrats have less confidence in the media than older Democrats, while Republicans are less varied in their views by age group.
John Kerry, special presidential envoy on climate matters, announced Saturday that the United States has “proudly” committed to not to build any new coal plants and to get rid of existing ones entirely.
“To meet our goal of 100 percent carbon pollution-free electricity by 2035, we need to phase out unabated coal,” Mr. Kerry said in a Dec. 2 statement, in which he announced that the United States had officially joined a coalition of 56 other countries who all plan to ditch coal in the name of climate change.
“We will be working to accelerate unabated coal phase-out across the world, building stronger economies and more resilient communities,” Mr. Kerry said in his statement.
“The first step is to stop making the problem worse: stop building new unabated coal power plants.”
While no specific date was given for when the Biden administration plans to nix America’s existing coal plants, other regulatory actions by the administration zero in on 2035 as the year when coal ends.
Just under 20 percent of U.S. electricity was powered by coal as of October 2023, according to the Department of Energy (DOE).
Anti-Coal Alliance
The anti-coal pact that Mr. Kerry said Washington had just joined is called the Power Past Coal Alliance, which was started six years ago and had 50 members until Saturday, when the United States, Czech Republic, Cyprus, Dominican Republic, Iceland, Kosovo, and Norway joined bringing the total to 56.
Citing IEA’s Net Zero Roadmap, the Power Past Coal Alliance said in a Dec. 2 statement that, in order to “keep the 1.5°C goal within reach,” advanced economies like the United States need to immediately end the construction of new coal power plants and phase out existing plants by 2030, and by 2040 in the rest of the world.
The 1.5°C threshold, first established in the Paris Agreement in 2015, aims to limit the global temperature rise to 1.5°C by 2100.
In 2022, coal-fired plants generated 36 percent of global electricity, outstripping all other sources. Over half of this output was in China, which is building new coal plants at a fast pace, undeterred by various climate pledges and goals that the country’s leadership has paid lip service to.
The next three largest contributors to global coal-fired electricity are India, the United States, and Japan, which jointly account for around 25 percent of the total.
Coal Use In China, Elsewhere
China saw coal power projects jump in 2022 despite the country’s pledge to cut down coal consumption by the end of the decade.
In 2022, coal power construction starts, new project announcements, and plant permissions “accelerated dramatically” in China, according to a February report (pdf) by Global Energy Monitor and the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), which noted that roughly two new coal power plants were being permitted per week in China.
“50 GW of coal power capacity started construction in China in 2022, a more than 50 percent increase from 2021. Many of these projects had their permits fast-tracked and moved to construction in a matter of months,” the report said.
“A total of 106 GW of new coal power projects were permitted, the equivalent of two large coal power plants per week,” the report continued.
“The amount of capacity permitted more than quadrupled from 23 GW in 2021.”
The second-largest consumer of coal, India, has also seen its coal consumption rise. According to the “Coal 2022” report by the International Energy Agency (IEA), coal demand in India rose by 14 percent in 2021.
Meanwhile, coal demand in the United States saw a growth of 15 percent in 2021, per the IEA report.
Meanwhile, a recent report by Global Energy Monitor (GEM) found that roughly a million coal jobs could be lost by 2050 as mines retire—even without any climate policies being implemented.
The vast majority of job losses would be in Asia, with China and India taking the brunt.
As for the United States, the GEM report estimates more than 15,000 jobs in the coal sector will be lost per decade in the 2030s and 40s, and less than 15,000 jobs to be lost in the 2050s.
For the current decade, the report estimates a U.S. coal job loss of below 15,000.
“I think the Chinese leadership at this juncture is overwhelmed by its internal challenges,” said Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen.
“My thought is perhaps this is not a time for them to consider a major invasion of Taiwan,” she continued, and reasonable people across the planet prayed she’s right.
“This is largely because of the economic, financial and political challenges, but also because the international community has made it loud and clear that war is not an option, and that peace and stability serves everyone’s interest.”
War, of course, is always an option.
And peace and stability do not serve everyone’s interest, they serve almost everyone’s interest.
For the few, war is lucrative. Which is why conflict features so prominently in human history. After a brief respite in hostilities, the war in Gaza resumed. Fighting continues unabated in Ukraine. And mankind’s enduring struggle to tame nature showed no sign of material advance. That said, the UAE announced a $30bln climate fund in partnership with Blackrock, Brookfield, and TPG. The hope is to leverage this sum to attract $250bln in investment by 2030, with an increasing focus on the Global South, which stands to suffer most profoundly in this war.
And if you squint your eyes and gaze at the horizon, you can almost see a world where China becomes more focused on internal growth than its Taiwan ambitions. With the West increasingly intent to disengage economically and with over 20% youth unemployment, sluggish growth, and a stock market at 4-year lows, it would be in Beijing’s interest to seek peace and stability.
The prosperous nations of the Middle East seek peace and stability as they determinedly drive to diversify their economies away from oil and gas. And it’s not inconceivable that we are approaching an end to the conflict in Ukraine, having accomplished little more than untold suffering.
Take those three conflicts off the table, focus humanity’s efforts on our battle with nature, perhaps throw in some productivity gains due to AI, and you have the makings for an increasingly prosperous world. Let’s hope this is what the market in its infinite wisdom sees, rather than the recent rise in asset prices being little more than hopes for a Fed pivot.
Gold Spikes To Record High Over $2,130, Bitcoin Soars Above $40,000 As Market Calls Powell’s Bluff
On Friday, shortly after Powell failed to hammer the hawkish case in his “fireside” chat with stocks eager to take out 2023 highs, we said that Powell has a big problem on his hands not so much because if the market was indeed correct about imminent easing that only assures that inflation will come back with a vengeance and Powell would indeed be the “second coming” of a former Fed Chair – only Burns not Vlcker – but because the kneejerk surge higher in gold (and digital gold) meant that the once again deathwatch for the dollar – and fiat in general – had resumed.
Well, with futures having opened for trading on Sunday night, what we joked about on Friday, namely that Powell – having seemingly once again lost control of the hawkish narrative – may be leaking emergency rate hikes though Nick Timiraos on Dec 12, ahead of the December FOMC (now that the Fed is in blackout mode)…
Smells like Powell will be leaking emergency rate hikes through Nikileaks on Dec 12
… is all too real because suddenly everything that is non printable is soaring, starting with gold, which has exploded as much as $60, spiking to a new all time high of $2,135…
… while bitcoin, and the entire crypto sector following closely, spiking above $40,000 for the first time since May 2022.
The bitcoin move was to be expected after what we reported yesterday, namely that cryptos had just seen their largest inflows in two years… and Friday’s comments by Powell only guaranteed even more capital would flow into the largely illiquid asset class.
“Bitcoin continues to be supported by optimism around SEC approval for an ETF and Fed rate cuts in 2024,” Tony Sycamore, a market analyst at IG Australia Pty, wrote in a note. Technical chart patterns point to $42,330 as the next level to watch for, he added.
As for gold, everything is suddenly going in its favor, and not only the violent resumption of the Israel-Hamas war (which now includes attacks on US warships in the Gulf)…
… but also years of market reflexes which prompt algos to buy gold any time the Fed is set to ease, something which markets assigned 80% odds on Friday could happen as soon as March.
And so, going back to square one, Powell is once again boxed in: either he pushes back on the market’s sudden dovish euphoria which could well send dollar sparling lower, and in turn send commodities exploding higher guaranteeing that all the worst aspects of Burns Fed make a triumphant return, or he does nothing, and we see gold go parabolic.
On Tuesday, Nov. 28, local law enforcement shut down an illegal marijuana grow that was being operated in a building located behind a licensed marijuana cultivation facility in Franklin County.
Officers from the Wilton Police Department were assisting investigators from the Maine Office of Cannabis Policy (OCP) during a routine follow-up inspection of a licensed facility in Wilton when they raided the illegal operation, authorities said in a press release posted on social media.
“It’s a place that has been on the radar,” State Rep. Mike Sobeleski (R) told The Epoch Times, adding that he had visited the facility previously. The Republican lawmaker said he had learned about the raid just minutes before Tuesday’s interview with The Epoch Times to discuss the illegal marijuana operations being run by Chinese nationals throughout the state.
Earlier this month, a man identifying himself as the property manager told the Maine Wire that the building was being used to grow marijuana and that operators paid about $30,000 per month in rent.
He also reportedly told the news outlet that the facility was being run by four Asian men who claimed they were from New York, California, Washington, and Massachusetts.
The property owner “has no connection to the internal operations of either the licensed or unlicensed marijuana cultivation facility,” according to authorities. The building is the former Bass Shoe Factory and is currently on the market for $6 million.
The facility had been under investigation by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security for possible ties to Asian transnational organized crime, the Maine Wire reported.
Marijuana is legal for recreational use for adults 21 and over in Maine. State law also allows adult residents to grow up to three mature plants and 12 immature plants for personal use.
OCP is responsible for the licensing, compliance, and general oversight of legalized cannabis for medical and adult use in the state.
In July, state law enforcement had identified 270 suspected illegal marijuana operations with an estimated revenue of $4.37 billion, according to an internal federal law enforcement document that was being circulated among Border Patrol agents. The Daily Caller originally reported the information after it obtained a copy of the memo.
In response to the reports, lawmakers in Maine sent a letter to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland requesting information about the alleged illegal Chinese marijuana growing operations.
“These illegal growing operations are detrimental to Maine businesses that comply with State laws, and we urge the Department of Justice (DOJ) to shut them down,” Republican Sens. Angus King and Susan Collins, along with Democratic Reps. Jared Golden and Chellie Pingree wrote in their letter dated Aug. 24.
They posed a series of questions regarding the agency’s knowledge of the alleged Chinese connection to the illegal growing operations and what actions the DOJ is taking to shut them down across the state.
“What is the DOJ doing to address illegal operations, including illegal operations that are run by foreign governments or entities?” they asked.
They further inquired, “How are the profits from these illegal operations being returned to the country of origin?”
It is unclear whether the attorney general has responded to the August inquiry.
Ms. Collins’ office did not respond to The Epoch Times’ request for more information.
Vague Enforcement Laws in Maine
Mr. Sobeleski said the state’s enforcement laws make it difficult for state and local authorities to shut down illegal operations until the feds get involved.
“They’re not sure who’s going to be the responsible [agency] to go in there based on the fact that this is a legal person on the property, and there are guidelines you have to go by on that,” he explained. “So, there’s no clarity in who enforces the law.“
Through an investigation, the Maine Wire located over 100 illegal marijuana facilities that are allegedly operated by Chinese nationals. Many of them are operating in homes that are often near schools and childcare facilities.
Joe Turcotte, a spokesperson for Mr. Sobeleski, said residents become frustrated when they file multiple complaints with local authorities who refuse to help.
Mr. Soboleski said he had visited many of the houses where the illegal operations occur. He said the operators have boarded up the windows and doors to cover up the illegal activity inside. Neighbors complain of the constant smell of marijuana coming from the houses and trash litters the lawns and roadways.
There is also a safety issue when home-cultivating operations illegally run 400 amps of electricity into buildings housing grow operations, posing a fire hazard.
“We’ve actually had houses burn from the heat and electricity from these grow operations,” Mr. Turcotte explained.
Another concern is that the houses are being used for other illegal activities.
“They could be used for trafficking other harder narcotics,” Mr. Soboleski said, adding that illegal immigrants could also be staying in the homes.
The Maine Wire reported that law enforcement has raided only two other properties in the state.
A raid in the town of Carmel led to the seizure of over 3,000 marijuana plants. Four Chinese men were arrested in connection with that operation and are facing felony charges.
Nearly 1,000 plants were seized in another raid in Dexter. However, no arrests were made.
Mr. Soboleski recently sponsored legislation that would provide state and local law enforcement agencies with the authority to enforce laws against illegal marijuana operations.
His bill, known as “An Act to Provide Investigative Authority to the Maine State Police, Sheriffs, and Local Police Regarding Maine’s Recreational Cannabis Laws and Ordinances to Ensure Proper Enforcement,” was “shut down” by the legislative council earlier this month, he said.
“We have the mechanisms to take these [illegal marijuana operations] out, but it’s a matter of the political will to do it,” Mr. Turcotte said.
A National Problem
Illegal marijuana grows are being operated in numerous states across the country.
The Oklahoma Attorney General’s Organized Crime Task Force (OCTF) seized more than 72,000 pounds of illegal marijuana in Wagoner County and another 250 pounds in Lincoln County on Nov. 9.
“Our state has been overrun with criminals who are trafficking drugs in our local communities and throughout the country,” Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond said in a press release on Nov. 14. “I will not tolerate this serious threat to public safety. I am proud of the work of the Organized Crime Task Force and our law enforcement partners for their efforts to eliminate this blight on our communities.”
The Wagoner County seizure was among the largest in state history.
A week later, OCTF, along with the Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority, served search warrants on six medical marijuana grow operations in Pottawatomie County, where they seized 77,236 untraceable and untagged plants, nearly 2,000 pounds of untraceable marijuana, and several firearms, according to a separate press release Nov. 17.
“We are sending a clear message to Mexican drug cartels, Chinese crime syndicates, and all others who are endangering public safety through these heinous operations,” Mr. Drummond said in a statement. “And that message is to get the hell out of Oklahoma.”
Oklahoma voters approved the use of medical marijuana in 2018. Earlier this year, voters rejected a state initiative to allow for the recreational use of the drug.
In California, the Unified Cannibas Enforcement Taskforce (UCETF) seized more than $101 million in illegal marijuana during the third quarter of 2023, the agency announced in October.
“Many of these illegal cannabis operations are linked to organized crime, and in addition to threatening the environment and communities, the products [from] these operations pose a direct threat to consumer health and the stability of the legal cannabis market.”
Since the task force’s formation in 2022 through the third quarter of 2023, UCETF served more than 200 search warrants and seized nearly $300 million in unlicensed marijuana.
The latest push to curb Second Amendment rights comes in the form of a Democrat-led bill that seeks to impose a sweeping firearms ban with exceptions that gun rights groups say are so fuzzy that the prohibition could prohibit nearly all semi-automatic handguns.
The bill, dubbed the Gas-Operated Semi-Automatic Firearms Exclusion Act (GOSAFE) that a gun rights group panned as “perhaps the most sweeping gun prohibition bill of the 21st Century,” was introduced on Nov. 29 by a number of Democrat senators, along with an Independent—with no Republicans joining.
Generally, the key idea of the bill is to ban firearms that can be fired quickly (along with accessories that increase firing speed) and have the ability to accept magazines with a capacity of 10 rounds or more, all in a bid to limit “a firearm’s ability to inflict maximum harm in a short amount of time.”
Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), the bill’s co-sponsor, said in a statement that the measure seeks to keep “those firearms that are inherently dangerous and unusually lethal, designed for maximum harm, out of the hands of those who pose a threat to themselves or others.”
Gun control group Everytown hailed the measure as “innovative,” while the National Rifle Association (NRA) called it “perhaps the most sweeping gun prohibition bill of the 21st Century” and a violation of Americans’ constitutional rights.
The GOSAFE Act seeks to impose a series of new regulations on the sale, transfer, and manufacture of many types of semi-automatic firearms.
For instance, it would require that all semi-automatic rifles above .22 caliber have a permanently fixed magazine capacity of 10 bullets or fewer while imposing an outright federal-level ban on all such magazines.
The bill also has a requirement for the capacity of gas-operated semi-automatic rifles above .22 caliber to be “permanently fixed,” meaning that any such firearm capable of taking a larger capacity magazine would be banned.
Another provision prohibits any modifications—such as installing bump stocks or Glock switches—while also banning build-it-yourself ghost gun kits.
The bill would also require government approval of any future semi-automatic firearm designs before manufacture, and it would establish a list of prohibited firearms.
There are exemptions to the bill’s sweeping scope, including bolt action rifles, semi-automatic and recoil-operated shotguns, any rifle or shotgun with a permanently fixed magazine of 10 rounds or less, and any handgun with a permanently fixed magazine of 15 rounds or less.
The bill is co-sponsored by Sens. Heinrich (D-N.M.), Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), Michael Bennett (D-Colo.), and Angul King (I-Maine).
No Republicans have expressed support for the measure.
Susan Collins (R-Maine) issued a statement to media outlets reacting to the bill, saying that she “will carefully consider it” but that she’ll continue to focus on measures to keep firearms out of the hands of criminals and people with mental illness.
Reactions
The bill drew praise from gun control groups and critical reactions from gun rights defenders.
Everytown for Gun Safety, a gun control advocacy group, hailed the new bill while decrying what it called the widespread availability in the United States of what it called “weapons of war.”
“We applaud Senator Heinrich for introducing innovative legislation that would regulate assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, which are capable of creating devastating destruction in an instant,” John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety, said in a statement. “We urge Senator Heinrich’s colleagues to pass this bill before yet another community is forever scarred by someone filled with hate and armed with an AR-15.”
By contrast, the NRA’s legislative arm, the NRA-ILA, called the measure “perhaps the most sweeping gun prohibition bill of the 21st Century” that targets law-abiding gun owners “while leaving armed criminals unperturbed.”
The NRA-ILA warned that the exemptions in the bill are unclearly drafted and so risk banning all semi-automatic handguns.
“The exemption in the bill for semi-automatic handguns is so poorly written that it wouldn’t apply to many popular self-defense handguns, and, depending on its interpretation, may not apply to any handguns,” the NRA-ILA wrote in a note. “Meaning the bill could ban all semi-automatic handguns.”
For example, the bill’s handgun exception applies to “a handgun that . . . is a single or double action semi-automatic handgun that uses recoil to cycle the action of the handgun,” which the NRA-ILA says could be interpreted to “exclude the popular Browning short recoil operating system that is used by essentially all modern handguns of 9MM or larger caliber.”
The bill’s provisions banning devices that “materially increase the rate of fire” of semi-automatic firearms also drew objections from the NRA-ILA.
“This would likely ban things such as bump stocks and binary triggers, but what about more subtle upgrades that make a firearm operate more smoothly or efficiently for competitive or disabled shooters?” the group asked. “As usual, the law’s reach is impossible to determine based on its bare text.”
In general, the NRA-ILA said it believes the bill “aims to demoralize and intimidate as many people as possible into giving up their right to own firearms” and that the measure “clearly violates the Second Amendment.”
“We have said it many times before when it comes to ‘assault weapons’ bans, but it bears repeating: the guns targeted by this bill are primarily owned by law-abiding people who keep them for defensive and other lawful purposes,” the group said.
“They are, in fact, the most popular guns sold in America today. And, semi-automatic rifles are actually underrepresented in murders, behind not just other guns but other types of weapons, including knives and even hands and feet.”
Mr. King, the bill’s co-sponsor, defended the measure, claiming it’s narrowly focused on restricting firearms that have shown to be particularly lethal—meaning ones that are effective at what firearms are meant to do.
“For years, I have said that rather than using the appearance of these guns to restrict them, we should instead focus on how these weapons actually work and the features that make them especially dangerous,” Mr. King said in a statement.
San Francisco ‘Poop Map’ Has Been Updated, And Things Are Sh**tier Than Ever
During Thursday night’s debate between Gavin Newsom (D) and Ron DeSantis (R), the Florida governor busted out the San Francisco ‘poop map’ created by OpenTheBooks.
DeSantis holds up a map to Newsom that people use to know where poop is on the streets of San Francisco and then points out that he cleaned it up for Xi Jinping pic.twitter.com/6Ha5qhZfmA
The map, created in 2019, plotted nearly 120,000 case reports of human feces on the streets of San Francisco between 2011 and 2019 using the city’s open records portal and 311 call information posted by city officials.
The problem is so bad that San Francisco has been employing so-called ‘poop patrollers’ making upwards of $185,000 per annum to clean up their mess. (And of course, the guy in charge of it was arrested on felony fraud charges and sentenced to seven years in prison).
It’s been updated…
According to Adam Andrzejwski of OpenTheBooks, here it is in all it’s brown glory – only now it’s got an additional 125,506 cases in just three years – more than double the amount reported in the initial eight-year period.
