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The owner of a Cuban restaurant in Louisville has decried a list of ‘diversity demands sent to him and dozens of other small business owners by Black Lives Matter activists – which include guaranteeing that at least 23% of staff are black, 23% of the business’s supplies are from black-owned retailers, and 1.5% of their net sales go to black charities. They also need to publicly display a sign showing their support for the movement.

If they don’t comply, the business owners face a series of “repercussions,” including social media shaming, ‘invasive reclamation’ where black owned businesses would set up competing ‘booths and tables’ outside the stores, and they would have ‘their storefronts fucked with,’ according to the Daily Mail.

The letter was sent to business owners in the city’s ‘NuLu’ East Market District during a July 24 protest which forced some area businesses to close. BLM argues that the neighborhood was only able to flourish after a housing project was demolished in the 2000s, which ‘robbed the black community of opportunities and wiped out their homes,’ according to the report.

Fernando Martinez, who owns La Bodeguita de Mima, claims that one of the activists warned him: ‘You better put the letter on the door so your business is not f*cked with.‘ 

For the next two days after the protest, he claims he kept his restaurant closed because staff feared for their safety. It meant that more than 30 staff members were not able to earn a paycheck.

He took to Facebook to accuse them of ‘mafia tactics’ and said that while he respects the movement and wants to support it, it’s unfair for his business and safety to be threatened. 

‘There comes a time in life that you have to make a stand and you have to really prove your convictions and what you believe in.  

‘All good people need to denounce this. How can you justified (sic) injustice with more injustice?’ he wrote on Facebook. –Daily Mail

Read the letter below:

On Sunday, Martinez spoke at Cuban community rally to express support for BLM, but also make clear that they won’t be strong-armed into anything.

“There are people out there who are trying to define who I am as a man, who I am as a businessman, and who we are as a community,” said Martinez, adding “The Cuban community is not the enemy of the Black community.”

“La Bodeguita is open to everybody. If you’re gay, this is your home. If you’re Black, this is your home. If you’re White, this is your home. If you’re human, this is your home.”

Apparently BLM doesn’t see things that way.

Twitter shares shed more than 3% of their value in after-hours trading Monday evening when the company revealed in its 10-Q, filed Monday afternoon, that it had set aside between $150 and $250 million for a FTC fine allegedly over violations of a 2011 agreement to respect users’ data privacy.

A Twitter spokesperson told the Verge that the company only received word of the violation and potential fine on July 28, which is why it wasn’t included in its Q2 earnings report. Twitter reported its earnings for the quarter ended in June on July 23.

Under a section of its 10-Q entitled “Legal Proceedings”, Twitter revealed the allegations and potential fine, which are tied to the use of “phone number and/or email address data provided for safety and security purposes for targeted advertising during periods between 2013 and 2019.

On July 28, 2020, the Company received a draft complaint from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) alleging violations of the Company’s 2011 consent order with the FTC and the FTC Act. The allegations relate to the Company’s use of phone number and/or email address data provided for safety and security purposes for targeted advertising during periods between 2013 and 2019. The Company estimates that the range of probable loss in this matter is $150.0 million to $250.0 million and has recorded an accrual of $150.0 million. The accrual is included in accrued and other current liabilities in the consolidated balance sheet and in general and administrative expenses in the consolidated statements of operations. The matter remains unresolved, and there can be no assurance as to the timing or the terms of any final outcome.

The Company is also currently involved in, and may in the future be involved in, legal proceedings, claims, investigations, and government inquiries and investigations arising in the ordinary course of business. These proceedings, which include both individual and class action litigation and administrative proceedings, have included, but are not limited to matters involving content on the platform, intellectual property, privacy, data protection, securities, employment and contractual rights. Legal fees and other costs associated with such actions are expensed as incurred. The Company assesses, in conjunction with its legal counsel, the need to record a liability for litigation and contingencies. Litigation accruals are recorded when and if it is determined that a loss related matter is both probable and reasonably estimable. Material loss contingencies that are reasonably possible of occurrence, if any, are subject to disclosure. As of June 30, 2020, except for the above referenced class actions, derivative actions and FTC matter, there was no litigation or contingency with at least a reasonable possibility of a material loss. Except for the aforementioned accrual of $150.0 million recorded in relation to the FTC matter, no other material losses were recorded during the three and six months ended June 30, 2020 and 2019 with respect to litigation or loss contingencies.

Ben and Jerry’s ice cream recently decided that it would cease advertising on Twitter to take a stand against the platform’s tolerance of “hate speech” (ie CEO Dorsey’s unwillingness to completely cave to the demands of the looney left and bar everyone with remotely conservative views, from the centrist political hack Andrew Sullivan, to Ben Shapiro, the left’s Public Enemy No. 1.

BEN & JERRY’S: STOPPING TWITTER ADS FOR REST OF YEAR

Not the Ben and Jerry ads!!

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) July 30, 2020

News of these latest abuses, and the government’s allegations that Twitter lied about these abuses when it first admitted these “errors” last fall, might entice more corporations to cut back on ad spending, and that could impact the company’s bottom line, or at least stir up enough investor anxiety to drive shares lower, making Twitter an even more attractive acquisition for another tech behemoth (since, if there’s anything we’ve learned from Microsoft’s courtship of TikTok, it’s that big tech deals aren’t REALLY verboten, so long as they serve a political interest).

If Microsoft can have TikTok, then why can’t, say, Alphabet, be allowed to buy Twitter, perhaps by agreeing to sign a pledge promising to purge Twitter of “hate speech”, perhaps by appointing a committee of SJWs to oversee it all content?

It’s just the latest piece of bad news for twitter, which is still reeling from last month’s embarrassing bitcoin hack.

We just recently learned that this attack was orchestrated by a 17-year-old from – where else? – Tampa, Florida.

Twitter has largely gotten a pass from the Trump Administration lately (Jack Dorsey was deemed not important enough to drag in front of Congress during last week’s historic hearings involving CEOs of 4 of the biggest tech giants). The FTC and DoJ are investigating Facebook, Amazon and Google for anti-trust abuses, and it’s become clear that last week’s testimony did little to slacken lawmaker’s thirst for the kill.

Submitted by Sovereign Man,

What happened:

The Democratic Socialists of America has endorsed the demands of some of the largest teachers’ unions in the US.

These are conditions that the unions say must be met before teachers are willing to return to teach public school during a pandemic.

For example, the unions say school should be cancelled this fall to allow more time for the pandemic to die down.

They could also use that time to retrofit schools with safety measures, using “a massive influx of federal funds” that the unions and Democratic Socialists are also demanding.

The unions also want to ban charter schools and school voucher programs… to combat Covid-19?

What this means:

And that is where the demands stop having much to do with Covid and start taking advantage of a crisis.

For instance, the DSA and unions also call for police-free schools.

We’ve covered plenty of school resource officers overreacting to student misbehavior. So it’s not like this is necessarily a bad demand, but what does it have to do with Covid?

Then they demand a “moratorium on evictions/foreclosures, providing direct cash assistance” to the community.

What does that have to do with school?

Again, they are using the crisis to push through a socialist agenda while everyone is worried and distracted.

And if these are the people running the schools, all the more reason to homeschool.

Senior editor, Ash Bennington, joins managing editor, Ed Harrison, to reckon with the idea of whether a COVID-19 vaccine will be the “medical bailout” everyone is staking their hopes on. Ash and Ed give an overview of where many major nations are currently in their battle against the pandemic and consider if this new normal is truly sustainable in the long-term. They also discuss the continued move toward a virtual world, how this is an omen of absolute collapse in certain industries, and how the pandemic has become a politically charged subject in the midst of a US election cycle. In the intro, Nick Correa shares some of the data from the Household Pulse Survey, revealing the ways fiscal stimulus has made up a portion of aggregate spending for American consumers.

Three months ago, in its then latest estimate of Marketable Borrowings published on May 4, the US Treasury shocked markets when it unveiled that in the April-June quarter it would borrow a humongous $2.999 trillion, exponentially higher than what it had expected to borrow during the quarter in its previous estimate in February when it forecast a $56 billion decline in debt. And while the projected debt number stunned the market, it barely registered on the price or yield of US Treasurys for the simple reason that just weeks earlier the Fed announced it would monetize all gross debt issuance for the US when it unveiled Unlimited QE, something it has been doing since.

This massive surge in debt issuance would also result in a far higher Treasury cash balance which would be used to pre-fund various fiscal stimulus programs, and as the chart below shows, that’s precisely what happened with the Treasury cash balance exploding from $400BN at the end of March to an record high just above $1.7 trillion currently, an amount that is just waiting to be spent as soon as Congress gives the green light.

In retrospect the cash surge was too much: in fact, more than double what the Treasury had expected on May 4. While the Treasury had forecast a $3 trillion increase in marketable borrowing for the quarter ending June 30, it also expected the cash balance to grow to $800 billion on that same date (shown highlighted in yellow on the table below).

And yet the final number ended up being over $922 billion higher, meaning that the Treasury had substantially overshot its funding need and had a cash buffer of nearly $1 trillion more than it had anticipated. 

So with all this extra cash in hand, did the Treasury reduce its debt need for the current quarter? As shown above, three months ago the Treasury expected that it would need to borrow $677BN in the final fiscal quarter of the year ending Sept 30, which while a massive number, was still well below the $2.753 trillion it ended up borrowing (just shy of the $2.999 trillion initial forecast, a number which was not hit due to “lower-than-projected expenditures and higher receipts largely offset by the increase in the cash balance.”)?

The answer, it will shock exactly nobody, was a resounding no because as it disclosed in its latest estimate of Marketable Borrowing needs, the Treasury once again surprised markets by announcing it would borrow a whopping $947BN this quarter, $270BN more than it had forecast a quarter ago, even though the Treasury started this quarter with a cash balance that is $922 billion higher than it had expected one quarter ago!

Why this unexpected increase in debt even though the Treasury was starting off with nearly $1 trillion more in cash than originally budgeted? This is how it explains it.

During the July – September 2020 quarter, Treasury expects to borrow $947 billion in privately-held net marketable debt, assuming an end-of-September cash balance of $800 billion.  The borrowing estimate is $270 billion higher than announced in May 2020.  The increase in privately-held net marketable borrowing is primarily driven by higher expenditures, due to a shift from the prior quarter and anticipated new legislation, largely offset by the higher beginning-of-July cash balance and higher receipts.

In other words, not only will the Treasury draw down on $922 billion in cash in the calendar quarter the ends in less than two months…

… but it will also sell enough debt to raise an additional $881 billion (net) which will also end up being spent, suggesting that in the current quarter the Treasury plans on spending a gargantuan $1.8 trillion!

But that’s not all, because in its first glimpse of Oct-Dec quarter funding needs, the Treasury now expects to borrow another $1.216 trillion in privately-held net marketable debt, once again assuming that the end-of-December cash balance remains unchanged from the Sept 30 balance of $800 billion. This means that the Treasury will spend an additional $1.2 trillion in the quarter ending Dec. 31, assuming every dollar it raises in the open market is then promptly spent (since the cash balance remains unchanged).

According to the Treasury, “these estimates assume $1 trillion of additional borrowing need in anticipation of additional legislation being passed in response to the COVID-19 outbreak.”

So what does this mean?

First, when putting together the actual data for the first three quarters of fiscal 2020 and adding the Fiscal Q4 estimate of $947BN in new issuance, the Treasury will borrow a record $4.5 trillion in Fiscal 2020, more than it borrowed in the previous view years combined!

Second, it means that for calendar Q3 and Q4, the Treasury will spend almost $3 trillion consisting of:

• i) a drawdown in cash from $1722 billion to $800 billion, for $922 billion, in the quarter ending Sept 30
• ii) new debt issuance of $947 billion in the same quarter and
• iii) new debt issuance of $1,216 billion in the quarter ended Dec 31

… for a grand total of $3.085 trillion in new funds (either from spending cash or raising debt).

And even if the Treasury uses some of this cash to pay down maturing Bills (which we doubt as it will most likely keep rolling this short-term debt indefinitely with rates at all time lows), it still means that there will be nearly $3 trillion left for Congress and Trump to spend as they fit in order to boost the economy in the next few months to make sure there is no imminent economic crash. It also means that for all the posturing about whether the $1 trillion Republican or $3 trillion Democrat stimulus package is accepted, the Treasury is already budgeting for the latter.

Finally, with the presidential elections are looming, we hope that we don’t need to answer “why” – despite the Congressional theater – it is only a matter of time before this massive spending tsunami is unleashed.