Yet another corpulent billionaires is about to spend billions to own a franchise sports club, just so he can avoid spending billions in taxes.
According to FOX Sports reporter Ken Rosenthal, Fred Wilpon’s Sterling Partners, the owners of the New York Mets, is in talks to sell up to 80% of the MLB team to billionaire Steve Cohen, who is already an investor in the club.
BREAKING: The Sterling Partners and Steve Cohen are negotiating an agreement in which Cohen would increase his investment in the #Mets, per source. Fred Wilpon will remain Control Person and CEO for five years and Jeff Wilpon will remain COO for five-year period as well.
The transaction, which was confirmed by the club, would value the team at $2.6 billion, according to Bloomberg.
According to the proposed deal, real estate developer and billionaire, Fred Wilpon, the team’s current owner, will remain in his role for at least five years, at which time Cohen will have a path to controlling the franchise. Jeff Wilpon, his son, will remain as the team’s chief operating officer for the five-year period.
Meanwhile Cohen, whose net worth is $9.2 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, will remain as chief executive of Point72 Asset Management.
Fred Wilpon is making the move as part of estate and philanthropic planning. The Wilpons will retain a stake in the franchise they assumed control of in 2002, Bloomberg noted.
So what’s in it for Cohen, who may have a ice rink in his Connecticut house, but has not indicated any interest in baseball so far? The answer is simple, and the same as why Steve Ballmer bought the LA Clippers for $2 billion several years ago: tax benefits. In the Clippers case, Ballmer could seek as much as half of the purchase price of the team in tax benefits over the next 15 years, according to accountants and sports business analysts familiar with the financial aspects of team ownership.
The same logic would apply to Cohen and the Mets.
Buying a team isn’t like buying a factory full of machines; Cohen gets few physical assets for his $2.6 billion. Instead, he pays top dollar to join a successful league and acquire the rights to a star-studded roster. The IRS offers specific tax breaks to any business loaded with such intangible assets.
So, in addition to taking a normal deduction, Ballmer could claim his team is worth additional millions in terms of selling tickets and driving broadcast revenue.
This added value, he could say, was part of the original purchase price. The IRS would then allow him to amortize a significant portion of the $2.6 billion over a number of years in much the same way a factory owner depreciates aging machinery.
It is hard to pinpoint how much Cohen — or the Mets owners — would benefit because of the tax code’s highly interpretive nature. Regardless, sports business analysts and accountants say owners can seek tax benefits equal to about half of the purchase price.
In short, in a time when the “top 1%” are being hounded for their increasingly more original tax-avoidance schemes, one of the world’s most prominent billiionaires is about to do just that.
Attorney General William Barr departed from his prepared statement honoring a group of police officers for their service with what he no doubt thought was a dire and reasonable warning: Communities should be nicer to their cops or risk losing police protection.
“They have to start showing more than they do—the respect and support that law enforcement deserves,” Barr said Tuesday during while presenting his annual Attorney General’s Award for Distinguished Service in Policing. “And if communities don’t give that support and respect, they might find themselves without the police protection that they need.”
The assumption that Barr wanted to leave us with is that the same police the Justice Department honored yesterday (officers who had done things like help break up gangs and rescue a kidnapped baby) were exactly the same police officers who invite outrage and abuse by aggressively intruding on the private lives of citizens, violating their rights, and beating them up at the slightest provocation.
He’s trying to flip the “one bad apple spoils the bunch” metaphor by claiming that our right to be served good apples requires us to eat the rotten ones as well. If we attempt to pick and choose, Barr says we’ll get none.
Unfortunately for the communities most critical of police, it is extremely hard to get the police to go away, particularly when they’ve engaged in misconduct worthy of criticizing. Police unions are quick to excuse their worst officers and help them get their jobs back in the rare instances when that misconduct leads to their firing. “Be nice to all cops or you’ll get no cops” sounds like a threat, but it can also be read as a pipe dream. More likely, bad cops will stick around and continue to do bad things, while fewer good people will choose to become police officers.
Communities that are critical of police are reacting to NYPD Officer Leo Pantaleo putting Eric Garner in the chokehold that ultimately killed him, all because he was selling untaxed loose cigarettes. Their anger grew when a grand jury and the Department of Justice declined to prosecute Pantaleo; they will be angrier still if he gets his job back after being fired, a pursuit that has the public backing of the police unions in the city. From their perspective, Garner was killed for selling loose cigarettes, while the police officer who killed him was only fired and now stands to be rehired (and possibly receive back pay). Can Barr not see why that dissonance would make people angry? Does he really expect “communities” to “respect” and “support” Pantaleo? What about the members of the police union members that are supporting his attempt to get his job back?
Now that California has passed a law opening up some police misconduct records, a collaborative investigation by newspapers across the state has found that dozens of police officers are still on the job even after being convicted of crimes, including a deputy who was convicted of manslaughter after running over two people while responding recklessly to a call. Does Barr want “communities” to “respect” and “support” officers who can kill them without consequence?
The threat of “de-policing,” which is when rank and file officers respond to criticism or departmental sanction by not doing their jobs, is real. But it doesn’t always lead to mayhem. The NYPD has, in fact, responded to community outrage by making fewer arrests. Crime continued to drop.
Barr has the whole thing backwards. It’s the police who need to respect and support their communities. They can start by ridding their own ranks of bad cops.
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Trump’s Trade Talk Tanks Stocks… Until Unsourced Rumor Sparks Buying-Panic
Trump’s actual words on tape prompted a notable plunge in stocks yesterday and his thoghts were confirmed by Wilbur Ross and Larry Kudlow. However, in this new normal of muppetry, today saw an unsourced rumor from Bloomberg saying that a deal is close (yeah, seriously), spark a short-squeeze-ignited ramp to erase all those losses…
Source: Bloomberg
But we note that the market was unable to crack that pre-plunge level.
All of which reminds us of the golden rule (and no, it never gets old!!!)…
The odds of a trade-deal rebounded to a coin-flip today (still well off the 70-plus percent odds from early November). It’s now been 53 days since Trump announced that the phase one deal was “complete”…
Source: Bloomberg
S&P and Small Caps managed to erase all of yesterday’s losses but all US majors remain lower on the week…
Notably the day saw defensives outperforming cyclicals by the close as the early exuberance in the latter faded…
Source: Bloomberg
Note that stocks really did nothing after the gap-up opening (and Trannies actually faded all day)
Today’s gains came thanks to a double-short-squeeze…
Source: Bloomberg
VIX dropped back below 15…
Stocks and bonds remain decoupled after almost catching down yesterday…
Source: Bloomberg
Treasury yields spiked today (long-end marginally underperforming – 30Y +6bps, 2Y +4bps) leaving the 30Y higher on the week…
Source: Bloomberg
30Y retraced about half its high to low drop yesterday…
Source: Bloomberg
The Dollar fell for the 4th straight day…
Source: Bloomberg
Yuan rallied today, lifted by the trade deal rumors…
Source: Bloomberg
Cryptos made solid gains today until the end of the day when they got dumped…
Source: Bloomberg
…but all remain down on the week…
Source: Bloomberg
Oil prices shot higher on trade hope and inventory draws and as oil surged, silver was slammed…
Source: Bloomberg
Oil surged back to recent highs…
As Silver was monkeyhammered back below $17…
Today’s shifts sent the price of a barrel of crude in silver to its highest since mid-Sept…
Source: Bloomberg
Finally, as Bloomberg reports, Charles Freeman, CEO of Adaptfirst Investments, flags a warning sign for the S&P 500. Normalizing the S&P 500 for earnings suggests the price dispersion is even bigger than during the tech bubble of the late 1990s.
Source: Bloomberg
His point is, if earnings start to crack in 2020, the fallout will be much worse than it was back then.
Attorney General William Barr departed from his prepared statement honoring a group of police officers for their service with what he no doubt thought was a dire and reasonable warning: Communities should be nicer to their cops or risk losing police protection.
“They have to start showing more than they do—the respect and support that law enforcement deserves,” Barr said Tuesday during while presenting his annual Attorney General’s Award for Distinguished Service in Policing. “And if communities don’t give that support and respect, they might find themselves without the police protection that they need.”
The assumption that Barr wanted to leave us with is that the same police the Justice Department honored yesterday (officers who had done things like help break up gangs and rescue a kidnapped baby) were exactly the same police officers who invite outrage and abuse by aggressively intruding on the private lives of citizens, violating their rights, and beating them up at the slightest provocation.
He’s trying to flip the “one bad apple spoils the bunch” metaphor by claiming that our right to be served good apples requires us to eat the rotten ones as well. If we attempt to pick and choose, Barr says we’ll get none.
Unfortunately for the communities most critical of police, it is extremely hard to get the police to go away, particularly when they’ve engaged in misconduct worthy of criticizing. Police unions are quick to excuse their worst officers and help them get their jobs back in the rare instances when that misconduct leads to their firing. “Be nice to all cops or you’ll get no cops” sounds like a threat, but it can also be read as a pipe dream. More likely, bad cops will stick around and continue to do bad things, while fewer good people will choose to become police officers.
Communities that are critical of police are reacting to NYPD Officer Leo Pantaleo putting Eric Garner in the chokehold that ultimately killed him, all because he was selling untaxed loose cigarettes. Their anger grew when a grand jury and the Department of Justice declined to prosecute Pantaleo; they will be angrier still if he gets his job back after being fired, a pursuit that has the public backing of the police unions in the city. From their perspective, Garner was killed for selling loose cigarettes, while the police officer who killed him was only fired and now stands to be rehired (and possibly receive back pay). Can Barr not see why that dissonance would make people angry? Does he really expect “communities” to “respect” and “support” Pantaleo? What about the members of the police union members that are supporting his attempt to get his job back?
Now that California has passed a law opening up some police misconduct records, a collaborative investigation by newspapers across the state has found that dozens of police officers are still on the job even after being convicted of crimes, including a deputy who was convicted of manslaughter after running over two people while responding recklessly to a call. Does Barr want “communities” to “respect” and “support” officers who can kill them without consequence?
The threat of “de-policing,” which is when rank and file officers respond to criticism or departmental sanction by not doing their jobs, is real. But it doesn’t always lead to mayhem. The NYPD has, in fact, responded to community outrage by making fewer arrests. Crime continued to drop.
Barr has the whole thing backwards. It’s the police who need to respect and support their communities. They can start by ridding their own ranks of bad cops.
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is the latest in a long line of people including politicians, lawyers, and Republicans to deny his conversation with Donald Trump was a “quid pro quo” moment. At the epicenter of the impeachment investigation, the phone call between the two world leaders is the linchpin for the Democrats’ case. But despite holding hearings to ascertain Trump’s guilt or innocence, or unearth a scintilla of hard evidence of wrongdoing, the Dems continue to ignore the other major participant in the phone call.
Volodymyr Zelensky
No surprise there.
In a recent interview, Zelensky told the American Democratic Party and the rest of the world that he understands what the now colossally overused Latin term means and he ain’t buying it. He said: “I never talked to the president from the position of a quid pro quo. That’s not my thing.”
Define ‘Quid Pro Quo’
Let’s review what a quid pro quo situation looks like: Hunter Biden, a good friend of substance abuse and political advantages, was appointed to a cushy position with Ukraine’s Burisma Holdings, and he made millions. His father, then vice president, boasted of how he told Ukrainian officials to terminate a prosecutor investigating Burisma Holdings in exchange for a billion dollars in U.S. loans.
Liberty Nation’s Graham J. Noble lays out the problems the Biden family brings to the discussion:
“Certain facts are beyond dispute: Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, in 2014 secured a lucrative directorship with a Ukrainian energy company. The younger Biden’s enormous and highly unusual financial deals with the Chinese are another story altogether but it is worth noting that, everywhere then-Vice President Joe Biden went, his son seems to have benefitted from highly profitable business arrangements.”
Ask any American if that equals a quid pro quo, and the answer would be a resounding “yes.” Insert Trump in place of Biden, and the man would be behind bars. Is what transpired between Trump and Zelensky a conversation on which to hang an impeachment hat? Not according to Zelensky, who said:
“I don’t want us to look like beggars. But you have to understand. We’re at war. If you’re our strategic partner, then you can’t go blocking anything for us. I think that’s just about fairness. It’s not about a quid pro quo. It just goes without saying.”
Joe Biden
The now-infamous chat between Trump and Zelensky has exposed an untenable situation for Joe Biden – who retains the lead by a small margin in the Democratic primary for president. Seemingly struggling in an arduous race, Biden is nevertheless the Swamp’s perfect offering to sink Trump. If the Dem elites sacrifice Joe, they may avoid future finger nibbling, hairy-leg stump speeches, and another humiliating loss in 2020. But the strategic calculation may be that if they admit Joe committed quid pro quo and link that to Trump’s phone call, they might be able to complete the Hail Mary pass and remove the president.
It’s a light-years-away longshot at best and another among the insanely desperate ploys becoming commonplace for the Democratic Party of late. But it won’t surprise the impeachment-exhausted electorate one bit.
As for the diplomatic relationship between Trump and Zelensky, it seems a bit tense but workable. Whereas Zelensky derided the president for calling his country “corrupt,” he defended the call as nothing more than two allies discussing a mutual rival. And that is all in a day’s business at the top of the leader board.
Rep. Devin Nunes (R–Calif.) is making a name for himself as the most litigious doofus in Congress. His ranty lawsuits reveal a dangerous disrespect for the First Amendment and a willingness to censor legitimate criticism to advance his political goals.
In addition to pursuing lawsuits against Twitter, GOP strategist Liz Mair, the Twitter accounts @DevinNunesMom and @DevinCow, and reporter Ryan Lizza, Nunes is now suing CNN for alleged libel and slander. His suit, filed December 3 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, calls a recent CNN story about him a “demonstrably false hit piece” and seeks $435,350,000 in damages.
This latest suit stems from a CNN story suggesting Nunes played a role in attempts, directed by President Donald Trump and his lawyer Rudy Giuliani, to convince Ukrainian authorities to investigate a business connected to 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and Biden’s son Hunter. That request is now at the center of the current House impeachment inquiry into Trump. Nunes is the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, which has been overseeing the inquiry.
On November 23, CNN reported that Nunes may have had secret meetings in Vienna last year to discuss the Bidens with Ukrainian Prosecutor General Victor Shokin. “Nunes had met with Shokin in Vienna last December,” lawyer Joseph A. Bondy told CNN.
Bondy represents Lev Parnas, the “Giuliani associate,” who was indicted in October for alleged violations of campaign finance law. Parnas has pleaded not guilty.
Bondy told CNN that his client is willing to testify under oath that Nunes “had told Shokin of the urgent need to launch investigations into Burisma, Joe and Hunter Biden, and any purported Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election.”
This would mean Nunes is now involved in investigating activity he had a hand in himself. Nunes, however, denies all of Bondy’s allegations. But he’s suing not Bondy or Parnas for making these allegations; he’s suing CNN for reporting on them.
Here’s how the introduction to Nunes’ lawsuit against CNN opens:
CNN is the mother of fake news. It is the least trusted name. CNN is eroding the fabric of America, proselytizing, sowing distrust and disharmony. It must be held accountable.
That’s a good indication of the tenor and substance of Nunes’ entire lawsuit, which tries to make up for its lack of legal substance with bombastic culture-war rhetoric and partisan mudslinging.
The meat of Nunes’ claim is the he never went to Vienna during the time period in question and has never met or talked to Shokin. But in order to turn this into a libel suit against CNN, he has to do more than simply show that such claims are false; Nunes must also prove that CNN acted with recklessness and intent to spread false claims as fact.
Parnas’ claims about Nunes may well turn out to be falsehoods. But showing that CNN deliberately disseminated them in a malicious and intentionally misleading manner is another story. Look at the article’s very title, to start with: “Giuliani associate willing to tell Congress Nunes met with ex-Ukrainian official to get dirt on Biden.” The story is presented from the start as Shokin’s version of events, not something CNN has dug up and deeply reported on its own.
That doesn’t match up with Nunes’ claim that CNN failed to present allegations against him as uncorroborated statements, or that the news outlet failed to offer relevant details about Parnas (like his pending criminal prosecution) that could cast doubt on the truthfulness of his claims.
Nunes accuses CNN of having “intentionally falsified” facts and claims “it was obvious to everyone—including disgraceful CNN—that Parnas was a fraudster and a hustler.” But the CNN story draws from on-the-record statements by a respected lawyer whose Trump-adjacent client is willing to testify, under oath, before Congress.
CNN’s decision to cover this story and its presentation of the information—if a little sensationalist—were both within normal journalistic bounds. It is important to protect those boundaries from people like Nunes. If he gets anywhere in this lawsuit, media outlets and independent writers could face libel lawsuits whenever they report not just on claims that turn out to be wrong, but any claim that the outlet can’t prove beyond a shadow of a doubt. The implications of so watering down the standards for libel are vast and alarming.
Essentially, Nunes wants to hold individual news outlets and reporters to the same impossible standards he’s sought to impose on social media companies like Twitter. He wants there to be financial consequences for anyone relaying unverified messages by third parties—even if they are labeled as unverified messages by third parties—absent proof that this was done with malicious intent. Tasking publishers and platforms with determining the veracity of all the claims they transmit would more or less give political figures sole authority to spread information about themselves.
There may indeed be “obvious reasons” to doubt Parnas’ testimony about Nunes, but that doesn’t make Parnas offering it any less newsworthy, nor does it mean that his claims are, in fact, untrue. Plenty of criminals have been known to tell true tales on associates when their own asses are on the line. Moreover, Parnas might not even be a criminal; right now, he’s merely been charged.
Nunes’ lawsuit against CNN should dispel illusions that he’s taking on Twitter as some sort of populist truth teller and warrior against anti-conservative bias in social media. Nunes is just a run-of-the-mill censor, unwilling to counter what he considers bad speech with more speech. He appears to want to crush anyone who dares discuss him in a manner he doesn’t like.
Nunes’ previous suit, in which he accused Mair of libeling him, claims Twitter is guilty of negligence for allowing Mair’s comments to exist.
Section 230 of federal communications law prevents such a claim against Twitter, “whether the claim is brought as a defamation claim or as a negligence claim,” notes Eugene Volokh. “Service providers don’t have a duty ‘to reasonably monitor and police the platform.'”
Volokh also points out that “Nunes argues that Twitter is discriminating in various ways against conservative speakers; but that is irrelevant to a § 230 defense. The statute was passed precisely to make clear that online service providers are immune from liability for others’ speech even when they make editing choices about which speech to allow.”
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Rep. Devin Nunes (R–Calif.) is making a name for himself as the most litigious doofus in Congress. His ranty lawsuits reveal a dangerous disrespect for the First Amendment and a willingness to censor legitimate criticism to advance his political goals.
In addition to pursuing lawsuits against Twitter, GOP strategist Liz Mair, the Twitter accounts @DevinNunesMom and @DevinCow, and reporter Ryan Lizza, Nunes is now suing CNN for alleged libel and slander. His suit, filed December 3 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, calls a recent CNN story about him a “demonstrably false hit piece” and seeks $435,350,000 in damages.
This latest suit stems from a CNN story suggesting Nunes played a role in attempts, directed by President Donald Trump and his lawyer Rudy Giuliani, to convince Ukrainian authorities to investigate a business connected to 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and Biden’s son Hunter. That request is now at the center of the current House impeachment inquiry into Trump. Nunes is the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, which has been overseeing the inquiry.
On November 23, CNN reported that Nunes may have had secret meetings in Vienna last year to discuss the Bidens with Ukrainian Prosecutor General Victor Shokin. “Nunes had met with Shokin in Vienna last December,” lawyer Joseph A. Bondy told CNN.
Bondy represents Lev Parnas, the “Giuliani associate,” who was indicted in October for alleged violations of campaign finance law. Parnas has pleaded not guilty.
Bondy told CNN that his client is willing to testify under oath that Nunes “had told Shokin of the urgent need to launch investigations into Burisma, Joe and Hunter Biden, and any purported Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election.”
This would mean Nunes is now involved in investigating activity he had a hand in himself. Nunes, however, denies all of Bondy’s allegations. But he’s suing not Bondy or Parnas for making these allegations; he’s suing CNN for reporting on them.
Here’s how the introduction to Nunes’ lawsuit against CNN opens:
CNN is the mother of fake news. It is the least trusted name. CNN is eroding the fabric of America, proselytizing, sowing distrust and disharmony. It must be held accountable.
That’s a good indication of the tenor and substance of Nunes’ entire lawsuit, which tries to make up for its lack of legal substance with bombastic culture-war rhetoric and partisan mudslinging.
The meat of Nunes’ claim is the he never went to Vienna during the time period in question and has never met or talked to Shokin. But in order to turn this into a libel suit against CNN, he has to do more than simply show that such claims are false; Nunes must also prove that CNN acted with recklessness and intent to spread false claims as fact.
Parnas’ claims about Nunes may well turn out to be falsehoods. But showing that CNN deliberately disseminated them in a malicious and intentionally misleading manner is another story. Look at the article’s very title, to start with: “Giuliani associate willing to tell Congress Nunes met with ex-Ukrainian official to get dirt on Biden.” The story is presented from the start as Shokin’s version of events, not something CNN has dug up and deeply reported on its own.
That doesn’t match up with Nunes’ claim that CNN failed to present allegations against him as uncorroborated statements, or that the news outlet failed to offer relevant details about Parnas (like his pending criminal prosecution) that could cast doubt on the truthfulness of his claims.
Nunes accuses CNN of having “intentionally falsified” facts and claims “it was obvious to everyone—including disgraceful CNN—that Parnas was a fraudster and a hustler.” But the CNN story draws from on-the-record statements by a respected lawyer whose Trump-adjacent client is willing to testify, under oath, before Congress.
CNN’s decision to cover this story and its presentation of the information—if a little sensationalist—were both within normal journalistic bounds. It is important to protect those boundaries from people like Nunes. If he gets anywhere in this lawsuit, media outlets and independent writers could face libel lawsuits whenever they report not just on claims that turn out to be wrong, but any claim that the outlet can’t prove beyond a shadow of a doubt. The implications of so watering down the standards for libel are vast and alarming.
Essentially, Nunes wants to hold individual news outlets and reporters to the same impossible standards he’s sought to impose on social media companies like Twitter. He wants there to be financial consequences for anyone relaying unverified messages by third parties—even if they are labeled as unverified messages by third parties—absent proof that this was done with malicious intent. Tasking publishers and platforms with determining the veracity of all the claims they transmit would more or less give political figures sole authority to spread information about themselves.
There may indeed be “obvious reasons” to doubt Parnas’ testimony about Nunes, but that doesn’t make Parnas offering it any less newsworthy, nor does it mean that his claims are, in fact, untrue. Plenty of criminals have been known to tell true tales on associates when their own asses are on the line. Moreover, Parnas might not even be a criminal; right now, he’s merely been charged.
Nunes’ lawsuit against CNN should dispel illusions that he’s taking on Twitter as some sort of populist truth teller and warrior against anti-conservative bias in social media. Nunes is just a run-of-the-mill censor, unwilling to counter what he considers bad speech with more speech. He appears to want to crush anyone who dares discuss him in a manner he doesn’t like.
Nunes’ previous suit, in which he accused Mair of libeling him, claims Twitter is guilty of negligence for allowing Mair’s comments to exist.
Section 230 of federal communications law prevents such a claim against Twitter, “whether the claim is brought as a defamation claim or as a negligence claim,” notes Eugene Volokh. “Service providers don’t have a duty ‘to reasonably monitor and police the platform.'”
Volokh also points out that “Nunes argues that Twitter is discriminating in various ways against conservative speakers; but that is irrelevant to a § 230 defense. The statute was passed precisely to make clear that online service providers are immune from liability for others’ speech even when they make editing choices about which speech to allow.”
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US Officials Tout ‘Fresh Intelligence’ Of Imminent Iran Attack ‘Threat’ Against Troops
US defense officials are claiming fresh intelligence pointing to the looming threat of a possible attack by Iran on US forces and interests in the Middle East.
“There has been consistent intelligence in the last several weeks,” an administration official was anonymously cited as saying by CNN. A separate official said the information gathered by military and intelligence agencies was collected through November.
As is typical when vague claims of a new ‘Iran threat’ is on the horizon there’s absolutely nothing in terms of specifics or evidence, just anonymous officials and fear inducing headlines (also via the same intel bureaucrats which gave us the Iraq war).
Image source: Reuters
“The officials would not say in what format the intelligence exists. But in the last several weeks there has been movement of Iranian forces and weapons that the US worries could be put in place for a potential attack, if one is ordered by the Iranian regime, the officials said,” the CNN report continued.
The statements referenced intelligence showing Iranian military units and weapons on the move in some places, but noted there’s no evidence suggesting an attack order has been given.
Though it’s nothing new that a looming Iran attack should be hyped by admin and Pentagon sources, the timing is especially interesting, given the mass protests inside Iran — the biggest since 2009 — which Iranian security forces put down last month.
Tehran officials had accused the US and Israel of seeking to subvert domestic grievances (brought on by a sudden fuel price hike of 50% to 300% in some places) by hijacking demonstrations, which further resulted in the torching of hundreds of banks and gas stations.
Meanwhile the Pentagon has continued a US show of force, recently moving the carrier USS Abraham Lincoln into the Persian Gulf, and sending additional troops to Saudi Arabia, bringing the total reported number to 3,000.
In public statements, the head of the US Central Command, Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, also recently told an audience in Bahrain that CENTCOM believes a new act of aggression is likely coming (after the Sept.14 Saudi Aramco attacks were widely blamed on Iran).
“I would expect that if we look at the past three or four months, it’s possible they will do something that is irresponsible. It’s possible that they’ll lash out at their neighbors,” he said. “It is not going to be productive for them in the long term to choose to act out in the military domain. That’s the message that we’re trying to convey.”
Transgender activist Jessica Yaniv, who lost a lawsuit against beauty salons for refusing to wax her balls, is now complaining about gynecologists refusing to see her.
Back in October, Yaniv lost her case and was forced to pay $6,000 in damages after accusing three women of “discrimination” when they refused to wax Yaniv’s male genitalia.
Now the trans activist is upset at gynecologists who refuse to serve transgender patients.
“So a gynaecologist office that I got referred to literally told me today that “we don’t serve transgender patients,” tweeted Yaniv.
“And me, being me, I’m shocked.. and confused… and hurt. Are they allowed to do that, legally? Isn’t that against the college practices?” she asked.
Gynaecologists form a part of the multidisciplinary team who engage with transgender and non‐binary patients, either as part of the transition stage performing surgery or managing pre‐ or post‐transition gynaecological problems.
Yaniv followed up by suggesting that gynecologists should engage with trans patients, “either as part of the transition stage performing surgery or managing pre- or post-transition gynaecological problems.”
Gynaecology is described as “the medical practice dealing with the health of the female reproductive systems (vagina, uterus, and ovaries) and the breasts.”
Yaniv, as we are all too aware by now, still possesses a penis and balls and does not have a female reproductive system.
It remains to be seen whether Yaniv will pull the same stunt as he/she did by attempting to sue beauty salons.
As we previously reported, Yaniv, who has been accused of being a sexual predator, previously tried to arrange a topless swimming session for girls as young as 12 where parents would not be allowed to be present.
The initial controversy surrounding Yaniv prompted comedian Ricky Gervais to wade into the debate.
“How did we get to the point where women are having to fight for the right to choose whether they wax some big old hairy cock & balls or not? It is not a human right to have your meat & 2 veg polished,” tweeted Gervais, who was accused of “transphobia” for defending a woman’s right not to wax male genitalia.
* * *
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“Insurers cherry-pick homes, leave flooded ones for the Feds,” runs a very odd headline over at E&E News. The article goes on to explain, “Taxpayers could be forced to spend billions of dollars to bail out the federal government’s flood program as private-sector insurers begin covering homes with little risk of flooding while clustering peril-prone properties in the indebted public program.” Well, yes.
The E&E News article misses the exquisitely simple point made in this 2012 New York Timesop-ed:
Homeowners and businesses should be responsible for purchasing their own flood insurance on the private market, if they can find it. If they can’t, then the market is telling them that where they live is too dangerous [emphasis added]. If they choose to live in harm’s way, they should bear the cost of that risk — not the taxpayers. Government’s primary role is ensuring the safety of its citizens, so the government’s subsidizing of risky behavior is completely backward.
E&E News notes that private insurers paid out only a small proportion of the flood claims made after recent major hurricanes in Florida and Texas. This suggests that the companies are good at assessing flood risks.
The E&E News article strangely claims that “an increased number of people with flood coverage could help reduce flood damage by making homeowners more aware of their risk.” Of course that’s right, but not being able to purchase any flood insurance at all would be a much more effective and compelling way to make homeowners aware of their risks.
Both the Trump administration and climate activists want flood insurance rates to reflect the actual risks faced by homeowners. That’s exactly what private insurance can do best.
Instead of decrying private insurers for sensibly refusing to cover houses located in high-risk flood zones, the E&E News article should instead have been arguing for ending the government’s National Flood Insurance Program altogether.
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