Month: June 2023

Insurance giant Allstate has stopped writing new policies for homeowners, condominiums and commercial structures, citing wildfires, higher costs of construction and higher reinsurance premiums, the SF Chronicle reports.

The company, the fourth largest casualty insurance provider in the state in 2021, said the pause on new policies was “so we can continue to protect current customers,” according to spokeswoman Brittany Nash in an email to the outlet.

“The cost to insure new home customers in California is far higher than the price they would pay for policies due to wildfires, higher costs for repairing homes, and higher reinsurance premiums,” she wrote in a follow-up email on Friday.

The cost of rebuilding has increased with inflation, but Allstate can’t adjust prices quickly due to state regulation, Nash wrote.

The pause began last year but appeared to receive only a passing mention in industry publications. The Chronicle learned of the development this week, after reviewing an Allstate rate increase request to the California Department of Insurance. -SF Chronicle

The move follows a similar measure by State Farm – the largest property and casualty issuer in the state – which announced in late May that it would stop issuing new homeowner policies, citing inflation, wildfires and rising reinsurance costs.

The Chronicle suggests that the decision by both companies suggests there may be insurance industry woes in the state that are more severe than the public is aware of.

“State Farm is unusual in that it announces such underwriting actions. It is not required by law and most insurers do not,” said Rex Frazier, president of the Personal Insurance Federation of California, an association of insurers, in an email to The Chronicle over the weekend. 

Frazier told the outlet on Thursday that the only required public disclosure is when insurers ask the California Department of Insurance for rate increases.

In recent years, AIG and Chubb, which insure higher-end homes, have pulled coverage in some areas of the state.

Consumer advocates have noted that there are still more than 100 insurers doing business in California, even as many big names pull out.

But homeowners in high-risk fire areas may have a harder time finding coverage, leading to more usage of the FAIR Plan, a state-offered “insurer of last resort” meant as a temporary safety net that covers only fire insurance and generally costs more than other plans. 

Many insurance companies have already stopped renewing policies in fire-prone areas after fires in 2017 and 2018 devastated communities and resulted in large payouts. -SF Chronicle

Would this be happening if California’s leadership had spent the last several decades clearing dead brush and reducing the state’s wildfire risk?

Authored by MN Gordon via EconomicPrism.com,

Much of legislative activity is grossly overcomplicated.  This is because honest governance is missing from the process.

The simple and honest way to put headspace between the debt and the debt ceiling is to run a budget surplus and use the excess to pay down the debt.  The politics of the moment make this impossible.

Unless something radical happens, the Senate will soon pass the debt ceiling bill.  Perhaps by the time you read this, it has already happened.  Are you happy?

You shouldn’t be.  Not if you believe in small, limited government, greater freedom and autonomy, and future prosperity for your kids and grandkids.  If you believe in these things, then raising the debt ceiling is a direct assault on your sensibilities and way of life.

Alas, most Americans don’t give a rip that the debt ceiling was raised.  They’re too busy running up their own consumer debt to care what Washington’s doing.  And like the federal government, when they run out of money, and max out their credit cards, they borrow more.  For tomorrow never comes.

Without question, U.S. consumers have buried themselves under a huge mountain of debt.  The latest report from the New York Federal Reserve shows that total household debt has eclipsed $17 trillion for the first time ever.

Of this, $12.04 trillion is mortgage debt, followed by $1.60 trillion in student debt, $1.56 trillion in auto debt, and about $1 trillion in credit card debt.  Other debt, at $510 billion, and home equity line of credit, at $340 billion, round out the debt pile.

This $17 trillion achievement has been attained at a time when the personal savings rate is just 4.6 percent.  This is almost half of the 8.9 percent personal savings rate averaged over the last decade.  What’s going on?

Are Americans trying to keep up with the Joneses?  Are they just trying to pay their bills?  Or has a deeper psychological shift occurred?

Currency Destruction

Americans have suffered the highest wave of consumer price inflation in 40 years.  Are they spending money with the sole intent of getting rid of it before it becomes worth less and less?

Currently, we don’t think the American psyche has been damaged to this extent.  Consumers are more likely spending their savings and running up debt in an attempt to maintain inflated living standards.

Yet further bungling of Fed monetary policy could motivate people to accelerate their spending.  At this very moment, the economic stars appear to be aligning in a way that could compel Fed Chair Powell to do something dumb.

Specifically, in Q4 of this year, it’s very likely that reported gross domestic product (GDP) will show a contraction for two consecutive quarters.  Politicians never want to head into an election year with the economy in a recession.

Thus, by late-fall, numbskulls like Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders will be screaming for the Fed to do something.  To slash interest rates and buy Treasury bonds.

But what if the consumer price index is still above 4 percent – double the Fed’s preferred target?  Will the Fed acquiesce to the politicians?

What then?  Does another wave of raging consumer price inflation then wash ashore?  Do consumers then start dumping their dollars in earnest?

These are the sorts of dreadful questions that must be asked in a world with fiat currency and politicized monetary policy.

In the interim, American consumers have dug themselves into a deep hole.  The pathway way out involves saving money and paying down debt.

Yet elevated consumer prices make this especially difficult.  Moreover, there’s little incentive to save money when it’s in a currency that’s being systematically destroyed.

Price Deflation

Remember, getting consumers to spend by debasing the currency was the intention of monetary policy all along.  The way the government policy makers view it, saving money is bad for the economy.

Their short-sighted logic is that saving money means less spending.  And less spending, in an economy where consumer spending accounts for over 70 percent of GDP, could lead to deflation.

Deflation, in essence, means a general reduction of prices.  As opposed to inflation, deflation allows consumers to buy more goods or services tomorrow with the same money they have today.  Savvy consumers will then delay purchases in anticipation they can buy more for less in the future.

For example, if you’re in the market for a new car, now may be a good time to delay your purchase.  A recent report from UBS estimates that there’s an excess of 5 million vehicles that will require price cuts before they are sold.  We knew $1,000 per month car payments wouldn’t last.

With respect to the cycle of deflation, lower spending leads to less income for businesses and producers.  This, in turn, leads to less production, worker pink slips, higher unemployment, and GDP contraction.

The real damage from deflation, however, is to leveraged businesses and individuals.  As asset prices deflate, along with profits and incomes, the ability to service existing debt becomes harder and harder.  Eventually, mass bankruptcies occur.

This is problematic for lenders and bankers and can push them to insolvency.  Ultimately, it can lead to a financial crisis, breakdown in the credit market, and an economic recession or depression.

On the Importance of Deflation and Depressions

This all sounds rather grim.  And it is.  But, nonetheless, it doesn’t mean deflation should be ignored or avoided.

Deflation and depressions, like colon polyps, are a part of life.  And should be faced with dignity and grace.

Moreover, after an extreme episode of government sponsored inflation, deflation and an economic depression are precisely what are needed to bring prices, incomes, supply and demand, and wants and needs, back into balance.

Perpetually attempting to forestall deflation and depressions by pumping credit and piling up debt has erected an economy that is totally unworkable for hard-working families.  Moreover, it has completely obliterated the middle class.

Politicians may not like deflation, as it increases the odds that they’ll lose their cushy jobs.  Still, just about every family out there could use some relief on their weekly grocery bill.  This relief would be better delivered by deflation rather than issuing more and more EBT cards.

Similarly, after a decade of asset price inflation, prospective first-time home buyers would benefit from house price deflation.  Not only would houses be more affordable.  House prices that are more in line with incomes would free up more cash for savings, investments, and wealth building.

It’s difficult to get ahead when half of your after-tax income is going to pay the mortgage.  Deflation would make this possible.  What’s more, deflation would also make penny candy possible again.

The point is the policy makers got it all wrong.  Spending money to juice GDP growth does not lead to greater societal wealth.  It leads to inflation, price distortions, supply gluts, wealth disparities, and over indebted consumers and businesses.

Real wealth – for individuals, businesses, and the economy as a whole – comes from capital formation.  And capital formation starts with spending less than you make and saving the difference.

The savings can then be invested in new businesses or in existing profit-generating businesses.  This is how wealth is created.

Unfortunately, an episode of deflation would result in a lot of good people losing their jobs.  We don’t like it.  But over time this would free people up to pursue more useful endeavors.

In closing, price deflation and an economic depression are needed to restore the economy to a place where people can get on with the business of improving their lives through incremental capital formation.  So long as they have a stable currency, political freedom, and the discipline to do it.

*  *  *

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Russian state media is citing the governor of Russia’s Belgorod Region, Viacheslav Gladkov, to report that there’s been another cross-border raid into Russian territory from Ukraine, which marks the third such incursion within two weeks.

The governor of the border region oblast which has also for months been subject to sporadic shelling from Ukrainian forces said that Russia’s military and the FSB security services are engaging the “saboteurs” and that fighting is ongoing, though few details have been given. 

Russia’s RT is describing, “In a video address, Gladkov responded to Denis Nikitin, the leader of the Russian Volunteer Corps, a neo-Nazi group of Russian nationals fighting on Kiev’s side.”

“In his video, the governor stated that a battle with the corps detachment was currently raging in Belgorod Region, and that he hoped that all members of the group would be killed,” the report says.

Belgorod’s Gladkov was quoted as saying–

“I saw the appeal of scoundrels, bastards, murderers and fascists who allegedly want to meet with me, offering a conversation in exchange for prisoners. In fact, a group of saboteurs went in, there is a battle in Novaya Tavolzhanka. I hope that they will all be destroyed, it cannot be otherwise. Every day civilians die at the hands of these fascists, we bury them every day. Crippled children and dead old people – that’s their handiwork,” he said.

Earlier in the weekend he said that seven civilians have died over the past week due to shelling from Ukraine.

⚡️Heavy fighting taking place between FSB and RDK unit of the AFU in Novaya Tavolzhanka pic.twitter.com/15JNXZT9gi

— War Monitor (@WarMonitors) June 4, 2023

The New York Times wrote on Saturday that “Shebekino, a town of 40,000 six miles from the border, has effectively become a new part of the front line as Ukraine has intensified attacks inside Russia, including on residential areas near its own borders.”

This is all upending the lives of residents in the border region, akin to what already happened long ago on the Ukrainian side of the border. “The spate of assaults, most recently by militia groups aligned against Moscow, has sparked the largest military evacuation effort in Russia in decades,” the report underscored. The past days have witnessed area residents move into temporary shelters, including the large Belgorod arena in the oblast capital.

The Ukrainian-backed Russian Freedom Legion has just posted this video of what it says are its troops advancing in the outskirts of the Russian city of Shebekino. ⁦@GeoConfirmed⁩ pic.twitter.com/0agH6BiG2f

— Yaroslav Trofimov (@yarotrof) June 4, 2023

Currently it appears the militia groups which have crossed the Russian border on Sunday are holding ground and seeking to advance, at least temporarily. During the first major assault of two weeks ago Russia sent in major military assets such as helicopters to put down the incursion. Wagner Group has since offered to send its fighters to protect the border.

Chief Foreign-Affairs Correspondent of The Wall Street Journal, Yaroslav Trofimov, has written in an update posted to Twitter that “Ukrainian-backed Russian fighters remain in the Russian town of Novaya Tavolzhanka and have taken POWs. The psychological impact of that is hard to overestimate.

Trofimov wrote further “The governor has offered to meet them to take back the POWs, Prigozhin has also offered to send an aide.”

developing…

Authored by Bill Pan and Joshua Philipp via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The boycott against corporations that tried to push left-wing sex and gender ideology on their customers opens the opportunities to expose what’s behind their embrace of “woke” agenda, according to author and commentator James Lindsay.

Speaking on EpochTV’s “Crossroads,” Lindsay said the boycotts “must definitely have an impact,” as Bud Light’s parent company Anheuser-Busch scrambled to downplay its now-notorious partnership with transgender TikTok personality Dylan Mulvaney.

“This boycott damaged them enough to where they scrambled, they made some kind of a crazy statement. The statement just didn’t satisfy anybody. So the boycott stays on, the pressure stays on,” he told host Joshua Philipp.

Woke Corp’s Priorities

On May 9, a month after the initial Mulvaney backlash, Anheuser-Busch lost its perfect Corporate Equality Index (CEI) score, which is overseen by the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBT advocacy group.

The CEI measures how well a company’s policies adhere to a set of criteria concerning “LGBTQ equality” in the workplace. Businesses with the highest possible 100 CEI points are given the title “Best Place To Work For LGBTQ Equality.” More than 800 American businesses met all the criteria to earn a percent rating and the designation last year, according to the Campaign’s latest report.

In response to the loss of a perfect CEI score—and in spite of the customer backlash, Anheuser-Busch pledged last week to donate $200,000 to support “LGBTQ+ business owners of color.”

The fact that a company would rather further upset customers than get a lower social credit rating, Lindsay said, shows “how this extortion racket works and how serious the extortion racket is.”

“We see which thing they’re choosing to do,” Lindsay explained. “Whether it’s Corporate Equality Index score, whether it’s a broader ESG [Environmental, Social, and Governance] score, they’re choosing to serve the same agenda.”

“This reveals a lot of things that are very useful,” he continued. “We can have hearings. We could have the House Oversight Committee talking about this: ‘Why are you doing this? How important is that number? Why is it number so important? How did this number come to mean so much to your company? Who made the deals? What are the costs?’”

“These kinds of things need to be dragged out into the public under oath, and in a high place.”

Fighting Woke Corps in Court

“We now have very good reason to believe that shareholders have excellent lawsuits in potentia for the violations of fiduciary responsibility,” Lindsay told Philipp.

In fact, conservative legal group America First Legal is preparing to sue Anheuser-Busch, as well as several other big-name brands, for allegedly tanking their shareholder value through their Pride Month promotions that triggered outrage and boycotts.

On Tuesday, America First Legal called on anyone whose shares in LGBT product-promoting companies lost value to reach out to them to join a class action lawsuit they are working to file against those companies.

“ATTENTION: Are you a shareholder of [Target], [Kohls], [Anheuser-Busch], or other companies that are promoting transgender, LGBTQ and PRIDE products and diminishing shareholder value?” the organization wrote on Twitter with a link to its email address. “We want to hear from you.”

Target has been the subject of a conservative-led boycott over merchandise celebrating Pride Month, including a onesie for infants that states “Bien Proud;” a children’s book with the title, “Twas the Night Before Pride;” a book that tells children how to use transgender pronouns; and a handful of T-shirts with similar slogans. The company also drew backlash for “tuck-friendly” swimwear. A Target spokesperson has since said the swimwear wasn’t made for children.

Read more here…

After a near-decade run as the moderator of NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Chuck Todd told an audience Sunday morning, “While today is not my final show, this will be my final summer here at Meet the Press. … I am really proud of what this team and I have built over the last decade.”

Todd, 51, told viewers, “I’ve watched too many friends and family let work consume them before it was too late” and promised his family he wouldn’t go down that path. 

He said, “I have plans already for my next chapter … including some projects right here at NBC News,” adding, “While I may be leaving this chair, I’m still going to help NBC navigate and coach colleagues in this 2024 campaign season.” 

Today we close our show with an announcement from @chucktodd:

“While today is not my final show, this will be my final summer here at Meet the Press. … I am really proud of what this team and I have built over the last decade.” pic.twitter.com/sgeUcNR3C5

— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) June 4, 2023

Todd said Kristen Welker, who serves as NBC News’ co-chief White House correspondent and Todd’s chief fill-in for the past three years, will take over the show in September. No date was given for Todd’s retirement from the show. 

While dedicating more to ‘family’ is an easy cover, the left-leaning show has suffered poor ratings. 

In August 2022, Daily Beast’s “Confider” newsletter reported that Todd has “baffled many at NBC with how long he’s remained atop the struggling show.”

David Gelles, an ex-CNN staffer who recently took over as the show’s executive producer, appears to have finally kicked Todd to the curb, though his exit isn’t abrupt as ones for Fox News’ Tucker Carlson and CNN’s Don Lemon.  

Twitter users responded to the Meet the Press’ official Twitter account and asked: 

I wonder if @NBCNews will bring in someone who isn’t partisan and who can hold our leaders accountable. You know, like journalists used to do.

Others said: 

Finally! This is overdue.

As we noted on Twitter:

Must have too many viewers https://t.co/mg4DBXf5ZU

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) June 4, 2023

Authored by Simon White, Bloomberg macro strategist,

The AI rally is boosting semiconductor stocks, which are traditionally a highly cyclical leading indicator of economic growth. A soft landing (or just a very mild recession) is still unlikely, but less so than it was a few months ago.

The share performance of highly-cyclical semiconductor firms has always given a good advance read on economic activity. Today, semis are pointing to an upturn in one of the most leading data points of sentiment, ISM new orders.

Similarly, semis are also pointing to a global cyclical upturn. South Korean exports are themselves a highly cyclical barometer of global activity and semis’ rise suggest they should soon do likewise.

One must be careful when using single inputs like this. It’s well known the rally in semis is being driven by AI speculation, and it is also fairly well understood that stocks like Nvidia now look overvalued.

Furthermore, it’s folly not to weigh up the rally in semis with the weight of other evidence that the US will soon enter a recession, if it’s not already in one (as I have discussed frequently).

Nonetheless, it’d be remiss to ignore altogether a hitherto reliable leading signal of economic growth, that may be telling us something we’re missing.

It’s common for one sector (eg housing, oil, etc) to lead us into a recession, and it’s not unusual for a sector to lead us out of one too.

The US Navy is reporting a second dangerous interaction and provocation by China’s military in less than a week, days after an American spy plane was approached very closely by a Chinese fighter jet over the South China Sea.

The Pentagon says that on Saturday the American destroyer USS Chung-Hoon and the Canadian frigate HMCS Montreal were conducting passage of the Taiwan Strait in international waters when a Chinese warship approached and maneuvered in “an unsafe maritime interaction”.

The Chinese vessel crossed the US destroyer’s bow at a distance of 150 yards, which forced the US Navy ship into evasive maneuvers for the sake of avoiding a collision.

“During the transit, PLA(N) LUYANG III DDG 132 (PRC LY 132) executed maneuvers in an unsafe manner in the vicinity of Chung-Hoon,” the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command’s statement said. “The PRC LY 132 overtook Chung-Hoon on their port side and crossed their bow at 150 yards. Chung-Hoon maintained course and slowed to 10 kts to avoid a collision,” it described. 

A second pass then came directly in front of the USS Chung-Hoon at a distance of 2,000 yards, with the Chinese warship then shadowing off the destroyer’s port bow.

“The LY 132’s closest point of approach was 150 yards and its actions violated the maritime ‘Rules of the Road’ of safe passage in international waters,” the US Navy statement underscored. 

Parts of the incident were captured on video by Canadian journalists aboard the HMCS Montreal. The Canadian ship had been trailing the Chung-Hoon at some distance. 

Interestingly, both sides are using the incident to accuse the other of “bullying” – with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin having said Saturday, “We will support our allies and partners as they defend themselves against coercion and bullying.” The Pentagon chief emphasized, “To be clear, we do not seek conflict or confrontation, but we will not flinch in the face of bullying or coercion.”

China’s military defended its warship’s actions, which comes after repeat warnings against the US cross ‘red lines’ regarding military support for self-ruled Taiwan:

China’s defense minister defended sailing a warship across the path of an American destroyer and Canadian frigate transiting the Taiwan Strait, telling a gathering of some of the world’s top defense officials in Singapore on Sunday that such so-called “freedom of navigation” patrols are a provocation to China.

In his first international public address since becoming defense minister in March, Gen. Li Shangfu told the Shangri-La Dialogue that China doesn’t have any problems with “innocent passage” but that “we must prevent attempts that try to use those freedom of navigation (patrols), that innocent passage, to exercise hegemony of navigation.”

The Chinese top military chief further urged the restoration of dialogue between the two rivals, stressing that a clash between the nuclear-armed powers US and China would be an “unbearable disaster for the world”.

Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com,

“I’m sick and tired of hearing Democrats whining about Joe Biden’s age. The man knows how to govern. Just shut up and vote to save Democracy.”

– Rob Reiner, Hollywood savant

Perhaps you’re aware that the World Health Organization (WHO) is cooking up a plan to impose its will over all the sovereign nations on this planet in the event of future pandemics.

That means, for instance, that the WHO would issue orders to the USA about lockdowns, vaccines, and vaccine passports and we US citizens supposedly would be compelled to follow them.

Why the “Joe Biden” regime would go along with this globalist fuckery is one of the abiding mysteries of our time – except that they go along with everything else that the cabal of Geneva cooks up, such as attacks on farmers, and on oil production, and on relations between men and women, and on personal privacy, and on economic liberty throughout Western Civ, as if they’re working overtime to kill it off. And all of us with it.

I think they are working overtime at that because the sore-beset citizens of Western Civ are onto their game, and getting restless about it. So, the Geneva cabal is in a race against time before the center pole of their circus tent collapses and the nations of the world are compelled to follow the zeitgeist in the direction of de-centralizing, foiling all their grand plans.

The “Joe Biden” regime is pretending to ignore the reality that this WHO deal is actually a treaty that would require ratification by a two-thirds vote in the senate, an unlikely outcome. In any case, handing over authority to the WHO — in effect, to its chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus — to push around American citizens like a giant herd of cattle would be patently unlawful.

That center pole of the circus tent is the wobbling global economy. It’s barely holding up the canvas over the three rings of the circus. In the center ring, the death-defying spectacle of the Biden Family crime case is playing out before a huge audience (us). This week, a gun went off at the FBI and smoke is curling out of the barrel. FBI Director Christopher Wray was forced to verify that he’s been sitting on an incriminating document for three years from a “trusted” confidential human source, i.e., an informant, stating that the Biden Family received a $5-million bribe from a foreign entity when “JB” was vice-president.

That’s only one bribe of many others, of course, as documented in the Hunter Biden laptop, and it must be obvious it represents treasonous behavior that will demand resignation or impeachment. As this spools out in the weeks and months ahead, do you think Americans will be in the mood to accept further insults such as “Joe Biden” surrendering our national sovereignty to the WHO?

Anyway, you must ask yourself: why on earth should I trust the WHO about anything? Did they not participate in laying a trip on the world with Covid-19? How did those lockdowns work out? Do you think they destroyed enough businesses and ruined enough households? How’s the vaccination program doing? Effective? Safe? Yeah, maybe not so much. Maybe killing a lot of people, wrecking immune systems, sterilizing reproductive organs, causing gross disabilities, shattering lives.

Of course, in over three years neither the WHO nor the US medical authorities showed the slightest interest in helping to figure out how the Covid-19 virus was made in a lab, and exactly how it got loose in the world. Lately, Dr. Ghebreyesus has warned the world about much worse future pandemics supposedly coming down at us. Oh? Really? What does he know that we don’t? That possibly new efforts to concoct chimeric diseases are ongoing in labs around the world? (You know that dozens of such labs were discovered in Ukraine as the war got underway there in 2022.) What’s Dr. Ghebreyesus doing to stop that?

If US orgs and citizens are involved in this “research,” why doesn’t the WHO alert our government leaders so they can stop it? (Would they? I’m not so sure.) And, who is behind it this time? The Eco-Health Alliance again, like with Covid-19? By the way, that outfit got another whopping grant last fall from the NIH to “study” bat viruses — right after the NIH terminated a previous grant on account of The Eco-Health Alliance failing to turn over notebooks and other records.

No, you cannot trust the WHO about anything. The “trust horizon” (a concept introduced by the great Nicole Foss, late of The Automatic Earth dot com) is shrinking. You can no longer trust any distant authorities. You also cannot trust the US federal government (especially the executive branch behind “Joe Biden”). And notice: the trust horizon is shrinking just as the world is de-centralizing. This, you see, is the main contradiction behind all the Globalists’ twisted ambitions to control everything, including you. They are working against the current tide of human history which is pushing everything toward down-scaling, re-localization, and re-assertion of the sovereign individual person.

That trend will become increasingly evident as things organized at the giant scale start to implode — giant retail chains, medical behemoths, hedge funds, big banks, you name it. The world no longer has the mojo for globalism. There’s reason to wonder these days whether the USA has the mojo to remain a unified national polity of states. Our federal government is not only financially bankrupt beyond any coherent reckoning, it is also morally bankrupt, and it has decided to make war against its own people. None of this is satisfactory and none of this is working. It’s time to figure out who and what you can trust and act accordingly.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) warned in a Tuesday advisory that Minnesota residents who use marijuana cannot legally own firearms despite the recent legalization of cannabis for recreational use.

According to the St. Paul ATF office, because marijuana is still illegal at the federal level, people who smoke weed or take marijuana edibles are “still federally defined as an ‘unlawful user’ of a controlled substance,” and are therefore “prohibited from shipping, transporting, receiving, or possessing firearms or ammunition.“

“Until marijuana is legalized federally, firearms owners and possessors should be mindful that it remains federally illegal to mix marijuana with firearms and ammunition,” said ATF acting special agent in charge of the of the St. Paul field division, Jeff Reed.

That warning from the ATF is concerning for Second Amendment rights advocate Rob Doar, vice president of the Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus. He said he’s long been aware of the state-and-federal cannabis contradiction, whether it’s for medical or recreational use.

Doar urges gun owners to be aware of the risks, even though under Minnesota’s new law, sheriffs cannot deny someone a permit to carry solely because they are enrolled in the medical cannabis program or are an adult using marijuana. -CBS News

“I think if [the ATF agents] weren’t planning on enforcing it, they may have just let it go and it would kind of be a wink-wink, nudge-nudge that yes it’s illegal, but much like other federal cannabis prohibitions, we’re not going to be enforcing it,” said Doar, adding “The fact that they sent out the notice is cause for some raised eyebrows.”

Cannabis attorney Jason Tarasek of Vincente LLP says that the federal government has typically turned a blind eye and has “left states alone” when it comes to those which have legalized marijuana, but now “It’s an interesting song and dance we’re going through with the federal government.”

Doar and Tarasek would like clarification from the feds.

“It would be great to get some clearer guidance from the federal government that would make people in legal markets more comfortable that they don’t need to be worried about the federal government knocking at their door,” said Tarasek.

During the Obama years, the DOJ issued guidance advising that they wouldn’t interfere in states that had legalized marijuana as long as it didn’t interfere with federal law enforcement priorities. It was rescinded by former US Attorney General Jeff Sessions during the Trump administration.

Read the ATF letter below:

 

Authored by Thomas Brooke via Remix News,

The group of 40 migrants are threatening to sleep rough outside the hotel until the U.K. Home Office agrees to its demands…

Better Wi-Fi, more financial assistance, and private rooms were just some of the demands made by migrants who demonstrated outside the doors of their new hotel accommodation in an upscale residential area of central London on Thursday.

The group of adult men, many of whom arrived in Britain illegally in small boats via the English Channel with a view to claiming asylum, used their suitcases to barricade the front doors to the Pimlico Comfort Inn and staged a pavement protest against what they consider to be offensive living standards afforded to them by the British government.

The group was recently transferred from a hotel in Ilford, Essex, but told reporters that their new accommodation was not to their taste and refused to return to their rooms until they are each provided with private accommodation.

“They said we’re going to move you to another, better place. They gave us this postcode. When we checked on Google Maps, we said, oh this is very nice. But when you get in, it’s like a jail. And they treat you very, very bad. They treat you like an animal,” a 21-year-old Iranian national who arrived in Britain via small boat told The Telegraph newspaper.

Some complained that they had previously been assigned two people to a room, but were now expected to share an en-suite room with three others. The group also bemoaned the smell from the toilet and poor internet access.

“We are not kids, everybody had a private room. We need a private room. How do you live with four men?” asked a 26-year-old African male.

A local resident who lives close to the hotel told Remix: “I live very close to this hotel (3 or 4 mins away) in London, and the scene yesterday really was bizarre. Lots of migrants sitting on the street outside the hotel said they would not go back in, as the taxpayer-funded accommodation was substandard.

“When I asked one of them, they went into a long rant about the bathrooms being dirty. Frankly, it does look like a terrible hotel, but tourists used to pay £100 plus to stay there.”

Richard Tice, the leader of the Reform Party founded by Nigel Farage, filmed an exchange with an Iraqi national named Dia, one of the migrants objecting to the living conditions.

“These people come from another hotel and this hotel is not good,” Dia told the politician.

He explained that the migrants had come from a hotel with big, nice rooms where he had been living for two years, but considered their new accommodation to be “very small” and the Wi-Fi “too weak.”

Asylum seeker complains: size of room, bathroom too small & bad wifi in his Central London hotel & not enough weekly money. Been here 2 years

I apologise on behalf of British taxpayers for the poor wifi… pic.twitter.com/s25DBwsO0i

— Richard Tice 🇬🇧 (@TiceRichard) June 2, 2023

He added that he “can do nothing” with the government allowance of £8 per week, as London is “too expensive,” although he noted that his hotel accommodation and food — which he said is reasonable — are paid for on top of this.

Tice wryly apologized on behalf of the British taxpayer for the poor accommodation and offered to go and talk to the manager on the migrants’ behalf.

Commenting on the stunt, backbench Conservative MP Lee Anderson tweeted:

“The bare-faced cheek. If you don’t like our tax payer funded rooms then there is your old tent waiting back in France. You know where France is? It’s that safe country you left where they will accept an asylum claim.”

The Home Office has sought to alleviate the financial burden on the U.K. taxpayer to accommodate the large influx of migrants seeking asylum in Britain in recent months, with the current bill estimated to be approximately £6 million (€7 million) per day.

Efforts have been made to relocate existing migrants to more cost-effective accommodation, for example by doubling room capacity. The governing Conservative party has also announced plans to house new arrivals on floating barges and in disused military bases in rural locations, despite widespread public criticism from local residents concerned about the social ramifications arising from such a proposal.

“We are trying to drive down the costs and number of hotels by various mechanisms,” a government source told The Telegraph. “You see on TikTok, you get the people smugglers saying you will get your own hotel place.

“We are trying to cut down on the costs. If they say they don’t want to go to the accommodation that they are offered, we can withdraw support.”

Commenting on the pavement protest, a Home Office spokesman insisted the accommodation offered to the migrants in question is “of a decent standard and meets all legal and contractual requirements.”