Arizona’s near-total abortion ban will be repealed just weeks after the state’s Supreme Court ruled it enforceable.
The Arizona House narrowly passed the repeal on April 24 as three Republicans joined with Democrats to approve the measure.
On May 1, the state Senate followed suit in a 16–14 vote—but not before several disappointed senators had the opportunity to air their grievances.
“What we’re actually voting on is death,” state Sen. Anthony Kern said, chiding the members of his Republican party who voted with Democrats in support of the repeal.
“The Democrat Party stands and runs on death. The Republican Party stands and is supposed to run on life.”
State Sen. Sonny Borrelli, meanwhile, objected to the fact that the bill was never sent to a committee, nor was any time allotted for debate or amendments. And during one particularly emotional moment, state Sen. Justine Wadsack recounted her own tragic loss of a child by miscarriage.
“God chose when that heartbeat was going to stop,” Ms. Wadsack said, tears streaming down her face. “It is not my place as a senator to determine when a child’s heart stops beating.”
The abortion ban prohibits all abortions in Arizona except those performed to save the mother’s life. It was initially enacted in 1864, before Arizona was a state, though it was later recodified by the Legislature in the late 1970s.
Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, has promised to sign the repeal once it reaches her desk, though it will not be effective until 90 days after the Legislature adjourns. At that point, a 2022 law limiting abortions to 15 weeks of pregnancy will become the state’s prevailing law.
In the meantime, however, the abortion ban is slated to take effect on June 27.
Proponents of the repeal, pointing to the ban’s pre-statehood origins, had argued that it was outdated and inconsistent with the state’s more recent laws.
“I don’t want us honoring laws about women, written during a time when women were forbidden from voting because their voices were considered inferior to men,” state Sen. Eva Burch said May 1.
For decades, the law was blocked by a permanent injunction. But a two-year court battle, prompted by the reversal of Roe v. Wade, culminated in the Arizona Supreme Court’s bombshell ruling on April 9.
Although the court initially stayed the law’s enforcement for two weeks, an agreement in a related case pushed back its effective date.
The Arizona vote came on the same day that a six-week abortion limit in Florida took effect.
That law includes limited exceptions for situations involving rape, incest, human trafficking, or a serious threat to the mother’s physical health. But as with the Arizona ban, the law has been the subject of much controversy.
As the Florida law took effect, abortion advocates took to social media to decry what they perceived to be the erosion of women’s rights in the Sunshine State.
“Today, Florida is putting the health of millions of women at risk,” New York Gov. Kathy Hochul posted on social media. “It’s clear: Anti-choice extremists will stop at nothing to deny women their right to make their own health care decisions.”
Nikki Fried, chair of the Florida Democratic Party, likewise charged that the law had rolled back women’s rights “by 50 years,” and President Joe Biden called the situation a “nightmare.”
Florida and Arizona are expected to play a key role in deciding the next president, and abortion will be on the ballot in both states come November.
While President Biden has aligned himself with abortion advocates, former President Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, has shied away from what he’s deemed to be a losing issue for the GOP.
The former president, who claims to be pro-life, has said he believes abortion to be a states’ rights issue, as opposed to a federal issue. In taking that stance, he denounced both the Arizona and Florida laws as too restrictive.
“It’s the will of the people—this is what I’ve been saying. It’s a perfect system,” he said on April 10.
“For 52 years, people have wanted to end Roe v. Wade, to get it back to the states. We did that—it was an incredible thing, an incredible achievement. We did that, and now the states have it, and the states are putting out what they want. It’s the will of the people.”
LinkedIn ranked companies based on eight pillars: ability to advance, skills growth, company stability, external opportunity, company affinity, gender diversity, educational background, and employee presence in the country.
To be eligible, companies must have had 5,000 or more global employees, with at least 500 in the country as of December 31, 2023.
Data and Highlights
Financial institutions dominate the ranking of the best U.S. companies to work for in 2024, with JP Morgan Chase & Co. ranking first.
J.P. Morgan has a program that offers opportunities for candidates without a university degree. In fact, in 2022, 75% of job descriptions at the bank for experienced hires did not require a college degree.
Meanwhile, Deloitte and Amazon offer a variety of free training courses, including in AI.
Moderna includes in its employee package benefits to help avoid employee burnout — from subsidized commuter expenses and pop-up daycare centers, to wellness coaches.
Mastercard offers flexible work availability, with 11.5% remote and 89% hybrid options.
It’s also interesting to note that only Amazon and Alphabet made the cut from the ‘Magnificent Seven’ companies (Apple, Microsoft, Google parent Alphabet, Amazon, Nvidia, Meta Platforms, and Tesla).
See more about the best companies to work for in this infographic, which covers a separate ranking from Glassdoor.
Norway saw cash flow from its stakes in oil and gas fields nearly halve in the first quarter of 2024 compared to the same period of 2023, as natural gas prices slumped and gas consumption in Europe was below expectations, said state company Petoro, which manages field holdings of Western Europe’s top oil and gas producer.
In the first quarter of the year, Petoro delivered a cash flow of $5.4 billion (60 billion Norwegian crowns) from the State’s Direct Financial Interest (SDFI) to Norway. The cash flow was $5.14 billion (57 billion crowns) lower than in the first quarter of 2023.
After a couple of years of abnormally high natural gas prices, the achieved gas price in the first quarter was 51% lower than in the same quarter last year, Petoro said on Thursday.
“The Continent experienced a relatively mild winter, which meant that gas consumption was lower than expected. This is an important factor that has affected price and revenues,” Petoro CEO Kristin Kragseth said, adding “The cash flow from our production is still high from a historical perspective.”
Production from the state portfolio in Norway’s offshore fields hit in the first quarter the highest level since the first quarter of 2018, Petoro said.
The state firm is working closely with operators and license partners to continue developing new and profitable production with the lowest possible emissions. Activity on the Norwegian shelf will remain high over the next few years, Petoro says.
Earlier this week, Norway’s Energy Minister Terje Aasland received the field development plan for a new North Sea oil and gas field that would be tied back to an existing platform and is expected to cost $572 million (6.3 billion crowns).
Oil and gas companies plan to boost exploration activity and spending offshore Norway this year as Western Europe’s top oil and gas producer looks to maintain production and raise exports to the rest of Europe.
Over 3,000 tonnes of gold were produced globally in 2023.
In this graphic, Visual Capitalist’s Marcus Lu lists the world’s leading countries in terms of gold production. These figures come from the latest USGS publication on gold statistics (published January 2024).
China, Australia, and Russia Produced the Most Gold in 2023
China was the top producer in 2023, responsible for over 12% of total global production, followed by Australia and Russia.
Gold mines in China are primarily concentrated in eastern provinces such as Shandong, Henan, Fujian, and Liaoning. As of January 2024, China’s gold mine reserves stand at an estimated 3,000 tonnes, representing around 5% of the global total of 59,000 tonnes.
In addition to being the top producer, China emerged as the largest buyer of the yellow metal for the year. In fact, the country’s central bank alone bought 225 tonnes of gold in 2023, according the World Gold Council.
Estimated Global Gold Consumption
Most of the gold produced in 2023 was used in jewelry production, while another significant portion was sold as a store of value, such as in gold bars or coins.
Jewelry: 46%
Central Banks and Institutions: 23%
Physical Bars: 16%
Official Coins, Medals, and Imitation Coins: 9%
Electrical and Electronics: 5%
Other: 1%
According to Fitch Solutions, over the medium term (2023-2032), global gold mine production is expected to grow 15%, as high prices encourage investment and output.
Illegal immigration into Germany reached a five-year high in the first quarter of 2024, the latest government figures show.
The federal government admitted its failure to combat the ongoing migration crisis in its written response to a question by AfD lawmaker Martin Hess, as seen by German news outlet Junge Freiheit.
It revealed that up to April 1, a total of 20,000 illegal border crossings into Germany were registered by federal police, up 2 percent for the same period last year.
In March, the last month for which figures are available, a significant increase in illegal migrant activity was recorded at the German-Polish border where the largest number of illegal border crossings took place.
A total of 1,646 irregular crossings were detected from Poland into Germany for March, up from 911 cases in the previous month. Illegal crossings from Czechia also rose from 509 to 644. In total, 7,079 cases of illegal border activity were recorded in March, up from 5,993 in February.
The figures are contrary to remarks made by Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser last month who told the regional Funke Mediengruppe newspaper that the government’s crackdown on illegal immigration was a success.
“Because of our border controls, we have arrested 708 suspected smugglers and stopped 17,600 migrants crossing the border illegally since October,” Faeser told the news group.
“Those who do not need our protection cannot come to Germany, or should be asked to leave Germany even more quickly,” she added.
The figures were only published following a request by Martin Hess, an MP for the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.
Commenting on the government’s revelation in a social media post on Tuesday, Hess wrote, “While Nancy Faeser is selling the border controls as a success in the media, the figures show that the situation is still not under control. Illegal entries have also increased compared to the same period last year.”
The conservative lawmaker claimed that border officials were lacking “an essential tool for combating illegal migration on the ground” and called for federal police officers to “finally be given the opportunity to turn back illegal immigrants at the borders.”
Rebuilding Bombed-Out Gaza Could Take Into Next Century: UN
Gaza will need rebuilding on scale not seen since World War 2, the United Nations has said in a new report which seeks to assess the immense scale and scope of damage after almost seven months of war.
The report released by the UN Development Program (UNDP) said that Gaza needs “approximately 80 years to restore all the fully destroyed housing units” and that rebuilding all that’s been destroyed in the Strip could even drag into the next century.
“Unprecedented levels of human losses, capital destruction, and the steep rise in poverty in such a short period of time will precipitate a serious development crisis that jeopardizes the future of generations to come,” UNDP Administrator Achim Steiner said in a statement.
The report tallies that some 80,000 homes have been fully destroyed while at least 370,000 have been damaged. The UN also indicated there’s a possibility that rebuilding could be completed by 2040, but only if “construction materials are delivered five times as fast as in the last crisis in 2021” and if there war were to immediately stop.
According to more via Reuters, “In a scenario where the war lasts nine months, poverty is set to increase from 38.8% of Gaza’s population at the end of 2023 to 60.7%, dragging a large portion of the middle class below the poverty line, the report said.”
One UN official referenced in international reports said that Israel’s bombardment of the Strip has resulted in a “moonscape” of destruction.
As of Thursday, Gaza’s Health Ministry says that 34,596 mostly civilians have died since Israel launched its offensive in retaliation for the Hamas terror attacks, while over 77,000 have been wounded. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have tallied some 13,000 militants killed during the operation. Each side disputes these casualty figures.
Meanwhile, at a moment famine threatens to take many more lives, the Pentagon says it is nearly completion of the $320 million floating pier which will get maritime food aid into Gaza.
The Financial Times details, “Hundreds of US troops have spent weeks building the structure that aims to allay the dire humanitarian crisis in the strip, with US naval vessels ferrying specialized equipment to a point about two miles offshore where the aid ships from Cyprus are supposed to dock.”
Interestingly, some officials have criticized this as another mere public spectacle (akin to the prior air drops) and a “waste” of time and funds, per FT:
But international aid groups warn that the JLOTS plan could divert attention from these more efficient land routes and, in any event, would not resolve the more serious problem of damaged roads and lawlessness that has hampered distribution inside the enclave. “It’s a wasteful distraction,” a senior UN official, who requested anonymity, said of the new pier. “There are roads, there are border crossings — there’s [already] aid waiting outside Gaza.”
Israel has been widely accused of blocking much of the vital food aid which has been held up at border crossings. Jordan has also newly accused Israeli settlers of destroying inbound aid under the watch of IDF soldiers…
According to a statement by Jordan’s Foreign Ministry, some Israeli settlers reportedly assaulted two Jordanian humanitarian aid convoys en route to Gaza. Despite the attacks, both convoys successfully reached their destinations in the conflict-affected Gaza Strip, having… pic.twitter.com/zeOWf7s9ih
As for the Biden administration, it continues to face mounting criticisms that it is aiding and abetting the mass destruction and death in the Gaza Strip by keeping the weapons and billions flowing to Tel Aviv, and with no conditions attached. And given the Netanyahu government is still poised for a ground assault on Rafah, the scorched earth policies look to continue.
In an exclusive interview with Remix News, Gerolf Annemans, the Vlaams Belang MEP and president of the European Identity and Democracy group, warns that even greater censorship of conservatives is just around the corner, and tells right-wing groups what they must do to ensure their message continues to be heard
Conservative political parties across Europe should begin contingency planning for the inevitable time in the near future when right-wing platforms are the victims of mass censorship by an increasingly desperate liberal establishment, a senior Belgian nationalist lawmaker told Remix News at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Hungary last week
“Globally, we expect that we have to seek alternatives. That’s why we now organize visiting homes on a very large scale. We are shifting toward means that give us the opportunity to reach the electorate even if we are cut off on social media,” said Vlaams Belang MEP Gerolf Annemans.
“We have new means to talk to the people. People want to hear us. So, the people are open to hear and to listen to us and we adapt to the situation. We expect social media to be shut down for normal political communication,” the MEP warned.
Vlaams Belang is a Flemish nationalist party that proposes independence for the region of Flanders from the rest of Belgium. It has had considerable success on social media in recent years, particularly on Facebook where it has amassed 620,000 followers, helping the party push its core messages and propel itself to the top of the polls in the region. Furthermore, the party is the most popular party with young people, and a key element of that popularity is the party’s efforts on TikTok and Facebook, including substantial monetary investments into the platforms.
The right may be forced off social media
However, this success, which many other right-wing parties have enjoyed on social media, will inevitably result in a backlash. Annemans warned that a major crackdown was coming against those across the European Union whose views deviate from the typical left-wing mainstream and that conservative parties need to find workarounds, including face-to-face meetings with the public.
In fact, Annemans, who is also the current president of the European grouping Identity and Democracy (ID), believes radical measures to suppress conservative mouthpieces are just around the corner.
“We invest where we can and we use the means that we have, but of course that cannot rely [on social media] for more than a few years because we see what the European Union is doing with the Digital Services Act,” he said.
The Digital Services Act is the European Union’s attempt to regulate social media, placing requirements on digital platforms to monitor content and remove that deemed to fall short of being “socially desirable.” The vague definitions of “harmful content” and “disinformation” could result in tech platforms acting in an overzealous manner in order to avoid financial penalties imposed by the European Commission for failing to comply with the regulation.
Annemans accused the European Commission of giving Thierry Breton, the French commissioner leading the social media crackdown, “the means that are part of a Soviet dictatorship model to intervene with the political communications of opponents. Macron’s opponents, but in Belgium, of course, the opponents of the left-liberal regime.”
The draconian measures have led to Vlaams Belang looking at how else it can spread its message and is reverting to the traditional political campaigning method of door-to-door canvassing.
“Globally, we expect that we have to seek alternatives. That’s why we now organize visiting homes on a very large scale. We are shifting toward means that give us the opportunity to reach the electorate even if we are cut off on social media,” Annemans said.
“We have new means to talk to the people. People want to hear us. So, the people are open to hear and to listen to us and we adapt to the situation. We expect social media to be shut down for normal political communication.”
One beacon of hope for the future of social media has been U.S. billionaire Elon Musk’s acquisition of X, formerly known as Twitter, but Annemans is skeptical the platform can stay immune from the rising tide of regulation and censorship.
“There is a little change with the coming up of Elon Musk on Twitter. But of course, as you know, Twitter is not the only thing, but they’re also on it. He’s a sign of hope and even he, we will have to wait and see. Will he prevail? I’m not even sure that he will be able to keep up this free zone,” the senior MEP warned.
Conservatives are also being targeted offline
It isn’t just social media where conservatives are being suppressed, and a typical example of the censorship of political opponents was evident in Flanders itself just a week before Remix News spoke with Annemans, namely at the National Conservatism conference in Brussels where an order by the local mayor to shut down the event was only overturned by judicial intervention.
“It was a mistake,” the lawmaker said about the attempts to silence political opponents in the de facto EU capital. “I, sadly enough, have to tell you that this is a usual occurrence for Vlaams Belang. We have existed for almost 40 years and have always had trouble when organizing meetings in Brussels or in the region of Brussels.
“There is always trouble with communists, socialists, mayors, etc. So for us, it’s a daily struggle, unfortunately. They thought they could treat the conference like they usually do with us and label the conservatives attending as fascists and racists, but they didn’t realize that they would become world news within a few hours.
“As soon as they saw that, they got phone calls from even the Belgian prime minister himself and had to pull the brakes,” Annemans explained.
He predicted the National Conservatism conference would not endure the same problem again because the liberals had their “fingers burned” but believes that his own party will continue to be stifled by the country’s establishment when the world’s eyes aren’t monitoring the situation.
“They will continue to do so with Vlaams Belang. This is not a democracy. Belgium is not a democracy. That’s what I said during my speech. Don’t trust Belgium, don’t trust the Belgian kingdom.”
How does Vlaams Belang move forward?
Despite its difficulties, the party continues to go from strength to strength and is garnering considerable support from young people in Flanders. Annemans, the party’s former president, explained why he stepped down to enable the party to appeal to the next generation.
“I’m not on top of the list anymore. I pulled back because I’m 65 years old and a wise man. I pulled back from the federal parliament as a group leader after more than 25 years. I pulled back as a party leader for Tom Van Grieken and I pulled back as our lead candidate for the European elections.
“I’m a man who believes in the rejuvenation of a political party. If you don’t do that, you die politically. And that’s why I’m not surprised to see that under the younger leadership of the party, the younger people are attracted by the party. Our ideas are modern. We represent a new time, the new era, and the old powers that be will have to pull back, because here we are, and we are here with the younger generations on top of it.”
He believes his party will continue to grow in popularity among the indigenous Belgian population the more the country experiences radical demographic change.
Asked whether it was accurate that 62 percent of the Brussels population comprises non-EU nationals, Annemans replied, “No doubt.
“What we see is a radicalization of the Muslim population which changes the cultural image of the city. The Western civilization is reducing every day to a non-existent part of the Brussels cultural environment.
“There is a bubble around the European Parliament and European institutions, a bubble of a few thousand Eurocrats, and then there are the Muslim surroundings of the rest of the city. What we expect to happen if we don’t integrate Brussels into a more Flemish approach of the future, what we fear will happen, is that it will become the first Muslim-governed capital in Europe.”
Speaking at a campaign rally in Wisconsin on Wednesday, Donald Trump urged that Europe has “opened its doors to jihad” and as a result, cities including London and Paris are sacrificing their own culture and tradition.
“We’ve seen what happened when Europe opened their doors to jihad,” Trump told the large crowd, adding “Look at Paris, look at London – they’re no longer recognisable.”
“I’m going get myself into a lot of trouble with the folks in Paris and the folks in London, but you know what, that’s the fact,” he continued.
“They are no longer recognisable and we can’t let that happen to our country,” Trump urged, adding “We have incredible culture, tradition – nothing wrong with their culture, their tradition – we can’t let that happen here.”
“I’ll never let it happen to the United States of America,” he further promised.
TRUMP: “We’ve seen what happened when Europe opened their doors to jihad. Look at Paris, look at London, they’re no longer recognisable.” He’s right, Paris just “socially cleansed” thousands of migrants from the streets ahead of the Olympics.
Report: https://t.co/GOYGkKeZWIpic.twitter.com/ecnaRsEQkI
Trump also referred to the pro-Palestine/Anti-Israel encampments and University occupations in several US cities.
“To every college president, I say remove the encampments immediately,” he said, adding “Vanquish the radicals and take back our campuses for all of the normal students who want a safe place from which to learn.”
President Trump calls out college presidents amid nationwide campus protests:
“To every college president I say remove the encampments immediately, vanquish the radicals, and take back our campuses for all of the normal students who want a safe place from which to learn.” pic.twitter.com/LEPUTOR2BU
The protests have followed from regular demonstrations in Europe, particularly in London where they have been ongoing every week since late last year.
Trump has previously slammed London and Paris, noting in 2016 that “London and other places… are so radicalised that the police are afraid for their own lives.”
In Paris, the police have just conducted a fresh round of “social cleansing” illegal migrants off the street and sending them to other areas of the country ahead of the Summer Olympics.
The French government wouldn’t want the city to look “unrecognisable,” to the world, right?
Trump’s comments also come on the heels of Austrian MEP Harald Vilimsky warning that Europe risks becoming “a second Arabia or Africa” and that governments are importing migrants who create security problems then offering ‘solutions’ that only punish native populations.
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Watch: NY Anti-Trump Prosecutor Pleads The 5th As House GOP Probes Links To Biden DOJ
House GOP investigators are investigating several individuals related to Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg’s case against former President Trump, including one top prosecutor who was previously a senior DOJ official during the Biden administration, and a 2023 video of another prosecutor pleading the 5th (privilege against self-incrimination) when asked if he broke any laws while investigating President Trump.
When asked by Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) if he knowingly broke any laws while investigating President Trump, ex-Bragg prosecutor Mark. F. Pomerantz invoked the right during a May 1, 2023 deposition.
Watch:
NEW VIDEO:
Trump Prosecutor PLEADS FIFTH when asked if he BROKE THE LAW investigating Trump! pic.twitter.com/enDGztIhtD
“In a closed-door deposition, I asked Mark Pomerantz very simple questions regarding whether he committed crimes or violated the civil rights of any people in the course of his investigation of President Trump and his tenure at the Manhattan DA’s office,” Gaetz told Newsweek in a Thursday email.
Meanwhile, the House Judiciary Committee is investigating another top prosecutor on Bragg’s team – Matthew Colangelo, who’s leading the “politicized” prosecution against the former President. wrote House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) in an April 30 letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland, as part of the committee’s oversight of “politically motivated prosecutions.”
“That a former senior Biden Justice Department official is now leading the prosecution of President Biden’s chief political rival only adds to the perception that the Biden Justice Department is politicized and weaponized,” wrote Jordan.
Mr. Colangelo, who delivered the opening statement in President Trump’s so-called “hush money” trial in New York last week, joined Mr. Bragg’s office in December 2022.
For a period of time, Mr. Colangelo also worked as Chief Counsel for Federal Initiatives at the office of New York Attorney General Letitia James, who led a separate case against President Trump that accused him of inflating asset values to get better loan terms and that ended in a $464 million judgment against the former president.
During his time at the office of Ms. James, who has also been accused of political motivations in her prosecution of the former president, Mr. Colangelo was involved in the investigation into the Trump Organization.
In his letter, Mr. Jordan is demanding that Mr. Garland provide various records related to Mr. Colangelo’s work in the Justice Department, as well as any communication between Mr. Bragg’s office and the DOJ related to President Trump or any of his businesses.
“Given the perception that the Justice Department is assisting in Bragg’s politicized prosecution, we write to request information and documents related to Mr. Colangelo’s employment,” Mr. Jordan wrote, while alleging that Mr. Colangelo’s recent employment history “demonstrates his obsession with investigating a person rather than prosecuting a crime.”
In the so-called “hush money” case, Mr. Bragg has charged President Trump with 34 counts of falsifying business records to hide nondisclosure payments that Mr. Colangelo alleges amounted to a criminal conspiracy to influence the 2016 presidential election.
President Trump has maintained his innocence and has called the case a “political witch hunt.”
The DOJ did not respond to a request for comment on Mr. Jordan’s letter.
‘Political Vendetta’
Mr. Colangelo’s experience includes cases that involve the former president.
While at Ms. James’ office, he was part of a team that sued President Trump’s charitable organization in 2018 over allegations that the former president improperly used charitable assets in his 2016 presidential primary campaign. The lawsuit led the Trump Foundation to be shut down and caused the former president to be ordered to pay $2 million in damages.
Later, Mr. Colangelo was involved in Ms. James’ probe into the Trump Organization, which centered on allegations that the former president and his company defrauded banks, insurers, and others by allegedly overvaluing his assets and exaggerating his net worth in documents used in deals and to secure loans.
That case ended with a $464 million (including interest) judgment against President Trump, while also barring the former president from doing business in the state of New York for three years.
President Trump has argued that no bank was victimized by the stated asset valuations and that lenders—including Deutsche Bank—made considerable amounts of money in interest by extending the loans.
The former president has also repeatedly argued that his financial statements included a disclaimer that asked banks to carry out their own analyses and due diligence when reviewing loan applications.
After working on the investigation into the Trump Organization while at Ms. James’ office, Mr. Colangelo left for a high-ranking position at the DOJ, before returning two years later to New York and joining Mr. Bragg’s team.
The House Judiciary Committee, which Mr. Jordan leads, recently accused Mr. Bragg of being motivated by a “political vendetta” in bringing criminal charges against the former president.
“Bragg’s politically motivated prosecution of President Trump threatens to destroy this notion of blind justice by using the criminal justice system to attack an individual he disagrees with politically, and, in turn, erodes the confidence of the American people,” reads the House Judiciary report.
The report details the backdrop of Mr. Bragg’s decision to charge President Trump with 34 felony counts using a novel legal theory that bootstrapped misdemeanor allegations into a felony, alleging that the prosecution was motivated by political calculations.
“These charges are normally misdemeanors subject to a two-year statute of limitations, but Bragg used a novel and untested legal theory—previously declined by federal prosecutors—to bootstrap the misdemeanor allegations as a felony, which extended the statute of limitations to five years, by alleging that records were falsified to conceal a second crime,” the report states.
Under New York state law, falsifying business records is a misdemeanor. However, if the records fraud was used to cover up or commit another crime, the charge could be elevated to a felony.
In opening arguments in the “hush money” trial, Mr. Colangelo backed Mr. Bragg’s prosecutorial strategy. He portrayed the nondisclosure payments as part of a “planned, coordinated, long-running conspiracy to influence the 2016 election, to help Donald Trump get elected through illegal expenditures to silence people who had something bad to say about his behavior.”
“It was election fraud, pure and simple,” Mr. Colangelo alleged, claiming that “the case is about a criminal conspiracy and a cover-up.”
A number of legal experts have challenged the way Mr. Bragg elevated the misdemeanor into a felony, including retired Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, who argued that Mr. Bragg was operating on an invalid legal premise because he invoked federal statutes over which New York has no jurisdiction.
Mr. Dershowitz also recently said that he believes that Mr. Bragg’s office has violated voters’ rights with the Trump prosecution, with the legal scholar arguing that the case amounts to a criminal conspiracy to influence elections.
Mr. Bragg’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
No question that Elon Musk is a genius but his real power lies with his common sense. These days this is a rare quality in business. People in higher levels of corporate achievement today are so propagandized from college onward with newspeak and baloneythink that they cannot recall the basics.
That’s a major reason why corporate culture went off the rails and made itself vulnerable to all kinds of ridiculous ideological penchants that have nothing to do with productivity and profitability.
I’m most intrigued by Elon’s approach to staffing. When he first came to Twitter, he fired 3 out of 5 employees within a few weeks. Operating based on instinct, his goal was to toss out anyone whose work consists of overseeing others, scheduling meetings, and otherwise preening around as someone in charge. Whole teams were tossed out. His next level of fires consisted of those whose job was entirely made up and had nothing to do with the business goal.
Those standards meant firing most employees. And guess what? The site worked better immediately, and development of features took off at an incredible pace. Over the course of a year, he turned Twitter from being an amusement to becoming the essential tool that is X, easily the most valuable social-media space on the entire internet.
The most important element consisted in cleaning house. Draining the swamp, to echo a phrase.
So it is in nearly every U.S. firm of any medium or large size. Financial conditions since the turn of the millennium have favored puffed up labor forces plus huge salaries. The low-interest-rate environment meant endless credit and that in turn puffed up valuations. Management came to believe that all problems can be solved by hurling more human bodies at them, all the better if these people had credentials.
This was new. It completely changed the ethos of professional life.
We went through two decades of the following.
“We need better marketing.”
“Let’s put together a marketing team headed by a top-flight marketeer with a marketing degree from the best university.”
“We need better data.”
“Let’s hire a data expert to oversee a team of quants.”
“We need to focus on compliance.”
“Great, we’ll get a full team establishment to focus on nothing but.”
Thousands, hundreds of thousands, were hired in such fake jobs only to find that they have nothing to do but protect their jobs. So their jobs mostly consisted of coming up with ways to give themselves the appearance of having a job.
They mastered the art of the fancy spreadsheet, which is the perfect tool for creating the appearance of work without the reality, in addition to myriad task-planning platforms to chronicle who was doing what and when, all the better if the tasks had nothing to do with the driving purpose of the institution.
The whole system was easily gamed by employees and mid-level managers, complete with managerial techno-babble to trick higher ups. An entire language vocabulary developed around the ruse. If you could speak it, fill up space in meetings saying everything and nothing, you were good to go.
This went on for twenty or so years of growing puff and fluff in vast numbers of corporations and organizations. This became deeply entrenched in corporate culture to the point that hardly anyone knew how to do anything but trick their superiors into thinking they were essential. This became the very essence of professional life in America, only to be exposed variously in books about bullshit jobs, a perfect description of millions of high-paid positions.
This whole ethos cannot last forever. It was the lockdowns that exposed the racket, as whole workforces disappeared to their kitchen tables and nothing much changed about the functioning of the organization. That’s highly suspicious to say the least. But so dopey had corporate culture become that people actually believed it was possible to pull down a massive salary by doing nothing but chatting with coworkers on Slack and hanging out in video meetings.
Anyway, Elon has long known about this racket. He has never tolerated it at his companies. He developed a keen sense of who was scamming him, and sent out repeated and serious notices to everyone in his companies that they will be fired if they imagine that they will be paid to pretend to work. As a result, his companies make stuff and actually turn a profit.
These days much of his management strategy is above-board and posted to X. He has made a clear statement to the staff of X. He uses a three-pronged test of every employee. The person must be excellent, necessary, and trustworthy.
Let’s examine this.
Excellent means, above all else, a willingness to do real work. No fake work of telling others what to do but real work. That means knowing the industry, specializing in a task, keeping up on the task, doing it reliably even if it is boring and comes with no praise, and caring enough so that you work after hours and weekends, and not complaining constantly of being overworked, which is a sure sign of someone who is running a racket.
Excellent means having real skills, knowing software, committing real changes yourself, taking full responsibility, and managing several steps in the production process and knowing about the whole chain before and after. It doesn’t mean bossing people around, hiding work, hoarding tasks, hogging logins, denouncing colleagues, dripping poison in people’s ears, and so on.
Excellence means not forever kvetching about needing a work/life balance. That is another sure sign that the person is a no-goodnik. The reason is that it advances a false dualism: there is work and there is life and they are somehow unrelated. Work is life, the thing you do to accomplish something. A good vacation is work too in the sense that you are working toward some end such as seeing or experiencing new things. If you truly believe that when you are working, you are not living, there is a rather obvious problem.
I’ve conducted many job interviews and there are some sure signs that the person shouldn’t be hired. One is asking detailed questions about benefits and time off. Another is showing no particular interest in the processes and productivity of the company. Another is worrying that someone might contact them during off-hours. All these point to the reality that this person is not among the excellent.
As for necessary, that’s a really important standard of finding out if something should stay or go. If you are not necessary to a business, you should not be there. You are a waste, a net drain of resources. Period. Only those who are necessary should be employed. I’ve always had the rule “Do not hire until it hurts.” That is to say, do as much as you can yourself and only outsource what you are doing to others when you simply run out of time to be able to achieve the thing that is calling on your specialized talents. You should not look to do this but only do it when it becomes impossible to do otherwise.
The necessary standard applies in every area of life. Consider the COVID shots, for example. We don’t even have to worry about whether they are safe or effective. They were never necessary for 99 percent of the population even under the best assumptions of their effectiveness. That was the real failing all along. And yet hardly anyone talked about it.
Every unnecessary employee should be immediately fired. Keeping them on is robbery from the other employees who are necessary. As a worker, nothing is more demoralizing than being part of a company that pays and protects someone who does nothing valuable. Just having a person around like this—it can be one person or a thousand—demotivates everyone else. Why should I work hard, care, and invest myself so much when this loser just hangs out barking orders and otherwise is only pretending to do stuff?
The secret of staffing is this. Good employees desperately want bad employees to be fired. They long for it and pray for it to happen. When it doesn’t happen and failures continue to thrive, the management is discredited in the eyes of others. The continuation of employment of duds and ne’er-do-wells absolutely poisons the whole firm. Not even one should be tolerated even one day. Ever.
What about the third test, trustworthy? This is part of the other two. You notice that in any firm, the people who make the most trouble, through gossip and constant kvetching, are the layabouts who are neither excellent nor necessary. They sense their own lack of value and externalize it. They get progressively worse over time, through lies and plots and conspiracies. These people are poison to a company. They need to be fired yesterday.
Oddly, you will notice this too: the losers, loafers, poseurs, and fakes tend to hang out together. They gather in little corners. They meet for lunch. They hang out after hours at the bar. What are they doing? They are trashing the company. They are putting down competent people. They are disparaging the company and its products. They complain about being overworked and underpaid.
The beautiful thing about this tendency is that it tells managers whom to fire. Just fire the entire friend circle on grounds that it is untrustworthy and toxic to everything and everyone else. The sooner the better.
Elon’s rules are fantastic. They should also pertain in government too, and especially in government. If you are not excellent, necessary, and trustworthy, the president elected by the people should be in a position to fire you immediately. Every decent system of government should work this way, with not even one position that is outside control by the people. The entire administrative state needs to be abolished and turned into a government by the people again.
Excellent, Necessary, and Trustworthy. Those are the standards for every organization, corporate, nonprofit, and government. This is the way to fix the world, one termination at a time. Let them all find other real jobs, in the food service industry or hospitality. There they can learn a thing or two about what it means to work.
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times or ZeroHedge.
