PUT NOT THY FAITH IN JUDGES: In an awful 7-2 decision today, the Supreme Court failed to uphold one of the most important constraints on executive power and okayed the bizarre funding mechanism of the CFPB (it gets its money on request from the Federal Reserve.) As I said in response, “Sadly, the Court has given the green light to Congress to abrogate its own power of the purse. We can expect future Congresses to come up with ever more inventive ways to allow the executive branch to fund its whims. The only hope for responsible government is for Congress to rediscover its own prerogatives and repeal unusual funding mechanisms for executive agencies that exercise more power over American citizens than the Post Office – starting with the CFPB.” Justices Alito and Gorsuch got the point exactly right in their dissent – there’s a reason England had a Civil War over this question.
May 16, 2024
GOODER AND HARDER, CALIFORNIA:
WATCH: California Democrat Governor Gavin Newsom has ratcheted up his war on energy.
Newsom appointed Siva Gunda of the California Energy Commission.
Gunda just testified that state-run refineries are “on the table.” pic.twitter.com/L93qHOfXcO
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) May 15, 2024
Refinery capacity is already tight.
READER FAVORITE: BALEAF Men’s Sun Protection Shirts. #CommissionEarned
BAILOUT NATION: China considers local government purchases of unsold homes.
China’s property sector has been in a deep slump for years, hit by a debt crisis among developers. Since 2022, waves of policy measures have failed to turn around the sector that represents around a fifth of the economy and remains a major drag on consumer spending and confidence.
Banks have been reluctant to heed Beijing’s repeated nudges to bolster credit to the embattled sector given the risks of more bad loans and continued weak sales. Home sales value of top 100 developers in April slid 45% from a year earlier, according to recent surveys published by CRIC, a major real estate information provider.
The Politburo of the Communist Party held a meeting on April 30, saying it would improve policies to clear mounting housing inventories.
Dozens of cities have offered subsidies to encourage residents to replace their old apartments with new ones, in order to sell their growing stock of new apartments and provide crucial cash-flow to ailing developers.
Local state-owned enterprises would be asked to help purchase unsold homes from distressed developers at steep discounts using loans provided by state banks, according to the report, adding that many of these homes would then be converted into affordable housing.
China’s state-owned enterprises (SOE) are already models of Communist inefficiency and overloaded with existing debt, so I’m not sure how this is going to work.
THAT’S HOW IT USUALLY WORKS: DEI consultant gets most of nursing school’s ‘racial healing’ grant.
LINCOLN BROWN: Colorado Town Tries to Shutter Church Homeless Ministry. “For Dys and the First Liberty Institute, the issue is about more than governmental overreach and a case of NIMBY. It is about the First Amendment. Dys told me that Castle Rock is attempting to force The Rock to cease and desist from pursuing its core mission. He added that the First Amendment means something and cannot be dismissed when a municipality says, ‘Because I said so.'”
I NEVER THOUGHT THEY WERE: Crypto-Libertarian Erik Voorhees Warns Your Chatbot Queries Are Not Safe. “In the best case that’s not that big of a deal, but in reality, what it means is – all your information – and essentially like parts of your mind like think your intellectual inquiries that you pursue – the things you think – the things you want to debate – the questions you have about life – and like big topics um can be known by Third parties.”
A NEW HOPE:
Full stack of Flight 4 Starship pic.twitter.com/TPprnj0zC4
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) May 16, 2024
LIMITED TIME DEAL: Worx String Edger & Weed Trimmer. CommissionEarned
PROF. CARRINGTON, CALL YOUR OFFICE: The Sun’s Most Powerful Flare in Seven Years Just Erupted. “That’s the most powerful solar flare of the current cycle, absolutely the most powerful since 2017, and comfortably within the top 20 solar flares ever measured.”
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Milestones on the Slippery Slope. “While you sip your coffee or eat your biscuits and gravy, let me draw your attention to a couple of stories that haven’t been on the radar this week.”
FRUITS OF CRITICAL RACE THEORY: Look Who Threatened to ‘Erase’ All White People. “A black man from New Jersey has been federally charged with threatening to mass murder white people in a genocide-scale shooting rampage. The would-be shooter wanted to “erase…all of them”—that is, eradicate the white race, according to the FBI.”
Maybe he can get a professorship at Harvard or Penn.
BORDER? WHAT BORDER?
EXCLUSIVE: Internal CBP data I obtained via FOIA request reveals 13 years of known gotaways data at the border, showing gotaways have *exploded* under the Biden admin compared to the Trump & Obama years.
This is the first time these numbers have ever been revealed.FY2010… pic.twitter.com/LUQU5v87b2
— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) May 15, 2024
This is not an accident.
More here.
THEY SHOULD KNOW, THEY’LL BE DOING IT: US intel officials warn Congress that election interference will be ‘more complex than ever.’
ISN’T THIS INTERESTING! Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) has an interesting donor in Pennsylvania who just happens to be the best buddy of Turkey’s Erdogan. Just coincidental, right? Right??
MARK JUDGE: My book launch.
ALL OF THE MSM’S BIDEN-TRUMP DEBATE QUESTIONS: You’re reading it first here … well, actually Daniel Oliver’s roundup of utterly predictable questions the MSM debate moderators will ask Biden and Trump is over at American Greatness.
MORE OVERCLASS ELECTION INTERFERENCE: Google Removes 35,000 YouTube Posts to ‘Safeguard’ EU Elections.
MAID IN CANADA: Euthanasia Escapee Has a Dire Warning.
YOU HAVEN’T HEARD THIS FROM ALVIN BRAGG, THOUGH:
Take a crime prevention class or go to jail: Westchester DA’s scathing rebuke of anti-Israel college protesters https://t.co/knrdbxO0qA pic.twitter.com/jDYo5sjhzw
— New York Post (@nypost) May 15, 2024
Related: To the Class of 2024: You Are All Diseased.
Not all. There are plenty of based frat guys out there, it turns out.
WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO THE FRENCH?
'Anti sex' beds arrive in Paris for Olympic Games athletes https://t.co/6ZQBCHgJbM
— New York Post (@nypost) May 15, 2024
To be fair, those look like the dorm beds when I was in college, which were notably unsuccessful at preventing sex.