California lawmakers blocked two big environmental bills Thursday: One that would have ramped up the state's emissions targets, and another that would have made oil companies liable for the health problems of people who live close to oil wells.

They are among the hundreds of bills that did not survive the Legislature’s suspense file, a mysterious process where lawmakers decide — with no explanation — which bills will get a chance to become law later this year and which ones should not move forward.

Japan’s decision to hold this weekend’s Group of Seven summit in Hiroshima is appearing more and more “on the nose” with each passing day.

Worries that Russia might use nuclear weapons on Ukraine were part of Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s calculus in choosing the city that was the first military target of such armaments in human history. Since that call, though, two economic nuclear options have emerged to fuel a bull market in Hiroshima symbolism.

One is the default drama that risks restoring the US to developing nation status. Republicans toying with financial Armageddon have US President Joe Biden truncating his Asia trip, scrapping stops in Australia and Papua New Guinea.

The other is how to play the China “decoupling” dynamic threatening to blow up world markets – and the Global South nations that host Kishida is inviting to the G-7. Along with Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the UK and the US, Japan has invited leaders from India, Brazil, South Korea, Vietnam, Australia and African Union and Pacific Islands nations.

Over the past two decades since China was admitted into the WTO, its national industrial base has made unprecedented strides to emerge as the world’s leading economic producer in many major areas. The academic debates over whether China’s GDP is larger than that of the USA are misplaced. GDP is largely worthless as a measure of a real economy. When measured in real physical economic production, China has left the USA and everyone else in the dust. Therefore, the future course of industrial production in China is vital to the future of the world economy. Globalization of the world economy made it so.

Steel production is still the single best indicator of a growing real economy. In 2021, China produced more that twelve times the tonnage steel as the USA, over one billion tons. The USA, once world leader, managed a piddly 86 million tons. In tons of coal, China produces some 50% of world total coal. She controls 70% of world rare earth mining and over 90% of its processing, thanks to bizarre US policy actions going back several decades. China today is far the world’s largest motor vehicle producer, almost three times the size of the US at 27 million units annually, one third of world total in 2022. China is by far the largest producer of the essential cement for construction, and is the world’s leading aluminum  producer.  At 40 million tons in 2022, this compares to not even one million tons in the USA. It is also the world’s largest copper consumer. The list goes on.

This is merely to suggest  how essential the economy of China has been to world economic growth over the past two decades. A mere four decades ago China was insignificant in world real economic terms. So, if China goes into deep economic contraction, the effect this time will be global. And this is just what is now underway. Important to note, the contraction began well before the severe three-years of China’s zero covid lockdown. Simply put, China since the so-called Great Financial Crisis of 2008 managed to create a financial bubble the size of which the world has never before experienced. That bubble began to deflate, beginning in real estate, around 2019. The scale is systemic and is only beginning.

General Motors is recalling hundreds of thousands of SUVs due to concerns they pose lethal dangers to children.

The American carmaker issued a voluntary recall for more than 680,000 2020 to 2023 Chevrolet Equinox and GMC Terrain SUVs.

The issue is a defect with the rear-seat lower anchor bars being excessively coated with powder, preventing a car seat from strapping in properly.

Owners are advised to install child seats using the vehicle's rear seat belts until the remedy is complete. 

The FBI had at least four criminal investigations into Hillary and Bill Clinton that were ultimately shut down months before the presidential election in 2016, a new Justice Department report reveals – and Republicans want to reopen those probes.

A long-awaited report by Special Counsel John Durham released on Monday shows the FBI began investigating claims in late 2014 from a 'well-placed' confidential source that two foreign governments were trying to make illegal donations to buy influence with Hillary during her presidential campaign. 

Investigators were even offered documents of one alleged $2,700 illegal contribution that led to a 'substantial' further donation.

The bombshell report also reveals three different FBI field offices, in Washington, D.C., Little Rock, Arkansas, and New York, launched investigations into the Clinton Foundation in early 2016 for 'possible criminal activity.'

It may be just weeks until summer stars - put parts of New Hampshire are still seeing midwinter weather, with a thick blanket of snow covering areas of the Granite State.

The Mount Washington Observatory noted the absurdity of seeing the white stuff this time of year in a Facebook post after the beauty spot was given a thick coating. 

'The calendar might read mid-May but the White Mountains will feel more like late March Weds into Thurs morning,' the observatory said. 

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After being ordered by the Arizona Supreme Court to reconsider the issue of signature verification in Kari Lake’s election contest, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Peter Thompson decided after a hearing that he would allow a full trial. He declined to allow reconsideration of the faulty ballot-on-demand printer configurations, however, which resulted in mostly Republicans having problems casting ballots on Election Day. The trial began on Wednesday, with Lake’s attorneys emphasizing how the signature verification of voters’ signatures on mail-in ballot envelopes was conducted so quickly it was impossible to adequately verify them.

Lake’s attorney Kurt Olsen accused the county of falsely verifying signatures. “Maricopa’s log file data shows that 11 of these signature verification workers approved 170,000 signatures at a rate of between 0 and 2.99 seconds with a 99.97 percent approval rating,” he said. “That’s not signature review, your Honor.” Olsen said due to this, at least 334,000 mail-in ballots were not verified.

Lake’s attorneys displayed a video showing two Level 1 signature verification employees going through signatures on computer screens. While one takes his time, another one spends less than a second on each, clicking through the screens quickly.

 German gun manufacturer Heckler & Koch addressed a controversy on social media after the person running their Twitter account defended a pro-feminism Miller Lite ad.

 Biden administration officials are reportedly walking back claims that they made earlier this month when they claimed that they had killed a major figure in the Islamic terrorist group al-Qaeda.

 Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ office slammed Disney on Thursday after the company announced that it was not going to build a billion dollar office complex because of “changing business conditions,” releasing a statement that Disney had announced the project a long time ago and “nothing ever came of it.”

 A former FBI official claimed the bureau denied Boston Field Office agents access to 11,000 hours of U.S. Capitol video footage on January 6 out of fear it would reveal the identities of possible undercover officers and confidential informants present at the riot.

 The country’s largest children’s hospital performs sex change procedures on children as young as 11, according to a new report.

 Paradromics, a company seeking to build direct data interfaces with the human brain, earned a breakthrough device designation from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which will grant the firm an expedited review process to incorporate the technology into medical applications.

 Twitter blew up on Wednesday after images surfaced online of Adidas using a male model to promote a new women’s swimsuit, with many blasting the move as “gross” and  “disgusting.”

Proving the case that “Government”, of every flavor, has been a scam of inter-generational organized crime since the beginning… and they have been getting away with it… until now… because they have been controlling the media and academia.

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THE IRS has reportedly pulled the entire investigate team in the Hunter Biden probe off the case in suspected retaliation for a whistleblower’s claims. One America’s Stella Escobedo spoke with journalist, Troy Smith, about the allegations.

House Republicans on Wednesday passed two new bills in observance of National Police Week, including one aimed at illegal immigrants.

According to The Epoch Times, HR 2494 requires that illegal immigrants who assault police officers are automatically deportable, while HR 3091 authorizes retired federal law enforcement officials to buy surplus weapons being sold by the federal government.

Not surprisingly, Democrats opposed both measures, the outlet noted.

Walt Disney is scrapping plans to relocate 2,000 jobs to Florida in part because of “changing business conditions” in the state, according to an e-mail to employees seen by Reuters on Thursday.

The announcement came amid a widening legal battle between Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and the entertainment giant.

Disney parks chief Josh D’Amaro said “leadership changes” and “changing business conditions” prompted Disney to reconsider its 2021 plan to relocate employees, including its Imagineers who design theme park rides, to a new campus in Lake Nona. Disney was expected to spend as much as $864 million on the project, according to the Orlando Sentinel.

Thomas More Society attorneys have asked the United States Supreme Court to take up the case of undercover journalist David Daleiden, whose 30-month investigation generated videos and evidence that spurred Congressional hearings, criminal referrals, policy and law changes, along with a vigorous national debate on the buying and selling of “baby body parts.” The Thomas More Society’s Petition for Writ of Certiorari seeks a reversal of lower court decisions that permanently prohibit Daleiden from publishing video he took of National Abortion Federation (“NAF”) trade shows and that awarded NAF over $6 million in attorney’s fees and costs.

The National Abortion Federation sued Daleiden in 2015, asking a California district court to suppress the videos recorded and produced by the investigative journalist and the nonprofit he founded, the Center for Medical Progress. The district court entered, and the court of appeals affirmed, a sweeping permanent injunction against the release of any of the over 500 hours of recordings at NAF conferences, without applying any level of First Amendment scrutiny.

An illegal alien, released into the United States in 2012 from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody, has been convicted of beheading 55-year-old America Mafalda Thayer, a legal immigrant from Cuba.

Alexi Saborit-Viltres, a 42-year-old illegal alien from Cuba, was convicted of first-degree murder for beheading Thayer with a machete in July 2021 in Shakopee, Minnesota. Saborit-Viltres was supposed to be deported a decade ago, but ICE agents were unable to obtain travel documents for him.

Thus he was released from ICR custody on an order of supervision in 2012.

President Joe Biden sided with suspected Chinese solar manufacturers this week, vetoing a bipartisan plan that would restore United States tariffs on China-made solar panels.

In June 2022, Biden announced a 24-month tariff moratorium on solar panel imports from Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam, and Malaysia. Commerce Department officials suspect that the solar panels are actually made in China but have been routed through the four southeast Asian nations to avoid U.S. tariffs on China-made solar panels.

The suspension of tariffs came even as Biden’s Commerce Department found that BYD Hong Kong rerouted its production through Cambodia, Canadian Solar, Trina through Thailand, and Vina Solar through Vietnam for the sole purpose of avoiding the tariffs.

The FBI has failed to comply with a Congressional subpoena seeking an FBI-generated "FD 1023 form" that allegedly details a bribery scheme involving then-Vice President Joe Biden and a foreign national.

Based on whistleblower disclosures, House Oversight Republicans say the Department of Justice and the FBI possess an unclassified FD-1023 form that describes an alleged criminal scheme relating to the exchange of money for policy decisions.

The whistleblower disclosures further state that the document includes a precise description of how the alleged criminal scheme was employed as well as its purpose. 

The House Oversight Committee is investigating what many see as the Biden family’s suspicious business schemes involving foreign adversaries to determine if President Biden is compromised, and if there is a national security threat.

Judicial Watch Chairman Tom Fitton has blasted Hillary Clinton for fabricating the fake claims that President Donald Trump was tied to Russia.

During an appearance on Stuart Varney’s Fox Business show, Fitton dropped a bombshell about Hillary.

The final John Durham Report ruined what little credibility Clinton had left.

But Fitton told Varney there was more to the Trump-Russia collusion hoax than just a dirty trick by the Clinton campaign.

He says the story was invented by Hillary Clinton to keep herself “out of jail.”

In a true test of his physical abilities, Joe Biden faced an unexpectedly formidable opponent upon landing in stormy Japan — an umbrella.

As rain poured down relentlessly, the leader of the free world found himself locked in a battle of wits against an inanimate object, struggling to open his umbrella for nearly a minute.

While some may dismiss this umbrella ordeal as a mere momentary lapse in coordination, it raises deeper questions about Biden’s ability to navigate through unforeseen challenges for some. Many are wondering, if he struggles to handle a simple umbrella, how Americans can trust him to handle complex matters of state.

Global Warming: The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration may have a boring name, but it has a very important job: It measures U.S. temperatures. Unfortunately, it seems to be a captive of the global warming religion. Its data are fraudulent.

What do we mean by fraudulent? How about this: NOAA has made repeated "adjustments" to its data, for the presumed scientific reason of making the data sets more accurate.

Nothing wrong with that. Except, all their changes point to one thing — lowering previously measured temperatures to show cooler weather in the past, and raising more recent temperatures to show warming in the recent present.

This creates a data illusion of ever-rising temperatures to match the increase in CO2 in the Earth's atmosphere since the mid-1800s, which global warming advocates say is a cause-and-effect relationship. The more CO2, the more warming.

Democrat Senator Dianne Feinstein’s health problems are much worse than what was previously disclosed to the public.

89-year-old Dianne Feinstein last Wednesday returned to the senate in a wheelchair.

Feinstein finally returned to the senate after a 3-month absence due to shingles.

The California Senator’s diminished condition, red droopy eye and paralyzed face shocked the public.

Feinstein is suffering from several complications due to shingles (supposedly), including facial paralysis, memory loss, vision and balance impairments and swelling of the brain, according to the New York Times.

Earlier this week Feinstein raised eyebrows when she got feisty with an LA Times reporter and appeared to forget she was absent from the Senate for three months.

Lisbon, 18 - 21 May 2023

A cold start to Thursday, with widespread freezing conditions likely. However, with the strong May sunshine, temperatures quickly climb to the lower and middle 60s across the majority of New England.

Webmaster addition: Gosh darn that human-caused global warming!