House Speaker Mike Jellyfish Flops Again

House Speaker Mike Johnson has gone from zero to Mitch McConnell in record time.

President Joe Biden on Wednesday morning signed a foreign aid bill that crawled out of Johnson's GOP House.

Johnson could have forged an adequate deal with Biden: "OK, Mr. President. House Republicans will agree not to spend a dollar on border security. But we need three things from you: Immediately, and for the rest of your presidency, you shall restore President Trump's successful Remain-in-Mexico policy, stop unilaterally paroling illegal aliens into America, and deport all violent felons currently in federal custody."

Johnson reckons, why not simply pass Democrat-friendly bills in the House and get on with it?

Rather than complete McCarthy's passage of seven of 12 individual appropriations bills Johnson filled the Swamp.

Alas, Johnson lacks the media savvy to stage such a simple, powerful event and paint Senate Democrats into a corner.

Last Saturday, Johnson made matters worse by passing separate bills on Ukraine, Israel, and the Indo-Pacific and then pressing them into a giant meatball for the Senate to swallow in one gulp. 

https://spectator.org/house-speaker-mike-jellyfish-flops-again/

Biden Will Shield Transgender Athletes Behind Title IX Pronoun Rules

The Biden administration 'rewrite of Title IX requirments is hiding rule changes that could put an end to single-sex K-12 sports as soon as August 2024.

Any mention of transgender athletes was notably absent in the revisions sponsored by Biden's Department of Education, when the rules were first released last week.

Some say the changes are an obvious attempt to thwart state rules banning trans athletes in women's sports.

Title IX, of course, are the federal rules that define sexual discrimination for educational institutions that take federal funding and are part of the civil rights legislation in the 1972 Education Amendments.

According to a review by Gospel Coalition, Biden's administration added "Gender identity" to its rules prohibiting "Sex-based harassment," which expands the coverage from male-female definitions to cover LGBTQ and transgender definitions.

In this Title IX final rule, the Department of Education incorporates the Bostock decision's reasoning, expressly prohibiting discrimination and harassment based on sexual orientation, gender identity, and sex characteristics in federally funded education programs.

While Biden's rules do not specifically mention transgenderism, education secretary Miguel Cardona noted that this was done on purpose because the "Standards for students participating on male and female athletic teams are evolving in real time." Cardona added that the administration will revisit the rules in due time and the current rules concerning transgenderism are not final as "Separate rulemaking" will be forthcoming. 

https://thepeoplesvoice.tv/biden-will-shield-transgender-athletes-behind-title-ix-pronoun-rules/

Central Banks Are Wrong About Rate Cuts

The risk of fixing rates too high does not exist when central banks impose reference rates, as they will always make it easier for state borrowing-artificial currency creation-in the most convenient-what they call "No distortions"-and cheap way.

Many analysts say that central banks do not impose interest rates; they only reflect what the market demands.

Central banks do not buy back state assets, print money, or impose negative real interest rates because they are evil alchemists.

The ECB has announced a possible interest rate cut in June that is in danger of being premature and wrong.

The ECB rate hikes are signaled by many market participants as the cause of the euro zone's stagnation, but curiously, no one mentions that the euro area was already experiencing massive stagnation due to negative interest rates.

Central banks know that inflation is a monetary phenomenon, which is why they attack rising consumer prices with rate hikes and money supply reductions.

The problem of lowering interest rates now, when there is no evidence of having controlled inflation and achieved a target that already erodes the purchasing power of the currency by 2% annually, is to fall into the narrative that the eurozone is in a poor economic situation because of monetary policy when it is due to the wrong fiscal policy, the disaster of the Next Generation EU Funds, whose failure is already only comparable to the forgotten Juncker Plan, a shortsighted and destructive energy, agricultural, and industrial policy, and a taxation system that shifts innovation and technology to other countries. 

https://mises.org/mises-wire/central-banks-are-wrong-about-rate-cuts

The Unchurched, More EV Impossibility, Bailing Out The Agitators . . . And More

 House Judiciary releases new report accusing DA Bragg of political prosecution — Just the News

‘This man represents the majority of America’: NYC construction worker goes viral after saying EXACTLY what he thinks of Biden following Trump’s visit — Daily Mail

Joe Biden Proposes Biggest Middle Class Tax Hike in Modern Times — Committee to Unleash Prosperity

Subsidizing Strikes Is The California Legislature’s Latest Anti-Growth Proposal — Wayne Winegarden, Pacific Research Institute

Confused Critics Circle Amazon For Trying to Discover Future — John Tamny, RealClearMarkets

Unchurched — and Anti-Semitic? — City Journal

Updating California’s Grid for EVs May Cost Up to $20 Billion — Ars Technica

NOAA Billion-Dollar Weather Disasters Are Not Evidence of Climate Change — Reason

Daily Chart: Is Crime Falling? — Power Line

After Seeing These Polls, It’s Going to Take a Miracle (or Something) for Biden to Win — HotAir

Justice Brett Kavanaugh Asks Why Barack Obama Was Never Prosecuted — Twitchy

USAA Scorns Trump-Voting Members By Debanking John Eastman

Now John Eastman, one of the attorneys who worked with former President Donald Trump, has been debanked by both Bank of America and USAA. That USAA debanked Eastman for his ties to the 2020 election contest comes as a surprise.

As USAA grew larger, some customers complained of a decline in quality as USAA increasingly contracted out key services, such as adjustment claims.

This brings us back to the curious case of USAA debanking John Eastman without giving any reason.

In 2023, USAA debanked former Trump attorney John Eastman, citing its right to close an account "For any reason without advance notice." Eastman asked about the closures the bank stated that it was their policy not to disclose any further information.

Regarding USAA's rating, Cameron also added, "As you can see, USAA's rating shows how deeply political activism has seeped into the culture of the insurance company. There are few parts of its business not embracing left-wing ideology. I suspect that most of USAA's members would find alarming its alignment with a progressive agenda."

With this in mind, it's remarkable that one of the many Texas Republicans USAA contributed to was quick to denounce USAA's Eastman debanking.

Glenn Hegar, the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts, posted on X that "USAA members deserve better from a company that once embraced its members as heroes but now apparently views them as extremists. This lurch to radical leftist ideology is disgraceful." I agree. 

https://thefederalist.com/2024/04/25/usaa-scorns-its-trump-voting-members-by-debanking-the-lawyer-who-defended-him/

Philly lender Republic First Bancorp seized by feds in latest regional bank collapse

US regulators have seized Republic First Bancorp and agreed to sell it to Fulton Bank, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said Friday, underscoring the challenges facing regional banks a year after the collapse of three peers.

The Philadelphia-based bank, which had abandoned funding talks with a group of investors, was seized by the Pennsylvania Department of Banking and Securities.

The FDIC, appointed as a receiver, said Fulton Bank, a unit of Fulton Financial, will assume substantially all deposits and purchase all the assets of Republic Bank to "Protect depositors." Republic Bank, based in Philadelphia, is being sold to Fulton Bank Republic Bank, based in Philadelphia, is being sold to Fulton Bank AP Republic Bank had about $6 billion in total assets and $4 billion in total deposits, as of Jan. 31, 2024.

The FDIC estimates that the cost to the Deposit Insurance Fund related to the failure of Republic Bank will be $667 million.

The bank's 32 branches in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and New York will reopen as branches of Fulton Bank on Saturday or on Monday during business hours.

Republic Bank cut jobs and exited its mortgage origination business in early 2023 as it reeled under pressure from higher costs and inability to improve profitability FDIC sign The FDIC estimates that the cost to the Deposit Insurance Fund related to the failure of Republic Bank will be $667 million.

The bank's stock price has tumbled from just over $2 at the start of the year to about 1 cent on Friday, leaving it with a market capitalization below $2 million. 

https://nypost.com/2024/04/26/business/philly-lender-republic-first-bancorp-seized-by-feds-in-latest-regional-bank-collapse/

New York Attorney General Letitia James Trying To Shut Down Every Pro-Life Pregnancy Center

On April 22, 2024, New York Attorney General Letitia James began a carbon-copy notice of litigation against Christian pro-life pregnancy centers.

Ten pro-life pregnancy centers have been served so far for alleged "Misleading statements or omissions in the advertising of the Abortion Pill Reversal protocol." Similar allegations were filed against pro-life groups by abortion advocate and Attorney General Rob Bonta of California in the Fall of 2023.

The powerhouse public interest law firm, Thomas More Society based in Chicago, is representing pro-life defendants in both cases, pro bono.

The pregnancy centers were given five days to respond before the massive legal hammer of the New York Attorney General's office drops.

The attacks on pregnancy centers began on June 7, 2022, with the firebombing of CompassCare's medical office in Buffalo, injuring two firefighters.

New York Attorney General Letitia James conspired with big tech like Google to censure pro-life pregnancy centers, keeping women from finding them on map features.

The timeline of attacks including vilification of pro-life pregnancy centers through negative PR and activist litigation can be found on CompassCare's webpage. 

https://www.lifenews.com/2024/04/26/new-york-attorney-general-letitia-james-trying-to-shut-down-every-pro-life-pregnancy-center/