Author Archive: Stephen Green

TDS IS REAL… REAL EXPENSIVE: ‘What has Become of Us’: Rosie O’Donnell May Have Just Handed Trump a Golden Defamation Lawsuit. “I have previously expressed skepticism over some defamation cases against the media brought by President Donald Trump under existing case law. However, comedian Rosie O’Donnell may have supplied the President with a another defamation case if she cannot back up sensational claims made against the President to her 2.9 million TikTok followers. She states as a fact that the President is an ‘adjudicated rapist’ and settled child abuse cases.”

CHANGE (IT BACK): Panera lost diners by cutting portions and staff. It’s reversing course to win them back.

When Panera Bread began shrinking its sandwiches and skimping on salads, it started shedding customers.

Now, to win them back, the chain plans to reinvest in the business and undo many of those same cost-cutting measures, it said Tuesday.

Once the No. 1 fast-casual brand in the U.S., Panera has dipped to No. 3, ceding the top spots to Chipotle Mexican Grill and Panda Express. Last year, its sales fell 5% to $6.1 billion, according to Technomic estimates. For years, the chain’s traffic has been shrinking, according to CEO Paul Carbone, who took the reins earlier this year. Controversy after the chain’s foray into energy drinks didn’t help matters, either.

Shrinkflation and worse service were bad for business — and execs were surprised by this?

A CORNERED RAT CAN STILL BE DANGEROUS:

SPACE: James Webb telescope may have found the first stars in the universe, new study claims. “The stars’ spectra, which show their composition based on the light they absorb and emit, had emission lines suggesting lots of high-energy photons, which is consistent with Population III predictions. The spectra also suggested the stars are very large — each on the order of 100 solar masses — and the mass of the stars met some theoretical calculations.”

FINISH THE JOB: Report Says Trump to Announce Long Overdue Dismantling of Education Dept. “The Post talked to three unnamed (naturally) sources, two of whom (and let’s hope they are reliable) say that six offices in the Department of Education will move to other agencies. The overall goal here (tee hee) is to dismantle the Education Department as much as legally possible when only Congress has the ultimate authority to close it entirely.”

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Dems’ Nasty Civil War Is Safe From Any Mainstream Media Scrutiny. “At the moment, Democrats are a fractious hot mess. They’re more bad reality show audition than functioning political party these days. Leadership in both the Senate and the House is weaker than gas station toilet paper. The kids are definitely not all right. After Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer led the Democrats into a government shutdown showdown that they weren’t going to win in any of the alternative universes they occupy, some are looking to shake things up.”

NOT SO LONG AGO, THEY HAD A BILLION-DOLLAR BUDGET:

THEY’RE JUST DOING THE TRAFFICKING JOBS AMERICANS WON’T DO: Deported Couple Accused Of Running ‘Barbaric’ Sex Ring After Sneaking Back Into US.

A husband and wife duo accused of running a sophisticated sex ring in Louisiana are previously deported illegal migrants with lengthy rap sheets.

Murillo Lazano-Vargas and Zabdi Danea Guzman-Diaz were apprehended by the East Baton Rouge Sheriff’s Office earlier in November on charges related to the promotion of prostitution, human trafficking by force and pandering, according to local outlet WAFB. The married couple are Mexican nationals who are not only living in the U.S. unlawfully, but had already been deported from the country before returning to allegedly launch their illicit brothel enterprise, according to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

“On November 6, ICE Homeland Security Investigations executed a search and arrest warrant for a human trafficking and sexual exploitation investigation,” a DHS spokesperson stated to the Daily Caller News Foundation. “HSI Law enforcement rescued three victims of these barbaric criminals.”

Plus: “The back-to-back sex ring busts follow GOP Gov. Jeff Landry’s signing of a partnership agreement with ICE earlier this year that empowers Louisiana law enforcement agencies to enforce federal immigration laws.”

Sanctuary cities and states, meanwhile, provide actual sanctuary for criminals like these

YES, PLEASE: SCOTUS Must Stop Mail-In Voting Madness.

One of the suppurating sores that still bedevil our body politic in the aftermath of COVID-19 is the ongoing abuse of mail-in voting. Absentee ballots have long been available to a small number of voters, of course. But, during the pandemic, many states used public safety as a pretext to dramatically expand eligibility for mail-in voting and to extend the deadlines for receiving these ballots. Now, at least 30 states continue to count such votes long after Election Day has come and gone. This inevitably creates concerns about election integrity. Consequently, it was only a matter of time before the U.S. Supreme Court would be required to decide if post-election vote counting violates federal law.

This is why the Court quietly added Watson v. Republican National Committee to its docket last week. In 2020, Mississippi passed “emergency” legislation requiring election officials to accept absentee ballots “postmarked on or before the date of the election and received by the registrar no more than five (5) business days after the election.” Long after the pandemic had ended, Mississippi inexplicably made that post-election deadline permanent. Thus, in 2024, the RNC and the Mississippi Republican Party went to federal court to challenge the statute. The U.S. district court judge ruled against them.

The RNC subsequently won, however, in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Mississippi appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which agreed to take up the case.

We’re an international laughingstock, unable to tally our own election results while blue staters magically find whatever ballots they need, taking as long as they like.

NEWS YOU CAN USE? Amazon sending out payments in $2.5B settlement over Prime subscriptions. “If you’re one of the millions of people who were signed up for Amazon Prime without your permission, you may want to check your email inbox. The company has started providing automatic refunds from a $2.5 billion settlement it reached with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) earlier this year.”

MODERN PROBLEMS: Tesla safety driver falls asleep during passenger’s robotaxi ride. “In fact, the safety driver fell asleep three times during the ride, which took place a little over a week ago, according to Reddit user ohmichael. In his post, which contains a 12-second clip of a man sleeping and then waking in the front seat of a moving Tesla, the poster says he contacted Tesla to report this behavior but never heard back.”

INSURRECTION, STRAIGHT UP:

MATH: Ford can’t find mechanics for $120K: It takes math to learn a trade.

Ford pays auto mechanics $120,000 a year, but can’t find enough workers, said CEO Jim Farley on a podcast. Nationwide, employers “have over a million openings in critical jobs, emergency services, trucking, factory workers, plumbers, electricians and tradesmen.”

Farley complained that “we don’t have trade schools anymore,” reports Avi Zilber in the New York Post.

The Ford CEO’s grandfather was one of the company’s early employees, hired to work on the Model T. “We are not investing in educating a next generation of people like my grandfather who had nothing, who built a middle class life and a future for his family,” Farley said.

Ford is spending $4 million to fund scholarship for auto technicians.

They ought to invoice the Department of Education for the $4 million, just to make a point.

THIS:

Going back at least to the Obama years, China’s most important export might not have been cheap consumer goods, but deflation.

Xi has gotten even more aggressive with exports, trying to keep his economy afloat. While I’m not always a huge fan of them, tariffs are the necessary defense mechanism to Beijing’s mercantilism-on-steroids.

Plus, we need to re-shore vital industries.