The federal government is approving citizenship requests at the quickest rate in a decade, dispensing with a backlog attributed to the coronavirus pandemic and a tighter approval regime that reached its zenith under former President Donald Trump, a report Tuesday sets out.
Jack Posobiec addressed “blackpillers” on Monday’s episode of Human Events Daily, stating that they need to be pushed “to the curb” and “taken out like the trash.” The host began by applauding Donald Trump’s decision to return to X after a 3-year hiatus. “The Return of the King,” Posobiec called it. The President was initially…
S&P Futures are flat to higher this morning as the markets awaits a key economic data report. Before the bell today the July PPI data is scheduled for release. Home Depot is moving lower as the retailor lowers its full year guidance. Freight car company RAIL is moving higher as it raised its outlook for the year. Oil prices are weakening ahead of this morning monthly oil report form the EIA. Middle East tensions remain elevated with Iran expected to strike Israel in the coming days. In Europe, stocks have turned lower as sentiment data weakens.
Japan’s unprecedented megaquake advisory has prompted thousands of hotel cancellations in areas flagged as high-risk, dealing businesses a heavy blow in what would have been one of the busiest seasons, hoteliers said Tuesday. The weather agency said last week a huge earthquake was more likely in the aftermath of a magnitude 7.1 jolt in the […]
The 39-year-old SunPower is the latest solar rooftop business to fail this year. Others include Titan Solar Power and Sunworks. SunPower cited a “severe liquidity crisis caused by a sharp decline in demand in the solar market and SunPower’s inability to obtain new capital.” The IRA boosted solar subsidies, so why has demand fallen?
One reason is higher interest rates have made rooftop panel leasing less attractive to customers. Some states like California have scaled back programs that pay customers to send solar power they don’t use to the grid. Such subsidies raise the cost of power for people who don’t have panels. In California the grid is often overloaded with solar power.
The cost of panels has also increased amid overall inflation and President Biden’s tariffs, which were backed by domestic manufacturers and Democrats in Congress. Solar installers warned the tariffs would hurt their industry, and they have. Jobs that Mr. Biden’s subsidies giveth, his tariffs and inflation taketh.
Offshore wind projects are also getting scratched because of rising costs and interest rates that make them uneconomic even with subsidies. BP last year wrote down its U.S. offshore wind business by $1.1 billion. Wind developer Orsted last autumn announced $4 billion in write-downs after walking away from two projects off the New Jersey coast.
BP recently scaled back a planned U.S. biofuels investment. Shell this year said it would close its hydrogen refueling stations in California as few people are buying fuel-cell vehicles, and subsidies for hydrogen production have fallen. Talk about stranded assets.
Tariffs and Subsidies Backfire
Biden only wants clean energy if it every piece of it is made in the USA. That means higher costs, even with subsidies.
I commented on this in advance as it was easy to see.
The attempt force production of solar panels in the US resulted in prices so high that few wanted them.
The late Walter Williams was a clear thinker when it came to issues of race and economics. While some socio-economic differences in society can be attributed to racism in society, most of it cannot, and Williams was not shy in pointing out that fact.
Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) posed a series of questions to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) seeking clarity on the recent arrest of a Pakistani national regarding his attempts to assassinate high-ranking U.S. government officials, allegedly including former President Donald Trump, in light of the fact that he was flagged on a federal watchlist and recently granted immigration parole.
The alleged Pakistani plotter, Asif Raza Merchant, 46, was apprehended on July 12, 2024, when he attempted to leave the United States. Currently in federal custody in New York, Merchant’s plot was foiled when he allegedly conspired with undercover agents, who posed as assassins, to attempt to murder high-ranking U.S. citizens.
The alleged scheme was conducted as part of a larger Iranian ploy to retaliate against the killing of General Qasem Soleimani, Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said, according to an Aug. 6 Justice Department (DOJ) statement that revealed the incident. Soleimani was taken down in 2020 during the Trump administration for aiming to blow up the U.S. Embassy in Iraq.
On Aug. 9, Grassley wrote a letter to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas asking him for more information regarding Merchant’s immigration parole status. Citing media reports, Grassley said that Merchant was interviewed by the Joint Terrorism Task Force upon his arrival in the United States on April 13 because he was flagged in the federal database as a “Lookout Qualified Person of Interest.”
Despite this, Merchant was granted Significant Public Benefit Parole on April 13 by the DHS, which he overstayed after it expired on May 11, Grassley said. He asked the DHS to provide answers to the following:
Did the DHS grant Merchant Significant Public Benefit Parole before or after his placement on the terrorist watchlist and being listed as a “Lookout Qualified Person of Interest”?
On what basis was Merchant granted Significant Public Benefit Parole?
Provide the entire Alien Registration File (A-File) for Asif Raza Merchant.
How many individuals on the Terrorist Screening Database have DHS granted parole and allowed entry into the United States?
Following Merchant’s arrest, Garland said, “The Justice Department will spare no resource to disrupt and hold accountable those who would seek to carry out Iran’s lethal plotting against American citizens and will not tolerate attempts by an authoritarian regime to target American public officials and endanger America’s national security.”
FBI Director Christopher Wray said of the incident: “This dangerous murder-for-hire plot exposed in today’s complaint allegedly was orchestrated by a Pakistani national with close ties to Iran and is straight out of the Iranian playbook.
“A foreign-directed plot to kill a public official, or any U.S. citizen, is a threat to our national security and will be met with the full might and resources of the FBI.”
Assassination Attempts on Trump
The Pakistani national’s plan to assassinate Trump has not been confirmed by federal agencies. The Epoch Times reached out to the DHS and the DOJ for comment regarding the issue. The FBI declined to comment.
According to court documents, Merchant’s plot involved “three different criminal schemes: (1) stealing documents or USB drives from a target’s home; (2) planning a protest; and (3) killing a politician or government official.”
Merchant told the confidential source, an undercover agent, that “trusted” people would be needed to conduct the killing and perform protests after the incident as a distraction, and that they would need “a woman to do ‘reconnaissance.’”
Merchant paid the agent an advance sum of $5,000 to hire hitmen and told him that the final plans would be revealed after Merchant left the country.
He was subsequently arrested on July 12, a day before Trump was shot in the ear in an assassination attempt during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
“The failure of the Secret Service in Butler, Pennsylvania, is even more outrageous in light of suspected Iranian-backed assassins targeting former Trump Administration officials, including President Trump himself. That day, the threat of sniper attacks was even higher than normal,” House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Mike Turner (R-Ohio) said in a statement after the DOJ unsealed its charges against Merchant.
“I was previously briefed concerning the Iranian threat and the circumstances of Mr. Merchant’s arrest and questioned then-Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle on whether she had reviewed the intelligence concerning the Iranian threat. She confirmed to me that she read the intelligence and was aware of this Iranian murder-for-hire plot.”