Coming to America, to denounce it, destroy it, and get rich as Croesus

what a country!

How Ilhan Omar went from capitalist-hating Squad activist to Marxist millionaire sporting Jimmy Choos

Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar may claim to hate capitalism, but doesn’t appear to have any trouble taking advantage of its spoils.

The self-proclaimed Marxist has been sporting sunglasses from luxury designers Jimmy Choo, Oliver Peoples, and Prada — worth up to $500 each — to lecture people on spreading the wealth.

The Democratic “Squad” member was also revealed this week to have a net worth of up to $30 million, a 3,500% increase since 2023, on her latest financial disclosure with third husband, Tim Mynett.

This comes after she stated “I am not a millionaire,” during a February interview, clearly aiming to shield her newfound wealthy status from the public.

Adding to her image as a champagne socialist, part of Omar’s newfound fortune comes from her being part owner, alongside Mynett, of a California winery selling its signature eStCru blockchain Cabernet for $73 per bottle and cans of sparkling rosé for $20 each — available not at the government-run grocery store, but boutique markets along the West Coast, an analysis by The Post revealed.

Before she became a [Somali] Sonoma vineyard vixen, the sanctimonious Squad member has long looked the part: attending “Defund the Police” rallies in $500 Jimmy Choo sunglasses; hobnobbing with the common folk in $530 black Prada shades; or protesting against Israel at Columbia University decked out in finely hand-crafted $400 specs from luxury eyewear maker Oliver Peoples.

And Omar’s bonanza windfall couldn’t have come at a better time: a review of her financial disclosure by The Post revealed that she has as much as $50,000 in credit card debt.

Trained seals could have done better, for free

Austin pulls a Cracker Barrel with disastrous logo rebrand that took seven years and cost $1 million

City Manager T.C. Broadnax called the rebrand necessary for the sake of business on Thursday.

The city's seal had previously been used as logo, but many different department had their own.

New seal

old seal

The Plandemic never ends

Saving the citiens of malibu from infectious paddleboarders whever they roam

California officials are recommending masking indoors again. No, this is not satire.

The Independent:

Public health officials in California are reporting a late summer Covid-19 wave hitting the Golden State, noting a continued increase in new cases as some at county level advocate for a return to indoor mask wearing ...

Breaking with the Trump administration's vaccine-skeptic Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, Dr Aimee Sisson of Yolo County told the Times: 'Vaccination remains one of the most effective ways to prevent severe disease and death from Covid-19.'

She also advocated for a return to masks, adding: 'Wearing a high-quality mask such as an N95, KN95, or KF94 that fits well continues to provide strong protection.

Related: "Experts" Unable to Explain Why Nobody Trusts the "Experts". The author provides a number of clues, beginning with face masks

"A unique opportunity to own a part of Greenwich history."

So says the new listing for 577 Round Hill Road, priced at $7.9 million, and for once, a real estate listing is accurate. The former stables are owned by Raj Rajartnam, founder of the hedge fund Galleon Management, and whose conviction and imprisonment in 2011 for insider trading was one of the main (but certainly not the only — looking at you, Walt, and you, Fred and … oh, the list is endless) inspirations for FWIW’s renaming of what was once one of Greenwich’s most prestigious roads from Round Hill to Rogues’ Hill.

And who doesn’t love history?

Riverside Sale

36 Hendrie Avenue, listed at $3.195 million, has sold for $3.260. Interesting, in light of the discussion in the comments section earlier this week about whether to immediately accept an offer above ask or wait, in this case the owner, an experienced real estate agent herself, took another approach, to good result — listed on July 7th, she didn’t shut down bidding, or go immediately to final and best offer, but instead extended the period a week, and put out that news to the real estate community so that they could prod their own clients off the sidelines and into the action, if they chose. Here’s what was added to the MLS:

“DUE TO MULTIPLE INTEREST ACCEPTING OFFERS THROUGH 7/15/25 12PM.”

From the experts you can trust

and they believed us!

Trump health agenda sparks revolt: 3 West Coast governors form vaccine alliance

California, Oregon, Washington create alliance against Trump's CDC guidelines

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek and Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson launched the West Coast Health Alliance Wednesday, just a day before Kennedy testified on vaccines before the Senate Finance Committee. The hearing comes just a month after CDC Director Susan Monarez was fired. 

"President Trump’s mass firing of CDC doctors and scientists — and his blatant politicization of the agency — is a direct assault on the health and safety of the American people," the governors said in a joint statement. "The CDC has become a political tool that increasingly peddles ideology instead of science, ideology that will lead to severe health consequences. California, Oregon, and Washington will not allow the people of our states to be put at risk."

The governors plan to disregard CDC guidelines under Trump and will issue their own coordinated vaccine and health guidelines in their states, grounded in medical groups like the American Academy of Pediatrics* and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.**

"Through this partnership, the three states will start coordinating health guidelines by aligning immunization recommendations informed by respected national medical organizations," a news release on Newsom's website said.

“Just the Facts” offers a partial summary of just how those Americans still capable of rational thought came to lose all confidence in supposed health authorities. There’s much more, of course, stretching back decades, such as when in 1981, in order to free up spending, the CDC and NIH deliberately misrepresented that AIDS was a threat to all the population, not a disease concentrated in the gay community; should we discuss the suppression of the Wuhan laboratory and the role of the Chinese and NIH in concocting MonkeyFlu? And we’ll leave aside, for now, discussion of the Global Warming hoax that continues to thrive.)

The Track Record of the CDC

While the Trump administration is carrying out mass firings at the CDC, and top CDC officials who were slated to be fired are resigning, Democrats are accusing President Trump and HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. of endangering public health by undermining this government agency.

Senator Elizabeth Warren, for instance, torches Trump for “purging the CDC leadership” and says of Trump and RFK, “These fools can’t be trusted with your health.” Likewise:

  • Senator Patty Murray says that RFK has “taken utterly reckless steps to dismantle our public health infrastructure,” and “we should all be deeply disturbed by the resignation of highly qualified CDC officials whose work quite literally saves lives.”

  • President Biden’s HHS Secretary, Xavier Becerra, declares that “three leading scientists at the CDC who resigned” were “essential public health leaders who helped our country get out of the pandemic.”

  • Senator Andy Kim alleges that the CDC was the “gold standard” that “set the mark for the rest of the world” but is now in “shambles from what Trump and Kennedy have done.”

In reality, however, the CDC issued reams of unscientific pronouncements that killed and harmed multitudes of people during the Covid-19 pandemic. This includes but isn’t limited to the following 12 examples:

1) The CDC denied that Covid-19 was mainly transmitted through tiny airborne particles called aerosols, even though:

  • the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases published a statement signed by 239 scientists documenting “more than enough supporting evidence” that C-19 is “airborne” and proper “control measures” are “needed” to deal with this reality.

  • at least 20 studies showed that aerosols play a dominant role in the transmission of all infectious respiratory microbes, including SARS-CoV-2.

2) When the CDC finally stopped minimizing the threat of airborne transmission in 2021, CDC officials engaged in a cover-up to hide the fatal consequences of their fecklessness and allowed countless preventable deaths to continue in high-risk settings like nursing homes.

3) In 2021, the CDC told school officials to impose “physical distancing” requirements of “at least 6 feet,” “require universal and correct use of masks,” “closely and regularly monitor the numbers of students, teachers, and staff with Covid-19,” and consider closing “classrooms or schools” that have “an active outbreak,” even though Sweden had already:

  • kept its schools open with 1.95 million children the prior spring without class-size reductions, masking, or vaccines.

  • experienced zero child Covid deaths over this period.

  • had an ICU admission rate for teachers that was half that of other professions.

  • experienced no difference with Finland in the incidence of C-19 infections among school-aged children, even though Finland closed its schools.

4) In 2022, the CDC claimed that “Covid-19 is a leading cause of death in children,” even though:

  • the CDC’s own data showed that 1% of all deaths of children in the U.S. involved C-19, or one out of every 145,936 children during the first 19 months of the pandemic.

  • in 2021, the journal Nature Medicine published a study of children who “died from” C-19 as opposed to “those who died of another cause but were coincidentally infected with the virus,” and the study found that C-19 took the lives of two out of every million children in England during the first year of the pandemic.

  • children in the U.S. were five times more likely to die of drowning and 36 times more likely to die of accidents than the real Covid death rate of two in a million.

5) The CDC called for “universal masking” down to the age of “2 years,” even though:

6) The CDC falsely portrayed exercising while masked as risk-free and downplayed the level of cardio-pulmonary stress that it creates.

7) The CDC made it very difficult for readers to see how they were distorting mask studies by creating “science briefs” with unclickable footnotes and failing to link to the vast majority of sources they cited. Thus, inquisitive readers had to take note of the footnote numbers, scroll down to the bottom of the CDC webpage to locate the source, conduct a separate search for the source, and then scroll back up to the location where they were reading. In a typical academic journal, all of this can be done with a few simple clicks.

8) The CDC alleged that Covid-19 was a “pandemic of the unvaccinated” while more than 50% of Covid deaths were occurring among the fully vaccinated.

9) The CDC claimed that “Covid-19 vaccines have undergone” the “most intensive safety monitoring in U.S. history” and recommended them to “all children, including children who have already had Covid-19,” even though the vaccine clinical trials:

  • did not enroll enough children to show any clinically meaningful benefits like preventing severe Covid-19, hospitalization, or death.

  • needed to be 400,000 times larger/longer to determine if the vaccines save more toddlers and preschoolers than they kill

  • excluded children who were apt to have serious adverse reactions to the vaccines, but some still experienced fevers up to 105.4 ºF, eye-rolling seizures, convulsions, limping, and a “severe” decline in white blood cells that creates the “risk of overwhelming infection.”

10) The CDC claimed without evidence in June 2022 that “our cells break down mRNA from these vaccines and get rid of it within a few days after vaccination,” even though:

  • three months before that, the journal Cell published a study which “detected vaccine mRNA collected in the GCs [germinal centers] of LNs [lymph nodes] on days 7, 16, and 37 postvaccination, with lower but still appreciable specific signal at day 60.”

  • the study did not look beyond 60 days, so the mRNA may remain even longer.

11) The CDC claimed in 2023 that “everyone age 6 months and older” should receive “an updated Covid-19 vaccine” to prevent “death,” even though:

12) The CDC told summer camp operators in 2021 to:

  • require staff and campers down to “2 years old” to “wear masks at all times, except when eating and drinking or swimming.”

  • make campers play “sports and athletic activities” in the “outdoors” while “wearing a mask” and “staying at least 6 feet away from others.”

  • “provide physical guides, such as tape on floors or sidewalks and signs on walls, to ensure that staff and campers remain distanced.”

  • “ask campers and staff who are not fully vaccinated” to “provide proof of a negative viral test taken no more than 1–3 days before arriving at camp,” “engage in a 2-week prearrival quarantine,” and then “stay home and self-quarantine for a full 7 days after travel.”

  • “notify the health department immediately following a positive test result” and quarantine the “infected person” in “an isolation room.”

  • “quarantine for 14 days” “anyone else who was within 6 feet of the infected person for a cumulative total of 15 minutes or more over a 24-hour period.”

None of these CDC failures were a result of “evolving science” but of callous disregard for readily available facts. As a result, countless people were killed and harmed physically, financially, educationally, and emotionally.

Meanwhile, others who defied the CDC’s proclamations—which were adopted and enforced by governments and corporations—were fired, censored, arrested, and denied access to schools, supermarkets, hospitals, and streets.

……..

There’s more, of course, much more. Start here:

April 2, 2021

CDC reverses statement by director that vaccinated people are no longer contagious

That was clear enough, however bleated. But the flying media monkeys wouldn’t let go, because state control is everything:

Nine months later, Rachel Maddow December 21, 2021 was still repeating the original lie:

Submit to the vaccine; you won’t get COVID, you won’t pass it on to anyone else

Earlier, but still five months after the CDC had debunked its own claim, Stephen Colbert ran this piece of propaganda on September 29, 2021

Here are the two “respected national medical organizations” whose advice the western trio will follow:

*American Academy of Pediatrics

COVID Vaccines for infants and older children

RECOMMENDATIONS • Infants and children 6 through 23 months of age are at high risk for severe COVID-19. 2-4 The AAP recommends all infants and children in this age group who do not have contraindications* receive 2025-2026 COVID-19 vaccine, as follows:

Those who are previously unvaccinated should receive an initial vaccine series. * COVID-19 vaccine contraindication includes a history of severe allergic reaction ….

And for children whose mothers think were assigned the wrong sex at birth:

AI Overview

  • The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) guides care for transgender youth, emphasizing a multi-stage approach: support for gender exploration and mental health in pre-pubertal children; puberty blockers for eligible adolescents to pause development and provide decision-making time; and hormone therapy for older teens and adults to align physical traits with gender identity, with surgery generally reserved for individuals 18 or older. The AAP's guidance, which is based on a systematic review of evidence, stresses patient-centered, holistic care and has been reaffirmed to ensure access to comprehensive treatment. 

  • Key Principles of AAP Guidance

    • Staged Approach:

      Care is tailored to the individual's developmental stage, with specific medical interventions reserved for when puberty begins or is established. 

    • Mental Health Support:

      Initial and ongoing support from mental health professionals is crucial for exploring gender identity and addressing any co-occurring conditions. 

    • Puberty Blockers:

      For adolescents experiencing the onset of puberty, puberty-delaying medications (GnRH analogs) may be used to pause physical changes, allowing more time for exploration and decision-making before potentially irreversible changes occur. 

    • Hormone Therapy:

      With stable gender identity and after considering potential risks like infertility, hormone therapy can begin in adolescence to facilitate the development of gender-affirming physical traits. 

    • Surgery:

      Most gender-affirming surgeries are deferred until adulthood (age 18 or older), though some chest surgeries may be pursued earlier under specific conditions. 

**American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists

AI Overview

  • The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) supports gender-affirming care for transgender and gender-diverse individuals, including adolescents, emphasizing evidence-based, respectful care free from political interference and advocating for non-discrimination protections and insurance coverage for necessary treatments. ACOG promotes comprehensive, inclusive care and advises that gender-affirming treatments for minors typically include social transition, puberty blockers, and/or hormone replacement therapy, with discussions on fertility and the risks/benefits of treatment occurring early in the process. 

  • ACOG's Stance on Gender-Affirming Care

    • Support for Evidence-Based Care:

      .

      ACOG supports providing transgender and gender-diverse individuals, including adolescents, with access to comprehensive, evidence-based care for gender affirmation. 

  • Key Aspects of Care for Transgender Youth

    • Developmentally Appropriate Care:

      For those under 18, gender-affirming care generally involves developmentally appropriate support, including social transition (e.g., changes in name, pronouns, and presentation), puberty blockers, and/or hormone replacement therapy (HRT). 

    • Informed Consent:

      Individuals must be capable of understanding the potential benefits and risks of treatments, as well as the implications for future fertility. 

And remember when the medical experts determined that group gatherings during the lockdown actually weren’t dangerous, if done for the right and proper cause?

Rock Ridge price drop

3.2-acres in the RA-2 Zone, Rock Ridge

Started at $9.750 million a year ago August, down today to $8.250.

I wrote about this back in April when it took its first price cut:

Old house, old listing; they often go together

After lingering on the market since August, 14 Meadow Drive, Greenwich, has dropped its price 3% from $9.750 million to $9.450. It looks like a nice, grand old house, but maintaining 10,000 sq.ft of structure built in 1909 is a daunting prospect, and the pool of buyers willing to take on the challenge is shallow. I might have been tempted to move more aggressively, and sooner on this price "adjustment” than has been done here, but it’s not my house, nor my listing.

Welcome to Londonistan West

Dearborn Heights Police Department trots out 'optional patch' featuring Arabic and English text

'Pray for Michigan,' Rep Randy Fine declared in a post on X

"This patch was created by Officer Emily Murdoch, who designed it to reflect and honor the diversity of our community - especially the many residents of Arabic descent who call Dearborn Heights home. By incorporating Arabic script alongside English, this patch represents unity, respect, and our shared commitment to service. We are proud of Officer Murdoch's creativity and dedication in helping our department better represent the people we serve," the post noted.

"Our officers proudly serve all members of our community, and this new design is another way we continue to celebrate the rich cultures that make our city unique," it added.

We’ll be seeing far more of this, I predict:

And of course, our own intrepid men in blue got there long ago:

No one in the history of the world has ever washed a rental car before returning it, or purchased fake meat more than once

Lockdown, 2020: given the choice of plant “meat” or no meat, consumers overwhelmingly chose to go without

September 4, 2025: Beyond Meat Sales Plunge as Firm is Over $1 Billion in Debt

In a development that will likely come as a surprise to no one who is a regular reader of Legal Insurrection, it appears there has been a precipitous drop in the sales of products from the “meat alternative” company, Beyond Meat.

Once the darling of the plant-based food space, Beyond Meat has suffered a precipitous decline in sales as consumer consumption plunges. Economic uncertainty and concerns over the processed nature of the offerings has pushed shoppers toward cheaper animal options.

Beyond Meat had cash and cash equivalents of $103 million as of June 28, compared to $132 million at the end of 2024, the company said in its most recent earnings release. In May, the company raised $100 million from a plant-based nonprofit, providing the alternative meat company with much-needed cash.

Creditsafe estimated that Beyond Meat had $1.2 billion in debt. Around half of its outstanding bills were between 1 and 30 days past due in July, compared to roughly a third in September of 2024.

“This increasing delay in payments to suppliers indicates that the company could be experiencing liquidity pressures,” Ragini Bhalla, head of brand with Creditsafe, said in a statement. “These rising DBT figures highlight growing financial challenges, especially considering their troubling Q2 earnings results.“

The publication Mashed woke up to what was happening years too late, but did manage to figure it out eventually, and published this on october 6, 2024:

The Story Behind Fake Meat And Its Quick Downfall

…. Customers didn't come back for seconds

A more urgent problem for the plant-based meat industry was that it was hemorrhaging customers. The enthusiasm for plant-based products between 2019 and 2021 was, it turned out, largely due to first-time buyers. Perhaps the excitement surrounding the companies' innovations inspired meat-eating stalwarts to give the products a chance, only to decide, inevitably, that they preferred real meat. In 2022, Maple Leaf, a Canadian pork company that also owns two plant-based meat brands, conducted a review of the U.S. market and concluded that the industry was stalling. About 60% of U.S. households had given plant-based meat a try, leading to skyrocketing sales, but so few of them had turned into repeat customers that sales flattened.

The expectation that plant-based meat would only become increasingly popular as more people tried it proved to be unfounded, leaving the companies in a tricky spot with investors and shareholders.

Plant-based meat is ultra-processed

Another driver of the plant-based meat craze was the idea that protein made from plants must be healthier than regular meat. Studies have consistently shown that consuming red meat, both processed and unprocessed, can shorten the lifespan. In 2012, researchers from Harvard estimated that swapping one serving of red meat with healthier options like fish, poultry, and nuts every day could lower the risk of mortality between 7 and 19%. If you're craving a hamburger or a hot dog, it stands to reason that a Beyond Burger or a plant-based sausage would be a better option.

However, it didn't take long for health professionals to point out that many of the most popular plant-based meat companies rely on ultra-processing and excessive amounts of unhealthy ingredients like salt and saturated fats to achieve the meat-like texture and flavor of their products. Where a beef patty might contain only one or two ingredients, a plant-based patty might contain 20 or more. Recent studies have shown that the regular consumption of ultra-processed foods increases a person's risk of cancer and early mortality. *

Comparing the fat and calorie content of fast food meat burgers with popular plant-based burgers is equally sobering. For example, a McDonald's Quarter Pounder has 420 and 18 grams of fat, eight of which are saturated fats, including the bun. In contrast, a plant-based patty from Moving Mountains without a bun has 270 calories and 20 grams of fat, a whopping 18 of which are saturated.

It's expensive

Health concerns aside, plant-based meat is just plain pricey, even compared to regular meat. Initially, the novelty of the products likely allowed customers to overlook the price tag, but not in the long term. When the Boston Consulting Group predicted exponential growth in the sector through 2035, it highlighted the fact that plant-based meat would grow more affordable in the coming years, anticipating that it would be equal to meat in the near-distant future. In the cost of living crisis that emerged after the coronavirus pandemic, however, consumers didn't have the luxury of waiting for this to happen. When even the cheapest and least flavorful plant-based meat products continued to be more expensive than the real thing, sales began to slump.

This was a particular problem for the companies because 95% of people who had been fans of plant-based products were also meat-eaters. When affordability became a primary concern, the choice to switch back to regular meat was a no-brainer.

Sales and stocks slumped

Through this combination of factors, plant-based meat sales began to plummet. In August of 2023, the CEO of Beyond Meat broke the news to investors that its sales had fallen more than 30% in the past quarter compared to the previous year, prompting its shares to fall by 12%. Far from being on track for growth as had been predicted, the company was shrinking. The landscape for the rest of the industry was nearly as bleak.

It wasn't that vegan and vegetarian products had grown less popular, it was that fake meat, specifically, was losing its shine. A 2023 survey from the vegan company Strong Roots found that 61% of global consumers were trying to increase their plant-based intake, even as 40% of respondents were reducing or eliminating plant-based meat from their diets (via the BBC). This statistic suggests that fake meat has gained a negative reputation even as consumers embrace eating less meat.

Mind you, investors should have seen this coming long ago:

May 7, 2020:

And for the millions of you who don’t watch CNBC, there’s always Tom Friedman Paul Krugman (confused Friedman with Krugman — fixed now; we regret the error):

*