Cashless ATM cards? Bad idea.

 

 

A report by Eric Lendrum at American Greatness references “cashless” ATMs – an obvious step on the way to digital currency.  Mr. Lendrum points out that several cities and states have banned cashless ATMs.  Ohio is not yet one of them:

A variety of businesses have begun implementing “cashless” ATMs that give out stored-value cards in exchange for cash.

. . .

However, several states and cities have passed laws to forbid businesses from doing so, in order to accommodate customers who don’t have bank accounts or credit cards of their own. The Federal Deposits Insurance Corporation (FDIC) says that these “unbanked” Americans account for roughly 4.5 percent of the overall American population.

The cities that have banned such devices include New York City, San Francisco, Washington D.C., and Philadelphia. The states of Colorado and New Jersey have also implemented bans on cashless ATMs.

The complete report is here.  It’s one way to resist Central Bank Digital Currency.  Well, at least it’s a start.

RELATED:  Justin Haskins at Fox News:  “Biden administration is quietly planning for a future where you don’t own money”

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Council on Foreign Relations and media control

 

This blog recently posted on "The American Empire and Its Media"; click here.  The blog also transcribed the legend that identifies the journalists with the photograph; the readable transcription is also at the link.

Today, this blog is linking to the Swiss Policy Research’s Introduction to this expose of media allegiances.  

Largely unbeknownst to the general public, executives and top journalists of almost all major US media outlets have long been members of the influential Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).

Established in 1921 as a private, bipartisan organization to “awaken America to its worldwide responsibilities”, the CFR and its close to 5000 elite members for decades have shaped US foreign policy and public discourse about it. As a well-known Council member famously explained, they transformed the American republic into a global empire, albeit a “bene­volent” one.

Based on official membership rosters, the following illustration depicts for the first time the extensive media network of the CFR and its two major international affiliate organizations: the Bilderberg Group (mainly covering the US and Europe) and the Trilateral Commission (covering North America, Europe and East Asia), both established by Council leaders to foster elite cooperation at the global level.

In a column entitled “Ruling Class Journalists”, former Washington Post senior editor and ombudsman Richard Harwood described the Council and its members approvingly as “the nearest thing we have to a ruling establishment in the United States”.

Harwood continued: “The membership of these journalists in the Council, however they may think of themselves, is an acknowledgment of their active and important role in public affairs and of their ascension into the American ruling class. They do not merely analyze and interpret foreign policy for the United States; they help make it. They are part of that establishment whether they like it or not, sharing most of its values and world views.” 

However, media personalities constitute only about five percent of the overall CFR network. As the following illustration shows, key members of the private Council on Foreign Relations have included:

* several US Presidents and Vice Presidents of both parties;

* almost all Secretaries of State, Defense, and the Treasury;

* many high-ranking commanders of the US military and NATO;

* some of the most influential Members of Congress (notably in foreign & security policy);

* almost all National Security Advisors, CIA Directors, Ambassadors to the U.N., Chairs of the Federal Reserve, Presidents of the World Bank, and Directors of the National Economic Council;

* many prominent academics, especially in key fields such as Economics and Political Science;

* many top executives of Wall Street, policy think tanks, universities, NGOs, and Hollywood;

* as well as the key members of both the 9/11 Commission and the Warren Commission (JFK)

Lots more at the link here.  The linked article is footnoted.  The tentacles are everywhere.

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The endless war against merit

 

This blog frequently links to historian Victor Davis Hanson’s essays. At his recent essay at American Greatness, he considers the definitions and consequences of socialism and its derivatives ("Do We Even Know We Are All Socialists Now?”).  Here’s his conclusion:

. . . A final note: the Orwellian police state is central to socialism, since the ideology is contrary to innate human nature and when fully implemented quickly ruins all that it touches and is commensurately despised in its fruition. So to force compliance is a 360 degree, 24/7 project that transcends all our institutions and culture.

That is why the woke FBI goes after counter-revolutionary parents at school board meetings or traditionalist Catholics rather than Pentagon leakers or Islamic terrorists.

That is why the FBI and the CIA respectively tried to warp the 2016 election with the phony Steele dossier and in 2020 probably did so by suppressing the truth about the “bombshell” evidence found on wayward Hunter Biden’s laptop.

That is why news disappears off Facebook and the old Twitter. That is why the order of Google search results seems bizarre. That is why Disney or Budweiser suddenly virtue signal their nihilist politics, or why Nike makes the mediocrity Colin Kaepernick a multimillionaire, or Stanford University attempts to purge vocabulary such as “citizen,” “immigrant,” and “American.”

Once socialism takes hold, every mediocrity, every ossified bureaucracy, every constipated careerist, every hack writer and nobody actor, comes out of the woodwork to find his socialist “fair share” of what he lacked in talent or accomplishment.

In the end, perhaps the best definition of socialism is simply “The endless war against merit.”

Read the rest here.

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The American Empire and Its Media: get the NAMES

 

the unreadable chart

It’s a big news day in the media.  Don Lemon is out at CNN, and Tucker Carlson and Fox News have parted company.  While going through reader comments at Conservative Treehouse, I came across this link to “The American Empire and Its Media; click here.  For Dr. Harold W. Pease’s introduction to this chart, click here.  Among the non-media names that appear in the network are Presidents Bush, père and fils, Carter, Ford, Nixon, Eisenhower, and Hoover.

The chart shown above shows the connections between major media and (1) Bilderberg Meetings;  (2) Council on Foreign Relations;  and (3)  The Trilateral Commission.  Many of the names on the media list are easily recognizable, no matter what programs or publications you access. However, it was impossible to read the fine print.  After a few tries, I was able to persuade this household’s webmaster to convert the teeny tiny print to a readable word document.  The complete list, with abbreviations, disclaimers, and the like appears below:

Note:  Transcribed electronically, so some transcription errors will appear; list includes current, former, and deceased individuals.  Disclaimer at end of this list:  “Based on official participant lists and membership rosters; non-exhaustive; no liability assumed.”

Journalists and media executives:

New York Daily News and U.S. News & World Report 1: Mortimer B. Zuckerman, publisher |

Slate 2: Jacob Weisberg, group editor |

The Nation 3: Katrina VandenHeuvel, publisher |

Foreign Affairs 4: James F. Hoge, former editor 5: Gideon Rose, editor | Foreign Policy 6: Moises Naim, editor |

The National Interest 7: Jacob Heilbrunn, editor |'

American Interest 8: Francis Fukuyama, executive chairman |

Financial Times 9: Martin Wolf, associate editor & chief economics commentator 10: Gideon Rachman, chief foreign affairs commentator |    

Reuters 11: Stephen J. Adler, president & EIC; 12: Tom Glocer, former CEO 13: Harold M. Evans, editor-at-large 14: David Schlesinger, former EIC

Politico 15: Robert Allbritton, publisher; Garrett Graff, former editor

Bloomberg 17: Michael Bloomberg, owner & CEO 18: John Michklethwait, EIC of Bloomberg News, former EIC of The Economists. Matthew Winkler, former EIC of Bloomberg News 20: Daniel Doctoroff, former CEO

Forbes 21: Randall Lane, editor

Los Angeles Times 22: Doyle McManus, Washington bureau chief 23: Shelby Coffey, former editor and EVP

Nc Corp 24: Rupert Murdoch, executive chairman

Fox News 25: Maria Bartiromo, news anchor 26: Heather Nauert, former news host 27: Dan Senor, commentator 28: Trish Regan, television host 29: Linda Vester, former news host

Wall Street Journal (News Corp) 30: Peter Kann, former publisher 31: Karen Elliott House, former managing editor 32: L. Gordon Crovitz, former publisher 33: Rol Bartley, former editor 34: Paul A. Gigot, editorial page editor 35: Alan Murray, deputy managing editor 36: Daniel Henninger, deputy editorial page director 37: Gerald Seib, Washington bureau chief 38: Peggy Noonan, columnist 39: Paul Steiger, former managing editor (1991-2007)

NBC 40: Pamela Thomas Graham, former CEO of CNBC 41: Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric (for owner of NBCUniversal) 42: Cesar Conde, chairman of NBCUniversal International Group 43: Steve Capus, former president of NBC News 44: Tom Brokaw, news anchor 45: Mika Brzezinski, MSNBC news host 46: Andrea Mitchell, chief foreign affairs correspondent 47: Richard Engel, chief foreign corr. 48: Brian Williams, NBC chief anchor 49: Joe Scarborough, news host 50: Bianna Golodryga news anchor 51: Ayman Mohyeldin, reporter

The Economist 52: Lynn Forester de Rothschild, co-owner and board member 53: John Elkann (Agnelli family), co-owner and board member 54: Zanny Minton Beddoes, EIC 55: Rupert Pennant-Rea, chairman of the Economist Group 56: Vendeline von Bredow, business correspondent 57: Adrian Wooldridge, foreign correspondent 58: Bill Emmott, former EIC 59: Megan McArdle, journalist

The New Republic 60: Walter Lippmann, co-founder 61: Chris Hughes, former publisher 62: Peter Beinart, former editor 63: Morton Kondracke, former executive editor 64: J. Peter Scoblic, former executive editor 65: Ronald Steel, journalist & professor

Time 66: Norman Pearlstine, chief content officer of Time Inc. 67: Michael Duffy, deputy manag. editor 68: Nancy Gibbs, managing editor 69: Henry Luce, founding publisher 70: John Huey, former EIC 71: Richard Stengel, former managing editor 72: Joe Klein, columnist 73: Ian Bremmer, foreign affairs columnist & editor-at-large 74: James Gaines, managing editor (1993-95) 75: Jason McManus, managing editor (1985-87) 76: Henry Grunwald, managing editor (1968-77)

The New York Times  77: Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, former publisher (1963-92) 78: Arthur Hays Sulzberger, former publisher (1935-61) 79: Joseph Kahn, managing editor 80: Andrew Rosenthal, former editorial page editor 81: Serge Schmemann, international affairs editor 82: Susan Chira, former deputy executive editor 83: David C. Unger, former foreign affairs editor 84: David Sanger, Washington correspondent Thomas Shanker, assistant Washington editor and former Pentagon correspondent 86: Thomas Friedman, foreign affairs columnist 87: Ethan Bronner, former deputy foreign editor 88: Andrew Ross Sorkin, financial columnist 89: Carol Giacomo, foreign affairs editor 90: Michael Gordon, chief military correspondent 91: Robert B. Semple, associate editorial page editor 92: Judith Miller, Washing bureau reporter 93: David Brooks, op-ed columnist 94: Nicholas Kristof, op-ed columnist and former associate managing editor

The Washington Post 95: Eugene Meyer, former publisher (1933-46) 96: Jeff Bezos, owner (since 2013) 97: Katharine Graham, former publisher (1969-79) 98: Donald E. Graham, former publisher & chairman (1979-2013) 99: Fred Hiatt, editorial page editor 100: Gl Kessler, diplomatic correspondent and fact checker 101: Anne Applebaum, former editorial board member 102: Walter Pincus, national security journalist 103: Jackson Diehl, deputy editorial page editor 104: Charles Krauthammer, columnist 105: Robert Kaiser, former managing editor and senior correspondent 106: David Ignatius, associate editor 107: Eugene Robinson, columnist and chair of Puli. Prize Board 108: Karen DeYoung, associate editor 109: Marc Thiessen, columnist 110: Richard M. Cohen, columnist 111: Jim Hoagland, associate editor and columnist 112: George F. Will, columnist

CNN (Time Warner) 113: W. Thomas Johnson, former president 114: Walter Isaacson, former CEO 115: Ellana Lee, SVP of CNN International and managing editor Asia-Pacific 116: Mark Whita former EVP and managing editor of CNN Worldwide 117: Fareed Zakaria, foreign affairs show host 118: Erin Burnett, news anchor 119: Sanjay Gupta, chief medical correspondent 120: David Gergen, senior political analyst 121: Christiane Amanpour, chief international correspondent 122: Judy Woodruff, news anchor 123: Peter Bergen, national security analyst 124: Kitty Pilgrim, former news anc and correspondent 125: Paula Zahn, former news anchor 126: Elise Labott, global affairs correspondent 127: Ali Velshi, former chief business correspondent 128: Jake Tapper, chief Washington corr. 129: Sam Feist, SVP and Washington bureau chief 130: Jeffrey Toobin, legal analyst

CBS News 131: Laurence A. Tisch, former CEO of CBS 132: William Paley, founder of CBS 133: Joseph Calif Jr„ CBS director 134: William Cohen, CBS director and former Secretary of Defense 135: Dan Rather, former news anchor 136: Bob Schieffer, news anchor and chief Washington corr. 137: Charlie Rose, talk show host 138: Lesley Stahl, news reporter 139: Margaret Brennan, White House & senior foreign affairs corr. 140: Reena Ninan, news anchor 141: Edward R. Murrow, former broadcast journ.

Time Warner 142: Jeffrey Bewkes, chairman & CEO 143: Gary Ginsberg, communications chief 144: Richard Parsons, former chairman & CEO 145: Gerald Levin, former chairman & CEO

ABC News (Disney) 146: Ben Sherwood, president 147: David Westin, former president 148: George Stephanopoulos, chief anchor & chief political corr. 149: Juju Chang, news anchor 150: Barbara Walt news anchor and show host 151: Peter Jennings, news anchor 152: Katie Couric, news anchor 153: Diane Sawyer, news anchor 154: Jonathan Karl, chief White House corr.

Disney 155: Michael Eisner, former chairman & CEO 156: Monica Lozano, director

The New Yorker 157: David Remnick, EIC 158: Amy Davidson, senior editor international affairs 159: Hendrik Hertzberg, principal polil commentator 160: Lawrence Wright, staff writer 161: Evan Osnos, foreign affairs writer 162: Jane Kramer, European correspondent 163: Mark Danner, foreign affairs corr. 164: Nick Paumgarten, staff writer 165: Mattathias Schwartz, staff writer 166: Robin Wright, contributor

The New York Review of Books 167: Robert Silvers, founding editor 168: Barbara Epstein, founding editor

Newsweek 169: Richard M. Smith, former CEO &, EIC 170: Jon Meacham, former EIC 171: Janine di Giovanni, Middle East editor 172: Evan Thomas, former Washington bureau chief

The Daily Beast 173: Tina Brown, founding editor 174: Barry Diller, chairman of IAC (owner of Daily Beast)

USA Today 175: Joanne Lipman, EIC & chief content officer 176: David Andelman, international affairs column

PBS 177: Donald A. Baer, chairman 178: Hartford N Gunn, founder 179: Jim Lehrer, former news anchor 180: Margaret Warner, senior correspondent 181: Bill Moyers, former news anchor 182: Jonathan Barzilay, COO

NPR 183: Vivian Schiller, former CEO 184: Gary Knell, former president 185: Tom Gjelten, correspondent 186: Dina Temple-Raston, national security corr.

Alphabet/Google 1 Eric Schmidt, executive chairman

Facebook 188: Sheryl Sandberg, COO and director 189: Marne Levine, VP of global public policy

The Atlantic 190: David G. Bradley, chairman of Atlantic Media. |

Based on official participant lists and membership rosters; non-exhaustive; no liability assumed.

Abbreviations:

B: Bilderberg meeting participant;

Br: Bilderberg meeting rapporteur;

C: CFR member (incl. term members and former members);

 D: CFR director;

EIC: editor-in-chief;

F: CFR fellow;

M: married to CFR member;

S: son of CFR member;

T: Trilateral Commission member (incl. former members).

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Cash on Hand

 

Glenn Reynolds, a/k/a Mr Instapundit reports on his recent experience in a market at a time when the computer network was down:

So, shopping at the fresh market tonight, we were among the very few to buy groceries, because their computer network was down and they couldn’t process credit or debit cards. They couldn’t even accept checks because those are run through an ACH payment system rather than deposited in the old way. We, however, were able to pay and get out, something only a couple of other customers could do. (One older guy, and a couple of teenaged girls who said “we rock it old school with cash,” which I thought was hilarious.) Most people didn’t carry enough cash for groceries.

Two lessons: (1) The “cashless society” is less robust than cash; and (2) Always carry enough cash to buy groceries, a meal out, and a tank of gas. Just in case.

Good advice.  But how will this work if/when the globalists impose a digital currency on us?

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The Democrat playbook for stealing elections

 

Wayne Allyn Root presents the Democrat playbook for stealing elections:

. . .Because Fox News settled with Dominion, now the Marxist-controlled mainstream media will go into full bait-and-switch mode. They will claim “the case is settled and closed. It’s now proven the 2020 election wasn’t rigged and stolen.”

What a scam. What a con. This is the all-time bait and switch.

. . .

The 2020 election was stolen. . . .

And I believe elections are still being rigged and stolen. . . .

Here are some of Mr Root’s bullet points on HOW they do it:

• No government-issued Voter (or photo) ID.
• Mail-in ballots handed to everyone (in many states mass mailed to voters without even asking), without Voter ID.
• Five states colluding to stop the vote count on election night- for the first time in history. 
• Voter Rolls contain millions of inactive or improper registrations.

More bullet points and details here.

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The Cleveland Haemosporidians?

 

The Cleveland Indians will always be the Cleveland Indians for me. The Indians’ mascot will always be Chief Wahoo.  But over at PJ Media, Robert Spencer explains what's really going on:

With skyrocketing crime and inflation, a steady exodus of sane people from her state, and test scores of students in the state plummeting, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-Planned Parenthood) and her henchmen have turned their attention to the most burning issue of our day: sports team mascots that offend the woke. Now New York’s remaining residents can look around at their smoking ruin of a state, as they watch the people who broke into their house drive off in their car and console themselves with the thought that nowhere in their formerly green and pleasant land is anyone being traumatized because there’s a sports team around called the “Indians.”

The Albany Times-Union reported Tuesday that “the New York Board of Regents has officially banned all uses of images and names for school mascots related to indigenous people.” At this late date in the woke-ification of America, there wasn’t even any controversy over this: “The board voted unanimously Tuesday morning, without discussion.”

This was the culmination of a process that has been going on for a good while: “The proposal was announced by the state Education Department in November, and education officials have been urging school boards to begin the process to change mascot images and names ever since.” Why is anyone on the New York Board of Regents paying attention to this matter at all? Because, you see, fans of teams called the Indians and Chiefs and Braves and even Redskins never realized it, but all the time they were rooting for their teams, they were really indulging in an act of hate.

In the Left’s view, you see, people name their sports teams after things they despise. 

. . .

The war against mascots is also completely inconsistent. There are ongoing efforts to force the Minnesota Vikings to change their name because the name “Viking” supposedly glorifies colonialism and white supremacism. But if the “Viking” name glorifies whiteness, why don’t the “Chief” or “Warrior” or “Indian” names glorify Native Americans? The war against mascots is, in other words, simply another Leftist effort to make Americans generally ashamed of their own culture and heritage. A nation that is ashamed won’t have the will to defend itself. . . .

Read the rest here. 

Exit question:  In the interest of keeping fans ashamed of themselves and their team, why did not the Tribe owners select The Cleveland Worms instead of the Cleveland Guardians?  Or, if it was important to keep “dians” in the new name, well then, how about

The Cleveland Haemosporidians?

(For utterly fascinating information about the “avian haemosporidian parasite,” click here.)

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