[Breitbart] California’s gas taxes will rise on July 1, and new "low carbon" fuel standards will take effect, pushing gas prices up by as much as 65 cents per gallon or more, forcing drivers to pay an estimated $6 per gallon.
San Diego’s local CBS affiliate, KFMB-TV, reported on Tuesday:
California drivers are bracing for a substantial increase in gas prices starting July 1, as multiple new taxes and regulations take effect. Experts are divided on just how high prices will climb, but some estimates suggest they could reach up to $6 per gallon.
The first factor contributing to the price hike is an increase in the state’s excise tax, which will rise by 1.6 cents per gallon. However, this is just the beginning of the cost increases.
A more significant impact is expected from the Low Carbon Fuel Standard program, approved by the state’s air resources board in November. This program aims to reduce California’s greenhouse gas emissions, but will result in stricter regulations on gas producers.
Warnings have been circulating for weeks that gas prices could rise even higher in the state — perhaps as high as $9 per gallon. High taxes and fuel standards already make California’s gas the most expensive in the U.S., and new taxes passed by the Democrat-controlled legislature and signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom mean there is no end in sight.
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[Daily Caller] Democrat California Rep. Lateefah Simon lashed out at Republican witnesses at the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday for quoting Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Simon told the witnesses to keep King’s name "out of their mouth[s]" during a hearing on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). The witnesses she addressed were Dan Lennington of the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, Judge Glock of the Manhattan Institute and Erec Smith of the Cato Institute.
Simon accused President Donald Trump’s administration “used Dr. King’s name” to argue in favor of pushing the U.S. back to a “segregated America” based on race, sex, ethnicity, national origin and gender identity.
[RedState] On Wednesday morning, while talking about New York's mayoral primary with the host on a live radio spot, I heard myself saying something alarming. Only days ago, I would have bet serious money that those words would never be uttered by me. The fateful words were these: "It would have been better if Cuomo had won."
“Vote for the crook. It’s important.” Governor Cuomo missed a really great campaign opportunity. Oh well.
I know, right?
The guy who won, full-bore Communist Zohran Mamdani, is now making all kinds of promises, and while we all know that his mouth is writing checks his butt can't cash on many of these, he can do enough to make things very unpleasant on the very people who keep the Big Apple's economy afloat. Former NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio started this trend, and now, assuming he wins - and he's well-positioned to do so - he'll be de Blasio on steroids.
Predictably, those same people, the productive, the few people who can still make money in New York, the few people who pay most of the taxes, are looking to the exits.
Within minutes of Zohran Mamdani clinching the Democratic nomination Tuesday night, real estate agents like Ryan Serhant were flooded with calls from clients looking to walk away from deals to buy apartments in NYC. High-end buyers are now looking to purchase property outside of the city.
“My number one job will be moving people from New York to Florida. Again,” Serhant told me. “Based on the results, clients are going to hold off on making any kind of investment in New York City.”
According to a note I reviewed, one client who had made an offer on a Chelsea apartment sent her broker an email minutes after former Governor Cuomo conceded to Zohran Mamdani. “We are going to take a break from looking until there’s more clarity on the mayoral election,” the client wrote.
Let's just hope these same people don't take their New York voting habits with them.
Of course, there's still the general election to come, and it's not certain that Mamdani will win, although his clinching the Democratic nomination puts him in a strong spot in that deep-blue city. People's reactions to that speak for themselves:
“There are plenty of other places to live,” he said. Agents in the Sunshine Belt, which covers the southern part of the U.S., including Arizona, Texas, and Florida, have been the busiest since lat night, Serhant noted.
Of course, it might not be all bad. Another source told me that the number of New Yorkers looking to flee the possibility of a socialist mayor could create a significant “Mamdani discount” in the real estate market.
Yeah, except it's a fair bet no one will be willing to buy - and the commie Mamdani may just take over those buildings for "free" housing, since playing Santa Claus seems to be his bag.
🚨 JUST IN: The low income people in New York City voted en masse AGAINST the guy who promised to create government-run grocery stores and “freeze” the rent.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Malek Dudakov
[REGNUM] The entire past week was spent in an atmosphere of foreign policy somersaults by the Donald Trump administration. Washington tried to implement its classic strategy of “escalate to de-escalate.” Ooooohhhh, classic!
First, the White House sharply raised the stakes to the limit, practically bringing the situation to the brink of a nuclear conflict in the Middle East. And then, just as sharply, it lowered them, trying to enter into new negotiations. However, the results of this were perceived extremely contradictorily - both inside the US and outside of America.
Trump ran for office with the promise to stop all wars and go down in modern history as almost the main peacemaker.
In the first five months of his term, he failed to resolve the conflict in Ukraine or stop the fighting in the Gaza Strip.
I vote for arc lighting Gaza from south to north — that’ll get their attention.
At the same time, the US allowed itself to launch direct strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities for the first time. The risks were extremely high - but Trump was very lucky, and the world got off with a light scare. The Strait of Hormuz was not closed, and instead of a powerful strike on American bases, Iran responded symbolically.
Within the United States, the Iranian drama has caused a very powerful rift.
All the polls showed that the American public was against direct involvement in the conflict with Iran. For the first time, the broad MAGA coalition of Trump supporters, which had brought him to power, also experienced severe discord. Isolationists in both parties were furious, demanding that the president’s war powers be limited.
Sure, but that’s only 10% of Republicans. The Democrats have so many problems this practically doesn’t rate.
Trump's overall ratings have also begun to fall - they now average around 40%.
The questions must have been shaped as carefully as the demographics of those questioned, and just as far from matching reality.
This is much lower than what Joe Biden had at the beginning of summer 2021, for example.
The Middle East crisis has begun to directly influence electoral processes in America.
It was against this backdrop that the dramatic Democratic primaries for the New York City mayoral elections took place. They were sensationally won by a 33-year-old representative of the left faction of the Democratic Party named Zohran Mamdani. He is from a family of Indian Muslims. Mamdani ran on an anti-war and Israel-critical platform. He has a very good chance of becoming the next mayor of New York.
The 2026 midterm elections will see the left gain ground and elect many of its candidates to Congress. The isolationist faction within the Democratic camp will grow.
We are witnessing a process of elite change within the Democratic Party. Young left-wing politicians are replacing the old guard of centrist Democrats in the spirit of Biden, Nancy Pelosi, or Senate Caucus Leader Chuck Schumer, supporters of interventionism and foreign policy adventures.
De facto, this is the Republican equivalent of the MAGA revolution, only now it is affecting the Democrats. The division of America will clearly continue to intensify.
Perspicacious.
And in 2028, we may see two diametrically opposed views of the future of the United States.
One, very right-wing, could be articulated by Vice President J.D. Vance, a Trumpist. The other, far left, would be personified by the Democratic Party candidates.
By that point they may have given up the “Democratic Party” figleaf and gone straight to calling the party Democratic Socialists.
But they could agree on a common desire for isolationism.
Trump clearly feels the demand of American society, so it is extremely important for him to appear as a "peacemaker". Immediately after its attack on Iranian facilities, the White House declared victory and the complete destruction of Tehran's nuclear program. Washington began to call on the Iranians to sit down at the negotiating table as soon as possible, if only to avoid further escalation.
However, things did not go according to Trump's team's plan right away.
They had to enter into another clinch with the US intelligence community, which was extremely skeptical about the consequences of the strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities. They can be restored in literally a couple of months. There is no talk of complete destruction.
Trump critics in the US intelligence services will likely be fired in the near future.
One can only hope so.
But more and more inconvenient facts about the real consequences of the attack on Iran will likely emerge.
At the same time, things are not going well on the European track either.
The recent NATO summit in The Hague was once again held under the shadow of all the contradictions that have accumulated in relations between Europeans and Americans. Moreover, they have not been able to be resolved.
Tariff wars continue. On the issue of sanctions against Russia and support for Ukraine, European countries are again isolated. The only thing they can offer the US is a promise to increase military spending at some point in the future.
However, the Americans do not really believe the unfounded assurances of their European NATO allies.
Some have been known to make promises they had no intention of keeping, just to shut us up…
Many of them still cannot even reach 2% of their GDP in defense budgets, let alone the 3.5% or 5% that is currently being discussed. This is an impossible task for almost everyone - with the possible exception of Poland alone.
The Europeans have to engage in outright eyewash. For example, they include everything in military spending, such as expenses on the green transition, the development of civilian infrastructure, or the fight against migrants.
Moreover, many European elites are now blackmailing the US with the opportunity to spend more money on developing their military-industrial complex as opposed to the American one.
This, too, is clearly not understood by Trump's team.
However, at the summit, NATO bureaucracy tried in every way to avoid all the pressing issues. Just to show some illusion of internal unity. Otherwise, the Americans could have announced a reduction of their presence in Europe right during the event.
The summit was kept as short as possible to avoid any reason to anger Trump.
The American president himself also benefited from maintaining his reputation as a "peacemaker", so he did not start any major squabbles with the Europeans at the summit. Even Trump's meeting with Volodymyr Zelensky was quite routine and orderly. However, there was no progress for the Ukrainian lobby here either.
No one made firm promises to allocate new tranches to Kyiv, they got away with general non-binding formulations. Trump directly stated that the scarce missiles for air defense systems are now more needed by Israel and America than by Ukraine.
The White House is not at all against doing something on the Ukrainian track after its Middle East somersaults. But Trump's team still can't quite figure out what to do.
The Americans are in no hurry to agree to Russia's conditions, or to soften sanctions. Washington does not yet have the political will to arrange a regime change in Kyiv and bring someone capable of reaching an agreement to power. Trump's team cannot and will not increase the degree of confrontation with Russia.
The result is a largely paradoxical situation of political paralysis.
Although the negotiation process on working and technical issues between Russia and the US is ongoing, partial normalization of the work of diplomatic services or the resumption of direct air traffic is possible.
But it is still unclear what could trigger the Trump team to seriously return to the topic of de-escalation in Ukraine. After all, the Americans showed with all their appearance at the NATO summit that they already have other issues on the agenda.
The main result of the last week is the shift of the White House's focus to problems outside Europe and Ukraine. Hence the poorly concealed panic of the NATO summit participants. After all, they understand that Trump's interest in dealing with their problems is decreasing with each passing day.
Even though the American president has agreed not to discredit Article 5 of the alliance charter on mutual assistance, Europeans subconsciously understand that US security guarantees are gradually dissolving into thin air.
Especially in the context of general global instability and division within America, which are diverting all the forces of Trump’s team.
[AnNahar] The World Bank announced on Wednesday it had approved a $250 million project to support Leb ...The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers... 's reconstruction and recovery following last year's devastating war between Israel and Hezbollah.
The bank had previously estimated reconstruction and recovery to cost around $11 billion.
"The World Bank Board of Executive Directors approved yesterday a US$250 million financing to Lebanon to support the most urgent repair and reconstruction of damaged critical public infrastructure and lifeline services, and the sustainable management of rubble in conflict-affected areas," it said in a statement.
Jean-Christophe Carret, the World Bank Middle East Department's division director, said that "given Lebanon's large reconstruction needs, the (project) is structured as a $1 billion scalable framework with an initial $250 million contribution from the World Bank."
Prime Minister Nawaf Salam welcomed the decision, calling the project "a key step in reconstruction by responding to damage to critical infrastructure and essential services in war-affected areas."
"This support strengthens recovery efforts within the state-led implementation framework and leverages much-needed additional financing," he said.
More than a year of hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel, including a full-blown war that began in September, ended with a ceasefire agreement in late November.
The conflict caused massive destruction across Lebanon, particularly in Hezbollah strongholds in the country's south and east and in Beirut's southern suburbs, and further exacerbated economic woes caused by an economic crisis that started in 2019.
Reconstruction remains one of the greatest challenges facing Lebanon's government, with Beirut seeking foreign aid to finance the post-war recovery.
Continued on Page 47
#3
Reconstruction remains one of the greatest challenges facing Lebanon's government, with Beirut seeking foreign aid to finance the post-war recovery.
No, that really isn't one of their "greatest challenges."
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] US President Donald Trump's recent statement on Article 5 of the NATO Charter on collective security has jeopardized the alliance's summit in The Hague. This was reported on June 25 by the Financial Times, citing three European officials.
Earlier, when asked whether he remained committed to the principle of collective defense, Trump told a reporter that the decision “depends on what definition you subscribe to.”
"Three European officials attending the summit said the comments had cast a shadow over the meeting and threatened to derail the event," the report said.
According to the newspaper's source, the outcome of the meeting depends on the decision Trump makes.
"We are all sitting here waiting for him to tell us whether he will defend Europe," the source said.
As reported by the Regnum news agency, the NATO summit in The Hague took place on June 24 and 25. Following its results, the participants of the meeting made a joint statement, in which they indicated that Russia remains a long-term threat to Euro-Atlantic security. The leaders of the countries that are members of the alliance also confirmed their commitment to the principle of collective defense.
Deputy Director of the Center for Comprehensive European and International Studies at the Higher School of Economics, Valdai Club expert Dmitry Suslov told the Regnum news agency that NATO is seriously preparing for war with Russia, and the bloc does not need pretexts like the Ukrainian crisis. NATO statements that the "Russian threat" is the main one for the bloc are heard regularly in various formulations: both from its individual representatives and at the communiqué level. There is nothing surprising about this, Suslov believes. The expert also recalled that NATO is actively strengthening the military infrastructure on the Russian borders.
Text taken from the Telegram channel of Belarus_VPO
Commentary by Russian military journalist Boris Rozhin is in italics.
[ColonelCassad] Interesting concept from the Chinese to launch UAVs using artillery shells.
NEW HORIZONS FOR UAVS
China is actively developing the Tianyan project, the purpose of which is to deliver a UAV to a specified area using artillery.
The Tianyan product is a 155mm projectile of an unusual design, inside which a UAV and a set of auxiliary devices are placed. The system is compatible with existing artillery guns. After firing, the projectile opens in the air, releasing the UAV, which is then capable of performing various tasks, including reconnaissance or strikes.
This delivery method offers several significant advantages. Modern artillery systems are capable of firing tens of kilometers, which significantly increases the combat radius and reduces the time it takes for the UAV to reach the required area. In addition, thanks to the projectile, the UAV saves its own energy, which allows it to increase the range and duration of the flight after deployment.
However, this technology has its limitations. The dimensions of the projectile container limit the size of the UAV, which imposes limits on its functionality and payload. Also, the UAV must be designed in such a way as to withstand extremely high overloads when fired. Another technical challenge is to accurately and safely separate the projectile and its payload at a predetermined point in the trajectory.
The Tianyan project vividly illustrates the trend towards integrating unmanned technologies with traditional weapons, opening up new horizons for their application. The future of UAV development will increasingly focus on creating multifunctional, low-observable and quickly deployable systems, as well as improving the methods of their delivery and launch.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
...The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers...
