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Smith & Wesson CEO Mark Smith fired off a statement Monday, blaming "a number of politicians" for "the surge in violence and lawlessness" in US cities. 

Smith blamed "politicians and their lobbying partners in the media" for pushing failed progressive policies that have contributed to the recent rise in violence.

Amid an unprecedented and unjustified attack on the firearm industry, Smith & Wesson President & CEO issues strong statement: pic.twitter.com/6NHztbGIe4

— Smith & Wesson Inc. (@Smith_WessonInc) August 15, 2022

He said, "some [lawmakers] have had the audacity to suggest that after they have vilified, undermined and defunded law enforcement for years, supported prosecutors who refuse to hold criminals accountable for their actions, overseen the decay of our country's mental health infrastructure, and generally promoted a culture of lawlessness, Smith & Wesson and other firearm manufacturers are somehow responsible for the crime wave that has predictably resulted from these destructive policies."

"But they [lawmakers] are the ones to blame for the surge in violence and lawlessness, and they seek to avoid any responsibility for the crisis of violence they have created by attempting to shift the blame to Smith & Wesson, other firearm manufacturers and law-abiding gun owners," Smith continued. 

He said it was "no surprise that the cities suffering most from violent crime are the very same cities that have promoted irresponsible, soft-on-crime policies that often treat criminals as victims and victims as criminals. Many of these same cities also maintain the strictest gun laws in the nation."

Smith said politicians who push failed progressive policies scapegoat gun manufacturers: 

"But rather than confront the failure of their policies, certain politicians have sought more laws restricting the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens..." 

Smith made it clear that no Smith & Wesson firearm has broken into a home, assaulted a woman out for a late-night run in the city, and or carjacked an unsuspecting driver stopped at a traffic light. "Instead, Smith & Wesson provides these citizens with the means to protect themselves and their families," he added.

Smith's statement comes two weeks after the US House Oversight Committee subpoenaed the 170-year company for data on the manufacture and sale of AR-15-style assault rifles. 

Update (2130ET): Add Toyota Motor Corp. and Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., the world's largest battery maker, to the growing list of companies shutting down factories in China's Sichuan province as a drought-induced power crisis worsens, according to Bloomberg. 

Toyota closed its plant in the provincial capital of Chengdu until Saturday, a company spokesperson said, while Contemporary Amperex halted operations at its lithium battery factory in Yibin. 

Sichuan is one of China's most populated provinces, with 80 million inhabitants, and is home to a major manufacturing hub heavily reliant on hydropower. 

However, a heatwave and drought have caused reservoir levels to drop, resulting in declining power generation and forcing local authorities to ration power for factories. 

The shutdowns add to a growing number in industries stemming from solar panels to aluminum smelting. Volkswagen AG said on Monday that its factory in Chengdu is affected by power shortages, but that it was only expecting slight delays in deliveries to customers. Foxconn Technology Co. also makes Apple iPads in the province, but said it was seeing only limited impact from the drought so far. -Bloomberg 

The drought-induced power crisis is another excuse Beijing can use to explain why its economy falters. 

* * * 

China's worst heatwave in decades is curbing hydropower generation in one of the country's most populous provinces. Local authorities requested some factories in southwestern China to halt production to conserve electricity, adding to the financial pressures of an already rapidly slowing economy. 

Sichuan province has more than 80 million inhabitants and is home to a major manufacturing hub. The Washington Post said some factories had suspended production on request by the government due to high temperatures and drought, leading to declining water flows through local hydropower reservoirs. 

Jin Xiandong, a spokesman for the National Development and Reform Commission, said on Tuesday that China has to increase coal-fired power output because of waning hydropower output. 

China's inland Sichuan province is a major manufacturing hub that produces consumer goods from electronics, furniture, and food. Also, it's home to the world's largest crystalline silicon solar cell producer.

China Securities Journal said Foxconn's plant in Sichuan that produces Apple products, such as iPads and Macs, wouldn't be significantly impacted by power rationings. 

The province is highly dependent on hydropower, and high temperatures that could last through the end of this month might indicate more power restrictions for manufacturing plants. 

Fu Linghui, China's National Bureau of Statistics spokesman, said the heatwave has sparked "adverse effects on economic operations," adding that the economic recovery "has slowed down marginally." 

On Sunday, we noted that China's central bank unexpectedly cut its key interest rates in a feeble attempt to prop up the failing economy weighed by Covid lockdowns, property downturn, and a crippling heatwave. The cut comes after July's economic data was awful, pointing to an economic slowdown gaining momentum. 

Further power cuts in Sichuan will result in more production suspension and dampen the country's souring economic outlook.  

Authored by Jack Bradley via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The effort to recall Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón failed to gather enough valid petition signatures, the county registrar’s office announced Aug. 15.

The county Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk’s office counted 520,050 valid signatures, falling short of the required 566,857.

Recall spokesman Tim Lineberger called the results “surprising and disappointing,” in a statement sent to The Epoch Times.

[ZH: As noted two weeks ago, election observers weren't allowed to view the count]

Wow, crazy to think almost 200K signatures were invalid—a number that brought the petition just slightly below the threshold requirement! What are the odds? https://t.co/HSqOI0RqXj

— Michael Knowles (@michaeljknowles) August 15, 2022

For the over half a million residents that placed valid signatures, Lineberger said, “To deprive them of the opportunity to restore public safety in their own communities is heartbreaking. And to interpret this in any other way other than a wholesale rejection of Gascon’s dangerous polices would be disingenuous, or naive at best.”

Gascón’s campaign spokeswoman Elise Moore told The Epoch Times they were “glad to move forward from this attempted political power grab.”

“The DA’s primary focus is and has always been keeping us safe and creating a more equitable justice system for all. Today’s announcement does not change that,” she said.

Gascón wrote on Twitter Monday, “Rest assured LA County, the work hasn’t stopped. My primary focus has been & will always be keeping us safe & creating a more equitable justice system for all. I remain strongly committed to that work & to you.”

Recall organizers submitted 715,833 signatures last month to the registrar’s office to force Gascón into a recall election. The county announced Monday that 195,783 of the signatures were invalid.

Over 88,000 were invalidated because the person signing the petition was not a registered voter, and there were nearly 44,000 duplicate signatures, according to the county.

The county’s former district attorney Steve Cooley sent a letter on Aug. 8 to the Los Angeles Board of Supervisors, alleging that the registrar’s office did not follow proper guidelines when verifying signatures for the campaign during the random sampling last month.

In a random sampling of about 5 percent, or 35,793, of the signatures, the clerk validated about 27,983, which was less than 31,179, the minimum for the recall petition to be automatically validated without full verification.

One of the guidelines, Cooley said, is ensuring that voters’ signatures on the recall petitions match their signatures on file with the registrar’s office.

He said the recall campaign has “strong evidence” to believe the office didn’t follow state guidelines during the random sampling because of “the shockingly large rejection rate,” which was around 22 percent. In the general election in November 2018, the rejection rate of vote-by-mail ballots for non-matching signatures was 2 percent, he said.

Under California law, he said, it is presumed that signatures on election petitions and ballots are matching and valid unless there is a “reasonable doubt” to believe otherwise.

According to Dean Logan, who oversees the county elections office, the verification process is “highly regulated” and follows state guidelines and regulations.

Monday marked the second failure of an effort to recall Gascón. A separate attempt last year was halted by organizers, who blamed poor timing and COVID-19 lockdowns.

Gascón has been under fire since taking office in December 2020, when he issued a series of directives critics blasted as being soft on crime. The directives include a rule against seeking the death penalty, a ban on transferring juvenile defendants to adult court, and prohibitions on filing sentencing enhancements in most cases.

Read more here...

A group of journalists and lawyers that previously worked with Julian Assange and WikiLeaks who say they were illegally spied on by US intelligence are suing the CIA and its former head Mike Pompeo. "The United States Constitution shields American citizens from U.S. government overreach even when the activities take place in a foreign embassy in a foreign country," lead attorney for the plaintiffs, Richard Roth, said Monday in filing the lawsuit.

"The lawsuit said that CIA under Pompeo violated the privacy rights of those American journalists and lawyers by allegedly spying on them," Reuters reports of the legal action. "The plaintiffs include journalists Charles Glass and John Goetz and attorneys Margaret Kunstler and Deborah Hrbek, who have represented Assange."

Then CIA director under President Trump, Mike Pompeo, is at the center of the legal action and allegations. As is their normative practice, the CIA isn't commenting publicly on the lawsuit - but it's widely known and established that the CIA is barred by US laws from spying domestically or on US citizens.

The CIA's mandate, along with the rest of the US intelligence community, or IC, is exclusively foreign, with multiple scandals uncovered by 1970s into 1980s Congressional hearings (the Church Committee being foremost), resulting in attempts at greater legal safeguards to protect Americans as well as reign in major unapproved clandestine operations. 

Monday's lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, as Reuters details: 

The filing said the journalists and lawyers were required to surrender their electronic devices to Undercover Global S.L., a private security company which at the time provided security to the embassy, before their visits to Assange. The lawsuit alleged the company copied that information and provided it to the CIA, which was then headed by Pompeo.

This period in question was from Assange's seven-year asylum stay at the Ecuadorian Embassy. In July of 2020 it was revealed in testimony at the Spanish National Court,  Audiencia Nacional, by at least four former employees Undercover Global SL that the security firm was spying on Assange and those who would come visit him, including his legal team. 

US Attorneys representing Julian Assange launch lawsuit against Trump CIA director Mike Pompeo for illegally spying on their conversations

View full complaint filed Monday in Southern District of New York https://t.co/Tf1PDiV9wb pic.twitter.com/wpiKeMf9lr

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) August 15, 2022

Multiple in-depth reports by investigative journalists subsequently exposed the outfit as essentially a front for the CIA, or essentially was secretly being contracted by the intelligence agency, to keep taps on Assange and his lawyers' strategy for securing his release. This even included collecting surveillance footage of Assange and his family members from inside the embassy at that time, with bizarre efforts to collect DNA, including from his child's diaper. 

Spain's El Pais for example detailed in 2020 that "David Morales, a former military official who owns the security firm Undercover Global SL, is under investigation by Spain’s High Court, the Audiencia Nacional, for spying on Assange’s meetings with his lawyers and allegedly handing information to the CIA."

"Morales suspected that a baby who was repeatedly brought into the embassy by Stephen Hoo, an actor friend of Assange’s who paid him regular visits, might really be the cyberactivist’s own child, and these visits were recorded."

Surveillance company watched Assange in the embassy at all times, had microphones in bathroom and in fire extinguishers, taped his meetings and recorded his mood, took samples from diaper of baby that visited him, shared all data with CIA https://t.co/8IDWbDETMJ

— Lee Fang (@lhfang) September 28, 2019

The report resulted in a major public scandal and outrage, with an outpouring of support from WikiLeaks, given "Morales even issued orders to steal the baby’s diapers to analyze the contents for DNA, although the task was never carried out."

"Reports were drawn up about Stella Morris and about Stephen Hoo, according to video and documentary material to which EL PAÍS has had access." El Pais wrote further.

There have also been more recent revelations that Pompeo or other US officials may have greenlighted a 'kidnap of kill' mission if US operatives abroad ever got the chance to take out the WikiLeaks founder. Earlier this year a Spanish Court examining the allegations summoned Pompeo to explain and be questioned over the alleged plot; however, he refused the summons.

Between cratering homebuilder and homerbuyer confidence...

... record low home affordability...

... a record number of new listing with price cuts (amid the collapse in demand).

... plunging housing starts...

... and so on, as the recent surge in mortgage rates has effectively pushed the housing market into a recession, which is now so widespread that 63,000 home-purchase agreements were called off in July, equal to 16% of homes that went under contract that month. According to Redfin, that's the highest percentage on record, and only the brief spike during the covid crash - which the promptly reversed - was worse. It’s up from a revised rate of 15% one month earlier and 12.5% one year earlier.

The housing market is slowing as higher mortgage rates sideline many prospective homebuyers. With competition declining, the house hunters who are still in the market are enjoying newfound bargaining power, a striking contrast from just a few months ago, when buyers often had to pull out every stop in order to win. Today’s buyers are more likely to utilize contract contingencies that allow them to back out without financial penalty if something goes wrong. And with an increasing number of homes to choose from, they’re also more likely to call a deal off if a seller refuses to bring the price down or make requested repairs—a situation that has become increasingly common given that sellers are still adjusting to the cooling market.

“Homes are sitting on the market longer now, so buyers realize they have more options and more room to negotiate. They’re asking for repairs, concessions and contingencies, and if sellers say no, they’re backing out and moving on because they’re confident they can find something better,” said Heather Kruayai, a Redfin real estate agent in Jacksonville, FL. “Buyers are also skittish because they’re afraid a potential recession could cause home prices to drop. They don’t want to end up in a situation where they purchase a home and it’s worth $200,000 less in two years, so some are opting to wait in hopes of buying when prices are lower.”

Alexis Malin, another Redfin agent in Jacksonville, warns that there’s no guarantee buyers will be able to find better deals in the future. Annual home-price growth has started to slow—to 8% today from 17% a year ago—but prices are still on the rise and Redfin economists don’t expect them to crash.

“Some buyers who are backing out of deals have this mindset that the market is crashing and they’ll be able to get a home for $100,000 less in six months. That’s not necessarily the case,” she said. “Homes in many parts of Florida are still selling for a pretty penny, so I warn my buyers that the grass might not actually be greener on the other side.”

Some buyers may also be backing out due to 5%-plus mortgage rates. Those who started their search months ago, when rates were closer to 3%, may be realizing the type of home they wanted before is now out of budget since monthly mortgage payments have soared nearly 40% year over year.

“Home-purchase cancellations may begin to taper off as sellers get used to a slower-paced market,” said Redfin Deputy Chief Economist Taylor Marr. “Sellers have already begun to lower their prices after putting their homes on the market. They’ll likely start pricing their properties lower from the get-go and become increasingly open to negotiations.”

And just to confirm how bad the US housing market is, even the morbidly slow rating agency Fitch Ratings said the likelihood of a severe downturn in US housing has increased (although since rating agencies are never allowed to rock the boat, it said that its rating case scenario provides for a more moderate pullback that includes a mid-single-digit decline in housing activity in 2023, and further pressure in 2024.) Fitch also notes that although it recently affirmed the ratings and Stable Outlooks for our US homebuilder portfolio, "ratings could face pressure under a more pronounced downturn scenario that would likely include housing activity falling roughly 30%, or more, over a multi-year period and 10% to 15% declines in home prices."

* *  *

The biggest losers from the latest housing crash aren't sellers however, but rather homebuilders, who are suddenly finding themselves with a glut of unsold houses.

As Bloomberg notes, with this year’s surge in mortgage rates tossing buyers to the sidelines, the waitlists for new houses are gone  and new-home sellers - such as Kevin Brown, who works just south of Houston, are on the front lines of a massive shift. While Brown used to have back-to-back appointments, buyers now just trickle in to his Saratoga Homes sales office. Meanwhile, he’s got 55 houses under construction and five that are complete, all without deals.

“There’s a bit of pressure on us,” Brown said. “Builders have got to hit goals and make their profit, and they don’t like inventory just sitting on the ground.”

An abrupt halt to the pandemic housing boom has left builders that started construction months ago scrambling to adapt. The US supply of new homes relative to sales in June was the highest since the midst of the last crash in 2010. And by early July, buyer traffic to homebuilder websites and sales offices had plunged to the lowest level for the month since 2012, according to a survey of builder sentiment from the National Association of Home Builders.

The new-home pile up underscores a broader shift that’s wreaking havoc in the market. A national housing shortage contributed to years of bidding wars and desperation among buyers who bid up prices to record levels for fear of missing out. But this year’s surge in borrowing costs has now pushed affordability to a breaking point and eased some of the scarcity.

At the same time, the stage is set for longer-term supply constraints as builders pull back. A decade of underbuilding and a bulging population of young people aging into homeownership threatens to prolong the affordability squeeze.

“Despite the fact that there aren’t enough housing units in the country, builders are not willing to take the gamble that’s required to build them,” said Jerry Howard, chief executive officer of the homebuilders group. “They’re afraid that, in a recessionary environment, they won’t be able to sell them.”

In June, 824,000 single-family homes were under construction in the US, more than at any time since October 2006, according to an NAHB analysis of government data. Unsold inventory has ballooned in part because of supply-chain disruptions and labor constraints that created bottlenecks in the production pipeline.

Now, with the economy entering a recession, or already in one, builders are cutting back on starts, trying to avoid having too many completed homes sitting empty. They’re also applying for fewer building permits, which for single-family homes fell in June to a two-year low, according to data from the government.

Not every market is cooling fast. But the change is stark in the pandemic boomtowns where builders piled in to meet demand for out-of-state arrivals, who often bid up prices beyond the reach of locals.

“It has become a very competitive market for builders where they are trying to offload any standing inventory,” said Ali Wolf, chief economist for Zonda, which tracks new-home production. “We may see a period where supply may actually exceed demand for a while in some of the markets that were the most feverish over the past two years.”

Boise, Idaho, is one of those areas where a pandemic bubble is bursting. Remote workers arrived from pricier states such as California, seeking open spaces and fewer virus restrictions. But now Covid restlessness is giving way to fears that the Federal Reserve’s cure for inflation — higher rates — will tip the US into a recession.

Idaho’s biggest builder, CBH Homes, has had about a third of buyers cancel contracts in the past few months, nearly twice the level at the start of the year, according to Corey Barton, the company’s president. He’s got 200 unsold finished homes, compared with 75 at the end of last year, and said he’ll probably surpass the 350 he was left with after the last crash 15 years ago. In a sense the inventory was there all along — it was just hidden, he says.

Builders had been deliberately holding back houses, waiting until they were a couple months from completion before releasing them for sale. That’s because they couldn’t build fast enough to meet sky-high demand. By waiting, they could charge the current market price as materials costs climbed.

But now, the market is getting flooded with listings, Barton said. Homes are finishing or are getting listed earlier in the construction process.

Meanwhile, CBH has cut starts by about half. Subcontractors involved in the early stages of construction, digging out basements or pouring foundations are already feeling it, he said.

“The movement from out of state caused a false market,” Barton said. “We have to accept things for the way they are. It’s going to get tough.”

Builders of new homes find themselves in an especially trick spot, because while most traditional sellers can afford to wait or even postpone a sale if conditions deteriorate, builders will have to discount until they find the market-clearing price, said Benjamin Keys, a real estate professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.

“The homebuilders have an understandable incentive to pull back right now and Americans need more affordable housing,” Keys said.

At Saratoga Homes’s Glendale Lakes sales office, marketing director Christina Nuon said she’s making cold calls to agents and hosting happy hour events to boost sales. The company has a menu of incentives to bring down costs for its entry-level buyers, from $12,000 toward closing costs to a subsidized 30-year mortgage rate of just under 4%.

“Buying down rates, it’s kind of going to be our incentive probably from now on out,” Nuon said. “Just because that’s the only way we can help buyers. We can’t reduce the price any lower.”  

Brown, the sales consultant, says the incentives have helped put a dent in inventory: “I am trying to find one buyer at a time,” he said, “and not get overwhelmed by what I have coming up.”

He worries that at the end of a potential recession, continued underbuilding will help keep prices elevated.

A good teacher is a good teacher, regardless of skin color.  That said, by extension, a bad teacher is also still a bad teacher regardless of skin color.  If you want to find true racism in the western world, remove all questions of meritocracy and seek out people who promote “equity”- They are the real racists.  

According to a new report, a deal struck between MPS and the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers (MFT) to end a two-week strike includes a provision that requires schools to lay off or reassign white teachers before taking the same action with “educators of color.”  The provisions were labeled “educator of color protections.”

The report said that if a non-white teacher is the subject of “excess” (a term used to describe cutting a position) school districts must instead lay off the least senior white teacher. The proposal will go into effect next spring.

Here we see the true nature of “equity and diversity” in action – It's not about equality, it's about special treatment and privileges based on skin color.  It's the exact opposite of what the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s called for.  Imagine if today a teacher's union demanded that a school district fire all black and brown teachers before firing white teachers, regardless of performance?  There would be riots in the streets.  

The ignorance of equity is not limited to Minneapolis, it is widespread and flowing like a poison into every corner of our society.  It's important to keep in mind also that the teachers unions making these demands are made up of the same people that are likely in charge of educating your children.  What kind of lessons do you think they are providing to all those young and easily influenced minds?

Should people of color be conditioned to expect special treatment?  Are they entitled to it because of the the unfairness of the world a century or more ago?  It's a world they never lived, and a world that was unfair to many white people as well, so how do we divvy up reparations and privileges when there is no way to account for who deserves them?

The only legitimate form of fairness is merit.  It's the only system that works.  Minneapolis teachers should be judged based on performance, not the supposed crimes against their ancestors.  The equity ideology is utterly insane when we consider the level of future pain caused by keeping the worst people in the best positions based on skin color alone.  The decline in work ethic and productivity will be staggering unless diversity quotas are ignored and only one factor is taken into account:  Can they do their job well – Are they the best at their job, or are they the worst?  Nothing else matters.         

As new inventory is finally starting to hit the market and demand has temporarily slowed down thanks to rising rates, the housing expansion between March 2020 and now is still very likely to go down in history as blowing unprecedented amounts of air into an unprecedented bubble.

And now we have the data to show it. A new online survey commissioned by Anytime Estimate and Clever Real Estate has shed light on how much millennials paid for homes during this period, and the answer likely isn't going to surprise you: more than any other generation, ever. 

This is why it is no surprise to hear that more than 70% of millennials have regrets about their purchases. 

1,001 total people who reported having bought a home in 2021 or 2022 were surveyed between July 6th and 9th this year, answering up to 21 questions about their buying experience. 

The study found that few millennials actually came away with their dream homes, especially first time buyers, who made up 70% of all buyers in 2021 and 2022. First-timers paid a median of $510,000 for a home in 2021 and 2022 — about 13% more than the $450,000 that repeat buyers paid, the report found. 

Here are some of the additional statistics the study returned (emphasis ours):

• 70% of buyers in 2021–2022 bought a home for the first time. Among new buyers, one-third (33%) thought the process was more difficult than expected.
• Nearly 1 in 4 buyers (22%) were not satisfied with their home-buying experience.
• Survey respondents paid a median amount of $495,000 for their home — about 15% more than the national median of $428,700.
• Almost one-third of buyers (31%) paid over asking price. The median amount buyers paid over the listing price was $65,000.
• 80% of buyers made more than one offer, with 41% making five or more.
• More than 1 in 3 buyers (36%) made an offer on a home sight unseen.
• 1 in 3 buyers spent three months looking for a home, while 1 in 8 spent six months or more.
• 80% of home buyers had to compromise on their priorities.
• The No. 1 priority for half of buyers (50%) was finding a home in a good neighborhood, but 1 in 5 (20%) settled for a home in a worse location.
• Three-fourths of home buyers (72%) have regrets about their home purchase, with 1 in 3 (30%) saying they spent too much money.
• More than half of buyers (55%) bought a fixer-upper, but 1 in 4 (24%) regret it.
• 1 in 10 buyers paid for their home in cash, with nearly half of all-cash buyers (43%) saying they make enough money to afford it.
• But 29% of all-cash buyers had to withdraw money from savings, and 27% had to borrow funds from their investments.
• Of those who financed, 40% of buyers put down less than or equal to 20% on their home.

And perhaps most notably, 3 in 4 homebuyers (72%) have regrets about their purchase, the survey found.

When we see a statistic like that we can't help but that 3 in 4 people will likely be eager to turn around and put their house on the market quicker than normal when the tide in the market starts to go out. 

You can read Anytime Estimate's full survey results here. 

Research by Anytime Estimate's Data Center has been cited by The New York Times, CNBC, MarketWatch, NPR, Apartment Therapy, Yahoo Finance, Black Enterprise, and more.