Sunday, February 28, 2021
The Marxist, Totalitarian Left Just Got Sideswiped By Swain....
@carolmswain
More On Carol Swain:
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Struts In: White Men Need To Explain Themselves...
Sorry, That Does Not Align With The Corporate Subsidized BLM Marxist Movement.
The real reason why Bill Gates is now the US’ biggest farmland owner
Late last year, Eric O’Keefe was researching a mysterious recent purchase of 14,500 acres of prime Washington state farmland. His magazine, The Land Report, tracks major land transactions and produces an annual list of the 100 biggest US landowners.
Sales of more than a thousand acres are “blue-moon events,” O’Keefe noted, so this one stood out. And Eastern Washington has some of the richest, most expensive farmland in the country. But the purchaser of record was a small, obscure company in Louisiana.
“That immediately set off alarm bells,” O’Keefe says.
He assigned his research team to dig a little deeper. Soon they came back with the answer: The Louisiana company was acting on behalf of Cascade Investment LLC, the secretive investment firm that manages most of the huge fortune belonging to Bill Gates.
O’Keefe knew Gates had been acquiring farmland for years, mostly through various Cascade subsidiaries. The mogul’s holdings include large tracts in Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, California, and about a dozen other states. With the Washington state acreage and other recent additions to his portfolio, O’Keefe calculated, Gates now owns at least 242,000 acres of American farmland.
“Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft, has an alter ego,” O’Keefe wrote: “Farmer Bill, the guy who owns more farmland than anyone else in America.”
The Land Report scoop made headlines. Many stories focused on Gates’ longstanding interest in climate change and sustainability and suggested those concerns might be driving the land purchases. Newsweek called him a “sustainable agriculture champion.”
Those stories dovetailed with earlier reports about Gates’ large land acquisitions in Arizona. Most notably, in 2017, the Gates-affiliated Mt. Lemmon Holdings invested in some 40 square miles of “transitional” land on the western fringe of the Phoenix sprawl. (According to The Land Report, Gates owns about 27,000 acres of non-agricultural land, in addition to his farm holdings.)
Some partners in the Arizona project issued a press release touting plans to build “a forward-thinking community … that embraces cutting-edge technology.” There was talk of “high-speed digital networks” and “autonomous logistics hubs.” That was all it took for many in the media to conclude that Gates was personally engineering the city of the future.
“Bill Gates has started laying out his plans for creating a ‘smart city’ in Phoenix, Arizona,” science-news outlet Futurism wrote. This high-tech metropolis “could be both a breeding and testing ground for futuristic technologies.”
In reality, the idea that Bill Gates was single-handedly reinventing farming — or designing cities of tomorrow — was almost entirely speculation.
“There’s a tendency in the media to personalize this,” O’Keefe says. “People want to know, ’Why does Bill Gates want all this land?’ ”
But hyper-wealthy people like Gates don’t make every decision personally, O’Keefe notes. “He has very competent investment managers.”
Given that Gates is the third-richest person in the world — with an estimated net worth of $132 billion, he falls in behind Tesla founder Elon Musk and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos — those money managers have their hands full.
Investment guru Michael Larson, who has worked with Gates since 1994, runs the Washington-based Cascade Investment, as well as supervising the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s nearly $50 billion endowment.![]()
Bill Gates (with Terra Power board member Nathan Myhrvold) is well known for supporting environmental innovation, but his farming plans were more secretive — until now.Bloomberg via Getty Images
“The arrangement is simple,” The Wall Street Journal wrote in a 2014 profile. “Mr. Larson makes money, and Mr. Gates gives it away.”
Larson and his team are famously tight-lipped. Cascade employees almost never speak to the press. According to the Journal, they are even discouraged from using Facebook and other social-media platforms. (Through a spokesperson, the company declined to comment for this article.)
Larson sees to it that Gates’ wealth is sensibly, even conservatively, invested. According to public records, the billionaire’s portfolio includes shares in Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway conglomerate, a Coca-Cola bottling company, and the tractor manufacturer Deere & Co., among other non-flashy investments.
People want to know, “Why does Bill Gates want all this land?”Eric O’Keefe, of The Land Report magazine
Larson also makes sure Gates keeps his eggs in a wide variety of baskets. His portfolio is diversified, in other words. And that’s where the land purchases come in.
Most of us imagine farmers tilling the soil that has been in their families for generations. But many farmers lease at least some of the land they cultivate. According to Bruce Sherrick, a professor of agricultural economics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, about 60 percent of row-crop farmland in the Midwest is leased. The landowners can include investors like Gates.
For investors who know what they’re doing, agricultural land offers financial stability in uncertain times.
“Farmland has had a remarkably consistent ability to hedge against inflation,” Sherrick says.
And it tends to be “negatively correlated” against other investments, he adds: If the stock market is going down, the return on farmland is likely to be going up.
But farmland isn’t easy to buy:
Some partners in the Arizona project issued a press release touting plans to build “a forward-thinking community … that embraces cutting-edge technology.” There was talk of “high-speed digital networks” and “autonomous logistics hubs.” That was all it took for many in the media to conclude that Gates was personally engineering the city of the future.
“Bill Gates has started laying out his plans for creating a ‘smart city’ in Phoenix, Arizona,” science-news outlet Futurism wrote. This high-tech metropolis “could be both a breeding and testing ground for futuristic technologies.”
In reality, the idea that Bill Gates was single-handedly reinventing farming — or designing cities of tomorrow — was almost entirely speculation.
“There’s a tendency in the media to personalize this,” O’Keefe says. “People want to know, ’Why does Bill Gates want all this land?’ ”
But hyper-wealthy people like Gates don’t make every decision personally, O’Keefe notes. “He has very competent investment managers.”
Given that Gates is the third-richest person in the world — with an estimated net worth of $132 billion, he falls in behind Tesla founder Elon Musk and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos — those money managers have their hands full.
Investment guru Michael Larson, who has worked with Gates since 1994, runs the Washington-based Cascade Investment, as well as supervising the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s nearly $50 billion endowment.
“The arrangement is simple,” The Wall Street Journal wrote in a 2014 profile. “Mr. Larson makes money, and Mr. Gates gives it away.”
Larson and his team are famously tight-lipped. Cascade employees almost never speak to the press. According to the Journal, they are even discouraged from using Facebook and other social-media platforms. (Through a spokesperson, the company declined to comment for this article.)
Larson sees to it that Gates’ wealth is sensibly, even conservatively, invested. According to public records, the billionaire’s portfolio includes shares in Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway conglomerate, a Coca-Cola bottling company, and the tractor manufacturer Deere & Co., among other non-flashy investments.
People want to know, “Why does Bill Gates want all this land?”Eric O’Keefe, of The Land Report magazine
Larson also makes sure Gates keeps his eggs in a wide variety of baskets. His portfolio is diversified, in other words. And that’s where the land purchases come in.
Most of us imagine farmers tilling the soil that has been in their families for generations. But many farmers lease at least some of the land they cultivate. According to Bruce Sherrick, a professor of agricultural economics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, about 60 percent of row-crop farmland in the Midwest is leased. The landowners can include investors like Gates.
For investors who know what they’re doing, agricultural land offers financial stability in uncertain times.
“Farmland has had a remarkably consistent ability to hedge against inflation,” Sherrick says.
And it tends to be “negatively correlated” against other investments, he adds: If the stock market is going down, the return on farmland is likely to be going up.
But farmland isn’t easy to buy:
The Presidency Changes People In Strange Ways...
So I turned myself to face me
But I've never caught a glimpse
Of how the others must see the faker
I'm much too fast to take that test
Leftists Cook Up Crazed Fever Dream to See Nazi Symbolism at CPAC
Leftists are convinced that the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) is a nefarious conclave of secret Nazis plotting an insurrection. Many activists on Twitter have seized on the shape of the CPAC stage at the Hyatt Regency in Orlando, Fla., claiming it is shaped like a secret rune to cater to Neo-Nazis. Partially for this reason, activists have demanded that Hyatt Hotels stop hosting this “hateful” confab. Hyatt rightly stood up to this absurd cancel push.
Leftists have mocked CPAC as “QPAC,” slamming Republicans as supporters of the QAnon conspiracy theory, even though the worst offender in the GOP, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), has disavowed QAnon. This secret Nazi conspiracy theory makes QAnon seem sane.
“Dear [Hyatt], Are you okay with Nazi symbols being used on your properties?” history teacher and PBS Zoom video podcast host Sari Beth Rosenberg asked on Twitter. “Because if you fail to speak out & do something about this immediately, I’ll be sure to no longer patronize any of your properties ever again.”
Rosenberg shared an image that has gone viral on Twitter, comparing the design of the CPAC stage to an oral rune, which the Nazi Waffen SS units used during World War II. While Neo-Nazi groups do use this symbol, it is far less known than the swastika. Even the document that Rosenberg posted to explain the symbol included other symbols like the schutzstaffel (SS) bolts and the Celtic cross, which the Nazis used but which is far more associated with Ireland and Christianity than with the Nazis.
Matt Schlapp, chair of the American Conservative Union (ACU), which organizes CPAC, definitively debunked this absurd conspiracy theory.
“Stage design conspiracies are outrageous and slanderous,” Schlapp tweeted. “We have a long standing commitment to the Jewish community. Cancel culture extremists must address antisemitism within their own ranks. CPAC proudly stands with our Jewish allies, including those speaking from this stage.”
Indeed, CPAC hosts many Jewish speakers, supports the Jewish State of Israel, and celebrates Judeo-Christian values. The official CPAC program included two Jewish prayer services, a Purim luncheon, and a Shabbat dinner on Friday.
Rabbi Yaakov Menken, managing director of the Coalition for Jewish Values (CJV) had the perfect response. “The left is desperate to draw attention from their elevation of antisemites in Congress… so they claim a stage design is antisemitic,” he said on Twitter.
“The Left traffics in ‘dog whistles’ so incredibly sensitive that only leftists can hear them, as compared to the supposed targets, who only see a stage,” Menken added in a statement to PJ Media.
“I wish that all those who for politics pretend to care about hate, real or imagined, would speak up when...
“The Left traffics in ‘dog whistles’ so incredibly sensitive that only leftists can hear them, as compared to the supposed targets, who only see a stage,” Menken added in a statement to PJ Media.
“I wish that all those who for politics pretend to care about hate, real or imagined, would speak up when...
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(asking for a friend)
Democrats Block Rep. Andy Barr’s Amendment to Prevent COVID-19 Relief Funds from Going to China
Democrats in the House Rules Committee on Friday voted against an amendment by Rep. Andy Barr (R-KY) that would prevent any American taxpayer-funded COVID-19 relief dollars from going to the Chinese Communist Party.
His amendment would have barred any of the $1.9 trillion in COVID-19 relief bill funds from being made available to “any enterprise, agency, instrumentality owned by the Government of the People’s Republic of China or the Chinese Communist Party.”
Barr said when he introduced his amendment to the Democrat-controlled committee:
The coronavirus, as you know, started in China. It was made worse by the Chinese Communist Party suppressing information about the spread of the virus and in no way should the CCP be able to further benefit from weaponizing the global supply chain and receiving the U.S. taxpayer funds.
“My amendment ensures that none of the funding in this bill, and particularly none of the $10 billion dollars in the international affairs funding, goes to entities owned by the Chinese government or the CCP,” he said.
Barr said his amendment was “common sense.”
“There is no reason why my colleagues should oppose them. American tax dollars should benefit the American people during a pandemic, not undermine the national security interests of the United States,” he said.
He said allowing funds in the bill to subsidize the Chinese Communist Party would “only prove the lunacy of…a nearly $2 trillion dollar blowout that is being rushed through the House on a party line vote.”
After Democrats shot down the amendment, Barr said in a statement, “COVID-19 relief funds should not be used to subsidize businesses or entities owned by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).”
He added:
Any relief bill should be targeted to strengthen American businesses and the American economy, not be used as a vehicle to funnel taxpayer dollars to the CCP. Democrats are continuing their soft on China policies by voting against this common sense amendment. I will continue working on the House Foreign Affairs Committee to reject soft on China policies and better position the United States to confront the...
Dubbing Capitol complex ‘Fort Pelosi,’ Boebert draws cheers at CPAC over Natl Guard still being in DC
Republican lawmakers ridiculed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s ongoing deployment of National Guard troops and police as well as fencing and razor wire around the U.S. Capitol during speeches at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, Fla., on Saturday.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if we start quartering soldiers in the committee hearing rooms,” said freshman Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado, who dubbed the Capitol complex “Fort Pelosi.”
“There’s plenty in the parking garages at Fort Pelosi. Maybe we can start unreasonably seizing and searching members of Congress. Oh, wait, we’re already doing that in House chambers,” Boebert added, likely a reference to Pelosi’s unilateral decision last month to install metal detectors and post guards at each entrance to the House chamber following the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol.
GOP lawmakers and political commentators including Fox News’ Tucker Carlson have repeatedly questioned why armed Guard troops and fencing remain in place around the Capitol nearly two months later, but they say their questions have gone unanswered.
Earlier this month, Rep. Michael Waltz, (R-Fla.), a former U.S. Army Green Beret and current National Guard officer, also dubbed the Capitol Complex “Fort Pelosi.”
“I’m still a serving national guardsman, and I can appreciate that those soldiers were pulled out of their businesses, their jobs, their families, and they’re sitting there with this open-ended mandate,” he told Fox Business Network.
“I’ve repeatedly asked, as have a number of my colleagues, the Army, the National Guard Bureau, the Department of Justice, what is the threat that is so large, specifically, that requires more soldiers on Capitol Hill than we have in Iraq and Afghanistan combined? And then what are we going to do about it? What are we going to do going forward?” Waltz continued.
“This is just this kind of open-ended mandate. I’m calling it Fort Pelosi at this point. The Guard can’t serve as her private security force, and we need answers and we’re not getting any.”
Added Rep. Lisa McClain (R-Mich.), in a separate interview with “Fox & Friends, “Myself and several of my colleagues have asked Nancy Pelosi for a briefing as to why do we need these troops here? And we have received zero information, zero.
“I feel like there’s a boogie man under my bed,” McClain continued.. “So, at the end of the day, is just explain to us why we have the National Guard troops.”
She said at the time, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) was considering a proposal to send an additional 1,000 Michigan National Guard soldiers to Washington, D.C., prompting McClain to argue those troops would better serve their fellow Michiganders “with the distribution of the COVID relief vaccination.”
Some Democrats have said the troops and fencing remain in place because security threats remain, and they blame Republicans and former President Donald Trump. And
As for Boebert, she has regularly triggered Democrats with her insistence on carrying a concealed weapon on Capitol Grounds, as rules in place since the 1960s permit lawmakers to do.
“I am legally permitted to carry my firearm in Washington, D.C., and within the Capitol complex,” she tweeted on January 12. “Metal detectors outside of the House would not have stopped the violence we saw last week—it’s just another political stunt by Speaker Pelosi.” During her CPAC panel discussion, she accused Democrats of preparing, once again, to go after Second Amendment rights, noting they “don’t want you to be able to...
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