5/08/2023

The one and only password tip you need

May 8, 2023

OK, it’s time for me to keep a promise.

Back in October 2022, I wrote an article called Why (almost) everything we told you about passwords was wrong. The article summarizes how a lot of what you’ve been told about passwords over the years was either wrong (change your passwords as often as your underwear), misguided (choose long, complicated passwords), or counterproductive (don’t reuse passwords).

Most damningly of all, the vast effort involved in dispensing this advice over decades has generated little discernible improvement in people’s password choices. If it hasn’t quite been a wasted effort, it has certainly represented a galactically inefficient use of resources.

We know that this advice isn’t what it’s cracked up to be thanks to intrepid researchers, such as the folks Microsoft Research, who made it their business to discover what actually makes a difference to password security in the real world, and what doesn’t.

If you want the full, three-course meal version of why all the password advice you've been told stacks up to much less than the sum of its parts you can read the original article. Here's the snack version:

Outlook for household spending slumped in April, New York Fed survey shows

May 8, 2023

The Survey of Consumer Expectations for April showed that the outlook for spending fell by half a percentage point to an annual rate of 5.2%, the lowest since September 2021.
Respondents expect an inflation rate of about 4.4% in the next 12 months, down half a percentage point from March.
Household spending is expected to decrease significantly over the next year, according to a New York Federal Reserve survey released Monday that reflects downbeat consumer sentiment as well as a potential slowdown for inflation.
The central bank Survey of Consumer Expectations for April showed that the outlook for spending fell by half a percentage point to an annual rate of 5.2%, the lowest level since September 2021.
That came with a corresponding decline of 0.3 percentage point in the overall outlook for inflation over the next year. Respondents expect an inflation rate of about 4.4% in the next 12 months, still well above the three-year outlook for 2.9% and the five-year view of 2.6%.
All of those levels are still above the Fed’s 2% inflation target, though they are drifting closer to the goal.
Full Article

The Medlock Post Ep. 145: Keep a Watchful Eye

May 8, 2023

The Medlock Post Ep. 145: Keep a Watchful Eye

These Marxist-based goals have now resulted in such damage to America that it is doubtful we will ever be able to recover the freedoms and liberties our Founders bestowed upon us. The trends of the last few years have led to many difficult-to-reverse changes that have severely undermined the principles that made America the freest and most prosperous country in world history.

At The Kentucky Derby, The Spectators Are The Sport

May 8, 2023

At Churchill Downs, the horses are merely the backdrop of this American cultural touchstone event.

While royal watchers the world over focused on Westminster Abbey and the first coronation of a British monarch in nearly seven decades, the sporting world had other interests in mind this weekend. The first Saturday in May always brings with it the country’s longest continually-run sporting event, the Kentucky Derby.

Among major sporting events, the Super Bowl brings with it more television eyeballs than the Derby. The Indianapolis 500, held later in the month of May some 120 miles or so north of Louisville’s Churchill Downs, attracts more people.

But the Kentucky Derby stands as perhaps the nation’s premier spectator sport precisely because, more than any other event, the spectators are the sport.

May 8, 2023

The article is from a Chinese publication. Please read with a grain of salt.

In a multipolar world, the US dollar’s fall from prominence looks likely.

De-dollarisation is gaining momentum as more countries voice concerns about the US currency’s dominance in the global financial system and its use as a tool for exerting influence
In recent years, the world has witnessed fierce US-China rivalry, the Covid-19 pandemic wreaking havoc on global systems and the fallout from the Ukraine war on supply chains, as well as an acceleration towards multipolarity, where power is more evenly distributed among several advanced economies.
The transformation of China, a trusted economic partner to many countries, into a mediator of global importance is just one example of the move away from a unipolar world. This is coupled with de-dollarisation gaining momentum.
Full Article

What America’s tiny banks do that big ones don’t

May 8, 2023

The advantages of boots on the ground

anandaigua and Manhattan’s Chinatown are about as different from each other as two places in the same state can be. One is a small town in the bucolic Finger Lakes region, where almost everyone is a white English-speaker. Chinatown packs nearly ten times as many residents, many of them foreign-born and Chinese-speaking, into a much smaller space. What links them, and many other small towns and neighbourhoods across America, is financial services: both host community banks that cater to local needs.

Some see such institutions, generally defined as having less than $10bn in assets, as inefficient historical relics. They account for as much as 97% of the total number of America’s banks, but less than 14% of assets and deposits.

Evidence of ‘criminal scheme’ involving Biden clan to be released: ‘Wednesday will be a very big day for the American people’

May 8, 2023

The top House Oversight Committee Republican said that lawmakers have now gathered substantial evidence of President Joe Biden and his family’s foreign influence-peddling schemes and that he intends to reveal it this week.

Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) joined Fox News anchor Maria Bartiromo on this week’s “Sunday Morning Futures” where he outlined the latest developments in the probe of the “criminal” scheme involving the Biden clan.

Later School Start Time Could Improve Mental Health

May 8, 2023

In the hours before he's due at Upper Darby High School, senior Khalid Doulat has time to say prayers, help his mother or prepare for track practice.

It's a welcome shift from last year for him and thousands of students at the school, which pushed its start time back by more than two hours — from a 7:30 a.m. start time to 9:45 a.m. One goal for the change: to ease strains on students that were more visible than ever coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I’ll be honest, I’ve been much happier in the mornings,” Doulat said. “I’ve been more positive, and I’ve come to school smiling more rather than, you know, grudging out of bed and stuff like that at 7:30.”

The idea of later school start times, pushed by many over the years as a way to help adolescents get more sleep, is getting a new look as a way to address the mental health crisis affecting teens across the U.S.

See-no-evil on border insecurity will get us killed

May 8, 2023

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas declared last week: “The border is not open. It has not been open, and it will not be open subsequent to May 11th.” His statement calls to mind the famous Marx Brothers line, “Who gonna believe, me or your own eyes?”

Better go with what you are seeing. Joe Biden has let in some five million illegal aliens and countless more expect to join them when pandemic-related restrictions end on the 11th.

Look closer and you’ll see among them large numbers of unaccompanied, military age men. War correspondent Michael Yon reports that many are Chinese nationals equipped with identical “kits.”

That sure appears to be a covert invasion by elements of the People’s Liberation Army on the eve of a shooting war with Communist China. Team Biden’s facilitating – and lying about – it amounts to treason.

This is Frank Gaffney.

The Left-Wing Assault on the Supreme Court

May 8, 2023

Activists have concluded that since they lack ideological control over the Court, it must be delegitimized.

From the New Deal to well past the Reagan era, progressives serenely regarded the United States Supreme Court, and thus the third branch of government overall, as being securely in their hands. The pieties they mouthed during this period — about the sacredness of Marbury v. Madison and the importance of judicial independence to a vital republic — had the distinct virtue of being true.

New drugs could spell an end to the world’s obesity epidemic

May 8, 2023

The long-term effects must be carefully studied. But the excitement is justified

Anew type of drug is generating excitement among the rich and the beautiful. Just a jab a week, and the weight falls off. Elon Musk swears by it; influencers sing its praises on TikTok; suddenly slimmer Hollywood starlets deny they have taken it. But the latest weight-loss drugs are no mere cosmetic enhancements. Their biggest beneficiaries will be not celebrities in Los Angeles or Miami but billions of ordinary people around the world whose weight has made them unhealthy.

Treatments for weight loss have long ranged from the well-meaning and ineffective to the downright dodgy. The new class of drugs, called glp-1 receptor agonists, seems actually to work. Semaglutide, developed by Novo Nordisk, a Danish pharmaceutical firm, has been shown in clinical trials to lead to weight loss of about 15%.

Abbott: We don’t need 1,500 soldiers at the border, we need 15,000 or 150,000

May 8, 2023

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) slammed the Biden administration’s move to send 1,500 troops to the southern border, arguing the president was sending the soldiers to “do paperwork” and not “secure the border.”

“President Biden is sending 1,500, quote, soldiers to do paperwork, and he’s not going to secure the border,” Abbott said in an interview with Fox News Sunday.

The national focus on the southern border has increased as the federal government’s Title 42 policy, a federal rule that has allowed the government to strictly regulate border entries, gets set to expire this month.

The 3 likely ways Bud Light disaster might end – and only one is good news

May 8, 2023

Budweiser-Dylan Mulvaney controversy is no longer about a boycott. It's a matter of executive survival

Remember when drinking Bud Light wasn’t a heavy topic? Now, one of the anchor products for Budweiser is dragging down an entire company.

Just the other day, video surfaced of fans lined up to get beer in Boston’s renown Fenway Park. Lined up at every concession stand but one – the one selling Budweiser and, especially Bud Light.

This is no longer about a boycott. This is about executive survival, which matters far more to CEOs and the people they pay. As Mel Brooks’ Gov. William J. Le Petomane memorably declared, "We’ve gotta protect our phony, baloney jobs, gentlemen!"

I’m a doctor and my Black parents saw me break free of segregation. Now medical schools are bringing it back

May 8, 2023

Medical schools are returning to ‘separate but equal,’ but doctors know we’re all the same on the inside

My mother and father went to segregated schools, separated from Whites because they were Black. They told me, as a child, that they wanted better for me. They got their wish when I went to Stanford University and then the University of California at San Francisco’s medical school, both fully integrated and welcoming. Before they passed away, they firmly believed that the era of separating people by race was over forever.

My parents were wrong.

Higher education is deliberately re-segregating, driven by race-obsessed activists who, bizarrely, claim to oppose "systemic racism." Universities like Harvard and Chicago have held Black-only graduation ceremonies in recent years.

George Stephanopoulos admits new 2024 poll 'just brutal for President Biden'

May 8, 2023

Former DNC Chairwoman Donna Brazile said the 'sobering' new 2024 poll proves Biden's coalition is 'fragmented'

ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos pulled no punches reacting to a new poll on air Sunday that showed the vast majority of Americans don't believe President Biden has the physical or mental capacity to serve another term.

"This poll is just brutal for President Biden!" Stephanopoulos said on "This Week," referencing the findings of a new survey released Sunday by ABC News and the Washington Post.

The poll released Sunday found that 63% of American adults do not think Biden, 80, has the "mental sharpness" it takes to serve effectively as president, compared to only 32% who believe he does and 5% who have no opinion. The number shot up nine percentage points since the same poll was conducted a year ago when 54% said he didn’t have the mental capacity for the job.

Yellen warns of ‘economic chaos’ unless Congress raises the debt ceiling

May 8, 2023

Janet Yellen has been screaming this warning for six months. The Left wants to pressure the GOP to raise the debt ceiling without spending cuts or restrictions. Richard Medlock

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Sunday said that failure to raise the debt ceiling will cause a “steep economic downturn” in the U.S.
She reiterated her warning that the Treasury Department may run out of measures to pay its debt obligations by June.
“It’s widely agreed that financial and economic chaos will ensue,” Yellen said.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Sunday said that failure to raise the debt ceiling will cause a “steep economic downturn” in the U.S., and she reiterated her warning that the Treasury Department may run out of measures to pay its debt obligations by June.
“Our current projection is that in early June, a day will come when we’re unable to pay our bills unless Congress raises the debt ceiling, and it’s something I strongly urge Congress to do,” Yellen told ABC’s “This Week.”
Full Article

Here is a good dose of common sense.... My definition of "gun control" is hitting what you're shooting at.

May 8, 2023

1 - Eleven teens die each day because of texting while driving. Maybe it's time to raise the age of Smart Phone ownership to 21. (FACT)

2 - If gun control laws actually worked, Chicago would be Mayberry.

3 - The Second Amendment makes more women equal than the entire feminist movement.

4 - Legal gun owners have 300 million guns and probably a trillion rounds of ammo. Seriously, folks, if they were the problem, you'd know it.

5 - When JFK was killed, nobody blamed the rifle.

6 - The NRA (National Rifle Association) murders 0 people and receives ($$$$ 0) nothing in government funds. Planned Parenthood kills 350,000 babies every year and receives $500,000,000 in our tax dollars annually.

7 - I have no problem with vigorous background checks when it comes to firearms. While we're at it, let's do the same when it comes to immigration, Voter I.D., and candidates running for office.

8 - Folks keep talking about another Civil War. One side knows how to shoot and probably has a trillion rounds. The other side has crying closets and is confused about which bathroom to use. How do you think that would work out?

9 A man who left 300,000 guns for the Taliban is lecturing folks on gun control.

Don’t be afraid to share this. There’s more logic and common sense expressed here than probably anything you have seen on the news today.

Megyn Kelly Uses Latest Mass Shooting to Dunk On Gun Reformer Activists: ‘You Have LOST. It’s DONE.’

May 8, 2023

Megyn Kelly reacted to the shooting in Allen, Texas by blaming gun control activists who keep fighting for a politically-difficult solution instead of considering alternatives to prevent mass killings.

The SiriusXM host took to Twitter on Saturday night with her thoughts on the mall outlet shooting where eight people were killed and at least seven more were injured before the perpetrator was neutralized. In her tweets, Kelly nihilistically determined that gun control proponents will never succeed against the Second Amendment, so it’s time for them to abandon that goal and look at other ways of curbing gun violence.

“You’ve failed to effect change,” Kelly said to control advocates. “Please face it. You can’t do it, thanks to the 2A. We’re all well aware you don’t like that fact, but fact it is. What next? Must we just stay here sad, concerned, lamenting? Could we possibly talk OTHER SOLUTIONS?”

Kelly then offered her ideas on how to stop mass shootings.

5/07/2023

The Election Integrity Cold War Is About to Get Hot

May 7, 2023

Republicans are striking back at Joe Biden’s electoral overhaul.

A common refrain from Democratic Party politicians is that the right to vote is sacrosanct – and rightly so – but that Republicans are hell-bent on taking that right away from as many Americans as they can. Election integrity has been the buzzword ever since Donald Trump was falsely accused of stealing the 2016 presidential race. In particular, the narrative insists, minority communities are especially targeted. While voter turnout in red states shows this not to be the case, Democrats persist. But even though participating in elections is a right, it is not the federal government’s place to use its taxpayer-funded resources for electioneering. This is precisely what Joe Biden approved – and, in fact, mandated – when he signed Executive Order 14019 in March of this year. Now, Republicans are pushing back with legislation that would block the key parts of the EO until federal agencies come clean about how they intend to involve themselves in Biden’s grand plan to “promote and defend the right to vote.”

Election Integrity or Interference?

Biden announces 40% drop in inflation since last summer

May 7, 2023

Biden is a very delusional man. He reads what's in front of him and that's it. He does not live anywhere near the real world. This is all a lie, and they know it along with all of America.

While speaking at a meeting with the White House Investing in America Cabinet on Friday, President Joe Biden praised the downward trend in recent inflation. Biden said the last nine months had seen inflation drop by 40%.

Dem, GOP House Intel leaders: Israel, Jordan, Egypt want 'stronger' US role in region as China makes inroads

May 7, 2023

China recently brokered a deal between Iran and Saudi Arabia

House Intelligence Committee Republican Chairman Mike Turner, R-Ohio, and ranking Democrat Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., revealed that Israel, Jordan and Egypt are pushing for a greater U.S. presence in the Middle East amid growing concerns of a nuclear Iran and an increased Chinese footprint.

"[Israel, Jordan and Eqypt] were all very much encouraging the United States on a policy basis to have a stronger role, thinking that there are real opportunities to increase the security situation here, but at the same time, painting a picture that there are serious threats in the area and the United States should be playing a role," Turner said on CNN's "State of the Union" Sunday.

Turner and Himes both recently met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, shortly after House Speaker Kevin McCarthy's visit to Israel in May. Himes said Netanyahu is "very focused on Iran," saying "it was intolerable for him to imagine an Iran with a nuclear weapon."

California reparations panel approves payments of up to $1.2 million to every Black resident

May 7, 2023

California's legislature could vote on the panel's recommendations

The California Reparations Task Force formally recommended that the state offer payments of up to $1.2 million to every qualifying Black resident.

The task force held a public meeting in Oakland, California, on Saturday and voted on the final set of recommendations to be sent to the state's legislators. The nine-member panel called on the state to offer its Black residents a formal apology in addition to the payments.

"Reparations are not only morally justifiable, but they have the potential to address long-standing racial disparities and inequalities," Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., said after attending the meeting.

Biden setting stage for pardoning Hunter as he frames potential DOJ charges as 'political witch hunt'

May 7, 2023

Biden denied that a potential Hunter indictment would have any impact on his presidency

President Biden is setting the stage for pardoning his son Hunter as his Department of Justice weighs a potential indictment stemming from a years-long federal investigation, Fox News contributor Miranda Devine warned.

Devine's comments come after Biden finally addressed the possibility of his son facing charges during a rare sit-down interview where he dismissed the chance that it would have any impact on his tenure in office.

"That mythology of Joe Biden that's been around for more than four decades, which is that he's a lovely family man… moderate Democrat, lunch pail Joe, working class Joe, the poorest man in Congress, and a wonderful family man full of empathy because of the tragedies in his own life. That's what he's playing on," Devine said during "Fox & Friends Weekend" Sunday.

Scope Ratings places U.S. credit ratings under review for possible downgrade

May 7, 2023

Scope Ratings on Friday placed the United States of America’s AA long-term issuer and senior unsecured debt ratings in local and foreign currency under review for a possible downgrade due to longer run risks associated with the misuse of the debt ceiling instrument.

Scope, which is seen as the leading European credit rating agency, said that recurrent debt-ceiling crises have resulted in phases of debt repayment distress for the U.S government, adding that the government is dependent on last-minute congressional action to ensure repayment of its debt in full and on time.

A rise in political polarization, divided government since November 2022 congressional elections and more elevated federal deficits over the forthcoming years are the other reasons Scope cited for the ratings review.

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