Quick Hits

Trump: I signed a bill to begin funding insane asylums again.

Trump also signed an EO blocking big investment companies from buying up single family homes.

Both American mega-corporations like Black Rock and Vanguard and foreign corporations, especially Chinese, have bought up many tens of thousands of homes and properties in the USA between them. These monopolistic efforts exacerbated an already difficult housing market.

In his Tuesday executive order, Trump blamed Wall Street investors for "crowding out families seeking to buy homes." He accused:

Hardworking young families cannot effectively compete for starter homes with Wall Street firms and their vast resources. Neighborhoods and communities once controlled by middle-class American families are now run by faraway corporate interests. People live in homes, not corporations. My Administration will take decisive action to stop Wall Street from treating America's neighborhoods like a trading floor and empower American families to own their homes.

To preserve the supply of single-family homes for American families and increase the paths to homeownership, it is the policy of my Administration that large institutional investors should not buy single-family homes that could otherwise be purchased by families.

Therefore, Trump requires Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent and Assistant to the President for Economic Policy Kevin Hassett to come up with definitions of "large institutional investor" and "single-family home" within the next 30 days in order to ensure the executive order is implemented.

Commentary: Trump Truth Social Posts On X @TrumpTruthOnX

Based upon a very productive meeting that I have had with the Secretary General of NATO, Mark Rutte, we have formed the framework of a future deal with respect to Greenland and, in fact, the entire Arctic Region. This solution, if consummated, will be a great one for the United States of America, and all NATO Nations. Based upon this understanding, I will not be imposing the Tariffs that were scheduled to go into effect on February 1st. Additional discussions are being held concerning The Golden Dome as it pertains to Greenland. Further information will be made available as discussions progress. Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, and various others, as needed, will be responsible for the negotiations -- They will report directly to me. Thank you for your attention to this matter! DONALD J. TRUMP PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

(TS: 21 Jan 14:27 ET)​​​‍​​‌‍​​‌‍​​​​​​‌‍​​​​​​​​​​‌‍​​​​‌‍​​​​​‌‍​​​​​​​​‌‍​​​​‌‍​​​​​‌‍​​​​‌‍​​​​‌‍​​​​​​‌‍​​​​​​‌‍​​​​​​​​‌‍​​​​​​​​​​‌‍​​​‌‍​​​​​​​​‌‍

People have speculated that this deal could cost us $700 billion, which, in terms you can understand, is equal to eight Somali day care centers.

But that's a lot of money for a rock covered in snow and Eskimos.

Vodkapundit: Never forget the Obamas' corruption.

One of Barack Obama's pet projects was a little something called Net Neutrality, and when Trump ended it early during his first term, it literally murdered everybody who had miraculously survived his tax cuts.

But the point is that, starting with House of Cards, a little non-black-owned firm called Netflix was poised for explosive growth. Without going too deep into the woods on an old issue, from 2013 (House of Cards launch) to 2015, the 11--15% of Americans streaming Netflix sucked down 30--37% of peak-hour bandwidth -- while paying the same flat rate as everyone else.

One solution might be that internet service providers (ISPs) could charge Netflix extra during peak hours. I like that solution, because it incentivizes ISPs to build more bandwidth. Netflix could either eat the charges or pass it along to their customers who were using all that bandwidth. Or ISPs could throttle Netflix's streaming quality -- and here's where things got tricky -- without throttling the quality of the streamers they operated, like Comcast-owned NBCUniversal.

...

However, Netflix founder and co-CEO Reed Hastings -- a big-money Obama donor and frequent White House visitor -- continued his extremely vocal support for Net Neutrality, which eventually forbid deals like that one. "Bits are bits," and under Net Neutrality, ISPs couldn't charge more for this bit (Netflix's) than they did for that bit (Nana's latest LOLcat post on Facebook). Even though Netflix was using trillions more bits.

...

[O]bama remained a yuge proponent of Net Neutrality going into his second term, railing against "gatekeepers deciding which sites you get to access." But it was never about Comcast blocking you from visiting VeryNaughtySite.com. It was about Netflix and Netflix subscribers getting a free ride -- and how to locate the grift.

...

In 2018, safely out of office, the Obamas landed a multi-year Netflix production deal reportedly worth at least $50 million (according to various sources like the New York Post), through Higher Ground Productions, churning out award bait nobody streams.

This was one of the most visible examples of post-office windfall politics in modern history, and hardly anyone blinked.

I mean, look at the virtually unwatched content Higher Ground Productions made:

American Factory (2019 Oscar-winning documentary)
Crip Camp (2020 Oscar nominee)
Becoming (2020 Michelle Obama documentary)
Exit West (upcoming scripted series)
Rustin (2023 film on civil rights leader Bayard Rustin)
Leave the World Behind (2023 apocalyptic thriller)

If you hadn't heard of those, you aren't alone -- neither had I, and I'm paid to follow this stuff. But the Obamas certainly took home enough Netflix money to "buy everyone."

posted by Ace at 06:05 PM

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