In Mexico, they call it la piñata. That's the transition period between two presidents where the outgoing president, and his minions, supposedly steal everything that isn't nailed down before exiting office. Their appetites are boundless. By legend, one of them even unscrewed and stole the light bulbs.
Mexican immigration officials have been allegedly pulling out all the stops to illegally make as much money from migrants before the government places their teams in leadership positions. The actions come as a new administration is expected to take office in Mexico next month. Breitbart Texas spoke with director-level officials at Mexico’s National Migration Institute, who revealed details of what has become common practice whenever there is a change in leadership.
The INM sources revealed that individuals in positions of leadership sell documents, charge for favors, and extort migrants and travelers to make as much cash as possible before they are moved out.
One INM source revealed that Carmen Yadira De Los Santos Robledo, the current INM regional delegate in Yucatan, has been pressuring her staff into demanding bribes and illegally selling travel documents.
...which means the more they "sell," the more money they make. Hence, la piñata. When you're going to be out of a job at the end of the month, you can take home a handsome take-home "bonus." What are they going to do, fire you? You've already been fired as AMLO exits and President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum takes those "slots," as Hillary Clinton use to say. And it hard to catch anyone if everyone's doing it.
This isn't the first time we have seen this kind of bribery, payoffs, la vacuña and la mordida (so many words for it in Latin America) happening as a result of Joe Biden's open border policies.
In Colombia, local officials have been accused in the north of doing comparable shakedowns of illegal migrants. In Nicaragua, "little dictator" Daniel Ortega has got a whole money-making operation going, flying in migrants on chartered flights for the journey northward, with the added bonus of sticking it to gringo. Cartels make cash, and so do NGOs. Why wouldn't countries get a piece of the action, too?
So it's quite likely, the secret handshake deal between Joe Biden and AMLO, to keep the migration numbers down until the election is over, is over. The U.S. of course, can "revise" its statistics upward like they always do and all will be hunky dory.
The only people who pay will be the American taxpayers, who will have to feed, shelter, educate and jail a bigger wave of migrants. It goes to show the value of President Trump's border deals with Mexico on migration, and the failure of border czar Kamala Harris to do anything of value to stop it. The first thing she should have done was restore those deals. Not having them is a bonanza for every corrupt Mexican official out there -- at Americans' expense.
Credit card processing service Slim CD, popular in the U.S. and Canada, has revealed a massive data breach that exposed the personal information of nearly 1.7 million customers. The hack, which went undetected for almost a year, has raised serious concerns about data security in the financial sector.
The Florida-based company, which offers payment gateway services and develops credit card-processing software, discovered suspicious activity in its computer environment on June 15, 2024, according to a customer notification letter dated September 6. The company later determined that unauthorized access to its systems occurred between August 17, 2023, and June 15, 2024.
Slim CD warned that this breach may have allowed hackers to view or obtain sensitive customer data, including names, addresses, credit card numbers, and card expiration dates. A filing with the Maine Attorney General's office estimates that over 1.69 million customers were affected. Despite the scale of the breach, Slim CD has not offered any identity theft protection services to those impacted.
In its notification to customers, Slim CD urged vigilance against potential identity theft and fraud. The company recommended that affected individuals regularly review their account statements, monitor credit reports for suspicious activity, and consider placing a "fraud alert" or "credit freeze" on their credit files to protect against unauthorized transactions.
The Slim CD incident is just the latest in a series of cyber attacks targeting financial institutions. In June, Evolve Bank & Trust, based in Tennessee, suffered a data breach that compromised sensitive information, including customers’ Social Security numbers and bank account details. Earlier in February, Prudential Financial disclosed a breach impacting over 2.55 million customers.
Cybersecurity experts warn that such attacks are becoming increasingly common in the finance industry. A July report by SOCRadar, a computer security firm, found that data breaches and leaks account for 62.52% of cyber threats targeting financial institutions, followed by credit card fraud and unauthorized access sales. The report identified the United States as one of the most frequently targeted countries for these cyber attacks.
A second-quarter analysis by Check Point Research found a 30% increase in global cyber attacks, with the finance and banking sector ranking as the fourth most targeted industry, trailing only retail/wholesale, healthcare, and manufacturing.
As cyber threats escalate, government agencies are taking note. The U.S. Department of Treasury released a report in March highlighting the "capability gap" in managing AI-specific cybersecurity threats between large and small financial institutions. While larger institutions are building their own AI systems to counter threats, smaller firms like Slim CD may lack the resources to do so, leaving them vulnerable to increasingly sophisticated attacks.
With the financial sector under siege, Slim CD’s data breach serves as a stark reminder of the need for robust cybersecurity measures to protect customer information in an age of growing digital threats.
A prominent pro-life group isn’t happy with ABC News over its hosting of Tuesday’s presidential debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Trump.
Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America on Wednesday sent a letter to ABC News president Almin Karamehmedovic and debate moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis that urges them to issue a correction and meet with abortion survivors over a viral moment where Davis fact-checked Trump.
"[The] ABC News Presidential Debate featured network moderator Linsey Davis attempting to debunk former President Trump's assertion that some states allow for the killing of an infant after birth," Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America president Marjorie Dannenfelser wrote in the letter obtained by Fox News Digital.
During the debate, Trump referred to infamous comments made by former Virginia Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam in 2019 but was promptly "fact-checked" by Davis. At the time, Northam suggested that in those rare instances of third-trimester abortions, a baby could be born alive and a "discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother."
"The infant would be resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desired, and then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother," Northam said in 2019.
Trump's apparent reference to Northam at the debate drew a quick rebuke from Davis.
"There is no state in this country where it is legal to kill a baby after it’s born," Davis said.
Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America claims the ABC moderator was "inaccurate" and should correct the record.
"This is 100% inaccurate. Her statement tragically ignores the reality of babies who survive failed, late-term abortions but are denied basic medical care and left to die," Dannenfelser wrote.
"We are writing to request a swift correction from Ms. Davis and ABC News. It is undeniable that babies are born in this country after failed abortions, as the facts below demonstrate," she continued. "A correction from the network and the debate moderators is an important first step in acknowledging this fact. We also encourage ABC to meet with abortion survivors who are a living testament to the need for born-alive protections."
The pro-life advocate then added several claims to back up the request for a correction, including "numerous examples of babies born alive after failed abortions" and a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that "between 2003 and 2014, around 143 babies died after being born alive following failed abortions."
It also cited a report from the center-right outlet The Dispatch about Minnesota recording eight deaths among infants who survived abortion attempts during Tim Walz’s tenure as governor.
"It’s also a fact that, as a U.S. senator, Kamala Harris voted against protections for babies born alive after failed abortions. And as a member of Congress, her running mate Tim Walz even issued a public apology for ‘accidentally’ voting for said legislation after he previously voted against it," Dannenfelser wrote.
The Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life president requested an in-person meeting with ABC honchos to speak directly with abortion survivors.
Numerous fact-checks published after the debate slammed Trump for his remarks on abortion.
"Infanticide is illegal in every state, and Harris and Walz have never supported it," CBS News reported. NPR also cited a Kaiser Family Foundation report earlier this year that stated abortions "after birth" are illegal in all 50 states.
At the debate, Harris dodged a question from Davis over whether she supported any restrictions on a woman's right to an abortion.
"I absolutely support reinstating the protections of Roe v. Wade," Harris said. "And as you rightly mentioned, nowhere in America is a woman carrying a pregnancy to term and asking for an abortion. That is not happening."
ABC News did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“The world is a dangerous place to live - not because of the people who are evil but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.”
- Albert Einstein
When The New York Times tells you that the United States Constitution is a threat to democracy - As it did on the front page of its August 31 edition - you know that you are in thrall to exceedingly subtle minds.The Times only employs persons, both birthing and other, of the subtlest minds. You can tell because they are credentialed by our country’s finest institutions of educational credentialing.
They come to The Times fully equipped with the armamentarium of advanced, progressive, innovative, nuanced, cutting-edge modes of understanding our world — which, you’ll agree, is a pretty goshdurned complex place, and rather niggardly in yielding its secret workings. Hence, The Times has concluded that the Constitution is flawed, perhaps fatally, because it allowed for the election of Donald Trump once, and now, possibly, a second time:
"It’s no surprise, then, that liberals charge Trump with being a menace to the Constitution. But his presidency and the prospect of his re-election have also generated another, very different, argument: that Trump owes his political ascent to the Constitution, making him a beneficiary of a document that is essentially antidemocratic and, in this day and age, increasingly dysfunctional.”
The Constitution does not stipulate a particular election day, but subsequent US law established the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November as the day for federal elections (the states can establish their own election dates for state and local offices). This changed beginning in the year 2000, when Oregon legislated to conduct all elections by mail-in ballot and other states followed with alterations to voting methods beyond a single election day. The Covid-19 pandemic prompted states to permanently relax rules on absentee ballots and expand mail-in voting, under guidance from the federal agencies such as the CDC, while the CARES Act of 2020 provided emergency funding to implement procedures for mail-in voting in order to reduce in-person voting that might enable the spread of Covid-19.
All of that followed orderly legislative procedure. The result was widespread ballot fraud, especially in crucial swing voting districts, much of it arrant. Contrary to official narratives out of the “Joe Biden” administration and the salient organs of corporate news, the allegations of widespread fraud were not “baseless” nor were they “conspiracy theories.” Subtle minds schooled in nuanced, cutting-age modes of analysis agreed to ignore documentary evidence of ballot fraud because it disfavored their preferred candidate, “Joe Biden.” Subtler judicial minds subsequently dismissed challenges to official tallies.
Other shenanigans such as the $400-million that Mark Zuckerberg (Meta and Facebook) injected into swing districts for “election administration and voter turn-out,” via his Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL), was not adjudicated in any court. The upshot of the “Zuckerbucks” prank was that polling offiicials in many precincts were replaced by Democratic Party activists who ended up counting the votes. The Federal Election Commission (after “Joe Biden” became president) decided that under federal campaign finance law, the contributions were not seen as illegal — though the “Zuckerbucks” scandal did lead to legislative reform in several states.
You might suppose in the years since the 2020 election that opportunity would be seized to materially correct the weaknesses of mail-in ballots, early voting, ballot “harvesting” practices, giant “balloting centers,” and the use of vote-tallying machines (Dominion, etc.) with modems allowing for Internet hackery. The best and simplest reform would be a return to paper ballots cast only on one election day, with voter ID and proof of citizenship (accomplished prior in voter registration), conducted in smaller, distributed precinct polling places that make hand-counting of ballots practical. Alas, this was too difficult for Congress, while the subtle, nuanced, cutting-edge minds working in news media were not interested in such straightforward reform and did not advocate for it.
Rather, the news media advocated for further laxity in voting rules. And so, now they are actually arguing about whether it is desirable for non-citizens to vote. The “Joe Biden” administration allowed at least 10-million people to enter the country illegally since 2021 and have gotten a million or more of them registered to vote via motor-voter laws — automatic registration when an illegal alien gets a driver’s license, and ditto when they apply for various social services. Alejandro Mayorkas’s Department of Homeland Security has shrewdly distributed large numbers of these illegal aliens into swing districts of states crucial to the Democratic Party’s election chances.
The inquiring mind is prompted to wonder whether it is the US Constitution that is a “menace to democracy” or the Democratic Party. Mr. Trump is issuing communiqués on “X” (Twitter) that his party is paying special attention to voting fraud in the current election, with imputations of very severe punishment to cheaters and fraudsters. You might think that the Kamala Harris campaign would declare likewise.
Every event organizer with experience knows that venue size really matters. If you have 30 people meeting in a room with no extra chairs, it feels like a crowd. If you have 5,000 people meet in a venue designed for 50,000, it is a failure and flop. That latter scenario I actually witnessed, at an event at which I was tagged to speak, and it was depressing and sad, really a disaster.
It could have been otherwise if the organizers had correctly estimated the demand. Instead I rolled up to a huge but largely empty parking lot, and rattled around an exhibitor space with plenty to exhibit but hardly anyone seemed to be there. There were in fact thousands in attendance but once the feeling of event failure seized the place, people could not wait for it to end.
From that experience, I learned: always underestimate the number of people you expect. It’s not easy because every event organizer is excited for what he is doing. There is a tendency to believe that everyone else shares your enthusiasm. It’s the same with homeowners who put their houses on the market at far too high a price, or authors who imagine that their book will become a bestseller.
The subtle psychology of full and empty, high and low, profoundly affects economics too.
The size of the Whole Food bag within the last several weeks has shrunk by a third or so, and gone up in quality.
The reason will be clear to anyone with experience in marketing. If you have spent $150 and walk out with a bag only halfway full, you feel ripped off, and sense that you have not received your money’s worth. But if you shrink the bag and the customer walks out with a full sack of stuff for the same amount of money, some of the edge seems to disappear.
It’s a different form of shrinkflation, to be sure, but it makes sense from the point of view of the seller. Let’s please be clear: these end-point grocery sellers have costs too. They have gone up just as much as the final retail price. They still have to maintain their slim margins, and simply cannot sell at a loss for everything.
Yes, you can draw people in with some products that sell below cost. I suspect that Whole Foods does this with flowers, for example. Again, it makes sense. Offer the best and lowest-priced flowers in town and people will rock up just to buy them but remember that there are other goods they need. The store hopes to make up the difference in unplanned purchases. If it doesn’t work, it stops.
Pricing is hard and requires a complex mix of accounting and soothsaying concerning customer psychology. The store of course wants to extract a higher price, a drive that is matched on the other side by the customer’s desire to buy everything for free. The key to the price is finding the negotiated compromise.
When I was out buying my first car, and having already read a bit on economics, the salesman asked me “What do you want to spend on a car?” My answer came easily: “I want to spend exactly zero. In fact, I want you to pay me.” He was truly startled but it set the negotiating terms on a good and honest starting point. I did end up buying.
This is the market at work and it is meaningful and often magical the way it works without a central plan. This becomes a serious challenge in inflationary times when the quantity of money is rising and reducing the value of each unit. Inflationary forces flow unpredictably from sector to sector, good to good, service to service. It produces grave difficulties for both buyers and sellers. Everyone wants to leave a transaction with the perception that he is better off. A changing value of money adds another layer of challenge.
And yet, these days, we are hearing all about how corporate greed is responsible for inflation. Terrible people at the sales’ end points are somehow “gouging” the customer. To be sure, every grocery store would love to do this, but they simply cannot. This is because of the wonderful reality of competition. The customer can always go somewhere else or decline to buy altogether.
The Harris/Walz campaign promises to implement national rules against gouging customers. What are the standards they will use to judge? We do not know but the only safe way to avoid being charged would be never to raise the price, regardless of input costs. It would only take a matter of days before such a rule would turn to losses and then shortages and then bankruptcies and closings. Next will come mandates to sell, and then government takeovers of groceries, which would inevitably be followed with rationing.
Rationing groceries is not an unheard of practice in U.S. history. Nearly all grocery staples were rationed during the Second World War. Every household was issued tickets for sugar, meat, butter, cheese, milk, eggs, coffee, all animal fats (thus the invention of vegetable fat), canned goods, chocolates, aluminum foil, and clothing and footwear. People were annoyed but it was explained that this was necessary for the war effort.
How much easier would rationing be in our time? The tickets could be dropped into our bank accounts and deployed using smartphones with identification and QR codes. The federal government could easily build out an application for download, and even issue cards. It could be built off the existing SNAP program and the EBT card that replaced food stamps. This would not be a technical challenge.
Five years ago, this might have sounded like a far-flung prospect. These days, it is a highly realistic probability with national anti-gouging laws. It could easily be promoted as a scheme to end corporate greed. Tragically, the stores themselves would not be as against this as one might suppose. It would put an end to the investigations and paperwork associated with anti-gouging compliance, and the program could be sweetened with trillions in subsidies for the stores themselves.
Such dystopian scenarios are no longer crazy. Remember that only four years ago, we were all locked out of churches and other houses of worship on major religious holidays, and the schools for which people pay in taxes were shut sometimes for a year or even two. This was a test run of compliance and central planning. As terrible as it is to say, some of our leaders believe that this system is better than a market-based economy.
Plus, this time they have a great excuse: save the environment. Every school kid for decades has been taught about reducing resource use and told to valorize all recycling. It seems perhaps like nothing is wrong with that but consider the lesson here: our use of resources is paristical on nature and a clean environment. If that is always true, where is the end point? Perhaps austerity through bread lines is the way to go.
It does not inspire confidence in our leaders that they cannot give an accurate account of what causes grocery prices to go up, and think nothing of blaming the retailers who are themselves victims of declining purchasing power. Is it because they know no economics? Or is it because they aspire to bring about a central plan gradually through the imposition of ever more rules and systems, with the belief that with digital tools, they can finally make socialism work?
I’ll take Whole Foods smaller bags, as regrettable as they are, over a central plan. At least we still have some choice. At least we still have flowers, food, and household items, and it is up to us whether and to what extent we consume them. Under a government plan, you will have no choice and no voice.
Financial autonomy and individual freedoms must be protected
Every digital transaction leaves a trail of data that can be tracked and analyzed.
Countries abandoning physical cash entirely, in favor of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), is not science-fiction. Digital payments are convenient and efficient, but those advantages can blind us to the profound implications for privacy, civil liberties and financial autonomy that a cashless society will bring.
One of the most pressing concerns about a cashless society is the loss of financial privacy, which in turn poses significant risks to personal privacy and autonomy.
Every digital transaction leaves a trail of data that can be tracked and analyzed. Financial institutions often use this information for fraud detection and targeted marketing. But governments can exploit the same data to monitor and punish citizens for undesired behavior. This was starkly illustrated by initiatives like Operation Choke Point in the U.S., which aimed to cut off access to banking for unpopular, albeit legally operating businesses deemed undesirable by the government.
In another example, Canadian trucker protests in 2022 prompted the Canadian government to invoke the country's Emergencies Act, which included measures to cut financial support to the protestors. Banks were ordered to freeze accounts of individuals and organizations suspected of being involved in the protests without the need for a court order.
Similar cases of governments attempting to limit access to denizens' savings in India, China and Greece underscore the need for strict checks and balances to prevent governmental overreach in financial surveillance and control, which will be supercharged by the transfer to cashless economy.
Data breaches and cyberattacks
In a cashless economy, the entire financial system relies on digital transactions, increasing the potential points of attack for cybercriminals. Every transaction, from everyday purchases to large financial transfers, involves digital data that can be intercepted and exploited. As more activities move online, the attack surface broadens, offering greater opportunities for cyberattacks.
The reliance on digital transactions means that a data breach can have widespread and immediate consequences. A single data breach can expose the financial details of millions, leading to significant financial losses and identity theft. In 2023, the average cost of a single data breach was $4.45 million globally, while in the U.S. it was $5.1 million?.
To make matters worse, cybercriminals are becoming increasingly sophisticated and employing advanced techniques to breach security systems. Ransomware attacks have become more prevalent and damaging. In 2023, 72.7% of organizations globally were affected by ransomware, with the average cost per incident reaching $4.54 million?. The average cost of recovering from a ransomware attack in 2023 was $1.82 million, excluding the ransom payment. By 2031, ransomware incidents are expected to cost organizations and economies a collective $265 billion annually.
Meanwhile, the financial implications of cyberattacks are staggering. The global cost of cybercrime is projected to be $9.5 trillion in 2024 and $10.5 trillion in 2025??. These figures include not only direct financial losses but also costs related to downtime, lost productivity, and damage to brand reputation. Sadly, rather than hinder criminals, the complexity of modern digital payment systems provides numerous vulnerabilities for them to exploit.
While hardening security is always going to be an important factor, providing a foolproof way to protect resources by keeping them physical should always remain an option - both for individuals and companies.
Impact on vulnerable populations
The shift toward a cashless society also risks marginalizing vulnerable populations who rely on cash for daily transactions. Many individuals, especially those without access to banking services or digital technologies, could find themselves excluded from essential services. This exclusion can deepen existing socio-economic disparities and create new forms of financial discrimination?.
A good example is India's demonetization event, which occurred in 2016, resulting in the sudden removal of high-denomination notes. The action disproportionately affected the poor and unbanked, who struggled to access necessities without cash?. Similarly, in more developed economies, the switch to cashless transactions can leave behind those who lack digital literacy or the resources to adapt to new payment systems.
Mitigating risks
To effectively mitigate these risks, it is essential to implement measures that ensure financial autonomy and protect individual freedoms. Here are three key imperatives:
1. Maintain cash availability: Keeping physical cash as an option is crucial to protect and preserve individual freedoms. Physical cash transactions offer anonymity and cannot be easily tracked or controlled by governments or corporations. This physical form of currency acts as a safeguard against potential overreach and ensures that individuals have an alternative means of conducting transactions.
2. Limit government control: It is vital to prevent governments from gaining unprecedented total control over private finances. This involves legitimately and legally resisting any legislative efforts or mechanisms that aim to centralize and automate control over individual financial activities. Ensuring robust checks and balances, along with transparent governance, can help prevent abuse of power. Advocacy and public awareness are critical in resisting measures that could infringe on financial autonomy and privacy?.
3. Strengthen privacy policies and data protection: Implementing strong privacy policies and data protection regulations is important, although not a comprehensive solution. Frameworks such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in Europe grant individuals rights over their personal data and require organizations to handle data responsibly. However, it is crucial to note that the primary concern is not unauthorized access, but the misuse of authorized data. Therefore, while such regulations offer a level of security, they still do not address the core issue of preventing governmental overreach and control.
Cash serves as a safeguard of individual freedoms and autonomy against governmental overreach.
Regardless of its many advantages (which mostly boil down to convenience), one thing is certain: a cashless society is not a panacea, and the potential risks associated with the elimination of physical currency far outweigh the benefits. The preservation of cash as a viable medium of exchange is crucial. Cash serves as a safeguard of individual freedoms and autonomy against governmental overreach, financial surveillance, and the erosion of privacy, and its availability should be a non-negotiable point in any society that values individual freedoms and democratic principles.
It is imperative that we strike a balance between technological progress and the preservation of fundamental rights, and recognize that the freedom to use physical currency is not a matter of mere convenience but a crucial safeguard against the erosion of civil liberties.
Google knew publishers would balk when it took measures in 2019 to keep them from diverting ad sales to competitors, prompting it to try to make the change look more palatable, according to internal documents shown at the tech titan's antitrust trial on Thursday.
Google's removal of the feature that publishers used to reduce their dependence on Google is a key piece of the case in which the U.S. Department of Justice and a coalition of states are seeking to show the company unfairly dominated markets for the technology that facilitates online advertising.
The Justice Department showed emails and documents where Google employees discussed the company losing revenue because publishers were using their ability to set a higher minimum for bids from Google's AdX than for other exchanges.
The result was that when ads were offered through multiple exchanges, publishers often sold to exchanges other than Google's.
The company knew publishers were willing to accept making less money on some ad sales in exchange for the ability to preference other ad tech companies, such as those who charged a lower fee, according to the documents.
"It helps them to keep Google at bay and put pressure on us (similar to any industry)," Google executives discussed on an email thread in 2017.
As Google prepared to terminate the feature in 2019, employees discussed how to mitigate potential blowback from publishers.
Rolling the change out by itself "would be viewed as pure loss of functionality that we're doing for our own (perceived 'nefarious/self serving' reasons)," Nitish Korula, then a research scientist at Google, said in an email.
Google ultimately introduced the change alongside other features publishers favored, including the end of a practice whereby Google's ad selling tools would receive a "last look" that let it outbid other sellers.
The changes were meant as improvements to make the system simpler and fairer, and Google estimated its top 500 publishers saw a median increase of 2.7 percent in ad auction revenue, former Google employee Rahul Srinivasan testified.
But publishing executives, including at the New York Times, News Corp and The Weather Company, revolted against the loss of control, according to recordings of an April 2019 meeting played in court.
"You have made it next to impossible for any of us to figure out how to increase our yield with partners outside of Google," Jana Meron, then an advertising executive at Business Insider, said in one clip.
