Based Vietnamese grandma.
>Iran War Expert
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Sophie Cunningham's new shoes sell out in hours after her stand against wokeness
The WNBA star's Crazy Energy PE attracted half a million views on social media as sizes vanished in minutes.
Sophie Cunningham has quickly become arguably the second-most popular player in the WNBA, only behind Caitlin Clark, of course. She is a viral star on TikTok, one of the most efficient three-point shooters in the league, Clark’s defender when she’s bullied, a Sports Illustrated Swimsuit model, and recently, an unapologetic defender of keeping women’s sports female. She’s the whole package, and many companies are taking advantage of her stardom, including Adidas.
On July 10, Adidas announced a player-exclusive Sophie Cunningham shoe that would be available for purchase in 10 days. The Crazy Energy "Sophie Cunningham" PE, a pink gradient colorway, released Friday morning for a retail price of $120.
Friday morning, in collaboration with Adidas, Cunningham posted a video of her in an unmarked van full of her new sneakers with the caption: "today's the day. who's ready for the drop?", which has attracted over half a million views across Instagram and X in its first three hours of posting.
Within minutes of the social media promotion, most men's and women’s sizes were sold out. In less than an hour, they were all gone.
This is further proof that Cunningham’s marketability is skyrocketing. She’s on billboards, in commercials, a prominent voice in the culture war, and now, she has a best-selling shoe.
In a league where only all-stars like Caitlin Clark, Sabrina Ionescu, Angel Reese, and A’ja Wilson get shoe deals, Cunningham is breaking the mold and changing the game.
As for Clark, the Nike Caitlin 1 is scheduled to release on October 1, 2026, marking Caitlin Clark's first signature basketball shoe with Nike, after making the public wait almost three full seasons before a release. Nike officially announced the shoe and its accompanying signature apparel collection on June 17, 2026.
https://www.foxnews.com/outkick-sports/wnba-star-sophie-cunningham-player-exclusive-adidas-shoe-sells-less-hour-online
Hawaii approves new millionaires tax – top state income tax rate is now 13%
The millionaire tax passed with barely a murmur. ASD opinion columnist Sterling Higa on why the measures nobody argues about deserve the second look.
This session the legislature raised the income tax on anyone in Hawaiʻi earning more than a million dollars a year. Our 13% top rate now sits among the nation’s highest.
The bill passed quietly. The papers noted it the way they note a road repaving: a thing done, presumably good, needing no comment.
Nobody is weeping for people earning a million dollars a year.
That is precisely why the tax deserves a second look. The measures that pass without argument reveal what a society has stopped arguing about.
Envy is the one vice that never announces itself. Pride struts and greed hoards, but envy always arrives dressed as justice. A tax on millionaires feels like fairness. But fairness is not the only good.
A society can absorb a great deal of unfairness and survive. What it cannot survive is a politics that runs on resentment.
Envy used to know where its target lived. The peasant could see the landlord’s manor from his field, and the plantation worker could see the manager’s house from the rows of pineapple. Hawaiʻi’s own labor movement emerged from those fields with real grievances.
Wealth has since moved out of sight. It lives in brokerage accounts and holding companies now, not on estates. The wealth of the super rich has become intangible, and even their ranches are mirages. Mark Zuckerberg feeds his cattle macadamia nuts on Kauaʻi but eats perfectly well at his home in Palo Alto. Meanwhile, beachfront hotels in Waikīkī are owned by thousands of shareholders. You cannot storm an investment portfolio.
Envy is fed like a furnace. Social media puts every lifestyle on earth in every pocket in Hawaiʻi, heaping the coal into the flames. Envy becomes a mood — a low, constant awareness that somebody, somewhere, has the kitchen or the vacation or the body you were denied. A mood cannot be satisfied, but it can be channeled, and it is channeled toward whatever target happens to be within reach.
On Maui, neighbors were within reach. The short-term-rental phase-out was sold in the language of housing justice, taking from the wealthy to shelter the poor. But the owners it actually strikes are schoolteachers, retirees, the upper middle class — and a seaside condo in Kīhei carrying a $3,000-a-month maintenance fee cannot be cut into four pieces and handed to four needy families. It can only be made worthless, which is a strange kind of charity.
The county plans to phase out roughly 7,000 units, though a cleanup bill passed recently could exempt 4,500 units. That suggests Maui’s councilmembers have noticed the problem.
The partisans of envy are running the same play on the Mainland. New York has Mamdani's pied-à-terre tax. California has a wealth tax on the ballot, from which the billionaires are already excusing themselves by moving out of state.
The fair-minded reader will object that we owe something to the needy, and the reader is right. The widow and the orphan have a standing claim on us, and it’s older than any state. But the objection assumes the claim must be discharged through the state. Taxes for the rich, assistance programs for the poor.
Hawaiʻi already carries one of the heaviest state-and-local tax burdens in the country. The needy are not much better off for it. The burden of our state shows up in the rent, in the grocery bill, in the exodus of local families headed to Las Vegas. A man who can imagine no way to feed a widow except by voting to tax his neighbor has not discovered compassion. He has misplaced his imagination, and it is worth asking where he lost it.
He lost it at school. Consider the life of the average humanities Ph.D.: nine years spent in college and graduate school, paid for with loans and forgone wages. Now, a lottery for a shrinking number of academic posts, stagnant pay, and a publish or perish culture.
Nearing 30, our young doctor has many degrees, but no clear path to supporting a family. He has to take a part-time job as a barista to pay the bills. Meanwhile, his high school classmate who skipped college to fix air conditioners owns a home by the time of their 10-year class reunion.
A man in the professor’s position does not need much to grow resentful. He only needs to marinate. The trouble is that his marinade becomes his students’ curriculum. The resentment gets footnoted and graded. The graduates leave catechized in a simple creed: every problem is a distribution problem, and every solution is a state solution. Take from the rich, and give to the poor. Take from them, and give to me.
https://alohastatedaily.com/2026/07/22/hawaii-millionaire-tax-why-the-new-13-bracket-wont-be-the-last/
Gretchen Whitmer endorses Haley Stevens in Michigan’s contentious Democratic U.S. Senate battle
U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens of Birmingham now has Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in her corner as she sprints toward the finish line in the Aug. 4 Democratic U.S. Senate primary.
Whitmer’s decision to back Stevens over Dr. Abdul El-Sayed — who she beat in the 2018 gubernatorial primary — adds a powerful establishment Democrat to Stevens’ long list of endorsements. Recent polling has shown that Whitmer’s endorsement still holds sway in the state as her tenure as governor winds down which could move some undecided voters in the contest.
With a little more than a week until the primary, Whitmer on Friday said that Stevens shares her vision for a better Michigan.
“During my eight years as governor, we’ve faced tough challenges. But my north star has always been to get stuff done for Michigan. I know that’s Haley Stevens’ guiding light too, which is why I am so proud to endorse her for U.S. Senate,” Whitmer said in a statement and a video circulated by Stevens’ campaign. “With the great Gary Peters stepping down, Michigan needs an effective fighter to step up and deliver for our state in the U.S. Senate. That’s Haley Stevens.”
Whitmer also invoked key planks of Stevens’ campaign — Stevens’ experience serving as chief of staff on President Barack Obama’s auto rescue and her status as the most effective Michigan Democrat in Congress.
“Haley knows how to get things done for Michigan,” Whitmer said. “She’ll be ready to deliver on day one on manufacturing, lowering costs, and protecting our health care and Social Security. I’m thrilled to be endorsing her for U.S. Senate.”
Stevens said that Whitmer “has been a role model for so many Michiganders, myself included.”
“She’s led our state through some of our hardest challenges — always delivering for our manufacturing economy, our auto industry, and our workers,” Stevens said in a statement. “Governor Whitmer embodies what it means to be ‘that woman from Michigan’ and everything that makes our state so special. She’s authentically Michigan — and I could not be more honored to have her endorsement for U.S. Senate. Let’s go win!”
https://michiganadvance.com/briefs/gretchen-whitmer-endorses-haley-stevens-in-michigans-contentious-democratic-u-s-senate-battle/
House panel subpoenas 3 left-wing groups in probe of $39M tied to Marxist tycoon Neville Singham
The powerful House Ways and Means Committee has subpoenaed three left-wing nonprofits in an investigation into more than $39 million that flowed from Marxist tech tycoon Neville Roy Singham to the groups, Fox News Digital has learned.
In three letters dated July 21 and obtained by Fox News Digital, the committee accused the three nonprofits of failing to turn over a "single responsive document" to earlier requests for information.
The committee, led by Chairman Jason Smith, R-Mo., issued the subpoenas to the People’s Forum Inc., a New York-based activist hub; BreakThrough News, a left-wing nonprofit media outlet; and Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, which says its work is anchored in "national liberation Marxism."
read moar:
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/house-panel-subpoenas-3-left-wing-groups-probe-39m-tied-marxist-tycoon-neville-singham
Paramount says its takeover of CNN’s parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery, will be delayed for many months, and potentially well into 2027
Paramount says its takeover of CNN’s parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery, will be delayed for many months, and potentially well into 2027, due to pending lawsuits by state attorneys general and the Writers Guild of America.
Paramount said in a Friday afternoon court filing that it has agreed not to complete the mega-merger until an antitrust trial takes place, or until June 1, 2027, whichever comes first.
The current Paramount–Warner merger agreement expires on March 4, and is subject to an automatic extension through June 4, 2027.
Friday’s announcement blows up Paramount’s original plan to take control of Warner by the end of September. The delay was celebrated by critics of the deal. Shares in both Paramount and WBD slumped on the news.
The delay does not preclude all the parties involved from striking a settlement deal that would clear the path for the merger, though there are no indications that the cases are heading in that direction.
For the time being, at least, the deal uniting two of Hollywood’s biggest studios is in a deep freeze.
Friday’s agreement is the result of discussions between the lawyers for all the parties. It means there will no longer be an August 3 hearing on the states’ request for a preliminary injunction, and it withdraws the Writers Guild’s similar motion.
Lawyers for Paramount reached the conclusion that the plaintiffs would likely prevail at the preliminary injunction stage, an executive involved in the matter told CNN.
Thus, the source said, Paramount believes it’s better for the company to skip that stage and seek a speedy jury trial.
Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín, who is overseeing the case, quickly approved the agreement.
According to court filings, the parties will now work out timing for a trial on the underlying antitrust claims, with a proposed schedule due next Friday.
Paramount chief legal officer Makan Delrahim told Deadline that the company will seek a November trial date.
California attorney general Rob Bonta told CNN’s Jake Tapper that “we are likely to make a request to have trial in 2027, which is very appropriate based on the expert discovery that needs to happen… before a trial can and should go forward.”
Paramount is saying “let’s go straight to trial in California District Court,” analyst Rich Greenfield of Lightshed Research said. Greenfield noted that “even if Paramount loses in District Court, this would accelerate the time frame for an appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court and potentially to the Supreme Court in 2027.”
Paramount claimed the agreement is a “significant win” for the company “because the result is exactly what we have sought from the outset: a direct path to a trial based on the evidence.”
“This is the fastest and clearest way to prove that this transaction is good for competition, good for consumers, and good for creators, a conclusion dozens of competition authorities around the world have already reached,” the company said in a statement. “Plaintiffs’ market definitions bear no relationship to the realities of today’s marketplace and cannot withstand scrutiny. We look forward to proving our case at trial.”
But analysts called it a major setback that adds to the cloud of doubt hovering over the controversial deal.
The delay is potentially costly for Paramount. Under the terms of the merger agreement, the company will begin to owe Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders a 25-cent-per-share “ticking fee” each quarter the transaction remains incomplete after September 30.
The US Department of Justice approved the merger last month, and the European Commission granted conditional approval on Wednesday. The EU approval required Paramount to make several concessions, including exiting a film distribution joint venture with Universal in Europe.
The lawsuits in California are the deal’s main obstacle. A coalition of 12 state attorneys general has argued that the merger would reduce competition and hurt consumers.
“Our argument against this illegal merger is straightforward: When too few corporations have too much power in markets central to American life, it makes things more expensive, and it makes things worse,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta said in a statement Friday afternoon.
Bonta said, “We are eager to continue to make our case in court and celebrate another tremendous win in our effort to ensure this unlawful merger never sees the light of day.”
https://lite.cnn.com/2026/07/24/media/paramount-warner-bros-discovery-merger-delay
Luke Rosiak
@lukerosiak
🚨Ilhan Omar's SISTER incorporated her $20M USAID company using the same home address as major Feeding Our Future convicts, @realDailyWire found. The finding links Sahra Noor to the largest fraud in state history as Ilhan Omar refuses to cooperate with investigators.
https://x.com/lukerosiak/status/2080676155200344160
Ilhan Omar’s Sister Linked To Central Figures In Minnesota’s Fraud Scandal
Records tie company founded by "Squad" member's sister to largest public theft scandal in Minnesota history.
One of the largest fraud scandals in Minnesota may involve the family of Ilhan Omar.
The far-left congresswoman’s sister used the address of a woman who was business partners with several major convicts in the “Feeding Our Future” scandal, a Daily Wire investigation found.
The federal meals scandal is described as the largest public theft in Minnesota history. The statehouse’s House Fraud Prevention and State Agency Oversight Committee is probing the Somali-born congresswoman’s involvement in the scandal, but Democrats in May blocked a subpoena that would require Omar to produce records.
Public records in the state, however, may tie Omar’s sister, Sahra Noor, to the operation. Noor has run several businesses in the region, including the People’s Center Clinics & Services in the Somali neighborhood of Minneapolis, which controversially received a $2 million earmark while her sister was a state representative.
Noor went on to found a group called Grit Partners Consulting, and publicly says her company “has secured more than $20 million in funding for health initiatives” and has “consulted on projects backed by” federal health agencies such as USAID and the Center for Disease Control.
Grit Partners was incorporated at a home on Hyacinth Ave. in Lakeville, Minnesota. That address, and the woman who lives there, are lynchpins tying together at least three Feeding Our Future convicts, The Daily Wire found.
The Hyacinth Ave. home is occupied by Mashah Ahmed Ali and his wife Ister (a.k.a. Ismahan) Ahmed Afraa. According to incorporation records, Afraa opened a company called Sunrise Business Center, Inc. alongside Hanna Marekegn.
Marekegn is directly involved in the fraud scandal, pleading guilty in 2022 to wire fraud for stealing $7 million.
Marekegn claimed to be feeding 4,000 poor children a day. Instead she bought a mansion for herself, claiming she embodied the “American Dream.” Marekegn testified under oath that she falsely alleged racism to manipulate Minnesota bureaucrats to look the other way at red flags.
Afraa, who worked with Marekegn, also incorporated Sunshine Care Center MN, Inc., which claimed the same office address as Sunrise Business Center. On LinkedIn, Marekegn listed her employer as Sunshine Care Center at that address.
Afraa is also tied to Aimee Bock, the Feeding our Future ring-leader sentenced to 41 years in prison. Minnesota Department of Health data listed Bock as point of contact for Sunshine Care Center LLC.
Her Hyacinth Ave. home was also the incorporation address of Diversity Childcare Center LLC, which listed Bock as point of contact.
According to state investigative documents, Bock said the head of Sunshine Care Center MN, who is not named in the documents, was brought to Feeding Our Future by a woman named Sahra Nur, a key player in Feeding Our Future who was sentenced to four years in prison, and to whom Afraa is closely tied.
Afraa was CEO of Aflah Property Inc., which operated out of Nur’s home on Fordham Ct NE. Afraa had a $30,000 state tax lien placed against her in April 2025, listing the Fordham home as the address.
Nur’s home on Fordham Ct. was ground zero for Feeding Our Future, being used by at least 17 different companies, most of them designed to bill the government or launder profits.
Nur was an owner of S & S Catering, which claimed to have made more than eight million meals. It enabled the fraud of the various Feeding Our Future nonprofits by giving them fake invoices so they could tell the government they spent money purchasing meals. The government reimbursed more than $12 million as a result, according to Nur’s indictment and guilty plea.
Nur’s home was also used to set up some of those nonprofits, like the Academy for Youth Excellence, which allegedly stole $3.5 million in federal funds.
It also housed Golis Properties LLC, which allegedly stole $3.9 million from taxpayers and used $2.5 million in stolen funds to buy an entire block on East Lake Street.
Nur ran Kulmiye Management LLC, while Afraa, the woman connected to Omar’s sister, was an executive in Kulmiye Property LLC.
Afraa bought a property directly across the street from one that was forfeited to the government, 2529 12th Avenue South, for being purchased with stolen funds.
read moar:
https://www.dailywire.com/news/ilhan-omars-sister-linked-to-central-figures-in-minnesotas-fraud-scandal
France and Spain battle wildfires as more than 250,000 people are forced to flee homes
LEGE-CAP FERRET, France (AP) — France sent a hulking military cargo plane to dump tons of flame retardants as it battled raging wildfires on Saturday and slashed the final stage of Tour de France to redeploy security personnel to the blazes that forced tens of thousands of people to flee their homes.
The latest wildfires in southern Europe this week have displaced more than 250,000 people, including some 70,000 people who were evacuated in central Spain. One man died in Manises, the municipality reported on its Facebook page, the first death so far in the blazes.
In France, the giant A400M transporter swooped in low, its long plume of ochre-colored retardant trailing over drought-hit woodlands in the southwest as fire crews on the ground fought flames that authorities feared could spread toward the wine region city of Bordeaux.
Race organizers and the Paris police department announced a truncated 21st and final stage on Sunday for the three-week Tour, France’s most famous annual sporting event, reflecting the immense strain that two large fires in the southwest are causing for emergency services.
Tour riders will race Sunday inside Paris, rather than starting from Thoiry, west of the capital, on a circuit of 89 kilometers (55 miles) — down by a third from the 133-kilometer (82.5-mile) route that had been planned. Part of the race’s security detail will instead “reinforce the response efforts in the areas affected by the wildfires,” according to the statement announcing the ”exceptional measures made necessary by the situation.”
With winds expected to shift in a west-to-east direction on Saturday afternoon, potentially driving flames closer to Bordeaux, fire crews and authorities were digging trenches, using retardants and taking other blaze-blocking steps, French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said, predicting a “long and very difficult” battle.
He said the fire was about 30 kilometers (20 miles) west of the city and lost some of its intensity overnight. The prefect of the Gironde region that includes Bordeaux said the blaze grew into “a firestorm” on Friday after igniting earlier this week and cautioned that it “remains dangerous” even though firefighters were making progress.
The government mobilized soldiers to join fire crews and was rushing in 1.5 million face masks to protect against choking smoke.
Authorities ordered people between the fire and Bordeaux to evacuate, including from parts of the city’s western suburbs and other towns and villages.
Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu described the fires as unprecedented and said the Gironde blaze became so strong on Friday that it had begun generating its own winds. Firefighting teams were being reinforced with the addition of hundreds of soldiers and breathing masks to filter out potentially noxious smoke particles were being rushed to those exposed, Lecornu said.
In Bordeaux, authorities took in thousands of evacuees, offering them food and shelter in an exhibition center, and the city’s mayor said it could be equipped to welcome as many as 10,000 people if that became necessary. The city’s airport said it remained open but that its bus and tram services were suspended.
Evacuation orders were sent with special alerts to mobile phones, instructing people to leave, Gironde prefect Sophie Brocas said. She said the fire had destroyed about 140 homes in the region.
https://apnews.com/article/europe-wildfires-france-spain-93678a31ff53fc46564b6dfd9934eae1
Maine Democratic delegates choose Troy Jackson as new nominee to face US Sen. Susan Collins
Former state lawmaker and logger Troy Jackson secured the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate in Maine on Saturday and will face longtime GOP Sen. Susan Collins in November in a race that could decide which party controls the chamber.
Jackson replaces Graham Platner, who won the Democratic primary in June but withdrew from the race earlier this month following an allegation of sexual assault that Platner has denied. Maine Democrats met Saturday to choose a new Senate nominee to face Collins.
Support coalesced around Jackson, a former Maine Senate president and fifth-generation logger from rural northern Maine who campaigned alongside Platner during a failed bid for governor and was a favorite among progressives to replace him.
“When the people in power refuse to listen, you have to organize, you have to stand in solidarity, together. And you have to make them listen,” Jackson said during a speech at the last-minute nominating convention.
Democrats view Maine as the party’s best opportunity to flip a Senate seat this year because it’s a competitive race in a state President Donald Trump lost in 2024. But defeating Collins won’t be easy. The five-term incumbent holds a fundraising advantage, while Jackson will have less than four months to sell himself to voters.
Republicans immediately launched an ad campaign against Jackson, accusing him of having a volatile temper and linking him to Platner. The Senate Leadership Fund, Republicans’ super PAC, said it is committed to spending over $42 million against Jackson.
https://apnews.com/article/maine-senate-susan-collins-platner-troy-jackson-a5f89f03b6a9aace01f4e829befb7809