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Wednesday, June 7, 2023

San Francisco Hotel Owner to Halt Mortgage Payments, Abandon City Due to Crime

National Review: The owner of two of San Francisco’s largest downtown hotels is stopping mortgage payments and going into foreclosure on the properties, stating that the city faces “major challenges” and that reducing exposure to the market is in the best interest of investors. Park Hotels & Resorts said Monday that it was stopping payment on a $725 million loan secured by the two hotels, the 1,921-room Hilton San Francisco Union Square and 1,024-room Parc 55. The Hilton is San Francisco’s largest hotel, and Parc 55 is the fourth largest. Thomas J. Baltimore Jr., CEO of the Virginia-based company, called the decision “very difficult, but necessary,” noting record-high downtown office vacancy, “concerns over street conditions,” and reduced convention business (National Review). Daily Mail: In 2019, Hilton San Francisco Union Square and Parc 55 earned $175.4 million and $95 million in room revenue, respectively. But by 2022, those figures fell to less than $30 million each, according to The San Francisco Standard. Park Hotels now estimates that it will save over $200 million in capital expenditures over the next five years just by offloading the properties and could even offer special dividends to shareholders of $150 to $175 million (Daily Mail).

PGA Announces Partnership with LIV Golf Circuit

Fox News: Less than a year after PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan said that any potential truce with the rival Saudi-backed LIV Golf circuit was “off the table,” a landmark merger between the two entities has been formed. The PGA Tour released a statement Tuesday confirming that the Tour, Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF), and the DP World reached an agreement with a goal to “unify the game of golf, on a global basis” (Fox News). CNBC: LIV Golf is backed by the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund, an entity controlled by the Saudi crown prince and has been embroiled in antitrust lawsuits with the PGA Tour in the last year. The deal announced Tuesday would end all pending litigation. PIF is prepared to invest billions of new capital into the new entity. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed (CNBC).

Hunter Biden Ordered to Appear in Arkansas Court, Faces Possible Imprisonment

Daily Mail: Hunter Biden will be hauled into court again next month and faces potential imprisonment if he doesn’t answer questions in his child support case, a judge ordered Monday. The mother of Hunter’s child launched her case in a Batesville, Arkansas court in May 2019 demanding child support for their daughter Navy Joan Roberts – who Hunter initially denied was his. In recent months the First Son, 53, asked the court to reduce his payments to baby momma Lunden Roberts, 32, and to deny her request to change Navy’s last name to Biden (Daily Mail). Washington Examiner: The judge ruled in May that Roberts and Joe Biden’s son will need to sit for depositions in June, when Hunter will need to answer detailed questions about his income. Hunter Biden has been ordered to answer inquiries about the current state of his finances, including all of his investments, his art sales, and other relevant financial transactions. Hunter Biden’s 10% ownership stake in a Chinese government-linked investment firm has apparently been transferred to his Hollywood lawyer “sugar brother,” who paid off millions of dollars of Hunter Biden’s back taxes, company records indicate (Washington Examiner).

UPenn Swimming Teammate of Lia Thomas Speaks Up

Fox News: A college teammate of transgender swimmer Lia Thomas is speaking out after anonymously participating in the Daily Wire’s 2022 documentary “What Is a Woman.” Paula Scanlan, who competed on the University of Pennsylvania women’s swimming team during the 2018-19 and 2021-22 seasons, spoke with Daily Wire host Matt Walsh in a video posted to social media Monday night, saying she is ready to join former college swimmer Riley Gaines in “fighting for women and girls across the country.” Scanlan told Walsh that the UPenn athletic department informed the team in a meeting that Thomas’ spot on the women’s team was “non-negotiable” and that they would regret it if they spoke to the media (Fox News). Matt Walsh: A teammate of Lia Thomas appeared in What Is A Woman anonymously. A few days ago she came to us and said she is ready to come out publicly and tell her story. I had a longer conversation with Paula where she revealed a number of details that weren’t covered in the film (Twitter).

Cori Bush Claims “Republicans Who are Not Woke are “Anti-Black”

Washington Examiner: Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO) called out Republicans who considered themselves “anti-woke,” stating they are labeling themselves as “anti-black” during a House Oversight Committee hearing on Tuesday. During a House Committee on Oversight and Accountability hearing on environmental, social, and governance, or ESG, topics, Bush pointed to the extremely frequent use of “wokeness” among Republican leaders. Bush said those who fixate on establishing themselves as anti-woke are actually saying, “I don’t want black people to speak up for themselves. I don’t want equality and justice for black folks.” The comments from Bush follow a recently introduced resolution in the House of Representatives in support of federal reparations. A group of Democratic legislators led by Bush proposed a $14 trillion resolution titled Reparations Now last month for black people to receive compensation for the legacy of slavery and racism in the United States (Washington Examiner). The Recount: Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO) says Republicans who claim to be “anti-woke” are really “anti-Black.” “Unless you are saying, ‘I’m racist, white supremacist, and I’m bigoted,’ stop talking about wokeness … Don’t let a fascist tell you what being woke means” (Twitter).

Atlanta City Council Approves Police Officer Training Center After Herculean City Council Meeting

HotAir: The Atlanta City Council convened at 1 pm yesterday to vote to approve (or disapprove) $30 million to be spent on the construction of the police training center activists call “cop city.” Literally hundreds of progressives showed up to make two-minutes speeches in opposition to the plan and as a result the meeting lasted approximately 16 hours. It was full of pleading and screaming and the occasional threat. At one point around 10 pm last night, the council called for a 15 minutes recess to allow people to calm down. At that point the protesters were told that threats had been made and if the situation continued the room would be cleared. But public comment resumed and lasted for another six hours. In the end, the activists seem to have made no difference at all because the vote, which was finally taken at 5:30 am Tuesday morning, wasn’t even close (HotAir). NBC: The 11-4 vote around 5:30 a.m. local time prompted outrage and jeers within the chamber, where audience members chanted, “‘Cop City’ will not be built” (NBC).

Florida Judge Stops Law Protecting Children from Gender Reassignment Surgery

National Review: Judge Robert Hinkle of the Northern District of Florida issued a preliminary injunction Tuesday against the state’s ban on gender-transition treatments for minors. Florida governor Ron DeSantis signed a ban into law last month on puberty blockers and hormones for transgender minors. Hinkle, who was appointed to the bench by President Bill Clinton, asserted in the Doe v. Lapado opinion that “gender identity is real.” In his view, “the overwhelming weight of medical authority supports treatment of transgender patients with GnRH agonists and cross-sex hormones in appropriate circumstances” (National Review). Washington Examiner: The law signed by DeSantis in May stipulates that physicians are not allowed to prescribe puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones to minors. It also prevents invasive, irreversible procedures such as double mastectomy, phalloplasty, or vaginoplasty (Washington Examiner).

Oklahoma Allows America’s First Faith-Affiliated Charter School

Just the News: Oklahoma’s Statewide Virtual Charter School Board voted 3-2 to approve what would be the first taxpayer-funded religious school in the nation, setting up a likely legal battle over the separation of church and state (Just the News). Daily Wire: Set to begin in late 2024, the school will offer online classes to around 500 students in kindergarten through grade 12. The school will receive an estimated $23.3 million in state funding for its first five years. Top state Republicans have disagreed on whether a religious charter school was allowable. Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt praised the board’s “courage to approve the authorization for St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School. This is a win for religious liberty and education freedom in our great state, and I am encouraged by these efforts to give parents more options when it comes to their child’s education” (Daily Wire).

Norway Now Believes “Gender Affirming Care” has No Scientific Backing

Washington Examiner: Norway, hardly the model of extreme, right-wing Christian fundamentalism , joined a growing number of European countries earlier this year in a move to restrict “gender-affirming care” for minors. The Norwegian Healthcare Investigation Board ruled that guidance encouraging puberty blockers and sex-change procedures for gender-confused youths lacked medical evidence and should be restricted to research settings only. Scientists in Sweden, Finland, France, and the United Kingdom have raised similar concerns, with the U.K.’s National Health Service going so far as to shut down its Tavistock Gender Clinic, the largest pediatric center of its kind, last year due to concerns that its treatments were putting gender-confused patients “at considerable risk.” Keep in mind: These are the countries in which the affirmative approach to transgender issues, known as the Dutch model, began. And it has exploded in their faces as an irreversible, devastating mistake (Washington Examiner). SOTT: It’s good that more professional organizations are recognizing the experimental nature of this approach in children. An existing body of research shows that most kids with gender dysphoria grow to be comfortable in their bodies upon undergoing puberty and that those wishing to transition suddenly post-puberty may be experiencing a social contagion. These studies have been dismissed because they don’t fit the preferred activist narrative (SOTT).

10.

US Had Intel Ukraine Was Going to Bomb the Nord Stream Pipeline Months Before Attack Occurred

Washington Post: Three months before saboteurs bombed the Nord Stream natural gas pipeline, the Biden administration learned from a close ally that the Ukrainian military had planned a covert attack on the undersea network, using a small team of divers who reported directly to the commander in chief of the Ukrainian armed forces. Details about the plan, which have not been previously reported, were collected by a European intelligence service and shared with the CIA in June 2022. They provide some of the most specific evidence to date linking the government of Ukraine to the eventual attack in the Baltic Sea, which U.S. and Western officials have called a brazen and dangerous act of sabotage on Europe’s energy infrastructure (Washington Post). Reuters: Several underwater explosions ruptured the Nord Stream 1 and the newly built Nord Stream 2 pipelines that link Russia and Germany across the Baltic Sea in September 2022 (Reuters).