1) Headline of the Week

From Politico:

Senate Democrats on Thursday turned an annual Pentagon funding bill into the collateral damage of a fierce shutdown battle, blocking the legislation as they pressed for an agreement that includes their domestic priorities.

The Left’s logic goes something like this: there will be no stinking national defense until illegal immigrants and sloths who sit on the couch all day get free health care from Uncle Sam. Got it?

At least they have their priorities straight.

2) Stocks Are a Much Better Long Term Bet Than Gold

Gold has been soaring lately, is it a good long term bet? Since 1980 (when Reagan was elected) through today, stocks have risen 10 to 20 times faster than gold - even with the recent run up in gold prices.

3) The World Puts EVs In Reverse

In January, when the Trump Administration reduced electric vehicle subsidies, environmentalists confidently asserted that the rest of the world would reject such an approach. Now, nine months later, it seems everyone is following his lead.

• In Canada, Prime Minister Mark Carney paused an electric-vehicle sales mandate due to kick in next year.
  

• In Great Britain, Prime Minister Keir Starmer has weakened his government's  timetable for the adoption of EVs.
  

• The European Union is on the verge of rolling back its 2035 target for eliminating carbon-dioxide emissions.

  
  

"Automakers have been saying that consumers aren't adopting EVs as quickly as expected, and government efforts to proliferate the technology are hammering their bottom lines," explains the Wall Street Journal. It quotes an expert at the consulting firm McKinsey as concluding that "EVs aren't smartphones."

You can say that again.

4) The Proxy Advisers Are In Retreat

Unleash Prosperity has been vocal in criticizing the proxy advisor services ISS and Glass Lewis for the far-left agenda they've supported. The pressure has paid off. Glass Lewis has just declared that starting in 2027, it will be moving "away from a one-size-fits-all approach to a highly customized, client-centric framework."

In other words, Glass Lewis will no longer be telling all of its customers how to vote on shareholder resolutions. Given Glass Lewis' support for liberal causes, this is a HUGE victory.

Glass Lewis has felt the heat from UP and others. Last month, the Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton, announced an investigation of Glass Lewis and ISS for "potentially misleading institutional investors and public companies by issuing voting recommendations that advance radical political agendas rather than sound financial principles."

The Glass Lewis retreat comes at a time when large financial firms are much less supportive of the ESG/DEI agenda than they were as recently as two years ago. All of this will be documented in the Unleash Prosperity report being released next week.

5) For the Birds

The New York Times poked fun at Trump earlier this week because he called for a national study on bird deaths due to the 150,000 wind turbines that chop up our fine feathered friends. The Times bashed Trump for "specious investigations into... bird deaths caused by wind turbines" in an editorial blaming Trump for rising energy prices.

According to the American Bird Conservancy, "Bird collisions with turbines and associated infrastructure are increasing yearly," and annual bird mortality is somewhat less than one million per year.

There are billions of birds, so the relative number of deaths is pretty trivial.

On the other hand, threatened species like Whooping Cranes, California Condors, Golden Eagles and other raptors are especially vulnerable to the twirling blades. Why they are attracted to windmills is beyond our pay grade.

What we find hypocritical is that we don't recall the Times or environmental groups complaining when we knocked out a good portion of our logging activities out west 35 years ago to save the Spotted Owl.

Throwing thousands of lumberjacks out of work was a small price to pay. It turns out the Barred Owl was outcompeting the Spotted Owl, and destroying the timber industry made no difference.

Oil and gas companies have faced massive fines and even CEO prison sentences when a few random condors get stuck in oil pits. The wind energy companies don't even have proper burials or moments of silence.

Apparently, it's much more cruel and unusual for a migrating bird to be trapped in an oil pit than to be chopped up in a 300 foot Cuisinart. Or something like that.

6) Who Ya Gonna Tax?

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