A truly iconic music venue. The post Who was the first artist to sell out Madison Square Garden in one night? first appeared on Far Out Magazine.

A flawed idea. The post “Walkin’ like a panther”: The disastrous moment Kim Gordon interviewed LL Cool J first appeared on Far Out Magazine.

As Ohio Republicans celebrate their victories in the 2024 election, they have also managed to secure a major post-election victory for children in their state. On Nov. 27, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine signed into law Senate Bill 104 — also known as the Protect All Students Act— which prohibits anyone in K–12 public and private schools, colleges, and universities from using any bathroom or school facilities meant exclusively for the opposite biological sex. All public and private schools, colleges, and universities across the state of Ohio are now mandated to designate all private areas used by multiple students as single-sex. The language of the law specifically states: A school shall designate each student restroom, locker room, changing room, or shower room that is accessible by multiple students at the same time, whether located in a school building or located in a facility used by the school for a school-sponsored activity, for the exclusive use by students of the male biological sex only or by students of the female biological sex only. Additionally, the law prohibits schools from creating and maintaining any “multi-occupancy facility that is designated as nongendered, multigendered, or open to all genders.” Universities are now to provide “clear signage” for all areas used exclusively for both biological males and females. The new law has created certain exceptions for reasonable circumstances, including parents and guardians of children under the age of 10, school employees that need to fulfill their duties in those areas, those assisting someone with a disability, and those that are assisting in a legitimate emergency. Republicans across Ohio responded positively to the news of DeWine’s support for the new law. Ohio State Sen. Jerry Cirino (R-Kirtland), the bill’s co-sponsor, stated that the purpose of Ohio’s new law is to ensure the safety of children and young adults within Ohio’s educational system. “It revolves around safety, security, and, I think, common sense,” said Cirino. “It protects our children and grandchildren in private spaces where they are most vulnerable.” Ohio Republican State Reps. Adam Bird and Beth Lear, who sponsored the bill in the Ohio House, expressed their gratitude for DeWine in a post on X. “We are thankful that individuals will not have to worry about the opposite sex coming into the restrooms, locker rooms, and changing rooms,” said Rep. Bird. As Ohio Republicans expressed overwhelming praise of the bill’s passage, they also expressed surprise at DeWine’s decision to sign the bill into law, given his opposition to previous bills dealing with transgender issues. In December 2023, DeWine vetoed the Ohio Saving Adolescents from Experimentation (SAFE) Act, which prohibited minors from receiving so called “gender-reassignment surgeries,” and the Save Women’s Sports Act, which prohibited biological males from participating in women’s sports. DeWine justified his decision for vetoing the SAFE Act on the basis that parents, not the government, should make the decision. DeWine said: “Ohio would be saying that the State—that the government—knows better what is medically best for a child than the two people who love that child the most, the parents.” Republicans in the Ohio General Assembly managed to successfully override the governor’s veto. Progressives and Democrats across the state denounced the bill’s passage. Ohio Democrats, along with teachers unions and other left-wing organizations, attempted to pressure DeWine into vetoing the legislation, but their efforts ultimately failed. Jocelyn Rosnick, the policy director of the ACLU of Ohio, called the bill “a cruel invasion of students’ rights to privacy, which could result in unwarranted governmental disclosures of private, personal information.” Equality Ohio Executive Director Dwayne Steward said, “We are deeply disappointed that Governor DeWine has allowed this dangerous bill to become law that puts vulnerable trans youth at risk for abuse and harassment.” Ohio Federation of Teachers President Melissa Cropper stated, “This bill has nothing to do with student safety and everything to do with political opportunism. There is no epidemic of student assaults in bathrooms and locker rooms.” The timing of Ohio’s new law could not have come at a more critical point. In addition to Ohio, 11 other states have passed similar legislation, including Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Utah. Tennessee’s law, which bans minors from so called “gender-reassignment surgeries” and prohibits biological males from participating in women’s sports, is currently being challenged in the United States Supreme Court (United States v. Skrmetti). The Supreme Court heard oral arguments on Dec. 4 that addressed whether Tennessee’s latest law violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. While a decision will not be released until 2025, the outcome of United States v. Skrmetti will decide the fate of current and future legislation that prohibits biological males and females from using opposite-sex facilities. Though the wide range of these issues in the Buckeye State remains unclear and undecided, the passage and implementation of Ohio’s new law marks a major victory by Republicans in their efforts to protect children. READ MORE: Is the Transgender Movement Really Backing Down? The Spectator P.M. Ep. 94: Congress’ Bathroom Fight Shows Shift on the Left Speaker Johnson Clarifies Basic Biology The post Ohio Protects Girls From Boys Who Want to Use Their Bathroom appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

Of all the bags being packed in Washington over the next two months, some of the heaviest surely belong to the outgoing Chair of the Securities Exchange Commission Gary Gensler after he announced his resignation late last month. On Inauguration Day in January, he’ll be lugging the battered corpse of a failed and politicized agenda with him out of town. Strolling past him in the other direction on K Street will be Trump’s recently announced pick to replace him as SEC chair, Paul Atkins. As a former commissioner and seasoned expert in securities from both a regulatory and practice perspective, Atkins is easily one of the most competent and experienced nominees to be tapped for Trump’s second term and faces a relatively smooth confirmation process. Priorities for an Atkins-led SEC are likely to be a perfect contrast to rulemaking during the Gensler years, which was defined by its irrational and disingenuous war on cryptocurrencies, and, like much of the Biden administration, by subservience to the politically correct tenets of the Environmental, Social, and Governance framework. ESG was the favorite shrine of federal bureaucracies for the last four years and one at which Gensler’s SEC frequently worshipped, offering up mandates that were more about political bullying than any meaningful improvements to transparency. The SEC’s Environmental Rulemaking Of all the new disclosure requirements put in place during Gensler’s reign, none were destined to be quite as burdensome, distracting, and wholly unnecessary as his 885-page “Climate Rule” which serves as a prime example of just how bad a bureaucracy can get if it’s allowed to fuel up on taxpayer dollars and drive at full speed under the influence of too much woke Kool-Aid. The rule adopted in 2023 requires expansive new environmental disclosures in corporate filings, most notably on greenhouse gas emissions, the scope and complexity of which are mind-boggling. Among many other requirements, the rule as originally proposed forced companies to disclose not only measurements of gasses produced by their own business but also indirect emissions that occur throughout a company’s value chain from its supply origins through the end of its product’s life. Even with some of these requirements left out of the final rule, projected costs for companies include vast new reporting systems, countless hours of unending data collection, and massive expenditures for external consulting and audit compliance. The authors of the bloated “Climate” rule appear to have little experience or concern with the practical reality of smaller public manufacturers based in the U.S., many of whom operate with enormously complex supply chains extending to the far corners of the world but also thin margins and minimal resources to spend on new reporting requirements. Every dollar they are forced to spend towards regulatory compliance is another dollar not invested in growing the economy and jobs at home, not to mention one more reason for manufacturing to go elsewhere. And for what? The ploy that this rule had anything to do with securities regulation was laid bare in subsequent legal challenges and congressional hearings where it was exposed for what it was — a brazen attempt to shame public companies into going along with an ideological mission. Towards that end, it was filled with petty and meaningless requirements like demanding companies address bad weather events ostensibly caused by greenhouse gas emissions in the tacit hope of making them admit, in their own filings, that their Co2 emissions are responsible. The ultimate goal was even more profound — its architects sought to provide the means for a new imagined class of “woke investors” to base investment decisions on a company’s adherence to environmental objectives and political doctrines rather than an expected return on investment. This new investor class has thus far failed to materialize, and so too has the execution of the “Climate Rule” itself. After years of poor publicity, disastrous Senate hearings, and inevitable lawsuits, the SEC announced in April that it would voluntarily “stay” its implementation of the rule until its poor legal case has been addressed. Regardless of the rule’s fate under the new SEC regime, multinational companies with a presence in Europe will still have to contend with similar disclosure burdens in the coming years thanks to the army of European Gensler clones that still mind the regulatory stores there. But back home many domestic public companies will hopefully be spared the worst. With Chair Atkins on the way into town, whatever copies of this sad mess are still cluttering up the desks of bureaucrats in D.C. should hopefully light a bonfire in January and become carbon emissions themselves. Diversity Quotas for Corporate Boards Next on the incoming chair’s return-to-sanity checklist should be revisiting the SEC’s approach to the doctrine of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. DEI has already begun to lose favor in corporate and collegiate settings alike as its discriminatory and in many cases illegal practices have begun to be exposed. On this front, far worse than disclosure requirements on corporate DEI initiatives, Gensler’s SEC openly embraced discrimination in the workplace through its approval of NASDAQ rule 5605(f) on board diversity. This rule forces companies to use race and gender as a determinate factor in who they include on their Board of Directors, requiring certain ratios of female, minority, or LGBTQ+ directors in order to be listed or they must publicly file embarrassing disclosures explaining their failures to be sufficiently woke. There are all sorts of ways that diversity can and should be encouraged at the highest levels of corporate governance. Studies are often cited by DEI proponents showing that diverse teams are more innovative or make better decisions, which in theory could lead to better financial performance by companies. By mandating rather than encouraging diversity of racial identity and sexual orientation, however, the SEC and NASDAQ acting together have reduced the ability of companies to seek diversity of professional background, expertise, and intellectual perspective among the pool of candidates, which is vastly more important than skin color or sexual identification. Not to mention the fact that the rule violates the principle of shareholder primacy and represents social policymaking far outside the SEC’s scope of authority. Not surprisingly, this rule remains in peril before the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals with significant ongoing legal challenges, not the least of which is a constitutional challenge that the SEC as a state actor is violating the 14th Amendment by discriminating on the basis of sex and race. The regime change at the SEC and an incoming chair with more respect for fairness, Commission authority, and the rule of law should hopefully put this rule in even greater peril. Gensler’s Crusade Against Crypto Perhaps the most impactful area of the SEC’s overreach in the last four years has been its irrational war against cryptocurrencies and the companies pioneering their innovative uses in the marketplace. Instead of providing badly needed rulemaking on digital assets, from its early days Gensler’s SEC leaned full throttle into a classic “regulation by enforcement” approach, spitting out more than 100 civil actions without providing clarity on the new ground rules, or receiving any statutory authority from Congress. In order to assume the oversight power necessary to ignite this war, Gensler and his underlings invented a theory that nearly all digital assets aren’t crypto commodities at all, but are instead traditional securities that somehow represent “investment contracts” under U.S. securities laws. Confusion abounded for years as vital questions were left unanswered. What platforms or firms were required to register with the SEC? What exactly made some crypto assets securities while others were commodities? What should the new players do and disclose to protect users and operate legally? Stakeholders and exchanges pleaded for clarity but received none. Instead, the legal spigot sprayed in all directions as Gensler dispatched unrelenting enforcement attacks against key innovation players like Binance, Coinbase, Kraken, and dozens of others he viewed as part of the sinister crypto scheme. Over just a handful of years, reports indicate that targeted crypto companies spent over $429 million and countless hours fighting these legal roadblocks. Eventually, the actions led to a return volley of lawsuits, including one last year by eighteen state attorneys general who sued Gensler’s SEC for its enforcement oversteps. But the damage was already done. American leadership in the digital asset sector came to a near crashing halt, leading to major firms calling it quits and others such as Coinbase considering moves abroad. It was never clear why Gensler, a former MIT lecturer on blockchain, was so personally incensed at crypto. In between steering the SEC’s lawfare assaults, he would occasionally froth into microphones about this new industry being rife with “hucksters” peddling “frauds and scams.” More reasonable regulators would recognize cryptocurrencies as a potential path to more efficient and transparent transactions in the markets of the future, and therefore as a valuable tool rather than a dangerous animal to be caged and hobbled. Signs suggest the new Republican-led SEC will reject Gensler’s view of crypto as an industry run by pirates and miscreants needing to be confined in the same dusty box of decades-old securities rules that govern stock issuers. Its overreach on crypto aside, the Securities Exchange Commission continues to serve a uniquely vital role. Its mission and its employees deserve the respect and support of market participants, as well as political leaders like President Trump. But that mission needs to be followed. Under Gensler’s leadership, the Commission conjured up its own imaginary role as an enforcer of political ideology rather than good governance, and as a crusader against one of the most innovative sectors of the economy. He evaporated much of the public’s respect and goodwill. As we bid him farewell, we can only hope that the new chair will steer the Commission back to its primary duty to protect investors and safeguard the integrity of the greatest free market in the world. The post Trump’s Regime Change at the SEC appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

Most people don’t follow the Catholic news cycle regularly, and there’s a good reason: In recent years, it’s been a web of entangled finances, bishop appointments, and meetings that concluded by affirming the need for more meetings while accomplishing little else. This week was an exception to that rule. Paris’ Notre Dame reopened, and while the liturgy featured vestments that looked like they were designed as a L’Oréal marketing ploy, there was also an impressive dialogue between the Archbishop of Paris and the newly renovated organ. Meanwhile, in Rome, Pope Francis created 21 cardinals, many of whom (the AP speculates) seem to be part of his attempt to establish his legacy. (READ MORE: The Democrat Party’s Noxious ‘God Problem’) That’s all very nice news, but it’s hardly the kind of stuff that causes a flurry of controversy on internet forums and posts on X. No, the event being discussed there wasn’t anything as historic as the reopening of Notre Dame. Instead, it was the fact that the official Vatican calendar for the 2025 Jubilee Year includes a pilgrimage made by an LGBTQ outreach group run by Jesuits. This, the internet and media concluded, was proof that Pope Francis himself had approved the event. Let’s back up and get some context. The Catholic Church is getting ready for its regularly scheduled Jubilee Year, which will begin on Dec. 24, 2024, with the opening of the Holy Door at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome and end on Jan. 6, 2026. The Church has celebrated jubilees regularly since Pope Boniface VIII declared the first one in 1300 to call Christians to a year of penance, forgiveness, and reconciliation. As part of a Jubilee Year, many Catholics try to go on pilgrimage to Rome, and the city is preparing to receive some 35 million of these pilgrims next year. Many of them will likely join in on the scheduled pilgrimages made from local churches in Rome to the Holy Door at St. Peter’s. These scheduled pilgrimages are published on an official general events calendar and include hundreds of groups from dioceses and parishes around the world. (READ MORE: Now That Trump Won, Catholic Bishops Have a Choice) Here’s where the controversy comes in. One of these scheduled pilgrimages is being organized by a Jesuit priest from the Diocese of Bologna and is sponsored by an umbrella organization called Tenda di Gionata that runs a group called Progetto Gionata (Project Jonathan). Progetto Gionata’s goal, as stated on its website, is to make “known the journey that LGBT Christians (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) take every day in their communities and in the various Churches, so that these experiences can help society and the Churches to open up to understanding and welcoming homosexual people.” Sexual relations between two people of the same sex is one of those things the Catholic Church considers gravely wrong. Given full knowledge and consent, practicing a homosexual lifestyle cuts a person off from the body of the Church. But those doctrinal points haven’t stopped Progetto Gionata from insisting that biblical passages condemning homosexuality are “taken out of context” and that “[p]rejudices against homosexuality have caused a misunderstanding of the original texts; some of the passages attributed to Paul were probably written by his assistants; and the Scriptures must be interpreted in the light of history and reason.” The pilgrimage run by this group plans to start at the Gesù (the Jesuit church in Rome that holds the tomb of the order’s founder, St. Ignatius of Loyola) with a prayer vigil on Sept. 5. The following day, pilgrims will head to St. Peter’s, walk through the Holy Door, and return to the Gesù for a Mass celebrated by Bishop Francesco Savino. When this news broke, Italian and American media claimed that Pope Francis both knew about and openly supported the pilgrimage. They labeled the event an “LGBT Jubilee,” implying that it had the same significance as themed jubilee events like the Jubilee for the Poor or the Jubilee for Prisoners. But that’s an exaggeration. The Pillar later pointed out that the event isn’t listed on the calendar of major events but just on the calendar of hundreds of pilgrimages being made next year, where it’s called the “Pilgrimage of the association La Tenda di Gionata and other associations.” A spokesperson for the Dicastery for Evangelization stated that these kinds of pilgrimages are hardly “sponsored activities,” but are simply officially registered with the Jubilee Year Office. (READ MORE: Kamala Harris’s Anti-Catholic Bigotry on Display) All that to say, when this group of LBGTQ pilgrims makes its way from the Gesù to the Vatican, they’ll do so in the same way as hundreds of other groups. This is something of a non-issue. There’s really no problem with LGBTQ individuals making a pilgrimage — which, by its nature is penitential — to the Vatican. Perhaps they’ll find the repentance, forgiveness, and healing they need to leave behind their irregular and sinful lifestyles and pursue a life of Christian chastity. One can (and should) certainly pray for that outcome. What is unfortunate (and problematic) is that these pilgrims likely won’t hear a call to repentance coming from the Vatican or the clerics running the event, which is going by the clunky name “Church: Home for All, LGBT+ Christians and Other Existential Frontiers.” Instead, they’ll probably be told that their presence in Rome is “historic,” and “offers an immense amount of hope” to individuals seeing “acceptance” for their debauched lifestyles in the Catholic Church. That’s problematic because it misses a golden opportunity to encourage these individuals to seek the healing they need and could find within the arms of St. Peter’s if they would only look. The post No, the Vatican Didn’t Sponsor an ‘LGBT Jubilee’ appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

from The People’s Voice: TRUTH LIVES on at https://sgtreport.tv/

by Stephen Kruiser, PJ Media: Anyone who has voted Republican in more than one election quickly becomes familiar with feeling exasperated. GOP politicians have a history of not handling success well. I can’t be precise about how long this has been the case, but this past spring marked my 40th anniversary as a Republican/conservative activist […]

from SGT Report: Americans comprise the sickest, most obese nation in the western world. But why? How did we get here? Michael Dillion the founder of Air Water Healing joins me to discuss the epidemic of illness in the United States, JFK Jr.’s MAHA plan to fix it and much more. Thanks for tuning in. […]

President Trump announced former Arizona gubernatorial and U.S. Senate candidate Kari Lake will serve as the Director of Voice of America. “I am pleased to announce that Kari Lake will serve as our next Director of the Voice of America. She will be appointed by, and work closely with, our next head of the U.S. Agency for Global Media, who I will announce soon, to ensure that the American values of Freedom and Liberty are broadcast around the World FAIRLY and ACCURATELY, unlike the lies spread by the Fake News Media,” Trump said. “Kari was a beloved News Anchor in Arizona, which supported me by record margins, for over 20 years,” he added. BREAKING: Trump announces Kari Lake as Next Director of Voice of America. pic.twitter.com/zROrgYqjgI — Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) December 12, 2024 A closer look: Per Fox News: Lake was a longtime Arizona broadcaster who ran unsuccessfully for public office in 2022 and 2024. Voice of America is an influential broadcast channel that serves news, information, and cultural programming through the Internet, mobile and social media, radio, and television. The broadcaster serves in over 40 languages. BREAKING : Person of the Year President Trump nominates Kari Lake to be the next Director of the ‘Voice of America’ MILLIONS OF AMERICANS WILL BE ABLE TO HEAR FROM KARI LAKE DAILY. LET’S GO THIS IS HUGE pic.twitter.com/xsOD1xbigT — Ape? (@CubanOnlyTrump) December 12, 2024 “Kari has YEARS of experience as a broadcaster, so this is the perfect position for her!” journalist Nick Sortor commented. JUST IN: President Trump has announced he is appointing Kari Lake to serve as the Director of Voice of America, which is the U.S. government’s international broadcasting network Kari has YEARS of experience as a broadcaster, so this is the perfect position for her! Congrats… pic.twitter.com/bYEHLMg3gl — Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) December 12, 2024 AZFamily reports: Reports had circulated that Lake was a top contender for ambassador to Mexico but that job went to diplomat Ronald Johnson. She was also reportedly in talks to join conservative-leaning outlet NewsMax, but she and the network later denied those reports. Lake formerly worked for KSAZ-TV before becoming a star on the populist right with her 2022 campaign for Arizona governor but lost to current Gov. Katie Hobbs. She later ran to replace outgoing Sen. Krysten Sinema in a crucial U.S. Senate seat in 2024 but lost in a tight race to Rep. Ruben Gallego. She never acknowledged losing the gubernatorial race and called herself the “lawful governor” in her 2023 book. She continued her unsuccessful fight in court to overturn it even after beginning her Senate campaign.

According to CBS News, President Trump has invited Chinese President Xi Jinping to attend his inauguration next month. “Inauguration officials are making plans for additional foreign dignitaries to attend the swearing-in ceremony,” the outlet stated. “The president-elect has invited Xi Jinping of China to witness his inauguration. This is a power move, to intimidate the Chinese leader. If he declines, it’s disrespectful and Trump will take it personally,” Fox News host Jesse Watters said. “And if he accepts, he’ll be forced to observe President Trump at his most powerful moment, with all the presidential pageantry America can muster,” he continued. WATCH: WATCH: Fox’s @JesseBWatters on Trump inviting China’s President XI Jinping to his inauguration: “A power move to intimidate the Chinese leader. If he declines, it's disrespectful and Trump will take it personally. If he accepts, he will be forced to observe President Trump at his… pic.twitter.com/pZmjYExOsY — TV News Now (@TVNewsNow) December 12, 2024 Per CBS News: Trump invited Xi in early November, shortly after the election, sources said, but it was not clear whether he has accepted the invitation. A spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Washington did not immediately comment. In addition to Xi, the president-elect’s team has raised the possibility of hosting other leaders at the Capitol on Jan. 20. Hungary’s far-right leader, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who has a warm relationship with Trump and visited him at Mar-a-Lago this week, is “still considering” whether to attend, according to a source familiar with Orbán’s plans. “World leaders are lining up to meet with President Trump because they know he will soon return to power and restore peace through American strength around the globe,” Trump transition spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said. Ambassadors and other diplomats are typically invited to inaugurations, but State Department records dating back to 1874 show that a foreign leader has never attended a transfer-of-power ceremony. JUST IN: President-elect Trump invites Chinese President Xi Jinping to his inauguration. pic.twitter.com/daiN5F8P1s — BRICS News (@BRICSinfo) December 11, 2024 BREAKING: President-elect Donald Trump has invited China’s Xi Jinping to his inauguration, sources say. https://t.co/C9aAMNSDia — CBS News (@CBSNews) December 11, 2024 From the New York Post: A spokesperson for the Trump-Vance transition team would not confirm or deny the report of Xi’s possible historic appearance at the Jan. 20 inauguration. “World leaders are lining up to meet with President Trump because they know he will soon return to power and restore peace through American strength around the globe,” Trump-Vance transition spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said in a statement. State Department records dating back to 1874 indicate that no foreign leader has ever attended a presidential inauguration, according to CBS News. Xi, 71, may not be the only world leader that attends the swearing-in ceremony. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, whom Trump regularly referenced on the campaign trail and met with this week at Mar-a-Lago, is “still considering” whether to attend the 45th president’s second inaugural, according to the outlet.