Walgreens Boots Alliance plans to close 1,200 stores over the next three years, with 500 closures set for next year, due to low drug reimbursement rates and slower consumer spending. They are carefully reviewing 800 others. On Tuesday, the Deerfield, Illinois-based company said it would shutter roughly 14% of its U.S. locations and redeploy the […] The post Walgreens Closing 1200 Stores appeared first on www.independentsentinel.com.

Less than a week ago, as engineers at SpaceX prepared to achieve something that had never been done before in human history, a dozen bureaucrats at the California Coastal Commission assembled to do something that’s been done many, many times before. The commissioners — a group that mostly consists of liberal women — set up a massive regulatory roadblock to impede people who are actually doing real, important work. And these commissioners established this roadblock in a way that made it extremely obvious to everyone that the root of their frustration was their own jealousy and bitterness. The following clips come from a meeting of the California Coastal Commission to consider SpaceX’s plans to launch as many as 50 rockets every year from Vandenberg Space Force Base, which is located in Southern California’s Santa Barbara County. This is a plan that was formally proposed by the Air Force and the Space Force, because SpaceX is a military contractor — and everything SpaceX does either directly benefits the Defense Department, or more broadly advances the interests of this country. But the California Coastal Commission, in its infinite wisdom, disagrees. They voted down the proposal for more launches. So why did they do that, exactly? Here’s one of the commissioners, Gretchen Newsom (no relation to Gavin Newsom), explaining her reasoning. Pay attention not only to what she says, but also how she says it. Watch: Once all the crazy talks from the public are over, the even crazier talks from government officials start. Now it REALLY becomes clear as to what the actual reasons are. Here is @GretchenNewsom spewing a load of bullshit about Starlink. The quoted post explains just how wrong… pic.twitter.com/iVqI9AP0jI — Robin (@xdNiBoR) October 14, 2024   She’s practically snarling over the fact that Elon Musk provided internet access to people in a storm. This is internet access that the federal government denied these people, because the Biden-Harris administration cut Starlink out of a funding program for rural broadband access. And as you’d expect, many of these people voluntarily — and gratefully — accepted this internet access from Elon Musk in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene. But somehow this is all a “sick ploy,” says Gretchen Newsom. And she makes that claim because, if they wanted Starlink, people had to pay a couple hundred dollars for the Starlink unit — the normal cost of the device — followed by a monthly fee after 30 free days of service (which has since been extended, for free, to the end of 2024). In other words, according to the California Coastal Commission, it’s not enough for Elon Musk to swoop in and provide basic services that the Biden administration failed to provide. He also has to do it for free. And if he doesn’t, the government will retaliate against him by blocking permits to launch rockets. There’s so much to going on in that clip, it’s not even clear where to begin. But I wanted to start with Starlink, because it highlights the anti-human ideology that’s consumed so much of the Left. They don’t care if Elon Musk is saving lives in disaster zones in states like North Carolina. They don’t care if people are voluntarily paying him money so that they can access a vital service like the internet. They only care about damaging Elon Musk as much as possible. And from that clip, it’s pretty clear why they want to damage Elon Musk. Gretchen Newsom says that Musk has made “bigoted” remarks about the “transgender community.” She claims he’s “spewing and tweeting political falsehoods about FEMA.” First of all, it would be hard to imagine a more direct and obvious violation of the First Amendment than these statements. Elon Musk has already said he’s suing the California Coastal Commission over this, and he absolutely should. On top of that, the things Elon Musk was saying are true. Men can’t become women. And FEMA did waste more than a billion dollars on services for illegal migrants. If the Constitution protects anything, it’s statements like these. That’s how the Constitution is written, anyway. But obviously that’s not how things work in places that are run exclusively by Democrats, like California. We saw that just a couple of weeks ago, when the governor, Gavin Newsom, tried to ban satire and memes. He didn’t like how people on social media were talking about Kamala Harris being a DEI hire, so he tried to outlaw it. He just came right out and said it. And Gretchen Newsom (again, no relation, surprisingly enough) has taken the exact same approach, right out in the open. There are a few other things that Gretchen Newsom said that I could quibble with. For example, no, Musk isn’t requesting “government support.” This meeting, again, is about a request by the Air Force and Space Force for the California Coastal Commission to get out of the way. No one wants the “support” of this commission. They want this commission to stop bothering them. Of course, technically, the military can override this commission if it wants to. But right now they’re working to find some kind of compromise solution. That may not last for very long, though. That’s because it’s not just Gretchen Newsom who thinks like this. The majority of the Coastal Commission in California is the same way. Here for example is Caryl Hart, the chair of the Commission. And this clip may be even more embarrassing than the previous one. Watch: Next, here is Dr. Hart, the chair of the CCC, forgetting about Mathew Dun and she has to be interrupted. I think this shows how much she cares and how much attention she pays to everything. She's also scared about her position. Lol. pic.twitter.com/JKHDvIQsjK — Robin (@xdNiBoR) October 14, 2024 So she tries to ding SpaceX for not showing up on Zoom during the meeting. And then she’s told that, in fact, SpaceX did show up by Zoom. In fact, someone named Mathew Dun, the Director for Government Affairs at SpaceX, gave a whole presentation. He explained that SpaceX is currently supporting the Defense Department, Boeing and NASA. He pointed out that SpaceX is the only operational U.S. provider for astronaut transportation to the International Space Station — which is kind of a big deal, because astronauts are trapped up there at the moment. He went into detail about how Starlink assists the Pentagon, in addition to disaster victims. But somehow, the chair of the California Coastal Commission missed all of this. And when she’s informed that SpaceX had shown up and done a whole presentation, she instantly waves it off. She says it wasn’t enough for her. So obviously, she made up her mind long before this hearing. And again, it’s clear what she’s really upset about. She complains that Musk has, “aggressively injected himself into the presidential race and made it clear what his point of view is.” So, in other words, he’s exercised his First Amendment rights in a way that the California Coastal Commission doesn’t approve of. For good measure, Caryl Hart also complains that Musk has, “managed the company” in a way that’s “very disturbing.” It’s hard to know exactly what that’s a reference to. Maybe she’s complaining about that lawsuit by some former SpaceX employees, which accused Musk of posting insensitive memes on X. Those memes were allegedly very traumatizing to these employees — particularly the meme depicting Bill Gates as a pregnant man emoji. It’s very disturbing stuff. Or maybe she’s referring to how SpaceX was fined several hundred thousand dollars because of alleged “launch license violations” last year — even though those “launch license violations” wouldn’t have been violations at all, if the FAA had responded to SpaceX’s various applications in time. Maybe that’s what the commissioner finds “disturbing.” Or maybe she’s talking about how SpaceX is doing things that no one has ever done before in all of human history. Maybe she finds that disturbing. Maybe she doesn’t see any benefit to reusable rockets, or colonizing Mars, or rapidly deploying satellites to provide internet access to millions of people. Maybe the idea of human progress upsets this particular bureaucrat. That would explain a lot. You can go through the whole hearing and you won’t find a serious explanation for the commission’s ultimate vote, which was to deny SpaceX the additional launches. But you will find a lot of hysteria. There’s a user on X using the handle “Robin” who assembled some of the better examples. Here’s two of them. The first clip is a commissioner named Dayna Bochco, who announces that the Air Force and Space Force are wrong, and that really, SpaceX has nothing to do with our national defense. She just comes out and unilaterally declares that SpaceX doesn’t benefit the government in any way. She knows more than the Pentagon and all of the engineers on this point. Watch: The second clip is a woman — a member of the public — complaining about sonic booms from the launches. Watch: Then, we have this absolute gem. She doesn't think that the launches are needed for the federal government or defense. pic.twitter.com/mhT7mDkaKV — Robin (@xdNiBoR) October 14, 2024 This next clip is a woman — a member of the public — complaining about sonic booms from the launches. Watch: I suppose we shouldn't expand humanity's presence in space because Leah finds a sonic boom 'terrifying' and claims she 'felt it through my bones.' Then she talks about the recent landing failure as if that has anything to do with it. ? pic.twitter.com/5gRxlKgfk0 — Robin (@xdNiBoR) October 14, 2024 There’s all sorts of back-and-forth on this sonic boom issue. SpaceX disagrees on how many of these booms are audible in populated areas, and how loud they are, and so on. But let’s just put all that aside for a moment. Let’s concede, for the purposes of argument, that every now and then there’s briefly a loud noise from a SpaceX launch, and that some people can hear it for a second or two. In what universe does this justify denying SpaceX the ability to launch rockets at all? This would be like denying construction crews the ability to work, at all, at any time. Imagine if people like this had their way during any other significant moments in this country’s history. Imagine if someone like that lady was bothered by all the noise they were making in Los Alamos, and had the Manhattan Project shut down. Imagine being the kind of person who hears a couple seconds of a sonic boom, and feels “terrified” as a result. When this woman says “sonic boom,” this is what we’re talking about here, to give you some idea. Watch: Tracking footage of Falcon 9’s first stage booster landing and sonic boom pic.twitter.com/HNohw3oCCp — SpaceX (@SpaceX) August 5, 2024   So the rocket makes a loud noise — that’s reason number 10,000 to shut down SpaceX, apparently. And I haven’t even gotten into the DOJ’s lawsuit against SpaceX for not hiring enough “asylum seekers,” which is what they’re calling illegal aliens now. And of course, the European Union has about a million of their own issues with SpaceX as well. The only positive thing to come out of this pathetic meeting at the California Coastal Commission is that it established, by sheer contrast, how useless all of these “regulators” and critics really are. They couldn’t have picked a worse day to hold this hearing. Less than a week later, Elon Musk demonstrated that unlike his critics, his companies are actually accomplishing things. They’re benefiting humanity in very real and tangible ways. It’s maybe the least flattering juxtaposition in the history of juxtapositions. On the one hand, you have useless, bitter bureaucrats trying to slow human progress. And on the other hand, you have this: Starship rocket booster caught by tower pic.twitter.com/aOQmSkt6YE — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 13, 2024   What SpaceX just accomplished will make interplanetary travel — in particular travel to Mars — an order of magnitude cheaper. They proved that they can catch their rocket boosters in-mid air. They also proved that they can precisely land the ship itself in the water. As Elon Musk put it last night, when you can re-use extremely expensive equipment like this, and then rapidly re-deploy it, you make it literally 1,000 times easier and less expensive to colonize a planet like Mars. And when you’re talking about trillions of dollars, that’s a big difference. It’s the difference between colonizing Mars and staying on this planet forever. The reason Musk’s critics don’t care about this is that, when you get down to it, they’re not just bitter and jealous and unhappy. They’re also anti-human. They don’t want humans to colonize another planet anymore than they want humans to have free speech on the internet, or to reproduce above replacement level. Pretty much the only issue these people are passionate about is abortion, because it means fewer humans will exist. That’s why Joe Biden and Kamala Harris didn’t bother to congratulate Elon Musk or SpaceX on their achievement, even though it altered the trajectory of civilization forever. It’s why they’re engaging in open lawfare to shut his companies down. These people do not want to save this country, or civilization for that matter. They want to destroy it. And they’ll complain about any pretext imaginable — whether it’s “sonic booms” or “launch licenses” or “hiring asylum seekers” — in order to achieve that end. The only reasonable response is to dismantle the vast web of bureaucratic agencies like the “California Coastal Commission” along with the Biden-Harris administration. This election isn’t really even about Democrat or Republican anymore. It’s a choice between unimpressive, profoundly cynical bureaucrats, and people who advance civilization in meaningful ways. After what SpaceX accomplished this week, that fundamental distinction is now clear to everyone with an internet connection or a television. That’s what they’re actually upset about. And it’s why, in just a few weeks, there’s a very good chance they’re going to lose the power that they never deserved to have in the first place.

Former President Donald Trump sat down for a lengthy interview with Bloomberg News Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait at the Economic Club of Chicago on Tuesday, and occasionally found himself at odds with his interviewer. The event opened with Micklethwait acknowledging that Vice President Kamala Harris — who is running against Trump for the presidency in just three weeks — was offered the chance to do a similar interview, but said no. Bloomberg News Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait: Just for the record, The Economic Club of Chicago and Bloomberg invited Vice President Harris to a similar interview. She has declined. pic.twitter.com/pREBYoHhFp — Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) October 15, 2024 Throughout the conversation, Trump and Micklethwait went back and forth on a number of economic issues with tariffs — which Harris has painted as a massive tax on the American people despite the fact that the Biden-Harris administration left a number of the Trump administration tariffs in place. Trump appeared to baffle Micklethwait when he explained that, in an ideal world, there would be no tariffs at all. MATT WALSH’S ‘AM I RACIST?’ COMING TO DAILYWIRE+ OCT. 28 “You could be plunging America into the biggest trade war —” Micklethwait said. “But there are no tariffs,” Trump objected. “There are tariffs already,” Micklethwait pushed back, not sure what Trump was getting at. “No, there are no tariffs — all you have to do is build your plant in the United States and you don’t have any tariffs. That’s what I want,” Trump said, and the audience began to clap. TRUMP: "There are no tariffs." HOST: *confused* TRUMP: "No, there are no tariffs — all you have to do is build your plant in the United States and you don't have any tariffs. That's what I want." AUDIENCE: *applause* ??? pic.twitter.com/vYWE8A0QNe — Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) October 15, 2024 Micklethwait continued to press the issue, saying, “You’re talking about 10-20% tariffs on the rest of the world. That is going to have a serious effect on the rest of the economy.” Trump agreed, but then proceeded to flip the argument on its head: “I agree it’s going to have a massive effect — positive effect… it must be hard for you to spend 25 years talking about tariffs as being negative and then have somebody explain to you that you’re totally wrong.” Interviewer: You're talking about 10-20% tariffs on the rest of the world. That is going to have a serious effect on the rest of the economy. President Trump: "I agree it's going to have a massive effect — positive effect… it must be hard for you to spend 25 years talking… pic.twitter.com/zyb1GfXCTi — Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) October 15, 2024 “The higher the tariff, the more likely it is that the company will come into the United States and build a factory in the United States so it doesn’t have to pay the tariff,” Trump continued. PRESIDENT TRUMP: "The higher the tariff, the more likely it is that the company will come into the United States and build a factory in the United States so it doesn't have to pay the tariff." pic.twitter.com/9Ed0NqL7CZ — Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) October 15, 2024 The conversation turned to China and the communist nation’s aggression toward U.S. trade partner Taiwan, and Trump argued that if China were making a move on the tiny island nation, it would be because they knew they couldn’t do so if he were re-elected in November. Micklethwait framed the question by noting that China was preparing for a “test run” of a “full naval blockade” and asked, “If China invades Taiwan, would you send American troops to defend it?” “Well, the reason they’re doing it now is because they’re not going to do it afterwards,” Trump shot back, alluding to a win for him on November 5th. PRESIDENT TRUMP on China's aggression toward Taiwan: "The reason they're doing it now is because they're not going to do it afterwards." ? pic.twitter.com/B4FuQYsSjY — Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) October 15, 2024 When it came to trade deficits, Trump said he had a plan to handle that as well: no more bad deals. “Stupid people made these deals. I saw trade deals that were so stupid that you’d have to be an idiot to sign them. And we signed them for years,” he said. President Trump will STOP foreign countries from taking advantage of the United States on trade: "Stupid people made these deals. I saw trade deals that were so stupid that you'd have to be an idiot to sign them. And we signed them for years." pic.twitter.com/YKlULRv2uL — Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) October 15, 2024 Because no liberal media interview would be complete without it, Micklethwait dredged up January 6th and asked Trump whether he would commit to “a peaceful transfer of power.” Trump, who moved out of the White House in January of 2021 without incident and has not interfered in President Joe Biden’s administration, objected: “You had a peaceful transfer of power.” “You had a peaceful transfer of power compared to Venezuela, but it was by far the worst transfer of power in a long time,” Micklethwait tried to correct Trump, and the crowd booed him. Trump turned to the audience then saying, “Thank you, I appreciate that.” PRESIDENT TRUMP: "You had a peaceful transfer of power." Interviewer: "It was by far the worst transfer of power in a long time." *Crowd boos* pic.twitter.com/C9wFi2qBpE — Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) October 15, 2024

People are finally realizing exactly who Kamala Harris is. What they are discovering for the first time, perhaps, is that she is completely vacuous. There is nothing there. Nothing. There has never been anything there. Yesterday, Christopher Rufo, doing his usual yeoman investigative work, broke wide open the reality that Harris is an empty vessel and always was an empty vessel. What he found is that Harris plagiarized at least a dozen sections of her criminal justice book, “Smart on Crime.” She even lifted material directly from Wikipedia. (The first rule of being smart on crime, by the way, is: Do not plagiarize from Wikipedia.) I’ve written 11 books under my own name. I used to ghostwrite for a living, meaning I wrote books under other people’s names. When you are writing factual books, very often you’re relying on media reports. You have to change the wording, and you have to footnote it. Those are just a few of the steps you must take. You have to paraphrase, and then you have to footnote what you wrote. If you don’t do that, it’s plagiarism and stealing. WATCH: The Ben Shapiro Show But Harris, apparently without dropping footnotes, just lifted entire paragraphs of text from, for example, the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, the Associated Press, and from Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not a good source because it is a compendium of what other people have written about a topic. And the people doing the writing are just randos. It’s not as if someone had written a peer-reviewed book or something equivalent. “The investigation was conducted by Dr. Stefan Weber, a famed Austrian ‘plagiarism hunter’ who has taken down politicians in the German-speaking world,” Rufo noted. “We independently confirmed multiple violations, which are comparable in severity to the plagiarism found in former Harvard president Claudine Gay’s doctoral thesis.” The investigation was conducted by Dr. Stefan Weber, a famed Austrian "plagiarism hunter" who has taken down politicians in the German-speaking world. We independently confirmed multiple violations, which are comparable in severity to the plagiarism found in former Harvard… pic.twitter.com/P9DTpZS4kV — Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) October 14, 2024 “The allegedly plagiarized sections came from a Bureau of Justice Assistance report in 2000, an Urban Institute report in 2004, a John Jay College of Criminal Justice press release describing a 2007 award, an Associated Press article in 2008, and a Wikipedia article’s wording in a 2008 iteration,” The New York Post reported, adding, “Chronicle executive director of marketing and publicity Lauren Hoffman asked for all inquiries to be forwarded to her, with one employee on the email chain emphasizing that the accusations touched on ‘a very sensitive topic.’” All of this underscores the fact that Harris has always been a giant nothing burger. There is nothing there. You can see it every time she talks. It’s why she spins around in circles: There’s just nothing deeper. We keep trying to scrape beneath the surface and find the deeper level of Kamala Harris. But perhaps it’s just deeper layers of emptiness. Perhaps it turns out that Harris’ core is just a gaping vacuum. Even CNN acknowledged that Harris had likely committed plagiarism, writing, “CNN reviewed several of the passages highlighted by Rufo and found that Harris and O’C. Hamilton failed to properly attribute language to sources.” Why does this matter? Because this is who Kamala Harris is. Vacuous and empty.

House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) divulged she has not spoken to President Joe Biden since he ended his re-election bid in July following a Democratic Party mutiny she reportedly stoked. On Monday, journalist Jonathan Freeland asked Pelosi on his “Politics Weekly America” podcast about whether she has had a conversation with Biden in the nearly months that followed. Pelosi says she and Biden still haven't spoken since he dropped out. Asked if she thinks Biden has forgiven him, there is a long pause and she says: "There may be some people around him who haven't forgiven me for my role."Via @Freedland and his pod: pic.twitter.com/3Jc9VrKqfE — Alex Thompson (@AlexThomp) October 15, 2024 “Not since then, no,” Pelosi revealed in the conversation. “So — but I’m prayerful about it. I have the greatest respect for him. I think he’s one of the great consequential presidents of our country.” Pelosi added: “I think his legacy had to be protected. I didn’t see that happening in the course that it was on — the election was on. My call was just to — ‘Let’s get on a better course. He will make the decision as to what that is.’ And he made that decision.” MATT WALSH’S ‘AM I RACIST?’ COMING TO DAILYWIRE+ OCT. 28 Despite locking in the Democratic Party’s 2024 nomination with the support of more than 14 million primary voters, the 81-year-old Biden bowed out of the White House race following a fumbling debate performance against former President Donald Trump. Biden did so under pressure from allies who increasingly raised concerns about his age, mental acuity, and electability. Vice President Kamala Harris, with Biden’s endorsement, quickly garnered support and became the Democrats’ presidential nominee. CNN reported that Pelosi privately told Biden that polls showed he could not defeat former President Trump and that he could hurt other members of his party in down-ticket races if he did not bow out. Pelosi also did an interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” in which the former speaker emphasized she would support whatever decision Biden made about his political future — even though the president was insisting at the time he would not leave the race. This reportedly emboldened more Democrats to turn on Biden. There have been some reports Biden was frustrated at Pelosi, among others, for pressing him to step aside. However, Biden insisted during an interview on ABC’s “The View” in September that his relationship with Pelosi was “fine” and claimed that he was “confident” that he would have beaten Trump in the election. On the podcast, Pelosi suggested to Freeland that Biden may have experienced “some unease,” but stressed they have been friends for decades. The lawmaker also contended, “There may be some people around him who haven’t forgiven me for my role,” before she emphasized, “but in any event, we just have to win the election.”

There are only a few shows remaining on the Eras Tour. It’s been the must-see concert event for more than a year. With millions of fans flocking to sold-out stadiums, this tour helped make Taylor Swift a billionaire. And not just America’s, but also the world’s sweetheart. If you’re worried that the Eras Tour coming to an end means the fun is over, don’t fret. Taylor is switching gears from singer to author. FIRST ON @GMA: Great news, Swifties! @taylorswift13 will release a new book commemorating her historic Eras Tour. And that's not all — she will also release physical copies of "The Anthology" only at Target! pic.twitter.com/rXpM1xM54L— Good Morning America (@GMA) October 15, 2024 Taylor Swift Is Adding A New Milestone To Her Career—She Is Releasing A Book! Good Morning America announced that the new book will be a retrospective of the Eras Tour. It will be 256 pages of photos, “stories, and memories from Taylor herself.” Taylor has called this tour the most wonderful experience of her life. She told fans during a show, “I’ve just never been this happy in my life in all aspects of my life… it’s not just the tour… my life finally feels like it makes sense… so I thought I’d play this song which brings me a lot of happy memories.” Fans Have Mixed Feelings About Taylor Swift’s Newest Project Fans took to GMA‘s X to post their thoughts on the new book. However, this person isn’t excited, “She’s putting all these mothers in debt for these kids. This girl is all about the money. Every minute is something she Hawking.” But this one hopes for all good things in Taylor Swift’s career, “I hope this makes her happy and content with life. We hope and pray that she does not destroy herself in many ways that we have seen other celebrities destroy themselves. With all the publicity and glamour is there a life of true love and common good for all those young women?” According to Target.com, Taylor Swift’s book will be in stores on November 29 and online on November 30 and will cost $39.99. This story’s featured image is by James Devaney/GC Images. The post Swifties Gasp As Taylor Swift Announces Huge Career Move appeared first on InspireMore.

Dudes rock, indeed

What do you think of this situation?

'Because of that scene I just performed, they kept me in the film'