San Franciscans, Inundated By Feces, Now Want To Ban Paper Cups

First they came for the straws. Then they came for the disposable water bottles. Now San Franciscans, in the same city inundated by public feces and urine, are banning paper to-go cups in order to save the city from the environmental apocalypse.

Fox Business reports, “A growing number of coffee houses in San Francisco are banishing paper to-go cups and replacing them with everything from glass jars to rental mugs and BYO cup policies. What started as a small trend among neighborhood cafes to reduce waste is gaining support from some big names in the city’s food and coffee world.”

Some examples: the restaurant Atelier Crenn will eschew using to-go bags or disposable coffee cups next year; the Blue Bottle coffeehouse chain, which uses 15,000 to-go cups a month at its 70 U.S. locations, has stated it will “show our guests and the world that we can eliminate disposable cups,” and Starbucks has plans to test recyclable cups next year in San Francisco, Seattle, New York, Vancouver and London.

In July 2018 the San Francisco Board of Supervisors revealed they were considering banning plastic straws. Newsmax reported, “The legislation prohibits eateries from using plastic anti-splashers, stirrers and other plastic items that environmentalists say are too small to be recycled properly. Retailers would no longer be able to sell the items starting July 2019. In addition, food and drink vendors would be allowed to dispense cutlery, napkins, condiments and lids only on request or through self-serve stations.”

Peter Gallotta, spokesman for the city’s Department of Environment, stated, “It’s a movement not just happening in San Francisco but nationally and internationally. The larger elephant in the room is the single-use disposable culture we find ourselves in, and straws are the epitome of this unnecessary daily waste.”

Kerry Jackson, a research fellow at the Pacific Research Institute’s Center for California Reform, noted, “One percent of the plastic found in the ocean comes from California, meaning California can do whatever it wants to do, but it’s not going to change anything. Plastic straws are not dangerous to anybody, and they can be disposed of properly, which most people do,” as The Heartland Institute reported.

The ban went into effect July 1, 2019.

In August 2019, a ban on selling many single-use plastic water bottles at San Francisco International Airport went into effect. The ban was implemented based on a 2014 ordinance that banned selling disposable plastic bottles on city-owned property; the airport is owned by the city.

As NBC News reported, 58 million passengers go through SF International each year; 10,000 single use bottles are sold there every day, amounting to four million every year.

“Travelers lugged empty canisters through security. They refilled them at the airport’s more than 100 ‘hydration stations,’ the water dispensers mounted outside most bathrooms. The fountains had no lines early Tuesday morning,” the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

SFO spokesman Doug Yakel boasted to the Chronicle, “We’re the first airport that we’re aware of to implement this change, we’re on the leading edge for the industry, and we want to push the boundaries of sustainability initiatives.”

 

 

 

via The Daily Wire

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Kevin Spacey Accuser Dies One Day After Spacey Suggests ‘Killing with Kindness’ in Creepy Video

Actor Kevin Spacey issued a creepy message to the world on Christmas Eve, a day before a man who once accused Spacey of groping him committed suicide.

Geir Håkonsund, a spokesman for the family of Norwegian author Ari Behn, announced that Behn, 47, who had once been married to Norwegian Princess Martha Louise, had killed himself.

“It is with great sadness in our hearts that we, the very closest relatives of Ari Behn, must announce that he took his own life today. We ask for respect for our privacy in the time to come,” Håkonsund said in a statement, according to CNN.

Behn had alleged that in 2017, Spacey — who has been accused of sexual misconduct by multiple men — groped him under a table.

Although there is no indication that there was any connection between the suicide and the video, the timing of the two events and the creepy nature of the Spacey video led some media outlets, such as the Washington Examiner, to report them together.

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Eyebrows were also raised on social media.

In the video, Spacey appeared to be reprising his character of Frank Underwood from the Netflix TV series “House of Cards” while delivering a cryptic message.

The video opens with Spacey sitting by a fire in a Christmas sweater.

“It’s been a pretty good year, and I’m grateful to have my health back. And in light of that, I’ve made some changes in my life and I’d like to invite you to join me,” he says.

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“As we walk into 2020, I want to cast my vote for more good in this world,” Spacey goes on, with a dramatic mid-sentence pause.

“Ah yes, I know what you’re thinking. Can he be serious? I’m dead serious. And it’s not that hard, trust me,” he says.

Spacey then stares into the camera as though the following lines had an extra meaning.

“The next time someone does something you don’t like, you can go on the attack. But you can also hold your fire and do the unexpected,” he says, using an even more dramatic pause in the video’s final sentence. “You can kill them with kindness.”

The video closes with eerie music as Spacey stares into the fire.

The clip is Spacey’s second Christmas video and the more enigmatic of the two. Last year, that actor appeared to be defending himself from the sexual misconduct allegations that led to his ouster from “House of Cards.”

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via The Western Journal

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Disney Removes Lesbian Kiss from ‘Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker’ in Singapore

Disney has removed a lesbian kiss from their latest installment of the Star Wars series, The Rise of Skywalker, in Singapore, bending to the country’s strict rules surrounding LGBT content.

Singapore’s media regulatory body confirmed earlier this week that Disney had removed the clip to keep their film a PG-13, meaning children under the age of 13 can attend but only in the company of an adult.

“The applicant has omitted a brief scene which under the film classification guidelines would require a higher rating,” a spokesperson from Infocomm Media Development Authority said.

Under Singaporean censorship guidelines, films containing LGBT themes or content as a subplot can only be watched by those 18 aged and above, while films focusing solely on homosexuality may only be viewed by those over the age of 21.

Despite being one of Asia’s most important financial and cosmopolitan hubs, Singapore has restrictive laws on LGBT rights, with same-sex marriage illegal and sex between two men carrying a sentence of up to two years. However, there is no stated law about sexual activity between two women.

The scene has sparked debate among viewers with some applauding the move, while others have described it as unnecessary and a form of tokenism.

Director J.J. Abrams said in an interview with MovieZine last month that he wanted to include an LGBT scene “without it being heavy-handed or making too loud of a deal.”

“Part of the whole experience was to see a same-sex couple have a moment together that was explicitly saying in this galaxy, everyone is there and is welcome,” the film director said.

It is not the first time that Disney has used Star Wars to push progressive sexual content. In last year’s Solo: A Star Wars Story, producers cast Rebel Alliance member Lando Calrissian as a pansexual character in a romantic relationship with a droid.

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is currently showing at most theaters nationwide. 

Follow Ben Kew on Facebook, Twitter at @ben_kew, or email him at bkew@breitbart.com.

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Angry Trump-Hater Scarborough Claims to Embrace ‘Love Thy Neighbor’ Politics

Self-awareness? Apparently not Joe Scarborough’s strong suit. On Thursday’s Morning Joe, Scarborough claimed to embrace a recent column by frequent panelist David Ignatius of The Washington Post that called for a "love thy neighbor" politics in which people "put aside" their grievances. "Truer words were never written," enthused Scarborough. That’s all well and good, but not exactly the best messengers and considering the show that these principles were extolled on.

via NewsBusters – Exposing Liberal Media Bias

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Kanye West Releases Album ‘Jesus Is Born’ on Christmas Day

Kanye West has delivered a Yuletide present for all mankind in the form of a new album, Jesus Is Born, which the hip-hop megastar and fashion brand mogul dropped on Christmas Day.

The new gospel album is the latest installment in what has turned out to be a prolific stretch of religious works for the born-again West. Performed by his Sunday Service choir, the new release features 19 tracks and serves as a follow-up to his October album Jesus is King.

Kanye West recently produced his operas Mary at Lincoln Center in New York and Nebuchadnezzar at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles. At Coachella in April, the artist known as Ye brought his Sunday Service choir for an outdoor performance that featured distinct echoes of the New Testament’s Sermon on the Mount.

Initial reaction to Jesus Is Born has been positive. A review for Forbes concluded that the album is an improvement over the underbaked elements of Jesus Is King, describing it as “a moving proclamation of faith and a reminder of what its creator can do when he gives his ideas time to incubate.”

West is reportedly already planning his next Christian project. The star is expected to appear alongside Pastor Joel Osteen at Yankee Stadium in May for an event that will likely feature a sermon by Osteen and a performance by the Sunday Service choir.

The hip-hop artist previously appeared alongside Osteen at the pastor’s Lakewood Church in November, performing gospel renditions of his latest songs with his choir.

Follow David Ng on Twitter @HeyItsDavidNg. Have a tip? Contact me at dng@breitbart.com

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Meet the Caliphate Cubs, Children Ready To ‘Slaughter’ in the Name of Islam

The Islamic State group is dead.

That is the position Western military and political leaders have been communicating for nearly a year now. And by traditional metrics, the claim could hardly be more accurate.

The radical Islamic terrorist group’s territorial caliphate has almost entirely disintegrated. Thousands of the group’s fighters across both Syria and Iraq have been killed, with most of the remainder captured or forced into hiding.

And on Oct. 26, Islamic State group leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was killed by U.S. Special Forces in a raid on his underground compound in the Northwestern Syrian governate of Idlib.

Reporters on the ground in Syria, however, suggest that, despite major losses, the motto among those fighters and family members captured by American and Kurish forces in the region remains clear.

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It’s still, “Long live the Islamic State” — or however one might say so in Arabic.

In fact, in the Syrian Al Hol camp — where Kurdish rebels now hold the approximately 70,000 Islamic State wives and children who emerged from the rubble when the caliphate fell — the group’s ideology may now be stronger than ever, according to a November report from Sky News.

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With the international community entirely undecided on what to do with these prisoners following months of deliberation, journalist Mark Stone suggests the are in the “perfect incubator for the reformation of [the Islamic State group]” as children are reportedly fed fundamentalist Islamic doctrine and anti-Western rhetoric night and day by the so-called “ISIS wives.”

“Radicalised mothers are with children who’ve seen no other life,” Stone wrote. “Clad head-to-toe in their black niqabs, the IS wives claim to represent the purest form of Islam.”

Many reportedly told the outlet they felt no remorse for the things they had done and seen while living in the terrorist pseudo-state.

And from these conditions comes the more “unsettling” discovery: a child so deeply indoctrinated he unfeelingly told the journalist, “We will slaughter you.”

“In Arabic, he first quoted a verse from the Koran: ‘God says, “Turn to Allah with sincere repentance in the hope that your Lord will remove you from your ills,”‘” Stone wrote.

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“We’re going to kill you by slaughtering you,” the boy said in video later provided by Sky News “We will slaughter you.”

And unfortunately, according to the outlet, there is no shortage of such children within the camps walls, brainwashed and stripped of their innocence by the sick, twisted ideology of their parents and local elders.

More unfortunate still is the fact that this is the not-so-shocking reality of radical Islam. The not-so-shocking reality of war in the Middle East.

The disregard for innocence and human life are almost unbelievable in the 21st century.

Terrorist prisoners are humiliated, enslaved or murdered.

If children must be indoctrinated, sent into combat or strapped with explosives to forward the cause, it is of little consequence to our terrorist enemies.

Nothing is beyond the pale. Nothing is out of bounds. Nothing is unthinkable.

And unwilling to establish effective rules of engagement or defined end goals — unable even to secure meaningful support from America’s left-wing, multi-culturalist European allies — we have locked ourselves in a quagmire with an ideological enemy who will stop at nothing in its efforts to undermine and destroy the West.

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via The Western Journal

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Trump Slams Nancy Pelosi’s ‘Scam Impeachment’ in Christmas Message

President Donald Trump issued a pair of scathing Christmas tweets on Thursday attacking House Speaker Nancy Pelosi over the “scam impeachment” conducted by the House of Representatives.

“Why should Crazy Nancy Pelosi, just because she has a slight majority in the House, be allowed to Impeach the President of the United States? Got ZERO Republican votes, there was no crime, the call with Ukraine was perfect, with ‘no pressure.’ She said it must be ‘bipartisan & overwhelming,’ but this Scam Impeachment was neither. Also, very unfair with no Due Process, proper representation, or witnesses. Now Pelosi is demanding everything the Republicans weren’t allowed to have in the House. Dems want to run majority Republican Senate. Hypocrites!” Trump tweeted.

On Christmas Eve, Trump participated in a video teleconference with members of the military. When the conference ended, he took some questions from the media and was asked about Pelosi’s comments that she would hold up the articles of impeachment from getting to the Senate.

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Pelosi had said she wanted to know more about how the Senate would conduct its trial on the charges the House passed last week before she would formally move the two articles out of House control and over to the Republican-controlled Senate.

Trump initially responded by citing the strength of his popularity, according to a White House media pool report.

“Well, all I know is my poll numbers are the highest they’ve ever been. Our fundraising in the Republican Party is the highest it’s ever been,” Trump said.

Trump then said Pelosi was motived by partisan antagonism.

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“She hates the Republican Party. She hates all of the people that voted for me and the Republican Party. And she’s desperate to do — look, she got thrown out of Speaker once before. She lost like 63 seats — 61 or 63 — a tremendous, a record-setting number of seats. I think it’s going to happen again,” the president continued.

Trump said Pelosi is harming the nation.

“She’s doing a tremendous disservice to the country. She’s not doing a good job. And some people think that she’s — she doesn’t know what she’s doing. A lot of people think that. A lot of people have said it,” he said.

Trump went on to say the impeachment process had been rigged against him from the start.

“People remember: They treated us very unfairly. They didn’t give us due process. They didn’t give us a lawyer. They didn’t give us anything. Now they come to the Senate and they want everything,” he said. “If you look back just two weeks — just look back at what they did. But over a long period of time, look at what they did. We weren’t entitled to witnesses. We weren’t entitled to lawyers. We sat in a basement. They would leak everything. They would leak it. We weren’t entitled to do anything. They would leak selectively, with a sick, corrupt politician named Schiff. He’s a corrupt politician.

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“No, they treated us worse than anybody has been treated, from a legal standpoint, in the history of the United States. That’s never happened before, where you can’t have a lawyer, you can’t have a witness, you can’t have time.

“You didn’t have — even recently, when they had the constitutional lawyers, they got three lawyers; we got one. Fortunately, our one lawyer was better than their three. And we also had a much better case. We had — we have a perfect case. I say it again: We have a perfect case. They had no case.

The president expressed his optimism that the Senate trial would contrast starkly with the partisan process in the House.

“So now they get to the Senate. And now we have the majority, and it’s up to Mitch McConnell. And we have the majority, and now they want McConnell to do wonderful things for them. I mean, he’s going to do what he wants to do. Very smart guy, very good guy, and a very fair guy. But they treated us very unfairly and now they want fair — fairness in the Senate. They ought to look back at the last year to see how they’ve hurt this country,” he said.

Trump also addressed the beginnings of the FBI’s investigation of his campaign in 2016.

“Tremendous amounts of information are being written about, even by the fake news, concerning FISA, concerning dirty cops — the people that started this whole thing. What they’ve done to this country is incredible. And hopefully, it’s going to be taken care of. The Attorney General is working and everybody is working. But if you just go — because I like to stay out of it, and I do stay out of it — if you just go by what you see in the papers, it’s incredible what’s going on. We had dirty cops. We had people spying on my campaign,” Trump said.

“They did terrible things, the likes of which have never been done in the history of our country. It’s very sad.”

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via The Western Journal

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Brave Kids Fight Off Thief Who Stole SUV They Were Riding In

You’re on a late-night errand to pick up some food. Your tired kids are in the car, and you just need to pop in really quickly. Instead of hauling them all out of the car, you leave the car running and hop out yourself.

It’s a quick run. Your kids are old enough to mind themselves. The hassle of bringing them all along will probably take longer than the actual pick-up itself.

Should be harmless, right?

In most cases, it turns out OK. But when there’s a carjacker on the prowl, not so much.

Imama, 16, Hasnain, 9, and their younger sister, 5, were sleepily waiting in their dad’s Toyota Highlander in Chicago while he popped into Domino’s on Monday night.

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It was nearly midnight, and while the two younger kids were asleep in the back seat, Imama nodded off. A man got into the car, and as she looked up, expecting to see her father, she was surprised by an unfamiliar young man.

“The dude just hopped in, and he looks back, and I realize it’s not my dad,” Imama said, according to WBBM-TV.

“I started shouting at him, ‘Who are you? Get out of the car!’ and he starts driving really fast down the road,” she told WGN-TV.

The carjacker, whom Imama described as being “no more than 17 years old” to WGN, threatened her.

“He’s like, ‘Get out, or I’m going to shoot you,’ and he starts speeding down the road,” Imama explained. “He’s going in, like, a zig-zag pattern.”

While she said she didn’t see a weapon, there was a major reason she was unwilling to get out: her siblings.

“I was like, ‘I can’t. There’s a baby,’” she said.

Thankfully, her 9-year-old brother woke up and realized what was happening.

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“They woke up, and started helping me to harm him so he would get out of the car,” Imama said.

According to WGN, she began to choke the carjacker and Hasnain smacked him over the head with his iPad. They yelled at the would-be thief, and Imama spotted and reached for her dad’s phone that was sitting on the passenger’s seat.

“I see my dad’s phone,” she said. “I started calling 911. Thirty seconds into the call, the dude just jumps out.”

A Camry had been following the SUV as it was driven away from Domino’s, and it picked up the carjacker after he fled from the family’s car.

Police later found the Camry, which — surprise, surprise — had also been stolen.

Though the driver of the Camry got away, four others were arrested: Ralphy Enriquez, 22; Kaily Lagunas, 19; Steffy Lagunas, 19; and an unnamed 16-year-old boy. They were each charged with a misdemeanor count of criminal trespass to vehicle.

Though Imama said “it all feels like a dream,” the reality is that she and her siblings are quite brave, and because of their actions, they’re unharmed — and their family still has a car.

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via The Western Journal

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Buttigieg Politicizes Christmas By Twisting The Story of Jesus. Social Media Blasts Him.

On Christmas, South Bend mayor Pete Buttigieg attempted to politicize the day by tweeting a message laden with current political overtones, but in the process he mangled Biblical history and was called out for it on social media. Buttigieg tweeted, “Today I join millions around the world in celebrating the arrival of divinity on earth, who came into this world not in riches but in poverty, not as a citizen but as a refugee. No matter where or how we celebrate, merry Christmas.”

Buttigieg’s obvious attempt to make political hay out of a holy day for Christians by twisting the story of Jesus triggered strong rejoinders on social media:

Tony Shaffer, President of the London Center for Policy Research, snapped, “OMG — Joseph and mary were traveling to register as required by a totalitarian Roma occupation for a census so Rome could tax the region more efficiently — do @TheDemocrats choose to be stupid or are they incapable of speaking the truth?”

NRO columnist Dan McLaughlin added, “You were doing OK until “refugee.” Joseph & Mary were in Bethlehem because the government commanded them there to pay taxes. A Christian would know this.”

Radio host Lars Larson tweeted:

For goodness’ sake @PeteButtigieg, “refugees”? Caesar ordered a census … 1stof its kind, purpose TAX collection. You Ds play the same games w census and taxes. By that measure all of us are “refugees” every April 15th. Read The Book would you? Much better than the movie.

Writer John Hayward added, “All I want for Christmas is for left-wing totalitarians to stop misrepresenting Jesus as a ‘migrant’ or ‘refugee’ in clumsy efforts to trick Christians into giving up on protecting their borders.”

Buttigieg may not know the history of Christianity very well, but he does know how to target religious Christians.   Last April, he attacked Vice President Mike Pence, a devout Christian, tweeting, “Speaking only for myself, I can tell you that if me being gay was a choice, it was a choice that was made far, far above my pay grade. And that’s the thing I wish the Mike Pences of the world would understand.” He added on the The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, “He’s nice. If he were here, you would think he’s a nice guy to your face. But he’s also fanatical.”

Pence responded to Buttigieg on CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” saying, “He said some things that are critical of my Christian faith and about me personally, and he knows better; he knows me.” Pence pointed out that Buttigieg’s remarks were likely a political move, adding, “I get it you know, it’s like — you have 19 people running for president on that side in a party that’s sliding off to the Left.”

U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell, who like Buttigieg is gay, snapped, “One of the things that really bothers me about this attack is that Mike Pence is a friend of mine. Mike and Karen are great people. They are godly people. They’re followers of Christ. They don’t have hate in their heart for anyone. They know my partner, they have accepted us. You ask me do we agree philosophically on every single issue? No.”

via The Daily Wire

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Facebook, Uber Plan to Defy New California Laws Taking Effect in 2020

In a display of unapologetic defiance, Silicon Valley giants including Facebook and Uber are planning to ignore new California laws scheduled to take effect in 2020, laying the groundwork for a collision course between the tech giants and state lawmakers.

Facebook recently told advertisers it won’t make changes to its web-tracking services to comply with California’s new consumer-privacy law, which starts Jan. 1 and is expected to impact numerous social media companies, according to a recent Wall Street Journal report.

The law will require companies to alert consumers if their personal information is being collected and sold, and to give consumers the ability to opt out of the sale of their data.

Facebook is claiming that routine data transfers may not fit the state’s definition of “selling” data, according to the report.

Internet companies — including the major social networks and search engines — routinely gather user information and share them, usually without disclosing these actions to consumers.

The non-profit digital rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation recently released a new study showing that many popular sites share the user data they collect with third-party businesses, including data brokers, advertisers, and government bodies.

Uber is planning to flout a different California law that would reclassify its army of drivers from contractors to employees, potentially entitling them to benefits and perks. The ridesharing company is joining forces with Lyft and Doordash to mount a $90 million counteroffensive against the new law, which also takes effect January.

Lawyers for Uber are arguing that the law doesn’t apply to the company because drivers’ work falls  “outside the usual course of Uber’s business,” which they define as providing a technology platform.

The so-called “gig worker” law, formerly known as AB5, has already impacted Vox Media, which recently laid off hundreds of freelance journalists who would have been reclassified as employees under the new law.

While companies can challenge these California laws, Margita Thompson, who served as press secretary for former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, told Capital Public Radio that the courts may end up enforcing them.

In the end, she said, “it’s not gonna be something that companies can ignore.”

Follow David Ng on Twitter @HeyItsDavidNg. Have a tip? Contact me at dng@breitbart.com

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