Tag: corporations

Trump’s Intel Deal Sparks Outrage Over Socialist Control and Corporate Blend

President Donald Trump announced on Friday evening, August 22, 2025, that the federal government has acquired a 10% stake in Intel, a decision he framed as a win for America but one that has left many conservatives, including Rand Paul and Thomas Massie, frustrated, viewing it as an unsettling move toward government involvement in private business.

Why it matters:
This acquisition, facilitated by Trump and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, marks a shift that troubles free-market advocates, who worry it blurs the line between government and corporate control, potentially setting a precedent for more federal overreach in the economy and disappointing those who prioritize individual enterprise.

Driving the news:
The deal, confirmed via Trump’s Truth Social post, involves the U.S. government purchasing 433.3 million Intel shares at $20.47 each, securing a 9.9% stake without voting rights, as part of a strategy to leverage CHIPS Act funds.

  • The CHIPS Act, enacted in 2022, is a $52.7 billion bipartisan initiative to boost U.S. semiconductor manufacturing and reduce reliance on foreign supply chains, providing grants and loans to companies like Intel.
  • Lutnick, on CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street,” explained the equity stake, saying, “We should get an equity stake for our money,” converting Biden-era grants into ownership.
  • Trump credited negotiations with Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan, presenting it as a boost for national security and economic strength, even though he called for his resignation a few weeks prior.

Catch up quick:
The announcement follows months of discussions to support Intel, which reported $19 billion in losses last year, using taxpayer funds to stabilize it amid global tech competition.

The intrigue:
The concern is whether this move will strengthen U.S. tech leadership or signal a troubling trend toward government influence in private companies, with figures like Rand Paul questioning if it aligns with America’s economic traditions.

Between the lines:
Behind the patriotic tone, the deal suggests a pragmatic use of CHIPS Act funds that some see as a step toward socialism, raising questions about the balance between government support and market freedom.

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Now Comes the California Fire Sale: China-Based Company Is Buying Up Land Incinerated by Firestorms

If foreign corporations want to buy burned-out properties, can those sales be stopped? Should they be stopped? 

When the feared firestorm hit Pacific Palisades, Malibu, and Altadena in Southern California last January, the Los Angeles mayor was MIA, the “public safety” guy in charge—the vice mayor—was on home confinement for making an anti-Israel bomb threat on city hall, fire fighters were not pre-deployed, there was no water in the reservoir, and fire hydrants went dry in the Palisades. 

Soon came vows by L.A. Mayor Karen Bass and elected officials in Malibu, Altadena, and the Palisades to streamline the rebuilding and permitting, which turned out to be a joke. Now, amid bad leadership, virtue signaling masquerading as help, incinerated FireAid money, and promises in name only, comes the fire sale. 

In early August came word from an exclusive story in Realtor.com that foreign investors were buying up prime lots in the burned-out area of an iconic Malibu beach.

Now, a foreign investor has been secretly scooping up many of the burned lots on the oceanfront side of the PCH—with the vision of rebuilding the mansions that dotted the coastline in the iconic beach town.

‘Once this beach is built back and it’s all brand-new construction, I think it’s going to be a very desirable spot for a lot of wealthy people to try to buy a beach house,’ Weston Littlefield with the Weston James Group tells Realtor.com®.

The luxury real estate agent and his colleague Alex Howe have been working with the investor who has, so far, purchased nine lots worth more than $65 million—but the process isn’t random.

The strip of homes nestled between the Pacific Coast Highway and the Pacific Ocean is the storied La Costa Beach.

Nine of the most desirable lots have been sold by people who can’t wait or can’t afford to rebuild.

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Dunkin’ Customer Warns to Check Receipt After Spotting ‘Wellness’ Fee

Some Dunkin’ customers are warning others to take a closer look at their receipts after what appears to be an unexpected charge showing up during checkout.

The discussion began when a shopper in New Jersey shared a photo online of their receipt from a Dunkin’ location, showing a 3% “employee benefits & retention charge” tacked onto their order total.

The line item read: “3% surcharge has been applied to your purchase. This charge is for employee and retention program and is not gratuity.”

The photo quickly made its way around Facebook, where longtime customers voiced frustration and confusion over what they believe is a hidden fee.

One Facebook user shared, “Now wait just one darn minute. Am I late??? I usually don’t get a receipt and the one day I do. I noticed that I am being made to pay a 3% surcharge for employee retention for Dunkin’ employees. I mean ask me or tell me so I can make a decision.”

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CEO Boasts That He Laid Off 80 Percent of His Staff Because They Didn’t Love AI Enough, Threatens to Do It Again

When it comes to AI, you’d be hard-pressed to find a more groveling cheerleader than the humble CEO. As hype around the software grows, business execs have become astonishingly comfortable sharing their hopes that AI will soon make human labor a thing of the past.

Now, even as Wall Street begins to reckon with the empty promises of AI automation, one CEO is bragging about laying off almost all of his workforce in the face of the tech — a move he says he would make again.

Recent reporting by Fortune detailed the mind-boggling strategy deployed by Eric Vaughan, CEO of a$26 million software firm called IgniteTech, which involved culling 80 percent of its staff — not to automate their roles, strikingly, but because they didn’t share his enthusiasm for AI.

Mere months after the first ChatGPT model hit the world in early 2023 — a technology the CEO called “an existential threat” — Vaughan started making an AI push throughout the company. As employees became increasingly hostile to company initiatives like “AI Mondays” — a day dedicated to building the company’s AI system, regardless of a worker’s department —  he was soon replacing hundreds of employees.

“In those early days, we did get resistance, we got flat-out, ‘Yeah, I’m not going to do this’ resistance,” Vaughan told Fortune. “And so we said goodbye to those people.”

The most pushback, the CEO told the publication, wasn’t from staffers in roles like marketing or sales, but from tech workers who understood the limitations of the AI being crammed down their throats. It’s not hard to see why — analysts argue that when workers are reduced to shepherding AI systems around, they feel alienated from the meaning of their jobs.

That sense of alienation becomes even more pervasive when mass rounds of layoffs and replacements add to the stress workers feel in an already turbulent economy.

Worker pushback, which Vaughan likened to “mass resistance, even sabotage,” prevented the IgniteTech’s first AI scheme. After culling those who dared to use what little power they had as workers to alter the direction of the company, Vaughan had his way.

Soon, every division was reporting to IgniteTech’s newly hired “chief AI officer,” Thibault Bridel-Bertomeu, a sort of centralized bureaucracy with AI firmly at the core.

Though profits have reportedly increased since IgniteTech’s executives began their draconian campaign, they do so at the obvious expense of hundreds of experienced workers who now face one of the toughest job markets in recent memory.

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Business Flees California due to Overregulation

California has been repelling capital through overregulation. The energy sector high-tailed out of the state in recent years under Governor Gavin Newsom’s net-zero policies. Now, even retailers feel forced to evacuate as California becomes increasingly anti-business.

Bed Bath & Beyond announced that it must close all retail stores within the state of California. “This decision isn’t about politics—it’s about reality,” company head Marcus Lemonis said in a social media post. “California has created one of the most overregulated, expensive, and risky environments for businesses in America. It’s a system that makes it harder to employ people, harder to keep doors open, and harder to deliver value to customers.”

Newsom’s office commented that Bed Bath & Beyond was already a dead business, failing to take any responsibility. To begin, California’s minimum wage continues to rise year after year at a pace unsustainable for businesses. Automation is replacing the human workforce, and some studies have shown that minimum wage workers in California are simply receiving fewer working hours as employers aim to cut costs.

Newsom believes he can continue spending and rescue the state from the debt through taxation. Fleeing businesses can’t pay taxes, and California forces both businesses and residents to pay some of the highest taxes in the nation. All corporations operating in the state must pay a flat corporate income tax rate of 8.84% on net income. Banks and financial institutions pay a bit more at 10.84%. There is an annual franchise tax of $800 for businesses as well. But wait—corporations are still beholden to the 21% federal corporate income tax, which means businesses are paying roughly 29.84% on corporate income taxes alone.

Payroll taxes in California are higher than the national average, largely due to social programs like State Disability Insurance (SDI) and the Employment Training Tax (ETT), which must be paid in addition to Unemployment Insurance (UI). There is a personal income tax withholding of up to 14.63% that employers must withhold from employees as well.

The state was forced to overturn its policy regarding shoplifting and burglary after criminals used the minimum $950 amount for petty theft to avoid felony charges. Countless businesses shuttered their brick-and-mortar locations as a direct result of light-on-crime policies.

Capital flees excessive regulation and it’s almost a no-brainer for corporations to move beyond state lines where operating costs are drastically lower.

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Trump Administration REVOKES Business License of Employer Who Hired Illegal Alien Responsible for Killing 3 in Florida Truck Crash

The Trump Administration has dropped the hammer on a reckless California trucking company that knowingly hired an illegal alien truck driver who went on to cause a deadly crash in Florida last week that claimed the lives of three innocent Americans.

The Gateway Pundit previously reported that an illegal alien, who obtained his truck driving license (CDL) in the Democrat-run sanctuary state of California, killed three Americans after he made an illegal U-turn on a Florida highway this week.

The driver, identified as Harjinder Singh, was arrested and charged with three counts of vehicular homicide after he made an insane U-turn directly in front of a car to his left on Florida’s Turnpike.

The illegal alien showed zero emotion after he exited the 18-wheeler and examined what was left of the vehicle, a pile of mangled metal and three dead bodies.

The truck involved in the fatal Florida Turnpike crash belonged to White Hawk Carriers, a shady outfit based in Ceres, California, with a horrifying track record, according to the Miami Herald:

  • 25 truck safety violations in just 24 inspections.
  • Two drivers busted in 2024 for driving on suspended licenses.
  • And now, an illegal alien driver who couldn’t even speak English—behind the wheel of a massive semi-truck.

According to the Miami Herald, as of Tuesday morning, White Hawk’s U.S. DOT entry shows their insurance canceled and status downgraded to “NOT AUTHORIZED to operate as a MOTOR PROPERTY COMMON CARRIER.” That means their interstate trucking operations are effectively shut down by the Trump Administration.

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The “Libertarians” Who Say the Private Sector Is the Real Threat to Freedom

From its very beginnings in the seventeenth century, the classical liberals (also known as “libertarians,” or, historically, “liberals”) have been primarily focused on limiting the powers of the state. It has been state powers—not the powers of church or family or employer—that has been the great occupation of the classical liberals. After all, the movement was born in opposition to mercantilism and absolutism.

In the classical liberal view, it has always been state power that is fundamentally coercive and violent, and is the greatest threat to freedom and property rights. Moreover, because the state is monopolistic by nature, the state can exercise its powers untroubled by any legal opposition within the state’s territory. As such, the state is the organization that is positioned to most frequently and potently violate the property rights of its subjects with impunity. So, it is not surprising that historian Ralph Raico states that classical liberalism has been historically focused of preventing states from regulating the private sector, also known as “society.” In classical liberal thinking, Raico tells us, “the most desirable regime was one in which civil society—that is, the whole of the social order based on private property and voluntary exchange—by and large runs itself.”McMaken, Ryan

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From helpdesk to havoc: Why Clorox is suing Indian company for $380 million

In a San Francisco courtroom, the Clorox Company recently dropped a legal bombshell – a $380 million lawsuit against Indian-American information technology company Cognizant, alleging gross negligence in a 2023 cyberattack.

In the complaint dated July 22, 2025, Clorox contends a hacker simply called Cognizant’s helpdesk, lied about being an employee and was handed network credentials – no identity verification, no oversight, just a password transfer. The resulting cyberattack ended up paralyzing Clorox’s operations, costing upwards of $49 million in remediation and much more in lost business.

Offshoring ecosystem under the microscope

Cognizant, though officially headquartered in New Jersey, was founded in Chennai, India in 1994, and now employs over 250,000 people across India, providing everything from software development to helpdesk services for global corporations. Industry analysts have warned that shifting U.S. companies’ sensitive customer data offshore exposes Americans to significant privacy risks. India lacks comprehensive data privacy laws or an enforcement body like the Federal Trade Commission.

While offshoring offers cheap labor and scalability, it also creates layers of separation between U.S.-based clients and the employees handling their data. Those layers can conceal critical weaknesses.

Clorox case: A failed firewall

In Clorox’s telling, the hacker didn’t crack advanced encryption or “spear-phish” executives. He just called Cognizant on the phone and lied about who and what he was. That was enough. Cognizant agents reset the account, handed over passwords and reopened Clorox’s VPN access without a single identity check. Agents reportedly said phrases like: “Here’s the password … Welcome …”

Cognizant disputes the claim, saying its contract with Clorox, dating back to 2013, covered only helpdesk tasks, not broader cybersecurity responsibilities. Cognizant characterized Clorox’s own defenses as “inept,” calling the attack partly Clorox’s fault.

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Company advised by Trump sons said it hoped to benefit from fed money, then took it back

A public document filed by a company that just hired President Donald Trump’s two oldest sons as advisers included a sentence early Monday that said it hoped to benefit from grants and other incentives from the federal government, which their father happens to lead.

But when The Associated Press asked the Trump family business about the apparent conflict of interest, the document was revised and the line taken out.

Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. are getting “founder shares” worth millions of dollars in New America Acquisition 1 Corp., a company with no operating business that hopes to fill that hole by purchasing an American company that can play “a meaningful role in revitalizing domestic manufacturing,” according to to the filing. The president has geared his trade policy toward boosting manufacturing in the U.S.

The original version of the securities filing said the target company should be “well positioned” to tap federal or state government incentives. That reference was taken out of the revised version of the filing.

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American Eagle Refuses to Bow to Woke Mob in New Statement

American Eagle clothing company is under fire from leftists for their new clothing campaign featuring actress Sydney Sweeney employing a well-used wordplay of ‘genes’ for marketing blue jeans.

A report on the ABC News program Good Morning America First Look compared the campaign to  ‘Nazi propaganda.’

Liberal activists accused the brand of promoting “white supremacist ideology and eugenics” for daring to choose  a blonde, blue‑eyed Caucasian woman as the model and insisting it is a ‘coded celebration’ of genetic “superiority.”

Activists have demanded that American Eagle immediately cease the campaign and have launched a boycott of the company.

American Eagle, however, has made it clear they will not bend the knee to the woke mob. The company shared a statment on Instagram.

“Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans” is and always was about the jeans.

Her jeans. Her Story.

We’ll continue to celebrate how everyone wears their AE jeans with confidence, their way.

Great jeans look good on everyone.

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