Coming Our Way

/

Jean-Luc Melenchon, leader of the biggest far-left party in France, explains why the alliance between progressives and Muslims is necessary. “If you’re counting on white Christian workers to bring about socialism in France, it won’t happen. But our Muslim brothers and sisters will.”

Thousands for French Bulldogs and frozen eggs, not one penny for debt

/

Two days after posting about her ovaries, the former barista was asked about ditching her white fiancee in preparation for her run for higher office; she declined to answer: “I don’t comment on my private life – thank you,” the Democrat darling said with a smile — and sans engagement ring — before clamming up and refusing to respond to any follow-ups.

AOC’s student debt unpaid as she embarks on costly egg-freezing journey

WASHINGTON — Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) has made at least $174,000 annually for nearly eight years as a member of Congress, but like many of her “Squad” colleagues, she has yet to put a substantial dent in her student loan debt, according to House financial disclosures.

The Bronx and Queens Democrat has owed between $15,001 and $50,000 in federal student loan debt since her election to the House in 2018. That’s the same amount she owes now, according to her August disclosure, where lawmakers report ranges for debt and income. [Originally $20,000, she still owes $19,000 — Ed]

The “Tax the Rich!” pol reported less than $81,000 in total assets.

Recently, Ocasio-Cortez has suggested that she’d been saving up for some time instead to freeze her eggs, a process that can cost between $10,000 and $20,000 per cycle.

Ocasio-Cortez amassed the loans while attending Boston University as an international relations and economics major between August 2007 and May 2011 — and went on to tend bar in Manhattan before her successful run for Congress.

The “Squad” Democrat has consistently backed student debt cancellation. During former President Joe Biden’s term, she even pushed the 46th commander-in-chief to cancel as much as $50,000 in debt per student borrower. ….

“Entire generations of working class kids were encouraged to go into more debt under the guise of elitism. This is wrong,” she said in February 2021. “Nowhere does it say we must trade-off early childhood education for student loan forgiveness. We can have both.”

I asked Chat to calculate how much our socialist parasite would have had to pay each month to retire her $19,000 debt:

Even at a fairly high 8% interest rate, approximately $300 per month beginning in late 2019 would have retired the entire $19,000 by around now.

There's an additional wrinkle that's quite important: federal student-loan payments and interest were suspended for a substantial period beginning in March 2020. Depending on the type of federal loan she had, that could have meant 0% interest and no required payments for roughly 3½ years. Consequently, simply applying an ordinary 6–8% amortization schedule over the entire period actually makes repayment look more expensive than it may have been.

Related morality of the pampered idle class:

New Yorkers take Zohran Mamdani free bus promise literally as MTA loses millions in skipped fares

Bus fare collections drop $31M as transit bosses warn high-earning commuters pass costs to taxpayers

Mamdani made the slogan "fast and free buses" a major part of his 2025 mayoral campaign. However … experts [and what would we do without experts? — Ed] and union leaders say the "free bus" rhetoric has already contributed to fare evasion.

John V. Chiarello, president of Transport Workers Union Local 100, the city’s largest transit union representing more than 40,000 transit workers, told Fox News Digital that current fare evasion levels are the "worst" his drivers have seen.

He noted that buses were temporarily free during the COVID-19 pandemic and said the MTA worked to reverse the resulting habit of not paying fares, but that behavior has resurfaced in recent months.

"Once you make something free, and you give people a feeling of entitlement, and then the mayor says that he wants to make buses free, you have a perfect storm of people not wanting to pay," Chiarello said.

Chiarello noted that union rules strictly instruct bus operators not to confront fare evaders for their own safety following past violent attacks on drivers. He also pushed back on claims that fare-jumpers are strictly low-income New Yorkers.

"I can see myself when I'm sitting in the buses where people with suits are coming on. These are people that have the money. It's just that they're not paying because it's in vogue now," Chiarello added.

Lieber made similar comments, calling on higher earners to pay their fares rather than pass the cost on to other taxpayers.

"For all the people who are on their way to office jobs, who are making a good income, who walk by the bus driver and don’t pay or get on the back and don’t pay, I say it’s time to be New Yorkers," Lieber said, according to The New York Post. "You’re just passing along the cost to another taxpayer. Somebody’s going to have to pay for that ride."

The MTA is also losing fare revenue from riders who do not pay. Nicole Gelinas, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute specializing in urban policy, explained the fiscal impact of the mayor’s proposal.

"The [Independent Budget Office] has estimated free buses would cost the MTA about $1.1 billion a year in fare revenue. And we need that money. The MTA [is] already looking at a $300 million deficit for next year," Gelinas told Fox News Digital. "The idea of giving up a billion dollars plus in fare revenue from the buses, when you have no way to replace that, it's just not fiscally wise."

Gelinas said a herd mentality is also at play, with paying riders watching others board without paying.

"You pay your fare, and then you watch 10 people get on and not pay the fare. So at some point, you're just going to think like, ‘Why am I paying the fare?’" Gelinas said. "So you really want to move back from that tipping point because, right now, if you're paying the fare, you're basically subsidizing the people who are not."

Meltdown in the courts: Greenwich boys triumph!

/

Riverside-reared Ben and Pete Van Leeuwen (and their business partner Laura O’Neill) have come out on top of this trade dress dispute.

The July 16 ruling gives Van Leeuwen founders Ben Van Leeuwen, Pete Van Leeuwen, and Laura O’Neill a sweeping victory in a five-year fight over packaging that helped them grow from a Brooklyn ice cream truck into a national brand.

Ben Van Leeuwen testified that the founders were “shocked” when an employee showed them Rebel’s pints, but initially hesitated to sue because the company had little capital and had never brought a lawsuit.

Ice cream maker Rebel Creamery files for bankruptcy after being ordered to pay $23.8M in packaging battle

Ice cream maker Rebel Creamery has filed for bankruptcy after losing a packaging battle with rival Van Leeuwen — and being ordered to shell out $23.8 million.

The Utah-based Rebel, which sells its low-carb Rebel Ice Cream at major retailers including Walmart, Target and Kroger, filed for Chapter 11 protection Friday in the US Bankruptcy Court for the District of Utah, The Street reported.

The company listed between $10 million and $50 million in assets and the same amount in debts, according to its bankruptcy filing.

The move comes less than a month after Rebel was ordered to turn over $23.785 million in profits to Van Leeuwen, after US District Judge Eric Komitee found that the business intentionally copied the New York ice cream company‘s packaging. 

Van Leeuwen’s design features pastel-colored, monochrome pints with matching lids, black script lettering and a minimalist look.

Komitee ordered Rebel to stop selling the infringing packaging and redesign its pints.

“The evidence at trial left no doubt that Rebel infringed and diluted Van Leeuwen’s trade dress and did so intentionally,” Komitee wrote, according to the outlet.

Trademark rights violation ruling

In his order, Komitee ruled that that Rebel Creamery intentionally copied Van Leeuwen’s branding and ordered the defendant to redesign its ice cream packaging, which consists of cardboard monochromatic pints with matching monochromatic lids, use of a pastel color palette, black script typeface lettering with an exaggerated capital letter, and an overall minimalistic design aesthetic, according to court documents on Justia.

The court found that there was evidence of actual confusion in the marketplace between Van Leeuwen and Rebel, according to the order.

“The evidence at trial left no doubt that Rebel infringed and diluted Van Leeuwen’s trade dress and did so intentionally,” Komitee wrote in his order. “As a result, Rebel will be enjoined from selling the infringing products and required to redesign its packaging to avoid any further infringement.”

“Rebel will also be required to disgorge its profits from selling infringing pints,” Komitee wrote.

Judge awards plaintiff $23.8 million

“Van Leeuwen is entitled to $23.785 million of Rebel’s profits from selling infringing ice cream pints,” according to the order. “The Clerk of the Court is respectfully directed to enter judgment for plaintiff and to close the case.”

Van Leeuwen was founded in 2008 and redesigned its packaging in 2014 and again to its current design in August 2016, according to Komitee’s order. Van Leeuwen’s annual growth rate more than doubled from 35.8% between 2014 and 2016 to 91.6% between 2017 and 2018.

Rebel Creamery was founded in September 2017, over a year after Van Leeuwen’s latest redesign of its packaging. Rebel’s packaging began appearing in grocery stores in August 2018 and was discovered by a Van Leeuwen employee in late 2018 or early 2019, according to court papers.

Van Leeuwen filed lawsuit in 2021

Van Leeuwen filed its lawsuit against Rebel Creamery in April 2021, seeking injunctive relief requiring Rebel to repackage its products and account for and pay for the profits from its infringement, to which Komitee ruled in favor of Van Leeuwen.

(And while we’re talking about Van Leeuwens don’t forget FWIW’s sole advertiser, Peter and Ben’s Dad Louis, who when he isn’t building fine houses, will cart you around in his luxury Lincoln SUV)

INC has more details on the packaging dispute:

…. The decision offers a costly warning for founders: Trademark law can protect the overall appearance of packaging even when its individual elements are common—and companies should preserve records showing how their designs were created.

Van Leeuwen sued Rebel in 2021, alleging that the Utah-based, low-sugar ice cream company copied four features of its dairy pints: monochromatic cartons with matching lids, pastel colors, oversized black script, and minimalist layouts.

Van Leeuwen introduced the design in 2016 after hiring Pentagram to prepare the brand for national wholesale distribution. The design firm researched competing brands and presented seven concepts before the founders chose the final look.

Natasha Jen, the Pentagram partner who led the project and testified in the case, tells Inc. that the firm retained its briefs, presentations, design files, rejected concepts, and successive rounds.

“Founders may think documentation is bureaucratic, but it is really a record of authorship and decision making,” Jen says. “Save what was presented. Save what was rejected. The process is part of the evidence.”

Elisha Barron, Van Leeuwen’s trial attorney, said the company believes its sales growth after the redesign and the press attention the packaging received also helped establish that the design was protectable.

The missing design trail

Rebel’s paper trail was thinner. The Archibalds testified that they created their packaging in Adobe Illustrator but produced no sketches, mockups, or earlier versions—only the completed design.

A Wegmans buyer warned Austin Archibald before Rebel’s first retail launch that the cartons resembled Van Leeuwen’s, according to the ruling. Rebel made no changes.

Judge Eric Komitee found that the similarities extended to the lettering, text placement, matching lids, and sparse layouts. The probability that Rebel independently arrived at all those choices was “infinitesimal,” he wrote, calling the founders’ account “clearly fabricated.”

When the original looks like the copycat

The court also found a risk of “reverse confusion”—Rebel’s expansion into major retailers could lead shoppers and buyers to believe Van Leeuwen was the imitator. A Publix buyer reportedly raised concerns about confusion before declining to stock Van Leeuwen.

A survey commissioned by Van Leeuwen found a 34.3 percent net-confusion rate. Mark Keegan, the consumer-research consultant retained by Van Leeuwen, says roughly one-third of surveyed ice cream shoppers associated Van Leeuwen with Rebel because of the packaging similarities.

The ruling doesn’t give Van Leeuwen ownership of pastel colors, cursive lettering, or minimalist design individually. It protects the overall combination and commercial impression of the packaging …. “Many courts will be hesitant to protect something they think is truly a contemporary aesthetic,” Rebecca Tushnet, a Harvard Law School trademark professor, tells Inc.

Tushnet says courts differ over what constitutes bad faith. Some treat deliberate copying as sufficient, while others look for an intent to cause confusion. In this case, she says, the Wegmans warning may have mattered.

“Juries and judges can be hostile to copycats, so the warning may have loomed large,” Tushnet says.

A $23.8-million warning

…. For founders, the lesson begins long before litigation: retain drafts, document design decisions, and investigate warnings from retailers. Van Leeuwen arrived in court with a record of how its identity was created. Rebel arrived with the finished pint.

Voting the Blue State way

/

Head-to-toe election monitoring

… [Y] es, to answer your first question, native Minnesotans are the most credulous people on planet earth.

As everyone knows, Minnesota refuses to check voter IDs at the polling place. Even more absurdly, Minnesota allows for “same-day” voter registration. You don’t have to be registered before you show up to your polling place on election day in order to cast a vote.

Even more absurdly, Minnesota has no concept of provisional ballots. You cast a vote, it gets thrown into a bucket with all the legitimate votes, even if you don’t check out as bona fide later on.

And for the final absurdity, a registered voter can “vouch” for up to eight (8) unregistered voters, telling the election workers that it’s all good, based on his good word alone. They tell O’Keefe, “you are the ID.”

In any given election cycle, hundreds of thousands of voters register the day of an election. But tens of thousands fail later background checks every year. Too late, the votes have already been counted.

What could go wrong?

Shot (8/13/2026):

Chaser (8/14/2026):

As promised, agent provocateur James O’Keefe, III, posted his video from primary election day in Minneapolis, highlighting the state’s most absurd election provision: vouching.

Meanwhile, and not to be outdone by a band of Cheese Heads …

This Isn't Suspicious: MI Sectretary Of State Requires Deletion of Election Records One Week After Certification

Federal law requires the retention of voting records for 22 months after an election. 

Democrats don't like that. They believe in keeping things tidy by deleting all the evidence ASAP. With BleachBit, if possible. (Anthony Fauci, call your office.)

And there is no set of records they want cleaned up and tidy quite like election records; otherwise, you face the need to fight like hell in court to keep them locked away, as Fulton County did for years until the FBI got a warrant and seized them. And even after that, Fulton County has fought to keep them sealed. 

Nothing to see here, so why look? And, better yet, delete the evidence as soon as possible. Audits are a distraction, you know. 

(Text cont.)

Federal law orders her to KEEP those same records for 22 months, into 2028.

Delete them? Face up to 1 year of imprisonment under federal law. Refuse? Up to 90 days imprisonment under Michigan law. Every path carries a penalty aimed at my client personally. For trying to follow the law.

My client wrote Jocelyn Benson and the Director of Elections on July 6 and asked one question: how do I obey both? Thirty-seven days. NO ANSWER.

So we asked a judge, while the records still exist. No more waiting around. Declare which law controls. Preserve the voting records. And the part that should get your attention: the same rule governs the NOVEMBER election.

Especially with federal offices on the ballot, the constitution’s supremacy clause bars any rule such as this, and even this Secretary of State has to know that, yet she did it anyway; why?

Posted without comment; except, perhaps, to wonder at this happy-clappy scene of joy

/

Dem Gov Maura Healey signs sweeping Massachusetts bill allowing abortions up to birth

Massachusetts becomes the 10th state to remove gestational age limits

And then this:

Abortion Doctor Admits Elective Late-Term Abortions Happen 'All the Time'

This Doctor is in Colorado. He specializes in late term abortions. He brags about his new techniques for performing late term abortion because they're more difficult. Yes, dismembering a larger baby would be more difficult.  He makes it very clear he will perform an abortion at any time and he has no qualms about it.

Piano players in a whore house

/

"Our goal was, and remains, to draw attention to very real safety challenges facing pedestrians, motorcyclists and families throughout our community," Scott Trantolo, chief executive officer of the law firm, said in a written statement. "If a temporary message on a sidewalk gets people talking about how we can make Hartford and Connecticut roads safer, then we believe we have started an important conversation. The chalk will disappear; the need for safer roads will not."

Quelle surprise: there’s gold in removing them there hills

/

the doctor will $ee you now

The full article’s at the link, but this short excerpt sums it up neatly:

“This report concludes that a litany of political and financial incentives led providers to offer, and indeed urge, the prescription of sex-rejection drugs and surgeries for minors.”

HHS points to “financial incentives” as one potential explanation for the explosion in gender-related care for minors — as hospitals sought a way to juice profits in pediatric departments, which typically bring in lower margins than other specialties.

“Gender clinics changed that calculus by introducing a novel source of revenue: they promised a new stream of continuous revenue for pediatrics, endocrinology, and surgical specialties by taking physiologically healthy young people — who otherwise would not need to seek medical attention, and rendering them dependent for life on the medical system.”

You can't hate the media enough

/

The race of a victim may be irrelevant to a story like except when the victim’s race is revealed, and the race of the “person of interest”, her 65-year-old boyfriend is omitted. The only explanation that’s plausible is that NBC intended viewers to think it was a KKK-type racial killing. That’s as disgusting as the picture at the top of this page.

Terence Anderson, 65, arrested on a weapons charge