Cross-Examination

• Riot-destroyed business refuses to pay city taxes: The French fashion retailer Louis Vuitton is refusing to pay the city of Portland, Oregon, a $23,825 tax bill for 2020, the same year that its store in the city was ransacked by rioters protesting George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis. The business noted that rioters had looted the store of more than $300,000 in merchandise and caused over $500,000 in damages to the facility. Portland and Multnomah County filed a lawsuit against Louis Vuitton in an effort to collect the unpaid taxes. Louis Vuitton has yet to address the lawsuit, and the retailer has not explained why it has refused to pay the taxes. But it would appear plain to any non-biased observer that the city’s failure to prevent the rioting and looting of the store might have something to do with the refusal to pay. As Eric Fruits, vice president of research for the Cascade Policy Institute, observed, “They might be contesting whether or not they are obligated to pay that tax.” He further noted, “What a messed up world we live in where a business pays their business income tax, a big chunk of that is supposedly for public safety, and then they have to pay taxes again to support a fund to cover the damages because there’s no public safety.”

• Housing downturn: Experts are warning that the housing market that has been red hot for the past several years, much of it due to high demand and low inventory, is now quickly entering a recession. While listing prices have dropped slightly across the board, prices overall have not fallen significantly due to the continued problem of a lack of supply. But the market is indeed cooling off, primarily due to higher interest rates. In July, housing sales dropped by 5.9% from the previous month, continuing a six-month trend, and sales are now down 20% from last year. The percentage of first-time buyers, which usually makes up 40% of home sales, has fallen to 29%. New home construction has also been steadily decreasing over the last eight months, with single-family home construction down nearly 19% from this time last year. This is yet another sign that the economy is slowing.

• Instagram suspends P*rnhub: Following complaints against the online pornography site P*rnhub by the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE) for violating community standards regarding “hosting child sexual abuse material, sex trafficking, filmed rape, and non-consensual videos and images,” the Meta-owned social media site Instagram suspended the site’s account. Why was P*rnhub allowed to have an account on Instagram in the first place? The answer appears to lie in the fact that it had more than 13 million followers. While none of the content P*rnhub posted on Instagram was sexually graphic, it used its presence there to market its deleterious website. Furthermore, NCOSE contended that P*rnhub used Instagram to exploit children by painting a positive image of a career in the sex industry.

Headlines

• Karine Jean-Pierre nixes Ted Cruz’s border invite, says “I don’t need lectures” from GOP (NY Post)

• Obama returns to White House, where he’s upstaged Biden before (Washington Examiner)

• Progressives set sights on scrapping filibuster as midterm prospects improve (Washington Examiner)

• Vulnerable House Dems strike a conservative note, distance themselves from their party (Washington Times)

• Liberal TikToker learns Trump supporters are really nice folks (Fox News)

• Juul to pay $438.5 million to settle probe over underage vaping (WSJ)

• Material on foreign nation’s nuclear capabilities seized at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago (WaPo)

• States’ plans to make school safer reflect political divides (Washington Times)

• “Good Morning America” is arguing it’s “too hot for school” due to climate change (Not the Bee)

• Biden admin is placing vending machines filled with drug supplies in rural Kentucky (Free Beacon)

• Disney and FX just released a cartoon for adults called “Little Demon” about an Antichrist child of Satan (Not the Bee)

• Nearly one in four Democrats say men can get pregnant (RedState)

• Irish teacher jailed after being suspended for refusing to use preferred pronouns (Washington Examiner)

• Britain is installing millions of new Chinese facial recognition cameras so Big Brother can better watch everyone (Not the Bee)

• Bottom story of the day: Human urine and feces are feeding giant algae bloom in the San Francisco Bay (Daily Mail)

• Policy: To restore Americans’ faith in elections, fix sloppy record-keeping (The Federalist)

• Satire: Newsom promises there will be enough electricity for all Californians after everyone moves to Florida (Babylon Bee)

For more editors’ choice headlines, click here.