Jun 26

Today’s News 26th June 2024

  • They Are Using Lab-Grown Human Brains Called "Organoids" To Run Computers
    They Are Using Lab-Grown Human Brains Called “Organoids” To Run Computers

    Authored by Michael Snyder via TheMostImportantNews.com,

    When I first started researching this, I could hardly believe that it was true. A company in Switzerland known as “Final Spark” has constructed a bizarre hybrid biocomputer that combines lab-grown miniature human brains with conventional electronic circuits.  This approach saves an extraordinary amount of energy compared to normal computers, but there is a big problem.  The lab-grown miniature human brains keep wearing out and dying, and so scientists have to keep growing new ones to replace them. 

    Stem cells that are derived from human skin tissue are used to create the 16 spherical brain “organoids” that the system depends upon.  I realize that this sounds like something straight out of a really bad science fiction movie, but it is actually happening.

    Scientists at Final Spark are calling their hybrid computer “the Neuroplatform”, and it is being reported that it only uses “a fraction of the energy required to power a traditional set up”…

    Swiss tech startup FinalSpark is now selling access to biocomputers that combine up to four tiny lab-grown human brains with silicon chips.

    This new bioprocessing platform, called the Neuroplatform, uses small versions of human brains to do computer work instead of silicon chips. The company says it can fit 16 of these mini-brains onto the Neuroplatform and use a fraction of the energy required to power a traditional set up.

    The platform, currently adopted by nine institutions, integrates hardware, software and biology to construct a processing system that is energy-efficient and high-performing.

    This “breakthrough” is being hailed as a way to save a gigantic amount of energy.

    But what about the lab-grown human brains that are being enslaved to run the Neuroplatform?

    Each of the 16 mini-brains is made up of approximately 10,000 living neurons, and they are kept alive by a “microfluidics system that supplies water and nutrients for the cells”…

    Rather than merely integrating biological concepts into computing, FinalSpark’s online platform ‘taps’ into spherical clusters of lab-grown human brain cells called organoids. A total of 16 organoids are housed within four arrays that connect to eight electrodes each and a microfluidics system that supplies water and nutrients for the cells.

    The approach, known as wetware computing, in this case harnesses researchers’ abilities to culture organoids in the lab, a fairly new technology that allows scientists to study what are essentially mini replicas of individual organs.

    During their short lives, the mini-brains are literally trained to perform certain tasks using a reward and punishment system…

    Researchers do this by training the organoids through a reward system. The organoids are rewarded with dopamine, the neurotransmitter responsible for pleasure (and addiction).

    Meanwhile, as “punishment,” the organoids are exposed to chaotic stimuli, such as irregular electrical activity.

    If the enslaved mini-brains do what they are supposed to do, they are rewarded with lots of pleasure.

    If the enslaved mini-brains do not do what they are supposed to do, they are hit with lots of “irregular electrical activity”.

    In other words, these miniature human brains are tortured until they learn to obey.

    Reading that should literally make you sick.

    What these scientists are doing is so incredibly evil.

    Final Spark claims that the miniature human brains use “a million times less power than their silicon counterparts”…

    Swiss technology firm Final Spark has successfully launched Neuroplatform, the world’s first bioprocessing platform where human brain organoids (lab-grown miniaturized versions of organs) perform computational tasks instead of silicon chips.

    The first such facility hosts the processing prowess of 16 brain organoids, which the company claims uses a million times less power than their silicon counterparts.

    Final Spark hopes that their new “technology” will become the primary energy source for the AI revolution.

    Because at this point training AI models uses a colossal amount of conventional energy…

    According to Final Spark’s estimates, training the popular large language model GPT-3 that powered ChatGPT in its initial days alone consumed 10 GWh of energy. This is a whopping 6,000 times more energy than an average European city consumes in an entire year.

    Replacing silicon chips with bioprocessors could lead to drastic energy savings. Final Spark allows research labs to experience the power of biological processors on the Neuroplatform.

    To a lot of people out there, this is going to sound really great.

    Final Spark insists that the processor that it has created will use a million times less energy compared to a normal silicon chip.

    There is just one enormous problem.

    The mini-brains keep dying and must be regularly replaced.

    At first they would die “in just a few hours”, but now they are apparently living for up to 100 days…

    Final Spark faced many challenges in its early years since the organoids would die in just a few hours. The company has worked on this shortcoming and improved its MEA systems to ensure that organoids live for 100 days.

    These “organoids” are literally worked to death.

    They are hooked up to electrodes and worked until they can work no more…

    Final Spark has made working these varied components possible through an innovative setup called Multi-Electrode Arrays (MEAs), where the three-dimensional masses of brain tissue are placed.

    Each MEA has four brain organoids that interface with eight electrodes. These electrodes perform the dual role of stimulating the organoids and recording the data they process.

    Data transfer is done through digital analog converters with a 16-bit resolution and a 30 kHz frequency. A microfluidic system provides life support for the MEAs, and cameras can monitor their overall operation.

    Have you ever seen “The Matrix”?

    I was reminded of that film as I researched all of this.

    Just like in that movie, human energy powers the entire system.

    And just like in that movie, those that power the system are enslaved.

    The creators of “the Neuroplatform” insist that this is perfectly okay because the mini-brains are not sentient beings.

    Whether that is true or not, what they are doing is still very wrong.

    Creating miniature human brains and using them to power a computer may be a way to save a lot of energy, but it also perfectly illustrates how far our society has fallen.

    We are crossing lines that should never be crossed, and eventually we will pay a very great price for the crimes that our scientists are committing.

    *  *  *

    Michael’s new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack  newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 06/26/2024 – 02:00

  • Surgeon-General Declares Firearm-Violence Is An Urgent Public Health-Crisis
    Surgeon-General Declares Firearm-Violence Is An Urgent Public Health-Crisis

    Authored by Chase Smith via The Epoch Times,

    U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy issued the first-ever surgeon general’s advisory on firearm violence on June 25, saying that it poses an urgent threat to the nation’s health and well-being.

    The unprecedented advisory calls for a public health approach to address what Dr. Murthy describes as a “moral crisis” that demands immediate and decisive action.

    A surgeon general’s advisory is a public statement that calls the American people’s attention to urgent public health issues and is reserved for significant public health challenges that require the nation’s immediate awareness and action.

    “Today, for the first time in the history of our office, I am issuing a Surgeon General’s Advisory on firearm violence,” Dr. Murthy said in a video statement.

    “It outlines the urgent threat firearm violence poses to the health and well-being of our country. As a doctor, I’ve seen the consequences of firearm violence up close and the lives of the patients that cared for over the years. These are moms and dads, sons and daughters, all of whom were robbed of their physical and mental health by senseless acts of violence.”

    The announcement on firearms comes a little over a week after the surgeon general called for a warning label to be placed on social media platforms, stating the potential mental health harms for children using them.

    Opponents of the action argue that the surgeon general’s advisory could potentially infringe on Second Amendment rights if enforced improperly, while proponents say it could have a similar impact on public policy and perception as similar advisories, such as those on the dangers of smoking.

    Rise in Firearm-related Injuries

    Dr. Murthy’s announcement included statistics and personal experiences. According to the advisory, firearm-related injuries have become the leading cause of death for U.S. children and adolescents, surpassing motor vehicle crashes, cancer, and drug overdoses.

    In 2022 alone, 48,204 people died from firearm-related injuries, marking a significant increase compared to previous years, according to the advisory.

    “Fifty-four percent of adults in America report that they or family members have experienced a firearm-related incident, whether they’ve been personally threatened with or injured by a firearm, lost a family member, witnessed a shooting, or shot a firearm in self-defense,” Dr. Murthy said.

    The advisory states that black individuals suffer the highest rates of firearm homicides, while suicide rates are highest among veterans, older white individuals, and younger American Indian or Alaska Native people.

    “What is especially devastating is how this has affected our children,” Dr. Murthy said.

    Dr. Murthy shared his personal experiences as a doctor, recounting the stories of patients and families affected.

    “I’ve sat with parents who’ve lost their child to firearm violence. I’ve listened to their stories and felt their pain as they describe the holes in their hearts,” he said. “As a father, I know a parent’s worst nightmare is to lose a child, to feel like you can’t protect your child from harm.”

    Criticism of Policy

    Second Amendment advocates with The Heller Foundation have voiced strong criticisms of the approach by America’s chief public health figure.

    Kristie Tertel, national director of Legislative Policy for The Heller Foundation warns that the advisory could unlawfully infringe on Second Amendment rights.

    “The U.S. Surgeon General is using the guise of a ‘public health emergency’ as an unlawful and unconstitutional means of circumventing the Heller decision,” she told The Epoch Times.

    Ms. Tertel emphasizes that the Supreme Court’s ruling in District of Columbia v. Heller established a binding precedent affirming an individual’s right to possess firearms for self-defense.

    She noted Justice Scalia’s majority opinion which stated, “The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense.”

    She added her own personal experience where having a firearm would have helped her avoid being the victim of a crime.

    “A firearm is the great equalizer,” she told The Epoch Times. “I am Australian-American and thought guns were dumb—until I needed one. I have over 30 stalkers nationwide. My ex-boyfriend beat me into a coma seven times and left me for dead in a Baltimore dumpster. Two years ago I was brutally drugged and raped and we are now prosecuting him for attempted murder. Had I been armed and trained, it would have all been prevented.”

    Dick Heller, the lead plaintiff in the landmark DC v. Heller case and executive director of The Heller Foundation, also dismissed the advisory’s potential impact on the Second Amendment, suggesting that the real issue lies with criminal behavior, not firearms.

    “The only effect the advisory will have on the Second Amendment is the fake news trying to blame ‘helpless’ firearms for what people do,” he said in an interview with The Epoch Times. Heller argued that firearms themselves are incapable of committing crimes, which are actions performed by individuals, often criminals.

    “Life is simple, the only helpful use of an advisory would be to have the government keep the killer-animal-violent criminals out of society and locked up in a maximum security jail,” he said. “Of course, this will not happen under the current administration as it does not fit their ‘gun control’ agenda, painting the false picture of ‘It’s Guns Doing Bad Things.’”

    lan Gottlieb, founder and executive vice president of the Second Amendment Foundation, echoed the focus on criminals themselves in an interview with The Epoch Times.

    “Criminals break laws. That’s why they’re called criminals,” he said.

    “When you have open borders and people coming in and committing violent acts all over the country, this is where your problems are.”

    Mr. Gottlieb also took issue with the data behind the Surgeon General’s action.

    “First of all, let me say that the data they’re using, saying gun violence is an ‘epidemic’, so to speak, is totally off base,” he asserted.

    “Quite honestly, that the Surgeon General is pushing this as a public health crisis really bothers me. Because it’s not a public health crisis. I mean, gun ownership is not a contagious disease.”

    Policy Support

    Proponents of the advisory argue however that the advisory and proposed actions of the Surgeon General are long overdue.

    The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence said the report comes weeks after their own advisory council called on such action from the Surgeon General and the White House.

    Brady’s Board Chair and Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Joseph V Sakran, said in a statement after the announcement that will “create a seachange in the fight to free America from gun violence.”

    “Surgeon General reports are renowned publications that take an evidence-based approach to our nation’s most urgent public health issues. Seeing as firearms are now the leading cause of death for children and teens in the U.S., there’s arguably no public health issue that’s more urgent or that warrants the commission of a Surgeon General report more than gun violence,” Dr. Sakran said. “This advisory not only sounds the alarm for all Americans, but it signals there must be greater investments in research and violence prevention solutions.”

    He continued by noting how previous reports on public health issues such as the dangers of smoking ignited a slew of initiatives to tackle the issue and they hope the gun-related report will have the same impact.

    “As a survivor of gun violence and a trauma surgeon who treats firearm injuries, I am appreciative of both the Surgeon General and the Biden-Harris administration,” continued Sakran. “The best medical treatment is prevention and we are grateful for the advocates who have been calling for this report and the experts who set it into motion, we will finally turn the tides in the fight against gun violence.”

    Surgeon General’s Recommendations

    The surgeon general’s advisory lays out a comprehensive approach to address firearm violence as a public health crisis.

    Key strategies include implementing community violence prevention programs, enhancing firearm risk reduction strategies, improving access to mental health care, and expanding research funding to inform and evaluate prevention efforts.

    “Firearm violence is a public health crisis. Our failure to address it is a moral crisis,” Dr. Murthy said. “To protect the health and well-being of Americans, especially our children, we must now act with the clarity, courage, and urgency that this moment demands.”

    By adopting a public health approach, similar to those used for other significant health issues like tobacco use and motor vehicle safety, he argues the nation can work toward reducing the impact of firearm violence on communities and future generations.

    “Our children should not have to live in fear that they are going to get shot if they go to school,” Dr. Murthy said. “None of us should have to worry that going to the mall or concert, or house of worship means putting our lives at risk, or that we’ll get a call that a loved one in a moment of crisis has taken their own life with a firearm.”

    The Epoch Times has reached out to Second Amendment advocates and gun control supporters for comment.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 06/25/2024 – 23:40

  • Attacks On 'Cheap Fakes' Extend Biden Administration’s War On Free Speech
    Attacks On ‘Cheap Fakes’ Extend Biden Administration’s War On Free Speech

    Authored by Kenin M. Spivak via RealClearPolitics,

    There were two astonishing developments this week in the Biden administration’s continuing attack on free speech. First, just days ahead of the Supreme Court’s decision on whether to uphold the Fifth Circuit’s injunction against the administration’s extensive censorship enterprise, a second White House press secretary strongly encouraged the media to chill political debate. Second, Karine Jean-Pierre was masterful in her delivery of the new Biden attack line on “cheap fakes.”

    To set the stage: last year, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously upheld a federal district court’s finding that the evidence likely established that the Biden Administration, including then spokesperson Jen Psaki, had engaged in a broad attack on free speech in violation of the First Amendment. It issued an injunction prohibiting the White House and other federal agencies from taking “actions, formal or informal, directly or indirectly, to coerce or significantly encourage social-media companies to remove, delete, suppress, or reduce… social-media content containing protected free speech.”

    The government appealed to the Supreme Court, which stayed enforcement of the injunction, pending its review. The Court heard oral argument in March. The administration might prevail, despite browbeating social media into blocking core political speech, including criticism of Biden, humor, and discussion of the Hunter Biden laptop. Yes, that same laptop the Justice Department and FBI just admitted were legitimate and tamper-free. A decision is expected within 10 days.

    Now, KJP and the administration are doubling down. Attacking a new category of “cheap fake” videos, KJP blasted the media for publishing unaltered video of the president’s frailties. Her objection appears to be that by presenting information about the president out of the context preferred by the administration, this video is, in effect, fake. See here.

    While the administration was unclear about the missing context, I infer that it prefers a focus on the presumed majority of the president’s 10 AM to 4 pm, Monday-to-Friday workday during which he is not frozen, wandering aimlessly, mumbling incoherently, or blanking out. I understand that preference, but it is unseemly, and depending on next steps, may be unconstitutional, for a government official, speaking from the White House, to seek to chill free speech.

    KJP claimed these videos are “misleading,” “manipulated” and “deep fakes.” A deep fake is false. But, what KJP really means is to falsely allege that the videos are out of context. As such, her attack has all the earmarks of the administration’s censorship campaign against “malinformation.” The administration defines three categories of speech it asserts should be censored, misinformation and disinformation, which include falsehoods, and “malinformation,” which is used out of context, specifically, truthful information that does not have a progressive spin.

    Aside from the misinformation in KJP’s attack – the videos presented by mainstream media and respected conservative online publications are revealing, unedited windows into a physically and cognitively impaired president; they are neither out of a context necessary to understand what we are seeing, nor manipulated. Regardless, the White House press secretary (as contrasted to a campaign spokesperson), has no business demanding censorship of videos that paint the president in a bad light. Actions like this led two federal courts to issue injunctions against the White House.

    The Supreme Court explained in W. Va. State Bd. of Educ. v. Barnette (1943) that “If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion.” In Ashcroft v. ACLU (2002), the Court declared that with few exceptions, “the First Amendment means that government has no power to restrict expression because of its message, its ideas, its subject matter, or its content.”

    Labeling speech as “misinformation” does not strip it of protection. In United States v. Alvarez (2012), Justice Anthony Kennedy explained that even “false statements” may not be censored, writing “some false statements are inevitable if there is to be an open and vigorous expression of views….Our constitutional tradition stands against the idea that we need Oceania’s Ministry of Truth.”

    Speaking directly to KJP’s demands, Justice Kennedy added: “The mere potential for the exercise of that [censorship] power casts… a chill the First Amendment cannot permit if free speech, thought, and discourse are to remain a foundation of our freedom….The response to the unreasoned is the rational; to the uninformed, the enlightened; to the straight-out lie, the simple truth…Society has the right and civic duty to engage in open, dynamic, rational discourse. These ends are not well served when the government seeks to orchestrate public discussion through content-based mandates.”

    It is irrelevant that the publishers or social media companies will be the instrument of suppression. As Justice Clarence Thomas summarized in 2021, “The government cannot accomplish through threats of adverse government action what the Constitution prohibits it from doing directly.”

    The administration is afraid that voters will learn the truth. It is now up to a free media and the Republican candidate for president to make certain that voters know how to apply that fear.

    Kenin M. Spivak is founder and chairman of SMI Group LLC, an international consulting firm and investment bank. He is the author of fiction and non-fiction books and a frequent speaker and contributor to media, including The American Mind, National Review, the National Association of Scholars, television, radio and podcasts. He received his A.B., M.B.A., and J.D. from Columbia University.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 06/25/2024 – 23:20

  • Supreme Court Turns Away COVID-19 Vaccine Appeals
    Supreme Court Turns Away COVID-19 Vaccine Appeals

    Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    U.S. Supreme Court justices on June 24 rejected appeals brought over COVID-19 vaccines by Children’s Health Defense (CHD), a nonprofit founded by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an independent candidate running for president.

    A nurse administers a pediatric dose of the COVID-19 vaccine to a girl in Los Angeles on Jan. 19, 2022. (ROBYN BECK/AFP via Getty Images)

    The nation’s top court rejected an appeal seeking to overturn lower court rulings that found that CHD and its members lacked standing to sue the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) over its emergency authorizations of COVID-19 vaccines for minors.

    The justices also rebuffed another CHD appeal in a case that challenged the COVID-19 vaccine mandate imposed on students at Rutgers University, a public college in New Jersey.

    The Supreme Court did not comment on either denial. It included them in a lengthy list dealing with dozens of cases.

    “Disappointing that the courts are closed to FDA fraud harming millions of Americans,” Robert Barnes, an attorney representing CHD in the FDA case, told The Epoch Times in an email.

    He called for Congress to pass reforms.

    Julio Gomez, an attorney representing CHD in the Rutgers case, told The Epoch Times in an email that the Supreme Court’s denials marked a sad day because clarity is needed on vaccines and the Supreme Court’s 1905 decision in Jacobson v. Massachusetts, which upheld a city’s law requiring vaccination against smallpox.

    Mr. Gomez pointed to a recent federal appeals court ruling that determined that Jacobson did not apply to a case filed against a vaccine mandate in California because plaintiffs had produced evidence that the COVID-19 vaccines do not prevent the spread of COVID-19.

    Lawyers for Rutgers and the government did not return requests for comment.

    In the FDA case, CHD and parents in Texas and Florida argued that the regulatory agency cleared COVID-19 vaccines under emergency authorization despite COVID-19 posing less risk than influenza to children and without adequate clinical testing. The FDA also wrongly promoted the vaccines, the plaintiffs alleged.

    U.S. District Judge Alan Albright tossed out the lawsuit in 2023, finding that CHD and the parents did not meet the requirements for standing, or the ability to sue over the actions, under Article III of the U.S. Constitution.

    While the parents said their children were at risk of being vaccinated by other people, they did not show that they faced imminent harm because of the FDA issuing emergency authorization for COVID-19 vaccines, the judge said. Imminent harm is one requirement for standing.

    The judge also said CHD had not shown that its resources were drained in responding to the FDA’s conduct and that it was airing a “generalized grievance,” which is not allowed under Supreme Court precedent.

    A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in January upheld the ruling.

    “Plaintiffs contend that the injury-in-fact element is satisfied because a third party might vaccinate their children over their objections, and that such vaccine could allegedly injure them and their children,” the panel stated. “Be that as it may, we agree with the district court that Plaintiffs fail to demonstrate an injury in fact because the alleged injury is neither concrete nor imminent.”

    Mr. Barnes had urged the Supreme Court to look at the case.

    “Can no one sue the FDA? Is that what Article III means?” he wrote in a filing

    Government lawyers waived their right to file a brief to the court.

    In the case against Rutgers, CHD and some of its members said the vaccine mandate was unconstitutional in part because the Constitution’s due process clause enables people to refuse medical treatment.

    U.S. District Judge Zahid Quraishi ruled against the plaintiffs in 2022, finding that Rutgers mandated vaccination as part of a legitimate goal of protecting the school community from COVID-19 and that the students either brought claims that had become moot because they were granted religious exemptions to the mandate or failed to state a claim.

    A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit upheld the decision in February.

    In a filing to the Supreme Court, lawyers for CHD said the lower courts erred and that the justices should intervene.

    “If government is allowed to mandate experimental vaccines that do not prevent transmission against a person’s right to freely exercise informed consent, then COVID-19 will have eroded one of our most basic liberties—the right to refuse a medical experiment,” they wrote.

    Rutgers declined to file a brief with the court.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 06/25/2024 – 23:00

  • 'Squad'-Member Jamaal Bowman Loses Primary Race To Moderate
    ‘Squad’-Member Jamaal Bowman Loses Primary Race To Moderate

    So much for “showing f**king AIPAC the power of the mother-f**king South Bronx”…

    Fire alarm specialist Rep. Jamaal Bowman of New York just became the first member of the far-left ‘Squad’ to be unseated as he lost his primary battle to ‘moderate’ Westchester County executive George Latimer.

    Mr. Latimer leads Mr. Bowman 54.5 percent to 45.5 percentage points, with 53 percent reporting.

    The Associated Press called the race at 9:38 p.m ET.

    The two-term congressman is also the first Democratic incumbent to lose their primary this year, capping off a contest that laid bare divisions within the Democratic party that have ruptured over the Israel-Hamas war.

    As The Epoch Times’ Michael Washburn reports, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), a major pro-Israel group, emerges as another winner from the race after it poured $14 million in ads to boost Mr. Latimer, helping to make this primary the most expensive House race ever, according to ad tracker AdImpact.

    Mr. Bowman’s District 16, which covers the northern Bronx and Westchester County, is solidly blue, so Mr. Latimer is likely to win the seat in November.

    Bowman’s Two Terms

    Washburn goes on to point out that, in 2020, Mr. Bowman unseated longtime incumbent Democrat Rep. Eliot Engel in the primary and then easily crushed his Republican challenger in the fall general election. Mr. Bowman won a second term in 2022, during which he consolidated his reputation as one of the most outspokenly progressive members of the Squad, with a message of antiracism, social justice, and economic equity.

    In the race that just concluded, he enjoyed the endorsement of fellow Squad members such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), and Rep. Cori Bush (R-Mo.), along with powerful Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-Vt.) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Ma.).

    Mr. Bowman has courted controversy over his staunch pro-Palestinian stance, and by calling accounts of the sexual abuse of Israeli hostages “propaganda,” for which he later apologized.

    Last year, he also pulled a fire alarm inside a congressional building during a House vote, for which he pled guilty to misdemeanor charges. He maintains it was an accident.

    Middle East in Focus

    The congressman’s defeat is consistent with predictions in the run-up to the June 25 election from pollsters, as well as establishment Democrats.

    FiveThirtyEight polls gave Mr. Latimer double-digit leads, while prominent Democrats, ranging from former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to former state Gov. Andrew Cuomo, had signaled their support for the challenger, who enjoys a reputation of being more in touch with the mainstream sentiment on the Gaza conflict and support for Israel’s war on Hamas.

    “The message is clear: antisemitism in any and all forms will not be tolerated in New York. And you can’t call yourself a progressive without making progress,” Mr. Cuomo wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter, on the morning of June 25, predicting Mr. Bowman’s defeat.

    David Carlucci, a former New York state senator who ran in the District 17 primary, north of District 16, in 2020, and who worked for Mr. Engel two decades ago, acknowledged that many voters in Tuesday’s election considered first and foremost where the two candidates stood on Middle East policy.

    “The contrast between Latimer’s pro-Israel stance and Bowman’s more critical perspective on U.S.-Israel relations has sharpened the divide among voters with strong opinions on this issue, and has been front and center in this race,” Mr. Carlucci told The Epoch Times.

    Democratic candidate for New York’s 16th District George Latimer speaks during a press conference at the Mount Vernon Democratic headquarters on June 24, 2024, in Mount Vernon, N.Y. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)

    At the same time, some voters made choices based on Rep. Bowman’s and Mr. Latimer’s respective positions on such issues as criminal justice reform, policing and public safety, climate action, and environmental sustainability, Mr. Carlucci said.

    Hence, while the Middle East loomed large in this race, many voters’ decisions signify a wide schism between the radical and centrist factions of the Democratic Party, a divide that could grow still further in the months and years to come, he observed.

    “This race could reflect broader national trends within the Democratic Party, regarding its diverse opinions and large tent,” he said.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 06/25/2024 – 22:40

  • Is The Global Inflationary Depression Already Here?
    Is The Global Inflationary Depression Already Here?

    Authored by Peter St. Onge and Jeffrey A. Tucker via the Brownstone Institute,

    There was an oblique message buried in a New York Times story on the growing crisis in commercial real estate in cities. Yes, this is exactly the kind of article that people pass over because it seems like it doesn’t have broad application. In fact, it does. It affects the core of issues like our city skylines, how we think about urbanism and progress, where we vacation and work, and whether the big cities are drivers or drains on national productivity. 

    The note mentions the “broader distress brewing in the commercial real estate market, which is hurting from the twin punches of high interest rates, which make it harder to refinance loans, and low occupancy rates for office buildings — an outcome of the pandemic.”

    We are used to this kind of language blaming the pandemic for the results of lockdowns. Of course, it was a man-made decision to turn a respiratory virus into an excuse to shut down the world. The lockdowns blew up all economic data, generating seesawing graphs on every indicator never seen in industrial history. They also made before/after comparison extremely difficult.

    The consequences will echo long into the future. The high interest rates are a result of trying to slow down the money spigot unleashed in March 2020, in which more than $6 trillion in new cash appeared out of nowhere and was distributed as if by helicopter. 

    What did the money injection do? It generated inflation. How much? Sadly, we do not know. The Bureau of Labor Statistics simply cannot keep up, partially because the Consumer Price Index does not calculate the following: interest on anything, taxes, housing, health insurance (accurately), homeowners insurance, car insurance, government services like public schools, shrinkflation, quality declines, substitutions due to price, or additional service fees. 

    That’s a major part of what has gone up, which is why data on particular industries shows a huge gap (groceries up 35% over four years) and why ShadowStats estimates inflation in double digits two years running, having peaked at 17%. Just adding in interest, a paper from NBER estimates, takes 2023 inflation to 19%.

    Various studies have shown that since 2019 fast food prices — a gold standard in financial markets for measuring true inflation — have outpaced official CPI by between 25% and 50%.

    Getting the inflation data wrong is only the start of the problem. We are lucky if any government data even adjusts for the wrong numbers. Consider retail sales as just one example. Let’s say you bought a hamburger last year for $10 and you bought one this week for $15. Would you say that your retail spending is up 50%? No, you just spent more on the same thing. Well, guess what? All retail sales are calculated this way. 

    It’s the same with factory orders. You have to do the inflation adjustments yourself. Even using conventional data, which are wildly underestimated, wipes out all gains of the last several years. EJ Antoni is one of the few economists actually keeping up with this stuff, and he produces the following two charts. 

    As EJ writes: “This is factory orders before and after adjusting for inflation: what looks like a 21.1% increase from Jan ’21 to Mar ’24 is only a 1.8% increase – the rest is just higher prices, not more physical stuff; worse yet, real orders are down 6.9% since their highwater mark in June ’22.”

    Imagine the same charts but with more realistic adjustments. Are you getting the picture? The mainstream data being dished out daily by the business press is fake. And imagine the same charts above redone with inflation in the double digits as it should be. We’ve got a serious problem. 

    The problems with the employment data are getting to be more well-known. Essentially, the establishment data that is normally reported is double-counting or just plain inaccurate, and there is a huge divergence with the other method of counting jobs via household surveys. EJ again offers this look. 

    In addition, neither worker/population ratios nor the labor participation rate are back to pre-lockdown levels. 

    Now consider GDP. In the old formula hammered out in the 1930s, government spending adds to the GDP while cuts subtract from it, just as exports add and imports subtract. Why? It’s an old theory rooted in a kind of Keynesian/mercantilism that no one seems ever to change. But the bias is profound these days with explosive government spending. 

    To calculate whether and to what extent we are in recession, we look not at nominal GDP but real GDP; that is, adjusted for inflation. Two down quarters are considered recessionary. What if we adjust pathetic and seriously mis-estimated output numbers by a realistic understanding of inflation over the last few years? 

    We don’t have the numbers but a back-of-the-envelope suggests that we never left the recession of March 2020 and that everything has been getting gradually worse. 

    That appears to fit with every single consumer sentiment survey. It seems likely that people themselves are better observers of reality than government data collectors and statisticians. 

    So far, we’ve dealt briefly with inflation, output, sales, and output, and find that none of the official data is reliable. One mistake bleeds to others, such as adjusting output for inflation or adjusting sales for increased prices. The jobs data is particularly problematic because of the problem of double-counting. 

    What to know about household finance? The flipping of savings rates and credit card debt tell the story. 

    When you add it all up, you get a strange sense that nothing we are being told is real. According to official data, the dollar has lost about 23 cents in purchasing power over the last four years. Absolutely no one believes this. Depending on what you actually spend money on, the real answer is closer to 35 cents or 50 cents or even 75 cents…or more. We do not know what we cannot know. 

    We are left to speculate. And this problem is combined with the reality that this is not just a US problem. The increase in inflation and the decline in output is truly global. We might call this an inflationary recession or high inflationary depression, all over the world.  

    Consider that most economic models used through the 1970s, and still today, postulate that there is a forever tradeoff between output (with employment as a proxy) and inflation, such that when one is up, the other is down (Phillips curve). 

    Now we face a situation where the jobs data are profoundly affected by bad surveys and labor dropouts, output data is distorted by history-making levels of government spending and debt, and no one is even trying anymore to provide a realistic accounting of inflation. 

    What the heck is really going on? We live in data-obsessed times with seemingly magical abilities to know and calculate everything. And yet even now, we seem to be more blind than ever before. The difference is that nowadays, we are supposed to trust and rely on data that no one even believes is real. 

    Going back to that commercial real estate crisis, for the New York Times story, the large banks would not even talk to the reporters doing the story. That should tell you something.

    We live with a don’t-ask-don’t-tell economy. No one wants to say hyperinflation. No one wants to say economic depression. Above all else, never admit the truth: the turning point in our lives and the precipitating event to the whole calamity for the world were the lockdowns themselves. All else follows. 

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 06/25/2024 – 22:20

  • Federal Judges Block Parts Of Student Loan Repayment Plan
    Federal Judges Block Parts Of Student Loan Repayment Plan

    Authored by Caden Pearson via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Federal judges in Missouri and Kansas issued separate rulings on June 24 blocking key sections of the Biden administration’s Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) program, which is designed to lower student loan payments and forgive debts.

    President Joe Biden speaks in Washington, on April 10, 2024. (Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times)

    A new version of the program that would reduce payments and shorten maximum repayment periods was set to take effect in July.

    U.S. District Judge Michael Crabtree for the District of Kansas ruled that the Republican states were likely to succeed in their claim that the department lacked explicit congressional authority to enact this portion of the program.

    “Defendants have offered colorable, plausible interpretations of the Higher Education Act that could authorize the SAVE Plan, but those interpretations fall short of clear congressional authorization,” Judge Crabtree, who was appointed under President Barack Obama, wrote on Monday.

    However, he declined to block the program entirely, expressing concerns about the practicality of reversing parts of the plan that had already been implemented. He also said that Republicans’ delay in filing their lawsuits undermined their arguments that there was an immediate need to halt the entire program.

    The ruling noted the judge’s reluctance to issue a nationwide injunction.

    In a separate decision on the same day, U.S. District Judge Judge John Ross for the Eastern District of Missouri, also a President Obama appointee, blocked the department from forgiving “any further loan[s]” under SAVE until he decides the full case. His order said that such actions would likely strip state loan operators of revenue.

    Judge Ross also suggested that the SAVE program might have exceeded the authority of Education Secretary Miguel Cardona and that Missouri would likely be harmed by the program.

    Attorneys General Welcome Rulings

    Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach, who spearheaded one of the legal challenges, issued a statement celebrating the ruling as a victory.

    “As the court correctly held, whether to forgive billions of dollars of student debt is a major question that only Congress can answer,” he said. “This is not only unconstitutional, it’s unfair. Blue collar Kansas workers who didn’t go to college shouldn’t have to pay off the student loans of New Yorkers with gender studies degrees.”

    The Kansas challenge was supported by 11 other Republican states. Of these 12 states, only four—Alaska, Texas, and South Carolina—were found to have standing.

    Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey also hailed the ruling, calling it a “huge win for the rule of law and Americans who would have been forced ”to pay off someone else’s debt.”

    “Only Congress has the power of the purse, not the President,” Mr. Bailey said in a statement on Monday.

    SAVE Plan

    The SAVE plan, a reworking of a previous plan, aims to halve the required payment on student loans from 10 percent to 5 percent of discretionary income and shorten the repayment period for those with lower initial loan balances. This means that borrowers with smaller loan balances could have their loans forgiven in just 10 years instead of 20.

    Some parts of the plan have already been implemented, resulting in the forgiveness of loan balances for hundreds of thousands of individuals.

    President Biden created the SAVE program after the Supreme Court rejected his plan to forgive broader debts. Following that decision, the Education Department pursued another way to provide debt relief under the Higher Education Act.

    White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in April that the plans would “fully eliminate” accrued interest for 23 million borrowers, cancel the full amount of debt for over 4 million borrowers, and give over 10 million borrowers around $5,000 in debt relief or more.

    25 million borrowers owe more than the amount they originally borrowed due to accruing interest. Currently, nearly 8 million people are enrolled in the program, according to the White House.

    The Biden administration, as of April, touted that it had provided around $146 billion in student debt relief via more than two dozen executive actions.

    Normally, federal student loan borrowers must repay their debts for around 20 years to qualify for forgiveness under the Education Department’s income-driven repayment plans. The SAVE plan offered a shorter timeline for forgiveness, canceling debt after just 10 years for borrowers who initially took out less than $12,000.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 06/25/2024 – 22:00

  • Is China Hiding How Much Gold It Really Has?
    Is China Hiding How Much Gold It Really Has?

    Authored by Mike Maharrey via Money Metals,

    A few weeks ago, gold sold off on news that the People’s Bank of China didn’t add any gold to its reserves in May.

    At the time, I called it a “kneejerk reaction,” and said the news wasn’t “a particularly good reason to sell gold.”

    “The fact the PBoC didn’t buy any gold in May is certainly interesting, but it hardly counts as earthshaking news. Standing pat for one month doesn’t mean “China has stopped buying gold” as some news outlets framed it.” 

    Before the news, China had bought gold for 18 straight months. It ranked as the biggest central bank gold buyer in 2023. Officially, the People’s Bank of China added more than 300 tons of gold to its reserves during its buying spree.

    “Officially” is the keyword. 

    Many analysts have long thought that China has far more gold than it officially reports. 

    Jim Rickards pointed out on Mises Daily back in 2015 that many analysts believe that China keeps several thousand tons of gold “off the books” in a separate entity called the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE). 

    The Official Chinese Gold Numbers Don’t Add Up 

    Chen Long is the founder and lead economist for Plenum. He’s also a respected journalist who writes extensively about China’s economy, financial markets, and government policies. Long recently wrote a piece for ThinkChina, a Singapore-based news site, after he ran the numbers on China’s gold holdings.

    He found the official numbers simply don’t line up.  

    Long starts by pointing out that Chinese central bank gold purchases are a drop in the bucket compared to the country’s gold imports. The country imported over 1,400 tons of gold in 2023. This is despite the fact that China ranks as the world’s largest gold producer. Chinese mines dug up 375 tons of gold in 2023. 

    In other words, there is a lot of gold flowing into China, and the country exports very little.

    Only a handful of commercial banks hold licenses to import gold due to the PBoC’s tight regulation of the market. According to Long, 17 banks, including four state-owned institutions, reported gold holding of about 1,016 tons as of the end of 2023. 

    Interestingly, gold holdings by these commercial banks have been falling since around 2016.

    Meanwhile, many commercial banks in China no longer sell gold to the public due to a commodities scandal a few years ago.

    When you dig into the numbers, total official gold holdings by the PBoC, retail buyers, and the big commercial banks only rose by 431 tons last year. Total gold imports and production came in at 1,775 tons. That’s a gap of more than 1,300 tons.

    Over the last two years, there have been about 2,700 tons of gold that is unaccounted for.

    So, where in the world did that gold go?

    Long said, “It is common to see gaps between these figures, but they are usually within a few hundred tons at most. Such a huge gap is rare.”  

    Where Is the Chinese Gold?

    How do we account for this “missing” gold?

    Long offered three possibilities.

    Number one is that the People’s Bank of China bought more gold than it reported.

    “If the PBoC has massively increased its gold position, it may want to withhold a full disclosure in order to avoid shocking the market.”

    If all that missing gold is being held by the central bank, it would double its stated gold reserves to around 5,000 tons. 

    Long notes that the Chinese central bank has delayed reporting before. In June 2015, the PBoC disclosed a one-off increase in gold reserves of 621 tons. It’s highly unlikely the central bank bought all that gold in a single month.

    A second possibility is China’s sovereign wealth fund holds some of that missing gold.

    A sovereign wealth fund is a state-owned investment fund that holds surplus government revenues.

    “After all, the sovereign wealth fund may not want to put all its money in U.S. dollars either, but the China Investment Corporation does not disclose how much gold it owns,” Long said.

    A third possibility is that other numbers have been fudged. Chinese commercial banks may have overstated the reduction in their gold holdings while household gold purchases were understated.

    “While the domestic banks have reported a big reduction of gold assets, some investors may have turned to the foreign banks who also have gold import licenses. They may have increased their gold holdings without making disclosures, although we doubt that such increases could completely offset the decline of gold holdings at the Chinese banks.”

    With the lack of transparency in China, we’ll probably never know exactly where the gold went.

    As Chris Powell recently wrote, “Mainstream financial news organizations don’t yet seem to notice that official statements about gold reserves are, to put it politely, not reliable.”

    That means we’ll never know for sure just how much gold the Chinese government and its central bank hold. But you don’t have to be a wild conspiracy theorist to think they probably have far more gold than they’re letting on.

    Mike Maharrey is a journalist and market analyst for MoneyMetals.com with over a decade of experience in precious metals. He holds a BS in accounting from the University of Kentucky and a BA in journalism from the University of South Florida.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 06/25/2024 – 21:40

  • Oakland Mayor Raided By FBI Claims She Is Being Targeted By 'Radical Right Wing Forces'
    Oakland Mayor Raided By FBI Claims She Is Being Targeted By ‘Radical Right Wing Forces’

    Oakland, California Mayor Sheng Thao is well known for her woke activist policies; policies that have led to a severe spike in property crime (17%) and violent crime (21%) within the first year of her administration.  The problem has become so overwhelming that Thao and Alameda District Attorney Pamela Price are both facing potential recall.  One has to wonder if leftist politicians are so lax on criminal prosecution because they are engaging in the same kind of activities?

    An FBI raid on Sheng Thao’s residence last week may help to answer this question.  Though she has not yet been arrested or charged, accusations indicate a corrupt web of illegal campaign finance and “pay to play” favors for special donors.  The investigation is allegedly focused on Thao’s boyfriend, Andre Jones, as well as specific donors. 

    Also targeted in the raids were two other houses in the Oakland Hills and a business office along the city’s waterfront. All three are tied to Andy Duong and his father, David, who owns the Oakland-based company California Waste Solutions, the city’s curbside recycling provider.

    Authorities claimed the Duongs spent years illegally funneling thousands of dollars using third-party entities to disguise political contributions and flout campaign-donation limits to several City Council candidates, including Thao.  In one instance, the Fair Political Practices Commission cited an internal email for Thao’s campaign in 2018 that laid out exactly how important the Duongs’ donations could be for political newcomers, such as herself.

    In it, a staff member asked, “Have you spoke with Andy Duong about $20,000 by June 30th? let me know when I should follow up with him, please,” a complaint alleges.  Within a week, Thao’s campaign received 14 contributions — seven of which were believed to have come from Duong himself through his network of “straw donors,” the complaint alleges.

    Campaign finance corruption and donations for favors aside, Mayor Thao’s dismal management of Oakland could also be considered a crime.  The criminal investigation is simply a reflection of a much deeper problem.  However, as we all know, leftists never admit fault they only double down.  In a surreal press conference replete with tears, Thao declared her innocence while hinting at an insidious conspiracy of unnamed ‘radical right wing forces’ determined to sabotage her activist reforms and maintain their power within the greater Oakland area.

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    So, now the radical right wing controls FBI investigations in Oakland, California?  Accusations of “lawfare” only make sense when the other side has control over the alphabet agency apparatus.  Thao seems to be confused about which party has the most influence over the FBI right now. 

    Thao asserted that the FBI raid never would have happened ‘if she was rich’ and that the agency should have given her a warning.  The FBI is not required to give any mayor a heads up about potential raids on their home or office. Thao’s communications chief has resigned in the wake of the investigation. 

    Her attorney, Tony Brass, has also parted ways with the mayor, noting that he was not informed of Thao’s press conference plans, nor did he advise her on interactions with the press.  Thao claims Brass did not leave and was instead “replaced.”  Brass stated that Thao is lying and that he received no communication from her about changing attorneys.  

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 06/25/2024 – 21:20

  • IRS Hammers US Taxpayers With Record Penalties In FY-23
    IRS Hammers US Taxpayers With Record Penalties In FY-23

    Authored by Martin Armstrong via ArmstrongEconomics,

    The government has become desperate for funding, seeking out money from their own citizens through taxation.

    Not only have they raised taxes for every bracket, but the IRS managed to squeeze more money out of Americans through audits for fiscal year 2023 than any year on record. In fact, the IRS shook down Americans for an additional $7 billion in tax penalties alone – a 300% increase from FY22.

    These funds are mere chump change as we send out far more than this to Ukraine on a regular basis. The people do not vote on how their taxes are frivolously spent, but they are responsible for the government’s spending. Biden claimed he would target the hated “rich” but reports have found that the majority of those targeted were gig economy workers and freelancers. Biden has done everything in his power to kill the gig economy. The IRS hates the gig economy because they believe those workers are stealing from Uncle Sam.

    The average penalty for underestimating taxes was around $150 in 2022. This year, the average penalty was around $500.

    The IRS also ramped up its campaign to fine anyone who missed the tax deadline. Late payment fees increased to $485 or 100% of the tax owed if that amount is less. Then there is the question of “How much do I owe?” The tax system in the US is so complex that there are careers dedicated toward figuring out that predicament. Every citizen and business would prefer if the government simply told them how much they needed to pay. Instead, they deliberately make the tax code vague in order to penalize everyone and anyone.

    The penalty for underpayment rose in the past year from 3% to 8%. There is no grace for those who cannot afford to pay their due amount as the IRS charges interest on all payments that are not made in full. Those who intentionally disregarded their payments faced a $630 penalty or 10% of the amount owed.

    Yet, the Biden Administration wants you to believe they care deeply about the working man. Biden wanted to hire far more IRS agents this year to raise these penalties. Public confidence dissolves when the state begins to hunt their own citizens for taxes. The government becomes the clear enemy. We have seen it happen countless times throughout history when citizens flee and later protest or revolt over absurdly high taxes. The fact that the Biden Administration has been using US taxpayer funds for foreign causes only adds insult to injury.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 06/25/2024 – 21:00

  • Holding The Line: Texas Rangers Sole MLB Team Without 'Pride Night'
    Holding The Line: Texas Rangers Sole MLB Team Without ‘Pride Night’

    Major League Baseball’s Texas Rangers may be four games under .500, but they’re high atop the league in refusing to bow to America’s woke overlords: Extending an enviable several-year record, they’re once again the only MLB team that won’t host an LGBT “Pride Night” in 2024. The practice was supposedly pioneered by the Chicago Cubs, who first came out with it in 2001.

    Rangers majority owner Ray Davis (left) accepting the MLB Commissioner’s Trophy in 2023. The billionaire built his fortune in the natural gas business. (Sean M. Haffey/Getty via Forbes)

    When asked the Rangers to justify their position, the team points to its history of sending volunteers to the Resource Center, an organization that serves the “LGBTQIA+ and HIV/AIDS communities in Dallas-Fort Worth.”  This week, responding to an inquiry from Associated Press, the Rangers said: 

    “Our longstanding commitment remains the same: To make everyone feel welcome and included in Rangers baseball — in our ballpark, at every game, and in all we do — for both our fans and our employees. We deliver on that promise across our many programs to have a positive impact across our entire community.”

    On Monday, former Texas Rangers pitcher Derek Holland applauded the team’s status as the league’s sole holdout against overlaying a night at the ballpark with a celebration of people’s varied sexual preferences. Holland, who was on the Rangers’ 2010 and 2011 World Series squads, responded to a tweeted report on the team’s unique “Pride Night” refusal with a GIF of the Texas Rangers mascot with the words “That’s a Rangers win.” 

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    When another Twitter user asked Holland why he “[felt] the need to go out of [his] way to put other people down,” Holland replied, “Why do we need to celebrate them choosing to be the way they are. Nobody cares if you’re gay or lesbian or whatever. Don’t need a whole month to celebrate. Have a day and move on.” Holland added that military service members and veterans — “real heroes!” — are more worthy of a month-long salute. 

    Meanwhile, Will Davis, who recently traveled 200 miles from Marble Falls, Texas to see a game with his son’s youth team, spoke for many in endorsing the Rangers’ refusal to have Pride Night, telling AP: 

    “It’s a private organization. And if they don’t want to have it, I don’t think they should be forced to have it. In something like this, this is a way for people to go as a state. We don’t want the political stuff shoved down our throats one way or the other, left or right. We’re coming out here to have a good time with friends or family and let it be.”

    The LGBT crowd was already sensitive to the Rangers Pride-less status as the month began. Some were promptly triggered when the team chose the beginning of Pride month to rotate the slogan that appears in the banner atop the team’s official website. In a nod to its pursuit of back-to-back World Series titles, the website had used “Run It Back” for the past few months. As Pride month began, it changed to “Straight Up Texas.” 

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    The team insists the change to a slogan the team has used for four seasons was not meant to troll the Pride crowd or (God forbid) celebrate heterosexuality — without which there would be no humanity on Earth. “It certainly wasn’t done intentionally or to make some sort of statement,” an unidentified team executive told Inside the Rangers. “That’s ridiculous.”

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 06/25/2024 – 20:40

  • Port Maintenance Drags Russia's Oil Shipments Down To Three-Month Low
    Port Maintenance Drags Russia’s Oil Shipments Down To Three-Month Low

    By Charles Kennedy of OilPrice.com

    Maintenance works at Russia’s busiest oil ports dragged down weekly crude oil shipments to the lowest level in over three months as the ports of Primorsk on the Baltic Sea and Kozmino in the Far East halted vessel departures for four days each in the week to June 23.

    Port of Kozmino

    Last week, Russian crude oil exports by sea fell by 660,000 barrels per day (bpd) from the previous week, to the lowest level in more than three months – 3.04 million bpd, vessel-tracking data monitored by Bloomberg showed on Tuesday.

    The four-week average exports also dropped, by around 45,000 bpd to 3.37 million bpd, according to the data reported by Bloomberg’s Julian Lee.

    In the previous week to June 16, before the port maintenance, Bloomberg’s data showed that Russia continued to raise its crude oil exports by sea for a second consecutive week despite promising to stick strictly to its OPEC+ output target in June.

    In the four weeks to June 16, Russian crude oil shipments jumped by some 80,000 bpd to 3.42 million bpd. The week to June 16 was the second consecutive week in which the four-week average of Russia’s crude export volumes increased compared to the prior four-week average.

    Russia’s crude exports hit the highest level in 11 months in the week to April 14, as export terminals likely shipped more crude that couldn’t be processed at refineries knocked offline by Ukrainian drone attacks.

    Between the middle of April and the beginning of June, crude flows out of Russia’s ports were trending down, according to the data analyzed by Bloomberg.

    But in June, seaborne crude exports started rising again, and the volumes have recovered about one-third of their recent decline.

    This came even as Russia’s Energy Ministry pledged earlier this month that Russia would reach its oil production quota in June after exceeding its target output under the OPEC+ deal in May.  

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 06/25/2024 – 20:20

  • Reminder: The Insidious Propaganda Campaign To Shame America Into Jabbing Up
    Reminder: The Insidious Propaganda Campaign To Shame America Into Jabbing Up

    The top-down propaganda campaign to inject every American with experimental mRNA vaccines was truly unprecedented.

    It was a highly coordinated effort to shame and vilify those who were skeptical of taking a vaccine, that didn’t work, caused untold side-effects, and divided friends and families – all over a virus that kills less than 1% of those who get it (mostly the old, fat, and those with comorbidities).

    If you have 11 minutes to set aside, watch the below 2023 compilation from Matt Orfalea of politicians and talking heads using insidious tactics to help Pfizer and Moderna, and push Orwellian compliance tactics that demanded one thing: Obey or be outcast.

    Watch:

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 06/25/2024 – 20:00

  • Rivian Soars 50% After $1 Billion Investment From Volkswagen, Record Shorts Squeezed
    Rivian Soars 50% After $1 Billion Investment From Volkswagen, Record Shorts Squeezed

    After soaring to a record high just days after its November ’21 IPO (at $78/share), the fate of EV maker Rivian had been a brutal one-way masterclass in disappointment after disappointment, with the price trading near record lows in recent months, and flirting with single digits, down 93% from the all time high of $172 hit in November 2021.

    So one can almost feel happy for the long-suffering RIVN longs who saw their stock price surge more than 50% after hours when Germany’s largest car company Volkswagen announced it would invest $5 billion to form a joint venture with Rivian, throwing a lifeline to the struggling startup and giving the German automaker access to the American EV company’s technology.

    As part of the investment, VW said it will invest $1 billion immediately in Rivian and an additional $4 billion over time. The new venture will be “equally controlled and owned” and aims to develop “next generation” battery-powered vehicles and software, VW and Rivian said in a joint statement..

    The strategic alliance provides the cash incinerating Rivian with a much-needed source of new capital after the company has struggled to ramp up production and deliveries of its electric pickup and SUV models. It comes ahead of Rivian’s previously-scheduled investor day on Thursday.  For VW, the German car giant gets access to the EV startup’s software and EV architecture after years struggling to roll out plug-in vehicles with efficiency and functionality on par with those from Tesla.

    As part of the deal, Volkswagen will take an initial $1 billion equity stake in Rivian through an unsecured convertible note that will exchange into Rivian shares on or after Dec. 1. That would make Volkswagen the company’s second largest shareholder after Amazon.com, which will remain Rivian’s largest investor with a 16% stake valued at nearly $2 billion as of Tuesday’s close (and $3 billion following news of the venture).

    VW will then invest an additional $2 billion in Rivian shares via two equal tranches in 2025 and 2026, and will put an additional $2 billion into the joint venture through a payment at the venture’s inception and a loan available in 2026.

    On a conference call, Rivian Chief Executive Officer RJ Scaringe said he and VW CEO Oliver Blume, shared an “immediate realization” the two were aligned on product strategy soon after they initially met. That led to conversations about working together, he said.

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    “Through our cooperation, we will bring the best solutions to our vehicles faster and at lower cost,” Blume said in the companies’ statement. “We are strengthening our technology profile and our competitiveness.”

    Rivian went public in November 2021 at the peak of enthusiasm for the speedy arrival of the EV future, seen as a potentially competitor to Tesla. Sure enough, an early rise in Rivian shares briefly gave it a market value exceeding that of Ford and General Motors, but since then, many of its fellow EV startups have fallen by the wayside as mainstream car buyers turned away from pricey EVs. Rivian has struggled to find a path to profitability and generate enough cash flow to fund its future.

    That said, one would not be shocked if today’s tie up ends up in flames similar to the catastrophic JV between GM and the fraud that was Tesla, where Mary Barra did precisely zero diligence before investing millions in the soon to be defunct company.  And indeed, Rivian has seen attempted partnerships with established automakers collapse before. In November 2021, it abandoned plans to jointly develop EVs with Ford, an early investor. And in December 2022, it shelved a deal to build electric vans with Mercedes-Benz AG.

    For VW, the German automotive giant gets access to the EV startup’s software and EV architecture after years struggling to roll out plug-in vehicles with efficiency and functionality on par with those from Tesla Inc.

    Both companies plan to introduce vehicles featuring technology created by the joint venture in the second half of this decade, according to the companies’ joint statement.

    Rivian stock exploded after hours, surging as much as 55%…

    … on what is as much a kneejerk response to the news, as an epic short squeeze. As we noted earlier, some 133 million RIVN shares are currently short, just shy of the all time high, and some 16.4% of the float.

    And if indeed Germany’s largest carmaker is aggressively expanding into EVs in the US, then is it time to look at downstream beneficiaries, where one name sticks out: with a record short interest of 112 million, or a whopping 28% of the float short, is Chargepoint, another name that has been largely left for dead (market cap of only $500 million), about to squeeze into the stratosphere next?

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 06/25/2024 – 19:43

  • Trump Peace Plan Will Withhold Weapons From Zelensky Unless He Agrees To Negotiate
    Trump Peace Plan Will Withhold Weapons From Zelensky Unless He Agrees To Negotiate

    Details of a potential Trump peace plan for Ukraine have been revealed, according to a Tuesday Reuters report, which could be formally unveiled if he wins the November 5th presidential election. The plan centers on giving an ultimatum to Ukraine – that it will only receive more American weapons and defense aid if it agrees to enter peace talks with Moscow.

    The proposal has been presented to Trump by advisers on his national security team, retired Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg, and Fred Fleitz. Both men had served as chiefs of staff Trump’s National Security Council during his first term in office. A key ‘controversial’ part of the plan is to freeze battle lines where they are during the progression of peace talks, something which is likely to be unpopular among Ukrainian and NATO officials.

    While the Zelensky government could face the withholding of badly needed Washington aid, Moscow would simultaneously be warned that the US would increase its support for Ukraine if Putin refuses to enter the negotiations. However, this point presents a possible incentive for both sides to simply keep refusing talks (and each side could simply keep blaming the other for lack of dialogue).

    Fleitz told Reuters that so far there’s been a favorable reaction after Trump was briefed on the plan:

    They have presented their strategy to Trump, and the Republican presidential candidate responded favorably, Fleitz added. “I’m not claiming he agreed with it or agreed with every word of it, but we were pleased to get the feedback we did,” he said.

    …The strategy outlined by Kellogg and Fleitz is the most detailed plan yet by associates of Trump, who has said he could quickly settle the war in Ukraine if he beats President Joe Biden in the Nov. 5 election, though he has not said how he would do that.

    The Trump campaign noted that nothing is official until it is issued from a designated campaign spokesperson.

    The Biden White House has repeatedly said that the ball is entirely in Kiev’s court. Only Ukrainian leadership can decide the when and where of ceasefire talks. Zelensky has repeatedly said he will not contemplate sitting at the table with Moscow representatives so long as Putin is in power. Tens of billions continue flowing into Kiev’s coffers from Western backers.

    Zelensky’s office has already reacted negatively to news of the potential Trump peace plan, with presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak saying Tuesday that freezing current battle lines would be “strange” given that Russia is the invader and illegal occupier of Ukraine territory.

    “Ukraine has an absolutely clear understanding and it is spelled out in the peace formula proposed by President (Volodymyr) Zelenskiy, it is clearly stated there – peace can only be fair and peace can only be based on international law,” he said to Reuters. Zelensky’s 10-point plan centers on Russian troops withdrawing from all Ukrainian territory before there can be peace. Putin has at the same time vowed to never give up the four annexed eastern territories which have since last year been declared absorbed into the Russian Federation.

    Last year Zelensky in a CNN interview posed the following: “We’re not ready [to give up territory to Russia]. But the question for Trump – or to someone else, maybe it’s not his idea – is ‘is the United States ready to give up territory after Putin has said he would use nuclear weapons?”

    Meanwhile, the Kremlin has reacted somewhat positively. “The value of any plan lies in the nuances and in taking into account the real state of affairs on the ground,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in response. “President Putin has repeatedly said that Russia has been and remains open to negotiations, taking into account the real state of affairs on the ground,” he said.

    Back in April, Zelensky issued his own conditions in a Meet the Press appearance:

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    It appears the Trump campaign is fully aware of the general war weariness that long ago took hold of the American public and even much of Europe. Trump has previously vowed to kick-start negotiations ‘within 24 hours’ if he enters the White House again. He has accused Biden and his policy of simply fueling an endless war. According to more fresh statements from team Trump: 

    Fleitz said Ukraine need not formally cede territory to Russia under their plan. Still, he said, Ukraine was unlikely to regain effective control of all its territory in the near term.

    “Our concern is that this has become a war of attrition that’s going to kill a whole generation of young men,” he said.

    A lasting peace in Ukraine would require additional security guarantees for Ukraine, Kellogg and Fleitz said. Fleitz added that “arming Ukraine to the teeth” was likely to be a key element of that.

    “President Trump has repeatedly stated that a top priority in his second term will be to quickly negotiate an end to the Russia-Ukraine war,” Trump spokesperson Cheung said.

    To be expected, the White House and the Biden campaign are already charging Trump with an unwillingness to ‘stand up’ to Putin. This will also likely be used as another talking point to claim that Trump is playing softball with Putin as he’s somehow ‘compromised’ (cue Russiagate etc…)

    And yet, for there to ever be peace, significant concessions will have to be made, something which the Biden administration has utterly failed in. Instead it has only continued to escalate with policies like greenlighting strikes inside Russian territory using American weapons.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 06/25/2024 – 19:20

  • Netanyahu's Wife Accuses Army Leaders Of Planning Coup
    Netanyahu’s Wife Accuses Army Leaders Of Planning Coup

    Via The Cradle

    Sarah Netanyahu accused Israel’s army chiefs of seeking to carry out a coup against her husband, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Haaretz reported on Tuesday, based on leaked audio obtained by the newspaper.

    In a meeting last week with families of some of the captives held by Hamas in Gaza, Sarah Netanyahu stated several times in the tape that she has no confidence in the army’s senior officers. The families became upset by Mrs Netanyahu’s comments, saying the fate of their captive family members depended on the army.

    In response, Mrs Netanyahu clarified her comments. She said that her lack of confidence is not in the army as a whole but in its senior commanders. Haaretz adds that she “vehemently claimed that they are interested in carrying out a coup” and repeated the claim multiple times.

    The meeting was also attended by army officers, including Colonel (Ret.) Verda Pomerantz, formerly head of the casualty division, and Gal Hirsch, a former army commander tasked by the prime minister to coordinate the government’s effort to free the captives. Sarah’s statements were brought to the attention of senior officers in the army.

    The meeting took place a few days after the Prime Minister’s son, Yair Netanyahu, attacked the army chiefs as well, accusing them of treason.

    On Saturday, Yair shared a video in which Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi, Shin Bet Chief Ronan Bar, and retired Army military intelligence chief Aharon Haleva were called “fatal failures” for not preventing the 7 October Hamas attack. 

    After that, Yair also posted on the social media site X, writing, “What are they (army chiefs) trying to hide? If there was no treason, why are they so afraid that external and independent parties will check what happened?”

    A statement issued by the prime minister’s office on behalf of Sarah Netanyahu said she had been “working on her own initiative for the families of the abducted, the bereaved families, the families of the murdered and all the circles of pain associated with this difficult war, and helps as much as she can.”

    The statement then called the leak of the audio a “heinous injustice. Despite the voices that try to harm her and loosen her hands, Mrs Netanyahu will continue her activities for those who were harmed in the war and prays for the speedy return home of all 120 abductees.”

    On 7 October, members of the Hamas wing, the Qassam Brigades, crossed through the Gaza border fence to attack Israeli military bases and settlements. In the process, they took some 240 Israeli soldiers and civilians as captives.

    Some captives were released in a temporary ceasefire deal in November, while many others have been killed by the same Israeli bombing of Gaza that has killed a reported over 37,000 Palestinians. It is estimated that 120 remain captives of Hamas and other groups such as Islamic Jihad (PIJ).

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    Roughly 1,200 Israelis were killed during the 7 October Hamas attack, known as Operation Al-Aqsa Flood. Some were killed by Qassam fighters. Others were killed by Israeli forces, which responded to the attack using heavy weapons from helicopters, drones, and tanks.

    The Israeli army issued the Hannibal Directive, ordering its forces to kill Israelis to prevent them from being taken captive by Hamas. As a result, Israeli forces themselves may have killed many of the Israelis who died on 7 October.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 06/25/2024 – 19:00

  • Shocking New Video Shows ATACMS Bomblets Raining Down On Russian Beachgoers
    Shocking New Video Shows ATACMS Bomblets Raining Down On Russian Beachgoers

    Unbelievable new footage has emerged of the Sunday Ukrainian missile strike on a busy Sevastopol, Crimea beach as tourists were lounging in the sun. 

    Russian authorities said that a missile launched from a US-supplied MGM-140 ATACMS system by Ukrainian forces exploded overhead and released bomblets across the area – in the water and on land – killing five and injuring 124 people, including children. The CCTV footage captures the moment when the missile’s submunitions rain down over the crowded beach, appearing to confirm Russia’s allegation that a cluster bomb warhead was used. Watch:

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    Hundreds of people can be seen fleeing for their lives, and some are still in the water, when the bomblets start to impact both the water and the beach. One bomblet is seen almost scoring a direct hit on the lifeguard stand.

    “According to latest reports, as a result of the shelling attack on Sevastopol by Ukrainian nationalists, 124 people, including 27 children, received wounds or injuries,” Russian health minister Alexey Kuznetsov had announced.

    Newsweek summarizes of Crimean official statements of the deadly attack:

    The event was caused by Russian air defenses shooting down a series of cluster warhead missiles, one of which altered course as a result. The Russian ministry of defense said that four out of the five missiles launched were shot down, adding: “Another missile, as a result of the impact of air defense systems at the final stage, deviated from the flight path with the warhead exploding in the air over the city.”

    “The detonation of the fragmentation warhead of the fifth American missile in the air led to numerous casualties among civilians in Sevastopol.”

    A Kremlin spokesman subsequently laid blame squarely on Washington: “The involvement of the United States, the direct involvement, as a result of which Russian civilians are killed, cannot be without consequences.”

    Stillframe: Daily Mail

    Mikhail Podoliak, a Ukrainian presidential spokesman downplayed the mass casualty event, saying that “civilian occupiers” should know better than to vacation on the Crimean peninsula, which Ukraine claims as its own.

    Commenting on the incident, Ron Paul has pointed out of Moscow, “They can’t not respond” at this moment of ultra-dangerous escalation.

    “What’s Russia going to do about this?” Paul asked in his latest Liberty Report. “Are they going to twiddle their thumbs and walk away? They might – for a day or two – ponder it, but there will be something that they’re going to do.”

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    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 06/25/2024 – 18:40

  • FBI Wants 20 Years To Produce Records On Its Involvement W/ OKC Bombing
    FBI Wants 20 Years To Produce Records On Its Involvement W/ OKC Bombing

    Authored by Ken Silva via Headline USA,

    It’s been about nine years since Utah attorney Jesse Trentadue filed a Freedom of Information Act request for records about a CIA asset and FBI informant who helped fund the Oklahoma City bombing, as well as for records about a neo-Nazi bank-robbery gang also involved in the attack.

    Aftermath of the OKC bombing. PHOTO: FBI

    Tired of waiting, Trentaudue sued the FBI over the matter in February, demanding the bureau to produce the 69,375 pages of documents that it’s holding. But now, the FBI wants to take another nearly 12 years to fork over those documents to him, which means that it would take at least 20 years for the bureau to comply with his initial FOIA request.

    Such a slow production rate is unacceptable, Trentadue said in a Tuesday court filing.

    “The FBI proposes to process these records/documents for release to Plaintiff in monthly increments of 500 pages over a period of 11.5 years!” he said.

    “If the Court accepts the FBI’s proposed snail-pace processing of these materials, Plaintiff will be close to 90-years of age when he finally receives all of them,” he said.

    “He has already waited almost a decade for these documents/records, with the FBI having made no effort during the interim to produce them, and should not have to wait another 11.5 years to receive them.”

    Trentadue has been suing the U.S. government for OKC bomb-related records for nearly 30 years, ever since his brother was murdered in a federal penitentiary. The complex story of how the death of Trentadue’s brother relates to the OKC bombing can be read in this Mother Jones article.

    Trentadue’s latest lawsuit seeks records on FBI informant and CIA asset Roger Moore (not the James Bond actor), and the bank-robbery gang, the Aryan Republican Army, which he says was an FBI front group.

    According to Trentadue’s lawsuit, Moore was an FBI informant as part of the bureau’s 1980s- and early 90s-era Operation Punchout, which was designed to identify and apprehend surplus dealers that bought and sold government property stolen from Department of Defense facilities in Utah.

    Furthermore, Moore build patrol boats for use by the US Navy in the Vietnam War, as well as speedboats for the CIA, according to Aberration in the Heartland of the Real—historian Wendy Painting’s PhD thesis-turned-book about OKC bomber Tim McVeigh.

    As for the Aryan Republican Army, Trentadue believes that was an FBI front group that also helped fund the bombing.

    Trentadue’s Tuesday filing elaborated further on the ARA’s connection to McVeigh.

    “During 1993, 1994 and 1995, a gang known as the Aryan Republican Army or “ARA” robbed banks and armored cars in the mid-west. Timothy McVeigh participated in some of those robberies and is reported to have used money obtained from these crimes to help fund the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995,” he said.

    “According to Peter Langan, several members of the ARA assisted McVeigh in carrying out the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building.”

    No hearings have been set yet in Trentadue’s lawsuit.

    Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 06/25/2024 – 18:20

  • WTI Holds Losses After API Reports Large Surprise Gasoline Inventrory Build
    WTI Holds Losses After API Reports Large Surprise Gasoline Inventrory Build

    Crude prices slipped back lower today from two-month highs, testing back into the range of the last couple of days after rallying hard on increasing geopolitical tensions.

    A series of drone attacks last week on Russian oil infrastructure by Ukraine, combined with escalating tensions between Iran-backed Hezbollah and Israel have buoyed crude prices, Claudio Galimberti, director of global market analysis at Rystad Energy, said in a note.

    “Against a backdrop of escalating geopolitical tensions, including conflicts in the Middle East and the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine, Brent surpassing $85 per barrel could be the start of more upward pressure on prices,” he said.

    Today’s decline (perhaps driven by weaker sentiment and confidence data) did not appear to change the trend, but tomorrow’s official inventory data (which we get a hint at tonight from, API) may change things…

    API

    • Crude +914k (-200k exp)

    • Cushing -350k

    • Gasoline +3.84mm (-900k exp) – biggest build since Jan 2024

    • Distillates -1.18mm

    Crude stocks rose modestly last week, against expectations of a small draw but gasoline stocks surged according to API…

    Source: Bloomberg

    WTI was trading around be $80.80 ahead of the API data and dipped on the crude build before coming back…

    Source: Bloomberg

    Finally, despite the decline and the builds, there are signs of strong summer demand in the Northern Hemisphere (after earlier jitters over a shaky start to the U.S. summer driving season, which runs from Memorial Day to Labor Day).

    Galimberti said expectations for a summer surge in fuel demand have been aided by strong growth in aviation. Jet fuel is expected to see an increase in demand of 550,000 barrels a day, according to Rystad, after a 1.2 million barrel-a-day jump last year.

    “For the time being, this strength in aviation activity signals a positive trend for oil demand, particularly in the context of summer travel, economic recovery and consumer optimism,” he wrote.

    Analysts at JPMorgan Chase & Co. on Tuesday maintained a forecast that Brent would average $84 a barrel in the third quarter and hit $90 by August or September, “underpinned by our expectations that global demand will outpace supply in the summer quarter.”

    Meanwhile, analysts at Macquarie revised their Brent third-quarter forecast up to $86 per barrel, from $83, on projections of rising demand.

     

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 06/25/2024 – 18:00

Digest powered by RSS Digest

Jun 25

Today’s News 25th June 2024

  • Fossil Fuel, CO2 Emissions Hit Record High In 2023
    Fossil Fuel, CO2 Emissions Hit Record High In 2023

    Don’t tell Greta, or her much easier on the eyes replacement, Sophia.

    At a time when the peak of “green” virtue signaling has come and gone, we regret to inform you that all that jawboning and posturing has achieved… absolutely nothing because according to the Statistical Review of World Energy report released on Thursday, global fossil fuel consumption and energy emissions hit all-time highs in 2023 (even as fossil fuels’ share of the global energy mix decreased slightly on the year).

    Growing demand for fossil fuel despite the scaling up of renewables could be a sticking point for the transition to lower carbon energy as climate alarmist scream and rage that global temperature increases are set to reach 1.5C (2.7F), the threshold beyond which scientists say impacts such as temperature rise, drought and flooding will become more extreme; then again these are the same shrill activists who predicted in 2018 that the world would end unless we stop using fossil fuels by 2023. Not only has that not happened, but fossil fuel use is hitting annual records!

    “We hope that this report will help governments, world leaders and analysts move forward, clear-eyed about the challenge that lies ahead,” Romain Debarre of consultancy Kearney said, realizing with even clearer-eyes that absolutely nothing will change since the bulk of fossil fuel consumption now comes from China and India, both of which could give a rat’s ass what some woke liberal kitten-hoarding, purple-haired screaming freak thinks.

    Last year was the first full year of rerouted Russian energy flows away from the West following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and also the first full year without major movement restrictions linked to the COVID-19 pandemic. Indeed, it confirms that attempts to throttle Russian sales of fossil fuels have been a total fiasco.

    It gets better (or worse if you are a green lunatic): overall global primary energy consumption hit an all-time high of 620 Exajoules (EJ), the report said…

    … as CO2 emissions exceeded 40 gigatonnes of CO2 for the first time.

    “In a year where we have seen the contribution of renewables reaching a new record high, ever increasing global energy demand means the share coming from fossil fuels has remained virtually unchanged,” Simon Virley of consultancy KPMG said.

    The report recorded shifting trends in fossil fuel use in different regions. In Europe, for example, the fossil fuel share of energy fell below 70% for the first time since the industrial revolution.

    “In advanced economies, we observe signs of demand for fossil fuels peaking, contrasting with economies in the Global South for whom economic development and improvements in quality of life continue to drive fossil growth,” Energy Institute Chief Executive Nick Wayth said.

    And since nobody dares to dictate conditions to the “global south” lest they stop producing the cheap crap demanded by the “global north” (to feed their ravenous consumerist habits) sparking epic inflation, nothing will change.

    Industry body the Energy Institute, together with consultancies KPMG and Kearney, has published the annual report since 2023. They took over from BP which had authored the report, a benchmark for energy professionals, since the 1950s.

    It will come as no surprise to anyone that fossil fuel accounted for almost all demand growth in India in 2023, the report said, while in China fossil fuel use rose 6% to a new high

    Here are some highlights from the report on 2023:

    CONSUMPTION

    • Global primary energy demand rose by 2% in 2023 from 2022, to 620 EJ.
    • Fossil fuel use rose 1.5% to 505 EJ, which accounted for 81.5% of the overall energy mix, down by 0.5% from 2022.
    • Fossil fuel use did not increase in a single European country in 2023.
    • Electricity generation rose by 2.5% in 2023, up slightly from 2.3% of growth the previous year.
    • Renewable fuel generation (excluding hydro) gained 13% to a new record high of 4,748 terawatt-hours (TWh).
    • Renewables’ share of the overall energy mix excluding hydro was 8%, up from 7.5% in the 2022 report.
    • Including hydro renewables accounted for 15% of the global mix.

    OIL

    • Oil consumption exceeded 100 million bpd in 2023 for the first time ever, following a 2% year-on-year rise.
    • Oil supply growth was met by non-OPEC+ producers, with U.S. output gaining 9% on the year.
    • China overtook the U.S. as the country with the largest refining capacity in the world last year at 18.5 million bpd, though refining volumes still lagged behind at 82% utilisation vs the U.S.’ 87%.
    • Global gasoline consumption hit 25 million bpd last year, just above its 2019 pre-pandemic level.
    • Biofuels production increased by 8% to 2.1 million bpd in 2023, driven by gains in the U.S. and Brazil.
    • The U.S., Brazil, and Europe accounted for 80% of global biofuels consumption.

    NATURAL GAS

    • Global gas production and consumption remained relatively flat on the year in 2023.
    • LNG supply rose by almost 2% to 549 billion cubic metres (bcm).
    • The U.S. overtook Qatar as the leading global supplier of LNG after a 10% rise in production.
    • Overall European gas demand was down 7% on the year in 2023.
    • Russia’s share of European gas supply was just 15% in 2023, from 45% in 2021.

    COAL

    • Coal consumption hit a new high of 164 EJ in 2023, up 1.6% on the year, driven by China and India.
    • India’s coal consumption exceeded that of Europe and North America combined.
    • U.S. coal consumption fell by 17% in 2023 and has halved in the last decade.

    RENEWABLES

    • The record high in renewable generation was driven by higher wind and solar capacity, with 67% more additions in those two categories in 2023 than 2022.
    • As much as 74% of net growth in overall power generation came from renewables.
    • China accounted for 55% of all renewable generation additions in 2023, and was responsible for 63% of new global wind and solar capacity.

    EMISSIONS

    • Emissions grew by 2% on the year to exceed 40 gigatonnes.
    • Emissions rose despite the slight drop in fossil fuels’ share of the energy mix, because emissions within the fossil fuels category became more intense as oil and coal use rose and gas held steady.
    • The report notes that since 2000, emissions from energy have increased by 50%.

     

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 06/25/2024 – 02:45

  • Diplomats Tour Beirut Airport After UK Media Alleges Presence Of Hezbollah Weapons
    Diplomats Tour Beirut Airport After UK Media Alleges Presence Of Hezbollah Weapons

    Via The Cradle

    Diplomatic and media delegations toured Beirut’s Rafic Hariri International Airport on Monday, one day after UK newspaper The Telegraph released a report claiming that Hezbollah had hidden weapons inside the facility. 

    Lebanon’s Information Minister Ziad al-Makari, Foreign Minister Abdullah Bou Habib, Tourism Minister Walid Nassar, and other officials attended the airport tour. Several ambassadors and media correspondents, including one from The Cradle, were also present. 

    Beirut’s Rafic Hariri International Airport, file image

    They were shown the main cargo centers, a site storing imported goods, and several locations in the vicinity of the airport. 

    “The British Department of Transport is an official body concerned with transport. It visited Beirut Airport six months ago and viewed all its corners. It would have been more effective for this newspaper to rely on the Authority as a source in its article and not to unknown people and unknown parties,” Lebanese Transport Minister Ali Hamieh said during a press conference after the tour. 

    He also reiterated what he said a day earlier, on Sunday, about consultations being held with Lebanon’s prime minister and legal teams to file a lawsuit against The Telegraph, adding: “What is happening is a psychological war against Lebanon… we have proven that the article is ridiculous.”

    The UK newspaper cited “whistleblowers” from the airport on June 23 as saying they were concerned about increasing weapons deliveries coming into the country on direct flights from Iran, claiming they had seen “unusually big boxes” and the “increased presence of high-level Hezbollah commanders.”

    The Telegraph quoted Lebanon’s International Air Transport Association (IATA) as saying that it has been aware of Hezbollah weapons at the airport “for years” but is unable to do anything about it. 

    After the IATA announced that the quote was completely false, the daily edited the article, attributing the same quote to an unnamed “major international aviation body.”

    Commenting on the allegations, a high-ranking Lebanese security official told The Cradle on Sunday: “They spread lies to later justify any Israeli attack against Beirut airport because they want to isolate Lebanon. The enemy spreads these rumors as a kind of psychological warfare.”

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    A large group of foreign ambassadors toured several sites in the vicinity of Beirut airport in 2018 to refute Israeli claims about missile depots in the area. In 2020, after Benjamin Netanyahu claimed a residential area in the Lebanese capital was being used to store weapons, Hezbollah invited international and local media to visit the site, and no such weaponry was found.

    Israel bombed Beirut’s Rafic Hariri International Airport at the start of the war between Hezbollah and Israel in 2006.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 06/25/2024 – 02:00

  • Putin's "War" To Re-Shape The American Zeitgeist
    Putin’s “War” To Re-Shape The American Zeitgeist

    Submitted by Alastair Crooke

    The G7 and the subsequent Swiss ‘Bürgenstock Conference’ can – in retrospect – be understood as preparation for a prolonged Ukraine war. The three centrepiece announcements emerging from the G7 – the 10 year Ukraine security pact; the $50 ‘billion Ukraine loan’; and the seizing of interest on Russian frozen funds – make the point. The war is about to escalate.

    These stances were intended as preparation of the western public ahead of events. And in case of any doubts, the blistering belligerency towards Russia emerging from the European election leaders was plain enough: They sought to convey a clear impression of Europe preparing for war.

    What then lies ahead? According to White House Spokesman John Kirby: “Washington’s position on Kiev is “absolutely clear”:

    “First, they’ve got to win this war”.

    “They gotta win the war first. So, number one: We’re doing everything we can to make sure they can do that. Then when the war’s over … Washington will assist in building up Ukraine’s military industrial base”.

    If that was not plain, the U.S. intent to prolong and take the war deep into Russia was underlined by National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan: “Authorization for Ukrainian use of American weapons for cross-border attacks extends to anywhere [from which] Russian forces are coming across the border”. He affirmed, too, that Ukraine can use F-16s to attack Russia and use U.S. supplied air defence systems “to take down Russian planes – even if in Russian airspace – if they’re about to fire into Ukrainian airspace”.

    Ukrainian pilots have the latitude to judge ‘the intent’ of Russian fighter aircraft? Expect the parameters of this ‘authorisation’ to widen quickly – deeper to air bases from which Russian fighter bombers launch.

    Understanding that the war is about to transform radically – and extremely dangerously – President Putin (in his speech to the Foreign Ministry Board) detailed just how the world had arrived at this pivotal juncture – one which could extend to nuclear exchanges.

    The gravity of the situation itself demanded the making of one ‘last chance’ offer to the West, which Putin emphatically said was “no temporary ceasefire for Kiev to prepare a new offensive; nor was it about freezing the conflict”; but rather, his proposals were about the war’s final completion.

    “If, as before, Kiev and western capitals refuse it – then at the end, that’s their business”, Putin said.

    Just to be clear, Putin almost certainly never expected the proposals to be received in the West other than by the scorn and derision with which they, in fact, were met. Nor would Putin trust – for a moment – the West not to renege on an agreement, were some arrangement to be reached on these lines.

    If so, why then did President Putin make such a proposal last weekend, if the West cannot be trusted and its reaction was so predictable?

    Well, maybe we need to search for the nesting inner Matryoshka doll, rather than fix on the outer casing: Putin’s ‘final completion’ likely will not credibly be achieved through some itinerant peace broker. In his Foreign Ministry address, Putin dismisses devices such as ‘ceasefires’ or ‘freezes’. He is seeking something permanent: An arrangement that has ‘solid legs’; one that has durability.

    Such a solution – as Putin before has hinted – requires a new world security architecture to come into being; and were that to happen, then a complete solution for Ukraine would flow as an implicit part to a new world order. That is to say, with the microcosm of a Ukraine solution flowing implicitly from the macrocosm agreement between the U.S. and the ‘Heartland’ powers – settling the borders to their respective security interests.

    This clearly is impossible now, with the U.S. in its psychological mindset stuck in the Cold War era of the 1970s and 1980s. The end to that war – the seeming U.S. victory – set the foundation to the 1992 Wolfowitz Doctrine which underscored American supremacy at all costs in a post-Soviet world, together with “stamping out rivals, wherever they may emerge”.

    “In conjunction with this, the Wolfowitz Doctrine stipulated that the U.S. would … [inaugurate] a U.S.-led system of collective security and the creation of a democratic zone of peace”. Russia, on the other hand, was dealt with differently—the country fell off the radar. It became insignificant as a geopolitical competitor in the eyes of the West, as its gestures of peaceful offerings were rebuffed – and guarantees given to it regarding NATO’s expansion forfeited”.

    “Moscow could do nothing to prevent such an endeavour. The successor state of the mighty Soviet Union was not its equal, and thus not considered important enough to be involved in global decision-making. Yet, despite its reduced size and sphere of influence, Russia has persisted in being considered a key player in international affairs”.

    Russia today is a preeminent global actor in both the economic and political spheres. Yet for the Ruling Strata in the U.S., equal status between Moscow and Washington is out of the question. The Cold War mentality still infuses the Beltway with the unwarranted confidence that the Ukraine conflict might somehow result in Russian collapse and dismemberment.

    Putin in his address, by contrast, looked ahead to the collapse of the Euro-Atlantic security system – and of a new architecture emerging. “The world will never be the same again”, Putin said.

    Implicitly, he hints that such a radical shift would be the only way credibly to end the Ukraine war. An agreement emerging from the wider framework of consensus on the division of interests between the Rimland and the Heartland (in Mackinder-esque language) would reflect the security interests of each party – and not be achieved at the expense of others’ security.

    And to be clear: If this analysis is correct, Russia may not be in such a hurry to conclude matters in Ukraine. The prospect of such a ‘global’ negotiation between Russia-China and the U.S. is still far off.

    The point here is that the collective western psyche has not been transformed sufficiently. Treating Moscow with equal esteem remains out of the question for Washington.

    The new American narrative is no negotiations with Moscow now, but maybe it will become possible sometime early in the new year – after the U.S. elections.

    Well, Putin might surprise again – by not jumping at the prospect, but rebuffing it; assessing that the Americans still are not ready for negotiations for a ‘complete end’ to the war – especially as this latest narrative runs concurrently with talk of a new Ukraine offensive shaping up for 2025. Of course, much is likely to change over the coming year.

    The documents outlining a putative new security order however, were already drafted by Russia in 2021 – and duly ignored in the West. Russia perhaps can afford to wait out military events in Ukraine, in Israel, and in the financial sphere.

    They are all, in any event, trending Putin’s way. They are all inter-connected and have the potential for wide metamorphosis.

    Put plainly: Putin is waiting on the shaping of the American Zeitgeist. He seemed very confident both at St Petersburg and last week at the Foreign Ministry.

    The backdrop to the G7’s Ukraine preoccupation seemed to be more U.S. elections-related, than real: This implies that the priority in Italy was election optics, rather than a desire to start a full-blown hot war. But this may be wrong.

    Russian speakers during these recent gatherings – notably Sergei Lavrov – hinted broadly that the order already had come down for war with Russia. Europe seems, however improbably, to be gearing up for war – with much chatter about military conscription.

    Will it all blow away with the passing of a hot summer of elections? Maybe.

    The coming phase seems likely to entail western escalation, with provocations occurring inside Russia. The latter will react strongly to any crossing of (real) red lines by NATO, or any false flag provocation (now widely expected by Russiam military bloggers).

    And herein lies the greatest danger: In the context of escalation, American disdain for Russia poses the greatest danger. The West now says it treats notions of putative nuclear exchange as Putin’s ‘bluff’. The Financial Times tells us that Russia’s nuclear warnings are ‘wearing thin’ in the West.

    If this is true, western officials utterly misconceive the reality. It is only by understanding and taking the Russian nuclear warnings seriously that we may exclude the risk of nuclear weapons coming into play, as we move up the escalatory ladder with tit-for-tat measures.

    Even though they say they believe them to be bluff, U.S. figures nonetheless hype the risk of a nuclear exchange. If they think it to be a bluff, it appears to be based on the presumption that Russia has few other options.

    This would be wrong: There are several escalatory steps that Russia can take up the ladder, before reaching the tactical nuclear weapon stage: Trade and financial counter-attack; symmetrical provision of advanced weaponry to western adversaries (corresponding to U.S. supplies to Ukraine); cutting the electricity branch distribution coming from Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania; strikes on border munition crossings; and taking a leaf from the Houthis who have knocked down several sophisticated and costly U.S. drones, disabling America’s intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) infrastructure.

     

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/24/2024 – 23:40

  • Visualizing How Long Each Generation Can Survive Without Income?
    Visualizing How Long Each Generation Can Survive Without Income?

    With nearly half of people under 34 worldwide unable to cover their needs for a month or less without income, it is no surprise that financial resiliency is a hot topic.

    So, for this graphic, Visual Capitalist has partnered with Lloyd’s Register Foundation to explore economic resilience further and determine how long the average person can afford to cover their needs without income.

    World Risk Poll 2024 Report: Economic Resilience

    Lloyd’s Register Foundation produces the World Risk Poll every two years in partnership with Gallup, and the World Risk Poll 2024 report explores the everyday risks of 147,000 people from 142 nations.

    They asked respondents how long they could afford to cover basic needs, such as food, transport, and shelter, if they lost all income. 

    Here’s what they found:

    The results reveal a distinct trend across all age groups, with respondents typically falling into two categories: those with one month or less of financial runway, and those with more than four months. Relatively fewer respondents reported being able to survive two to three months.

    National Economic Resilience

    The nation where a person lives also significantly contributes to their ability to cover their basic needs.

    The divide is particularly sharp between the percentage of respondents who could only cover their needs for a week or less and those who could cover their needs for a month or more—a tiny minority in developed economies, but a significant share of respondents from some developing nations.

    Engineering a Safer World

    The World Risk Poll 2024 report has revealed a weakness in global economic resilience. Younger individuals and those in developing countries are at higher risk than older individuals or those in developed countries.

    The report shines a light on the risks ordinary people face, such as how long they can cover their needs without income. However, the World Risk Poll 2024 report also highlights many more risks, such as global plastic waste, people’s safety at work, and the threat of climate change.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/24/2024 – 23:20

  • Would Russia Aid China In An Invasion Of Taiwan?
    Would Russia Aid China In An Invasion Of Taiwan?

    Authored by Audrey Oien via RealClearDefense,

    If China were to invade Taiwan, it is likely that Russia would provide Beijing with military, economic, or political assistance. While some experts have argued Ukraine and Taiwan are not the same situation, there are nonetheless lessons that can be drawn from Russia’s war in Ukraine, as well as insight from U.S. officials that can be drawn upon to come to this conclusion. 

    Over the last several years, Russia and China have grown closer in many ways, including through increased military cooperation. Of the numerous joint exercises that have been held, ones that stand out are joint naval drills and air force patrols over the East China Sea. The naval drills began in 2022 and are the closest that joint drills have been held to the Taiwan Strait. Joint exercises are not a smoking gun, but concern from American officials may be a reliable indicator that this is worth paying attention to. 

    In early May, two American intelligence officials testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee that increased Sino-Russian military cooperation has prompted new planning in the Department of Defense. Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines stated that China and Russia are exercising together in relation to Taiwan for the first time, and that “China definitely wants Russia to be working with them.” She then said, “we see no reason why they wouldn’t” work together. Answering a follow-up question from Senator Mike Rounds, Haines confirmed that in the event of a conflict with Russia or China, a second front opening with the other is possible, with the likelihood depending on the scenario. U.S. Air Force Lieutenant General Jeffrey Kruse testified that Russian and Chinese military forces “would certainly be cooperative,” if not interoperable. 

    But on what grounds would Russia assist China? Why would it be willing to aid Beijing in an invasion that would likely be met with a response from the United States and its allies? The most simple answer is because China did it for Russia. Russian President Vladimir Putin is now indebted to Chinese President Xi Jinping, whether he realizes it or not. And no, the debt is not payable by monetary means. Putin will be able to pay his debts to Xi for his assistance in a war that has turned Chinese public opinion toward Ukraine, led to sanctions, and affected Xi’s image by providing assistance if, or when, China invades Taiwan.

    To get a better idea of what this assistance could look like, one can take a look at how China has aided Russia’s war in Ukraine. According to U.S. officials, China has helped supply Russia with dual-use material like optics, microelectronics, and drone engines to boost Moscow’s arms production, as well as provided Moscow with cruise missiles and machine tools for ballistic missiles. U.S. intelligence claims that Russian and Chinese groups have worked together to jointly produce drones inside Russia. It was also reported that a Chinese government agency established to promote trade with Russia has been attempting to source drone detectors and jammers, likely to supply Moscow with. U.S. officials further claimed that China helped Russia improve satellite and other space-based capabilities, as well as provided satellite imagery. Additionally, it was reported that China supplied Russia with 90% of the chips it imported in 2023 which were used to make missiles, tanks, and aircraft. The British Defense Minister has also accused China of providing or preparing to provide Russia with lethal aid. 

    Beyond providing this military equipment, China has continued support for Russia in its wartime by working together to avoid taxes and evade Western sanctions on goods like copper. And, China has increased imports of Russian gas and oil since the war began, as imports from the US, UK, and EU have dropped due to sanctions. Politically, Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused China of using its influence and diplomats to help Russia disrupt the 15-16 June peace summit on Ukraine in Switzerland by encouraging other countries not to attend.

    Russian support during a Chinese invasion of Taiwan could follow in a similar vein. Or, Xi may be able to pressure Putin into providing something more than what Beijing has done for Moscow. Analysts have maintained that Beijing holds the upper hand in the Sino-Russian partnership. While the relationship has been described as having no limits, it is not a relationship between two equals. Russia’s economic dependence on China puts Putin in a vulnerable position, with little room to say “no.” 

    The capacity in which Russia may offer China assistance during an invasion of Taiwan can be debated. Several factors would come into play, including the length of the conflict and those involved, specifically the degree to which the US would respond. Would the invasion take less than an hour, as one expert claims? Or would the conflict become drawn out and turn into a hot war with the US? Regardless of the exact scenario that could play out, Russia would most likely aid China in some capacity. Whether its military support during the invasion, economic assistance and support following an invasion, or political and diplomatic support, China’s role in the Sino-Russian partnership and demonstrated support for Russia during the war in Ukraine places it in a position to solicit some form of assistance from Moscow during an invasion of Taiwan. While this reasoning could stand on its own, it is supported by U.S. officials’ testimony that the U.S. Department of Defense is reconsidering its planning and preparedness to account for cooperation between Russia and China during a conflict.

    Audrey Oien is a Research Analyst at RANE, primarily focusing on the Asia-Pacific. 

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/24/2024 – 23:00

  • Americans And Their Passwords: It's Complicated!
    Americans And Their Passwords: It’s Complicated!

    Aside from presenting its big push into AI, Apple also unveiled a new Passwords app as part of its upcoming software releases. Built on the foundation of Keychain, the new app will enable users to store and access passwords, passkeys and other login credentials across Apple devices and on Windows PCs, helping them manage the multitude of logins that our digital lives require.

    As Statista’s Felix Richter notes, with the new tool, Apple is addressing a problem that many people have these days, as they’re forced to perform a balancing act between picking passwords that are safe and still somehow easy enough to remember.

    Infographic: Americans and Their Passwords: It's Complicated! | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    According to a recent Pew Research Center survey, 69 percent of U.S. adults feel overwhelmed by the numbers of passwords they have to keep track of, and 41 percent always or often write down their passwords – a practice that is not recommended by security experts.

    Password managers such as Apple’s new app can help address this problem, but so far they’re not so far spread.

    According to Pew’s findings, just 32 percent of respondents used a password manager at the time of the survey in May 2023, up from 20 percent in 2019.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/24/2024 – 22:40

  • Scientific American’s Laura Helmuth Continues To Embarrass And Humiliate Herself
    Scientific American’s Laura Helmuth Continues To Embarrass And Humiliate Herself

    Authored by Paul D. Thacker via The Disinformation Chronicle,

    Scientific American’s Laura Helmuth remains one of the most ridiculous dunderheads in science writing, a journalism adjacent field of writing that many reporters refer to with derision as “scicomm.” Earlier this week, a reader sent me this post on Blue Sky, with Helmuth promoting an article falsely claiming there was evidence to support six-feet social distancing during COVID.

    There isn’t. Former NIH Director Francis Collins and Tony Fauci have both testified to Congress that this evidence doesn’t exist.

    Helmuth shoehorns this narrative into Scientific American by ignoring Tony Fauci’s congressional testimony that six feet social distancing was “an empiric decision that wasn’t based on data” and then insisting it’s actually just a political fight between Fauci and Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican Congresswoman long known for making outlandish statements that often stretch the fabric of reality.

    Just like Laura Helmuth.

    Fauci’s admission to Congress that the six feet rule was not based on science and that “it sort of just appeared” was backed up his boss, former NIH Director Francis Collins.

    In a transcribed interview with Congress, Collins also added that he was not aware of evidence behind the social distancing recommendation and he has not seen any evidence supporting six feet social distancing since the rule was dismissed.

    But it’s not just Fauci and Collins.

    Former FDA Director Scott Gottlieb told reporters back in 2021 that the six feet rule was never based on science. “The six feet rule was arbitrary in and of itself,” Gottlieb said in a September 2021 “Face the Nation” appearance. “Nobody knows where it came from. The six feet is a perfect example of sort of the lack of rigor of how CDC made recommendations.”

    The Washington Post reported that persistent frustrations over social distancing and other measures might lead Americans to ignore public health advice during the next crisis.

    Four years later, visible reminders of the six-foot rule remain with us, particularly in cities that rushed to adopt the CDC’s guidelines hoping to protect residents and keep businesses open. D.C. is dotted with signs in stores and schools — even on sidewalks or in government buildings — urging people to stand six feet apart.

    This is just the latest example in a long history of Laura Helmuth screwups.

    A recent BMJ investigation documented over a dozen social media posts by Helmuth promoting transgender care for children, despite scientific evidence showing such treatment has had “devastating consequences” for minors. And after she posted last year on X that “sparrows have four different chromosomally distinct sexes” the Wall Street Journal reported that X’s community notes had to correct Helmuth’s error.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/24/2024 – 22:20

  • Waste Of The Day: Newsom Wants Stronghold Over California Taxes
    Waste Of The Day: Newsom Wants Stronghold Over California Taxes

    Authored by Adam Andrzejewski via RealClearInvestigations,

    Topline: California voters may soon have a more direct voice in approving their sky-high tax rates — unless Gov. Gavin Newsom and other top Democratic lawmakers have something to say about it.

    Newsom’s attorneys are asking the state Supreme Court to remove an upcoming ballot measure that would require new taxes to be approved by voters, not just lawmakers.

    Key facts: The proposed Taxpayer Protection and Government Accountability Act would stop new state taxes from being enacted without support from two thirds of the Legislature and a majority of voters. New local taxes would need approval from two thirds of city voters.

    Democrats hold supermajorities in both houses of the California Legislature. Top politicians are backed by labor unions and big-city mayors in their effort to stop the ballot measure, according to Politico. Their attorneys say the proposal unconstitutionally removes elected officials’ ability to raise revenue.

    The campaign in support of the ballot measure is funded mostly by real estate moguls and the California Business Roundtable, which brings together executives from the largest employers in the state.

    The CA Supreme Court heard arguments in May, but Politico reports that justices seem willing to let the measure go to voters in November and then rule on its constitutionality if it passes.

    California collected $280.8 billion in taxes in 2022, more than double any other state. That’s $7,195 per person, also the most in the nation.

    Background: OpenTheBooks has spent years covering the questionable Newsom and his conflicts of interest or wasteful spending.

    It took OpenTheBooks.com ten years to force open the California state checkbook. Then, we found that Gov. Newsom solicited up to 1,000 state vendors, their key employees and executives, for $10.6 million in campaign donations. Those companies received $6.2 billion in state payments during FY2021.

    Newsom’s administration also sent $2.3 million to Gender Spectrum, a nonprofit that supports kindergarten students’ “gender journey” and encourages students to invent their own gender.

    Critical quote: Carolyn Coleman, CEO of the League of California Cities, told the Associated Press that the ballot measure puts 100 local taxes worth over $2 billion at risk.

    “We’re raising the resources to fill potholes, so that we can support affordable housing in our community, so we can work to address homelessness, so that when you dial 911 there’s somebody there to answer the phone — not in two minutes — but in 30 seconds,” Coleman said.

    Supporting quote: Lawyers supporting the ballot measure told justices, “Our constitution, since its inception, has stated that all political power is inherent in the people. It has stated that the people have the power to reform and alter their government whenever they decide it needs reform … The people have the last word.”

    Summary: America was founded on the with three important word, “We The People…” California must allow that to happen.

    The #WasteOfTheDay is brought to you by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/24/2024 – 22:00

  • Widely Used And Deemed Safe, These Food Additives Are More Harmful Than Thought
    Widely Used And Deemed Safe, These Food Additives Are More Harmful Than Thought

    Authored by Flora Zhao via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    On her first day after moving from Australia to the United States, Elizabeth Dunford walked into a supermarket to buy bread. As a researcher of food additives, she instinctively glanced at the ingredients label.

    “Why are there so many additives?” she exclaimed in surprise. Nearly every loaf she picked up contained ingredients that made her uneasy. After lingering by the shelves, she reluctantly chose a bag.

    “At that moment, I thought: It looks like I will have to choose the best from the worst when shopping in the future,” Ms. Dunford, project consultant for The George Institute for Global Health and adjunct assistant professor in the Department of Nutrition at the University of North Carolina, told The Epoch Times.

    (Illustration by The Epoch Times, Shutterstock)

    Today, over 73 percent of the U.S. food supply is ultra-processed. While both natural and ultra-processed foods are referred to as “food,” there is a vast difference between them. For instance, ultra-processed foods are not grown in soil but manufactured in factories, using many ingredients that cannot be found in the average home pantry.

    Beyond conventional additives such as preservatives, colors, and flavorings, many new additives are emerging. Stabilizers, emulsifiers, firming agents, leavening agents, anti-caking agents, humectants, and more have been invented to modify and improve the taste and texture of food.

    The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) lists at least 3,972 substances added to food.

    Perhaps driven by a growing desire for richer and more varied flavors or by the pressures of fast-paced living, people have become accustomed to these substances, even considering them a natural part of the modern diet.

    Then and Now

    In the old days, families used salt and vinegar to preserve food. But with the advent of the industrial age, people became increasingly reliant on ready-made foods available on supermarket shelves.

    “By the mid-20th century, more and more food additives were being used,” said Mona Calvo, who has a doctorate in nutritional sciences and is an adjunct professor in the Department of Medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Only recently have people begun to pay closer attention to what goes into the foods they eat.

    People have become increasingly reliant on ready-made foods. Employees supervise chicken pieces being processed into nuggets on a conveyer belt. (Alain Jocard/AFP via Getty Images)

    In the 1950s to 1970s, the FDA began evaluating the safety of common food additives, Ms. Calvo told The Epoch Times.

    “A safety assessment involves the scientific review of all relevant data, including toxicology and dietary exposure information,” an FDA spokesperson told The Epoch Times. These include tests conducted on rodents and cells. The ingredients will be added to food after the FDA gives its approval.

    Consumers can identify what is in their packaged foods by the nutrition facts and ingredient labels, said Ms. Calvo.

    Among the most widely used FDA-approved substances added to food, many have a safety classification known as “generally recognized as safe” (GRAS) based on their extensive historical use before 1958 or their safety evaluation in the 1970s or more recently.

    However, many people may not realize that substances classified as GRAS often lack an upper limit on the amount that can be added to food. In many cases, the quantity added is based on Current Good Manufacturing Practice (CGMP) guidelines. Ms. Calvo explained that if a manufacturer adds an excessive amount of an additive during production, which makes it unpopular among consumers, it could affect product sales. In other words, the amount of substances added is left to the manufacturer’s discretion.

    Over time, GRAS classification may be withdrawn for certain substances if the FDA is presented with compelling evidence of safety concerns associated with its use. A notable example is the official removal of trans fats from the GRAS list in 2015.

    Ms. Calvo pointed out another unresolved issue: There is no oversight on how much of these additive-containing foods people actually consume.

    “Many of the commonly used food additives were granted GRAS approval between 1970 and 1975, when people could not foresee the situation today,” she said. During that era, fewer women worked outside the home, and people consumed more home-cooked meals made from natural ingredients. With the prevalence of ultra-processed foods in today’s diet, the consumption of certain additives has naturally exceeded initial expectations.

    The FDA officially removed trans fats from the GRAS list in 2015. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

    After an additive is approved for a specific function, food manufacturers often quickly incorporate it into a wide range of products, including breads, cookies, instant soups, sausages, and frozen, prepackaged meals.

    Dr. Jaime Uribarri, a nephrology specialist at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai who has long been concerned about specific food additives, told The Epoch Times that “once an additive-containing packaged food is in the marketplace, the FDA does not have a mechanism for regularly testing its safety, such as through periodic sampling checks.”

    The Useful and the Unnecessary

    Objectively speaking, some food additives may offer more benefits than drawbacks, said Ms. Dunford.

    Preservatives, for example, help extend the shelf life of food. Adding a moderate amount of nitrites to cured meats can prevent botulism, a serious condition.

    However, she pointed out that many additives that enhance color, flavor, and other sensory aspects are “essentially not necessary.”

    Scientists have demonstrated in various studies the health hazards of consuming ultra-processed foods, including their close association with early death, cardiovascular diseases, mental disorders, respiratory diseases, metabolic syndrome, and cancer.

    Specifically, a cohort study involving nearly 45,000 middle-aged and older individuals in France found that for every 10 percent increase in the intake of ultra-processed foods, the risk of all-cause mortality increased by 14 percent. According to a 2024 umbrella review published in the BMJ, convincing evidence has been found linking ultra-processed food to a 50 percent increase in cardiovascular disease mortality, a 53 percent increase in common mental disorder outcomes, and a dose-dependent 12 percent increase in diabetes risk.

    Ultra-processed food is linked to significant increases in cardiovascular disease mortality, mental disorder outcomes, and diabetes risks. (The Epoch Times)

    While part of the increased risks can be attributed to the use of high-sugar, high-salt, high-fat, and low-fiber ingredients, some additives previously thought to be safe also warrant attention.

    “Phosphate additives is one that I’m very wary of,” said Ms. Dunford.

    Phosphate Additives

    A 2023 study published in the Journal of Renal Nutrition found that of all the 3,466 U.S. packaged foods tested, over half contained phosphate additives.

    Phosphate additives encompass a range of substances with various functions, such as stabilizing, thickening, emulsifying, adjusting acidity and alkalinity, improving texture, enhancing flavor, providing antioxidant properties, preserving, and coloring. Some phosphates serve multiple functions simultaneously.

    Multiple studies have shown that the health hazards associated with consuming ultra-processed foods are linked to a high intake of inorganic phosphates.

    The body’s absorption rate and utilization efficiency for phosphorus vary depending on the source. When a person eats natural foods, the release of phosphorus is relatively slow, and not all of it is absorbed. In contrast, inorganic phosphate food additives are quickly absorbed into the bloodstream, significantly increasing blood phosphate levels and releasing hormones that promote phosphate excretion. These hormones can have a range of adverse effects on the cardiovascular system, kidneys, and bones, resulting in reduced vitamin D levels, bone loss, vascular calcification, and impaired kidney filtration capacity.

    Using inorganic phosphate additives in animal or cell experiments results in immediate side effects. “That gives you enough rationale to suspect that these may happen also in humans,” said Dr. Uribarri.

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/24/2024 – 21:40

  • "Julian Is Free!" Assange Released After 'Time Served' Plea Deal With DOJ, Departs For Home
    “Julian Is Free!” Assange Released After ‘Time Served’ Plea Deal With DOJ, Departs For Home

    Update(2124ET): WikiLeaks has released its first footage showing Julian Assange as a free man, emerging from Belmarsh prison looking triumphant and joyous, and soon after boarding a plane to his native Australia…

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    Below is the official statement from WikiLeaks:

    JULIAN ASSANGE IS FREE Julian Assange is free. He left Belmarsh maximum security prison on the morning of 24 June, after having spent 1901 days there. He was granted bail by the High Court in London and was released at Stansted airport during the afternoon, where he boarded a plane and departed the UK. This is the result of a global campaign that spanned grass-roots organisers, press freedom campaigners, legislators and leaders from across the political spectrum, all the way to the United Nations.

    This created the space for a long period of negotiations with the US Department of Justice, leading to a deal that has not yet been formally finalised. We will provide more information as soon as possible. After more than five years in a 2×3 metre cell, isolated 23 hours a day, he will soon reunite with his wife Stella Assange, and their children, who have only known their father from behind bars.

    WikiLeaks published groundbreaking stories of government corruption and human rights abuses, holding the powerful accountable for their actions. As editor-in-chief, Julian paid severely for these principles, and for the people’s right to know. As he returns to Australia, we thank all who stood by us, fought for us, and remained utterly committed in the fight for his freedom. Julian’s freedom is our freedom.

    Below is a video statement from his wife, Stella Assange:

    * * *

    In a shocking turn of events, Julian Assange will plead guilty to leaking US national security secrets and return to his native Australia, under a deal with Biden’s DoJ that ends a nearly 15-year battle nightmare for the WikiLeaks founder.

    After spending more than a decade holed up and imprisoned in London – mainly to avoid being sent to the US – Assange, 52, is expected to be sentenced to time served (62 months in a Belmarsh prison – a high security facility in South-East London) during a court appearance Wednesday in Saipan, in the US Northern Mariana Islands, avoiding a potentially lengthy sentence in an American prison.

    Prosecutors had been in talks with Assange to resolve the 2019 case, The Wall Street Journal reported in March, with one sticking point being Assange’s desire to never set foot in the United States.

    To enter a felony plea, defendants generally have to show up in person in court. 

    Assange’s team had floated the possibility of pleading guilty to a misdemeanor, the Journal reported, which would mean Assange could enter the plea remotely.

    The Justice Department and Assange’s legal team reached a compromise under which Assange wouldn’t have to travel to suburban Virginia, where the original case is filed, and prosecutors could still get a felony plea, the people said.  

    As The FT reports, the agreement aims to resolve what has been a remarkable stand-off between the DoJ and Assange, who has become one of the world’s most controversial advocates for government transparency and whose legal troubles have spanned multiple countries. 

    The plea deal also offers a neat solution to what was becoming an increasing political headache for the U.S. government. 

    Earlier this year, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said he hoped the U.S. could find a way to conclude the case against Assange, and lawmakers there passed a motion calling for Assange to be allowed to return to his native home. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has also weighed in, saying that the British courts should not extradite Assange to the U.S. In February, the United Nations special rapporteur on torture, Alice Jill Edwards, said Assange shouldn’t be extradited to the U.S. to face trial, saying he suffered from “depressive disorder” and was at risk of being placed in solitary confinement.

    Finally, while this is excellent news for Assange and his family – and journalistic freedom everywhere – we can’t help but wonder if this outstanding result would have occurred were it not for Biden heading into the first debate with Trump with his poll numbers in the toilet…

    Who cares! They are; and Julian is free…

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/24/2024 – 21:24

  • Domino's Still Dominates The US Pizza Market
    Domino’s Still Dominates The US Pizza Market

    About 3 billion pizzas are sold annually in the United States. In 2022, pizza restaurant sales in the U.S. reached an all-time high of $46.9 billion, an increase of roughly $10 billion compared to just a decade prior.

    This graphic, via Visual Capitalist’s Marcus Lu, lists the top 10 U.S. pizza chains based on 2022 sales figures.

    This data was accessed via Statista (published June 2023).

    Domino’s Domination

    Domino’s is the biggest pizza chain in the U.S. by sales, reaching $8.6 billion in revenue in 2022. The brand is also found in 90 other countries around the globe, including stores on every continent except Antarctica.

    According to Domino’s main website, there are over 20,500 locations worldwide, which collectively serve over 1 million customers per day.

    Domino’s is followed by Pizza Hut with $5.3 billion in revenue. Little Caesars, with $4.7 billion, completes the top three.

    The top end of this ranking contains household names, but regional pizza chains also make the cut. Jet’s Pizza is popular in the Great Lakes region, and most Hungry Howie’s locations can be found in Michigan and Florida.

    The overall number of pizza restaurants in the U.S. has been on the rise, reaching more than 80,000 units in 2022.

    If you enjoyed this post, be sure to check out this graphic, which visualizes the change in market share of U.S. carbonated soft drinks between 1995 and 2023.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/24/2024 – 21:20

  • Playing Politics With Crime In California
    Playing Politics With Crime In California

    Authored by Susan Crabtree via RealClearPolitics,

    California’s fierce political battle over crime and retail theft faces a key test this week as divided Democrats in the legislature address efforts by Gov. Gavin Newsom and his allies to undermine a public-safety ballot initiative.

    The ballot initiative would overhaul Proposition 47, a law voters approved in 2014 that lowered certain theft and drug crimes from felonies to misdemeanors partly as a way of reducing prison overcrowding.

    Newsom was among the first elected officials to support Proposition 47, a ballot initiative written by reform-minded George Gascon, who was then the district attorney in San Francisco. (In an unusual move, Gascon is now the DA in Los Angeles.)

    But the pendulum has now swung in the other direction, with critics blaming Prop 47 for the steep rise in retail theft and smash-and-grab “mob” robberies of both high-end department stores and convenience stores that have plagued retailers across the state.

    Californians for Safer Communities, a bipartisan group made up of law enforcement officials, elected officials, and businesses, including Walmart and Target, collected more than 900,000 signatures in support of a ballot initiative that would reform Prop 47 by increasing penalties for criminals. In early June, the initiative qualified for the November ballot, a move Newsom and liberal supporters in the state legislature opposed.

    Instead of letting voters decide its fate, Newsom and his allies, which includes Assembly and Senate leaders, pushed a raft of public safety bills aimed at addressing organized retail theft, car break-ins, and other crimes. They are also working hard to thwart a separate ballot initiative sponsored by the California District Attorneys Association, which has attracted widespread Republican and law enforcement support.

    Democrats in the state Assembly added “inoperability” clauses to the proposed public safety bills to prevent them from going into effect if voters approve the ballot initiative aimed at reforming Prop 47. They contend that such clauses are needed to ensure that the law is consistent.

    Critics of the move argue that the Democrats’ “poison pill” measure is designed solely to circumvent California’s storied referendum process. Instead of letting voters determine the ballot initiative’s fate, Newsom and his allies are trying to undermine it apparently because they fear it could attract strong support – with the added impact of helping Republicans in key Congressional races this fall.

    “Democrats need to stop playing politics with public safety and let voters decide on fixing Prop. 47,” Assembly Republican Leader James Gallagher said in a statement. “These poison pills show that Democrats aren’t serious about ending the crime wave – they just want to look like they’re doing something because their years-long support for criminals has become a political liability.”

    The machinations to undermine a ballot initiative on crime came the same week the California Supreme Court unexpectedly rejected another referendum that had attained enough signatures to qualify for the November ballot but which Democrats opposed. The court stopped a sweeping proposal that would have made it far more difficult for lawmakers to raise taxes and fees across the state. The justices unanimously ordered that the measure be kept off the ballot, finding it unconstitutional – even though it was an effort to amend California’s Constitution.

    Republicans and conservative activists who backed and financed the initiative, which they say had collected more than 1.4 million signatures, are fuming over the move. Carl DeMaio, a candidate for state Assembly and chairman of the group that helped collect the anti-tax initiative signatures, said the state liberal justices sided with “corrupt politicians” to strip citizens of their rights to qualify propositions for the ballot.

    Several other ballot initiatives aimed at increasing taxes are slated for the November ballot, and now citizens won’t have a countermeasure to vote on, he said. “The bottom-line remains: Californians cannot afford our state’s high taxes and cost of living – and until we fix the cost crisis, Californians will continue to flee this state,” DeMaio tweeted.

    Regarding Democratic leaders’ efforts to thwart the Prop 47 reform measures, Republicans got a surprise assist from several normally skeptical journalists. George Skelton, the longtime Los Angeles Times columnist and dean of the California press corps, wrote a column last week headlined: “Stop playing politics on retail theft.”

    “…Democrats cynically intend to insert a ‘poison bill’ that would automatically kill their own legislation if a rival tough-on-crime ballot measure is approved by voters in November,” he wrote. “To normal people, that must seem bizarre.”

     “Democrats fear the ballot measure so much they’re offering its backers an offer they can’t refuse,” Skelton added. “At least that’s the Democrats’ hope. The message: Take what you can get immediately from the legislation – or risk losing it if the ballot measure passes.”

    Criticism only increased over the week after CBS New California broke a story revealing that Newsom’s chief of staff would not negotiate to strengthen the Democratic package of crime bills unless the coalition backing the Prop 47 reform ballot initiative agreed to postpone that effort.

    In leaked emails, Newsom Chief of Staff Dana Williamson told Greg Totten, the coalition’s lead negotiator, that Democrats would be willing to negotiate on its package of crime bills – but only if the matter was tabled until 2026. “As I noted previously, our focus is on amending Proposition 47 on the 2024 ballot,” Totten replied. “If the administration is prepared to consider an amendment of Proposition 47 on the 2024 ballot, then we are happy to meet.”

    Williamson then abruptly cut Totten off. “If that’s your position, then I agree, there’s nothing to talk about.” She added, “It’s really amazing how you are incapable of taking a win. And the consultants you’re working with haven’t won anything in a decade. Good luck.”

    Republicans and journalists aren’t the only ones who find the inoperability clauses disingenuous. At least three Democratic state lawmakers removed their names from retail theft bills included in the package after the clauses were added, and district attorneys and law enforcement associations in their districts pulled their support.

    Assemblyman Kevin McCarty, who chairs the Public Safety Committee, yanked his support from the retail theft bill package because of the added inoperability clauses.

    “Unfortunately, I can’t support the retail theft package, which contains my Retail Theft Accountability bill, AB 1794, with the poison pill non-operative amendments included,” McCarty noted. McCarty is running for mayor of Sacramento and has positioned himself more to the center while facing a progressive opponent.

    Democratic state Sen. Alvarado-Gil and Assemblywoman Esmeralda Soria, who both represent the more conservative Central Valley, also withdrew their names as co-authors of retail theft bills included in the package.

    “I oppose the amendments to these two bills, and I was not consulted about them prior,” Alvarado-Gil said in her weekly newsletter to constituents. “Let me be clear – I do support the Prop 47 reform initiative and believe the voters have the right to vote on this. This is not about the policy; it’s about the politics.”

    Meanwhile, the Democratic leadership also faces opposition to both the retail theft legislative package and the ballot initiative from the progressive wing of the party, which opposes any criminal justice reforms that will result in increased incarceration.

    “The [Democratic] leadership here has gotten a little bit too far out front of their troops,” GOP Sen. Roger Niello told RealClearPolitics in an interview Friday. “I know a lot of members of their caucus didn’t even know about this amendment move and only heard about it over the [previous] weekend.”

    A spokeswoman for Speaker of the Assembly Robert Rivas did not respond to a request for comment about the level of Democratic support for the amended legislative package. This bill was also amended to include an urgency clause, which means it goes into effect immediately. Yet to do so would require a two-thirds majority of the Assembly and Senate. Sacramento insiders say the urgency is needed because of another deadline.

    Democratic Attorney General Rob Bonta faces a Thursday deadline to provide a title and summary for the ballot initiative and is poised to characterize the proposition as one that would kill the legislature’s anti-crime reform bills. He can only do so, however, if the retail theft package with the inoperability clauses passes with a supermajority this week before the deadline.

    Some California political observers assume Newsom is trying to keep Prop 47 intact to protect his political legacy for any future White House run. But others believe Democratic leaders fear the more immediate political fallout – that the tough-on-crime ballot initiative could help turn out more Republican voters this fall, giving GOP candidates for the House of Representatives an edge in tight election contests that could determine which party holds the majority.

    “What the Democrats are doing has gotten the Sacramento Bee editorial board, which is to the left of Mao, to agree with Republicans in the legislature,” Rob Stutzman told RCP. “This is absolutely raw politics. This is all about Democrats doing everything in the world to keep this issue off the ballot in November because of how it could affect congressional races and, therefore, the balance of who controls the House of Representatives.”

    This past week, Dave Min, a state senator running in a tight battleground contest to replace Rep. Katie Porter this fall, joined his party’s push to undercut the ballot initiative by supporting the addition of the “poison-pill” amendments. Min, who authored a piece of the public safety package, has joined the Democratic leadership in a press conference in which they unveiled their strategy to add the inoperability clause to the legislation.

    Over the last week, Min also twice said he didn’t have a position on the Prop 47 reform ballot initiative because he had been too busy to read it.

    “I’m sorry, and I’ll be honest, I have not had time to review the initiative,” Min said during an Appropriations Committee meeting while the amendments were being added. “I’ve got a lot on my plate these days. At the point in time when the ballot is finalized, I’m going to take a look at all the initiatives on the ballot and take a look at them.”

    Min’s position is a hire-wire act in his Orange County district, where prominent law enforcement officials, including Sheriff Don Barnes, vigorously back the ballot initiative. It also risks highlighting Min’s DUI conviction last year.

    “Dangerous Dave Min puts criminals ahead of victims because he is a criminal,” National Republican Congressional Committee spokesman Ben Petersen said in a statement. “Min earns a special spot in the hall of shame shilling for these poison pills while on probation himself.”

    If the Democratic retail theft package with the amendments manages to pass this week, Skelton says Bonta has a tough decision to make – whether or not to “doctor up” the bill title and summary to undermine its ability to pass and risk “tarnishing his image by looking like just another hack politician.”

    Niello is watching Bonta closely because he has long tried to transfer the responsibility of writing proposition titles and summary statements from the attorney general to an independent legislative analyst.

    “There’s been so many blatantly biased statements made, and this whole strategy that [Democratic leaders] are pursuing is dependent upon the attorney general rewriting it in a negative light,” Niello said.

    Susan Crabtree is RealClearPolitics’ national political correspondent.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/24/2024 – 21:00

  • Study Finds Alarming Surge In Deaths From Neurological Disease Among Young Adults
    Study Finds Alarming Surge In Deaths From Neurological Disease Among Young Adults

    A recent preprint study which relies on extensive data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) paints a concerning picture of the neurological health landscape in the United States. The study, which focuses on those aged 15-44, reveals a disturbing increase in deaths from neurological diseases both as the primary cause and among multiple contributing factors.

    This uptick in mortality rates, which is particularly significant among younger adults, could have profound implications for the nation’s public health policies, especially in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

    Perhaps most concerning, the study found an increase in neurological complications following COVID-19 vaccinations, including conditions such as Guillain-Barré syndrome and acute disseminated encephalomyelitis.

    According to Phinance principal Ed Dowd, “The results show a clear break from the prior historical trend in death rates from neurological diseases.”

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    The Study: Methodology and Key Findings

    Researchers Carlos Alegria and Yuri Nunes of Phinance Technologies conducted a deep dive looking at neurological disease-related mortality across various age groups from 2000 to 2023.

    Their study distinguishes between deaths where neurological conditions were the underlying cause (UC) and instances where these diseases were listed among multiple causes (MC) on death certificates, and compares death rates against a baseline to identify excess deaths.

    Key findings from the study include:

    • A notable rise in excess mortality from neurological diseases reported as the underlying cause of death among individuals aged 15 to 44, with increases of 4.4% in 2020, 10.0% in 2021, 9.9% in 2022, and 8.1% in 2023.
    • Excess deaths from neurological conditions as part of multiple causes tracked overall mortality rises and were significant even after removing deaths where COVID-19 was also reported.

    Via Phinance Technologies

    As Phinance notes, “The strength of the statistical significance of the excess deaths from neurological diseases was very high, being considered extreme events, indicating a clear change from the prior 2010-2019 trend.”

    The intersection of the COVID-19 pandemic with the rise in neurological disease deaths adds layers of complexity to the analysis – including the notion that various medical interventions and societal disruptions might have exacerbated underlying neurological vulnerabilities:

    • Notably, the study points to an increased risk of developing severe neurological conditions following COVID-19 vaccinations, with specific vaccines linked to higher risks of serious ailments such as the aforementioned Guillain-Barré syndrome.
    • Some cases of long covid have been associated with long-term neurological complications.

    Perhaps most alarming is the impact on younger individuals. Those aged 15-44, typically considered in the prime of life, exhibited a stark increase in neurological disease-related deaths. This raises serious questions about potential environmental, biological, or social factors that are disproportionately affecting younger populations.

    The authors conclude:

    How can we explain the excess UC deaths from neurological diseases in 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023? In 2020, this could be explained by deaths from health effects related to the pandemic management measures such lockdowns and lack of medical care, or other related factors such as stress, less exercise, worse food habits, or from under-diagnosed COVID-19 itself, or related side effects. The acceleration in excess death rates from neurological diseases in 2021, 2022 and 2023 is more difficult to explain due to COVID-19 on its own. Given the case studies of neurological adverse events following COVID-19 vaccination cited in the literature, one possible factor could be adverse effects of the COVID-19 vaccines. Furthermore, one must also account for the possibility of continuous COVID-19 infections or Long COVID…

    Implications for Public Health

    The implications of these findings extend far beyond the immediate health of the young adult population – and pose serious questions about the readiness of the U.S. healthcare system to handle a potential influx of neurological health needs and the potential need for sweeping changes in public health policy:

    • There is a clear call for focused research to unravel the factors driving this surge in neurological deaths.
    • Public health strategies may need to pivot towards enhancing neurological health services and preventive care, particularly for younger populations.
    • Understanding the full impact of COVID-19 on long-term health outcomes will be crucial in shaping future healthcare initiatives.

    The study raises concerning and considerations – between the social impact of waves of potential neurological disease and the woefully underprepared healthcare system, health priorities in the coming decades will need to be analyzed and addressed.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/24/2024 – 20:40

  • ESG And Stakeholder Capitalism: A Necessary Deconstruction
    ESG And Stakeholder Capitalism: A Necessary Deconstruction

    Authored by Rupert Darwall via RealClearEnergy,

    The Following is Book Reviews of:

    The Case for Shareholder Capitalism: How the Pursuit of Profit Benefits All, by R. David McLean (Cato Institute, 2023)

    The Race to Zero: How ESG Investing Will Crater the Global Financial System, by Paul H. Tice (Encounter Books, 2024)

    May Contain Lies: How Stories, Statistics, and Studies Exploit Our Biases—and What We Can Do About It, by Alex Edmans (Penguin Random House, 2024)

    *  *  *

    “I’m not going to use the word ‘ESG’ because it’s been misused by the far left and the far right,” Larry Fink, chairman and chief executive of BlackRock, declared a year ago. The far left, Fink complained, wanted BlackRock to use other people’s money to decarbonize the economy. As for what Fink presumably regards as the “far right,” BlackRock had lost $4 billion in mandates as a result of the political debate on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing, which he called “90% misinformation.”

    The chief executive of the world’s largest fund manager was speaking at the Aspen Ideas Festival to fellow billionaire David Rubenstein, co-chairman of the Carlyle Group, a private equity firm. At one point, Fink confessed to being ashamed of being part of the public conversation on ESG brought on by the annual letters that he writes to CEOs of BlackRock’s investee companies. “When I write these letters, it was never meant to be a political statement,” Fink told Rubenstein. “They were written to identify long-term issues.”

    Moments later, Fink backtracked. “I write about stakeholder capitalism, and I’m a big believer that you have to focus on all of your stakeholders,” Fink said. “So there’s nothing to be ashamed about. I just don’t use the word ‘ESG’ anymore.” Confused? You’re meant to be. BlackRock has been put on the defensive by red-state blowback to the anti-fossil-fuel positions adopted by BlackRock in its embrace of stakeholder capitalism and ESG. The debate on stakeholder capitalism and ESG is too important to be left with BlackRock and its CEO’s less than candid, but nonetheless revealing, attempt to find a way out of BlackRock’s self-inflicted ESG difficulties.

    That’s why the three books reviewed here are so important. Taken together, they constitute a comprehensive refutation of ESG and stakeholder capitalism. In The Case for Shareholder Capitalism, R. David McLean takes the argument back to first principles—indeed, back some 320,000 years and archaeological evidence that some of our earliest African ancestors engaged in trade. Moving to Europe, Homo sapiens outcompeted physically stronger Neanderthals because we traded and they did not. “Why would trading help us survive? Trade enables specialization,” McLean writes. Trade also enabled the formation of towns and cities, i.e., civilization.

    People trade with other people only when both sides gain. This axiom of human behavior applies to shareholder capitalism: a corporation is a legal entity through which customers, suppliers, and employees trade with the business’s shareholders. “You cannot expect businesses to keep trading with you unless the trading also makes the businesses’ owners better off,” McLean writes. “Profits reflect the business owner’s gain from trading.”

    Profit—the economic value accruing to shareholders—also indicates whether a business makes an economic contribution to society. When a mature firm or product is chronically loss-making, “it likely signals that the resources it is using could be put to better use elsewhere.” It makes society, as well as shareholders, poorer because it consumes resources that could have gone to more valuable use elsewhere.

    McLean’s reasoning leads to two powerful insights. The first involves what he calls the “stakeholder fallacy,” which says that shareholders should be put on an equal footing with other stakeholders: “This overlooks the fact that they already are on an equal footing. If a customer or an employee in a capitalist economy doesn’t find it beneficial to transact with a firm, then she isn’t required to do so. By the same token, if a transaction doesn’t benefit the firm’s shareholders, then the firm shouldn’t engage in the transaction. That is all shareholder capitalism requires.”

    This links to the second insight. When a manager spends the corporation’s money on things that cannot reasonably be expected to create shareholder value, the manager is expropriating the corporation’s assets. Either corporate spending is undertaken with the intention of increasing shareholder value, or it expropriates the firm’s resources. “There is no third category.” Whether spending in the second category is labeled “socially responsible,” or to improve an ESG rating, is entirely subjective, McLean argues: “Labels reflect what the labelers like or dislike. That is all. They have no higher meaning. Labeling an expropriation ‘socially responsible’ does not change the fact that it is an expropriation.”

    McLean is a professor of finance at Georgetown University. His writing has the virtue of bringing crystalline brilliance to a subject distorted by willful obfuscation and misleading claims. Paul H. Tice, author of The Race to Zero, spent 40 years on Wall Street, including spells at J. P. Morgan, Lehman Brothers, and BlackRock. Tice’s practitioner experience and the granularity of the evidence that he presents make for a perfect complement to McLean’s more theoretical treatment.

    Like McLean, Tice is unsparing in his criticism. ESG, he writes, is the latest fraud being perpetrated on the financial markets, and sustainable investment is a scam that aims to determine the allocation of capital in the economy: “[I]t is socialism disguised as a new form of capitalism.” As a former Wall Streeter, Tice follows in the footsteps of Terrence Keeley and his pathbreaking 2022 book Sustainable: Moving Beyond ESG to Impact Investing, for which Keeley sacrificed his senior role at BlackRock. Like Keeley, Tice advocates segregating ESG funds, or impact funds, as Keeley calls them, and takes the case against ESG several stages further.

    Tice writes of how Wall Street bosses embraced ESG as a path back to social acceptability after the financial crisis. Despite empirical studies demonstrating a tenuous link, at best, between ESG factors and corporate performance, Wall Street’s analytical defenses were dulled by the Fed-induced trance of near-zero interest rates. Tice contrasts the objectivity and reproducibility of credit ratings with the subjectivity and non-comparability of ESG ratings, as different ESG raters have their own methodologies delivering vastly different results on the same company. According to Michael Jantzi, founder of ESG rater Sustainalytics (now owned by Morningstar), the diversity of ESG ratings is a sign of a healthy market. This is like saying that schizophrenia and multiple personality disorder are “signs of a healthy mind,” Tice comments.

    ESG is fundamentally about getting capital providers (debt and equity) to use their financial leverage and institutional power to frog-march the corporate sector into the front line of the war against climate change. As Tice notes, apart from climate change, ESG is “just a ragtag collection of liberal policy wants” sponsored by the United Nations—diversity, union power, gender pay equality, executive compensation, and “fair” corporate taxes. The UN attempts to justify the prioritization of climate change over the other 16 of its sustainable development goals (the first of which is ending world poverty), on the spurious grounds that tackling climate change drives attainment of all the rest. In the world according to the UN, there are no costs or trade-offs when it comes to cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

    When companies set net zero targets, they expropriate value from their shareholders. Where does this shareholder wealth go? The recent scandal at Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), which companies use to validate corporate net zero targets, illustrates the truth of McLean’s proposition on shareholder expropriation. Under pressure from John Kerry and lubricated by a large donation from the Bezos Earth Fund, SBTi decided to support the use of carbon credits to finance the energy transition in the Global South. Thus, net zero targets are a non-legislated tax on shareholders to fund the goals of the Paris climate agreement. This was too much for many of SBTi’s staff and advisers, one of whom denounced carbon credits as “scientifically, socially and from a climate perspective a hoax.”

    The first step in getting companies to set decarbonization targets is forcing them to report their greenhouse gas emissions. Three years ago, Follow This, a Dutch nonprofit—more accurately, an anti-profit—tabled a shareholder resolution that would require Chevron to reduce its Scope 3 emissions, defined as those emitted across the company’s entire value chain. As McLean writes, “Chevron is an oil company. It can reduce its customers’ CO2 emissions only by getting its customers to use less oil. The purpose of this resolution, therefore, was to get Chevron to destroy itself.”

    A majority of Chevron’s shareholders voted for the resolution, including the Big Three index providers: BlackRock, State Street, and Vanguard. The Chevron resolution is a clear example of investment managers using other people’s money to destroy the value of their investments. On Larry Fink’s own definition, this puts BlackRock and the other two index providers on the far left of American politics.

    Shareholder capitalism depends on a chain of principal–agent relationships that runs from savers, investors, and pension plan beneficiaries through investment managers to corporate boards and CEOs. The first-round principal–agent relationship is generally governed by the legal duties that investment managers, as fiduciaries, owe their clients because, as Fink puts it, they’re managing other people’s money and shouldn’t pursue other objectives. ESG advocates try to square the circle by claiming that investing according to ESG precepts boosts—or, at minimum, does not sacrifice—investor returns (“doing well by doing good”). This won’t wash. McLean quotes Cliff Asness, cofounder and chief investment officer of AQR Capital Management, who points out that if one investor mandates an investment to maximize return for the risk taken, and a second says to do that, subject to the following constraints, “it is simply false and irresponsible for the asset manager to assert that the second investor should expect to do as well as the first, except in the case where those constraints are non-binding (and therefore not relevant).”

    Evidence that advocates of ESG investing don’t believe their own arguments for ESG boosting risk-adjusted returns is shown by their campaign to destroy fiduciary duty as a binding constraint on investment managers. Tice is superb on this, writing that rules on the duties of fiduciaries are being rewritten to “not just allow but require an ESG approach by fund managers.” Thus the UN-sponsored Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) states that fiduciary duty exists to ensure that those managing other people’s money act in the interests of beneficiaries—the omission of “sole” pointing to PRI’s sleight of hand, which comes next—requiring “investors to incorporate all value drivers, including environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors, in investment decision making.”

    Tice charts how PRI, together with its sibling the United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative (UNEP FI), has become increasingly prescriptive. In 2015, PRI and UNEP FI published Fiduciary Duty in the 21st Century (foreword by Al Gore and his investment partner David Blood), with the intent of eviscerating fiduciary duty as a constraint on investment managers by, as Tice puts it, requiring fiduciaries to “consider the long-term interests of their beneficiaries, both financial and nonfinancial, whether known to them or not.” With its detailed demands addressed to individual financial regulators around the world to write its proposals into law and regulation, PRI’s Fiduciary Duty in the 21st Century is a lobbying manual to end fiduciary duty in the 21st century.

    PRI’s 5,336 signatories include BlackRock, which signed on October 7, 2008, State Street (May 2012), and Vanguard (November 2014). BlackRock states that it is committed to supporting PRI’s principles “where consistent with our fiduciary duties.” This is thoroughly disingenuous, as PRI continues its campaign to weaken, and ultimately destroy, the fiduciary duties that BlackRock professes to maintain. Fink’s protestations that BlackRock does not seek to play politics with other people’s money have little credibility for as long as BlackRock remains a PRI signatory.

    PRI has conquered Europe and the UK, which together account for about 75% of the 868 pro-ESG regulations tracked by PRI. In Britain, shareholder capitalism perished under a nominally Conservative government. At the COP26 Glasgow climate conference in 2021, Rishi Sunak as Chancellor of the Exchequer spoke of a $130 trillion wall of capital—the amount of other people’s money managed by the members of the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero—to be deployed to finance the net zero transition. Sunak went on to say that the entire global financial system needed to be rewired for net zero. “Investors need to have as much clarity and confidence in the climate impact of their investments as they do in the traditional financial metrics of profit and loss,” Sunak told the COP. As a result, the UK is the first country in the world to have incorporated the framework drawn up by Michael Bloomberg’s Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures into its disclosure requirements for listed companies and large asset managers.

    Britain formally left the EU in January 2020. In practical terms, it remains fully aligned with the EU on ESG and sustainability. Eight months after Brexit, the City minister, John Glen, told an ESG conference that Britain would, at the very least, match the EU’s Sustainable Finance Action Plan. “We are working hard to support the sustainability and responsible investing agenda,” Glen said. These were not empty words. That year, the Financial Reporting Council (FRC), the regulator overseeing corporate governance, reporting, and auditing, issued a revision of its investment managers’ stewardship code.

    Tice observes that the revised code has the PRI’s fingerprints all over it. All 12 of the FRC’s “stewardship” (a word that has been twisted to mean the opposite of what it should) principles embed a sustainable approach to investing, requiring investors to identify and respond to supposed systemic risks, including climate change, and to integrate ESG and climate change into their investment processes. UK-listed companies operating mainly in the UK are required to produce net zero transition plans that are to be vetted by a Transition Plan Taskforce, cochaired by the CEO of one of Britain’s largest insurers and a Treasury minister.

    While Britain killed off shareholder capitalism through regulatory fiat, minimal legislative change, and no public debate, at least the EU’s effort involved legislative change and due consideration by the European Parliament. Under the 2020 Taxonomy Regulation, large publicly listed companies and all financial-market participants must report the proportion of their activities that meet the standards of environmental sustainability set out in the regulation and further the goals of the European Green Deal and those that do not. The 2022 Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive requires, among other things, sustainability to be embedded into companies’ long-term strategic planning. The Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation of the same year penetrates deep into how investment managers should consider and disclose sustainability risks and creates three classes of investment funds: Article 6 for non-ESG funds; Article 8—funds integrating ESG and sustainability; and Article 9 funds—those with sustainable investment as their core objective.

    The sustainability regimes adopted by Britain and the EU are more than a license for shareholder expropriation; they are instructions for systematic shareholder expropriation. It shows that the “S” in ESG really stands for socialization of people’s savings, to be deployed to meet governmental objectives denoted by “E,” principally decarbonization, thereby exposing “G,” notionally about protecting shareholders, as a sham designed to con institutional shareholders into wholesale adoption of ESG. However, neither Britain nor the EU took on board the adverse macroeconomic consequences of transitioning from shareholder to stakeholder capitalism. Asness’s logic shows why savings earn a lower return under ESG. Lower returns require a higher quantum of savings to generate the same future income stream. Having to save more means lower consumption and living standards today and in the future.

    Asness’s logic on the outperformance of the unconstrained versus the constrained investor also applies to economies. An economy constrained by a net zero mandate has fewer choices than an unconstrained one; in particular, it is precluded from using the most efficient sources of energy. Given the high transitional costs of net zero, it is condemned to perform worse than it would without the net zero constraint. (For this reason, the UN’s claim that net zero promotes achievement of other sustainable development goals, including poverty eradication, is not just illogical; it is immoral.) By directing capital into less productive assets, the economy produces less. Lower returns on productive assets imply lower stock-market valuations, and reduced returns on new investment cascade through the economy into weaker economic growth.

    Empirical data on Britain’s efforts to decarbonize power generation with heavy investment in wind and solar capacity bear this out. In my 2023 RealClearFoundation report “The Folly of Climate Leadership: Net Zero and Britain’s Disastrous Energy Policies,” I show that between 2009 and 2020, a 15.5% increase in nameplate electrical generating capacity produced 17.1% less electricity, caused by a 28.3% decline in output per unit of generating capacity over those 11 years.

    The negative microeconomic impacts of the transition from shareholder to stakeholder capitalism aggregating into anemic macroeconomic performance bring to mind Frédéric Bastiat’s warning in That Which Is Seen, and That Which Is Not Seen: “It often happens, that the sweeter the first fruit of a habit is, the more bitter are the consequences.” Conservative ministers appear perplexed that they adopt antigrowth policies like net zero and mandatory ESG and then find themselves presiding over an ex-growth economy and cruising towards a catastrophic defeat at the general election on July 4.

    Although shareholder capitalism has come under sustained attack from the Biden administration, so far, the US has escaped the fate of Britain and Europe. The Department of Labor’s 2022 ERISA “Prudence and Loyalty” rule attempts to force pension fiduciaries to incorporate ESG factors into investment decision-making. The SEC’s recently finalized climate disclosure rule aims to inculcate climate-consciousness into corporate decision-making and requires companies to make standardized emissions disclosures, so that climate activists can compare and then coerce them into adopting costly decarbonization targets, notwithstanding the fact that, regarding climate disclosures and materiality, the SEC had fulfilled its legislative mandate with its February 2010 guidance on climate disclosures.

    Litigation fears likely led the SEC to drop mandatory Scope 3 emissions disclosures and the withdrawal of some heavyweight financial institutions from net zero investment groups likely reflects fear of potential suits alleging infringement of antitrust law. However, the most effective opposition to ESG has been at the state level, where red states have pushed back against ESG by legislative and legal action as well as by simply taking their business elsewhere.

    This resistance has lead the executive branch, in league with its allies on Wall Street, to greater reliance on informal or soft power to bring about the transition from shareholder to stakeholder capitalism: create the impression of the inevitable triumph of net zero; harness market momentum from the Big Three index providers and massive blue-state pension funds to provoke investor herding; and, with the help of an ideologically aligned media, foster a pro–net zero climate of opinion, in which dissenting opinions and contrary narratives are not tolerated—in short, the weaponization of information.

    It is on this battlefield that the third in the trio of books reviewed here is so valuable. Rather than directly confronting ESG and stakeholder capitalism head-on, in May Contain Lies: How Stories, Statistics, and Studies Exploit Our Biases—and What We Can Do About It, Alex Edmans provides the tools and, perhaps more importantly, the skeptical mind-set to unpick common ESG claims. Edmans, a professor of finance at London Business School, recently wrote two important papers on ESG: “The End of ESG” (2022); and “Applying Economics—Not Gut Feel—to ESG” (2023), which overturn conventional thinking on ten key ESG issues.

    Edmans reviewed an early draft of McLean’s book. “What better person to get feedback from?” McLean asks. Yet they are on different sides when it comes to sustainability. All businesses in a capitalist economy are subject to Schumpeter’s perennial gale of creative destruction: “We can have sustainable economic growth, but if we do, then nothing is sustainable at the level of the individual business,” McLean writes. On the other hand, Edmans is a self-described sustainability advocate. Far from blinding him to problems arising out of concept of sustainability, Edmans says that he seeks out well-informed critiques and views disagreement as valuable.

    Twenty years of research have taught Edmans the lesson of rigorously testing claims. May Contain Lies is elegantly structured around an ascent up the ladder of “misinference,” an ideologically neutral term that does not give off the stench of censorship that often accompanies usage of misinformation and, especially, disinformation:

    • A statement is not fact.
    • A fact is not data.
    • Data are not evidence.
    • Evidence is not proof.

    When it comes to claims about ESG, Edmans provides examples that suggest that the book’s title is underdone. It’s a pretty safe bet that a pro-ESG statement will contain lies, a carve-out being made for best employee-rated companies, which Edmans’s research shows are associated with stronger stock-market performance. Edmans relates that a House of Commons committee asserted that an academic paper found that high wage disparities damage corporate performance, despite Edmans telling the clerk to the committee that the conclusion had been from a preprint that, post–peer review, came to the opposite conclusion.

    Then there is the case of the “world-famous” investor who invites Edmans to partner in a new fund focused on pro-gender-diversity companies—if he could come up with supportive research. Edmans and a colleague crunch 24 relevant measures; 22 are negatively associated with company performance; one has a statistically insignificant relationship, leaving only one (fewer media reports on diversity controversies are linked to stronger corporate performance). Six months later, the investor launches a diversity fund backed by other research claiming that female-friendly firms perform better. Data mining, Edmans says. Even by Wall Street standards, pushing ESG investment products demands unusual levels of cynicism.

    Edmans’s guiding star is falsifiability: “The only way to support your theory is to try to disprove it…. [F]inding out what’s wrong is the only way to find out what’s right.” Missing, though, is the bigger picture in which opinion diversity is suppressed, and attempts at falsification, or even modification, of dominant consensus narratives are dismissed as actions of bad actors.

    Edmans rightly stresses the necessity of having a scientific culture: “an environment where people put out bold and innovative ideas, actively seek dissenting opinions.” On climate change, such a culture does not exist in science or finance. In 2022, Stuart Kirk, head of sustainability at HSBC, gave a presentation arguing that investors did not need to worry about climate change. “The speech did an important service by providing a contrasting opinion,” Edmans writes, while acknowledging that performing this valuable service cost Kirk his job. It is left to Tice to draw the conclusion that Kirk’s termination shows that no one on Wall Street is free to speak out against sustainability “for fear of being personally attacked and likely fired or calling down the ESG gods on their firm.”

    Edmans uncritically cites the famous 97% scientific consensus on climate change, which, Tice shows, was originally derived from a sift of climate research papers, two-thirds of which expressed no opinion on anthropogenic climate change. Sir David Attenborough’s warning that climate change is our greatest threat—greater than pandemics and nuclear war—is “not clearly incorrect,” Edmans says. Neither is it obviously correct; yet Edmans offers no means of choosing between these two mutually exclusive speculations about the future. Fact-checking, which Edmans suggests elsewhere, won’t do. Facts exist only in the past. There is no such thing as a future “fact,” a word derived from the Latin factum, meaning “thing done,” the past participle of the verb facere, “to do.”

    One way of assessing the credibility of statements about the future is to examine the track record of past predictions against what actually happened. In 1953, Sir Richard Doll, one of the pioneering epidemiologists who uncovered the link between tobacco smoking and lung cancer, predicted that in 1973 there would be 25,000 lung cancer deaths in Britain. In fact, there were 26,000. The science of smoking and lung cancer had passed a sharp predictive test with flying colors.

    It is reasonable to put greater weight on the science behind a forecast that under-predicts a large rise and to put less reliance on the science that over-predicts. Such is the case with climate science. A year after the 1988 Toronto climate change conference, which declared the danger of climate change second only to a global nuclear war, a Commonwealth group of climate experts produced a 140-page report in which they made a supposedly conservative prediction of global temperature increase of 0.24°C–0.48°C per decade. This compares with an average rise of 0.21°C per decade derived from the Met Office’s global temperature data set from 1989 to 2023 (five-year trailing average) and a linear warming trend from January 1979 to March 2024 in the satellite temperature record of 0.15°C per decade, implying that the Commonwealth experts’ forecast ran 1.7–2.4 times hotter than observations.

    No reasonable person could claim that in the 36 years since the Toronto climate conference, humanity has experienced anything close to the death and destruction of a global nuclear war. As Tice points out, the number of disaster-related deaths globally has dropped by a factor of ten over the past 100 years. In terms of lives lost, no recent natural disaster has been as devastating as the central China flood of 1931, in which as many as 2 million people lost their lives and affected the lives of 52 million more. Nonetheless, 36 years after the Toronto conference, climate change is portrayed as a catastrophe of existential proportions, one still lurking over the horizon, despite a near-contemporaneous temperature forecast running far ahead of observed warming and even upgraded to being more destructive than nuclear war.

    It’s not only temperature forecasts that were overheated. Six years ago, Manhattan Contrarian Francis Menton posted a catalog of failed climate tipping-point predictions. In 1988, the year of his famous congressional testimony, NASA climate scientist James Hansen told a journalist that Manhattan’s West Side Highway would be under water in either 20 years or 40 years (the record is unclear). In 2018, ten years after or ten years before the expiry of Hansen’s prediction, Menton went down the highway. To no one’s surprise, except possibly Hansen’s, “the water didn’t appear any closer to swamping it than it was back in 1988.”

    Despite the impacts of climate change being far less severe than initially believed nearly four decades ago, climate change has to be catastrophic to justify the profound (and unachievable) economic and societal transformations demanded by net zero. Were people to start believing that its effects are mild or even benign, climate change’s potency to move policy mountains would evaporate. For this reason, querying the catastrophist narrative is not permitted. It’s here that Edmans’s belief in the importance of opinion diversity and actively seeking dissenting views runs into the over-heated reality of today’s world.

    As a newspaper reader, Edmans subscribes to both the conservative Daily Telegraph and the left-wing Guardian. Twinning opposing op-eds is the formula behind RealClearPolitics (RCP) that publisher David DesRosiers sees as an antidote to polarization and hyper-partisanship. This led to RCP’s blacklisting by the Global Disinformation Index (GDI), a British NGO, which last year labeled RCP a high-risk news site for disinformation (the author is a senior fellow of a foundation that works with RCP).

    GDI describes its role as disrupting the business models of news and opinion sites that it deems disseminators of disinformation. Because climate catastrophe is a non-fact that belongs to the category of an unverifiable speculation about the future, fact-checking climate change quickly morphs into opinion censorship. Thus, GDI’s definition of disinformation encompasses what it calls “adversarial narratives,” i.e., opinions—whether or not supported by scientifically sound analysis—that it disagrees with.

    The weaponization of information was discussed by Dr. Scott Atlas, who served as President Trump’s scientific adviser on Covid for part of 2020, in a recent interview with PragerU’s Marissa Streit. What he has to say about censorship has a direct read-across to climate. Censorship worked, Atlas told Streit. Dissenters were demonized, and a cancel culture blocked people from speaking and blocked people from hearing. “The solution to misinformation is more information. There is no one who should be trusted with the power to determine truth versus not.”

    Atlas also spoke of the funding webs that distort academic research in a pattern similar to that in climate science. The federal government, in the form of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), is the main funder of medical science. A cabal of powerful, politically connected people are chairs of departments in medical schools and also reviewers or editors-in-chief of medical publications. There’s an added twist: in response to FOIA requests, OpenTheBooks found that individual NIH employees received $325 million from the pharmaceutical industry over an 11-year period, which looks very much like legalized corruption.

    Atlas and Edmans offer similar advice on what Atlas calls a “crisis of trust,”Atlas telling Streit:

    “We now know the responsibility is on us as individuals in a free society to know what we’re talking about; to go investigate the source and the data because the era of trusting people solely on the basis of their credentials is over … They’re incompetent. But also, they’re not to be trusted. They manipulated the public instead of g[iving] us information and let[ting] us decide.”

    Unsurprisingly, GDI holds the opposite view. In a February 2022 interview, Daniel Rogers, GDI’s cofounder and executive director, speaks of the societal function of information that requires deference to politically approved science:

    “People have been convinced through the online disinformation ecosystem not to get vaccinated, becoming eventually sick and causing more harm. In that sense, while the number of websites acting as purveyors of disinformation isn’t that big, it’s an enormous problem in terms of impact, to the point that it poses a threat to democracy…. This is a true cultural malignancy.”

    Rogers’s is an authoritarian, top-down model of information dissemination and control. Yet, almost in the same breath, Rogers expresses alarm that “around the world, authoritarian regimes are increasingly coming into power, which I see as a direct result of the collective information environment poisoned by these toxic business models.” He might as well have been talking about GDI as a toxic business model. In a crisis of trust, it is organizations such as his that act as malignant nodes in the spread of distrust.

    Ultimately, the crisis of trust is a crisis of civilization. In May Contain Lies, Edmans recounts an experiment in which subjects are invited to drink apple juice from a bedpan that they know is perfectly clean; 72% of them flatly refuse. This is rational behavior. Heuristics, or rules of thumb, obviate thinking and enable us to live fuller lives. And, as McLean shows, trade is a supremely human activity. Trade enables specialization, and specialization enables the development of knowledge expertise. We all lose when expertise is discredited by being politicized and harnessed to a public policy agenda.

    A necessary condition for restoring trust in expertise is free expression by experts and nonexperts alike free of intimidation. This condition was absent during the pandemic and continues to this day. It has been absent for many years in discussions on climate change, as both Stuart Kirk and climate scientist Judith Curry, drummed out of her position at Georgia Tech, can testify.

    Despite the weight of the forces arrayed against them and the power of climate catastrophism to silence dissent, opponents of ESG and stakeholder capitalism have succeeded in checking its advance. True, the battle is lost in the EU and, for the time being, in Britain, but the fact that the CEO of the world’s largest investment manager refrains from using the word “ESG” says something, as does the withdrawal of a number of large financial institutions from climate action groups. The two Republican SEC commissioners remind its chair of the limits of the authority delegated to it by Congress (Hester Peirce: “We are Not the Securities and Environment Commission – At Least Not Yet”) – and Scope 3 emissions fall away from the SEC climate disclosure rule. ExxonMobil has filed a suit against Follow This, the climate activist that BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street had supported against Chevron management, and publicly states that it does not care about growing shareholder value.

    Financial markets speak in prices. Tice points out that in 2022, the S&P 500 Energy subindex rose by 59.05%, while the broader equity market sank by 19.44%. As McLean demonstrates, if there is any free lunch in investment, it is diversification by lowering risk but not returns. By restricting their universe of investment possibilities, ESG investors increase risk without improving their chances of return. Investors have noticed. The battle to save shareholder capitalism can be won. These three books help bring that victory closer.

    My advice? Read them.

    Rupert Darwall is a senior fellow of the RealClearFoundation and author of  The Folly of Climate Leadership: Net Zero and Britain’s Disastrous Energy Policies.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/24/2024 – 20:20

  • Deadly Blaze Rips Through US-Sanctioned Moscow Electronics Research Building
    Deadly Blaze Rips Through US-Sanctioned Moscow Electronics Research Building

    A huge and deadly fire is raging at a defense technology research center outside of Moscow, which has so far reportedly taken the lives of at least eight people (per BBC citing state media updates, though the casualty count is conflicting).

    A building of the Platan Research Institute has been engulfed in flames, widespread social media videos show. It is located in the town of Fryazino in the Moscow region. Importantly, Platan develops radio-electronic systems for Russia’s Defense Ministry, raising suspicion that this could be the result of sabotage or covert attack connected to the war in Ukraine.

    Governor Moscow oblast, Andrei Vorobyov, confirmed in a Monday statement that three floors of the building have been overwhelmed by flames. “The fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth floors are on fire,” Mash said Monday.

    TASS has cited an eyewitness who saw two people tragically fall to their deaths after they jumped from a window trying to escape the flames and thick smoke. BBC writes:

    There are conflicting reports about the building’s purpose. It once homed the Platan Research Institute and defence industry, according to Tass.

    A statement to the agency from Ruselectronics, a Russia-owned electronics organisation, said the building has been privately owned since the 1990s. However, opposition media outlets recently reported that Platan was based in the building as late as 2023.

    It is not immediately clear what caused the fire, but one eyewitness told Tass that it broke out on the sixth floor before spreading.

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    Over 130 fire and emergency services personnel, two helicopters, and 50 vehicles are engaged in fighting the blaze, which has spread to a whopping 5,000 square meters.

    “The fire area has increased to 5,000 square meters. The extinguishing operation is complicated by the presence of gas-air mix canisters inside the building. The firefighters continue working to eliminate the fire,” a statement given to TASS indicated.

    Once again we are left with the question: accident or covert sabotage?

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    Local authorities have already announced a criminal case connected the deaths, possibly due to arson or else negligence. 

    Platan Research Institute is among many defense ministry-linked firms currently under US-led sanctions.

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    We previously outlined recent mysterious industrial fires and possible sabotage incidents across Europe, the UK, and inside Russia… a trend which has left many observers speculating this could be part of an ongoing covert ‘dirty war’ in the shadows of the Ukraine conflict.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/24/2024 – 20:00

  • Visualizing Saudi Aramco's Massive Oil Reserves
    Visualizing Saudi Aramco’s Massive Oil Reserves

    Saudi Aramco controls 259 billion barrels worth of oil and gas reserves, which is unmatched by any other company globally. This is a key factor in the company’s massive $1.8 trillion valuation.

    To illustrate that, Visual Capitalist’s Marcus Lu created this chart to compare the proved reserves of major oil companies as of 2022.

    Data was compiled by Statista from various company reports.

    Crown Jewel

    Saudi Aramco is the national oil company of Saudi Arabia. As of 2024, it is the sixth-largest company in the world by market capitalization.

    Its oil reserves are over four times bigger than the reserves of all the other six companies on our list combined.

    Behind Saudi Aramco, American company ExxonMobil comes in second with 17.7 billion barrels of oil equivalent, followed by another American company, Chevron, with 11.2 billion barrels of oil equivalent.

    Saudi Aramco produces 9 million barrels of oil a day, more than any other firm and nearly a tenth of the world’s total.

    In addition, the state-run oil giant is the world’s most profitable company, generating $722 billion in profits between 2016 and 2023.

    Saudi Aramco is also expected to play a big part in Saudi Arabia’s plans to diversify its economy and reduce oil dependence. Recently, Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman confirmed that the kingdom is in talks to sell a 1% stake in the state oil giant, which could help fund the country’s projects in clean energy and technology.

    If you enjoyed this post, be sure to check out this graphic, which ranks oil production by country.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/24/2024 – 19:20

  • Fasting Boosts Cancer-Fighting Ability Of 'Natural Killer' Cells: Study
    Fasting Boosts Cancer-Fighting Ability Of ‘Natural Killer’ Cells: Study

    Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Fasting can program certain immunity cells in the body to fight cancer better and improve the cell’s ability to survive in a tumor environment, according to a recent study.

    A new study published in the Journal Immunity found that fasting can program certain immunity cells in the body to fight cancer better. (Nok Lek Travel Lifestyle/Shutterstock)

    The study, published in the journal Immunity on June 14, looked at how fasting affected natural killer (NK) cells, a type of white blood cell capable of killing damaged or abnormal cells like cancer and those infected by a virus. The presence of a higher number of killer cells within a tumor is usually seen as beneficial for a cancer patient. Researchers found that fasting can reprogram the metabolism of natural killer cells, improving their ability to fight cancer and enabling the cells to survive in the harsh environment within and around the tumors.

    “Our findings identify a link between dietary restriction and optimized innate immune responses, with the potential to enhance immunotherapy strategies” of cancer patients, the paper said.

    In the study, researchers analyzed cancer-infected mice that were not given food for a period of 24 hours, twice a week. As the mice were allowed to eat freely in between fasts, they did not lose any weight.

    During the fasting period, glucose levels in the mice dropped, similar to humans, along with a jump in free fatty acids. Meanwhile, the natural killer cells were observed to have undergone a major change.

    “During each of these fasting cycles, NK cells learned to use these fatty acids as an alternative fuel source to glucose,” said Rebecca Delconte, a co-author of the study.

    “This really optimizes their anti-cancer response because the tumor microenvironment contains a high concentration of lipids, and now they’re able to enter the tumor and survive better because of this metabolic training.”

    Fasting was also observed to have redistributed NK cells in the body. Some of the cells traveled into the bone marrow, getting exposed to high levels of a signaling protein. This led to NK cells producing more Interferon-gamma, a type of protein that plays a key role in the body’s anti-tumor response.

    NK cells in the spleen experienced a separate programming that allowed them to better use lipids as a source of fuel.

    “With both of these mechanisms put together, we find that NK cells are pre-primed to produce more cytokines within the tumor,” Ms. Delconte said.

    “And with the metabolic reprogramming, they’re more able to survive in the tumor environment, and specialized to have improved anti-cancer properties.”

    The research comes as clinical trials to study the safety and effectiveness of fasting together with standard cancer treatments are underway.

    The study was funded through multiple sources, including the National Institutes of Health, Australia’s National Health and Medical Research Council, and the American Cancer Society. Authors declared no competing interests in the study.

    Fasting Risks

    While the June 14 study found positive links between fasting and fighting cancer, clinical dietitian Juhina Farooki says the safety of the process should only be determined on a case-by-case basis.

    “Every patient is different, and what could be safe for one patient is not necessarily safe for the other patient,” she said, according to a Jan. 29 post at the MD Anderson Cancer Center.

    Malnutrition is one of the risks of fasting while undergoing cancer treatment. A lack of proper nutrients can result in weight loss, slow down the healing process, and worsen fatigue, the post said. It can also add more stress during what is an already tense period for the individual.

    Ms. Farooki advises cancer patients who wish to fast to only do so after consulting with their physician. This ensures the patient gets sufficient nutrition.

    A February 2023 study that investigated the effect of skipping meals in mice found that there was a difference in the number of monocytes in the creatures. Monocytes are white blood cells made in the bone marrow that fight cancer.

    One group of mice were given breakfast while the other group was denied. After four hours of fasting, 90 percent of monocytes in the fasting mice were found to have disappeared from the bloodstream, which fell further at eight hours. In the non-fasting mice, monocyte levels remained unaffected.

    Meanwhile, a recent German study found intermittent fasting to have a protective effect against inflammation and cancer in the liver. The researchers conducted tests on mice already suffering from liver inflammation.

    After the mice were subjected to four months of intermittent fasting, their liver function tests improved. The mice were found to be less likely to develop liver cancer.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/24/2024 – 19:00

  • It Took Nvidia 23 Days To Add $1 Trillion In Market Cap; Berkshire Hathaway Hasn't Managed That In 60 Years
    It Took Nvidia 23 Days To Add $1 Trillion In Market Cap; Berkshire Hathaway Hasn’t Managed That In 60 Years

    This morning, Deutsche Bank’s Jim Reid published his latest chart book titled “Charts to make you go WOW” (available here to pro subs), which will prompt a few surprised exclamations even from the hardened cynics.

    And while there is an extensive selection to pick from – and we will go over the charts in more details shortly –  it’s hard to pick a more “wow” chart example than the recent developments involving Nvidia (there’s lots more beside in the pack from AI and industrial revolutions to debt, deficits, demographics, migration and housing).

    The chart below shows that it’s taken 60 years for the most famous and arguably successful investor in the world, Warren Buffet, to build Berkshire Hathaway up to just shy of a trillion-dollar company ($883bn at Friday’s close). Indeed the company’s origins began in the 19th century so the full journey has taken well over a century and it’s yet to hit a trillion dollars.

    Contrast that with Nvidia, which went from just below $2tn market cap for the last time on April 24th, to over $3tn just 30 trading days later. Even more impressively, at its record close last Tuesday, where it became the largest company in the world, the last trillion of market cap was added in only 23 trading days.

    Then again, the higher they rise… Nvidia opened on Thursday after the holiday another 3% higher, melting up on virtually no volume (and a brutal gamma squeeze). But since that intraday peak it has tumbled 13% in just three days, and slipped back to 3rd in the S&P 500 rankings. The move came as portfolio managers rebalanced portfolios at the end of the quarter, with JPM calculating some $50 billion in selling pressure from pension funds, to account for the surge in tech shares; the start of the buyback blackout period last week didn’t help either.

    So, as Jim Reid asks rhetorically, is this a pause for breath or signs the air is being let out of the balloon? He responds that while his chart book hints that he does believe in AI, there have been signs of over exuberance in the US market over the last month. Penny stock trading has soared and net call options on Mega Cap Growth and Tech has exploded in June.

    This, alongside positioning and the move into the buyback blackout period, has led DB strategist to suggest a “breather” is likely.

    More in the full DB Monthly Chartbook “Charts to make you go WOW” available to pro subs.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/24/2024 – 18:40

  • Biden's Latest DEI Hire Deletes Past Anti-White And Anti-Police Tweets
    Biden’s Latest DEI Hire Deletes Past Anti-White And Anti-Police Tweets

    Authored by Steve Watson via modernity.news,

    In the latest clownworld development, the Biden Administration hired a man in a dress to be its new Associate Communications Director and it quickly emerged that the guy had a history of spicy tweets hating on white people, comparing police officers to ‘slave patrols’ and ‘lynch mobs’, and calling for ICE to be abolished.

    Here is who they hired. Tyler Cherry (left).

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    He looks like Mr Slave from South Park.

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    Or Weird Al Yankovic if you prefer:

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    He has a degree in gender studies. Of course he does.

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    He used to work for Media Matters. Of course he did.

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    He also thinks there are too many white people.

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    When people started to point all this out, Cherry apologised, and then started deleting all the old tweets.

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    He deleted every tweet with the word ‘white’ in it:

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    And restricted who can reply or comment:

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    There is no word yet on whether this guy likes to steal luggage or not.

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    Who is really running the country?

    Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/24/2024 – 18:20

Digest powered by RSS Digest

Jun 24

Today’s News 24th June 2024

  • Mapping The World's Refugee Population
    Mapping The World’s Refugee Population

    According to a report by the UNHCR, the number of people fleeing war, persecution and conflict exceeded 117 million.

    This number is up eight percent from the year before and increased by 31 percent compared to 2021.

    As Statista’s Anna Fleck shows in the following chart, 62 percent of all refugees and people in need of internal protection originated from just five countries in late 2023, while the top 10 countries of origin accounted for more than 70 percent of the global total.

    Infographic: Mapping The World's Refugee Population | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    Afghanistan has the highest number of displaced people outside of their home country, at 6.40 million.

    Syrians are the second largest population displaced across borders, with 6.36 million living outside of the country. The latest count of displaced Ukrainians totaled 5.96 million people, the third-highest in the world.

    Meanwhile, violence, food shortages, and deteriorating conditions have been pushing South Sudanese to emigrate, their numbers rising from 2.2 million refugees in 2020 to 2.3 million at the end of 2023, almost all of whom are living in Uganda (923,607), Sudan (696,246), Ethiopia (418,231) and Kenya (171,233), according to the UNHCR.

    In addition to a rise in the number of people being forced to flee their homes, these figures increased in 2021 due to the registration of new births, new estimations of displacements, as well as updates following the backlog from 2020, as registration resumed in 2021 after being suspended due to Covid-19. The stark rise of Afghan refugees can possibly be attributed to the situation in the country after the Taliban rose to power again in August 2021.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/24/2024 – 02:45

  • This Chinese Company's Compliance With Washington's Anti-Russian Sanctions Is Very Consequential
    This Chinese Company’s Compliance With Washington’s Anti-Russian Sanctions Is Very Consequential

    Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack,

    China’s Wison New Energies announced in a LinkedIn post on Friday that they’re immediately stopping all their Russian projects “in view of the strategic future of the company” following the latest imposition of US sanctions against that country’s LNG industry in mid-June. Oilprice.com wrote that this will “deal a blow” to Russia’s Arctic LNG 2 project after Wison was contracted to build its modules, “which are massive, prefabricated structures that facilitate the rapid construction of LNG processing plants.”

    They also reminded their audience that Arctic LNG 2 “has been considered key to Russia’s efforts to boost its global LNG market share from 8% to 20% by 2030-2035.” The EU’s US-pressured “decoupling” from Russia’s pipeline gas network compelled that country to ramp up its LNG projects in order to freely export this resource in the coming future so as to make up for tens of billions of dollars in lost revenue. These plans might therefore be further delayed by Wison’s compliance with US sanctions.

    RT reported in late December that two major Chinese energy companies had declared force majeure on their participation in Arctic LNG 2 after a prior round of US sanctions against that project, the significance of which was analyzed here at the time. To bring the reader up to speed for their convenience, the takeaway was that China’s complex economic interdependence with the West predisposes its national champions to complying with that bloc’s unilateral restrictions in order to not lose their market there.

    China is officially opposed to all sanctions that are imposed outside of the UNSC, but it also gives its companies the choice whether to voluntarily comply with them, even those that are state-owned enterprises such as the ones from RT’s report last December. Their decision to go along with these measures is respected by the state since they’re supposed to serve China’s interests, not Russia’s or anyone else’s, and this sometimes requires them to make tough decisions for the greater national good.

    Neither the Chinese state nor its companies should therefore be negatively judged for voluntarily complying with US sanctions, but the very fact that this compliance continues occurring should result in members of the Alt-Media Community (AMC) correcting their false perceptions about Russian-Chinese ties. Many top influencers adhere to the dogma that these two see eye-to-eye on everything and are jointly coordinating all their moves in order to accelerate multipolar processes, but that’s not true.

    While their strategic ties are closer than ever and can nowadays even be described as them having formed a Sino–Russo Entente, they still disagree on Kashmir and the East Sea/South China Sea issues since Russia fully supports India and Vietnam’s respective positions. Nevertheless, Russia and China responsibly manage these disagreements for the greater multipolar good, the same as they’re expected to do regarding Chinese companies’ compliance with US sanctions, including those against Arctic LNG 2.

    This insight is relevant with regards to the AMC since it’s important for top influencers to accurately reflect such facts in their work lest they inadvertently mislead their audience about those two’s ties.

    Russia and China aren’t “against” one another, but they still prioritize their corresponding national interests. These largely overlap, in which cases they cooperate to pursue their shared goals, but they sometimes diverge and thus lead to developments like Chinese companies complying with US sanctions.

    As regards this latest example, it’ll complicate Russia’s ambitious LNG plans and therefore risk slashing its future revenue flows, with the possible consequence being that it could also affect those two’s stalled talks on the Power of Siberia II pipeline. Russia might either concede to China’s reportedly requested basement-bottom prices out of financial desperation or it’ll refuse to do so out of resentment and thus leave this project in limbo indefinitely unless/until China eventually reconsiders its stance.

    The second scenario of China agreeing to pay higher but nonetheless still privileged prices for Russian gas could play out if US pressure upon it increases in the coming future as is expected following the Russian-North Korean mutual defense pact. The preceding hyperlinked analysis explains these dynamics more in detail, but in brief, those two’s new agreement will likely be exploited by the US to redouble its regional military presence at the expense of China’s objective national security interests.

    In that event, and if the abovementioned trend unfolds in parallel with the US applying more pressure upon China in the East Sea/South China Sea in ways that hint at a credible intent to blockade its energy shipments in case of crisis, then China might reconsider its stance and agree to Russia’s pipeline terms. The additional price would be well worth paying for receiving reliable gas from its neighbor instead of holding out for a better price and risking the US cutting off its LNG imports in the meantime.

    Returning to the lede, Wison’s compliance with US sanctions against Russia should prompt the AMC to finally correct its false perceptions about the Sino-Russo Entente, and it might also play a role in determining how the Power of Siberia II pricing dilemma is resolved as was just explained. Considering that it’ll also complicate Russia’s ambitious LNG plans, from which a lot of its future revenue is expected to be derived, this makes that company’s decision much more important than many might have thought.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/24/2024 – 02:00

  • Is Racism And Resentment Fueling The Caitlin Clark, Team USA Controversy?
    Is Racism And Resentment Fueling The Caitlin Clark, Team USA Controversy?

    Authored by Richard Truesdell via American Greatness,

    Once or twice in a generation, an athlete comes along who dominates and often redefines their sport. In the 1960s and 1970s, it was Muhammad Ali. In the 1980s, it was Martina Navratilova. In the 1990s, it was Michael Jordan. In the 2000s, it was Tom Brady and Michael Phelps. In the 2010s, it was Serena Williams. Clark now joins this roster as a generational talent.

    Since the beginning of June, you can’t turn on any broadcast or online sports channel and not hear the name Caitlin Clark. Her presence dominates the airwaves and coverage has crossed over to the mainstream with non-sports media and even late-night comedy shows like Saturday Night Live featuring Clark. This is especially true in the wake of the decision by the USA Basketball selection committee to exclude her from the team going to the Olympics in Paris next month.

    At this point, I think that even if she were selected as the first alternate, Clark should decline.

    It’s clearly obvious from their public statements that the closely-knit team of veterans doesn’t want her and the attention she will bring to the team’s effort to win a seventh straight Olympic gold medal.

    I think she should let her 22-year-old body heal during the Olympics, as she’s just gone from the NCAA Championship straight into the WNBA regular season.

    On June 1, on an off night from beyond the three-point arc against the rival Chicago Sky, which features another highly touted rookie, Angel Reese, Clark found other ways to contribute in front of a hometown crowd—11 points, eight rebounds, six assists, and one steal—by dishing off to her teammates and rebounding. During that game, Clark took a vicious away-from-the-ball hit from Chennedy Carter.

    That foul got a lot of media attention, given that, at the time, Carter received just a regular foul. After the game, it was upgraded to a flagrant foul (game highlights here). At the rematch in Indianapolis on June 16, Clark turned in a balanced, stellar performance—23 points, nine assists, and eight rebounds—helping her team to its second consecutive win over the Chicago Sky (game highlights here).

    These two fouls have been cited by many as evidence that Clark is being targeted by certain WNBA players.

    One thing that I’ve noticed is that Black NBA players and sports commentators have been among Clark’s most prominent supporters. On the popular Fox Sports Speak podcast, the panel brought the issue into clear focus and did not shy away from discussing racial issues. On a June 3, 2024 podcast former NFL wide receiver James Jones defended Clark, questioning why her teammates weren’t stepping up to support her on the court. If the women’s game is becoming more physical, then Clark’s teammates must rise to the occasion. That seemed a bit more apparent in the June 16th rematch.

    But let’s look at the racist attitude of a well-known, so-called journalist covering this story. In a piece that ran in the far-left propaganda outlet The Atlantic, well-known race-baiter and former ESPN reporter Jemelle Hill has written one derogatory and hate-filled story after another on Clark. This one was especially egregious. Thankfully, this is just one jealous woman’s opinion. (I believe the vast majority of Black WNBA fans respect Clark’s talents and recognize that she’s a positive influence on the sport.)

    Before this year’s WNBA draft, the only two WNBA players I recognized were Brittany Greiner because of her misadventure in Russia last year and Diana Taurasi, who has been a stalwart member of the US women’s basketball movement going back to her four years at the University of Connecticut when she was a member of three NCAA championship teams. Currently 42 years old, Taurasi was selected for her sixth national team to go to the Paris Olympics this summer.

    It turns out that Taurasi has been another one of Clark’s most vocal critics, saying that as a WNBA rookie, she needs more experience before she’s ready for the US National Team, “playing against grown women instead of college players.” This is funny given Taurasi’s selection to the 2004 National Team after she ended her career at the University of Connecticut and went on to participate in the Games held that year and four teams that followed. Isn’t it time to give a younger player a chance to contribute and gain experience?

    Caitlin Clark is the personification of everything great about women’s athletics and the character it builds in young women. Clark is respected by many of her peers but unfortunately, not all. These haters are objectively resentful of Clark’s success. It borders on reverse racism. For almost three decades, the WNBA has toiled in virtual anonymity. The composition of the players in the league is over 60 percent African-American and close to 40 percent openly identify as gay, although some surveys say it is higher. Either way, it really doesn’t matter.

    Now comes Clark, with prodigious talents and an outgoing personality, who happens not to fall into either category. Because of this, many of her competitors seem to resent her. They are asking themselves, “Why isn’t it me who got multi-million dollar endorsement deals with Nike, Wilson, Gatorade, State Farm, and others?”

    To answer that question, ask yourself this:. Who would you want your daughter or granddaughter to look up to, to emulate, to be inspired by? A young woman (no matter her color or sexual orientation) who has taken the country by storm with her engaging personality and who has brought attention, eyeballs, and possibly an unprecedented $250 million media rights deal to the doorstep of the WNBA?

    Or someone who stupidly attempted to smuggle a known banned substance into a totalitarian state and received a nine-month vacation in a Russian gulag before, in a move designed to pander to two important voting blocs (Blacks and LBGT advocates), the Biden Administration traded this player for a known terrorist and worldwide arms merchant while leaving several more deserving Americans behind.

    I think that’s a very simple question to answer. And it has very little to do with kneeling or staying behind in the locker room while the National Anthem is played.

    I’ve watched Clark perform in the NCAA Championship this year and in several WNBA games this year. The mugging she’s received on the court goes way beyond the “Welcome to the WNBA girl” stuff that is dished out to newcomers in any professional sport, male or female. And I couldn’t help but notice that the dishing out was usually being administered by a certain group of players (not really a surprise statistically given that the group in question constitutes 60 percent of the players in the league but seems disproportionate to my eyes).

    Need I say more? No.

    The WNBA needs Caitlin Clark much more than Caitlin Clark needs the WNBA. Her endorsement deals are based not only on her skills on the court but also on the young woman that her loving and supportive parents raised her to be and her engaging personality. She is a generational superstar and the lame reasons cited by USA Today journalist Christine Brennen for USA Basketball for not selecting her to represent the United States next month in Paris have damaged them, not her. She could have a career-ending injury in the next four years and may never get the opportunity to represent her country, for reasons that seem specious at best.

    If this treatment by her opponents and the WNBA continues after the Olympics, then Clark will be faced with a difficult decision. Should she continue to endure this nonsense or should she take her God-given talents and her fans to another competitive venue? Could it be Ice Cube’s BIG3 3-on-3 league (and get paid $5 million more than her $80,000 WNBA salary) and be welcomed there by the likes of women’s basketball legend Nancy Lieberman? Or should she take her talents overseas, where they will be more appreciated? Having coached competitive athletes—male and female—I think one side of her will say, “I’ll work through this; it will get better. I’ll earn their respect.” But the other inner voice will say, “I’ve had enough; I don’t need to prove myself to these petty and resentful people.”

    If she chooses option one, I applaud her because that’s what elite athletes do: they rise to the occasion. But if she chooses option two, who would blame her? Then the players in the WNBA will start flying commercially again and will only have themselves to blame. This is before the NBA decides to stop subsidizing the league to the tune of $50 million a year, with the WNBA fading back into the obscurity it so richly deserves and finally disappearing.

    Few sports fans will shed a tear if that happens.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 06/23/2024 – 23:20

  • California Reveals All Job Gains In 2023 Were Fake
    California Reveals All Job Gains In 2023 Were Fake

    In the past year we have discussed on multiple occasions that US labor market data has been repeatedly doctored to artificially appear better than it really is (see “Here Is The “Unexpected” Reason Why The Fed Will Rush To Cut Rates As Soon As Possible“, “Philadelphia Fed Admits US Payrolls Overstated By At Least 800,000” and “Here Comes The Job Shock: Philadelphia Fed Admits US Jobs “Overstated” By At Least 1.1 Million“), although thanks to a quirk of BLS data revision reporting, we won’t have definitive proof of just how ugly the real job market has been in recent years until some time in 2025, well into Trump’s second administration.

    However, while the BLS will be able to maintain the facade of “strong job gains” lies into early 2025, the dismal reality has already made an appearance in America’s largest labor market.

    According to the latest report published by the non-partisan California Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) which is an agency of the California government, is overseen by the Joint Legislative Budget Committee of the California State Legislature, and performs and publishes extensive analyses of the state’s budget in addition to providing fiscal and policy advice to the California Legislature, contrary to prior reports of over substantial job gains in the deep blue state in 2023, the reality was far uglier.

    In a report titled “Newest Early Jobs Revision Shows No Net Job Growth During 2023” we learn just that: the Early Revisions to state-level data flagged here previously, suggests that California actually lost jobs during the fourth quarter of last year. As the report details, “based on the most recent release of the early benchmarks, payroll jobs declined by 32,000 from September 2023 through December 2023. On the contrary, the preliminary monthly reports showed a solid increase in job growth (+117,000 jobs) at the time.”

    This, according to the LAO, means that “with the fourth quarter revision, calendar year 2023 saw essentially no net job growth (+9,000 jobs overall).“

    For those unfamiliar with the sequence of revisions to the jobs data, here is a quick primer from the LAO:

    Monthly State Jobs Estimates Are Revised Annually. Each month our office publishes the most recent state employment figures from the the Current Employment Statistics (CES) survey. State employment figures come from this monthly survey, which is based on a small sample of businesses in the state.  As a result, once per year the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) does a benchmark revision, updating the monthly CES estimates to match more reliable administrative data from states’ Unemployment Insurance programs.

    Federal Researchers Now Publishing Quarterly Revisions. Although the BLS only revises the state-level CES once per year, the underlying data used to revise the CES survey is collected quarterly. Taking advantage of this asynchrony, in 2021, researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia began publishing state-level “early revisions” based on the same underlying data but revised more frequently.

    In any event, the huge delta between the previously reported, CES survey-based fake Q4 numbers and the actual, post revision numbers is shown in the gray highlight in the chart below.

    The data since January 2024 has not yet been rebenched, which means that the figure includes the Early Benchmark Revision for these recent months are growing at the same rate as the official CES estimates. But one can be absolutely certain that once the next set of revisions come in, California will not have generated any actual job growth for the second year in a row. In fact, make that all of America.

    Of course, the shocking ‘realization’ that inflation-sparking Bidenomics was a complete disaster for the US labor market won’t be disclosed until well into Trump’s second (technically third) term. By then Biden, and his catastrophic economic policies, will be long forgotten.

    Source: Legislative Analyst’s Office

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 06/23/2024 – 22:14

  • Rafah Crossing Now Completely Destroyed & No Longer Usable For Gazans Seeking Exit
    Rafah Crossing Now Completely Destroyed & No Longer Usable For Gazans Seeking Exit

    The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have announced that for the first time Gaza’s sole border crossing with Egypt has been completely destroyed to the point that it can no longer be used.

    Israeli Army Radio issued the following statement days ago: “This is how Rafah crossing looks today, completely destroyed and no longer usable, after being taken over by Brigade 401 in one night.” The statement added that “Due to its relative proximity to the border, the Israeli army used the crossing as a stopping point and resting area.”

    Throughout most of the conflict which goes back to Oct.7, Palestinian officials operated on one side and Egyptian border troops on the other. The government of Egypt has long been bracing for a possible flood of refugees especially after Israel’s ground offensive in Rafah kicked off.

    That Rafah crossing is now effectively closed and guarded by the IDF, which will only add to the unfolding humanitarian disaster as civilians are trapped with nowhere to go amid the Israel-Hamas battles raging on streets across southern Gaza.

    As for the physical state of the crossing itself, war correspondents have confirmed that the exterior of the structure was incinerated: “Occupation forces damaged Rafah crossing’s halls that were used by locals to exit the Strip,” according to an earlier report by Middle East Eye.

    Below is a statement by China’s CGTN:

    On June 19, a journalist filmed the scene from the Gaza side of the Rafah border crossing after the Israeli army began its ground military operation in May. The crossing, located on the southern border with Egypt, is the main route for international humanitarian aid to enter the Gaza Strip.

    Israeli forces have razed an umber of buildings here besides blocking humanitarian aid and personnel from entering Gaza. June 20 marks the World Refugee Day. However, many people displaced in the Gaza Strip and the living environment has been destroyed by the war.

    Sally Abi Khalil, Oxfam’s Middle East and North Africa Director, has directed angry words against Israel, saying last week that the government “claimed weeks ago that it would provide full humanitarian support and medical assistance to civilians it had told to move.”

    Video showing the status of the crossing now:

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    She added, “Not only is this not happening, its ongoing impunity, bombardment, and deliberate obstruction have created unprecedented and impossibly dangerous conditions for humanitarian agencies to operate.”

    Meanwhile, the US-built pier is not doing well either. It has been out of commission longer than it has been operational, due largely to choppy seas in the Eastern Mediterranean.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 06/23/2024 – 21:35

  • Kennedy Supporters Protest Outside CNN Office In Burbank After He Is Excluded From Debate
    Kennedy Supporters Protest Outside CNN Office In Burbank After He Is Excluded From Debate

    Authored by Jill McLaughlin via The Epoch Times,

    Dozens of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. supporters protested outside CNN’s western U.S. bureau in Burbank, California, June 21 after the news network announced that the independent candidate failed to meet the entry criteria for the upcoming presidential debate.

    “Let Bobby speak!” the group chanted outside the main office of Warner Bros. Discovery, the company that owns CNN.

    CNN announced Thursday that Mr. Kennedy fell short of benchmarks for state ballot qualification and necessary polling. The news network set criteria to include candidates only if they secured enough spots on state ballots to be eligible for at least 270 Electoral College votes, the minimum needed to win the presidency.

    Candidates also needed to get at least 15 percent of voters in four separate national polls of registered or likely voters to meet CNN’s standards.

    The decision means presumptive nominees Republican former President Donald Trump and Democrat President Joe Biden will duel on the debate stage on June 27 in Atlanta.

    The major party candidates have cleared CNN’s threshold but won’t be certified for the ballot until they are formally nominated by their party conventions later this summer.

    Mr. Kennedy, who lives in Malibu with his actress wife Cheryl Hines, thanked his supporters for rallying behind him at locations across the country and in California, including Burbank, San Francisco, and Sacramento.

    “Americans nationwide are protesting the channel’s undemocratic decision to exclude me from the first presidential debate next week,” Mr. Kennedy wrote on X. “Thank you to everyone who has come out or plans to come out today!”

    One campaign volunteer called the Kennedy exclusion “an insult to democracy.” Above, supporters rally in Burbank, Calif., on June 21, 2024. (Jill McLaughlin/The Epoch Times)

    Mr. Kennedy, who chose California attorney and entrepreneur Nicole Shanahan as his running mate, said June 20 the major party candidates didn’t want him on the debate stage.

    “Americans want an independent leader who will break apart the two-party duopoly. They want a President who will heal the divide, restore the middle class, unwind the war machine, and end the chronic disease epidemic,” he posted on X.

    Mr. Kennedy’s son Bobby Kennedy III, a writer and director who lives in the Los Angeles area, came out to support Friday’s rally in Burbank, saying the debate decision won’t affect the campaign. Mr. Kennedy planned to join the debate on X, instead.

    “We’re going to have our own debate,” his son told The Epoch Times. “Thanks to social media, and thanks to the internet, I wouldn’t be surprised if our version gets significantly more viewers … We have an army that backs us on the internet.”

    Several volunteers at the Burbank rally were disappointed by CNN’s decision, including campaign volunteer Ronnie Kroell, who held up a campaign sign and waved at cars passing by on South California Street.

    “It’s an insult to democracy. It’s an insult to the American people,” Mr. Kroell told The Epoch Times. “We need to take back our country. It’s the only way we’re going to solve any of our problems is to put the power back into the people.”

    Mr. Kennedy filed an election complaint May 28 with the Federal Election Commission, claiming the news network collaborated with the major party candidates to exclude him from the debate. He also claimed the network’s requirements were designed to ensure only President Biden and former President Trump were included.

    CNN released a statement saying that “the law in virtually every state provides that the nominee of a state-recognized political party will be allowed ballot access without petition.”

    “As the presumptive nominees of their parties, both Biden and Trump will satisfy this requirement,” the network added.

    “As an independent candidate, under applicable laws, RFK Jr. does not. The mere application for ballot access does not guarantee that he will appear on the ballot in any state. In addition, RFK Jr. does not currently meet our polling criteria, which, like other objective criteria, were set before issuing invitations to the debate.”

    Warner Bros. Discovery did not return a request for comment about Friday’s protests.

    Rancho Santa Fe resident Suzanne Finder came to the Burbank rally Friday, saying Mr. Kennedy’s background in environmental law and his record of fighting to solve chronic disease issues is what brought her there.

    The country needs clean air, clean water, clean soil, clean food, and clean medicine, she told The Epoch Times.

    The group planned to deliver a petition to CNN asserting Mr. Kennedy should be allowed to debate. Above, supporters rally in Burbank, Calif., on June 21, 2024. (Jill McLaughlin/The Epoch Times)

    “Mr. Kennedy has spent 40 years in his role as an environmental attorney to achieving those goals, and Americans deserve to hear his message,” she said. “I don’t know a single parent who doesn’t want their child to be healthy and well, and that’s what he stands for, for me.”

    Campaign volunteer Laura Jones was thrilled by the support of the Southern California residents who protested.

    “We’re absolutely thrilled that everyone has shown up to say to CNN, we want more voices, more choices in this election and in the debates,” Ms. Jones told The Epoch Times.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 06/23/2024 – 21:00

  • Large Terror Attack On Synagogue & Orthodox Churches In Russia's Dagestan
    Large Terror Attack On Synagogue & Orthodox Churches In Russia’s Dagestan

    Unknown terrorists went on a rampage using automatic weapons against religious sited in Dagestan, Russia on Sunday night. Authorities in the southern Russian republic situated in the Caucuses say that police officers were killed and wounded as the gunman targeted a synagogue and an Orthodox church.

    At least nine are dead, and 25 injured. An Orthodox priest was also slain. A fire also resulted at the synagogue, with emergency response crews subsequently battling the blaze. Some reports say that two Orthodox churches were hit in the assault, and that a priest was killed.

    Building in Dagestan on fire, via RT/social media

    According to Russia’s state-run TASS: “At approximately 18:00 [Moscow time] in Derbent, unknown persons fired at a synagogue and a church with automatic weapons. According to preliminary information, one police officer was killed and one was wounded.”

    “The car in which the suspects fled was identified as a white Volkswagen Polo, license plate 921 The circumstances are being clarified. Information about the dead and wounded police officers is being clarified.”

    And a Russian Internal Affairs Ministry statement indicated: “In Makhachkala, unknown persons fired at a traffic police post on Ermoshkin Street.  The ‘Interception’ plan was announced. The identities of the attackers are being established.”

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    It appears that at least some of the attackers may have gotten away, with RT reporting the following statement:

    The suspects drove away in a white Volkswagen Polo, the police said, adding that they are currently searching for the vehicle.

    The below includes more details via state-backed RT:

    The assailants in Derbent reportedly broke into the Orthodox church and killed a local priest by slitting his throat, said Shamil Khadulaev, the head of the regional public oversight committee which monitors the observance of human rights in prisons. Other regional authorities have not commented on this information.

    The synagogue was reportedly set on fire. Videos and photos have surfaced on social media purporting to show the building engulfed in flames.

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    Judging from some of the details to have emerged thus far, this appears to have been an Islamist terror attack, possibly by ISIS or an affiliated group.

    The situation including efforts to apprehend the gunmen may have occurred over a period of hours.

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    Videos show large fires over the city of the attack and a heavy police response, with running street battles…

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    Potential Jewish casualties from the synagogue attack remain uncertain in the immediate aftermath, and as more details emerge.

    Russia has been on edge ever since the March 22, 2024 Crocus City Hall attack in Moscow, which killed at least 145 and wounded hundreds more after heavily armed gunmen stormed the mall and concert venue. ISIS-K took responsibility for the large-scall killings in the aftermath. This new Dagestan attack could be a copy-cat incident.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 06/23/2024 – 20:25

  • "This Is Going To Be Far Worse Than The Great Depression…"
    “This Is Going To Be Far Worse Than The Great Depression…”

    Via Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com,

    Financial writer and precious metals broker Bill Holter has been documenting all the unpayable debt that has been building up in the financial system like cancer. 

    The latest black hole of default is coming from a big bank in Japan.  Norinchukin Bank is selling $63 billion in Treasuries and other sovereign bonds to stay afloat.  Then there is recent news announced by the FDIC that 63 US banks (the names are being kept secret) have more than $500 billion in losses, and let’s not forget about the trillions in losses sitting on the books of European banks ready to suck the world into a black debt hole.  This is just a few of many on a long list of destabilizing problems that can tank the entire over-indebted financial system. 

    Holter warns, “The list is so long…”

    “it could be a banking problem.  It could be a derivatives problem.  It could be a derivatives problem in the stock market, the bond market and you could see a failure to deliver in silver.  Some type of warfare could crash the system.  You could see warfare in Ukraine, Israel or Tiawan. 

    The system is so unstable, at this point, it could be anything that could bring it down. 

    Unpayable debt is not just a US problem.  This is all over the world.  Central banks are having to issue huge amounts of debt because we are in the exponential decay phase.  We are exactly where Richard Russell said we would be 20 years ago.  It’s inflate or die, and the only way to inflate is to create more money supply.”

    Add to that the $10 trillion in debt the US Government has to roll over by the end of the year.  Meanwhile, the US government piles on $1 trillion in new debt every 100 days.  What could go wrong?

    Holter said the last time he was on USAW that there was a little less than a 50% chance we would even have an election.  Now, he predicts it is more likely there will be no 2024 Presidential Election.  Holter says:

    “There is no way the system, as it is now, survives.  It’s mathematically impossible.  So, if it is mathematically impossible, are they going to blow smoke . . . up until the day it blows up?  Or are they going to do something to blow it up and then say our programs and policies were working except for XYZ this or whatever. 

    They have to kick the table over.  They cannot allow the table to fall over on its own because then there is going to be finger pointing.  To avoid the finger pointing, they have got to kick the table over.”

    Holter also thinks gold is going to exponential numbers to back all the debt the USA has. 

    If you go with the 8,030 tons of gold the government claims is in Fort Knox, you will need a dollar price of gold at “$125,000 per ounce for 100% gold backing of the dollar.”

    Holter also says, “The dollar is being pushed out of the global financial system…”

    “Demand for dollars is shrinking at a time when borrowing demand is rising.”  This is a going to be a disaster for America and anyone holding dollars in the future.

    In closing, Holter says, “The financial collapse that is coming will be worse than anything we have ever experienced…”

    “This is going to be far worse than the Great Depression simply because society itself is far worse. . . . Back in the Great Depression, you had neighbors helping neighbors.  Today you will have neighbors picking on other neighbors like vultures.”

    There is much more in the 51-minute interview.

    Join Greg Hunter as he goes One-on-One with financial writer and precious metals expert Bill Holter for 6.22.24.

    *  *  *

    To Donate to USAWatchdog.com Click Here

    Bill Holter’s website just keep getting more and more viewers, and it’s still free.  It’s called BillHolter.com.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 06/23/2024 – 19:50

  • Maher Audience Silenced After Andrew Cuomo Admits NYC Trump Trial Should Have Never Happened
    Maher Audience Silenced After Andrew Cuomo Admits NYC Trump Trial Should Have Never Happened

    Former governor of New York from 2011 to 2021 Andrew Cuomo appeared on Real Time With Bill Maher on Friday where he discussed the implications of the New York City Trump trial with host Maher. 

    Maher’s mostly liberal audience is caught quiet when Maher and Cuomo start frankly discussing whether or not the trial was helpful for the Trump campaign. 

    “The trial in New York, the one he [Trump] got convicted for, was the greatest fundraising bonanza ever. He was lagging behind Biden, and now he’s pulled quite a bit ahead,” Maher said to Cuomo during the show. 

    “That trial was the greatest reason people had to send their checks for $5, $10, 2$5, whatever dollars to Donald Trump. So I was always with you [Andrew Cuomo] on the one in New York, the hush money trial. I don’t think they should have brought that one,” he continues. 

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    To which Cuomo, who was elected as New York State Attorney General in 2006, replied: “That case, the attorney general’s case in New York, frankly, should have never been brought.”

    Cuomo continued: “If his name was not Donald Trump and if he wasn’t running for president. I’m the former AG in New York. I’m telling you, that case would have never been brought. And that’s what is offensive to people. And it should be!”

    “Because if there’s anything left…it’s belief in the Justice system!”

    In the same episode, Maher also asks how Joe Biden could be ahead in the polls when he is losing votes with so many key demographics.

    “And yet I read in the polls he pulled ahead this week. Explain that to me,” Maher says.

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    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 06/23/2024 – 19:25

  • Declining Black Church Attendance Weakens Key Democratic Asset
    Declining Black Church Attendance Weakens Key Democratic Asset

    Where black voters are concerned, the bad news for Democrats keeps piling higher. First came a steady stream of polls showing Biden’s support among the Democrat cornerstone constituency keeps plummeting from the virtual monopoly he enjoyed in 2020. Now Democratic strategists are facing the reality that, thanks to falling attendance, the political potency of black churches is also tumbling. 

    An overwhelming 92% of black voters backed Biden in 2020. In one of the largest and most sudden demographic-political shifts you’ll witness in your lifetime, a recent New York Times/Siena poll found that only 42% of blacks in six key battleground states plan to vote for Biden in November. While he’ll be splitting the spoils with independent Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Trump is poised to post the strongest Republican presidential-candidate performance among blacks since at least 1964. 

    Thin turnout for an April service at Columbia, South Carolina’s Zion Baptist Church reflects a national trend (Jessie Wardarski/AP)

    The damage to Biden’s electoral prospects is being compounded as drooping black church attendance undercuts what has traditionally been one of Democrats’ most powerful voter registration and turnout weapons.  

    There’s an element of poetic justice to this development: Much of the trend can be attributed to Democrat-led Covid-era lockdowns and fearmongering. “Overall church membership has dropped precipitously in the U.S. since the last presidential cycle, as many churchgoers formed new habits during the pandemic and never made their way back to the pews,” writes Story Hinckley at the Christian Science Monitor. 

    Black churches have been a de facto, tax-advantaged Democratic Party auxiliary. In addition to coordinating voter registration, they’ve served as a formidable voter-turnout engine. Under the moniker “Souls to the Polls,” blacks churches have helped mobilize their congregations to vote following Sunday worship services.  

    The Souls to the Polls movement originated in Florida in the 1990s before becoming a black, nationwide phenomenon (via WGCU)

    Those church-based contributions to Democratic political forces are sure to sag mightily in 2024, as black attendance is leading the downward trend that crosses demographic lines. In pre-pandemic 2019, 61% of Black Protestants said they attended church at least monthly. By 2023, it had plummeted to just 46%.  

    In the battleground state of Michigan — which Hillary Clinton lost by just 10,704 votes in 2016 — the Monitor offers a vivid illustration of the dynamic. In the 1980s, New Grace Missionary Baptist Church in the 88% black Detroit enclave of Highland Park routinely had more than a thousand members show up on a typical Sunday. Attendance has now shriveled to somewhere between 125 and 175 people.

    Recently, despite weeks of promoting a “Lift Every Voice and Vote” voter-registration event at the church, fewer than three dozen people showed up. “This place should be full,” lamented Highland Park Mayor Glenda McDonald. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 06/23/2024 – 19:15

  • Chemicals From East Palestine Train Disaster Spread To 16 States: Study
    Chemicals From East Palestine Train Disaster Spread To 16 States: Study

    Authored by Edward Carver via Common Dreams,

    Toxic chemicals released during fires following the Norfolk Southern train derailment in Ohio last year spread to 16 states and likely Canada, according to a study released Wednesday.

    The pollution, some of which came from the burning of vinyl chloride, a carcinogen, spread over 540,000 square miles, showing clearly that “the impacts of the fire were larger in scale and scope than the initial predictions,” the authors of the study, published in Environmental Research Letters, found.

    NTSB/Handout via Xinhua

    Lead author David Gay, coordinator of the National Atmospheric Deposition Program, said that he was very surprised by the way the chemicals had spread. “I didn’t expect to see an impact this far out,” he told The Washington Post.

    Gay said the results did not mean “death and destruction,” as concentrations were low on an absolute scale—”not melting steel or eating paint off buildings”—but that they were still “very extreme” compared to normal, with measurements higher than recorded in the previous ten years.

    “I think we should be concerned,” Juliane Beier, an expert on vinyl chloride effects who didn’t take part in the study, told the Post, citing the possibility of long-term environmental impacts on communities.

    A Norfolk Southern train crashed in East Palestine, Ohio, a village near the Pennsylvania border and the Appalachian foothills, on February 3, 2023. Dozens of train cars derailed, at least 11 of which were carrying hazardous materials, some of which caught fire after the accident and burned for days. Fearing a large-scale explosion, authorities drained the vinyl chloride from five cars into a trench and set it alight in a controlled burn.

    A former U.S. Environmental Protection Agency official later said that the controlled burn went against EPA rules; the head of the National Transportation Safety Board said the deliberate burning was unnecessary.

    The local impact of the fires was felt acutely in the month after the accident—a “potent chemical odor hung in the air for weeks,” according toThe Guardian, and people reported nausea, rashes, and headaches.

    The new study helps explain the wider environmental impact. The researchers looked at inorganic compound samples in rain and snow at 260 sites. The highest levels of chloride were found in northern Pennsylvania and near the Canada-New York border, which was downwind from the accident.

    The authors also found “exceptionally high” pH levels in rain as far away as northern Maine. They did not look at organic compounds such as dioxin or PFAS, which likely also spread following the accident, The Guardian reported. The elevated inorganic chemical levels dropped two to three weeks after the accident.

    Norfolk Southern has agreed to pay nearly $1 billion in damages following two settlements reached in recent months. In April, the company reached a $600 million deal with class action plaintiffs living within 20 miles of the derailment site. That deal won’t be finalized until the residents officially agree. In May, the company reached a separate $310 million settlement with the federal government. The company has said that it has already spent $107 million on community support and removed the impacted soil.

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    Norfolk Southern makes billions in profits every year, and the company gave its CEO a 37% pay hike last year, drawing widespread criticism. The company also spent $2.3 million on federal lobbying last year, according to OpenSecrets data reported by Roll Call.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 06/23/2024 – 18:40

  • Biden Admin Asked Amazon To Hide Vaccine-Critical Books During Pandemic
    Biden Admin Asked Amazon To Hide Vaccine-Critical Books During Pandemic

    Authored by Steve Watson via modernity.news,

    The Biden Administration pressured Amazon to hide books for sale on its platform that were critical of vaccines during the pandemic, it has been revealed.

    The findings were presented by the House Judiciary Committee and Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government in documents that show Amazon reduced the visibility of titles that the government deemed overly critical of big pharma shots.

    The documents show that some books were simply generally critical of vaccines, with several written by medical professionals. Some were even just reviews of scientific studies.

    The Federal government compiled a “Do Not Promote” list, to which more than 40 titles were added.

    In a series of X posts, Judiciary Committee Chair Rep. Jim Jordan explained how internal emails from Amazon contain employees revealed that “the impetus for this request is criticism from the Biden Administration.”

    They even targeted a children’s book that they deemed to be too friendly toward the unvaccinated.

    “Don’t let the Biden Admin tell you that their censorship campaign was about concerns of misinformation going viral on social media,” Jordan wrote. 

    He further urged “They were going after BOOKS too. This is–and always has been–about suppressing difavored views, not purported challenges of new technologies.”

    There is a deep irony attached to this story in that the Biden Administration has repeatedly accused Republicans of trying to ‘ban’ books nationwide.

    While in almost all of these cases, the likes of Florida governor Ron DeSantis were expressing opposition to school libraries carrying sexually explicit books aimed at children, it turns out the Biden Administration was actively working to censor books for adults.

    Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 06/23/2024 – 17:30

  • Snopes Finally Admits Trump Never Called Neo-Nazis 'Very Fine People'
    Snopes Finally Admits Trump Never Called Neo-Nazis ‘Very Fine People’

    One of the more common lies peddled by top Democrats, including of course President Joe Biden, is that former President Donald Trump called neo-Nazis ‘very fine people’ during his press conference following the Charlottesville “Unite the Right” rally in 2017.

    Except, anyone who watched the full clip knows it’s bullshit, which is why anyone peddling the hoax has been operating in bad faith.

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    Now, after seven years, and days before the Trump-Biden debate in Atlanta, Snopes has finally admitted that Trump never called neo-Nazis ‘very fine people.’ 

    “While Trump did say that there were ‘very fine people on both sides,’ he also specifically noted that he was not talking about neo-Nazis and White supremacists and said they should be ‘condemned totally.’ Therefore, we have rated this claim ‘False,” wrote Snopes.

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    Of note, Biden launched his his 2020 campaign based on this lie.

    “The president of the United States assigned a moral equivalence between those spreading hate and those with the courage to stand against it,” Biden claimed in his campaign announcement video. “And in that moment, I knew the threat to this nation was unlike any I’d ever seen in my lifetime.“

    Amazing…

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    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 06/23/2024 – 16:55

  • Children Among Mass Casualties After US-Supplied Missile Targets Crowded Crimean Beach
    Children Among Mass Casualties After US-Supplied Missile Targets Crowded Crimean Beach

    Russia on Sunday is reporting a mass casualty event in the Crimean port city of Sevastopol, and is saying that a US long-range missile was behind it.

    The Russian Ministry of Health in a recent update said that five people were killed in a series of strikes from Ukraine, which injured 124 people including 27 children. Among the deceased, two were children, the ministry said. The casualty toll is likely to climb over the next hours amid the emergency response and as hospital data is reported.

    Image on Telegram showing wound civilians treated by emergency crews.

    Moscow is calling it a ‘terrorist missile strike’ on Sevastopol with five US-supplied ATACMS tactical missiles, carried out just after noon local time. What’s more is that Russia says they were equipped with cluster warheads, making for a bigger casualty strike zone.

    Crimean officials said that in once instance a missile exploded above a crowded beach, unleashing shrapnel on people who had been relaxing there.

    A separate Russian Defense Ministry (MoD) statement directly accused Washington. “Flight missions for ATACMS missiles are programmed by American specialists based on US satellite reconnaissance, making Washington primarily responsible for the deliberate missile strike on Sevastopol’s civilians,” the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) stated.

    Widely circulating brief video showing the moment a projectile exploded over beachgoers in Sevastopol…

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    “Therefore, the responsibility for the deliberate missile strike on Sevastopol’s civilians lies primarily with Washington, which supplied this weapon to Ukraine, as well as the Kiev regime, from whose territory the strike was launched,” the MoD statement added.

    The statement explained that while anti-air defenses were able to down four of the five inbound rockets, the fight changed trajectory due to the intercept attempts resulting in “its warhead exploding in the air over the city.”

    It emphasized this was “terrorist attack on the civilian infrastructure of Sevastopol with U.S.-supplied ATACMS tactical missiles loaded with cluster warheads.”

    Local video of the aftermath showing a largely deserted beach…

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    AFP writes of emerging unverified footage that “Videos posted on social media showed people running from the beach as explosions went off and people in swimming outfits carrying a stretcher.”

    Russia’s military warned that “Such actions will not be left without a response.” The Biden administration has regularly sought to claim that US-supplied weapons transferred to Ukraine can only be used to attack military targets and are “defensive” – even in the instance of cross-border attacks.

    Via The Telegraph

    Likely Russia is gearing up to pummel multiple sites across Ukraine, and will try to go after bases hosting foreign military equipment and arms storehouses. This event is a major escalation, and likely President Putin himself will address it in a statement at some point in the next 24 hours.

    Already Ukraine has been struggling through nationwide rolling blackouts due to stepped-up airstrikes and drone attacks primarily targeting the nation’s energy infrastructure, as its population braces for more.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 06/23/2024 – 15:45

  • Fragility In A One Stock, Stock "Market"
    Fragility In A One Stock, Stock “Market”

    By Peter Tchir of Academy Securities

    Ok, calling this a “one stock” stock “market” seems a bit extreme, but is it? On Thursday when stocks rolled over (the Nasdaq 100 started higher at the open and then dropped almost 300 points from there), virtually everyone I spoke to pointed to NVDA shares reversing as the main weight on the overall indices. Throughout much of Thursday and Friday, I was receiving many more notes on support/resistance related to NVDA than the indices, Treasuries, or anything else that could be whipping markets around. Yes, Friday was “triple witching,” which likely added to the volatility, but there was one stock that dominated all market conversation.

    I’m wondering if that is why it is so difficult to make sense of markets on many fronts? Why we seem to be getting a variety of indicators, all pointing in different directions?

    Breadth, one of the topics in last week’s Same But Different, is clearly front and center in this report.

    Breadth, along with the role that options are playing in the market, and a whirlwind of Geopolitical Risks, were discussed on Bloomberg TV on Tuesday (Academy’s segment starts at the 50-minute mark).

    Before Jumping into the “Macro”

    In case you missed it, Academy published our mid-month assessment of Geopolitical Risk – Perception vs Reality.

    • Wildcard Risk, a catch-all, rose the most. Partly because North Korea ratcheted up a notch or two on Putin’s visit (SITREP) and shots were fired along the DMZ. The escalation between China and the Philippines near the Second Thomas Shoal is also attracting our attention, as we have a Defense Treaty in place with the Philippines. This could get tricky and be very disruptive.

    • We also provided our updated views on what we see the market pricing in, versus what we think should be getting priced in for Russia, Trade Wars, the Middle East, Commodity Prices, and CYBER.

    The “One Stock” Stock Market at a Glance

    ETF Flows

    We start with 3 ETFs.

    • TQQQ, a 3x leveraged ETF on the Nasdaq 100 (with a $24 billion market cap), has been experiencing outflows for several weeks. While we didn’t include it here, SQQQ, a 3x inverse ETF on the Nasdaq 100, has been garnering some serious inflows (though only $3 billion). One way to interpret this data, is that “faster” money has been taking profits in the Nasdaq 100 and while still outright bullish (based on relative market caps), it shows signs that the market is tired.

    • QQQ is a Nasdaq 100 ETF. It is a whopping $284 billion, and I view it as a bellwether of flows from buy and hold “mom and pop” accounts, to hedge funds, to large asset managers adjusting their asset allocations. It has trickled higher in terms of flows since the start of the 2nd quarter, but had some meaningful outflows in the past few days. Again, more “trimming” than exiting risk, but an interesting development.

    • Which brings us to NVDL, an ETF that provides a 2x leveraged return on NVDA. It is $4.3 billion in size, so not big, but big enough for us to pay attention to. While investors were shedding risk in the Nasdaq 100, this ETF was getting large inflows! I still cannot understand why the regulators approve single stock ETFs of any sort (especially leveraged). There seem to be enough ways to invest in single stocks without needing an ETF. Let alone an ETF that is path dependent. The leveraged ETFs (unless a stock moves in one direction day after day) will always underperform the leveraged return of the stock from the initial investment date (it is a function of the rebalancing mechanism). Why this ETF exists, I don’t know, but it seems to give us a glimpse into the “one stock” nature of this market.

    We didn’t dare include XLK (a $71 billion ETF focused on the Tech Sector) in the chart, because it would have broken the chart. Since the start of the 2nd quarter, it has experienced mild outflows (consistent with profit taking), but it had a very large inflow on Tuesday and outflow on Friday, presumably associated with the rebalancing (MarketWatch Report). Our understanding is that the rules that this ETF follows only allow for 2 stocks to be weighted above 5% (at the time of the reweighting). Currently those two stocks are MSFT and AAPL (both a little over 20%). NVDA (at 5.8%) is expected to “flip flop” with AAPL as one of the two most weighted stocks. That seems to be setting up traders. As a quick test for Bloomberg users, pull up your “favorite” ETF and go to the Current News page (CN ). See how many stories are listed under the ETF of choice. My experience is that right now, XLK is attracting a lot of attention. Because of its size and the rebalancing, it is likely influencing individual stock prices in ways that are not intuitive for fans of passive investing. Needing to buy/sell $10 billion of some single stocks hardly seems “dignified” for a “passive” strategy, but it is what it is. Presumably, the rules were designed when megacaps didn’t grow by leaps and bounds on an almost daily basis.

    While we are not here to hammer on “passive,” it seems important to remember that every $100 that currently flows in or out of QQQ (for example) creates $45 of buying or selling for 7 companies (8 stocks but 7 companies as both GOOG and GOOGL are in the top 8).

    The trading related to ETF inflows and outflows is robotic. There are rules that are followed (daily and on rebalancing), but in an era where so many investors prefer index-based ETFs to individual stocks or managed mutual funds, I sometimes wonder if we truly “understand” what we are getting, and the ramifications of those investments, when the indices are so heavily skewed to a few stocks (this isn’t a new issue, but has risen to the top of conversations once again).

    Before finishing this section on some of the mixed signals in ETF flows and the “passivity” of these strategies, we’d be remiss not to include QQQE (a Nasdaq 100 equal weighted ETF). If you thought that investors would flock to an ETF where any “catch-up” rally will do well, you are wrong. Shares outstanding are still lower than they were last summer (when it seemed much easier to get on the “laggard” train) and the ETF is “only” $1.25 billion, a fraction of the size of NVDL despite, at least to me, being a product that gives access to something that would be difficult to replicate on your own. RSP, an S&P 500 equal weighted ETF, does have $54 billion in AUM, but has been experiencing outflows.

    I’m stuck seeing too much focus on a single stock and am concerned by the nature of passive funds impacting a variety of stocks. I cannot get behind the “catch up” rally, because unlike last fall, where you could bet that the data was improving and the average stock had not responded, we’ve had the “good” data and haven’t been able to get a strong response from much of the market.

    Riddle Me This – Investor Sentiment

    The first two things I look to when thinking about investor sentiment are:

    • The CNN Fear & Greed Index. It currently registers as “fear.” With the VIX at 13, that didn’t jump out as being an obvious place for this index to register. A month ago, the index was in “greed” mode, and I’m not really sure how it is coming up with “fear,” but I have to respect it (maybe it is picking up on some of the fund flows we’ve been seeing, which have shown reductions in risk taking). So, we have one measure saying “fear.”
    • The next stop is the AAII Investor Sentiment Survey. Lo and behold, 44.4% are bullish. Higher than a month ago. Only 22.5% are bearish, far lower than a month ago. This measure is telling me “greed.”

    While these two measures don’t always agree (and are generally good contrarian signals at the extremes), one is saying fear (though not at a “signal” strength), and the other is saying greed (at close to “signal” strength).

    “Clear as mud” is one possible explanation. One picks up surveys where investors can’t help thinking about the broad market and the economy overall, and the other picks up “hard data” where much of that hard data is influenced by all the changes in the options markets. We didn’t even talk about the option selling based ETFs or even the heavily skewed weightings in indices. Something to explore at the very least.

    Given those mixed signals, we can go back to my favorite fallback indicator – RSI. RSI (or Relative Strength Indicator) for the Nasdaq 100 is in overbought territory but has been coming down. At least this indicator makes some sense to me. Greedy, but less greedy than a few weeks ago.

    Rates

    The 10-year is still sitting below 4.3% (I continue to believe that 4.3% to 4.5% is the “right” range for now).

    • Inflation data is likely to continue softening, supporting Fed cut projections and helping yields across the curve.

    • European politics will add volatility. Last week, political news out of Europe seemed to help the bond market, but I’m not expecting that to be the norm.

    • Our Deficits. The CBO raised their estimates for this year’s deficit to just under $2 trillion (more than a 25% increase from earlier projections). They see no end in sight, and I believe that the debate will put the deficit in the headlights (and not in a good way) as the reality of most policies seems to be destined to increase the deficit (just doing it in different ways).

    The short end of the curve should benefit from data, while the longer end of the yield curve is likely to be impacted by re-focusing on the deficit, and the debate seems like an ideal catalyst for that.

    Credit

    Corporate issuers had to take advantage of the drop in yields and the window to issue ahead of the potentially slow July/August period, and that pushed spreads slightly higher.

    I’m still all-in on adding to credit risk, across the board, from structured, to high yield, to IG, to munis. There are some interesting charts showing that for investment grade companies, net interest expense is actually a positive. So many companies are locking in low yields and many companies are sitting on huge cash piles earning more than their cost of debt, that interest is coming into corporate America, rather than being paid out. Not sure how long that lasts, and it mostly impacts a handful of companies, but interesting, nonetheless. That is the only new thing that I would add to Credit Spreads Can Go Much Tighter.

    Bottom Line

    Greedy, but less greedy. It seems like not only is the “catch up” trade not gaining traction, but even the best performing areas are seeing some profit taking.

    Is this a possible inflection point in the direction of flows? Have we set ourselves up to the point that momentum might waver, triggering selling in the momentum arena, which has been a great factor to chase this year? If so, does the weighting of a handful of stocks in the indices (and ETFs) force too much liquidity into too few stocks? We’ve been arguing that the depth of liquidity has been low – both on the way up and the way down, and too much is being channeled into too few names. This is no fault of any of the individual names (other than they have had incredible success growing into great businesses), but the “passive” investing makes it difficult sometimes to see the forest for the trees, and I suspect this might be one of those times.

    It is unclear and we need to see where we head in the coming days and weeks, but the stock market once again feels ripe for a sharp, fast pullback. If I’m right on yields, this could certainly help push us in that direction.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 06/23/2024 – 15:10

  • Unhinged Jamaal Bowman Goes On Profanity-Laden Rant At Bronx Rally With AOC
    Unhinged Jamaal Bowman Goes On Profanity-Laden Rant At Bronx Rally With AOC

    Fire alarm specialist Rep. Jamaal Bowman of New York delivered a an unhinged rant at a rally on Saturday, criticizing U.S. involvement in Israel and AIPAC and flailing his arms wildly while starting to chant his own name at one point.

    “We are gonna show f—ing AIPAC the power of the motherf—ing South Bronx,” he screamed at the crowd. 

    Bowman is up for re-election this Tuesday and is currently getting absolutely smoked in the polls, down 48% to 31% to George Latimer, according to Fox News. 

    He targeted the American Israel Public Affairs Committee for its recent $14 million campaign against his reelection due to his stance on Israel.

    Bowman has been a longtime critic of the Israeli government and its war against Hamas in Gaza and described the conflict as a genocide against Palestinians. At the rally, he reiterated that U.S. dollars are funding the killing of innocent civilians.

    “Cease fire now!” he had the crowd chanting while taking a wooden stool and slamming it onto the stage repeatedly. 

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    “People ask me why I got a foul mouth. What am I supposed to do? You coming after me. You coming after my family. You coming after my children. I’m not supposed to fight back? I’m not supposed to fight back? We’re gonna show them who the f— we are,” Bowman shrieked on stage. 

    “We are not gonna stay silent while the U.S. tax dollar kills babies and women and children. My opponent supports genocide. My opponent and AIPAC are the ones destroying our democracy,” he added, stating: “And it is on us, it is on all of us to save our democracy and save our collective humanity. Because this race is about our collective humanity.”

    And of course AOC was there to help “turn up a vote”. Bowman added: “Cease fire now, let’s get it poppin'”

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    AOC went on her own unhinged rant later in the rally, even forcing out a ‘y’all’ to try and blend in and act as though she doesn’t spend a majority of her waking hours far outside of the Bronx:

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    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 06/23/2024 – 14:35

  • "This Cannot Go On Forever": Explaining The U.S. Debt Crisis In Simple Terms
    “This Cannot Go On Forever”: Explaining The U.S. Debt Crisis In Simple Terms

    Submitted by QTR’s Fringe Finance

    James Lavish, CFA, is a seasoned professional in institutional investing and risk management with over two decades of experience. He is currently the Managing Partner of the Bitcoin Opportunity Fund, which focuses on public and private investments in the Bitcoin ecosystem. Lavish is recognized for his work in educating others about financial fundamentals through his newsletter, The Informationist, which simplifies complex financial concepts for a broad audience.

    On my talk with him last week, I asked him to lay out, in simple terms, exactly just how screwed the U.S. economy is.

    James opened by talking about the fact that the numbers and what consumers are feeling are like having two different economies: “You’re seeing two economies out there. And that’s causing a lot of confusion out there. You hear the Fed talking about inflation. You hear the White House saying they’ve got inflation tackled. You hear businesses saying that they’re struggling. You hear consumers saying that they’re struggling. They can’t stand the inflation, the prices. They can’t keep up. But yet you see these numbers that are coming out that seem to be okay. They’re conflicting.”

    🔉 Listen to the audio of this full hourlong interview here.

    He added: “You’re getting unemployment numbers that are conflicting with the actual job numbers. You’re getting pricing that is conflicting. If you go to the grocery store, you’re looking at the prices, you’re saying there’s no way this is up 3.2 percent from last year. This is up 10, 12, 15 percent. So there’s confusion out there.”

    He then went on to try and explain why this is: “The confusion, Chris, is that you’ve got pockets of recession, which are natural when you have the Fed raise rates so quickly and hold them there for so long. And look, 5.5% is not an incredibly high rate on interest rates on the Fed funds rate historically. But when you raise rates from just over 0%, where they were holding for a decade, to 5%, it’s massive because we’ve become incredibly indebted in this nation, which we’re going to touch on quite a bit here. But the most important thing to understand is why people are asking, ‘If the Fed has raised rates so steeply, why is the inflation rate not come down? Why is it not back to the two percent or under two percent target?'”

    “And the answer is that it’s because the government is spending wildly, like so incredibly irresponsibly, that it’s causing what we’re calling fiscal dominance, meaning fiscal spending is dominating the Fed’s attempt to tackle inflation by raising rates. And so you’re seeing pockets of recession and people are feeling it. People are feeling it in their pocketbooks and their wallets,” he continued.

    James went on to describe the era of fiscal dominance we are entering: “So what’s happening is it’s the federal spending. It’s the government spending so much money that you’re seeing areas of deep recession. There’s just no question about it. Commercial real estate has a problem, and that means regional banks have a problem. The Fed is all over this. The regional Federal Reserve banks are all over this. They are working with these community banks to make sure that they don’t go under. And we’ve already seen them go under. We saw Silicon Valley go under. That’s a little bit of a different situation that didn’t have to do with commercial real estate, but that had to do with exactly what you talked about. So you have rates that rise catastrophically on a meteoric pace.”

    He also talked about how the rise in rates has effected treasuries on corporate balance sheets: “Treasuries were considered riskless because in the last 15 years, they were riskless. If you owned a treasury, there was pretty much a certainty that the price of that treasury would just gravitate to par, and you would mature and get your maturity payment and all the coupons along the way. However, when you raise interest rates from 0.025% to 5.5% on a bond with a 30-year duration, you’re basically saying that if you went to try to sell that treasury that you own, let’s say a 1.5% treasury with a 30-year yield, and it’s yielding 1.5%, and you try to sell that in the market, that’s a difference of four percent annually for that bond. So if this thing still has 7, 8, 10, or 15 years of duration on it, that means you’re marking this bond down significantly. It’s not just a few percent.”

    James pointed out that protecting the market is crucial at this stage: “The economy is driven by this, and it’s been shown for the last decade that the stock market really is a large part of the economy. It’s not just because of tax receipts off of capital gains, but because people look at their net worth and see their net worth go up in their stocks. They’re willing to spend more of their discretionary income rather than saving it because they think, ‘Oh, well, look, my net worth is up 20%, 30%, 40% in the last couple of years. I’m fine. I’m going to go ahead and spend my paycheck. I’m not going to put any more money into the market. I’m good.’ And so it just drives the economy.”

    🔥 80% OFF: Since it’s officially summer, I’m going to offer up my largest discount of the year for Fringe Finance: Get 80% off forever

    Lavish explains that any crisis now will be kicked up to the sovereign level for the first time in recent history: “We have the tech bubble, and that’s kind of kicked up to the banks. Then we continue on, and we’ve got this risk, this debt indebtedness, that’s now kicked up to the banks. And now we’re coming on the great financial crisis with the housing market. The housing bubble and all of these banks holding this mortgage paper, which is just garbage, end up going under. Where does it get kicked? It gets kicked up to the federal level. And now it’s sitting on the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet. Flash forward to 2020, and you’ve got the lockdowns that caused the entire economy to grind to a halt. The government, in a panic, went and monetized $6 trillion of debt. So now you’ve got a Fed balance sheet that’s holding more treasuries than anybody else in the world.”

    “What’s going on today is that the problem is we have a fiscal policy that is absolutely unimaginably irresponsible,” he says. “We’re running $2 trillion deficits at a time that we’re not even in a recession. All this matters because the indebtedness and the risk have been kicked all the way up to the sovereign level. The punchline is that if you have a collapse of the economy, it’s the sovereign level that must stomach it completely now.”

    And then he lays out the case bare: “We can walk through the numbers, but the bottom line is that the US government and the Treasury have entered a debt spiral. We now have $34.7 trillion of debt, which is over 120% of GDP. If you’re a country with debt over 120% of GDP, your fiat currency fails. This is where we’re at, and we’re just spending and spending and spending.”

    “What happens if you get into a recession? Your tax revenues drop precipitously, and your spending rises at a similar rate because of all your social programs like unemployment and wage security. You could wind up having a deficit that’s not $2 trillion but could be $3, $4, $5, or even $6 trillion if it gets bad enough. Just imagine that. Suddenly, we are adding over 10% to our debt in a year, maybe 20% in a year. That is the debt spiral.”

    He continues: “We can’t do that because the rest of the world will turn around and look at our bonds and say, ‘Why would I buy those bonds if they have to keep issuing new bonds to pay me for my bond?’ We are in a situation where we have to continually issue more and more debt. This is rising exponentially, and there really is no way out. That’s the problem.”

    “Modern monetary theory proponents think it’s just driving the economy; there’s no big deal. However, when the music stops and people stop having confidence in the U.S. Treasury, that feeds into the US dollar. That’s when you get into a problem. Why does that happen? It happens because of inflation. It all goes back to this central problem: this constant and relentless manipulation of the monetary system through central banks that create inflation.”

    “That is a soft default on that debt every single day because the dollars you’re getting paid back in the future are worth less than when you lent them out to the government initially. So, who wants to lend the U.S. Treasury dollars for 30 years when they know that inflation only has to go up to continue the charade?”

    “They get into what’s called a debt spiral. They can’t get out of it. And this is where we are. So what is the option for the U.S. government if they continue to borrow? What does that mean? Well, that means that they must have inflation. There absolutely is no way around it. That inflation allows GDP to grow nominally. Remember that $28.5 trillion number? That has to go up. Nominally meaning just in terms of dollars, not inflation-adjusted.”

    “When you have more dollars in the system, it creates more GDP because there’s more dollars. And so that GDP number goes up. The productivity number goes up. But it’s fake. It’s not more stuff. It’s just stuff that’s more expensive. So there are more dollars in the system. And when you go to pay down that debt in the future, you’re paying it down with dollars that are cheaper, that are worth less. This is called the debasement of the U.S. dollar. The U.S. dollar gets worth less and less and less every single year.”

    He concludes: “And so this is the challenge. The U.S. government absolutely must have negative real rates. What do I mean by that? That means they must have coupons on their treasuries that are lower than the inflation rate, and they have to have this in perpetuity. That’s the only way they can keep this charade going. It won’t go on forever. Make no mistake, this cannot go on forever.”

    You can listen to the full hour long interview, including insights on when the market cracks, ugly looking treasury auctions and more, at this link.

    QTR’s Disclaimer: Please read my full legal disclaimer on my About page here. This post represents my opinions only. In addition, please understand I am an idiot and often get things wrong and lose money. I may own or transact in any names mentioned in this piece at any time without warning. Contributor posts and aggregated posts have been hand selected by me, have not been fact checked and are the opinions of their authors. They are either submitted to QTR by their author, reprinted under a Creative Commons license with my best effort to uphold what the license asks, or with the permission of the author. This is not a recommendation to buy or sell any stocks or securities, just my opinions. I often lose money on positions I trade/invest in. I may add any name mentioned in this article and sell any name mentioned in this piece at any time, without further warning. None of this is a solicitation to buy or sell securities. These positions can change immediately as soon as I publish this, with or without notice. You are on your own. Do not make decisions based on my blog. I exist on the fringe. The publisher does not guarantee the accuracy or completeness of the information provided in this page. These are not the opinions of any of my employers, partners, or associates. I did my best to be honest about my disclosures but can’t guarantee I am right; I write these posts after a couple beers sometimes. I edit after my posts are published because I’m impatient and lazy, so if you see a typo, check back in a half hour. Also, I just straight up get shit wrong a lot. I mention it twice because it’s that important.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 06/23/2024 – 14:00

  • SpaceX Leads Reusable Rocket Race, While China Continues Crashing Boosters To Earth
    SpaceX Leads Reusable Rocket Race, While China Continues Crashing Boosters To Earth

    As of early last week, Elon Musk’s SpaceX had completed 356 launches, 319 landings, and 290 relights, according to flight data from Fox News. This is a monumental achievement for the world’s first private space company to pioneer and deploy reusable rockets. 

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    The reusable Falcon 9 rocket has dominated the launch industry and propelled America into the number one spot in the global space race. 

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    Data from BryceTech shows SpaceX launched 525 spacecraft into orbit in the first quarter. This is more than any other space program worldwide, surpassing China and Russia by a considerable margin. 

    SpaceX launched about 429,125 kg of spacecraft upmass in the quarter, significantly outpacing China’s rocket program (China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation), which launched a measly 29,426 kg. 

    SpaceX’s next-generation Starship rocket, which successfully completed a test flight earlier this month, could indicate that America’s rocket program will lead through 2030.

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    Pivoting to China, where reusable rockets have yet to be deployed, a Long March 2C rocket launched days ago shows the rocket booster falling back to Earth, landing in a populated area with people running for cover. 

    The booster fell to Earth near Guiding County, Qiandongnan Prefecture in Guizhou province, according to another post. An airspace closure notice for the mission established a temporary danger area containing Guiding County, Guizhou. –SpaceNews

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    What’s evident is that China has yet to master reusable rockets, while SpaceX successfully landed its first reusable Falcon 9 rocket in 2015.

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    Earlier this year, there were reports that Beijing-based Orienspace was working on reusable rockets, but the first test flight might not occur until late 2025 or even 2026.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 06/23/2024 – 13:25

  • Hezbollah Shows Off Israeli Target Bank Of Sensitive Sites In New Video Warning
    Hezbollah Shows Off Israeli Target Bank Of Sensitive Sites In New Video Warning

    Via The Cradle

    Hezbollah released a video titled “To whom it may concern” on Saturday, featuring coordinates of sensitive and vital Israeli targets that would be struck in the event of a war against Lebanon, marking the second such warning within less than a week. 

    The video begins with a clip from the latest speech by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, where he warns that the Lebanese resistance will fight “without limits, rules, or restraints” if Israel wages a war against Lebanon. It then proceeds to show numerous targets across Israel. 

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    The targets include several sensitive targets in Haifa, the port of Ashdod, the Hadera power station, the Ramat David Military Airport in Afula, Pengrion Airport, Nevatim air base, oil refineries on the coast, and the Research Center at the Dimona Nuclear Reactor. 

    The clip also showed the HaKirya Complex, which includes the headquarters of the Israeli Ministry of Security and the General Staff. Fears are growing in Israel as Tel Aviv has threatened that it is preparing an expanded attack on Lebanon.

    Also on Saturday, retired Israeli general Yitzhak Brik said that declaring war on Lebanon would mean “mass suicide for Israel.”

    The new clip came just a few days after Hezbollah released a nine-minute video of footage filmed by its drones, “…what the hoopoe came back with,” which show several sensitive sites in Israel’s north, namely the port of Haifa and the warships and military sites in its vicinity. 

    The video also showed buildings belonging to the Israeli Rafael defense technology firm north of Haifa, where air defense missiles for the Iron Dome and David’s Sling systems are manufactured, assembled, and stored.

    Below: Hezbollah releases close-up surveillance footage captured recently by its reconnaissance drones, showing sensitive Israeli targets in the north – including Haifa Port, a number of Iron Dome Platforms, and military complexes.

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    “The Hezbollah video conveys an unequivocal message to Israel, that the party is present inside Israel by the air, land, and sea, and is planning what comes next, and that is capable of carrying out severe strikes,” Israel’s Channel 14 news outlet said last week, adding that the filming of this footage is “an Israeli security failure of the first degree … The situation in the north is much worse than we imagine.”

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 06/23/2024 – 12:50

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Jun 23

Today’s News 23rd June 2024

  • How Likely Is It That The US Replaces Zelensky In The First Half Of Next Year?
    How Likely Is It That The US Replaces Zelensky In The First Half Of Next Year?

    Authored by Andrew Korybvko via Substack,

    President Putin shared his view during a press conference in Hanoi that the US will replace Zelensky during the first half of next year after they use him to make unpopular decisions such as further lowering the draft age.

    His prediction coincided with Russia’s foreign intelligence service publishing its latest such report about this scenario, which claimed that Zaluzhny is being seriously considered by the US as his replacement and is also deemed to be more suitable for negotiating peace with Moscow than others.

    It was explained last month how “Russia Hopes To Influence Ukraine’s Possibly Impending US-Backed Regime Change Process” after that same service released a related report about this at the time. This strategy continues unfolding as evidenced by President Putin declaring two weeks ago that the Rada Speaker is now the legitimate leader of Ukraine if the Constitution is still being followed. Accordingly, he said that Russia could negotiate with him or someone else if Kiev is interested in peace, but not Zelensky.

    As regards the conflict’s military-strategic dynamics, they continue trending in Russia’s favor and won’t be changed by minor adjustments to US policy such as letting Ukraine use its arms to hit any targets across the border that are allegedly planning to cross the frontier.

    The only variable that can make a meaningful difference at this point in time is if NATO stages a conventional intervention, but that would spike the risk of World War III by miscalculation.

    Returning back to President Putin’s prediction about Zelensky being replaced in the first half of next year, he’s either assuming that no such conventional intervention will occur or that the subsequent escalation would remain manageable instead of spiraling into the apocalypse.

    Regarding the first possibility, there’s a chance that this won’t happen since it’s dependent on Russia achieving a military breakthrough across the front lines, which NATO could then exploit to justify directly involving itself in this conflict.

    That might either not happen and thus rule out this scenario, or it’ll unfold and then set that sequence of events into motion, therefore leading to the second possibility of them managing this escalation.

    In that case, Russia might either eschew striking NATO units so long as they don’t cross the Dnieper and pose a credible threat to its new regions, or they’ll engage in controllable tit-for-tat strikes before freezing the conflict. No matter what happens, however, Zelensky’s political future is set in stone.  

    The first possibility is actually much worse for him since he’ll be pressured like never before to lower the draft age as soon as possible in order to replace all the meat that’ll have to be ground to prevent a Russian breakthrough across the front lines.

    It’s impossible to predict the timing with which he’d then be replaced since it depends on when that policy is implemented and whether (and how long) the secret police can control the public’s furious reaction to sending their young adult males to the slaughter.

    If NATO conventionally intervenes in Ukraine but the escalation doesn’t spiral into World War III by miscalculation, which of course can’t be taken for granted, then the bloc might keep Zelensky in place only until they reach a deal with Russia for comprehensively managing Europe’s “new normal”. Once that’s achieved, whenever it may be, he’ll then be pushed aside in order to herald the coming of the so-called “new Ukraine” under these new circumstances and turn the page on this dark period.

    Just like in the first possibility, he’d only remain in power long enough to make unpopular decisions, albeit under totally different circumstances in that case. Nevertheless, the writing is on the wall, and it’s that his political career is drawing to a close either way. Zelensky’s only use right now is to legitimize radical policies in either scenario. He’ll then be cast aside once he’s done what’s needed of him, though it’s unclear when that’ll be since everything depends on whether NATO conventionally intervenes.

     

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 06/22/2024 – 23:20

  • Nuclear Weapon Spending On The Rise
    Nuclear Weapon Spending On The Rise

    Global spending on nuclear weapons rose by 13.4 percent in 2023.

    As Statista’s Martin Armstrong reports, a newly released report from the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) shows, the United States instigated the largest proportional annual increase with a rise of almost 18 percent, closely followed by the United Kingdom with 17.1 percent.

    Infographic: Nuclear Weapon Spending on the Rise | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    In terms of spending, the U.S. had the largest outlay last year by some margin: $51.5 billion, compared to the second highest total of $11.9 billion in China.

    The total global spend equated to an estimated $91.4 billion, the equivalent of $173,884 every minute. 2023 wasn’t a freak year, either, but rather the continuation of a trend.

    From 2019 to 2023, global spending rose by 34 percent.

    As reported by ICAN, a cumulative $387 billion was spent to build and maintain nuclear weapons over this five year period.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 06/22/2024 – 22:45

  • Common Sense And Memes Are Viruses To The New World Order
    Common Sense And Memes Are Viruses To The New World Order

    Authored by Doug “Uncola” Lynn via TheBurningPlatform.com,

    The welfare of humanity is always the alibi of tyrants.

    – Albert Camus

    Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

    – C.S. Lewis

    Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.

    – Albert Einstein

    If there is one thing that became perfectly clear during my time in the dump truck, it is this:  The world runs on diesel. So every time I see a semi hauling a wind turbine, the following considerations come to mind:  How many blades have been transported for how many windmills in how many areas?  How much petroleum, or coal, or nuclear power, was utilized in the construction of said blades?  How many gallons of diesel fuel were used to excavate the ground to run power lines from the rural areas where the wind turbines are located?

    For what genuine purpose are wind turbines planted? Who benefits? And how much maintenance will the turbines, subjected to the elements, require over time? What is the net payoff?

    Certainly, wind power, or solar, or electric vehicles, for that matter, are not currently self-sustaining. Instead, these are now subsidized by false narratives, and tax-payer funds, all in the service of Anthropological Climate Change®, which is an epic lie.

    Last fall, in a previous article under the paragraph heading “The electric school bus acid test…”, I described the electric school bus “sales pitch” being made to schools.  Consequently, earlier this month, I spoke to the transportation supervisor of our local school system and asked if he planned to order any electric vehicles this summer.  Fortunately, he said “no”.  He added that the superintendent was like-minded because of some information the supervisor had previously shared.  The supervisor said he had contacted the local utilities and was informed their power plant did not have the capacity to power a fleet of electric buses during peak usage.  Of course, peak usage occurs during the school year in a cold climate.

    To be sure, narratives are so powerful because people believe them. Folks then act on their beliefs and sh*t happens.   This is why the global propaganda models remain ever-fluid and universal:  Problems are magnified via deception.  As a result, the reasoning of “authorities” seems quite noble to virtue-signaling ignoramuses eager to embrace the lies.  Tyranny ensues.

    The War on Terror.  The War on Invisible Viruses.  The Wars against Foreign Aggressors. The War against Racism. The War against Sexism. The War against the Patriarchy. The War on the Weather.

    Evidently, therefore, a correction is now required on my part:  The world runs on diesel and bullsh*t.   Except diesel is being phased out by climitards who Stand With Ukraine®.

    Relativism, undeniably, trends in modernity.  And Orwell was right:

    The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labour. War is a way of shattering to pieces, or pouring into the stratosphere, or sinking in the depths of the sea, materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable, and hence, in the long run, too intelligent.

    — Orwell, George, ”1984”: part 2, chapter 9

    So whether by Marxism or any other form of secular utopianism:  The goals are always out with the “old” and in with the “new”.  Order out of chaos.  Dissolve and coagulate.

    Also like Orwell’s “1984”:  The world’s global societal power structure is stratified into concentric rings of power.  The Inner Party functions to continuously preserve and enrich itself; as the Outer Party (i.e. those following orders) and the Proles are utilized and cannibalized when necessary. The circles of power have become increasingly interconnected in modernity; and technology allows the Inner Party to launch policies that are enforced by the Outer Party and unto the Proles.

    This process is also called “history”.

    The Outer Party depends upon the Inner Party for survival and it always remains a difficult challenge to convince the Proles of something they can’t, or won’t, see.

    As a result, history unwinds in inevitable, cyclical waves.  Yet, the Inner Party has survived for generations – even before the establishment of the Federal Reserve in 1913 and its unleashing of the modern Fractional Reserve Banking monster.

    Slavery is rooted in economics; and so the Inner Party uses debt to implement and expand its various wars. The rich get richer as the poor suffer, starve, and die.

    While driving the other day, I listened to an “expert” on AM radio discussing the vast increase of carbon in Earth’s atmosphere and the conclusion was this:  “Climate Change is real!”

    The radio voice seemed very confident in its conclusions and, by implication, it was ready to do everything necessary to stop what it perceived as a genuine threat.  Always the same dialectics, again and again.

    What’s wrong with carbon, again?

    Is America having seizures? Or postmortem convulsions?

    At this point in time, I am convinced it’s the latter.

    While in communication with a retired retarded professor, she expressed exasperation at those who still plan to vote for Trump.  After all, he was convicted by a jury of his peers and is now a convicted felon.

    In response, and from memory, I typed out a meme I saw on the internet:  “He lived over 70 years without a criminal record. But when he ran for president he was charged with over 90 crimes! How can you explain that?”

    Silence.  But… oops!  Did you notice what I did there? Did you see how the Inner Party’s phony dialectics had me defending the proud promoter of Operation Warp Speed®?

    Behind the proliferating Kayfabe FUBAR, however, the Inner Party works tirelessly toward the establishment of their New World Order by 2030:  A high-tech prison camp ruled by “stakeholders”.

    When it was revealed that U.S. Senate ratification was required for the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Pandemic “Treaty”, it was, instead, transitioned into an “agreement”.  Except that strategy went down in flames, too, at the WHO’s 77th World Health Assembly.  In response, Team Biden, China, and other unelected WHO totalitarians stealthily passed new International Health Regulations (IHR) behind closed doors. This was done on June 1, 2024 in Geneva, Switzerland.  The Ethiopian Communist, and WHO Director, Tedros Ghebreyesus, violated the IHR’s Article 55.2 eligibility requirements and with less than the required quorum of member states voting. This power grab was completely illegal and unlawfully elevated the WHO “from a global advisory-only body to an international enforcer of its mandates.”

    So we all better get the word out, before it’s too late.  Especially now that it’s another election year so flu season is almost here.

    Politics is the religion of Marxists as well as all those who seek to establish any sort of earthly “utopia”.  But, to the Luciferians, Freemasons, and the friends of Jeffrey Epstein, politics is merely the means to their ends; and, in their view, communism has proven to be an efficient means to eventually control and depopulate political enemies and uncooperative Proles.

    World War III is a War on the Petrodollar and it serves as just another means to facilitate the collapse of the West.  Accordingly, the high-speed daily saturation of arbitrary polemics has made it near impossible to discern, distill, and dispute what is occurring around the globe – which is, also, surely, part of the plan

    The Inner Party was always long on communism; this is why U.S. manufacturing was gutted on behalf of China, and why the American economy has been Cloward & Pivened as corporate, political, and religious institutions have undergone Wokeification. The Inner Party’s desired NWO is an economic, political, and faith-based multi-polar dystopia; but, as I’ve stated before, any ideology, whatsoever, could be used as the “faith” to control the material and online realms: Fascism, Communism, Islam, Freemasonry, Luciferianism, Outer Space Aliens, or a witch’s brew of any, or all, of these to be administered as technocratic totalitarianism.

    If Trump wins the 2024 U.S. Presidential Election he will surely embrace a new global order blended into separate (multi-national) economic regions.

    Or maybe Trump will be imprisoned or killed before the election, thus, igniting the ever-simmering rage of American Patriots.

    Toward whatever outcome, however, the fists of anti-democratic revolutions are forming, Left and Right.

    The Inner Party has been successful, once again, in its efforts to distract and divide. This is so it can rule over fractious factions of enemies.  It’s a king’s strategy that has been applied continuously throughout history.

    Even so, the memes march forward. They gather like torches in the dark.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 06/22/2024 – 22:10

  • These Are The Countries With The Highest Smoking Rates
    These Are The Countries With The Highest Smoking Rates

    It was not until 1950 when the link between smoking and lung cancer was proven, though physicians as far back as the late 19th century had identified it as a potential cause.

    Since then, many countries have discouraged tobacco products in an attempt to reduce smoking rates, and consequent health effects.

    In the following infographic, Visual Capitalist’s Pallavi Rao visualizes the countries with the highest rates of tobacco use among their population aged 15 and older.

    Data is sourced from the World Health Organization, and is current up to 2022.

    Which Countries Smoke the Most?

    In Nauru, nearly half of the population aged 15+ uses a tobacco product, the highest in the world. The island also has a high obesity rate, and nearly one-third of the population suffers from diabetes, due to poor nutritional variety in the food supply.

    Here’s a list of smoking rates by country, ranked from highest to lowest.

    Note: Figures rounded. “Tobacco use” includes smoke and smokeless products.

    Meanwhile, countries in the Balkan also see a high incidence of tobacco use, bucking the general European trend. Entrenched cultural norms, lax laws, and inexpensive cigarettes are some of the most commonly identified causes.

    On the other hand, tobacco use is a lot lower in the Americas and sub-Saharan Africa.

    In the U.S., fewer than one in four adults smoke. Canada is even lower at 12% of the population. But some African countries (Nigeria and Ghana) are all the way down in the single-digits, at 3%.

    Interestingly, men smoke more than women in nearly every country in the world.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 06/22/2024 – 21:35

  • Gaps In Electoral College Tiebreaker Rules Could Bring Constitutional Crisis
    Gaps In Electoral College Tiebreaker Rules Could Bring Constitutional Crisis

    By Brian McGlinchey at Stark Realities

    While many Americans know that an Electoral College tie sends presidential and vice presidential elections into the House of Representatives and Senate, few realize there’s a constitutional crisis lurking in the incomplete rules for resolving such draws.

    In 2024, scrutiny of these hidden dangers is more than a mere academic exercise, as there are plausible scenarios by which Joe Biden and Donald Trump could end up with 269 electoral votes apiece. One, for example, centers on Trump winning Nevada, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, and Biden winning Georgia, North Carolina and Arizona.

    One of the scenarios that could yield a 2024 Electoral College tie (via 270toWin)

    In the event neither candidate reaches the requisite 270 electoral votes, Americans would witness the first “contingent election” in 100 years. In accordance with the 12th Amendment, the president would be chosen by the House of Representatives, and the vice-president by the Senate. In both chambers, votes would be cast by the newly-elected Congress that first convenes in January.

    That top-level description — which is about all you typically get from most media references to the possibility —is deceptively simplistic. In practice, a contingent election would be far messier than most Americans realize, with the potential for a deadlock that leaves the Oval Office unattended.

    “Unsettled legal and procedural questions permeate nearly every aspect of the process,” wrote Beau Tremitiere and Aisha Woodward at Lawfare, “and in today’s political environment, high-stakes legal disputes and constitutional hardball would be inevitable.”

    Before we look at the lurking risks to an orderly transfer of power, let’s quickly review some contingent-election basics. In the House, presidential votes are cast not by individual representatives, but by state delegations, with each state having a single vote. The House chooses from the top three Electoral College vote-getters; of course, in most years, only the two major-party candidates receive any. Winning requires the votes of 26 states.

    As of today, Republicans control 26 House delegations compared to the Democrats’ 22, while the North Carolina and Minnesota delegations are evenly split among the two parties. However, since the votes would be cast by the victors of the November election, the delegation-control math could be different when the 119th Congress is gaveled into existence at noon on Jan. 3.

    If the House vote for president results in a tie, the state delegations keep on voting until there’s a winner. If that hasn’t happened by Inauguration Day — January 20, 2025 — the new vice president becomes acting president until a candidate gets 26 votes in the House.

    Things work a little differently in the Senate. Unlike the House’s state-delegation approach, individual senators cast their own vote for vice president. Rather than the top three electoral-vote finishers, senators pick among the top two. Counting independents who caucus with the Democrats, the Democrats currently control the Senate by a slim 51-49 margin, but face an uphill climb to retain a majority in January.

    Here’s where we encounter a major gap in the contingent-election rules: While the 12th Amendment spells out what to do if the House is deadlocked on Inauguration Day, it fails to address the same possibility in the Senate.

    The vice president is also president of the Senate. During ordinary business, vice presidents are summoned to cast tie-breaking votes. Some suggest that, since Kamala Harris would be vice president during the contingent election, she would simply cast a tiebreaking vote — for herself.

    However, the 12th Amendment stipulates that “a majority of the whole number [of Senators] shall be necessary to make a choice [of vice president].” Some scholars argue that this rules out a tiebreaking vote being cast by the vice president, who is, strictly speaking, not a “senator.”

    The most concerning scenario would arise if both the House and Senate are deadlocked on Jan. 20. If that happens, some say the new president should be selected using the Presidential Succession Act of 1947. That’s the law that provides a line of succession that proceeds from vice president to speaker of the house, president pro tempore of the Senate, and then through the cabinet secretaries in order of their departments’ founding date, with State coming first.

    Not everyone agrees on that solution. “The Succession Act does not clearly apply to a failure by the House to elect a President or the Senate a Vice President by the time the new terms of those officers begin,” wrote William Josephson in the Journal of Constitutional Law.

    According to its language, the Succession Act applies to the absence of a president “by reason of death, resignation, removal from office, inability, or failure to qualify.” That last term seemingly refers to constitutional qualifications for office — such as being 35 years old and a natural citizen — and not the failure of any candidate to receive the requisite number of electoral votes or contingent-election votes.

    On top of that, it’s been argued that the Succession Act’s inclusion of the House speaker and Senate president pro tempore in the succession sequence violates the Constitution. “The best reading of the Constitution’s text, history, and structure excludes federal legislators from the line of presidential succession,” wrote Akhil Reed Amar and Vikram David Amar in the Stanford Law Review.

    Even if the Succession Act were to be applied, Americans may be surprised by who ends up serving as interim president. The House speaker would almost certainly refuse the opportunity to ascend. Given politicians’ huge appetites for power, that’s counterintuitive — but not when you consider that, under the Succession Act, the speaker becomes president only “upon his resignation as speaker and as representative in Congress.”

    Knowing the House could sort out the contingent-election impasse in short order, most speakers would recoil at the idea of tossing away not only the speakership but even their seat. If the Senate president pro tempore likewise refused, that could lead to a President Antony Blinken as an interim solution. Again, that’s only based on the highly dubious assumption that the Succession Act covers a tied-election scenario.

    Partisan Procedural Warfare

    As if gaps in the basic rules of a contingent election weren’t enough, the process would also be subject to delays and breakdowns arising from parliamentary gamesmanship.

    As many more Americans now know — thanks to what happened last time around — Jan. 6 is the legally-prescribed date on which Congress counts electoral votes submitted by the states. If there’s a tie, the 12th Amendment says the House must “choose immediately, by ballot, the President.”

    The electoral vote count on January 6, 2021 was particularly well-attended 

    Like so many other words in Washington, “immediately” can’t be taken at face value. Since Congress has never gotten around to passing a law spelling out how contingent elections are to be administered, the House would first need to adopt a set of rules for the process. The majority party as of January 2025 would be incentivized to force rules that favor its candidate.

    To give one example of how the rules could be tailored to one party’s benefit, note that the 12th Amendment doesn’t stipulate how the House’s individual state delegations conduct their votes, or whether the state’s decision must spring from a plurality, simple majority or supermajority of the delegation.

    Different procedural machinations could unfold as the Senate carries out its vice presidential election. Under Senate rules, ending debate and moving to a vote requires the consent of 60 senators — but it’s unlikely either party will have that many seats in January, which means the VP vote could be delayed by a filibuster. To break it, the majority party could be compelled to “go nuclear” — changing Senate rules so only a simple majority is needed to cut off debate.

    Given the enormous stakes, the majority party could be tempted to use far more extreme tactics. In the House, that could mean expelling or refusing to seat members of state delegations that would otherwise be evenly split among Democrats and Republicans, or those delegations where the chamber’s minority party has a mere one-vote advantage.

    As all these controversies and procedural duels play out, the clock will be ticking — and there are just 14 days between Jan. 6 and the Jan. 20 inauguration. Over that short period, any number of high-stakes legal challenges could play out in various courts.

    While the prospect of rushed litigation is disconcerting, it may also be wishful thinking. Due to separation-of-powers concerns, the federal judiciary has historically avoided involving itself in what it considers internal congressional disputes. If controversy erupts over how the contingent election is being administered in the House or Senate, there may be no external referee for an aggrieved party to turn to.

    In short, if both contests are still unsettled on Inauguration Day, America could conceivably be without a president or vice president and without any final authority on how to name a temporary one.

    Potential “Faithless Elector” Mayhem

    What seems like a 269-269 tie on Nov. 6 could be resolved in an altogether different and even more controversial way: One or more presidential electors could go rogue when the Electoral College votes on Dec. 17, voting for someone other than the winner of their state’s popular vote.

    In 2016, there were a whopping ten such “faithless electors.” Texan Bill Greene, for example, voted for libertarian Ron Paul, who’d made a spirited bid for the GOP nomination. While a 2020 Supreme Court ruling upheld the power of states to impose penalties on faithless electors, many states have no laws barring deviant votes, some states have laws with no penalties, and many states have no provision for canceling deviant votes.

    In a less likely but more explosive scenario, rather than breaking a seeming 269-269 tie, faithless electors could instead cause a tie and a contingent election. Keeping in mind that the House chooses from the top three electoral-vote recipients, faithless electors could throw someone other than Biden and Trump into the mix — such as independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr, or someone else who could end up becoming president as a House compromise candidate.

    Americans can debate the likelihood of a 2024 electoral college tie and ensuing contingent-election deadlock. However, until gaps in the Electoral College tiebreaker rules are filled by new federal law and perhaps a constitutional amendment, we’ll keep playing a quadrennial game of chance that could someday result in an unprecedented crisis from which there is no clear exit.

    Stark Realities undermines official narratives, demolishes conventional wisdom and exposes fundamental myths across the political spectrum. Read more and subscribe at starkrealities.substack.com  

    Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ZeroHedge.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 06/22/2024 – 21:00

  • Social Media: Where It's Hardest To Tell Truth From Fake News
    Social Media: Where It’s Hardest To Tell Truth From Fake News

    According to a survey conducted in 47 markets for the Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2024, concern over what is real or not on the internet in general is on the rise.

    Such concerns were notably prevalent in some of the countries holding elections this year, including South Africa (81 percent), the United States (72 percent) and the United Kingdom (70 percent).

    Expanding on the concerns themselves, the writers write:

    “Previous research shows that these audience concerns about misinformation are often driven less by news that is completely ‘made up’ and more about seeing opinions and agendas that they may disagree with – as well as journalism they regard as superficial and unsubstantiated.”

    Specifically, Statista’s Anna Fleck notes that TikTok and X are the hardest social media platforms for identifying whether news content is trustworthy…

    Infographic: Social Media: Where It's Hardest to Tell Truth From Fake News | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    As the chart above shows, roughly one in four respondents surveyed in early 2024 said that it was at least somewhat difficult to make the distinction between truth and fake news on the two platforms.

    Facebook and Instagram weren’t far behind though, with 21 percent and 20 percent saying the same, respectively.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 06/22/2024 – 20:25

  • "We Need Icebreakers"… And More Strategic Partnerships
    “We Need Icebreakers”… And More Strategic Partnerships

    Authored by Pepe Escobar,

    The St. Petersburg forum offered a wealth of crucial sessions discussing connectivity corridors. One of the key ones was on the Northern Sea Route (NSR) – or, in Chinese terminology, the Arctic Silk Road: the number one future alternative to the Suez canal.

    With an array of main corporate actors in the room – for instance, from Rosneft, Novatek, Norilsk Nickel – as well as governors and ministers, the stage was set for a comprehensive debate.

    Top Putin adviser Igor Levitin set the tone: to facilitate seamless container transport, the federal government needs to invest in seaports and icebreakers; a comparison was made – in terms of technological challenge – to the building of the Trans-Siberian railway; and Levitin also stressed the endless expansion possibilities for city hubs such as Murmansk, Archangelsk and Vladivostok.

    Add to it that the NSR will connect with another fast-growing trans-Eurasia connectivity corridor: the INSTC (International North South Transportation Corridor), whose main actors are BRICS members Russia, Iran and India.

    Alexey Chekunkov, minister for development of the Far East and the Arctic, plugged a trial run of the NSR, which costs the same as railway shipping without the bottlenecks. He praised the NSR as a “service” and coined the ultimate motto: “We need icebreakers!” Russia of course will be the leading player in the whole project, benefitting 2.5 million people who live in the North.

    Sultan Sulayem, CEO of Dubai-based cargo logistics and maritime services powerhouse DP World, confirmed that “the current supply chains are not reliable anymore”, as well as being inefficient; the NSR is “faster, more reliable and cheaper”. From Tokyo to London, the route runs for 24k km; via the NSR, it’s only 13k km.

    Sulayem is adamant: the NSR is a game-changer and “needs to be implemented now”.

    Vladimir Panov, the special representative for the Arctic from Rosatom, confirmed that the Arctic is “a treasure chest”, and the NSR “will unlock it”. Rosatom will have all the necessary infrastructure in place “in five years or so”. He credited the fast pace of developments to the high-level Putin-Xi strategic dialogue – complete with the creation of a Russia-China working group.

    Andrey Chibis, the governor of Murmansk, noted that this deep, key port for the NSR – the main container hub in the Arctic – “does not freeze”. He acknowledged the enormity of the logistical challenges – but at the same time that will attract a lot of skilled workers, considering the high quality of life in Murmansk.

    A maze of interconnected corridors

    The building of the NSR indeed can be interpreted as a 21st century, accelerated version of the building of the Trans-Siberian railway in the late 19th/early 20th century. Under the overarching framework of Eurasia integration, the interconnections with other corridors will be endless – from the INSTC to BRI projects part of the Chinese New Silk Roads, the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU) and ASEAN.

    In a session focused on the Greater Eurasia Partnership (GEP) Russian Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Alexander Pankin praised this concept of Eurasia “without dividing lines, uniting ancient civilizations, transportation corridors and a unified common space of 5 billion people”.

    Inevitable connections were drawn – from GEP to the EAEU and the SCO, with the proliferation of multimodal transport and alternative payment systems. Khan Sohail, the deputy secretary-general of the SCO, remarked how virtually “everyday there are new announcements by China” – a long way “since the SCO was established 21 years ago”, then based exclusively on security. Big developments are expected at the SCO summit next month in Astana.

    Sergey Glazyev, the minister of macroeconomics at the Eurasia Economic Commission, part of the EAEU, praised the EAEU-SCO progressive integration and fast-developing transactions in baskets of national currencies, something “that was unchallengeable 10 years ago”.

    He admitted that even if GEP has not been formalized yet, facts on the ground are proving that Eurasia can be self-sufficient. GEP may be on the initial stage, but it’s fast advancing the process to “harmonize free trade”.

    Another key session in St. Petersburg was exactly on the EAEU-ASEAN connection. The ASEAN 10 already configure the 4th largest trading bloc in the world, moving $3.8 trillion and 7.8% of global trade annually. The EAEU already has a free trade agreement (FTA) with Vietnam and is clinching another with Indonesia.

    And then there’s Northeast Asia. Which brings us to the ground-breaking visit by President Putin to the DPRK.

    A new concept of Eurasia security

    This was quite the epic business trip. Russia and the DPRK signed no less than a new Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Agreement.

    On trade, that will allow a renewed flux to Russia of DPRK weapons – artillery shells to ballistics -, magnetic ore, heavy industry and machine tool industry, as well as the back-and-forth of an army of mega-skilled IT specialists.

    Kim Jong-un described the agreement as “peaceful” and “defensive”. And much more: it will become “the driving force accelerating the creation of a new multipolar world.”

    When it comes to Northeast Asia, the agreement is nothing less than a total paradigm shift.

    To start with, these are two independent, sovereign foreign policy actors. They will not blackmailed. They totally oppose sanctions as a hegemonic tool. In consequence, they have just determined there will be no more UN Security Council sanctions on the DPRK enacted by the U.S..

    The key clause establishing mutual assistance in case of foreign aggression against either Russia or the DPRK means, in practice, the establishment of a military-political alliance – even as Moscow, cautiously, prefers to phrase that it “does not exclude the possibility of military-technical cooperation”.

    The agreement completely shocked Exceptionalistan because it is a swift counterpunch not only against NATO’s global designs but against the Hegemon itself, which for decades has enforced a comprehensive military-political alliance with both Japan and South Korea.

    Translation: from now on there is no more military-political Hegemony in Northeast Asia – and in Asia-Pacific as a whole. Beijing will be delighted. Talk about a strategic game-changer. Accomplished without a single bullet being fired.

    The repercussions will be immense, because a broader concept of “security” will now apply equally to Europe and Asia.

    So welcome, in practice, to Putin the statesman advancing a new integrated, comprehensive concept of Eurasian security (italics mine). No wonder the mentally-impaired collective West is stunned.

    Gilbert Doctorow correctly observed how “Putin considers what NATO is about to do at its Western borders as the very act of aggression that will trigger Russia’s Strategic Partnership with North Korea and present the United States with a live threat to its military bases” in Korea, in Japan and in the wider Asia-Pacific.

    And it doesn’t matter at all if the Russian response will be symmetric or asymmetric. The crucial fact is that the U.S. “containment” of the Russia-China strategic partnership is already unravelling in real time.

    In auspicious terms, Eurasia-style, what matters now is to focus on connectivity corridors. This is a story that started in previous editions of the St. Petersburg forum: how to connect the DPRK to the Russian Far East, and beyond to Siberia and wider Eurasia. The DPRK’s founding concept of Juche (“self-reliance”, “autonomy”) is about to enter a whole new era – in parallel to the NSR consolidation in the Arctic.

    Everyone indeed needs icebreakers – in more ways than one.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 06/22/2024 – 19:50

  • "Here In Ten Days": Dust Plume From Africa Headed To US Gulf Coast 
    “Here In Ten Days”: Dust Plume From Africa Headed To US Gulf Coast 

    Around this time each year, strong trade winds over northwest Africa stir up Saharan dust, carrying it thousands of miles across the Atlantic Ocean, through the Caribbean Sea, and eventually over the US Gulf Coast. This year’s first wave of Saharan dust is expected by the end of the month. 

    “Dust from Africa here the next 10 days. Will help keep things quiet it looks like this next week, especially in the Caribbean,” Mike’s Weather Page wrote in a post on X, along with a forecast model showing the dust will reach Florida and the rest of the Gulf Coast by next weekend. 

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    The National Hurricane Center explained in a post on X that the dust would keep tropical activity low through next week.

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    Current NHC data shows light tropical activity, with one active system in the southern Gulf of Mexico. 

    Before the Saharan dust arrives in South Florida, a heat dome has scorched parts of the eastern US for the past week, and this intense heat is expected to continue into next week.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 06/22/2024 – 19:15

  • LEGO Produces 'Pride' Video With Drag Queens And Furries
    LEGO Produces ‘Pride’ Video With Drag Queens And Furries

    Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

    Children’s toy company LEGO has released a ‘Pride’ video featuring drag queens and even furries in toy form.

    Yes, they are furries, not just random bears taking part in a Pride parade. 

    Who exactly is this aimed at?

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    Actual real gay people are fed up of this crap.

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    The kids unfortunately don’t get a choice.

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    They don’t even hide it anymore.

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    Don’t think you’ll be seeing this in Saudi.

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    Well done LEGO on alienating your last remaining customers.

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    Meanwhile in London, the mayor is ‘celebrating’ Pride by erecting giant billboards glorifying the removal of healthy breasts. 

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    Happy ‘Pride’.

    *  *  *

    Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 06/22/2024 – 18:40

  • US-Built Gaza Pier To Be Dismantled Early Amid Ongoing Failures
    US-Built Gaza Pier To Be Dismantled Early Amid Ongoing Failures

    Following the latest weather and choppy seas setback, the US-built aid pier off Gaza has resumed operations as of the end of this week (Thursday), the Pentagon said, after it broke apart last month. It’s been an on-again off-again situation and the controversial and costly pier project has by and large proven ineffective.

    But despite aid reportedly now rolling off the pier once again, Israeli media on Saturday has documented more embarrassing issues, including apparently broken off parts from the pier still washing up to shore far away from its location…

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    Following significant repairs it underwent at an Israeli port, the pier was transferred back in place amid a series of problems largely due to turbulent seas in the eastern Mediterranean..

    The Associated Press has written in a fresh report that “Aid groups have sharply criticized the plan to bring aid by sea into Gaza, saying it’s a distraction to take pressure off Israel to open more land border crossings that are far more productive.”

    This week The New York Times essentially declared that the expensive Biden project is an utter failure and that it will be dismantled earlier than expected.

    “The $230 million temporary pier that the U.S. military built on short notice to rush humanitarian aid to Gaza has largely failed in its mission, aid organizations say, and will probably end operations weeks earlier than originally expected,” the Times wrote.

    “In the month since it was attached to the shoreline, the pier has been in service only about 10 days. The rest of the time, it was being repaired after rough seas broke it apart, detached to avoid further damage or paused because of security concerns,” the report continued.

    Anadolu via Getty Images

    Top US military officials have also acknowledged the failure of the project: “The pier was never meant to be more than a stopgap measure while the Biden administration pushed Israel to allow more food and other supplies into Gaza through land routes, a far more efficient way to deliver relief. But even the modest goals for the pier are likely to fall short, some American military officials say,” according to NYT.

    This project was never fundamentally about hungry Palestinians, but more about White House PR and damage control amid an avalanche of international and domestic criticism over Biden’s contradictory Gaza policy.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 06/22/2024 – 18:05

  • Paxton Warns Texas Schools Not To Comply With Title IX Transgender Rules Or Face Legal Action
    Paxton Warns Texas Schools Not To Comply With Title IX Transgender Rules Or Face Legal Action

    Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times,

    Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has issued an advisory to Texas schools, warning of potential legal action against any school district that adopts policies and procedures that align with the federal Department of Education (DOE) revised Title IX rules that include provisions allowing female-identifying male students access to female-only spaces like lockers and bathrooms.

    Mr. Paxton issued the warning in a June 18 advisory, which said that he is prepared to take legal action against any Texas school district that crafts policies such as allowing men into women’s bathrooms or requiring teachers or students to address others using their preferred pronouns rather than pronouns that match their biological sex.

    In April, the Biden administration announced a final rule expanding the decades-old Title IX law that prohibits sex discrimination in schools to now include “sexual orientation” and “gender identity.” The move sparked a flurry of lawsuits from 15 Republican-led states, including Texas.

    The Title IX changes – which Mr. Paxton described in his advisory to Texas schools as “radical” and “unlawful” – gave men who identify as women the right to use female restrooms and locker rooms, and to join female-only organizations, like sports teams.

    The revised rules also define “harassment” as including someone addressing another using pronouns that conform to their biological sex rather than their chosen gender identity.

    Texas Court Ruling

    In Mr. Paxton’s lawsuit over the Title IX revisions, on June 11, Texas District Judge Reed O’Connor ruled that the DOE exceeded its authority, that it “cannot regulate state educational institutions in this way without violating federal law.”

    “To allow Defendants’ unlawful action to stand would be to functionally rewrite Title IX in a way that shockingly transforms American education and usurps a major question from Congress. That is not how our democratic system functions,” Mr. O’Connor wrote.

    The judge granted Mr. Paxton’s motion for a permanent injunction against the defendants’ enforcement of their Title IX interpretation in Texas, meaning that Texas public schools don’t have to comply with the gender-based revisions.

    Based on that ruling, Mr. Paxton’s office issued a statement on June 18: “Texas schools do not and should not adopt or enforce any of the policy changes contained in the rule. Texas students are now safe from losing their Title IX protections and the school districts are protected from the threat of the loss of federal funding.”

    Further, Mr. Paxton said in the statement, “If any Texas school district adopts a policy or procedure that conflicts with or contravenes state law, then I will pursue every remedy available to protect students and teachers from these illegal and radical policies.”

    Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton speaks during the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) meeting in National Harbor, Md., on Feb. 23, 2024. (Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images)

    The Epoch Times has reached out to the Texas Education Agency, which is responsible for public education in Texas, with a request for comment.

    A spokesperson for the DOE told The Epoch Times in an emailed statement that the department stands by the Title IX revisions, which he said guarantee that “no person experience sex discrimination in a federally funded educational environment.”

    “The Department crafted the final Title IX regulations following a rigorous process to realize the Title IX statutory guarantee,” the spokesperson added. “The Department stands by the final Title IX regulations released in April 2024, and we will continue to fight for every student.”

    The Title IX revisions, which have been blocked in a number of states, are slated to go into effect on Aug. 1.

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    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 06/22/2024 – 17:30

  • Dozens Of Cybertrucks Vandalized In Florida Parking Lot
    Dozens Of Cybertrucks Vandalized In Florida Parking Lot

    Dozens of Tesla Cybertruck owners might experience a slight delivery delay after a Florida parking lot filled with these electric trucks was vandalized. The culprit seems to have a strong dislike toward Elon Musk. 

    “Tesla cars vandalized at a parking lot near Sunrise Blvd and US1 in Ft Lauderdale,” Instagram user @onlyindade wrote, accompanying a short video showing dozens of Cybertrucks with graffiti reading “F*ck Elon.” 

    Nic Cruz Patane reposted the video on X, which was viewed 1.2 million times in less than 24 hours. 

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    Nic Cruz Patane said the parking lot full of Cybertrucks is located in Fort Lauderdale. He posted an image showing the lot from a distance. 

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    The good news is that the Cybertruck features a high-quality stainless steel exoskeleton, which makes removing spray paint fairly simple. 

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    Repainting won’t be necessary for the fix. It should just buff right out. 

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    Stainless steel is incredibly resilient. 

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    Let’s not forget that Musk’s Berlin factory was attacked in early May by woke Marxist extremists. 

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    As Musk recently noted, “Tesla Cybertruck, the finest in apocalypse defense technology!”

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 06/22/2024 – 16:55

  • Hackers Demand CDK Pay Millions In Ransom To End Auto-Dealer Cyberattack
    Hackers Demand CDK Pay Millions In Ransom To End Auto-Dealer Cyberattack

    Update (Saturday): New details about the CDK Global hack have surfaced through a Bloomberg source, indicating that a hacking group in Eastern Europe is likely responsible for the cyber incident. The group demands tens of millions of dollars in ransom, as the hack has paralyzed thousands of auto dealerships across the US.

    Here are more details from the report:

    CDK is planning to make the payment, said the person, who asked not to be identified because the information is private. The hacking group behind the attack is believed to be based in eastern Europe, the person said. In the early days of any ransomware attack, discussions are fluid, and the situation could change. -Bloomberg 

    On Friday, Diana Lee, the chief executive officer of Constellation, a marketing agency with strong ties in the auto industry, told the host of Bloomberg TV that the cyber incident is “just mass chaos at this point … and worse than Covid.” 

    “The dealer’s required to actually run a DMS for sales, service, parts, for every single functionality — even stocking a vehicle, you can’t do it without the DMS system. So it is a disaster,”  Lee said. 

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    The cyber incident has paralyzed about 15,000 car dealerships in an industry that hit $1.2 trillion in sales last year. 

    Last week, some dealers closed, while others resorted to processing paperwork by hand. 

    What a mess for the auto industry. We assume auto analysts will be writing notes early next week about what’s next for the industry. 

    Still, CDK has provided no timelines for when core systems will be restored.

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    Over 15,000 auto dealerships nationwide face major disruptions due to an ongoing cyberattack for the third day, shutting down their backend management systems. This has halted sales for some dealers and forced others to complete transactions the old-fashioned way: by hand. 

    CDK Global, the leading provider of dealership management systems and digital retailing solutions, said cybersecurity breaches began on Tuesday. By Wednesday afternoon, CDK’s core systems were restored, only to be shuttered on Thursday after a second hack attack. This has made it nearly impossible for thousands of dealers to buy and sell vehicles this week.

    “We cannot process paperwork. Everything is frozen, everything is tied up — we cannot move money back and forth to pay off cars, to finance our customers’ transactions,” Tom Maioli, who owns Celebrity Motor Car Company with dealerships across  York and New Jersey, told CBS MoneyWatch. He said his business is “completely shut down.”

    Maioli continued, “We cannot process paperwork. Everything is frozen, everything is tied up — we cannot move money back and forth to pay off cars, to finance our customers’ transactions.”

    Consumers are being greeted with signs like this at auto dealers nationwide…

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    On Thursday, X user Car Dealership Guy was featured on CNBC. He said the auto industry’s biggest question after all of this chaos is: “Will the industry continue centralizing and consolidating technology? This has been the biggest trend in auto retail.” 

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    Such disruptions have forced back-office support staff to write orders and complete paperwork without computers (clearly first-world problems).

    “My selling team can hand-write a buyer’s order,” Brian Benstock, general manager of Long Island City-based Paragon Honda and Paragon Acura dealership, told CNN.

    There have been no reports (yet) of foreign adversaries involved in the cyber breach. Also, CDK has provided no timeline for when core systems will be restored.

    A lingering concern is the economic fallout from this cyber incident, given the size of the auto industry’s size.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 06/22/2024 – 16:40

  • David Stockman On The Ukrainian Border War Folly
    David Stockman On The Ukrainian Border War Folly

    Authored by David Stockman via InternationalMan.com,

    Someone should tell the European ruling elites to take a long jump off a short pier.

    Their endless whining about the Ruuskies and Putin is just plain pathetic because…

    • It’s not justified—Russia bears no hallmarks of an expansionist imperial power.

    • The Russia-Ukraine conflict is none of western Europe’s business—since its essentially a territorial and civil war within the borders of historic Russia.

    • If EU officialdom is really concerned about the purported Russian threat why do they spend just a pittance of their GDP on defense?

    Yet, here we have Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, former German defense minister and full-throated war-hawk, talking absolute nonsense:

    “Russian President Vladimir Putin wants to see empires and autocracies back in Europe, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told the European Economic Congress in Katowice.

    Speaking alongside Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, von der Leyen insisted that she stands for a European Union that is ready to do whatever it takes to protect Europe, and especially Ukraine.

    “Putin’s war is about redrawing the map of Europe, but it is also a war on our Union and on the entire global rules-based system,” she said.”

    Well, that’s rubbish if there ever was such. The only time the borders of Ukraine have been redrawn at the barrel of a gun is when Lenin, Stalin and Khrushchev did it between 1922 and 1954. That’s right, this bureaucratic half-wit wants to embroil the world in WWIII in order to enforce borders drawn by a trio if history’s most blood-thirsty tyrants.

    As explained below, there never was a country even remotely resembling modern Ukraine until the Soviet communists decreed its existence. Before that, the pieces and parts of the country’s history go back to the 1650s when one of the more powerful and brutal rulers of the Cossack Hetmanate that occupied a small part of today’s central Ukraine abandoned his tribe’s historic fealty to the Polish kings and switched his loyalty to the Russians. After that, the “borderlands”( i.e.”Ukraine” in Russian) were all about vassalage in the Russian Empire and the Soviet one which followed.

    During that 375 year span the borders shifted all over the lot and back, as the Mongol, Turkish and Polish-Lithuanian empires receded and the Russian and communist ones expanded. So what’s so sacrosanct about the very last version of the map—one that hosted both the murderous regime of Stalin and Hitler’s Wehrmacht, too?

    Indeed, Europe is rife with borders redrawn again and again. While von der Leyen was in Poland preaching for border wars in Ukraine, in fact, it might well be asked, which sacrosanct Polish borders did she have in mind?

    For 700 years “Poland” has cavorted around the rivers, plains and forests of central Europe like a traveling minstrel show. This includes its disappearance entirely at the hands of the Prussians, Russians, Hapsburgs and other long-gone lesser powers during the later years of the 18th century and the entirety of the 19th century. Only in 1919 was it resurrected—in part upon German lands at Versailles because Woodrow Wilson realized that there were votes to be had among the fair part of the Polish nation which had migrated to Chicago and the industrial Midwest.

    Then Hitler and Stalin redrew Poland’s borders again under the infamous Molotov-Ribbentrop pact of 1938, cancelling Wilson handwork and returning the German Danzig Corridor to its previous owner. And then, seven years later, a different set of victors re-carved it again at Yalta, setting borders for “Poland” that satisfied Stalin’s aim to recover eastern lands the Soviets lost in the post-1918 civil war.

    That is to say, the picture below reminds not only how the latest borders of “Poland” were drawn, but how over the last several centuries of history most of Europe’s present borders came to be. They were not drawn by God’s deputies on earth or even the statesman of the day—but by the victors of the most recent wars.

    The Border Men of 1945

    Moreover, even a glance at today’s map reminds that the border-drawing work of victorious generals and politicians, and occasionally statesman, has always been subject to revision without necessarily making a war about it. In recent times that’s been true even for the handiwork of the better kind of draftsmen who drew maps at Versailles as opposed to the bloody chambers of the Soviet Empire.

    Thus, the statesman at Versailles decreed the existence of Czechoslovakia in 1919 as a potpourri of nations including a lot of Slovaks, Czechs, Hungarians, Romani people, Silesians, Ruthenians, Ukrainians, Poles, Jews and most especially millions of Germans. So it was subsequently dismembered by Hitler to bring the Sudetenland Germans home; then re-assembled by the Yalta winners; and finally divided between Slovakia and the Czech Republic on peaceable terms in 1993.

    Or take the case of the meandering borders of the six autonomous republics of the vanished state of Yugoslavia and particularly its anchor in Serbia. Wikipedia explains the border-making process there as well as can be done:

    “(Serbia) achieved de facto independence in 1867 and gained full recognition by the Great Powers in the Berlin Congress of 1878. As a victor in the Balkan Wars of 1912–1913, Serbia regained Vardar Macedonia, Kosovo and Metohija and Raška (Old Serbia). In late 1918, with the defeat of the Austro-Hungarian empire, Serbia was expanded to include regions of the former Serbian Vojvodina. Serbia was united with other Austro-Hungarian provinces into a pan-Slavic State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs; the Kingdom of Serbia joined the union on 1 December 1918 and the country was named the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.

    Serbia achieved its current borders at the end of World War II, when it became a federal unit within the Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia (proclaimed in November 1945). After the dissolution of Yugoslavia in a series of wars in the 1990s, Serbia once again became an independent state on 5 June 2006, following the breakup of a short-lived union with Montenegro.”

    Albeit mention should also be made of the former Serbian province of Kosovo. Washington and its NATO retainers decreed its independence after 75 days of persuasion with the Serbs. The messages were apparently written on the bombs dropped from a range of NATO aircraft that included about everything which could fly:

    “A large element of the operation was the air forces of NATO, relying heavily on the US Air Force and Navy using the F-16, F-15, F-117, F-14, F/A-18, EA-6B, B-52, KC-135, KC-10, AWACS, and JSTARS from bases throughout Europe and from aircraft carriers in the region.

    The French Navy and Air Force operated the Super Etendard and the Mirage 2000. The Italian Air Force operated with 34 Tornado, 12 F-104, 12 AMX, 2 B-707, the Italian Navy operated with Harrier II. The UK’s Royal Air Force operated the Harrier GR7 and Tornado ground attack jets as well as an array of support aircraft. Belgian, Danish, Dutch, Norwegian, Portuguese and Turkish Air Forces operated F-16s. The Spanish Air Force deployed EF-18s and KC-130s. The Canadian Air Force deployed a total of 18 CF-18s, enabling them to be responsible for 10% of all bombs dropped in the operation.

    The fighters were armed with both guided and unguided “dumb” munitions, including the Paveway series of laser-guided bombs.The bombing campaign marked the first time the German Air Force actively attacking targets since World War II.[142]

    The US B-2 Spirit stealth bomber saw its first successful combat role in Operation Allied Force, striking from its home base in the contiguous United States.”

    At length, the Serbian borders were redrawn!

    In the process, its president was captured as a war criminal. When he died prior to his trial in a NATO prison from “natural causes” he undoubtedly did not view this particular border drawing incident as an exercise in the rule of law.

    In any event, notwithstanding the historic fluidity of borders, there is no case whatsoever that Russia’s invasion was unprovoked and unrelated to NATO’s own provocations in the region. The details are arrayed below, but the larger issue needs be addressed first. Namely, is there any reason to believe that Russia is an expansionist power looking to gobble up neighbors which were not integral parts of its own historic evolution, as is the case with Ukraine?

    The answer is no, and its based on what should be called the double-digit rule. The true expansionary hegemons of modern history have spent huge parts of their GDP on defense because that’s what it takes to support the military infrastructure and logistics required for invasion and occupation of foreign lands.

    For instance, here are the figures for military spending by Nazi Germany from 1935–1944 expressed as a percent of GDP. This is what an aggressive hegemon looks like in the ramp-up to war and the actual conduct of military campaigns of invasion and occupation.

    Not surprisingly, the same kind of claim on resources occurred when the United States took it upon itself to counter the aggression of Germany and Japan on a global basis. By 1944 defense spending was equal to 40% of America’s GDP, and would have totaled more than $2 trillion in present day dollars of purchasing power.

    Military Spending As A Percent Of GDP In Nazi Germany

    • 1935: 8%.
    • 1936: 13%.
    • 1937: 13%.
    • 1938: 17%.
    • 1939: 23%.
    • 1940: 38%.
    • 1941: 47%.
    • 1942: 55%.
    • 1943: 61%.
    • 1944: 75%

    By contrast, during the final year before the Ukraine proxy war broke out in 2022, the Russian military budget was $65 billion, which amounted to just 3.5% of its GDP. Moreover, the prior years showed no build-up of the kind that has always accompanied historic aggressors. For the period 1992 to 2022, for instance, the average military spending by Russia was 3.8% of GDP– with a minimum of 2.7% in 1998 and a maximum of 5.4% in 2016.

    Historical Russian Military Spending As a Percent Of GDP

    Needless to say, you don’t invade the Baltics or Poland—to say nothing of Germany, France, the Benelux and crossing the English Channel—on 3.5% of GDP. Since full scale war broke out in 2022 Russian military spending has increased significantly to 6% of GDP, but even at current levels it has not been able to subdue even its own historic borderlands.

    So if Russia does not have the economic and military capacity to conquer its non-Ukrainian neighbors, let alone Europe proper, what is the war really about?

    In short, it is rooted in territorial disputes and civil strife in lands which have been vassals or integral parts of greater Russia for several centuries. Ukraine actually means “borderlands” in the Russian language. As we indicated, it now comprises a state that did not even exist until Lenin, Stalin and Khrushchev confected it by force of arms after 1920.

    In fact, prior to the communist takeover of Russia, no country that even faintly resembled today’s Ukrainian borders had ever existed. So what NATO’s proxy war actually amounts to is a hideous attempt to enforce the dead hand of the Soviet presidium, as we amplify below.

    For avoidance of doubt here are sequential maps that tell the story, and which make mincemeat of the von der Leyen’s sanctity of borders malarkey. The first of these is a 220-year-old map from 1800, where the yellow area depicts the approximate territory of the four breakaway regions—Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia plus Crimea—that are now allegedly under Russian “occupation”, but which in fact voted overwhelmingly during referendums in 2023 and 2014, respectively, to separate from Ukraine in favor of affiliation with Russia.

    Collectively, the five regions were historically known as Novorossiya or “New Russia” and had been acquired by Russian rulers, including Catherine the Great between 1734 and 1791.

    As is evident from the red markings on the map which designate the year of acquisition, the Russian Empire had gradually gained control over this vast area, signing peace treaties with the Cossack Hetmanate (1734) and with the Ottoman Empire at the conclusion of the various Russo-Turkish Wars of the 18th century.

    Pursuant to this expansion drive – which included massive Russian investment and the in-migration of large Russian populations to the region – Russia established the Novorossiysk Governaorate in 1764. The latter was originally to be named after the Empress Catherine, but she decreed that it should be called “New Russia” instead.

    The Breakaway Provinces Of Ukraine Were Part Of Russia Before The US Constitution Was Even Written

    Completing the assemblage of New Russia, Catherine forcefully liquidated its aforementioned century-long Cossack ally known as the Zaporizhian Sich (present day Zaporizhzhia) in 1775 and annexed its territory to Novorossiya, thus eliminating the independent rule of the Ukrainian Cossacks. Later in 1783 she acquired Crimea from the Turks, which was also added to Novorossiya, as shown in yellow area of the map above.

    During this formative period, the infamous shadow ruler under Catherine, Prince Grigori Potemkin, directed the sweeping settlement and Russification of these lands. Effectively, Catherine had granted him the powers of an absolute ruler over the area from 1774 onward.

    The spirit and importance of “New Russia” at this time is aptly captured by the historian Willard Sunderland,

    The old steppe was Asian and stateless; the current one was state-determined and claimed for European-Russian civilization. The world of comparison was now even more obviously that of the Western empires. Consequently, it was all the more clear that the Russian empire merited its own New Russia to go along with everyone else’s New Spain, New France and New England. The adoption of the name of New Russia was in fact the most powerful statement imaginable of Russia’s national coming of age.

    In fact, the passage of time solidified the borders of Novorossiya even more solidly. One century later the light-yellow area of the 1897 map below gave an unmistakable message: To wit, in the late Russian Empire there was no doubt as to the paternity of the lands adjacent to the Azov Sea and the Black Sea: they were now part of the 125 years-old “New Russia”.

    Where’s Waldo Ukraine on This Map Circa 1900? 

    After the Russian Revolution, of course, the pieces and parts in this region of the old Czarist Empire were bundled-up into a convenient administrative entity by the new red rulers of Moscow, who christened it the “Ukrainian SSR” (Soviet Socialist Republic). In a like manner, they created similar administrative entities in Belorussia, Georgia, Moldavia, Turkmenistan etc.—ultimately confecting 15 such “republics”.

    Here is how and when these brutal tyrants attached each piece of today’s Ukrainian map to the territories acquired or seized by the Russian Czars over 1654-1917 (yellow area):

    • The old Novorossiya of the Donbas and Black Sea rim was added by Lenin in 1922 (purple area).

    • The western territory around Lviv (blue area) that been known as Little Poland or Galicia were captured by Stalin in 1939 and thereafter, when he and Hitler carved up Poland.

    • Upon the death of the bloody Stalin in 1954, Khrushchev made a deal with his Presidium allies to transfer Crimea (red area) from the Russian SSR to the Ukrainian SSR in return for their support in the battle for succession.

    In a word, Ukraine was born in communist blood and iron. Yet now the NATO and Euro-hawks like von der Leyen want to spend yet upwards of $200 billion to ensure that the handiwork of autocratic Czars and Commissars remains intact into the 21st century and presumably beyond.

    Modern Ukraine: Born In Communist Blood and Iron

    Of course, had the above-mentioned 20th century communist trio been benefactors of mankind, perhaps their subsequent map-making handiwork and reassignment of Novorossiya might have been justified. Under this benign counterfactual, they would have presumably combined peoples of like ethnic, linguistic, religious and politico-cultural history into a cohesive natural polity and state. That is, a nation worth perpetuating, defending and perhaps even dying for.

    Alas, the very opposite was true. From 1922 to 1991 modern Ukraine was held together by the monopoly on violence of its brutally totalitarian rulers. And that became more than evident when the Kremlin temporarily lost control of Ukraine during the military battles of World War II: During that especially bloody interlude, the communist administrative entity called Ukraine came apart at the seams.

    That is, local Ukrainian nationalists joined Hitler’s Wehrmacht in its depredations against Jews, Poles, Roma and Russians when it first swept through the country from the west on its way to Stalingrad; and then, in turn, the Russian populations from the Donbas and south campaigned with the Red Army during its vengeance-wreaking return from the east after winning the bloody battle that turned the course of WWII.

    Not surprisingly, therefore, virtually from the minute it came out from under the communist yoke when the Soviet Union was swept into the dustbin of history in 1991, Ukraine has been engulfed in political and actual civil war. The elections which did occur were essentially 50/50 at the national level but reflected dueling 80/20 vote breakouts within the regions. That is, the Ukrainian nationalist candidates tended to get vote margins of 80% + in the West/Central areas, while Russian-sympathizing candidates got like pluralities in the mainly Russian-speaking East/South.

    This pattern transpired because once the iron-hand of totalitarian rule ended in 1991, the deep and historically rooted conflict between Ukrainian nationalism, language and politics of the central and western regions of the country and the Russian language and historical religious and political affinities of the Donbas and south came rushing to the surface. So-called democracy barely survived these contests until February 2014 when one of Washington’s “color revolutions” finally “succeeded”. That is to say, the Washington fomented and financed nationalist-led coupe d état ended the fragile post-communist equilibrium.

    That’s the true meaning of the Maidan coup. It ended the tenuous cohesion that kept the artificial state of Ukraine intact for barely two decades after the Soviet demise. So save for Washington’s destructive intervention, the partition of a communist-confected state that had never been built to last would have eventually materialized.

    The evidence that the Maidan coup was the coup ‘d grace for the makeshift Ukrainian state is apparent in the maps below. These maps below tell you all you need to know about why this is a civil war, not an invasion of one neighbor by another.

    The first map is from the 2004 presidential election, which was won by the Ukrainian nationalist candidate, Yushchenko. The latter predominated in the orange areas of the map, over the pro-Russian Yanukovych, who swept the blue regions in the east and south.

    2004 Ukraine Election Results—National Divorce In The Making

    The second map is from the 2010 election, showing the same stark regional split, but this time the pro-Russian candidate, Yanukovych, won.

    In the map below, the dark blue parts to the far east (Donbas) indicate an 80% or better vote for Viktor Yanukovych in the 2010 election. By contrast, the dark red areas in the west voted 80% or more for the Ukrainian nationalist, Yulie Tymoshenko. That is to say, the skew in the Ukrainian electorate was so extreme as to make America’s current red state/blue state divide seem hardly noteworthy by comparison.

    As it happened, the sum of the pro-Yanukovych skews from the east and south (Donbas and Crimea) added up to 12.48 million votes and 48.95% of the total, while the sum of the extreme red skews in the center and west (the lands of old eastern Galicia and Poland) amounted to 11.59 million votes and 45.47% of the total.

    Stated differently, it is hard to imagine an electorate more sharply divided on a regional/ethnic/language basis. Yet it was one which still produced a sufficient victory margin (3.6 percentage points) for Yanukovych – so as to be reluctantly accepted by all parties. That became especially clear when Tymoshenko, who was the incumbent prime minister, withdrew her election challenge a few weeks after the run-off in February 2010.

    At that point, of course, Russia had no beef with the Kiev government at all because essentially Yanukovych’s “Regions Party” was based on the pro-Russian parts (blue areas) of the Ukrainian electorate. But when Washington essentially put the anti-Russian regions in charge of Ukraine’s government by orchestrating, funding and immediately recognizing the Maidan coup, everything changed on a dime. That was especially the case when the new, illegal government enshrined in its constitution a requirement to join NATO at the earliest possible opportunity.

    In effect, Washington’s 2014 Maidan coup was the equivalent of Khrushchev’s emplacement of missiles in Cuba during 1962. Even had Putin been as erudite and civilized as JFK, rather than the ruffian he actually is, he would have had little choice except to insist that NATO missiles 30 minutes from Moscow cannot stand.

    In a word, there has been no unprovoked “invasion” by Moscow of the transitory artifact known as the Ukrainian state. The latter effectively began and ended with the Soviet Union.

    Moreover, with respect to the actual underlying reason for intervention in Ukraine—NATO’s proxy war against Russia– a simple question recurs: Besides restocking the NATO arsenals depleted by the demolition derby in what remains of Ukraine, what’s the reason for NATO’s war?

    Alas, the question answers itself. The War Capital of the World on the Potomac insists upon it, and its vassals in Europe like Ursula von der Leyen nod, jawohl!

    *  *  *

    The amount of money the US government spends on foreign aid, wars, the so-called intelligence community, and other aspects of foreign policy is enormous and ever-growing. It’s an established trend in motion that is accelerating, and now approaching a breaking point. It could cause the most significant disaster since the 1930s. Most people won’t be prepared for what’s coming. That’s precisely why bestselling author Doug Casey and his team just released an urgent video with all the details. Click here to watch it now.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 06/22/2024 – 16:20

  • Judge Judy Says Trump's NYC Hush Money Trial Was "Nonsense" And She "Resents" It As A Taxpayer
    Judge Judy Says Trump’s NYC Hush Money Trial Was “Nonsense” And She “Resents” It As A Taxpayer

    There’s going to be a lot of conflicted daytime TV viewers who count both The View and Judge Judy in their daily lineup after this one…

    One of Manhattan’s favorite judges, TV icon Judge Judy Sheindlin, weighed in on Donald Trump’s criminal “hush money” trial last week in an interview with Chris Wallace, calling the spectacle “nonsense”. 

    Sheindlin, known for her show “Judge Judy,” discussed former President Trump’s recent felony conviction with CNN’s Wallace. Sheindlin, a Brooklyn native, expressed her disapproval of Trump’s Manhattan prosecution.

    “Trump was indicted in 4 separate cases,” Wallace asked Judy. “Is that the justice system working?”

    She responded to Wallace: “I would be happier as someone who owns property in Manhattan, if the district attorney of New York County would take care of criminals who are making it impossible for citizens to walk in the streets and use the subway…”

    “…to use his efforts to keep those people off the street, than to spend 5 million or ten million of taxpayers money trying Donald Trump on this nonsense,” she continued. 

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    “I, as a taxpayer in this country, resent using the system for your own personal self-aggrandizement,” she said.

    The former family court judge, who is known for being ruthless on the stand, said that even she couldn’t figure out what the charges against Trump were: “You had to twist yourself into a pretzel to figure out what the crime was, he doesn’t like [Trump].”

    “I think he was a good businessman, a real estate guy, and he was certainly terrific on The Apprentice,” Judy is seen saying in the clip. 

    Despite this, Judy isn’t all sold on Trump, telling Wallace: “I don’t think that Donald ever should have been president, and I don’t think that even Donald thought he was going to be president.”

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 06/22/2024 – 15:45

  • What Chinese AI Tells Us About The Semi Market
    What Chinese AI Tells Us About The Semi Market

    By Russell Clark of the Capital Flows and Asset Markets substack

    Back in January I wondered if semiconductors were the new oil. The price action this year probably says yes. Just as the Soviet Union tried to cripple the US in the 1970s through helping organise an oil embargo, the US is trying to cripple China through creating a semiconductor embargo. The US “war” with China was always about keeping China as a smaller economy than the US. From that perspective, it has been a resounding success. In dollar terms Chinese GDP has declined last few years.

    The problem with embargoes, is that they heavily motivate those suffering from them to initiate policies to counteract and insulate them from a future embargo. In the US, the oil embargo led to reforms that reduced domestic demand, as well as encouraged increased supply from sources other than the Middle East. The end result of all these reforms was that we eventually saw the collapse of the oil price from near USD40 a barrel to USD15. With collapsing oil revenues, Soviet Union went into decline and eventual collapse. The unintended consequences of policy is often called blowback, and for the Soviet Union and OPEC, it was the eventually collapse of oil prices.

    Banning high end semiconductor exports to China was meant to cripple development of high end industries in China. There is little evidence of this. China has become the world’s biggest exporter of electric cars. When I look at reviews of Chinese EVs on TikTok, they make Tesla look extremely second-rate.

    EVs are not the main use for high end semiconductors – low end semis which China has pre-existing expertise in are probably sufficient. For AI and LLM, the very high end GPUs that NVIDIA sell are necessary. Even without access to high end semiconductors, there is evidence that China was able to approximate high end semiconductor performance through very aggressive use of low end semiconductors. Hence AI has ended up boosting the demand for all semiconductors. This would explain the phenomenal performance of Philadelphia Semiconductor Index. The embargo is creating demand across the entire semi spectrum.

    A big driver in demand for semis has been AI and training large language models (LLM). It has been widely reported that a LLM price war has broken out in China. It is hard to understand how this is possible. It would be like seeing a price war among plastic producers in the US in 1974, just as their major inputs were soaring in price. After paying £14.50 for a Pimm’s at the cricket, I am shocked to see anything have a price cut – let alone the 90% prices cuts we have seen below. Some Chinese AI is now pricing at a 99.8% discount to OpenAI’s GTP-4. Whether this is a useful comparison is hard to tell, given the restrictions on access to Chinese internet (otherwise there is a huge arbitrage opportunity).

    In a fully open free trading market, I would suggest the price war in China would have negative implications for Nvidia. And it might well end up that way – showing that AI needs a huge consolidation before it can be profitable. But what it does show is that Chinese policy of breaking cartels and fostering competition is producing exactly the results you would expect – lower prices. In the US, Meta, Google, OpenAI and Microsoft look determined to create a lock on high end Nvidia chips to starve out competition.

    Increasingly the blowback for US policy to try and slowdown China, has been to spur an even more competitive Chinese tech industry, while creating a domestic tech cartel, with increasingly uncompetitive products : the iPhone continues to charge high prices for out of date tech for example, TikTok was destroying Meta and Google, while Microsoft remains Microsoft, Tesla looks pedestrian. Huawei has begun building an ecosystem completely independent of US tech. It would be no surprise if that system will produce substantially cheaper products.

    Combine this with US sanctions on Russian oil that has created a parallel financial system that cuts the US dollar out, it’s hard to escape the observation that US is making every single long term mistake possible. I am reminded of Japan in 1991, vaulting ambition just as it was losing competitiveness. The US now has vaulting ambition just as it was getting exposed on every single front. One very striking similarity is sky high golf club memberships. In Japan in 1991, golf club memberships were traded for millions of dollars. In the US, unlike Japan, there is no shortage of land, but USD 500,000 for a golf club membership does exist.

    Unlike Japan, I expect the US dollar to take the brunt of decline in US industry. Our currency, your problem as the US government used to say – Switzerland is already showing the strain, having to cut rates even though they are already far below US rates. In a pro labour world, I thought growth would be strong, and higher rates would be the big problem for the market, but markets would flatline – and this has been true (outside of tech). But the more I look at the US, the more I think I maybe I wrong. Maybe we are headed to the greatest short selling market of all time – collapsing share prices AND amazing carry proceeds. Fun times – for short sellers anyway.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 06/22/2024 – 15:10

  • Hundreds Of Thousands Of Americans Are Going "Off Grid" In Anticipation Of What Is Coming
    Hundreds Of Thousands Of Americans Are Going “Off Grid” In Anticipation Of What Is Coming

    Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

    As our society descends into chaos, vast numbers of people are choosing to pull the plug and walk away.  Of course it is nearly impossible to completely escape the ubiquitous madness that is seemingly all around us, but many are finding that an “off grid” lifestyle gives them the best opportunity to insulate themselves as much as possible.  When you become less dependent on the system, what happens to the system has less of an impact on you.  Unfortunately, it appears that our system is heading into a full-blown meltdown, and a significant portion of the population is feverishly making preparations in anticipation of what is coming.

    According to Reuters, it has been estimated that there are now approximately 20 million “preppers” in the United States…

    Brook Morgan surveyed booths at the “Survival & Prepper Show” in Colorado that were stocked with boxes of ammunition, mounds of trauma medical kits, and every type of knife imaginable.

    A self-described “30-year-old lesbian from Indiana,” Morgan is one of a new breed of Americans getting ready to survive political upheaval and natural catastrophes, a pursuit that until recently was largely associated with far-right movements such as white nationalists since the 1980s.

    Researchers say the number of preppers has doubled in size to about 20 million since 2017.

    There is a subset of that group that has decided that the best way to prepare is to go “off grid”.

    It is being reported that “more than 250,000 people in the U.S.” have chosen to adopt such a lifestyle…

    As energy costs and home prices continue to rise, more Americans are choosing to live off-grid. According to one estimate, more than 250,000 people in the U.S. have an off-grid lifestyle. While the potential cost savings are certainly attractive, technology and interest in tiny homes, shipping container homes and other energy-efficient housing alternatives are allowing families interested in sustainable lifestyles to move to off-grid living.

    If you are thinking of making a similar move, you need to do your research.

    Most of us are extremely dependent on the grid, and many find that making a switch to a radically different lifestyle is quite challenging…

    Living off the grid means committing to sourcing everything you need to survive and thrive independently: food, shelter, energy and most importantly: water. It’s empowering, until the moment things don’t work. Like when you’re halfway through a delightful hot shower at the end of a January day and the water pump suddenly stops working, sending you into the frozen darkness with a wet headful of shampoo and some tools to address the problem.

    For a lot of people, joining a community of others that have adopted an “off grid” lifestyle is very helpful.

    For example, about 55 miles south of Salt Lake City hundreds of survivalists are living in a very large community that is completely off the grid…

    A community of society-shunning Americans launched a survivalist haven in the Utah desert after finding themselves alienated from the modern world.

    Hundreds of people have set themselves up to live off the land under ‘Operation Self-Reliance,’ feeling that getting off-the-grid is the solution to a crumbling culture.

    This particular community was originally founded by a 74-year-old man named Philip Gleason, and he is warning that “a variety of apocalyptic scenarios could play out in the coming years”…

    Gleason said he fears a variety of apocalyptic scenarios could play out in the coming years, from a power grid failure taking down America’s electricity, to nuclear war and cyber attacks.

    ‘This is just history repeating itself,’ he cautioned. ‘At the start of any cultural revolution, the people that control their food are the ones that come out on top.’

    As Americans consistently share that they are losing faith in the nation’s institutions, those that have made a new life on Riverbed Ranch have essentially set up their own self-surviving nation state.

    Of course it probably wasn’t a great idea for them to share what they are doing with such a large audience, because when things do get really bad large numbers of desperate people may start heading that direction.

    Most of the time, families that choose to live an “off grid” lifestyle just do it on their own.

    Heather Graesser and her husband once owned a large home near Denver, but now they are much happier living an “off grid” lifestyle…

    Ten years ago I was living a typical suburban life on the outskirts of Denver. My husband, Casey, and I were both teachers. We lived in a four-bedroom house with a small yard where our two kids liked to play.

    Today our life looks radically different. We live entirely off the grid in a 300-square-foot home that we built from straw bales and cob, a natural building material made from soil, water, and other organic matter. We rely on solar power for electricity and rain collection for water, and we use a drop toilet to create “humanure” — compost made from human waste.

    We’ve left the conventional world behind. But along the way we’ve created a much more luxurious and free lifestyle than the one we were living in suburbia.

    Good for them.

    These days, it is becoming increasingly difficult to live a “normal” middle class lifestyle because the cost of housing has become so painful.

    In fact, an entirely new category known as “impossibly unaffordable” has been created because home prices have become so expensive in certain cities…

    Anyone with half an eye on the housing market over the last two decades will know that in many countries, not least the United States, it’s become much more difficult to buy a home.

    But a new report sums up the feeling of many potential home buyers by creating a category that labels some major cities as “impossibly unaffordable.”

    The report compared average incomes with average home prices. It found that pandemic-driven demand for homes with outside space, land use policies aimed at limiting urban sprawl, and investors piling into markets had sent prices soaring.

    Living “off grid” is often much cheaper than living a conventional lifestyle.

    And living “off grid” will also give you a much better chance of shielding yourself from the endless violence that we see all around us.

    Recently, I was deeply shocked to read about a 42-year-old man that fired 28 shots at women and children at a family splash pad in Rochester Hills, Michigan…

    An eight-year-old boy is fighting for his life after being shot in the head by a rampaging gunman at a family splash pad as seven others were also gunned down.

    The violent attack took place in Rochester Hills, Michigan, around 5pm Saturday after the shooter fired 28 rounds from a handgun in a seemingly random attack, peppering women and children at the Brooklands Plaza Splash Pad outside Detroit.

    The gunman fled the scene to a nearby home within half a mile of the splash pad, leading to a tense hours-long standoff that ended when the shooter – described as a 42-year-old white male who lived with his mother – died by suicide.

    You would have to be completely and utterly evil to do something like that.

    Sadly, our entire society is saturated with evil at this point.

    So I can definitely understand why so many people just want to get away from it all.

    Things are really bad now, but they are going to get a whole lot worse during the chaotic years that are in front of us.

    Ultimately, I think that large numbers of people are going to regret not adopting an “off grid” lifestyle while they still had the opportunity to do so.

    Our society is already in the process of collapsing all around us, and those that understand what is happening are getting prepared for what is coming.

    *  *  *

    Michael’s new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 06/22/2024 – 14:00

  • Maher Audience Silenced After Andrew Cuomo Admits NYC Trump Trial Should Have Never Happened
    Maher Audience Silenced After Andrew Cuomo Admits NYC Trump Trial Should Have Never Happened

    Former governor of New York from 2011 to 2021 Andrew Cuomo appeared on Real Time With Bill Maher on Friday where he discussed the implications of the New York City Trump trial with host Maher. 

    Maher’s mostly liberal audience is caught quiet when Maher and Cuomo start frankly discussing whether or not the trial was helpful for the Trump campaign. 

    “The trial in New York, the one he [Trump] got convicted for, was the greatest fundraising bonanza ever. He was lagging behind Biden, and now he’s pulled quite a bit ahead,” Maher said to Cuomo during the show. 

    “That trial was the greatest reason people had to send their checks for $5, $10, 2$5, whatever dollars to Donald Trump. So I was always with you [Andrew Cuomo] on the one in New York, the hush money trial. I don’t think they should have brought that one,” he continues. 

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    To which Cuomo, who was elected as New York State Attorney General in 2006, replied: “That case, the attorney general’s case in New York, frankly, should have never been brought.”

    Cuomo continued: “If his name was not Donald Trump and if he wasn’t running for president. I’m the former AG in New York. I’m telling you, that case would have never been brought. And that’s what is offensive to people. And it should be!”

    “Because if there’s anything left…it’s belief in the Justice system!”

    In the same episode, Maher also asks how Joe Biden could be ahead in the polls when he is losing votes with so many key demographics.

    “And yet I read in the polls he pulled ahead this week. Explain that to me,” Maher says.

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    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 06/22/2024 – 13:25

  • DHS 'Intelligence Experts Group' Classified Military Service, Religion, & Trump-Support As Indicators Of Domestic Extremism & Terrorism
    DHS ‘Intelligence Experts Group’ Classified Military Service, Religion, & Trump-Support As Indicators Of Domestic Extremism & Terrorism

    Authored by Debra Heine via American Greatness,

    A now disbanded group in Joe Biden’s Department Homeland Security (DHS) classified Trump supporters, members of the military, and people with religious views as persons likely to commit “domestic violent extremist” attacks, newly released internal files show.

    DHS announced the formation of the “Homeland Intelligence Experts Group” in September 2023 to “provide advice and perspectives on intelligence and national security efforts” to the Department, but according to America First Legal, “it was a completely partisan group designed to provide top cover for the Department’s radical agenda

    AFL and former Ambassador Richard Grenell filed a lawsuit against the Homeland Intelligence Experts Group soon after the group was announced, and spurred Republican members of Congress to take action against it.

    AFL alleged that the group comprised of partisan actors violated the Federal Advisory Committee Act for various reasons – including its lack of balance, the Biden Administration’s inappropriate influence over it, and its lack of public notice and participation, among other things.

    To avoid further litigation and scrutiny, the Biden regime agreed in May to disband the illegal group and provide its records to AFL. However, the group may have been active for a year before it was pressured to shut down.

    “By the time the Homeland Intelligence Experts Group was announced in September 2023, the group had already been meeting for as long as four months,” AFL reported.

    Members of the deep state cabal included former Obama intelligence officials and Russia collusion hoaxers John Brennan and James Clapper—both signatories of the infamous “Letter of 51,” which mislead the American public on the veracity of the Hunter Biden laptop story ahead of the 2020 election.

    Also included in the unit were former Obama official Francis Taylor,  Asha George, Rajesh De, Caryn Wagner, and Elisa Massimino, all of whom contributed exclusively to Democrat candidates for political office.

    During a meeting in September on “Collection Posture and Associated Challenges,” the partisan group discussed ways to get around the Constitutional limits to their domestic intelligence gathering goals.

    One idea they came up with was expanding DHS’s reach into local communities in an “ambiguous” and “non-threatening” way to encourage teachers and parents to report on their conservative neighbors and children.

    The group sought to reclassifying political dissent as a “public health” issue so that “mothers and teachers” could feel comfortable coming forward.

    They also proposed that people be tagged with “in the military” and “religious” labels to profile them as having “indicators of extremists and terrorism” as a pretext to allow DHS to spy on them. The group said “we should be more worried about these” individuals [than left-wing extremist groups like antifa and the millions of unvetted illegal aliens DHS has allowed to cross the southern border].

    The group went on to discuss how “most of the Domestic Terrorism threat now comes from supporters of the former president [Donald Trump].

    This isn’t the first time the Biden regime has been caught engaging in abusive and partisan intelligence collection.

    In April 2022, DHS announced the formation of an “Disinformation Governance Board” (DGB) to respond to matters the government unilaterally determined to be mis-, dis- or mal-information (MDM)—specifically information that countered official regime narratives on “the origins and effects of COVID-19 vaccines,” “the efficacy of masks,” the validity of the 2020 election,” and “falsehoods surrounding U.S. Government immigration policy.”

    DHS disbanded the Disinformation Governance Board and its director, Nina Jankowicz, resigned in disgrace after an massive outcry from conservatives, who compared the board to an Orwellian “Ministry of Truth.”

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 06/22/2024 – 12:50

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Jun 22

Today’s News 22nd June 2024

  • Geopolitics And Demand Growth Underpin Need For Commonsense Energy Policies
    Geopolitics And Demand Growth Underpin Need For Commonsense Energy Policies

    Authored by Guy Caruso via RealClearEnergy,

    The U.S. energy sector finds itself in a precarious position. Increasing geopolitical volatility and strong energy demand forecasts could spell trouble domestically in the future. The U.S. needs to stop hamstringing American energy companies and invest in the nation’s infrastructure, such as pipelines, processing, and production.

    If we have learned anything in the last two and a half years, it’s that the U.S.’ energy industry is not free from geopolitical chaos globally. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Houthi’s attacks in Yemen backed by Iran and turmoil in the Middle East have very real repercussions for the average American. We may not be as intensely intertwined with those realities as our European allies, but energy is a global market with implications for domestic prices, supply, and demand. While different events can affect prices at home, there are steps the administration can take to protect our energy sector.

    Encouraging oil exploration and production can help offset foreign risk factors. At a Senate hearing in early May, the acting deputy secretary of the Interior, Laura Daniels-Davis, said the department had just started preparing for the 2025 offshore oil and gas lease sales. Those plans often take at least 18 months to complete and often longer.

    Similarly, the pause on Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) exports has had a chilling effect on investment in both the facilities, as well as upstream. The country has a plethora of resources under our feet, and we should utilize it. Natural gas significantly lowered U.S. emissions by 32% between 2005 and 2019 as the electricity mix shifts away from coal. The ban should be lifted so that the U.S. can expand its export footprint, thereby contributing to foreign nations’ emissions reduction. The move signals hostility to domestic producers and exporters have helped transition away from dirtier sources of energy. If the administration wants to move towards wind and solar, as well as electrify the economy, natural gas will play a vital role.

    Geopolitical uncertainty highlights the importance of insulating our energy security to the best of our ability. Though global oil markets could dictate pain at the pump for consumers, supporting domestic energy production and infrastructure now will pay dividends in the long term and smooth the transition to much lower greenhouse gas emissions. Unfortunately, it seems the infrastructure in the states, such as our electrical grids, transmission lines and pipelines, lag behind growing energy demand. 

    A report this year from Grid Strategies titled “The Era of Flat Power Demand is Over,” shines a light on our possibly dark future. The report notes that the nationwide forecasts of electricity demand have shot up from 2.6% to 4.7% over the next five years, per 2023 Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) filings. The significant jump is in part due to $630 billion in near-term investment in “large loads” such as industrial, manufacturing and data center facilities that will impact the grid. Increased demand for AI utilization will play an outsized role in electricity demand growth.

    The North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) recently released its annual Summer Reliability Assessment, which examines and identifies areas of concern the for the North American bulk power system (BPS). This year, NERC found elevated risk in numerous areas, such as the independent system operator in New England, the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) in Louisiana and Arkansas and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), among others. NERC noted in its report that “fuel supply and delivery infrastructure must be capable of meeting the ramp rates of natural-gas-fired generators as they balance the system when wind and solar generation declines.” Prioritizing the transportation of fuel supplies to all regions of the U.S. will help grid operators maintain reliable service when renewables are inefficient due to weather or the time of day.

    For example, in the case of New England, Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-SC) recently noted its CEO testified to ISO’s desperate need of pipeline capacity. In 2023, New England residents paid 31% more than the average for natural gas. Expanding pipeline capacity in the region would help decrease these costs sharply.

    Couple the significant load growth in the U.S. with increasing geopolitical uncertainty, and it is evident that the U.S. must immediately address our domestic energy sector with tried-and-true solutions. Boosting our exportation of LNG, constructing new pipelines, and encouraging the flow of capital into oil and gas can help insulate the country from foreign chaos and support the administration’s transition toward lower GHG emissions.

    Guy Caruso is a former administrator of the U.S. Energy Information Administration and a Center for Strategic and International Studies senior adviser in the Energy Security and Climate Change Program. 

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 06/21/2024 – 23:40

  • Oven-Like Conditions Result In Over 1,000 Deaths During Hajj In Saudi Arabia
    Oven-Like Conditions Result In Over 1,000 Deaths During Hajj In Saudi Arabia

    We explained earlier that the Hajj is the final of the five pillars of Islam, and requires that every Muslim who is of adult age complete the religious pilgrimage to Mecca once in their lifetime, so long as they are financially and physically able. This means huge numbers descended on the city which is home to the shrine of the Kaaba in Saudi Arabia each year. More than 1.8 million people attended Hajj in 2023, approaching pre-pandemic levels. According to Saudi officials, they expect the figure to exceed the two million mark this year.

    Not only are the massive crowds a problem, but this year the Saudi city is under an excessive heat warning, with highs at times having reached between 110 and 115°F during the day, and 100°F even at night. This has resulted in what could be a record amount of heat injuries and deaths by the pilgrimage season’s end. On Monday the Saudi weather service recorded a temperature of 125 degrees Fahrenheit at Mecca’s Grand Mosque.

    100+ degree temps at night

    The AFP reported Thursday that deaths from heat-related causes has surpassed 1,000 people amid the extreme conditions.

    “The new deaths reported Thursday included 58 from Egypt, according to an Arab diplomat who provided a breakdown showing that of 658 Egyptians who passed away, 630 were unregistered pilgrims,” AFP writes. Indonesia also reported a high number of heat-related casualties.

    In total ten countries have reported 1,081 deaths so far during this annual pilgrimage season, the timing of which is determined by the lunar Islamic calendar. Last year there was a total of 313 deaths reported.

    While authorities are estimating that over two million people are present for the religious rites, this includes possibly a couple hundred thousands of ‘unauthorized’ pilgrims, who may not have access to the established amenities, including cooling or water stations, that registered pilgrims have.

    “This group was more vulnerable to the heat because, without official permits, they could not access air-conditioned spaces provided by Saudi authorities for the 1.8 million authorized pilgrims to cool down after hours of walking and praying outside,” writes AFP.

    Via AFP

    Last Sunday alone saw over 2,700 cases of heat exhaustion, the Saudi foreign ministry had earlier announced.

    Between heat exhaustion and heat stroke, the latter is the most serious, and includes a person’s temperature rising rapidly as the body can no longer regulate it, and the ability to sweat fails, resulting in an inability to cool down. Dizziness, vomiting, fainting, and mental confusion are signs of potential heat exhaustion leading to heat stroke.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 06/21/2024 – 23:20

  • House Committee Forms Group To Tackle CCP's Role In Fentanyl Crisis
    House Committee Forms Group To Tackle CCP’s Role In Fentanyl Crisis

    Authored by Aaron Pan via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    A bipartisan working group to address China’s role in the fentanyl epidemic has been established by the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

    A Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) chemist checks confiscated pills containing fentanyl at the DEA Northeast Regional Laboratory in New York City, on Oct. 8, 2019. (Don Emmert/AFP via Getty Images)

    The Fentanyl Policy Working Group, announced by the panel on June 20, will be in charge of creating legislation and raising public awareness through committee events to expose the CCP’s role in the fentanyl crisis in the United States and combat the threat.

    “China has programs in place to reward companies with subsidies for exporting fentanyl and other drugs illegal under Chinese law to the United States. It is now abundantly clear that the CCP is not just turning a blind eye to the fentanyl crisis, it is causing it,” Rep. John Moolenaar (R-Mich.), the committee’s chairman, said in a press release.

    Mr. Moolenaar and Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.), the committee’s ranking Democrat member, announced the working group’s formation. Mr. Moolenaar said he formed the group “to determine what must be done to seek justice for the hundreds of thousands of victims and hold the CCP responsible for funneling this poison into American communities.”

    The group will start by focusing its work on an April report from the committee titled “The CCP Role in the Fentanyl Crisis,” which found that Beijing directly subsidizes fentanyl production and exports the deadly substance to the United States, causing hundreds of thousands of American deaths in an effort to weaken and undermine the country.

    “Fentanyl is the leading cause of death for people ages 18-45 in the United States, and we now know the Chinese Communist Party is the force behind that crisis,” Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.) said. “From funding the manufacturing and export of illicit fentanyl precursor chemicals to holding ownership interest in companies tied to drug trafficking, the CCP is not only an active participant in the drug trade—they are directly incentivizing it,” he added.

    “While the CCP continues to economically enrich themselves at the expense of the health and safety of millions of Americans, it is imperative that the United States sends a clear message: the buck stops here.”

    The working group aims to “codify, strengthen, and impose sanctions on entities involved in the fentanyl trade” and implement trade and customs enforcement measures to curb fentanyl trafficking. It also seeks to address “close regulatory and enforcement gaps” exploited by Chinese money launderers and fentanyl traders.

    Mr. Newhouse and Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-Mass.) will lead the working group, which includes Reps. Neal Dunn (R-Fla.), Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), Dusty Johnson (R-S.D.), Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.), and Michelle Steel (R-Calif.).

    A proposal to tackle the fentanyl crisis in the United States is also included in the Countering Communist China Act, introduced by Rep. Kevin Hern (R-Okla.) in February. The legislation includes sanctioning of Chinese officials and entities responsible for the flow of the synthetic opioid into the country, and encourages Americans whose family members died of fentanyl overdoses to sue Chinese officials.

    CCP Tax Subsidies, Grants

    According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the number of estimated deaths caused by fentanyl overdoses reached nearly 75,000, or 200 every day, in 2023. The death toll is 24 times higher than in 2013 when 3,105 people died from the synthetic opioid. The bulk of the drugs responsible for those deaths are manufactured in Mexico using chemical precursors made in China.

    Though most of the chemicals in question are illegal in both the United States and China, the committee’s April report found that the CCP is offering massive tax subsidies and giving grants to companies engaged in the production and export of such drugs to the Americas. It also found that the CCP has ownership stakes in some companies linked to drug trafficking.

    While the Chinese regime has used its massive surveillance and censorship apparatus to prosecute and execute drug makers within China, it is actively contributing to the growth of those who sell their illicit goods overseas.

    Data from the Drug Enforcement Administration indicates that in 2017, fentanyl from China represented 97 percent of the fentanyl seized from international mail.

    The report also discovered that Chinese authorities consistently fail to prosecute manufacturers of fentanyl and its precursors. Instead of cooperating with U.S. law enforcement, Chinese security services have been accused of tipping off targets of American investigations.

    Andrew Thornebrooke contributed to this report.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 06/21/2024 – 23:00

  • Disney Exposed? VP Admits On Hidden Camera That Company Refuses To Hire 'White Males'
    Disney Exposed? VP Admits On Hidden Camera That Company Refuses To Hire ‘White Males’

    For almost a decade Disney has been on a Diveristy, Equity and Inclusion induced spiral into clown world (along with a number of major entertainment and media companies).  The shift by corporations towards promoting ideological propaganda instead of chasing profits started out subtle and has quickly escalated into a crescendo of absurdity. 

    Disney has become the public focus of the wokification of media for a number of reasons including the conglomerate’s massive size and global reach, but more than anything else, it used to be family favored company.  When an organization makes the virtues of family and childhood innocence its brand, any slide into degeneracy or indoctrination is going to be amplified and scrutinized.

    In the past, most companies sought to remain neutral (at least in public) when it came to political affiliations and aspirations.  However, this principle has also been thrown out the window in recent years with Disney being one of the worst perpetrators of open political interference and influence; they even tried to go to war with the highly conservative state of Florida a couple years ago and that didn’t work out too well for them.

    Disney’s political allegiances are clearly to the far-left. One might even argue that without companies like Disney the woke movement wouldn’t exist.  Part of this movement is the demonization of traditional western values, structures and specifically the men who built them.  That is to say, the “white man” is now persona non grata.  

    Every Marxist/Communist movement needs a great enemy, a monolithic monster to focus the ire of their followers and give them a justification for the destruction of the target society.  For the woke devout, white males are the ultimate villain that needs to be diminished and chained down for the “safety” of everyone else.  In other words, the anti-white male movement is an integral part of the woke movement.  The two things cannot be separated.

    It has long been suspected that woke corporations have been actively discriminating against white males in the name of DEI.  Much like Affirmative Action, DEI initiatives have led companies to reject better qualified candidates for employment in favor of less qualified or completely unqualified diversity hires.  The quality of products, especially when it comes to the entertainment industry, is clearly in decline.  

    Disney and others have consistently denied that they have an ongoing policy of white discrimination or male discrimination.  But now it appears this claim has been proven false.

    A Disney Senior VP, Michael Giordano, was recently caught on camera by an undercover journalist working with James O Keefe alleging that Disney actively and blatantly discriminates against white men when it comes to every area of company operations.  This includes their hiring habits for TV and film productions as well as internal company promotions.  Disney is seeking out that perfect pie chart of ethnicity, disability and sexuality to become a church of woke, sacrificing merit and success for ideological purity.

    To be fair to Michael Giordano, he seems to be a victim in this situation as he notes that he is also a white male and is more likely to be passed up for promotion because of his skin color.  He mentions, sadly, that Disney also discriminates against people with mixed ethnic backgrounds if their skin is “too white.”  They can’t just be the part genetically, they have to look the part.  The revelations he puts forward are confirmation of a DEI conspiracy that many have accused Disney of participating in.   

    These actions and more have inspired an army of commentators that have put Disney under a microscope, leading to increasing box office failures, dwindling streaming service numbers and a host of losing legal battles.  When Disney went woke they declared war on western culture.  It’s no surprise that they are suffering defeat after defeat as western culture fights back. 

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 06/21/2024 – 22:40

  • You Will Be Tagged… And You Will Love It
    You Will Be Tagged… And You Will Love It

    Authored by Riley Waggaman via Off-Guardian.org,

    As expected, the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum was the hottest anti-globalist multipolar traditional RETVRN values conference of 2024 – possibly of all-time.

    The unipolar world suffered non-stop humiliations during this mind-blowing freedom event. For example, Moscow Region governor Andrei Vorobyov made an incredible BRICS announcement during a titillating panel discussion about the joys of biometrics, causing the dollar to lose 50% of its value against the gold-backed ruble:

    Biometrics is a tool that gives people better quality and more convenience in certain procedures, keeping them neat and tidy. You don’t need any papers or passports—that will all be in the past. Resisting it, in my opinion, is absurd.

    The governor of Russia’s second-most-populated region, explaining the inevitable convenience of biometrics—which will replace archaic “papers” and “passports”.

    Nothing is being hidden. They’re speaking very frankly. It’s all out there, in the open.

    There is even a helpful “recap” of the panel discussion published by SPIEF. Behold the “highlights”:

    source: https://forumspb.com/

    “I am for biometrics … Everything I do is based on biometrics, everything is based on fingerprints, because I’m took lazy to carry cards with me and it’s much more convenient to just [login/pass/go] through my face,” pontificated an expert panelist.

    Was the BRICS Multipolar Happy Order incapable of finding a single panelist who had reservations about turning eyeballs into IDs? Igor Ashmanov, a member of the Presidential Council for the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights, had to shout his objections from the bleachers because they wouldn’t let his dirty anti-biometric ideas onstage:

    source: Telegram

    Friend of the blog Simplicius posted a Twitter-summary of Igor’s very rude unipolar objections to biometrics:

    This guy sounds like Edward Slavsquat. Great minds think alike.

    “Yes, but Russians like biometrics, the most convenient of all forms for identification, which will replace ‘papers’ and ‘passports’,” you might be saying to yourself for some weird and tragic reason.

    Take the wheel, nakanune.ru:

    People in Russia are narrow-minded and have not yet realized how beautiful, convenient and progressive biometrics are. Therefore, whether they want it or not, the authorities will introduce it wherever possible. Approximately the same reasoning (without these words, but with this meaning) was heard at SPIEF in the section devoted to biometrics. Nakanune.RU provides characteristic statements about the attitude of business towards people.

    At first, the presenter of the Russia 24 channel, Maria Kudryavtseva, advertised biometrics, showing how she enters the Unified Biometric System using her face and even the greeting “Hello, Maria!” appears there, which she enthusiastically shows to the audience.

    At the same time, there was a feeling of a white gentleman showing “digital beads” to the local natives. And the whole “discussion” came down to one thing—intrusive advertising. It is characteristic that the governor of the Moscow region Andrei Vorobyov, who is a public servant, but showed himself to be a business lobbyist, was also involved in this.

    As with artificial intelligence in healthcare , the panel included only proponents of biometrics. Those who might object were simply not invited. Those present were mainly engaged in advertising. Old people do not understand the digital world, but young people were already born with a gadget in their hand, they are very flexible, progressive, digital. They understand how convenient, cool and fast it is. In general, the conversation became very revealing in its vacuity and disregard for the position of citizens.

    The first question to the speakers was provocative: is society ready to use biometrics? That is, don’t people want it, does the country need it, not what it will give, not what the risks are—but is society ready, as if the issue has been fundamentally resolved. Which is obscene. Let us recall that according to a 2023 survey , a third of Russians have a positive attitude towards taking biometrics, but almost half are opposed—48%.

    […]

    Vorobiev spoke as if he had gone back in time a hundred years ago and was telling backward people of the past about the wonders of the technology of the future. Here are just a few quotes.

    “You don’t need a paper or a passport, all this will be a thing of the past, it’s absurd to resist it. We all already use biometrics, including children at school… It’s convenient, you don’t need to twist anything, you just look and that’s it,” said Vorobiev. […]

    It is characteristic that one of the main experts in the field of artificial intelligence in the country, a member of the Human Rights Council, Igor Ashmanov, was not invited to the section, who was forced to make remarks from the audience several times, and the section participants politely drew attention to the fact that someone might disagree. So, when Lebedev said that all people are for biometrics, he objected that this was not true. And when they started talking about different points of view, he very briefly but accurately described what was happening.

    “You haven’t invited anyone to the presidium, you’re all blowing the same tune! As a member of the Presidential Human Rights Council, I hear completely obscene advertising, and nothing more!” said Ashmanov.

    What’s wrong with this freak?

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 06/21/2024 – 22:20

  • Housing Downturn in Austin, Texas Is "Remarkable" As Inventory Spikes To Record High
    Housing Downturn in Austin, Texas Is “Remarkable” As Inventory Spikes To Record High

    Our latest housing note showed May’s US existing home sales data slumped for the third consecutive month while prices hit a record high. This highlights the ongoing affordability crisis in the housing market, with a 30-year mortgage interest rate of around 7%. However, there is evidence that home buyers might soon find some relief as inventories nationwide increase.

    Let’s jump right into our latest housing note from Friday:

    The supply of homes on the market increased 18.5% from the same month last year to 1.28 million, but it’s still well below the level seen before the pandemic when mortgage rates were much lower.

    “Eventually, more inventory will help boost home sales and tame home price gains in the upcoming months,” NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun wrote in a statement. 

    According to Bloomberg data, the number of corporate media news stories featuring “housing inventory” has surged this month to a record high of 1,232, with data going back to 2014. This may suggest that inventory is coming online in certain parts of the country. 

    A simple Google News search for “housing inventory” shows several stories detailing rising inventory trends city by city. 

    Drilling down into the inventory story, Nick Gerli, CEO and Founder of real estate analytics firm Reventure Consulting, pointed out Austin, Texas’ inventory has “now spiked to the highest level on record.” 

    Gerli said, “Values down nearly 20% already and could have another 15% decline to go.”

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    “Austin is remarkable because only two years ago, most housing analysts believed this market wouldn’t crash. They believed the Kool-Aid of “everyone is moving to Austin.” It’s becoming the Silicon Valley, etc. But it was always obvious that this market would crash,” he said. 

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    Gerli continued, “Back in May 2022, Austin’s Housing Market hit a 50% overvaluation rate. Typical home value of $556k v fair home value of $365k based on local incomes. Locals were completely priced out of the market. And once the inevitable slowdown in inbound migration came, the market would obviously correct.”

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    He said home prices in the metro area have dropped about 20% over the past two years, and further downside is expected. 

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    More pain to come. 

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    This is important. 

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    “Note that if a housing market is overvalued, it isn’t guaranteed to crash,” he said, adding, To facilitate big declines in prices, there needs to be a corresponding spike in inventory and price cuts. As well as selling pressure from owners.” 

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    Gerli concluded, “If those things don’t happen, a market can stay overvalued, and eventually become fairly valued through income growth.”

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 06/21/2024 – 22:00

  • Why Has China Purchased Farmland Near 19 Different Military Bases Inside The US?
    Why Has China Purchased Farmland Near 19 Different Military Bases Inside The US?

    Authored by Michael Snyder via The End of The American Dream blog,

    The Chinese aren’t exactly being subtle about what they are trying to do.  Today, they own more than 300,000 acres of farmland inside the United States, and they have been specifically targeting areas that are located near important military bases.  As you will see below, the Chinese now own farmland very close to 19 different U.S. military bases.  How in the world could our leaders have allowed this to happen?  Foreign adversaries should not be allowed to purchase farmland at all, and yet somehow they have been able to acquire land that is ideal for spying on our military bases over and over again. 

    In fact, the New York Post has “identified 19 bases across the US from Florida to Hawaii which are in close proximity to land bought up by Chinese entities”…

    China has been buying up strategically placed farmland next to military installations across the US, raising national security fears over potential espionage or even sabotage.

    The Post has identified 19 bases across the US from Florida to Hawaii which are in close proximity to land bought up by Chinese entities and could be exploited by spies working for the communist nation.

    When I read stuff like that, it makes me want to tear my hair out.

    Are the people that are in charge of our national security really this incompetent?

    According to the New York Post, the list includes some of our “most strategically important bases”…

    They include some of the military’s most strategically important bases: Fort Liberty (formerly Fort Bragg) in Fayetteville, North Carolina; Fort Cavazos (formerly Fort Hood) in Killeen, Texas; Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton in San Diego, California, and MacDill air force base in Tampa, Florida.

    We know that the Chinese are very interested in our military bases.

    Do you remember the Chinese spy balloon that was allowed to fly over our country?

    The path that it took allowed it to gather intelligence on Malmstrom Air Force Base, which is where some of our key nuclear assets are located.

    And the Wall Street Journal has reported that Chinese nationals have been caught accessing “military bases and other sensitive sites” inside the United States close to 100 times…

    Chinese nationals, sometimes posing as tourists, have accessed military bases and other sensitive sites in the U.S. as many as 100 times in recent years, according to U.S. officials, who describe the incidents as a potential espionage threat.

    The Defense Department, FBI and other agencies held a review last year to try to limit these incidents, which involve people whom officials have dubbed gate-crashers because of their attempts—either by accident or intentionally—to get onto U.S. military bases and other installations without proper authorization. They range from Chinese nationals found crossing into a U.S. missile range in New Mexico to what appeared to be scuba divers swimming in murky waters near a U.S. government rocket-launch site in Florida.

    Look, everyone knows that the Chinese are trying to spy on us.

    That isn’t a big secret.

    Just don’t make it easy for them.

    At the same time all of this spying is going on, there has been an unprecedented surge in Chinese migrants coming across the southern border…

    US border officials said they detained 37,000 Chinese migrants attempting to cross the border in 2023, or 10 times the number detained in the year before. The true number of those attempting to cross the border is likely higher.

    The flow of Chinese migrants continued to surge in 2024, with CBS reporting in February that it observed 600 migrants, many of whom were Chinese, entering the US in a single day.

    The House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Oversight, Investigations, and Accountability said in May that the number of Chinese nationals encountered by authorities at the US border in March had jumped 8,000% from the same period in 2021.

    Most of the Chinese migrants that are coming across the southern border are men of military age, and they commonly travel to the border in groups.

    Suspiciously, these groups of military age Chinese men are often decked out in matching equipment.

    But they are let into the country anyway, because that is what our leaders have decided to do.

    So now we have tens of thousands of military age “Chinese migrants” that are running around inside our country, and we have no idea where they are or what they are doing.

    The Chinese are preparing to win a war, and we are preparing to lose one.

    At this point, everyone realizes that the Chinese are going to invade Taiwan eventually.  In fact, the Daily Mail ran a big story about the coming invasion this week…

    Xi Jinping views Taiwan as a breakaway Chinese province and has vowed to ‘reunify’ it with the mainland, by force if necessary.

    He is in the midst of a huge military buildup, regularly sending fighter jets and warships to harass Taiwan, and staging menacing war games in the area.

    When Taiwan is invaded, the U.S. military will be expected to intervene, and then we will be at war with China…

    Taiwan views itself as independent of Beijing and is allied to America – a legacy that stretches back to the Chinese Civil War 75 years ago.

    America supplies the islands with weapons and is expected to go to war to defend them if they are attacked.

    By most estimates, a war over Taiwan would be one of the biggest, bloodiest, and most expensive in history.

    Most people don’t realize this, but China and the Philippines are also on the verge of military conflict.  Recently, there was a very alarming clash in the South China Sea that resulted in one Filipino soldier losing a thumb…

    Filipino soldiers had to defend themselves with bare hands against Chinese coast guard armed with swords and knives, according to the Philippines.

    General Romeo Brawner, the Philippines’ top military commander, criticized China for what he described as “reckless and aggressive” behavior while the Philippines navy and coast guard were delivering supplies to Filipino soldiers in the disputed South China Sea on Monday.

    Chinese coast guard personnel rammed their vessels into boats belonging to the Philippines, and boarded and attacked them, the BBC reported Brawner as saying, leaving some injured and one soldier having lost a thumb.

    The Chinese have become extremely aggressive, and it is just a matter of time before we are at war with them.

    But even though many of our leaders publicly talk about the coming war, we are still allowing the Chinese to take advantage of us in unthinkable ways.

    We should have never allowed the Chinese to purchase large tracts of farmland near 19 of our most important military bases.

    Unfortunately, they are there now, and that will give them a major advantage when war finally erupts.

    *  *  *

    Michael’s new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack  newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 06/21/2024 – 21:40

  • 'Total Lawlessness' & Looting Has Made Gaza Aid Delivery Nearly Impossible: UN Chief
    ‘Total Lawlessness’ & Looting Has Made Gaza Aid Delivery Nearly Impossible: UN Chief

    “On the Gazan side of the Kerem Shalom Crossing, where over 1,000 trucks are awaiting collection and distribution… there are hundreds of aid pallets awaiting collection and distribution by the UN aid agencies,” Maj. Gen. Ghassan Alian of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has announced.

    For months, there have been two primary threats to aid convoys entering the Gaza Strip. First, on their way in, trucks carrying vital humanitarian supplies often come under attack by Israeli settlers. Second, once convoys are inside the Strip, they face the potential of being swarmed and coming under attack by desperate Palestinians who rip the supplies away before they arrive at intended drop-off points.

    AP: Palestinians loot a humanitarian aid truck as it crosses into the Gaza Strip in Rafah, December 17, 2023.

    Also, in many cases even population enclaves in the Strip which are not currently witnessing direct battles are in desperation and civil chaos amid fuel, food, and medicine shortages – given there is no overall governing authority.

    UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Friday called the situation one of “total lawlessness” and decried that it has led to wide-spread looting at aid storehouses.

    “The situation in Gaza became a situation of total lawlessness. Most of the trucks with humanitarian aid inside Gaza are now looted because this is a war that is different from any other one,” Guterres said a news conference.

    He said this is large-part due to the nature of this conflict, where Israel has not occupied and managed any single territory with enough permanence to bring any level of stability, also amid a state of internecine attacks and continued bombings.

    Guterres further characterized “total chaos in Gaza” in which there is “no authority in most of the territory,” as it remains that “Israel does not even allow the so-called blue police to escort our (UN) convoys, because it’s a local police linked to local administration.”

    This has made it nearly impossible to run a legitimate and timely system of aid delivery and distribution, given that for this to work there must be minimum rule of law and order.

    “The problem is not only to bring things to Gaza,” he said, after explaining that once inside the shipments are an easy target for looting. “That’s why a cease-fire is so necessary to … properly organize and implement a plan,” he stressed.

    The past months have witnessed dangerous scenes from Gaza like the following:

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    Below are some of the latest breaking developments via Al Jazeera:

    • At least 25 killed, 50 wounded in Israeli attack on tents of displaced people in Mawasi, says Palestinian Health Ministry.
    • Israeli tanks push deeper into western Rafah in south Gaza, firing shells at displaced people’s tents, with one armoured vehicle blown up by a Hamas-planted improvised explosive device.
    • The White House has described Benjamin Netanyahu’s criticism of the suspension of one US weapons delivery to Israel as “vexing” and “disappointing” as the public rift between the two allies intensifies.
    • Israeli forces have carried out deadly air attacks across Gaza over the past 24 hours, including a strike on a home that has killed eight people in Gaza City’s Zeitoun neighbourhood.
    • United Nations experts have warned arms manufacturers against transferring weapons to Israel, saying they could be complicit in violations of international law carried out in Gaza.
    • At least 37,431 people have been killed and 85,653 wounded in Israel’s war on Gaza since October 7. The death toll in Israel from the Hamas-led attacks stands at 1,139, with dozens of people still held captive in Gaza.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 06/21/2024 – 21:20

  • Supreme Court Broadens Use Of Expert Testimony Against Accused Criminals
    Supreme Court Broadens Use Of Expert Testimony Against Accused Criminals

    Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    The U.S. Supreme Court on June 20 sided with the government in a case centering on expert testimony in criminal trials.

    Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas poses for an official portrait at the East Conference Room of the Supreme Court building in Washington on Oct. 7, 2022. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

    In a 6–3 ruling, the justices said that experts can testify to how “most people” in a group to which a defendant belongs think, upholding a lower court ruling.

    The case was brought by Delilah Diaz, a U.S. citizen who was stopped at the U.S.-Mexico border. Officers found nearly 28 kilograms of drugs hidden in the door panels of the car she was driving, and she was charged with violating a law that requires showing a defendant “knowingly” transported drugs.

    Ms. Diaz said her boyfriend used her by luring her to Mexico, then loaning her a car to return to the United States that was, unbeknownst to her, filled with drugs.

    The government called Andrew Flood, a special agent, to testify that drug traffickers typically don’t give large quantities of drugs to people unless the people know they are transporting the drugs.

    “Generally, it’s a risk of your—your cargo not making it to the new market; not knowing where it’s going; not being able to retrieve it at the ending point, at your point B. So there’s a risk of not delivering your product and, therefore, you’re not going to make any money,” he testified.

    Mr. Flood also said that there were cases where drug traffickers placed drugs in vehicles without the drivers knowing, but that none of those known “schemes” matched the circumstances of Ms. Diaz.

    Challenging Testimony

    Ms. Diaz brought up a federal rule known as Rule 704(b) that states expert witnesses “must not state an opinion about whether the defendant did or did not have a mental state or condition that constitutes an element of the crime charged or of a defense.” But a district judge ruled that Mr. Flood could tell jurors about whether couriers generally knew they were transporting drugs. At trial, he testified to that effect. The jury found Ms. Diaz guilty.

    Ms. Diaz appealed, but a federal appeals court also rejected her arguments against the testimony.

    Lawyers for Ms. Diaz had written in a filing to the Supreme Court that the plain text of the rule “forecloses limiting its reach to an ‘explicit opinion’ regarding the defendant’s knowledge.” Generalizing about most drug carriers was an improper workaround of the rule, they said.

    “This is true of many generalizations about a class of individuals,” they wrote. “Say a patient asks his therapist whether he is depressed and she responds, ‘People do not usually have trouble getting out of bed in the morning unless they are depressed.’ She has clearly expressed an ‘opinion about’ her patient’s mental state. Likewise for a high-school teacher who, when asked whether one of her students knew that he was not supposed to get outside help on a take-home exam, responds, ‘High-school seniors generally know the honor code.’”

    In the Supreme Court ruling siding against Ms. Diaz, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that “because the expert witness did not state an opinion about whether petitioner herself had a particular mental state, we conclude that the testimony did not violate Rule 704(b).”

    “Agent Flood instead testified about the knowledge of most drug couriers,” he added later. “Specifically, he explained that ‘in most circumstances, the driver knows they are hired … to take the drugs from point A to point B.’ That opinion does not necessarily describe Diaz’s mental state. After all, Diaz may or may not be like most drug couriers.”

    Defense Arguments

    Defense lawyers, during cross-examination of the agent, also established that Mr. Flood was not involved in Ms. Diaz’s case and that there had been cases before involving people carrying drugs without their knowledge.

    “The jury was thus well aware that unknowing couriers exist and that there was evidence to suggest Diaz could be one of them. It simply concluded that the evidence as a whole pointed to a different conclusion: that Diaz knowingly transported the drugs. The jury alone drew that conclusion,” Justice Thomas said.

    Justice Thomas was joined by Justices John Roberts, Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett, and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

    Justice Neil Gorsuch said in a dissent that the majority was “carv[ing] a new path” around the federal rule.

    The ruling means “prosecutors can now put an expert on the stand—someone who apparently has the convenient ability to read minds—and let him hold forth on what ’most‘ people like the defendant think when they commit a legally proscribed act,” he wrote. “Then, the government need do no more than urge the jury to find that the defendant is like ’most’ people and convict. What authority exists for allowing that kind of charade in federal criminal trials is anybody’s guess, but certainly it cannot be found in Rule 704.”

    Justice Gorsuch was joined his dissent by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 06/21/2024 – 21:00

  • Beijing-Hosted Ukraine Peace Conference? Why Not…
    Beijing-Hosted Ukraine Peace Conference? Why Not…

    China shunned the Switzerland-hosted peace talks attended by some 90 countries and which happened last week, however, the government of Xi Jinping has urgently called for an international peace summit hosted by Beijing. China’s rationale for skipping the Swiss summit was that the endeavor was futile without Russia’s presence.

    Geng Shuang, China’s deputy permanent representative to the United Nations, recently told the United Nations Security Council in New York, “China calls on the parties to the conflict to demonstrate political will, come together, and start peace talks as soon as possible to achieve a ceasefire and halt military actions.”

    Geng ultimately put forth China as a better facilitator and mediator due to its “objectivity and impartiality” while at the same time accusing Washington of “spreading the lie that China has supported Russia in its war efforts”. Practically speaking, it is much more likely that Putin would send representatives to Beijing rather than Switzerland or a Western European nation for a summit.

    “This is unacceptable … It is an attempt to divert people’s attention from the conflict and create differences,” he said further. The Chinese diplomat described that China “urges the US to stop using the Ukraine issue as an excuse to smear China and to impose unilateral sanctions and unreasonable suppression on Chinese companies.”

    Indeed there was this interesting moment earlier this month where President Biden showed himself to be even more hawkish on the issue than Zelensky himself, despite the Ukrainian leader being in the thick of war…

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    Beijing’s appeal for the world to look to China if it hopes to achieve peace in Ukraine is also interesting given that it provides Biden with an “out” of sorts ahead of what’s sure to be a tight election in November.

    Achieving negotiated ceasefire in Ukraine, though it seems as distant as ever (given especially the Biden admin’s own uncompromising pro-Kiev policy), would without doubt be a political ‘win’ for Biden at a moment the Gaza war also shows no signs of stopping.

    But the US is unlikely to get on board with this and will instead stick with the simple China equals ‘bad guy/bad actor’ narrative instead of a path of robust diplomacy and a pragmatic path forward. This despite the Zelensky government having for months urged that China play a key role in persuading Russia toward peace.

    Putin himself days ago set forth his key conditions for ending the war… (it would end “this very minute” he said): that Ukraine forces withdraw from the four annexed territories, and that Kiev give up its aspirations to join the NATO alliance. 

    But in the meantime all the White House can do is continue to verbally chide China and Russia (and with the occasional sanctions). But from Beijing’s perspective, whether Trump gets into the top office or Biden stays, it’s basically two sides of the same coin. “China Has No Favorite in Biden-Trump Race, US Intelligence Finds,” Bloomberg reported in a Thursday headline.

    “US spies believe China’s leaders see little or no upside to the looming electoral showdown between President Joe Biden and his predecessor Donald Trump,” the report said.

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    “Ahead of next week’s first debate of the presidential campaign, US intelligence agencies assess that China has no clear preference between the two candidates, according to American officials, who asked not to be identified discussing non-public assessments,” Bloomberg wrote.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 06/21/2024 – 20:40

  • Washington Approves Another $360 Million Arms Sale To Taiwan
    Washington Approves Another $360 Million Arms Sale To Taiwan

    Authored by Connor Freeman via AntiWar.com,

    The State Department said earlier this week that it has green-lit a $360 million arms sale to Taipei, including hundreds of armed drones, missile equipment, and other support material. China views Taiwan as part of its territory, and while it prefers to reclaim the de facto independent island peacefully, it has not ruled out using force if its “red lines” are crossed.

    The latest sale comprises 291 Altius-600M systems, which are drones, or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), armed with warheads. The State Department release notes 720 Switchblade drones, described as “extended-range loitering munitions,” are also included with the package.

    Reuters: China has called recent drills around Taiwan a “strong punishment” for “separatist acts”

    The statement went on to claim that the sale “serves U.S. national, economic, and security interests by supporting the recipient’s continuing efforts to modernize its armed forces and to maintain a credible defensive capability.” Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te thanked Washington for the new hardware, insisting they will increase regional stability. “In the future, we will continue to strengthen Taiwan’s national defense strength, whether through … military purchases or our own efforts,” he said.

    Wednesday’s announcement follows reports this week that Chinese President Xi Jinping told European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen last year that he believes the hawkish US posture in the region and its increased military support for the island constitute an attempt to provoke an invasion by Beijing.

    Earlier this month, Adm. Samuel Paparo, the head of US Indo-Pacific Command, told Washington Post columnist Josh Rogin he plans to wage a “hellscape” drone war, launching thousands of UAVs, drone boats, and unmanned submarines against China if it attacks the island. “I want to turn the Taiwan Strait into an unmanned hellscape using a number of classified capabilities,” he threatened. “So that I can make their lives utterly miserable for a month, which buys me the time for the rest of everything.”

    His predecessor, Admiral John Aquilino, said last year that he was instructed by Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin and President Joe Biden to prepare for a direct war with China over the self-ruled island. “What I can tell you is the secretary and the president have tasked me with two missions. The first is to prevent this conflict. And then the second one is if I fail at Mission One to be ready and prepared to fight and win… the United States military is manned, trained, equipped, postured and ready to execute both of those missions,” the commander proclaimed.

    This was yet another confirmation that the White House has discarded the decades-old policy of “strategic ambiguity” regarding what role the US would play in the event of a cross-strait war. Since taking office, Biden had made several ostensible “gaffes” suggesting the US, in fact, has a defense commitment with the island and that American men and women would be deployed to fight and die to protect its de facto independence. Last year, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines and the then-top Asia official on the National Security Council, Kurt Campbell, reiterated that the policy was changed from ambiguity to strategic clarity, or an overt war footing.

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    Since last year, in another about-face on long-standing US policies regarding the island, the US has provided Taipei with billions in military aid, angering Beijing. US officials say their goal is to convert the island into a “giant weapons depot.” A war over Taiwan with direct US intervention would likely turn nuclear. China has the ability to inflict severe damage to US security if such a fight were to take place, including strikes with strategic weapons across the continental United States.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 06/21/2024 – 20:20

  • Say Their Names: Young American Women Are Being Raped & Murdered By Illegal Aliens
    Say Their Names: Young American Women Are Being Raped & Murdered By Illegal Aliens

    Fox News’ Bill Melugin shared with X users several headlines from this week alone that shows illegal aliens committing heinous acts of rape and murder against young American women. 

    On Thursday, Melugin said here are three headlines since the weekend:

    • Salvadoran illegal alien charged w/ rape & murder of Rachel Morin. Entered as gotaway last year.

    • Ecuadorian illegal alien charged w/ rape & kidnapping of 13-year-old girl in NYC. Caught & released in 2021.

    • Two Venezuelan illegal aliens charged w/ murdering 12-year-old Jocelyn Nungaray in Houston. Both caught and released at the border this year.

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    Utah Sen. Mike Lee, who has endorsed former President Donald Trump, wrote on X, “Americans are dying because Joe Biden and Alejandro Mayorkas are importing unvetted criminals every single day.”

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    This is absolutely horrible, and there’s absolutely zero accountability from radical leftists in the White House. 

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    Pretty much. 

    This is heartbreaking. 

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    The Biden administration is turning a blind eye to the tragic deaths of these young women. They’re prioritizing Ukraine and illegal aliens and installing woke Marxism across government agencies. Law-abiding citizens are awakening to this disturbing reality.

    Meanwhile, a woke MSNBC host and pro-Hamas Rep. Pramila Jayapal both agree that Fox News’ reporting of an illegal alien raping a young girl is “fear-mongering.” 

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    What in the actual F…

    Perhaps Project Veritas revealed the actual goal of open southern borders in a new undercover video. 

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    The deaths of young American women at the hands of illegal aliens should never be happening. This is the direct result of disastrous open border policies pushed by radical leftists in the White House who are willing and completely fine with inflicting great pain on Americans so they can continue installing their leftist agenda.

    This is insanity.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 06/21/2024 – 20:00

  • Nearly Half Of US EV Drivers Consider Switching Back To Gas Vehicles: McKinsey Study
    Nearly Half Of US EV Drivers Consider Switching Back To Gas Vehicles: McKinsey Study

    Authored by Andrew Moran via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    More electric vehicle drivers are thinking about switching back to internal combustion engine automobiles, according to new findings from the 2024 McKinsey & Co. Mobility Consumer Global Survey.

    A Volkswagen electric car is parked in front of a charging station in Salzgitter, north-central Germany, on May 18, 2022. (John Macdougall/AFP via Getty Images)

    Forty-six percent of EV owners surveyed in the United States say they will likely return to driving gas-powered vehicles.

    Globally, the survey of 30,000 respondents in 15 countries found that more than one-quarter (29 percent) of EV owners are likely to go back to driving gas-powered cars.

    Australia topped the list with 49 percent confirming they want to return to driving behind the wheel of an gas-powered automobile, the study found.

    The lack of public charging infrastructure was the chief reason respondents wanted to switch back to gas-powered vehicles, with 35 percent saying it is “not yet good enough for me.”

    Thirty-four percent noted that the total costs of EV ownership were “too high.”

    The list of reasons for being disappointed in electric cars rounded out with being unable to charge at home (24 percent), too much worry and stress about charging (21 percent), changing mobility requirements (16 percent), and not enjoying the driving experience (13 percent).

    Overall, 21 percent of global respondents said they would never want to switch to an electric vehicle, unchanged from 2022. By comparison, 18 percent confirmed their next automobile will be an EV, up from 16 percent in 2022.

    Looking ahead to the next 10 years, 29 percent want to replace their automobile with other forms of transportation. They cited expensive car ownership costs, a desire to live a more sustainable lifestyle, and remote work.

    Other studies have found similar trends in the United States.

    According to the BloombergNEF 2024 Electric Vehicle Outlook, there has been growing consumer consternation surrounding the EV market.

    “In the U.S., EV market jitters inflamed by the upcoming presidential election helped slow down adoption this year, and by 2027 only 29 percent of cars sold in the country [will be] electric,” the report stated as concerns surrounding driving range, price, battery lifespan, and unreliable public charging become ubiquitous across the marketplace.

    America’s EV Infrastructure

    The White House aims to have 56 percent of all new vehicle sales be electric by 2032.

    In order to boost EVs across the country, President Joe Biden announced in March the strictest regulation on vehicle emissions to nudge the auto sector’s transition to electric cars.

    Nissan and Volkswagen electric cars sit parked at a Charge Point EV charging station in Corte Madera, Calif., on July 28, 2023. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

    President Biden’s recent measure plans to limit the annual amount of pollution allowed from car exhausts. Automakers that fail to meet these new standards will endure tough penalties.

    But while the United States has been facilitating a market of more EV sales, the infrastructure has been lacking.

    In the landmark 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, lawmakers approved $7.5 billion to construct 500,000 public charging stations for electric cars nationwide. The Inflation Reduction Act also boosts tax credits for EVs and charger installations.

    To date, only eight public EV-charging stations have been deployed, receiving rebukes from both sides of the aisle.

    “That is pathetic. We’re now three years into this. That is a vast administrative failure,” said Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) at a June 5 Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) committee hearing. “Something is terribly wrong and it needs to be fixed.”

    Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says the administration plans to build 500,000 chargers by 2030.

    “Now, in order to do a charger, it’s more than just plugging a small device into the ground,” Mr. Buttigieg told CBS’s “Face the Nation” last month. “There’s utility work, and this is also really a new category of federal investment. But we’ve been working with each of the 50 states.”

    When host Margaret Brennan asked why only seven or eight chargers had been built, he reiterated that a half-million chargers would be built in the next six years.

    “And the very first handful of chargers are now already being physically built,” the secretary added.

    Earlier this month, the Biden administration announced an extra $1.3 billion in funding to expand EV charging infrastructure in urban and rural communities.

    “Doubling down on electrification is more important than ever to our economic prosperity and national security,” said Joint Office Executive Director Gabe Klein in a statement. “With the rest of the world pushing down on the accelerator; we are moving fast to position the United States as the global leader in the future that everyone is racing toward.”

    State of the US EV Market

    Over the last year, U.S. consumer demand for EVs has stalled, forcing automakers like General Motors, Ford Motor, and Volkswagen to scale back or postpone their EV plans.

    But while motorists’ appetites for electric cars have faded, EV prices have been falling, particularly for used ones.

    Data from iSeeCars show that used EV prices were, on average, 8 percent lower than the average price for a used gas-powered car.

    “There’s no denying the crash in used electric vehicle values over the past year,” said Karl Brauer, executive analyst at iSeeCars. “We’ve watched EVs [sic] prices fall between 30 and 40 percent since June of last year, while the average gas car’s price has dropped by just 3 to 7 percent in that same timeframe.”

    In January, Hertz revealed that it was selling off 20,000 EVs, representing about one-third of its entire EV fleet. The car rental company was even selling used Teslas at an average price of $25,000.

    The decision came three years after announcing the largest EV rental fleet in North America.

    New Electric Cars

    Edmunds figures highlight that the cheapest new electric cars today are the 2024 Nissan Leaf ($28,140), 2024 Mini Electric Hardtop ($30,900), and 2024 Tesla Model 3 ($38,990).

    EV market conditions are expected to stabilize in the next couple of years.

    According to S&P Global Ratings, modest demand growth will range between 1 percent and 2 percent from 2024 to 2026.

    “Softer sales growth in March (which equated to an annual sales rate of 15.5 million units) is consistent with our forecasts, which incorporate a delayed impact on consumer purchasing power from the contiguous macroeconomic shocks of high vehicle prices, ongoing inflation, and higher interest rates for longer,” the firm stated in an April 2024 report.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 06/21/2024 – 19:40

  • Putin Issues Ominous Nuclear Triad Expansion Warning
    Putin Issues Ominous Nuclear Triad Expansion Warning

    Russian President Vladimir Putin has wrapped up his Asia tour which included stops in North Korea and Vietnam. He had inked dozens of agreements with both countries, but most notable was the defense pact with Kim Jong Un, which we previously detailed. 

    On the geopolitical and security ties front, and closely watched by the West, were a couple of ominous warnings Putin issued at a closing press conference in Hanoi on Thursday. He described that Russia might change its nuclear deterrence policy.

    Not not only have the last months witnessed no shortage of nuclear threats and saber-rattling between Moscow and NATO, but some US lawmakers have gone so far as to describe a “Cuban missile crisis in space” following claims Russia is intent on launching a nuclear space weapon into orbit.

    As it stands, Russian nuclear doctrine is based on deploying nukes only in the scenario that the Russian home land comes under existential threat (much like other nuclear armed countries). But below is the press release summarizing Putin’s words issued by Sputnik:

    Russia may consider amending nuclear deterrence policy, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned. According to Putin, this matter became a subject of debate in light of the recent discussions in the world on lowering the threshold of nuclear weapon use.

    At the same time, the Russian president noted that Russia has no need an ability to launch a preemptive nuclear strike.

    In follow-up, Putin later met with graduates of the country’s military universities at the Kremlin upon his return to Russia from his Asia trip. In the fresh address, he said he will order a further development of the nuclear triad – which is a reference to the three-fold strategic defense involving intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched ballistics missiles, and bomber aircraft.

    “We plan to further develop the nuclear triad as a guarantee of strategic deterrence and maintaining the balance of power in the world,” he said. The only other countries to possess a nuclear triad as part of their national defense include the United States, China, and India. 

    To be expected, he spoke somewhat vaguely about the potential changes to come… “Certainly, we will strengthen our potential, enhance the combat capabilities of all branches and types of the armed forces, put into combat duty the pride of our designers, engineers, and workers — the latest systems that have confirmed their qualities and truly unique characteristics, and continue working on advanced models,” he described according to state media.

    All of this becomes even more unsettling for world leaders given the defense pact he just signed with North Korea’s Kim. Related to this, he had earlier issued a warning to South Korea in response to reports that it may ship weapons to Ukraine: 

    Possible deliveries of such weapons to the conflict zone in Ukraine by South Korea would be a mistake, Putin warned.

    “As for the supply of lethal weapons to the combat zone in Ukraine, it would be a very big mistake. I hope it will not happen. If it does, then we too will then make the respective decisions, which South Korea’s current leadership is unlikely to be pleased with,” he said.

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    He then threatened the reciprocal actions of arming Pyongyang with advanced Russian weapons. “Those who are supplying these weapons believe that they are not at war with us, well, I have said, including in Pyongyang, that we reserve the right to supply weapons to other regions, bearing in mind our agreements with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, I don’t rule out this as well, where will these [weapons] go,” Putin said.

    This would be a ‘worst nightmare scenario’ also considering the Pentagon has for decades had large numbers of troops stationed on the Korean peninsula. Seoul is unlikely to pull the trigger on arming Kiev in any significant way, given it would further destabilize already tense relations with the north.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 06/21/2024 – 19:20

  • Being Frank About Costco's $1.50 Hot Dog Combo
    Being Frank About Costco’s $1.50 Hot Dog Combo

    Authored by Thomas McArdle via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Costco’s new CFO, Gary Millerchip, sent disciples of the ultra-low-priced warehouse chain into ecstasy when he told Wall Street analysts in May that the price of its legendary $1.50 quarter-pound, all-beef hot dog and soda with free refills would, despite raging inflation, remain at the price it’s held for about four decades.

    “To clear up some recent media speculation, I also want to confirm the $1.50 hot dog price is safe,” Millerchip said, correcting an iffier statement that had been made by his immediate predecessor, Richard Galanti.

    Customers wait in line to order below signage for the Costco Kirkland Signature $1.50 hot dog and soda combo, which has maintained the same price since 1985 despite consumer price increases and inflation, at the food court outside a Costco Wholesale Corp. store in Hawthorne, California, on June 14, 2022. (Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images)

    A free market means sellers having full freedom to set the prices of their wares or services, even if it includes the “loss leader” practice of selling at a price that seems to lose the business money. There are many reasons a retailer sells something at a money-losing price, such as to make a splash as a new business in first entering a market or to engender customer loyalty—which can result in sales of other items that do make a profit.

    An infamous case of loss-leader strategy was the federally subsidized Chevrolet Volt plug-in hybrid car of the last decade, a four-seater originally costing nearly $40,000 even after the $7,500 federal check for each buyer. A showcase for the new, post-2008 financial crisis General Motors, which was purchased courtesy of the taxpayers by the Obama administration, its sales were disappointing. But GM insisted that the Volt, fleets of them parked unsold in dealer lots, wasn’t a product designed to make money but, rather, an assertion of “vision and leadership.”

    If a supermarket wants to lose money on half-gallons of milk located in the back of the store because it believes shoppers will, during their long stroll, grab a few of the profit-generating items on the shelves between the entrance and the dairy section, it should have every right to do so. This is Costco’s thinking, since each of its over 600 aircraft-hangar-like stores in the United States is like a Disneyland of rock-bottom deals on everything from groceries to clothes to appliances.

    Another celebrated example and resoundingly successful use of loss leader is Gillette selling its razors at far below cost, then pulling in lots of revenue through sales of replacement blades made exclusively for its own razors, while at the same time building a large customer base that leads to sales of other of its products with big profit margins, like aftershave and deodorant.

    Costco or Gillette’s competitors, or the media, of course, have every right to call out the practice as a cynical ploy. Even running rival businesses into the ground is a legitimate motive for loss-leader pricing; after all, the materialization of any new competitor offering attractive prices can be deemed an unfair burden that could crush a long-established, popular small business. Once government is allowed to make judgments on what constitutes unlawful “predatory” pricing, there is no knowing how much healthy competition it will restrict.

    Utilized in what looks to be such cutthroat purposes, loss leader facilitates and accelerates “creative destruction,” the term used by socialist economists Joseph Schumpeter and Werner Sombart to describe what Marx had vilified as capitalism’s “constant revolutionizing of production” and “uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions.” The unprofitable neighborhood deli shuttering in the wake of the low prices offered by the supermarket chain opening a new store a short drive away is as much an example of creative destruction as the dislocation caused by Henry Ford’s assembly line or the brick-and-mortar businesses that could not survive the online marketplaces of the Internet. Who visits the mall to sit down with a travel agent when they can click on booking.com, begun by a recent graduate of a Dutch technical college nearly 30 years ago? (Answer: no one; such physical travel agencies no longer exist.)

    For government to poke a finger in the dike holding back creative destruction is to seek the artificial prevention of the inevitable, like attempting to hold back the Industrial Revolution. If politicians crusade against loss leader, declaring it an immorality, can it be long before it will criminalize free samples or giveaways by retailers? Absent the liberty to set prices there is no economic freedom in a free country.

    In Costco’s case, loss leader is turned somewhat on its head, since its customers are providing it with its profits before they even have access to the head-spinning deal at the snack bar. The members-only warehouse club has become the world’s third-largest retailer, and with a razor-thin 2 percent profit margin, Costco makes its real money—$242 billion in revenue last year—through the $60 annual fee it charges for a membership card (double that for an executive membership providing reductions on some already low prices, plus some fringe benefits).

    After shelling out that kind of dough for the privilege of being able to flash your card at the door, to walk in and see that impossible-to-believe deal at the snack counter for the iconic American junk food meal of frankfurter and fizzy drink provides a strong jolt of psychological validation. If one had doubts about parting with that $60 they might be allayed, replaced by self-congratulation.

    The buck-fifty deal, however, dates all the way back to 1983, which means that adjusted for inflation Costco members were at that time paying today’s equivalent of about $4.60. It was then that Costco’s co-founders, the late Jeffrey Brotman and retired Jim Sinegal, expressed the sentimental hope that the price would never rise. In the decades since, some unusual efforts have gone into keeping intact today’s version of Vice President Thomas Marshall’s tongue-in-cheek pronouncement that “What this country needs is a good five-cent cigar” from 110 years ago.

    For instance, to avoid reliance on the greater expense of outside suppliers, Costco established its own hot dog manufacturing plants in Los Angeles and Chicago. In January, Joey Kinsley of Cleveland spent a whole week eating nothing but Costco’s $1.50 hot dogs and soda, chronicling the experience on social media and explaining that he was doing so to take refuge from inflation. “It’s a deal that is unheard of in 2024,” Mr. Kinsley told Fox News.

    If Costco’s $1.50 hot dog and soda went by the wayside it would have a symbolic force not unlike Dollar Tree announcing that “In the midst of unprecedented inflation, Dollar Tree recently changed its primary price point to $1.25”—the absurdity of the dollar store no longer charging a dollar on most items. In fact, last month Dollar Tree further announced that its prices are rising to $1.50 on average, with some products to be sold at $7.

    So Costco bending over backward to continue to give away hot dogs for $1.50 will no doubt go down as one of the most effective uses of loss leader in corporate history, as its $60 and $120 memberships get renewed en masse year after year. But any notion that seeing that amazing price of yesteryear on the sign above the counter will persuade people into believing that inflation might not be as high as they think is belied by what consumers see just about everywhere other than at the warehouse snack bar.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 06/21/2024 – 19:00

  • Israel Intent On Launching An Incursion Into Lebanon, Blinken Warns
    Israel Intent On Launching An Incursion Into Lebanon, Blinken Warns

    CNN has revealed that Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned top Arab officials that Israel is intent on launching an incursion into Lebanon. “It seems that they [Israel] are very serious about going into Lebanon,” a source who was privy to Blinken’s meeting with an Arab counterpart during his latest trip to the region said.

    CNN described further, “The Arab official’s response to Blinken, the source added, was that Hezbollah has communicated that they will not stop their strikes on Israel until Israel stops its operations in Gaza.”

    Via Reuters

    Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah has warned this week that in the scenario of all-out war, no place in Israel would be safe and even nearby allies of Tel Aviv could come under Hezbollah rocket fire if they offer assistance – in a threat specifically warning Cyprus. This came soon after Israel’s top generals approved battle plans and acknowledged the IDF is on the ‘brink’ of launching an offensive against the Shia paramilitary group backed by Tehran.

    The US is till seeking to cool tensions and making the argument that broader war is good for no one. CNN additionally included the following surprising statement from the Israeli side (surprising given that Israeli military leaders know full well that Hamas is far more formidable a foe than Hamas):

    Israel has made the case that it can pull off a “blitzkrieg,” but the US is warning them that they may not be able to ensure that it remains a limited campaign, the official said.

    Israel’s strategy in a ground invasion scenario would be to keep the offensive ‘limited’ inasmuch as possible, primarily with the aim of creating a buffer zone of some 10km, which could allow the return of the tens of thousands of residents of northern Israel who have been within easy reach of Hezbollah’s constant drone and rocket barrages.

    Washington too has been pressing a ceasefire plan that would ideally see Hezbollah agree to a buffer zone. Referencing Biden’s special envoy in the region Amos Hochstein, who has been in Beirut the last couple of days (and in Israel before that), CNN writes that “If war is averted and Hochstein’s plan goes into effect, it would similarly see Hezbollah pull back around six miles, or ten kilometers, away from the border.” And more:

    “The fact that we have managed to even hold the front for this long has been a miracle,” a senior US official said, referring to the US’ efforts to keep the Israel-Hezbollah attacks from spiraling into an all-out war.

    “We’re entering a very dangerous period,” another senior Biden administration official said. “Something could start with little warning.”

    However the IDF might have trouble keeping operations limited: “But in order to prevent a return by the group in the future, Israel may want to further destroy Hezbollah’s infrastructure in the area,” notes the report.

    It must be remembered that all the way back in January, Israel received a warning from US military intelligence (DIA) laying out that fighting a two-front war with Hamas in the south and Hezbollah in the north would be devastating, and likely a losing situation.

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    This surprise revelation and blunt warning was buried in a prior Washington Post story: 

    In private conversations, the administration has warned Israel against a significant escalation in Lebanon. If it were to do so, a new secret assessment from the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) found that it will be difficult for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to succeed because its military assets and resources would be spread too thin given the conflict in Gaza, according to two people familiar with those findings. A spokesperson for the DIA did not offer comment.

    We previously unpacked the implication in special analysis If Full War With Hezbollah Opens, Israel Will Lose.

    Blinken’s office was cited in the same report as saying at the time: “It is in no one’s interest — not Israel’s, not the region’s, not the world’s — for this conflict to spread beyond Gaza.” This has been the official US line since then as well. Of course, this would likely hasten a broader Israel-Iran war, likely to also spill into Syrian and Iraq.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 06/21/2024 – 18:40

  • The Game Theory Of Biden's Replacement And Trump's VP Pick
    The Game Theory Of Biden’s Replacement And Trump’s VP Pick

    Submitted by QTR’s Fringe Finance

    If there’s one political rule that always seems to hold true, it’s that both parties will wind up choosing the worst possible selection for whatever needs they seek to fulfill.

    That’s just the miracle of government. Who knew that doing things as inefficiently as humanly possible — selecting candidates, spending tax money, passing legislation, appointing cabinets — was such an art form, reserved for the likes of brilliant visionaries like Jeb Bush, Jasmine Crockett, Nancy Pelosi, Mitch McConnell and the likes?

    The talent is uncanny. If you gave me 20 years as President, all $80 trillion in tax receipts the country brought in over that time and made it my one sole objective to do so, I still wouldn’t be able to engineer the following headline during my tenure:

    Anyway, every two years, we have a major round of elections, and every two years I’m stunned that the slate of candidates we put up for election are passed off as representing the best we can do on both sides of the aisle.

    And every four years, it seems like there are always running jokes during the presidential election that most people would vote for literally anybody other than the two choices they are being given.

    As someone who leans conservative, I hope this maxim of choosing the worst possible replacement continues to hold true when it comes to Joe Biden’s coming replacement.

    It seems fairly obvious at this point that the generally incomprehensible Biden is going to have to be swapped out with someone who is at least semi-conscious. If Democrats don’t do it between now and the election, Biden almost certainly will (1) lose the election or (2) not be finishing a second term.

    The good news for conservatives is that Democrats don’t show any signs of letting up from their current strategy of torpedoing their own party.

    I’ve mentioned in passing that I think a long line of centrist Democrats, including the likes of former candidate Dean Phillips or potentially Michelle Obama, would throttle Donald Trump in a national election.

    This will be an unpopular statement with some, but I believe Trump is beating Biden by a wide margin not because Trump is the overwhelming objective favorite of the country, but because he’s the overwhelming favorite relative to the idea of another 4 years of Joe Biden.

    If you were to stack Trump up against any middle aged centrist Democrat with a pulse who promises to pull back on woke policy and return the country to some form of normalcy, he’d likely slip significantly in the polls. I don’t know why this is so difficult for Democrats to understand, but then again they don’t exactly seem to be the party of common sense decision making. If liberals ignore this obvious decision that could instantly win them the election and instead continue playing “the game” that dictates people who have “put their time in” deserve a chance more than somebody like Dean Phillips, they’re going to lose the election.

    If you think Hillary Clinton’s appearance at the Tony Awards the other night was a coincidence, think again. I think it is a sign there’s a very real chance that she is in the running to replace Joe Biden. If I had to guess, second to Hillary would be Kamala Harris because the Democrats probably feel like they “owe it” to her, not only for being current vice president but also for DEI purposes.

    I can’t even begin to tell you how terrible either of these selections would be, not only for the country but for the Democratic Party. Both candidates are unbearable, and the country has already had their fill of both of them.

    Clinton would be the closer race of the two, in my opinion, because if you recall correctly, Harris got curb-stomped during the Democratic primaries while making her run for president. And for the most part, it appears the country still finds her detestable.

    To boot, the last four years have proven, on top of that, that she’s an airhead.

    Either way, the nation would see both of these candidates as more of the same, and they would do little to advance Democrats’ against Donald Trump.

    But it isn’t just Democrats that are horrific political strategists, and all one needs to do is look at Donald Trump’s shortlist for vice president to understand that.

    When I read the list of those in serious consideration, I couldn’t help but quote this scene in Major League:

    “Ricky Vaughn? Willie Hayes. I never heard of most of these guys. Mitchell Friedman?”

    “Who’re these f*ckin’ guys?”

    At first glance, it appears Trump’s strategy in picking a vice president is to get somebody milquetoast enough to move him closer to the center, not eclipse his bombast, and support him vehemently. We’ll call it the “Pence strategy”.

    But as Trump quickly found out with endorsing Mike Johnson for the Speaker of the House role, a good portion of his base wants somebody who isn’t a centrist, and instead unapologetically supports the Make America Great Again agenda.

    It’s baffling to me that with potential picks like Tulsi Gabbard, Kari Lake, and Vivek Ramaswamy out there, Trump would be mulling over a list that includes the likes of “Little” Marco Rubio and Doug Burgum, both of whom have the personality and likability of a damp washcloth.

    I think Trump could be in the right neighborhood looking at somebody like Byron Donalds, who is strong and outspoken, and would obviously give Trump further reach into the black community, but I think the key issue he needs to defend heading into November is the abortion issue. He’s not going to lose on the issues of law and order, inflation or the economy, that’s for sure.

    Trump selecting a female vice president would check a lot of boxes: it softens up his image, it gives him an inroad with women on the abortion issue, and it checks the equality box that a lot of undecided/independent liberal-ish voters close to the center wouldn’t mind checking off.

    🔥 80% OFF: Since it’s officially summer, I’m going to offer up my largest discount of the year for Fringe Finance: Get 80% off forever

    I do understand the strategy of not wanting to change much when you’re already ahead, and I understand a guy like Doug Burgum has appeal because he brings nothing positive or negative to the campaign, but I do think Trump doesn’t need to totally focus on playing defense with his pick. Someone like Ramaswamy would bring another sharp tongue, adept at slicing and dicing through the mainstream media’s bullsh*t. Former Democrat Gabbard would bring inroads not only to women voters, but to Democrats. Someone like Elise Stefanik or Kari Lake would also be a value add if Trump needs to defend the abortion issue as top priority.

    The Democrats still have a legitimate shot to pull this election out, but their window to make a change is closing every day. The nonsense of not being able to pull Biden out of the race because he’s an incumbent will come back to bite them in the ass if that’s the road they want to take.

    Perhaps the strategy is to allow Biden to humiliate himself at the first debate so whoever they put in his place for the second one looks that much better. But as days and weeks pass by without making a change, they are losing crucial time. They will need to warm up a second candidate — and entire second campaign — to the public, even if it is somebody they already know like Hillary Clinton.

    The name of the game for the conservatives is simply not to screw anything up. I understand that there’s a case for playing “prevent defense” and slotting in somebody like Burgum as vice president, but resting on their laurels when they’re only ahead slightly could wind up doing more harm than good.

    The Philadelphia Eagles beat the New England Patriots in Super Bowl LII by consistently being aggressive. When you are going up against the entire Washington machine in the Democratic Party—essentially Tom Brady’s dynastic New England Patriots of the political world—sometimes it can do more harm than good to keep your foot off the gas instead of on it. Sometimes you have to go for the strategic jugular.

    If you were a Democratic strategist or a Republican strategist, who would your choices be for Biden’s replacement and Trump’s VP? After all, they can’t be any worse than the leading candidates for both as they stand right now.

    QTR’s Disclaimer: Please read my full legal disclaimer on my About page here. This post represents my opinions only. In addition, please understand I am an idiot and often get things wrong and lose money. I may own or transact in any names mentioned in this piece at any time without warning. Contributor posts and aggregated posts have been hand selected by me, have not been fact checked and are the opinions of their authors. They are either submitted to QTR by their author, reprinted under a Creative Commons license with my best effort to uphold what the license asks, or with the permission of the author. This is not a recommendation to buy or sell any stocks or securities, just my opinions. I often lose money on positions I trade/invest in. I may add any name mentioned in this article and sell any name mentioned in this piece at any time, without further warning. None of this is a solicitation to buy or sell securities. These positions can change immediately as soon as I publish this, with or without notice. You are on your own. Do not make decisions based on my blog. I exist on the fringe. The publisher does not guarantee the accuracy or completeness of the information provided in this page. These are not the opinions of any of my employers, partners, or associates. I did my best to be honest about my disclosures but can’t guarantee I am right; I write these posts after a couple beers sometimes. I edit after my posts are published because I’m impatient and lazy, so if you see a typo, check back in a half hour. Also, I just straight up get sh*t wrong a lot. I mention it twice because it’s that important.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 06/21/2024 – 18:20

  • US Bank Deposits & Money-Market Funds See Small Outflows As Stock Market Decoupling Hits Record High
    US Bank Deposits & Money-Market Funds See Small Outflows As Stock Market Decoupling Hits Record High

    On a seasonally-adjusted basis, total bank deposits rose a tiny $2.1BN increase last week as money-market funds saw a $22.3BN outflow…

    Source: Bloomberg

    Notably, the MM fund outflows were dominated by a $30BN decline in institutional funds as Retail funds continued to see inflows (+8BN)…

    Source: Bloomberg

    On a non-seasonally-adjusted basis, total bank deposits rose by 8BN (the third weekly NSA inflow in a row)…

    Source: Bloomberg

    However, excluding foreign deposits, US banks saw a net $5BN SA deposit outflow (large banks -$1.4BN, small banks -$3.6BN) while on an NSA basis, domestic deposits rose by $15.7BN (large banks +$14.6BN, small banks +$1.1BN)…

    Source: Bloomberg

    The Fed’s balance sheet barely budged for the second week in a row (-$6BN after last week’s +$3BN)…

    Source: Bloomberg

    The Fed’s now-expired Bank Bailout fund (BTFP) saw a tiny $352 million decrease – erasing all the arb-driven surge in demand for the facility, but leaving a whopping $107BN left out there filling holes in bank balance sheets…

    Source: Bloomberg

    And finally, with money-market fund and bank deposit outflows, it’s not hard to see where that money is flowing… the decoupling between US equity market cap and bank reserves at The Fed is now way beyond record highs…

    Source: Bloomberg

    Is Powell’s acquiescence to a bigger, sooner ‘QT taper’ (in the face of not-under-control inflation) to soften the blow when this crocodile mouth snaps shut.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 06/21/2024 – 18:00

  • Ukrainian Drone Swarms Target Four Russian Refineries In Major Attack
    Ukrainian Drone Swarms Target Four Russian Refineries In Major Attack

    Brent crude futures were flat on Friday amid rising geopolitical tensions in Eastern Europe, which seems counterintuitive as escalating war risks could result in supply disruptions. 

    In the overnight hours, four refineries in southern Russia were targeted, with one facility damaged, in one of the largest drone swarm attacks since the war in Ukraine began, Bloomberg reports. 

    Seventy drones were intercepted and destroyed over Crimea and the Black Sea and 43 over the Krasnodar region, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Telegram, without saying how many drones took part in the attack. The Afipsky, Ilsky, Krasnodar and Astrakhan refineries were attacked, Ukraine’s General Staff said later in a Facebook post.

    In the Seversky district of the Krasnodar region, where the Afipsky and Ilsky refineries are located, “administrative buildings were damaged on the territory of an oil refinery” as a result of the attack, local governor Veniamin Kondratyev said on Telegram. Interfax earlier reported that a fire affecting area of ​​50 square meters (538 square feet) was extinguished by morning, with two people injured. -BBG

    Ukraine’s military claimed responsibility for the drone swarm attack, saying it launched drones against “the Afipskiy, Ilskiy, Krasnodar and Astrakhan oil refineries.” They also said an intelligence center in southern Russia was targeted.

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    Drones also targeted a “preparation and storage area” in the Krasnodar region, resulting in a “series of explosions and a fire with subsequent detonation,” Ukraine said.

    More than two years since the war began, Ukraine is ramping up cross-border drone attacks on Russian energy infrastructure as conflict spillover risks soar. Kyiv and its Western backers aim to paralyze one of Russia’s most important industries: oil refining.

    In recent days, Ukrainian drone attacks have damaged several oil storage facilities. Last month, two other refineries in southern Russia, including Rosneft’s large Tuapse facility on the Black Sea, were targeted.

    In March, Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Olha Stefanishyna said oil refineries in Russia are “absolutely legitimate targets” from a military point of view.

    Recall that the Biden administration has freaked out about Ukrainian drone strikes in Russia. This was primarily because of the risk of driving Brent crude prices north of $100/bbl. However, in recent weeks, Biden ‘greenlighted‘ Ukraine to attack deep within Russia with US weapons.

    In markets, Brent crude prices headed for the first back-to-back weekly gain since early April. Prices are ending the week around the $85/bbl handle. Escalating conflicts in Eastern Europe and the Middle East reflect a higher war risk premium that should be added to Brent crude prices.

    Meanwhile… 

    One major issue is if Ukraine continues targeting Russian oil infrastructure, Moscow could retaliate by lashing out at energy infrastructure relied on by the West. As we recently noted, this includes the “CPC pipeline carrying oil from Kazakhstan through Russia to the global market.”

    Given all the conflict, the Biden team continues to be very concerned because an energy shock could send domestic gasoline prices at the pump to the politically sensitive $4-a-gallon level.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 06/21/2024 – 17:44

Digest powered by RSS Digest

Jun 21

Today’s News 21st June 2024

  • Recipe For EU Disaster: Warning Signs Ignored
    Recipe For EU Disaster: Warning Signs Ignored

    Authored by Grzegorz Adamczyk via ReMix News,

    Recent European Parliament election results and reactions to them have sparked discussions about the true meaning of European autonomy, a term frequently touted by French President Emmanuel Macron that now seems to lack real substance beyond pompous declarations from Paris.

    These elections have exposed its actual and concrete implications.

    In France, political upheaval is evident. President Macron has announced forthcoming elections in response to new fractures in foundational EU politics. In contrast, Germany may face significant issues in the autumn when state elections are held there. Poland appears to some as a haven of peace, but this may be just a temporary illusion.

    Despite these cracks, the European Union structure still stands seemingly unshaken. Dominant beliefs within suggest that nothing significant has occurred: The center holds strong, the two main parties of the Brussels establishment have retained their majority, and while populists have gained more votes, they can still be contained.

    This perspective, however, is seen as a recipe for disaster.

    The EU needs no further warning signs, and if it lacks the courage to draw serious consequences this time, the project may have no future.

    True European autonomy is needed – the ability of the EU to correct its own mistakes, to self-repair, to learn from experiences, and to think in political terms.

    Mechanisms for verifying and holding accountable those who have failed and abused trust must be established.

    The EU can no longer be a tool for one nation to blackmail another.

    While this may seem like an idealistic view that could be crushed by harsh realities where only the strong prevail, European integration without idealism is meaningless.

    For the EU to survive, it must cease being an instrument of influence, pressure and even blackmail by one state or interest group over another.

    The notion that Europe belongs to certain entities who can do as they please, must end.

    If the Union is not treated as a common body, a shared good and common property of all, it will not recognize the internal issues plaguing it, nor will it be able to cure them.

    The ability to self-repair is the true essence of European autonomy.

    * * *

    Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ZeroHedge.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 06/21/2024 – 02:00

  • Mission Creep: How The Police State Acclimates Us To Being Modern-Day Slaves
    Mission Creep: How The Police State Acclimates Us To Being Modern-Day Slaves

    Authored by John & Nisha Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

    “In a fully developed bureaucracy there is nobody left with whom one can argue, to whom one can present grievances, on whom the pressures of power can be exerted. Bureaucracy is the form of government in which everybody is deprived of political freedom, of the power to act; for the rule by Nobody is not no-rule, and where all are equally powerless, we have a tyranny without a tyrant.”

    – Hannah Arendt, On Violence

    Like the proverbial boiling frogs, the government has been gradually acclimating us to the specter of a police state for years now: Militarized police. Riot squads. Camouflage gear. Black uniforms. Armored vehicles. Mass arrests. Pepper spray. Tear gas. Batons. Strip searches. Surveillance cameras. Kevlar vests. Drones. Lethal weapons. Less-than-lethal weapons unleashed with deadly force. Rubber bullets. Water cannons. Stun grenades. Arrests of journalists. Crowd control tactics. Intimidation tactics. Brutality.

    This is how you prepare a populace to accept a police state willingly, even gratefully.

    You don’t scare them by making dramatic changes. Rather, you acclimate them slowly to their prison walls. Persuade the citizenry that their prison walls are merely intended to keep them safe and danger out. Desensitize them to violence, acclimate them to a military presence in their communities, and persuade them that only a militarized government can alter the seemingly hopeless trajectory of the nation.

    It’s happening already.

    Yet we’re not just being acclimated to the trappings of a police state. We’re also being bullied into silence and subservience in the face of outright injustice and heavy-handed political correctness, while simultaneously being groomed into accepting government tyranny, corruption and bureaucratic ineptitude as societal norms.

    What exactly is going on?

    Whatever it is, this—the racial hypersensitivity without racial justice, the kowtowing to politically correct bullies with no regard for anyone else’s free speech rights, the violent blowback after years of government-sanctioned brutality, the mob mindset that is overwhelming the rights of the individual, the oppressive glowering of the Nanny State, the seemingly righteous indignation full of sound and fury that in the end signifies nothing, the partisan divide that grows more impassable with every passing day—is not leading us anywhere good.

    Certainly, it’s not leading to more freedom.

    This draconian exercise in how to divide, conquer and subdue a nation is succeeding.

    It must be said: the various protests from both the Right and the Left in recent years have not helped. Inadvertently or intentionally, these protests have politicized what should never have been politicized: police brutality and the government’s ongoing assaults on our freedoms.

    We may be worse off now than we were before.

    Suddenly, no one seems to be talking about any of the egregious governmental abuses that are still wreaking havoc on our freedoms: police shootings of unarmed individuals, invasive surveillance, roadside blood draws, roadside strip searches, SWAT team raids gone awry, the military industrial complex’s costly wars, pork barrel spending, pre-crime laws, civil asset forfeiture, fusion centers, militarization, armed drones, smart policing carried out by AI robots, courts that march in lockstep with the police state, schools that function as indoctrination centers, bureaucrats that keep the Deep State in power.

    The more things change, the more they stay the same.

    How do you persuade a populace to embrace totalitarianism, that goose-stepping form of tyranny in which the government has all of the power and “we the people” have none?

    You persuade the people that the menace they face (imaginary or not) is so sinister, so overwhelming, so fearsome that the only way to surmount the danger is by empowering the government to take all necessary steps to quash it, even if that means allowing government jackboots to trample all over the Constitution.

    This is how you use the politics of fear to persuade a freedom-endowed people to shackle themselves to a dictatorship.

    It works the same way every time.

    The government’s overblown, extended wars on terrorism, drugs, violence, illegal immigration, and so-called domestic extremism have been convenient ruses used to terrorize the populace into relinquishing more of their freedoms in exchange for elusive promises of security.

    Having allowed our fears to be codified and our actions criminalized, we now find ourselves in a strange new world where just about everything we do is criminalized.

    Strangely enough, in the face of outright corruption and incompetency on the part of our elected officials, Americans in general remain relatively gullible, eager to be persuaded that the government headed up by their particular brand of political savior can solve the problems that plague us.

    We have relinquished control over the most intimate aspects of our lives to government officials who, while they may occupy seats of authority, are neither wiser, smarter, more in tune with our needs, more knowledgeable about our problems, nor more aware of what is really in our best interests.

    Yet having bought into the false notion that the government does indeed know what’s best for us and can ensure not only our safety but our happiness and will take care of us from cradle to grave—that is, from daycare centers to nursing homes—we have in actuality allowed ourselves to be bridled and turned into slaves at the bidding of a government that cares little for our freedoms or our happiness.

    The lesson is this: once a free people allows the government inroads into their freedoms or uses those same freedoms as bargaining chips for security, it quickly becomes a slippery slope to outright tyranny.

    Nor does it seem to matter whether it’s a Democrat or a Republican at the helm anymore. Indeed, the bureaucratic mindset on both sides of the aisle now seems to embody the same philosophy of authoritarian government, whose priorities are to milk “we the people” of our hard-earned money (by way of taxes, fines and fees) and remain in control and in power.

    Modern government in general—ranging from the militarized police in SWAT team gear crashing through our doors to the rash of innocent citizens being gunned down by police to the invasive spying on everything we do—is acting illogically, even psychopathically. (The characteristics of a psychopath include a “lack of remorse and empathy, a sense of grandiosity, superficial charm, conning and manipulative behavior, and refusal to take responsibility for one’s actions, among others.”)

    When our own government no longer sees us as human beings with dignity and worth but as things to be manipulated, maneuvered, mined for data, manhandled by police, conned into believing it has our best interests at heart, mistreated, and then jails us if we dare step out of line, punishes us unjustly without remorse, and refuses to own up to its failings, we are no longer operating under a constitutional republic. Instead, what we are experiencing is a pathocracy: tyranny at the hands of a psychopathic government, which “operates against the interests of its own people except for favoring certain groups.”

    So where does that leave us?

    Having allowed the government to expand and exceed our reach, we find ourselves on the losing end of a tug-of-war over control of our country and our lives. And for as long as we let them, government officials will continue to trample on our rights, always justifying their actions as being for the good of the people.

    Yet the government can only go as far as “we the people” allow. Therein lies the problem.

    We are fast approaching a moment of reckoning where we will be forced to choose between the vision of what America was intended to be (a model for self-governance where power is vested in the people) and the reality of what it has become (a police state where power is vested in the government).

    This slide into totalitarianism—helped along by overcriminalization, government surveillance, militarized police, neighbors turning in neighbors, privatized prisons, and forced labor camps, to name just a few similarities—is tracking very closely with what happened in Germany in the years leading up to Hitler’s rise to power.

    We are walking a dangerous path right now.

    No matter who wins the presidential election come November, it’s a sure bet that the losers will be the American people.

    Despite what is taught in school and the propaganda that is peddled by the media, the 2024 presidential election is not a populist election for a representative. Rather, it’s a gathering of shareholders to select the next CEO, a fact reinforced by the nation’s archaic electoral college system.

    Anyone who believes that this election will bring about any real change in how the American government does business is either incredibly naïve, woefully out-of-touch, or oblivious to the fact that as an in-depth Princeton University study shows, we now live in an oligarchy that is “of the rich, by the rich and for the rich.”

    Be warned, however: the Establishment—the Deep State and its corporate partners that really run the show, pull the strings and dictate the policies, no matter who occupies the Oval Office—is not going to allow anyone to take office who will unravel their power structures. Those who have attempted to do so in the past have been effectively put out of commission.

    Voting sustains the illusion that we have a democratic republic, but it is merely a dictatorship in disguise, or what political scientists Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page more accurately refer to as an “economic élite domination.”

    In such an environment, the economic elite (lobbyists, corporations, monied special interest groups) dictate national policy. As the Princeton University oligarchy study indicates, our elected officials, especially those in the nation’s capital, represent the interests of the rich and powerful rather than the average citizen. As such, the citizenry has little if any impact on the policies of government.

    We have been saddled with a two-party system and fooled into believing that there’s a difference between the Republicans and Democrats, when in fact, the two parties are exactly the same. As one commentator noted, both parties support endless war, engage in out-of-control spending, ignore the citizenry’s basic rights, have no respect for the rule of law, are bought and paid for by Big Business, care most about their own power, and have a long record of expanding government and shrinking liberty.

    We’re drowning under the weight of too much debt, too many wars, too much power in the hands of a centralized government run by a corporate elite, too many militarized police, too many laws, too many lobbyists, and generally too much bad news.

    The powers-that-be want us to believe that our job as citizens begins and ends on Election Day. They want us to believe that we have no right to complain about the state of the nation unless we’ve cast our vote one way or the other. They want us to remain divided over politics, hostile to those with whom we disagree politically, and intolerant of anyone or anything whose solutions to what ails this country differ from our own.

    What they don’t want us talking about is the fact that the government is corrupt, the system is rigged, the politicians don’t represent us, the electoral college is a joke, most of the candidates are frauds, and we as a nation are repeating the mistakes of history—namely, allowing a totalitarian state to reign over us.

    “We the people” have a decision to make: do we simply participate in the collapse of the American republic as it degenerates toward a totalitarian regime, or do we take a stand and reject the pathetic excuse for government that is being fobbed off on us?

    Never forget, as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, that the lesser of two evils is still evil.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 06/20/2024 – 23:40

  • Putin Says West Prepared To Scapegoat Zelensky For War Failures: 'Replaced By Next Year'
    Putin Says West Prepared To Scapegoat Zelensky For War Failures: ‘Replaced By Next Year’

    Russian President Vladimir Putin is in Vietnam, where he signed at least a dozen energy and trade deals with the country’s President To Lam, on his tour to shore up ties in Asia in an effort to offset the West’s drive to isolate Moscow.

    On his last day in the country he made some wide-ranging remarks to the press, and among the most interesting was a statement on the future of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. 

    Putin predicted at a moment things are going very badly for Ukrainian forces, and at a rare time Western media seems to be turning on Zelensky, that the Ukrainian leader will soon be replaced over his poor and unpopular decision-making. Putin suggested Washington is essentially going to make him a scapegoat. 

    “In the West, they simply do not want to replace him [Zelenskyy], the time is not right. I think it’s obvious to anyone. They will blame all unpopular decisions on him, including lowering the [military] draft age, and that’s it,” Putin asserted, according to Russian media translation.

    That’s when he followed with: “And then they’ll replace him. I think it will happen sometime in the first half of next year.”

    Putin could be at least in part seizing on the obvious increased negative coverage of the Zelensky government in major Western media outlets, from the BBC to NY Times to Wall Street Journal. Indeed Zelensky’s ‘celebrity power’ on display throughout the first part of the war, where it seemed he could simply do no wrong in the media’s eyes, is waning fast.

    More importantly, there are signs of large-scale dissent among the Ukrainian population as recruitment officers violently grab men from off the streets.

    Despite Kiev forces clearly being against the ropes of late, Zelensky has still refused to even contemplate negotiating. He has stood by his earlier commitment to not enter dialogue toward ceasefire until Putin is out of power. Putin commented on this while in Vietnam:

    Talks on Ukraine could take place as early as tomorrow, but Russia will use the current situation as a starting point, the president added.

    “We have been conducting these behind-the-scenes talks, and what we hoped for has failed,” Putin told reporters.

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    Interestingly, Putin had back in May declared Zelensky “illegitimate” after Ukraine failed to hold previously scheduled elections. Zelensky’s term was set to end May 20, but the government declared no elections until the war is over, citing martial law.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 06/20/2024 – 23:20

  • Journalist Formerly Detained In China Barred From Australian Media Event During CCP Premier's Visit
    Journalist Formerly Detained In China Barred From Australian Media Event During CCP Premier’s Visit

    Authored by Rex Widerstrom via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Staff from the Australian prime minister’s office barred Chinese-born Australian journalist Cheng Lei from reporting on Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s meeting with Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Premier Li Qiang.

    Australian journalist Cheng Lei observes a signing ceremony by China’s Premier Li Qiang and Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at the Australian Parliament House in Canberra, Australia, on June 17, 2024. (Lukas Coch/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

    The revelations come after Chinese Embassy staff were seen trying to block Ms. Cheng from being filmed by local media at an earlier press event at Parliament, which was attended by Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and CCP Premier Li Qiang.

    Ms. Cheng, a former anchor of the Chinese state-run channel CGTN, was detained in China for three years for breaking the embargo on a government press release by a few minutes.

    Critics, however, argued that it was an instance of Beijing’s hostage diplomacy during a period of deteriorating relations between Beijing and Canberra.

    The journalist was released and returned to Australia in 2023 and is now working for Sky News Australia.

    The latest episodes underscore the underlying tensions during the CCP premier’s recent visit, with the freed journalist saying Beijing viewed her as a “symbol of some sort” and that they “didn’t want that for the domestic audience.”

    Banned From Entering The Meeting Room

    On June 19, Ms. Cheng said she was barred from being present during the opening remarks of Mr. Dutton and Mr. Li at the Hyatt Hotel in Canberra, despite being registered for the event.

    The journalist told Sky News Australia that when she arrived at the event, one of Prime Minister Albanese’s media staff told her she wasn’t welcome, although her cameraman could enter. Staff from Mr. Dutton’s office witnessed the confrontation but did not get involved.

    “But I’ve been registered since last week,” Ms. Cheng recalled what she told the staff from the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet (DPMC), adding that her bureau chief had put her name on the list.

    “Well that’s only an expression of interest, Dutton’s team can decide who gets to come in, you’re not on there,” the DPMC staff replied.

    Prior to this, Ms. Cheng said she saw members of the Chinese delegation, including two embassy staffer who previously blocked her from view at Parliament House on the same day, talking to the Australian official.

    She then heard the words among themselves in Chinese: “This is our turf, we can veto it.”

    An Undelivered Promise

    Ms. Cheng said she was “confident” she could get into the high-level meeting because a media staff from Mr. Dutton’s office previously promised to arrange access for her.

    But when politicians and government officials started to walk into the meeting room, Ms. Cheng tried to call the media staff’s name loudly several times, but he didn’t turn around.

    A PM’s media staffer then tapped her on the shoulder, motioning that she couldn’t go in.

    Later, she saw someone slipping into the room when the meeting had already started.

    Ms. Cheng then asked the PM’s staff, “How come anyone can go in but me? Who’s checking credentials? So all this is just about keeping me out?”

    “She reiterated the line that both sides agreed, I wasn’t on the list,” Ms. Cheng said.

    Ms. Cheng expressed her disappointment at the behaviour of the PM’s staff, noting that on the previous occasion at Parliament House, the Australian official was trying to help her participate in the event.

    Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese (L) and CCP Premier Li Qiang leave after their visit to Kaarta Gar-up Lookout in Kings Park in Perth, Australia on June 18, 2024. (Richard Wainwright/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)

    Politicians Back Cheng Lei

    While Mr. Albanese was quick to raise his concerns with the Chinese embassy about the events in Parliament earlier that day, he declined to comment on the actions of his staff at the Hyatt. Nor has Mr. Dutton.

    “Australian officials intervened, as they should have,” Mr. Albanese said of the first incident.

    “There should be no impediments to Australian journalists going about their job, and we’ve made that clear to the Chinese embassy.”

    Opposition Foreign Affairs spokesman Simon Birmingham also weighed in, saying freedom of the press was “paramount” and that Ms. Cheng—an Australian citizen and journalist— “should have been treated with respect.”

    Mr. Dutton went further and told the Prime Minister to “grow a backbone.”

    The clumsy attempts by Beijing officials to sideline a reporter once thought worthy of a leading role on their own state TV network has marred Mr. Li’s visit to Australia.

    CCP Premier Li Qiang (L) and New Zealand’s Prime Minister Christopher Luxon pose after attending a joint press conference at Government House in Wellington, New Zealand on June 13, 2024. (Marty Melville/AFP via Getty Images)

    New Zealand PM’s Response

    New Zealand PM Christopher Luxon defended the limitations placed on journalists to question the CCP premier during the visit, citing “different protocols” as justification.

    “I think we are really proud of the fact that we are very accessible to the journalists in New Zealand and the media, and that’s important, Mr. Luxon said.

    “It’s an important part of our democracy. But we also have to respect, as hosts of countries coming into New Zealand, and/or when we’re offshore that there are different protocols. That doesn’t preclude me from making myself available to you to ask me anything you wish.”

    It was also reported that CCP officials in New Zealand grabbed and shoved reporters at events attended by Prime Minister Luxon and the premier.

    Mr. Luxon said he was unaware of the incidents and urged the reporters to lay a formal complaint so it could be investigated.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 06/20/2024 – 23:00

  • "A Direct Attack On Our Democratic Process": Missouri AG Sues New York Over Trump Lawfare
    “A Direct Attack On Our Democratic Process”: Missouri AG Sues New York Over Trump Lawfare

    Missouri Attorney General Andrew Baily on Thursday announced that he’s suing the State of New York over what he called a “direct attack on our democratic process through unconstitutional lawfare against President Trump.”

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    “We have to fight back against a rogue prosecutor who is trying to take a presidential candidate off the campaign trail,” Baily posted on X, adding “Stay tuned.“

    While Baily didn’t elaborate, last month he accused the Biden DOJ of colluding with prosecutors in various Trump cases, filing a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request in connection with his investigation.

    “The investigations and subsequent prosecutions of former President Donald J. Trump appear to have been conducted in coordination with the United States Department of Justice,” Baily posted in a lengthy thread on X.

    “This is demonstrated by the move of the third-highest ranking member of the Department of Justice, Matthew Colangelo, to the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office in order to prosecute President Trump in December 2022,” Baily continues.

    What’s more, Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg worked hand-in-hand with NY Attorney General Letitia James in pursuing civil litigation against Trump, which he used to campaign on.

    Is Baily about to become Trump’s Attorney General?

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    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 06/20/2024 – 22:40

  • Lott: Biden Gun Regulations Don’t Affect Mass Shootings
    Lott: Biden Gun Regulations Don’t Affect Mass Shootings

    Authored by John R. Lott Jr. via RealClearPolitics,

    President Biden is making gun control a central part of his reelection campaign. In a new ad, Biden says that Trump did “nothing” when children were “gunned down in classrooms,” innocent people “killed in church,” and others “massacred at a concert.”

    The Biden campaign is referring to shootings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida; First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas; and an outdoor concert in Las Vegas. In four years, there were 18 mass shootings that occurred in public places and that did not transpire during another crime such as robbery or selling drugs. (A “mass killing” is defined by criminologists as involving four or more fatalities, not counting the shooter.)

    But 23 mass public shootings have occurred so far under Biden – a 50% higher annual rate than under Trump. The deadliest shooting resulted in 21 victims at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas – four more than were killed in Parkland.

    Besides touting the establishment of the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, Biden also points to his new Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives’ regulations for background checks on the private transfer of guns. But these additional background checks wouldn’t have prevented any recent mass public shootings. For example, the Uvalde murderer didn’t obtain his gun through a private transfer, and he passed a federal background check. There isn’t one mass shooting in this century that universal background checks would have stopped. But almost no one seems to challenge the Biden campaign’s stance on this issue.

    While Biden touts a regulation that won’t accomplish anything other than creating an obstacle to gun ownership and helping to complete a national gun registry, there is evidence that Trump’s proposed reforms could work.

    After the Parkland shooting, Trump tweeted: “If schools are mandated to be gun free zones, violence and danger are given an open invitation to enter. Almost all school shootings are in gun free zones. Cowards will only go where there is no deterrent.” Ironically, the Gun-Free School Zones Act was introduced in Congress in 1990 by then-Sen. Joe Biden.

    After a mass murder at the Pittsburgh Tree of Life Synagogue, Trump made a similar point: “If they had protection inside, the results would have been far better. If they had some kind of protection inside the temple, maybe it could have been a very much different situation. They didn’t.”

    The only slight inaccuracy in Trump’s tweet after Parkland is that all school shootings with deaths or injuries, without exception, have occurred in schools that ban teachers and staff from having guns. He needn’t have offered the qualifier “almost.”

    These mass murderers want to commit suicide, and they want media coverage. They know that killing more people means greater media coverage, and they know that defenseless victims are easier targets.

    Police are very important in fighting crime, but they have a limited ability to stop mass public shootings. “A deputy in uniform has an extremely difficult job in stopping these attacks,” noted Kurt Hoffman, a Sarasota County, Florida, sheriff. Hoffman said that mass shooters can “wait for a deputy to leave the area or pick an undefended location.” And the problem with a visible police or security presence, he said, is that the officers may as well be holding up neon signs saying, “Shoot me first.” Concealed handgun permit holders, however, can’t be identified and therefore take away shooters’ tactical advantage.

    California has the strictest gun control laws in the country – all the other regulations Biden would like to see enacted nationally. But its per capita annual rate of mass public shootings is significantly higher than in the rest of the country. For shootings since 2000, California’s rate stands at 0.33 per million whereas the overall U.S. rate is 0.25 per million. Looking at data since 2010, California’s rate is 0.28 per million versus 0.15 for the rest of the U.S. And from 2020 to now, it’s 0.13 for California and 0.05 for the rest of the U.S. California’s rate is also consistently higher than that of Texas, a state that gun control advocates often seek to demonize.

    Biden claims credit for the drop in reported murder rates last year, pointing to his background checks and the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention. This is a canard. The new rules are only going into effect this year. Also, while last year’s projected murder rate was indeed down from 2022, it’s still 7% above 2019 levels. 

    Given Biden’s losing streak in the courts, his background checks may not exist long after taking effect later this year. The difference between Biden and Trump is clear. Biden wants credit for doing something even if it doesn’t help. Trump wants to do something that works.

    John R. Lott Jr. is a contributor to RealClearInvestigations, focusing on voting and gun rights. His articles have appeared in publications such as the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, New York Post, USA Today, and Chicago Tribune. Lott is an economist who has held research and/or teaching positions at the University of Chicago, Yale University, Stanford, UCLA, Wharton, and Rice.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 06/20/2024 – 22:20

  • Watch: Filipino Soldiers Fought Off Axe-Wielding Chinese Coast Guard 'With Bare Hands'
    Watch: Filipino Soldiers Fought Off Axe-Wielding Chinese Coast Guard ‘With Bare Hands’

    Dramatic new video shows the latest ramming incident between Chinese and Philippine vessels in a contested area of the South China Sea, and it reveals clear escalation which involved the Chinese side clearly brandishing weapons.

    The incident happened near the Second Thomas Shoal on Monday, where the Philippine military has troops stationed as part of its claim on the Spratly Islands (also claimed by Beijing). Manilla officials said their military vessels were en route there on a normal ‘humanitarian resupply’ mission when the boats were deliberately rammed and boxed in by Chinese coast guard ships.

    The video shows Chinese crew hacking at inflatable vessels with axes and knives. The melee at sea left one Filipino soldier severely injured (he lost his thumb, official statements say), which is a rarity for such encounters. The event has been denounced as ‘piracy’ after Philippine soldiers fought off the armed Chinese sailors with “bare hands”.

    FT describes that “Several clips released by the Armed Forces of the Philippines late on Wednesday showed Chinese coastguard speedboats, assisted by at least one larger coastguard ship, ramming the Philippine boats and trapping them between the Chinese ones with ropes.”

    The report further emphasizes this “marked the sharpest escalation in the stand-off over the Second Thomas Shoal, a disputed reef inside the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone where Manila intentionally grounded a former US Navy ship in 1999 and which it has been using as a military outpost.”

    Watch some of the chaotic footage below:

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    To be expected, Beijing has sharply rebuked and rejected Manilla’s denunciation of Chinese aggression, with Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian saying Thursday that the Philippine vessel’s purpose was “absolutely not about humanitarian resupply.”

    “The Philippine vessels secretly carried construction materials and even weapons and equipment, and they deliberately rammed Chinese vessels,” Lin claimed.

    Thus both sides are saying the other started it and was the aggressor, akin to past similar ramming incidents and the usual tit-for-tat accusations that follow. In some videos the Chinese coast guard members are heard shouting: “This is China!”

    But the situation in these waters is more dangerous than in the past, given the Chinese government has recently authorized new rules of engagement, allowing the coast guard to use lethal force or board ships if they are found in Chinese territorial waters.

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    The US and its regional allies have consistently rejected expanded Chinese maritime claims in the South China Sea, thus the rival sides are now on a heightened collision course as tensions soar. US warships are meanwhile still committed to their “freedom of navigation” patrols, while also flying surveillance planes overhead.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 06/20/2024 – 22:00

  • A Fiscal Crisis: The West Is On The Wrong Side Of Cost Curve
    A Fiscal Crisis: The West Is On The Wrong Side Of Cost Curve

    Authored by Matthew van Wagenen and Arnel David via RealClearWireThe Epoch Times,

    An axis of aggressors has embarked on a new strategy to defeat the West: relentless attacks with inexpensive weapons, produced at scale, to provoke a global response. Western militaries, which cling to outdated and excessively expensive weapon systems and platforms (that take too long to develop and replenish, and regularly exceed their budgets), are being systematically bled dry.

    In simple financial terms, the West is on the wrong side of the cost curve. Imagine the defense industry as a normal business. In economics, a cost curve illustrates the relationship between production costs and quantity. Successful businesses achieve economies of scale, reducing costs through efficiency. But the West’s defense enterprise is operating on the wrong side of this curve. Production costs are high, and output is low, pushing Western nations into diseconomies of scale.

    The recent aerial attack on Israel and the war in Ukraine expose this vulnerability. Iran’s 300-plus airborne weapons that targeted Israel amounted to less than $200 million while the Western response exceeds billions of dollars. In Ukraine, multimillion-dollar weapons platforms are destroyed by uncrewed aircraft systems that range from hundreds to thousands of dollars, and Russia’s prized Black Sea Fleet has been devastated by inexpensive maritime drones. Defense analysts estimate that the cost ratio is easily 100 to 1.

    A Call to Action

    A new revolution in military spending is underway. It’s a radical change in the way nations procure and integrate military capabilities. The innovation and changes in Ukraine have been described by Gen. Mark Milley as “the most significant fundamental change in the character of war ever recorded in history.” Consequently, this isn’t a military issue alone; it is a societal one. In democracies such as the United States, “We the People” are responsible for our common defense. We cannot afford to ignore this unsustainable cost mismatch. Every defense dollar matters when there are competing demands for resources to address aging populations, health care, migration challenges, and myriad other social services.

    Traditional procurement models in the West, to include the United States and NATO, are no longer fit for purpose. They are failing. Decades-long development cycles are obsolete in a world of rapidly evolving threats and disruptive technological change. Let’s say an adversarial nation has a four-year cycle to produce a capability and, in the West, it takes 10 years. In this scenario, in 20 years’ time, the adversary-to-West ratio for innovation and capability development is 5 to 2. This all but guarantees that our adversaries will field a greater range of innovative capabilities, potentially leading to overmatch.

    Rapid technological advancements are outpacing the military’s long-term development programs, rendering them obsolete as cheaper, more effective alternatives emerge. Program managers, those with the responsibility, authority, and personnel to deliver programs (e.g., ships, planes, software), lack both the incentive and the means to adapt to this fast-changing landscape. The ingrained culture of preserving existing programs stifles innovation and adaptability. It’s unlikely a program manager will kill their program for the greater good. Likewise, the political representatives of states where these programs sit will lobby heavily to keep these programs (i.e., jobs) alive, irrespective of any negative strategic impact.

    To overcome this, the military and the broader defense enterprise must urgently rethink their approach. Early and aggressive testing, integration, and prototyping of innovative warfare concepts are essential to gain an edge in modern conflicts. SpaceX’s rapid trial and error prototyping to develop rockets and OpenAI’s early release and testing of ChatGPT are examples of this approach to developing capability faster. Waiting for “perfect” solutions, or clinging to lengthy development cycles, leads to unpreparedness on the ever-evolving battlefield. Keeping this approach is akin to relying on horse cavalry in the era of mechanized warfare.

    A Glimmer of Hope

    There’s movement in the right direction. Nations such as Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Norway, and Finland are leading the way. Their “drone wall” initiative leverages affordable, networked sensors to safeguard their sovereignty. They will do this by keeping costs down to achieve economies of scale.

    The U.S. Department of Defense is also taking steps in the right direction with its Replicator initiative. Thousands of drones have been delivered, demonstrating a shift toward rapid, warfighter-centric innovation. This could be the necessary spark to ignite essential change.

    Other promising initiatives in NATO are the Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic and the NATO Innovation Fund. Both complementary initiatives provide access to deep tech start-up communities, but the challenge for these programs will be transition. How do they transition capability into warfighters’ hands to be relevant going forward? As expressed above, it cannot take decades.

    The Path Forward

    To survive, the West must revolutionize its military procurement and production processes. We need a laser focus on swift prototyping and deployment of cutting-edge technologies. These systems must be affordable, easily updated, interoperable, and adaptable to new threats. The era of billion-dollar projects that risk obsolescence must end. A more diverse approach is not just needed, it’s compulsory if we want to win wars and preserve peace.

    The conflict in Ukraine serves as a stark warning. Clinging to expensive, slow-moving defense systems will leave the West vulnerable. We must out-innovate, not outspend, our adversaries. Our Alliance, made up of free and democratic nations, must unleash the creative capital present within our societies to find cost-wise off-sets that can be immediately integrated into our collective defense system.

    The future of warfare demands a fusion of accessible technology, rapid innovation, and scalable production. The West must adapt or face the consequences of falling behind an axis of aggressors who are united in their pursuit of strategic advantage and wish to see the West decline.

    *  *  *

    Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ZeroHedge.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 06/20/2024 – 21:40

  • Oakland, CA Mayor's House Raided By The FBI
    Oakland, CA Mayor’s House Raided By The FBI

    The FBI raided the house of Oakland, California Mayor Sheng Thao Thursday morning for an unknown reason, according to the US Attorney’s Office.

    That said, law enforcement sources told NBC Bay Area that the raid was one of four search warrants executed in Oakland as part of a larger operation involving Thao.

    Other agencies involved include the IRS and the US Postal Service.

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    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 06/20/2024 – 21:20

  • First-Of-Its-Kind Study Explains Why Some People Don't Get COVID-19
    First-Of-Its-Kind Study Explains Why Some People Don’t Get COVID-19

    Authored by Marina Zhang via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Researchers have discovered why some people remain uninfected by the COVID-19 virus—even after their nasal cavities are exposed to it.

    (serhii.suravikin/Shutterstock)

    According to a recent study, these people have faster and more subtle immune responses than those who develop symptomatic COVID-19.

    “These findings shed new light on the crucial early events that either allow the virus to take hold or rapidly clear it before symptoms develop,” Dr. Marko Nikolić, senior author of the study and honorary consultant in respiratory medicine at the University College London, said in the press release.

    The study, published in Nature on Wednesday, was a human challenge study conducted by researchers from the UK and the Netherlands. It is the first of its kind wherein participants were deliberately exposed to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.

    Researchers recruited 16 young, healthy participants under 30 for the study. None had comorbidities, and none had ever previously been infected with COVID-19 or vaccinated.

    Before the study received peer review, a preprint of it was made available online in April 2023.

    3 Different Immune Responses

    The 16 individuals responded to the virus exposure differently and were grouped accordingly.

    The first group contained six symptomatic people. The study authors categorized them as having sustained infections.

    People in the second group were asymptomatic but still tested positive for COVID-19 with PCR tests. These participants were categorized as having transient infections.

    The third type of people were asymptomatic and continuously received negative COVID-19 PCR test results. The authors confirmed that these participants were infected but cleared their infections so rapidly that the infections were dubbed “abortive.”

    The second and third groups, who had asymptomatic COVID-19, had faster or more subtle immune responses, according to the authors.

    On Day 1, the authors detected immune cells that migrated to the nose—the site of infection—in the asymptomatic groups.

    However, people who tested negative for COVID-19 recruited fewer immune cell types, while the COVID-19-positive group recruited all immune cell types.

    Symptomatic people with sustained COVID-19 infections had slower and more systematic immune responses. These participants had all types of immune cells going into the nose on Day 5 rather than Day 1.

    Genetic Factors

    Individuals with high expression of specific genes, such as HLA-DQA2, “are better at preventing the onset of a sustained viral infection,” the authors wrote.

    Other studies have shown that increased activity of HLA-DQA2 in the blood is associated with milder COVID-19 progression.

    HLA-DQA2 is one of many human leukocyte antigen (HLA) genes. HLA genes make proteins displayed on the cell surface. When pathogens infect cells, HLA proteins signal to immune cells that they have been infected.

    The authors said their data confirm that HLA-DQA2 activity protects against further production of SARS-CoV-2 virus in infected cells.

    Symptomatic People Had Systematic Responses

    Only people with symptomatic COVID-19 displayed systematic interferon responses. Interferons are messengers of the immune system that help reduce or aggravate immune and inflammatory activities.

    The authors were surprised to find that interferons in the blood were activated before those at the infection site. Interferon activity in the blood peaked on Day 3 of the infection; however, interferon activity at the infection site—the nose—was not detected until Day 5.

    In the press release, the authors said that slow immune responses in the nose could have allowed the infection to establish itself quickly.

    Asymptomatic people did not have systemic interferon reactions and rarely had infected cells.

    Unsurprisingly, “infected cells were almost exclusively found” in the nasal cavities of symptomatic people, the authors wrote. The cells lining participants’ nasal cavities start producing SARS-CoV-2 virus, contributing to increased viral load.

    “We now have a much greater understanding of the full range of immune responses, which could provide a basis for developing potential treatments and vaccines that mimic these natural protective responses,” said Dr. Nikolić.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 06/20/2024 – 21:00

  • Escalating Red Sea Attacks Drive Up Vessel Insurance Costs
    Escalating Red Sea Attacks Drive Up Vessel Insurance Costs

    Iran-backed Houthi rebels have been intensifying missile and drone attacks, targeting commercial vessels in the southern Red Sea, critical Bab el-Mandeb chokepoint, and the Gulf of Aden. The rebels have even threatened to extend their reach to the Mediterranean Sea. The recent sinking of the Tutor dry-bulk carrier by a kamikaze drone boat marks a significant escalation. The ongoing turmoil has sent containerized freight costs soaring, along with insurance costs back on the rise.

    Bloomberg spoke with two individuals familiar with the maritime insurance market. They said the price of covering a commercial vessel for transit has jumped from .3% to .4% of the ship’s total value to .6%. In other words, a vessel worth $50 million must pay upwards of $300k of insurance for one sail.

    “The rate is nevertheless slightly below a peak reached earlier this year when attacks ramped up,” Bloomberg said. But if Houthi attacks persist through summer, the rate will likely increase further. 

    The sinking of the commodity-hauling bulk carrier this week by a drone boat was a real eye-opener for the shipping community and commodity industry as President Biden’s Operation Prosperity Guardian fails to counter endless Houthi attacks on commercial ships in the critical shipping lane.

    It was also the first time a ship was sunk by a drone boat in this muti-month campaign by Houthis.

    “It’s another indicator that the Houthis are stepping up their attacks on those vessels that were warned not to pass through the Red Sea,” Dirk Siebels, a senior analyst at Risk Intelligence, said of the drone boat attack on Tutor, who Bloomberg quoted. 

    Considering Houthis are mainly targeting Western-linked vessels, not all insurance costs have soared. Bloomberg said Chinese vessels continue to receive significant discounts. 

    In addition to the rising insurance costs, the diversion of vessels from the Red Sea around the Cape of Good Hope is causing containerized shipping costs to skyrocket.

    Source: Bloomberg

    This shift is straining the world’s containerized capacity, leading to a significant increase in shipping costs for 40-foot containers. Logjams are also forming at some of the world’s top ports, including the Port of Singapore.

    Samuel Cranny-Evans, an associate fellow at RUSI, a London-based think tank, warned drone boats “can be difficult to intercept.” 

    That said, increasing insurance premiums and freight costs contribute to the sticky inflation story. Thanks, Iran, which is just causing turmoil on the maritime lane via its proxy group, Houthis. 

    “Iran is defeating US deterrence and counterstrike in the Red Sea. The stage is set for a similar fight in the Gulf,” David Asher, a senior fellow at Hudson Institute, stated, as war risks are only rising. 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 06/20/2024 – 20:40

  • A New High-Rise Building Will House LA's Homeless In $600,000 Units
    A New High-Rise Building Will House LA’s Homeless In $600,000 Units

    Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

    A grand opening of Weingart Tower will have 278 units to shelter the homeless. Hooray!?

    Image courtesy of ABC News, YouTube video and details below

    ABC News reports New high-rise building to house homeless in $600K units in downtown Los Angeles

    There are 278 units in the 19-story development known as the Weingart Tower. It’s intended to help people currently without shelter on Skid Row and it will be L.A.’s largest permanent support housing project.

    The building will have an entire floor of offices for case workers, in addition to a list of impressive amenities: a gym, art room, music room, computer room and library.

    Residents will enjoy six common balconies and a café.

    It’s considered affordable housing, but the cost to build this type of project still adds up. Each unit costs nearly $600,000 and it’s being funded by taxpayers.

    The $165 million project is receiving permanent financing from Proposition HHH, which voters overwhelmingly passed in 2016. The new tower is also receiving state housing funds and $56 million in state tax credits.

    Several elected officials, including L.A. Mayor Karen Bass, attended a grand opening ceremony at for the building.

    Building Tour

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    Beyond Insane Math

    This is beyond insane. NBC news reports There are 75,518 people are homeless in the county, and 46,260 in the city of Los Angeles, an increase from the 69,144 in the county, and 41,980 the city from 2022 as of Jan 23, 2023.

    $600,000 * 278 = $166,800,000. That’s $166.8 million. And that does not include free property taxes, case workers, maintenance, utilities, insurance, food, police, clothes, doormen, or medical care.

    If the county were to shelter the 75,518 homeless, the cost would be $45,310,800,000. That’s $45.3 billion, again excluding free property taxes, case workers, maintenance, utilities, insurance, food, police, clothes, doormen, or medical care.

    And it would not stop there. Every homeless person in the state would move their tent to LA to participate.

    Affordable Housing

    This dear woke fans is what’s known as “affordable housing”.

    Taxes have to rise to accommodate such stupidity. It makes me angry just thinking about this. For what? Does the city think this will cure the homeless problem?

    Most of these people are some combination of drug addicts, alcoholics, mentally unstable, and physically unfit to ever work. And even if they did work, they would not be living in $600,000 units.

    California Proposes Restraining Orders to Stop Thieves

    More and more headlines look as if they are from the Babylon Bee. Let’s discuss the latest idiocrasy from la-la land.

    Governor Gavin Newsom courtesy of the Hoover Institute

    On June 17,I commented Hoot of the Day: California Proposes Restraining Orders to Stop Thieves

    What’s going on in California is beyond insane.

    Also see Twenty Percent of California Lives in Poverty, What’s Going On?

    Meanwhile, working people are struggling.

    Angry Renters

    Hard working people are struggling to make ends meet due to rising inflation. And here we are offering $600,000 “affordable” units plus free food, medical care, etc. to drug addicts.

    For discussion of angry renters please see Why Angry Renters Will Decide the Election, Take II

    Think of the poor, nearly broke worker who gets up every day in his tiny apartment and drives a long commute to work eight hours a day so that he can pay for free healthcare for illegal migrants and $600,000 units for the homeless.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 06/20/2024 – 20:20

  • KitKat-Maker Warns 'Cocoaflation' Will Send Chocolate Bar Prices Higher For Consumers 
    KitKat-Maker Warns ‘Cocoaflation’ Will Send Chocolate Bar Prices Higher For Consumers 

    Mark Davies, managing director at Nestlé Confectionery UK & Ireland, has issued a stark warning to chocolate lovers: while secured and hedged supplies of cocoa beans have kept KitKat bar prices relatively low amid the cocoa price storm, the full impact is about to be felt as candy bar prices will be hiked. 

    “Demand appears to be resilient at the moment, but as prices go up, we would expect to see dampening demand,” Davies said during a visit to the company’s factory in York, England, which Bloomberg quoted. The York plant produces more than 200k KitKat bars every hour. 

    Cocoa futures in New York have once again crossed the $10k a ton mark, a clear indication of the persistent fears of dwindling global bean supplies. The situation in West Africa, the location of the world’s top cocoa farms, continues to deteriorate.

    Here are our latest bean reports:

    Bloomberg Intelligence stated earlier this year that chocolate makers who secured supplies well in advance or hedged at some capacity soon face higher costs.  

    Nestle’s Davies said the rise in cocoa costs may force some companies to use more substitutes for cocoa. 

    In other words, food inflation will remain sticky, and price hikes are imminent in the candy world. This may be a good thing as an increasing number of Americans inject themselves with big pharma’s Ozempic and dial back their carb intake. 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 06/20/2024 – 20:00

  • No "Blank Check": Dean Warns That Criticizing The School Or Its Leadership Is Not Protected At Harvard
    No “Blank Check”: Dean Warns That Criticizing The School Or Its Leadership Is Not Protected At Harvard

    Authored by Jonathan Turley,

    In my book out this week, The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage, I write about the anti-free speech movement that has swept over higher education and how administrators and faculty hold a view of free speech as harmful. Now Harvard is again at the heart of a free speech fight after Lawrence Bobo, the Dean of Social Science, rejected views of free speech as a “blank check” and said that criticizing university leaders like himself or school policies are now viewed as “outside the bounds of acceptable professional conduct.”

    Bobo warns that public criticism of the school could “cross a line into sanctionable violations.”

    In his opinion editorial in the Harvard Crimson, Bobo declares:

    “A faculty member’s right to free speech does not amount to a blank check to engage in behaviors that plainly incite external actors — be it the media, alumni, donors, federal agencies, or the government — to intervene in Harvard’s affairs. Along with freedom of expression and the protection of tenure comes a responsibility to exercise good professional judgment and to refrain from conscious action that would seriously harm the University and its independence.”

    The column adopts every jingoistic rationale used by anti-free speech critics today, including the invocation of the Holmes “crowded theater” analogy:

    “But many faculty at Harvard enjoy an external stature that also opens to them much broader platforms for potential advocacy. Figures such as Raj Chetty ’00, Henry Louis Gates Jr., Jill Lepore, or Steven A. Pinker have well-earned notoriety that reaches far beyond the academy.

    Would it simply be an ordinary act of free speech for those faculty to repeatedly denounce the University, its students, fellow faculty, or leadership? The truth is that free speech has limits — it’s why you can’t escape sanction for shouting “fire” in a crowded theater.”

    First and foremost, the ability of faculty to speak out on public disputes should not depend on whether you are more popular or visible.

    However, it is the theater analogy that is most galling.

    I have an entire chapter in The Indispensable Right that addresses the fallacies surrounding this line out of the Holmes opinion. It is arguably the most damaging single line ever written by a Supreme Court justice in the area of free speech.

    I have previously written about the irony of liberals adopting the analogy, which was used to crack down on socialists and dissenters on the left.

    One of the most telling moments came in a congressional hearing when I warned of the dangers of repeating the abuses of prior periods like the Red Scare, when censorship and blacklisting were the norm. In response, Rep. Dan Goldman, D-New York, invoked Oliver Wendell Holmes’ view that free speech does not give a person the right to yell fire in a crowded theater. In other words, citizens had to be silenced because their views are dangerous to others.

    When I attempted to point out that the line came from a case justifying the imprisonment of socialists for their political viewpoints, Goldman cut me off and “reclaimed his time.”

    Other Democrats have used the line as a mantra, despite its origins in one of our most abusive anti-free speech periods during which the government targeted political dissidents on the left.

    Dean Bobo is now the latest academic to embrace the theater rationale to justify the silencing of dissent. At Harvard, he is suggesting that the entire university is now a crowded theater and criticizing the university leadership is a cry of “Fire.” It is that easy.

    By punishing criticism of the school’s leadership and policies, Bobo believes that they can look “forward to calmer times” on campus. It is precisely the type of artificial silence that academics have been enforcing against conservatives, libertarians, and dissenters for years. It is the approach that reduced our schools to an academic echo chamber.

    The reference to Professor Steven Pinker is particularly ironic. As we have previously discussed, Pinker was targeted for exercising free speech. In past controversies, most Harvard faculty members have been conspicuously silent as colleagues were targeted by cancel campaigns. It was the same at other universities.

    As faculties effectively purged their ranks of conservative or Republican members, the silence was deafening.

    Others either supported such campaigns or justified them. Notably, over 75 percent of the Harvard faculty identify as “liberal” or “very liberal.”

    Then the Gaza protests began and some of these same faculty found themselves the targets of mobs. Suddenly, free speech became an urgent matter to address. Fortunately for these liberal professors, the free speech community is used to opportunistic allies. Where “fair weather friends” are often ridiculed, free speech relies on “foul-weather friends,” those who suddenly see the need to protect a diversity of opinions when they feel threatened.

    Bobo’s arguments are consistent with years of rationales for silencing or investigating dissenting faculty for years. It violates the very foundation for academia in free speech and academic freedom. The university is free to punish students or faculty for unlawful conduct. However, when it comes to their viewpoints, there should be a bright line of protection.

    Of course, this criticism is likely to trigger another common fallacy used to rationalize speech controls: as a private university Harvard is not subject to the First Amendment and thus this is not a true free speech issue.

    As discussed previously, free speech values go beyond the First Amendment whether it is a controversy on social media or campuses. For years, anti-free-speech figures have dismissed free speech objections to social media or academic censorship by stressing that the First Amendment applies only to the government, not private companies or institutions. The distinction was always a dishonest effort to evade the implications of speech controls, whether implemented by the government or corporations.

    The First Amendment was never the exclusive definition of free speech. Free speech is viewed by many of us as a human right; the First Amendment only deals with one source for limiting it. Free speech can be undermined by private corporations as well as government agencies. This threat is even greater when politicians openly use corporations and universities to achieve indirectly what they cannot achieve directly.

    Dean Bobo’s desire for “calmer times” would come at too high a price for free speech as well as Harvard.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 06/20/2024 – 19:40

  • US Pauses All Patriot Shipments To Other Countries, Will Redirect To Ukraine
    US Pauses All Patriot Shipments To Other Countries, Will Redirect To Ukraine

    The Biden administration continues going ‘all in’ on support for Ukraine, despite clear and universal acknowledgement that its forces are being beaten back along front lines, and a manpower crisis which is worsening by the day.

    A Thursday Biden administration statement has revealed a major decision which is to significantly impact Washington’s allies: the United States is pausing all shipments of Patriot interceptor missiles to foreign countries and redirecting them to Ukraine.

    US National Security Council spokeman John Kirby confirmed to reporters that the “difficult but necessary decision” of prioritizing the delivery of Patriot and NASAM missiles to Ukraine has been made.

    He also acknowledged this will come at the expense of allies which had struck deals with Washington for Patriots. Kirby described that Kiev must urgently have the ability to maintain its stockpiles “at a key moment in the war.”

    “We’re going to reprioritize the deliveries of these exports so that those missiles rolling off the production line will now be provided to Ukraine,” he affirmed. The shipments in question were expected to begin rolling out by late summer.

    “This . . . demonstrates our commitment to supporting our partners when they’re in existential danger,” Kirby continued. As we reported previously, Spain and Greece had come under considerable pressure from EU and NATO leadership to ‘sacrifice’ their Patriots to Ukraine, despite Greece in particular facing long-term threats (from Turkey).

    Recent weeks have seen President Biden authorize deployment of a second Patriot missile battery to Ukraine from its base of operations in Poland, despite these valuable systems being in limited supply. Warsaw wasn’t too pleased:

    This morning [last Thurs. June 13], the head of President Duda’s National Security Bureau (BBN), Jacek Siewiera, responded to the report by telling broadcaster Radio Zet that “American Patriots should not be transferred from Poland to Ukraine”.

    “We are a key country for supplies to Ukraine and deterrence on NATO’s eastern flank,” said Siewiera. “Air defence is necessary here. I will want to discuss this with US Presidential [National Security] Advisor Jake Sullivan.”

    President Biden had earlier announced that “everything we have is going to go to Ukraine until their needs are met” amid the broader push to get more European countries to donate weapons.

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    But there’s also lately been some behind closed doors EU infighting over the rush to get Ukraine more, more & more weapons, even as Western countries’ own stockpiles are already dwindled.

    …Talk about a very literal concept of Ukraine first.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 06/20/2024 – 19:20

  • We Spent A Billion Dollars Fighting The Houthis… And Lost
    We Spent A Billion Dollars Fighting The Houthis… And Lost

    Authored by Ron Paul,

    Why does it seem the Pentagon is far better at spending money than actually putting together a successful operation? The failed “Operation Prosperity Guardian” and the disastrous floating Gaza pier are but two recent examples of enormously expensive initiatives that, though they no-doubt enriched military contractors, were incapable of meeting their stated goals.

    To great fanfare, last December the Pentagon announced the launch of Operation Prosperity Guardian, a joint US/UK military operation to halt the Yemeni Houthi disruption of Israel-linked commercial shipping through the Red Sea. The Houthis announced their policy in response to civilian deaths in Israel’s war on Gaza, but when the US and UK military became involved they announced they would target US and UK shipping as well.

    The operation was supposed to be quick and easy. After all, the rag-tag Houthi militia was no match for the mighty US and UK navies. But it didn’t work out that way at all. Over the weekend the Wall Street Journal published a devastating article revealing that after spending more than one billion dollars on munitions alone, the operation had failed to deter the Houthis and failed to re-open commercial shipping in the Red Sea.

    The Journal reported that Avril Haines, the director of national intelligence, recently told Congress that “the U.S.-led effort has been insufficient to deter the militant group’s targeting of ships and that the threat will ‘remain active for some time.’”

    Meanwhile, the article informed us that a continued US effort to fight the Houthis over Red Sea shipping was “not sustainable.”

    Perhaps the most revealing part of the article comes from a Washington military expert, Emily Harding of CSIS:

    “Their supply of weapons from Iran is cheap and highly sustainable, but ours is expensive, our supply chains are crunched, and our logistics tails are long.”

    It is reminiscent of a recollection by Col. Harry G. Summers of a discussion he had with North Vietnamese Col. Tu:

    “You know, you never defeated us on the battlefield,” said Summers.

    Tu paused for a moment, then replied, “That may be so. But it is also irrelevant.”

    Similarly, the US military spent a quarter of a billion dollars building a temporary floating pier to deliver aid to the starving Palestinians even though a land route already existed and would have been far cheaper to use. The project was doomed from the beginning, as days after opening stormy weather broke up the pier and washed part of it up on Israel’s shore. The US military managed to gather the pieces together again, but in total only a few aid trucks managed to use it before, over the weekend, the pier was again disassembled for fear of another weather-related break-up.

    The only thing the pier was good for, it seems, was assisting the Israeli military in a Gaza raid on June 8th that killed 270 Palestinian civilians.

    As neocons inside the Beltway continue to plot war with China over Taiwan, it seems someone should notice the trouble we have had dealing with Houthis and floating piers. For now, the growth in military spending seems unlimited, but increasing spending bringing diminishing results raises the question of just how much bang are we getting for our bucks?

    We have the most expensive military on earth, they say. That may be true, but it is also irrelevant.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 06/20/2024 – 19:00

  • Major Cyber Incident Paralyzes Thousands Of US Auto Dealerships  
    Major Cyber Incident Paralyzes Thousands Of US Auto Dealerships  

    The company supplying software for managing sales and services to thousands of auto dealerships across the US reported yet another cyber disruption on Thursday, disrupting sales of new and used vehicles. 

    X user Car Dealership Guy reports that CDK Global sent an email to auto dealers informing them of “an additional cyber incident late in the evening on June 19th.” 

    “Out of continued caution and to protect our customers, we are once again proactively shutting down most of our systems,” the email read.

    CDX told its clients, which includes almost 15,000 dealerships, “At this time, we do not have an estimated time frame for resolution, and therefore, our dealers’ systems will not be available at a minimum on Thursday, June 20th.”

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    The auto industry is a powerhouse in the US economy, contributing 3-3.5% of the nation’s GDP. It employs over 1.7 million people at automakers, suppliers, and thousands of dealerships. 

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    Here’s what X users are saying about the cyber incident:

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    Hmmm.

    *Developing… 

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    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 06/20/2024 – 18:40

  • Price Discovery Equals Short Sales
    Price Discovery Equals Short Sales

    Authored by Douglas French via The Mises Institute,

    Price discovery in commercial real estate, which had been frozen while sellers insisted on prices from the good ol’ ZIRP days, is starting to thaw. Real estate giant Related Companies has unloaded the property at 321 W. 44th St., New York City, for less than $50 million, reports Bloomberg.

    Not only is that a 67 percent discount from the nearly $153 million that Related Fund Management paid for it in 2018, but also, the lenders, including Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, agreed to a “short sale.” For those who have forgotten 2008 or were too young, a “short sale” is when the lender agrees to a property sale for less than the outstanding amount on the mortgage. The owner loses everything, and the lender takes a large loss. In this case, the repayment to the lenders was more than cut in half as the property’s mortgage exceeded $100 million.

    Another recent office building sale had Blackstone and its lender agreeing to sell 1740 Broadway for $186 million. Blackstone Inc. bought the building in 2014 for $605 million.

    Pacific Investment Management Company (Pimco) expects more regional bank failures due to a “very high” concentration of troubled commercial real estate (CRE) loans on their books, Bloomberg reports.

    John Murray, the head of Pimco’s global private commercial real estate team, told Bloomberg’s Laura Benitez that “the real wave of distress is just starting” for lenders to everything from malls to offices.

    Ms. Benitez writes, “Contrary to some market expectations, larger banks have been disposing of some of their higher quality assets first to avoid deeper losses, according to Murray.”

    That means banks are selling their best assets because they can receive prices at least equal to what they are carrying in loans on their balance sheets. There is no other reason to sell good loans but to generate liquidity.

    “As stressed loans grow due to maturities, however, we expect that banks will start selling these more challenged loans to reduce their troubled loan exposures,” Mr. Murray said. Banks will take losses when these loans are unloaded, impairing capital and in some cases leading to bank failures.

    Ms. Benitez writes, “The turmoil has been particularly felt among regional banks, which boosted their CRE exposure that in many cases is now worth only a fraction of their value at their peak.”

    Not only are banks carrying a collective half a trillion dollars in unrealized losses on securities portfolios, but also, as Ms. Benitez explains, bank commercial real estate loan books are underwater as well.

    “The combination of rising rates plus recessionary pressures creates real challenges for commercial real estate, from both a capital markets and fundamentals perspective,” Mr. Murray said.

    Real challenges for the banks holding the paper as well.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 06/20/2024 – 18:20

  • Louisiana Orders Schools To Display 10 Commandments In Every Classroom, Including Colleges
    Louisiana Orders Schools To Display 10 Commandments In Every Classroom, Including Colleges

    In the latest shot fired in America’s intensifying culture wars, Louisiana will now require public schools to display a Ten Commandments poster in every classroom, after Republican Gov. Jeff Landry signed a bill into law on Wednesday. “If you want to respect the rule of law, you’ve got to start from the original lawgiver, which was Moses,” said Landry at a bill-signing event. 

    Starting in January, each public classroom in the Pelican State must have a display of the 10 Commandments measuring at least 11 by 14 inches and using “large, easily readable font.” The display must include a four-paragraph “context statement” on how the commandments “were a prominent part of American public education for almost three centuries.”

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    Notably, the requirement covers not only K-12 schools but public universities too. The law says it doesn’t seek to create an “unfunded mandate,” but anticipates schools will use displays donated by private parties. 

    For now, Louisiana is the only state with such a requirement — and legal challenges are already in the works. A consortium of organizations comprising the ACLU, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and the Freedom from Religion Foundation issued a statement after Landry signed the bill into law, saying the measure goes against a 1980 precedent set in Stone v Graham, in which the Supreme Court struck down a similar Kentucky law. The group added: 

    “We are preparing a lawsuit to challenge H.B. 71. The law violates the separation of church and state and is blatantly unconstitutional. The First Amendment promises that we all get to decide for ourselves what religious beliefs, if any, to hold and practice, without pressure from the government. Politicians have no business imposing their preferred religious doctrine on students and families in public schools.”

    The law’s language was clearly drafted with legal challenges in mind. It notes that “including the Ten Commandments in the education of our children is part of our state and national history, culture, and tradition.” It also specifies that the text of the commandments to be used in Louisiana classrooms is the same as what was upheld in the 2005 Supreme Court case, Van Orden v Perry.

    An excerpt from Louisiana’s newly-enacted HB71, stipulating which version of the 10 Commandments must be displayed 

    In that 5-4 decision, the court ruled that the Constitution’s establishment clause did render a Ten Commandments monument on the grounds of the Texas capitol building illegal. “Simply having religious content or promoting a message consistent with a religious doctrine does not run afoul of the establishment clause,” the majority wrote. 

    The Supreme Court gave its blessing to this monument on the Texas capitol grounds, but an earlier decision threw out a Kentucky classroom requirement like Louisiana is now attempting (Larry Kolvoord/AP via NBC News)

    “It is the Legislature’s intent to apply the decision set forth by the Supreme Court of the United States in Van Orden v. Perry…to continue the rich tradition and ensure that the students in our public schools may understand and appreciate the foundational documents of our state and national government,” the Louisiana law declares.  

    Given Louisiana has the second-highest murder rate of any American state, a little more “thou shalt not kill” can’t hurt.  

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 06/20/2024 – 18:00

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Jun 20

Today’s News 20th June 2024

  • Nasrallah Says 'No Place' Safe, Even Threatens Cyprus, If Israel Invades Lebanon
    Nasrallah Says ‘No Place’ Safe, Even Threatens Cyprus, If Israel Invades Lebanon

    Amid widespread reports and statements that Israel and Hezbollah are on the brink of full-scale war, the Shia paramilitary group’s leader Hassan Nasrallah has warned of a war “without rules or ceilings” if Israeli forces launch an offensive in Lebanon.

    The words were given in response to Israel’s top generals the day prior announcing that battle plans have been approved for a Lebanon offensive and widening of the war. The IDF statement said it is preparing to “accelerate readiness in the field.”

    “The enemy must wait for us by air, land, and sea. We repeat: If war is imposed on Lebanon, the resistance will fight without rules, controls, or ceilings,” Nasrallah responded Tuesday.

    “Storming the Galilee is a possibility that remains present within the framework of any war that the occupation may launch against Lebanon,” Hezbollah’s Secretary-General continued.

    And that’s when he for the first time of the conflict which began in wake of Oct.7 issued a warning against Cyprus, given that the Greek-speaking island-nation currently has a bilateral defense cooperation agreement with Israel.

    “Opening Cypriot airports and bases to the Israeli enemy to target Lebanon would mean that the Cypriot government is part of the war, and the resistance will deal with it as part of the war,” Nasrallah said.

    He further warned that targets in the Mediterranean would also come under attack. In 2006 the Israeli Navy’s INS Hanit warship suffered a direct hit from a Hezbollah anti-ship missile (likely made by Iran), killing four soldiers.

    His fresh words are also being interpreted by Israeli media to say gas fields in the Mediterranean and energy platforms could also be attacked:

    Israel “knows that what also awaits it in the Mediterranean is very big,” Nasrallah added, without elaborating, possibly insinuating the group could attack its offshore gas rigs.

    The Israeli warship, Hanit, which was attacked by Hezbollah during the 2006 Lebanon War. TOI/Flash90

    While Israel is not known to have any bases or ports in Cyprus, it has on occasion conducted joint military drills with Cypriot forces.

    More likely is a scenario where Israeli jets would take off from Cypriot bases – or else one of the two British bases maintained on Cyprus. Any bigger Israeli anti-Hezbollah operation in Lebanon would without doubt involve a ratcheting air war over southern Lebanon.

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    Nasrallah in his Tuesday statement warned further, “We developed some of our weapons and used new weapons that we had not used previously.” Israeli leaders are concerned about recent drone image Hezbollah was able to capture over Haifa, which is Israel’s third largest city.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 06/20/2024 – 02:45

  • Hegemon Orders Europe: Bet On War & Steal Russia's Money
    Hegemon Orders Europe: Bet On War & Steal Russia’s Money

    Authored by Pepe Escobar,

    The Swiss “peace” kabuki came and went – and the winner was Vladimir Putin. He didn’t even have to show up…

    None of the Big Players did. Or in case they sent their emissaries, there was significant refusal to sign the vacuous final declaration – as in BRICS members Brazil, India, Saudi Arabia, UAE and South Africa.

    Without BRICS, there’s absolutely nothing the collective West – as in The Hegemon and assorted vassals – can do to alter the proxy war chessboard in Ukraine.

    In his carefully calibrated speech to diplomats and the leadership of Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Putin delineated an incredibly restrained and strategic approach to solve the Ukraine problem. In the context of the Hegemon’s escalatory green light – actually in practice for several months now – for Kiev to attack deeper into the Russian Federation, Putin’s offer was extremely generous.

    That is a direct offer to the Hegemon and the collective West – as the sweaty T-shirt actor in Kiev, apart from illegitimate, is beyond irrelevant.

    Predictably, NATO – via that epileptic slab of Norwegian wood – already proclaimed its refusal to negotiate, even as some relatively awake members of the Verkhovna Rada (Ukraine’s parliament) started discussing the offer, according to Duma Chairman Vyacheslav Volodin.

    Moscow sees the Verkhovna Rada as the only legitimate entity in Ukraine – and the only one with which would be possible to reach an agreement.

    Russian UN representative Vasily Nebenzya cut to the chase – diplomatically: if the generous proposal is refused, next time conditions for starting negotiations will be “different”. And “far more unfavorable”, according to Duma Defense Committee head Andrei Kartapolov.

    As Nebenzya stressed that in case of a refusal the collective West will bear full responsibility for further bloodshed, Kartapolov elaborated on the Big Picture: Russia’s real target is to create a whole new security system for the Eurasian space.

    And that, of course, is anathema to the Hegemon’s elites.

    Putin’s security vision for Eurasia harks back to this legendary speech at the Munich Security Conference in 2007. Now, with the steady advance of an irreversible multi-nodal (italics mine) and multi-centric new system of international relations, the Kremlin is pressing for an urgent solution – considering the extremely dangerous escalation of these past few months.

    Putin once again had to remind the deaf, dumb and blind of the obvious:

    “Calls to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia, which has the largest arsenal of nuclear weapons, demonstrate the extreme adventurism of Western politicians. They either do not understand the scale of the threat they themselves create, or they are simply obsessed with the belief in their own immunity and their own exclusivity. Both can turn into a tragedy”.

    They remain deaf, dumb and blind.

    A proposal that does not solve anything?

    A fiery debate is raging in informed circles in Russia about Putin’s proposal. Critics blast it as a capitulation – forced by selected oligarchs and influential business circles, adverse to an “almost war” (the preferred motto) that keeps postponing the inevitable decapitation strike.

    Critics argue that the military strategy is totally subordinated to a political strategy. And that would explain the serious problems in the Black Sea and in Transnistria: the political center of power refuses to conquer the number one economic/military target, which is Odessa.

    Additionally, Ukraine’s weapon supply chains are not being properly interrupted.

    The key critical point is “this is taking too long”. One just needs to look at the example of Mariupol.

    In 2014, Mariupol was left in the control of nazi-banderista gangs as part of a financial deal with Rinat Akhmetov, the owner of the Azovstal works. That’s a classic case of oligarchs and financiers prevailing over military objectives.

    Putin’s generosity, visible in this latest peace offer, also elicits a parallel with what happened in Dara’a in Syria: Russia also negotiated what looked at first like a peace deal. Yet Dara’a remains a mess, extremely violent, with Syrian and Russian soldiers at risk.

    It gets really tricky when the current proposal only asks NATO not to be encroached in Kiev; but at the same time Kiev will be allowed to have an army, based on the (aborted) April 2022 negotiations in Istanbul.

    Critics also argue that Putin seems to believe that this proposal will solve the war. Not really. A real de-nazification campaign is an affair of decades – involving everything from full demilitarization to eradicating focuses of extremist ideology. A real cultural revolution.

    The current escalation already is in tune with the orders given by the rarefied plutocracy who really runs the show to messengers – and operatives: nazi-banderista gangs will unleash a War of Terror inside Russia for years. From Ukraine territory. Just like Idlib in Syria remains a terror-friendly environment.

    The Odessa file

    Putin’s strategy may be on to something that escapes his critics. His wish for a return of peace and the re-establishment of sound relations with Kiev and the West has got to be a ruse – as he’s the first to know that’s not gonna happen.

    It’s clear that Kiev will not willingly cede territory: these will have to be conquered in the battlefield. Moreover NATO simply cannot sign its cosmic humiliation on the dotted line, accepting that Russia will get what it is demanding since February 2022.

    Putin’s first – diplomatic – objective though has already been met. He has clearly demonstrated to the Global Majority he’s open to solve the dilemma in a serene atmosphere, while discombobulated NATO keeps shrieking “War!” every other minute.

    The Hegemon wants war? So war it will be – to the last Ukrainian.

    And that brings us to the Odessa file.

    Putin, crucially, did not say anything about Odessa. This is Kiev’s last chance saloon to keep Odessa. If the peace proposal is rejected for good, Odessa will feature in the next list of non-negotiables.

    Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, once again, nailed it: “Putin is patient. Those with ears will hear, those with brains will understand”.

    No one should expect working brains popping up across the West. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has confirmed how NATO is planning massive installations in Poland, Romania and Slovakia to “coordinate transfer of weapons to Ukraine”.

    Add to it the epileptic slab of Norwegian wood stating that NATO is “discussing” bringing their nuclear weapons to a state of combat readiness “in the face of the growing threat from Russia and China”.

    Once again Old Stolty gives away the game: note this is all about the Hegemon’s paranoia with the top two “existential threats”, the

    Russia-China strategic partnership. That is, the leaders of BRICS coordinating the drive towards a multipolar, multi-nodal (italics mine), “harmonic” (Putin’s terminology) world.

    Stealing Russian money is legal

    Then there’s the blatant theft of Russian financial assets.

    At their sorry spectacle in Puglia, in southern Italy, the G7 – in the presence of the illegitimate sweaty T-shirt actor – agreed to shove an extra $50 billion in loans to Ukraine, funded by the interest on Russia’s frozen and for all practical purposes stolen assets.

    With impeccably twisted logic, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni – whose hairdressing and wardrobe revamp conclusively did not apply to her brains – said that the G7 “will not confiscate frozen assets of the Russian Federation”; “we are talking about the interest that they accumulate over time.”

    As financial scams go, this one is a thing of beauty.

    Essentially, the main customer (the Hegemon) and its instrument (the EU) are trying to mask the actual theft of those “frozen” Russian sovereign assets as if this was a legal transaction.

    The EU will transfer the “frozen” assets – something around $260 billion – to the status of collateral for the American loan. That’s the whole thing – because only the income deriving from the assets would not be enough as collateral to secure the loan.

    It gets even dicier. These funds will not leave Washington for Kiev; they will remain in town to the benefit of the industrial-military complex churning out more weapons.

    So the EU steals the assets, under a flimsy legalese pretext (Janet Yellen already said it’s OK) and transfers them to the U.S. Washington is immune if everything goes wrong – as it will.

    Only a fool would believe that the Americans would give a sizable loan to a de facto country 404 with a sovereign debt rating in the abyss. The dirty job is assigned to the Europeans: it’s up to the EU to change the status of Russia’s stolen/”frozen” assets to collateral.

    And wait for the ultimate dicey gambit. The whole scheme concerns Euroclear, in Belgium – where the largest amount of Russian funds is parked. Yet the decision on this money-laundering scam was not taken by Belgium, and not even by the EUrocrats.

    This was a Hegemon-imposed G7 decision.

    Belgium is not even part of the G7. Yet in the end, it will be the EU’s “credibility” as a whole that will go down the drain across the whole Global Majority.

    And the deaf, dumb and blind, predictably, are not even aware of it.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 06/20/2024 – 02:00

  • The Gain-Of-Function Experiment That Could 'Eliminate Humans From The Face Of The Earth'
    The Gain-Of-Function Experiment That Could ‘Eliminate Humans From The Face Of The Earth’

    Authored by Ross Pomeroy via RealClearScience,

    A Google search for “Frio Cave” makes the Uvalde County, Texas destination look like a tourists’ dream. One quickly learns that the cave is home to tens of millions of Mexican free-tailed bats, and that you can sometimes witness the flapping horde streaming out of their dark, dank home just before sunset, clouding the sky in a “once in a lifetime experience.”

    But Frio Cave has a darker history that visitors websites don’t mention. More than fifty years ago, two humans contracted rabies while spelunking there.

    That humans would get infected with rabies while visiting a bat-infested cave isn’t altogether surprising. Bats are a reservoir for the terrifying disease – 99% fatal to humans once symptoms – like hyperactivity, hallucinations, seizures, and fear of water – develop. A simple bite from one of the millions of bats could have transmitted a lyssavirus that triggers rabies. However, in this instance, the spelunkers apparently weren’t bitten. Rather, it seems they caught the virus from the air itself.

    A team of scientists subsequently investigated. They found that rabies virus could be transmitted to animals housed in empty cages within the cave, apparently just via the atmosphere itself. Moreover, the virus was isolated from samples collected via air condensation techniques.

    The episode raised a disturbing prospect. Had rabies, the deadliest virus for humankind, gone airborne?

    To be clear, it had not, at least not in a manner that would result in ultra-contagious, human-to-human spread. The sheer number of rabies-carrying bats in the cave likely transformed it into a “hot-box” of infection. Rabies remains transmitted almost entirely through bites and scratches from infected animals, and it is rapidly inactivated by sunlight and heat. However, for safety, members of the general public are now only allowed to enter Frio Cave on guided tours that remain near the mouth of the cave.

    That doesn’t mean that rabies virus couldn’t mutate to become transmitted through the air. It’s an RNA virus, and these are known to have high mutation rates. Indeed, scientists have found “a vast array of antigenic variants of this pathogen in a wide range of animal hosts and geographic locations.”

    Moreover, as two Italian scientists wrote in a 2021 article, “Even single amino acid mutations in the proteins of Rabies virus can considerably alter its biological characteristics, for example increasing its pathogenicity and viral spread in humans, thus making the mutated virus a tangible menace for the entire mankind.”

    Another possible route for this to occur would be through a “gain-of-function” experiment, in which researchers employ gene-editing to tweak the rabies virus, making it evade current vaccines and endowing it with the ability to spread through the air like measles or influenza. Gain-of-function research has earned increased public scrutiny of late as there’s a small, outside chance it may have produced SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19.

    Paul Offit, a professor of pediatrics at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and co-inventor of a rotavirus vaccine, commented on the potential to augment rabies through gain-of-function in a recent Substack post.

    “In the absence of an effective vaccine, it could eliminate humans from the face of the earth. The good news is that no one has tried to make rabies virus more contagious. But that doesn’t mean that it’s not possible or that no one would be willing to try.”

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 06/19/2024 – 23:05

  • The U.S. Could Take A Page From Australia's Natural Gas Playbook
    The U.S. Could Take A Page From Australia’s Natural Gas Playbook

    Authored by Paul Everingham via RealClearEnergy,

    The U.S Government could do far worse than to look to Australia’s natural gas policy as it considers the future of LNG exports.

    Gas production from the U.S.  and Australia is essential to global energy markets. Australia was the world’s leading LNG exporter in 2020 and 2021, a mantle the U.S. assumed in 2023.

    But the LNG industry in both countries has faced great policy uncertainty in recent times. In the U.S., this arrived with the unexpected January announcement of a halt to pending LNG export approvals, while Australia’s policy environment has been clouded for several years by cumbersome regulatory processes that stifled project development.

    The Future Gas Strategy released by the Australian Government in May addresses many of these concerns and establishes a roadmap future gas production investment. It outlines a clear role for gas in Australia’s energy transition, ensuring reliable power generation as major renewable energy projects are rolled out.

    Critically, it identifies the vital long-term contribution that Australian LNG will make in ensuring energy security for traditional customers in Asia and supporting emerging nations in the region as they look to reduce their reliance on high-emitting coal.

    While the Future Gas Strategy is underpinned by International Energy Agency (IEA) projections for global gas demand, it notes great variations between differing scenarios and early indications that real-life demand may exceed modelling. It acknowledges forecasts for much higher gas demand in Asia from reputable sources that know the region best, such as the Institute of Energy Economics, Japan.

    Thus far, flexibility around demand forecasts, including those of Asia, doesn’t seem to have had much of a place in dialogue around the U.S LNG export halt.

    As the U.S Chamber of Commerce has identified, the Department of Energy has seemingly sidelined gas projections from the U.S. Government’s own Energy Information Administration to use IEA data. However, many of the IEA projections are not forecasts based on practical assessments of future need but instead work backwards from decarbonization targets.

    Backcasting is not the same as providing accurate forecasts of future need on which to base energy policy.

    While climate targets are necessary to deliver the Paris Agreement, backcasting fails to account for the energy realities of growing, emerging economies. This runs the risk of creating a future shortfall of low-carbon gas, forcing economies in Asia back to coal or creating energy insecurity.

    Important climate objectives won’t be achieved if Asia’s growing coal use becomes even more entrenched. Global coal use reached record levels in 2023, with three out of every four tons consumed in India, China and Southeast Asia. Without sufficiently available and affordable volumes of LNG from a range of exporting countries, this pattern will be hard to break.

    The Australian Future Gas Strategy reflects this, describing how “continued supply of LNG can reduce the carbon intensity of our region’s energy mix, including by replacing more emissions intensive fuels like coal.”

    It also challenges the Australian gas industry to keep reducing its own carbon footprint, including through development of carbon capture and storage technology. I am sure Australian gas producers are up for that challenge, just as I know the U.S. gas industry is committed to doing everything within its power to address greenhouse gas emissions.

    U.S. gas producers already operate under one of the world’s most comprehensive and stringent methane management frameworks, established by the Environmental Protection Agency.

    A comprehensive recent study by the Berkeley Research Group, underpinned primarily by methane emissions data from operations, demonstrates U.S. LNG is far cleaner than the coal currently being used for power generation in Asia.

    The U.S. gas industry and its customers right now are facing uncertainty, the enemy of long-horizon investments with major capital outlays, such as those into LNG. An open-ended halt to approvals makes long-term decision-making on LNG infrastructure all but impossible.

    U.S. LNG has already showed it can be a force for good from an energy security perspective, stepping up to stabilize Europe’s energy systems after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It can be similarly beneficial for allies in Asia, ensuring supply diversity, along with availability and affordability of gas that coal-dependent emerging nations are actively seeking.

    The Australian Government has now publicly recognized the global benefits of its natural gas.

    By expeditiously resolving the halt, the Biden Administration can do likewise – giving U.S. LNG exporters and Asian trading partners the certainty needed to move rapidly towards an achievable low-carbon future, at scale and without killing economic opportunities.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 06/19/2024 – 22:30

  • Life Of O'Brien
    Life Of O’Brien

    By Teeuwe Mevissen, Senior Macro Strategist at Rabobank

    Yesterday, news came out that Trump’s last national security advisor Robert O’Brien has written an article that will be published in the next edition of the renowned foreign policy magazine Foreign Affairs. While it is of course not sure that Trump will win the upcoming election – although we still see this as our base case scenario – O’Brien could very well become part of Trump’s administration again.

    Indeed, only recently Robert O’Brien said he remains in regular contact with the former president. So what does O’Brien propose according to the news that leaked out yesterday? Perhaps this could be summarized best by quoting O’Brien himself who apparently writes that: “As China seeks to undermine American economic and military strength, Washington should return the favour,”.

    But let’s provide a bit more detail. Economically he apparently suggests decoupling from China. Furthermore he ”argues that the 60% tariffs on China that Trump has floated should be only the first step, followed by tougher export controls ’on any technology that might be of use to China‘ and other measures”. Given how interwoven both economies still are and given that we are talking about the two largest economies in the world, it should be clear that such a policy would have a significant impact on the global economy as well.

    But it doesn’t end with trade. O’ Brien also proposes a highly assertive, if not aggressive, foreign policy aimed at deterring and containing China in the region. “This morass of American weakness and failure cries out for a Trumpian restoration of peace through strength,” as O’ Brien puts it. He continuous by suggesting to help ”expand the militaries of Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam, increase military assistance to Taiwan and boost missile defense and fighter jet protection in the region”. 

    Last but not least on the military side of things he advocates new underground nuclear testing and the resumption in the US of the production of uranium-235 and plutonium 239 which is used for nuclear warheads. When we add recent remarks from Stoltenberg to dust the West’s nuclear arsenal off and take into account Putin’s tour to North-Korea we might want to return to the life of O’ Brian and look at the bright side of life!

    * * *

    Meanwhile, US retail sales growth disappointed and even contracted with 0.1% when car sales were not included. Industrial production however rose far more sharply than expected with 0.9% MoM while a rise of 0.3% was expected. Looking at yesterday’s inflation data from the Eurozone there was some good news indeed. While a leap in services inflation had been reported in May and the final measure for headline and core inflation came in unchanged versus the preliminary readings of respectively 2.6% and 2.9%, much of this rise could be attributed to so called one offs, in particular the impact of the Easter holidays.

    We also saw that administered cost increases played a significant role. These are costs that are partly or wholly set by governments, municipalities and the like. According to our calculations this contributed some 0.15ppt to the rise in services inflation. The implication of this is that the May inflation numbers were not as bad as they looked. And, stripping this out of the regular core measure and excluding indirect taxes, Eurozone ‘super core’ inflation stayed unchanged in Maty at 2.6% and remains on a (very gentle) downward path. With cost pressures expected to continue to come down gradually, we retain our view of two more ECB rate cuts for this year bringing the deposit rate at 3.25% at the end of this year.

     Turning to the UK, there the inflation news out this morning was a little less bright, but enough to keep the faith. In May 2024, the monthly CPI registered at 0.3% m/m, a rate slightly above target. However, the annual rate did see a decline to 2%, thanks to a favourable base effect. A significant factor contributing to the decrease was the food sector, where prices dropped 0.3% m/m this May, contrasting with 0.9% m/m increase in May last year. On the other hand, the transport sector provided the most substantial upward pressure, albeit only partially counterbalancing the overall trend.

    Within the realm of services, the decline was driven by recreational and personal services, notably catering, package holidays, and cultural services. This was somewhat mitigated by the costs associated with housing services. With inflation falling to the 2% target, the spotlight shifts to the Bank of England. Our UK watcher Stefan Koopman thinks it’s improbable that interest rates will be cut at tomorrow’s meeting, but the numbers are good enough to make a cut in August still the base case. He also thinks that Rishi Sunak may seize the opportunity to associate himself with this ‘success’ today.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 06/19/2024 – 21:55

  • US Army Soldier Handed Stiff Prison Sentence By Russian Court For Theft
    US Army Soldier Handed Stiff Prison Sentence By Russian Court For Theft

    Another American citizen in Russian custody has been handed a stiff prison sentence by a Russian court, but this time Kremlin authorities say it has nothing to do with espionage and that it’s not a political matter.

    On Wednesday a court in the far eastern city of Vladivostok sentenced active duty Army soldier, 34-year old Staff Sgt. Gordon Black, to nearly four years in prison on a conviction for theft. He had pled guilty to stealing, and there are reports he had also been charged with making threats of murder.

    Gordon Black in court. AFP/Getty Images

    He had been arrested in Vladivostok on May 2, after which he’s been in pretrial detention, for allegedly stealing 10,000 rubles (or roughly $112) from his Russian girlfriend. He also stood accused of assaulting the woman, but did not admit guilt to that or the death threats.

    The whole story is bizarre especially given that the personal travel of active duty military personnel is typically highly controlled or monitored by their bases and command. So how did a US Army Staff Sgt. end up going to Russia?

    Black had been stationed at Camp Humphreys in South Korea, and the Department of Defense now says he took an unauthorized trip to Russia after he was formally processed out of Camp Humphreys to be transferred to a base in Texas. What’s more is that he may have gone through China while en route to Russia, Reuters says.

    He had first met the Russian girlfriend, identified in media reports as Aleksandra Vashchuk, in South Korea and subsequently traveled to see her. Black’s family has claimed that he was “set up” by the Russian girl. CNN summarizes of some of the details:

    Speaking to the Pervomaisky District Court on Monday, Black said he took the money from the woman’s purse, but the next day transferred $125 to her. He said he spent the money on food and three nights in a hotel, according to RIA.

    He also said the woman was to collect a deposit of 10,000 rubles from the landlord after the end of the lease of the apartment for which he was paying, RIA said.

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    Meanwhile two other Americans with more serious cases – and who have been declared by the US as “wrongfully detained” – are still in Russian prisons: former Marine Paul Whelan and Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich. Their detentions stem from alleged espionage.

    Another American, school teacher Marc Fogel, has served nearly three years in Russian prison on a drug-related conviction; however, the US government has not declared him wrongfully detained, which has outraged his family which is now suing the federal government.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 06/19/2024 – 21:20

  • DOJ Charges Texas Doctor Who Exposed 'Gender-Affirming' Care For Minors
    DOJ Charges Texas Doctor Who Exposed ‘Gender-Affirming’ Care For Minors

    Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    The Department of Justice (DOJ) on Monday unsealed an indictment against Dr. Eithan Haim, who last year leaked evidence of cross-sex hormone procedures being performed at a Texas hospital despite the facility claiming to have halted them, with the surgeon facing four felony counts for alleged violations of a medical-records law that could land him in prison for up to 10 years.

    Protesters opposing medical transgender procedures for youths gathered at the American Academy of Pediatrics convention in Anaheim, Calif., on Oct. 7, 2022. (Courtesy of TreVoices.Org/Scott Newgent)

    The DOJ announced on June 17 that it had charged Dr. Haim for obtaining protected individual health information for patients who were not under his care, allegedly acting without authorization and with intent to cause malicious harm to Texas Children’s Hospital (TCH).

    The controversy centers on the fact that TCH, the largest children’s hospital in the country, publicly declared in March 2022 that it was halting “hormone-related prescription therapies for gender-affirming services” for minors, citing potential legal and criminal liability after Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton declared that prescription of puberty blockers was “child abuse” under Texas law.

    Documents leaked by Dr. Haim purportedly showed that the hospital continued to perform some “gender-affirming” therapies after the announcement, including one procedure on an 11-year-old three days after it made the declaration.

    Ultimately, Texas legislators adopted a ban on sex-change procedures and puberty blocker prescriptions for children, which went into effect in mid-2023 after a legal challenge. TCH declared that year that it would no longer offer any transgender medical procedures for children.

    Dr. Haim, who was set to make a court appearance on June 17 before U.S. Magistrate Yvonne Y. Ho in Houston, faces 10 years in prison and a $250,000 maximum possible fine if convicted on charges of violating the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).

    A request for comment on Dr. Haim’s indictment sent to TCH public relations department was not immediately returned.

    Alamdar Hamdani, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Texas, who announced Dr. Haim’s indictment, said in a statement that the “defendant is presumed innocent unless convicted through due process of law.”

    On June 16, a day before he was set to head to court, Dr. Haim issued a message about the case.

    “We will face down those who are committed to corrupting our institutions and who are destroying the future my daughter deserves,” he wrote in a post on X. “So to all the fathers out there, I would say one thing. We can never submit to our children’s destroyers, we must fight relentlessly to preserve their dignity, and we must be ready to sacrifice for their future.”

    More Details

    Last year, Dr. Haim anonymously leaked evidence to City Journal’s Christopher Rufo that TCH was conducting transgender treatments on minors in the days after publicly announcing in 2022 that it would no longer be offering such procedures.

    “After assessing the Attorney General’s and Governor’s actions, Texas Children’s Hospital paused hormone-related prescription therapies for gender-affirming services. This step was taken to safeguard our healthcare professionals and impacted families from potential criminal legal ramifications,” TCH said in a March 2022 statement to media outlets.

    That came after the Texas attorney general in February 2022 released an opinion from the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services that certain procedures done on minors “such as castration, fabrication of a ‘penis’ using tissue from other body parts, fabrication of a ’vagina‘ involving the removal of male sex organs, prescription of puberty-suppressors and infertility-inducers, and the like are all ’abuse’ under section 261.001 of the Texas Family Code.”

    In its statement announcing a pause on certain “gender-affirming” therapies, TCH said its mission is “to create a healthier future for all children, including transgender children, within the bounds of the law.”

    Mr. Rufo’s article cited the documents provided by Dr. Haim and concluded that despite TCH’s announcement, it hadn’t stopped performing transgender procedures on minors including the use of implantable puberty blockers.

    Mr. Rufo’s article cited TCH spokeswoman Kelley Carville as declining comment at the time.

    A request for comment on the case sent to Ms. Carville was not immediately returned.

    In a follow-up article, Mr. Rufo wrote that “nothing in the information provided to me identified any individual” and that the documents provided by Dr. Haim had been “carefully redacted.”

    Mr. Rufo cited one of Dr. Haim’s attorneys, Marcella Burke, as expressing confidence that the trial would end with her client being declared innocent.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 06/19/2024 – 20:45

  • Grid Collapse: Ecuador Hit By Nationwide Power Blackout
    Grid Collapse: Ecuador Hit By Nationwide Power Blackout

    A nationwide power blackout hit Ecuador on Wednesday afternoon, plunging 17 million people into darkness. Authorities are working to repair a faulty transmission line that was responsible for the outage.

    “The immediate report that we received from the CENACE (National Center of Energy Control) is that there is a failure in the transmission line that caused a cascade disconnection, so there is no energy service on a national scale,” Public Works Minister Roberto Luque wrote on X.

    Luque added, “We are concentrating all our efforts on resolving the problem as quickly as possible.”

    The blackout has paralyzed a major subway system in the South American country. There are reports that hospitals in major cities are without power. This comes months after Ecuadorean President Daniel Noboa declared a power emergency and ordered eight-hour nationwide rationing due to lower hydroelectricity power generation levels. 

    Internet tracking website NetBlocks reports that Ecuador’s national connectivity plunged to 44% shortly after the power outage. 

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    *Developing… 

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 06/19/2024 – 20:10

  • House Ethics Panel Probing Alleged Gaetz Obstruction, Misconduct
    House Ethics Panel Probing Alleged Gaetz Obstruction, Misconduct

    Authored by Samantha Flom via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    The House Ethics Committee, in a rare statement on June 18, announced that it is investigating new claims of misconduct against Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), including whether he sought to obstruct government probes of his conduct.

    Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) leaves a House Republican caucus meeting at the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Oct. 3, 2023. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

    The statement was issued a day after the congressman blasted the Ethics Committee over what he called a political attack.

    The committee defended its investigation, saying it was “confident in the integrity of its process,” which has involved interviewing dozens of witnesses, reviewing thousands of pages of documents, and issuing 25 subpoenas to date.

    The secretive committee began examining a litany of allegations against Mr. Gaetz in April 2021 before deferring its work at the request of the Justice Department. When that request was dropped in May of last year, the committee resumed its work.

    Previous claims against Mr. Gaetz included allegations of sexual misconduct and illicit drug use, sharing inappropriate images or videos on the House floor, misuse of state identification records, personal use of campaign funds, and accepting a bribe, improper gratuity, or impermissible gift.

    “Based on its review to date, the Committee has determined that certain of the allegations merit continued review,” the panel said in a statement, noting that it would extend its probe of the claims surrounding sexual misconduct, drug use, and improper gifts.

    The committee said it will take no further action on the other claims, though it said new allegations had surfaced that merit review. Those include the obstruction claims and accusations that Mr. Gaetz offered special privileges and favors to people with whom he had a personal relationship.

    Mr. Gaetz has categorically denied all the allegations against him, which stemmed from a Justice Department investigation into whether he and fellow Florida Republican Joel Greenberg paid or offered gifts to underage girls and escorts for sex.

    Mr. Gaetz was not charged in that investigation.

    Prior to the committee’s statement, the congressman suggested the panel’s ongoing investigations were retribution for his role in ousting former Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) from the House speakership last October.

    “Instead of working with me to ban Congressional stock trading, the Ethics Committee is now opening new frivolous investigations. They are doing this to avoid the obvious fact that every investigation into me ends the same way: my exoneration,” the congressman wrote on X.

    “This is Soviet. Kevin McCarthy showed them the man, and they are now trying to find the crime. I work for Northwest Floridians who won’t be swayed by this nonsense and McCarthy and his goons know it.”

    Mr. Gaetz spearheaded efforts to strip Mr. McCarthy of the gavel, which eventually succeeded with the help of seven other Republicans and 208 Democrats. Many Republican members remain angry over that move, which some say hurt the party politically. The Ethics panel’s investigations predate the current GOP House majority.

    The Ethics Committee did not respond to a request for comment by press time. A spokesperson for Mr. Gaetz said that his social media post speaks for itself.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 06/19/2024 – 19:35

  • "Taking Our Extra Time": Boeing Delays Starliner's Return To Earth Amid Thruster Issues
    “Taking Our Extra Time”: Boeing Delays Starliner’s Return To Earth Amid Thruster Issues

    Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft’s return from the International Space Station to Earth will be delayed until mid-next week as NASA and astronauts troubleshoot helium leaks and try to figure out why some of the thrusters failed during the latest test flight.

    At a press briefing on Tuesday, Steve Stich, NASA’s commercial crew program manager, said Starliner would end its first crewed mission to the ISS no earlier than next Wednesday – or about three weeks after it first launched atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida. 

    “We want to give our teams a little bit more time to look at the data, do some analysis, and make sure we’re really ready to come home,” Stich said. 

    He emphasized that during the ISS docking on June 6, five of Starliner’s 28 reaction control thrusters malfunctioned but noted four managed to recover and come back online.

    “We’re taking our extra time given that this is a crewed vehicle, and we want to make sure that we haven’t left any stone unturned,” Stich said, adding, “We also want to look at the systems, and potential interaction between the systems, and make sure we haven’t missed something before we return. And we’re getting a lot of great data while we’re at the space station for not only this flight but for the next flight.”

    Over the weekend, Boeing and NASA conducted a thruster hot-fire test. Stich expressed a high level of confidence in Starliner’s return, stating that everyone involved in the mission ‘feels very confident.’ 

    Starliner is designed for six-month missions. The spacecraft can stay docked at the ISS for 45 days. 

    The latest in-flight problems follow years of challenges Boeing has faced with Starliner. These problems compound the ongoing issues with the company’s commercial jet program that CEO Dave Calhoun was grilled by lawmakers on Capitol Hill on Tuesday.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 06/19/2024 – 19:00

  • 'Manufacturing Obituaries': Media Falsely Reports Noam Chomsky's Death
    ‘Manufacturing Obituaries’: Media Falsely Reports Noam Chomsky’s Death

    Authored by Brett Wilkins via Common Dreams,

    Some popular media outlets and international political figures came under fire Tuesday for falsely reporting the death of U.S. academic and social critic Noam Chomsky, who is fighting to recover in Brazil after suffering a massive stroke last year.

    “Chomsky did not die. I just spoke to Valéria, his wife,” said Brazilian journalist Cauê Seigner Ameni. “He is well,” Valéria Chomsky confirmed to ABC‘s Chris Looft. Beneficência Portuguesa de São Paulo, a hospital in Brazil’s largest city, said in a statement that Chomsky was discharged on Tuesday to continue his treatment at home, according to The Associated Press.

    picture alliance via Getty Images

    The New Statesman ran—and subsequently deleted—a Chomsky obituary Tuesday following rumors of the 95-year-old’s passing. Other outlets including Jacobin kept or tweaked Chomsky obits, with telltale signs like the word “obituary” in their URLs belying their inaccuracy.

    Commentators from across the political spectrum also posted reaction—from mournful on the progressive left to gleeful among liberals and right-wingers—to false reports of Chomsky’s death.

    “Shameful and sad that Valéria Chomsky had to deny news of Noam Chomsky’s death over the phone here in Brazil, because a bunch of places decided to publish pre-written obituaries and posts at the first online rumor,” Brazilian academic Sabrina Fernandes said on social media.

    “Since no outlet that reported the death decided to post an errata, it only got worse,” she added, condemning “the online scoop and attention industry… waiting… like vultures.”

    Responding to numerous reports of Chomsky’s death in the Latin American corporate media, Mexico City-based Rutgers School of Communications professor Andrew Kennis—whose book Digital Age Resistance contains a foreword co-authored by Chomsky—told Common Dreams that “it is both a fitting and cruel irony that the fundamentally flawed, trillion-dollar-valued, conglomerate-owned, mainstream news media system has once again erred in its ways.”

    “No, Noam is not dead. Instead, he’s struggling to recover with the unflagging dedication of his partner, who transported him the first chance Noam’s health permitted her to do so to receive top-rate medical care in Brazil,” Kennis added.

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    Some observers worked the title of one of Chomsky’s more than 100 books—Manufacturing Consent, which he wrote with Edward Herman—into their commentary on the false reports.

    “Chomsky is NOT dead. If Chomsky was dead, he would be turning in his grave to see how quickly rumors spread and how social media functions,” said Croatian philosopher and Chomsky collaborator Srećko Horvat. “He might as well still call it: ‘manufacturing obituaries’.”

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 06/19/2024 – 18:25

  • Japan To Issue Bonds With Shorter Maturities As BOJ Begins Tapering QE
    Japan To Issue Bonds With Shorter Maturities As BOJ Begins Tapering QE

    With the constant implosion in the yen threatening to spark both runaway inflation and a currency crisis in Japan, especially after the latest toothless decision by the Bank of Japan, it finally appears that the BOJ is set to either hike rates, or trim its massive bond buying program, or some combination of both.

    And since the BOJ is absolutely terrified of losing control of the Japanese bond market, of which it has been a majority holder for years, it was not surprising to learn that Japan’s Ministry of Finance is already weighing a plan to shift more of its bond issuance to shorter maturities, a major change as the central bank moves to cut purchases of government debt, one which will ensure less turmoil in the all important long-end, where duration is far higher, and where supply should be lower if the BOJ ends up purchasing less.

    According to Bloomberg, Finance Ministry officials have prepared a draft proposal that calls for increasing the proportion of issued bonds with shorter maturities, with an expert panel expected to endorse the plan on Friday.

    The move comes as the Bank of Japan’s decision to cut its bond purchases encourages the government to seek new sources of funding. The BOJ held about ¥590 trillion ($3.7 trillion) in JGBs as of the end of March, representing more than half of the total outstanding. It’s necessary to reduce the amount of yield risk supplied to the market by shortening durations, according to the proposal, which also cites floating-rate bonds as an option.

    Similar to the so-called Yellen Twist, which saw the US Treasury flood the market with Bills in mid/late 2023 to avoid a surge in long-dated yields at a time when the US is issuing record amounts of debt, shortening maturities on bond sales would represent a stark shift from the recent trend in which the Japanese ministry has tended to extend the maturities on bonds it sells as the nation’s policy interest rates have stayed around zero for decades and the BOJ used its yield curve control mechanism to cap long-term yields.

    The BOJ has been terrified of implementing major changes to the country’s petrified bond market, where the BOJ has long been the first and last buyer of any resort: while the central bank ended YCC in March, when it raised interest rates for the first time in 17 years, it did so in the most dovish way imaginable, effectively guiding the market to expect barely any further tightening for the foreseeable future. The yen tumbled. Then, last Friday, the BOJ said it will release details of its plans to reduce bond buying at the July 31 conclusion of its next policy meeting; and since the market was expecting the central bank to actually do something this time instead of just more talk, the yen tumbled even more.

    But it now appears that some definitive move is coming, and ahead of the July disclosure, the bank is meeting with market participants to hear their views.

    The finance ministry’s working draft, prepared ahead of a ministry meeting with market participants and experts on June 21, notes that shortening maturities would increase refinancing and interest risks for the government, so it recommends expanding the pool of government bond holders as much as possible.

    The ministry sent out a questionnaire to market participants, including potential bond buyers such as insurance companies, banks and foreign investors, at the last panel meeting in May. The ministry plans to release the results of that survey in addition to its proposal for future issuance on Friday, the person said.

    According to Bloomberg, the banking sector could become a major new customer to replace the BOJ, a respondent noted in the MOF’s survey. But we strongly doubt it in light of the latest news that Japan’s “farmer” bank, the $700 billion Norinchukin is getting stopped out of its foreign bond holdings which it must sell to plug huge “unrealized” losses. And if Nochu has to sell foreign bonds, how can one possibly expect it to buy Japanese bonds just when yields are expected to keep rising for the foreseeable future as the BOJ embarks on its first tightening campaign in decades.

    The bottom line is that while the BOJ’s plan suggests that the key to JGB management policy is “to create an environment in which the banking sector can hold JGBs with confidence”, the realty is that since in Japan monetary policy has been a total disaster for years, the one guaranteed outcome is that a bond crisis is imminent.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 06/19/2024 – 17:50

  • Jim Jordan Weighs In On House Resolution Nullifying Bannon, Navarro Charges
    Jim Jordan Weighs In On House Resolution Nullifying Bannon, Navarro Charges

    Submitted by Headline USA,

    A newly drafted resolution in House of Representatives would declare former Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s hand-picked Jan. 6 Committee illegitimate and invalidate the contempt of Congress charges that the J6 committee filed against four top advisers—one of whom has spent the past three months in prison, with another expected to report to jail at the end of June.

    House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, center, flanked by Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., and Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., talks with reporters about efforts to investigate President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden, at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, Nov. 29, 2023.  (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

    According to journalist Julie Kelly, the House resolution is being sponsored by Rep. Eric Burlison, R-Mo., and backed by several GOP heavy-hitters, including Reps. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Andy Biggs of Arizona, Jim Banks of Indiana and Anna Paulina Luna of Florida.

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    However, it also faces at least one powerful skeptic: Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan, R-Ohio.

    In an exclusive interview with Headline USA on June 7, Jordan said that even though he supported the principle of it, he didn’t see it being constructive from a practical standpoint, including helping ex-Trump adviser and well-known right-wing pundit Steve Bannon avoid his sentence.

    “I think both of those contempt [charges] were ridiculous,” Jordan said, in reference to Bannon and Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro, during a June 7 fundraiser for congressional candidate Mark Harris in Monroe, N.C.

    “I opposed them on the House floor when they happened—both Navarro and Bannon—I spoke against them, as well as when they did it to our friend and North Carolina former representative Mark Meadows, when they did to him, spoke against all that,” Jordan added. “But I don’t think that would change—you could have that vote, but I don’t think it’ll change anything relative to what the courts have said and what happens to Bannon. … Even if we pass it, I don’t think it would have an impact.”

    The proposal first picked up steam earlier this month after Massie raised it to Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La. and found many prominent supporters in the Twittersphere.

    “This course of action is not only justified but necessary to restore fairness and balance in our government,” wrote blogger and influencer Alexander Muse.

    “Rescinding these subpoenas and repudiating the January 6th Committee would send a clear message that politically motivated persecutions have no place in our Republic,” he added. “It would also be a significant step towards protecting the integrity of executive privilege and ensuring that partisan politics do not undermine our democratic institutions.”

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    Massie, through his communications director, declined to comment, citing the libertarian lawmaker’s a busy schedule.

    It’s possible, however, that Jordan, a longtime friend and ally of Meadows, sees the prospect of unintended consequences arising from efforts to right the past grievance legislatively, now that Washington, D.C., courts have already ruled on the matter.

    It is highly likely, for example, that Democrats might use a similar tactic in the future to invalidate other committees whose work is legitimate.

    Moreover, giving Bannon a get-out-of-jail-free card would have troubling implications for Meadows—who opted to cooperate with the J6 committee—and Navarro, whose four month sentence will soon be completed.

    The resolution might also derail plans that Jordan and Johnson already have in mind for holding Attorney General Merrick Garland accountable—either legally or otherwise—after he gave himself a free pass last week for the exact same alleged crime: refusing a congressional subpoena on the basis of executive privilege.

    Following Garland’s defiance, Johnson announced that he would be certifying the contempt report with U.S. Attorney for D.C. Matthew Graves and asking a federal court to enforce it.

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    While Graves is unlikely to act, the move may help to extend its shelf life in the hopes that a future Trump administration could pursue it.

    “It is sadly predictable that the Biden Administration’s Justice Department will not prosecute Garland for defying congressional subpoenas even though the department aggressively prosecuted Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro for the same thing,” Johnson said in a statement. “This is yet another example of the two-tiered system of justice brought to us by the Biden Administration.”

    It is also the latest procedural effort, however, for a GOP majority that often has been derided for its ham-fisted toothlessness relative to Pelosi’s iron-fisted ruthlessness in undermining the prior Trump administration.

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    Despite having a laptop teeming with incontrovertible evidence that has now been acknowledged by the FBI as authentic in a court of law, Republicans have been unable to press their impeachment case in any impactful way—and, to some extent, the presence of a two-tiered justice system is a problem of their own making.

    In a fiery speech ahead of last Wednesday’s contempt vote for Garland, Jordan offered a sharp rebuke of President Joe Biden’s top wingman and attack dog in the Justice Department.

    “It’s simple—Attorney General Garland holds information vital to the committee’s legislative oversight and the House impeachment’s inquiry. … The department has a legal obligation to turn over the requested material,” Jordan said.

    “Attorney General Garland’s willful refusal consitutes contempt of Congress,” he continued.  ” … Our oversight and and impeachment responsibilities are too important to allow the attorney general to willfully disregard this.”

    The contempt charge came following Garland’s refusal to turn over the audio recording of Biden’s interview with special counsel Robert Hur in the classified documents probe, which Hur cited as evidence that Biden was too senile to stand trial and that no reasonable jury would convict him due to his failing memory and lack of lucidity.

    The public release of the tapes would likely show that Biden either perjured himself by putting on a bogus act for a probe that has already determined to let him off the hook—or, perhaps more damningly, that the heavily scripted and choreographed Biden presented to the public conceals a commander-in-chief who is genuinely non compos mentis, despite seeking another four-year term.

    In addition to the House committees undertaking an impeachment inquiry, several mainstream media outlets have sued to obtain the recordings under the Freedom of Information Act.

    Yet, the contempt vote against Garland resonated for Republicans on another level after Garland’s overtly political decision to follow through on prosecuting Bannon and Navarro.

    The true objective of the Jan. 6 committee—to push a false, one-sided narrative onto the public that pinned all the blame on President Donald Trump and his supporters—has become ever more apparent as additional information begins to surface.

    Indeed, it amassed several terrabytes worth of data from its Star Chamber proceedings, which it then refused to hand over to Republicans upon ceding power and even attempted illegally to delete.

    Following bombshell footage last week that showed Pelosi admitting responsibility for the security failures at the U.S. Capitol, Rep. Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga., denounced the committee as “biased,” according to Just the News.

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    “[I]t was a political hack job, and the American people and the history books should not take this as any factual account of what happened that day,” he said in an appearance on Real America’s Voice.

    Because they had no direct role in anything related to the Jan. 6 uprising at the Capitol, Bannon and Navarro, along with Meadows and Trump Deputy Chief of Staff Dan Scavino, suspected a fishing expedition was afoot to gather testimony that the committee could then use selectively for its own ulterior objectives.

    But despite citing “executive privilege” as their reason for refusing the subpoenas—arguing that their private conversations with Trump were exempt from oversight—Garland’s DOJ pushed House Democrats’ contempt charges via corrupt, anti-Trump D.C. district judges such as Tanya Chutkan, who declared that Trump had no constitutional right to shield himself from bloodthirsty Democrats’ congressional tribunal.

    Pending a Supreme Court decision on presidential immunity that is expected to drop Thursday morning, Chutkan is now overseeing another case against Trump—special counsel Jack Smith’s prosecution charging Trump with efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

    That case was likely based heavily on the criminal referral supplied by the Jan. 6 committee, emblematic of the sort of mini-ecosystem through which congressional Democrats, corrupt DOJ prosecutors and D.C. federal judges have colluded in order to leapfrog from one political attack on Trump and his allies to the next by agreeing to validate each other.

    “Everyone knows it’s wrong, everyone knows this lawfare has gotten out of control,” Jordan noted in his interview with Headline USA.

    He pointed to efforts that the House was undertaking to derail those efforts, such as a measure to defund any special counsel not approved by the Senate. (Smith is the only one who has not been.)

    Nonetheless, thoze efforts seemed to be mostly symbolic, an exercise in performative outrage.

    Only time may tell if Burlinson’s resolution can succeed in breaking that cycle.

    Ben Sellers is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/realbensellers.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 06/19/2024 – 17:15

  • 'This Is Noah' – The Short Story Of A Fentanyl-Addicted Child In Utopian Hellhole San Francisco
    ‘This Is Noah’ – The Short Story Of A Fentanyl-Addicted Child In Utopian Hellhole San Francisco

    The radical leftists in San Francisco City Hall need a reality check about their destructive progressive drug policies that have effectively handed out implicit death sentences. A policy course correction is desperately needed as overdose deaths reached a record high last year. 

    If you have lived or visited San Francisco in recent years, parts of the metro area have been transformed into a utopian progressive hellhole of drugs, death, violent crime, feces, needles, and abandoned retail stores.

    As of last year, overdose deaths in San Francisco topped a record high of 800. Open-air drug markets and homeless encampments are widespread in the downtown area. Failed progressive public health policies are responsible for why the city’s drug overdose rate is nearly double the nation’s. In terms of cities over 500k in population, San Francisco was number four in overdose deaths. 

    Tens of thousands of drug addicts roam the city streets of the metro area, where the drug of choice is fentanyl. This drug, which is 100 times more potent than morphine, is flooding the nation through President Biden’s open southern borders. And it’s being cooked by Mexican cartels that receive chemicals from China (read: House Subcommittee Finds “New Evidence” That China Fuels America’s Fentanyl Crisis). 

    With the overdose crisis only worsening, we want to share with readers a heartbreaking short documentary of a kid way too young to be addicted to fentanyl – getting high in downtown San Francisco. This kid should be entering college, or at least working a productive job, and aims one day to start a family and benefit the nation. But no, he’s addicted to drugs, wasting his life away in the utopian hellhole of a city.

    Citizen journalists are stepping up to the plate since corporate leftist media cannot – nor want to do actual reporting. Instead, they push propaganda from woke leftists in the White House or whatever their mega-corporate sponsors say.

    X user jj smith documented his interactions with 19yo Noah. This video was filmed between Oct. 2022 and through at least the first half of 2023 and shows the young addict’s life on the streets of downtown San Francisco.

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    “The Progressive movement has enabled more drug use in San Francisco more than ever before, and the non-profits who are taking millions of dollars from, have done absolutely nothing to getting kids like Noah help. They feel it’s better to hand out tin foil and straws, rather than getting them the help they truly need,” Jaime Puerta, founder of Victims of Illicit Drug Use or VOID, wrote in a statement in response to the video. 

    This heartbreaking short video makes you want to hug your kids – if you got them – and also reflect on the political elites who have created this environment that has sparked a drug overdose death crisis that is killing two Vietnams of Americans per year.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 06/19/2024 – 16:40

  • What Recession: NYC Targets Crackdown On $250 To $1000 Dinner Reservation Resellers
    What Recession: NYC Targets Crackdown On $250 To $1000 Dinner Reservation Resellers

    It’s tough to make the case for a recession when Bloomberg just pointed out that more than 30,000 people have flocked to a service called Appointment Trader to help them make ritzy dinner reservations in New York City on a secondary reservation market. 

    The service helps make $250 to as much as $1,000 dinner reservations at some of New York’s best dining spots, though the practice of buying reservations has now come under threat by “New York’s proposed Restaurant Reservation Anti-Piracy Act”, the report says.

    We bet you didn’t even know there was a proposed Restaurant Reservation Anti-Piracy Act.

    And despite the cost, scoring a table at popular spots like Carbone, Cote, Coqodaq, or Don Angie won’t necessarily get easier, the report says, noting that reservation resellers are still seeing high demand. 

    Joel Montaniel, chief executive officer of reservation booking platform Sevenrooms, who works with companies like Danny Meyer’s Union Square Hospitality Group, told Bloomberg: “There are some restaurants that people can’t get into.”

    “I’ve even talked to restaurateurs, we’ve hosted them on panels and asked them for tips to get in, and they say, ‘I don’t have them,’” he continued.

    If New York Governor Kathy Hochul signs the recent bill into law, websites will need restaurant permission to offer bookings. Aimed at curbing bots used by scalpers, the law targets practices blamed for making reservations at popular restaurants harder to get, favoring wealthier diners.

    Platforms like Resy, Sevenrooms, and OpenTable, which partner directly with restaurants, won’t be affected. However, services like Appointment Trader and Cita might no longer advertise the city’s top tables. Appointment Trader Founder Jonas Frey argues that his platform’s success is due to the existing scarcity of reservations, not the cause of it.

    Frey said: “There were just too many diners for too few restaurants. I believe we’re serving a need. That’s why it worked.”

    “We’re certainly not going to stop operating because we can’t operate in New York,” he added. 

    Sevenrooms data shows NYC restaurant cancellations rose to 19% last month from 17.5% last year, while the national rate fell to 11.6%. Appointment Trader’s Jonas Frey argues his service addresses reservation scarcity, not causes it, and plans to shift focus if the law impacts operations.

    Amy Zhou of Gracious Hospitality supports the bill, citing significant revenue loss due to bot-driven cancellations at popular venues like Cote Korean Steakhouse.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 06/19/2024 – 16:05

  • Modi's Nod To Closer Ties With Taiwan Suggests India's Evolving 'Act East Policy'
    Modi’s Nod To Closer Ties With Taiwan Suggests India’s Evolving ‘Act East Policy’

    Authored by Venus Upadhayaya via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    After being sworn in as India’s prime minister for a third consecutive term, Narendra Modi received congratulatory messages from a diverse array of world leaders around the globe.

    Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi gives a victory symbol at the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) headquarters in New Delhi on June 4, 2024. (Adnan Abidi/Reuters)

    However, one leader who stood out was Taiwan’s newly elected president, Lai Ching-te. In response to his message, Mr. Modi not only thanked Mr. Lai but reciprocated with a message highlighting the strengthening ties between China’s two frontline adversaries.

    Geopolitical analysts told The Epoch Times that the exchange of messages between the two leaders shows that India’s Act East policy—an initiative to promote economic, strategic, and cultural relations within the Asia-Pacific region—is shaping up and now encompasses Taiwan. The cordial exchange also highlights strategic concerns shared by the two countries, and their mutual dependence for economic growth.

    “India’s Act East policy is taking shape, while its definition and scope of ‘Indo-Pacific’ is broadening. New Delhi used to be focused on East Africa and up to the Malacca Strait. However, over the last few years, it has engaged in port calls in [the] Philippines, PNG [Papua New Guinea] and actively pursued relations with Taiwan, thus expanding from Malacca Strait to the Taiwan Strait,” Akhil Ramesh, a geo-political analyst who leads the India program at the Honolulu-based Pacific Forum, said.

    Taiwan is currently recognized as a sovereign nation by only 12 nations. While India hasn’t officially recognized Taiwan, diplomatic relations between the two countries have been on the rise, particularly since 2020’s bloody Galwan conflict caused Indo–China relations to plunge. Taiwan’s exports to India increased by 13 percent last year, and as of February 2024, Taiwanese businesses have made investments in India.

    Ming-Shih Shen, director of national security research at Taipei’s Institute for National Defense and Security Research, told The Epoch Times in an email that the interaction between Mr. Lai and Mr. Modi on social media platform X is based on what they want from each other.

    “Taiwan President Lai Ching-te needs the attention and support of the international community and hopes to cooperate with regional powers to deter China, because India can threaten China from the west, and Taiwan and India have a common geopolitical interest, so there is more space for cooperation,” Mr. Shen said.

    Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te delivers his inaugural speech after being sworn into office at the Presidential Office Building in Taipei, on May 20, 2024. (Sam Yeh/AFP via Getty Images)

    Modi’s and Lai’s Interaction

    The interaction between Mr. Modi and Mr. Lai occurred immediately after the election results were declared on June 4 and before Mr. Modi was formally sworn in on June 9.

    “My sincere congratulations to Prime Minister @narendramodi on his election victory,” Mr. Lai said in a message on X on June 5. “We look forward to enhancing the fast-growing #Taiwan-#India partnership, expanding our collaboration on trade, technology & other sectors to contribute to peace & prosperity in the #IndoPacific.”

    In response, Mr. Modi thanked Mr. Lai for his “warm message” and said he looks forward to “closer ties” as India and Taiwan “work towards mutually beneficial economic and technological partnership.”

    The exchange between the two newly elected leaders garnered considerable attention online. Mr. Lai’s message has 2.5 million views to date, while Mr. Modi’s response has 2.7 million views. However, the exchange didn’t go over well in China.

    At a regular news conference on June 6, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning not only protested the interaction between Mr. Modi and Mr. Lai, but denied the existence of a Taiwanese president.

    “First of all, there is no such thing as ‘president’ of the Taiwan region,” Ms. Mao said in response to a question by a Bloomberg reporter. “As for your question, China opposes all forms of official interactions between the Taiwan authorities and countries having diplomatic relations with China. There is but one China in the world. Taiwan is an inalienable part of the territory of the People’s Republic of China.”

    Ms. Mao told reporters that China had already lodged a protest with India about Mr. Modi’s response to Mr. Lai.

    “The one-China principle is a universally recognized norm in international relations and a prevailing consensus in the international community,” she said. “India has made serious political commitments on this and is supposed to recognize, be alarmed about, and resist the Taiwan authorities’ political calculations. China has protested to India about this.”

    Indian Border Security Force troops patrol as an Indian army convoy passes through on a highway leading toward Leh, which borders China, in Gagangir, India, on June 19, 2020. (Yawar Nazir/Getty Images)

    Toward a Shared Global Footprint

    Experts say that a shared Chinese threat has actually drawn Taiwan and India together. The two countries have shared interests, and Mr. Modi’s response to Mr. Lai gives a clear message that their relationship is governed by that. The Indian prime minister’s response also denotes India’s wish to graduate from a regional role to a larger role in the world.

    “India is reaching higher and wants to play a larger role in global affairs. So far, it has limited itself to [being] a regional player dealing with a string of pearls and other challenges China poses,” said Mr. Ramesh. “By stretching itself far and wide, to Taiwan in the East and East Africa in the West, or the more recent IMEC [India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor], India wants to expand its global footprint.”

    By expanding that footprint, India is aiming at “global leadership, power through increased trade and commercial activity,” he said.

    Mr. Shen said that India doesn’t necessarily need Taiwan to compete with China. However, Taiwan’s chip and semiconductor technology has become a new cooperation sector between the two countries, one that can help India to promote high tech and enhance its economy.

    “Especially after Taiwan has begun to invest in India, in the future, if it wants to improve India’s semiconductor technology or artificial intelligence development, Taiwan is an indispensable partner,” he said.

    During his second tenure, Mr. Modi’s government began the country’s ambitious semiconductor mission with an outlay of $10 billion in 2021. It advanced toward the goal with the Indian cabinet’s approval early this year of three new plants, which are estimated to generate 20,000 advanced technology jobs and about 60,000 indirect jobs.

    Perhaps the most strategically important of these is a semiconductor fabrication plant worth $11 billion by India’s Tata Group, in collaboration with Taiwan’s Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp. The facility will be located in Dholera, Gujarat, in western India.

    According to the Taipei Economic and Cultural Center, which represents Taiwan diplomatically in India, the investments in India until February of this year were primarily in electronics, information and communication technology, petrochemicals, steel, shipping, footwear manufacturing, automotive and motorcycle components, finance, and construction industries.

    Mr. Shen predicted that Taiwan–India relations will continue to deepen and strengthen.

    “In addition to open economic, trade and scientific and technological exchanges, maybe more in security and defense industry cooperation will begin as the relationship between the two countries gradually deepens. India needs [to] strengthen its defense and aviation industry capabilities, and Taiwan needs the defense industry cooperation market,” he said.

    An outdoor screen shows news coverage of China’s military drills around Taiwan, in Beijing on May 23, 2024. China began on May 23 what it called “Joint Sword-2024A” exercises, surrounding Taiwan with warplanes and navy ships and vowing “stern punishment” of separatist forces on the island. (Jade Gao/AFP via Getty Images)

    The Taiwanese analyst doesn’t believe that India will establish formal relations with Taiwan because it doesn’t want conflict with China. However, if it wants to strengthen its economy and develop enhanced comprehension of China’s military intelligence, it must look to Taiwan.

    Mr. Shen said the main reason for China’s anger at the interaction between Mr. Modi and Mr. Lai is fear.

    “China is afraid that the relationship between Taiwan and India will deepen, so that the Sino–Indian border sovereignty issue and the conflict in the Taiwan Strait will be merged, and China’s enemies may form alliances and cooperation.”

    That situation will be a “nightmare” for communist party leader Xi Jinping, Mr. Shen said.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 06/19/2024 – 15:30

  • White House Fuming, Cancels Meeting With Israelis, After Netanyahu's Public Scolding
    White House Fuming, Cancels Meeting With Israelis, After Netanyahu’s Public Scolding

    On Monday Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu chastised the White House in a rare video message, calling President Biden’s withholding of some defense aid to Israel “inconceivable”. 

    However the White House has hit back, with press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre soon after the provocative statement issuing a rejection of the Israeli leader’s narrative. “We genuinely do not know what he’s talking about. We just don’t,“ she told reporters.

    She noted in a Monday afternoon briefing that “there was one particular shipment of munitions that was paused, and you’ve heard us talk about that many times.” Jean-Pierre then emphasized, “There are no other pauses — none — no other pauses or holds in place.”

    Via ABC News

    But here’s what the Israeli prime minister had charged in the video: “It’s inconceivable that in the past few months, the administration has been withholding weapons and ammunitions to Israel. Israel, America’s closest ally, fighting for its life, fighting against Iran and our other common enemies,” he had said.

    Behind the scenes, this has reportedly left Biden admin officials fuming. The White House has as a result taken the rare step of canceling a high-level US-Israel meeting in protest. The scheduled meeting was to focus on Iran.

    A senior US official told Axios on Tuesday, “This decision makes it clear that there are consequences for pulling such stunts.” The official further described, “The Americans are fuming. Bibi’s video made a lot of damage.”

    The same report said that some of the Israeli officials were already en route to Washington when the meeting was canceled, however, other sources said the meeting was merely postponed and tried to downplay that it was a punitive action.

    The US gives Israel over $3 billion in foreign aid every year, and has also pledged billions more in weapons, including advanced fighter jets, throughout the course of the Gaza war. “Biden’s team was angry and shocked by Netanyahu’s ingratitude,” another US official was quoted in Axios as saying.

    Secretary of State Antony Blinken has meanwhile confirmed that Washington is “continuing to review one shipment… with regard to 2,000-pound bombs because of our concerns about their use in a densely populated area like Rafah.”

    Netanyahu is fully aware that his words could also play heavily in the November US presidential election…

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    The White House has for months maintained contradictory policies on Gaza – on the one hand decrying the soaring civilian death toll which are especially the result of large-scale airstrikes, and on the other supplying Israel’s military with the very bombs used to inflict such atrocities. 

    Progressives and Democrats are increasingly pulling their support from Biden over the issue, and this week’s fresh spat with Netanyahu could be Biden’s attempt to show his base he won’t be bossed around by a foreign ally. The White House has continually said the Israelis shouldn’t cross ‘red lines’ – but Biden has been hesitant to actually impose consequences when said lines are violated – for example in the Rafah ground offensive, which the US has stood against from the start.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 06/19/2024 – 14:55

  • MSNBC Contributor Posts Image Claiming Trump Needed To Be Helped Off Stage
    MSNBC Contributor Posts Image Claiming Trump Needed To Be Helped Off Stage

    Authored by Steve Watson via modernity.news,

    A leftist MSNBC contributor has been raked over the coals for claiming Donald Trump is really the presidential candidate who needs to be helped off a stage, rather than than Joe Biden.

    Brian Tyler Cohen, who ironically hosts a podcast called ‘No Lie’, posted the following image dating from last year on X: (‘No Lie’ Cohen has since deleted his lie)…

    As you can see, the post was quickly flagged by Community Notes.

    Video from the same event clearly shows Trump shaking the hand of his son Don Jr. which is what the photo captured.

    Even other leftists had to admit Tyler Cohen’s post was just misleading.

    He probably already knew this, and was either trying to amass post views, or he just didn’t care.

    This comes in the wake of days of videos being shared of Joe Biden doddering around like a dementia patient or freezing up, having to be rounded up and led away by both the Italian Prime Minister at the G7 summit and by Obama at a Hollywood fundraiser.

    The White House had the gall to claim that the videos were edited or completely fake.

    In reality, it’s the Biden campaign that is editing and spreading misleading videos of Trump:

    Other leftists have tried to claim that Trump is the one who is cognitively impaired because he mixed up the name ‘Jackson’ with ‘Johnson’.

    It’s hardly in the same league as Biden’s clear decline to the point where he can barely function.

    Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 06/19/2024 – 14:20

  • Dell, SMC, Nvidia To Build Elon Musk's Grok Supercomputer In Memphis
    Dell, SMC, Nvidia To Build Elon Musk’s Grok Supercomputer In Memphis

    xAI’s multi-billion dollar “Gigafactory of Compute” is being constructed in Memphis, Tennessee, and is set to become the world’s largest supercomputer.

    The artificial intelligence company founded by Elon Musk could be months away from powering chatbot Grok, which is already operational on the X platform.

    A source recently told The Daily Memphian that the supercomputer could start running in 8 to 12 months.

    The supercomputer is intended to power and do computations for Grok, the chatbot run by xAI’s artificial intelligence. The Information, a business publication, reported on May 26 that the supercomputer would be ready by August 2025.

    But a source familiar with the matter told The Daily Memphian that the supercomputer could start running eight to 12 months earlier than expected, making an August 2024 start possible.

    On Wednesday morning, Dell Founder & CEO Michael Dell posted a picture of Dell racks slated for the Grok.

    “We’re building a Dell AI factory with @nvidia to power @grok for @xai @elonmusk,” Dell wrote in a post. 

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    X user DogeDesigner also reported that Dell is supplying xAI with supercomputer equipment. Musk chimed in on X that Dell “is assembling half of the racks that are going into the supercomputer that xAI is building.” 

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    X users had many questions, including “Who’s assembling the other half?” and “Liquid-cooled?” 

    Musk then responded to X user Mario Nawfal, saying “SMC,” or Super Micro Computer, will supply the other half. 

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    As for Musk…

    Perhaps this news will lift Dell and SMC higher on Thursday (today’s a holiday). On Tuesday, Nvidia was crowned the world’s most valuable company.

    Year-to-date gains… 

    “It seems like Elon Musk is assembling an avengers-like team of tech giants and turning them into a formidable force in the AI, with Grok as their secret weapon,” one X user said. 

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    A secret weapon against the woke censorship mob? 

    GPU power is the new arms race.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 06/19/2024 – 13:45

Digest powered by RSS Digest

Jun 19

Today’s News 19th June 2024

  • How (And Why) Bird Flu Is About To Enter The "Mass Testing" Phase
    How (And Why) Bird Flu Is About To Enter The “Mass Testing” Phase

    Authored by Kit Knightly via Off-Guardian,org,

    Hello everyone and welcome to the latest edition of Bird Flu Digest, formerly known as OffGuardian…

    The wall-to-wall coverage of Bird Flu is getting wallier-to-wallier with each passing week, to the point it’s almost hard to keep up with the waves of hot takes and chilling insights. But if you’re going to try, the best place to do it is right here, where I spend a good portion of my time reading very similar articles in very similar papers all about the danger of a pandemic they’re about to pretend is happening.

    Not a dream of mine growing up, but life’s like that.

    Anyway…bird flu.

    In our last bird flu update, we pointed out that the “bird flu death” in Mexico was very likely no such thing, and that reporting it as such was right out of the Covid playbook.

    Since then the head of Mexico’s Health Ministry has criticized the WHO for calling it a bird flu death at all.

    But the big bird flu news is that former head of the US CDC Robert Redfield has gone hysterical, telling NewsNation:

    I really do think it’s very likely that we will, at some time, it’s not a question of if, it’s more of a question of when we will have a bird flu pandemic.”

    This story was naturally picked up and spread everywhere, but Redfield is hardly alone in this hysterical panic-fueling nonsense.

    Last week, The Conversation headlined:

    An ounce of prevention: Now is the time to take action on H5N1 avian flu, because the stakes are enormous

    USA Today echoes the tone:

    Concerns grow as ‘gigantic’ bird flu outbreak runs rampant in US dairy herds

    Apparently a new study has found something scary – Americans “have little to no pre-existing immunity to the H5N1 avian flu”. Frightening stuff.

    Just a few hours ago the Daily Mail reported on yet another doctor doling out yet another dire warning. This time Dr Rick Bright, who told PBS that:

    We’re being blindfolded in this battle right now, and I’m really concerned that the virus is winning the game and getting ahead of us.’

    We’re flying blind and the disease is getting ahead of us! It’s running rampant and the stakes are enormous!

    Even some channels that supposedly know better are spreading the fear.

    CNN is frantic with worry – “We aren’t doing enough about the risk of bird flu – but we can”. Popular Science is relatively calm, asking “Can we prevent a bird flu pandemic in humans?”, before reassuring us that we can…as long as we all do as we’re told.

    All of these stories talk about “gathering data”, “flying blind”, and the need for “prevention”. And all of that is really code for “testing”. Almost every article talks up the need to increase testing – both of humans and animals.

    But anyone who’s been paying attention since 2020 knows PCR tests don’t gather data, they create data. They are machines for generating “cases”. Far from preventing a pandemic, they can be used to manufacture one.

    There are even early signs of mandating tests going forward, such as this Politico article bemoaning the lack of farmers voluntarily signing up for government surveillance programs:

    The federal response is largely focusing on voluntary efforts by farmers to help track and contain the outbreak. But many farms still have not signed up for USDA efforts to boost surveillance and testing for the virus.

    And the solution to this is more money:

    Although federal funds have been allocated, no farms have enrolled in voluntary on-site milk testing, according to the USDA. Fewer than a dozen farms have applied for separate financial aid in exchange for boosting biosecurity measures to help contain the virus.

    Paying farmers to test their animals is another recycled Covid strategy. It will generate cases, which will generate culling, which links us up with the other aspect of “bird flu” – not “the next pandemic” but “the war on food”.

    As the alleged disease allegedly spreads from poultry farm to dairy farm more and more chickens are being culled and cows slaughtered. This is going to escalate even further soon, when governments start paying farmers to destroy their cattle.

    Again, from Politico:

    …federal rulemaking is delaying the rollout of compensation for farmers who have lost or had to kill cows because of the disease.

    Translation:

    They want to pay farmers to test their cows, then “financially compensate” them when they have to be destroyed.

    This is just like the UK’s “Environmental Land Management” schemes or the US “Conservation Reserve Program”, both of which pay farmers not to farm. The goal will be to make it more profitable for farmers to kill their cows than milk them.

    Incentivizing testing, rewarding positive results. That’s how you make a pandemic out of nothing, and sabotage the food system in the process.

    But there’s good news, after all the the EU is already procuring 40 million doses of vaccines, just in case. And the Moderna stock price keeps going up too. So there’s that.

    Honestly, it’s like watching a movie where they signpost the “surprise” twist ending inside the first five minutes, and then you have to sit through two interminable hours of what the writers clearly consider to be subtle foreshadowing.

    It’s getting to the point I just want them to do the bloody pandemic and get it over with.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 06/18/2024 – 23:30

  • Israel's Top Generals Approve Battle Plans For Lebanon Offensive
    Israel’s Top Generals Approve Battle Plans For Lebanon Offensive

    The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on Tuesday announced that plans to launch an offensive in Lebanon against Hezbollah have been formally approved. 

    The IDF statement further said it is preparing to “accelerate readiness in the field” at a moment the situation is deteriorating, given the Lebanese paramilitary group backed by Iran has in the last days sent hundreds of drones and missiles into northern Israel. The statement spelled out that “operational plans for an offensive in Lebanon were approved.”

    The IDF released this photograph in making the announcement.

    The military cited that the head of the IDF’s Northern Command Maj. Gen. Ori Gordin and chief of the Operations Directorate Maj. Gen. Oded Basiuk had given their final approval for the Lebanon battle plans.

    However, whether the trigger is pulled on launching the major operation remains to be seen, as outside diplomatic efforts to intervene also intensify.

    During an afternoon briefing Pentagon spokesman Major General Patrick Ryder was asked by reporters about the newly approved Israeli battle plans. He responded: “I’m not going to get into hypotheticals and speculate on what might happen other than to say no one wants to see a wider regional war.”

    Hezbollah has been strongly signaling it could attack Israel’s third largest city of Haifa, which would mark a severe escalation, after Israel has launched airstrikes as deep into Lebanon as far north as Baalbek, as well as near the Syrian border in the northeast.

    President Biden’s envoy Amos Hochstein has been in both Israel and Lebanon seeking to convince officials on both sides against escalation; however, the US doesn’t have direct contact with Hezbollah but instead tends to go through Lebanese government intermediaries. The White House has warned that an expanded Israeli offensive in Lebanon would be disastrous for both Israel and the whole region, given the war could widen to include Iran.

    Israeli officials have said the IDF stands ready to “destroy” Hezbollah, and on Sunday IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said “Hezbollah’s increasing aggression is bringing us to the brink of what could be a wider escalation, one that could have devastating consequences for Lebanon and the entire region.”

    Earlier this month Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, “Whoever thinks he can hurt us and we will respond by sitting on our hands is making a big mistake.” He had added at a time when massive fires were spreading in the north due to constant Hezbollah drone and missile attacks, “We are prepared for very intense action in the north.” There are currently some 100,000 Israeli residents who remain outside their homes and communities due to the persistent threat of rocket attack.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 06/18/2024 – 23:05

  • Ethereum Spikes After SEC Drops Investigation
    Ethereum Spikes After SEC Drops Investigation

    The Securities and Exchange Commission is dropping its investigation into whether Ether is a security, Ethereum developer Consensys said Wednesday.

    “The Enforcement Division of the SEC has notified us that it is closing its investigation into Ethereum 2.0,” the firm said in a June 19 X post.

    “This means that the SEC will not bring charges alleging that sales of ETH are securities transactions,” which it hailed as a “major win for Ethereum developers, technology providers, and industry participants.”

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    The news sent Ethereum sharply higher, after several days of unexplained declines driven by an overly aggressive futures seller.

    In March, Fortune reported the SEC issued subpoenas to multiple companies which was related to attempts to label ETH as a security.

    Consensys sued the SEC in April, alleging the regulator planned “to seize control over the future of cryptocurrency,” which it said was still on in its latest post.

     

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 06/18/2024 – 22:40

  • Loper Bright Enterprises V. Raimondo: The Supreme Court Battle Against The Administrative State
    Loper Bright Enterprises V. Raimondo: The Supreme Court Battle Against The Administrative State

    Via SchiffGold.com,

    The Supreme Court is currently reviewing a case that could impact your individual liberty. And you probably haven’t heard about it…

    The case began in November 2022, when Loper Bright Enterprises, a fishery based out of Cape May, New Jersey, appealed a district court opinion to the Supreme Court. The conflict between Loper Bright and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) started after the agency decided to require private fisheries like Loper Bright to pay their regulatory inspectors for their time observing fishery practices.

    While the law doesn’t explicitly allow this practice, the Fishery Service cites the Chevron Deference, a precedent set by a 1984 Supreme Court case, which states that an ambiguous law can be interpreted by government agencies as they see fit. In short, the Fishery Service wants private companies to pay their salaries and found a legal loophole to justify it.

    While this may seem like an isolated incident, it is just one example of a long history of government agencies infringing on individual liberty. The outcome of this case holds supreme importance for the future of our republic and the preservation of our financial and civil freedoms.

    The Administrative State: A Tyranny of the Unelected

    Since 1950, the federal government has steadily grown in size. Today, it has over 2.9 million civilian employees, more than Walmart has worldwide. This growth has paved the way for the creation of a governmental pseudo-branch denoted the “administrative state.” The administrative state contains government employees who have a significant impact on people’s everyday lives but yet aren’t held accountable to citizens in the form of elections. These unelected bureaucrats undermine the central ethos of a republic, where elected officials are supposed to seek the good of their constituents or risk not being re-elected.

    The problem with this system was made evident during the pandemic. During the COVID shutdown, hundreds of millions of Americans were sentenced to lockdowns, impacting their schools, churches, and families. Many of the people behind this policy were members of the CDC, one of the government agencies that comprise the administrative state. The decisions they made were not subject to the traditional checks and balances which typically constrain the US government. Instead, America found itself under a tyranny of the unelected.

    This overreach extends beyond individual liberty into private business. When businesses can be encroached upon at a whim by unelected authorities, long-term investment becomes a much riskier endeavor. When the COVID shutdown occurred, many small businesses, with their small profit margins and high overhead, were unable to weather the storm. For the companies that survived, the blatant government intervention and the severe consequences that followed left a sour taste in their mouth for future capital investments. You’re not going to build a new business if a bureaucrat can shut it down the next day. All of these factors contribute to government agencies having a negative impact on financial markets and investor portfolios.

    The Central Problem With Chevron

    The Chevron Deference precedent, which is at the center of Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, gives even more power to these governmental agencies. When ambiguity exists, this precedent allows courts to simply defer to agencies’ interpretations, even if those interpretations favor the agencies’ own interests. It also allows courts to seek out ambiguity in order to give near-unbridled power to these agencies.

    If the Supreme Court upholds Chevron, it will further entrench the power of unelected bureaucrats and make it increasingly difficult for individuals and businesses to challenge agency overreach. However, if the Court rules against Chevron, it would represent a shift toward increased restraint of the administrative state, leading to a reevaluation of the scope and authority of federal agencies.

    Either way, Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo is set to have a heavy impact on the future of the administrative state and the balance of power between the government and the people.

    American Freedom is on Trial

    Loper v. Raimondo is more than just a legal dispute, it is a battle for freedom against the encroachment of the administrative state.

    Proponents of Chevron argue that the statute has promoted national stability by reducing potential conflict between administrative bodies and private entities.

    However, during the time Chevron has been in place, the administrative state has done everything but promote stability. Agencies have steadily increased their power, as evidenced by the COVID-19 case study, resulting in many counterproductive governmental actions.

    The second, and most poignant argument for Chevron is that individual agencies have more expertise in their respective fields. Therefore, since they possess intellectual authority, they are justified in having political authority over the American populace. This dispute is, at its core, a battle for individual freedom.

    One of the central claims of socialism is that centralized planners, who are more educated and knowledgeable than the average citizen, can orchestrate the nation and economy better than individual Americans making decisions. But this understanding is rooted in arrogance, not substance. Countries with more economic freedom have a higher life expectancy, GDP per capita, education rate, and overall quality of life. The “chaos” of free choice actually leads to productive outcomes. The Supreme Court should side with Loper Bright by overruling Chevron, giving citizens more of the vital freedom which is a necessary factor for national and individual success.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 06/18/2024 – 21:55

  • Sullivan Greenlights Ukraine Cross-Border Attacks Beyond Kharkiv Region With US Arms
    Sullivan Greenlights Ukraine Cross-Border Attacks Beyond Kharkiv Region With US Arms

    US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan has said that authorization for Ukrainian use of American weapons for cross-border attacks extends not just to the Kharkiv region, but into other Russian regions as well, further escalating Biden’s initial greenlight for such offensive operations.

    Blinken in a Monday PBS interview told NewsHour’s Nick Schifrin “This is not about geography, it’s about common sense” and expanded the parameters for using NATO-supplied missiles. Watch the exchange below:

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    The following is what was said in this opening section of the interview:

    Schifrin: Does the agreement that you have made with Ukraine to allow Ukraine to fire American weapons just over the border into Russia at Russian forces that are about to attack into Ukraine, does that extend beyond the Kharkiv region, including into the Sumy region, where Russian forces have also been targeting Ukraine?

    Sullivan: It extends to anywhere that Russian forces are coming across the border from the Russian side to the Ukrainian side to try to take additional Ukrainian territory.

    Schifrin: So, that could include the Sumy region?

    Sullivan: That’s happened in Kharkiv.

    We have seen initial indications that Russia has made exploratory moves across in Sumy. And so it would apply there as well. This is not about geography. It’s about common sense. If Russia is attacking or about to attack from its territory into Ukraine, it only makes sense to allow Ukraine to hit back against the forces that are hitting it from across the border.

    That’s when the interviewer pointed out the obvious–that this policy will lead to open-ended and uncontrollable escalation given it takes away all parameters. “Of course, Russia is attacking Ukraine from all parts of Russia. Why draw the line there?” Schifrin asked.

    Sullivan at this point essentially gave Kiev the greenlight to attack a much more expanded area inside Russia. “Well, first, we are permitting Ukrainian forces to attack Russian forces using Russia as a sanctuary in the areas where on the battlefield they are attacking from inside Russia with artillery, with other ground-based munitions,” Biden’s top security official said.

    And what’s more is that when asked about F-16s, Sullivan affirmed that Ukraine can use the US-made jets to attack Russia. Sullivan explained:

    “…we have made clear — and we have seen over the course of the past two years Ukraine do this — that they can use air defense systems, including those supplied by the United States, to take Russian planes out of the sky, even if those Russian planes are in Russian airspace, if they’re about to fire into Ukrainian airspace.”

    Situation in Ukraine as of late May. Source: liveuamap.

    President Putin in late March had addressed this possibility. He said that Russian forces would then have to right to attack any airbase from which these F-16s are flown, including if they take off from within Western countries or NATO bases.

    Commenting on the fresh and escalatory Sullivan remarks, independent journalist Michael Tracey said to “Expect the parameters of this bold new policy to continue to grow.”

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 06/18/2024 – 21:30

  • Watch: Mother Of Fallen Cop Slams City Officials For Not Flying 'Thin Blue Line' Flag, Using Pride Flag Instead
    Watch: Mother Of Fallen Cop Slams City Officials For Not Flying ‘Thin Blue Line’ Flag, Using Pride Flag Instead

    Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

    Residents of Wethersfield Connecticut gathered Monday at a town hall to confront the mayor and other council officials over a decision to refuse a request to fly a ‘thin blue line’ flag in honour of a fallen police officer.

    As we highlighted, council officials claimed the pro police flag was ‘racist and antagonistic’, and decided that lowering a LGBTQ flag to half staff was enough of an honour for Aaron Pelletier, who was killed in the line of duty.

    Critics charged that the move epitomises the utter state of towns and cities under Democrat control.

    Speaking at the meeting, Deputy Mayor Matthew Forrest claimed “Our Wethersfield Town Council and the entire community stands with the police.”

    Others disagreed, including Debbie Garten, the mother of Deputy Robert “Bobby” Garten, who was also killed in the line of duty in September 2023.

    Mrs Garten urged that “It was disheartening to witness the news coverage and hear the disrespectful and hurtful remarks being made by some town council members, especially as the wake and funeral for Trooper First Class Pelletier was going on.”

    She added, “The thin blue line holds a deeply personal meaning for me, as a tribute to my son’s service and sacrifice,” before calling for the flag to be flown for two whole weeks next May to mark National Police Week and the Connecticut police memorial ceremony.

    Will Garten, the brother of Deputy Garten called the mayor “disgusting,” and noted that the official hasn’t even mentioned his name at all.

    Some of the town officials have complained that since the incident with the Pride flag and the refusal to fly the thin blue line, they have received “vulgar” messages and even death threats.

    “A large number of these communications can easily be described as disturbing and vulgar,” town manager Fred Presley claimed.

    “Some have wished physical harm and even death to council members and staff. A handful have reached the level of directly threatening individual council members and their families,” Presley added.

    *  *  *

    Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 06/18/2024 – 21:05

  • Your Lyin' Eyes: Corporate Media Panics With 'Fact Checks' Over Biden's Obvious Decline
    Your Lyin’ Eyes: Corporate Media Panics With ‘Fact Checks’ Over Biden’s Obvious Decline

    After several videos plainly showing Joe Biden’s obvious cognitive decline went viral over the last week, the left is now pulling the ‘out of context’ thing, suggesting that they’re edited “cheap fakes” that are “done in bad faith,” and both NBC News and AP running ‘fact checks.’

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    Now, the media is doing ‘fact checks’ to debunk your lyin’ eyes! Check out NBC’s (9 million follower, 25k view in 12 hours, highly ratio’d post with hilarious replies) take:

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    They’re now calling authentic footage “cheap fakes,” which as we noted yesterday, appears to be coordinated messaging with the White House.

    While “deepfakes” are misleading audio, video or images that are created or edited with artificial intelligence technology, a “cheap fake,” according to researchers Britt Paris and Joan Donovan, is a “manipulation created with cheaper, more accessible software (or, none at all). Cheap fakes can be rendered through Photoshop, lookalikes, re-contextualizing footage, speeding, or slowing.”

    To recap:

    • Biden ‘wandered off’ during a G7 flag ceremony while he was supposed to be taking a photo with other world leaders before Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni shepherded him back to the group. According to the fact checkers, he was ‘paying respects to a paratrooper.’

    According to the fact check, “Biden was greeting a parachutist who had just landed as part of the ceremony.”

    Yes, requiring Meloni to physically bring him back to the group.

    • He then did some weird nursing home mind-meld with the Pope, possibly (definitely) sniffing him. Unsurprisingly, no debunk! Apparently even NBC News couldn’t defend this.

    • Then, the Hollywood Reporter‘s Chris Gardner showed a clip of Biden ‘freezing’ on stage last weekend, and having to be similarly guided off stage by former President Barack Obama.

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     According to a new ‘fact check’ from AP, citing Jimmy Kimmel’s spokesman and an anonymous source, Biden was simply “pausing” amid cheers.

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    And wait, is this a cheap fake?

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    Nobody’s buying it…

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    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 06/18/2024 – 20:44

  • Not A Single American Has Received Biden's High-Speed Internet Despite $42.5 Billion Funding In 2021: FCC Commissioner
    Not A Single American Has Received Biden’s High-Speed Internet Despite $42.5 Billion Funding In 2021: FCC Commissioner

    FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr slammed the Biden administration on Friday – writing on X that President Joe Biden has yet to connect a single American with high-speed internet.

    “In 2021, the Biden Administration got $42.45 billion from Congress to deploy high-speed Internet to millions of Americans. Years later, it has not connected even 1 person with those funds. In fact, it now says that no construction projects will even start until 2025 at earliest,” Carr wrote.

    “Meanwhile, the Biden Admin has been layering a partisan political agenda on top of this $42.45B program – a liberal wish list that has nothing to do with connecting Americans. Climate change mandates, tech biases, DEI requirements, favoring government-run networks + more.”

    As Breitbart notes further;

    Carr is specifically slamming the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program, which allocated $42.45 billion to support broadband infrastructure and adoption.

    The program was established by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), otherwise known as the so-called bipartisan infrastructure bill. The bill had no conservative victories and had many leftist carveouts, as Breitbart News detailed.

    Congress passed the infrastructure bill in 2021, which would mean that the BEAD program has had little success in its two years since Biden passed the bill.

    Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg also struggled to explain why Biden has only built “seven or eight” electric vehicle charging stations, which the funding also came from the IIJA.

    “The timeline is bad. The policy cuts that the Biden Administration have made are even worse. The Biden Administration has set up a $42.45 billion program that is poised to miss the mark and leave rural communities behind,” Carr said in a statement to Breitbart News.

    Carr continued, saying that the BEAD program fails to close the “digital divide,” or the gap between with those with high-speed internet and those without.

    “The Biden Administration is barreling towards a broadband blunder. Congress has appropriated enough money to end the digital divide, but the Biden Administration is squandering the moment by putting partisan political goals above smart policy,” Carr explained further. “It is doing so through rate regulation, through union, technology, and DEI preferences, and through a thumb on the scale for government run networks. All of this threatens to leave rural communities behind.”

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    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 06/18/2024 – 20:40

  • Kansas Sues Pfizer, Says Company 'Misled' Public On COVID-19 Vaccine
    Kansas Sues Pfizer, Says Company ‘Misled’ Public On COVID-19 Vaccine

    Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Kansas on June 17 sued Pfizer, alleging the pharmaceutical giant “misled” members of the public with various claims about its COVID-19 vaccine.

    US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla attends a press conference on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting in Davos on May 25, 2022. – Pfizer said it would sell its patented drugs at a not-for-profit basis to the world’s poorest countries, as part of a new initiative announced at the World Economic Forum in Davos. (Photo by Fabrice COFFRINI / AFP) (Photo by FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP via Getty Images)

    Pfizer, for instance, said on April 1, 2021, that there were “no serious safety concerns through up to six months following second dose” of the vaccine it makes with Germany’s BioNTech, the lawsuit notes.

    But documents made public through a lawsuit showed that Pfizer’s adverse events database, which includes reported issues following vaccination from around the world, already contained 158,893 adverse events as of Feb. 28, 2021.

    “Pfizer’s representations that its COVID-19 vaccine did not have any safety concerns was inconsistent with the adverse events data it possessed,” the suit, filed by Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach states. “Pfizer concealed, suppressed, or omitted material facts it possessed showing significant safety concerns associated with Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine.”

    The suit also highlights how Pfizer in the same press release said that vaccinated trial participants enjoyed 91.3 percent protection against COVID-19 up to six months after a second dose.

    Documents released later, though, showed that Pfizer recorded 83.7 percent effectiveness among trial participants at four months after a second dose, while finding indications in blood samples that effectiveness was waning even more at six months.

    Pfizer disclosed the waning effectiveness on July 28, 2021, in a preprint paper.

    Its press release that day mentioned positive findings from a different study but omitted mention of the preprint paper or how it had found signs of waning protection.

    “Pfizer’s concealment, suppression, and omission of the waning effectiveness of its COVID-19 vaccine allowed Pfizer to profit from vaccinations of Kansans who may have been deterred from Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine had they known about its waning effectiveness,” the suit states.

    In the second quarter of 2021, Pfizer made nearly $8 billion from its COVID-19 vaccine.

    The suit also notes that Albert Bourla, Pfizer’s CEO, said in early 2023 that “We constantly review and analyze the data“ and ”we’ve seen not a single signal although we have distributed billions of doses.”

    By that time, officials in the United States and elsewhere had said the available evidence showed the vaccine causes myocarditis after first detecting a signal for the heart inflammation in 2021. Pfizer said in a leaked document dated February 11, 2022, that there were “increased cases of myocarditis” reported in the United States after Pfizer’s vaccination, and the label for its vaccine since 2021 carried a warning about the risk of the inflammation.

    Mr. Kobach’s 69-page complaint, filed in district court in Thomas County, alleges Pfizer made false, misleading, and deceptive claims in violation of consent judgments it previously entered into with Kansas and other states to settle separate allegations. In one of the settlements, Pfizer in 2008 paid $60 million over its promotion of two prescription drugs and agreed to, moving forward, carefully present information about its products.

    “Pfizer made multiple misleading statements to deceive the public about its vaccine at a time when Americans needed the truth,” Mr. Kobach said in a statement.

    The Republican wants the court to declare that Pfizer’s claims about its vaccine violate the consent judgments and is seeking damages, including $20,000 for each violation of each of the agreements.

    Pfizer in a statement to news outlets said the case will likely not succeed.

    “We are proud to have developed the COVID-19 vaccine in record time in the midst of a global pandemic and saved countless lives. The representations made by Pfizer about its COVID-19 vaccine have been accurate and science-based. The company believes that the state’s case has no merit and will respond to the suit in due course,” the U.S.-based firm said.

    “Pfizer is deeply committed to the well-being of the patients it serves and has no higher priority than ensuring the safety and effectiveness of its treatments and vaccines.”

    The Pfizer vaccine is the most administered in the United States, with more than 367 million injected across the country since the shot was made available in late 2020.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 06/18/2024 – 20:15

  • Ozempic Fuels 'Downsize Me' Trend As Slimmed Down Americans Hunt For New Clothes 
    Ozempic Fuels ‘Downsize Me’ Trend As Slimmed Down Americans Hunt For New Clothes 

    If Ozempic and or Mounjaro users can avoid processed foods and get some exercise, they’ll likely maintain their weight loss. The good news is that some of these individuals, who have ditched greasy burgers and donuts, are possibly already on the hunt for smaller clothes. 

    Jennifer Hyman, co-founder and CEO of clothing rental company Rent the Runway, spoke to Wall Street Journal’s Suzanne Kapner about the emerging trend of customers switching to smaller sizes more than at any other time in the past 15 years. 

    Hyman noted that these customers are increasingly open to experimenting with different styles, such as cutouts and other body-baring features. “When you feel more comfortable in your skin, you’re more willing to try edgier looks,” she added.

    At fashion retailer Lafayette 148, the brand’s chief executive, Deirdre Quinn, told WSJ’s Kapner that approximately 5% of its customer base has already begun buying new outfits because of weight loss. 

    Quinn said some customers are replacing their size 12 clothes with size 6 or 8. She said the downsizing trend boosts sales and saves the company money because smaller sizes use less fabric.

    Abhi Madan, co-founder and creative director of dressmaker Amarra, stated, “Over the past year, our retailers have been telling us they need smaller sizes.”

    As of May, 1 in 8 adults in the US had used GLP-1 drugs, equivalent to more than 15 million people. Recently, Novo Nordisk, the maker of Ozempic and Wegovy, said that at least 25,000 people are beginning its weight loss treatment weekly.

    Bank of America analyst Geoff Meacham first wrote about the downsizing theme last fall in a note that revealed the downstream effects of the obesity drug will impact the apparel industry, as “eventual weight loss in the broader population could spur a wardrobe replacement cycle.” 

    Meacham said that an adoption rate of 38 million individuals using weight-loss drugs (midpoint of BofA’s estimated 2030 TAM) combined with the assumption of buying new clothing could result in $50 billion of new apparel spending. 

    Next up, as Bloomberg penned in a recent note, GLP-1 drugs are likely going to target “America’s fat pets.” 

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 06/18/2024 – 19:50

  • Washington's Sharp Rebuke Of Vietnam For Hosting Putin Later This Week Was Ridiculous
    Washington’s Sharp Rebuke Of Vietnam For Hosting Putin Later This Week Was Ridiculous

    Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack,

    The US Embassy in Hanoi reacted angrily to the news that President Putin will visit Vietnam later this week.

    One of their spokespeople told Reuters that “No country should give Putin a platform to promote his war of aggression and otherwise allow him to normalise his atrocities. If he is able to travel freely, it could normalize Russia’s blatant violations of international law.”

    This sharp rebuke was ridiculous since it’s not the US’ place to tell its partners which foreign leaders they’re allowed to host.

    It’s also hypocritical too since neither the US nor Vietnam are signatories to the Rome Statute that created the “International Criminal Court”, whose ”warrant” for the Russian leader’s arrest last year was what the spokesperson was referencing with regard to their displeasure at him traveling freely. Moreover, while the purpose of his upcoming trip hasn’t been officially confirmed, there’s no doubt that it’ll concern bilateral cooperation and isn’t just an opportunity to discuss his views about Ukraine.

    By disrespecting Vietnam in the way that it did through their embassy spokesperson’s rude statement, the US is needlessly risking drama in their hard-earned strategic partnership, which was clinched just last year after lengthy negotiations.

    These former wartime enemies entered into a fast-moving rapprochement at the end of the Old Cold War and have shared goals of managing China’s rise, which is especially important for Vietnam due to its maritime territorial dispute with the People’s Republic.

    Even so, Vietnam is far from being a US ally or vassal since it proudly retains its strategic autonomy as proven by the continued cultivation of strategic relations with Russia, who it’s loyally supported despite immense Western pressure to dump that country. Most of its armed forces are supplied with Soviet and Russian wares, and its partner’s energy companies are also exploring offshore deposits. Furthermore, Hanoi will never forget Moscow’s support during the Vietnam War, which forged their brotherly ties.

    It’s in this context of Vietnam’s careful balancing act between Russia and the US, which is predicated on obtaining the best possible position vis-à-vis its top trade partner China with whom it’s still embroiled in a fierce maritime territorial dispute, that President Putin will soon pay a visit there. Russia respects Vietnam’s decision to strategically partner with its American rival, but America doesn’t respect Vietnam’s decision to strategically partner with its Russian rival, which isn’t lost on Hanoi.

    Nevertheless, Vietnam will still keep the US close since it considers it to be the only realistic counterweight to China in the latter’s namesake Southern Sea that Hanoi calls its East Sea, all while arming itself to the teeth with Russian weaponry just in case a conflict breaks out by miscalculation. As Sino-Filipino tensions continue worsening, the US will likely try to rope Vietnam into this as well so as to increase the pressure on Beijing, but Hanoi won’t ever act against its interests at others’ demands.

    That’s always been the case but is even more so now after the US’ ridiculous rebuke over its hosting of President Putin, which reminded policymakers and the public alike that America will always regard itself as the “senior partner” in all of its bilateral relations.

    This arrogance isn’t just offensive, but it’s also counterproductive from the perspective of the US’ objective national interests since it reduces the chances that others like Vietnam will more closely cooperate with it against third countries like China.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 06/18/2024 – 19:25

  • "We're Currently Watching The Collapse" Of The Daily Beast As 70% Of Unionized Staffers 'Gutted'
    “We’re Currently Watching The Collapse” Of The Daily Beast As 70% Of Unionized Staffers ‘Gutted’

    The journalism industry is in a severe downturn, with over 8,000 job cuts reported across the US, UK, and Canada last year alone. The first half of this year has already seen more than 1,000 layoffs from traditional newspapers, online media outlets, and even leftist nonprofit watchdog journalism organizations. The industry is crumbling in an election year as some conservative media outlets thrive. 

    A new report from The Wrap says leftist media outlet The Daily Beast is “gutting its senior editorial team after implementing voluntary buyouts last month, with nearly 70% of unionized staffers leaving the outlet.” 

    According to people with direct knowledge of the situation, some of the senior staffers taking buyouts include reporter Justin Baragona, political investigations reporter Jose Pagliery, senior national reporter Pilar Melendez, senior reporter Emily Shugerman, and many others. About 25 unionized staffers received the buyouts, which equates to about 70% of unionized staffers. 

    The people expect upcoming layoffs later this month to impact non-union editorial staffers.

    “We’re currently watching the collapse of The Beast,” one person told TheWrap, adding, “There is no doubt the site won’t be able to recover from this.”

    “One of the first lessons of any company: Don’t alienate your core customer and piss them off so much they begin to call for a boycott against your firm,” the person continued.

    The source is likely referring to the Daily Beast’s radical leftist reporting and boycotting of President Trump over the years. This type of reporting and commentary on Trump has made some readers highly skeptical of its stories. Remember when the outlet was sued for pumping disinformation about Hunter Biden’s laptop? 

    More recently, website tracking firm Similarweb has shown steep declines in Daily Beast’s website traffic in recent months. 

    Layoffs at the Daily Beast come as Press Gazette estimates total journalism industry job cuts in the UK, US, Ireland, and Canada total at least 1,000 in January, 615 in February, 30 in March, and 77 in April. Last year, at least 8,000 media job cuts were seen across the three countries. 

    Press Gazette listed a timeline of the latest media job cuts:

    The Daily Beast – At least 25 people

    The Daily Beast has implemented voluntary buyouts accepted by 25 unionised staffers, or almost 75% of union members in the newsroom.

    According to The Wrap those taking buyouts include media reporter Justin Baragona, political investigations reporter Jose Pagliery, senior national reporter Pilar Melendez and senior reporter Emily Shugerman. The outlet reported that senior staffers are heavily represented in the departures.

    A further round of layoffs for non-unionised journalists is expected to follow.

    A Daily Beast spokesperson said: “With such a generous severance offer, we anticipated a large number of employees would take the voluntary buyout. We are not at all surprised.

    “These numbers allow us to move forward with our plan to secure the financial future of the Beast and rebuild a newsroom that will thrive in the current landscape. It’s always difficult when dedicated employees choose to step away. We thank them and wish them the best in their future endeavors.”

    Evening Standard – 150 jobs

    About 150 jobs are expected to be cut as a result of the Evening Standard’s planned closure of its daily newspaper edition and relaunch as a weekly title. A date for the changes and end to the daily paper has not yet been set.

    The proposed redundancies reportedly include 70 editorial roles. The Standard newsroom is currently made up of around 120 full-time journalists, meaning it would be more than halved.

    The cuts are also expected to affect more than 40 back office jobs and around 45 roles in its printing and distribution operations, according to The Telegraph.

    The Hollywood Reporter – ‘Small number’

    A “small number” of editorial layoffs were made at The Hollywood Reporter on Thursday 13 June, according to The Wrap.

    Those affected included longtime TV editor Lesley Goldberg and senior editor of diversity and inclusion Rebecca Sun.

    Goldberg said on X: “To the next generation of THR ‘legacies’, continue to know your worth and do your best to find work-life balance and listen to the words of wisdom of those you respect most. As for me, I’m holding onto two of the most valuable things I’ve learned in my time at THR: good things will always follow bad situations, and Henry Winkler really is as wonderful as everyone who has ever met him says he is.”

    Informa Tech – Unknown number

    Informa has closed two long-running B2B titles: Digital TV Europe and Television Business International.

    Informa would not confirm the number of jobs affected but a farewell message from TBI editor Richard Middleton referenced several staff members including a deputy editor, senior sales manager, marketing chief art director and product manager.

    Digital TV Europe staff at the time of the closure appeared to include an associate editor and a strategic account manager.

    May 2024

    Wall Street Journal – At least 8 people

    At least eight journalists have been laid off amid further cuts at the Wall Street Journal amid a change in how it covers US news “and how we write about the big subjects that grip America”.

    US news will no longer be a standalone coverage area and the East Coast, mid-US and West Coast regional bureaux are closing.

    “Many” of the US news reporters are moving into other teams in the newsroom “in which they are natural fits: real estate moves to finance and economics; reporters covering state and local politics join the politics team; education moves to life and work. And some reporters will move to a new National Affairs team that will take on big topics – abortion, immigration, land use, guns, race,” editor Emma Tucker told staff.

    The “speed and trending” desk is converting into a new breaking news desk and the layoffs come from this team as well as the US news team. NPR reported that at least eight people’s jobs are affected.

    Journalists stuck post-it notes on the windows of Tucker’s office in protest at the job cuts.

    A WSJ spokesperson said: “Our editor-in-chief is reshaping our newsroom with an eye towards digital growth, subscription growth and high-quality journalism. While we recognise change can be difficult, it is necessary to ensure we have the right structure in place to support our objectives.”

    April 2024

    Reader’s Digest – Unknown number

    Reader’s Digest magazine has closed in the UK, its editor-in-chief of six years announced on 29 April.

    Eva Mackevic said: “Unfortunately, the company just couldn’t withstand the financial pressures of today’s unforgiving magazine publishing landscape and has ceased to trade.”

    The number of full-time jobs affected has not been confirmed. Mackevic told freelance writers waiting to be paid that they should be hearing from insolvency practitioners.

    GB News – 40 people

    GB News is aiming to cut 40 roles, initially via voluntary redundancies. Staff are being offered up to two months’ salary and possible payment in lieu of notice to entice them at the initial stage.

    Wall Street Journal – At least 11 people

    At least 11 people have been affected in the second round of layoffs at The Wall Street Journal so far this year, including four producers on the visuals desk, two social media editors, two video journalists, a senior video journalist, a video producer, and one reporter, according to The Daily Beast.

    It was reported that some of the video employees were laid off as a result of the end to a Google partnership that funded the development of Youtube channels based around individual journalists or subject matters.

    Open Democracy – Around 10 people

    Several Open Democracy journalists announced on 10 April that they were being made redundant – including its head of news, news editor, political correspondent and two reporters.

    Press Gazette understands the cuts are also affecting the commercial side of the nonprofit organisation.

    Chief executive Satbir Singh and editor-in-chief Aman Sethi said Open Democracy has been hit by “wider industry trends that include rising inflation and an uncertain funding environment” and which have been exacerbated by the end to some of its funding.

    The business expects to return to a break even position once the redundancy round is complete.

    Mail Sport – Up to 15

    Mail Sport journalists were told on 10 April of an upcoming “significant restructuring” as the brand’s transition to prioritising digital continues.

    Mail Newspapers global publisher of sport Lee Clayton told staff, in a memo seen by Press Gazette, that there need to be “changes in how we are set up as a desk with a digital team leading the commissioning process, supported by newspaper experts who can publish print editions to tight deadlines.

    “With that in mind, we will be embarking on a significant restructuring of the department over the coming weeks.”

    Press Gazette subsequently reported that the restructuring was believed to affect up to 15 sports staff including cricket correspondent Paul Newman, racing correspondent Marcus Townend, Spanish football reporter Pete Jenson and chief sports reporter Matt Hughes, as well as several production staff.

    The Times – At least one person

    Times chief football writer of eight years Henry Winter announced on 10 April he has been made redundant.

    At the time of writing Press Gazette has not yet been able to confirm if Winter was the only person affected or if other roles have been made redundant at the same time.

    March 2024

    i-D Magazine – 8 people

    Redundancies have been made in the UK at fashion title i-D magazine, which was saved from a struggling Vice Media by model and entrepreneur Karlie Kloss in November.

    Eight staff in editorial or social media were let go, as first reported by Puck News fashion correspondent Lauren Sherman and confirmed by Press Gazette.

    The magazine is said to be moving towards a reliance on contributors and five of those eight people have accepted a contributor role, Press Gazette understands.

    Around 19 people remain on staff in the UK, including about eight in editorial and social plus the publishing director. There are plans for i-D to return to print in the autumn.

    Kloss formed Bedford Media to run i-D. Bedford Media announced on 28 March it is also relaunching Life magazine under an agreement with Dotdash Meredith on a regular, but unspecified, schedule.

    Deadspin – Around 11 people

    G/O Media has sold sports blog Deadspin to European start-up Lineup Publishing.

    All staff have been laid off as a result of the sale as Lineup plans to go with a “different content approach”. Around 11 people are affected, according to Adweek.

    A memo from G/O Media chief executive Jim Spanfeller, reported by Dailymail.com, said: “I do want to make it clear that we were not actively shopping Deadspin.

    “The rationale behind the decision to sell included a variety of important factors that include the buyer’s editorial plans for the brand, tough competition in the sports journalism sector, and a valuation that reflected a sizable premium from our original purchase price for the site.”

    He added: “Deadspin’s new owners have made the decision to not carry over any of the site’s existing staff and instead build a new team more in line with their editorial vision for the brand.

    “While the new owners plan to be reverential to Deadspin’s unique voice, they plan to take a different content approach regarding the site’s overall sports coverage. This unfortunately means that we will be parting ways with those impacted staff members, who were notified earlier today.”

    Center for Public Integrity – Around 11 people

    US nonprofit news organisation the Center for Public Integrity, founded in 1989, reportedly laid off staff on 8 March.

    The Center’s union said 11 people were being laid off, “more than half” the union’s unit. The New York Times later said less than half the overall staff were affected.

    The NYT reported about a week earlier that the newsroom fell about $2.5m short of its budget goal of around $6m in 2023 and it was considering merging with a competitor or shutting down.

    TalkTV – Unknown number

    An unspecified number of redundancies were expected at TalkTV as News UK pulled the plug on its linear TV format to focus on cross-platform video content.

    Update: TalkTV staff later began tweeting about their redundancies with TalkTV’s last day on linear on 26 April.

    February 2024

    Cord Cutters News – Three people

    Cord Cutters News, a US-based website centred on streaming services and devices and largely funded by affiliate links, has laid off three people.

    Editor-in-chief Roger Cheng announced on 23 February he and two reporters were leaving after their positions were “eliminated amid the company’s shift in focus to Youtube”.

    “I had fun learning about the ins and outs of the streaming world, and proud of some of the bigger stories I wrote,” Cheng said.

    The site’s owner Luke Bouma, who launched Cord Cutters News ten years ago, wrote on the website on the same day that they plan to “give a renewed focus on helping people know all their options to save money on TV, phone, and related product and service reviews” and “focus more heavily on our YouTube channels, including our main Cord Cutters News channel and our second channel The Breakdown with Luke, where you can find reviews of a range of products”.

    WAMU – 15 people

    Washington DC’s NPR affiliate WAMU is laying off 15 people and shutting down local news site DCist, Axios revealed on 23 February.

    Ten new positions are being added at the same time as it invests in and priorities audio.

    Chief content officer Michael Tribble told Axios: “We feel like this is the best way for us to engage and build loyalty.”

    Vice – ‘Several hundred’ people

    Vice told staff it was “eliminating several hundred positions” on 22 February and will no longer publish content on vice.com.

    Vice chief executive Bruce Dixon said in a memo it was “no longer cost-effective for us to distribute our digital content the way we have done previously” and they will instead “look to partner with established media companies to distribute our digital content, including news, on their global platforms, as we fully transition to a studio model”.

    Engadget – Ten people

    Yahoo-owned tech site Engadget is laying off ten people and restructuring into two teams: “news and features” focusing on traffic growth and “reviews and buying advice” reporting to commerce leaders.

    Editor-in-chief Dana Wollman and managing editor Terrence O’Brien announced that they were among the departures. Wollman noted: “To its credit, Yahoo has a decent severance program.”

    A spokesperson told The Verge on 22 February: “Engadget has played a vital role in tech journalism for 20 years and we’re confident that these efficiencies will support future growth and set us up for the long-term as we continue to deliver the best experience for our readers.”

    Buzzfeed – 16% of staff (possibly up to 190 people)

    Buzzfeed is planning to cut 16% of staff, Axios revealed on 21 February, making savings of $23m. The plan follows the sale of its entertainment brand Complex for $108.6m to livestream shopping platform NTWRK, after acquiring it for $300m in 2021.

    At the end of 2022 Buzzfeed had 1,368 employees. It laid off about 180 people in April 2023 with the closure of Buzzfeed News, so these latest layoffs may have affected up to around 190 people.

    Now This – At least 26 people

    US-based social media news publisher Now This made redundancies on 15 February, although the total is not yet known.

    The journalists laid off included Mike Madden, who led the Now This Tiktok team, senior writer PJ Evans, and senior producer Jasmine Amjad.

    The Now This journalists’ union said 26, or 50% of their members, had been affected.

    The Intercept – 15 people

    US investigative nonprofit The Intercept, which was co-founded by Glenn Greenwald, laid off 15 people on 15 February. Editor-in-chief Roger Hodge left in the changes.

    A memo to staff said it was “facing significant financial challenges” like other media outlets and needs to make changes to become sustainable.

    It said: “With the board’s approval, the leadership team has a plan that we believe paves the way for a more sustainable financial foundation for The Intercept so that we can continue to produce high-quality investigative journalism.

    “We have also implemented other cost-saving measures, including significant salary cuts for the leadership team and the flattening of the management team, to minimise the impact as much as possible.”

    CBS News – Around 20 people

    Around 20 people have been laid off at CBS News in Washington DC, New York and Los Angeles as part of wider cutbacks at parent company Paramount Global affecting 800 people.

    The CBS News staffers made redundant reportedly include chief national affairs and justice correspondent Jeff Pegues and senior investigative correspondent Catherine Herridge.

    Bustle Digital Group – 16 people

    Adweek has reported that seven editorial staff at Bustle Digital Group title Fatherly have been laid off and that the site will “significantly decrease” its output.

    Adweek also revealed that nine full-time employees across the Bustle, Romper and Elite Daily brands were let go in January but this had not previously been reported.

    Wall Street Journal – Around 20 people

    Sixteen reporters and one columnist were let go in a shake-up of the Wall Street Journal’s Washington DC coverage on 1 February, according to the Daily Beast. An unspecified number of editors are also thought to have been affected.

    Editor-in-chief Emma Tucker told staff: “The new Washington bureau will focus on politics, policy, defense, law, intelligence and national security. Damian Paletta, our new Washington coverage chief, starts next week and will focus our efforts in these areas to deliver work that serves the readers and stands out from the competition.

    “This means the Business team in Washington is closing as is the Washington-based U.S.-China team. Stories covered by these groups will be driven by various teams in the newsroom. We are also changing the editing structure in the bureau and are closing the D.C. News Desk; those editing functions will be handled elsewhere in the bureau or on the news desk in New York.”

    Journalism job cuts in January 2024

    The Messenger – About 300 people

    Jimmy Finkelstein’s digital news start-up The Messenger abruptly closed on Wednesday 31 January, with many staff finding out from New York Times, Semafor and Axios reporting rather than management.

    Editor Dan Wakeford reportedly told staff he was “not in the loop” on Slack minutes before the channel shut down.

    The website was wiped less than four hours later. Staff have spoken out about being left with no severance and no health insurance.

    Tech Crunch – About eight people

    Tech Crunch reportedly laid off about eight people on Monday 29 January, with Adweek reporting it plans to “refocus its coverage around the investors, founders and startups of Silicon Valley”.

    Tech Crunch is also winding down its paid subscription product, which first launched in 2019 and was rebranded to its current guise in 2021. It aimed to provide “advice and analysis to help startups” with interviews, newsletters, weekly coaching sessions, ad-free access to Tech Crunch, and more.

    Altfi – Up to 15 people

    London-based fintech news website Altfi announced on Friday 26 January it was closing down after ten years.

    In a farewell note, the team told readers: “Whilst our purpose, journalism and brand following has never been in doubt, we have faced severe headwinds over the last 18 months.”

    The Evening Standard reported that Altfi listed 15 members of staff on its website.

    Forbes – Less than 3% of staff (which could be up to 15 people)

    Forbes staff were told on Thursday 25 January – the same day as union members were on their first day of a three-day walkout over contract negotiations – that it planned to reduced staff by less than 3%.

    Forbes has 500 employees worldwide, according to its website, meaning the layoffs could affect up to 15 people.

    Forbes Media chief executive Mike Federle told staff: “Over the past few years, we’ve continued to find ways to diversify our business and revenue streams, and we’ve seen significant growth as a result.

    “As we continue to position ourselves to fully align with our 2024 business strategy, we have had to reprioritize some resources so that our organization can meet those goals. These changes have resulted in the difficult decision to reduce staff in certain areas.”

    Business Insider – 8% of staff (which could be up to 70 people)

    Business Insider told staff on Thursday 25 January it planned to make 8% of staff worldwide redundant.

    It came less than a year after the Axel Springer-owned title, which then had a headcount of 950 worldwide, laid off 10% of staff in the US.

    Chief executive Barbara Peng told staff that while Business Insider “closed out last year [2023] with a plan in place, a clear target audience and a vision”, 2024 would be about “making it happen and focusing our company”.

    “Unfortunately, this also means we need to scale back in some areas of our organisation.”

    Time magazine – Around 30 people

    Around 30 people were laid off from Time magazine on Tuesday 23 January, including about 13, or 15%, of its union-represented editorial employees, according to CNN.

    The union reported that the layoffs included the majority of staff at the publisher’s news publication for children, Time for Kids.

    Time chief executive Jessica Sibley told staff: “We have worked to manage expenses in other areas of our business aggressively to minimize the impact of this decision on our employees. All of these actions have moved us considerably closer to being a profitable company, an achievement we must reach to realize Time’s full potential.

    “While this was not an easy decision to make, it is the necessary step we must take in order to drive our business forward and improve our financial position as an organization.”

    Pink News – Nine staff at risk

    LGBTQ+ publisher Pink News put nine roles at risk of redundancy in its editorial, brand and people teams. The roles at risk include news editor, entertainment editor, weekend editor, head of brand, and marketing manager.

    The UK-based publisher blamed an “unpredictable financial year… which has necessitated strategic changes to our growth priorities”. The company is leaning into video, it said.

    Los Angeles Times – 115 people

    The Los Angeles Times announced it was laying off at least 115 people, or more than 20% of the newsroom, on Tuesday 23 January.

    The title’s owner Dr Patrick Soon-Shiong said the cuts were necessary because it could “no longer lose $30 million to $40 million a year without making progress toward building higher readership that would bring in advertising and subscriptions to sustain the organization”, the newspaper reported.

    The Washington bureau, photography and sports departments and video unit were particularly hard-hit, it added.

    Soon-Shiong has owned the Times for almost six years, after buying it from Tribune Publishing along with the San Diego Union-Tribune for $500m.

    It came just six months after Los Angeles Times cut 74 roles in the newsroom, or about 13%.

    Mediahuis Ireland – Around 50 people

    Mediahuis Ireland is seeking voluntary redundancies with the aim of cutting costs by €4m annually. Compulsory redundancies could follow if there is not enough staff uptake.

    The publisher of newspaper titles including the Irish Independent, Sunday World and Belfast Telegraph, as well as regionals such as The Kerryman and Wexford Times told staff on Tuesday 23 January it was seeking to reduce headcount by around 10%.

    Around 549 people work for Mediahuis Ireland – 338 in journalism roles and 211 in areas like technology, HR and finance, according to the Irish Independent. Around 50 jobs are therefore expected to go, with 30 in editorial.

    Chief executive Peter Vandermeersch told staff: “I am convinced that our strategy is the right one: to restructure our business to make this a leaner, more streamlined news organisation with the most efficient processes and systems possible, while continuing to produce the highest quality journalism and diversifying our revenues to build a sustainable future for our company.”

    It comes less than a year after a previous round of voluntary redundancies. Its current headcount is already down by about 35% from when Mediahuis bought Irish news publisher Independent News and Media in 2019.

    Sports Illustrated – Most, if not all, staff

    Most, if not all, of Sports Illustrated’s staff were laid off after the publisher’s failure to pay a licensing fee saw the licence revoked.

    The exact numbers of job losses are unclear but it was a heavy hit to the 70-year-old magazine. The Sports Illustrated Union said it had been told of plans to lay off “a significant number, possibly all”, of its members, who work in editorial, on Friday 19 January. According to NPR, the union represented 82 Sports Illustrated employees, or 80% of staff.

    Sports Illustrated owner Authentic Brands Group said it had ended its licensing agreement with The Arena Group, with Front Office Sports reporting this was because Arena missed a $3.75m payment three weeks earlier.

    Authentic Brands Group bought Sports Illustrated’s IP for $110m in 2019 and soon began licensing it to Arena in a ten-year deal.

    Union members were reportedly given 90 days’ notice, during which time there is a chance the licensing deal is resolved, but non-union members were let go with immediate effect.

    Update: Minute Media, which took over publishing Sports Illustrated in March, reportedly hired back more than 90% of editorial employees who worked for it under The Arena Group.

    Design Week – Three people

    Centaur Media closed Design Week on 19 January. Three editorial roles were lost as a result.

    The 38-year-old online magazine told readers that Centaur was shifting strategy to its “core audience of marketers, and focuses on training, information, and intelligence”. It had closed in print in 2011.

    Pitchfork – At least 12 people

    Conde Nast folded the operation of music website Pitchfork into men’s title GQ, with chief content officer Anna Wintour saying: “This decision was made after a careful evaluation of Pitchfork’s performance and what we believe is the best path forward for the brand so that our coverage of music can continue to thrive within the company.”

    Pitchfork editor-in-chief Puja Patel left the company as a result on Tuesday 17 January, along with at least 11 other employees according to AP which reported that ten of those were journalists, leaving an editorial staff of eight.

    Pitchfork, which launched in 1996, had been owned by Conde Nast since 2015.

    Univision – Around 200 people

    Televisa Univision cut around 200 jobs at Univision, a Hispanic network broadcaster in the US, on Wednesday 17 January.

    The company said in a statement: “The evolution of the media landscape has required us to implement efficiencies and cost-cutting measures to meet existing demands and in turn, strengthen our business for the future. As a result, Televisa Univision has made the difficult decision to eliminate a small number of positions in the US across various business units.”

    Cuts affected on-air personalities in news and sport as well as roles in departments like production, sports, digital, and communications.

    NBC News – 50 to 100 people

    Around 50 to 100 people were laid off at NBC News on Thursday 11 January, with a 60-day notice period and severance packages.

    NBC News and its news channel MSNBC made a similar round of redundancies a year ago in January 2023, with about 75 people affected.

    The Messenger – Around 24 people

    Digital news start-up The Messenger, which was launched by former owner of The Hill Jimmy Finkelstein in May last year, cut about two dozen jobs at the start of the year.

    The New York Times said it was a cost-cutting measure as a result of dwindling cash reserves, blamed on a difficult advertising market.

    Major journalism launches/new job roles in 2024

    The Lever – Nine people – April

    US reader-supported investigative news outlet The Lever has expanded with the addition of nine journalists.

    It began life as a two-person newsletter in April 2020 and now has a team of 19.

    Managing editor Joel Warner said: “We’re thrilled that our reader-supported news outlet continues to grow and to attract high-caliber journalism talent that is breaking open huge stories week after week.

    “This is a difficult time for the media industry, but our subscribership and our commitment to accountability journalism are making this expansion possible.”

    The new additions include a senior investigative reporter, senior enterprise reporter, three general reporters, a senior podcast producer, a contributing news designer, a social media and marketing producer, and an editorial fellow.

    The Digital Frontier – 20 people – February

    A new technology newsbrand, The Digital Frontier, is launching in London with a 20-strong team, of which nine are editorial roles producing a website, twice-weekly podcast and daily newsletter.

    Let’s not forget that the progressive watchdog journalism organization Media Matters has cut over a dozen staffers. The nonprofit is scheduled for a trial in April 2025 over its questionable research highlighting antisemitic and pro-Nazi content on X. 

    The leftist mass media die-off is happening as American’s trust in corporate media plummets. X is fracturing the corporate media industrial complex.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 06/18/2024 – 19:00

  • Anger & Signs Of Rebellion Among Egyptian Troops As Sisi Remains Silent On Gaza
    Anger & Signs Of Rebellion Among Egyptian Troops As Sisi Remains Silent On Gaza

    Via Middle East Eye

    Since the Israeli onslaught on neighboring Gaza following the Oct.7 Hamas attack, Egyptian soldier Mohamed Omar* has felt helpless. Omar, 23, has served as a patrolling officer in Egypt’s North Sinai, along the border with Gaza’s Rafah, over the past year. The region is part of a demilitarized zone according to security pacts between Egypt and Israel, and only soldiers with light weapons are allowed to be deployed there.

    “It is painful to know that you can help, but you are shackled and cannot help rescue your people from being slaughtered,” he told Middle East Eye while on leave in Port Said, a destination for soldiers to rest before heading off to their units in North Sinai. “We’ve been watching and hearing how intense the Israeli bombing in Rafah is, and we see dozens of Palestinian families passing by the borders.”

    Egyptian special forces soldiers deploy near the border with the Gaza Strip on 20 October 2023, via AFP

    Israel’s war in Gaza has so far reportedly killed more than 37,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children – Gaza’s Health Ministry says. Egypt, an ally of Israel since their 1979 peace agreement, has maintained a largely non-confrontational stance towards Israel since the beginning of hostilities in October, even after the Israeli army’s seizure of the strategic Rafah crossing with Egypt in May and the deaths of at least two soldiers in armed clashes with Israeli soldiers earlier this month.

    “We train day and night, and repeat marching chants against the Zionist enemy, and we hear dedicated newsletters bragging about how ready the military is, but when this enemy is killing thousands of our brothers, we sit idle,” Omar told MEE.

    Middle East Eye has met five Egyptian soldiers, including Omar, most of whom have demonstrated their dissatisfaction with the way the government is dealing with the war in Gaza and with the killing of their comrades on the border with Israel.

    The young soldier considers himself and his colleagues “elite fighters” trained to withstand harsh conditions and fight sophisticated targets. His unit, he added, has been reinforced by more elite and well-trained units from the counterterrorism division in North and Central Sinai since October.

    Omar lost two comrades in clashes with Israeli soldiers earlier this month, but their deaths have had little recognition by the Egyptian army, including its senior leadership and President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, he said.

    Amid silence from Egyptian authorities, two soldiers from Faiyum were laid to rest in their hometowns last month after dying in clashes with Israeli forces near the Rafah border. The two soldiers have been identified as Abdallah Ramadan and Ibrahim Islam Abdelrazzaq, who were both 22 years old.

    Despite widespread sympathy for the slain soldiers, they have not received a military funeral or any high-level recognition, and state-linked media have not reported on their deaths.  

    Omar said morale in his unit is low because of the killing of his comrade Abdallah Ramadan. Omar serves in a different platoon than the one Ramadan served in, but he said the response of the government was disrespectful. “How come the martyr Ramadan was not honored and his name was not mentioned, and there were no high ranks at his funeral?” asked Omar.

    “When the lowest-ranking police conscript gets killed in a car accident, they get a military funeral, and Ramadan, who fought the Zionists, gets buried secretly. What a shame!” he added.

    ‘My blood will go in vain’

    Omar said his superiors tried to calm them down after the death of Ramadan, explaining that “the enemy is trying to drag us into this to justify the killing of Palestinians and to use this as propaganda to tell the world Israel is being attacked from all sides”.

    Similar reasons were also cited to the unit where Ahmed Tawfik*, 24, is serving in the mechanized infantry in Ismailia. “The moral affairs officer told us that Egypt is pushing a ceasefire, but the Netanyahu government wants to push Egypt into a war so it continues its aggression on the Arabs and Muslims.”

    Both Tawfik and Omar are concerned that if they die in action during the current diplomatically complicated situation, their deaths will be for nothing. “I am concerned that if I get martyred, my blood will go in vain. Ramadan died and not a single bullet was fired to defend him.”

    A funeral prayer held for Egyptian soldier Ibrahim Islam Abdelrazzaq in Sanhour village in Faiyum, 29 May 2024 (MEE/Sahl Abdelrahman)

    Tawfik said that morale in his unit is low as soldiers have similar fears. “The only thought that makes these men withstand the [compulsory] service is the possibility that they will die as martyrs or that they will die for their homeland,” he said.

    “If the government continues to be apathetic, the soldiers will not be able to restrain themselves from firing at the enemy like the martyr Mohamed Salah,” Tawfik added.

    Last June, Mohamed Salah, a 23-year-old Egyptian police conscript, killed three Israeli soldiers and wounded two others. He was later gunned down by Israeli forces.

    However, Mostafa Marwan*, 25, a medic in Sinai, who is in his final months of service, said he is praying that Egypt does not go to war. “The thousands of conscripts you see … on TV in military parades, they are not the ones who are going to fight. There are thousands of soldiers who do not know how to shoot, or to take care of a wounded fellow soldier.”

    Marwan said these conscripts are trained for only 45 days in basic camp and carry weapons that have been stored since the time of the Soviet Union. “What are they going to do in the face of a military that is supported by the strongest and most sophisticated military in the world?” the young medic said, referring to US backing for Israel. “I am not a traitor, but one has to be realistic.”

    Marwan added that as a military medic he only has basic equipment even though he is a surgeon, and that his superiors are abusive and corrupt. “There are many ways to aid Palestinians, but the Egyptian military going to war is not the answer,” he said. “I am not surprised that the blood of the men on the front was cheap, but that is the result when all Egyptian blood became cheap.”

    ‘Forced to serve’

    While Marwan is anti-war because of the unreadiness of the military, Tamer Samir*, who serves in Cairo in an air defense platoon, believes that Egypt should intervene to help Palestinians, but that he should not be in that military.

    According to the Egyptian constitution, men aged 18 to 30 must serve in the military for at least 18 months, followed by a nine-year obligation to serve if called up for duty.

    Having graduated from an international private university and coming from a well-off family, the 22-year-old Samir believes his conscription does not make sense. “Individuals like me who had the chance to be well educated and know languages should not be forced to serve and fight because we can help develop the country in other ways such as business or economics.”

    Through a powerful connection, Samir’s family was able to secure the calmer posting, where he can go home every night, and only do administrative work. “I don’t really know much about war and politics, but I am looking forward to finishing my service.”

    Like Samir, a lot of Egyptians seek connections either to skip or postpone conscription, or to get their service in big cities or in the administrative or business branches of the armed forces. The result leaves many underprivileged individuals and poorly educated young men on the front, on borders, or head to head with extremist militants.

    “On the frontlines and on the border, you will find only soldiers from poor backgrounds – sons of farmers, workers, fishermen, and impoverished people,” Megahed Nassar*, a counterterrorism soldier in Sheikh Zuwied, who came to Faiyum to attend the funeral of Ramadan, told MEE. 

    “Abdallah Ramadan, Ibrahim Abdelrazzaq, Mohamed Salah, are all sons of poor people, and they paid their lives for the nation, and the government did not pull a finger to fight for their rights or even to defend them,” said Nassar, who is also from Faiyum.

    “Most conscripts are forced to serve, are poor, have no other alternative, and do not have a connection. They go to Sinai and either fight the Israelis or the extremist militants.”

    *Names changed for security reasons.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 06/18/2024 – 18:40

  • Are Pump-Prices About To Surge Again? API Reports Gasoline Inventory Draw
    Are Pump-Prices About To Surge Again? API Reports Gasoline Inventory Draw

    Oil prices rallied for the second straight day, reaching their highest since April, on “price-supportive rhetoric” from the OPEC and its allies, said Tyler Richey, co-editor at Sevens Report Research.

    The initial “knee-jerk selloff” reaction to the June 2 decision by OPEC+ to phase out voluntary oil-production cuts after the third quarter was “largely reversed and seen as overdone,” Richey told MarketWatch.

    OPEC+ leadership “confirmed that they will remain flexible and only reduce their voluntary output cuts if market conditions warranted, and clarified increasing production is not necessarily a base-case expectation right now,” he said.

    “Evidence of strong domestic demand at the start of the U.S. summer driving season, rising geopolitical tensions overseas and renewed hopes for a perfectly executed [economic] soft landing” by the Federal Reserve have also contributed to oil’s price rebound, Richey said.

    Tonight’s API data is all we have to go on until Thursday (since tomorrow is a market holiday)

    API

    • Crude +2.26mm

    • Cushing +524k

    • Gasoline -1.08mm

    • Distillates +538k

    Crude stocks rose for the third straight week while Gasoline stocks drew down for the first time in four weeks…

    Source: Bloomberg

    WTI traded marginally higher this evening after the API data…

    WTI broke above all of the major technical levels this week…

    Source: Bloomberg

    Geopolitics “returned as a meaningful influence on the markets in recent weeks, as there has been a resurgence in ship attacks in the Red Sea related to the ongoing Israel-Hamas/Hezbollah conflict,” Richey said. Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian oil and energy infrastructure resumed this week, with a strike at a refined-product terminal in Azov resulting in an explosion and sizeable fire at the facility, he said.

    Sentiment in the oil market, however, is “fragile,” Richey said. “If we see any headlines that contradict any of those factors that have supported the latest rally, or even just an uptick in broad market volatility into the end of the quarter, we could see oil markets correct back towards the mid $70 a barrel range.”

    Finally, we note that the disinflation that has buoyed hopes for The Fed’s first rate-cut, and helped Biden out, may be about to abruptly stall…

    Source: Bloomberg

    Of course, we are sure mom-and-pop gas station owners will be blamed though if prices do rise again!

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 06/18/2024 – 18:20

  • On The Edge Of The Programmable Ledger: CBDCs
    On The Edge Of The Programmable Ledger: CBDCs

    Authored by J.R. Bruning via The Brownstone Institute,

    New Zealand’s central bank, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ), has opened a consultation on central bank digital currencies (CBDCs).

    This is the second of four stages.

    RBNZ considers that Stage Three will involve the development of prototypes and will be completed between 2028-2029.

    Then, in around 2030, they ‘would introduce digital cash to Aotearoa New Zealand.’

    The language the RBNZ uses, from the rhetoric around risk to the so-called benefits of CBDCs, mimics the language and concerns of the global banking, finance, and technology (Fintech) industry and management consultancy interests. 

    There doesn’t seem to be a role for Parliament to debate whether or not New Zealand’s central bank should even enter the retail currency market. 

    It seems that the financial markets regulator, the regulator of retail banks, presumes that it can grant itself powers to enter the very market it is supposed to regulate, the retail banking market. 

    New Zealand’s central bank is somewhat unusual in that it is charged with broader powers than most central banks. Following a major International Monetary Fund (IMF) review, the RBNZ experienced its greatest transformation process in forty years. 

    The RBNZ is not only responsible for monetary policy, the central bank is the financial markets regulator – responsible for oversight of the financial system and prudential regulation of banks, deposit-takers, and insurance companies. The RBNZ can now decide if a financial institution is too big to fail (systemically important).

    Recently, the RBNZ engaged in large-scale asset purchases, which resulted in billion-dollar losses and appeared to primarily benefit foreign-owned banks.

    The impact of a too-big-to-fail (systemically important) central bank entering the retail environment? This is not the only problem. 

    Major risks revolve around the known interoperability of CBDCs and digital identity (ID) technologies and the programmability potential of CBDC payments.

    RBNZ may be downplaying the tech architecture’s potential, but their business partner Accenture underscores the fact that world-leading CBDC capability will maximise ‘synergies with other national digital initiatives, such as Digital ID, CDR 78 and Real Time Payments through inter-operability.’

    Unlike bank digital currencies in your account today, central bank digital currencies are programmable. Self-executing applications called smart contracts enable payments to be programmed. These smart contracts can be combined, or bundled together on central bank ledgers, a capability known as composability. Smart contracts can be deployed remotely or directly, and third parties can issue directions using programmable three-party locks. 

    This is one thing in a consenting commercial environment. The same capabilities in a government declaring an emergency or crisis and demanding public compliance? What could go wrong?

    Not only are CBDCs programmable and combinable, but the long game involves a plan to interconnect central banks and the Bank of International Settlements so that they will network via a unified ledger.

    When we think about risk, we can’t just think short-term; the tech’s capability in the future must be assessed, and reckoned with, on a global scale. 

    We can’t presume that consumers can either choose or not choose to use CBDCs. Digital IDs will be required for CBDCs, and people must submit to an iris scan, which contains biometric information. Digital IDs are increasingly required to access New Zealand government jobs, services, and funding opportunities. The agencies involved are electing to ignore the fact that drivers’ licenses and passports in New Zealand historically have a low rate of fraud. 

    There is reason to suspect that CBDCs will involve a similar strategic creep.

    The government could regulate that government wages, salaries, or funding opportunities are paid by CBDCs in a similar fashion, ultimately giving people little choice. 

    A recently released discussion paper by the Physicians and Scientists for Global Responsibility New Zealand (PSGRNZ) looks at the New Zealand consultation and the history of policy development by these big global fintech-facing industries. It reveals how no one is considering how these interoperable technologies may represent a potential threat to civil, constitutional, and human rights. From the RBNZ, through government agencies, human rights, and public law experts, New Zealand is silent. 

    ‘Digital government’ is so important in New Zealand that our Attorney General has been equipped with an astonishing and unprecedented plethora of digitising government, intelligence, and surveillance-related portfolios. The potential for Digital ID-CBDC tech, forever connected to the biometric data contained in our iris, to impact rights and freedoms, is unlikely to be addressed by New Zealand’s digital-facing Attorney General. 

    PSGRNZ believe that there are four major risks that must be addressed that the RBNZ is gliding over.

    • First, digital IDs coupled to central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) enhance all-of-government oversight over private activity. Therefore, privacy issues encompass government surveillance, including through backdoor access points, rather than exclusively concerning commercial environments.

    • Second, CBDCs will be transferred electronically using pre-programmable smart contracts. Smart contracts hold the potential to incentivise or disincentivise behaviour through the tethering of activities to access CBDC. Global banking white papers indicate that they will be used to achieve larger policy objectives. The Fintech industry will contract to governments to support the design and control of the digital infrastructure and smart contracts. 

    • The potential for erosion of government oversight is a third concern. Central banks are accountable to sovereign democratic governments. Conventional money creation through the budgetary process arises through processes of negotiation between elected officials, agency heads, and their staff and public lobbying. Private bank money creation through loans is a consequence of political and economic decision-making. Reserve bank power to create or release CBDCs would be at arm’s length from these processes and remain largely confidential or secret in nature.

    • Finally, there is a risk of increased oversight and delegation of the production of strategy, policy, and rules to the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) International Monetary Fund (IMF). This might occur through global harmonisation and ‘best practice’ arrangements while undermining the power of democratic governments. These institutions lead global policy on CBDCs, working closely with the Fintech sector. These institutions are neatly situated to take advantage of such a delegation of powers, and the opportunities presented by unified, networked central bank ledgers at a global scale.

    The broader concerns of members of Parliament, public law experts, and citizens, what might happen when digital government oversight becomes networked across the whole of government is not in scope.

    The act of questioning whether these interoperable, panopticon-like technologies might be contrary to the public interest, is also – not in scope.  

    We also highlight extensive evidence of industry capture in our paper.

    It’s a tale as old as time.

    A new technology becomes possible, and the merchants form trade associations and nurture relationships with government actors to ensure maximum takeup and friendly regulation in the service of nation, empire, and the economy. From the 14th-century livery suppliers in the City of London to the 21st-century Fintech and banking consortiums that provide the skills and services to enable the interoperable digital infrastructure and harness the potential of digital ID and CBDCs, it’s all about strategy, service, and sales. 

    Because, of course, when you think about livery, you think about saddles, bridles, and reins and a flag or two. When you think about central bank currency, you imagine how good it might be. Everyone can access government money (universal basic income – UBIs), and how CBDCs could come as interest-free loans for the little guy.

    But the livery suppliers also supplied weapons, not only for offshore conquests but to halt local rebellions.

    The double-edged sword problem similarly presents itself with CBDCs. But our 21st-century silicon-based tech dilemma is vastly different from slowly forged weapons. 

    It’s a classic industry technique to shrink the issue of risk around a new technology to focus on one discrete component. Meanwhile, the industry developers, from their research and development to their communications and investment strategies, are in no doubt that that discrete piece is nothing without the other puzzle pieces. Whether the end product is a patented formulation or a digital infrastructure, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

    As an example of this, government regulatory agencies have for decades insisted that the toxicity of Roundup herbicide revolved around the active ingredient glyphosate. The Roundup trials shed light on industry knowledge that the retail formulation was much more toxic. Similarly, mRNA gene therapies require that a lipid nanoparticle encapsulates the genetic instructions, thereby enabling the genetic instructions to be transported into cells unrecognised. In both these examples, genotoxicity and carcinogenicity testing for the commercial formulation was never required. The writing out of the intended effect of the combined technologies is masterful, really.

    Industries work tirelessly to shape risk framing and regulation to ensure that a toxic ‘sum’ is not recognised. Regulators and government agencies lean on their technical expertise and prioritise industry literature, including unpublished, confidential industry data, while refraining from reviewing public scientific literature that is outside study guidelines. This is not just luck. It’s the result of years of tactical negotiation with industry experts. We also saw this with Roundup and Covid-19 injections.

    So it is ‘natural,’ if we look at the RBNZ’s white papers relating to the benefits of CBDCs, that the networked power of interoperable tech infrastructure would be out of the picture. 

    When it comes to the benefits of CBDCs, the RBNZ thinks like the industries that have captured it. 

    Regulatory capture is much more than the classic definition, where ‘regulation is acquired by the industry and is designed and operated primarily for its benefit.’ 

    Our understanding of regulatory capture has expanded significantly beyond the revolving door problem. When it comes to highly specialised science and technology sectors, industry experts can lead, control, and shape policy design. Expertise and information have arrived for years via white papers, industry workshops, briefings, global conferences, consensus statements, media coverage, lobbying, and networking. Industry-led principles and values then shape domestically-produced white papers and policies. Government risk assessment and policy papers then reflect industry language and framing. The net effect is that the domestic laws and guidelines are perfectly acceptable to the regulated industries and their global colleagues. 

    This then influences public sector knowledge and shapes how policy is designed, corralling laws and regulations to achieve certain aims. Saltelli et al (2022) describes this as cognitive or cultural capture, with the effect that regulators think like the industry they are charged with regulating.

    Government agencies also hire billion-dollar management consultancies to help formulate and deploy strategies. Yet these very same consultancies have been on the ground from the get-go, working with global banking and fintech, writing white papers, establishing industry conferences, and attending global conferences, for years. The role of the consultants in this is a neat piece of the puzzle. 

    Billion-dollar management consultancy Accenture has been hired to help the RBNZ with their CBDC campaign. Accenture’s key partners are the biggest corporations in the world. Accenture has been working on Digital IDs with global bankers and Fintech for decades, fully aware that Digital IDs will be integral for access to CBDCs. Accenture is fully aware of the interoperability of Digital IDs and CBDC and their RBNZ dossier discloses this.

    It’s no wonder that the New Zealand public aren’t invited to accept or reject CBDCs. The RBNZ consultation merely invites the public to share their opinions on a small range of issues that exclusively concern CBDCs. 

    To date, all the RBNZ CBDC-related information is exclusively supplied by the agency with a massive political and financial conflict of interest.

    The RBNZ claims that trials and protocols will be developed over the coming 4 years, with CBDCs being released in 2030.

    Our white paper recommends a different track. We consider that for the next six years (two election cycles) no public trials will be held, and that we instead carefully observe the impact in other jurisdictions. This includes impacts across the political and democratic landscape and impacts on civil, constitutional, and human rights in early adopting countries. Then, only after 2030, either a parliamentary or public vote would be held to give the RBNZ the permission to release retail CBDCs. 

    Central banks should not be permitted to decide their own destiny. 

    PSGRNZ believe it is critical to step back from the brink and consider that the risks are not black and white, but nebulous and difficult to anticipate. Yet the risks may be so considerable that they hold potential to erode civil, constitutional, and human rights. In such an environment the RBNZ is not well placed to consider risks, when the conflicts of interest – their potential expansion of powers – are so extraordinary. 

    At the moment, the silence of New Zealand’s political, legal, and governance scholars is deafening. And yes, after publishing this paper PSGRNZ sent it to all the academic experts we could identify who had expertise in administrative, constitutional, and/or human rights law, across New Zealand’s five law schools. No one has as yet responded.

    In finishing, let’s consider a quote from New Zealand’s University of Victoria Institute for Governance and Policy Studies:

    Safeguarding long-term interests, however, is not easy. There are strong political incentives in democratic systems for policy-makers to prioritise short-term interests over those of future generations. Powerful vested interests often hinder prudent economic or environmental stewardship. Governments must also grapple with deep uncertainty, policy complexity and multiple intra-generational and intergenerational trade-offs. Given such challenges, determining how best to govern for the future is not straightforward; nor is assessing the quality of such governance.

    *  *  *

    PSGRNZ (2024) Stepping Back from the Brink: The Programmable Ledger. Four democratic risks that arise when Digital IDs are coupled to Central Bank Digital Currencies. Bruning, J.R., Physicians & Scientists for Global Responsibility New Zealand. ISBN 978-0-473-71618-9.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 06/18/2024 – 18:00

  • Netanyahu Rips Biden: 'Inconceivable' That US Weapons Were Ever Halted
    Netanyahu Rips Biden: ‘Inconceivable’ That US Weapons Were Ever Halted

    Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has accused the Biden administration of withholding weapons transfers to Israel, in violation of stated promises that Washington would remove all restrictions on arms deliveries.

    Netanyahu revealed this during a video address discussing meetings with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken days ago during his trip to Israel. Netanyahu further addressed international media reports on the US throttling weapons deliveries as punishment for mass civilian atrocities and alleged war crimes in Gaza.

    “When Secretary Blinken was recently here in Israel,” began the Israeli leader in an English-language video, “we had a candid conversation, I said I deeply appreciated the support the US has given Israel from the beginning of the war.”

    “But I also said something else, I said it’s inconceivable that in the past few months, the administration has been withholding weapons and ammunitions to Israel,” he continued, publicly airing his obvious frustration with President Biden.

    GPO/Times of Israel

    “Secretary Blinken assured me that the administration is working day and night to remove these bottlenecks,” he added. “I certainly hope that’s the case. It should be the case.”

    Netanyahu further advanced an argument recently used by Ukraine’s Zelensky. He said Israel must urgently be provided with more and more American weapons as only then could the war could be brought to a more rapid close.

    “During World War II, [UK leader Winston] Churchill told the United States, ‘Give us the tools, we’ll do the job,'” said Netanyahu. “And I say, give us the tools and we’ll finish the job a lot faster.”

    Meanwhile, despite reports that US has slowed its deliveries, more major arms packages for Israel are making their way through Congress, as The Washington Post reports:

    Two key Democratic holdouts in the House and Senate signed off on a major arms sale to Israel, including 50 F-15 fighter jets worth more than $18 billion, after facing intense pressure from the Biden administration and pro-Israel advocates to allow the transaction to move forward, said three U.S. officials familiar with the matter.

    Rep. Gregory Meeks, who importantly is the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, has been among those hold-outs who earlier demanded assurances from President Biden that Israel won’t use US weapons to commit war crimes or civilian killings.

    “I don’t want the kinds of weapons that Israel has to be utilized to have more deaths,” Meeks said in April. “I want to make sure that humanitarian aid gets in. I don’t want people starving to death, and I want Hamas to release the hostages. And I want a two-state solution.”

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    One of the arguments made by proponents of new arms deals with Israel is that more advanced, sophisticated weaponry makes for better targeting and thus reduces the likelihood of mass civilian deaths.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 06/18/2024 – 17:40

  • We Approach 'State' Singularity
    We Approach ‘State’ Singularity

    Authored by Bruce Pardy via The Brownstone Institute,

    Many citizens of the West believe that they live in free societies, or something close…

    But as time goes on, public authorities increasingly insist on having a say in everything…

    People cannot build things on their own land without permits. They cannot run businesses without approvals and inspections. They cannot give advice without professional designations. They cannot educate their children outside of state-mandated curricula. They cannot hire employees without triggering a myriad of workplace and tax requirements. They cannot produce and sell milk, cheese, or eggs without a license. They cannot earn money, spend money, or hold property without being taxed, and then taxed again. 

    Jeffrey Tucker recently described three layers of omnipotent managerial technocracy. 

    • The deep state, he suggested, consists of powerful and secretive central government agencies in the security, intelligence, law enforcement, and financial sectors. 

    • The middle state is a myriad of ubiquitous administrative bodies – agencies, regulators, commissions, departments, municipalities, and many more – run by a permanent bureaucracy. 

    • The shallow state is a plethora of consumer-facing private or semi-private corporations, including banks, Big Media, and huge commercial retail companies, which governments support, protect, subsidize, and pervert. The three layers work together. 

    For instance, in the financial sector, as Tucker illustrates, the deep state’s Federal Reserve pulls the powerful strings, the middle state’s financial and monetary regulators enforce myriad rules and policies, and the shallow state’s “private” titans like BlackRock and Goldman Sachs dominate commercial activity. It’s a system, Tucker writes, “designed to be impenetrable, permanent, and ever more invasive.” 

    We are approaching state singularity: the moment when state and society become indistinguishable. 

    In physics, a “singularity” is a single point in space-time. Inside black holes, gravity crushes volume to zero and mass density is infinite. In computer science, “technological singularity” is unitary artificial superintelligence. At the singularity, everything becomes one thing. Data points converge. Normal laws do not apply. 

    At state singularity, the state becomes society and society is a product of the state.

    Legal norms and expectations become irrelevant. The state’s mandate is to do as it judges best – since everything and everyone are expressions of its vision. Powers are not separated between the state’s branches – the legislature, the executive, the bureaucracy, and the courts. Instead, they all do whatever they deem necessary. The bureaucracy legislates. Courts develop policy. Legislatures conduct hearings and prosecute cases. Government agencies change policies at will. The rule of law may be acknowledged as important in principle while it is rejected in practice.

    State singularity is the ultimate collectivism. It resembles old-style fascism and communism, but it is neither. Fascist states enforce an idea, often nationalist in sentiment (“The motherland for the superior race”), and recruit private actors, especially corporations, to the cause. Communist regimes champion the working class and outlaw private property (“Workers of the world unite”). Singularity, in contrast, is not propelled by an idea other than singularity itself. To justify its own hegemony, the state champions a variety of other causes. In the modern era, social justice, climate change, transgender rights, feminism, economic reform, and many more have served to extend the state’s reach. Problems are rarely solved, but that is not the reason for taking them up.

    State singularity develops gradually and insidiously. Whereas fascist, communist, and other centralized power regimes often result from deliberate political revolution, in the West omnipotent managerial technocracy has grown, spread, and infiltrated the nooks and crannies of social life without sudden political upheaval. Like a form of institutional Darwinism, public agencies, no matter their formal purpose, seek to persist, expand, and reproduce. 

    At the singularity, all solutions to all problems lie with government in its various forms. More, never less, programs, rules, initiatives, and structures are the answer. Like black holes, state singularities absorb and crush every other thing. Corporations serve state interests and participate in managing the economy. Singularities destroy voluntary community organizations by occupying the space and placing obstacles in the way. Both the left and the right seek to harness state power to craft society in their image. 

    In a singularity, one cannot propose to eliminate government. Doing so would be contrary to prevailing ideology and vested interests, but more fundamentally, the idea would be incomprehensible.

    And not just to officials. Citizens dissatisfied with the services they receive want more service and better policy. When schools sexualize their children, they demand changes to the curriculum instead of the end of public schools. When monetary policy makes houses expensive, they demand government programs to make them cheap instead of the end of central banks. When government procurement is revealed to be corrupt, they demand accountability mechanisms instead of a smaller government. State singularity is found not just in the structures of government but in the minds of the people. 

    Modern states have capacities they have never had before. Technological advances are providing them with the ability to monitor spaces, supervise activities, collect information, and require compliance everywhere all the time. In the collectivist regimes of old, governments knew only what human eyes and ears could tell them. Soviet authorities were tyrannical, but they could not instantaneously monitor your cell phone, bank account, fridge, car, medications, and speech.

    We are not at the singularity yet. But have we crossed the event horizon? At a black hole, the event horizon is the point of no return. Gravity becomes irresistible. No matter or energy, including light, can escape the pull to the singularity at the core of the abyss. 

    Our event horizon beckons. We cannot evade it by merely slowing down on the path that we are on. Liberation requires escape velocity in the other direction.  

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 06/18/2024 – 17:20

  • Apple Reportedly Halts Work On Vision Pro 2, Focuses On Cheaper Version As Demand Falters 
    Apple Reportedly Halts Work On Vision Pro 2, Focuses On Cheaper Version As Demand Falters 

    What was Apple CEO Tim Cook thinking?

    Releasing the Vision Pro headset earlier this year for the price tag of $3,899 (for a 1TB version) in a period where Goldman, including ourselves, has shown the American middle class has quickly deteriorated under Bidenomics – was likely a terrible idea. 

    Perhaps Cook has since gotten the memo amid slumping demand, as a new report from The Information suggests Apple suspended work on the second-generation Vision Pro and diverted efforts to focus on a cheaper version.

    Apple has told at least one supplier that it has suspended work on its next high-end Vision headset, an employee at a manufacturer that makes key components for the Vision Pro said. The pullback comes as analysts and supply chain partners have flagged slowing sales of the $3,500 device.

    The company is still working on releasing a more affordable Vision product with fewer features before the end of 2025, the person involved in its supply chain and a person involved in the manufacturing of the headsets said. Apple originally planned to divide its Vision line into two models, similar to the standard and Pro versions of the iPhone, according to people involved in its supply chain and former Apple employees who…

    One Vision Pro supplier allegedly slashed production by 50% in May after receiving a dismal demand outlook from Apple. The report also said that Apple has likely produced less than half a million units, with no further plans to ramp up production through August.

    If the report is accurate, it underscores how Apple mispriced the Vision Pro – and even with BNPL loans – consumers still didn’t bite.

    This is not entirely surprising, as Ming-Chi Kuo, an analyst at TF International Securities, recently noted a downward revision in Apple’s sales expectations, from a ‘market consensus’ of 700k to 800k units to a more modest 400k to 450k units in 2024.

    Google searches of “Vision Pro” show the headsets appear to be just a fad. 

    Here’s what X users are saying about the report…

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    So, how much will a ‘more affordable’ Vision Pro cost? 

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 06/18/2024 – 16:40

  • The Glue Binding Democracy And A Free Economy Has Melted
    The Glue Binding Democracy And A Free Economy Has Melted

    Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

    And that’s how democracy and a free economy die…

    An astute reader asked me to clarify the difference between individual sacrifice and shared sacrifice in the context of the Common Good, which as he rightly noted, dictatorships use as the justification for oppressive enforcement of a regime that benefits the few at the expense of the many.

    In a democracy with a free economy, the Common Good is the responsibility of the citizenry, not a dictatorship. In the current zeitgeist, the Invisible Hand of free markets is understood as a magical force that automatically generates the Common Good out of the churn of everyone aiming to get rich or die trying.

    In other words, the Common Good is somebody else’s responsibility: there’s no need for shared sacrifices, the economy and society take care of themselves as we all get rich or die trying.

    This isn’t how a society actually works. Somebody has to mind the store of social capital that enables us to focus our energy on individual sacrifices made on our own behalf.

    The single-minded pursuit of greed does not magically organize the economy or society to serve everyone’s interests equally. As Adam Smith explained, capitalism and the social order both require a moral foundation, which in a free society takes the form of civic virtue: it is the responsibility of every citizen who is able to contribute to the social capital that serves us all to do so not in response to an oppressive state but of their own free will.

    The Founding Fathers understood this and feared the decay of civic virtue as a threat to democracy. This was one reason why many of those active in the early decades of the American Experiment favored restricting voting to the class of citizenry who had the biggest stake in maintaining the nation’s stock of social capital: the landed / commercial elites.

    Commentators such as Christopher Lasch have described the steady erosion of civic virtue and the nation’s stock of social capital since the 1970s. Lasch and fellow critics across the ideological spectrum understood that civic virtue is the glue that binds democracy and a free economy: once civic virtue and the responsibility to contribute to the nation’s social capital are gone, both democracy and the free economy enter terminal decline.

    Social capital, civic virtue and the Common Good are not easily defined or measured. They cannot be reduced to numbers like GDP. This confuses ideological purists, left and right, as social capital, civic virtue and the Common Good cannot be distilled down to simplistic ideological formulations.

    This is why Lasch’s work cannot be pinned down as “left” or “right”: ideologues on both ends of the spectrum find references in his work they agree with. He was addressing issues larger than political or economic ideologies.

    The glue of America’s social order–civic virtue–has melted away, and few have even noticed. The concept of voluntary attention to the common good–an attention that requires shared sacrifice–has been jettisoned as unnecessary: all we need to do is focus on getting rich by any means available.

    This has led to a complete breakdown of the moral foundations Adam Smith identified, and a breakdown of the nation’s shared social capital. If our sole responsibility has shrunken down to getting rich by any means available, then quite naturally we bribe politicians, crush competition to establish cartels and monopolies, degrade the quality of our goods and services to increase profits and addict our customers to rake in steady profits.

    Consider the difference between Old Money and private equity. Private equity slavishly worships at the altar of mobile capital and increasing shareholder value. Private equity assembles mobile capital from the ends of the Earth–Dubai, London, Hong Kong–and swoops in when it detects an asymmetry between the potential market value and the current valuation of an asset.

    Unlike Old Money, which is anchored in a place embedded in a specific culture and social order, private equity has no sense of place or responsibility for contributing to a locale’s social capital. Private equity swoops in, buys the asset, sells off pieces to the highest bidders, reorganizes what’s left, slaps a quick coat of paint on it and then cashes out via a public offering of equity or debt or a private sale.

    The damage done to the local economy, populace and its stock of social capital by this stripmining is of no concern to private equity: get in, maximize profits / gains and then get out, and start circling the planet for the next “opportunity to increase shareholder value.” (Hence the term “vulture capital.”)

    Old Money, rooted in a place and its history, does care about the local economy, populace and its stock of social capital. Yes, Old Money makes money with its money; that is the nature of capital. But Old Money understands that stripmining assets with zero concern for the wreckage left behind does not support either democracy or a free economy that offers a somewhat level playing field to all participants.

    This is why it’s wise to relocate to a place where Old Money still resides and still maintains an active role in maintaining the social capital of their home base. Living in places dominated by the culture and values of private equity is voluntary servitude in a rotting ship without a compass or leadership.

    Old Money keeps an eye on the stock of social capital, and voluntarily engages in using its wealth and influence to preserve or enhance it. Mobile capital flits around the globe, happy to fund a university building here and there to enhance their personal “brand.” They don’t actually care about any place; that’s someone else’s responsibility.

    And that’s how democracy and a free economy die. The glue of civic virtue, of doing the hard part of maintaining the stock of social capital and devoting some care to the common good in this place and in this time–those are somebody else’s responsibility.

    Me, I’m busy: my underlings located an asset just begging to be dismembered, offshored, stripmined, and we’re going to make a killing. Then I’m off to my flat in London, then to my getaway in the South Pacific, and then to a quick meeting in Shanghai. I’m busy making a killing.

    Yes, a killing. What died is democracy and a functional economy of equal opportunity. Once the glue melts away, things fall apart. Welcome to what’s left of the 2020s and the 2030s.

    *  *  *

    Become a $3/month patron of my work via patreon.com.

    Subscribe to my Substack for free

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 06/18/2024 – 16:20

Digest powered by RSS Digest

Jun 18

Today’s News 18th June 2024

  • Live Fire Incident: Casualties Reported After North Korean Soldiers Cross Military Demarcation Line
    Live Fire Incident: Casualties Reported After North Korean Soldiers Cross Military Demarcation Line

    Something big is happening on the heavily militarized Korean border, following several days of soaring tensions which has included North Korea flying hundreds of trash and feces-filled balloons into the south.

    There are several reports of dozens of North Korean soldiers having briefly crossed the border, and soon retreating, after warning shots were fired by South Korean border troops, according to South Korea’s Yonhap news agency.

    Per Reuters, citing Yonhap at about 11:00am local time: “South Korea’s military fired warning shots after North Korean soldiers crossed the Military Demarcation Line near the border, the Yonhap news agency reported on Tuesday citing the country’s Joint Chiefs of Staff.”

    South Korean Marines patrol days ago amid heightened tensions, AP/Yonhap/

    A Yonhap wire has further said “Korea military suffers ‘multiple casualties’ in landmine explosion near border.”

    While details of exactly what is happening are still emerging, this comes one week after a live fire incident occurred along the border. Last Tuesday, South Korean border forces fired warning shots after troops on the other side ‘accidentally’ crossed the border in the south. 

    Here is what happened exactly one week ago:

    “There were no unusual movements other than the North Korean army immediately moving north after our warning shots,” South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff spokesman, Col. Lee Sung-jun, told a briefing.

    He generally downplayed the incident which happened Sunday, and suggested there was no indication the enemy troops were seeking to invade territory.

    “The South Korean military is closely monitoring the movements of the North Korean military and taking necessary measures.”

    If casualties among DPRK troops are confirmed, this could be the start of a major live fire incident between the two historic enemies, also as Kim Jong-Un has been warning he could restart nuclear tests.

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    US state-funded Stripes reported yesterday:

    North Korean troops have been observed creating anti-tank barriers, reinforcing roads and carrying out other military projects within the Demilitarized Zone, according to the South’s military on Monday. South Korean intelligence agencies spotted the improvements near the border in recent days, army Col. Lee Seong-jun, a spokesman for the country’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, said during a news conference Monday.

    Lee declined to elaborate on the North’s activities at the border and said the South’s military was still analyzing its operations. North Korean troops were also observed building walls and roads between the Military Demarcation Line — the actual border between the two Koreas — and the Demilitarized Zone, an unidentified military source said in a Yonhap News report Saturday. The 2½-mile-wide DMZ spans 150 miles across the Korean Peninsula from coast to coast.

    Nuclear saber-rattling has been coming out of Pyongyang since last summer, when the US Navy parked a nuclear submarine in South Korea for the first time in years.

    South Korea’s Ministry of National Defense: North Korean inside the Demilitarized Zone that divides the Korean Peninsula last year.

    Pyongyang has also reportedly deployed extra troops the border amid the escalating tit-for-tat.

    developing…

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/17/2024 – 23:00

  • Hot On The Campaign Fail: Secret Service Agent Robbed, WH Spox Mocked After Biden Propped
    Hot On The Campaign Fail: Secret Service Agent Robbed, WH Spox Mocked After Biden Propped

    This weekend wasn’t great for the Biden campaign – after a viral video showed the president ‘freezing’ on stage during a star-studded ‘weekend at Biden’s’ event in LA, and a Secret Service agent getting robbed at gunpoint that same night. Oh, and then Biden had a nursing home outburst at reporters. And to top it all off, Spox Karine Jean-Pierre wants us to believe recent videos of Biden are deepfakes.

    If we’re to start this out properly, on Thursday, Biden wandered off during a G7 flag ceremony when he was supposed to participate in a group photograph with a bunch of European leaders who just got their clocks cleaned in last week’s election.

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    On Friday, Biden did this to the pope:

    Then on Saturday, Biden froze up on stage during his own fundraiser, requiring an assist from former President Barack Obama.

    That same night a Secret Service agent was robbed at gunpoint in Tustin, California at roughly 9:30 local time, the Tustin PD reported on Monday.

    The agent was able to fire their weapon at the armed robbers, who made off with a bag belonging to the agent, police said.

    “A member of the U.S. Secret Service was the victim of an armed robbery in Tustin, California late Saturday when returning from a work assignment,” Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi told The Post.

    “The employee discharged their service weapon during the incident but unknown if the assailants were struck,” he added. “We are thankful that the employee did not sustain any injuries.” –NY Post

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    Then on Monday, Biden had a complete nursing home outburst at a reporter.

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    In response to the Biden wandering video above, White House Spox Karine Jean Pierre suggested it was a deepfake.

    For which she was mocked:

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    Meanwhile left-wing influencers swear Biden wasn’t corralled off stage by Obama.

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    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/17/2024 – 22:40

  • Israel's Arms Exports Hit Record Sales Amid Gaza War
    Israel’s Arms Exports Hit Record Sales Amid Gaza War

    Via Middle East Eye

    Israel’s defense ministry said in a statement on Monday that its arms exports for 2023 hit a record in sales, as Israel’s war in Gaza enters its ninth month and as the country’s military continues to be supplied with hundreds of millions of dollars in American weapons.

    The report by the defense ministry said that the total exports of Israeli arms reached $13.1bn in 2022, an increase of $500m from the previous year and double the amount of exports from five years ago. More than a third of the sales comprised missiles, rockets and air-defense systems, with one of the biggest contracts of 2023 being with Germany, which signed a deal to purchase the Arrow 3 long-range air defense system for around $4bn.

    A picture shows Israel’s Rafael stand at the Dubai Airshow in the Gulf emirate in 2021, AFP

    “While our industries are primarily focused on providing the defense establishment with the capabilities to support our troops and defend our citizens, they are also continuing to pursue areas of cooperation and exports to international partners,” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said in a statement.

    Roughly half, 48 percent, of all sales went to the Asia and Pacific region, while Europe accounted for 35 percent of sales, and North America accounted for nine percent.

    The figures were released by the defense ministry as a growing number of countries have begun to boycott or suspend the purchase of weaponry from Israel, citing the country’s ongoing destruction of Gaza and killing of tens of thousands of Palestinians there.

    Colombia announced it would be pausing its purchases of Israeli arms, after its president, Gustavo Petro, called Israel’s actions in Gaza a genocide.

    In May, a French court banned Israeli companies from participating in an annual defense industry exhibition, with the country’s defense ministry saying the move was likely linked to Paris’ objection to an Israeli assault on Rafah, the southernmost city in Gaza where more than a million Palestinians had fled to in order to escape Israeli bombardment.

    Prioritizing international market despite war at home

    Bloomberg reported that some of Israel’s biggest weapons manufacturers were asked in the early weeks of Israel’s war in Gaza to prioritize supplies to Israel’s military. However, with the war still going on and there being no end in sight, these companies are focused on the international market.

    “If Rafael wants to be able to provide for Israel as well as stay ahead of the game in research and development, we need international markets, which are our only assurance for real growth,” Gideon Weiss, the company’s vice president for international business development, said in a statement given to Bloomberg.

    Israel’s began on October 7, when Palestinian militants led by Hamas broke out of Gaza and launched on attack on southern Israel, killing around 1,200 people and taking around 240 people captive. Israel responded with an immediate siege of Gaza, and launched an aerial bombardment campaign followed by a ground invasion. So far, Israel has reportedly killed more than 37,000 Palestinians, according to the Palestinian health ministry.

    Israel’s largest arms firm, Elbit Systems, has a base of operations in Kent, UK. Activists broke in and destroyed machinery and equipment…

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    The US has supported Israel’s war efforts, sending tens of thousands of weapons, including precise bombs and ammunition to help fill the military’s supply lines. Israel currently has around $23bn worth of active military contracts with the US.

    For years, the US has been Israel’s largest suppliers of weapons, making up for 69 percent of Israeli arms imports between 2019 and 2023, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri). The US also provides Israel with $3.8bn in military assistance each year.

    Many of these recent arms transfers, given their size and individual cost, have also gone under the public radar, making it difficult to know the true extent of how many weapons the US has sent to Israel since October.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/17/2024 – 22:20

  • Retail Sales To Beat Estimates According To Latest Card Spending Data
    Retail Sales To Beat Estimates According To Latest Card Spending Data

    Last month was the first time in about a year, when the Bank of America retail sales forecast – one derived from real-time debit and credit card spending and which is usually spot on and unerringly correct – was wrong, predicting a small beat when in fact the final number was a big miss, printing unchanged on consensus estimates of a 0.4% increase, with the control group unexpectedly contracting by a whopping 0.3%.

    So will tomorrow’s retail sales be two in a row when Bank of America’s cheerful forecast has been wrong? We doubt it: after all, as regular readers are aware the hit rate of BofA’s approach is remarkable.

    With that in mind, BofA reports that total card spending per household (HH), as measured by BAC aggregated credit and debit cards, was up 0.7% year-over-year (y/y) in May, if down 0.9% month-over-month (m/m) in May on a seasonally adjusted (SA) basis. This comes on the back of a 1.3% surge in BAC card spending per HH in April, and a 0.7% drop in March. The bank attributes these large fluctuations to the lingering effects of this year’s unusually early Easter weekend.

    As BofA economist Aditya Bhave writes, “seasonal distortions have impacted retail sales in four of the last five months. We economists don’t enjoy writing about them, but here we go again. BAC card spending tends to be particularly low on Easter Sunday, which is usually in April. However, this year it fell on March 31. It seems that our seasonal factors do not fully account for this shift. This lowered SA spending levels in March and boosted them for April. In turn, we think SA spending growth in May looks soft because of an unfavorable base effect.“

    In short another month where the underlying reality will be distorted by seasonal adjustments, and since it is unclear in what direction the Biden Census Bureau will seek to nudge the numbers, a prediction of tomorrow’s official print tomorrow could be a gamble.

    Still, that does not prevent BofA from making such a forecast, and writes that the Census Bureau’s seasonal factors appear to have leaned strongly the other way: retail sales were very strong in March and soft in April. As a result, the bank attempted to resolve the discrepancy between its own seasonal factors and those of the Census. This results in forecasts of 0.3% and 0.6% growth in retail sales ex-autos and the core control group (retail sales ex autos, gas, building materials and restaurants), respectively, in May.

    That would mean in-line core and headline prints, and a far stronger control group number, printing at double the forecast.

    There is another variable: the government’s retail sales data have been subject to significant revisions this year (as have all other data), both to the upside (in the March report) and the downside (in the January, February and April reports). The risk, BofA notes, “is that this trend will continue” (especially to the downside). Revisions to retail sales for prior months could impact the m/m growth rate for May, everything else being equal.

    One other observation from BofA: in 2019, card spending accelerated among Northeasterners around Memorial Day, but slowed among residents of other regions.

    By contrast there was no “Memorial Day bump” in any region last year.

    This year, Northeasterners raised their spending around Memorial Day again, although not to the same degree as in 2019.

    This may suggest that the region continues to regain its economic vibrancy. Meanwhile, residents of other regions saw less of a spending drop than in 2019.

    One final point: after enjoying a big jump from pre-covid levels to the post-covid reality (snapshot taken in May 2023), discretionary spending as a percentage of total is effectively unchanged in the past year.

    More in the full note available to pro subs in the usual place.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/17/2024 – 22:00

  • NYT Documents: Putin Was Willing To Compromise To End War In 2022
    NYT Documents: Putin Was Willing To Compromise To End War In 2022

    Authored by Kyle Anzalone via AntiWar.com,

    In April 2022, Ukraine and Russia were on the brink of signing a deal to end the war just weeks after it began. The New York Times published documents showing President Vladimir Putin was willing to make concessions to get an agreement signed.

    According to the documents, Putin initially sought to have Kiev recognize Moscow’s 2014 annexation of Crimea. However, a draft agreement from April 15, 2022, suggests both parties were prepared to set aside the issue to end the conflict. “Paragraph 1 of Article 2 and Articles 4, 5, and 11 of this Treaty shall not apply to Crimea and Sevastopol,” the document says.

    Swiss peace summit this past weekend, AFP

    In December, Ukrainian negotiator Oleksandr Chalyi explained that an agreement was reached in the spring of 2022, stating the two sides “managed to find a very real compromise. We were very close in the middle of April, in the end of April, to finalize our war with some peaceful settlement.”

    Kiev was also willing to accept neutrality with regards to NATO, according to the NYT. Ukraine’s negotiation team proposed a peace deal that would say the country “does not join any military alliances” and “does not deploy foreign military bases and contingents.”

    The draft deal would have allowed Kiev to sign bilateral agreements with NATO states, as well as become a member of the European Union, but would have required Ukraine’s security partners to lift sanctions on Russia.

    The Kremlin also sought to protect the rights of millions of Russian speakers living in Ukraine by forcing Kiev to repeal restrictions on the Russian language, and to bar the state from erecting monuments glorifying neo-Nazis and WWII-era Nazi collaborators.

    As the talks were ongoing, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was pushed by his Western backers to forgo diplomacy and attempt to forcibly expel Russian troops from his country. Then-UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson made an infamous trip to Kiev to pressure Zelensky to abandon any peace negotiations, while Washington repeatedly vowed to supply unlimited military aid.

    The NYT report added details about US pressure on Ukraine to ditch the talks. According to a senior American official familiar with the negotiations, Washington “quietly said, ‘You understand this is unilateral disarmament, right?’”

    Additionally, the NYT noted that Polish leaders believed the French and German governments might have endorsed the peace agreement and pushed Ukraine to accept it. During a meeting in late March 2022, Poland’s President Andrzej Duda pressured other NATO leaders not to allow Ukraine to sign the Russian proposal.

    Independent journalist Michael Tracey provides some further nuance in the following:

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    Some US officials cautioned Ukraine not to trust Russia and warned the talks were merely a military ploy. However, two out of three Ukrainian negotiators who spoke with the NYT believed the Russian proposal was genuine, and one explained Putin had “reduced his demands” over the course of the discussions.

    Ultimately, decision-makers in Kiev listened to their supporters in Warsaw, London, and Washington and elected to break off the negotiations. More than two years later, the conflict drags on, with Russian forces steadily advancing on major Ukrainian cities despite renewed Western military aid.

    On Friday, the Russian president extended a public peace offer to Ukraine that is similar to the one nearly agreed to in 2022. However, along with Kiev agreeing never to join NATO and the West lifting sanctions on Russia, the Kremlin is now demanding that Ukraine recognize Moscow’s sovereignty over Crimea and four other Ukrainian oblasts that have been annexed by Russia throughout the two-and-a-half-year-long war.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/17/2024 – 21:40

  • Israel Says It's On "Brink" Of Wider War With Hezbollah
    Israel Says It’s On “Brink” Of Wider War With Hezbollah

    There’s been obvious escalation for several weeks at the Israel-Lebanon border, as we’ve been documenting. But on Sunday Israel’s military issued one of the most dire alarms yet, saying it is on the brink of a full-scale war with Hezbollah.

    “Hezbollah’s increasing aggression is bringing us to the brink of what could be a wider escalation,” the Israeli military’s chief spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, warned. “We are committed to the diplomatic process, however Hezbollah’s aggression is bringing us closer to a critical point in the decision-making regarding our military activities in Lebanon.”

    Anadolu/Getty Images: A plane tries to extinguish a fire after Hezbollah missile attacks on Safed city. 

    The statement was tailored largely in response to ongoing pressure from the Biden administration to avoid launching a bigger war at all costs.

    The White House has repeatedly warned that escalation in Lebanon would neither be good for Israel nor for the region, and would risk a broader major war with Iran. There is also widespread acknowledgement that Hezbollah, the Shia paramilitary group backed by Iran, is much more powerful and better armed force than Hamas:

    “Hezbollah is the crown jewel in the Iranian empire of terror and evil and is by far the most powerful Iranian proxy, equipped with nation state capabilities and even more firepower than several European countries have today,” former IDF spokesman Jonathan Conricus told Fox News.

    “In a military comparison, Hezbollah is far more powerful than Hamas,” he added.

    Earlier this month Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, “Whoever thinks he can hurt us and we will respond by sitting on our hands is making a big mistake.” He had added at a time when massive fires were spreading in the north due to constant Hezbollah drone and missile attacks, “We are prepared for very intense action in the north.”

    The past several days have seen hundreds more missiles and drones launched by Hezbollah onto northern Israeli bases and settlements.

    White House adviser Amos Hochstein has been meeting with Netanyahu in Jerusalem Monday to talk about the escalating crisis. The NY Times described the backdrop as follows: “Hezbollah’s attacks have gradually intensified, with the group using larger and more sophisticated weapons to strike more often and deeper beyond the border. Both sides have refrained from engaging in full-blown war, but the tension has increased in the past week.”

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    Below is an interesting perspective on what’s really happening from Middle East researcher and historian Ori Goldberg…

    * * *

    The Israeli military is the main force behind the public push towards a war with Lebanon. There are three reasons for this state of affairs. The first is the growing realization in the IDF that there will be no “victory” in Gaza. The “war” is an abysmal failure. …Israel convinced itself it could “eradicate” Hamas exclusively. Israel failed. Israelis don’t care about the death of Palestinian civilians.

    So the lack of “victory” necessitates an alternative form of ״redemption”. This, the IDF believes, can be found in a “real” war. It will be difficult and costly, they say, but it will provide a clear sense of achievement. That is how you snap out of an existential funk.

    The second reason for wanting war has to do with Israel’s strategic error – the decision to evacuate more than a 100000 civilians from our Northern border. They were evacuated under the false pretenses that Hizballah was about to invade and start a two-front war.

    The IDF is now stuck. The civilians were told there was an impending invasion. How will they return home? How will the IDF fulfill its most basic duty in its own perception- defending Israeli civilians? The IDF can recommend negotiations with Lebanon. Not really.

    The IDF does not believe in negotiations. It assumes Israel will, ultimately, have to go to war against Lebanon (remember, they all want to destroy us). The IDF can deploy more troops at the border to calm the civilians down. That is seen as expensive and impractical.

    War is the only “option” on the table. It is “inevitable” (to be clear, I think Israel will not start a war). It is the only “resolution”. The third reason the IDF wants war is because the Israeli political system is beginning to break down across the board.

    The citizens may agree with government policy (support for the genocide) but they don’t trust the government. The government itself is torn between settlers (pining for empire) and generals (focused on “military dominance), and is soing very little governing.

    PM Netanyahu never accepts responsibility for his actions. He is a world class outsourcer of blame. The IDF knows that Netanyahu will blame the military leadership for the only “mistake” Israelis care about- the very occurrence of the October 7th massacre.

    Nobody in Israel cares about the genocide. This is as astounding as it is true. Israeli want a scapegoat to “take responsibility” for what they perceive as the initial failure (no context or history preceding the massacre). Netanyahu wants to indict the military brass.

    A war in Lebanon will vindicate the military there as well. As Israel implodes, they will be able to present a success. Lessons will have been learned and “order” restored. This is Israel now, so consumed with itself it thinks nothing of consuming everyone else.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/17/2024 – 21:20

  • How Trump Wins The Debate – And The Election
    How Trump Wins The Debate – And The Election

    Authored by Frank Miele via RealClearPolitics,

    It’s the demeanor, stupid.

    The public already overwhelmingly supports Donald Trump on the issues. But what many of them worry about is his demeanor. In other words, does he “act presidential”?

    So, on June 27, when Trump joins President Joe Biden on CNN for the earliest general election presidential debate in U.S. history, it’s not going to matter what the former president says so much as how he says it.

    Think of it as the equivalent of a medieval knight running the gauntlet. Every question from pro-Democrat moderators Jake Tapper and Dana Bash and every taunting response from President Biden about threats to democracy will be an opportunity for Trump to lose his temper or to alienate moderate voters with intemperate replies.

    But if Trump keeps his cool in hostile territory – and CNN is definitely hostile –  he will pick up invaluable points in the “seems more presidential” surveys that will certainly follow. The demeanor issue could cement Trump as the winner not just of the debate, but of the 2024 election itself.

    Of course, Biden and his team are betting that Trump can’t keep his cool. They are no doubt thinking about the first debate of the 2020 campaign when Trump came across as a ferocious junkyard dog by constantly interrupting Biden and insulting him. That’s exactly what the Biden campaign is hoping for this time around, and if their calculation is right, then the president may be able to ride his “sympathetic, well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory” persona to victory in the fall.

    Remember, this debate and another one in early September were proposed by Biden at a time when he was trending badly behind Trump in the polls, especially in battleground states. Presumably, the Biden campaign believed the early debates would shore up his support and hurdle him over the much indicted, and now convicted, former president.

    But that doesn’t have to be true. All of the potential pitfalls for Trump are clearly marked with giant cartoonish neon signs of pointing fingers flashing the message “Pitfall here, dummy!” Even if Trump is distracted by his legal battles, hopefully his campaign team will make sure that he is prepped and ready to avoid each obstacle, such as making ambiguous jokes like “dictator on day one,” demeaning the elderly president as “Crooked Joe,” and talking more about himself than about the problems of everyday Americans.

    If Trump remembers to act presidential, and not like an attack dog, there is every reason to believe he will attract voters eager for a change. Ironically, that’s partly because the Biden campaign’s ground rules for the debate have the potential to work in Trump’s favor. There will be no live audience for the debate, which Biden probably thought would rob Trump of the fuel that feeds his reality-TV personality. In addition, microphones will be turned off for each candidate when they are not responding to the moderators. Both of those changes could help Trump avoid a repeat of the bullying performance that may have cost him the election in 2020. In addition, turning off Trump’s mic will force Biden to complete his responses without making gaffes or getting lost in his addle-pated syntax, an opportunity Trump missed in the 2020 debate.

    Nonetheless, the moderators will have their sights set on Trump, whom they have criticized repeatedly on CNN. Three topics are certain to be raised by Tapper and Bash – election interference in 2020, election acceptance in 2024, and Hunter Biden. It is essential that Trump be ready for them, and then having successfully addressed them, demand that the moderators ask questions about substantive issues.

    Biden, on the other hand, just needs to speak coherently and lie about his record, with certainty that the moderators will not ask any follow-up questions.

    Here are three examples of how Trump’s responses to the most obvious questions can get him through the media minefield and closer to his objective – victory in November. The key in each case is to remain calm, relate his responses to the voters, and ignore the provocations tossed his way.

    1) Mr. Trump, since the end of your term as president, you have become a convicted felon in a New York election interference case, and face an additional 55 felony charges in three jurisdictions. In addition, a majority of senators voted after you left office to convict you of inciting an insurrection. Why do you consider yourself fit for office when the president is the chief law enforcement officer in the country?

    Jake, I’m glad you asked me that question. I don’t want this debate to be all about me. Or even about my opponent. The American people want to hear me and Joe Biden discuss the hard issues facing the country – namely, crippling inflation, out-of-control illegal immigration, and a world on the brink of war. But the people have a right to know that I maintain my innocence regarding all the charges brought by my political opponents. It’s a sad day when Democrat prosecutors will go to any lengths to destroy me and to prevent me from promoting the policies that will save this country. But it’s not about me. It’s about a corrupt system of justice that the people have lost confidence in. Donald Trump isn’t the first person to get caught up in a two-tier system of justice. You can ask any black or Hispanic family whether they know someone who was railroaded into prison. They’ve lost faith, but I will restore that faith. Not only am I fit for office, but I am the first person to run for president who has experienced what black and minority families have known for decades. And I will fight for them.

    2) Mr. Trump, after the 2020 election, you refused to accept the results even though more than 50 courts ruled against you. To this day, you call President Biden an illegitimate president, and you are currently under indictment for election interference. Now, Americans want to know if you will accept the results of the 2024 election regardless of who wins.

    Dana, thank you for asking me that question. First of all, I need to correct you on one point. I believe it was more than 60 courts, but none of them heard our evidence of election fraud by the Biden campaign and his surrogates. In other words, we were never given the opportunity to prove our case of election tampering, and the national media failed miserably in looking at the facts objectively. Just saying the election was “safe and secure” does not make it so. Everyone knows the media was out to “get Trump” and to “protect Biden,” and in that regard, nothing has changed since 2020. But more importantly, as we look at accepting the Nov. 5 election results, it is not relevant who wins the election. All that matters is that the election be conducted fairly and transparently. And Dana, you can’t guarantee that will happen. Earlier this month, Democrat officials in Connecticut were charged with election fraud, and there’s no reason to believe the coming election will be any more fair unless it is completely transparent. No one should give up their right to look at the evidence and make up their own minds about the underpinnings of our democracy. “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.”

    3) Mr. Trump, you continually claim there is a two-tier system of justice, but in recent weeks, the Biden Department of Justice has charged or put on trial New Jersey’s Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez, Texas Congressman Henry Cuellar (another Democrat), and President Biden’s own son, Hunter Biden. Hunter Biden was convicted of three felonies, and could be sentenced to jail time despite your attacks on the attorney general and the president, who has said he will not pardon his son nor commute any sentence. Isn’t it about time that you admit that the American system of justice is fair and even-handed?

    Jake, this may be the most important question facing millions of Americans, even more important than whether they can afford to put food on the table, pay rent, or buy a home of their own – which many of them can’t. Of course, it’s not up to me to pass judgment on the three gentlemen you bring up in your question. Everyone can make up their own mind about whether justice is served in those cases. But I guarantee you that millions of black and minority families don’t trust the government to administer justice fairly, and the individual verdicts won’t make them forget their own experiences – their own children or parents sent to prison for long sentences, their own struggles against a system that too often rewards those with money or a celebrity name. Nothing can make them forget how they and their families were overlooked by a system gone awry. As for Hunter Biden, I won’t comment on his conviction on gun charges, but I will say that his story is an all-too-common American tragedy. My brother Fred was an alcoholic. His struggles with addiction mirror the experience of millions of Americans. I sympathize with the family of Hunter Biden and hope that he gets the help he needs.

    If former President Trump follows the example laid out in these mock questions and answers, and worries more about reassuring the public about himself than attacking his opponent, it is almost certain he will also be future President Trump.

    Frank Miele, the retired editor of the Daily Inter Lake in Kalispell, Mont., is a columnist for RealClearPolitics. His newest book, “What Matters Most: God, Country, Family and Friends,” is available from his Amazon author page. Visit him at HeartlandDiaryUSA.com or follow him on Facebook @HeartlandDiaryUSA or on Twitter or Gettr @HeartlandDiary.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/17/2024 – 21:00

  • "Shouldn't Be Happening": Illegal Alien Gang Member Arrested In Death Of Maryland Mom Of Five
    “Shouldn’t Be Happening”: Illegal Alien Gang Member Arrested In Death Of Maryland Mom Of Five

    Marylanders were outraged to learn this weekend that an illegal alien suspected gang member, who entered the US under President Biden’s open southern borders and with the support of woke leftist politicians in Annapolis who have transformed parts of the state into ‘Lil Mexico,’ was responsible for last year’s high profile murder of a Maryland mother. 

    In a press conference Saturday, Harford County Sheriff Jeffrey Gahler revealed an arrest was made in the murder of Rachel Morin, the mother of five who was killed while on a jog on a popular hiking trail in Harford County last August. 

    Gahler said Victor Antonio Martinez Hernandez, a 23-year-old from El Salvador, was arrested on Friday at a bar in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and taken into custody in connection with the killing of Morin. 

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    “Over the past two weeks, investigators continued their diligent investigation and tracked our suspect all the way from Prince George’s County (woke leftist hellhole that borders DC) into Tulsa, Oklahoma,” the sheriff said, noting, “Our investigators also obtained an arrest warrant (Friday) afternoon.”

    “We are 1,800 miles from the southern border here in Harford County,” Sheriff Gahler said, adding, “This is the second woman in our county to be killed by illegal suspects.”

    “In both cases, they are suspects from El Salvador with ties to criminal gangs,” the sheriff said. 

    He continued, “Victor Hernandez did not come to this country to make a better life for him or his family, he came here to escape the crimes he committed in El Salvador. He came here to murder Rachel and God-willing, no one else.” 

    Local police say Hernandez crossed over Joe Biden’s open southern border in February 2023, just one month after he killed a young woman in El Salvador. 

    Another high-profile case was Laken Hope Riley, 22, who was killed while jogging in a park on the University of Georgia campus by an illegal alien earlier this year. 

    The illegal alien killers would’ve never crossed into the US if it wasn’t for Biden’s disastrous open southern border policies that have flooded the nation with ten-plus million unvetted migrants. At the same time, Democratic mayors and politicians have prioritized illegals over their own constituents.  

    Biden’s unlawful mass parole of illegal aliens and its “catch and release” policy have allowed illegal aliens to roam freely. 

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    Polling data shows a majority of Americans are fed up with the crime and chaos Democrats are sparking with the illegal alien invasion and not enforcing common sense law and order in imploding progressive cities. 

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/17/2024 – 20:40

  • Why Modi's India Is Suddenly Getting Washington's Cold-Shoulder
    Why Modi’s India Is Suddenly Getting Washington’s Cold-Shoulder

    Authored by Finian Cunningham,

    Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi could be forgiven for thinking the United States has a schizoid view of his government and the world’s most populous country.

    Modi’s narrow re-election this month was greeted in the U.S. media with petulant satisfaction that Indian voters had “woken up”, as an oped piece in the New York Times put it.

    The Washington Post’s editorial board rebuked Modi with the headline: “In India, the voters have spoken. They do not want autocracy.”

    The Post editors went on to say that Modi “will lack a free hand for further repression of civil society, imprisonment of the opposition, infiltration and takeover of democratic institutions, and persecution of Muslims.”

    That is quite a withering rap sheet for a political leader who not so long ago was given the VIP treatment in Washington.

    Other U.S. media outlets also sounded smug that India’s legislative elections had returned a diminished majority for Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The “shock setback” for India’s strongman would mean that his Hindu nationalist politics would be restrained and he would have to govern during his third term with more moderation and compromise.

    The American media’s contempt for the 73-year-old Indian leader is a dramatic turnaround from how he was lionized by the same media only a year ago.

    Back in June 2023, Modi was feted by U.S. President Joe Biden with a privileged state dinner in the White House. The Indian premier was invited to address the Congress and the media were rhapsodic in their praise for his leadership.

    Back then, the Washington Post’s editors recommended “toasting” Modi’s India, which Biden duly did at the White House reception. Raising a glass, Biden said: “We believe in the dignity of every citizen, and it is in America’s DNA, and I believe in India’s DNA that the whole world – the whole world has a stake in our success, both of us, and maintaining our democracies.” With trademark stumbling words, Biden added: “[This] makes us appealing partners and enables us to expand democratic institutions across, around the world.”

    Modi may well wonder what happened over the past year. The Indian leader has gone from receiving the red carpet treatment to having the rug pulled from under his feet.

    The difference is explained by the changing geopolitical calculation for Washington, which is not to its liking.

    It is not that the Indian government under Modi has suddenly become a bad strongman who has taken to trashing democratic institutions and repressing minorities. Arguably, those tendencies have been associated with Modi since he first came to power in 2014.

    The United States had long been critical of Modi’s Hindu nationalism. For more than a decade, Modi was persona non-grata in Washington. At one stage, he was even banned from entering the country owing to allegations that he was fanning sectarian violence against Muslims and Christians in India.

    Washington’s view of Modi, however, began to warm up under the Trump administration because India was seen as a useful partner for the U.S. to counter China’s growing influence in the Asia-Pacific, a region which Washington renamed as the Indo-Pacific in part to inveigle India into its fold. To that end, the U.S. revived the Quad security alliance in 2017 with India, Japan and Australia.

    The Biden administration continued the courting of India and Modi who was re-elected in 2019 for his second term.

    Biden’s fawning over India culminated in the White House extravaganza for Modi last June when the U.S. media championed the “new heights” of U.S.-India relations. There were at the time residual complaints about India’s deteriorating democratic conditions under Modi, but such concerns were brushed aside by the sweep of media eulogizing, epitomized by Biden’s grandiloquent toasting of the U.S. and India as supposedly world-conquering democratic partners.

    It was discernible though that all the American charm and indulgence was setting India up for an ulterior purpose.

    In between the lines of effusive praise and celebration, the expected pay-off from India was that it would be a “bulwark” for U.S. interests against China and Russia.

    As a piece in CNN at the time of Modi’s visit last year in Washington asked: “Will India deliver after lavish U.S. attention?”

    The article noted with some prescience: “India and the U.S. may have different ambitions and visions for their ever-tightening relationship, and the possibility that Biden could end up being disappointed in the returns for his attention on Modi.”

    The Indian leader certainly did receive some major sweeteners while in the U.S. Several significant military manufacturing deals were signed such as General Electric sharing top-secret technology for fighter jet engines.

    Still, despite the zealous courting of New Delhi, over the following months, the Modi government appeared not to change its foreign policy dramatically to suit Washington’s bidding.

    India has had long-held strained relations with China over border disputes and regional rivalry. Nevertheless, Modi has been careful not to antagonize Beijing. Notably, India did not participate in recent security drills in the Asia-Pacific along with the U.S. and other partners.

    New Delhi has also maintained its strong support for the BRICS group that includes Russia, China, Brazil and other Global South nations advocating for a multipolar world not in hock to Western dominance.

    This traditional policy of non-alignment by India is not what Washington wants. It seems that Modi did not heed the memo given during his splendid Washington visit. He rebuffed the American expectation of steering India towards U.S. geopolitical objectives of toeing a tougher line against China and Russia.

    What seems to have intensified Washington’s exasperation with Modi is the worsening proxy war against Russia in Ukraine. After two and half years of conflict, President Vladimir Putin’s forces have gained a decisive upper hand over the NATO-backed Kiev regime. Hence, Biden and other NATO leaders have begun to desperately ramp up provocations against Moscow with recent permission for Ukraine to use Western long-range weapons to hit Russian territory.

    When Modi visited Washington last June, the West was (unrealistically) confident that the Ukrainian counteroffensive underway at the time would prove to be a damaging blow to Russian forces. Western predictions of overcoming Russian lines have waned from the cruel reality that Russian weapons and superior troops numbers have decimated the Ukrainian side.

    During Modi’s state trip last year, Washington’s focus was on getting India to act as a bulwark against China, not so much Russia. Modi has not delivered on either count, but the situation in Ukraine has cratered, from the NATO point of view.

    Commenting on U.S. priorities last June, Richard Rossow of the Washington-based think-tank the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said: “If the invasion went worse for Ukraine, or was destabilizing the region, the Biden administration might have chosen to reduce the intensity of engagement with India. But the United States has found that nominal support to Ukraine, with allies and partners, has been sufficient to blunt the Russian offensive…” (How wrong was that assessment!)

    Rossow continued his wrongheaded assessment: “Russia’s ineffective military campaign [in Ukraine] has also underscored the fact that China presents the only real state-led threat to global security, and the United States and India are steadily deepening their partnership bilaterally and through forums like the Quad to improve the likelihood of peace and tranquility in the region. So long as this strategic relationship continues to grow, it is unlikely that a U.S. administration will press India to take a hard line on Russia.”

    Washington and its NATO allies have got their expectations about Russia losing the conflict in Ukraine all badly wrong. Russia is winning decisively as the Ukrainian regime stumbles towards collapse.

    This is a double whammy for the Biden administration. China and Russia are stronger than ever, and India has given little in return for all the concessions it received from Washington.

    From the American viewpoint, India’s Modi has not delivered in the way he was expected to by Washington despite the latter’s fawning and concessions. New Delhi has remained committed to the BRICS multipolar group, it has not antagonized China and it has not succumbed to U.S. pressure to condemn Russia. Far from condemning Moscow, India has increased its imports of Russian oil and gas.

    Now with the U.S. and NATO’s reckless bet on Ukraine defeating Russia looking like a beaten docket, Washington’s disappointment with India is taking on an acrimonious tone.

    In one year, Modi’s India has gone from a geopolitical darling to a target of U.S. recrimination over alleged human rights violations and democratic backsliding. It is not so much that political conditions in India have degraded any further. It is Washington’s geopolitical calculations that have been upended. Hence the chagrined and increasingly abrasive attitude towards New Delhi from its erstwhile American partner.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/17/2024 – 20:20

  • "Clearly Not Satisfied": McDonald's Winds Down IBM's Drive-Thru AI Chatbot Test
    “Clearly Not Satisfied”: McDonald’s Winds Down IBM’s Drive-Thru AI Chatbot Test

    “McDonald’s essentially told operators that drive-thru AI is in its future. But it is clearly not satisfied with the one it has been testing,” Jonathan Maze, editor-in-chief of Restaurant Business, wrote on X at the end of last week. 

    Maze penned a note in Restaurant Business that revealed McDonald’s is winding down its two-year artificial intelligence pilot test with an IBM chatbot at more than 100 restaurants. 

    The Chicago-based fast-food giant is ending this test without any sort of expansion, according to an email sent to franchisees on Thursday. Restaurant Business has obtained a copy of that email.

    But the company did not dismiss the prospect of drive-thru AI, suggesting that McDonald’s plans to find a new partner for its automated order taking efforts. -Maze

    Perhaps this is why McDonald’s is ending the IBM AI drive-thru ordering partnership by the end of July… 

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    @themadivlog How did I end up a butter #fyp ♬ The Office – The Hyphenate

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    @typical_redhead_ I thought TikTok would appreciate this 💀 #fyp #foryou #foryoupage #comedy #fail ♬ Monkeys Spinning Monkeys – Kevin MacLeod & Kevin The Monkey

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    “While there have been successes to date, we feel there is an opportunity to explore voice ordering solutions more broadly,” Mason Smoot, chief restaurant officer for McDonald’s USA, wrote in a message to operators, obtained by Restaurant Business. 

    Smoot said, “After a thoughtful review, McDonald’s has decided to end our current partnership with IBM on AOT and the technology will be shut off in all restaurants currently testing it no later than July 26, 2024.”

    He noted that the fast food chain will have “an informed decision on a future voice ordering solution by the end of the year.”

    McDonald’s explained to Restaurant Business that its pilot test was to determine if chatbots could speed up drive-thru times: 

    “As we move forward, our work with IBM has given us the confidence that a voice-ordering solution for drive-thru will be part of our restaurants’ future. 

    “We see tremendous opportunity in advancing our restaurant technology and will continue to evaluate long-term, scalable solutions that will help us make an informed decision on a future voice ordering solution by the end of the year.”

    In December, McDonald’s announced a partnership with Google to deploy generative AI.

    So, will a much wider rollout of the chatbots include Google AI technology? 

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/17/2024 – 20:00

  • The Corruption Of Merrick Garland
    The Corruption Of Merrick Garland

    Authored by Jonathan Turley,

    This week, Attorney General Merrick Garland took to the pages of the Washington Post to lash out at critics who are spreading what he considers “conspiracy theories crafted and spread for the purpose of undermining public trust in the judicial process itself.” His column, titled “Unfounded attacks on the Justice Department must end,” missed the point.

    It is Garland himself who has become the problem. The solution is in Wilmington, Delaware, where 12 average citizens just showed a commitment to the rule of law that seems to be harder and harder for the attorney general to meet.

    Since his appointment, Garland has repeated a mantra that he is apolitical and would never yield to the pressures of politics or the White House. When he was nominated, I believed that claim and enthusiastically supported Garland’s confirmation. He was, I thought, the perfect man for the job after his distinguished judicial service as a moderate judge.

    I was wrong. Garland’s tenure as attorney general has shown a pronounced reluctance to take steps that would threaten President Biden.

    He slow-walked the appointment of a special counsel investigating any Biden, and then excluded from the counsel’s scope any investigation of the massive influence peddling operation by Hunter Biden, his uncle and others.

    However, it is what has occurred in the last six months that has left some of us shaken, given our early faith in Garland.

    I have long been a critic of Garland’s failure to order a special counsel to look into the extensive evidence of corruption surrounding the Bidens. As I stated in my testimony in the Biden impeachment hearing, there is ample evidence that Biden lied repeatedly about his knowledge of this corruption and his interaction with these foreign clients.

    However, a more worrisome concern is the lack of consistency in these investigations.

    First, Special Counsel Robert Hur found that Biden knowingly retained and mishandled classified material. However, he concluded that Biden’s age and diminished faculties would make him too sympathetic to a jury. It was less sympathetic than pathetic, given that this is the same man who is running for re-election to lead the most powerful nation on Earth. More importantly, Garland has not made obvious efforts to reach a consistent approach in the two cases by dropping charges based on the same crimes by Trump in Florida. (Such action would not affect the obstruction counts).

    Second, Garland has allowed Special Counsel Jack Smith to maintain positions that seem diametrically at odds with past Justice Department policies. This includes Smith’s statement that he will try Trump up to (and even through) the next election. It also includes a sweeping gag order which would have eviscerated free speech protections by gagging Trump from criticizing the Justice Department. While Garland has said that he wants to give the special counsels their independence, it falls to him to protect the consistency and values of his department.

    Garland’s most brazenly political act has been the laughable executive privilege claim used to withhold the audiotape of the Hur-Biden interviews. The Justice Department has not claimed that the transcript is privileged, but only that the audiotape of Biden’s comments is privileged. This is so logically disconnected that even CNN hosts have mocked it.

    The Justice Department went further in court by adding conspiracy to absurdity as part of its unhinged theory. It asserted a type of “deepfake privilege” on the basis that the release of the audiotape could allow AI systems to create fake versions of the president’s words. It ignores that there are already ample public sources now to create such fake tapes and that, by withholding the real audiotape, the Justice Department only makes such fake copies more likely to arise and ensnare the unwary.

    Most importantly, the arguments of a “he-who-must-not-be-heard” privilege or a deep-fake privilege are ridiculous. Garland knows that, as would any first-year law student. Yet, he is going along with a claim that is clearly designed to protect Biden from embarrassment before the next election. It is entirely political and absurd.

    After stumbling through a half-hearted defense of the audiotape decision before he was held in contempt of Congress, Garland was faced with another clear test of principle. Three House committees (Oversight, Judiciary, and Ways and Means) this month referred for prosecution cases of perjury against Hunter Biden and his uncle, James Biden. Despite what appear to be open-and-shut allegations that they lied to Congress, most everyone in Washington believes that Garland and the Justice Department will slow-walk and then scuttle the referrals to protect the Bidens.

    This is the same Justice Department that seemed on a hair-trigger to prosecute Trump officials for perjury and contempt after referrals from Democrat-controlled committees.

    The questions at issue were not “gotcha” traps, like showing up at Michael Flynn’s office to nail him on his description of a meeting with Russian diplomats. These were some of the most-discussed questions heading into Hunter Biden’s long-delayed appearance before the committees.

    Hunter is accused of lying about his position at Rosemont Seneca Bohai, a corporate entity that moved millions of dollars from foreign individuals and entities to Hunter Biden. He also allegedly lied about the identity of the recipient of his controversial message to a Chinese businessman, in which he threatened that his father was sitting “right next to me” and would join him in retaliating against the Chinese if they did not send millions. They promptly wired the money as demanded.

    Hunter’s answers appear to be demonstrably untrue. Yet, there is little faith that the Justice Department will allow the matter to be presented to a grand jury. If Garland’s pledge to remain apolitical were widely accepted, there would be little question about the prosecution of such compelling claims.

    Garland now appears entirely adrift in his own department. While mouthing platitudes about being beyond politics, he continues to run interference for the Biden White House. He appears to be looking to close aides for such direction.

    He should instead look to those 12 people in Wilmington, Delaware.

    Despite facing overwhelming evidence of Hunter Biden’s guilt, his legal team pursued a jury-nullification strategy. Wilmington is Bidentown, the hometown for the president and his family. An array of Bidens, including the first lady, lined up behind Hunter during the trial, in case anyone forgot that fact.

    Yet the jury convicted Hunter on all counts without any hesitation.

    Despite sympathy for a recovering drug addict in a town that has overwhelmingly supported the Bidens for decades, “nobody mentioned anything about political motivations” in the jury room, as one juror noted. “I was never thinking of President Joe Biden,” said another.

    Garland needs to show a modicum of that courage and principle as attorney general. He could start by dropping the farcical privilege claims over the audiotape and sending the referrals to the U.S. Attorneys Office for the same priority treatment afforded to Trump officials like Flynn.

    As it stands, few believe that will happen, despite Garland’s repeated line about transcending politics. It is not the mantra that is in doubt, but the man.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/17/2024 – 19:40

  • Putin To Arrive In North Korea Tuesday, First Visit In 24 Years
    Putin To Arrive In North Korea Tuesday, First Visit In 24 Years

    On Monday the Kremlin has revealed details of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s trip to North Korea. Last week South Korea’s Yonhap news agency predicted that Putin could show up in the North Korean capital “as early as next week” as part of an expected Asian tour that will include Vietnam.

    The Kremlin has now revealed that the Russian leader will fly to Pyonyang on Tuesday and will stay for one night. It will mark the first time Putin has visited the country since the year 2000 when he met with Kim Jong-il.

    Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, First Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov, Defense Minister Andrey Belousov, and some other top officials will accompany Putin on the trip.

    A state media announcement detailed that “The two sides are expected to sign a number of documents during the visit, according to Ushakov, including a potential comprehensive strategic partnership agreement.”

    “The Russian delegation will also engage in extensive talks with its North Korean counterpart on a number of issues, including bilateral relations, the economy, security, and international cooperation,” RT continued. “Putin is also expected to attend a state concert being held in honor of his visit and hold informal talks with Kim.”

    Last week, Kim said that “meaningful” ties with Russia will “further consolidate the eternal milestone” in a new era of relations, according to state KCNA. Putin will in essence be returning the favor of a visit, after Kim toured Russia’s far east last year, and reportedly inspected several weapons and space-related sites.

    During that prior trip, Kim had said closer relations with Moscow are his “number one priority” – as both countries find themselves under heavy US-led sanctions.

    The Ukraine war, and accompanying Western punitive sanctions, have resulted in Russia forging closer defense and trade ties with US rival, enemies, and ‘pariahs’ like Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, and China. The US has even accused North Korea is supplying immense amounts of artillery shells and military supplies for Moscow’s war efforts in Ukraine.

    Reuters previously reported this week that Putin is expected in Vietnam from June 19 to 20. This fresh Kremlin news release confirms that the North Korea trip will take place before that.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/17/2024 – 19:20

  • No Charges In Deadly ATF Arkansas Home Raid
    No Charges In Deadly ATF Arkansas Home Raid

    Authored by Beth Brelje via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    The use of deadly force was legal and justified in the March 19 early morning fatal shooting of Bryan Malinowski by federal agents in his West Little Rock, Arkansas, home, according to Pulaski County Prosecutor Will Jones, who said in a June 14 letter that there would be no charges in the case.

    An armed Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agent reaches toward the doorbell camera at the home of Bryan Malinowski moments before disabling the video recording and breaching the door with a tactical team in a predawn raid in West Little Rock, Ark., on March 19, 2024. (Malinowski Family via Bud Cummins)

    Mr. Malinowski was executive director of the Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport in Little Rock until that morning, when a convoy of 10 law enforcement vehicles entered his upscale neighborhood and agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), holding automatic rifles in the ready position, placed tape on his video doorbell, announced their presence, and in less than one minute, broke into the home while he was sleeping. Mr. Malinowski, a gun collector, woke up, grabbed his gun, exchanged gunfire with ATF agents, and Mr. Malinowski was shot dead in front of his wife.

    The ATF had obtained a warrant to search his home for guns and evidence. The agency believed that Mr. Malinowski was selling guns without a $200 Federal Firearms License and without asking buyers for the proper information. According to an affidavit of probable cause, some of the guns that he had sold were recovered during the commission of a crime, although the crimes didn’t involve the direct use of guns.

    It’s unclear why the ATF didn’t contact Mr. Malinowski at his workplace or during normal waking hours.

    Timeline

    Bryan Malinowski. (Courtesy of Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport)

    Mr. Jones said the incident was recorded by a Little Rock Police Department mobile video recorder and from that he shared the timeline in his letter.

    6:02:58 a.m.—The Little Rock patrol officer employed his vehicle’s emergency lights and siren to announce the presence of law enforcement.

    6:02:59 a.m.—ATF agents began a series of knocking and announcing the ATF’s presence.

    6:03:27 a.m.—Agents use a ram to breach the door.

    6:03:43 a.m.—Mr. Malinowski fires the first of four shots from his Colt Defender .45-caliber semi-automatic handgun.

    6:03:44 a.m.—ATF agent returns fire, discharging three shots.

    Mr. Jones also included a summary of the witness statements and evidence, although he didn’t identify the witnesses.

    “The first agent (Agent 1) to enter the residence looked to his left and saw Mr. Malinowski at the end of the hallway pointing the handgun at him. The agent immediately dropped to the ground and rolled to avoid potential gunfire. The second agent to enter (Agent 2) saw Mr. Malinowski firing downward at Agent 1. At this time, Agent 2 was struck in the foot. As Mr. Malinowski raised his gun toward Agent 2, Agent 2 fired, striking Mr. Malinowski. Immediately after the shooting, officers requested emergency personnel and begin [sic] administering medical aid to Mr. Malinowski.”

    A law enforcement officer is justified in using deadly physical force if the officer reasonably believes that force is necessary to defend himself or another person from the use of deadly force, according to the Arkansas code that Mr. Jones cited.

    “Prior to entering the residence, the officers identified themselves as police by initiating the lights and siren of a patrol vehicle that was parked in front of the residence” and knocking on the front door, he said. Agents also wore clothing marked ATF or Police in large letters.

    According to previous statements from Mr. Malinowski’s wife, the couple was sleeping when the ATF agents knocked.

    “The state’s investigation didn’t attempt to make independent judgments about whether ATF violated the law when they broke down Mr. and Mrs. Malinowski’s front door. But that question should be a matter of grave concern for the rest of us,” Bud Cummins, the Malinowski family’s attorney, told The Epoch Times in a statement.

    He noted that Mr. Jones’s letter shows that armed agents waited “a mere 28 seconds” after knocking and before breaking down the front door of Mr. Malinowski’s home. Mr. Jones said legally, law enforcement must give the person inside a reasonable amount of time to get to the door and to admit them voluntarily before forcibly entering.

    A search warrant, Mr. Cummins said, isn’t automatically a license for a home invasion.

    “How long is it reasonable to wait for someone to answer their front door at 6 a.m. in response to unexplained loud pounding in a 3,000-square-foot fully insulated home? Let’s pray the answer isn’t 28 seconds. The Fourth Amendment means more than that to every single one of us,” he said. “This is not over.”

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/17/2024 – 19:00

  • China's New Home Prices Plunge The Most Since October 2014
    China’s New Home Prices Plunge The Most Since October 2014

    So much for that Chinese housing “bailout”, which we correctly warned would be woefully insufficient.

    A slew of data published early Monday local time, showed that among various other economic measures, China’s housing slump deepened in May and triggered new calls for the government to pump cash and credit into the economy, while industrial output, which has kept growth on track, fell short of forecasts.

    New home prices – the most important indicator of middle-class wealth in the world’s second biggest economy – dropped at the fastest pace since October 2014, falling 0.7% m/m in May (v/s -0.58% in April) and marking the 11th straight decline despite the government’s stimulus to support the property market. On an annual basis, home prices slumped 4.3%, the biggest drop since the summer of 2015. In fact, the last time home prices plunged so much Beijing pursued a massive yuan devaluation that led to a $1 trillion in fx outflows to stabilize and sparked the very first mega meltup in bitcoin which sent it from $200 to far over $1000.

    Staying on China retail sales rose +3.7% y/y in May, exceeding market expectations for a +3.0% gain and increasing pace from a +2.3% increase in the previous month but Chinese shoppers remain far from recovering their pre-pandemic mojo. However, other economic metrics failed to surpass market forecasts with industrial output growing +5.6% y/y in May (v/s +6.2% expected), down from an increase of +6.7% in April and missing the median forecast in a Bloomberg survey.

    Meanwhile, the nation’s real estate crisis continued to weigh on investment in fixed assets with the overall YTD investment figures expanding +4.0%, also below estimates of +4.2% gain.

    “The most disappointing in May’s data is probably that property sales barely saw any improvements even after so many supportive measures,” said Jacqueline Rong, chief China economist at BNP Paribas SA. She said China’s authorities need to find ways to lower the rates on existing mortgages, closing the gap with the cost of new ones.

    The numbers – excluding the dire real estate prints – add up to a still-weak recovery most economists said, and will likely require more action from Beijing to bolster consumer demand and tackle imbalances, if this year’s 5% growth target is to be met. That could take the form of stepped-up government spending and heightened efforts by the central bank to put a floor under housing markets and get credit flowing.

    On the other hand, if one includes China’s collapsing property market – which once upon a time was the world’s largest asset class – it becomes clear that while Beijing may pretend it does not need a huge fiscal and monetary stimulus, it’s

    Late last month, China unveiled a broad rescue package to prop up housing sales as a credit crisis was engulfing some of the country’s biggest real estate developers. It relaxed mortgage rules and encouraged local governments to buy unsold homes. However, as we warned and many others agreed, the financial incentives aren’t big enough and trial programs in several cities have shown progress can be slow.

    Subdued demand at home and the deteriorating foreign-trade environment are weighing on business confidence, discouraging companies from investing and driving some to move production overseas. Credit growth has been lackluster and the M1 money supply gauge contracted in May at the fastest rate in data going back to 1996.

    Elsewhere, the PBOC on Monday kept a key interest rate unchanged for the tenth straight month. Economists say the bank’s room to cut rates is constrained by the need to prop up the yuan, which faces downward pressure as the US Federal Reserve reinforces its high-for-longer message.

    China’s growth remains “highly uneven, with exports and new energy-related capex as the drivers while consumption and property as the drags,” according to economists including Larry Hu at Macquarie Capital Ltd. Still, the slowdown isn’t severe enough to threaten the growth target and while policymakers may take some limited action “the urgency for a major stimulus is low,” they wrote

    In a survey of more than 400 top executives conducted by UBS Group AG over roughly a month through mid-May, firms reported weaker prospects for orders, revenue and margins compared with the same period of 2023. There was a drop in the share of respondents who plan to increase capital expenditure in the second half of this year.

    “We still need to see new stimulus coming in,” said Helen Qiao, chief Greater China economist at Bank of America Global Research, in a Bloomberg TV interview. “Otherwise the growth momentum could very much weaken.”

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/17/2024 – 18:40

  • Former CDC Director Predicts Bird Flu Virus Will Cause Next Pandemic
    Former CDC Director Predicts Bird Flu Virus Will Cause Next Pandemic

    Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Dr. Robert Redfield, former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), has issued a grim prediction that the next major pandemic will be caused by the bird flu.

    Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, testifies during a U.S. Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, on July 2, 2020. (Saul Loeb/Pool/Getty Images)

    “I really do think it’s very likely that we will, at some time—it’s not a question of if, it’s more a question of when—we will have a bird flu pandemic,” Dr. Redfield told NewsNation in an interview published on June 14.

    U.S. officials recently confirmed that the highly pathogenic avian influenza virus had been detected in a cow herd in Wyoming, the 12th state to report an infection.

    The former CDC director said the bird flu, when it enters humans, has a “significant” mortality.

    “Probably somewhere between 25 and 50 percent mortality, so it’s going to be quite complicated,” Dr. Redfield said.

    Since around 2019, there’s been a progressive increase in the number of mammal species to which the bird flu virus has spread, with alpacas becoming the latest species to fall sick after coming into contact with the pathogen, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service.

    Dr. Redfield said that as the bird flu has spread to more than two dozen mammals in the United States, the virus has been adapting and learning how to change its use of receptors, with the risk of making a jump to humans growing by the day.

    “So it’s going through a lot of changes. And as it picks up some of these new receptors, it can get closer and closer to humans,” he said.

    “Once the virus gains the ability to attach to the human receptor, and then go human to human, that’s when you’re going to have the pandemic. And as I said, I think it’s just a matter of time.”

    While Dr. Redfield said it’s impossible to predict with accuracy when the bird flu might start going human to human, he said the recent development of dairy cattle contracting the virus is alarming because cows are often in close proximity to pigs, and pigs have tended to be the last stepping stone for viruses before the jump to humans.

    Dr. Redfield added that the natural evolution of the virus to where it becomes highly infectious to humans is less of a concern to him than the possibility that it will increase its virulence under lab conditions—through gain-of-function research.

    The “recipe” for making bird flu highly infectious to humans is already well established, Dr. Redfield said, recalling that gain-of-function research on the avian influenza virus was carried out in 2012, against his recommendations.

    Since late March, the highly pathogenic avian influenza virus has been reported in more than 80 dairy herds across the country. So far, three human infections have been reported in the United States—two in Michigan and one in Texas, all dairy farm workers.

    The CDC said in a June 12 bird flu update that it’s monitoring the situation closely and the current risk to public health remains low.

    “H5N1 bird flu is widespread in wild birds worldwide and is causing outbreaks in poultry and U.S. dairy cows, with one recent human case in a U.S. dairy worker,” the agency said.

    “While the current public health risk is low, CDC is watching the situation carefully and working with states to monitor people with animal exposures. CDC is using its flu surveillance systems to monitor for H5N1 activity in people.”

    Bird Flu Gain-of-Function Research?

    Dr. Redfield has in the past warned about the dangers of gain-of-function research, which involves altering the properties of a pathogen, such as its virulence, in order to study its potential effects on human health.

    Proponents of such research argue it can help scientists better learn how the virus behaves and spreads, and come up with counter-measures more effectively. Opponents say the potential benefits are outweighed by the risks that such research poses as it can makes viruses more lethal to humans.

    During a March 8, 2023, session of the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, Dr. Redfield called for a moratorium on this type of research, while expressing the view that the COVID-19 pandemic was caused by an accidental leak from a China-based lab where the virus was being subjected to experiments.

    “While many believe that gain-of function research is critical to get ahead of viruses by developing vaccines, in this case, I believe it had the exact opposite result, unleashing a new virus on the world without any means of stopping it and resulting in the deaths of millions of people,” Dr. Redfield said at the time, referring to COVID-19.

    “Because of this, it is my opinion that we should call for a moratorium on all gain-of function research until we can have a broader debate and come to a consensus as a community about the value of gain-of-function research.”

    Dr. Redfield has also said that taxpayers ended up unknowingly funding risky gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the China-based lab at the center of the lab-leak origin theory of the virus that causes COVID-19.

    Meanwhile, the Food and Drug Administration is preparing for a

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/17/2024 – 18:20

  • LA Studying Removing Police From Traffic Enforcement
    LA Studying Removing Police From Traffic Enforcement

    In another step toward complete and total lawlessness on the West Coast, Los Angeles is reportedly studying the idea of removing police from traffic enforcement altogether as a way to reform policing. 

    A new report from the LA Times says that this week, the City Council approved a study aimed at determining how to implement additional speed bumps, roundabouts, and other modifications to streets to curb speeding and improve driving safety.

    This would come in the place of traffic enforcement by officers after reform advocates argued for “the city to limit how often police pull people over for low-level offenses and to start imagining a future in which unarmed city workers would take over most traffic duties”. 

    Councilmember Marqueece Harris-Dawson commented: “I think the city of Los Angeles can lead the nation.” 

    In what, is the real question. 

    In a unanimous 13-0 decision, the council ordered city transport staff to deliver feasibility studies within 90 days on proposals such as setting up unarmed civilian teams for specific traffic issues and accident investigations, reducing fines in less affluent areas, and halting stops for minor violations like expired tags, according to the LA Times report. 

    Advocates from the Push L.A. coalition expressed cautious optimism about the vote, acknowledging it as a significant step but remaining concerned about potential bureaucratic obstacles.

    Before the council meeting, dozens of organizers rallied outside City Hall, displaying signs and chanting slogans like “The People united, will never be defeated.”

    Activist Leslie Johnson from Community Coalition pledged to maintain pressure on officials to prevent the study’s findings from being ignored. The rally in downtown L.A. served both as a celebration of anticipated success and a reminder to the council of their vigilance.

    Speakers referenced individuals like Keenan Anderson who died during traffic incidents involving police, and shared personal stories about the traumatic impact of traffic stops.

    Interim chief Dominic Choi said: “Our job is public safety, and we’re going to use the tools that are given to us in the best way we can to improve public safety. So if restrictions are put on us, I’m going to visit roll calls, and I’ll talk about this policy change or this law and encourage our officers.”

    Chauncee Smith of advocacy group Catalyst California commented: “From our perspective, having another feasibility study is not necessary; there’s numerous cities around the country that have already adopted a variety of these reforms. We’re focusing on changing the conditions, as opposed to punishing a person for something that they did or did not do.”

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/17/2024 – 18:00

  • VDH: How Left-Wing Conspiracies Work
    VDH: How Left-Wing Conspiracies Work

    Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via American Greatness,

    Since 2016, there has been a clear pattern to left-wing conspiracies – beyond the obvious fact that they traffic in lies, stereotypes, and paranoia to serve precise political agendas.

    We now know that the conspiracy to cook up the Russian-collusion hoax – Donald Trump allegedly conniving with Vladimir Putin to rig the 2016 vote – was perpetrated by the Hillary Clinton campaign. Its funding was hidden by the Democratic National Committee, the law firm Perkins Coie, and Fusion GPS.

    The Russian “disinformation” laptop hoax – the notion that the same Russians four years later created a fake Hunter Biden laptop to smear the Biden family on the eve of the first 2020 debate – was jumpstarted by the Biden campaign’s then-chief foreign policy advisor, current Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

    There was never much evidence that a wayward bat or pangolin in a meat market birthed the COVID-19 pandemic, despite the efforts of China, Western and international health officials, and Dr. Fauci’s health bureaucrats to spread that lie.

    The January 6th riot was certainly wrong and buffoonish. But the idea that it was an insurrection aiming to violently overthrow the U.S. government was also a left-wing myth fueled by the Democratic House leadership and the media.

    All these schemes have their commonalities:

    1) They are aimed at achieving political objectives.

    False claims of Russian collusion likely drained millions of votes from the 2016 Trump candidacy.

    A later conservative poll found that Russian disinformation may have swung enough voters to ensure a 2020 Trump loss. It certainly saved Joe Biden in the first debate when he faced the American people and flat-out lied about the laptop, quoting “experts” that his own team had rounded up to legitimize his obvious untruths.

    The last thing the global health community wanted was to confront China about its culpability for killing millions worldwide. And what the Fauci health conglomerate most feared was the airing of the truth that U.S. “scientists” had helped fund and enhance quite-dangerous, understandably-outlawed, viral gain-of-function research at a Chinese lab soon to be run by the People’s Liberation Army. These functionaries’ clear hatred of President Trump was a subtext to their distortions and lies that only a complete shut-down of the U.S. economy could save America from millions of unnecessary deaths. In other words, for well over two years, anyone who dared suggest a laboratory origin for COVID was pilloried, while the accusers privately knew that it was likely true and that they were complicit.

    The January 6th myth—that conservatives were violent insurrectionaries—led to the greatest militarization of Washington, DC, since the Civil War. Barbed wire and fencing around all the major tourist spots helped advance the myth of a besieged nation that Joe Biden, that old moderate, would heal from the existential threats birthed by the soon-to-be-impeached-twice Donald Trump.

    2) These conspiracies involved the most powerful U.S. government agencies.

    James Comey’s FBI altered a FISA warrant. Comey himself misled the president of the United States, lying that the latter was not the target of an FBI investigation while leaking confidential, if not classified, documents. The FBI hired foreign national Christopher Steele to compile dirt on a presidential candidate. The FBI’s Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, Andrew McCabe, and James Baker were knee-deep in efforts to leak the dossier and other disinformation to ensure Trump was not elected. The CIA’s John Brennan and the Department of Justice’s Loretta Lynch were well aware of their own agencies’ involvement in fueling the slander.

    Fifty-one former “intelligence authorities” brazenly lied in 2020 when they signed a letter claiming that the Biden laptop—then in the possession of the FBI, which knew of its authenticity—had all the hallmarks of Russian disinformation. Grandee signatories like James Clapper, John Brennan, Michael Hayden, and Leon Panetta had no evidence that the laptop had anything to do with the Russians. Lots of contacts in the FBI confirmed that it did not. Yet they signed their names and, in doing so, ruined their former agencies’ credibility, all for the short-term agenda of getting Joe Biden elected.

    From 2020 to 2023, at the height of the pandemic, the main players in the U.S. health apparat—the NIH, the CDC, and the NIAID—all created narratives that were obvious lies, or at least had no evidence to sustain them. There was never clear-cut evidence for the bat/pangolin theory of COVID genesis, for state-imposed mass masking and social distancing as scientifically-proven effective tools to control the pandemic, for the assurance that a national quarantine would do far less damage than the virus, and for the idea that experimental mRNA coronavirus vaccinations and their serial boosters in the long term would prevent the vaccinated from being either infected or infectious.

    The reaction to the January 6th riot was likely politicized by the Speaker of the House, the Pentagon and the Capitol Police on the theory that the small number of violent rioters, if left to run amok and then severely punished after show trials in federal courts, would do lasting damage to the conservative cause and Donald Trump in particular.

    3) The media conspired with government agencies to spread the hoaxes.

    On the eve of the 2016 election and in its aftermath, Buzzfeed, CNN, the Washington Post and other news outlets all rushed to leak the most salacious made-up smears from the Steele dossier, fed to them by the FBI and other government officials. Their unsourced yellow journalism soon ensured the ill-fated Mueller investigation that was designed, quite successfully, to derail or slow the early Trump administration agenda.

    In 2020, top members of the FBI partnered with social media companies, especially Twitter and Facebook, to censor news that contradicted the yarn that the Biden laptop was Russian disinformation.

    While Anthony Fauci and his team, along with officials at the CDC and NIH, were furiously corresponding to tamp down any suggestion of a lab-leak origin for COVID or that their own policies were scientifically unproven, the media was fed their heroic stories and spread them as gospel.

    As a result, the nation was assured that Fauci et al. stood for “science,” and their skeptics were little more than ultra-MAGA, Trumpist yahoos. The old time-tested, safe, and life-saving Ivermectin, well aside from the debate over its actual efficacy in treating COVID, was rendered a dangerous “horse dewormer,” while the mRNA vaccines were deemed perfectly safe for young, healthy men, despite being in little danger from COVID but susceptible to vaccination-caused myocarditis.

    So effective were our bureaucrats in using the media in their propaganda that ancient canons of medical science—viruses can indeed provide valuable natural immunity; vaccines are of only temporary efficacy against the quickly-mutating coronaviruses; complete nationwide quarantines would lead to untenable social, economic, and political damage; viral pandemics are unlikely to be of direct animal origin if the virus has never been observed in an animal prior to human infections, etc.—were often mocked as self-interested pseudoscience.

    The media ensured that reports of numerous FBI informants present on January 6 were suppressed. They also smothered evidence that the loaded January 6th congressional committee was manipulating evidence, suppressing testimonies, and deliberately not interviewing inconvenient witnesses.

    Instead, the media ran with wild lies of violent and often-armed “insurrectionists” who had long planned a systematic takeover and who had succeeded in killing “five law enforcement officers” (only one, Brian Sicknick, died—a day later on January 7, from natural causes). The media smeared the name and reputation of the unarmed Ashli Babbitt, killed while going through a broken window into the Capitol, and then hid the name of the Capitol Police officer who had lethally shot her.

    4) Few, if any, in the media or the government were ever punished for their conspiracies to create and spread such complete fabrications.

    Few at CNN who spread the Russian collusion lie were ever permanently punished. No Pulitzer Prizes for such false coverage were revoked. James Comey (claiming amnesia 245 times while under congressional oath), James Clapper (previously lying under congressional oath), John Brennan (previously lying twice while under congressional oath), and Andrew McCabe (lying repeatedly to federal investigators) were never formally charged—unlike those who went to jail after falsely being indicted for collusion. All instead used their liberal notoriety to land lucrative network consultantships or book deals—and to persist in the Russian collusion hoax.

    None of the 51 intelligence authorities who lied to the nation and thereby helped warp an election have ever retracted their statements, much less apologized. All knew then, and are currently without a doubt after the conviction of Hunter Biden, that his laptop and contents were not just authentic but proven to be so by the FBI. Barring apologies, the assumption remains that they believe their misinformation and disinformation led to the election of Joe Biden and, thus, that their noble ends were properly justified by any means necessary.

    Dr. Francis Collins, Dr. Fauci and his lieutenants, Peter Daszak and a string of others have never been formally disciplined for their efforts to spread misinformation that likely contributed to tens of thousands of deaths from the unwarranted national lockdowns. Even to this day, Dr. Fauci insists U.S. funding for Wuhan had nothing to do with gain-of-function research and still does not concede that it is almost certain that the virus originated in the lab.

    *  *  *

    From the above, we can assume that conspiracies successfully achieve left-wing goals.

    The hoaxes are used by bureaucracies against conservatives and Republican candidates. They are spread like wildfire by a corrupt media and, when exposed and refuted, rarely lead to legal culpability or disgrace rather than publicity-driven lucrative post-scandal employment.

    One chief common trait is projection. By accusing others of high crimes and misdemeanors, the conspirators become exempt from criminal charges.

    Hillary Clinton and her campaign were never charged with illegally hiring a foreign national to draw on Russian sources to smear their 2016 campaign opponent.

    The Biden campaign was never held accountable for conspiring to organize so-called retired intelligence experts to formally lie to the American people to influence an election.

    High officials of the U.S. government lied under oath with impunity about their role in funding gain-of-function research after conspiring to circumvent U.S. law prohibiting such research.

    U.S. elected and bureaucratic officials deliberately suppressed the use of law enforcement on January 6 despite the ensuing lax security, warped a U.S. House committee investigation, and used the Washington D.C. court system to convict hundreds for dubious crimes in order to use their convictions and prison terms for political agendas.

    No wonder, then, that we should expect some sort of similar hoax to arise before the 2024 election. Do not be surprised when told of a “secret” Trump plan uncovered to round up critics in 2025 and send them to “camps,” or lurid revelations about “evidence” that Trump is in worse physical and mental shape than is a debilitated Biden, or some fantastic MAGA plot to implement “voter suppression,” or allegations that the Trump campaign’s “dark money” involves “collusion,” “disinformation,” and “sinister foreign actors.”

    When we hear such things in the months to come, remember that these mythologies are usually a warning: what the left is alleging is, quite often, precisely what the left is already doing.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/17/2024 – 17:40

  • US Has Reportedly 'Ramped Up' Intel-Sharing With Israel, Alarming Democrat Lawmakers 
    US Has Reportedly ‘Ramped Up’ Intel-Sharing With Israel, Alarming Democrat Lawmakers 

    Washington has significantly ramped up its intelligence-sharing with Israel, despite recent attempts by the Biden administration to distance itself from large-scale civilian casualties mounting from the Rafah ground offensive as well as airstrikes across the Gaza Strip.

    The Washington Post has documented the Pentagon is now handing an “extraordinary amount” of intelligence to Tel Aviv, including “drone footage, satellite imagery, communications intercepts and data analysis using advanced software, some of it powered by artificial intelligence.”

    DIA monitoring center, via Wiki Commons

    Much of this is said to be focused on hostage-location efforts, given also that among the Oct.7 captives there were eight Americans, but three are since believed deceased.

    “If we managed to unilaterally get information that we could act on, and we thought we could actually get US people out alive, we could act,” a US official told the Post, adding “there was genuinely very little information specifically about US hostages.”

    The report confirmed the presence of the US military’s elite Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) at a CIA station in Israel, as well as personnel from the Defense Intelligence Agency. These US intel officials have been meeting with their counterparts in the country “on a daily basis”. The State Department has also has a special envoy on the ground, while the FBI has also assisted ongoing investigations related to Oct.7.

    WaPo also revealed that earlier in the war the US had intricate plans for a potential hostage operation to retrieve the remaining American captives (dual nationals) held by Hamas. That operation, which would have been extraordinarily high-risk both militarily as well as politically for the Biden administration, was shelved.

    All of this increased intel-sharing has worried some lawmakers, who don’t want the United States to be seen as too hand in glove with Israeli operations in Gaza. The Post wrote:

    Other officials, including lawmakers on Capitol Hill, worry that intelligence the United States provides could be making its way into the repositories of data that Israeli military forces use to conduct airstrikes or other military operations, and that Washington has no effective means of monitoring how Israel uses the U.S. information.

    Meanwhile there is this surprisingly blunt assessment from Politico concerning how the crisis impacts Biden’s political future in the White House…

    “Diplomats and world leaders – many of whom are gathering for the G7 summit here this week – have begun to worry that Biden’s reluctance to more fully break with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could cost him the election in November,” Politico writes.

    Jeremy Shapiro, a former Obama State Department official who commented on recent conversations with European diplomats, explained to the outlet that “The level of concern is something between panic and terror.” He added: “The alliance is too important for these countries right now.”

    As for growing nervousness among US lawmakers over the intel-sharing relationship at a time Israel is being increasingly seen as a ‘pariah’ among many countries abroad, AntiWar.com notes that—

    Rep. Jason Crow, a Colorado Democrat and a member of the House Intelligence Committee, has been critical of the lack of supervision on intelligence-sharing with Israel. Calling for more “robust oversight,” he recently co-sponsored a bill that would require top officials to notify lawmakers if US intel was used for an operation that resulted in civilian deaths. The legislation is still making its way through the House.

    A trickle of Biden admin ‘protest resignations’ have meanwhile continued…

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    While the Biden administration has publicly pushed back and fought against things like the recent anti-Israeli actions of the International Criminal Court (ICC), including arrest warrants issued for Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, it has faced some degree of revolt from within – including a spate of protest resignations in the State Department and other agencies like USAID.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/17/2024 – 17:20

  • Sense And Nonsense On Petrodollars
    Sense And Nonsense On Petrodollars

    Authored by Peter Earle via The American Institute for Economic Research,

    Last week several reports suggested the termination of a US-Saudi petrodollar agreement, and speculated a Saudi Arabian move to sell oil on world markets in various currencies, including the Chinese yuan.

    The accounts were rife with inaccuracies: the Saudis’ have transacted in non-dollar currencies for decades, and there has never been a formal treaty, much less with a specified expiration date, governing the loose arrangement that has come to be called the ‘petrodollar system.’

    But even the fragments of broken mirrors reflect reality, and despite their fundamental errors a significant trend is in evidence: Saudi Arabia is progressively reducing its dependence on the United States. Quite possibly reflective of its recent admittance to the expanded BRICS block it is exhibiting a greater inclination to settle oil transactions in currencies other than the US dollar. Owing to the US and Western Europe’s increasingly entangled alliances, and its own efforts to diversify away from dependence upon energy exports, Saudi Arabia has been increasing its diplomatic and economic engagements with China, Iran, Russia, nations considered primary US foreign policy adversaries. Recent moves toward accepting non-dollar currencies reflects broader geopolitical shifts away from US currency hegemony.

    The concept of the petrodollar, established in the 1970s, was an informal arrangement where Saudi Arabia agreed to sell oil exclusively in US dollars in exchange for US military protection and investment in US Treasury securities. In the immediate wake of the collapse of the Bretton Woods system in 1971, the arrangement bolstered the value of the US dollar and secured US military support for Saudi Arabia. It also ensured relatively consistent demand for US government debt, a windfall which five decades later has become a millstone of damning heft. 

    A handful of policy changes indicate departures from the heretofore entrenched framework.

    In January 2023, the Saudi finance minister announced the possibility of conducting trade in a broadening variety of currencies. This was followed by increasing oil imports from Russia and establishing a formal, fixed currency swap agreement with China. Best characterized as strategic realignments, Saudi Arabia has sought to forge flexible relationships with regional and rising global powers outside the sphere of American influence.

    Myths and hyperbole aside, the weakening US-Saudi relationship is one instance amid a growing trend of diminishing US influence in global currency markets and international finance. It is a shift reflective of the weaponization of the dollar in early 2022 and a growing array of domestic policy choices which are rapidly destroying the dollar’s attractiveness. Certainly, and as has been said many times: these effects of these changes will not be seen or felt overnight.

    But developments emerging with increasing rapidity evince an ongoing decline in control, and reduced role, in over global financial and geopolitical matters.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/17/2024 – 17:00

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Jun 17

Today’s News 17th June 2024

  • "Don't Buy Into This Crap", Catherine Austin Fitts Warns "AI Is Digital Control"
    “Don’t Buy Into This Crap”, Catherine Austin Fitts Warns “AI Is Digital Control”

    Via Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com,

    Catherine Austin Fitts (CAF), Publisher of The Solari Report, financial expert and former Assistant Secretary of Housing (Bush 41 Admin.) is sounding the alarm about Artificial Intelligence (AI) and how it will impact your world in very negative ways. 

    It’s all in a new report called “The AI Revolution: The Final Coup d’Etat.”  CAF explains, “This is a very serious look at Artificial Intelligence and how it’s going to be used to implement control…”

    “This past week, there was this huge open board meeting at OpenAI.  There were board members put there to make sure OpenAI and its products were in alignment with the best interests of the human race.  Some of them got booted out. Now, we see the former head of the NSA (National Security Agency) get put on the board. 

    I just realized it today, and I had not realized it before. 

    Edward Snowden just tweeted out and said you should never use any of these products, which include ChatGPT.  Snowden also said, ‘You have to understand where this is going.  You have been warned.’

    “The AI Revolution” also warns that:

    AI “. . . will alter the prospects for a free society, even free will. . . and . . . attempt to seed the idea human-only decision-making will become a rarity and, in time, cease to exist.”

    Don’t think sophisticated AI is some idea that is far into the future.  AI is here now, and CAF points out:

    “I just see more and more companies using this type of technology to institute financial fraud and make money from financial fraud in their pricing. . . . You also have thousands of companies to track you for their benefit…

    It is trying to extract data from you to accomplish whatever its goal is. . . . It’s like a swarm of invisible locusts that are all trying to surveil and track, and none of them are trying to optimize your life and give you a free and inspired life. 

    They are just trying to get their piece.”

    AI will also be used to ignore and break all laws.  After all, it’s robotic and can’t be held accountable.  CAF says,

    “By removing moral obligations and legal and obedient respect for laws, the speed at which you can do evil is extraordinary…

    One of my concerns, and I have said this for many years, I think this kind of technology allows interdimensional intelligence to act as material reality so that, literally, demonic intelligence can have far more influence and impact in our world.  

    It operates at such high speed, and then you combine that with the payment systems in the financial system. . . the things that can go wrong are phenomenal.  One of the main problems that we have seen in the past year is artificial intelligence takes off on its own, and it starts functioning in a way it makes no sense. . . . and it’s just lying.  It’s just making stuff up and lying.  

    It’s literally like it’s under demonic possession.”

    CAF says, no matter what, “AI can’t beat God.”  

    And instead of worshiping Jehovah and Jesus (like you should), the creators of AI want you to trust whatever this tech tells you to do.  CAF says, “They want an AI Religion Revolution.” 

    Don’t buy into this crap because AI is a disaster for humanity and your freedom.

    CAF thinks the Democrats will be forced to replace Joe Biden come November, and she explains why. 

    Now, more than ever, CAF thinks physical gold and silver are good investments.  She encourages people to expand the use of cash.  CAF thinks two of the best weapons against this sort of artificial intelligence used for control and tyranny is to enforce the US Constitution and, above all, do not lose your faith in God the Father and Christ Jesus.

    There is much more in the 61-minute riveting in-depth interview.

    Join Greg Hunter of USAWatchdog.com as he goes One-on-One with the Publisher of The Solari Report, Catherine Austin Fitts, for 6.15.24.

    *  *  *

    To Donate to USAWatchdog.com Click Here

    There is a lot of free information on Solari.com. You can get way more cutting-edge analysis from Catherine Austin Fitts and “The Solari Report” by taking advantage of the “special offer” featuring the “The AI Revolution.”  You can click here, or call 1-731-764-2515 and talk to a real human.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 06/16/2024 – 23:20

  • The Changing Nature Of Nuclear Deterrence
    The Changing Nature Of Nuclear Deterrence

    Submitted by Tuomas Malinen of GnS Economics

    Issues discussed:

    • Tactical vs. strategical nuclear weapons.
    • Mutually asserted destruction (MAD) as the foundation of nuclear deterrence.
    • The shaky foundations of modern nuclear deterrence, and growing risk of a tactical nuclear strike.

    When I was around eight years old, my baby-sitter let me watch a documentary on nuclear war. Unsurprisingly, it shook me to the core. It’s kind of hard to know what went on in her head, but those images of nuclear detonations never left my head. Looking back at it now, this ‘incident’ starts to make sense, kind of. This is because over the decades I’ve read a lot on nuclear deterrence and on nuclear war simulations. I have had this graving to understand nuclear warfare and deterrence basically throughout my adult-life.

    Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962 became something of a case study on nuclear deterrence to me. This was in no small part because of the magnificent movie, Thirteen Days (published in 2000), documenting the crisis through the eyes of President Kennedy and the White House. I have also had the privilege to grow with a highly objective lecturer of history, my mother, who has always questioned the current knowledge on history. One of her best quotes is, “According to how history is currently written”. It summarizes all you need to understand about research of history. We simply do not know all the facts and politics plays a major role on how history is being written.

    In the movie Thirteen Days, there’s a scene where Bobby Kennedy (played memorably by Steven Culp) and Special Advisor Kenneth O. Donnell (always great Kevin Costner) arrive to Russian (Soviet) embassy, where they are burning secret documents in preparation for an evacuation. I vaguely remember that I would have talked with my mom about this scene and that she would have confirmed that such a thing (burning of documents) actually happened, but I cannot vouch for that. In any case, it was a beautiful movie trick, intensifying and underlining the gravity of the situation the world faced. Unfortunately, we are very close of such a situation, again.

    During the Cuban crisis, the ‘Doomsday Clock’, kept by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, was set to seven minutes to midnight. Currently, it stands at 90 seconds to midnight, closest to midnight it ever has, and I am expecting that it will be moved to 60 seconds to midnight during the next 12 months. While the Bulletin, quite unnecessarily, recently mixed “climate change” to the setting of the clock, the unprecedented warning on the close proximity of a nuclear holocaust should be taken extremely seriously.

    I have been pondering the growing nuclear threat since basically the onset of Ukrainian conflict in early 2014. It has become very pervasive in my thinking during the past few weeks mostly due to strikes of Ukraine to Russian early-warning system.

    During my academic studies, I have taken two courses in game theory. One during graduate and the other during post-graduate studies. During those courses, I read also on game theoretical simulations of nuclear warfare. I cannot help to think that I did this, because of the misjudgement of my baby-sitter all those years ago. Past week, I started to build game theoretical model on a tactical nuclear first strike to understand the situation better.

    In this entry, which is likely to start a short series on nuclear deterrence and war, I go through the basic building blocks of modern nuclear deterrence starting from tactical nuclear weapons. Then I explain the foundational principle of nuclear deterrence, mutually asserted destruction, or MAD, and lastly I go through the weak spots of modern nuclear deterrence. All detailed information on nuclear weapons and deterrence is based on recent research by several scholars, only few of which I will detail (link) here. My model describes in more detail, why deterrence is so close of failing, and I return to that later. In the conclusions I also comment the recent steps of escalation, i.e., the Russian flotilla just off the Floridan coast and fresh U.S. sanctions to Russian financial sector.

    Tactical nuclear weapons

    I have to start with a notion that there actually is no universally accepted definition for a ‘tactical nuclear weapon’. Some scholars of nuclear deterrence, and some military leaders, even argue that such distinction makes no sense. For example, both “strategical” and “tactical” nuclear weapons can have either a low or a high yield, measured in kilo- and megatons. Low yield nuclear devices are generally thought to produce an explosion between one to 10 kilotons, while high yield nuclear weapons, and especially so called hydrogen bombs, yield an explosive power of dozens of megatons.1 To note, the biggest ever created nuclear explosion occurred on 30 October, 1961, when the Soviet Union tested ‘Tsar Bomba’ yielding an explosive power of 50-58 megatons (difference between U.S. and Russian measurements). Reportedly, the test implied a new construction of a hydrogen bomb able to produce “practically unlimited power”.

    The arms control definition has been to disentangle weapons according to their range, where strategic nuclear weapons have intercontinental range, while tactical have short- to medium-range. This is questionable, because some nuclear powers do not even have intercontinental-range weapons, but it would be hard to argue that they would not be able to conduct “strategical” nuclear strikes. Moreover, strategical nuclear weapons can be used in a tactical manner, i.e., strikes to military or critical infrastructure targets. Thus, the distinction between strategical and tactical nuclear weapons, and strikes, is fuzzy, to say the least.

    In the model I am building, I classify tactical nuclear weapons as short- to medium-range nuclear weapons with relatively low yield used for surgical strikes to military installations or critical infrastructure. I classify strategical nuclear weapons having an intercontinental range with a high yield used to inflict wide-spread damage to military and civilian infrastructure. I think this is a proper description of the weapons based on their strategical capabilities, for modelling purposes at least.

    Mutually asserted destruction, MAD

    If we assume the worst-case view to nuclear warfare, we have been on a road towards a nuclear conflict since the U.S. conducted her first nuclear bomb test, the Trinity test, on July 16, 1945. Just two months later, the world witnessed first nuclear strikes with the U.S. dropping nukes on cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 and 9 August. These strikes effectively ended the Second World War, but started the nuclear armament race.

    Right after the first nuclear strikes, nuclear weapons were seen, by the military planners, only as a new means of warfare, but with unprecedented destructive power. For example, General MacArthur advocated for using nuclear weapons, in tactical capacity, in the Korean conflict fought between 1950-1953. President Truman fortunately refrained from this, but the idea was floated. The idea of nuclear deterrence started to develop only after the Soviet Union created her own nuclear weapons, with the first Soviet nuclear bomb test conducted on August 29, 1949. Yet, only the arrival of intercontinental bombers and intercontinental ballistic missiles, or ICBMs, led to the creation of the concept and policies of nuclear deterrence, by removing distance as a factor shielding from a nuclear attack.

    The grounding idea of MAD, and thus nuclear deterrence, has rested on the assumption that using nuclear weapons in a conflict against a nuclear power would automatically lead to a nuclear war and thus mutual destruction in a nuclear holocaust. However, developments in nuclear weapons and their interception capabilities has changed the terms and possibility of nuclear conflicts, and thus nuclear deterrence.

    The shaky foundations of modern nuclear deterrence

    Some scholars argue that nuclear deterrence is a moot point, because no weapon system is created for deterrence.2 I would argue that recent developments imply that nuclear deterrence plays a definite role still. This is one conclusion that can be drawn from the response to recent drills of the Russian fleet, including a nuclear submarine, in the Atlantic reportedly at times just some 25 miles off the Floridan coast. It also looks that the two strikes to Russian early-warning system have yielded a strong back-room response to Ukrainian leadership from the Biden administration. When the U.S. administration is publicly “concerned”, it usually implies that behind closed doors, there has been hell to pay (see also this). In any case, this is good news. We at GnS Economics have not yet lifted the warning of a nuclear strike in Europe, but I would argue that it’s likelihood has diminished, for now at least.

    When we look at general developments, a worrying picture starts to emerge. Even Hellan Larsen has published an interesting study entitled: Deliberate nuclear first use in an era of asymmetry: A game theoretical approach. Asymmetry, between two or more nuclear powers, in Larsen’s study arises from two factors:

    1. Asymmetry in damage limitation and secure-second-strike capability, and
    2. Asymmetry in conventional warfare.

    The former implies imbalances in the capacity of nuclear forces to counter nuclear strikes, essentially to repel strategic bombers and ICBM’s, and in the capacity to deliver a secondary strike after the first strike by the enemy. The latter implies inferiority in non-nuclear forces with the prospect of sustaining catastrophic losses in a conventional warfare. In this case, the weaker party uses nuclear weapon as a coercion tool. In the former, the stonger party may see it “rational” to issue a deliberate nuclear first use (DFNU), in certain conditions, because it assumes it can repel most of the secondary strike of the weaker party. In the latter, the weaker party launches a nuclear strike to compensate her weakness in the battleground (with her troops in a possible risk of being over-run). Currently, there are clear asymmetry in tactical nuclear weapons between the two leading nuclear powers: the U.S. and Russia.

    Previously, there was symmetry. In the late 1980s the U.S. held approximately 9000 tactical nuclear weapons, while the Soviet Union (Russia) was estimated to have held anything between 13000 and 22000 tactical nuclear weapons. In 2019, these numbers were around 230 for the U.S. and some 2000 for Russia. Moreover, the capacity of remaining arsenal differs greatly. Russia has developed and modernized a wide variety of platforms capable of launching both conventional and nuclear warheads. Russia has bombers, missiles in ships, subs, aicrafts and helicopters, hypersonic missiles and possibly even artillery capable of delivering tactical nuclear strikes. The U.S. has mostly just aircrafts and guided bombs to do the same. France and Britain have all but eliminated their arsenal of tactical nuclear weapons. So, between NATO and Russia, the symmetry in tactical nuclear weapons has turned into a clear asymmetry to the benefit of Russia.

    It has been a long-standing concern of Russia whether her nuclear forces would be able to survive from an (strategical) U.S. first strike in sufficient quantaties to deliver a “deep second strike” due to the counterforce capabilities and missile defenses of the U.S. It has even been simulated that if the U.S. would launch an all-out nuclear first strike during a peace time, it could achieve a pyrrhic victory with Russian second strike capabilities seriously hampered. In a crisis, the likelihood of a succesful U.S. first strike would diminish, because of the grown readiness of Russian nuclear forces. As a response to all this, Russia has been pouring money into developing hypersonic missiles and missile defense systems.

    The collapse of Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty in February 2019, has created a new threat to Russia, because it creates the possibility to place short- to medium-range nuclear missiles to Europe. Their short fly-time effectively dismantles the nuclear deterrence policy of Russia, which is based on the concept of launch-on-warning, which relies on the missile early-warning system, i.e., the very system Ukraine struck late-May. The system is aimed at providing a warning to Russian leadership of an ICBM launch anywhere in the world, towards Russia, after which Russia would launch a counter-strike (or a second-strike) even before missiles of the first-strike would have struck to Russia and her allies.

    Questions have been raised is the U.S. missile defense system effective against hypersonic missiles. Reports, e.g., from Iranian hypersonic strikes to Israel are conflicting, but we know that at least some hypersonic missiles penetrated the ‘Iron Dome’. This is likely to lead to development of more effective, and more pervasive, missile defense system, a “defense race” of sort, as well as to rapid development of U.S. hypersonic missile capacity. These developments would alter nuclear deterrence, yet again.

    Conclusions

    The problem I see in the Ukrainian conflict is that it’s being waged, by NATO currently, possible to serve the similar aims, like Russia’s Afghanistan campaign in the 1980s. It has been argued that the failed military campaign in the remote Soviet-controlled country, delivered a fatal blow to the Russian economy eventually leading to the collapse of the whole Soviet Union. The difference between Afghanistan and Ukraine is that Afghanistan was like Vietnam, that is, a proxy-war between the U.S. and Russia fought over a strategically relatively unimportant country. Like explained by several notable scholars, including “NATO-hawk” Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski and U.S. professor John Mearsheimer, Ukraine has been a definite red line for Moscow for a long time. This brings us to the cross-hairs of modern nuclear deterrence over her territory.

    As I am writing these lines, the U.S. has issued another round of sanctions, now aimed at the financial sector of Russia. I don’t think that the timing was a coincidence. The Russian ‘floatilla’ practicing off the coast of Florida was a likely trigger. This, like the flotilla, is just another step of escalation.

    The world keeps on moving into two blocks, which is a likely to be the aim, because one needs competing factions to establish deeper escalation. As you notice, I have gone rather deep into the ‘Rabbit Hole’, and I am currently watching these major developments as plays in a global chess game, which are likely to lead us to deeper escalation and towards the scenarios I described in the Horsemen of the Apocalypse. I am simply starting to lack any other models to explain this global madness than a some powerful force pushing us deeper into geopolitical chaos. It’s quite possible that I will end this mini-series on nuclear deterrence on a piece in the Apocalypse Scenario (it would be fitting, I guess).

    What makes the current situation so daunting is that we are breaking most of the established international rules. This ranges from starting a war to breaking of global financial order through sanctions and confiscation of international assets. If we know one thing from history, it’s that when a rule-based order breaks, destructive wars follow.

    What I hope to have established here is a first look on the changing nature of nuclear deterrence and on the risks it entails. Building an understanding through some actual modeling work, even when the model is relative simple, always gives a much wider perspective than simply just reading research. I will keep working with the model, and the academic paper, and I publish updates here on the things I discover. I just hope we (humanity) have the strength to stop this cycle of escalation, before something irreversible happens.

    I end this to some notions for paid subscribers on the effects of new Russian sanctions.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 06/16/2024 – 22:10

  • Japan Grants Asylum To Just 303 People In 2023 As It Rejected 98% Of Applicants
    Japan Grants Asylum To Just 303 People In 2023 As It Rejected 98% Of Applicants

    Japan granted refugee status to a ‘record’ 303 asylum-seekers in 2023, an increase from the previous record of 202 people set in 2022, the Justice Ministry announced last week.

    Ukrainian refugees arrive at Haneda airport in Tokyo on April 5, 2022 (Reuters)

    Beyond this, two foreign nationals were granted quasi-refugee status for ‘fleeing from countries in conflict,’ while another 1,005 – mostly from Ukraine – were granted permission to reside in Japan on humanitarian grounds, though they do not qualify for refugee status, the Japan Times reports. 

    According to a Tuesday report from the Justice Ministry, there were 13,823 asylum-seekers who applied for refugee status last year, a more than 3x increase from 2022 – though far short of the record set in 2017 of 19,629 applicants. The 303 who were granted refugee status were recognized by the Japanese government as having had to flee their home countries over threats of persecution. 

    As in 2022, the majority of those recognized as being refugees last year — 237 people — were from Afghanistan, where the return of the Taliban regime to power in 2021 has led to continued instability. Refugees from Myanmar and Ethiopia made up the next biggest groups.

    Last year’s applicants for refugee status made up the second-largest number that Japan has ever received in a single year, with those from Sri Lanka (3,778), Turkey (2,406) and Pakistan (1,062) accounting for the largest nationality groups.

    As for the new categories – Japan revised its Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Law in 2023, introducing a new status of “subsidiary protection” that grants asylum to those fleeing from areas experiencing active, ongoing conflict – even if they do not qualify under Japan’s narrow definition of refugee.

    Since December 1st, 1,110 applications have been made for special status – most of whom (1,101) were from Ukraine. By the end of February, 647 applicants had been granted quasi-refugee status, with 644 of them being Ukrainian.

    If an application is denied in Japan, there is an appeal process that can take several years – on top of the initial application process that takes several months to begin with.

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 06/16/2024 – 21:35

  • Biden Campaign Claims Trump Said He Will "Throw Women With Beautiful Children In Mass Detention Camps"
    Biden Campaign Claims Trump Said He Will “Throw Women With Beautiful Children In Mass Detention Camps”

    Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

    The Biden campaign has used a deceptively edited clip from a speech Donald Trump made Saturday at Turning Point USA’s Detroit conference, claiming that he said he wants to “throw women with beautiful children in mass detention camps.”

    Here is what the Biden campaign posted on X:

    Firstly, he didn’t even say that.

    Secondly, watch the full clip.

    They edited out the beginning where Trump is specifically saying that leftists will twist him saying he’s going to incarcerate “terrorists” before deporting them, and instead claim that he’s doing it to women and children.

    They just proved his point.

    He then went on to describe some of the despicable actions of illegal immigrant gang member murderers.

    The Biden camp doesn’t realise that people are not buying this crap anymore, that Trump is a dictatorial Third Reich loving racist who is going to round people up and put them in camps.

    It’s utterly stupid and betrays how desperate they are.

    *  *  *

    Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 06/16/2024 – 21:00

  • Swiss Summit Says Ukraine's 'Territorial Integrity' Must Be Basis Of Any Peace
    Swiss Summit Says Ukraine’s ‘Territorial Integrity’ Must Be Basis Of Any Peace

    Sunday’s major Ukraine peace conference in Switzerland, where some 100 countries were represented, has rejected the conditions named by Russia’s Vladimir Putin for immediately ending the war.

    A final document produced by the summit, which 78 of the countries signed off on, asserted that the basis of any future Ukraine-Russia peace deal to end the war must preserve the “territory integrity” of Ukraine.

    Via AFP

    Referencing the UN charter, the document lays out that “respect for territorial integrity and sovereignty … can and will serve as a basis for achieving a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in Ukraine.”

    “We believe that reaching peace requires the involvement of and dialogue between all parties,” it additionally said.

    While the vast majority of countries agreed to the document, the representatives of India, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Thailand and the United Arab Emirates did not sign it, according to The Associated Press.

    European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen addressed the conditions for peace that Putin spelled out at the end of last week, saying:

    “It was not a peace negotiation because Putin is not serious about ending the war. He is insisting on capitulation. He is insisting on ceding Ukrainian territory — even territory that today is not occupied by him,” she said.

    “He is insisting on disarming Ukraine, leaving it vulnerable to future aggression. No country would ever accept these outrageous terms.”

    She was referencing his Friday televised address wherein the Russian leader said, “Ukrainian troops must be completely withdrawn from the Donetsk People’s Republic, the Luhansk People’s Republic, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions.” Putin also stipulated a second main condition for ending the war: Ukraine must reject ambitions to join the NATO alliance. 

    “As soon as Kyiv says it is ready to do this and begins really withdrawing troops and officially renounces plans to join NATO, we will immediately — literally that very minute — cease-fire and begin talks,” Putin said in the talk given to a gathering of his foreign ministry officials. But leaders gathered in Switzerland over the weekend, including Italy’s PM Giorgia Meloni, rejected Putin’s overture as but “propaganda”.

    Both Russia and China have suggested that the two-day peace conference being held in Burgenstock is futile without Russia’s presence and participation, and is ultimately but a PR stunt.

    Meanwhile an interesting and awkward moment last week at the G7 summit in Italy…

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky hailed the outcome of the summit on Sunday. He said, “We’ll prove to everyone in the world that the UN Charter can be restored to full effectiveness.” He said of countries which have yet to sign on to the final document may still do so as it is ‘open’… “Even countries that are now thinking to join it have consultations ongoing in their respective countries,” Zelensky announced.

    Given that G7 leaders have also this weekend agreed to more long term funding for Ukraine, to the tune of $50 billion and while using some $280 billion in frozen Russian assets to do it, the prospect of legitimate peace negotiations now seem as far away as ever.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 06/16/2024 – 20:25

  • 20% Of California Lives In Poverty; What's Going On?
    20% Of California Lives In Poverty; What’s Going On?

    Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

    On a cost-adjusted basis, California leads the nation in percentage living in poverty.

    Blame the Progressive oligarchs like Governor Newsom.

    Unemployment rates from the BLS through April. State level data lags by one month. Chart by Mish.

    Warning to the World

    Spiked makes a strong case that a dominant class of oligarchs and woke bureaucrats has bled the Golden State dry. It’s a Warning to the World.

    Many still see California as the home of a ‘new progressive era’. It is often viewed as an exemplar of social equity, one that reflects, as a New York Times column put it, ‘the shared values of our increasingly tolerant and pluralistic society’. In truth, far from embodying an egalitarian ethos, it is pioneering a new kind of almost feudal society. A relative handful of oligarchs and a vast bureaucratic ‘clerisy’ lord it over a massive class of what are essentially serfs.

    California is not only home to by far the highest number of billionaires in the US. But it also suffers the highest proportion of Americans living in poverty and the widest gap between middle- and upper-middle-income earners of any state. It endures among the US’ highest rates of unemployment, as well as massive net outmigration, an exodus that has increased sharply since 2019. It also has 30 per cent of the nation’s homeless population, with some now living in ‘furnished’ caves.

    Even without adjusting for costs, no Californian metro area ranks in the US top 10 in terms of well-paying, blue-collar jobs. But four – Ventura, Los Angeles, San Jose and San Diego – sit among the bottom 10.

    Gavin Newsom, California’s governor and prince of the oligarchic elite, seems determined to double down on his attempt to shape California as the model for the ‘progressive’ future. ‘Unlike the Washington plutocracy’, he proclaims, ‘California isn’t satisfied serving a powerful few on one side of the velvet rope’.

    Such rhetoric crashes against reality. Newsom’s high-tax, regulation-heavy regime is driving enormous poverty. The state’s ethnic-minority communities are suffering most. Ignoring the interests of these people, California legislators and regulators enact proposals for the almost total elimination of fossil fuels. 

    This, as attorney Jennifer Hernandez explains, has created a kind of ‘green Jim Crow’ that disproportionately hurts working-class, ethnic-minority families. Californians have the highest energy prices in the continental US and energy poverty is particularly rife among the heavily Latino inland areas. Recently, the California Air Resources Board, the primary executor of California’s climate policies, projected that these policies will result in significant income declines for individuals earning less than $100,000 annually, while boosting incomes for those above this threshold.

    Rather than address class issues, California’s progressive project focusses on issues like gender, abortion and race. All provide excellent ways to virtue-signal without threatening the ruling cabal of the oligarchical elite, the government bureaucracy and the political class. This has led California to pass such measures as mandates for stores to have gender-neutral toy sections and allowing children to change genders without parental approval.

    But it is the race card that California’s feudalists rely on most to appeal to both the guilt-ridden white progressives, as well as the non-white majority. Their regulatory and tax policies may undermine the aspirations of minorities, notably Latinos and African Americans, but they offer support for race-based affirmative-action measures. This is despite the fact that Californian voters have twice rejected such efforts by wide margins.

    This hasn’t stopped the state’s nine-member Reparations Task Force. Last month, it recommended state payments of $223,200 to black descendants of slaves living in California. The bill for this could top $569 billion. Equally terrifying, the Racial Justice Act 2020 came into effect in California this year, allowing anyone serving time for a felony to retroactively challenge their conviction and sentencing, on the basis of systemic racial bias. This will essentially allow race to become a major deciding factor in convicting and sentencing criminals in California.

    Today, even in face of a record $68 billion deficit and a weak economy, the state’s political establishment seems reluctant to curb its spending or regulatory impulses.

    Rather than change course, Newsom and his allies employ budget tricks to deal with the deficit. The governor has even blamed climate change for much of the problem. California’s Democrats are not remotely serious about fixing the budget. Redistribution continues to ace out wealth creation, as epitomised by a pledge to provide undocumented immigrants, hard-working or not, with free healthcare. Meanwhile, middle- and working-class Californians pay ever higher premiums.

    These new costs are being imposed even as the high-tech industries keeping California’s economy afloat are beginning to erode. 

    Dissatisfaction with these and other state policies is becoming more widespread. In one recent survey of California opinion, some 57 per cent said the state was headed in the wrong direction, up from 37 per cent in 2020. Residents of most states hold positive feelings for their state, but not in California, where four in 10 people are considering an exit.

    As for the Republicans, the road to resurgence is filled with boulders, many of which are of the party’s own making. The potential is there. Barely 40 per cent of Latinos surveyed recently thought the Democrats were best suited to meeting the state’s challenges.

    Such multi-racial coalitions will be critical. California’s future preeminence can only be assured if we return to the kind of common sense, growth-oriented politics that served it so well in the past. The Golden State was once the world’s epicentre of human aspiration. We can’t just surrender it to the neo-feudalists.

    The Path to National Ruin

    If you live in California and vote for Progressives, you deserve what’s happening. The problem, of course, is the rest of the state does not deserve the madness you impose.

    Going one step further, if you are also for slave reparations in a state that never had slaves, then you deserve to lose your house to someone clearly more deserving than you. At a cost of $569 billion, the only way to pay these reparations is for people to be taxed out of their homes.

    What’s happening in California is also playing out in Illinois led by Progressive governor J. B. Pritzker.

    At the city level look at policies by Chicago by mayor Brandon Johnson, New York City mayor Eric Adams, Boston mayor Michelle Wu, and San Francisco mayor London Breed.

    “Wu has argued for charges including shoplifting and disorderly conduct to be beyond the reach of prosecutors along with other serious crimes including the receiving of stolen property and even driving with a suspended license.”

    There are too many Progressive idiots to name them all.

    February 4, 2024: Cost of Running a McDonalds Jumps $250,000 in CA Due to Minimum Wage Hikes

    March 26,2024: California Restaurants Cut Jobs as Fast-Food Wages Set to Rise

    March 30, 2024: California’s Deficit Is $222 Billion and the State is $1.6 Trillion in Debt

    April 6, 2024: California Bill Would Create a Legal Right to Ignore Boss’s Emails After hours

    Congratulations Overdue

    Apologies offered. I failed to congratulate California when it passed Washington D.C. to take the highest unemployment rate in the nation.

    California Leads the Nation in New Unemployment Claims

    Also note the surge in unemployment claims is led by California.

    On June 13, 2024 I noted Initial Unemployment Claims Jump the Most Since August 2023

    Congratulations to Newsom

    Rubio’s went bankrupt in 2020 thanks to Newsom’s covid lockdowns.

    Then in 2024, Newsom bankrupted the chain again.

    What other governors can make such a claim?

    What Happened to the Biden Surge After Trump Was Convicted?

    For those who missed it, please see What Happened to the Biden Surge After Trump Was Convicted?

    If Biden were to win, promotion of economically insane policies, reparations, and bailouts of states like California and Illinois would be in the cards. That is what’s at stake in the election, but few see it.

    If that isn’t the future you would like for the US, then think about how you vote.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 06/16/2024 – 19:50

  • "No Place In The Public Discourse": The Connecticut Bar Association Warns Critics Of Trump Prosecutions
    “No Place In The Public Discourse”: The Connecticut Bar Association Warns Critics Of Trump Prosecutions

    Authored by Jonathan Turley,

    This week, I have received emails from Connecticut bar members over a message posted by President Maggie Castinado, President-Elect James T. (Tim) Shearin, and Vice President Emily A. Gianquinto warning them about criticizing the prosecutions of former President Donald Trump. The message from the bar leadership is chilling for those lawyers who view cases like the one in Manhattan as a raw political prosecution. While the letter does not outright state that such criticism will be considered unethical conduct, it states that the criticism has “no place in the public discourse” and calls on members to speak publicly in support of the integrity of these legal proceedings.

    The statement begins by warning members that “words matter” but then leaves the ramifications for bar members dangling on how it might matter to them. They simply note that some comments will be viewed as “cross[ing] the line from criticism to dangerous rhetoric.”

    According to the Connecticut Bar, it is now considered reckless and unprofessional to make analogies to show trials or to question the integrity of the legal system or the judges in such cases.

    For example, criticizing Judge Juan Merchan for refusing to recuse from the case is considered beyond the pale. Many lawyers believe that his political contributions to Biden and his daughter’s major role as a Democratic fundraiser and activist should have prompted Merchan to remove himself (and any appearance of a conflict). I have been more critical of his rulings, which I believe were both biased and wrong.

    Yet, the Bar is warning lawyers that such comments can cross the line. The letter assures members that they are free to criticize but warn that attacking the ethics of a judge or the motivations behind these cases is dangerous and could spark violence.

    I have previously denounced overheated rhetoric and share the concern over how such rage rhetoric can encourage violence. After the verdict, I immediately encouraged people not to yield to their anger, but to trust our legal system. I believe that the verdict in New York may ultimately be overturned. I also noted that I do not blame the jury but rather the judge and the prosecutors for an unfounded and unfair trial.

    Of course, the concern over rage rhetoric runs across our political spectrum. While rarely criticized in the media, we have seen an escalation of reckless rhetoric from the left. For example,  Georgetown Law Professor Josh Chafetz declared that “when the mob is right, some (but not all!) more aggressive tactics are justified.”

    My concern is not with the plea for lawyers to take care that their comments do not encourage such “aggressive tactics.” The problem is the suggestion that lawyers are acting somehow unprofessionally in denouncing what many view as a two-tier system of justice and the politicalization of our legal system.

    Like many, I believe that the Manhattan case was a flagrant example of such weaponization of the legal system and should be denounced by all lawyers. It is a return, in my view, to the type of political prosecution once common in this country.

    For those lawyers who view such prosecutions as political, they are speaking out in defense of what they believe is the essence of blind justice in America. What is “reckless” to the Connecticut Bar is righteous to others. Notably, the Bar officials did not write to denounce attacks on figures like Bill Barr or claims that the Justice Department was rigging justice during the Trump years.

    Likewise, the letter focuses on critics of the Trump prosecutions and not the continued attacks on conservative jurists like Justice Samuel Alito. It has never published warnings about those calling conservative justices profanities, attacking their religion, or labeling them “partisan hacks” or other even “insurrectionist sympathizers.” Liberal activists have been calling for stopping conservative jurists “by any means necessary.”

    In Connecticut, Sen. Richard Blumenthal has warned conservative justices to rule correctly or face “seismic changes.” That did not appear to worry the bar. Likewise, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer also declared in front of the Supreme Court “I want to tell you, Gorsuch, I want to tell you, Kavanaugh, you have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price.”

    The letter goes further and suggests that lawyers should speak publicly in support of trials like the one in Manhattan, a view that ignores the deep misgivings over the motivations and means used in New York to target an unpopular figure in this city. You have the top Bar officials calling on lawyers to take a public position that is opposed by many lawyers and citizens in defending the integrity of these prosecutions. Imagine the response if the Idaho Bar called on its lawyers to speak out against these cases and declared that it is reckless or unprofessional to defend them.

    I expect that, in the very liberal Bar of Connecticut, the letter is hardly needed. Indeed, this letter is likely to be quite popular.  Yet, I would have thought that Bar officials would have taken greater care to respect the divergent opinions on these trials and the need to avoid any statements that might chill the exercise of free speech.

    Ironically, the letter only reinforced the view of a legal system that is maintaining a political orthodoxy and agenda. These officials declare that it is now unprofessional or reckless for lawyers to draw historical comparisons to show trials or to question the motives or ethics underlying these cases. They warn lawyers not to “sow distrust in the public for the courts where it does not belong.” Yet, many believe that there is an alarming threat to our legal system and that distrust is warranted in light of prosecution like the one in Manhattan.

    As discussed in my new book, The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage, critics of political prosecutions under the Crown and during the Adams Administrations were often threatened with disbarment or other legal actions for questioning the integrity or motives of judges or prosecutors.

    It is not enough to say “well that was then and this is now.” The point is that the Bar Association also has a duty to protect the core rights that define our legal system, particularly the right of free speech.

    Again, these officials are not threatening Bar action against critics of these cases. However, as evidenced by the emails in my inbox, it is being taken as a warning by many who hold misgivings over these prosecutions.

    Our legal system has nothing to fear from criticism. Indeed, free speech strengthens our system by exposing divisions and encouraging dialogue. It is orthodoxy and speech intolerance that represent the most serious threats to that system.

    Here is the message in its entirety:

    Dear Members,

    Words matter. Reckless words attacking the integrity of our judicial system matter even more.

    In the wake of the recent trial and conviction of former President Donald Trump, public officials have issued statements claiming that the trial was a “sham,” a “hoax,” and “rigged”; our justice system is “corrupt and rigged”; the judge was “corrupt” and “highly unethical”; and, that the jury was “partisan” and “precooked.” Others claimed the trial was “America’s first communist show trial”—a reference to historic purges of high-ranking communist officials that were used to eliminate political threats.

    These claims are unsubstantiated and reckless. Such statements can provoke acts of violence against those serving the public as employees of the judicial branch. Indeed, such statements have resulted in threats to those fulfilling their civic obligations by sitting on the jury, as evidenced by social media postings seeking to identify the names and addresses of the anonymous jurors and worse, in several cases urging that the jurors be shot or hanged. As importantly, such statements strike at the very integrity of the third branch of government and sow distrust in the public for the courts where it does not belong.

    To be clear, free speech includes criticism. There is and should be no prohibition on commenting on the decision to bring the prosecution, the prosecution’s legal theory, the judge’s rulings, or the verdict itself. But headlines’ grabbing, baseless allegations made by public officials cross the line from criticism to dangerous rhetoric. They have no place in the public discourse.

    It is up to us, as lawyers, to defend the courts and our judges. As individuals, and as an Association, we cannot let the charged political climate in which we live dismantle the third branch of government. To remain silent renders us complicit in that effort.

    Respect for the judicial system is essential to our democracy. The CBA condemns unsupported attacks on the integrity of that system.

    Sincerely,

    Maggie Castinado

    President,

    Connecticut Bar Association

    James T. (Tim) Shearin

    President-Elect,

    Connecticut Bar Association

    Emily A. Gianquinto

    Vice President,

    Connecticut Bar Association

    *  *  *

    Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. He is the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage” (Simon and Schuster, 2024).

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 06/16/2024 – 18:40

  • Obama And Kimmel Puppet Biden Through $30 Million LA Fundraiser As Trump Dazzles Detroit
    Obama And Kimmel Puppet Biden Through $30 Million LA Fundraiser As Trump Dazzles Detroit

    President Joe Biden was flanked by Barack Obama and Jimmy Kimmel Saturday night for what turned out to be a record-setting $30 million fundraising haul headlined by Obama, George Clooney and Julia Roberts. 

    Following the Alex Soros blueprint, instead of talking up their accomplishments and future plans (oh, right), the trio laid into Trump over his conviction on 34 counts in his ‘hush-money’ trial (that was so absurd that top Democrats advised not bragging about it).

    “Look, part of what has happened in the last several years is we’ve normalized behavior that used to be disqualified,” said Obama. “The other spectacle of the nominee of one of the two major parties is sitting in court and being convicted by a jury of his peers on 34 counts. You have his foundation, it’s not allowed to operate because it was engaging in monkey business and not actually philanthropic.”

    At one point Obama had to guide a confused Biden offstage.

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    The event comes one week after Trump hauled in roughly $27.5 million from three fundraisers in California and one in Las Vegas – where he pledged to defeat “crooked Joe Biden” in November, and return to the White House to pursue an “America First” policy that will minimize foreign intervention and secure the US border.

    And while the Democrats partied for Biden, Trump was able to rock a Detroit crowd without the aid of a former president.

    Though it seems like security at the Detroit Convention Center didn’t do their job, so the Secret Service had to shut the place down and re-wand everyone.

    Once things got going, the event went off without a hitch.

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    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsEarlier in the day, Trump visited with the black community.

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    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 06/16/2024 – 18:05

  • An Army Special Forces Veteran Creates American Flags That Don't Burn
    An Army Special Forces Veteran Creates American Flags That Don’t Burn

    By Blake Stilwell if Military.com

    In many ways, Kyle Daniels is your typical Midwestern American. He grew up in a patriotic household, many of his family members joined the military, and his father was very meticulous about flag etiquette — probably more so than your average American.

    “Every morning we put it out at sunrise, we’d go out every night after work, bring it in and fold it the right way. It was very ceremonious,” Daniels recently told Military.com. “It was instilled in me very early that this flag represents the freedoms we enjoy today. It’s not just about the Fourth of July, it’s not just about the special days; it’s about every day. And that was something that I held near and dear to my heart.”

    That patriotism was never lost on him. Daniels would grow up to join the ranks of Army Special Forces. When he left the service, he was looking for what to do in the next phase of his life. He found the opportunity to combine his love of country with his post-military career — a way to defend Old Glory itself, even if he’s not there to do it personally.

    “I walked right out of a college class in 2003 and directly to a recruiter‘s office to sign [on] the dotted line,” Daniels said. “Within three months, I was in boot camp. I was a lost soul and just did not feel any compelling purpose for college. This was around the time that the war in Iraq kicked off, and I just knew I could do more there.”

    Daniels joined the Army’s 18X program, which allowed him to go directly into Special Forces training. After boot camp, he went through Airborne School and the Special Forces Q-Course; by 2005, he was assigned to the 10th Special Forces Group. A year later, he finally made it to Iraq for the first of two deployments there. He stepped off a C-17 Globemaster III the night he arrived to see the American flag flying on the airfield.

    “I remember not knowing what to expect going into combat,” Daniels recalled. “I was 22, and it was my first time actually going to war. I remember being at peace with it, but still not knowing what to expect. I’ll never forget coming off of a C-17 and seeing, very distinctly, the flag flying right on the airfield in Baghdad.  

    “Something about seeing that, knowing where I was, brought me a sense of comfort, and that’s a lot of what the flag really, really instills in me. No matter where I am in the world, if I see that flag, there’s going to be some sense of comfort or reassurance.”

    When Daniels left the U.S. military in 2010, he fulfilled a promise to his dad to finish college, but he struggled to figure out what he would do next. Like many veterans, he sought the help of friends who had already transitioned. A former teammate, Jason Van Camp, connected him with Warrior Rising, a nonprofit that helps veterans get their business ideas off the ground. Daniels and Van Camp talked at length about the politics of the country, and didn’t like what they saw. 

    At the time, tensions were high in the United States, especially around the flag. Daniels saw protests around the 2016 presidential election and protests against American activities all over the world in which flags were being burned. He naturally felt the discourse didn’t represent the values that were instilled in him — with flags being burned.

    “That really resonated with me,” he said. “I’ve seen the sacrifice people make for that flag and for the freedoms that it represents. I didn’t really know what to do at the time, but the idea came about. I was like, ‘I wish there was a flag that didn’t burn.’ And then we had the idea: Let’s make one.”

    So they did, and by 2020, Firebrand Flags was born.

    The material used to create these flags uses the same Kevlar-based fire retardant and manufacturing processes used to create U.S. military combat uniforms. They’re also engineered for durability. Anyone who’s flown a flag from their front porch knows that after even just a year of exposure to the elements, flags become frayed and discolored. Firebrand’s classic flag also prevents both. They are also, of course, made in the United States, with each star hand-sewn onto the blue field.

    “We wanted a flag that not just embodied the fighting spirit that our men and women have but could actually defend itself from people who wanted to do it harm, people who wanted to disparage the flag or burn the flag,” Daniels said. “It was important for me that the stars were hand-sewn, and everything else is made in America.”

    For a limited time, the company is offering a special, World War II-era vintage 48-star flag that was airdropped into Normandy, France, with the cast of the HBO series “Band of Brothers” to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the D-Day invasion. To learn more about the process of making flags that won’t burn, Kyle Daniels or more about Firebrand’s “Old Glory” classic flag, visit the Firebrand Flags website.

     

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 06/16/2024 – 17:30

  • "Possible Chemical Agent" Released At Pride Event In Baltimore
    “Possible Chemical Agent” Released At Pride Event In Baltimore

    The Baltimore City Police Department is investigating a “possible chemical agent” released at a Pride event Saturday evening in the downtown area that sparked a “mass exodus.” 

    Local media outlet Capital Gazette said a “possible chemical agent” and fireworks were released during the Baltimore Pride parade around 830 pm local time. 

    Baltimore Police has yet to confirm the type of chemical agent that was released. The combination of the chemical agent and fireworks caused the large crowd to panic, scattering in different directions and resulting in several injuries. 

    “Our officers are diligently reviewing the surveillance video to gather all the necessary information and determine the sequence of events,” said a Baltimore Police public information officer, Freddie Talbert.

    Here’s a video of the chaos. 

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    In mid-May, the State Department renewed a global security warning for Americans overseas, adding LGBTQ folks face an “increased potential for foreign terrorist organization-inspired violence.” 

    Domestically, FBI Director Chris Wray warned of the threat of a ‘coordinated attack’ in the US thanks to President Biden’s disastrous open southern borders.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 06/16/2024 – 16:55

  • "There Seems To Be A Sense Of Incredulousness Around What Is Going On In The Markets"
    “There Seems To Be A Sense Of Incredulousness Around What Is Going On In The Markets”

    By Peter Tchir of Academy Securities

    Same but different

    A few topics that we have touched on over the past few months continue to be relevant. What is interesting is that a few of those topics now seem to have garnered far more attention than in the past.

    • Discrepancies and “weirdness” in the jobs report. Best of Times, Worst of Times picked up on many of these, and not only have they been topics of discussion, but the Fed Chair was also specifically asked about them. I still think that the extremely high percentage of jobs “created” by the birth/death model and the shocking number of part-time vs. full-time jobs need to be better addressed (Who Needs Enemies?). At the very least, everyone finally seems to be trying to figure out the “real” state of the job market, and not just cherry picking the data that suits their needs.

    • Is 10% the new normal? While it took Apple 2 days to achieve a roughly 10% move, other large- cap companies are also jumping 10% or more in a single day. However, some others are losing that much in a day. As discussed in Is 10% the New 1% that is likely a sign that the market is more controlled by options, day traders, and “machines” rather than “traditional” investors. Probably a sign that liquidity has very little depth. This topic came up a LOT last week. Not sure what caused the spike in this topic, but even some “believers” in some stocks seemed to question what the heck is going on. I don’t think I’ve once said or written about stocks being in a bubble, and I am not doing that today, but for the first time, there seems to be a sense of “incredulousness” around what is going on in the markets. That could mean that we have another big leg higher as everyone gets “sucked in” to the market, but the discussions felt more disturbing than healthy.

    • How Tight Can Credit Spreads Go? Last weekend’s report generated a lot of back and forth on the subjects that we delved into. The “private credit” and “return of bank lending” probably generated the widest range of comments, though I did find out several people still have their IG 200 hats from 2008! If you missed this one, I think it is worth a read, even though credit spreads weakened a touch on the week.

    • “Extreme” Politics and Elections. It has been impossible not to notice how “polarized” so many things have become on the political front. While we are still at the “presumptive” nominee stage in the U.S., it feels like we are in the heart of the campaign already. But that we already knew. What I have to admit is that I didn’t realize this is apparently a global phenomenon. Markets were actually impacted by elections in France.

    • I, for one, did not have European Debt Crisis on my bingo card, and we are a far away from that, but maybe I should have? At first, the move was attributed to the fact that the right wing in France had done well. That those pushing a more “domestic” focused agenda had won. A trend that we have been seeing across the globe. It goes hand in hand with deglobalization. I am not particularly knowledgeable about French politics, so I went to those who are. What I found interesting is the real concern that the far left AND far right will do very well in upcoming elections. That would leave a “centrist” like Macron potentially short of support. I had not been thinking in terms of a bipolar world with respect to European elections. Now, maybe we have to? Will that be disruptive? Will it turn out that Brexit was merely the beginning of a trend towards countries “re-thinking” the EU? Probably far too early to say anything like that, but this issue, which was below my radar screen, has suddenly popped up and needs to be thought about more. This of course already comes on the heels of some interesting elections in Taiwan (pro-independence), India (Modi losing his grip?), and Mexico (a change in leadership as the border has become a vital part of the U.S. election). I’ve been so focused on U.S. politics and thinking about how the election is likely to play out here that I paid short shrift to Europe and that has to change.

    Breadth.

    • Every day I read some new reports highlighting how few stocks are at their 52-week highs, while the index is setting records, or some other “anomaly.” I chose the Nasdaq 100, but the chart isn’t too dissimilar if you go with the S&P 500 vs the equal weighted S&P 500. The fact that the equal weight index isn’t at its highs and has barely budged in the past few weeks as the market cap weighted index soared tells you just how narrow this rally has been. It has been extremely AI driven and continues to be AI driven. That is the main reason I included ARKK. It is my proxy for “innovation” and continues to meander, while the Nasdaq 100 soars! So much of the return is being generated by a handful of large companies with great stories. But that leaves me (and I think a lot of others) wondering how long this bifurcated market can last? I am not sure, and the answer to that question might be “longer than we think” as many investors are staring nervously at Europe, given the political backdrop and tricky economic situation (the ECB cut, but raised their inflation expectation, while overall growth seems to remain behind that of the U.S.). Presumably, money coming from Europe to the U.S. will go into index funds, creating more demand for the most heavily weighted stocks. Personally, I had much more “fun” late last year when I was pounding the table for the “laggards” to outperform (and even more “fun” when that proceeded to occur). But, right now, I’m not sure that outperformance will play out, unless it is in a down market. The “catch-up” scenario would make a lot of sense if the economy was firing on all cylinders, but that isn’t my outlook for the coming months. In the meantime, we can watch VIX drop, and wait for it to cross 10, like it did back in early 2018/late 2017.

    We will continue to focus on these issues, and it is interesting that they seem to be bubbling to the top (though off-hand, I’m not sure if that is good or bad for markets). The fact that the 10-year Treasury traded as high as 4.48% (the high end of our 4.3% to 4.5% range) and traded as low as 4.19% on the week (below the low end of our range) doesn’t give me a lot of comfort about the depth of liquidity. The CPI data and the Fed data helped, but the real boost seemed to come from concerns about Europe.

    Hopefully, you can enjoy Father’s Day with family and friends and brace yourself for what is likely to be another round of corporate bond issuance as borrowers benefit from the reprieve in yields.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 06/16/2024 – 16:20

  • Eight Israeli Soldiers Killed In One Of Single Deadliest Incidents Since Oct 7
    Eight Israeli Soldiers Killed In One Of Single Deadliest Incidents Since Oct 7

    The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on Saturday suffered a mass casualty event in southern Gaza after a Hamas attack scored a direct hit on an armored vehicle which was carrying a group of soldiers.

    Eight Israeli solders were killed after the infantry transport vehicle was hit by an anti-tank missile, the IDF said, in what’s being widely called one of the single deadliest single incidents involving Israeli soldier casualties since October 7. The military said it may have also been the result of an explosive device planted in the area.

    IDF file image, AFP/Getty

    The IDF said the troops were engaged in an offensive against “terrorist infrastructure” shortly after 5am Sunday in the northwestern part of the Tal al-Sultan refugee camp, which lies just west of Rafah. They were part of the Combat Engineering Corps’ 601st Battalion and all ranged in age from 19 to 23.

    “According to the information we have at this point one of the engineering vehicles in the convoy was involved in an explosion that was apparently caused by explosive devices planted in the area or as a result of anti-tank missile fire,” IDF Spokesperson Daniel Hagari described in a press briefing.

    While the findings are still preliminary, military investigators believe there’s a possibility that the explosion was so devastating because the anti-tank found ignited explosive material aboard the armored vehicle.

    “The current assessment is that the ‘Nemera’ armored vehicle got hit as a result of an explosion of a side bomb. In addition, on the vehicle there were engineering tools that include explosive materiel,” the IDF statement said.

    “The explosion was significant and may have been caused by the ignition of the explosive materiel on the vehicle. All this is not supposed to happen and therefore the incident is being examined,” Hagari continued.

    He further explained that the blast and fire was so expansive that it was difficult to identify and locate the bodies of those killed.

    “Today we received another painful reminder of the price of war and that brave warriors and heroes were willing to sacrifice their lives for the state of Israel, which is the common home of all of us: Druze, Jews, Bedouin, Muslims and Christians. All citizens of Israel, our hearts and thoughts are with the families at this difficult time,” Hagari added, it what appeared wording geared toward pushing back against international criticism of a Jewish ethno-religious state.

    Al Jazeera has aired footage of the destroyed “Namer” Israeli personnel carrier being towed out of southern Gaza…

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    Meanwhile, Hamas and its supporters appeared to positively celebrate the mass troops casualties. The group issued a statement saying “Our painful strikes against the enemy will continue everywhere they are present, and the occupying army will find nothing but death traps.”

    Hamas’ al Qassam Brigades confirmed it had “carried out a complex ambush against enemy vehicles” operating in Tal al-Sultan. According to its account, the attack started by successfully hitting a military bulldozer which caught fire. The initial rescue troops on the scene were then struck by the anti-tank missile.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 06/16/2024 – 15:45

  • Musk Says "Eliminate Electronic Voting Machines" After Dominion's Puerto Rican Imbroglio
    Musk Says “Eliminate Electronic Voting Machines” After Dominion’s Puerto Rican Imbroglio

    Elon Musk on Saturday suggested that electronic voting machines should not be used in elections, as “The risk of being hacked by humans or AI, while small, is still too high.”

    Musk was responding to the recent news that Puerto Rico is ‘reviewing’ their contract with Dominion Voting Systems after a ‘software issue’ caused machines supplied by the company to miscalculate vote totals, according to the country’s elections commission.

    According to AP, vote counts reported by Dominion machines were lower than paper counts in some cases, and some machines reversed totals or reported zero votes for some candidates.

    “The concern is that we obviously have elections in November, and we must provide the (island) not only with the assurance that the machine produces a correct result, but also that the result it produces is the same one that is reported,” said Padilla.

    The island nation used more than 6,000 Dominion voting machines in their June 2 primary.

    The company claims that the software issues stemmed from the digital files used to export the results from the primaries.

    The President of Puerto Rico’s House of Representatives, José Varela, has Dominion’s back – calling for Padilla to appear at a public hearing on Thursday to address the issues.

    “We cannot allow the public’s confidence in the voting process to continue to be undermined as we approach the general elections,” he said.

    The problems called to mind the island’s botched 2020 primaries, when a lack of ballots at some centers forced the government to reschedule voting in a first for the U.S. territory.

    On June 2, Puerto Rico held primary elections to select gubernatorial candidates for the pro-statehood New Progressive Party and the Popular Democratic Party, which supports the island’s territorial status.

    In a surprise upset, Jenniffer González, Puerto Rico’s congressional representative, beat Gov. Pedro Pierluisi in the primary held by the New Progressive Party. Meanwhile, Puerto Rico Rep. Jesús Manuel Ortiz defeated Sen. Juan Zaragoza in the primary held by their Popular Democratic Party.

    Both parties reported hundreds of ballots showing inaccurate results, with the PNP reporting over 700 errors and the PPD pointing to some 350 discrepancies. These inaccuracies affected ballots for positions including governor, mayor and resident commissioner. -AP

    Following the discrepancies, the elections commission conducted a full vote tally and audited paper receipts from hundreds of ballot-counting machines – after which Ombudsman Edwin García Feliciano called the incident a “threat” to the island’s electoral system, and called on the governor and the island’s federal control board that oversees the island’s finances to establish a plan to improve election security.

    “All planning is based on resolving emergencies, including unlikely ones,” said García Feliciano, adding “But predictable circumstances, which are well known to the public, cannot be addressed by improvisation and in a rush.”

    The island’s general election will be held in November, where citizens will choose a new governor and local representatives.

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    Meanwhile in Georgia, a federal judge ruled in February that Georgia’s electronic voting machines had issues related to security and transparency – yet she declined to immediately halt the use of said machines.

    Despite identifying several problems with the state’s election system, US District Judge Amy Totenberg allowed Georgia to continue using the current electronic voting system while acknowledging the plaintiffs’ concerns about the risks to the integrity of the voting process.

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    Also meanwhile;

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    In March, Headline USA reported that during defamation lawsuit between Dominion Voting Systems and former Overstock.com CEO and Donald Trump supporter Patrick Byrne, one of Byrne’s attorneys, Stephanie Lambert, who was later arrested, leaked evidence that foreign nationals remotely accessed voting machines used in Michigan in the 2020 elections.

    In February of 2022, top officials at a U.S. federal cybersecurity agency are urging a judge not to authorize at this time the release of a report that analyzes Dominion Voting Systems equipment in Georgia, arguing doing so could assist hackers trying to “undermine election security.”

    Meanwhile, officials in Fulton County, Pennsylvania sued Dominion in September of 2022, claiming that the county had  allegedly discovered that a “python script” had been installed on one device, which was “connected to an external device on an external network” reportedly located in Canada.

    The script “can exploit and create any number of vulnerabilities including, external access to the system, data export of the tabulations, or introduction of other metrics not part of or allowed by the certification process,” according to the filing.

    Officials also claimed that the machines were running a July, 2016 version of Windows Defender, which would have left the machine vulnerable to “viruses or malicious software” created after that date.

    That civil breach of contract case was tossed by 88-year-old federal Judge Sylvia Rambo (Carter appointee), who wrote that the “voting system functioned substantially as intended, and by all appearances, those actual errors which did occur were minuscule and had no material impact on the functioning of the devices.” Meanwhile, the State Supreme Court found Fulton in contempt for allowing multiple third-party inspections of Dominion machines used in the 2020 election, and a contractor, Yaacov Apelbaum, has accused county attorney Stefanie Lambert (also of the Byrne case), of asking him to falsify a report alleging that Dominion machines had been hacked.

    Last April, Dominion walked away with a $787M settlement from Fox News over reports that its equipment switched votes in the 2020 US election. Days later, host Tucker Carlson was out (which Carlson says a board member told him was part of the settlement).

    Amazing.

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    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 06/16/2024 – 14:35

  • "Worst He's Ever Been" – G7 Dignitaries Admit Biden Was "Losing Focus"
    “Worst He’s Ever Been” – G7 Dignitaries Admit Biden Was “Losing Focus”

    Authored by Steve Watson via modernity.news,

    A report quoting insiders at the G7 summit this past week has warned that Joe Biden struggled to focus at the meeting of world leaders in Puglia, Italy. 

    According to one source, Biden is “the worst he’s ever been,” with attendees from other delegations saying it was “embarrassing.”

    As we highlighted, Biden was seen wandering off like a dementia patient and looking perpetually confused.

    Watch: Biden Wanders Off On His Own At G7 Meeting Like A Dementia Patient 

    The footage of Biden prompted mocking headlines. 

    Biden also skipped the dinner later in the evening, before returning to the US.

    Of course, the Biden campaign claims it’s all “lies” and the footage of him was “taken out of context.”

    Biden’s campaign spokesperson Adrienne Elrod described the headlines and reports as “disinformation” and suggested that social media platforms should prevent it from being shared.

    It has also been reported that the debate between Biden and Trump scheduled for June 27 will see the pair seated at tables at the request of Biden’s campaign.

    Trump told the hosts of the Cats & Cosby Show last month “I hear now we’re sitting at tables. I don’t want to sit at a table.”

    “I said, ‘No, let’s stand.’ But they want to sit at a table,” Trump further remarked, adding “So we’ll be sitting at a table as opposed to doing it the way you should be, in my opinion, in a debate.”

    Meanwhile back at the ranch…

    Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 06/16/2024 – 14:00

  • 'Annexation & Elimination' Of Taiwan Is China's Great National Cause, President Lai Says
    ‘Annexation & Elimination’ Of Taiwan Is China’s Great National Cause, President Lai Says

    Taiwan’s recently installed new President William Lai Ching-te issued a blistering critique of China in a speech on Sunday while calling on Taiwan’s people to resolutely determine their own fate.

    He addressed cadets and officers at the Whampoa Military Academy in Kaohsiung, located in the self-ruled island’s south. Lai, who has repeatedly been denounced as an extremist by Beijing since entering office last month, warned his armed forces that China holds as its top priority the “annexation” and “elimination” of Taiwan.

    Image source: CNA

    His theme was that the cadets must recognize the challenges of the “new era” – which has included Taipei offering talks but which have been frequently rebuffed by China, according to Lai’s remarks. China’s military has also continued intermittent drills which threaten the island.

    “The biggest challenge is to face the powerful rise of China, [which is] destroying the status quo in the Taiwan Strait and regards Taiwan’s annexation and the elimination of the Republic of China as the great rejuvenating cause of its people,” he said.

    “The highest mission is to bravely take up the heavy responsibility and grand task of protecting Taiwan, and safeguarding the peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait,” he added.

    Shortly after Lai’s inauguration last month, the Chinese PLA military staged large drills around the island, which included naval ships and warplanes crossing the Taiwan Strait median line.

    As for what Taiwan’s president is offering in terms of talks to deescalate tensions with Beijing, he told Time magazine days ago in an interview:

    • First, the PRC should recognize that the Republic of China exists. They should be sincere in building exchanges and cooperation with the popularly-elected legitimate government of Taiwan.
    • Second, each issue should be mutually beneficial and reciprocal. For example, if Taiwan allows tourists to go to China, they should allow tourists to visit Taiwan. And if we let our students go to China, their students should be allowed to come.
    • Third, as we conduct exchanges and cooperate with one another, we should share a common conviction to enhance the well-being of people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait, working toward an objective of peace and mutual prosperity.

    During his inauguration speech last month, the newly sworn in Lai had also laid out, “So long as China refuses to renounce the use of force against Taiwan, all of us in Taiwan ought to understand that even if we accept the entirety of China’s position and give up our sovereignty, China’s ambition to annex Taiwan will not simply disappear.”

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    He vowed that his administration aims to “further entrench Taiwan’s democracy” and “maintain peace in the Indo-Pacific.” Meanwhile, Taipei continues to receive hundreds of millions of dollars in military equipment from the United States toward that end, and recently there have been reports of US Marines deployed to Taiwan-controlled outer islands which are close to the Chinese mainland.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 06/16/2024 – 13:25

  • One In Three People Are Boycotting Brands Over Gaza War, Poll Finds
    One In Three People Are Boycotting Brands Over Gaza War, Poll Finds

    Via Middle East Eye

    More than one in three people say they are boycotting a brand viewed as supporting a side in Israel’s war on Gaza, with oil-rich Gulf states and large Muslim-majority countries leading the way. 

    The latest edition of an annual Trust Barometer report from public relations firm Edelman underscored how sharp divides over the war are causing consumers across the globe to take a stance with their wallets. The survey polled 15,000 consumers across 15 countries, including France, Saudi Arabia, the UK and the US.

    The poll didn’t say who respondents sided with in the war, but out of the top five countries listed as engaged on boycotting brands over Gaza, three are Muslim-majority nations: Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Indonesia. India also has a sizeable Muslim minority. Germany was the fifth country. 

    via Bloomberg

    The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement has gained traction across the world as it aims to put pressure on Israel over its violations of international law and repression of Palestinians. However, it has also faced stiff opposition in the US and other western states where sizeable numbers of the population are sympathetic to Israel. 

    Saudi Arabia saw the highest number of respondents, 71 percent, saying that they were boycotting brands over their perceived support for one side. Saudi Arabia’s population is overwhelmingly pro-Palestine.

    A poll conducted in December by the Washington Institute for Near Eastern Affairs, a pro-Israel think tank, found that 96 percent of Saudi nationals believe Arab countries should cut ties with Israel in response to its war on Gaza.

    Before the war, the US was actively working towards an agreement that would see Israel and Saudi Arabia normalise relations. In the UAE, 57 percent of respondents said they were boycotting brands over the war.

    In Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim-majority country, more than one in two people also said they were boycotting brands.

    The number of respondents from Arab and Muslim countries who are boycotting products over the war on Gaza is substantially higher than the global average of 37 percent, slightly more than one in three respondents.

    ‘Consumer nationalism’ soars in the Gulf

    The boycotts are being felt in Western corporate boardrooms.

    In March, retail giant Alshaya Group, which owns the rights to Starbucks in the Middle East, decided to begin laying off over 2,000 staff in the region and North Africa, or four percent of its total workforce, as a result of consumer boycotts linked to Gaza.

    McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski also said earlier this year that sales had been weaker in Muslim-majority countries – such as Malaysia and Indonesia – as well as across the Middle East.

    McDonald’s sparked outrage among pro-Palestine activists in October when its Israel franchise announced it was giving free meals to Israeli soldiers in its branches in the country. In Pakistan, the franchise dropped its prices and was forced to put out a statement distancing themselves from McDonald’s in Israel.

    “The ongoing impact of the war on these franchisees’ local business is disheartening and ill-founded,” Kempczinski said on Monday, speaking to analysts on the company’s conference call.

    Consumers in the Gulf region have long been a prize for Western corporations because their young populations have relatively high purchasing power. Their oil and gas-producing economies have not been hit by wars and crises like other Arab states since the Arab Spring.

    Middle East Eye has reported how consumers in Oman, a key Western partner, have been boycotting western goods over the support the US and its allies have provided Israel. They have switched from drinks like Mountain Dew to Kinsa, a Saudi drink brand. In Pakistan, local brands have started producing local products to replace western soft drinks and cosmetics. 

    The poll also picked up on rising consumer nationalism in Gulf states. The number of respondents in Saudi Arabia and the UAE saying they are buying their country’s brands over foreign ones jumped 13 and 10 points, respectively.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 06/16/2024 – 12:50

  • Watch: Badly Wounded Gordon Ramsay Shows Off Massive Bruise, Says Bike Helmet Saved His Life
    Watch: Badly Wounded Gordon Ramsay Shows Off Massive Bruise, Says Bike Helmet Saved His Life

    Gordon Ramsay has taken to social media to tell “all the dads out there” that they need to wear a helmet, after the 57-year-old celebrity chef was involved in a massive cycling accident in Connecticut.

    “I don’t care how short the journey is,” Ramsay said, shaking. “they’ve got to wear a helmet.”

    “I want to wish you all a happy Father’s Day, but please, please, please wear a helmet. If I didn’t, honestly, I wouldn’t be here now.“

    He then showed the camera a massive bruise.

    Watch:

    Ramsey said the accident took place earlier this week in Connecticut. He was rushed to the ER at Lawrence and Memorial Hospital, but clarified that the did not “break any bones or suffer any major injuries,” but was “a bit bruised up looking like a purple potato.”

    “I’m in pain. It’s been a brutal week. And I’m sort of getting through it.”

    Ramsay shared a photo of his damaged helmet on Instagram:

    So to all the cyclists out there, don’t be an idiot sandwich.

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    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 06/16/2024 – 12:15

  • Prepare For The Repricing Of Risk Globally
    Prepare For The Repricing Of Risk Globally

    Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

    There are no more “saves” available for the next market meltdown.

    The past 24 years can be viewed as an era in which risk declined due to the dynamics of globalization and financialization.

    The ascent of China as “workshop of the world” generated a deflationary wave of lower prices for products (due to lower labor costs and lower quality components) that blunted the inflationary impact of the global economies adding $150 trillion in debt since 2000. Global debt, public and private, now tops $315 trillion, 333% of global GDP.

    Absent the deflationary impact of globalization, this vast increase in money sloshing around would have sparked inflation. Absent the vast expansion of money via financialization, the expansion of production and consumption enabled by globalization could not have occurred.

    At the same time, central banks coordinated policies to steadily reduce interest rates, reaching effectively zero or negative rates (when adjusted for inflation) in 2009 and beyond. This reduction of rates far below historic norms enabled creditors to borrow more even as their debt service costs fell.

    Financialization vastly increased leverage and the commodification of credit/debt, enabling emerging-market nations and enterprises and consumers globally to increase their borrowing/spending.

    Globalization generated incentives for nations and their central banks to “play nice” and cooperate with other governments and banks to spur profitable (and happily deflationary) trade. These coordinated efforts enabled the global economy to avoid the potentially fatal disruptions of the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) in 2008-09.

    Despite localized droughts and extreme weather, global food production increased by expanding land in production and intensifying agricultural methods.

    All of these risk-reducing trends are reversing or reaching diminishing returns.

    Extreme weather events are increasing, leading to massive losses by insurers, a trend described in As Insurers Around the U.S. Bleed Cash From Climate Shocks, Homeowners Lose (New York Times)(seechart below):

    “In 2023, insurers lost money on homeowners coverage in 18 states, more than a third of the country, according to a New York Times analysis of newly available financial data. That’s up from 12 states five years ago, and eight states in 2013. The result is that insurance companies are raising premiums by as much as 50 percent or more, cutting back on coverage or leaving entire states altogether. Nationally, over the last decade, insurers paid out more in claims than they received in premiums, according to the ratings firm Moody’s, and those losses are increasing.

    The growing tumult is affecting people whose homes have never been damaged and who have dutifully paid their premiums, year after year. Cancellation notices have left them scrambling to find coverage to protect what is often their single biggest investment. As a last resort, many are ending up in high-risk insurance pools created by states that are backed by the public and offer less coverage than standard policies. By and large, state regulators lack strategies to restore stability to the market.”

    Much of the rising cost is a result of global insurance losses, which boost the reinsurance rates insurers must pay to cover the risks of extreme events generating extreme losses that push insurers into bankruptcy. Hawaii insurance chief doesn’t see carrier exit as costs rise:

    Reinsurance is something insurance companies buy to cover extraordinary losses, and it is part of a policy’s price. This reinsurance cost, which is tied to the global insurance industry, has increased 20% to 50% annually during the past several years, according to Ito.

    “The cost to insure homes or condos is going up because of this tremendous surge in the reinsurance costs,” he said.

    Ito said there were 23 climate-related disasters in the United States in 2023 that caused at least $1 billion in losses, and that in five of the past six years, the reinsurance industry incurred losses of over $100 billion worldwide.

    “Reinsurance is worldwide,” he said. “Events that happen in Europe, or in Asia, or in Kansas, or in Florida, all impact the cost of reinsurance that insurers pay regardless of where they write business.”

    The rising costs of insurance reflect a critical dynamic of risk: in a tightly bound, interconnected global system of finance and trade, risks arising anywhere in the system increase costs and risks throughout the system.

    This is the downside of increasing our dependence on tightly bound global systems to lower prices: disruptions and risk now spread rapidly to every node and participant in the global system: events far away trigger the cancellation of your insurance policy or an astounding increase in its cost.

    What were beneficial in the low-risk growth phase–increasing dependence on global capital and trade flows to lower prices and boost borrowing–are now sources of rising risk–risk that cannot be fully hedged even as the cost of hedges such as insurance rise sharply.

    Let’s consider the other dynamics turning a low-risk era into an unstable, high-risk era.

    Our starting point in an examination of risk is the nature of the global system we are dependent on / embedded in. The dominant economic model in this system is “the market,” an idealized construct in which buyers and sellers “discover the price” of everything from currencies, risk, goods, services, labor and capital, and any scarcities are filled by new production (as people rush to reap higher profits by expanding production) or substitution (beef too expensive? Replace it with chicken).

    This construct creates a happy illusion: the system operates as a closed system in which all the moving parts are visible and measurable. This creates the illusion that the system is inherently self-correcting and therefore stable, as buyers, sellers, producers and consumers all pursuing their own self-interests will maintain what’s known as dynamic equilibrium: prices may spike or collapse for a short time, but the system will quickly adapt and equilibrium will be restored.

    The real world is not a closed system in which all the moving parts are visible and measurable. The real world is an open system operating not solely by the pursuit of self-interest but by natural selection unguided by any goal or destination.

    We presume “Progress” has an inherently upward trajectory: everything inevitably gets better as technology advances. In other words, we view the dynamics of history and Nature as teleological: they are on a path heading toward a goal.

    This is a misunderstanding of Nature. Natural selection has no goal. If external changes disrupt an ecosystem, some species may be wiped out. From their point of view, this was not inevitable progress toward a goal.

    The tightly interconnected global system is akin to an ecosystem. It is an unpredictable, unstable open system, not a predictable, stable market. External events can lead to scarcities for which there are no substitutes or increases in production, and irreplaceable links can be broken, collapsing the system beyond repair.

    When the Vandals wrested the North African wheat production away from Roman control, the Roman Empire lost the primary food source feeding the half-million residents of Rome, many of whom were granted a free bread stipend–hence the term “bread and circuses.”

    Since there was no substitute for this lost wheat, and the residents grew little or no food themselves, the result was the collapse of the entire structure. (There were other factors, of course, such as the unaffordable cost of maintaining a paid mercenary military, pandemics, etc.–what we now call a polycrisis.)

    The point here is risk is often hidden in systems that are stable for long periods of time. It isn’t non-existent; it is simply out of sight. This conditions us to believe that the system is self-correcting, and so we become complacent.

    A recent example of this is the way the Federal Reserve and other central banks have “saved” the stock market every time it stumbled for the past 15 years, since the Global Financial Crisis of 2008-09. We’re now conditioned to “buy the dip” because every time the market dips, the banks leap into action and markets soar to new highs. This is like clockwork, and so only fools doubt that the next dip will also be “saved” and markets will once again soar to new heights.

    In the context of global risk, “buying the dip” appears to be low risk. But this conditioning / complacency overlooks the fact that China “saved the global financial system” by rapidly expanding its own debt load, what we call “leveraging up” debt, much like a homeowner with a modest mortgage and plenty of home equity can borrow against that equity, leveraging the collateral into much higher debt loads.

    China is now mired in the same slow-growth, over-indebted, property-bubble, rising inflation, decaying global trade environment as every other nation which precludes it “saving the world” again.

    Now that the deflationary impulse of rising global trade has reversed, there’s nothing to counter the inflationary pressures generated by the decay of globalization and financialization: interest rates cannot be pushed back down to zero, as that will only boost inflationary forces. Since collateral has already been “levered up,” there’s no more pool of collateral to support a new credit bubble.

    Should central banks attempt to “save the market” by dropping interest rates to zero, that won’t boost borrowing and spending because the system is already over-levered: staggeringly large sums of debt are already unsupported by collateral, for example, commercial real estate in the U.S.: buildings that sold for $200 million a few years ago are now entering foreclosure and being auctioned off for $10 million or less. The underlying value of the property–the collateral supporting the loan–has collapsed.

    In other words, there are no more “saves” available for the next market meltdown.

    Another systemic source of risk was described by Benoit Mandelbrot in his book The (Mis)Behavior of Markets. (The book’s original 2004 subtitle was “a fractal view of risk, ruin, and reward.” The current edition’s subtitle is “A Fractal View of Financial Turbulence.” I prefer the original subtitle, which is more to the point: risk and ruin.)

    In the conventional view of risk / portfolio management, “100-year floods” occur, well, every 100 years or so. This risk of such a devastating disaster occurring in any one year is thus low.

    But as Mandelbrot explained, these catastrophic floods don’t occur every 100 years–they occur every 5 years or so, as the mathematical models used to ascribe risk are deeply flawed. Nature is fractal, and thus prone to sudden instability.

    Nassim Taleb explored the nature of unpredictable/improbable risk in his book The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable.

    The decades of relative stability between 2000 and 2020 conditioned us to complacently believe the global system was now so robust and our stabilizing institutions (central banks) so powerful that risk was if not banished, manageable and could be readily hedged.

    This is not realistic, and so we’re ill-prepared for shocks to the system that fatally destabilize trade and capital flows we assume are permanently dynamically stable, i.e. any spot of bother will be corrected by one institution or another.

    Another systemic source of risk is the thinning of systemic buffers is not visible. In other words, the rising risk of instability is invisible to us as long as the system appears to be functioning normally. So we’re surprised when fisheries collapse, ground water dries up, financial systems implode, and so on, because everything appeared to be more or less the same.

    We can view the human body as a metaphor for the way a system attempts to maintain homeostasis / equilibrium, but the effort required overtaxes the systems tasked with correcting / rebalancing the entire system. The individual feels “normal” and has no awareness of rising risk until they experience a cardiac arrest or their metabolic disorder strikes them down.

    Risk is slowly being repriced globally, as costs rise and trade and capital dependencies undercut stability. What we currently view as predictable closed systems will be revealed as unpredictable and potentially destabilized open systems that cannot be restored to previous forms of stability.

    How do we operate in a world in which risk cannot be fully hedged, and apparently small events can collapse critical systems on which we’re dependent? The first step is to set aside conditioning that leads to complacency and false assumptions of safety / stability. The second step is to mitigate risk before it rises up like a tsunami: reduce debt, exposure to financial risks, reduce our dependency on global, tightly bound interconnected systems, move to places with a diversity of essentials, and invest in our own self-reliance. I wrote my book Self-Reliance in the 21st Century as a general guide to this de-risking process

    *  *  *

    This is a sample essay from my Weekly Musings Reports sent exclusively to subscribers, patrons and Substack subscribers. Thank you very much for supporting my work.

    Become a $3/month patron of my work via patreon.com. Subscribe to my Substack for free

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 06/16/2024 – 11:40

  • North Korea Reportedly Sending Shipments Of 5 Million Artillery Shells To Russia
    North Korea Reportedly Sending Shipments Of 5 Million Artillery Shells To Russia

    North Korea has recently sent containers to Russia that could hold as many as 4.8 million artillery shells, South Korean Defense Minister Shin Won-sik said in an interview with Bloomberg published on June 14th.  Seoul spotted at least 10,000 containers being shipped from North Korea to Russia, according to Won-sik. Pyongyang has also sent dozens of ballistic missiles that Moscow troops have launched against Ukraine.

    To put this in perspective, the US has sent only 300,000 artillery shells to Ukraine (most of them maintained since the 1980s in a reserve stockpile meant for Israel) and is straining to meet a manufacturing quota of 100,000 shells per month by 2025.  The disparity between the production of armaments between NATO and Russia (and its allies) has proven to be immense.  From artillery to armor to ammunition, NATO simply cannot keep up.

    In exchange for the ordnance Russia is allegedly giving North Korea oil, satellite technology as well as tech to improve their tanks and aircraft.  North Korea’s cheap labor, while ethically abhorrent in nature, is proving useful in the fast manufacture of weapons.

    Critics argue that artillery coming from North Korea is “substandard” and far less advanced than western produced artillery, leading to a decrease in effect on target.  However, 5 million rounds is an incredible arsenal regardless of technology – That’s more than enough boom to support a large scale offensive. 

    Beyond the typical and completely unsupported claims by Ukrainian officials that Russia plans to invade Europe should Ukraine fall, they have been surprisingly honest about the dire situation they face.  Ukrainian ordnance is running out fast while Russia’s production increases exponentially.  It’s a recipe for defeat, but Ukraine seems to be under the impression that this weaponry is simply waiting to be shipped from the US or EU – It’s not.  Supplies are slim and manufacturing is slow.

    The new information comes nine months after Kim Jong Un reportedly traveled to Russia to meet with Vladimir Putin, and Putin is expected to travel to Pyongyang in the next few days.  Agreements with North Korea for armaments are in violation of UN sanctions, though it’s easy to understand why Putin would care little about the UN’s position.

    It’s not clear if South Korea believes all the artillery has already arrived in Russia, but the timing of the report coincides with rumors that Russia is preparing for a major offensive action sometime this summer.  Russia has been engaging in an “attrition warfare” strategy in Ukraine, something which the US and Europe have not dealt with since the Vietnam War over 60 years ago.  It’s a method that most NATO military experts, accustomed to maneuver warfare against low-tech insurgent targets, have never encountered outside of a classroom.

    A key element of Russia’s strategy involves the use of artillery as a shield to protect offensive units as they advance against Ukrainian bunkers and trenches.  With Russia already breaking through Ukraine’s defenses in several regions there may be a major push in the next two months designed to exploit their artillery advantage.       

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 06/16/2024 – 11:05

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