Jul 11

Today’s News 11th July 2024

  • NATO Countries Closest To Russia Up Defense Spending
    NATO Countries Closest To Russia Up Defense Spending

    Authored by Andrew Thornebrooke via The Epoch Times,

    The nations on NATO’s easternmost flank are investing record amounts on defense in order to deter further Russian aggression against the region.

    Defense ministers from Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania gathered on July 9 in Washington to express their dedication to the NATO alliance and encourage other allies to pull their weight when it came to defense contributions.

    Anything less, they warned, could encourage more violence in Eastern Europe and, possibly, the end of some nations outright.

    Latvia’s Minister of Defense Andris Spruds delivers a doorstep statement during a meeting of NATO Ministers of Defense at the NATO Headquarters in Brussels on June 13, 2024. (Simon Wohlfahrt/AFP via Getty Images)

    Latvian Defense Minister Andris Spruds said that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s continued targeting of civilians in Ukraine demonstrated a tolerance for “human loss.” Mr. Putin’s “absolute disregard of human life and human dignity,” he said, had to be taken into account when dealing with Russia.

    “We are dealing with an aggressive country,” he said during a fireside chat hosted by Politico on the sidelines of NATO’s 75th annual summit.

    “Russia is an existential threat, and we should be ready for this existential threat for years.”

    To that end, he added, the international community should prepare to fend off Russian aggression for years to come.

    It was vital, he said, that NATO “not engage from positions of weakness and appeasement.”

    Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania were all governed by the Soviet Union until its collapse in 1991.

    Now, Mr. Putin has implemented a foreign policy based on uniting the so-called Russian World, including substantial Russian-speaking communities in former Soviet states, which East European leaders fear will lead to conquests beyond Ukraine.

    As such, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania have all exceeded NATO’s guideline of spending 2 percent of their GDP on defense to ensure collective deterrence against foreign aggression.

    Lithuanian National Defense Minister Laurynas Kasciunas said the investments were about “transforming the fear to preparedness.”

    Mr. Kasciunas cited the Reagan-era doctrine of “peace through strength” and said that NATO should be “prepared to work with America” to ensure such a policy regardless of the outcome of the U.S. presidential election in November.

    “Russians are not attacking when you’re strong. It’s a very simple thing. If you’re weak, they can do this,” he said.

    Six NATO nations share a land border with Russian territory, a fact that Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur said would need to be taken into account when determining NATO’s pathway toward ensuring continued deterrence against Russian aggression.

    “When we take the threat of Russia, the first thing we have to understand is that we cannot change the geography,” Mr. Pevkur said.

    To that end, he added that NATO must be wholly prepared to engage in a war with Russia should Moscow attack any member state.

    “We will start defending our countries from the first inch,” Mr. Pevkur said. “We will not keep away anything, and if that means that we also have to make attacks into Russian territory, then we are ready for that because we cannot fight only on our territory to keep every inch of our integrity.”

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 07/11/2024 – 02:00

  • Modi's Trip To Moscow Was Much More Important Than Most Observers Realize
    Modi’s Trip To Moscow Was Much More Important Than Most Observers Realize

    Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack,

    Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi just completed his first trip to Russia in half a decade and put an end to the several-year-long hiatus in annual meetings between their leaders. The outcome was nine agreements on a wide range of subjects along with a detailed joint statement for guiding their special and privileged strategic partnership to 2030. There were no landmark deals, but nor should any have been expected, since the meeting was only planned recently for the reasons that’ll now be explained.

    “Modi’s Trip To Moscow Was Meant To Assess The Reliability Of Russia’s Geopolitical Balancing Act” after his hosts sent eight signals since the start of the year hinting at an impending pro-Chinese pivot, which the reader can learn more about by reviewing the preceding hyperlinked analysis. The indisputable personal rapport between him and Putin during their two days together put an end to concerns about Russia preparing to privilege China over India and thus breathed new life into tri–multipolar processes.

    This concept refers to the paradigm of dividing the world into three internally diverse groups: the US-led West’s Golden Billion; the Sino–Russo Entente; and the informally Indian-led Global South. These three groups became more prominent after the global systemic transition was unprecedentedly accelerated by Russia’s special operation, though they predate that development. Prior to then, however, International Relations could best be described as being in a state of Sino-US bi-multipolarity.

    What’s meant by this is that everything was trending towards an unofficial division of the world between China and the US where everyone was pressured to some extent to take one or the other’s side. A return to the pure bipolarity that marked most of the Old Cold War till the Sino-US rapprochement was always unlikely because there were already some strategically autonomous emerging players. Likewise, despite the US, China, and India being the informal leaders of their groups, none have full control over them.

    Therefore, this present tripolar system can best be described as tri-multipolar, with the key axis being the Russo-Indo Strategic Partnership since it prevents the American and Chinese superpowers from coming together to revive bi-multipolarity in the event of a New Détente between them. Russia’s perceptible shift towards China since the start of the year, which was detailed in an earlier analysis, caused serious concern in India because it suggested that Moscow was abandoning their shared grand strategic goal.

    Before those eight signals were sent, India assumed that Russia would continue cooperating with it to accelerate tri-multipolar processes with a view towards midwifing complex multipolarity, which required neither Russia nor India pivoting towards China or the US respectively. What changed over the past year was the emergence of a pro-BRI policymaking faction in Moscow whose members concluded that Sino-US bi-multipolarity is inevitable so it’s best for Russia to turbocharge China’s superpower trajectory.

    The ruling establishment’s balancing/pragmatic faction had a tough time fending off their “friendly rivals”, the latter of whom compellingly argued that their envisaged policies would represent the sweetest revenge against the US after all that their adversary did to Russia since 2022. This explains the signals that Russia sent since the start of the year hinting at an impending pro-Chinese pivot, which finally prompted India to dispatch Modi to Russia to investigate what’s really going on and why.

    He considered this to be such a priority for his country’s objective national interests that he broke with tradition by traveling to Russia as the first trip of his third term instead of to a nearby country like usual. The timing also coincided with the annual NATO Summit, thus showing that India is strategically autonomous of the West and impervious to its pressure to curtail ties with Russia. The official US criticism that followed only served to reinforce the aforementioned points.  

    Russia is always happy to host Modi, even more so than usual due to the timing that was described above as well as the fact that it was his first visit to the country in half a decade, which is why such pomp and circumstance were prepared for him. His three-hour-long informal meeting with Putin at the latter’s dacha was presumably when those two friends candidly discussed the most sensitive aspects of their countries’ strategic partnership and clarified the confusion caused by Russia’s recent pro-Chinese signals.

    They clearly worked everything out as proven by their exuberant mood during those informal talks and the official ones the day after. Putin even awarded Modi Russia’s highest civilian honor, the Order of St. Andrew the Apostle, thus showing his country’s pro-BRI faction that he doesn’t approve of their plans to pivot to China. Instead, Russia will continue to pragmatically balance between China and India, thus reaffirming its tri-multipolar grand strategy and putting an end to bi-multipolar speculation.

    To be sure, the pro-BRI faction isn’t going away and will continue to make their case that Russia’s best interests are served by acknowledging the supposedly inevitable reversion to Sino-US bi-multipolarity and accordingly turbocharging China’s superpower trajectory, but few in Moscow will listen to them. The most spectacular achievement from Modi’s trip to Russia wasn’t whatever they formally agreed to, but him and Putin informally agreeing to redouble their joint efforts to accelerate tri-multipolarity processes.  

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 07/10/2024 – 23:40

  • Cocoa Grinding Estimates Suggest Demand Destruction Nearing 
    Cocoa Grinding Estimates Suggest Demand Destruction Nearing 

    With cocoa prices hovering over $8,000 a ton in New York, the long-anticipated demand destruction for cocoa is finally approaching. New estimates indicate that global bean processing likely declined in the second quarter. 

    According to six analysts and traders tracked by Bloomberg, second-quarter global grindings—where cocoa transforms into butter and powder used in food products—likely fell from a year earlier. Estimates from European grindings likely fell 2% in the quarter, hitting lows not seen since early 2020. All of the analysts forecasted much larger declines in the second half of the year. 

    “The cheap stuff is beginning to drop off, and the expensive stuff is coming in,” said Jonathan Parkman, head of agricultural sales at broker Marex Group.

    Parkman said, “The worst of input inflation will affect the second half of this year.”

    The grinding numbers are nowhere near the deterioration to end elevated cocoa prices, but the estimates suggest emerging demand destruction. 

    “We are more likely to see a significant change in the grind number in the second half of the year,” said Darren Stetzel, vice president of soft commodities for Asia at broker StoneX.

    Stetzel noted that the market has been forced to adapt to the scarcity of beans, which should alleviate some demand pressure. He pointed out that chocolate makers are increasingly using substitutes like palm oil.

    Grinding data from Europe is due on Thursday, and Asia and North America will report next week. 

    Last month, the KitKat-maker warned ‘cocoaflation‘ will soon send candy bar prices higher. 

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 07/10/2024 – 23:20

  • China: The Helpless Giant
    China: The Helpless Giant

    Authored by James Rickards via DailyReckoning.com,

    Myths die hard. Among these is the great myth that China’s poised to take over the world. Today I’ll debunk that myth.

    No one seriously disputes the importance of China to the global economy. It’s the world’s second-largest economy after the U.S. and accounts for 17% of global GDP (or an even larger percentage if one uses an alternative accounting method called purchasing power parity).

    It has the world’s second-largest population at 1.41 billion people, just slightly behind India. It has the third-largest landmass in the world behind Russia and Canada. China also has the world’s third-largest nuclear arsenal after Russia and the U.S.

    But size can be deceptive. Most observers translate China’s large economy into the status of global superpower soon to surpass the U.S. in economic and military strength.

    That extrapolation has been a chimera for some time. In reality, China’s economy is fragile and weakening by the day.

    China may soon find itself in economic turmoil including a credit crisis, currency crisis and economic recession all at the same time. Following is a close look at China’s inherent weakness. Unfortunately for U.S. investors, China’s problems threaten to drag the global economy down with it.

    The China Myth

    China’s economic problems exist at two levels — the long-term macro level and the short-term technical level. Let’s consider these in order: At the long-term level, China is confronting three material obstacles — the middle-income trap, declining demographics and wasted investment.

    The middle-income trap afflicts developing economies that have reached the middle-income level of about $10,000 per capita annually. Moving from low-income (about $5,000 per capita annually) is straightforward.

    Countries move populations from rural to urban environments, build suitable housing and infrastructure, attract direct foreign investment with cheap labor and low operating costs, engage in assembly-type manufacturing and run significant trade surpluses by exporting the manufactured goods.

    The difficulty is in moving from middle-income to high-income ($20,000 per capita annually or higher). For that, low value-added manufacturing isn’t enough. It’s necessary to move to high-tech, high value-added manufacturing, which requires original research and development and access to high-tech tools such as semiconductor manufacturing equipment.

    China has acquired some of these tools through theft of intellectual property, but not enough. China also faces fierce competition from those already engaged in high-tech manufacturing including Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore and Japan.

    Only a handful of countries have ever made the move from middle-income to high-income, including those just mentioned. Many more including Turkey, Malaysia, Indonesia, India and South Africa are stuck in the same middle-income trap as China.

    The prospects of China breaking out of the middle-income bracket are slim, especially now that foreign direct investment is moving toward India and Vietnam and away from China. This conundrum alone is enough to put the brakes on Chinese growth.

    China’s Demographic Disaster

    China is also confronted with what will become the greatest demographic disaster since the Black Death in the 14th century. This is the bitter fruit of China’s one-child policy from 1980–2015 combined with mass infanticide of girls. The demographic challenge is increased by greater educational and career opportunities for women, which impacts family formation, and an historic shift in the role of the family.

    China’s population may decline from 1.41 billion to 750 million over the next 50 years. That’s a loss of over 650 million people.

    Considering that one definition of GDP is working-age population x productivity, it follows that China’s GDP will suffer a spectacular decline over the remainder of this century. (Note: The total GDP will decline but per capita GDP may be maintained because the population itself is shrinking.)

    Finally, China has wasted much of the wealth it did earn during the past 30 years with bad investments in unneeded infrastructure. A mature economy devotes about 25% of GDP to new investment (plant, equipment, homes, transportation, etc.) and about 65% to consumption. (The remaining 10% is split between trade surpluses or deficits and government spending.)

    In China, that split is reversed. About 45% of GDP goes to investment and only about 25% goes to consumption.

    That amount of investment can lead to high productivity gains in the future if it is spent intelligently on essential infrastructure, transportation, high-tech plants and equipment as well as research and development.

    Instead, China wasted the money on “ghost cities” (ample infrastructure with no residents or business tenants) and extravagant white elephants such as the Nanjing South train station, which has marble walls and 128 escalators but very few train passengers.

    Such show projects do produce short-term jobs and demand for copper, glass, steel and aluminum. But when the project is finished, the jobs disappear (unless diverted to another wasteful project) and the infrastructure is nonproductive with high maintenance costs.

    If Chinese GDP were adjusted for losses due to wasted investment in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles, the reported growth figures of the past 30 years would have been reduced 20% or more. Those losses are real whether the figures are adjusted or not.

    A Dead End for China

    Based on these three factors — the middle-income trap, declining demographics and wasted investment — the so-called Chinese miracle has turned into a dead end.

    China’s failing growth engine is not due solely to these long-term factors. Among the short-term headwinds to growth are an excessive debt-to-GDP ratio, a drying up of direct foreign investment, a dollar shortage and a rapidly declining currency.

    Harvard economists Carmen Reinhart and Ken Rogoff have demonstrated that debt-to-GDP ratios in excess of 90% will reduce the Keynesian multiplier of additional debt-financed government spending below 1.0.

    This means that for economies in that condition, if they borrow a dollar and spend a dollar, they receive less than a dollar of added GDP. Of course, this process drives the ratio even higher (since the GDP denominator grows more slowly than the debt numerator), which slows growth even further.

    In plain language, you can’t borrow your way out of a debt crisis.

    China has one of the highest debt-to-GDP ratios in the world, well over 300%. (Much of this debt is buried at the provincial level or in state-controlled banks rather than sovereign bonds, but the debt/growth dynamic is the same.) This debt overhang will retard Chinese growth independent of the other factors mentioned in this article.

    Because of trade wars, tariff wars and deteriorating Chinese-U.S. relations, direct foreign investment is being diverted from China to other high-growth centers, including India. China’s ample (but declining) labor force cannot be productive without foreign direct investment to fund state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities and new technology.

    China is doomed to stagnate along the lines of the former Soviet Union without a continual supply of new capital and technology.

    China’s dollar-denominated trade surpluses cannot fill the gap because those reserves are needed to service dollar-denominated debt of Chinese state-owned enterprises and to prop up Chinese bank balance sheets.

    That’s the real reason why Chinese holdings of U.S. Treasury securities are declining. It’s not because China is “dumping” Treasuries. It’s because China must sell the Treasuries to obtain dollars to prop up its debts and to deal with a global dollar shortage.

    Get out of Chinese Stocks

    All of these negative trends are expressed in the rapid decline of the USD/CNY exchange rate. After hitting an interim peak of 7.10 to $1.00 on Jan. 31, 2024, the Chinese yuan broke through a central bank target of 7.25 in mid-June and is now trading at 7.27. CNY will continue this decline, perhaps hitting 7.30 to $1.00 in the weeks ahead.

    A crashing currency is not as advantageous for exports as many imagine since China’s value added on exports is only about 5%. It has to import most of the inputs it uses to manufacture exports from Japan, South Korea, Germany and Taiwan.

    A declining currency increases the cost of those imports and reduces China’s competitiveness. It also makes foreign direct investment less attractive and hurts China’s efforts to move to a consumer economy by causing inflation on imported goods.

    It would be a serious matter if China were slowing rapidly and the problems were confined to China. They’re not. Slower growth in China hurts Japanese banks, which are heavily invested there. It hurts South Korean, Taiwanese and Australian exporters that rely on Chinese markets.

    It also contributes to a global slowdown that’s already affected Germany, France, Japan and the U.K. And it hurts U.S. investors who are facing a wave of company failures and bond defaults.

    The U.S. won’t be insulated from this global slowdown that threatens to become a global recession and financial crisis. U.S. investors should dump Chinese stocks and ETFs and reduce equity holdings generally.

    We’re entering another “cash is king” stage with China leading the way.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 07/10/2024 – 23:00

  • What Taxes Must Be Paid When You Have A Trust?
    What Taxes Must Be Paid When You Have A Trust?

    Authored by Mike Valles via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    When you create your estate plan, consider setting up a trust to pass your assets on to your beneficiaries. The holdings in some trusts do not go through probate, enabling your beneficiaries to receive them faster. They also can help you save a lot of money on taxes.

    Types of Trusts

    Taxes on a trust and who pays for them depend on the type of trust it is. Trusts generally fall into one of two categories: revocable and irrevocable. There are many varieties of trusts, and you can design them to fit many needs, but they fall into these two categories.

    • The Revocable Trust

    A revocable trust, often called a living trust, means that the grantor—the person who created the trust—still has the assets under his control. He can add or remove assets when he wants, and he will pay the taxes on any gains. Gains get taxed at the grantor’s income tax bracket level.

    • The Irrevocable Trust

    The assets in an irrevocable trust are under the control of a trustee, and the grantor has little or no control over them. They also are no longer in the grantor’s taxable estate. The trust pays all taxes on any gains except when distributed.

    An irrevocable trust enables your assets to escape the hands of creditors, but only after the assets are in it. The more assets you put into the trust, the less taxes your estate must pay. TrustandWill says that the estate tax exemption for 2024 is $13.61 million. This figure will likely revert to $5 million in 2025. You can also reduce your estate by giving individuals up to $18,000 per person each year.

    • The Grantor Retained Annuity Trust 

    For those who have more money, you might want to create a grantor retained annuity trust (GRAT), which is a type of irrevocable trust. It can pay you a set amount of money per year (or monthly) for a specific number of years. Taxes are paid on the assets when you put them into the trust. At the end of the set time, any remaining assets pass to the beneficiaries tax-free.

    When you create a GRAT, SuperMoney says that the interest market rate (the 7520 rate) is set and sent to the government annually. A successful GRAT will give considerable assets to your beneficiaries, but it requires that the market rate stays above the interest rate.

    If you die before the end of the period, all assets in a GRAT will become part of the estate. Some people create a series of GRATs, which can have periods as short as two years. It helps ensure your beneficiaries receive some money—even if you do not outlive all of them.

    Trust Beneficiaries Will Pay Some Taxes

    A trust distribution may include part of the principal and some interest. Investopedia says that no taxes will be due on the principal, but you must pay taxes on the interest. The principal can be any amount deposited originally or in the year the distribution is made. Any distributions from a trust throughout the year are taxable as interest, SuperMoney says, because principal distributions are only made once a year after depositing all contributions.

    If all the interest in the trust gained during the year is not distributed to the beneficiaries, the trust pays the taxes on the remaining amount. Beneficiaries receive a tax report (Form 1041) each year from the trust stating how much money is principal and how much is interest. It also shows them how much they need to pay in taxes.

    Taxes From Trusts Are Much Higher Than Regular Taxes

    Money received as a distribution from a trust is taxed at a higher rate than ordinary income. People in the first income tax bracket, the Internal Revenue Service says, including those with income ranging from $0 to $11,000, pay 10 percent in taxes. The next higher tax bracket ranges from $11,001 to $44,725, and they pay 12 percent in taxes.

    In comparison, the first tax bracket on income from a trust, Forbes says, ranges from $0 to $3,100. They will pay 10 percent in taxes. The second tax bracket is from $3,101 to $11,150, and they must pay $310 plus an additional 24 percent of anything over $3,100. Taxes on regular income reach a maximum of 37 percent, which is the same (maximum) for trust income, but it starts on trust income as low as $15,201.

    The Interest Earned Determines the Taxes

    When a trust earns interest, there will be taxes, but Fidelity says that part of it may be considered principal. If the assets in the trust do not earn interest, any distributions made are principal.

    A trust that distributes $10,000—but only has $5,000 in dividends and another $5,000 in capital gains will have a split between principal and income. Other amounts and situations may also see a split between income and principal, enabling the beneficiary to have lower taxes.

    When selling assets out of a trust, Fool says, state laws determine when capital gains are principal or income. A trust can be created so that only income is distributed, but not capital gains. The recipient of the capital gains pays the taxes on it.

    A trust can be created to prevent assets in it from going through probate. The laws concerning trusts change frequently and they must be set up correctly—and changed when necessary. When doing your estate planning, it is important to consult a trust lawyer or estate planning attorney to ensure it meets current laws.

    The Epoch Times copyright © 2024. The views and opinions expressed are those of the authors. They are meant for general informational purposes only and should not be construed or interpreted as a recommendation or solicitation. The Epoch Times does not provide investment, tax, legal, financial planning, estate planning, or any other personal finance advice. The Epoch Times holds no liability for the accuracy or timeliness of the information provided.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 07/10/2024 – 22:20

  • KFC Now Serving Halal Chicken, Removing Pork From Menus In Ontario
    KFC Now Serving Halal Chicken, Removing Pork From Menus In Ontario

    Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurants in Ontario are all now “Muslim-friendly”, with halal chicken and no pork on their menus, according to a new report from True North. 

    Halal refers to what is permissible or lawful in traditional Islamic law, particularly regarding food and drink. It dictates that foods must be prepared and processed according to specific guidelines, such as the humane slaughter of animals and the prohibition of certain substances like alcohol and pork.

    Nearly all chains in Ontario have implemented the changes, taking bacon off their menus. 

    In a May letter to Muslim community leaders, KFC wrote it has “ensured all chicken products are Halal Certified including but not limited to chicken.”

    “This initiative is a testament to our commitment to providing diverse and inclusive menu options for all our customers,” the letter continued, promising the changes would take place by the end of the year. 

    “Everything in the store is halal,” True North confirmed after calling multiple stores in Ontario.

    KFC partners with halal suppliers like Maple Lodge Farms, owner of Zabiha Halal, Canada’s top halal food brand. Zabiha Halal ensures each bird is alive before slaughter, using automated blades to cut specific channels while a Muslim recites the blessing: “In the name of Allah, Allah is the greatest!” 

    Zabiha Halal’s website says: “We employ more than 25 Muslim blessers to ensure that the chickens are properly blessed on the slaughtering line.”

    “Our halal slaughter is a continuous process. The Muslim blessers recite Tasmiah at the time each bird comes under the rotary blade. We understand that it is not possible for a person to continuously recite Tasmiah, over long periods, at the same rate.”

    “To keep the speed consistent, the blessers at the slaughter station are rotated with other blessers to prevent fatigue. This rotation continues for the duration of the slaughter process.”

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    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 07/10/2024 – 22:00

  • Is Saudi Arabia Set On Becoming A Global Gas Leader?
    Is Saudi Arabia Set On Becoming A Global Gas Leader?

    Authored by Simon Watkins via OilPrice.com,

    • Saudi Arabia aims to become a major gas exporter by 2030, as part of its ‘Vision 2030’ plan.

    • Saudi Aramco announced over $25 billion in contracts for gas sector expansion.

    • Despite these efforts, Saudi Arabia’s projected gas output by 2030 may still fall short of covering its own power needs.

    Saudi Arabia may be the third largest producer of crude oil in the world, after the U.S. and Russia, but its gas output has struggled over the years to make much of a mark in the global market. Currently, it produces around 4.2 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) a year – making it the ninth biggest producer in the world – but this goes to meeting domestic consumption needs. Associated (with oil drilling) gas accounts for around half of the Kingdom’s present production, although the non-associated percentage has more than doubled since 2012. However, last week saw twin announcements that might begin to change that, in line with Saudi Arabia’s target of becoming a major gas exporter by 2030 as part of its ‘Vision 2030’ plan.

    The two announcements came as part of the statement from the country’s flagship hydrocarbons firm, Saudi Aramco, that it has signed over US$25 billion in contracts to undertake major new gas sector expansion projects.

    • The first of these, according to the firm’s chief executive officer, Amin Nasser, is that US$8.8 billion is to be spent to increase the scale and scope of the Kingdom’s gas network, in particular through the third phase development of its MGS. In addition to new rigs and ongoing capacity maintenance expenditure, the money is to fund the addition of around 4,000 kilometres of pipelines to the current infrastructure and 17 new gas compression trains. These are aimed at boosting capacity by about 3.15 billion standard cubic feet per day and connecting several more cities to the network. As part of its plans to substitute gas for oil in local power generation, domestic demand for natural gas in the country is expected to grow by 3.7% each year from now to 2030, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA).

    • The second announcement was that a further $12.4 billion will be invested in the second phase of Saudi Aramco’s expansion of the much-vaunted Jafurah unconventional gas field. The money is split across 16 new contracts, including the construction of gas compression facilities and associated pipelines, and the expansion of the Jafurah Gas Plant to incorporate the building of new gas processing trains, and utilities, and export facilities. It will also include construction of Saudi Aramco’s new Riyas Natural Gas Liquids (NGL) fractionation facilities in Jubail, which is designed to process NGLs received from Jafurah. This increased gas output would provide very welcome export dollars for a country that has struggled to recover fully from the Oil Price Wars of 2014-2016 and 2020, as analysed in full in my new book on the new global oil market order. It could also replace some of the oil used in domestic power generation, so freeing up more high-value crude for export over time. Last year, Saudi Arabia generated slightly less than 70 percent of its electricity from gas, with the vast bulk of the remainder from oil. The key question for this gas field, then, is will it achieve what it is meant to?

    March this year saw an unexpected sudden increase of 15 Tcf in the level of gas deposits apparently now contained in the field. If true, this would take the total reserves in the eastern Saudi field – which is the largest unconventional non-oil associated gas field in the country, and potentially the biggest shale gas development outside the U.S. – up to about 229 Tcf, or about 6.5 trillion cubic metres (Tcm). By comparison, total proven gas reserves for Russia stand at around 48 Tcm, for Iran at about 34 Tcm, and for Qatar over 24 Tcm. At the same time, the amount of crude oil being burned for domestic energy consumption has risen in the past few years to well over 500,000 barrels per day. In the extreme temperatures of the summer months, this rises to around 900,000 bpd as air conditioners remain on full for much of the period.

    The longstanding plan was that production from Jafurah should reach 2.2 billion cubic feet per day (bcf/d) of gas production by 2036. The new plan is for sales gas (gas at the outlet of a plant that is primarily methane) production to reach 2 bcf/d by 2030 instead, allowing room for considerable exports to be undertaken. That said, all other factors remaining equal, one billion cubic feet of gas equals 0.167 million barrels of oil equivalent, so 2 bcf/d (Jafurah’s estimated 2030 output) equals 0.3340 million barrels of oil equivalent, or 334,000 barrels. Therefore, the total projected new amount of gas to come from the unconventional gas field by 2030 is around 334,000 barrels per day, which is not even enough to cover the current amount of oil – 500,000 bpd to 600,000 bpd – being burned for power generation in Saudi Arabia, never mind any increase in demand between now and 2030. Moreover, based on independent industry estimates of the changing demographics of Saudi Arabia and the corollary changing power demand patterns, the Kingdom will probably need gas production of around 23-25 bcf/d within the next 15 years just to cover its own power and industrial demand. In sum, then, even if the quality of the Jafurah find is unparalleled in the history of Saudi gas finds, the Kingdom would still be in deficit in its power generation sector if there was a straight switch from crude oil burning to gas-only burning.

    Over and above the practical shortcomings of these announcements, certainly in Jafurah’s case, they do highlight an increasing awareness by the Saudis that gas, especially LNG, has been the key emergency energy source since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, and is likely to remain so in an increasingly dangerous world. It is readily available in the spot markets and can be moved quickly to anywhere required, unlike gas or oil sent through pipelines. Unlike pipelined energy as well, the movement of LNG does not require the build-out of vast acreage of pipelines across varying terrains and the associated heavy infrastructure that supports it. They also highlight that the Kingdom understands that the U.S. led the way in engineering a massive increase in LNG availability for it and its key allies with the express intention of making its NATO partners less vulnerable to Russian threats to remove gas and oil supplies from them. The U.S.’s success in doing this remains the key reason why Russia did not go unpunished for yet another invasion of a European sovereign state – as it did with Ukraine in 2014, and Georgia in 2008, as detailed in my latest book on the new global oil market order. Indeed, the U.S. went from zero LNG exports before 2016, to become the world’s biggest exporter of the gas, with around 86 million metric tonnes of LNG shipped in 2022. And around two-thirds of all the U.S.’s LNG exports since Russia invaded Ukraine have gone to Europe.  

    Given the U.S.’s dominance in this field, and Saudi Arabia’s awareness that it has fallen behind in this sector, these two announcements from Riyadh may signal new opportunities for Washington to restore a beneficial relationship for it with the Kingdom. The very recent signing of a landmark 20-year deal for the U.S.’s NextDecade Corporation to sell LNG to Saudi Aramco may well end up having a significance way beyond the confines of the energy market.

     

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 07/10/2024 – 21:40

  • Canada Has Become The "Car Theft Capital Of The World", Interpol Warns
    Canada Has Become The “Car Theft Capital Of The World”, Interpol Warns

    This summer, Interpol ranked Canada among the top 10 worst countries for car thefts out of 137, a “remarkable” achievement given Canada’s data integration with Interpol only began in February, according to the BBC. 

    After the cars are stolen, they are “either used to carry out other violent crimes, sold domestically to other unsuspecting Canadians, or shipped overseas to be resold,” the BBC wrote. 

    Since integrating the Canadian Police Information Centre’s stolen vehicle data with INTERPOL’s database in February 2024, over 1,500 stolen Canadian vehicles have been detected globally, Interpol wrote in May. 

    The RCMP’s database, which tracks around 150,000 stolen vehicles, now helps identify over 200 stolen cars weekly, primarily at international entry ports.

    The BBC noted that the Insurance Bureau of Canada declared car theft a “national crisis” after insurers paid out over C$1.5bn in vehicle theft claims last year. Police have issued public bulletins on preventing theft, while some Canadians are installing trackers and private security measures, such as retractable bollards.

    Mississauga resident Nauman Khan, who started a bollard-installation business after experiencing theft, reports high demand for his services due to widespread car thefts. 

    He told the BBC: “It’s been very busy. We had one client whose street had so many home invasions that he’d hired a security guard every night outside his house because he just didn’t feel safe.”

    Despite its smaller population, Canada’s car theft rate (262.5 per 100,000) surpasses that of England and Wales (220 per 100,000) and is close to the US rate (300 per 100,000). The rise in thefts is partly due to a pandemic-driven car shortage and a strong international market for certain models, making auto theft lucrative for organized crime. Canada’s port system, which focuses more on imports than exports, also contributes to the problem.

    In a press release, INTERPOL Secretary General Jürgen Stock said: “Stolen vehicles are international criminal currency. Not only are they used to traffic drugs, but also as payment to other criminal networks as well as fueling activities from human trafficking to terrorism.

    “Sometimes overlooked, a stolen car is not just car theft. It is part of a major revenue stream for transnational organized crime. Through increased data sharing at the global level, we can better screen vehicles at border points, identify trafficking routes and arrest the perpetrators.”

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 07/10/2024 – 21:20

  • Why Gavin Newsom Must Never Become US President
    Why Gavin Newsom Must Never Become US President

    Authored by Edward Ring via American Greatness,

    As President Biden’s age threatens to derail his reelection campaign, waiting in the wings and trying not to appear too eager is Gavin Newsom. It’s not easy. Wanting to be president with an intensity that might make Gollum’s lust for the One Ring appear prosaic, California’s governor knows that if Biden drops out, he’s the oddsmakers’ favorite.

    But there is absolutely nothing Gavin Newsom has ever done that qualifies him to be president of the United States. If Newsom becomes the next U.S. president, he will accelerate a process that is already well underway and must be stopped at all costs: turning all of America into California.

    There are glaring examples of California’s over-the-top embrace of progressive extremism. Identity politics. Race and gender “equity.” Decriminalizing crime and hard drugs. A complete failure to manage the state’s homeless, much less help them. An obsession with climate change that has inspired laws that reach into virtually every facet of life. Shortages of energy, water, and housing. And prices for goods and services so punitive that millions have fled.

    Under Gavin Newsom’s watch, the state is devolving into feudalism: a massive underclass that can’t survive without government assistance, supervised by an elite minority that will retain political power by continuing to dole out that assistance. The formula is simple: make life progressively more difficult for ordinary Californians, tell them their travails are the result of bigotry and climate change, then secure their votes by offering them more government benefits.

    And herein lies Newsom’s biggest crime, one shared by the progressive elites that run California and intend to take over the world. It is the biggest lie of modern progressivism—the corrupt foundation of their power. Newsom and his ilk are telling California’s middle class that what they have attained is socially unjust and ecologically unsustainable. They tell us that the ideals of equity and environmentalism compel us to live in high-density, low-impact housing, utilize shared transportation, and limit our consumption of anything that elevates our “carbon footprint.” And they are telling us that our taxes must be utilized to offer these same limited amenities to anyone who is “underserved,” “historically disadvantaged,” “unhoused,” or in any way a victim of “systemic discrimination.”

    All of these assertions are monstrous lies. California is unaffordable because of decades of political choices, escalating every year, that have created high prices for everything. And more to the point, the elites that Newsom is part of and represents are themselves profiting from all of these policies that have condemned most Californians to lives of constant work and constant economic struggle. Which is to say that Newsom’s lies about the “climate crisis” and the alleged pervasive ongoing scourge of bigotry are not even noble lies in the service of achieving a better future for all. They are lies in the service of corruption, a con job designed to further enrich and empower a small elite.

    Newsom is unqualified to be president of the United States for the same reason he is unfit to be governor of California. His entire public policy agenda is a rhetorical farce, existing only to fool voters, while across every major industry, politically connected players consolidate their power and their profits. Examples of this are comprehensive.

    Across every business sector, owners and executives face cruel choices: fight a losing battle to preserve competition and manage costs, or stop doing business in California entirely, or join the cabal. Some still fight. Countless businesses have left. And a growing number choose to accommodate. They accept stifling regulations, knowing they have reduced the number of competitors. They accept higher costs and pass them on to increasingly captive customers with fewer and fewer options. They become bloated with attorneys and bureaucrats to deal with myriad government agencies, and for whatever the customer cannot bear, they collect in government subsidies. It’s a vicious circle, and as California spirals into feudalism, it’s taking America with it.

    There is the homeless industrial complex, a consortium of government bureaucracies, “nonprofit” developers and operators, and for-profit vendors that have consumed tens of billions over just the past few years to house a laughably small fraction of California’s homeless, while simple shelters where sobriety was enforced would get them safe and on a path to recovery for a fraction of the cost.

    There is Environmentalism Inc., unifying ambitious and zealous government agencies with powerful environmentalist nonprofit advocacy groups, trial lawyers, “renewables” importers, manufacturers and systems integrators, joined with utilities that love high energy prices because their profit is held to a fixed percentage of revenue. Higher costs per kilowatt-hour or therm of natural gas equal more absolute profit.

    There are public sector unions—perhaps the most powerful special interest in the state—committed to the growth of government because it grows their membership dues. And the worse things get in California, the more unionized government employees are necessary to deal with crime, the homeless, and poverty. Societal failure is public sector success.

    Not least, of course, are the tech billionaires, who to date have used their personal wealth and the unprecedented influence of their companies to manipulate state and national politics according to their agenda. As described, that agenda checks all the rhetorical boxes but obscures raw ambition. History provides no comparable example of wealth and power this concentrated, and they want more.

    In every sphere, creating scarcity and shortages enriches the elites in California. Setting land aside to be preserved as “open space,” cordoning off urban areas and preventing expansion, is a perfect way to ensure that real estate investment portfolios—often held by huge hedge funds and public employee pension funds—continue to appreciate. And as ordinary Californians are priced out of owning homes, investment banks gobble up the inventory and rent the properties back to the plebes.

    This is what Gavin Newsom offers America.

    This is the scam—the historic, tragic, malevolent agenda that Newsom and the people he represents have resolved to inflict on the world.

    The alternative is not a mystery. Spend government money on practical infrastructure that yields long-term benefits instead of squandering hundreds of billions on absurd make-work projects like high-speed rail and floating offshore wind, which will be permanent drains on the economy. While recognizing reasonable environmental concerns, deregulate energy, mining, timber, water, transportation and housing so millions of Californians can be employed in high-paying jobs instead of collecting government benefits. And most of all, by restoring competition in all sectors of California’s economy, we can lower the cost of living.

    Gavin Newsom is smart enough to know this solution would work. But the people who donate to his campaigns, and who donate to the campaigns of the supermajority of progressives who are party to the same fraud, have no intention of ever permitting this solution to again become reality. That is why Newsom—and any politician like Newsom—can never be allowed to become U.S. president.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 07/10/2024 – 21:00

  • This Week In US Aviation: Boeing 757 Loses Wheel, 737 Aborts Takeoff Due To Tire Failure, Near-Miss In Syracuse
    This Week In US Aviation: Boeing 757 Loses Wheel, 737 Aborts Takeoff Due To Tire Failure, Near-Miss In Syracuse

    US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who has prioritized combating systemic racism as the center point of his role in overseeing the federal transportation system, should really get back to basics and ensure taxpayers the aviation industry is safe once again following a series of mid-air mishaps with commercial jets this year. 

    The latest incident occurred early Wednesday morning when an American Airlines 737-800 aborted takeoff at Tampa International Airport due to a tire failure. Captain Steven Markovich posted footage of the incident online: 

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    American Airlines acknowledged the mechanical issue with American Airlines Flight 590: 

    “American Airlines flight 590 with service from Tampa (TPA) to Phoenix (PHX) experienced a mechanical issue on the runway prior to taking off. Customers safely deplaned and were bussed to the terminal.”

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    Earlier this week, on Monday, United Flight 1001, a Boeing 757-200, lost a main landing gear wheel while taking off from Los Angeles International Airport. A video of the incident was posted on X.  

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    Also on Monday, a Delta Connection flight nearly collided with an American Eagle flight at Syracuse Hancock International Airport. Fox News said the two planes came about “700 to 1,000 feet from each other vertically.” 

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    And there’s this. 

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    Come on, ‘Mayor Pete,’ do better. 

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 07/10/2024 – 20:40

  • Homes In California's Big Cities Cost 10 Times More Than Average Income
    Homes In California’s Big Cities Cost 10 Times More Than Average Income

    Authored by Jill McLaughlin via The Epoch Times,

    Buying a home in California slid further out of reach for many residents in 2023, especially in larger metropolitan areas, according to a recent Harvard University housing study.

    The report found some of the highest disparity between wages and housing prices in Northern California.

    According to the report released June 20, the Silicon Valley cities of San Jose, Sunnyvale, and Santa Clara had a median home sales price 11 times higher than the area’s average annual wage of nearly $113,000 in 2023.

    Median home sales prices are determined by finding the midpoint of all sales, where half sold for more and half for less.

    The same was found at the coast in Santa Cruz and Watsonville, where 2023 housing prices were also 11 times higher than the average yearly wage of almost $68,000.

    In Los Angeles County and Anaheim—in Orange County—the median home sales price was about 10 times more than the average wage of $98,200.

    Further south in San Diego and Carlsbad, housing reached nearly nine times more than the average wage of $76,000 last year.

    “Both homeowners and renters are struggling with high housing costs,” the authors of the report, called “The State of the Nation’s Housing 2024” wrote in its summary.

    Millions of potential homebuyers across the U.S. have been priced out of the market by rising home prices and interest rates. The cost of owning a home is also increasing as insurance and property taxes continue to rise, according to the report.

    And single-family home construction is likely limited by ongoing development hurdles and high construction costs, among other restrictions.

    California has taken several steps in the past few years, though, to try to make owning a home easier.

    San Francisco on Feb. 23, 2023. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

    State officials have relaxed permitting and environmental review requirements to make projects easier, quicker, and cheaper to build.

    The state also rezoned land owned by religious institutions and colleges in 2023 to enable affordable housing development, resulting in 171,000 new developable acres.

    California is also offering a new grant program that provides low-income earners with $40,000 in pre-construction costs, as well as down payments in the amount of 20 percent—up to $150,000—for some first-time homebuyers.

    Still, the country is facing sharp price increases for rent and housing that started during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Dan McCue, a senior research associate and one of the lead authors of the report.

    Prices for homes nationwide are up 46 percent, and rental prices have jumped 26 percent since 2022, Mr. McCue said in a press conference on the report June 20.

    “Not only are prices high, but they’re rising once again,” he said. “It’s really adding insult to injury.”

    High-rise buildings in downtown San Diego, Calif., on Oct. 4, 2023. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

    The number of houses on the market nationally is about 30 percent below those available before the pandemic, Mr. McCue added.

    Part of the reason for the shortage can be attributed to homeowners who are staying put and not selling while interest rates remain around 7 percent, he said. The combination of high prices and high interest rates has driven housing inventory to its lowest point in 20 years, he said.

    Rental growth has also slowed because rents have remained high after the pandemic. Such is a problem for the record number of renters—over 12 million nationally—who pay more than half of their income on housing, which is most common among middle- and low-income earners, according to Mr. McCue.

    Rising home insurance costs, which have gone up about 35 percent, are also hurting low-income homeowners, according to the report.

    “We are also concerned that homeownership is increasingly out of reach for all but the highest income households,” Mr. McCue said.

    “Access to homeownership has really been cut off in over half of the cities.”

    The demand for rentals and single-family homes, however, continues to grow, with 1.7 million more households in the U.S. in 2023, according to the report.

    Mr. McCue said he expects Gen Z, the generation that is now 12 to 27 years old, has added 8 million more households over the past four years.

    Immigration has also put pressure on available housing.

    “It’s a big increase, and it’s really propping up demand,” he said.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 07/10/2024 – 20:20

  • House Oversight Subpoenas Top Biden Handlers To Find Out Who's Running The Country
    House Oversight Subpoenas Top Biden Handlers To Find Out Who’s Running The Country

    The House Oversight Committee subpoenaed three top White House aides on Wednesday, and has demanded that they sit for depositions concerning President Joe Biden’s health – and who’s actually running the country.

    Aide Annie Tomasini, who referred to Hunter Biden as a ‘brother’ in emails, has been subpoenaed.

    As Axios reports, Oversight chair James Comer (R-KY) subpoenaed First Lady Jill Biden’s top aide Anthony Bernal, deputy chief of staff Annie Tomasini, and senior adviser Ashley Williams, who the outlet described as “low-profile but very influential” inside the White House.

    According to Wednesday letters, Comer cites Bernal and Tomasini’s access to the first family’s residence – which White House residence staff found ‘unusual,’ as ‘political staffers often don’t have such access.’

    According to one former Biden aide, these three employees – Annie Tomasini, Anthony Bernal, and Ashley Williams – have created “a protective bubble around” President Biden and he is “staffed so closely that he’s lost all independence.” –House Oversight Committee

    Comer also writes that the committee is “concerned” that each official is “one of several White House staffers who have taken it upon themselves to run the country while the President cannot.”

    In his letter to Bernal — whose influence extends well beyond the first lady’s office — Comer wrote: The “Committee seeks to understand the extent of Mr. Bernal’s influence over the President and his knowledge of whether the President is personally discharging the duties of his office.” -Axios

    Tomasini, a close friend of the Biden family, maintained close relations with Hunter throughout the Obama administration – sometimes referring to him as her “brother,” and often ending emails with “LY” (Love You), according to emails dating from 2010 to 2016.

    “The White House has shielded three key aides from testifying about President Biden’s mishandling of classified documents and now we’ve learned through reporting these same aides are also seeking to cover up President Biden’s declining cognitive state inside the White House. President Biden is clearly unfit for office, yet his staff are trying to hide the truth from the American people. Key White House staff must come before our committee so we can provide the transparency and accountability that Americans deserve,” said Comer in a statement.

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    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 07/10/2024 – 20:00

  • 'Boots On The Ground' In The World's Bitcoin Paradise
    ‘Boots On The Ground’ In The World’s Bitcoin Paradise

    Authored by James Hickman via SchiffSovereign.com,

    [Editor’s note: This letter was written by Schiff Sovereign’s CEO, Viktorija Simulynaite, who is on the ground in El Salvador.]

    The first thing my driver said to me after I got off the plane in El Salvador was, “Welcome to my country. It’s very safe here now.”

    I chuckled to myself because this seemed like such an odd greeting. But the more time I spent mingling with locals in El Salvador, the more it made sense.

    The transformation that has taken place in the country over the past five years cannot be overstated.

    Five years ago El Salvador had one of the highest murder rates in the world. It was basically a war zone. Gangs such as MS-13 and Barrio 18 were far more powerful than the government, and they enforced their own laws in their respective territories, sort of like the Taliban in Afghanistan.

    The country’s young president, Nayib Bukele, put an end to all that when he was elected in 2019.

    Bukele invoked emergency powers and arrested more than 100,000 suspected gang members, then shipped them off to a special prison far away from the rest of society. In a country of 6.3 million, that amounts to over 1.5% of the entire population that’s now locked up.

    It was a controversial move to say the least… and I wonder about innocent people who may have been wrongfully imprisoned.

    But El Salvadorans seem quite happy with the results; today their country boasts a lower homicide rate than anywhere else in the Western Hemisphere aside from Canada.

    Simultaneously, El Salvador also put itself on the map by being one of the first countries in the world to get behind crypto; they even made Bitcoin legal tender and passed a number of pro-crypto tax incentives.

    Those are pretty much the two things that El Salvador is known for these days– putting tens of thousands of criminals in jail, and Bitcoin.

    But I was pleasantly surprised to find out that the country has so much more going for it.

    This was a place that was scraping the bottom of the barrel just a few years ago. Even aside from the crime problem, the economy was in the dumps. Corruption and bureaucracy ruled the day, and debts were rising.

    In just a few short years, however, El Salvador has managed to turn itself around, and the economy has taken off.

    It’s not an accident. The government has slashed bureaucracy and established a number of incentives to bring in foreign capital and businesses.

    One is the recently passed International Services Law, which offers significant tax incentives to service-based businesses, similar to Puerto Rico’s famous Act 60.

    El Salvador’s law, though, is perhaps even more generous than Puerto Rico’s because it includes exemption for import duties, income taxes, municipal taxes, and more.

    Service industries like call centers, data centers, software development, and other back-office services are starting to be growing industries in El Salvador, and I met a number of foreign entrepreneurs who are starting businesses in the capital.

    Foreign investment is flowing in, and you can see construction projects everywhere– the capital city is quickly becoming sleek and modern, and it completely defied my expectations. Even the restaurant scene is really great.

    More importantly, there’s an optimism in El Salvador– one that I haven’t seen in Europe and North America for a long time. People feel like the worst days are over and the future will continue to be much brighter.

    Now, all that said, I’m not trying to suggest that El Salvador is some perfect paradise or that anyone should move their business there. I’m really writing about it as a sort of case study.

    We talk a lot about how governments and politicians and “inspired idiots” wreck their economies.

    They rack up massive debts and engineer painful inflation and higher energy prices… and generally make things worse with their every move.

    But it’s fair to point out that sometimes governments do smart things. And El Salvador is a great example.

    They knew they had to figure out how to turn their economy around. And rather than go down a destructive rabbit hole of wage and price controls, which are standard approaches for bankrupt nations, El Salvador’s government got out of the way and is allowing the free market to blossom.

    The one thing they have done very deliberately is market themselves.

    Advanced western countries don’t do this.

    Joe Biden doesn’t travel the world pushing foreign nations to invest in America. Rather, he takes America’s standing for granted and simply assumes that everyone wants to invest there.

    El Salvador is a tiny country plagued by a bad reputation for its past challenges.

    But rather than let that reputation fester, its leaders are hustling to promote their country all over the world with a clear message: El Salvador is open for business.

    It’s fascinating to watch such a positive transformation unfold for an entire nation in real time– and to see politicians deliberately do the right things to foster economic growth.

    Given how many Western countries are rapidly deteriorating from their own idiotic political decisions, El Salvador is an obvious example of how much better things could be if reason and sanity were restored in government.

    Imagine what the US would look like if politicians were actually cooperating and hustling to bring in new business, to make smart investments, to embrace capitalism, or even to simply rein in spending and slash bureaucratic waste…

    We’re planning a boots on the ground trip to El Salvador for members of our Total Access group (i.e. our highest tier premium members at Schiff Sovereign). It’s going to be pretty great.

    We’ll be meeting with senior officials and business leaders and checking out, firsthand, what’s going on in the country so that our members can see the transformation for themselves.

    We’ll also eat at some of the country’s nicest restaurants and tour the beautiful countryside. And we might even leave with an investment or two.

    (We’ve already had Total Access trips to places like Cuba, Singapore, the Republic of Georgia, Uzbekistan, and more, so El Salvador fits perfectly.)

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 07/10/2024 – 19:40

  • Stranded Astronauts On ISS Still 'Confident' In Issue-Plagued Boeing Starliner
    Stranded Astronauts On ISS Still ‘Confident’ In Issue-Plagued Boeing Starliner

    Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams have been living on the International Space Station (ISS) for over a month after their Boeing Starliner spacecraft encountered a series of technical issues, including helium leaks and a thruster malfunction.

    Wilmore and Williams blasted off from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force on June 5 and docked with the ISS one day later. Both astronauts were expected to spend just a week aboard the ISS and return to Earth by June 14.

    However, five separate helium leaks in the Starliner’s thruster system and five failures of its reaction control system thrusters, critical systems for safely orienting the spacecraft into Earth’s atmosphere, were detected. These unresolved problems have stranded both astronauts on the ISS ever since.

    On Wednesday, Sunita Williams, 58, a former Navy service member, told reporters via a remote video link, “I feel confident that if we had to — if there was a problem with the International Space Station — we’d get in our spacecraft and we can undock, talk to our team and figure out the best way to come home.” 

    Williams added, “I have a real good feeling in my heart that the spacecraft will bring us home, no problem.”

    “We’re absolutely confident,” flight commander Wilmore, 61, a former Navy captain, told reporters. He said the “Safe Haven procedure” with Williams had already been conducted inside the Starliner in the event of an ISS incident. 

    Williams noted, “We’ve been through a lot of simulations…and I think where we are right now…I feel confident that if we had to, if there was a problem with the International Space Station, we could get in our spacecraft, we could undock, talk to our team and, and figure out the best way to come home.” 

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    Wilmore and Williams are considered the ‘guinea pig’ test pilots for Starliner’s inaugural ISS mission. There was recent news from Boeing that teams at NASA’s White Sands Test Facility in New Mexico were conducting simulated ground-based thruster tests. 

    “This testing is trying to replicate what the worst-case thruster saw inflight,” Mark Nappi, Boeing’s vice president of its Commercial Crew Program, told reporters. 

    Based on the engineers’ findings from the test, NASA and Boeing will determine the next step for Starliner. 

    Wouldn’t that be something if Elon Musk’s SpaceX was called up to emergency deploy a Dragon capsule to rescue the stranded astronauts? 

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 07/10/2024 – 19:20

  • The Nationwide 500,000 EV Charger Charade
    The Nationwide 500,000 EV Charger Charade

    Authored by Geoffrey Pohanka via American Greatness,

    The word charade has several meanings, and including an act or event that is clearly false (Cambridge Dictionary), something done just for show (Vocabulary.com), or a situation in which people pretend that something is true when it clearly is not (Oxford Leaner’s Dictionary).

    The charade I refers to is President Biden’s $7.5 billion dollar investment to install 500,000 electric charging stations along America’s highways by 2030. A reliable and convenient public EV charging infrastructure is critical to achieve the President’s goal of meeting the recent EPA CO2 emission regulation that require nearly 72% of U.S. new light vehicle sales to be fully electric or plug-in hybrid by 2032. Without diving deeper into the announcement, one would likely assume that $7.5 billion is sufficient to construct the 500,000 charging stations, one every 50 miles along the nation’s highways.

    To identify the charade, one must first, look at the math:

    • 500,000 charging stations, each with a minimum of four chargers, accomplished with an investment of $7.5 billion dollars.

    • But that is only $15,000 per charging station, installed.

    • A single high capacity charger can cost $100,000 or more, and most stations have multiple chargers.

    • We are now in the second year of the program and only seven stations have been opened so far.

    • At this rate, it will require thousands of years to build all 500,000 charging stations, assuming there are sufficient funds to do so.

    Global consulting firm McKinsey and Company estimates that the U.S. will need 28 million charging ports by 2030.

    There are just two million charging ports today.

    To meet the goal, about 12,000 new public and private charging ports will need to be added every single day to reach the goal by 2030.

    It is true that significantly more government funded charging stations are in the works and will be opened.

    The stations completed so far cost significantly more than what has been promised.

    With retailers contributing land to the projects opened so far, the cost of each station has averaged one-million dollars, with the government participation of 80% of the cost.

    Eight-hundred-thousand dollars for each station is significantly more than the 15,000 committed by the administration.

    At this rate, the 500,000 charging stations will cost the government $400 billion, not the $7.5 billion the President has promised.

    If the administration is so wrong with this program, one must consider how many government programs designed to bring electric vehicles to the masses are similarly defective.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 07/10/2024 – 19:00

  • Et Tu, Zelensky? Ukrainian Leader 'Concerned' About Biden's Health
    Et Tu, Zelensky? Ukrainian Leader ‘Concerned’ About Biden’s Health

    The White House is likely asking: Et tu, Zelensky?… after the Ukrainian leader has belatedly voiced concerns over Biden’s health in the wake of his disastrous presidential debate with Trump.

    While in Washington D.C. for the big NATO summit, which is heavily focused on the war in Ukraine, Axios writes that “President Volodymyr Zelensky is among the leaders who watched the presidential debate and is concerned about the situation, according to a Ukrainian source.”

    Via Reuters

    Zelensky, who has been given tens of billions by the Biden administration to help fight off the Russians, didn’t shy away from telling a press conference in Washington, “Let’s be candid and frank: Everyone is waiting for November.”

    “The whole world is looking to November, and truly speaking, Putin awaits November too.” Zelensky is set to meet with President Biden on Thursday, even as the whole world begins preparing for a likely Trump presidency after the election.

    An unnamed European diplomat voiced the same sentiment, telling Axios, “People are coming [to the NATO summit in Washington] to witness whether Biden is or is no longer [in charge].”

    This as the White House continues to give mixed signals, with Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre having openly admitted that a “team” is actually in charge and not the elected Commander-in-Chief…

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    Meanwhile, Bloomberg in a fresh report has said European countries have begun holding secretive meetings with the Trump team, in another sign that confidence in Biden is dropping fast.

    “Delegations from across Europe were quietly slotting in meetings with advisers and others with links to Donald Trump as they grapple with the possibility — some say likelihood — that he will reclaim the Oval Office,” Bloomberg says in its Wednesday report. “They were hoping to get a clearer sense of just what a Trump victory might mean for an alliance he regularly targets for criticism.”

    And more: “Many NATO and European Union nations have asked for meetings with officials who served under Trump, as well as with prominent Republican legislators seen to be close to him, according to people familiar with the planning.”

    The report further points to an unexpectedly ironic state of affairs concerning George Clooney suddenly coming out against Biden re-running:

    Biden faced new calls on Capitol Hill Wednesday to step aside. Even actor George Clooney went public with an opinion piece Wednesday calling on him not to run. It was an irony of sorts: after a summit in Italy last month, Biden said goodbye to many of the same leaders and joined a California fundraiser hosted by Clooney instead of attending a Ukraine peace summit.

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    The Ukrainians too are panicking, it could actually hasten some kind of deal-making with Moscow to wind down the war. Bloomerg’s White House correspondent Jennifer Jacobs has written on X: “Kyiv wants to convene a second meeting to achieve a fair peace settlement in Ukraine before the US elections in November — this time with Russia attending.”

    It would further be an ultra-ironic state of affairs if Trump was able to bring peace just by getting elected, and before he even enters office, which would be a fulfillment of his prior campaign vows to achieve peace ‘within 24 hours’.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 07/10/2024 – 18:40

  • In 'Brutal' CNN Interview, Dem Senator Says Trump Could Beat Biden In "Landslide"; Stephanopoulos Doubts Another Term
    In ‘Brutal’ CNN Interview, Dem Senator Says Trump Could Beat Biden In “Landslide”; Stephanopoulos Doubts Another Term

    Sen. Michael Bennett (D-CO) on Tuesday became the first Democratic senator to publicly cast doubt on President Joe Biden’s chances against Donald Trump in November.

    “Donald Trump is on track, I think, to win this election, and maybe win it by a landslide, and take with him the Senate and the House,” Bennett told CNN‘s Kaitlan Collins on Tuesday – after telling colleagues the same in private. “So for me, this isn’t a question about polling. It’s not a question about politics. It’s a moral question about the future of our country.”

    “The White House, in the time since that disastrous debate, I think, has done nothing to really demonstrate that they have a plan to win this election,” he continued.

    Watch:

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsBennet’s comments echo those of a growing number of congressional Democrats who say Biden’s reelection bid could hurt the entire party in down-ballot races this fall. As CNN reports, “Democrats, including those inside the administration, view this week as critical to Biden’s political survival, and lawmakers on Capitol Hill gathered privately for their weekly meetings on Tuesday.”

    “The stakes could not be higher,” said Bennett, who says his voters have “deep concerns” over whether Biden can win.

    Punchbowl News had a sobering take on the state of affairs for Democrats in their Wednesday AM newsletter, saying Biden has “made a mess of the Democratic party.“

    Senate Democrats were far from united about whether Biden is the best person to defeat Trump. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) told us that Biden needs to “continue to aggressively make his case” to his fellow Democratic senators in order to “earn full support.”

    New Jersey Democratic Rep. Mikie Sherrill issued a statement Tuesday afternoon calling on Biden to step aside in favor of another Democratic candidate.

    Fellow New Jersey Democratic Rep. Andy Kim — who’s running for Senate — walked right up the line of whether Biden should get out.

    “What steps can we actually take right now [to replace Biden.] That’s where some of the confusion is. Especially with all the talk of what are the actual deadlines. It’s hard to kind of make a decision without fully understanding that. We need to get a better grasp on it,” said Kim.

    Meanwhile, House Democratic leaders met privately on Tuesday morning with some of their most vulnerable members, for a conversation that was “honest, brutal and intense,” and left some members crying, according to sources with knowledge of the meeting.

    Stephanopoulos Opines

    ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos, meanwhile, told TMZ that he doesn’t think Biden can serve another four years.

    The 63-year-old Stephanopoulos sat down for a closely-watched interview with Biden last week following the president’s disastrous debate performance last month against Donald Trump.

    “Do you think Biden should step down?” the TMZ journalist asked the “Good Morning America” co-host and moderator of “This Week.”

    “I don’t think he can serve four more years,” replied Stephanopoulos after a pause.

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    Stephanopoulos walked back his comment hours later, telling Puck News “Earlier today I responded to a question from a passerby. I shouldn’t have.”

    ABC News told the outlet: “George expressed his own point of view and not the position of ABC News.“

    During the interview between Stephanopoulos and Biden, the president failed to tamp down concerns over his cognitive fitness to continue as president – claiming that he was “exhausted” and “sick” with a “bad cold” heading into the June 27 debate against Trump in Atlanta.

    At another point in the interview, Biden rejected calls to exit the race, saying “If the Lord Almighty came down and said, ‘Joe, get out of the race’, I’d get out of the race, but the Lord Almighty’s not coming down.”

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 07/10/2024 – 18:35

  • "Laughable & Propesterous" 198 Democrats Vote Against Republicans' Election Integrity Bill
    “Laughable & Propesterous” 198 Democrats Vote Against Republicans’ Election Integrity Bill

    Update (1830ET): Just as expected, the Democrats – en masse – voted against Speaker Johnson’s bill and therefore for ‘cheating’ in the election.

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    We would be interested to see who the five Democrats that voted for law and order and election integrity were though.

    Co-sponsor of the bill, Congressman Paul A. Gosar, D.D.S. (AZ-09), issued the following statement:

    “I find it both laughable and preposterous that the same people who, for the past four years, forced you to carry a vaccine passport to dine in a restaurant, hold a job or get on a flight are the same people now opposing common-sense legislation requiring individuals to show proof of American citizenship to vote in elections.

    Voters are overwhelmingly concerned about the integrity of elections and rightfully so.  In fact, most states today continue to allow illegal aliens to receive a driver’s license, thus allowing voter registration materials.  With 11 million lawbreakers pouring across Joe Biden’s open border, this legislation is a crucial step towards ensuring our elections are fair and honest,” concluded Congressman Gosar.

    Hakeem Jeffries labels the SAVE Act as the “Extreme MAGA Republican Voter Suppression Bill.”

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    This wholesale rejection of common sense merely exposes the Democrats’ not so cunning plan during the election and into the future.

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    As @WesternLensman explains perfectly in a post on X:

    Jeffries frames the bill as being designed to cover for a Trump loss in the 2024 election, and somehow ties a bill that makes it harder for non-citizens to vote to January 6.
     
    Where do we even start.

    Here’s what in the SAVE Act, and what Jeffries is really against:

    • Require proof of US citizenship to register to vote in federal elections

    • Prevent non-citizens who receive drivers’ licenses from registering to vote

    • Require states to acquire documentary proof of US citizenship in person when registering to vote

    • Require states to establish a process for applicants who do not have documentary proof of US citizenship, but are US citizens

    • Require states to remove non-citizens from their voter rolls, with free access to federal and state databases with citizenship information

    • Provide states with resources to remove non-citizens form their voter rolls

    There is only one reason to oppose this legislation.

    You want to cheat.

    *  *  *

    Back in May, House Speaker Mike Johnson unveiled legislation designed to ensure that only American citizens vote.

    The unfortunate reality is that Joe Biden has let in millions of illegal immigrants, and the risk that these immigrants could influence our elections is extremely high. Legislation like this is absolutely necessary.

    As Matt Margolis previously detailed below via PJMedia.com, Johnson was pushing for the bill before the Independence Day recess with a thread explaining what the legislation does to ensure that only U.S. citizens vote. 

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    Many on the left oppose this legislation, claiming that it’s unnecessary because it is already illegal to vote if you’re not a U.S. citizen. However, Johnson addressed this when he introduced the bill earlier this year.

    “Some have noted that it’s already a crime for noncitizens to vote in a federal election, and that is true. But here are four things that are also true,” Speaker Johnson said back in May.

    “(1) It is true that there is no mechanism to ensure only those registering or voting are actually citizens…

    (2) It is true that Biden has welcomed millions and millions of illegal aliens, including sophisticated criminal syndicates and agents of adversarial governments, into our borders and even on humanitarian parole…

    (3) It is true that a growing number of localities are blurring the lines for noncitizens by allowing them to vote in municipal elections…

    (4) It is true that Democrats have expressed a desire to turn non-citizens into voters.”

    So, what does the bill do?

    Johnson explained in a thread on X/Twitter that the legislation requires state election officials to verify citizenship before providing voter registration forms, mandates proof of citizenship to register for federal elections, and accepts various documents to ease the registration process for citizens. It also gives states access to federal databases to remove noncitizens from voter rolls and confirms citizenship for those lacking proof.

    Additionally, it directs DHS to consider removal proceedings for noncitizens registered to vote and ensures naturalized citizens are notified of their voting rights.

    Who could oppose such commonsense legislation to protect our elections?

    The Democrats, of course. 

    [ZH: House Democratic leadership is bringing out the big guns against a Republican bill set to be voted on next week that would require proof of U.S. citizenship to vote in federal elections, Axios has learned.

    In a whip question – a roundup of the coming week’s votes with instructions for how leadership wants rank-and-file members to vote – House Minority Whip Katherine Clark’s (D-Mass.) office told House Democrats they are “urged to VOTE NO” on the bill.

    That means that Democratic leadership will send its whip team to cajole colleagues into not supporting the legislation.

    The bill, Clark’s office said, would create an “extreme burden for countless Americans” and “further intimidate election officials and overburden states’ abilities to enroll new voters.”]

    Elon Musk weighed in on the proposed legislation by reposting Johnson’s thread on X.

    He dubbed those who oppose it “TRAITORS,” and then rhetorically asked what the punishment for treason is.

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    The punishment for treason in the United States, as laid out in 18 U.S. Code § 2381, is the death penalty, or a minimum of five years in prison.

    Also, they are to be fined no less than $10,000 and rendered constitutionally ineligible to hold office in the United States.

    I’m perfectly okay with Democrats who oppose election integrity being barred from holding office. How about you?

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 07/10/2024 – 18:30

  • Nationalism: The Great Rethinking
    Nationalism: The Great Rethinking

    Authored by Jeffrey A. Tucker via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    The year was 1882 and the speaker at the University of Paris, Sorbonne, was the essayist and historian Ernest Renan. His topic: “What Is a Nation?” The thesis rocked the continent and the world. What he called for, in essence, was nations by choice not by force.

    Portrait of Ernest Renan (1823-1892) by Antoine Samuel Adam-Salomon. (The Art Institute of Chicago/Public Domain)

    I know that it is hard for us today to imagine that the words of any academic intellectual could or would have that impact but times were different. People in those days took intellectuals seriously, probably because they existed and earned their reputations.

    Renan listed five markers of what could be considered a nation: heredity, geography, language, race, and religion/culture. All are potentially coercive, and tempted states with the power to grab people out of their lives and cultures and draft them into some grand project. This, he said, was inconsistent with liberalism as understood in the 19th century, which revolved around the freedom of choice.

    The only kind of nationalism that is conscionable is that which calls for a regular plebiscite, the consent of the people. Nations are self-organizing, not created from without but from within. They can only be assembled by the consent of the governed.

    Why should this even matter so much at the time? The 1880s were a time of dramatic change for the world in politics. The old multinational monarchies were dying out. The Papal states were slipping away under the pressure of the demand for political independence. The Spanish Empire was long gone and the Holy Roman Empire was a fading memory except to populate fashionable cocktail parties with personages of past prestige. The British Empire was already receding. The ethos of democracy was winning the day the world over.

    There was an urgent need to decide some standard by which political independence was recognized as legitimate, without hurling the world into chaos and war. Renan’s goal was to provide such a standard.

    A few decades later, this became supremely important following the catastrophe of the Great War. The multinational monarchies met their final doom and it fell to the world community to decide what nations are and could be.

    In the end, and tragically, it was left to the victors in the war to decide. That meant leaving it to a deeply unpopular U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, who only held office due to a split in the Republican Party that swept him into office in 1912. He barely won reelection in 1916 but following the Great War, it fell to his office to determine which European nations would be granted legitimacy. He knew almost nothing about the topic, which left it to the lobbying of European leaders to explain the lay of the land to him.

    The results were obviously imperfect. Together with the rough terms of peace with the Versailles Treaty, the defeated foes were left with huge debts and an incentive to inflate, and a seething political anger that intensified over the decades. The result was the most dreaded outcome of all: a second world war.

    In any case, Renan’s template for the good kind of nationalism dominated after the Great War. All responsible intellectuals saw nationalism as a path to peace and freedom in a war-torn continent. To form one’s nation by consent was seen as an extension of freedom. Wilson called this “self-determination” and mostly people agreed that this was the ideal. This kind of nationalism was regarded as the best post-monarchical model for liberal international relations.

    My own top intellectual influence is the Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises. His 1919 book was “Nation, State, and Economy.” In his view, language (speech) was the best basis to define nationhood. It’s hard for Americans to understand this since it would seem to put us in one nation with England and Australia. At the time, however, this theory made sense in a European context. Think of the strange and unsustainable amalgams of Yugoslavia or Czechoslovakia; a language-centered nationalism could have predicted their demise.

    Mises himself was Austrian, of Jewish heritage, and was thinking in those terms.

    If a group was united in language, he argued, it was a viable nation. And this is a good path to peace.

    “The nationality principle above all bears no sword against members of other nations,” he wrote. “It is directed in tyrannos. Therefore, above all, there is also no opposition between national and citizen-of-the-world attitudes. The idea of freedom is both national and cosmopolitan. It is revolutionary, for it wants to abolish all rule incompatible with its principles, but it is also pacifistic. What basis for war could there still be, once all peoples had been set free? Political liberalism concurs on that point with economic liberalism, which proclaims the solidarity of interests among peoples.”

    It’s fascinating to read that passage in light of what came after. As it turns out, a different form of nationalism was rising in Germany from 1923 and onwards. It absolutely bore a sword. It took the idea of race and ran with it, postulating that the German nation should extend to everyone of “Aryan” race, purging territories of groups that fall outside that designation. In this, the rise of German nationalism drew on race studies of the late 19th century, and trampled all over both Renan’s postulates and Mises’s hopes for the future of nationalism.

    What makes for fascinating reading is Mises’s own 1944 wartime history of the rise of the Nazis. His book “Omnipotent Government” offered a diametrically opposed view of nationalism. In chapter after chapter, he shredded the racial view of political community, condemned all forms of imperialism, and blasted militarism based on nationalistic ambitions. Clearly, his attitudes had changed in light of events. The Second World War caused him to turn against the ideology of nationalism, treating it as potentially aggressive and the enemy rather than the friend of freedom.

    The purpose in recounting this history is simply to say that there is not one correct view of nationalism. It depends on the historical and political context and the cultural and political assumptions behind nationalist feelings.

    After the end of the Cold War, many had hoped that the United States would return to its roots as a peaceful commercial Republic, doing as George Washington said: trading with all and making political alliances with no one, being a light unto all nations while staying out of the internal affairs of foreign nations. This view was widely held on the left and right. However, many in power had different views. They wanted to deploy the newly earned status as the world’s only superpower to become the globe’s policeman, with war after war, intervening in every border dispute or otherwise.

    It was in those days that my own attitudes on nationalism shifted. On matters of political organization, nationalism struck me as mostly benign. But on matters of race and migration, globalism seemed to me to be the right answer. Yes, I was a product of my times and did not know it.

    What I and others had not seen coming was something different, the rise of globalist institutions—built from both public and private monies—that had every intention of trampling on sovereign rights, not only of the domestic political community but also on foreign peoples.

    This new globalism was never more on display than in the pandemic policy response, which the World Health Organization urged every nation to adopt the strategies and tactics of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in China, locking citizens in their homes and attempting to protect health through use of extreme force. All nations in the world adopted this tactic, save only a few, and this approach wrecked economies, destabilized political systems, and demoralized people of the world. If nothing else, this experience highlighted the dangers of globalist ideology.

    Here we are nearly a century and a half after Renan’s Sorbonne lecture and still grappling with the great question of nationalism. We do have experience to draw on. We know now that nationalism can be a check on globalist power, exactly as Mises imagined it after the Great War, but we are also aware of the dangers associated with chauvinism and imperialism in the name of nation building too, as Mises also mapped out.

    For now, I’m inclined to have a warmer view toward the nationalist temperament if only to guard against the real and present threat of a globalist ruling class imposing rules on the entire planet, creating a regime for the world over which national political systems have no influence. This danger is real and all around us.

    For now, the urge to reassert national sovereignty—whether in the form of American patriotism or European skepticism toward the European Union—strikes me as a necessary frame of mind to get us back to the fundamental principle of freedom itself.

    In theory, the path toward freedom seems easy: human rights, governments that are limited to strict functions only, and diplomacy over war. In practice, this ambition ends up taking a circuitous route. It was true in the last century and it is true in ours as well.

    Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 07/10/2024 – 18:20

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Today’s News 10th July 2024

  • The Japanese-Philippine Military Logistics Pact Raises The Risk Of War With China
    The Japanese-Philippine Military Logistics Pact Raises The Risk Of War With China

    Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack,

    It’s no secret that the US is preparing to “Pivot (back) to Asia” in order to more muscularly contain China, but few have paid attention to the form in which this is expected to take in the coming future. Instead of the US doing so on its own or through the previously assembled Quad of itself, Australia, India, and Japan, it’s increasingly relying on the Squad. This framework swaps India out for the Philippines, and its latest relevant development was the clinching of a Japanese-Philippine military logistics pact.

    That agreement follows April’s first-ever trilateral US-Japanese-Philippine summit, which tightened the US’ containment noose around China, and came approximately nine months after those three’s National Security Advisors met for the first time ever in June 2023. In practice, Japan will likely ramp up its military exercises with the Philippines and explore more arms deals, with those two possibly also roping Taiwan into their activities to an uncertain extent in the future given that it’s roughly equidistant between them.

    This will increase the chances of a conflict by miscalculation since China has already recently shown that it has the political will to respond to violations of the maritime territory that it claims as its own as proven by its latest low-intensify clashes with the Philippines. Even though the US has mutual defense obligations to the Philippines and has recently reminded China of them, it’s been reluctant to meaningfully act on its commitments for de-escalation reasons, but that could easily change.

    After all, the US would be pressured to respond if China clashes with both its Japanese and Philippine allies in the event that they jointly violate the maritime territory that Beijing claims as its own, though they might of course abstain from such a provocation for the time being for whatever reason. In any case, it can’t be ruled out that something of the sort might eventually transpire, which could prompt a dangerous brinksmanship crisis that risks spiraling out of control if cooler heads on all sides don’t prevail.

    Southeast Asia isn’t the only battleground in the Sino-US dimension of the New Cold War since Northeast Asia is rapidly shaping up to be a complementary one as well. North Korea recently accused the US, South Korea, and Japan of conspiring to create an “Asian NATO” after their latest trilateral drills. South Korea is a prime candidate for joining the Squad, which can also be described as AUKUS+, with Japan playing the senior partner role in that scenario exactly as it now plays with the Philippines.

    That likely won’t happen anytime soon though since the South Koreans remain resentful of Japan’s World War II-era occupation that Tokyo hasn’t ever taken full responsibility for in their view. Trilateral drills under America’s aegis are one thing, but entering into a military-logistics pact with their former colonizer is an altogether different matter, especially if it leads to the latter gaining the upper hand. Nevertheless, South Korea is expected to scale up its role in AUKUS+, with Japan as its top Asian partner.

    The grand strategic trend is that the US is forming two Asian trilaterals with itself and Japan that are centered on the Philippines in Southeast Asia and South Korea in Northeast Asia.

    Australia’s role is largely symbolic for the time being, and these two trilaterals haven’t yet merged into a multilateral defense network along the lines of NATO, but the writing is on the wall.

    It’s unclear how China will respond to these moves, but there’s no doubt that they make the New Cold War much more dangerous.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 07/10/2024 – 02:00

  • Give Me Liberty Or Give Me America 2.0
    Give Me Liberty Or Give Me America 2.0

    Authored by Donald Jeffries via ‘I Protest” Substack,

    As I’ve noted before, I was fascinated by history as a very young boy. And no part of history caught my attention like the founding of this nation. The American Revolution, the War for Independence- call it what you will. The Boston Tea Party. The Minutemen. Paul Revere’s midnight ride. The shot heard around the world.

    I know that our Founders weren’t perfect. Thomas Paine, the brilliant writer who produced Common Sense, the pamphlet that helped ignite patriotic fervor in the colonies, wound up hating George Washington, who did indeed seem to have forgotten his invaluable contributions to the movement for independence. Shockingly and inexplicably, the location of most of Paine’s remains are unknown, as I detailed in Crimes and Cover-Ups in American Politics: 1776-1963. Washington’s actions regarding the Whiskey Rebellion besmirch his reputation. He also was unfortunately swayed by the dastardly future Black Broadway star Alexander Hamilton, instead of Hamilton’s ideological foe Thomas Jefferson. This would have a huge negative impact on the future of the young republic.

    And then there was Benjamin Franklin, who was a member of the blasphemous Hellfire Club. In the 1990s, some human bones were found in his one-time London home. The court historians were quick to declare that there was nothing sinister about this, and blamed it on a young medical student renting a room from Franklin, who went on to die very young, interestingly enough. But Franklin was an undeniably brilliant man, who discovered electricity among other things. And you have to love someone who said “There is no such thing as a good war or a bad peace.” Not to mention his very clever pickup line, which he used on the fair damsels of eighteenth century Paris, “Would you care to join me in the pursuit of happiness?” That’s way better than “you got any fries to go with that shake?”

    Our Founding Fathers were the wealthiest men of their time. The One Percent if you will. Can we picture any One Percenter today like John Hancock, who is said to have written his name so large on the Declaration of Independence in order for King George to read it without his glasses? Think of Bill Gates, and Warren Buffet, and other billionaires meeting surreptitiously in small taverns, passing out radical pamphlets, all for the cause of human liberty. There wasn’t a eugenicist in the bunch. Well, maybe Alexander Hamilton. If he were actually around today, and not just a fake Black Broadway star, he’d be invited to Bilderberg and Bohemian Grove. But the rest of them would be relegated to appearing on humble little podcasts like mine.

    Those who signed the Declaration of Independence did truly pledge their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor. Quoting from my Crimes and Cover-Ups in American Politics: 1776-1963: “Seventeen of those who signed the Declaration lost everything they owned. Nine of these men lost their lives in the conflict. Rhode Island’s William Ellery’s estate was burned to the ground during the war. William Floyd of New York suffered the same fate. Fellow New Yorker Frances Lewis saw his estates destroyed by fire as well, and he was imprisoned and died during his incarceration. One of the richest of all those who signed, William Livingston, died impoverished a few years after the war. John Hart of New Jersey risked not only his fortune, but his family ties. His wife was dying as he signed the Declaration, and he was forced to flee from the British when he headed home to say goodbye. He never saw his thirteen children again, and died in 1779. New Jersey Judge Richard Stockton was another British prisoner, and he too died a pauper. Wealthy banker Robert Morris gave away his fortune in an effort to finance the revolution. He also died penniless….Virginia’s Thomas Nelson, in a perhaps implausible anecdote, allegedly turned a cannon on his own home, which had become General Cornwallis’s headquarters, and destroyed it. He, like so many of the others, died in poverty. South Carolina’s Thomas Lynch, along with his wife, simply disappeared at sea.”

    The very wealthy George Washington led his troops in battle. Picture one of our countless chicken hawk political warriors, like Lindsey Graham, subjecting themselves to anything more dangerous than a game of Risk. The American Revolution was a revolt of the One Percent. They weren’t rebelling against any homegrown aristocracy, but the yoke of British rule. They didn’t want to be under the thumb of royalty. Their guiding principles of consent of the governed and no taxation without representation were watershed concepts in human history. The whole consent of the governed thing was shattered by Abraham Lincoln, whose despotism contradicted the intentions of the Founders. As for taxation without representation; does your congressional representative represent you? And are you taxed?

    Could there be any bolder words than these? “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.” Thomas Jefferson’s unique intellect shines through here, and his thoughts remain relevant, almost 250 years later.

    “Endowed by their creator?” That won’t play well in Hollywood, or any big city in America 2.0. This was the basis of the Bill of Rights, which made the Constitution tolerable. How many Americans understand that we are born free; that our rights come from God, not from any government? Pay particular attention to the very clear statement that the People have a right to alter or abolish “any Form of Government” when it no longer suits their needs. Jefferson would be arrested and prosecuted as an “insurrectionist” for such Thought Crimes in America 2.0. He’d be given a small cell, alongside all those January 6 defendants, who’ve been denied all due process. To understand his present reputation, look at his demeaning character in the Broadway play Hamilton. To millions of Americans, he’s the “racist” who “raped” Sally Hemings.

    As inhabitants of the most corrupt society in the history of the world, this passage should resonate with all of us: “But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.” Do those “long train of abuses and usurpations” sound familiar?

    Just imagine the list we could compile.

    The situation in America 2.0 is unlike any other in history. We have an entrenched cadre of monstrously corrupt rulers, who are repulsed by the Founders that fought to establish the government they still swear allegiance to. I’ve written about just how much Lincoln hated Jefferson. Think about that. Was Honest Abe taking all those unconstitutional actions, and assuming all that unconstitutional authority, in defense of the vision outlined by Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence? Remember, he hated him. Lincoln would fit right in at today’s Bohemian Grove confab. He seems to have been gay, after all, so he’d probably enjoy peeing against the giant redwoods and traipsing with the all-male attendees. I can see Lincoln supporting the transgender lunacy. No body can stand against itself, or something like that.

    After the Declaration of Independence was approved and signed, copies were printed and sent to various civilian and military leaders, to be trumpeted far and wide. Today, the Declaration is a subversive document, a Thought Crime in quill and ink. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito- perhaps the best to serve on the Court in a very long time- was castigated for flying a Pine Tree flag outside his home. George Washington flew a Pine Tree flag during the War for Independence. Washington used to be the Father of our Country. Anyone flying the same flag he flew would have been looked upon with favor. Now, he’s just another dead White male “racist.” Our disastrous “bipartisan” interventionist foreign policy directly contradicts what Washington said in his Farewell Address. Washington would be demonized today as an “isolationist.”

    In Crimes and Cover-Ups, I included a litany of crystal clear quotes from all the leading Founders, who each reiterated that the Second Amendment was to protect the individual right to bear arms. And yet today, constitutional “scholars” continue to argue that the Founders didn’t write the Second Amendment for individual gun owners. Well, who am I, a lowly community college dropout, to argue with any constitutional “scholar?” The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, which forbids unreasonable searches and seizures, is violated by police officers in traffic stops and other public encounters many times every day. And as for the First Amendment they oppose more than all the others, these same “scholars” will insist that it doesn’t protect “hate speech.” You can’t yell fire in a crowded transgender story hour.

    The rights enumerated in our Founding documents, all self-evidently coming from God, are a blueprint for free societies. Freedom of speech, and religion, and assembly. Any rights not specifically enumerated in the other Amendments are reserved for the states, and the People. Since the central government was given very limited powers originally, this would involve a great many rights. Instead, it is our rights now which are strictly limited, not the federal government. You need a license to drive a car. Or to hunt. Or to fish. Or to sell things on the street. Little girls confronted by our brave law enforcement officers over their lemonade stands. Compare these to the shallow, transient issues of today. “Pride” month? Fat acceptance? You might as well talk about the Equal Rights Amendment, bra burning, or school busing.

    I cover more hidden history from the revolutionary era in my book American Memory Hole: How the Court Historians Promote Disinformation, now available for pre-sale, officially released on August 27. We’ll dive into Judicial Review, an odious usurpation of the separation of powers by the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, John Marshall. Jefferson strongly opposed it, and to my knowledge no one else has really crusaded against Judicial Review since him. Until me, in my own small way, in my humble little book. A single federal judge, or a Supreme Court, shouldn’t be able to thwart the will of the People, under our constitutional republic. Or even in a supposed “democracy.” And yet both the Left and Right swear by Judicial Review. That’s just one of many topics we’ll discuss in the book.

    I don’t expect our beloved President Biden to quote from Patrick Henry on Independence Day. He’s probably more familiar with Cardi B, or the gender fluid nonbinaries from Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, recent visitors to the White House. Our cackling Vice President Kamala Harris even answered the door and let them in. What a country!, as the forgotten comedian Yakoff Smirnoff used to say. Where we once had John Adams, and James Madison, and George Mason, now we have the guy with the shaved head and the red dress, who steals women’s luggage from airports. Lori Lightfoot and Liz Cheney. If Lincoln hated Jefferson, imagine how Michelle Obama and Gavin Newsom feel about him.

    America 2.0 is the United States in name only. Recall that before Lincoln’s war of aggression on the South, the United States was a plural; as in the United States are loosely confederated into a common union. After nearly a million senseless deaths of young American boys, the United States became the singular monstrosity we’ve come to know and love. As in the United States is the greatest country in the world! Most Americans don’t understand the important distinction. We still may salute the flag, but nothing for which it used to stand. Now it stands for occupation of smaller, sovereign nations. The outsourcing of industry and the death of the middle class. Respect for “pronouns” but not free speech. Open borders. The Great Replacement. Those who fight under this flag aren’t fighting for anything the Founders did.

    As Alex Jones so memorably put it, the answer to 1984 is 1776. 1776 is also the answer to America 2.0. In my little corner of the world, I’ll be drinking a toast to Patrick Henry, whose impassioned plea to stand up for the rights of those you disagree with stirred me as a youth, and helped influence me to become a civil libertarian. Or George Mason, who pushed for the Bill of Rights, and lost his friendship with neighbor George Washington over his initial opposition to the Constitution. Curiously, his wife also vanished under unknown circumstances. But all that will be in American Memory Hole. While I bemoan the state of this collapsing country in almost everything I write, I understand the beauty of the Founders’ framework. You can’t have half ass human liberty, as we do now. And that’s what I’ll be thinking of, while grilling the hamburgers and hot dogs, and watching the fireworks.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 07/09/2024 – 23:40

  • These Are The 10 Highest-Paid World Leaders In 2024
    These Are The 10 Highest-Paid World Leaders In 2024

    Although their salaries are far from those of CEOs of big companies, presidents, prime ministers, and other world leaders can be paid high salaries in some countries.

    This graphic, via Visual Capitalist’s Bruno Venditti, ranks the top 10 highest-paid world leaders in 2024, according to various sources. Hong Kong data is as of 2022. All figures are in USD and are approximate. They can vary year to year with changes in policies, additional perks, and other compensations.

    Singapore Leads the Ranking of Highest-Paid World Leaders

    Singapore Prime Minister Lawrence Wong is the highest-paid government leader, earning over $1.6 million per year. His annual salary package includes a 13th-month bonus and other benefits.

    Second on our list is Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu, with a salary of $695,000. His position was created in 1997 during the handover of Hong Kong from the United Kingdom to the People’s Republic of China, replacing the office of the governor of Hong Kong, who was the representative of the British monarch during British rule.

    The third place is occupied by Switzerland President Viola Amherd.

    U.S. President Joe Biden is the fourth on our list, with $400,000 per year.

    Interestingly, in seventh place with a salary of $364,000 is German politician Ursula von der Leyen, who is not the leader of an individual country. Instead, she is the 13th president of the European Commission, the executive branch of the European Union, appointed in December 2019.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 07/09/2024 – 23:20

  • Universities Should Promote Rigorous Discourse, Not Stifle It
    Universities Should Promote Rigorous Discourse, Not Stifle It

    Authored by Jay Bhattacharya & Wesley J. Smith via RealClearPolitics,

    The New England Journal of Medicine recently published an advocacy article that attacks academic freedom and urges stifling contentious campus debates. Specifically, Evan Mullen, Eric J. Topol, and Abraham Verghese urge universities to “speak out publicly” and issue official institutional opinions about public controversies involving its professors “when it concludes that a faculty member’s opinion could cause public harm.” 

     

    The NEJM authors write in the context of Stanford University refusing to institutionally condemn the arguments made by one of its scholars, Dr. Scott Atlas, when he advised the Trump administration on COVID policies in the early days of the pandemic. The authors, one of whom is a physician trainee (Mullen) and another the former vice chair of education (Verghese) at Stanford, are university colleagues of Atlas, as is one of the authors of this essay (Bhattacharya). They claim that Atlas’ publicly expressed skepticism of masking as an effective prophylactic against infection and his belief that lockdowns and school closures would cause more harm than good were so potentially harmful that Stanford itself – as an institution – should have condemned Atlas’ opinions.

    Why? It wasn’t as if some of his colleagues didn’t criticize Atlas. Indeed, more than a hundred Stanford professors and physicians wrote publicly opposing his advice. The letter’s signatories also pushed a vote through the Stanford Faculty Senate in November 2020 condemning Dr. Atlas, using quasi-religious language to declare his positions “anathema.” But that wasn’t enough, apparently, because “institutional silence may be interpreted as tacit approval.”

    Controversy between professors is the norm at the frontiers of science. It is utterly unsurprising that there would be discord over the proper policy to follow in the wake of a pandemic featuring a new virus, with great uncertainty about its epidemiological and biological aspects. In the intervening years, Dr. Atlas’ positions in 2020 on school closures and mask mandates have been proven legitimate, demonstrating the wisdom of Stanford not taking a position as an institution.           

    Meanwhile, in another attack on academic freedom, Harvard’s Dean of Social Science issued a call in the Daily Crimson to punish professors who criticize the university, “A faculty member’s right to free speech does not amount to a blank check to engage in behaviors that plainly incite external actors,” wrote Lawrence D. Bobo, “be it the media, alumni, donors, federal agencies, or the government to intervene in Harvard’s affairs.” In other words, what happens at Harvard should stay at Harvard.

    We believe these efforts to stifle heterodox thinking are not only wrong from an academic freedom perspective but harmful to the open and even raucous discourse required for the healthy functioning of a democratic society.

    First, there is the problem of how the institutional “official” opinions would be determined. The NEJM authors suggest establishing a large committee made up of members with a wide array of expertise and the ability to obtain outside opinions as circumstances warrant.

    But such committees would quickly turn into ideologically stacked decks, particularly given the overwhelming progressive political dominance among professors and administrators in most major universities. After all, who would decide those selected to be committee members – and perhaps even more importantly, decide who should excluded? Why, the same administrators and faculty department chairs who have crafted the kind of sclerotic homogeneity that typifies contemporary university faculties.

    The proposal calls to mind an earlier incident in scientific history. In response to Albert Einstein’s special theory of relativity, in 1931, a hundred German professors wrote a book attacking his idea. Einstein’s famous response? If his theory was wrong, it would not take the word of 100 scientists but rather just one fact. Scientific disputes and academic disagreements are properly handled in this way, not by institutional authority but by reason, data, and experimentation. The freedom to speak and disagree is essential to science.

    Second, if universities took “official positions” on matters of public controversy and on-campus debate, it would stifle the expression of unpopular or heterodox opinions by faculty that disagreed with officially sanctioned opinions and materially chill the free and open exchange of ideas required for academic freedom to thrive. Even tenured faculty with job security would be reluctant to disagree with the university’s institutional position openly. After all, a university can punish a professor in many ways besides losing a position. These include restricting lab time, making professors teach undesired classes, social shunning, and other means to create a hostile work environment. And what chance would there be for untenured faculty or adjunct professors with little job security to contest the university’s institutional opinion? Slim and none.

    As for the Daily Crimson piece, if professors can be subject to professional discipline for publicly criticizing their institutions – say, by alerting alumni to the problem of campus antisemitism – then universities will become more insular than they already are. Talk about a formula to allow serious institutional problems to fester and become existential crises! Besides, why should university leadership be able to punish their on-campus critics? The only thing accomplished would be to isolate them from institutional and public accountability.

    That officials at both Stanford and Harvard have publicly advocated unwarranted restrictions in academic discourse points to the distressing possibility that the leadership of our elite universities desires to operate under an opaque shield of unaccountability. That’s the absolute wrong approach to achieving scholastic and scientific excellence, which requires transparency and the freedom to express ideas that may be unpopular today but could well prove true tomorrow.

    Jay Bhattacharya, M.D., Ph.D., is a professor of health policy at Stanford Medical School, a co-founder of Hillsdale College’s Academy of Science and Freeedom, and Collateral Global, a UK charity devoted to documenting the impacts of lockdowns.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 07/09/2024 – 23:00

  • How El Niño And La Niña Are Affecting Weather Patterns
    How El Niño And La Niña Are Affecting Weather Patterns

    Hurricane Beryl is likely to be one among a series of extreme Atlantic weather events this coming season, according to forecasters. This prediction is partly based on the fact the Atlantic has continued to see warm sea surface temperatures and partly due to the anticipation of the climate event known as La Niña falling this year.

    As Statista’s Anna Fleck details below, La Niña, which translates to “little girl”, and El Niño, or “little boy”, are two parts of a natural climate phenomenon called the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO), which describes the changes in temperature between the ocean and atmosphere in the east-central equatorial Pacific Ocean. These episodes usually take place every two to seven years, depending on the conditions between Australia and South America, and last between nine to 12 months, although they do not always alternate and a neutral ENSO phase is also possible. El Niño occurs more often than La Niña.

    Infographic: How El Niño and La Niña Are Affecting Weather Patterns | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    El Niño takes place when trade winds weaken and unusually warm sea surface water is pushed east, forcing the Pacific jet stream further south than usual. According to NOAA, this results in wetter-than-average weather in the southeast of the United States and the U.S. Gulf Coast, but warmer-than-average temperatures in the north of the U.S. and Canada. Meanwhile, Southeast Asia, Australia and central Africa can usually expect drier conditions at this time.

    La Niña events, on the other hand, are characterized by stronger trade winds than usual. While warm water is pushed towards Asia, the west coast of the Americas sees cool waters rise to the surface and the jet stream diverted north. This means the weather patterns tend to be the opposite from El Niño, with droughts in southern U.S. but more rainfall in Australia and Southeast Asia. Hurricanes are also more likely in the Atlantic Basin, when there is less wind shear in the region. This is because when there is higher wind shear, it is harder for hurricanes to maintain their structure.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 07/09/2024 – 22:40

  • Lackluster's Last Stand: Biden Fights Against His Own Party's Elite "Deep State"
    Lackluster’s Last Stand: Biden Fights Against His Own Party’s Elite “Deep State”

    Submitted by QTR’s Fringe Finance

    In a rambling, half-incoherent interview with MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” yesterday morning, President Biden – or some AI-generated, half pre-recorded version of him – phoning from what sounded like a toilet, proclaimed that he was staying in the race and has had enough of Democrat elites.

    In as fiery of a declaration to stay in the race as a semi-conscious octogenarian could muster up, Biden appeared to blame the lack of confidence in his ability to serve another term not on the the aging process, but on the “elites” within his party.

    A bemused looking Joe Scarborough and his chief executive emasculator Mika Brzezinski nodded along and did their best to make it sound like they hadn’t been given cues from their handlers to push the narrative that Biden doesn’t belong in the race anymore (not even 2 months after Scarborough sang Biden’s praises on air).

    Behold: the cruel, poignant irony of a man who spent his formative political years arguing that a deep state didn’t exist, now learning firsthand that it does, that it is in charge, and that it will try to destroy you just like anyone else if you get in its way.

    But in the cadence of how Biden’s voice sounded during the interview, there was something about yesterday’s interview with “Morning Joe” that made me feel like it was engineered. I mean, even moreso than most Biden interviews where he is given questions in advance and doesn’t engage with press.

    The cued up answers — some of which drifted from the questions asked, it seemed, to get across the image of a man fighting for his candidacy when it wasn’t appropriate to do so during the interview — came off to me as part of a bigger plan to fake a situation where they wanted to make it look like Biden wanted to hold onto office.

    I just can’t help but think that if the entire Democratic machine – the same one that unilaterally kicked Bernie Sanders out of the race in 2016 – wants Biden out, he’s going to be out. And it doesn’t matter what anyone else wants.

    Don’t get it wrong, it isn’t just Democratic elites that want Biden out of the race. Pretty much everybody in the country agrees that he is too senile to be president. In fact, many people of my ilk in the alternative media have been proclaiming this for years. We were perpetually disregarded as conspiracy theorists pushing AI ‘deepfakes’ and told to not believe our lying eyes and that Joe Biden was “sharp as a tack”, but we were just too dumb to see it.

    But let’s just assume that Biden going on the defensive yesterday isn’t part of a larger plan to eventually relinquish his candidacy. Let’s assume that either Jill or Hunter, or maybe even President Biden himself, are convinced that they deserve a shot at a second term and are damn well going to take it.

    If that’s the case, and Biden really is in the midst of standing up against the Democratic machine, well… In that case, I guess I have to give him a little bit of credit and I’d only wish that he was lucid enough to realize the pervasive hypocrisy within his party, which he would now be fighting against. At the very least, I hope that other “on the fence” Democrats recognize it, but I’m sure they won’t.

    🔥 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

    This morning, it was already announced that House Democrats would be taking a meeting at 9 o’clock, ostensibly on how to deal with their party imploding from the inside out.

    As I noted just days ago, Democrats haven’t really been experts at finesse with the way they have handled Donald Trump. If they continue to lack strategy in handling this President Biden situation, things could get real ugly, real fast. And the more the DNC is in chaos, the less time they have to focus on Donald Trump. With that, I’m hoping this political self-immolation continues. It’s the best reality TV there is, and it’s going to make for an extraordinarily unprecedented mess in political game theory between now and November.

    If Democrats hadn’t spent the last 2 years lying to the public and themselves about Biden, they wouldn’t be stuck in this mess 5 months before the election. But now they’re reaping what they’ve sown and, for me, there’s a special feeling in watching them finally have to choke on the political sh*tburger they’ve been feeding the rest of the country for the last 2 years. Bon appetite!

    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.

    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
    Tue, 07/09/2024 – 22:20

  • Olympics Draw Millions, But Rarely Sell Out
    Olympics Draw Millions, But Rarely Sell Out

    With the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympics less than three weeks away, the French capital is bracing for an onslaught of visitors from all around the world.

    Along with 10,500 athletes, 20,000 accredited journalists and 45,000 volunteers, millions of spectators will descend on Paris in the coming weeks to watch the 329 events at 35 venues located in Paris, across the country and, with Tahiti’s iconic Teahupo’o wave, even overseas.

    As Statista’s Felix Richter shows in the chart below, Paris 2024 is on track to be historic in terms of paying spectators.

    Infographic: Olympics Draw Millions, But Rarely Sell Out | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    With roughly 9 million of the available 10 million tickets sold as of April 2024, the Paris Olympics have already exceeded the previous record of 8.3 million tickets sold for Atlanta 1996.

    Given the expected record-breaking attendance, Paris 2024 will be in stark contrast to Tokyo 2020, which was postponed to 2021 and held behind closed doors due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

    It remains to be seen whether Paris 2024 can achieve something that neither Rio, nor London or Beijing have managed: sell out all available tickets.

    With 97 percent of all available tickets sold, London 2012 came closest to selling out in the past four decades, while Athens 2004 struggled most to fill the venues with just 71 percent of tickets sold.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 07/09/2024 – 22:00

  • "Linguistic White Supremacy’": The Left's New Crusade Against The English Language
    “Linguistic White Supremacy’”: The Left’s New Crusade Against The English Language

    By Wenyuan Wu of MindingTheCampus

    The fringe lens of critical pedagogy has swallowed today’s academia. Facts are deconstructed, logical reasoning is contorted, historical narratives are rewritten, and causality takes a back seat to the post-modernist project of affirming feelings and identities. Increasingly, words lose meaning and become weaponized for the sake of ideological conformity.

    Cue the perennial abuse of “white supremacy.” The phrase’s original meaning of a belief system that White people are inherently superior to other races is now completely coopted with shapeshifting and ever-expanding connotations. Objectivity, a sense of urgency, perfectionism, and written words are characteristics of white supremacy culture. Getting married, like structural racism, bolsters white supremacy. Even soap dispensers perpetuate white supremacy.

    The U.S. academia has now concocted an absurd proposition that speaking and writing proper English is a form of white supremacy. The term is “Linguistic White Supremacy (LWS)” or “White Language Supremacy (WLS),” depending on where you look.

    According to the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC), a membership-based professional association for “diverse communicators inside and outside of postsecondary classrooms,”

    WLS assists white supremacy by using language to control reality and resources by defining and evaluating people, places, things, reading, writing, rhetoric, pedagogies, and processes in multiple ways that damage our students and our democracy. It imposes a worldview that is simultaneously pro-white, cisgender, male, heteronormative, patriarchal, ableist, racist, and capitalist … WLS is, thus, structural and usually a part of the standard operating procedures of classrooms, disciplines, and professions …WLS perpetuates many forms of systemic and structural violence.

    CCC goes on to outline the characteristics of WLS as “habits of white language,” including: “individualism,” “stance of neutrality, objectivity, and apoliticality,” “rational, controlled self,” “rule-governed, contractual relationships,” “clarity, order, and control.” In other words, good virtues and values, with roots in the Age of the Enlightenment, are just learned habits of white supremacists.

    For the Metropolitan State University of Denver, “Linguistic White Supremacy,” which is equated with standard American English, permeates every facet of higher education, such as writing, grading, teaching, and campus life. There is no “correct” or “standard” way to write and speak in American English. The standard version is “a social construct that privileges white communities and maintains social and racial hierarchies.” To combat linguistic white supremacy, educators must grade with equity, keeping “grammar and mechanics to less than 10% of the overall grade.”

    Similarly, professors should also adopt restorative approaches to plagiarism, allowing students to rewrite the essay, removing penalties for late assignments, and even abstaining from using an originality checker at all. According to opponents of linguistic white supremacy, plagiarism is an excusable plea for help and a courageous act of defiance. After all, students may be unable to speak or write standard American English because they don’t understand the citation system, come from a country “that believes that copying other people’s work is an homage to that person,” or lack the confidence. The woke bigotry of low expectations is on full display here.

    To put it in plain English, teachers should cut students, especially those who are not White and therefore underprivileged, some slacks if they plagiarize or make grammatical errors in writing. Giving penalties is simply inequitable and racist.

    A pair of faculty members from the University of Southern California School of Education coins the term “linguistic racism” as “the mistreatment, devaluation, and acts of discrimination towards people based on their language use or perceptions about their ethnicities.” The researchers proceed to advise immigrants to make a conscious effort to keep their accents and honor their own grammar structures in defiance of the mistreatment from native speakers of English.

    Approximately 43 million U.S. adults possess low literacy skills and two-thirds of whom are U.S.-born, 35 percent are white and Hispanic. This new crusade against standard English is only going to make things worse. We all know what will happen when parents and other authority figures fail to provide structure and enforce discipline for children. The antiracist business of fighting linguistic white supremacy infantilizes young college students and feeds them a fat big lie by trivializing the importance of mastering reading, writing, and speaking English.

    I don’t know who needs to hear this: As a first-generation immigrant whose native language can’t be more different than English, I pride myself on steadily improving my spoken and written language skills. It makes life for myself and those I interact with more pleasant and less confusing. More importantly, it is infinitely more empowering than trying to fit the world around me into the surmountable limitations of a language barrier.

    The irony is not lost when subscribers to the antiracism dogma can’t live up to their own expectations. Recently, my colleague—also a Chinese immigrant—mispronounced the Spanish last name “Jimenez” at a local school board meeting when he publicly commented on academic transparency and accountability. Instead of showing tolerance towards this linguistic mistake, the school board’s most progressive trustee immediately mocked my colleague.

    When it comes to battling systemic linguistic white supremacy, the warriors only want “rules for thee, not for me.”

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 07/09/2024 – 21:40

  • Newsom's California: Flash Mob Robs, Ransacks Bay Area Mini-Mart, Causing $100,000 In Damage
    Newsom’s California: Flash Mob Robs, Ransacks Bay Area Mini-Mart, Causing $100,000 In Damage

    A flash mob ransacked a mini-mart near the San Francisco Bay Oakland International Airport in Oakland, California this week, robbing and destroying the store. 

    In yet another dystopian scene of what California has become, the group was captured on surveillance video “tearing apart the store”, according to Fox News, who obtained footage of the looting. 

    The group rummaged through the refrigerated section and shelves, smashing items and stuffing shopping baskets with stolen goods.

    The owner of the store told Fox News that they group caused about $100,000 in damage and that, in the process, they threatened two employees. 

    He said it took “nine hours” for police to respond to the incident, telling Fox News: “This is the hardest thing you could ever go through … especially if you’ve been put in sweat and tears day in and day out.”

    Oakland Police offered up a different story, telling Fox officers responded within 90 minutes of the incident, which took place at 4AM. 

    The owner estimated that approximately 70 individuals connected to a nearby illegal sideshow gathering forced their way into the store, which was operating with window-only service at the time.

    He concluded: “They got away with it. They were here for 40 minutes. You could tear a whole city down in 40 minutes. Every time I think about it, the more it hurts.”

     

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 07/09/2024 – 21:20

  • Actor Kevin Costner Says America Needs To Be Protected
    Actor Kevin Costner Says America Needs To Be Protected

    Authored by Elma Aksalic via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    “Yellowstone” star Kevin Costner is one of many celebrities expressing their patriotism this holiday weekend, weighing in on what America means to him.

    Kevin Costner takes part in ‘Horizon: An American Saga’ Town Hall hosted by Jessica Shaw in New York City on June 18, 2024. (Cindy Ord/Getty Images)

    During an interview with Fox News Digital, the 69-year-old spoke on the importance of celebrating Independence Day and why it holds greater meaning.

    “It is an opportunity to look back at the journey of America, and before America was America, there is something to protect here. There is something to celebrate,” he said.

    When it comes to protecting the country, Mr. Costner believes Americans should put ego aside and come together to prioritize “what is good for the nation,” specifically when making a decision come November.

    “That is a public service. [It] should be about the public, to begin with. Not about someone’s next four years. It can’t be … It has to be first and foremost about what’s broken here, and there’s always gonna be something to be done. How do we fit in the world? What is our place?” he said.

    The actor’s latest film, “Horizon: An American Saga,” revolves around American history detailing the expansion of the West and how the country grew to spread from ocean to ocean.

    Mr. Costner stars and directs the movie, even co-writing the script that tells a darker side of history, focusing on the plight of Native Americans during that time.

    “You can’t tell the story unless you bump into that. You can’t talk about anything without understanding who was here before us,” he told Entertainment Weekly.

    ‘Greatest Country in the World’

    Meanwhile, country singer Jason Aldean echoed Mr. Costner’s sentiment and love for the nation, saying freedom comes with being American, and calling it the “greatest country in the world.”

    “I think we live in the best country in the world … we get the chance to go and still have the American dream. You can come from nothing and build something and make something out of your life, out of yourself and change your life, your family’s life.”

    Despite the trials and tribulations citizens face on a daily basis, Mr. Aldean says there is still so much to be proud of.

    “I mean, there’s a reason that everybody else wants to be here and wants to come here. It’s because they don’t have what we have. And so, I’m still very proud of that and proud of our country, even though sometimes it gets a little sideways and a little hard to recognize sometimes,” he said.

    “American Pie” singer Don McLean learned from personal experience that being an American means getting back up after being knocked down.

    The 78-year-old singer believes in “fair play” and “respect” across the board, after finding himself down in life.

    “I had a lot of things happen to me where I’ve been flattened, and I get up, you know, and I dust myself off,” he recalled.

    “You don’t have to win all the time, but if you lose, you realize you lost because you weren’t good enough, so you’ve got to make yourself better, and you’re going to win next time.”

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 07/09/2024 – 21:00

  • China Conducts Military Drills Near Polish & Ukrainian Borders
    China Conducts Military Drills Near Polish & Ukrainian Borders

    China and Belarus kicked off ultra-rare joint military drills near the Polish border inside Belarusian territory on Monday. It is unprecedented given Chinese troops are now deployed so close to a raging war zone in Eastern Europe.

    The Belarusian armed forces pointed specifically to “Ukrainian provocation” as a key reason to hold the drills. Vladimir Kupriyanyuk, the deputy head of the general staff of the military, said the exercises are a response to the “West’s aggressive foreign policy towards Belarus” and to “Ukrainian provocation.”

    State media images show PLA troops arriving in Belarus

    Alarmingly, the maneuvers dubbed ‘Eagle Assault’ are not just a single day or two-day drill, but are slated to last eleven days, until July 19. The drills are being staged near the city of Brest on the Belarus-Poland border, and which is some 40 miles from the Belarusian border with Ukraine to the south.

    “As part of the anti-terrorist exercises, the military personnel of both countries will work out the issues of night landing, overcoming water obstacles, and conducting operations in [urban settings],” the Belarusian defense ministry announced on Telegram.

    The statement called out NATO’s growing involvement in Ukraine specifically: “The NATO grouping on the border with Belarus is growing rapidly, which leads to an increase in tension in the region,” stated a follow-up post. It additionally warned of “harsh reaction” should any external forces “cross Belarusian borders.”

    Poland’s Defense Ministry responded by saying that a big focus of the NATO summit in Washington this week will be addressing the “hybrid war ongoing on the Poland-Belarus border, as well as on the Latvian, Lithuanian and Estonian borders.”

    All of this is also happening while Russia has stationed tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, which it calls a ‘Union State’ based on their close defensive partnership (and historic treaty) and ongoing cooperation regarding Ukraine.

    As for China’s explanation, its defense ministry said Sunday the drills are primarily ‘anti-terrorism’ in nature, to include “hostage rescue operations and counter-terrorism missions.”

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    “The training aims to enhance the training levels and coordination capabilities of the participating troops, as well as deepen practical cooperation between the armies of the two countries,” it added.

    At this point the potential for a true global war centered in Ukraine is becoming easier to imagine, given PLA troops are now in the region, holding drills with the ‘pro-Russian’ side.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 07/09/2024 – 20:40

  • Roots Of And Remedies To America's Illiberal Education
    Roots Of And Remedies To America’s Illiberal Education

    Authored by Peter Berkowitz via RealClearPolitics,

    In mid-June, Lawrence D. Bobo – Harvard University dean of the social sciences, professor of social sciences, and professor of sociology – published a Harvard Crimson op-ed that reinforced well-founded suspicions that powerful university administrators favor restricting speech with which they disagree. Understanding the roots of the academy’s censorious spirit and devising remedies are crucial to furnishing an education that suits students’ rights and responsibilities in a free and democratic nation.

    In “Faculty Speech Must Have Limits,” Bobo posed two questions: “Is it outside the bounds of acceptable professional conduct for a faculty member to excoriate University leadership, faculty, staff, or students with the intent to arouse external intervention into University business? And does the broad publication of such views cross a line into sanctionable violations of professional conduct?”

    Dean Bobo’s chilling answers – “Yes it is and yes it does” – dismayed friends of free speech at Harvard and beyond.

    Speech must operate within well-recognized outer limits such as harassment, defamation, true threats, and incitement to immediate violence. Since when, though, does the intensity and persuasiveness of faculty criticism of their institutions determine the permissibility of expression at universities, which are supposedly devoted to preserving, discovering, and disseminating knowledge and driven by robust exchange of opinion?

    As dean of the social sciences, moreover, Bobo exercises considerable power: to set salaries; to hire, retain, and tenure faculty; to shape scholarly agendas and curricular priorities. Who in the social sciences among job candidates, faculty vying for promotion, or tenured faculty seeking raises and research opportunities will now risk openly criticizing the Harvard administration?

    In a June 25 email to social science colleagues, Bobo sought to calm the storm he created. “First, I would like to make clear that the op-ed represents my own views as an individual member of the faculty and is in no way intended as a policy statement of our Division, or of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences,” he wrote. “And further, in my role as dean, I am bound by our policies and governance structures. I am not empowered to, nor would I seek to, act outside of those policies or structures on issues of speech.”

    Really?

    What faculty member will believe that a senior university administrator who publicly condemns professors’ public criticism of university policy – and the free-speech guarantees that protect such criticism – will uphold professors’ right to criticize university governance? In his email to social science faculty, Bobo asserts, “I respect and value our longstanding policies that establish free expression as uniquely important to the FAS as a community committed to reason and rational discourse.” But his contention in his op-ed that severe criticism of Harvard that rouses people off campus to press for institutional reforms deserves university sanction says the opposite.

    Bobo’s hypocrisy is of a piece with that of former Harvard President Claudine Gay. As dean of Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Gay, working with Bobo, entrenched at Harvard hard-left norms and diversity, equity, and inclusion practices that, among other consequences, treated microaggressions – innocuous utterances that may be experienced as demeaning by select minorities – as dire transgressions. Their authoritarian policies helped Harvard come in dead-last for free-speech protection among 248 institutions of higher education ranked by The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. Nevertheless, in testifying before Congress last December, Gay presented herself as a near free-speech absolutist. She implausibly suggested that owing to Harvard’s resolute commitment to free expression, determining whether calling for the genocide of the Jewish people violated Harvard’s code of conduct depended on the context and not on how calls for the genocide of their people may be experienced by the Jewish minority on campus.

    Judging by their policies as well as their equivocations under fire, Bobo and Gay suppose that speech that complies with their progressive agenda should be staunchly protected and speech that diverges from it should be disciplined. That view is anathema to liberty of thought and discussion and is poisonous to liberal education. Since the post-Oct. 7 outbreak on elite campuses – prominent among them Harvard – of anti-Israel agitation and harassment of Jewish students, the broader public has noticed the debasement of American higher education, long apparent to those paying attention.

    In “Beyond Academic Sectarianism,” in the current issue of National Affairs, my friend Steven Teles argues that “the public’s impression that American higher education has grown increasingly closed minded is undeniably correct.” A political science professor at Johns Hopkins University and a senior fellow at the Niskanen Center – as well as an old-fashioned and high-minded liberal – Teles sees a crucial manifestation of university closed-mindedness in the dearth of conservative professors, and he explores measures to make universities more welcoming to them.

    His observations corroborate the data, which indicate that outside of economics, fewer than 10% of social science and humanities faculty are conservatives. “At my own university,” Teles writes, “I would be hard-pressed to name a single tenured professor in the social sciences and humanities who is openly right of center in any reasonable understanding of the term.” So pronounced is universities’ subordination of teaching and scholarship to progressive social activism that he fears for the future of “liberal institutionalists, that is, professors like himself “who believe universities should be places of intellectual pluralism and adhere to the traditional academic norms of merit and free inquiry.” Teles, however, gives his camp too much credit since, as campus attacks on free speech mounted over the decades, many liberals remained silent while conservatives conspicuously championed intellectual pluralism, scholarly merit, and free inquiry.

    To account for the drastic underrepresentation of conservatives among faculty, Teles turns to social-science theorizing and findings. A healthy skepticism is warranted, however, because, as he himself observes, the left dominates the field.

    Teles begins with what he regards as the less adequate explanations. He reports that “some evidence” suggests discrimination against conservatives by faculty hiring committees “but not much,” although he does not consider that progressive political science may have done a poor job of examining its own biases. He rightly rejects “group-attribute-based theories of conservative underrepresentation” which, drawing on the vulgar stereotype that conservatives are less intelligent and less willing to question inherited opinions, posit that they lack the qualities to gain academic employment. He offers a theory according to which conservatives’ false perception of discrimination drives them away from academic life despite the indications sprinkled throughout his article that conservative perceptions of discrimination are accurate, not least the fear he himself expresses that staunch liberals such as himself are next in line to be “excluded” from universities.

    Teles’ preferred theory for the paucity of conservative professors is the “disparate impact” that stems from “facially neutral factors.” He identifies two. Overwhelmingly progressive universities tend to omit from their scholarship and teaching “the subjects that conservatives are typically most interested in religion, the classics, civil society, war, the military, etc.” And universities create a progressive “cultural ethos” that alienates conservatives.

    Teles is right about “disparate impact,” but he wrongly describes the factors involved as “facially neutral”; they are decidedly hostile to the fundamental imperatives of liberal education. To leverage the curriculum and harness faculty research to advance progressive visions of social justice, the progressive majority demotes and quarantines study of such matters as religion, the classics, civil society, war, the military, etc. – domains of knowledge essential to understanding human affairs. Meanwhile, the dominant cultural ethos on elite campuses cracks down on speech and discourages inquiry that deviates from or takes exception to the progressive political agenda.

    Teles urges universities to hire more conservatives because putting their opinions in the mix advances higher education’s proper mission. He calls on fellow old-fashioned liberals to “be explicit in arguing that moderates and conservatives would enrich their intellectual communities –â??that they would be valued for what they could bring to the university’s intellectual pursuits.” He asks liberals like himself “at top research universities to offer positions in subjects that are disproportionately appealing to right-leaning scholars.” And he advises the remaining liberals among professors to “think about putting pressure on the non-academic departments of the university, such as student life, that are in many cases even more ideologically narrow than academic departments.” He does not ask, however, why his fellow liberals have largely thus far failed to act.

    Teles’ salutary aspiration to promote intellectual diversity requires a crucial caveat. American universities should not embrace hiring based on candidates’ political views. Instead, they should find faculty members capable of fashioning and teaching a curriculum that introduces the moral and political principles on which America is based; the basic ideas, institutions, and events of Western civilization; and the leading features of other civilizations. Such a faculty and curriculum would foster civility and toleration by teaching mastery of facts, exploring clashing arguments, and encouraging vigorous discussions.

    Such a faculty and such a curriculum would also remedy the censorious spirit that prevails on elite campuses by furnishing an education appropriate to students’ rights and responsibilities in a free and democratic nation.

    Peter Berkowitz is the Tad and Dianne Taube senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. From 2019 to 2021, he served as director of the Policy Planning Staff at the U.S. State Department. His writings are posted at PeterBerkowitz.com and he can be followed on Twitter @BerkowitzPeter.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 07/09/2024 – 20:20

  • "Kind Of Like Communist Housing Meets Corporate Housing": Lennar Showcases New Texas Home-Builds
    “Kind Of Like Communist Housing Meets Corporate Housing”: Lennar Showcases New Texas Home-Builds

    Lennar, one of the largest homebuilders in the US, showcases beautifully rendered images online of its new single-family homes in the Fort Worth, Texas, area. To prospective homeowners, the neighborhood appears picture-perfect for raising a family. 

    However, Lance Lambert, the founder of the research firm ResiClub, pointed out on X that these tiny homes in the Risinger Court community are not as they appear online. 

    Lambert shares a rendered image of one of the 763 sq ft homes, featuring two bedrooms and two bathrooms, side by side with an image of the same house in real life. 

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    And more images…

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    “It’s always fun to see how much foliage is included in renderings — even for far higher priced new home communities,” rental housing economist Jay Parsons wrote on X. 

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    Real estate broker Aaron Layman said, “There should be an MLS violation and fine for putting a “representative” photo on a listing which is not really representative of the actual product. Customers should have a reasonably accurate expectation of what they are showing up for.”

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    Another X user said, “It looks like a minimum-security prison camp,” while another pointed out, “They rebranded trailer parks as tiny homes.” 

    Here’s what others are saying about the Lennar’s Risinger Court community:

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    $200k for a shed? These are absolutely wild times. 

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 07/09/2024 – 20:00

  • It Didn't Begin With LBJ: How The US Became A Transfer Society
    It Didn’t Begin With LBJ: How The US Became A Transfer Society

    Authored by Eduard Bucher via The Mises Institute,

    Terry L. Anderson and Peter J. Hill’s fascinating account traces the decline of the American constitutional framework from its origins in laissez-faire individualism to its current state of redistributive collectivism. Viewing the evolution as a series of legal developments motivated by ever greater financial incentives to involve the federal government, they highlight the following pivotal cases: (1) Marbury v. Madison (1803), which established the Supreme Court’s right to perform judicial review, striking down laws it considered unconstitutional; (2) McCulloch v. Maryland (1819), which sanctioned Congress’s founding of the Bank of the United States, deemed that states could not tax instruments of the federal government and further solidified the basis for judicial review; (3) Ogden v. Saunders (1827), which ended the old, laissez-faire interpretation of the Contract Clause; (4) Munn v. Illinois (1877), which for the first time granted the state the power to control private property via the “public interest” argument; and (5) US v. Grimaud (1911), which gave administrative rulings the force of law, beginning the transfer of the lawmaking function from Congress to the president.

    Emphasizing the role played by the courts, the authors show how from “1877 to 1917 the Constitution was altered in numerous ways that made transfers much easier to obtain. Except for the income tax amendment, all of these changes came through interpretation.” Furthermore, the “substitution of an equivocal concept like public interest for firm constitutional limitations meant that the subjective judgment of justices was supreme.” This set the stage for private interests to learn to benefit from governmental transfers: “There is no field in which industry expects, or gets more from its associations than that of relations with governmental bodies. This becomes true year by year, as government, and particularly the Federal government, plays an ever-increasing part in our business and industrial life.”

    Unlike mainstream economists, the authors identify governmentally enforced transfers as negative-sum instead of as zero-sum games. Their reasoning, while cogent, can, however, be enhanced in its rigor by including insights from the Austrian School. Consider the following:

    When [property] rights are transferred without some quid pro quo, a non-voluntary transfer takes place. The most obvious example of such transfer activity is theft. At first glance such activity might appear to be zero sum since one person’s gain is another’s loss. But this ignores the process through which the transfer is effected. The result of this transfer activity is negative sum since nothing is produced and resources are expended in the process. (The reader is reminded of our unwillingness to allow interpersonal utility comparisons.) A thief invests in physical and human capital to effect a transfer only if it nets a normal rate of return. Moreover, an owner invests in additional measures to increase the probability of capturing the return [of] his assets. Traditional analysis has viewed transfers of this sort as altering the distribution of income without affecting output since the total amount of goods in society remains unchanged. Thus, if A steals B’s car, traditional analysis says that no social loss has occurred, assuming the value to both individuals is equal. But this ignores the consumption of resources in A’s attempts to carry out the theft and B’s attempts to prevent it. The transfer itself may be costless, but the prospect of the transfer leads individuals and groups to invest resources in either attempting to obtain a transfer or to resist a transfer away from themselves. These resources represent net social waste.

    In short, expenditures on predatory and protective activities constitute the “waste” that makes the total less than the sum of its parts. However, as Austrians have argued from several viewpoints (Ludwig von Mises’s book Human Action, Peter Klein’s essays, the research of Nicolai Foss et al.), the structure of ownership is itself an integral component of a society’s wealth; if assets are owned by individuals who put them to poor use, wealth is relatively diminished. Unlike nonvoluntary transfers, exchanges that arise voluntarily in the market are the mechanism by which ownership passes to those most qualified to use it ex ante. Thus, the new distribution itself constitutes a loss of value compared to that which existed previously irrespective of the resources expended on predatory and protective activities.

    Furthermore, the authors claim that the state is justified in pursuing nonvoluntary transfers to rectify illegitimate property distributions and to eliminate the free-rider problem in public goods. The problem, they argue, is that once coercive redistribution is allowed for those reasons, special interests are incentivized to find ways to use it to benefit themselves:

    Nonvoluntary transfers for the purpose of providing public goods may become positive-sum transactions. The problem is one of accurately defining a public good. If this cannot be specified then and therefore limited to only those goods from which nonpaying consumers cannot be excluded, legitimate powers specified in the constitution can and will be used for other types of transfer activity. Negative-sum games will result. Transfer mechanisms dealing with illegitimacy and public goods allow the camel’s nose under the tent. The problem is keeping the beast from obtaining full entry.

    However, in neither of these cases is government action net value-generating. Regarding the illegitimacy question, the state has no competitors and thus faces no negative consequences for poorly resolving competing property claims. By comparison, private arbiters that become corrupted or have a poor reputation lose customers and are ultimately replaced by competitors, leading to losses for their shareholders. The state’s monopoly on coercion, however, cannot be withdrawn, and so it lacks such a corrective mechanism (which is significant in light of its susceptibility to abuse by special interests). In the case of public goods, on the other hand, even if the state were somehow capable of operating without transaction costs or extracting resources, it could only finance value-destroying ventures because value-generating undertakings are already voluntarily financed by profit-seeking entrepreneurs. Furthermore, the supposed need to combat the free-rider problem is entirely fallacious, for as Murray Rothbard points out, the definition of what constitutes free-riding is entirely subjective and arbitrary; it applies to everyone regarding the civilizational and technological achievements of both ancestors and contemporaries, and there is likely not a single benefit that accrues only to a single person. We can either accept this as a happy fact of life and let it be or tax away everything in pursuit of a confused conception of justice, bringing all economic activity to a standstill.

    The authors also see a role for the state in maintaining the democratic nature of politics. They write that between the American Revolution and 1790, the number of land-owning Rhode Islanders decreased drastically, reducing the number of voters to one-third due to a land-ownership requirement for enfranchisement, and they conclude that “expanding the franchise was thus essential to maintaining a government based on the consent of the governed.” However, they then concede that, although appropriate, such changes increased the reliance on majority rule to an extent incompatible with constitutional restrictions on government. But that is precisely the point: The greater the number of individuals who can influence the state, the greater the potential for redistributive cooperation between them. If the state were just a well-meaning public institution, diligently providing police, military, and courts at minimum cost, there would be no connection between the number of voters and constitutional restrictiveness. Only if the state is an alternative marketplace with profit opportunities for political entrepreneurs does an increase in voters (competitors for government handouts) result in greater clamor for the removal of restrictions on government, since every government action is an opportunity for someone to benefit at the public’s expense.

    The authors end by proposing a return to the original conception of government, its roles and limitations, along with the removal of the political and legal bases for the statist developments that have occurred since the nineteenth century. As they put it, it is essential “that the concept of a government limited by a set of fundamental, difficult-to-change rules dominate our thinking.” Anarcho-capitalists will counter that the only true guarantee of freedom is through competition in the free market. Regardless of one’s stance on that debate, however, Anderson and Hill’s book provides an illuminating account of the decay of constitutional safeguards and warrants serious study.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 07/09/2024 – 19:40

  • Biden's Costliest Publicity Stunt To Be Dismantled Permanently
    Biden’s Costliest Publicity Stunt To Be Dismantled Permanently

    The Pentagon’s Gaza humanitarian pier project, which has been troubled from day one and spent more time out of commission than it’s actually been in operation, will soon be scrapped altogether, the Associated Press reports Tuesday.

    The report says this is the ‘final blow’ for the pier after rough seas left it needing constant pauses for repairs: “The pier built by the U.S. military to bring humanitarian aid to Gaza will be reinstalled Wednesday to be used for several days, but then the plan is to pull it out permanently, several U.S. officials said.”

    Thus it looks like it will not longer be there by the end of this month. “The officials said the goal is to clear whatever aid has piled up in Cyprus and on the floating dock offshore and get it to the secure area on the beach in Gaza,” the report adds, and notes that’s when the army will begin the final dismantle.

    The pier had allowed for the delivery of nearly 20 million pounds of food to the starving Palestinian population in the Gaza Strip, but persistent high and choppy seas caused many lengthy stoppages. At one point last month large pieces of the pier actually broke off and washed up north on an Israel beach, with US vessels also getting stuck attempting to retrieve the pieces.

    Part of the Pentagon rationale for dismantling the whole thing is that the weather is only set to get worse, and that the Biden-ordered initiative was to be temporary to begin with. For a brief timeline and partial review of recent problems:

    • May 25: pier was damaged by seas and high winds
    • Removed for repairs
    • June 7: finally reconnected after a couple weeks
    • June 14: inclement weather leads to pier removal again
    • Days later it is put back
    • June 28: heavy seas result in removal again
    • Out of commission again for nearly a couple of weeks

    First announced as a White House aim in March during President Biden’s State of the Union address, the pier required hundreds of millions of dollars and the work of some 1,000 service members to plan, assemble and operate. 

    The pier will go down as one of history’s costliest publicity stunts. The impetus for the pier was mounting political pressure on Biden — particularly from his own party — as Israel’s response to the Oct. 7 Hamas invasion killed tens of thousands, displaced more than a million, and caused a territory-wide food and medical-supply crisis. But critics also pointed out there are land routes which can be used to get aid into Gaza.

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    Biden’s pier announcement came a week after the Michigan primary, in which 13% of Democrats — more than 100,000 people — voted “uncommitted” as a means of condemning Biden’s performance on Gaza, among other issues. 

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 07/09/2024 – 19:20

  • How Out-Of-Body Experiences May Enhance Empathy By Altering Our Sense Of Self
    How Out-Of-Body Experiences May Enhance Empathy By Altering Our Sense Of Self

    Authored by Cara Michelle Miller via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    How does floating outside your body, seeing yourself from above, sound? This surreal experience, known as an out-of-body event, might be more than just a curious phenomenon.

    New research suggests these extraordinary events could unlock greater empathy. By reshaping our sense of self, they may reshape our worldview, allowing us to truly step into another’s shoes.

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    The Transformative Impact of Out-of-Body Experiences

    Out-of-body experiences (OBEs) occur spontaneously during sleep, near-death experiences, or through induced methods like hypnosis or psychedelic drugs. Affecting approximately 15 percent of people, according to some research, out-of-body experiences challenge the notion that the mind is confined to the body.

    Recent studies suggest OBEs can result in lasting increases in perspective-taking, patience, and compassion—similar to effects seen with meditation.

    A new narrative review in Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews explores the psychological and neurological basis of out-of-body experiences as “seeds” that, under certain conditions, can grow into transformative events.

    “We propose psychological and neuroscientific mechanisms to try to explain how it works, how having an out-of-body experience could lead to increased empathy,” lead study author Marina Weiler, an assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Virginia (UVA) who holds a doctorate in neurology, told The Epoch Times.

    Dissolving the Ego

    Central to an out-of-body experience is ego dissolution, a state where one detaches from his or her self-identity.

    Historically rooted in spiritual practices, experiencers describe ego dissolution as perceiving no boundaries or awakening from an “egoic version” of oneself. Research shows that the intensity of out-of-body experience correlates with the degree of ego dissolution.

    “When a person is not linked to their physical bodies,” Ms. Weiler said, “it allows the person to feel connected to other things, to other people, to other circumstances, or everything that is around them.” This occurs because our self-identity or ego is partly tied to our physical body, from which we typically view the world, she added.

    Empathy, crucial for understanding others, involves adopting different perspectives by shedding one’s ego. Ms. Weiler emphasized that “making sense of the out-of-body experiences is crucial for integrating its transformative effects.” She describes it as a two-stage process: ego dissolution followed by re-evaluation of oneself and reality.

    Those who process their OBEs emotionally and discuss them often experience less self-doubt and anxiety, she noted.

    This shift from self-centered to other-focused thinking expands an individual’s worldview, fostering a more profound sense of connection with others.

    How It Might Rewire Our Brains

    Neuroscience provides insights into the brain mechanisms underlying empathy and its modulation through OBEs. The temporoparietal junction (TPJ), a specific brain region, is linked to bodily self-awareness. TPJ integrates sensory information from our bodies and the environment, distinguishing self from non-self.

    OBEs can be triggered by temporarily altering brain activity through electrical stimulation of regions like the TPJ, according to research by Dr. Olaf Blanke, a renowned neuroscientist and neurologist at the University Hospitals of Geneva, Switzerland. This demonstrates how changing consciousness states can influence empathy.

    According to Ms. Weiler, the TPJ relates to bodily sensations and spatial awareness. Mirror neurons, which fire both when a person performs an action and when they watch someone else do the same, activate in the TPJ when we understand others’ emotions—a key aspect of empathy. TPJ activity disruptions during out-of-body experiences may alter self-awareness, enhancing shared experiences and empathetic responses.

    While mirror neurons enable empathy by mirroring others’ behaviors and emotions, OBEs involve multiple brain networks beyond the TPJ, including the frontal cortex and temporal lobes, which are also implicated in empathy and self-perception.

    The review authors noted that these conclusions are primarily based on personal accounts, as no studies directly verify the correlation between OBEs, ego dissolution, and feelings of unity. Also, other experiences, such as awe, can promote empathy without the disembodied sensation typical of OBEs.

    Unlocking the Potential

    Out-of-body experiences have drawn attention over the years due to their potential to spur personal growth and spiritual transformation.

    According to the Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews paper, a study from the 1980s found that OBEs profoundly affected 55 percent of the 386 participants, with 71 percent reporting long-term benefits. Also, 84 percent expressed a desire to relive the experience, and 40 percent ranked it as the most significant event of their lives.

    While the therapeutic applications of OBEs remain exploratory, a recent study in Psychology of Consciousness identified eight core themes that people often explore after an OBE, each suggesting ways that well-being may be improved.

    Researchers highlighted that OBEs can act as catalysts for:

    • Motivation
    • Reducing fear of death
    • Fostering inner peace
    • Altering life perspectives
    • Increasing self-awareness
    • Redefining relationships
    • Strengthening spiritual beliefs

    Current research does not link OBEs themselves to any serious health risks. However, they can sometimes cause confusion about the experience and raise concerns about neurological or mental health issues. Certain medical conditions have been associated with OBEs, including epilepsy, brain injuries, and dissociative disorders like depersonalization-derealization disorder.

    Practices to Facilitate Out-of-Body Experiences

    To study OBEs, which typically occur randomly, Ms. Weiler and researchers at UVA’s Division of Perceptual Studies work with volunteers who can induce them at will. Techniques include:

    • Meditation: deep absorption states that transcend ordinary self-identity
    • Visualization: using mental imagery to expand beyond the physical body
    • Lucid dreaming: maintaining awareness while transitioning into dream states
    • Yoga: practices like Kundalini yoga that aim to transcend bodily limits

    According to Ms. Weiler, research progresses with the goal of harnessing out-of-body experiences as tools for promoting empathy and compassion rather than merely treating them as extraordinary experiences.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 07/09/2024 – 19:00

  • Bodyguard For Anti-Gun Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor Shoots At Would-Be Carjacker
    Bodyguard For Anti-Gun Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor Shoots At Would-Be Carjacker

    Bodyguards for Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor fired shots at an attempted carjacker on Friday outside her northwest DC home, according to a spokesperson for the US Marshals Service.

    The perp, 18-year-old Kentrell Flowers, suffered non-fatal injuries and was taken to a local hospital following the incident.

    “The Deputy U.S. Marshals involved in the shooting incident were part of the unit protecting the residences of U.S. Supreme Court justices. As a general practice, the U.S. Marshals don’t discuss specifics of protective details,” said US Marshals Service spokeswoman Abigail Meyer in a statement.

    As the Daily Caller reports:

    Kentrell Flowers allegedly approached and pointed a handgun at a car belonging to one of two deputy U.S. Marshals in separate vehicles protecting Sotomayor’s residence around 1:15 a.m., according to a press release from the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD).

    Flowers first exited a vehicle before threatening the U.S. Marshal at the 2100 block of 11th Street, the press release stated. The U.S. Marshal fired several shots at the 18-year-old suspect with the help of his U.S. Marshal colleague, who also drew and fired his service weapon from a separate vehicle.

    Flowers was arrested and charged with armed carjacking, carrying a pistol without a license and possession of a large-capacity ammunition feeding device, according to the press release.

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    The MPD’s Criminal Investigation Division is conducting an investigation. 

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    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 07/09/2024 – 18:40

  • 'Ukraine Can & Will Stop Putin': Biden Successfully Navigates Teleprompter At NATO Summit
    ‘Ukraine Can & Will Stop Putin’: Biden Successfully Navigates Teleprompter At NATO Summit

    Update(1835ET): We’ve just been given a glimpse of what another Biden administration would look like: endless war and escalation in Europe until we get nuclear-armed conflict with Russia (though a Trump administration after November is looking likelier by the day).

    President Biden’s address to the NATO summit in D.C. on the 75th anniversary of the alliance’s founding was full of bravado and chest-thumping, complete with declarations of Ukraine will win against Russia.

    “Putin wants nothing less, nothing less, than Ukraine’s total subjugation … and to wipe Ukraine off the map,” Biden said. He then vowed that “Ukraine can and will stop Putin.”

    Getty Images

    Toward that end, he announced that Ukraine will be given dozens more US anti-air defense systems, and that Kiev will be priority number one in terms of advanced arms transfers to countries abroad.

    Biden came out speaking fast, at times mumbling and stumbling over hastily-formed words while hugging the teleprompter, but in the end was actually coherent this time. 

    Reuters notes that “The White House is hoping he can turn the page on speculation with his speech, in which he spoke with a strong and confident voice and avoided any verbal flubs or signs of confusion that marked his debate performance.”

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    And the Associated Press wrote:

    Biden, using a teleprompter, told world leaders that “NATO is more powerful than ever” on its 75th anniversary, highlighting the expansion of the alliance under his watch.

    “This moment in history calls for our collective strength,” he said, stressing NATO’s resolve to help Ukraine fend off Russia’s invasion. In his 13-minute remarks, Biden did not nod to the domestic political drama swirling around him.

    But just a couple of hours before Biden’s big speech, this devastating take down occurred in the White House press briefing room, leading to obvious questions of: who is in charge here?

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    * * *

    The annual NATO summit 2024 began Tuesday in Washington D.C., and House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson used the opportunity to urge all alliance members to meeting spending goals, which as at least 2% of GDP for defense.

    “I just want to say this, and I’ll deliver the message to them emphatically: Republicans, of course, celebrate the peace and prosperity that NATO has secured and will continue to stand by our partners as we prevent needless wars,” he said before an audience at the Hudson Institute think tank.

    “But we also believe that NATO needs to be doing more,” he stressed. As NATO heads of state are in town, Congressional members will hold various meetings with the foreign delegations. “Every NATO member needs to be spending at least 2% of their GDP on defense. That’s the agreement, that’s the deal,” Johnson continued.

    Via AP

    Currently, fewer than half of NATO members are meeting this goal, according to various international reports. It was a big talking point in the prior Trump administration, and if Trump gets in office again he’ll likely dial up the pressure on allies just like in the past.

    Back in February, Trump sparked fury and controversy by suggesting the US would not defend NATO allies who failed to spend enough on defense.

    On the campaign trail he had recounted a past conversation with the “president of a big country”…

    “Well sir, if we don’t pay, and we’re attacked by Russia – will you protect us?” Trump quoted the unnamed leader as saying.

    “I said: ‘You didn’t pay? You’re delinquent?’ He said: ‘Yes, let’s say that happened.’ No, I would not protect you. In fact, I would encourage them (Russia) to do whatever the hell they want. You gotta pay,” Trump said.

    As for Johnson’s fresh speech just as NATO leaders arrive in D.C., he called out both Russia and China, but especially Beijing which it called “our single greatest threat… engaging in malign influence operations around the world.”

    But he also stated of Russia, “People understand that (Russian President Vladimir Putin) would not stop if he took Kyiv. He’s a ruthless dictator in my view.”

    Zelensky has also been invited to be in attendance this week, but Ukraine isn’t expected to join the alliance anytime soon. Zelensky says he will focus on attracting more anti-air systems amid the Russian aerial onslaught:

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    So far there’s been no evidence showing Moscow desires an expanded war. Many Western pundits predicted Russia would march on Moldova next, but that hasn’t materialized.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 07/09/2024 – 18:35

  • Haley Releases Delegates, Urges Them To Back Trump Ahead Of RNC Convention
    Haley Releases Delegates, Urges Them To Back Trump Ahead Of RNC Convention

    Authored by Jackson Richman via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Former GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley announced on July 9 that she is releasing her 97 delegates and urging them to support former President Donald Trump.

    (Left) Former President Donald Trump arrives to speak during a Super Tuesday election night watch party at Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Fla., on March 5, 2024. (Right) Republican presidential hopeful Nikki Haley speaks during a campaign rally in Portland, Maine, on March 3, 2024. (Chandan Khanna, Joseph Prezioso/AFP via Getty Images)

    The move comes days before the Republican National Convention when the 45th president is set to be nominated as the party’s 2024 presidential candidate.

    In a statement, Ms. Haley called for the GOP to come together as President Joe Biden is incompetent to have four more years in the Oval Office and Vice President Kamala Harris “would be a disaster for America.”

    “The nominating convention is a time for Republican unity,” said Ms. Haley in a statement.

    “We need a president who will hold our enemies to account, secure our border, cut our debt, and get our economy back on track,” said the former South Carolina governor and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

    Ms. Haley went on to call on her delegates to back former President Trump at the Republican National Convention, which will be held July 15–18 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Politico first reported the news.

    The former candidate will not be attending the convention.

    “She was not invited, and she’s fine with that,” Ms. Haley’s spokesperson, Chaney Denton, told The Epoch Times.

    “Trump deserves the convention he wants,” Ms. Denton said. “She’s made it clear she’s voting for him and wishes him the best.”

    In May, a few months after suspending her presidential campaign, Ms. Haley announced she will be voting for former President Trump.

    She said that she wants a “president who would support capitalism and freedom. A president who understands we need less debt, not more debt.” While former President Trump “has not been perfect on these policies,” she said, he is preferable to President Joe Biden.

    The following day, former President Trump suggested Ms. Haley would be on his team “in some form” and did not rule her out as a running mate despite having done so before her announcement that she will cast her ballot for her former boss.

    In the primary, Ms. Haley won just Vermont and the District of Columbia with nine and 19 delegates, respectively.

    In other primaries, which former President Trump won, Ms. Haley picked up eight delegates in Iowa; nine in New Hampshire; three in her home state of South Carolina; four in Michigan; 12 each in Colorado, North Carolina, and Minnesota; six in Virginia; one in Arkansas and two in Rhode Island.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 07/09/2024 – 18:20

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Jul 09

Today’s News 9th July 2024

  • Soccer Star Toni Kroos: Germany's No Longer The Country It Was 10 Years Ago Thanks To Mass Migration
    Soccer Star Toni Kroos: Germany’s No Longer The Country It Was 10 Years Ago Thanks To Mass Migration

    Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Modernity.news

    Football star Toni Kroos told a ZDF podcast that Germany is no longer the country it was 10 years ago due to mass migration and that he is staying in Spain because he is afraid to let his daughter go out at night in German cities.

    Kroos, who won 114 caps before retiring from professional football on Friday night after his country’s defeat to Spain at Euro 2024, made the comments during an appearance on the ‘Lanz & Precht’ podcast.

    The man dubbed Germany’s most successful ever player has been living in Spain for the last decade while playing for Real Madrid.

    Kroos said he will be staying in Spain with his family despite his football career there coming to an end because Germany is no longer the same country that “it was ten years ago when we left.”

    Compared to Spain, Kroos said he felt more uneasy about letting his daughter go out “at 11pm in a big German city.”

    The former World Cup winner said the issue of mass migration was “constantly present” in Germany and that it had become too “uncontrolled”.

    Kroos said that some immigrants were good people but that, “If you cannot distinguish them from those who are not good for us, it will be difficult in the end. Then the attitude of the Germans will become more and more divided.”

    Podcast host Markus Lanz agreed with Kroos that, “There are problems everywhere. It’s too crowded, there’s too much,” and that people shouldn’t be vilified as racists for talking about it.

    As we previously highlighted, foreign migrant suspects are responsible for nearly 6 in 10 violent crimes in Germany according to new figures released by the federal government.

    Despite comprising roughly 14.6 per cent of the population, foreign migrants were responsible for 58.5 per cent of all violent crimes.

    High profile figures, including politicians, have been prosecuted by German authorities for comments drawing attention to the problem, while the political establishment is continuing in its efforts to ban the anti-migration right-wing AfD party in the name of ‘saving democracy’.

    *  *  *

    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, 07/09/2024 – 02:00

  • We Were "Deceived & Gaslit For Years", All In The Name Of "Democracy"; Then "Poof", It Collapsed Overnight
    We Were “Deceived & Gaslit For Years”, All In The Name Of “Democracy”; Then “Poof”, It Collapsed Overnight

    Authored by Alastair Crooke,

    The Editor at Large for the Wall Street Journal, Gerry Baker, says: ‘We’ve been “gaslit’ and deceived” – for years – “all in the name of ‘democracy’”. That deceit “collapsed” with the Presidential debate, Thursday’.

    “Until the world saw the truth … [against] the ‘misinformation’ … the fiction of Mr. Biden’s competence … suggests they [the Democrats] evidently thought they could get away with promoting it. [Yet] by perpetuating that fiction they were also revealing their contempt for the voters and for democracy itself”.

    Baker continues:

    “Biden succeeded because he made toeing the party line his life’s work. Like all politicians whose egos dwarf their talents, he ascended the greasy pole by slavishly following his party wherever it led … Finally—in the ultimate act of partisan servility, he became Barack Obama’s vice president, the summit of achievement for those incapable, yet loyal: the apex position for the consummate ‘yes man’”.

    “But then, just as he was ready to drift into a comfortable and well-deserved obscurity, his party needed a front man … They sought a loyal and reliable figurehead, a flag of convenience, under which they could sail the progressive vessel into the deepest reaches of American life — on a mission to advance statism, climate extremism and self-lacerating wokery. There was no more loyal and convenient vehicle than Joe”.

    If so, then who actually has been ‘pulling America’s strings’ these past years?

    “You [the Democratic machine] don’t get to deceive, dissemble and gaslight us for years about how this man was both brilliantly competent at the job and a healing force for national unity – and now tell us, when your deception is uncovered, that it’s ‘bedtime for Bonzo’ – thanks for your service, and let’s move on”, Baker warns.

    “[Now] it is going horribly wrong. Much of his party has no use for him anymore … in a remarkably cynical act of bait-and-switch, [they are trying to] swap him out for someone more useful to their cause. Part of me thinks they shouldn’t be allowed to get away with it. I find myself in the odd position of wanting to root for poor mumbling Joe … It’s tempting to say to the Democratic machine frantically mobilizing against him: You don’t get to do this. You don’t get to deceive, dissemble and gaslight us for years”.

    Something significant has snapped within ‘the system’. It is always tempting to situate such events in ‘immediate time’, but even Baker seems to allude to a longer cycle of gaslighting and deception – one that only now has suddenly burst into open view.

    Such events – though seemingly ephemeral and of the moment – can be portents to deeper structural contradictions moving.

    When Baker writes of Biden being the latest ‘flag of convenience’ under which the ruling strata could sail the progressive vessel into the deepest reaches of American life – “on a mission to advance statism, climate extremism and self-lacerating wokery” – it seems probable that he is referring to the 1970s era of the Trilateral Commission and the Club of Rome.

    The 1970s and 1980s were the point at which the long arc of traditional liberalism gave place to an avowedly illiberal, mechanical ‘control system’ (managerial technocracy) that today fraudulently poses as liberal democracy.

    Emmanuel Todd, the French anthropological historian, examines the longer dynamics to events unfolding in the present: The prime agent of change leading to the Decline of the West (La Défaite de l’Occident), he argues, was the implosion of ‘Anglo’ Protestantism in the U.S. (and England), with its entailed habits of work, individualism and industry – a creed whose qualities were held then to reflect God’s grace through material success, and, above all, to confirm membership of the divine ‘Elect’.

    Whereas traditional liberalism had its mores, the decline of traditional values triggered the slide towards managerial technocracy, and to nihilism. Religion lingers on in the West, though in a ‘zombie’ state, Todd avers. Such societies, he argues, flounder – absent some guiding metaphysical sphere that provides people with non-material sustenance.

    However, the incoming doctrine that only a wealthy financial élite, tech experts, leaders of multinational corporations and banks possess the required foresight and technological understanding to manipulate a complex and increasingly controlled system changed politics completely.

    Mores were gone – and so was empathy. Many experienced the disconnect and the disregard of cold technocracy.

    So when a senior WSJ editor tells us that the ‘deception and ‘gaslighting’ collapsed with the CNN Biden-Trump debate, we should surely pay attention; He is saying the scales finally fell from peoples’ eyes.

    What was being gaslighted was the fiction of democracy and also that of America declaring itself – in its own scripture – to be the trailblazer and pathfinder of humanity: America as the exceptional nation: the singular, the pure-of-heart, the baptizer, and redeemer of all peoples despised and downtrodden; the “last, best hope of earth”.

    The reality was very different. Of course, states can ‘live a lie’ for a long period. The underlying problem – the point Todd makes so compellingly – is that you can be successful in deceiving and manipulating public perceptions, but only up to a point.

    The reality was, it simply was not working.

    The same is true of ‘Europe’.

    The EU’s aspiration to become a global geo-political actor too, was contingent on gaslighting the public that France, Italy and Germany et al could continue to be real national entities – even as the EU scooped up all national decision-making prerogatives, by deceit. The mutiny at the recent European elections reflected this discontent.

    Of course, Biden’s condition has been long known. So who then has been running affairs; making critical daily decisions about war, peace, the composition of the judiciary and the boundaries of state authority? The WSJ piece gives one answer: “Unelected advisers, party hacks, scheming family members and random hangers-on make the critical daily decisions” on these issues.

    Maybe we have to reconcile to the fact that Biden is an angry, senile man who yells at his staff: “During meetings with aides who are putting together formal briefings, some senior officials have at times gone to great lengths to curate the information in an effort to avoid provoking a negative reaction”.

    “It’s like, ‘You can’t include that, that will set him off’ or ‘Put that in, he likes that,’” said one senior administration official. “It’s very difficult and people are scared sh*tless of him.” The official added, “He doesn’t take advice from anyone other than those few top aides, and it becomes a perfect storm because he just gets more and more isolated from their efforts to control it”.

    Seymour Hersh, the well-known investigative journalist reports:

    “Biden’s drift into blankness has been ongoing for months, as he and his foreign policy aides have been urging a ceasefire that will not happen in Gaza whilst continuing to supply the weapons that make a ceasefire less likely. There’s a similar paradox in Ukraine, where Biden has been financing a war that cannot be won – yet refusing to participate in negotiations that could end the slaughter”.

    “The reality behind all of this, as I’ve been told for months, is that Biden is simply ‘no longer there’ – in terms of understanding the contradictions of the policies he and his foreign policy advisers have been carrying out”.

    On the one hand, Politico tells us: “Biden’s insular senior team are well acquainted with the longtime aides who continue to have the president’s ear: Mike Donilon, Steve Ricchetti and Bruce Reed, as well as Ted Kaufman and Klain on the outside”.

    “It’s the same people — he has not changed those people for 40 years … The number of people who have access to the president has gotten smaller and smaller and smaller. They’ve been digging deeper into the bunker for months now.” And, the strategist said, “the more you get into the bunker, the less you listen to anyone”.

    In Todd’s words then, decisions are made by a small ‘Washington village’.

    Of course, Jake Sullivan and Blinken sit at the centre of what is called the ‘inter-agency’ view. This where policy mostly is discussed. It is not coherent – with its locus in the National Security Committee – but rather is spread through a matrix of interlocking ‘clusters’ that includes the Military Industrial Complex, Congressional leaders, Big Donors, Wall Street, the Treasury, the CIA, the FBI, a few cosmopolitan oligarchs and the princelings of the security-intelligence world.

    All these ‘princes’ pretend to have a foreign policy view, and fight like cats to protect their fiefdom’s autonomy. Sometimes they channel their ‘take’ via the NSC, but if they can, they will ‘stovepipe’ it directly to one or other ‘key actor’ with the ear of one, or other, Washington ‘village’.

    Nonetheless, at bottom, 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” – still today remains the ‘current doctrine’ framing the ‘inter-agency’ baseline.

    Dysfunction at the heart of a seemingly functioning organization may persist for years without any real public awareness or appreciation of the descent into dysfunctionality. But then suddenly – when a crisis hits, or Presidential debate misfires – ‘poof’ and we see clearly the collapse of the manipulation that has confined discourse to within the various Washington villages.

    In this light, some of the structural contradictions that Todd noted as contributory factors to western decline become unexpectedly ‘illuminated’ by events: Baker highlighted one: The key Faustian bargain: the pretence of a liberal democracy operating in tandem with a ‘classic’ liberal economy versus the reality of an illiberal oligarchic leadership sitting atop a hyper-financialised corporate economy that has both sucked the life from the classic organic economy, and created toxic inequalities too.

    The second agent of western decline is Todd’s observation that the implosion of the Soviet Union rendered the U.S. so cock-a-hoop that the latter triggered a paradoxical unleashing of global ‘Rules-Based Order’ expansion of empire versus the reality that the West was already being consumed from its roots upwards.

    The third agent to decline lay, Todd argues, with America declaring itself to be the greatest military nation on earth – versus the reality of an America that has long rid itself of much of its manufacturing capacity (particularly the military capacity), yet elects to clash with a stabilized Russia, a great power returned, and with China which has instantiated itself as the world’s manufacturing Behemoth (including militarily).

    These unresolved paradoxes became the agents of western decline, Todd maintained. He has a point.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 07/08/2024 – 23:40

  • No Remedy For Censorship: The Perils Of Murthy
    No Remedy For Censorship: The Perils Of Murthy

    Authored by Philip Hamburger via RealClearPolitics,

    Last week, in Murthy v. Missouri, the Supreme Court hammered home the distressing conclusion that, under the court’s doctrines, the First Amendment is, for all practical purposes, unenforceable against large-scale government censorship. The decision is a strong contender to be the worst speech decision in the court’s history.

    (I must confess a personal interest in all of this: My civil rights organization, the New Civil Liberties Alliance, represented individual plaintiffs in Murthy.)

    All along, there were some risks. As I pointed out in an article called “Courting Censorship,” Supreme Court doctrine has permitted and thereby invited the federal government to orchestrate massive censorship through the social media platforms. The Murthy case, unfortunately, confirms the perils of the court’s doctrines.

    One danger was that the court would try to weasel out of reaching a substantive decision. Months before Murthy was argued, there was reason to fear that the court would try to duck the speech issue by disposing of the case on standing.

    Indeed, in its opinion, the court denied that that the plaintiffs had standing by inventing what Justice Alito calls “a new and heightened standard” of traceability – a standard so onerous that, if the court adheres to it in other cases, almost no one will be able to sue. It is sufficiently unrealistic that the court won’t stick to it in future cases.

    The “evidence was more than sufficient to establish” at least one plaintiff’s “standing to sue,” and consequently, as Alito’s dissent pointed out, “we are obligated to tackle the free speech issue.” Regrettably, the court, however, again in Alito’s words, “shirks that duty and thus permits … this case to stand as an attractive model for future officials who want to control what the people say, hear, and think.” The case gives a greenlight for the government to engage in further censorship.

    A second problem was doctrinal. The Supreme Court has developed doctrine that encourages government to think it “can censor Americans through private entities as long as it is not too coercive.” Accordingly, with painful predictability, the oral argument in Murthy focused on whether or not there had been government coercion.

    The implications were not lost on the government. Although it had slowed down its censorship machine during litigation, it revved it up after the court’s hearing emphasized coercion. As put by Matt Taibbi, “the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security reportedly resumed contact with Internet platforms after oral arguments in this case in March led them to expect a favorable ruling.”

    The First Amendment, however, says nothing about coercion. On the contrary, it distinguishes between “abridging” the freedom of speech and “prohibiting” the free exercise of religion. As I have explained in great detail, the amendment thereby makes clear that the Constitution’s standard for a speech violation is abridging, that is, reducing, the freedom of speech, not coercion. A mere reduction of the freedom violates the First Amendment.

    The court in Murthy, however, didn’t recognize the significance of the word “abridging.” This matters in part for the standing question. It’s much more difficult to show that the plaintiffs’ injuries are traceable to government coercion than to show that they are traceable to government abridging of the freedom of speech. More substantively, if the court had recognized the First Amendment’s word “abridging,” it would have clarified to the government that it can’t use evasions to get away with censorship.

    Other doctrinal disasters included the court’s casual indifference to listeners’ or readers’ rights – the right of speakers to hear the speech of others. The court treated such rights as if they were independent of the rights of speakers and therefore concluded that they would broadly invite everyone to sue the government.

    But listeners’ rights are most clearly based in the First Amendment when they are understood as the right of speakers to hear the speech of others, as this is essential for speakers to formulate and refine their own speech. The right of speakers to hear what others say is, therefore, the core of listeners’ rights. From this modest understanding of listeners’ rights, the plaintiffs’ rights as listeners should have been understood as part of their rights as speakers – an analysis that would’ve avoided hyperbolical judicial fears of permitting everyone to sue.

    The court’s concern that a recognition of listeners’ rights would open up the courts to too many claimants is especially disturbing when the government has censored millions upon millions of posts with the primary goal of suppressing what the American people can hear or read. When the most massive censorship in American history prevents Americans from learning often true opinion on matters of crucial public interest, it should be no surprise that there are many claimants. The court’s disgraceful reasoning suggests that when the government censors a vast number of Americans, we lose our right of redress.

    The greatest danger comes from the court’s tolerance of the sub-administrative power that the government uses to corral private parties into becoming instruments of control. Administrative regulation ideally runs through notice-and-comment rulemaking. In contrast, sub-administrative regulation works through informal persuasion, including subtle threats, regulatory hassle, and illicit inducements. By such means, the government can get the private platforms to carry out government orchestrated censorship of their users.

    The federal government once had no such sub-administrative power, and it therefore had little control over speech. It could punish speakers only through criminal prosecutions – that is, by going to court and showing that the defendants’ speech violated the criminal law. Now, however, federal officials can subtly get the platforms to suppress speech – often covertly, so an individual won’t even know he is being suppressed. Thus, whereas the government traditionally could only punish the individual, it now can make his speech disappear.

    Even worse, the court’s tolerance of this sub-administrative privatization of censorship reverses the burden of proof. Government once had to prove to a judge and jury that a speaker’s words were illegal. Now, instead, the speaker must prove that the government censored him.

    What’s more, there’s no effective remedy. The court’s qualified immunity doctrine makes it nearly impossible for censored individuals to get damages for past censorship. And the obstacles to getting an injunction mean that it’s nearly impossible to stop future censorship. For example, the government can claim, as it did in Murthy, that it’s no longer censoring the affected individual. Then, poof! The possibility of an injunction disappears. Moreover, because of the court’s indifference to listeners’ rights – even to the right of speakers to hear the speech of others, an injunction can protect only a handful of individuals; it can’t stop the government’s massive censorship of vast numbers of Americans.

    The court thus puts Americans affected by censorship in an unenviable position. It reverses the burden of proof and denies Americans any effective remedy.

    So, for multiple reasons, Murthy is probably the worst speech decision in American history. In the face of the most sweeping censorship in American history, the decision fails to recognize either the realities of the censorship or the constitutional barriers to it. In practical terms, the decision invites continuing federal censorship on social media platforms. It thereby nearly guarantees that yet another election cycle will be compromised by government censorship and condemns a hitherto free society to the specter of mental servitude.

    Philip Hamburger teaches at Columbia Law School and is CEO of the New Civil Liberties Alliance.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 07/08/2024 – 23:00

  • 'Bring A Trailer' Data Shows Early Adopters Of EV Trucks Hammered By Price Plunge
    ‘Bring A Trailer’ Data Shows Early Adopters Of EV Trucks Hammered By Price Plunge

    Some early adopters of electric vehicle trucks who bought on secondary markets during the EV mania in recent years have been hammered by price collapses. 

    Using Bring A Trailer data, we analyzed auctions of four EV trucks: a GMC Hummer EV, a Ford F-150 Lightning EV, a Rivian R1T, and a Tesla Cybertruck. All of these trucks have seen sizeable price declines on the auction website. 

    Let’s start with the GMC Hummer EV, which was heavily hyped and initially sold for a staggering $275k on the auction website in April 2022. Fast forward to today, and used Hummer EVs are now selling on the same site for around $100k, aligning near GMC’s listed MSRP.

    Even though a Ford F-150 EV has not sold or been listed on Bing A Trailer in about a year, the price collapse from around the $120k mark in the summer of 2022 to about $60k in the summer of 2023 is breathtaking. It’s just a devastating price collapse for early adopters who paid a hefty premium on secondary markets. MSRP for Lightnings ranges from $55k to $93k, depending on trim. 

    It is more of the same for the Rivian folks who purchased the R1Ts on the secondary market after the initial launch. Prices have plunged by about 50% from the spring of 2022 to the present day. MSRP for Rivian R1T is around $70k. 

    The big question is what happens with used Tesla Cybertruck prices. Since March, one auction has been completed at $160k, with one selling last month for about $100k. Tesla does have a penalty for owners selling their trucks in the first year. MSRP for the Foundation Series of the Cybertruck is around $100k. 

    The takeaway here is clear: don’t buy into the hype.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 07/08/2024 – 22:40

  • Edith Wilson Biden (Née Jill Giacoppo)
    Edith Wilson Biden (Née Jill Giacoppo)

    Authored by David Stockman via Contra Corner blog,

    This is not the first time that an invalid has occupied the Oval Office. After apparently exhausting himself in behalf of the “War to Make the World Safe for Democracy” and orchestrating the “peace conference” at Versailles that guaranteed the carnage of WWII, Woodrow Wilson succumbed to a nearly fatal stroke in October 1919 while barnstorming the nation in behalf of the League of Nations Treaty.

    As it happened, America was than blessed with a perfectly serviceable Vice-President, Thomas R. Marshall, who had been a famous Midwestern lawyer, governor of Indiana, outspoken “progressive” and contender for the Democrat nomination in 1912. Wilson won the nomination on the 46th ballot but only after his advisers secretly promised Marshall the vice presidency in a very smoked-filled room in the wee hours of the Dem convention.

    Perhaps that is why Marshall’s most famous quote is known to almost everyone more than 100 years later. Thus, observed America’s #2 leader—

    “What this country needs is a really good five-cent cigar.”

    Notwithstanding Marshall’s status as a second term almost-president, Edith Wilson was having none of a succession plan. And that’s despite the fact she did not have a degree in “education” nor did she answer to the “Dr. Edith” title.

    But she had proven herself around Washington as no mean hostess when she slipped into the First Lady role during and/or after (it’s disputed!) the illness and death of Wilson’s first wife in 1915. Either way, Edith Wilson was not about to disembark from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue solely because her husband was virtually paralyzed on the entire left side of his body.

    Indeed, the extent of her intrigues and deceptions designed to hang on to power are now legendary. As medical historian, Howard Markel, has told,

    Everything changed on the morning of Oct. 2, 1919. According to some accounts, the president awoke to find his left hand numb to sensation before falling into unconsciousness. In other versions, Wilson had his stroke on the way to the bathroom and fell to the floor with Edith dragging him back into bed. However those events transpired, immediately after the president’s collapse, Mrs. Wilson discretely phoned down to the White House chief usher, Ike Hoover and told him to “please get Dr. Grayson, the president is very sick.”

    Grayson quickly arrived. Ten minutes later, he emerged from the presidential bedroom and the doctor’s diagnosis was terrible: “My God, the president is paralyzed,” Grayson declared.

    What would surprise most Americans today is how the entire affair, including Wilson’s extended illness and long-term disability, was shrouded in secrecy. In recent years, the discovery of the presidential physicians’ clinical notes at the time of the illness confirm that the president’s stroke left him severely paralyzed on his left side and partially blind in his right eye, along with the emotional maelstroms that accompany any serious, life-threatening illness, but especially one that attacks the brain. Only a few weeks after his stroke, Wilson suffered a urinary tract infection that threatened to kill him. Fortunately, the president’s body was strong enough to fight that infection off but he also experienced another attack of influenza in January of 1920, which further damaged his health.

    Protective of both her husband’s reputation and power, Edith shielded Woodrow from interlopers and embarked on a bedside government that essentially excluded Wilson’s staff, the Cabinet and the Congress. During a perfunctory meeting the president held with Sen. Gilbert Hitchcock (D-Neb.) and Albert Fall (R-N.M.) on Dec. 5, Grayson and Edith even tried to hide the extent of Wilson’s paralysis by keeping his left side covered with a blanket.

    As it turned out, the immobilization of the presidency during the last 18 months of Wilson’s term was one of history’s great serendipity’s. Absent Wilson’s tireless promotion, the abominable League of Nations Treaty died aborning. America was thus given one more chance to return to its ways as a peaceful Republic untroubled by the petty intrigues of nations beyond the great Atlantic and Pacific Ocean moats.

    Needless to say, that reprieve has long since been kicked away. America is now a dangerous Empire and its president is virtually the helmsman of the planet. So the fact that Jill Biden has apparently read and copied the entirety of professor Markel’s account of America’s first Spousal Regency is troubling indeed.

    It was evident beyond a shadow of a doubt last Thursday night that a second Spousal Regency is now underway. “Joe Biden” would have received his gold watch from Washington’s grateful ruling apparatchiks long ago, save for the obvious fact that Jill Biden has said that absolutely “nyet means nyet”.

    At this point, of course, it would be helpful if Jill did speak a bit of Russian because the minions helping her conduct this unauthorized, unlawful and constitutionally- repugnant Regency have gotten her marooned in what amounts to an helacious Moscow Winter. Alas, however, it appears that her second language lies elsewhere.

    That is to say, Jill Jacobs Giacoppo’s tribal ferocity did not originate from the bucolic hills of Willow Grove Pennsylvania or the classrooms of Upper Moreland High School or even the instructors at Brandywine Junior College. Her father’s family had emigrated from the Sicilian village of Gesso, losing the “Giacoppo” part within days of passing Lady Liberty, but hanging on to the blood loyalty part even unto the present fraught hour.

    That is to say, Edith Wilson Biden is a clear and present danger to the American Republic. She has spent the last 47 years marinating in the self-righteous hypocrisies, follies and evil-doings of the Washington ruling class—without ever once have been called to accountability by any kind of electorate at all.

    Like Edith Wilson, she was apparently an able spouse and hostess – who taught classes at Northern Virginia Community College on the side and was pleased to call herself “doctor” owing to a quasi-honorary degree from the Biden family’s political sinecure at the University of Delaware.

    And yet and yet. Jill Giacoppo is an utterly unqualified usurper, who has even less excuse for her blatant power grab than did Edith Wilson back in the day. At least in Edith’s time there was no 25th Amendment to regularize, organize and legitimize the transfer of power to the constitutionally prescribed role of Vice President.

    To be specific, section 4 of the 25th Amendment addresses the precise case of a President unable to fulfill his constitutional role but who cannot or will not step aside.

    In that event, it provides both a decision-maker and a procedure. The deciding group is the Vice President and a majority of the Cabinet. If this group declares a President “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office,” the Vice President immediately becomes Acting President; and he remains so unless a two-thirds majority of both chamber reinstate the former president.

    So why was “Joe Biden” still in the Oval Office last Thursday night making a spectacle of his very disabled self before a global audience of 51 million?

    It’s plain as day that there is one reason and one reason alone as to why Kamala Harris and the timorous men and woman of the Biden cabinet have not activated the 25th Amendment: They are scared to death of Jill Giacoppo!

    Then again, this election is allegedly about saving constitutional democracy from the prospect of an illegal coup.

    And while the DNC and its megaphones in the MSM may resolutely deny it, that’s exactly what is now dangerously underway in their own backyard.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 07/08/2024 – 22:20

  • You Can Soon Bid On Kevin Spacey's Baltimore Mansion 
    You Can Soon Bid On Kevin Spacey’s Baltimore Mansion 

    Actor Kevin Spacey, known for his lead role as Frank Underwood in the Netflix series “House of Cards,” is facing numerous sexual assault accusations, all of which he denies. Recently featured on “Piers Morgan Uncensored,” Spacey revealed he is on the brink of bankruptcy and is set to lose his Inner Harbor mansion in Baltimore City after amassing millions of dollars in legal bills.

    Sixty-four-year-old Spacey told Morgan during the June interview that his five-story mansion at Pier Homes at Harborview “is being foreclosed on.” He continued, “My house is being sold at auction. So I have to go back to Baltimore and put all my things in storage. So… I’m not quite sure where I’m gonna live now.”

    “I can’t pay the bills [legal bills] that I owe,” Spacey said, adding he has been able to “dodge” bankruptcy for now. 

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    We doubt Spacey will be homeless, but his Harborview home is certainly slated for the auction block later this month. 

    Local auctioneer Alex Cooper is preparing to auction off Spacey’s 9,069-square-foot condo built by the late developer Leroy Merritt on July 25 at the Circuit Court for Baltimore City. 

    A $100,000 initial deposit is required to bid, and there will be no bidding online. The opening bid starts at $1.5 million. 

    Here are more details on Spacey’s home from the auctioneers:

    ***SUGGESTED OPENING BID $1,500,000***

    Description from previous listing: Expansive 9,069+ square foot waterfront mansion. Property features 5 levels, 6 bedrooms, 7 full baths and 3 half-baths.  Upgrades include an elevator, sauna, home theatre, rooftop terrace, multiple verandas and a four-car garage. (The above description and pictures are from a Realtor’s listing on Multiple List when the property previously was sold and transferred for $5.65 million in 2017.  There are no warranties or representations as to its accuracy. 

    Under a power of sale contained in a certain Deed of Trust from Clear Toaster, LLC, dated September 5, 2017 and recorded in Liber 19497, folio 56 and re-recorded in Liber 26452, Folio 181 among the Land Records of Baltimore City, MD, default having occurred under the terms thereof and at the request of the parties secured thereby, the undersigned Substitute Trustees will offer for sale at public auction at the Circuit Court for Baltimore City, at the Clarence M. Mitchell Court House, 100 North Calvert Street, Court House Door, Calvert Street entrance, Baltimore, MD 21202, on JULY 25, 2024 AT 9:15 AM.

    The new owner of Spacey’s home should really consider hiring a cleaning service equipped with blacklights before moving in.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 07/08/2024 – 22:00

  • 2 Years After Burn-Pit Law, Veterans See Improvements But Challenges Persist
    2 Years After Burn-Pit Law, Veterans See Improvements But Challenges Persist

    Authored by Ryan Morgan via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    It’s been nearly five years since Gina Cancelino lost her husband—U.S. Marine Gunnery Sgt. Joseph Cancelino—to his battle with cancer.

    (Illustration by The Epoch Times, courtesy of Gina Cancelino, Courtesy photo by Rosie Lopez Torres, courtesy of Paul McMillin)

    She, like many other military spouses and family members, struggled to understand what caused her husband’s illness when it first manifested. Eventually, they began to realize it likely had to do with the open-air burn pits the U.S. military used for years to dispose of plastics, electronics, refuse, and medical waste during deployments throughout the Middle East and parts of Africa.

    Gina Cancelino began her search for answers even before her husband’s death and filed multiple claims for benefits as a surviving spouse after his death. She saw one claim denied in the spring of 2021, and another in July 2022 before the Department of Veterans Affairs approved her third request in January 2023.

    What changed between her second and third claims was that Congress had passed and President Joe Biden had signed the Honoring our Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics (PACT) Act in August 2022.

    A Journey of Advocacy

    The PACT Act’s passage followed years of advocacy by some of the very same veterans and family members directly affected by illnesses from exposure to burn pits and other sources of toxins. One group at the forefront of this advocacy effort has been Burn Pits 360.

    Retired U.S. Army Reserve Capt. Le Roy Torres and his wife Rosie Lopez Torres formed Burn Pits 360 after Mr. Le Roy returned from a 2007 deployment to Iraq with difficulty breathing. He was eventually diagnosed with constrictive bronchiolitis and brain injuries resulting from exposure to toxins, but he and his wife faced challenges getting the VA to accept that his illness was service-connected and that the department had an obligation to support him.

    “What really forced us into this journey of advocacy was just basically us dealing with our own injustice,” Rosie Lopez Torres told The Epoch Times in a recent phone interview.

    Burn Pits 360 formed in 2009 as a way to connect with other veterans facing similar struggles and to organize the advocacy effort. The advocacy group worked for another 13 years before the PACT Act passed, partnering with other veterans organizations, meeting with lawmakers, and repeatedly returning to Capitol Hill as Congress took incremental steps to address the illnesses veterans faced.

    Since the PACT Act’s passage, the VA has established a presumption of a service connection for 23 cancers and respiratory illnesses veterans have experienced after deployments to 16 Middle Eastern and African countries since the Gulf War in 1990, and following the 9/11 attacks. The VA also added new service-connection presumptions for illnesses veterans have encountered after being exposed to a chemical defoliant known as Agent Orange during the ‘60s and ’70s.

    (L-R) Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) looks on as Rosie Torres (C) holds up a photo of her husband Le Roy Torres on her phone at a news conference with veterans and their families, after the Senate passed the PACT Act, at the U.S. Capitol on Aug. 2, 2022. Mr. Le Roy Torres suffers from illnesses related to his exposure to burn pits in Iraq. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

    Within about a week of the PACT Act’s passage, Ms. Cancelino began preparing her third claim for survivor benefits for her and her two children. About five months later, the VA had approved the claim and eventually began paying out a survivor benefit for her family.

    When he learned of his late-stage cancer diagnosis in 2017, Mr. Cancelino had been primarily worried about making sure his family would be cared for and would receive some of the benefits he earned through his years of military service. Ms. Cancelino told The Epoch Times that her late husband would be very proud to know that his family is being cared for after his death, and that his case can “maybe make somebody else not have to go through all of the things that we had to go through.”

    In May, the White House assessed the VA has processed more than 1 million PACT Act-related claims, approving about $5.7 billion in benefits to veterans and their survivors.

    “Generations of patriots have stood on the frontlines of freedom, each one a link in a chain of honor stretching back to our founding days,” President Biden said in a May 21 address. “Just as you have done your duty to America in the past—we’re now, finally, beginning to do our duty to you.”

    Zero Percent Disability for Some Cases

    While constrictive bronchiolitis is one of the conditions addressed under the PACT Act, some veterans don’t see much benefit after processing VA claims for that illness.

    Constrictive bronchiolitis occurs when fibrosis, or scar tissue, compresses the small airway branches of the lungs.

    The current VA guide for assessing disability ratings from service-connected illnesses and injuries bars evaluators from combining constrictive bronchiolitis with other respiratory conditions to determine a higher disability rating. In turn, some VA evaluators may record in a veteran’s file that their constrictive bronchiolitis is service-connected, but that their condition warrants a zero percent disability rating, granting them no compensation.

    Le Roy Torres, whose experiences helped kickstart Burn Pits 360, is just one of those veterans still struggling with how the VA’s rating system addresses constrictive bronchiolitis.

    “The VA still hasn’t fixed the issue of the one lung disease that started this movement,” Rosie Lopez Torres said of her and her husband’s experiences since the PACT Act passed.

    U.S. Veterans Affairs Secretary Denis McDonough in Arlington, Va., on Nov. 11, 2022. Eighteen senators in April wrote a letter to Mr. McDonough, urging him to expedite a new disability rating guide for constrictive bronchiolitis. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

    Paul McMillin, who deployed to Iraq with the Army and National Guard and who’s dealing with constrictive bronchiolitis, has been able to get some VA benefits for other respiratory illnesses he’s experienced. He’s hoping a change to the constrictive bronchiolitis rating guide will upgrade his disability rating after undergoing invasive thoracic surgery in 2015 and continuing to have troubled breathing ever since.

    “We’re definitely not at the end of that road yet, and I think it’s fair to say that for most of us who have served, all we want is just to be treated with dignity and as people,” Mr. McMillin told The Epoch Times. “And I don’t think that that’s too much to ask at Veterans Affairs.”

    Sixteen Senate Democrats and Sens. Angus King (I-R.I.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) addressed VA Secretary Denis McDonough in an April letter, urging him to expedite a new disability rating guide for constrictive bronchiolitis.

    “Veterans have waited decades for benefits and recognitions for health conditions related to their toxic exposure,” the lawmakers wrote. “Outdated VA regulations should not deny them earned benefits the PACT Act has provided.”

    The Epoch Times reached out to the VA about what changes the department may be considering for rating constrictive bronchiolitis but it did not respond in time for publication.

    The Veterans of K2

    Many of those still struggling to get their toxic exposure concerns addressed are veterans who deployed to the Karshi-Khanabad Air Base in Uzbekistan from 2001 to 2005. The base, known as K2 or Camp Stronghold Freedom, was built on a derelict Soviet-era military installation and served as a launch point for the earliest U.S. military operations in Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks. The soil around K2 was contaminated with radioactive material, spilled jet fuel, and asbestos left by those Soviet tenants.

    The VA lists Uzbekistan as a presumptive location for burn pits-related illnesses, but K2 veterans face other illnesses more unique to where they deployed, including neurological, autoimmune, endocrine, blood, and bone disorders.

    Jennifer Pressey, who deployed twice to K2 with the U.S. Air Force’s 16th Special Operations Squadron between 2001 and 2002, helped run the burn pit at the base while encountering the other toxins endemic to that austere posting.

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 07/08/2024 – 21:40

  • Dark Side Of 'The Next AI Trade': Seizing Private Property For Transmission Lines 
    Dark Side Of ‘The Next AI Trade’: Seizing Private Property For Transmission Lines 

    There’s a dark side to ‘The Next AI Trade’—at least for some landowners.

    Powering up America and upgrading power grids for artificial intelligence data centers, onshoring trends, and the electrification of the economy will require thousands of miles of new transmission lines nationwide. Existing lines will be upgraded, but new lines will also be needed, resulting in the seizure of private property via eminent domain.

    According to Fox 45 Baltimore, the Maryland Piedmont Reliability Project (MPRP) is a new plan to build a 70-mile 500,000-volt transmission line across three counties: Frederick, Baltimore, and Carroll. The line will connect a substation in southern Frederick County and supply the area with additional load capacity to handle surging power demand from AI data centers.

    MPRP’s website explains that the new transmission lines will require the acquisition of private property through the use of an eminent domain, or government-mandated seizure to complete the construction.

    “If PSEG and a property owner cannot agree on mutually acceptable value, PSEG may seek to use the power of eminent domain using the process set forth by the state of Maryland to acquire the necessary property rights,” the developer’s website states.

    A local conservation group, The Valleys Planning Council, explained on Facebook that the new transmission system, which will tear up forests and farmland, is only being planned because lawmakers in Annapolis “do not allow new fossil fuel power stations, Maryland must import electricity from surrounding states.”

    It’s becoming clear that the dark side of powering up America for AI data centers will be land grabs by the government through eminent domain. 

    In Maryland’s case, residents who do not comply with MPRP will see parts of their farms and forests snatched up for the infrastructure project.

    However, the only reason the new transmission line plan exists is because of the so-called state managers in Annapolis, lawmakers, who are truly awful at their jobs. The genius in Annapolis waged war on fossil fuels and banned any new development of fossil fuel power plants at a time when power demand is rising.

    So, instead of building clean NatGas power generation plants near the AI data centers, Maryland must import power from other states. Real efficient, eh?

    In a recent report from ESG Legal Solutions, LLC, titled “Maryland’s Energy Crisis: The Critical Need to Boost In State Electricity Generation,” the authors state, “Maryland consumes about 40% more electricity than it generates.”

    To sum up, the dark side of the next AI trade will involve land grabs of private property. That’s likely to happen in Maryland and elsewhere. But also, we have to point out that the only reason this is happening are the progressives in Annapolis who push green policies. 

    Sigh, for the Maryland residents who have to deal with progressives not rooted in reality.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 07/08/2024 – 21:20

  • Who's Running The Country?
    Who’s Running The Country?

    Authored by Daniel Greenfield via The Gatestone Institute,

    The 2016 presidential election was going to come down to two candidates, Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton, whose ‘turns’ had come.

    And then Donald J Trump rode down an escalator, took their ‘turn’ and the establishment has never been the same since. Because it was their ‘turn’.

    In 2020, it was the ‘turn’ of Joe Biden, a man whose only political credential was that he had stuck around long enough to stick to things, like the Senate and the Vice Presidency.

    Now in 2024, it’s Joe Biden’s ‘turn’ again. No one in his party was under the impression that he was the best candidate, the best campaigner or the best president, but damn it, it was his ‘turn’.

    And now the Democrats are panicking because the candidate taking his ‘turn’ is imploding.

    Biden’s debate meltdown has frightened Democrats, but they still have no answer for how to stop the car accident that everyone else could see coming from miles away. And no good strategy beyond getting the party leaders to confront their candidate and ask him to step down. But how do you take away Biden’s ‘turn’ when turns are the most sacred thing in politics.

    It’s not an exclusively Democrat problem. The GOP put up Bob Dole against Bill Clinton and John McCain against Barack Obama because it was their ‘turns’. They let Mitt Romney go up against Obama a second time because it was his ‘turn’. And after Republicans lost two straight presidential elections because they ran establishment candidates taking their ‘turn’, voters were so sick of it that they did what they would have never done before and picked Trump.

    Because it wasn’t his ‘turn’.

    ‘Turn’ politics mostly still rules.

    Candidates past their prime go up to bat because they have the biggest networks of fellow politicians, donors and party activists. It’s as if Major League Baseball favored players on the basis of seniority and how well they networked, not based on how well they can pitch or hit.

    But unlike sports, politics isn’t a meritocracy, it isn’t even a democracy, it’s an oligarchy.

    Voters self-importantly think of elections as the big political competition, but that’s like judging companies based on the keynote addresses of their CEOs. Elections are the least important part of politics. All the really important parts of politics happen behind closed doors. What politicians do isn’t run for office, they network, they cut deals and they plan their careers.

    That network, which we occasionally call by wholly inadequate names like the “establishment” or “D.C. insiders” is the reason Biden is up again in 2024. And why he can’t be gotten rid of.

    People who naively think that Obama is secretly running the Biden administration don’t understand the network or how it works. Obama took on Hillary when it was her ‘turn’ in 2008. He won and brokered a deal that moved the Democrat network further leftward. And he did the same thing again in 2020, bringing in Bernie Sanders’ people and Elizabeth Warren’s people (and his own people) so that the Biden administration is even more radical and extreme than his was.

    But where did Obama come from? He came out of that network of radical activists, donors and government personnel now running the country. Obama is not a brilliant genius or one-man dynamo, he was a lazy and unoriginal activist lawyer, one of tens of thousands of Ivy Leaguers who join the political side of the network, who wanted to live out his egotistical ambitions.

    And the leftist networks gave him the opportunity to do it in exchange for seeding it deeper across the Democrat Party, the government and the country. Then his time came.

    Obama did not want Biden to succeed him. He pushed Biden out in favor of Hillary, and then tried to bring in a surprise candidate to run against him in 2020. But some things are sacred and not even Obama, especially once out of the White House, could take away Biden’s ‘turn’ twice.

    It’s not really Biden’s ‘turn’ though. It’s the turn of the strategists, lobbyists, staffers, donors, allies and more nebulous figures known as ‘friends’ whom he accrued over the years. They’re invested in his success, and they’re profiting from it. And they won’t easily give it up.

    Trying to replace Biden with Gavin Newsom (aside from the legal and logistical issues) would be a clash of two networks that would require either careful negotiations or outright civil war. It’s done all the time with primary rivals who become vice presidents or cabinet members, but displacing a sitting president who also won the nomination and has raised and spent a massive fortune would require a level of delicate negotiations akin to bringing peace to an African civil war.

    Especially if that president is unstable, prone to fits of anger, and is insulated by the same political allies whose wealth and power depend on Biden winning a second term in office.

    It’s not just about Jill and Hunter Biden. Joe Biden has tens of thousands of political mouths to feed. Money has been collected, favors promised, people have bought homes in D.C. bedroom communities, lobbyists have secured fat contracts and donors have opened up their wallets.

    Replacing Biden with another candidate would upend much of D.C., put tens of billions of dollars in flux and create massive instability in this corrupt local economy. Much of D.C. would rather ride it out (especially since the campaign people will make just as much money if Biden loses) and preserve the integrity of the networks and the illicit pinkie swears that allow special interests to buy influence without having to worry if their man will suddenly be swapped out.

    That is what “it’s his turn” really means.

    It’s not impossible for the Democrats to replace Biden but despite all the ‘Orange Man Bad’ alarmism that is their only campaign slogan, none of them view him as enough of an existential threat to disrupt a political way of life which allowed a mediocre grifter like Biden to get this far.

    People who don’t understand that were baffled that Biden would run and that he would get the nomination. After his disastrous debate showing, much of the party panicked and outsiders assumed that they would dump Biden. The truth is that the Democrats wish they could.

    ‘Turn’ corruption once again threatens the survival of the party and yet they can’t break away from it because parties are vehicles for careerism and cash.

    The networks around powerful politicians build careers and move money. And those networks are running the country.

    When people ask “who’s been running the country” after Biden’s debate performance, the answer is that it’s the same people who run most of the government. And have all along.

    Politicians in a state of obvious mental decline like Biden or Senator Dianne Feinstein who go on introducing bills, signing legislation, tweeting and expressing strong opinions on issues in their press releases are not aberrations, they’re symptoms of a much bigger problem.

    Not just Biden, but many, if not most, elected officials are figureheads who exist to broker favorable arrangements between their personal networks of donors and staffers, and those of other elected officials, and the ones in the bureaucracy that actually make policy. The revolving door between staffers, personnel, appointees and lobbyists who move between administrations, offices, boards, corporations, think tanks and firms is the actual force that runs the country more than most elections. Politicians play their part, meeting, greeting and signing off on what they’re told will be good for their careers within the networks they’re part of.

    And if they build up enough cachet, one day it will also be their ‘turn’ to be at the top.

    That’s why Democrats can’t solve their Biden problem. The issue isn’t one man’s decline, but a systemic crisis. Biden embodies what the Democrats (and the two-party system and politics really is) and while getting him out may fix the immediate problem, it won’t fix the system.

    Biden is a test of how much the system is willing to risk and how high a public implosion it’s willing to tolerate to protect the sacred right of the ‘turn’. Will Democrats let their party go down to protect the system? Will they go on lying to their voters and their donors? Will the media, which briefly broke away from the lies after the debate, resume going along with the scam?

    Other ‘Bidens’, some elderly, confused and inept like Joe, others middle-aged, confused and inept, like Kamala, and some even young, confused and inept like AOC, fill the system because they are how the system works. It’s not a meritocracy that elevates the best, a democracy chosen by the people, but an oligarchy that runs the system and is also the system.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 07/08/2024 – 21:00

  • Images Show Iranian Warship Capsized At Port 
    Images Show Iranian Warship Capsized At Port 

    Images posted on X show the Iranian Navy’s “Sahand” destroyer capsized at Bandar Abbas, a coastal city in the Strait of Hormuz. This is an embarrassment for Tehran as tensions in the Middle East remain elevated. 

    IRGC-affiliated Tasnim News agency reported the 315-foot frigate capsized and sank during repairs at a port on Sunday. The cause was likely due to water infiltration into the ship’s ballast tanks. 

    “As Sahand was being repaired at the wharf, it lost its balance due to water ingress. Fortunately… the vessel is being returned to balance quickly,” the official news agency IRNA reported, citing a statement from the country’s navy. 

    Images of Sahand were posted on X. 

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    “The frigate recently led a flotilla of Iranian vessels deployed to the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden amid attacks by Iran-backed Houthis on commercial ships in the region,” Iran International said, adding, “This is the third incident of an Iranian warship sinking in the past six years.” 

    Here’s what X users are saying about the incident:

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    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 07/08/2024 – 20:40

  • Battery Majors Suffer Profit Drop On Lower-Than-Expected EV Sales
    Battery Majors Suffer Profit Drop On Lower-Than-Expected EV Sales

    By Irina Slav of OilPrice.com

    LG Energy, one of the biggest players in the EV battery space, reported a 58% drop in operating profits for the second quarter of the year, attributing the figure to the slowdown in EV sales.

    The news came a day after another South Korean battery major, SK On, declared an emergency after 10 consecutive quarters of losses stemming from trends in EV demand that have missed analyst and company expectations.

    LG Energy and SK On are, respectively, the world’s third- and fourth-largest EV battery manufacturers.

    Reporting on the LG Energy results, which are preliminary, Bloomberg noted a tax credit under the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act that helped the company stay in the black, Excluding that credit, LG Energy dipped into an operating loss of some $180,000.

    SK On, for its part, has had worse luck than its bigger rival, without IRA tax credits to help it through the rough times. The Financial Times reported on Sunday that the company had seen its net debt swell to about $10 billion over the last two years and a half, which was a fivefold increase in the period. The reason: EV sales have fallen short of projections—well short.

    “We have our back against the wall,” chief executive Lee Seok-hee wrote in a letter to employees. “We should all pull together.”

    The company appears to have made a string of sub-optimal decisions to get to this point, namely aggressive investments in Europe and the United States in anticipation of an EV boom, according to the Financial Times.

    Unlike the South Korean battery makers, the two world leaders—BYD and CATL—are mostly exposed to their home market where EV sales are the strongest in the world, so they have been shielded by the disappointing sales numbers on the other two key markets for the vehicles.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 07/08/2024 – 20:20

  • DC Enforces Youth Curfew "To Keep Young People Out Of Trouble" 
    DC Enforces Youth Curfew “To Keep Young People Out Of Trouble” 

    Earlier this year, the DC Policy Center, a non-partisan research and policy organization committed to promoting policies for a vibrant economy in the District of Columbia, reported that juveniles in the DC area have committed crimes at twice the national average. This alarming crime statistic underscores how the radical leftists running the nation’s capital have possibly lost some control over the youth.

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    In response to surging youth crime, DC officials enforced a summer curfew between 12:01 am local time and 6 am local time, seven days a week, for everyone under the age of 17. 

    According to the Metropolitan Police Department, the curfew went into effect on July 1 and runs through August 31. 

    “The Juvenile Curfew Act of 1995 (DC Code 2-1541 et. seq.) states that persons under the age of 17 cannot remain in or on a street, park or other outdoor public place, in a vehicle or on the premises of any establishment within the District of Columbia during curfew hours, unless they are involved in certain exempted activities,” Metropolitan Police wrote on their website. 

    A person under 17 violating the curfew could face upward of 25 hours of community service. Parents or guardians could also face up to $500 fine or be required to perform community service. 

    DC police wrote that there are several curfew exemptions for minors, including running an errand for a parent, returning from work, and being involved in an emergency (view here). 

    The curfew comes as “data show juveniles make up the majority of arrests in DC for crimes like robbery and carjacking,” CNN noted in a recent report, adding, “For carjackings, which nearly doubled in 2023, the average age of those arrested was 15 years old. Guns are used in about half of carjackings, police data show.” 

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    Meanwhile, leftist corporate media outlets have been championing the latest FBI crime stats that show murder, rape, robbery, theft, and property crime are sliding in major cities. However, as we noted in “Admission Of Failure? Democratic Cities Stop Reporting Crime Stats To FBI,” some Democratic cities are just no longer reporting crimes to the FBI. 

    Do yourself a favor: Avoid Democratic cities where the failed progressive experiment has sparked crime and chaos.  

    If the socialist utopia of DC were actually working – which it never will – there would be no need for a youth curfew. Just north of DC, crime-ridden Baltimore also has a youth curfew. 

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 07/08/2024 – 20:00

  • Post-Debate USA Today-Suffolk Poll Has Grim News For President Biden
    Post-Debate USA Today-Suffolk Poll Has Grim News For President Biden

    Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

    I created some charts from a new post-debate poll that shows Biden is weakening fast. I also tie in the latest economic data.

    All data for these polls courtesy of USAToday/Suffolk Poll 2024-07-02. Here are the Poll Questions and Marginals.

    Candidates

    • Democrat: Joe Biden

    • Republican: Donald Trump

    • Green Party: Jill Stein

    • Independent: Robert Kennedy

    • Independent: Cornel West

    • Libertarian: Chase Oliver

    First and Second Choice

    • First Choice: Trump Leads Biden by 3.9 percentage points (PP) on first choice, 41.4 to 37.5
    • Second Choice: Trump Leads Biden by 8.4 PP on second choice, 25.2 to 16.6
    • Combined: Trump Leads Biden by 12.3 PP on second choice, 25.2 to 16.6

    This seems to suggest the that the combination of undecided voters and alternate voters prefer Trump over Biden.

    Candidate Preference by Political Party

    How Many Independent Voters Are There?

    30.1 percent seems like a huge number. But only 18 percent are undecided.

    Here’s the math: 0.31 * 0.18 = 5.6 percent of voters. And the second choice seems more likely to be for Trump than Biden. Some will vote for Kennedy and some won’t vote at all.

    Is Your Mind Made Up by Political Party

    Republicans are very unlikely to change their minds. This is a potential edge for Biden, depending on how independents break.

    Republicans are already in the fold. Democrats for Kennedy may switch. And independents may break toward Biden. This is Biden’s best shot (Harris if she replaces Biden).

    But the mind changers could also break to toward Trump leading to a rout.

    Is Your Mind Made Up by Political Party

    This chart seems to favor Biden but the math is not overwhelming. Blacks are about 14 percent of the population. Even if 100% of them switched to Biden that’s only 0.22 * 0.14 maximum. In practice, the potential is far less because most of them are already in the Biden camp. And some of them may switch from Biden to Kennedy or sit the election out.

    Candidate Preference by Race

    This chart likely shocks nearly everyone, especially the Democratic party. But it makes perfect sense to me.

    In general, these are hard-working US citizens. I saw this first hand in trade groups that helped build our new house. So I am not the least surprised by the chart.

    Moreover, Hispanics are more concerned about the economy than whites, even republicans! I will show that in a subsequent post on issues.

    Anecdotes are not data. Regardless, and contrary to widespread allegation, the illegals are not voting. There will be a Republican election judge going over every name.

    Nothing above implies I am for open borders. I am explicitly not in favor of what’s happening.

    Is Your Mind Made Up by Age Group

    Given that age group 18-34 is for Trump, perhaps there is some sort of advantage here for Biden if this group switches. But it’s not quite that simple. To see why let’s turn back to candidate preferences.

    Candidate Preference by Age Group

    An amazing 41 percent of those 18-34 are for Trump with only 30 percent for Biden.

    That’s an unprecedented 11 percentage point gap for Republicans. In 2020 this age group voted overwhelmingly for Biden.

    It poses an opportunity but one that could backfire for Democrats if they try to get more young voters to vote.

    This age group has the smallest turnout historically. Do Democrats try to get the youth vote more active? If so, who is the beneficiary?

    I suspect it is Republicans who should go after these voters. I can explain why in an economic chart.

    Unemployment Rate by Age Group

    • Overall: 4.1 Percent

    • 16-19: 12.1 Percent

    • 20-24: 7.5 Percent

    • 25-34: 4.4 Percent

    • 35-44: 3.3 Percent

    • 45-54: 2.7 Percent

    • 55+ 2.8 Percent

    Unemployment is up sharply in the 18-34 age group. More on that in a moment. First let’s discuss race.

    Unemployment Rate by Race

    Data from the BLS, chart by Mish

    Unemployment among blacks is up from 4.8 percent to 6.3 percent. This shows up in the above poll. 63 percent support Biden but that down from normal ranges well above 80 percent.

    What’s Going On?

    I have been talking about this since February. Let’s go over some more recent posts instead.

    On April 20, I commented People Who Rent Will Decide the 2024 Presidential Election

    Q: Who is it that rent?
    A: Young adults and blacks.

    Why Angry Renters Will Decide the Election, Take II

    Data from the BLS except for the Case-Shiller housing index , chart by Mish

    On June 19, I commented Why Angry Renters Will Decide the Election, Take II

    Economists say wages are now rising faster than the CPI. That’s not true for those who rent or wish to buy a house.

    Those renting have seen the price of rent go up at least 0.4 percent every month for 33 consecutive months.

    Meanwhile, the cost of a home has skyrocketed.

    Renters (mainly young adults and blacks), have been left behind and it shows up in the polls.

    Also see The Unemployment Rate Bottomed a Year Ago, Who’s Impacted the Most?

    The leftwing media and economists don’t understand the polls. But there’s the explanation in pictures.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 07/08/2024 – 19:40

  • Another Extended July 4th Weekend Of Historic Violence In Chicago: 109 Shot, 19 Fatally
    Another Extended July 4th Weekend Of Historic Violence In Chicago: 109 Shot, 19 Fatally

    In what could come close to a record-setting weekend of Chicago violence, 109 people were shot over the extended holidays since July 4th, local media reports.

    “One hundred and nine people have been shot, 19 fatally, in gun violence across Chicago since Wednesday during the extended Fourth of July holiday weekend, police said,” ABC7 Chicago writes. The casualty count rose throughout the day as more police and hospital data was tallied, and came across news desks.

    ABC News

    Chicago Police Superintendent Larry Snelling and Mayor Brandon Johnson condemned the uptick in violent crime. “We have to really stop and think about the mindset of someone who will shoot a child, a helpless child an unarmed mother and think that that’s okay. And go about their days,” Snelling said. “Those people have to be taken off the street. They have to be put away if we’re not doing that. Then we’re failing other families.”

    The victims were teens as well as men ranging in age from 16 to 36 years old, police data indicates. The demographic strongly points to most of these being gang-related shootings.

    By comparison, there were 33 people total that died from violent crime across the entire nation, thus deaths in Chicago alone made up the bulk.

    July 4th and the weekend closest to it tends to be the single deadliest holiday on the calendar year in Chicago, according to past data. This year’s Chicago violence is far and above that of last year’s. 

    The 2023 extended holiday weekend went from Friday night to Tuesday, during which time 57 people were shot and eight were killed.

    “When we look at what happened this weekend, we always like to say that it’s a police issue,” Snelling continued during a press conference. “This is a societal issue. The police cannot be in everybody’s backyard. They cannot be in everyone’s home. They cannot invade every single gathering where there’s a possibility that someone may show up with a gun.”

    For a sampling of some of the tragic weekend shootings via a local news affiliate…

    • Two people were shot, one fatally at about 11:51 p.m. in the 700-block of East 89th Place.
    • Minutes before that, one person was shot an killed in the 200-block of North Central Avenue in the South Austin neighborhood.
    • A man died in an exchange of gunfire Saturday night in South Shore.
    • A 26-year-old man and a 25-year-old woman were walking on the sidewalk when a white SUV pulled up and someone inside fired shots, police said.
    • A woman, shot in her leg, was taken to the same hospital in good condition.

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    Mayor Johnson on Monday noted the racial aspects to the crimes: “Black death has been unfortunately accepted in this country for a very long time.” He said further: “Let’s tell the full story of how we got here because if you skip a chapter, it won’t give us the ability to actually make the proper adjustments so that we can ensure that stronger and safer becomes a reality.”

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 07/08/2024 – 19:20

  • New York City Hotels Housing Illegal Aliens Receive Over $1 Billion In Taxpayer Funds; Report
    New York City Hotels Housing Illegal Aliens Receive Over $1 Billion In Taxpayer Funds; Report

    Authored by Eric Lundrum via American Greatness,

    In New York City, hotels that have converted into shelters for hordes of illegal aliens have been given over $1 billion in taxpayer money to keep them in business.

    As reported by Fox News, the average hotel room for an illegal costs $156 per night, with some costing over $300 per night. As such, the city government has already spent at least $1.98 billion on housing for illegals, with 80% of that amount going to hotels or inns that have been converted into shelters, rather than to shelters operated by the city. Overall, the city has spent at least $4.88 billion on the mass migration crisis.

    Some of the contracts agreed upon between the city and various hotels include a deal for $5.13 million per month with the Row NYC hotel, located in Midtown Manhattan. In South Jamaica, Queens, the Crowne Plaza JFK is being given $2 million per month to continue renting out its 335 rooms to illegals.

    In September of 2023, the city secured a contract with the Hotel Association of New York City (HANYC) for $1.3 billion over the next three years. In January, another deal was signed between the city and HANYC for $76.69 million to provide “last resort” shelters to illegals at 15 different hotels across the Bronx, Queens, and Brooklyn through July.

    Business owners in the surrounding neighborhoods have noted the decline in economic revenue for their businesses and others around them, as the tourists that would normally stay in such hotels and subsequently patronize their own businesses have been replaced by illegals who have no money.

    “Our taxes are being used to pay for the migrants, and where are we supposed to make revenue?” asked William Shandler, manager at the Iron Bar located across the street from the Row hotel.

    “How as a business could we function?”

    Republican Councilwoman Joann Ariola also criticized the gutting of the tourism industry in favor of illegals, pointing out that hotels were built to be used by tourists, “not for sheltering the masses of people pouring over our borders every day.”

    “These locations were meant to boost the economy of this city,” Ariola continued, “but instead they’ve become a net drain and are costing us enormously.”

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 07/08/2024 – 19:00

  • Watch: Chaos Erupts During White House Press Briefing Over Biden-Parkinson's Questions
    Watch: Chaos Erupts During White House Press Briefing Over Biden-Parkinson’s Questions

    White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre got into a heated exchange with multiple reporters, where she declined to answer why a Parkinson’s specialist had been to the White House at least nine times in the past year.

    Jean-Pierre admitted that Biden had seen a neurologist three times during his presidency as part of his annual physical, but then began to demur when asked for specifics about the visitor logs.

    “Ed, I also said to you for security reasons, we cannot share names. We cannot share names,” she told CBS News senior White House correspondent Ed O’Keefe, who said she should be able to answer questions regarding Biden’s health.

    “You cannot share names of others he would’ve met with, but you can share names in regards if someone came here in regards to the president,” O’Keefe shot back.

    “We cannot share names of specialists broadly. From a dermatologist to a neurologist. We cannot share names,” she replied. “There are security reasons—Ed, I hear you. I cannot from here confirm any of that because we have to keep their privacy. I think they would appreciate that too.”

    Watch:

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    Jean-Pierre then went on the offensive…

    Meanwhile…

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

    As we noted on Saturday, evidence has emerged that Dr. Kevin R Cannard traveled to the White House’s medical clinic at least nine times, meeting with either President Joe Biden’s personal physician Dr. Kevin O’Connor, or a naval nurse who coordinates care for the president and other senior officials. O’Connor notably gave Biden a clean bill of health after his February annual physical.

    The visits spanned July 28, 2023 with the latest being March 28 of this year, according to visitor logs.

    According to Cannard’s physician profile page, he is a “neurologist and movement disorders specialist at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center” who specializes in treatments for “early Parkinson’s disease.” Since 2012, he has served as the “neurology specialist supporting the White House Medical Unit,” per his LinkedIn page.

    His most recent paper was published in August 2023 in the journal Parkinsonism & Related Disorders, and focuses on the “early-stage” of the crippling disease.

    Since Biden’s health is O’Connor’s primary responsibility, it is highly probable the meeting was about the commander in chief, according to Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Tx), the doctor for both Presidents Obama and Trump.

    “It’s highly likely they were talking about Biden,” Jackson told The Post. -NY Post

    “He should only be [regularly] treating the president and the first family,” Jackson continued.

    Walter Reed cardiologist Dr. John. E. Atwood was also present during a Jan. 17 meeting, the NY Post reports.

    According to Jackson, who has never treated Biden, O’Connor and Biden’s family are trying to “cover up” Biden’s declining cognitive health.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 07/08/2024 – 18:40

  • 100 Miles South Of Salt Lake City, A New Type Of Off-Grid Community
    100 Miles South Of Salt Lake City, A New Type Of Off-Grid Community

    By Allan Stein of The Epoch Times

    The big pickup truck went rolling down the dirt road, kicking up dust as Phil Gleason drove past workmen in hardhats and yellow vests digging a well for a new solar-powered home.

    Miles away from any strip mall or cookie-cutter subdivision, the off-grid community known as Operation Self-Reliance bloomed with housing construction in the Utah desert.

    “Think of all the dependencies when we’re in the cities,” said Mr. Gleason, 74, the community’s founder. “We have to drink the water they give us. We have to deal with trash pickup and pesticides.”

    “I’m not saying it’s all bad. It wasn’t what I wanted. I needed to do something else.”

    Operation Self-Reliance is both a plan of action and a work in progress, Mr. Gleason said with pride. It is a trumpet call for people yearning to break free of the bonds of city life.

    Years ago, Mr. Gleason envisioned such a place for like-minded people, built on the time-honored idea of “sustainable self-sufficiency” like the early settlers.

    It would be a place where people could live closer to nature, feel safe, raise families, and grow food.

    The initial challenge was that “essentially, we had no money,” Mr. Gleason said. “We had no land. We just had a concept.”

    But it was a valid concept nonetheless, he said—one based on solid principles of individual self-sufficiency and years of detailed research.

    In 2018, Mr. Gleason presented his idea at a boating party on Lake Powell. Three guests stepped forward and offered to invest in the project.

    After months of searching for the right place to build, Mr. Gleason discovered a 1,240-acre property was up for sale in a remote location about 100 miles south of Salt Lake City.

    The land had once been a working farm used for growing corn, barley, winter wheat, and alfalfa, but it now mainly lay fallow, waiting for someone to infuse it with new life.

    Around the middle of 2019, Mr. Gleason broke ground on the project, and the first few homesteaders moved in.

    Today, there are 140 people in 50 families—75 of them children—living off the grid in passive solarized homes made out of brick, concrete, or compressed blocks of earth.

    When fully built, the model community will accommodate more than 200 homesteads, each with a two-acre plot for raising animals and growing fruits and vegetables.

    “We’re building a self-reliant community of agricultural producers,” Mr. Gleason told The Epoch Times. “Part of the agreement is they’ll become agricultural producers.”

    Becoming a producer could be as simple as having a small garden, he said.

    (Top) A view of the southern side of Operation Self-Reliance in Utah on June 28, 2024. (Middle) Phil Gleason, founder of Operation Self-Reliance in Utah, walks through an active vegetable garden on June 28, 2024. (Bottom) Phil Gleason shows the beets he grew inside the greenhouse, on June 28, 2024. (Allan Stein/The Epoch Times)

    “You could have a greenhouse. But you’ll need the infrastructure. If you’ve got a one-foot garden and a tree, you’re an agricultural producer.”

    However, before joining the community, each prospective homesteader must agree to a set of terms and conditions, the most important of which is developing a three-year transition plan for using their two acres productively.

    On that small plot of land, they will agree to build a minimum 600-square-foot passive solar house, barn, greenhouse, freshwater well, and sanitation system approved by the local health department.

    Mr. Gleason said the price of a two-acre parcel is $25,000; it costs about $200,000 on average to develop fully in alignment with the contract.

    Even so, the contract does not allow for simply purchasing the land and locating a recreational vehicle. The aim is to build a community of permanent homes for agriculture.

    “We’re more like gardeners. We’re not farmers,” said Jesse Fisher, the community’s social media and events organizer. “We encourage everyone to have their little cottage industry.”

    Unlike survivalists or “preppers,” estimated at some 20 million strong, Operation Self Reliance isn’t waiting for doomsday or interested in riding out the apocalypse. It’s about immersing oneself in a self-contained and sustainable community as a way of life, Mr. Gleason said.

    “We’re not preppers but we lean in that direction,” he said.

    “Some of us don’t even like to be called preppers. The bulk of us—we want a sustainable lifestyle. You’ve got to work with the Earth.”

    Still, “prepping is big business,” according to a recent Finder study.

    It found that 29 percent of the adult population in the United States spent $11 billion on emergency supplies in 2022. The most commonly purchased items were food and water.

    Two-fifths (40 percent) of Generation Z said they “spent money on doomsday supplies in the last 12 months,” and nearly the same number of Millennials (39 percent) said the same, according to the study.

    The pandemic undoubtedly brought home the need for stockpiling supplies.

    The Federal Emergency Management Agency reported a 50-percent jump in the number of people who were capable of surviving an emergency for 31 days from 2017 to 2020.

    A bunker at Fortitude Ranch in Mathias, W.V., on March 13, 2020. Fortitude Ranch members, a group of survivalists, have up to two weeks each year to use the rural retreat, enjoying nature, hiking, or trout fishing in the Lost River. (Nicholas Kamm/AFP via Getty Images)

    Though not a prepper in the cataclysmic sense, Mr. Gleason said he learned to appreciate the preparedness mindset half a century ago.

    At the time, he was working as a building contractor in Idaho, living with his wife and three young daughters in a 29-foot recreational vehicle that ran on propane as winter was fast approaching.

    “What we hadn’t counted on was that it had turned bitter cold. It was almost zero degrees outside and inside the RV. The water froze. The food froze,” he said.

    He said the family had little experience with off-grid living, but they had an electric blanket.

    “So we put the three babies between us and the electric blanket on us. We took other blankets and coats, put them on us, and turned the blanket on high. We were OK,” Mr. Gleason said.

    At 3 a.m., the entire RV park suddenly lost power, leaving the family shivering in the cold.

    “That experience rewired my brain,” Mr. Gleason said. “I wasn’t worried about world events. I was worried about keeping my babies warm and fed and able to drink. I felt helpless.”

    That sense of utter vulnerability would turn into a wellspring of inspiration years later.

    Dante Vicino, executive director and operations manager of Vivos xPoint, located on a former military base near Edgemont, S.D., points out some of the unique features of his personal bunker home. The Vivos Group, which owns 575 bunkers, plans to convert them all into liveable homes. (Allan Stein/The Epoch Times)

    Mr. Gleason eventually came up with the idea of Operation Self-Reliance, an agricultural cooperative combining individual resources and talents for the good of the community.

    Once an agricultural co-op surpasses 200 members, it can continue “generationally.”

    And as rising crime and inflation make city life less tenable, he said, more people now view off-grid living as a workable alternative.

    Among the more popular off-grid communities in the United States are Breitenbush Hot Springs in Oregon, Earthaven in North Carolina, and Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage in Missouri.

    Vivos xPoint is another off-grid community comprised of 575 survival bunkers built by the military during World War II near the Black Hills area of South Dakota.

    Mr. Gleason said he has plans to build another Operation Self-Reliance project on 1,300 rural acres located in Snowflake, Arizona.

    He said the important thing is understanding what his off-grid community projects are not.

    “We’re not a political statement,” he said. “We’re not a religious statement. We don’t have a militia.

    “I think we’re pretty run-of-the-mill families. We’ve got contractors, engineers, educators, health care, professionals—a lot of IT people—salesmen, mechanics.”

    Mark Miller, 65, is a retired federal government first responder who’s been living off the grid at Operation Self-Reliance in Utah for the past three years.

    He and his wife built their 5,000-square-foot home out of compressed concrete form blocks. They are now working to create a park and gathering space for the entire community to enjoy.

    “I like the idea of working for myself. Doing agriculture—maybe having a bed and breakfast out here,” Mr. Miller said. “It’s the freedom to be able to do what I want for my property.”

    That includes having the freedom to grow as much food as he needs in a 100-by-300-foot garden—whether it’s corn, cantaloupe, watermelon, or in the greenhouse he plans to build.

    “The dirt out here is terrible, so we have to bend it to our will … and make it work,” he said.

    As a government first responder, Mr. Miller said he went to video document “man’s inhumanity to man” inside the athletic dome in New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina struck in 2005.

    “And I mean, I saw the worst of the worst”—murders, rapes, looting, beatings, he said.

    “And I’ve been everywhere you can think of.”

    Far from the horrors of Katrina and American cities in decline, Mr. Miller said he finds peace in the company of neighbors at Operation Self-Reliance.

    “Sometimes, I think they’re too close. Other times, I think they’re not close enough,” he said. “I’ve become friends with 50 families. I love every one of them.”

    Mark Miller, 65, a retired federal government first responder, lives in an off-grid home he built at Operation Self-Reliance in southern Utah, on June 28, 2024. (Allan Stein/The Epoch Times)

    Tyler Ellingson, 35, is a software developer from Eagle Mountain, Utah, who recently decided that living off the grid at Operation Self-Reliance was the way to go.

    He now spends every weekend building an 800-square-foot solarized home that he, his wife, and their three young children plan to move into next year.

    At Eagle Mountain, the Ellingsons enjoy all the luxuries of modern city life—air conditioning, plumbing, a lovely house, and a nice yard. What they lack is “authenticity” from those around them.

    “Everybody out here is authentic and willing to help,” Mr. Ellingson said. “If you get stuck in the snow, in town, you call somebody and pay them to help you. Out here, it’s your neighbors.”

    He said that living in a small community of like-minded people is about building close relationships, even if it means suffering together.

    “When you suffer with people, it builds unity—it builds community,” he said. “I have tons of neighbors” in Eagle Mountain. “We say ‘hi’ to each other. That’s the extent of it.”

    Out here, in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by mountains and wild rye, his neighbors are more like an extended family.

    “Out here, it’s all about the community working together to build something bigger than ourselves,” Mr. Ellingson said.

    Tyler Ellingson carries an armful of tool as he works on his solarized home at Operation Self-Reliance in southern Utah on June 28, 2024. (Allan Stein/The Epoch Times)

    For Brandon Wilson, 44, a man of deep faith, “the short answer” for why he made the move to Operation Self-Reliance is, “God led us here.”

    Though living off the grid intrigued him, he said, it was a distant cry from city life in South Weber, Utah, with his wife Shari and six young children.

    “We had no intentions of moving,” said Mr. Wilson, a pediatric and family chiropractor in Ogden, Utah.

    “We thought that would be our place for the next 40 years. In a lot of ways, it made little sense to us to come here. We felt strongly this was where we were supposed to go—especially after we found it. It became clear we have a purpose being here.”

    He said that raising and homeschooling five boys and a daughter in a safe and wholesome environment is central to that purpose.

    “Our culture has shifted away from that one-on-one interaction with our neighbors. Here, you have to rely on your neighbors because there are so many challenges to face,” Mr. Wilson said.

    “Part of being out here is that it reintroduces kids to boredom. They’ve got to create their fun.”

    Along with the peace of mind the Wilsons enjoy, there is the improved physical health that comes with life in a small community of resilient people.

    “We feel better being out here. It’s a lot calmer,” Mr. Wilson said.

    Since October 2023, the Wilsons have been living in a temporary 300-square-foot “tiny house” at Operation Self-Reliance.

    The plan is to build a 1,200-square-foot homestead out of blocks of compressed earth.

    Mr. Wilson said he still maintains a chiropractic office in Ogden, driving nearly 200 miles to and from work three days a week.

    At home, he loves being with his family and watching his children grow up in a world where material possessions are less important.

    “There’s no traffic. You can actually see the stars out here—the Milky Way,” said his oldest son, Bron, 13.

    Brandon Wilson stands next to the solar panel array that will power his family’s new home at Operation Self-Reliance in Utah on June 28, 2024. (Bottom) Brandon Wilson watches his son Bron, 13, climb a rope on June 28, 2024. (Allan Stein/The Epoch Times)

    Tom and Kathy Barnes said they have no regrets about giving up 530 acres of agriculturally productive land in Payson, Utah, to work on just two acres at Operation Self-Reliance.

    The couple now grows fruit trees and raises pigs, turkeys, chickens, and goats, living on the bounty in relative comfort.

    “We had a lifestyle like this on 530 acres,” Mr. Barnes said. “This is two acres, so we downsized. We decided it was better to be out here.”

    On their tiny parcel, the couple built their 3,000-square-foot solarized home, a red barn, and 17 raised garden boxes.

    “Hopefully, we’re going to get citrus in this greenhouse. These grow boxes alone can grow what you want,” Mr. Barnes said.

    How much food can they grow?

    “All we need,” Mr. Barnes said.

    “Plus some,” Mrs. Barnes added.

    “It was a lifestyle choice,” she said. “We have a goat to milk every day—not too bad.”

    One advantage of living off the grid is “people, people, people,” Mr. Barnes said. “The project is the community.”

    “For us, this is not intimidating. We understood the principles” of living off the grid.

    Another upside is having no monthly utility bill thanks to the 4,000-watt solar power array the couple had installed.

    Mr. Barnes said that solar power alone is enough to run two freezers, two refrigerators, and two air conditioning units, with plenty of wattage to spare.

    “So far, I’ve already covered $6,700 in the last 18 months,” he said. “It’s not going to take long to pay off the $35,000 cost of solar panel installation.

    Tom and Kathy Barnes built their 3,000-square-foot solarized home at Operation Self-Reliance in Utah about two years ago, on June 28, 2024. (Allan Stein/The Epoch Times)

    A short drive up the dirt road, Rebecca and Bill Sampson, formerly of Colorado Springs, Colorado, are in the process of building their new home.

    “We’re going to build our house out of stabilized compressed earth block,” Mrs. Sampson said.

    Recently married, the Sampson’s had been looking to move into a more rural setting to escape the “craziness” of the city.

    “We were looking at possibilities. My niece sent me the information about here,” Mrs. Sampson said. “As we contemplated it and prayed about it, it seemed like the right thing to do.”

    “If we want to get into the state of the world, I feel so grateful to have been led out of the cities. I think the cities are going absolutely crazy.”

    Mrs. Sampson said there’s a definite learning curve to growing fruits and vegetables inside her new greenhouse.

    Continue reading at The Epoch Times

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 07/08/2024 – 18:20

  • Five Most Affordable Housing Markets For Non-Homeowner Households 
    Five Most Affordable Housing Markets For Non-Homeowner Households 

    House hunters are keeping a close eye on the 30-year mortgage rate, trending over 7%, as home prices continue rising to new record highs. The combination of high rates and elevated home prices has sparked the worst affordability conditions in nearly four decades, a harsh reality for millions of Americans.

    A new report from real estate research firm ResiClub analyzed Zillow data, revealing the five most affordable and unaffordable housing markets among the fifty largest metro areas. 

    Let’s begin with the five markets with the highest percentage of non-homeowner households who can afford the purchase of an average-priced home in their market:

    1. Pittsburgh, PA (25.6%)

    2. Detroit, MI (23.1%)

    3. St. Louis, MO (22.6%)

    4. Oklahoma City, OK (22.5%)

    5. Cleveland, OH (22.4%)

    Pittsburgh and Detroit might not be glamorous metro areas—full of deindustrialization and crime—but a family may have a better shot at finding an affordable home than many metro areas located on the West Coast. 

    As for the five markets that have the lowest percentage of non-homeowner households who can afford the purchase of an average-priced home in their market… Many are located in California: 

    1. San Diego, CA (2.6%)

    2. San Jose, CA (2.7%)

    3. Los Angeles, CA (2.8%)

    4. San Francisco, CA (3.7%)

    5. Salt Lake City, UT (3.8%)

    ResiClub pointed out that a whopping 52.3 million out of 134 million US families do not own a home. Given the tight lending conditions, only 7.9 million, or 15.1%, can afford to buy an average-priced home in their local market. 

    We must note that the supply of available homes recently increased to 481,000, which is still the highest level since 2008.

    And noted a week ago, “The Housing Tide Starts Turning: National Inventory Rose 4% In Q1 2024,” as well as numerous notes about rising housing inventory, including this one: “Housing Downturn in Austin, Texas Is “Remarkable” As Inventory Spikes To Record High.”

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 07/08/2024 – 18:00

  • "Our Finest Hour": Democratic Insiders Support "Blitz Primary" After Blocking Primary Competition
    “Our Finest Hour”: Democratic Insiders Support “Blitz Primary” After Blocking Primary Competition

    Authored by Jonathan Turley via jonathanturley.org,

    A proposal is circulating in Washington to dump President Joe Biden and hold a “blitz primary” to choose a replacement. The proposal is the work of Rosa Brooks, a Georgetown University law professor who worked in the Obama and Clinton administrations, and Ted Dintersmith, a venture capitalist and education philanthropist. The proposal is gaining support with party insiders and repeats the hyperbolic claim that this is essential to avoid a “democracy-ending defeat.” It is disappointing to see a law professor repeating this unfounded alarmist claim. Yet, the most glaring contradiction is found in the stated desire to give delegates a choice after the party worked to prevent any choice for voters in state primaries.

    The authors promise an “uplifting” path in which candidates would pledge not to attack each other. They would then have a few weeks as named celebrities like Oprah and Taylor Swift would moderate discussions. Delegates would then use ranked voting before the August 19th convention.

    The authors proclaim that “we can limp to shameful, avoidable democracy-ending defeat. Or Democrats can make this Our Finest Hour. While we hope for help from Lord Almighty, the Lord helps those who help themselves.”

    One wrinkle is that Biden himself spent Sunday pledging again that he is not stepping aside. He also continued his penchant for bizarre statements like stating that “even when I was running for Senate, each time I ran – quite frankly, not a joke – Philadelphia, in particularly, got me across the line. No, I’m not joking. No, I mean it, seriously. Organizationally and in terms of fundraising, the whole deal.”

    Either Biden was confessing to using Pennsylvania votes to win elections in Delaware or he was hopelessly confused. Seriously.

    The “finest hour” for the party is coming a bit late given the concerted effort of the Democratic establishment to strip away opposing candidates from ballots and crush anyone offering an alternative to Biden. At the same time, both the press and pundits attacked those who raised the President’s infirmity, including calling unedited videos “cheap fakes.”

    For the last year, Democratic secretaries of state were trying to remove Trump from 2024 ballots and Democratic leaders in Florida, North Carolina and other states were refusing to allow other candidates to run against Biden in their primaries. For those voters, the primary might have seemed like a “democracy ending” election.

    At the same time, the Democratic establishment opposed any debate where Biden’s infirmities might have been observed when there was still time for voters to make another choice. They did so even though every poll showed the majority of Democratic voters thought Biden was too old and wanted an alternative choice. (Notably, I also favored a debate in the GOP primary. While Trump did not participate in any debate, he was widely available for media questions and pressers).

    Now, after quashing opposing candidates when the public would have had a chance to make a state-by-state choice, insiders are calling for an “uplifting” blitz election by the party establishment and activists.

    I am still curious how this will work. Donors gave money to the Biden-Harris ticket. That money would now have to be used for different candidates. Absent a formal acceptance to the alternative slate, it could raise tough questions under federal election laws. Likewise, the DNC is coming up on a number of states with drop-dead dates for ballot changes. Finally, there is the rather awkward problem of a President who is still very much alive and running.

    As Biden objects over and over again that he will not step aside, Brooks and Dintersmith are already planning his political eulogy where Biden would be celebrated as a “modern-day George Washington.”

    Once again, the Democratic Party seems to be channeling Monty Python in planning for a departure of a president who does not want to go.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 07/08/2024 – 17:40

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Today’s News 8th July 2024

  • Escobar: Why The SCO Summit In Kazakhstan Was A Game-Changer
    Escobar: Why The SCO Summit In Kazakhstan Was A Game-Changer

    Authored by Pepe Escobar,

    It’s impossible to overstate the importance of the 2024 summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) this week in Astana, Kazakhstan. It can certainly be interpreted as the antechamber to the crucial BRICS annual summit, under the Russian presidency, next October in Kazan.

    Let’s start with the final declaration. As much as SCO members state “tectonic shifts are underway” in geopolitics and geoeconomics, as “the use of power methods is increasing, with norms of international law being systematically violated”, they are fully engaged to “increase the SCO’s role in the creation of a new democratic, fair, political and economic international order.”

    Well, there could not be a sharper contrast with the unilaterally-imposed “rules-based international order”.

    The SCO 10 – with new member Belarus – are explicitly in favor of “a fair solution to the Palestinian issue”. They “oppose unilateral sanctions”. They want to create a SCO investment fund (Iran, via acting President Mohammad Mokhber, supports the creation of a SCO common bank, just like the NDB in BRICS).

    Additionally, members that “are parties to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty stand for compliance with its provisions”. And crucially, they agree that “interaction within the SCO may become the basis for building a new security architecture in Eurasia.”

    The last point is actually the heart of the matter. That’s proof that Putin’s proposal last month in front of key Russian diplomats was fully debated in Astana – following Russia’s strategic deal with the DPRK de facto linking security in Asia as indivisible with security in Europe. That is something that remains – and will continue to remain – incomprehensible for the collective West.

    A new Eurasia-wide security architecture is an upgrade of the Russian concept of Greater Eurasia Partnership – involving a series of bilateral and multilateral guarantees and, in Putin’s own words, open to “all Eurasian countries that wish to participate”, including NATO members.

    The SCO should become one of the key drivers of this new security arrangement – in total contrast with the “rules-based order” – alongside the CSTO, the CIS and the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU).

    The road map ahead of course includes socio-economic integration and the development of international transportation corridors – from the INSTC (Russia-Iran-India) to the China-supported “Middle Corridor”.

    But the two crucial points are military and financial: “To gradually phase out the military presence of external powers” in Eurasia; and to establish alternatives to “Western-controlled economic mechanisms, expanding the use of national currencies in settlements, and establishing independent payment systems.”

    Translation: the meticulous process conducted by Russia to deliver a fatal blow to Pax Americana is essentially shared by all SCO members.

    Welcome to SCO+

    President Putin laid down the basic tenets further on down the road when he confirmed the “commitment of all member states to forming a fair world order based on the central role of the UN and commitment of sovereign states to mutually beneficial partnership.”

    He added, “the long-term goals for further expansion of cooperation in politics, economy, energy, agriculture, high technologies and innovation are stated in the project of development strategy of SCO till 2035.”

    That’s a quite Chinese approach to long-term strategic planning: China’s five-year plans are already mapped out all the way to 2035.

    President Xi doubled down when it comes to the leading Russia-China strategic partnership: both should “strengthen comprehensive strategic coordination, oppose external interference and jointly maintain peace and stability” in Eurasia.

    Once again, that’s Russia-China as leaders of Eurasia integration and the drive towards a multi-nodal world (italics mine; nodal with an “n”).

    The summit in Astana showed how the SCO has really stepped up the game after incorporating India, Pakistan and Iran – and now Belarus – as new members, plus establishing key players such as Turkiye, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar and Azerbaijan as dialogue partners, and strategic Afghanistan and Mongolia as observers.

    It’s a long way from the original Shanghai Five – Russia, China, plus three Central Asian “stans” – setting up the organization back in 2001, essentially as an anti-terrorism/separatism body. The SCO has evolved into serious geoeconomic cooperation, discussing in detail, for instance, supply chain security issues.

    The SCO now goes way beyond a Heartland-focused economic and security alliance, as it covers 80% of the Eurasian landmass; accounts for more than 40% of the world’s population; boasts a 25% share of global GDP – and rising; and generates global trade value of over $8 trillion in 2022, according to Chinese government numbers. Add to it SCO members hold 20% of global oil reserves and 44% of natural gas.

    So it’s no wonder that a key development this year at the Palace of Independence in Astana was the first meeting of the SCO +, under the theme “Strengthening Multilateral Dialogue”.

    A real who’s who of SCO partners was there, from President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev, Emir of Qatar Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani and President of Turkiye Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to member of the Supreme Council of the Emirates Sheikh Saud bin Saqr Al Qasimi, Chairman of the People’s Council of Turkmenistan Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, and SCO Secretary-General Zhang Ming.

    Russia’s bilaterals with many of these SCO+ actors were quite substantial.

    India’s PM Modi did not go to Astana, sending FM Jaishankar, who maintains fabulous relations with Foreign Minister Lavrov. Modi was re-elected to his third term last month and is up to his neck working the domestic front, with his BJP now commanding a much narrower majority in Parliament. Next Monday he will be in Moscow – and will meet Putin.

    Proverbial Divide and Rule hacks seized Modi’s no-show in Astana as proof of a serious India-China rift. Nonsense. Jaishankar, after a bilateral meeting with Wang Yi, stated – in a very Chinese metaphorical way – that “the three mutuals – mutual respect, mutual sensitivity and mutual interest – will guide our bilateral ties.”

    That applies to their still unresolved border standoff; to the delicate balance New Delhi has to find to appease the Americans in their Indo-Pacific obsession (no one across Asia uses the term “Indo-Pacific”; it’s Asia-Pacific); and also relates to Indian aspirations when it comes to beinga leader of the Global South compared to China.

    China does regard itself as part of the Global South. Wang Yiwei from Renmin University, the author of arguably the best book on the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), argues that Beijing welcomes a “sense of identity” provided by the fact it represents the Global South and has been obliged to resist Washington’s hegemony and “deglobalisation” rhetoric.

    The New Multi-Nodal Matrix

    Astana once again revealed how the main drivers of the SCO are advancing fast on everything from energy cooperation to cross-border transportation corridors. Putin and Xi discussed progress in the construction of the massive Power of Siberia 2 gas pipeline as well as Central Asia’s need to have China as a provider of funds and technology to develop their economies.

    China is now Kazakhstan’s largest trading partner (two-way trade at $41 billion, and counting). Crucially, when Xi met Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, he backed Astana’s bid to join BRICS+.

    Tokayev was beaming: “Deepening friendly and strategic cooperation with China is an unswerving strategic priority for Kazakhstan.” And that means more projects under BRI.

    Kazakhstan – which shares a border of more than 1,700 km with Xinjiang – is absolutely central on all these fronts: BRI, SCO, EAEU, soon BRICS and last but not least, the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route.

    That’s the famous Middle Corridor linking China to Europe via Kazakhstan, the Caspian Sea, Georgia, Turkiye and the Black Sea.

    Yes, this corridor skips Russia: the key reason is that Chinese and European traders are terrified of American secondary sanctions. Beijing, pragmatically, supports building this corridor as a BRI project since 2022. Xi and Tokayev actually opened what can also be called the China-Europe Trans-Caspian Express via video link; they saw the first Chinese trucks arriving on the road to a Kazakh Caspian Sea port.

    Xi and Putin discussed the corridor, of course. Russia understands the Chinese constraints. And after all Russia-China trade uses its own – sanction-proof – corridors.

    Once again, Divide and Rule hacks – oblivious to the obvious, not to mention finer points of Eurasia integration – resort to their same old dusty narrative: the Global South is fractured, China and Russia don’t see eye to eye on the role of the SCO, BRI and the EAEU. Nonsense, again.

    All fronts are progressing in parallel. The SCO Development Bank was initially proposed by China. The Russian Ministry of Finance – which is a mammoth organization, with 10 vice-Ministers – was not so keen, on the grounds that Chinese capital would flood Central Asia. Now that’s changed, as Iran – which has strategic partnerships with both Russia and China – is quite enthusiastic.

    The strategically important China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway – a BRI project – developed slowly, but now will be on overdrive, by a mutual Putin-Xi decision. Moscow knows that Beijing – fearing the sanctions tsunami – cannot use the Trans-Siberian as the main overland trade route to Europe.

    So the new Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway is the solution, reducing the journey to Europe by 900km. Putin personally told Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov there’s no Russian opposition; on the contrary, Moscow fully supports interconnected projects launched by BRICS and/or financed by the EAEU.

    It’s fascinating to watch the Russia-China dynamic in play at the heart of multilateral organizations such as the SCO. Moscow sees itself as a leader of the coming multipolar order even if it does not consider itself, technically, as a member of the Global South (Lavrov insists on “Global Majority”).

    As for Russia’s “pivot to the East”, it actually started in the 2010s, even before Maidan in Kiev, when Moscow started to seriously consolidate relations with, well, the Global South.

    It’s no wonder that now Moscow clearly sees the new evolving multi-nodal reality – SCO and SCO+, BRICS 10 and BRICS+, EAEU, ASEAN, INSTC, new trade settlement platforms, the new Eurasian security architecture – as the beating heart in the complex, long-term strategy of meticulously shattering the domination of Pax Americana.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 07/08/2024 – 02:00

  • This Is Democracy And This Is What It Looks Like
    This Is Democracy And This Is What It Looks Like

    Authored by Lawrence Kadish via The Gatestone Institute,

    Democracy and American politics are chaotic, unpredictable, and a mystery to our enemies.

    In response to the Biden-Trump presidential faceoff, the Russian media is having a field day, believing that our national conversation over the recent debate reflects democracy’s dry rot. Consider this quote….

    The result “is good for us,” stated Dmitri Novikov, a Russian legislator, when being interviewed on state television.

    “Destabilization inside an adversary is always a good thing.”

    To paraphrase a line from a Warner Brothers character, “He doesn’t know us very well… do he…”

    He certainly doesn’t know his history.

    The Japanese looked at a raucous Congress in 1940 and discerned a democracy in disarray.

    And then the vote to institute the draft was by a razor-thin majority, and the Japanese knew for sure this was a weak, indecisive nation incapable of responding to the might of their fierce Imperial military.

    They would be forced to rethink that position as their delegation made its way to the USS Missouri to sign the instruments of surrender in Tokyo Harbor.

    Hitler also viewed the United States as incapable of excelling at anything other than automobiles.

    In declaring war on America in the wake of the Pearl Harbor attack, he viewed our nation as morally corrupt, riven by racial unrest, and fielding an army smaller than 17 other nations.

    Contempt would be the least of his views about a nation that would ultimately accept the Third Reich’s unconditional surrender.

    So now the Russians – and likely the Chinese – are looking at our chaotic presidential politics and the vociferous remarks made by political partisans on both sides, and making the same historic mistake committed by our earlier enemies.

    They believe we are a nation that is slowly unraveling, making room for their despotic regimes to dominate the globe.

    Not a chance.

    This is democracy and this is what it looks like.

    Raucous, gruff, and even divisive, something unimaginable in countries where freedom is punished with prison.

    Or worse. And then, as we celebrate the Fourth of July, our nation comes together as Americans to celebrate not just our independence, but the role freedom has played in celebrating the spirit of mankind.

    Enjoy the Fourth, my fellow Americans, for it will confound our enemies and give comfort to all those around the world currently enslaved and who cherish our nation as a beacon of hope.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 07/07/2024 – 23:20

  • Ammo Vending Machines Arrive At Grocery Stores In Red States 
    Ammo Vending Machines Arrive At Grocery Stores In Red States 

    Nothing says ‘Merica like supermarkets with automated vending machines stocked with ammunition. A select number of supermarkets across Alabama and Oklahoma have these new machines. This means you can leave the store with milk, eggs, and boxes of 9mm and .223 rounds. 

    American Rounds installed AI-powered ammunition vending machines in several Alabama and Oklahoma supermarket stores. These vending machines are said to feature built-in AI technology, card scanning capability, and facial recognition software to verify that buyers are 21 or older and match the identity on the license. 

    “Our automated ammo dispensers are accessible 24/7, ensuring that you can buy ammunition on your own schedule, free from the constraints of store hours and long lines,” American Rounds notes on its website. 

    American Rounds shows six supermarkets, including two Fresh Value stores in Alabama and four Super C Mart stores in Oklahoma, have these new retail automated ammo dispensers. 

    In an interview with Newsweek, Grants Magers, CEO of American Rounds, said that the company’s AI-powered ammunition vending machines have recently been expanded to eight across four states. 

    “We have over 200 store requests for AARM [Automated Ammo Retail Machine] units covering approximately nine states currently and that number is growing daily,” Magers said. 

    He continued by suggesting these vending machines support “law-abiding, responsible gun ownership, adding, “Currently ammunition is sold off the shelf or online. These environments lead to inadvertent sales to underaged purchasers and or, in the case of retail stores, a high theft rate.” 

    Magers told local media outlet Oklahoma KOCO-TV that machines will have no ammo restrictions and are restocked weekly. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 07/07/2024 – 22:45

  • Nature Sets Barriers To Risky Viruses, While China's Gain-of-Function Study Is Breaking Them
    Nature Sets Barriers To Risky Viruses, While China’s Gain-of-Function Study Is Breaking Them

    Authored by Yuhong Dong M.D., Ph.D. via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    We’re not afraid of the tigers in the zoo because we trust they cannot attack. But what if someone opens the cage?

    Many viruses are highly lethal in nature but cannot infect humans. Fear arises when these viruses break the species barrier.

    This can happen naturally or through risky research practices, particularly gain-of-function (GOF) research.

    What Is GOF?

    Just as all substances have functions, specific genes enable viruses to spread rapidly or cause severe diseases. GOF research involves introducing new functioning genes into a virus, enhancing its ability to infect hosts or increasing its virulence.

    There are at least three main types of new functions a virus can gain:

    Gain-of-function research on viruses often results in the viruses gaining new functions such as the ability to infect humans, enhanced transmissibility, or increased virulence. (Illustration by The Epoch Times, Shutterstock)

    • Expanded Host Range GOF research can enable viruses to infect new species that they previously could not. This includes crossing the species barrier to infect humans, which poses significant risks for zoonotic outbreaks and potential pandemics. A 2015 Nature Medicine article provides a pertinent example. A bat-derived SARS-like coronavirus, initially noninfectious to humans, became capable of human infection after GOF studies at China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV).
    • Enhanced Transmission GOF research can result in viruses gaining the ability to spread more efficiently between hosts. This includes changes that allow a virus to be transmitted through new routes or, more effectively, through existing ones. In 2012, GOF research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison significantly transformed the H5N1 bird flu virus. Initially non-airborne, the virus acquired the ability to transmit through the air, demonstrating the profound impact of GOF studies on viral capabilities.
    • Increased Virulence Viruses can gain mutations that make them more virulent, meaning they can cause more severe diseases in infected hosts. This can involve an enhanced ability to evade the host’s immune system or increased replication rates within the host. A 2022 preprint paper shows researchers at Boston University created a lethal version of the Omicron variant.

    GOF can also be used to generate positive traits in germs. For example, by adding a human insulin gene, a germ gains the new function of producing insulin.

    GOF Research of Concern

    Because viral genes are relatively easy to edit, GOF studies frequently involve viruses. However, some of these studies carry significant risks and can lead to dire consequences.

    The U.S. National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB) defines GOF research of concern as “research that can be reasonably anticipated to generate a pathogen with pandemic potential,” characterized by two attributes:

    1. Highly transmissible, with the potential to spread widely and uncontrollably among human populations
    2. Highly virulent and likely to cause significant morbidity and/or loss of human life

    If accidentally released from a lab into the general population, such pathogens could cause uncontrollable hazards. Additionally, the military application of GOF falls within the scope of bioweapon threats.

    Methods of GOF research generally include genetic editing, which involves directly modifying a virus’ genes, and reassortment, which involves combining genetic material from different viral strains to create new variants.

    In reality, the scope of GOF research can be much broader. Due to viral genes’ highly variable and adaptable nature, even routine culturing of viruses in cells or animals can lead to unexpected genetic alterations.

    Double-Edged Sword

    Scientists often conduct GOF research to understand the viruses and develop drugs or vaccines.

    While these reasons may sound scientifically justified, the main debate centers on the risks versus the assumed benefits. GOF research can theoretically aid in studying viral mechanisms and provide insights for developing drugs or vaccines. However, the associated risks are significant, particularly the potential to generate dangerous pathogens.

    A decade ago, two published studies on bird flu viruses were conducted by a U.S. lab and a Dutch lab, sparking significant discussion.

    Both studies were designed to better understand how the viruses’ genes could be modified to make them more transmissible in mammals. The goal was to help people better prepare for a potential future pandemic.

    Unexpectedly, after both groups of researchers separately edited the genes of a deadly H5N1 bird flu virus, they produced new strains capable of easily spreading via air droplets between mammals.

    The edited virus could spread more easily among mammals and became easier to transmit to humans.

    “Why would scientists deliberately create a form of the H5N1 avian influenza virus that is probably highly transmissible in humans?” This critical question was raised in a 2012 Nature article.

    Subsequently, in October 2014, U.S. authorities announced a “pause” on funding for 18 GOF studies involving influenza, MERS, or SARS viruses.

    The pause was short-lived. In 2018, the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the Dutch Healthcare Authority approved funding for further GOF research, sparking another wave of objections. Harvard University epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch expressed concerns in a Science article, stating that scientists are being asked to “trust a completely opaque process where the outcome is to permit the continuation of dangerous experiments.”

    Finally, after yielding to public pressure, investigators for the two research studies declined to renew the grants originally submitted for their GOF research. Consequently, such bird flu GOF studies were officially halted in the United States in 2020.

    In the United States and most European countries, where scientists can express their opposing opinions, the development of GOF experiments faces multiple regulatory hurdles and ethical reviews.

    However, in countries without these safeguards, the pursuit of GOF research could proceed unchecked, potentially putting the world at significant risk.

    Workers are seen next to a cage with mice inside the BSL-4 laboratory in Wuhan, capital of China’s Hubei province, on Feb. 23, 2017. (Johannes Eisele/AFP via Getty Images)

    China’s Bird Flu GOF Research

    Risky GOF studies on bird flu viruses in China have been underway since the 2010s.

    In a study published in Science in May 2013, a group of scientists at Harbin Veterinary Research Institute in Harbin, China, conducted GOF research by combining the highly lethal but not easily transmissible H5N1 avian influenza virus, with the highly contagious H1N1 swine flu strain, which infected millions of people in 2009.

    The resulting hybrid viruses were then tested for their ability to infect mammals, revealing the potential risks associated with such genetic manipulation of pathogens. This research underscored the dual-use nature of gain-of-function studies, highlighting both their potential to inform pandemic preparedness and the significant biosafety and biosecurity concerns they raise.

    As a result, the researchers created a new, more virulent virus. An H5N1 hybrid strain, which integrated genes responsible for transmissibility from the H1N1 virus, acquired the capability to easily spread among guinea pigs through respiratory droplets.

    In 2021, a collaborative project involving researchers from the United States, the United Kingdom, and China sought to enhance surveillance and vaccine development. While not explicitly labeled as a GOF study, these experiments conducted in a Chinese laboratory involved genetic modifications typical of GOF research.

    The experiments used a routine viral laboratory research approach known as “serial passage,” which involves growing the virus from one cell or animal model to another. Viral mutations with greater transmissibility or pathogenicity can often be selected during this process. The animal models were also carefully chosen to reproduce the virus for specific research purposes. We’ve explained this in detail in a previous article.

    Nonetheless, the most widely known GOF studies conducted in China involve research on coronaviruses.

    Breaking the Barrier

    Bats are known carriers or natural reservoirs of many viruses. Bat-hosting coronaviruses typically only infect bats or wild animals, not humans. However, this situation has changed with the advent of GOF research.

    In 2015, a team of Chinese scientists conducted GOF studies on a bat coronavirus at the WIV, which is affiliated with the Chinese Academy of Sciences and under the administration and control of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

    In this study, the researchers took the gene for spike protein—the spike-shaped structure on the surface of a virus—from a bat SARS-like virus and inserted it into the backbone of a SARS virus, the virus that caused the first pandemic of this century.

    The newly created SARS-like virus, coded as SCH-014-MA15, could infect human airway cells and achieve a transmission similar to the SARS virus. It also gained the ability to infect mammals like mice and successfully cause lung diseases.

    WIV created a chimeric virus that was originally not infectious to humans but has gained a new ability to infect human cells. (Illustrated by The Epoch Times, Shutterstock)

    The WIV has also conducted other GOF research on bat SARS-like viruses with effective results.

    According to a leaked 2014 NIH report, WIV researchers experimented on a natural bat coronavirus capable of binding with human ACE2 receptors, significantly increasing its potency. They used this bat virus to engineer three new chimeric coronaviruses.

    The results showed that in the lungs of mice, these newly created coronaviruses produced far more virus particles—up to 10,000 times higher than the original virus.

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 07/07/2024 – 22:10

  • Mapping Hurricane Risk On America's Eastern Seaboard
    Mapping Hurricane Risk On America’s Eastern Seaboard

    Hurricanes are a fact of life for people living along America’s Atlantic Coast. Of course, the risk of a hurricane making landfall varies depending where people live along that expansive coastline.

    This infographic, via Visual Capitalist’s Nick Routley, uses data from the Tropical Cyclone Impact Probabilities database at Colorado State University to show county-level risk (the red parts) of a hurricane impact, along with population centers along the coast (the spikes).

    Potential Hurricane Hotspots

    While a hurricane can make landfall anywhere along the coast, there are places where the probability of that happening is higher in 2024.

    Below is the full list of counties and states, which includes other countries in North America as well, including Mexico (which, at the time of publishing, is being battered by Hurricane Beryl).

    State County Hurricanes (1880-2020) Avg Probability of Hurricane Impact (2024)
    Alabama   46 43%
    Alabama Baldwin 28 29%
    Alabama Mobile 28 29%
    Connecticut   11 13%
    Connecticut Fairfield 9 10%
    Connecticut Middlesex 10 11%
    Connecticut New Haven 11 13%
    Connecticut New London 10 11%
    Delaware   9 10%
    Delaware Kent 4 5%
    Delaware New Castle 1 1%
    Delaware Sussex 9 10%
    Florida   115 75%
    Florida Bay 26 27%
    Florida Brevard 26 27%
    Florida Broward 36 35%
    Florida Charlotte 26 27%
    Florida Citrus 26 27%
    Florida Collier 34 34%
    Florida Dixie 19 21%
    Florida Duval 22 23%
    Florida Escambia 27 28%
    Florida Flagler 22 23%
    Florida Franklin 21 23%
    Florida Gulf 23 24%
    Florida Hernando 26 27%
    Florida Hillsborough 27 28%
    Florida Indian River 26 27%
    Florida Jefferson 14 16%
    Florida Lee 28 29%
    Florida Levy 22 23%
    Florida Manatee 28 29%
    Florida Martin 27 28%
    Florida Miami-Dade 37 36%
    Florida Monroe 50 46%
    Florida Nassau 20 22%
    Florida Okaloosa 24 25%
    Florida Palm Beach 34 34%
    Florida Pasco 26 27%
    Florida Pinellas 26 27%
    Florida Santa Rosa 25 26%
    Florida Sarasota 26 27%
    Florida St. Johns 23 24%
    Florida St. Lucie 23 24%
    Florida Taylor 16 18%
    Florida Volusia 26 27%
    Florida Wakulla 18 20%
    Florida Walton 26 27%
    Georgia   51 46%
    Georgia Bryan 21 23%
    Georgia Camden 18 20%
    Georgia Chatham 22 23%
    Georgia Glynn 15 17%
    Georgia Liberty 22 23%
    Georgia McIntosh 21 23%
    Louisiana   68 56%
    Louisiana Cameron 23 24%
    Louisiana Iberia 25 26%
    Louisiana Jefferson 30 31%
    Louisiana Lafourche 33 33%
    Louisiana Orleans 23 24%
    Louisiana Plaquemines 35 35%
    Louisiana St. Bernard 33 33%
    Louisiana St. Mary 27 28%
    Louisiana St. Tammany 24 25%
    Louisiana Terrebonne 34 34%
    Louisiana Vermilion 24 25%
    Maine   10 11%
    Maine Cumberland 3 4%
    Maine Hancock 6 7%
    Maine Knox 6 7%
    Maine Lincoln 3 4%
    Maine Sagadahoc 3 4%
    Maine Waldo 3 4%
    Maine Washington 6 7%
    Maine York 5 6%
    Maryland   16 18%
    Maryland Anne Arundel 1 1%
    Maryland Baltimore 1 1%
    Maryland Baltimore City 1 1%
    Maryland Calvert 2 2%
    Maryland Cecil 1 1%
    Maryland Dorchester 5 6%
    Maryland Harford 0 0%
    Maryland Kent 0 0%
    Maryland Queen Anne’s 1 1%
    Maryland Somerset 9 10%
    Maryland St. Mary’s 3 4%
    Maryland Talbot 1 1%
    Maryland Wicomico 6 7%
    Maryland Worcester 13 15%
    Massachusetts   22 23%
    Massachusetts Barnstable 13 15%
    Massachusetts Dukes 11 13%
    Massachusetts Essex 7 8%
    Massachusetts Nantucket 14 16%
    Massachusetts Norfolk 7 8%
    Massachusetts Plymouth 10 11%
    Massachusetts Suffolk 7 8%
    Mississippi   47 43%
    Mississippi Hancock 22 23%
    Mississippi Harrison 26 27%
    Mississippi Jackson 24 25%
    New Hampshire   8 9%
    New Hampshire Rockingham 5 6%
    New Jersey   10 11%
    New Jersey Atlantic 10 11%
    New Jersey Burlington 8 9%
    New Jersey Cape May 10 11%
    New Jersey Essex 4 5%
    New Jersey Hudson 4 5%
    New Jersey Middlesex 5 6%
    New Jersey Monmouth 9 10%
    New Jersey Ocean 10 11%
    New Jersey Salem 2 2%
    New Jersey Union 4 5%
    New York   14 16%
    New York Bronx 7 8%
    New York Kings 6 7%
    New York Nassau 8 9%
    New York New York 9 10%
    New York Queens 8 9%
    New York Richmond 7 8%
    New York Suffolk 12 14%
    New York Westchester 7 8%
    North Carolina   68 56%
    North Carolina Beaufort 22 23%
    North Carolina Bertie 15 17%
    North Carolina Brunswick 32 32%
    North Carolina Camden 20 22%
    North Carolina Carteret 46 43%
    North Carolina Chowan 17 19%
    North Carolina Craven 31 31%
    North Carolina Currituck 22 23%
    North Carolina Dare 45 42%
    North Carolina Gates 12 14%
    North Carolina Hertford 11 13%
    North Carolina Hyde 45 42%
    North Carolina New Hanover 32 32%
    North Carolina Onslow 35 35%
    North Carolina Pamlico 31 31%
    North Carolina Pasquotank 19 21%
    North Carolina Pender 35 35%
    North Carolina Perquimans 18 20%
    North Carolina Tyrrell 26 27%
    North Carolina Washington 19 21%
    Rhode Island   11 13%
    Rhode Island Bristol 8 9%
    Rhode Island Kent 8 9%
    Rhode Island Newport 10 11%
    Rhode Island Providence 9 10%
    Rhode Island Washington/South 9 10%
    South Carolina   48 44%
    South Carolina Beaufort 22 23%
    South Carolina Charleston 33 33%
    South Carolina Colleton 26 27%
    South Carolina Georgetown 27 28%
    South Carolina Horry 32 32%
    South Carolina Jasper 21 23%
    Texas   64 54%
    Texas Aransas 16 18%
    Texas Brazoria 25 26%
    Texas Calhoun 20 22%
    Texas Cameron 20 22%
    Texas Chambers 24 25%
    Texas Galveston 29 30%
    Texas Harris 24 25%
    Texas Jefferson 25 26%
    Texas Kenedy 21 23%
    Texas Kleberg 19 21%
    Texas Matagorda 27 28%
    Texas Nueces 21 23%
    Texas Refugio 14 16%
    Texas San Patricio 17 19%
    Texas Willacy 19 21%
    Virginia   31 31%
    Virginia Accomack 13 15%
    Virginia Gloucester 7 8%
    Virginia Hampton 12 14%
    Virginia Lancaster 5 6%
    Virginia Mathews 7 8%
    Virginia Middlesex 5 6%
    Virginia Newport News 8 9%
    Virginia Norfolk 12 14%
    Virginia Northampton 13 15%
    Virginia Northumberland 5 6%
    Virginia Poquoson 9 10%
    Virginia Portsmouth 10 11%
    Virginia Suffolk 11 13%
    Virginia Virginia Beach 18 20%
    Virginia York 9 10%
    Canada   48 44%
    New Brunswick   11 13%
    Newfoundland and Labrador   24 25%
    Nova Scotia   44 41%
    Prince Edward Island   9 10%
    Mexico   83 64%
    Campeche   33 33%
    Quintana Roo   57 50%
    Tabasco   8 9%
    Tamaulipas   43 41%
    Veracruz   32 32%
    Yucatan   43 41%
    Anguilla   28 29%
    Antigua and Barbuda   23 24%
    Aruba   7 8%
    Bahamas, The   106 72%
    Barbados   9 10%
    Belize   30 31%
    Bermuda   42 40%
    Bonaire   5 6%
    Cabo Verde   4 5%
    Cayman Islands   37 36%
    Costa Rica   3 4%
    Cuba   102 71%
    Curacao   6 7%
    Dominica   21 23%
    Dominican Republic   61 52%
    Grenada   10 11%
    Guadeloupe   28 29%
    Guatemala   23 24%
    Haiti   42 40%
    Honduras   46 43%
    Jamaica   36 35%
    Martinique   17 19%
    Montserrat   22 23%
    Nicaragua   25 26%
    Panama   1 1%
    Puerto Rico   38 37%
    Saba   23 24%
    Saint Kitts and Nevis   32 32%
    Saint Lucia   15 17%
    Saint Martin   23 24%
    Saint Vincent and the Grenadines   13 15%
    Sint Eustatius   23 24%
    Sint Maarten   23 24%
    Trinidad and Tobago   3 4%
    Turks and Caicos   32 32%
    UK Virgin Islands   35 35%
    US Virgin Islands   30 31%

    The counties that make up the southern tip of Florida have the highest risk of a major hurricane impact. Monroe County, which includes Key West, has a 46% chance of a hurricane impact, and a 27% chance of a major hurricane impact.

    Another potential hurricane hotspot is the Outer Banks region of North Carolina. Three counties that include the Outer Banks find themselves in the top five ranking for hurricane impact risk. Unlike Florida though, the risk of a major hurricane impact is much lower.

    The three counties along the coast near Houston, Texas, have between 25–30% risk of a hurricane impact. Galveston is no stranger to hurricane activity. The constant threat of storms making impact was one reason Houston—which is further inland—grew to be the much bigger city.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 07/07/2024 – 21:35

  • Californians Will Decide On Minimum Wage, Rent Control, Slavery, & More In November
    Californians Will Decide On Minimum Wage, Rent Control, Slavery, & More In November

    Authored by Sophie Li via The Epoch Times,

    California voters will decide on 10 ballot measures in November, addressing a wide range of issues including the minimum wage, rent control, public safety, taxes, education, and health care.

    Each of the initiatives – including three state constitutional amendments and two multibillion-dollar bonds – will need approval from at least 50 percent of voters to pass.

    State Constitutional Amendments

    Prop. 3: Marriage Equality (ACA 5)

    The California Constitution currently states that only marriage between a man and a woman is recognized in the state, but federal law prevents the enforcement of this provision.

    A yes vote on this ballot measure means removing this state constitutional rule and establishing marriage as a fundamental right for all individuals.

    Prop. 5: Local Taxes to Fund Housing (ACA 1)

    This state constitutional amendment, if approved, will make it easier for local governments to approve bonds and special taxes for affordable housing and public infrastructure projects.

    A yes vote means the threshold to pass such bonds and taxes would reduce from a two-thirds supermajority to 55 percent.

    Prop. 6: Ban Slavery (ACA 8)

    A yes vote on this state constitutional amendment would ban forced prison labor by abolishing slavery in any form.

    It specifically targets various labor practices involving prison inmates, citing that many are compelled to work in roles such as firefighting and road paving.

    The measure would additionally prevent the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation from punishing inmates who refuse to work. It also clarifies the department can still give credits—which can help advance the release date or parole hearing date, depending on the sentence—to inmates who choose to work voluntarily.

    Bonds

    Prop. 2: Education Bond

    Voters will weigh in on a $10 billion education bond designed to allocate state funds for the renovation of school buildings that are 75 years old or older. Additionally, the bond will finance testing and remediation efforts for lead contamination in school water systems.

    Should this measure be approved, it would be the first voter-sanctioned education construction bond since Proposition 51 in 2016, which authorized $7 billion for the construction and repair of public school facilities in California.

    Prop. 4: Climate Bond

    Voters will decide on a $10 billion bond aimed at prioritizing safe and affordable drinking water, wildfire prevention, extreme heat mitigation, sustainable agriculture, and clean, renewable energy.

    The proposed bond would allocate at least 40 percent of the $10 billion to disadvantaged communities.

    If approved, it will mark the largest climate investment ever made by California and the most substantial climate measure approved by voters in the United States.

    Other Ballot Initiatives

    Prop. 32: Minimum Wage

    Under the Living Wage Act, the state’s minimum wage increased to $16 earlier this year and will rise to $17 in January for businesses with more than 25 employees.

    A yes vote on the proposed ballot measure means the minimum wage will continue increasing to $18 in January 2025. Employers with fewer than 25 workers would increase from $16 to $17 in 2025 and then $18 in 2026.

    If passed, California’s minimum wage will be the highest in the nation, surpassing the $17 minimum wage of the District of Columbia.

    Prop. 33: Rent Control

    The proposed measure, titled Justice for Renters Act, seeks to repeal the nearly three-decades-old Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act, which prevents local governments from setting rent caps on housing built after 1995 and single-family homes.

    A yes vote means the local governments will have more authority to regulate rental rates and to expand rent control to properties that were previously exempt.

    This marks the third attempt to implement rent limits in California since the state’s Rental Housing Act’s passage in 1995. Similar initiatives in 2018 and 2020 both failed to pass.

    Prop. 34: Direct Patient Care

    A yes vote on this initiative means certain healthcare providers must spend 98 percent of revenue from a 2000 federal prescription drug discount program on direct patient care. The law, if passed, will apply to providers that spent over $100 million in any 10-year period on anything other than direct patient care, and operated multifamily housing with more than 500 severe violations, according to the ballot summary.

    It also permanently authorizes the state to negotiate Medi-Cal drug prices for the whole state, the summary says.

    The nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office estimates that enforcing the measure could increase state government costs by millions annually, due to compliance and enforcement.

    Prop. 35: Tax on Medi-Cal Insurance Providers

    A yes vote means a current tax on health care insurance providers, originally set to expire in 2026, will be extended indefinitely to fund health care for those covered by the Medi-Cal program.

    It also mandates that the tax revenues—collected on monthly enrollments—must only be used for specific Medi-Cal services like primary and specialty care, emergency services, family planning, mental health care, and prescription drugs.

    Prop. 36: Reform Prop. 47

    Initially passed by voters in 2014, Proposition 47 aimed to lower prison populations by downgrading some felony theft and drug crimes to misdemeanors. Ten years later, Prop. 47 returns to the ballot for voters to decide whether to reform the law amid heightened concerns about public safety across the state.

    A yes vote on the reform proposal means strengthening penalties for repeat offenders and allowing prosecutors to charge felonies for certain drug and theft crimes.

    The initiative also encourages offenders to join drug rehabilitation programs to avoid prison sentences.

    On July 1, Gov. Gavin Newsom and state lawmakers introduced a competing ballot measure that also aims to reform Prop. 47, more moderately. However, he backed out at the last minute and withdrew the effort.

    Removed From Ballot

    Five initiatives were recently pulled from the ballot due to repetitive bills, moot bills, or compromises in the Legislature, and one because of concern about the costliness of advertising the initiative due to the crowded list of measures now qualified for the ballot.

    The initiatives covered such topics as low-income housing projects, tax increases, personal finance courses for high schoolers, workplace justice, and child health care.

    A voting threshold initiative, ACA 13, was moved to November 2026.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 07/07/2024 – 21:00

  • "Overlapping Emergencies" Pushes Countries To Bolster Food Supply Stocks 
    “Overlapping Emergencies” Pushes Countries To Bolster Food Supply Stocks 

    A new report warns that “the world entered an age of overlapping emergencies” and indicates the need for a new stabilization approach involving a buffer system to mitigate price volatility in essential commodities to promote economic stability and growth. 

    “The neoliberal stabilization paradigm of interest rate hikes and austerity left economies around the world unprepared for the shocks to essentials experienced in the overlapping emergencies of war, conflict, climate change, and pandemic,” the lead author, Isabella Weber, of the University of Massachusetts Amherst, wrote in the report. 

    Weber said, “More regular supply shocks are likely for food. Extreme weather events are predicted to be frequent and have already affected regional agricultural yields.” 

    “We argue that in an age of overlapping emergencies, such a new paradigm requires a refocusing on stabilization policies for essential sectors that have the potential to unleash systemic instabilities when hit by shocks,” she wrote, adding, “We revisit the classic case for public buffer stock systems.”

    She noted, “Price volatility in essential commodities can lead to sellers’ inflation because of the interaction with administered prices in the industrial sector and can hamper growth and development prospects.” 

    Separately, Bloomberg reported that Norway has initiated a plan to increase its domestic grain stockpiles.

    “This is about being prepared for the unthinkable,” Finance Minister Trygve Slagsvold Vedum said last week. 

    Norway plans to shield its citizens from commodity price spikes by storing up to 82,500 tons of state-owned grains at private companies. This buffer system will protect citizens for about three months and will be fully operational in 2029. 

    The latest data from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) shows global food prices increased for the third consecutive month in May.

    The FAO Food Price Index on a year-over-year change shows that price acceleration could resume in the near future. 

    “Countries are getting more and more nervous,” Chris Hegadorn, adjunct professor of global food politics at Sciences Po in Paris, told Bloomberg. 

    Hegadorn said, “Price volatility continues to be a major problem that countries are looking for extra security.”

    It’s not just countries that are nervous about another food price spike…

    Let’s not forget that elevated food inflation crushes the working poor, leaving governments more suitable to food riots.

    Food inflation will by stick this decade. Get use to high supermarket prices. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 07/07/2024 – 20:25

  • Murthy: Gun Owners Are A Disease
    Murthy: Gun Owners Are A Disease

    Authored by Mike McDaniel via American Thinker,

    Until 1996, one of the primary tactics of anti-liberty/gun cracktivists was to treat criminal misuse of guns, as well as accidents and suicides as public health matters. There was, of course, no disease vector, no virus, bacteria or parasite. There could be no vaccine, no medication, no treatment. None of that was the point. If they couldn’t disarm law-abiding Americans any other way, they’d try to do it under the “public health” banner.

    Fortunately for free Americans, in 1996 this language was inserted into a budget bill:

    “None of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may be used to advocate or promote gun control.”

    That simple sentence, that law, drove supposed medical scientists obsessed with gun control underground. They still did anti-gun advocacy and “research” with public funds, they were just quiet about it, funneling money and “research” through NGOs and anti-gun groups.

    Graphic: Vivek Murthy. Wikimedia Commons.Org. Public Domain.

    Take the link to see an NPR article about how, for more than a quarter century, they’ve done all they can to circumvent the law. And now, the Surgeon General, in what may be the dying days of the Mummified Meat Puppet Administration, is saying the quiet part out loud. Dr. Vivek Murthy, on June 25, released a report titled “U.S. Surgeon General Issues Advisory on the Public Health Crisis of Firearm Violence in the United States.”  

    Today, United States Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy released a landmark Surgeon General’s Advisory on Firearm Violence, declaring firearm violence in America a public health crisis. Firearm violence is pervasive, with more than half (54 percent) of U.S. adults or their family members having experienced a firearm-related incident in their lives. Over the last decade, the number of people who have died from firearm-related injuries, including suicides, homicides, and accidental deaths, has been rising, and firearm violence is now the leading cause of death among children and adolescents.  

    That 54% figure was derived from a telephone poll of 1271 English speakers and 73 Spanish speakers. Those doing the polling claim it is a “nationally representative sample,” but they publish nothing on the geographical distribution of the poll. Obviously, any poll that focused on blue state urban areas would produce different results than more broadly based polling. Oddly, the document is labeled “KFF Health Tracking Poll/ KFF Covid-19 Vaccine Monitor.” What that might have to do with gun issues is anyone’s guess.

    The assertion “firearm violence is now the leading cause of death among children and adolescents” is likewise misleading. This is an old trick of anti-liberty/gun cracktivists. That assertion is only potentially accurate if one includes people 18+, suicides, accidents and gangs shooting each other. One would think, considering how the federal public health bureaucracy threw away its credibility over fraudulent Covid huckstering, they’d go overboard to be accurate and truthful, but they’ve obviously learned nothing.

    Murthy’s report notes the “Black community endured the highest firearm homicide rates in every age group,” but doesn’t mention this is because Black criminals commit all manner of violent crimes in numbers far outstripping their numbers in the population. Nor does Murthy mention Democrats have done all they can to help those criminals, releasing them without bail, refusing to prosecute, decriminalizing crime in general, and in the rare cases where violent felons are prosecuted, imposing ridiculously light sentences.

    As one might imagine, Murthy’s recommendations conform exactly to Joe Biden’s handler’s anti-liberty, unconstitutional, demands:

    3. Firearm risk reduction strategies, such as:

    a. Requiring safe and secure firearm storage, including child access prevention laws;

    b. Implementing universal background checks and expanding purchaser licensing laws;

    c. Banning assault weapons and large capacity magazines for civilian use;

    d. Treating firearms like other consumer products, including requiring safety testing or safety features;

    e. Implementing effective firearm removal policies when individuals are a danger to themselves or others; and

    f. Creating safer conditions in public places related to firearm use and carry.

    Every one of these anti-gun wish list fever dreams would violate the Bruen decision.  For example “d” is an attempt to violate The Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act. And “f” is a stealth for establishing “gun free” zones that would encompass entire cities, even entire states. All are an attempt to directly infringe on the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding Americans. Criminals—surprise!—don’t obey  gun laws.

    It should be no surprise the Surgeon General of a lawless administration should himself violate federal law. It reminds us of this quote attributed to Thomas Jefferson: “eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.”

    We thought we had to keep a close eye on the health establishment over Covid and actual diseases. Now we have to keep an eye on them as they try to treat an unalienable, fundament right as a disease, and Americans exercising it, as a disease vector to be eradicated.

    Mike McDaniel is a USAF veteran, classically trained musician, Japanese and European fencer, life-long athlete, firearm instructor, retired police officer and high school and college English teacher. He is a published author and blogger. His home blog is Stately McDaniel Manor. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 07/07/2024 – 19:50

  • These Are The Hottest (And Coldest) Temperatures Ever Recorded In America
    These Are The Hottest (And Coldest) Temperatures Ever Recorded In America

    The United States has experienced severe heat waves this summer, breaking daily temperature records and causing dangerous consequences like wildfires nationwide.

    This graphic, via Visual Capitalist’s Bruno Venditti, shows the hottest and coldest temperatures ever recorded in the United States.

    Data was sourced from the National Centers for Environmental Information.

    California and Alaska Hold Records for Extreme Temperatures

    Extreme heat is a deadly phenomenon, responsible for approximately 1,220 fatalities each year in the United States.

    The hottest temperature ever recorded in the country was an astonishing 134.4°F (56.7°C) in Death Valley, California, on July 10, 1913. This stands as the highest ambient air temperature ever recorded on the surface of the Earth. However, this reading, along with several others from that period, is disputed by some modern experts.

    Death Valley has a subtropical, hot desert climate characterized by long, extremely hot summers, short, warm winters, and minimal rainfall. Its extreme dryness is due to its location in the rain shadow of four major mountain ranges.

    Conversely, the coldest temperature ever recorded was -80°F (-62.2°C) at Prospect Creek Camp, Alaska, on January 23, 1971. Prospect Creek is a very small settlement approximately 180 miles (290 km) north of Fairbanks. In the past, it was home to numerous mining expeditions and served as a camp for the construction of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System.

    Currently, and perhaps understandably, no permanent residents live in this area.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 07/07/2024 – 19:15

  • "Traitors" – Musk Blasts Democrats Voting Against Republicans' Election Integrity Bill
    “Traitors” – Musk Blasts Democrats Voting Against Republicans’ Election Integrity Bill

    Authored by Matt Margolis via PJMedia.com,

    Back in May, House Speaker Mike Johnson unveiled legislation designed to ensure that only American citizens vote.

    The unfortunate reality is that Joe Biden has let in millions of illegal immigrants, and the risk that these immigrants could influence our elections is extremely high. Legislation like this is absolutely necessary.

    Johnson was pushing for the bill before the Independence Day recess with a thread explaining what the legislation does to ensure that only U.S. citizens vote. 

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

    Many on the left oppose this legislation, claiming that it’s unnecessary because it is already illegal to vote if you’re not a U.S. citizen. However, Johnson addressed this when he introduced the bill earlier this year.

    “Some have noted that it’s already a crime for noncitizens to vote in a federal election, and that is true. But here are four things that are also true,” Speaker Johnson said back in May.

    “(1) It is true that there is no mechanism to ensure only those registering or voting are actually citizens…

    (2) It is true that Biden has welcomed millions and millions of illegal aliens, including sophisticated criminal syndicates and agents of adversarial governments, into our borders and even on humanitarian parole…

    (3) It is true that a growing number of localities are blurring the lines for noncitizens by allowing them to vote in municipal elections…

    (4) It is true that Democrats have expressed a desire to turn non-citizens into voters.”

    So, what does the bill do?

    Johnson explained in a thread on X/Twitter that the legislation requires state election officials to verify citizenship before providing voter registration forms, mandates proof of citizenship to register for federal elections, and accepts various documents to ease the registration process for citizens. It also gives states access to federal databases to remove noncitizens from voter rolls and confirms citizenship for those lacking proof.

    Additionally, it directs DHS to consider removal proceedings for noncitizens registered to vote and ensures naturalized citizens are notified of their voting rights.

    Who could oppose such commonsense legislation to protect our elections?

    The Democrats, of course. 

    [ZH: House Democratic leadership is bringing out the big guns against a Republican bill set to be voted on next week that would require proof of U.S. citizenship to vote in federal elections, Axios has learned.

    In a whip question – a roundup of the coming week’s votes with instructions for how leadership wants rank-and-file members to vote – House Minority Whip Katherine Clark’s (D-Mass.) office told House Democrats they are “urged to VOTE NO” on the bill.

    That means that Democratic leadership will send its whip team to cajole colleagues into not supporting the legislation.

    The bill, Clark’s office said, would create an “extreme burden for countless Americans” and “further intimidate election officials and overburden states’ abilities to enroll new voters.”]

    Elon Musk weighed in on the proposed legislation by reposting Johnson’s thread on X.

    He dubbed those who oppose it “TRAITORS,” and then rhetorically asked what the punishment for treason is.

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

    The punishment for treason in the United States, as laid out in 18 U.S. Code § 2381, is the death penalty, or a minimum of five years in prison.

    Also, they are to be fined no less than $10,000 and rendered constitutionally ineligible to hold office in the United States.

    I’m perfectly okay with Democrats who oppose election integrity being barred from holding office. How about you?

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 07/07/2024 – 18:40

  • Western Elites Have A Reality Problem
    Western Elites Have A Reality Problem

    Authored by Richard Porter via RealClearPolitics,

    Joe Biden’s debate performance is not, and should not be seen as, a personal failure, but as another example of the systemic institutional breakdown that drives the populist revolt across the globe.  

    By vigorously denying the president’s obvious decline, liberals in the legacy media tried to make us believe something that obviously was untrue. The people who claim to want to protect Americans from disinformation and American institutions from being destroyed actively worked in direct opposition to the truth and, in doing so, undermined faith in one of the nation’s most iconic institutions — the office of the president of the United States. 

    Most people engage with reality pragmatically, not politically. We focus on solving the challenges of day-to-day life functionally, not as an ideological construct. We don’t make believe, we make do. We exist in a real world filled with actual challenges to be overcome, and we use our talents and willpower to make our lives better and achieve our personal dreams. 

    Sometimes, we need experts to study, media to report, and government to address systemic problems we encounter. Increasingly, however, Western intellectuals, senior business executives, government officials, and media thought leaders are divorced from the pragmatic reality in which “make-do” people live. 

    Elites are increasingly ideological and inventive. They seem to believe that their role is to make us believe what they imagine about us and the world around us instead of helping us deal with the actual reality in which we live. 

    Rather than making our lives better, elites are absorbed with making us better instead.

    Consider what elites want to make us believe:

    Unregulated immigration and open borders are not a problem. If you disagree, you’re  jingoistic or nativist or “Christian nationalist” or some other pejorative term.

    Police are bad and arresting criminals is white supremacy because criminals are disproportionately black – so “defund the police.” If you point out that fewer criminals in jail mean more crime in our neighborhood – racist!

    Climate change threatens the very existence of human life on earth and is the number one issue facing humanity – more important than crime, drugs, hunger, housing, China, immigration, or anything else in your silly, miserable little mind.  Anyone pointing out that it was warmer in the United States 90 years ago, or that in the 35 years during which this idea has captured elite imagination none of the apocalyptic forecasts has proven to be true, is a “denier” – as if disputing a flawed computer model’s projections for 90 years in the future is somehow akin to denying the appalling reality of the Holocaust 90 years in the past. 

    Sexual identity is a “cultural construct,” but gender is indelible – so a man can be a woman, and vice versa. Anyone who doesn’t accept this at face value is a hateful “transphobe” – or something.

    Western culture is institutionally racist. If you dare ask – which institution is racist? – you’ve merely confirmed your own bias. Everyone must be trained in the new racism – and so every institution of any size must train employees in DEI ideology to learn that getting ahead on merit is a myth and they are inherently “privileged” and therefore undeserving of the fruits of their labor.

    Hamas terrorists and their supporters in Gaza are the real victims, while the Israeli civilians they attacked, raped, and mutilated are inhumane.

    The litany goes on, seemingly forever, but COVID and the elites’ authoritarian response laid bare for many the extent to which institutions fail to serve but instead seek to make us believe things that are often observably untrue. Consider all the make-believe aspects of the pandemic: The new virus came from a market, not the laboratory in the same city where the U.S. funded Chinese research into enhancing similar viruses. It was a pandemic “of the unvaccinated.” If everyone wears a cloth or paper mask, it will stop the spread; standing six feet apart will also stop the spread; cannabis dispensaries are essential, but attending church is not; and Anthony Fauci is science.

    The divide between make-do and make-believe leadership does not correspond exactly to the partisan split between right and left. Across the ocean, Tories were crushed and Labour romped precisely because Tory leadership has been of the elite, make-believe variety – on immigration and COVID.  

    Ironically, Britain will veer deeper into make-believe with Labour, as the rest of the West experiences a course correction, thanks to the political engagement and revolt of those making do. A single election is not enough for Western institutions to return to reality, but it reflects at least a partial awakening.

    Events such as the conceptually absurd pro-Hamas protests in Western capitals and at leading Western educational institutions have had the effect of shocking go-along-to-get-along pragmatists within our elites into observing that Western culture has developed a reality problem.

    Ultimately, our culture needs courageous pragmatists among the elites to push back against their imaginative and ideological make-believe colleagues with resolution, reasoning, and ridicule.

    Here’s a way to start: Be gentle to those who imagine things that are not true, but don’t play along just to get along or to avoid being called names; question narratives, don’t parrot them; and only vote for those focused on making it easier for you to make do and achieve your own goals.

    Richard Porter is a lawyer in Chicago and National Committeeman to the RNC from Illinois.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 07/07/2024 – 17:30

  • How Do Americans Prepare For Retirement?
    How Do Americans Prepare For Retirement?

    While the U.S. has no mandatory retirement age and forcing older workers to retire is, in fact, illegal according to the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, the OECD’s Pensions at a Glance report suggests an effective labor market exit age of 65.2 for men and 65.3 for women in the United States in 2022.

    One possible reason for the U.S. ranking 13th out of 39 OECD countries regarding the highest retirement age is pensions without additional private savings not being sufficient to sustain an adequate standard of living.

    When choosing how to best save up for old age, there is a clear generational divide in the country.

    Statista’s Florian Zandt highlights a Consumer Insight survey from 2022 which shows that, on average, a savings book or deposit is still the most suitable method for many respondents, ranking particularly high among Baby Boomers (28 percent) and Gen Z (22 percent).

    The former group also heavily relies on overnight deposits, with 29 percent of survey participants investing in these specific types of deposits lasting from one day to the next.

    Infographic: How Do Americans Prepare for Retirement? | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    Interestingly, real estate ranks highest in the age cluster of survey respondents aged 18 to 29. 24 percent of said respondents see it as best suited for retirement savings, even though median house sale prices increased by almost 30 percent between the first quarters of 2020 and 2024.

    Another popular retirement scheme in this group is company pension plans. The only cluster of respondents with a popularity share below 20 percent consisted of those born between 1965 and 1979.

    Trust in government pensions is low across the board, trailed only by investing in commodities like precious metals. As with savings books and company pensions, the former is seen as especially suitable by both the youngest and the oldest participants in the survey.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 07/07/2024 – 16:55

  • The Grim Reaper: Biden Declares Two Justices Will Be Gone In Four Years
    The Grim Reaper: Biden Declares Two Justices Will Be Gone In Four Years

    Authored by Jonathan Turley,

    One of the least discussed aspects of the interview with President Joe Biden last night was his declaration that two of the nine justices are not long for the Court. The question is which two are facing retirement or the reaper.

    In arguing for his remaining as the nominee despite record low polling, the President told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos with certainty that the next president “in going to appoint at least two new appointees.”

    That must be uneasy news for the relatively small court that almost of a third will soon pass . . . one way or another.

    Liberals have been pushing Sonia Sotomayor to retire, but she has clearly rejected those calls.

    On CNN, journalist Josh Barro bluntly wondered why Sotomayor remains on the bench when younger jurists could be brought on to guarantee a liberal vote for years to come. He indicated that many liberals are frustrated with her for not stepping down: “I find it a little bit surprising, given what Justice Sotomayor describes there about the stakes of what is happening before the Supreme Court, that she’s not retired. She’s 69 years old, she’s been on the court for 15 years.”

    At 70, Sotomayor shows no signs of mental decline. She has been a highly effective justice, stepping into the vacuum created by the death in 2020 of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Of course, few ever questioned the “Notorious RBG” in her decision to stay on the Court, despite her much older age and longer tenure. While some of us noted that Ginsburg was taking a huge risk in not allowing then-President Barack Obama to pick a successor, she remained on the Court in spite of medical problems and ultimately was replaced by Justice Amy Coney Barrett.

    Ginsburg, however, was almost 20 years older than Sotomayor.

    There is no concern for deterioration or death on the bench in Sotomayor’s case. It is simply a matter of swapping out justices like light bulbs before they burn out.

    All of the justices are younger than Ginsburg when she passed (and considerably younger than President Biden who is running for a second four-year term).

    • Justice Thomas, 76.

    • Justice Alito, 74.

    • Justice Sotomayor, 70.

    • Chief Justice Roberts, 69.

    • Justice Kagan, 64.

    • Justice Kavanaugh, 59.

    • Justice Gorsuch, 56.

    • Justice Jackson, 53.

    • Justice Barrett, 52.

    Justice Clarence Thomas is the oldest, but has not indicated that he is ready to retire. He would likely want to wait for a Republican president.

    If history is a measure, he has time. Oliver Wendell Holmes retired at 90.

    A recent analysis of the court’s projected composition suggested the next time the majority of justices will be appointed by a Democrat is likely to be around 2065.

    I did not find that analysis particularly compelling.

    However, I also fail to see how Biden can be certain that 2 of the 9 justices will die or retire. After all, even Thomas is six years younger than Biden.

    If he is predicting the death or retirement of Thomas within four years, he would presumably predict his own passing or retirement years ago.

    Running on the pledge to replace two departing justices could prove awkward if the justices are reluctant to be replaced or dispatched.

    This is not the first time that such premature claims led to the inconvenient lingering of the subjects:

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 07/07/2024 – 16:20

  • Comer Seeks Docs, Interview With White House Physician Who Obviously Lied
    Comer Seeks Docs, Interview With White House Physician Who Obviously Lied

    White House physician Dr. Kevin O’Connor – who for years has been giving President Biden a clean bill of health despite obvious signs of cognitive and physical decline – has some ‘splainin’ to do.

    On Sunday, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer demanded to interview O’Connor, and has suggested that the doctor’s involvement in a Biden family business dealing “may have” influenced his medical assessments of the president – who was found to be too cognitively impaired to prosecute for mishandling classified documents. 

    Specifically, O’Connor counseled James Biden in connection with alleged work he was performing for Americore Health, LLC – which paid James Biden $200,000 the same day James turned around and wrote Joe a check for $200,000 for an undocumented “loan repayment.”

    “Recently, it was reported that you have ‘never recommended that [President] Biden take a cognitive test,” Comer wrote O’Connor. “In February of this year, the Committee conducted a transcribed interview with James Biden. During the interview, James Biden confirmed that you provided him counsel in connection with the alleged work he was performing for Americore.“

    Comer has requested all documents and communications related to Americore, and wants him to sit for a transcribed interview.

    “To understand the extent of your involvement in the Biden family’s financial activity, we request that you produce all documents and communications in your possession regarding Americore and James Biden. Additionally, the Committee requests you make yourself available for a transcribed interview with Committee counsel. Please contact staff by July 14, 2024, to schedule the interview,” reads the letter reported by Just the News.

    Perhaps Comer will ask him about that Parkinson’s specialist who visited the White House at least 9 times in the past year.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 07/07/2024 – 15:45

  • "The Sh*t Is Going To Hit The Fan On Monday": DC In Turmoil As Biden Says Only 'Act Of God' Will Dislodge Him
    “The Sh*t Is Going To Hit The Fan On Monday”: DC In Turmoil As Biden Says Only ‘Act Of God’ Will Dislodge Him

    After years of feigned outrage every time conservative media mentioned Biden’s obvious mental decline, the Democratic party is in complete disarray just four months before the election following last month’s disastrous debate against an uncharacteristically quiet Donald Trump.

    On one hand, the Bidens now say it will take an ‘act of God‘ (so, the CIA) to remove him from the race.

    On the other hand, seven major news organizations have staged a mockingbirdian PR coup against the man for whom they’ve spent five years running cover.

    The list, per Just the News, includes:

    Of course, if they really want to twist the knife…

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    According to Axios, “outside Biden’s protective bubble, a fast-growing number of Democrats are praying for —and plotting — a more earthly intervention. They want everyone from the Obamas to congressional leaders to beg Biden to drop out by this Friday.“

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    As Just the News further notes, five Democratic Reps. have publicly called for Biden to step aside.

    • Minnesota Rep. Angie Craig: “This is not a decision I’ve come to lightly, but there is simply too much at stake to risk a second Donald Trump presidency. That’s why I respectfully call on President Biden to step aside as the Democratic nominee for a second term as President and allow for a new generation of leaders to step forward.” 
    • Texas Rep. Lloyd Doggett: “I am hopeful that he will make the painful and difficult decision to withdraw. I respectfully call on him to do so.” 
    • Arizona Rep. Raúl Grijalva: “What he needs to do is shoulder the responsibility for keeping that seat — and part of that responsibility is to get out of this race.” Per an aide in the congressman’s office who spoke on the condition of anonymity who wasn’t authorized to speak publicly. 
    • Massachusetts Rep. Seth Moulton: “President Biden has done enormous service to our country, but now is the time for him to follow in one of our founding father, George Washington’s footsteps and step aside to let new leaders rise up and run against Donald Trump.” 
    • Illinois Rep. Mike Quigley: “Mr. President, your legacy is set. We owe you the greatest debt of gratitude. The only thing that you can do now to cement that for all time and prevent utter catastrophe is to step down and let someone else do this.” 

    “The sh*t is going to hit the fan on Monday, when Congress returns,” one House Democrat told Axios. “People are scared about their own races. But they’re also worried about the country, and about democracy.”

    That said, Biden still has strong support from several prominent Democrats, including:

    • Vice President Kamala Harris
    • Gov. Gavin Newsom
    • Gov. Kathy Hochul
    • Gov. Gretchen Whitmer
    • Gov. Tim Walz
    • Gov. Wes Moore
    • Sen. John Fetterman
    • Sen. Chris Coons
    • Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi
    • Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee
    • Rep. Haley Stevens
    • Rep. Jasmine Crockett
    • Rep. John Garamendi

    Meanwhile…

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 07/07/2024 – 15:44

  • Building The Case For Rate Cuts
    Building The Case For Rate Cuts

    By Peter Tchir of Academy Securities

    A month ago we published our Updated Rate Outlook. As we start turning our attention to the Fed announcement on July 31st, we wanted to reiterate our view (I still think that there will be 2 to 3 cuts this year, for a total of 75 bps), and update some other thoughts given recent events. 2s and 10s are more in our year-end range than our end of summer range, and other yields are a touch lower than expected (but given recent volatility, that could change in a day).

    Using the Bloomberg WIRP (World Interest Rate Probability) function, we see the market has moved a touch in our direction on Fed probabilities.

    Basically, 75 bps by the end of January 2025, which I expect to be pulled forward.

    No Cut in July?

    We have argued, quite aggressively, that the Fed should make their first cut in July. Partly, because the economic data supports it (more on that in a minute), but it also takes the spotlight off of the Fed in the heat of the election.

    Regardless of whatever else we have learned about this election in the past few weeks, it has confirmed our view that much of it will be fought on social media. We’ve also learned or confirmed (depending on your starting point) that there are very few topics that are “off-limits” in our current election cycle.

    I physically wince at the thought of the first cut in September, stocks soaring 5%, and literally all hell breaking loose on social media as it is portrayed as helping the incumbents. It does not matter if that is true or not, social media is far more about “creating a good narrative and running with it” than with the truth. While I cannot confirm that there are more senior politicians discussing the Fed and talking about their mandate, or it is just a function of today’s media, but it seems like it.

    The data could easily justify a July cut, and from a political standpoint, it makes sense, but there does seem to be a risk that after getting “transitory” quite wrong, they are going to be overly cautious on cutting.

    The Data and the Trend in Data

    On a standalone basis, the jobs report would not signal the need for a rate cut. Academy’s NFP Instant Reaction – Goldilocks or Not? highlighted many of the reasons why this report was even better for bonds than the headline suggested.

    From a jobs standpoint, there is clear evidence that:

    • The job market, particularly the private sector, is hiring.
    • Increasingly, there is a belief that much of the “good” data has been overstated and will be revised down going forward.
    • Finally, it seems like this time last year, we were getting headline after headline of union negotiations resulting in record-breaking deals. That does not seem to be the case anymore. It is now possible to enter local establishments and not see “Help Wanted” signs plastered over the doors and walls.

    Since we are trying to develop better, faster, more reliable sources of data, we had to spend a few minutes looking at the online data. We are in the process of building a framework to track this more closely, but here are a few “interesting” anecdotes:

    • The Conference Board published their June HWOL Report (Help Wanted Online) and concluded that as of the end of May, there had been a 10% decline in job postings.
    • From May, the BBC’s Job Boards are still Rife with ‘Ghost Jobs’ is an interesting read and certainly fits my confirmation bias that many jobs listings are just fishing expeditions for good candidates (you never know who might apply), or are just easier to keep posted.
    • I was somewhat surprised when ChatGPT returned with:
      • “There are indeed more job postings on Indeed.com now compared to last year. The hiring market has shown significant growth, with companies adapting to new hiring practices post-pandemic, such as remote work, flexible schedules, and virtual interviews. This shift has allowed businesses to attract a more diverse talent pool and meet the increased demand for new employees. Employers have added hundreds of thousands of jobs early in the year, reflecting a positive trend in job availability and market growth (Indeed).”
    • I was surprised enough by that answer, that of course I clicked the link, only to find ChatGPT referenced a report from October 2021 (probably user error on my part).

    We are also starting to hear more about the Sahm Rule Recession Indicator. For long time T-Report readers, you know that I hate the use of “rules” around things that are conjectures, interesting theories, etc., but this “rule” will garner some discussion. The “rule” is that when the 3-month moving average for unemployment rises 0.5% above the minimum 3-month average in the past year, we are about to enter a recession.

    One year ago, the 3-month moving average was 3.6% and today it is 4% (this month was 4.1%). The good news is that the moving average from a year ago continues to rise, giving some buffer, but clearly, we are in the “zone” for people to notice this risk. Since the chart above is from the St. Louis Fed it seems reasonable to believe that it comes up as a discussion topic. While a year ago, when inflation seemed rampant and there was a lot of confusion about the effectiveness of Fed policy (supply chain issues, etc.), it may have made sense to force the country into a recession to fight inflation. That would seem very much like “cutting off the nose to spite the face” at this point in time.

    Speaking of Rules…

    Ok, I’ve already admitted that I don’t like the term “rules” as they are applied in economics, but the devil can quote scripture for his own purpose, so let’s look at the Taylor Rule.

    The Atlanta Fed Taylor Rule Calculator lets you estimate the Taylor “Rule” rate. Using three pre-filled scenarios, the calculation came up with estimates of 4.61%, 3.91%, and 3.79%. All of which are below today’s rate of 5.375%.

    Again, definitely not a “rule” (and looking at some historic charts, I’m not sure why it maintains that label as the deviations between the so-called “rule” and actual policy are often quite large), but it likely comes up in the conversation about appropriate monetary policy.

    Using ChatGPT I got the answer to the question of “using only the Taylor Rule, what should the fed funds rate be?”

    “According to the Taylor Rule, the federal funds rate should be approximately -1.165%. This negative rate indicates that the current economic conditions might call for an expansionary monetary policy, but in practice, rates are usually adjusted to be positive.”

    I can only assume that it meant to say it is 1.165% lower than the current fed funds rate, but who knows.

    Inflation – Saving the Best for Last

    Before diving into inflation, which warrants being the final section, at least in terms of how we are framing the argument, we want to touch on a few more “fringe” views

    Financial conditions. The Chicago Fed’s National Financial Conditions Index continues to show “easy” financial conditions (I am not sure why negative numbers are easy financial conditions and vice versa, but that is how this index is calculated). The “easy” financial conditions could give the Fed the excuse to keep their current rate policy.

    The arguments for lowering rates despite easy financial conditions would include:

    • We live in a world where we have forward guidance, dot plots, etc. Back in the Greenspan era, market participants literally watched to see which hand he was using to carry his briefcase for signals. We have come a long way and maybe so much more is priced into markets ahead of time that the financial conditions’ indices need to be updated (or ignored). Credit is a key reason why financial conditions are so good. That is a good thing as banks (and private credit) are competing to lend. It is a good thing because so many companies (and individuals) used the era of ZIRP to lock in low yields, so they are better creditors. All that is somewhat inflationary, but I cannot help but wonder if lower rates might discourage lenders? Banks, in particular, are able to access cheap funds from their deposit base, so they benefit from higher fed funds when they lend. The potential that lower yields could be disinflationary is a subject we will revisit in a moment.
    • To the extent that stock markets are impacting financial conditions, it seems like a good time to mention that the equal weighted indices, such as value and small caps (the Russell 2000 is down year-to-date), have not kept pace. While we can all question breadth or lack of breadth, the companies driving the growth are more about being at the cutting edge of a revolutionary new technology, than merely sopping up excess liquidity.

    Over time inflation gravitates towards the fed fund rate. This is a little “out there” and a decade or so ago it would have been anathema just to mention. But more and more people seem to be willing to at least discuss this possibility.

    The theory is that changes to fed funds, at least initially, act as expected on inflation. When you cut rates, you get growth and inflation, and vice versa. But, as rates stabilize for extended periods, they can become a “magnet” for inflation. During the years of ZIRP following the financial crisis, rates were low, but inflation also remained stubbornly low. Some (including me) argued that if you make the hurdle rate equal to 0%, then people and companies will produce if they can earn just above 0%. Businesses that might otherwise not be viable will be able to survive. That keeps supply high and prices lower. It seemed to create a lot of “zombie” companies. From a “behavioral” standpoint, it makes a lot of sense. Once 0% is established as the cost of doing business, it doesn’t take much to stay in business. Conversely (and even less well tested) is that if you keep rates at 5%, you set a hurdle rate of 5%, forcing inflation. People and companies only stay in business if they can beat 5%. It is not uncommon in other fields to have initial reactions change over time. Basically almost any drug fits this analogy, so why should it not be plausible in economics?

    There have been some good reports about how Net Interest Expense for Corporate America is actually Net Interest Income right now. Yes, there are a few companies with massive amounts of cash relative to their debt, but this is the first extended period (in at least 25 years) where the average coupon in the corporate bond index is significantly lower than fed funds. If the Fed was to cut a few times, the income generated on cash would drop immediately, but the average coupon wouldn’t budge. Is it not possible that a rate cut would slow spending and be deflationary?

    According to the SEC, money market funds had $6.4 trillion in AUM at the end of March. If you are not aware, Academy Securities offers several Academy Share Classes in the money market space – please contact your coverage officer about accessing these funds which are available on many large platforms. Using 5% and $6 trillion (to keep the math simple) that is $25 billion being pumped into the economy each and every month by money market funds alone. Maybe cutting that back would slow spending?

    I am doubtful that the Fed will consider either of these arguments, but I suspect that if they get the inflation story wrong, and inflation reignites, it will have more to do with pumping too much money into the system via high yields, and forcing businesses to raise prices to maintain profits in an overly high interest rate environment, than for any other reason (except for Geopolitical Inflation, which is a persistent threat).

    Inflation

    We get CPI on Tuesday morning, where Academy will get to perform its recurring role of doing a live breakdown on Yahoo Finance as the numbers hit the tape.

    Yes, inflation remains too high, but it has been coming down. It is 100% clear to anyone that housing inflation, which has been propping up overall inflation, merely reflects stale data. That is one reason why the Fed looks to PCE more than to CPI.

    In any given month, CPI might be doing anything, but generally, I’ve been very comfortable with the direction, and barring a commodity spike linked to some geopolitical action (that risk has been increasing), that trend should continue.

    While simplistic (and the chart is admittedly elementary) the Covid “Bump” theory seems to be a great way to think about inflation and has been playing out in real-time.

    Goods had a much larger jump in inflation, and it started sooner as Americans were flush with cash and had immense built-up demand for goods, especially for those who were experiencing lifestyle changes enabled by work from home. The Manheim Used Vehicle index is a good one to watch on this.

    Services took longer to start and were slower to ramp up. Not only were there rules, which varied by state, but individuals also differed on when they were comfortable doing things post-COVID. So, the services bump took longer to generate, and we continue to view Summer 2023 as the Summer of Vacations, representing peak services demand (relative to availability). As that normalizes, we should see less and less inflation pressure on the services side (as mentioned Friday, the ISM services employment index has been below 50 (and shrinking) for the last 5 months in a row).

    Maybe this chart is far too simple? Possibly, but I think that it has captured the gist of inflation and is the basis for me remaining comfortable that the worst is behind us.

    Bottom Line

    We didn’t even touch on lag effects (even Powell seemed to admit that because of this they should start sooner rather than later).

    Continue to look for 75 bps of cuts this year (with 2 or 3 cuts). I don’t see July as likely, though I think it would be prudent to start then.

    Less inverted curves.

    -50 seems to be a level of support. 0 would be the next target, which would be 33 bps from here. “Less inversion” is why we think the 10s are still generally rangebound between 4.3% and 4.5% (with occasional breaks above and below).

    Credit. All good. We should see new multi-year tights on spreads by the end of the summer.

    Equities. Momentum and AI are ruling the day, and it is unclear what stops them. At least the CNN Fear & Greed Index climbed to Neutral. I’m really not sure that we’ve seen a situation where major indices are hitting new highs, and this index is mired in “Fear” territory.

    Hope you have had a great 4th of July extra-long weekend (and enjoyed what seemed like 2 Fridays in one week), but now back to the grind!

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 07/07/2024 – 15:10

  • Leftist Coalition Set For Shock Victory In French Election; Le Pen Limps To 3rd Behind Macron!
    Leftist Coalition Set For Shock Victory In French Election; Le Pen Limps To 3rd Behind Macron!

    Well, no one saw that coming…

    The last-minute-arranged broad left-wing coalition known as The New Popular Front (NFP), was leading a tight French legislative election Sunday, ahead of both President Emmanuel Macron’s centrists and Le Pen’s rightists, projections showed.

    Provisional estimates from four pollsters suggest the following seat projections:

    • Left Alliance Set for 170-215 Seats

    • Macron’s Group Set for 150-182 Seats

    • Le Pen’s Group Set for 110-158 Seats

    It looks like the anti-National Rally front worked better than anyone expected, catching the polling companies by surprise.

    The projected results suggest that the co-ordinated anti-RN strategy, under which the left and center tactically withdrew their candidates from run-offs, had paid off.

    If confirmed in final voting tallies, the projections suggest that none of the three main blocs will be able easily to command a governing majority, potentially leaving France in a period of political gridlock.

    There are some big barriers to that given that Macron himself has called France Unbowed – a big part of the left’s New Popular Front – an extremist party and some of his supports have called against voting for its candidates.

    AP reports that the French leftist leader,Jean-Luc Melenchon says elections are an “immense relief for a majority of people,” demands prime minister resign.

    Melenchon says the New Popular Front government would apply its program and nothing but the program as he refuses any negotiation with Macron’s party or any combination. As Bloomberg reports, that theoretically would mean some disruptive changes of economic policy, and by decree according to Melenchon:

    • Undoing the pension reform;

    • raising the minimum wage;

    • a 90% top marginal tax rate;

    • and freezing prices of some consumer staples.

    Not a pretty picture for French bonds either way.

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    Andrea Tueni, head of sales trading at Saxo Banque France:

    “This is a big surprise, it’s a real blow for the RN. That being said, it’s not necessarily good for markets: The Nouveau Front Populaire taking the lead could generate concerns due to their program which was the most poorly perceived by the markets.”

    French National Rally Leader Jordan Bardella warns this vote “has thrown France into the arms of the far-Left.”

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    As @RUNews posted on X:

    “Macron now faces a total mess. He aimed to stop ‘Hitler’ party and mobilized Lenin (Mélenchon), but now he has both Lenin and Hitler, leaving him stuck in the middle.”

    Presumably all the globalist fear mongering over the so-called ‘Hitler-ite’ Le Pen pushed the French people back into the immigrant-loving arms of the Left? Or something else went down?

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 07/07/2024 – 14:18

  • Federal Court Blocks Title IX Expansion to Include Gender Identity In Texas And Montana
    Federal Court Blocks Title IX Expansion to Include Gender Identity In Texas And Montana

    Authored by Matt McGregor via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    A district judge has granted Texas and Montana’s request for a preliminary injunction against the federal government’s attempt “to impose a sweeping new social policy” that allows for Title IX coverage for gender identity.

    Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra gives remarks on reproductive care at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services building in Washington on June 18, 2024. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

    The ruling follows others in which federal judges have brought Title IX revisions to a halt.

    In this most recent decision, Texas District Judge Jeremy Kernodle ruled that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) can’t force state health care providers to fund gender-affirming care by threatening them with the loss of federal funding.

    In May 2024, HHS issued a press release on its Final Rule, which expanded the definition of Title IX protections in 2016 to include “discrimination based on the basis of gender identity” to fit in with Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Title IX was initially established in 1972 to protect women from discrimination in public education.

    “When Congress enacted the ACA in 2010, no agency—or court—had ever interpreted ‘on the basis of sex’ to mean ‘on the basis of gender identity,’” Judge Kernodle wrote. “But in 2016, HHS began to do so, issuing a rule purporting to implement Section 1557 and prohibiting discrimination on the basis of ‘gender identity.’”

    Texas and Montana, two states that exclude gender-affirming care procedures from their Medicaid programs and prohibit doctors from performing them on minors, sued HHS, arguing that the federal health department has no authority to mandate that the states adhere to these revisions.

    HHS said in its press release that the regulations were updated to prevent “dehumanizing beliefs” surrounding medical treatments and conditions such as gender dysphoria.

    “The Department will approach gender dysphoria as it would any other disorder or condition,” HHS said in its Final Rule. “If a disorder or condition affects one or more body systems, it may be considered a physical or mental impairment.”

    HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra said the Final Rule’s intent is to “strengthen protections” and ensure “equal access to this nation’s health care system and its social service programs for people with disabilities and their families.”

    “It is comprehensive in scope, advancing justice for people with disabilities and helping to ensure they are not discriminated against under any program or activity receiving funding from HHS just because they have a disability,” Mr. Becerra said.

    Judge Kernodle wrote in his order that the Final Rule proposes an “absurd” policy in that health care entities are prohibited from limiting services exclusive to one sex, such as providing a prostate exam.

    The Final Rule would also allow men who identify as females to be allowed in “female-exclusive facilities, including shared hospital rooms.”

    The Final Rule also affects health insurance coverage like Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, Judge Kernodle wrote.

    “As applied to state-sponsored insurance plans like Medicaid and CHIP [Children’s Health Insurance Program], the Final Rule has the effect of requiring states to pay for ‘transition’ and other ‘gender-affirming’ procedures,” he said.

    As in other rulings on this issue, the primary reason for Judge Kernodle’s decision was that the states demonstrated that they would face irreparable financial harm by failing to comply with HHS’s rule.

    Both states receive billions in federal funding, he wrote, which would “likely be withheld for violating the Final Rule,” he wrote.

    “The loss of such funding for Medicaid and CHIP would devastate these programs and their beneficiaries,” he said.

    Other Rulings

    On July 3, Mississippi District Judge Louis Guirola also ruled that HHS couldn’t enforce its reinterpretation of Title IX protections to include gender identity.

    Plaintiffs in up to 15 states, including Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, Louisiana, and Mississippi, filed the complaint in the U.S. District Court in the Southern District of Mississippi.

    Judge Gurioloa said the plaintiffs have proven that they would “incur substantial costs” if they didn’t comply with the Final Rule by losing federal funding, which was the deciding factor in his order.

    “As a result, the Court finds that Plaintiffs have established all four elements for imposing a preliminary injunction and stay,” he wrote.

    Other rulings include Kansas v. U.S. Department of Education, in which a federal judge ruled the Department of Education couldn’t impose its redefinition of sex to include gender identity and sexual orientation.

    The Human Rights Campaign (HRC)—an LGBT advocacy organization—issued a press release criticizing the ruling.

    “This ruling is not only morally wrong, it’s also bad policy,“ HRC Director Kelly Robinson said.

    “Everyone deserves access to the medical care they need to be healthy and thrive.”

    “This isn’t over,” she added. “All LGBTQ+ people should receive the health care they deserve and be able to make informed decisions about our own bodies.”

    The Epoch Times contacted the HRC and HHS for comment on this new ruling.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 07/07/2024 – 14:00

  • "Getting Fully Valued": Nvidia Receives Rare Downgrade 
    “Getting Fully Valued”: Nvidia Receives Rare Downgrade 

    Nvidia’s price surge over the past 18 months mirrors the exuberance of the ‘Roaring Twenties,’ particularly the bull market of the late 1920s, and is reminiscent of Radio Corporation of America’s meteoric rise following the emergence of the radio industry. 

    According to a recent note from Bryan Taylor, the chief economist at Global Financial Data, RCA shares soared 200-fold in the 1920s. By the late 1929s, RCA shares peaked then crashed 98% through early 1932.

    These days, the resilient economy (however, the labor market is slowing) and the AI-fueled bubble (it only took 23 days for Nvidia to add a trillion dollars in market cap) have Goldman’s chief equity strategist David Kostin telling clients that quarter two earnings season will be a massively high bar to beat—and this could be a day of reckoning for investors. 

    New Street Research analyst Pierre Ferragu apparently has gotten the memo that the AI party isn’t some linear fashion, and last Friday, he downgraded Nvidia from a “buy” to “neutral.” 

    Ferragu told clients in an industry report that he was conducting a “health check” on AI stocks, indicating that shares of the AI chip leader are “getting fully valued for the base case” after soaring 154% this year, on top of 240% gains in 2023. 

    Many analysts have questioned whether Nvidia’s $3 trillion market cap can be maintained.

    Further upside “will only materialize in a bull case, in which the outlook beyond 2025 increases materially, and we do not have the conviction on this scenario playing out yet,” Ferragu said. 

    While the “quality of the franchise is nevertheless intact,” there is, “if anything, a risk of derating” should the outlook remain unchanged, he added.

    Ferragu noted, “Although Nvidia remains the strongest franchise for AI data centers, near-term expectations and valuation justify a more prudent view on the stock.” 

    He reiterated continued bullishness for Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing and Advanced Micro Devices, indicating both stocks have “upside in both in our base and high scenarios.” 

    New Street set a one-year price target of $135 for Nvidia, compared with Friday’s $125.83 close. 

    Data from Bloomberg shows that seven of the 72 analysts tracked have a neutral rating on Nvidia or about 9.7%. There are currently 64 buys and one sell

    Ferragu said, “This doesn’t mean the end of the trend – we still see very strong growth ahead and upside potential in most names we cover,” adding, “It nevertheless means investors must now be more careful and selective in their exposure to the trend.”

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 07/07/2024 – 13:25

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Jul 07

Today’s News 7th July 2024

  • President Biden Must Resign, Or Be Impeached
    President Biden Must Resign, Or Be Impeached

    Authored by Stephen B. Young via RealClearPolitics,

    Commentary

    President Biden’s duty to the American people is to “faithfully execute” his office. As a public trustee, Biden took an oath to do what is right. He is a trustee of powers bestowed upon him by the Constitution in return for his promise to be dutiful.

    Like every agent and trustee, Biden owes fiduciary duties to those who are served by his decisions. He owes them two duties: the duty of always acting with due care; and the duty of giving them his absolute loyalty, always putting their interests above his own.

    A president’s failure to use due care or be loyal is ground for impeachment. Under our Constitution, impeachment for “high crimes and misdemeanors” is not a criminal proceeding. Rather, it is a civil proceeding to discharge from office one who has failed in his or her trusteeship.

    John Locke put it this way:

    Who shall be judge, whether the prince or legislative act contrary to their trust? … To this I reply, The people shall be judge; for who shall be judge whether his trustee or deputy acts well, and according to the trust reposed in him, but he who deputes him, and must, by having deputed him, have still a power to discard him, when he fails in his trust? If this be reasonable in particular cases of private men, why should it be otherwise in that of the greatest moment, where the welfare of millions is concerned, and also where the evil, if not prevented, is greater, and the redress very difficult, dear, and dangerous?

    More than 50 years ago, when the impeachment of Richard Nixon was under consideration in the House of Representatives, I researched the English parliamentary practice of impeaching high officers for “high crimes and misdemeanors.” The lead special counsel in the impeachment proceeding, John Doar, incorporated my conclusions into the articles of impeachment of Richard Nixon in these words:

    In all of this, Richard M. Nixon has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President and subversive of constitutional government, to the great prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States.

    Wherefore Richard M. Nixon, by such conduct, warrants impeachment and trial, and removal from office.

    The same standard of abuse of fiduciary duties was later included in the articles of impeachment of Donald Trump:

    In all of this, President Trump has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President and subversive of constitutional government, to the great prejudice of the cause of law and justice, and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States.

    As we saw the Thursday before last, President Biden is no longer capable of acting with due care as steward of the best interest of the American people. He appeared physically and cognitively inept. His answers to simple questions were nonsensical. Even Nancy Pelosi wondered aloud, “Is this an episode or is this a condition?”

    For Biden to remain in office, he will not be faithfully executing it. Rather, he will be using the powers of the office for self-serving ends, depriving the American people of a vigorous defender of our rights and privileges. If Biden does not resign immediately, he has committed an impeachable offense by causing “manifest injury of the people of the United States.”

    Should Biden attempt to have his cake and eat it too, he might withdraw his candidacy for this year’s presidential election but not resign as president. If he affirms that he would not be qualified to execute the office of president in January 2025, then why is he qualified to serve in that office today? To withdraw from the presidential race but continue in office would be a violation of his duty of loyalty to the American people.

    Joe Biden made a choice when he took the oath of office to serve as our president. If he can no longer be loyal or serve with due care, then he must resign his office or be impeached.

    Stephen B. Young is global director of the Caux Round Table for Moral Capitalism. He was an assistant dean at the Harvard Law School and later dean and professor of law at the Hamline University School of Law.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 07/06/2024 – 23:20

  • These Are America's Least Common Jobs
    These Are America’s Least Common Jobs

    In the following graphic, Visual Capitalist’s Pallavi Rao ranks and visualizes the least common American jobs by number of employees, as per the latest estimates from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

    Annual surveys from business owners are used to model employment numbers and wage data for each year. Thus, these figures do not include the self-employed, owners of unincorporated firms, or household workers.

    Ranked: America’s Least Common Jobs

    The least commonly-held job in America is “wood patternmaker,” with only 260 employed by a business country-wide. According to the BLS, wood patternmakers “plan, lay out, and construct wooden unit or sectional patterns used in forming sand molds for castings.”

    Technological advancements have caused job declines in the industry for the last decade. It is also likely that this occupation has more self-employed individuals, explaining their low numbers.

    Clock and timer technicians (not watchmakers), farm labor contractors (460), and furnace and kiln repair technicians (540) are the next three least commonly employed American workers.

    Ranked fifth, prosthodontists (570) are the second-highest paid occupation ($240,750) on the uncommon jobs list.

    In the same vein, pediatric surgeons are the 10th least common occupation in America, with only around 1,100 in the entire country.

    NPR reports that while pediatric programs have increased in the last 10 years, the number of trained MDs going into pediatric surgery has steadily decreased. Per STAT News, close to one-third pediatric residency programs did not fill their positions in 2024.

    If you liked this kind of content, check out The 20 Fastest Growing Jobs in the Next Decade which identifies where new jobs will be created next.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 07/06/2024 – 22:45

  • Should Alzheimer's Be Treated Before It Becomes Symptomatic? Experts Weigh In
    Should Alzheimer’s Be Treated Before It Becomes Symptomatic? Experts Weigh In

    Authored by Robin Seaton Jefferson via The Epoch Times,

    In March, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a revised draft guidance to help drug companies develop medication to treat cases of early Alzheimer’s disease that “occur before the onset of overt dementia.”

    One theory about Alzheimer’s is that amyloid pathology can occur decades before symptoms appear, and to stop the disease, doctors may need to address this underlying pathology well before that happens. Some say that will label people as having a disease they may never develop; others say it’s the only way to stop it in those who will come to have it.

    Treat Dementia Like Heart Disease

    Rudolph E. Tanzi, who has a doctorate in neurology and is a professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School and the director of its Genetics and Aging Research Unit, said that to stop dementia and Alzheimer’s, doctors must treat it the way they currently treat heart disease.

    “Just like we keep track of cholesterol and alter lifestyle and take safe drugs to lower cholesterol levels in order to avoid heart disease, we will need to do the same for Alzheimer’s disease,” Mr. Tanzi told The Epoch Times. “The FDA guidance is a step in that direction.”

    The American Heart Association reports that death due to heart disease has declined by 60 percent since 1950 and that the number of people in the United States dying of a heart attack each year has dropped from one in two in the 1950s to one in 8.5 today. Mr. Tanzi said that is because doctors now treat their patients proactively for a disease that could otherwise kill them many years in the future.

    As a geneticist who co-discovered three of the first Alzheimer’s disease genes, Mr. Tanzi replicated the cascades of cellular changes in Alzheimer’s in a petri dish so scientists could conduct tests as the disease developed and test drug efficacy. He said the problem is now that doctors don’t diagnose Alzheimer’s disease until the brain has already deteriorated to the point of dysfunction. Patients “need safe and affordable drugs to intervene with amyloid deposition as early as possible,” he added.

    Mr. Tanzi said that although the guidance is correct to advise treating early-stage Alzheimer’s patients, scientists will still someday need to prevent the buildup of abnormal amyloid deposits as soon as they begin in the brain before damage occurs.

    “This would be most important for those with early-onset familial Alzheimer’s disease gene mutations, those with Down syndrome, and carriers of the APOE epsilon variant that increases risk for Alzheimer’s disease, where you know amyloid deposition is guaranteed or highly likely beginning early in life,” Mr. Tanzi added.

    Is Amyloid Positivity Enough to Redefine Alzheimer’s Disease?

    But there is still no solid proof that any drugs, even if they reduce amyloid, will decrease dementia fates in the future, said Dr. Eric Widera, a professor of clinical medicine in the Division of Geriatrics at the University of California–San Fransisco. He also questions the risks of some drugs with serious side effects, such as brain bleeding and death.

    There is a trend to redefine Alzheimer’s disease based on whether someone is amyloid positive on a test, “independent of whether an individual has any symptoms of cognitive impairment, or whether they will develop them in the future,” Dr. Widera said.

    He explained that while scientists do have “pretty good evidence that in individuals with mild cognitive impairment and mild dementia,” two drugs, donanemab and lecanemab, “have an exceptional ability to remove amyloid.” However, he argues that this ability has only a “subtle effect” on the rate of decline in cognition.

    “This is pretty clear evidence that suggests amyloid is likely not the only factor that contributes to Alzheimer’s disease progression and that we have a lot yet to learn about how to stop or reverse the disease,” he said.

    The changes proposed will have effects that are “far from subtle” and will be marketed as “a new Alzheimer’s epidemic,” said Dr. Widera.

    An estimated 6 million Americans aged 65 and older live with Alzheimer’s and dementia, with the majority being over age 75. “The proposed changes will move what is a feared but far from universal disease of aging, Alzheimer’s dementia, to a largely silent, asymptomatic disease affecting a much larger population, as most people with positive amyloid biomarkers have no cognitive issues,” Dr. Widera wrote in his commentary, published in February in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.

    What Can Be Done?

    For his part, Mr. Tanzi agrees that much more must be done. “We will need blood tests that tell us not only when amyloid is already doing its damage in the brain, but also tests that can tell us when to treat so as to prevent amyloid deposition in the brain in the first place.”

    Mr. Tanzi said Alzheimer’s is only “beatable” when predicted early, based on family history and genetics; detected early, based on blood biomarkers and imaging; and intervened upon early, using safe and affordable drugs.

    “The approved amyloid drugs, like Leqembi [lecanemab], are not approved for prevention, but only for treatment in the mildest cases of Alzheimer’s disease. That is good to do, but still too late.” He added that lecanemab “is too costly, at over $60,000 per year, including the necessary MRIs to detect brain swelling and hemorrhage.”

    He said that is one of the focuses at the McCance Center for Brain Health, where he is currently fundraising for an Alzheimer’s disease clinical trial initiative to test combinations of repurposed safe and affordable drugs and natural products to lower amyloid levels in the brain, as a safer and more affordable alternative to amyloid immunotherapy like lecanemab.

    “The hope is that combinations of safe and affordable repurposed drugs can someday be used in tens of millions of Americans to prevent Alzheimer’s disease,” he added.

    What Will the Guidance Do?

    As a draft, the document will “serve as a focus for continued discussions” for the treatment of early Alzheimer’s disease, the draft states. However, when finalized, the document “will represent FDA’s current thinking regarding the selection of subjects with early [Alzheimer’s disease] for enrollment in clinical trials and the selection of endpoints for clinical trials in this population.”

    With its proposed guidelines, the FDA is focusing more on amyloid. It considers the reduction of brain amyloid, found by positron emission tomography (PET scans), to be a surrogate endpoint that is “reasonably likely to predict clinical benefit” and that clinical trials showing an effect on that surrogate endpoint can be the basis for accelerated approval, including for drugs intended to treat Alzheimer’s.

    According to Fierce Biotech, a company that reports on the biotech industry, the FDA isn’t going as far as to say that amyloid reduction can be considered a primary endpoint—the main result measured at the end of a study to see whether a given treatment worked—in Alzheimer’s trials. However, the agency suggests that this biomarker can serve as a surrogate endpoint—an indicator that tells if a treatment works—to predict clinical benefit.

    Alzheimer’s researchers currently use both cognitive and functional measures as co-primary endpoints, resulting in a two-year or less average clinical trial duration in the symptomatic stages of the condition. But it could take longer to establish clinically meaningful treatment effects among patients with early Alzheimer’s due to limited or nonexistent cognitive and functional deficits seen early on. Plus, tools often used to measure functional impairment in patients in the later stages of Alzheimer’s may not be able to identify subtle changes in early-stage disease.

    For these reasons, the FDA is considering other approaches, including endpoints based on cognitive assessments or surrogate endpoints, which may allow for shorter trial durations in the earliest stages of disease, Fierce Biotech reported.

    Possibility of Overdiagnosis

    In a draft document published in October 2023, the Alzheimer’s Association Workgroup suggested expanding the criteria for Alzheimer’s diagnosis and basing diagnosis on core biomarkers such as amyloid rather than clinical syndromes.

    The American Geriatrics Society (AGS) commented on the criteria expansion, expressing concerns that it would “place many older and multimorbid people at risk of overdiagnosis, which in turn could lead to initiation of treatments with as yet unproven clinical benefit, particularly in an asymptomatic population, and high potential for harm.”

    The AGS said the document fails to pay sufficient attention to the potential impact of an Alzheimer’s diagnosis on patient identity or any social and fiscal consequences.

    “The reality is that many biomarker-positive individuals never develop cognitive impairment … and most people diagnosed with dementia will die with, not of, dementia,” the AGS wrote.

    “At this juncture, a cognitively normal 50-year-old would have a 1 in 10 chance of testing positive for amyloid … and then carry an [Alzheimer’s disease] diagnosis in their health records,” the organization wrote.

    The AGS added that this “distracts from the broader aim of ensuring high quality health care for individuals who already have cognitive impairment or dementia.”

    Citing the “potential influence of financial ties between key stakeholders who make decisions on definitions and diagnostic thresholds,” the AGS said transparency is critical, and any conflict of interest should be disclosed.

    The Epoch Times contacted the FDA and the Alzheimer’s Association Workgroup but did not receive a reply.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 07/06/2024 – 22:10

  • Prosecutors Knew Epstein Had Sex With Underage Girls Years Before Plea Deal, "Outrageous" Transcripts Reveal
    Prosecutors Knew Epstein Had Sex With Underage Girls Years Before Plea Deal, “Outrageous” Transcripts Reveal

    While the entire world – or rather Democrats – are shocked to learn that Biden’s dementia is not a vast right wing conspiracy as they themselves had claimed prior to the catastrophic Trump-Biden debate, and that their eyes and ears had not in fact been deceiving them for the past three years, last week a Florida judge dropped a bombshell 150-page transcript related to a 2006 grand jury investigation of Jeffrey Epstein (readers may remember him if not his clients, none of whom it would appear are notable enough to be criminally charged), revealing that prosecutors were aware that Epstein sexually abused underage girls.

    As Breanna Morello explains, the transcripts reveal that the deal between Epstein and prosecutors came two years after they learned that Epstein engaged in statutory rape of teenage girls, and resulted in minimal punishments for the billionaire human trafficker. In the end, Epstein was charged with only one count of solicitation of prostitution from a minor, despite evidence of multiple rapes and a pattern of behavior. Thanks to this slap on the wrist which meant he would be free shortly after, Epstein went on to sexually exploit children until his “suicide” in 2019 and made hundreds of millions from child trafficking with countless billionaires and political oligarchs, ferrying them back and forth on his Lolita Express to Epstein island, where countless underage girls were raped by the true ruling class which to this day remains immune from the legal system.

    “Details in the record will be outrageous to decent people,” Judge Luis Delgado wrote, adding that the transcript has (further) diminished public perception of the criminal justice system, which in recent months is best known for getting hijacked to serve Biden’s failed crusade to incarcerate Trump before the election. The filings were released after a 2024 Florida law made it legal to do so for transcripts related to Epstein.

    As noted above, the 2008 charges boiled down to a count of solicitation of prostitution from a minor, despite investigators’ knowledge of Epstein’s pattern of behavior, including numerous incidents of rape. The charge was significantly less severe than the evidence warranted, especially since investigators had knowledge of Epstein’s pattern of behavior, including numerous incidents of rape. The limited charge ignored the full extent of Epstein’s criminal activities.

    The filing, which itself further unveils prosecutorial missteps that enabled Epstein’s later conduct, came years after the lenient, and delayed, sentence was criticized.

    “The story of how Jeffrey Epstein victimized some of Palm Beach County’s most vulnerable has been the subject of much anger and has at times diminished the public’s perception of the criminal justice system,” Delgado wrote.

    Florida’s Southern District Attorney, Alex Acosta, who served for a period of time as Trump former Secretary of Labor, approved a non-prosecution agreement with Epstein in 2008, despite prosecutors’ knowledge of the rapes. Acosta eventually left the Trump administration in scandal after details emerged outlining his botched prosecution of the prolific trafficker.

    Watch the full report below.

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    Morello’s complete analysis of the transcripts can be read here, and as a post-script, here is Elon Musk once again asking the most obvious question amid this whole farce: how come there has not been “one – just one – even *attempted* prosecution of that Epstein (Bill Gates & Reid Hoffman come to mind) client list.”

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    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 07/06/2024 – 21:35

  • Bird Flu Outbreak Forces McDonald's Australia To Cut Breakfast Time
    Bird Flu Outbreak Forces McDonald’s Australia To Cut Breakfast Time

    Authored by Monica O’Shea via The Epoch Times,

    McDonald’s Australia has cut breakfast time in Australia by 90 minutes due to an egg shortage amid an outbreak of bird flu.

    The decision follows after the highly pathogenic H7 influenza infected eight farms in Victoria,  two properties in New South Wales, and one in the Australian Capital Territory.

    More than one million birds in the two states combined have been euthanised as part of the government’s response to bird flu, also known as avian influenza.

    In a post on social media, McDonald’s explained breakfast would end at 10.30 a.m. instead of midday, due to egg supply issues.

    “Like many retailers we are carefully managing supply of eggs due to the current industry challenges,” McDonald’s Australia posted to Instagram.

    “To keep bringing you your breakie favourites with fresh Aussie eggs, we’ll be temporarily serving breakfast until 10.30 a.m. across Australia (usually available until midday).”

    McDonald’s said it is working hard with Aussie farmers and suppliers to return  to normal “as soon as possible.”

    Egg Supply Disruptions

    Recently, the federal government warned egg supplies in Australia have been disrupted and consumers should not buy more eggs than required.

    “The national layer hen flock has been impacted by these outbreaks which is resulting in some localised disruption to egg supplies to the retail, hospitality and manufacturing sectors,” the government said.

    They warned consumers could expect to see some empty shelves in the short-term, but supply was being redirected.

    “Some retailers have already imposed purchasing limits which may extend across retail chains and jurisdictions, including rural and regional areas,” the federal government continued.

    Supermarket giant Coles imposed egg purchase limits on Australian customers in June.

    Where Has Bird Flu Been Detected?

    In Victoria, the H7N3 strain was detected at seven poultry farms in the Golden Plains Shire near Meredith. A case of the H7N9 strain avian flu has also been discovered.

    Meanwhile, in NSW, two outbreaks of H7N8 poultry have been found in the Hawkesbury district in northwest Sydney. This is a separate strain to Victoria.

    Further, in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT), H7N8 bird flu was detected at a poultry farm on June 27. This farm is linked to one of the NSW properties.

    The first human case of bird flu in Australia was also reported in Victoria in May, in a child who acquired the H5N1 strain overseas in India.

    The current strains of avian influenza in Australia do not appear to “transmit easily between humans,” the Australian government said.

    The government also reassured Australians that eggs and chicken meat are still safe to eat if cooked properly.

    “They do not pose a risk and are safe to consume. Victoria has a secure supply chain including the importation of eggs from interstate, so the current outbreak has not significantly affected supplies,” said Agriculture Victoria.

    Bird flu is caused by a “variety of influenza type A viruses” that usually infect birds, according to Murdoch University Professor of Viral Immunology Cassandra Berry.

    “The difference lies in the number of basic amino acids at the cleave site of haemagglutinin (HA), a spike protein on the virus surface, which is cleaved by cellular proteases,” she said.

    “This cleavage determination then allows the virus to infect cells of different tissues and organs in the body. So if the virus HA is more easily cleaved by proteases, it will be more pathogenic.”

    Over 1.2 Million Birds Culled

    The NSW government announced 240,000 birds would be culled in June after bird flu was discovered in the state.

    The state activated an “emergency biosecurity incident plan” in a bid to contain the virus after bird flu was detected at the poultry egg farm.

    “We started depopulating the farm, in a humane manner, following Australian Veterinary guidelines. This process will take up to 5-7 days to depopulate 240,000 birds,” Agriculture Minister Tara Moriarty announced on June 20.

    Later in the month, it was revealed a further 87,000 birds would be killed in NSW as part of a “depopulation process” after the second case in the state was found.

    In ACT, birds have also been culled although the exact number is unclear at this stage.

    More than one million birds had to be euthanised in south-western Victoria, according to Agriculture Minister Murray Watt in June.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 07/06/2024 – 21:00

  • These Are The Top 10 Countries Receiving US Foreign Aid
    These Are The Top 10 Countries Receiving US Foreign Aid

    Each year, the U.S. sends billions in foreign aid to promote global stability, national security, and its own economic interests.

    To see where this money flows, Visual Capitalist’s Marcus Lu visualized the top 10 countries receiving U.S. foreign aid in fiscal year 2022 (FY2022). These numbers represent total disbursements, which are the actual amounts paid in cash or cash equivalents by federal agencies.

    All figures were sourced from https://www.foreignassistance.gov, as of May 2024. At the time of writing, full reporting for FY2023 is not yet available.

    Data and Highlights

    All of the numbers we used to create this graphic are listed in the table below. Note that the U.S. fiscal year begins on Oct. 1 of the previous calendar year and ends on Sept. 30.

    Ukraine was the largest recipient of foreign aid, with $11.2 billion disbursed throughout FY2022. This was a massive increase from the $419M sent in FY2021, due to the Russian invasion which began in February 2022.

    So far for FY2023 (incomplete reporting), foreign aid sent to Ukraine has reached $16.7 billion.

    The second largest recipient is Israel, though unlike Ukraine, the $3.3 billion disbursed in FY2022 is consistent with previous years (around $3.3 billion every year since FY2019).

    The vast majority (over 99%) of foreign aid to Israel is dedicated to “Conflict, Peace, and Security”, with disbursements being facilitated by the U.S. Department of Defense.

    If you enjoy graphics like these, be sure to check out Charted: How Americans Feel About Federal Government Agencies.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 07/06/2024 – 20:25

  • The Left’s Biden Cover-Up Explains Perfectly Why Project 2025 Is Needed
    The Left’s Biden Cover-Up Explains Perfectly Why Project 2025 Is Needed

    Authored by Ben Sellers via Headline USA,

    Ken Cuccinelli, former Trump Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security , speaks at a media breakfast during the Heritage Foundation’s 2023 leadership summit. / PHOTO: Ben Sellers, Headline USA

    The implosion of President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign has been years in the making and highly anticipated.

    Really, the biggest surprise, if any, has been how long the Left was able to milk the absurd notion that their political placeholder was a viable candidate.

    As many have since noted, it speaks to the sheer toxicity that the corrupt conglomerate of corporations, information gatekeepers and partisan special-interests within the Beltway.

    The Biden debate scandal and subsequent fallout effectively proved that not only has lying within the political Establishment become systemic, but it makes no difference if it is even a credible lie.

    There is an almost taunting quality to putting forth something utterly implausible and challenging people to question it, knowing they lack the institutional power to hold the liars accountable.

    GOING OVERBOARD

    Most recognize that the current predicament is just another means to an ends—out with the old and in with the new: a candidate who must be capable of running on short notice with the existing funding sources and infrastructure needed to offset Trump’s advantage, and someone who both has the name recognition needed for a possible write-in campaign along with the perception of being a political outsider.

    Nonetheless, it is somewhat satisfying to see the cockroaches scurrying away when the light switch gets flipped.

    The Fools in this Learian tragedy have been the leftist media and members of Biden’s inner circle feigning shock and ignorance about the problem that everyone else has long been aware of.

    Although some continue to double down, most have now pivoted to an entirely new “Big Lie” by pretending their sudden efforts to perform damage control will vindicate them.

    From their half-deflated lifeboats, they point fingers at the other Biden loyalists who are going down with the ship and insist that their prior complicity was a function of fear.

    Those who have spent the past three-plus years interacting with the 81-year-old president have suddenly begun sharing their stories of red-flags that now seem clear in hindsight. But they insist that if they had waged a Trump-like Resistance campaign to undermine him they would have faced severe consequences for it by becoming blacklisted rather than celebrated for their public service.

    A MAGA MAKEOVER?

    Ironically, their face-saving efforts only help build the case for the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, which has become a boogeyman for the so-called Blue MAGA movement (a hashtag term coined by one group of leftists to attack those they see as conspiratorial and irrational).

    The underlying objective of Project 2025 is to highlight key areas of reform needed within the corrupted deep state and to articulate a series of policy expert-endorsed proposals through the 880-page Mandate for Leadership in order to prevent another sabotage effort without losing any time trying to fight the bureaucracy.

    “The new conservative movement that America needs is right here, right now in this room,” Heritage President Kevin Roberts said during the conservative think-tank’s 2023 leadership summit at Washington, D.C.’s National Harbor.

    “No more bringing butter knives to gunfights—we’ve learned that,” Roberts continued. “The old Washington red team of free marketers, neoconservatives and evangelicals is simply not enough.”

    In effect, it was intended to be an inward-looking movement to retrench the conservative movement and root out the RINOs, learning from the mistakes of the first Trump administration.

    ‘NOTHING TO DO WITH THEM’

    Since then, unhinged and TDS-afflicted conspiracy theorists have pushed allegations that Project 2025 is Trump’s authoritarian dogwhistle in order to justify their own efforts to calcify the weaponized deep state with measures that would make it more difficult for the next administration to fire disloyal civil servants.

    The propagandist Associated Press even pushed the suggestion that it was a guidebook for “revolution,” carping on some of Roberts’s rhetoric to distort the context of his statements.

    Yet, as former President Donald Trump recently said in distancing himself from the initiative, it was never specifically coordinated with his campaign.

    “I know nothing about Project 2025,” he wrote on Truth Social on Friday.

    “I have no idea who is behind it. I disagree with some of the things they’re saying and some of the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal,” he continued. “Anything they do, I wish them luck, but I have nothing to do with them.”

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    ‘CANDIDATE AGNOSTIC’

    Having been present for the grand unveiling at the leadership summit—which featured a speech by then-candidate Ron DeSantis in its top billing (along with what would be Tucker Carlson’s last speech as a Fox News host), I can attest that the resurgence of Trump in such sweeping fashion was the last thing on the minds of many of the Heritage Foundation’s policy writers.

    Indeed, it is more likely that many of them feared his candidacy might hold back the sort of grand reinvention of Republicanism that they envisaged.

    When I asked, point blank, during a media breakfast with some of the Mandate‘s lead editors what would happen if Trump won and proceeded to disregard all their painstakingly crafted proposals, they struggled to find a suitable answer, with some seeming to suggest in their aghast reactions that a Trump comeback seemed unfathomable at the time.

    Nonetheless, they were diplomatic at the time in their insistence that the initiative was intended to be for whoever might emerge as the favored Republican candidate.

    Lead editor Paul Dans, the former chief of staff in Trump’s Office of Personnel Management, said that the book sought to be “candidate agnostic” and serve as a resource to any future leader, regardless of who prevailed.

    The Mandate authors did “such a good job that you cant help but embrace [it],” Dans said. “You kind of ignore this a little bit at your peril.”

    A VISION OF HIS OWN

    That Trump has his own plans, of course, should surprise few—especially not the cadre of ex-staffers and advisers who contributed to the Heritage project.

    It was clear from the former president’s recent disavowal that he took umbrage with the notion that anyone would prescribe to him a set of “expert” policies to follow after his hard-fought climb back to White House contention.

    Moreover, it seems as if Project 2025 runs parallel, in many ways, to the efforts of his own, Trump-endorsed America First Policy Institute.

    Trump assures his supporters that he has learned his own valuable lessons.

    “I’ve been through it. I know the good people, I know the bad people. I know weak people and strong people,” he said last year at the North Carolina Republican Convention in Greensboro. “I know the people that are losers that we don’t want, I know the people that are winners that a lot of people don’t know or understand.”

    Nonetheless, the presumptive GOP nominee—whose current odds of becoming the next president are around 70% by some mainstream media estimations—should not throw out the baby with the bathwater.

    If there was one weakness in Trump’s prior presidential experience, it was his misjudgment of character and investment of trust in the wrong people based on their ability to flatter him to his face while undermining him behind his back.

    Thus, he should regard Project 2025 and its Mandate for Leadership as a valuable second opinion, a sort of grounding influence that he can use as the baseline for making his decisions.

    PROOF IS IN THE PROTEST

    Following Trump’s comments dismissing Project 2025 as “ridiculous and abysmal” one of those who came forward in an effort to ridicule him was former Republican National Committee chair Michael Steele—the epitome, if ever there were one, of a traitor to conservative values and ideals.

    “Since #Project2025 is designed to institutionalize Trumpism and you know nothing about it, then why do you echo some of its policy priorities during your rallies?” said the former Maryland lietenant governor, whose own efforts to seek higher office failed miserably.

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    If the same people in the permanent bureaucracy who spent the past several years laying cover for the dubious 2020 election—and the senile geriatric they installed into power as an empty-suit figurehead for the corrupt oligarchy—are devoting this much energy to trying to distort the facts about Project 2025 and misrepresent its motives, then, ipso facto, it is worth a second look.

    While Trump is justified in his apprehension about any and all unsolicited advice from D.C. think-tanks and career civil servants, the indications that so many Democrats (and disloyal right-wing denizens of the Swamp) seem panicked about its proposals should be a telling indication itself that Project 2025 is hitting its mark.

    As Roberts noted at the Heritage leadership summit, “The Left started this culture war; we’re gonna finish it.”

    Ben Sellers is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/realbensellers.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 07/06/2024 – 19:50

  • Hamas Drops Key Demand, Making Gaza Ceasefire Deal Closer Than Ever
    Hamas Drops Key Demand, Making Gaza Ceasefire Deal Closer Than Ever

    Following months of back-and-forth as well as contradictory reports of an Israel-Hamas ceasefire, which has proven elusive thus far, the two sides and their mediators could actually be getting closer this weekend.

    CIA director Bill Burns is set to embark on yet another trip to Doha this coming week to rejoin negotiations focused on achieving a hostage exchange and broader ceasefire, Axios is reporting.

    Axios previews that “Burns is expected to hold a joint meeting with the Prime Minister of Qatar, the director of the Israeli Mossad and the head of the Egyptian intelligence service in an effort to push forward the deal that could lead to the release of 120 hostages held by Hamas in Gaza and end nine months of war.”

    Via AP

    The below fresh report from The Times of Israel suggests Hamas may have just dropped a major demand which had previously thwarted any progress. From the start of negotiations, Hamas leaders have conditioned peace on an Israel Defense Forces’ (IDF) total withdrawal from the Gaza Strip:

    Hamas has given initial approval for a US-backed proposal for a phased truce and hostage exchange deal in Gaza, dropping a key demand that Israel give an up-front commitment for a complete end to the war, a Hamas and an Egyptian official said Saturday.

    At the same time, a key stumbling block appeared to be Hamas’s desire for “written guarantees” from mediators that Israel will continue to negotiate a permanent ceasefire deal once the first phase of a ceasefire goes into effect.

    The Hamas representative told The Associated Press the group’s approval came after it received “verbal commitments and guarantees” from mediators that the war won’t be resumed and that negotiations will continue until a permanent ceasefire is reached.

    The report stresses that “Hamas says it dropped demand Israel vow up-front to end war, but wants mediators’ guarantees.” If true this could prove a major opening, given PM Netanyahu had long focused on this specific demand as being a non-starter, making progress in talks impossible.

    If a deal is achieved, it could result in the first full ceasefire of the conflict. According to diplomatic sources involved:

    The Hamas and Egyptian officials, who spoke on conditions of anonymity to discuss the ongoing negotiations, said Washington’s phased deal will first include a “full and complete” six-week ceasefire that would see the release of a number of hostages, including women, the elderly, and the wounded, in exchange for the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners. During these 42 days, Israeli forces would also withdraw from densely populated areas of Gaza and allow the return of displaced people to their homes in northern Gaza, the pair said.

    In the US, a deal would lessen intensifying pressure on the Biden White House, given it has been losing support especially among Progressives due precisely to the president’s Gaza policy.

    Netanyahu is expected to travel to DC at the end of this month to address Congress, and so far media reports are saying it is ‘likely’ he will meet with President Biden. Any potential ceasefire deal would ease the pressure of such a visit, certainly from Washington’s point of view at least.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 07/06/2024 – 19:15

  • Amtrak Service Halted Between NYC-Boston For "Electric Power Issue"
    Amtrak Service Halted Between NYC-Boston For “Electric Power Issue”

    An “ongoing electric power issue” suspended train service in the Northeast Corridor between Boston and New York City on Saturday afternoon, Amtrak wrote in a press release. 

    “Our crews are working hard to correct the issues,” Amtrak said but did not explain the cause of the service disruption.

    Amtrak noted that “this service interruption” will be in place for the “remainder of the day.”  

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

    According to AP News, the disruption was caused by a malfunctioning circuit breaker, which sparked service disruption between Penn Station in New York and Union Station in New Haven, Connecticut. There was no official word if the circuit breaker problem was caused by scorching temperatures across the Northeast.

    Besides the ongoing heat wave, this outage comes at the worst possible time when a record 71 million Americans are expected to be traveling this Fourth of July holiday weekend. 

    Last month, Amtrak’s service in and out of New York City suffered a “malfunctioning circuit breaker” that sparked travel chaos for hours across the nation’s busiest transit hub.

    With frustrations over unreliable train service in the Northeast mounting, it’s time for US Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg to actually stand up and be a leader and do something – just something. Come on ‘Mayor Pete’ – you got this. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 07/06/2024 – 18:52

  • Democrats Got Their Dream Wish, Now They Have To Live With It
    Democrats Got Their Dream Wish, Now They Have To Live With It

    Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

    There is a stunning number of ironies in the Trump-Biden rematch. At the top of the list is Biden’s belief that he is the only one who could beat Trump.

    Wish Granted

    At a NATO conference on March 24, 2022 Biden quipped to a reporter “In the next election, I’d be very fortunate if I had that same man running against me.”

    Comedian Bill Maher Commented: “The whole rationale for Biden running has always been I’m the only guy who can beat Trump. Now I think it’s inverted. He’s the only guy who can lose to him.”

    King of Student Loans

    In a press conference briefing in July of 2021, then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi stated the Constitutional Facts on Student Loans.

    “The president can’t do it,” Pelosi said, at a press briefing. “That’s not even a discussion.”

    Pelosi said any student debt forgiveness would have to be carried out by Congress. Other people in her party have said otherwise.

    On June 30, 2023, the SCOTUSblog reported Supreme Court Strikes Down Biden Student-Loan Forgiveness Program

    But that did not stop the king of student loans. He went ahead with another unconstitutional work around, then bragged about it.

    The Supreme Court Didn’t Stop Me

    In a White House Briefing on February 4, 2024, Biden bragged “The Supreme Court of the United States blocked me, but they didn’t stop me.“

    Immunity for Official Acts

    On July 1, 2024 the Supreme Court ruled the President has immunity for official acts.

    I commented, The Left is Aghast at the Correct Supreme Court Immunity Decision on Trump

    In a 6-3 decision, the SC that held the President has immunity for official acts. It was not a complete victory for Trump. In fact, the Court rejected Trump’s base case.

    That was my opinion but it was entirely based on the actual  Supreme Court Ruling. Here are a couple of snips from the Court, subtitles mine.

    Court Blasts Trump’s Base Case to Outer Space

    Trump asserts a far broader immunity than the limited one the Court recognizes, contending that the indictment must be dismissed because the Impeachment Judgment Clause requires that impeachment and Senate conviction precede a President’s criminal prosecution. But the text of the Clause does not address whether and on what conduct a President may be prosecuted if he was never impeached and convicted. See Art. I, §3, cl. 7. Historical evidence likewise lends little support to Trump’s position. The Federalist Papers on which Trump relies concerned the checks available against a sitting President; they did not endorse or even consider whether the Impeachment Judgment Clause immunizes a former President from prosecution. Transforming the political process of impeachment into a necessary step in the enforcement of criminal law finds little support in the text of the Constitution or the structure of the Nation’s Government.

    Trump claimed to have absolute immunity. The Court blasted that claim to outer space. Again from the ruling …

    Distinguishing Official Acts From Unofficial Ones

    The first step in deciding whether a former President is entitled to immunity from a particular prosecution is to distinguish his official from unofficial actions. …

    Presidents cannot be indicted based on conduct for which they are immune from prosecution. On remand, the District Court must carefully analyze the indictment’s remaining allegations to determine whether they too involve conduct for which a President must be immune from prosecution. And the parties and the District Court must ensure that sufficient allegations support the indictment’s charges without such conduct.

    Distinguishing official acts from unofficial ones requires a prosecutorial hearing or fact finding mission to establish what is or is not an official act and what is or is not a constitutional act.

    Such hearings are standard procedure for official acts. The Court merely extended the standard procedure to the office of president.

    Contrary to hyperventilation by the Left, the SC ruling does not protect the President from unofficial acts or unconstitutional acts.

    Truman Example

    If the President claims authority to act but in fact exercises mere “individual will” and “authority without law,” the courts may say so. Youngstown, 343 U. S., at 655 (Jackson, J., concurring). In Youngstown, for instance, we held that President Truman exceeded his constitutional authority when he seized most of the Nation’s steel mills.

    On grounds of national defense, Truman tried to seize steel mills. The Court quickly told Truman no, that’s unconstitutional.

    Court Synopsis

    The court rejected Trump’s base case, properly cited Truman as an unconstitutional example, and specifically applied its ruling to official acts.

    Importantly, official acts must be constitutional!

    Truman was acting “officially”, but not “constitutionally”.

    The King Moans About Kings

    Following the SC Ruling, Biden gave a speech “I Dissent“

    This nation was founded on the principle that there are no kings in America.  Each — each of us is equal before the law.  No one — no one is above the law, not even the president of the United States. 

    With today’s Supreme Court decision on presidential immunity, that fundamentally changed.  For all — for all practical purposes, today’s decision almost certainly means that there are virtually no limits on what a president can do. 

    Given Biden’s forceful flouting of the Supreme Court not only is that dripping with irony, it’s also a blatant, purposeful lie as any careful reading of the actual ruling shows.

    But that did not stop major hyperventilation from the Left including this nonsensical headline from the Huffington Post: Supreme Court Gives Joe Biden The Legal OK To Assassinate Donald Trump

    Did anyone bother to read the ruling before commenting?

    A Delusional Defense of Biden’s Health

    There is a stunning number of ironies in the Trump-Biden rematch. At the top of the list is Biden’s belief that he is the only one who could beat Trump. Wish Granted At a NATO conference on March 24, 2022 Biden quipped to a reporter “In the next election, I’d be very fortunate if I had that same man running against me.” Comedian Bill Maher Commented: “The whole rationale for Biden running has always been I’m the only guy who can beat Trump. Now I think it’s inverted. He’s the only guy who can lose to him.” King of Student Loans In a press conference briefing in July of 2021, then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi stated the Constitutional Facts on Student Loans. “The president can’t do it,” Pelosi said, at a press briefing. “That’s not even a discussion.” Pelosi said any student debt forgiveness would have to be carried out by Congress. Other people in her party have said otherwise. On June 30, 2023, the SCOTUSblog reported Supreme Court Strikes Down Biden Student-Loan Forgiveness Program But that did not stop the king of student loans. He went ahead with another unconstitutional work around, then bragged about it. The Supreme Court Didn’t Stop Me In a White House Briefing on February 4, 2024, Biden bragged “The Supreme Court of the United States blocked me, but they didn’t stop me.“ Immunity for Official Acts On July 1, 2024 the Supreme Court ruled the President has immunity for official acts. I commented, The Left is Aghast at the Correct Supreme Court Immunity Decision on Trump In a 6-3 decision, the SC that held the President has immunity for official acts. It was not a complete victory for Trump. In fact, the Court rejected Trump’s base case. That was my opinion but it was entirely based on the actual Supreme Court Ruling. Here are a couple of snips from the Court, subtitles mine. Court Blasts Trump’s Base Case to Outer Space Trump asserts a far broader immunity than the limited one the Court recognizes, contending that the indictment must be dismissed because the Impeachment Judgment Clause requires that impeachment and Senate conviction precede a President’s criminal prosecution. But the text of the Clause does not address whether and on what conduct a President may be prosecuted if he was never impeached and convicted. See Art. I, §3, cl. 7. Historical evidence likewise lends little support to Trump’s position. The Federalist Papers on which Trump relies concerned the checks available against a sitting President; they did not endorse or even consider whether the Impeachment Judgment Clause immunizes a former President from prosecution. Transforming the political process of impeachment into a necessary step in the enforcement of criminal law finds little support in the text of the Constitution or the structure of the Nation’s Government. Trump claimed to have absolute immunity. The Court blasted that claim to outer space. Again from the ruling … Distinguishing Official Acts From Unofficial Ones The first step in deciding whether a former President is entitled to immunity from a particular prosecution is to distinguish his official from unofficial actions. … Presidents cannot be indicted based on conduct for which they are immune from prosecution. On remand, the District Court must carefully analyze the indictment’s remaining allegations to determine whether they too involve conduct for which a President must be immune from prosecution. And the parties and the District Court must ensure that sufficient allegations support the indictment’s charges without such conduct. Distinguishing official acts from unofficial ones requires a prosecutorial hearing or fact finding mission to establish what is or is not an official act and what is or is not a constitutional act. Such hearings are standard procedure for official acts. The Court merely extended the standard procedure to the office of president. Contrary to hyperventilation by the Left, the SC ruling does not protect the President from unofficial acts or unconstitutional acts. Truman Example If the President claims authority to act but in fact exercises mere “individual will” and “authority without law,” the courts may say so. Youngstown, 343 U. S., at 655 (Jackson, J., concurring). In Youngstown, for instance, we held that President Truman exceeded his constitutional authority when he seized most of the Nation’s steel mills. On grounds of national defense, Truman tried to seize steel mills. The Court quickly told Truman no, that’s unconstitutional. Court Synopsis The court rejected Trump’s base case, properly cited Truman as an unconstitutional example, and specifically applied its ruling to official acts. Importantly, official acts must be constitutional! Truman was acting “officially”, but not “constitutionally”. The King Moans About Kings Following the SC Ruling, Biden gave a speech “I Dissent“ This nation was founded on the principle that there are no kings in America. Each — each of us is equal before the law. No one — no one is above the law, not even the president of the United States. With today’s Supreme Court decision on presidential immunity, that fundamentally changed. For all — for all practical purposes, today’s decision almost certainly means that there are virtually no limits on what a president can do. Given Biden’s forceful flouting of the Supreme Court not only is that dripping with irony, it’s also a blatant, purposeful lie as any careful reading of the actual ruling shows. But that did not stop major hyperventilation from the Left including this nonsensical headline from the Huffington Post: Supreme Court Gives Joe Biden The Legal OK To Assassinate Donald Trump Did anyone bother to read the ruling before commenting? A Delusional Defense of Biden’s Health “He’s probably in better health than most of us.” What?! Nate Silver replied, “They can’t tell the truth, that their candidate is well below the threshold of someone who should be president for another 4 years, so they tell obvious lies that nobody but the dumbest partisans will buy.” In another bit of delusional madness … Biden Says ‘My Son Has Done Nothing Wrong’ On May 7, 2023, the Wall Street Journal reported ‘My Son Has Done Nothing Wrong’ “My son has done nothing wrong,” the President said on MSNBC. “I trust him. I have faith in him, and it impacts my Presidency by making me feel proud of him.” Not Confidence Inspiring The Guardian comments Joe Biden is taking advice from his son, Hunter. This does not inspire confidence. The Biden clan gathered at Camp David on Sunday and, according to multiple reports, urged him to “keep fighting”. The New York Times stated: “One of the strongest voices imploring Mr Biden to resist pressure to drop out was his son, Hunter Biden, whom the president has long leaned on for advice.” Which doesn’t exactly inspire confidence: Hunter has poor judgment and a well-documented history of scandals. (To be clear, I am not sneering at his drug use; addicts deserve empathy. Drugs aside, his questionable business dealings and chaotic personal life make it difficult to look at Hunter and think: “Yeah, that’s a guy I should take advice from.”) Three Hunter Ironies The Hunter irony is threefold. First, the president is taking advice from someone whose motive is clearly suspect. Second, the President goes around calling Trump a convicted felon. The third irony is the New York trial was so flawed conviction is highly likely to be overturned but the Hunter felony will stand. A Travesty of Justice On May 30, Trump was convicted of a felony. Ironically, no one can precisely say what the felony is. I commented Trump Found Guilty – a Travesty of Justice for America A misdemeanor, on which the Statute of Limitations had run out, was used to produced 34 felony counts on committing a Federal offense for which he was not charged. They will say “No one is above the law”. Indeed. But no one should be beneath the law either. Every effort has been made to put Joe Biden, Hunter Biden, and Hillary Clinton above the law. And every effort has been made to put Trump beneath the law, including judicial instructions. I am outraged and I don’t even care for Trump. Everyone should be outraged. The trial was unfair because there should not have been a trial at all. On Getting Their Wish So, here we are. Biden got his wish that nearly all Democrats now regret. The DNC went along, greasing the wheels for a renomination and eliminating debate despite (or was it because of) the President’s increasingly obvious senility. Judging from a recent cornucopia of posts on the New York Times, Washington Post, the Guardian, etc., Democrats have a new wish, for Biden to step down. Sorry, the wish fairy only grants one political wish. It’s now up to Jill or Hunter to convince Joe to stand down. That does not look promising now. However, there’s a decent chance the President soon will not be able to walk or say anything coherent even in the newly designated prime hours of 9:00AM to 4:00PM. Yet, the longer the delay, the worse it looks. There is not a reasonable person on the planet who believe Biden can last another year, let alone four more years. Effectively, the ne battle cry is “Four More Months!” Democrats got what they deserve. Unfortunately, it’s not what the nation deserves. That’s the final irony in a sorry script fully loaded with ironies.

    “He’s probably in better health than most of us.”

    What?!

    Nate Silver replied, “They can’t tell the truth, that their candidate is well below the threshold of someone who should be president for another 4 years, so they tell obvious lies that nobody but the dumbest partisans will buy.”

    In another bit of delusional madness …

    Biden Says ‘My Son Has Done Nothing Wrong’

    On May 7, 2023, the Wall Street Journal reported ‘My Son Has Done Nothing Wrong’

    “My son has done nothing wrong,” the President said on MSNBC. “I trust him. I have faith in him, and it impacts my Presidency by making me feel proud of him.”

    Not Confidence Inspiring

    The Guardian comments Joe Biden is taking advice from his son, Hunter. This does not inspire confidence.

    The Biden clan gathered at Camp David on Sunday and, according to multiple reports, urged him to “keep fighting”. The New York Times stated: “One of the strongest voices imploring Mr Biden to resist pressure to drop out was his son, Hunter Biden, whom the president has long leaned on for advice.” Which doesn’t exactly inspire confidence: Hunter has poor judgment and a well-documented history of scandals. (To be clear, I am not sneering at his drug use; addicts deserve empathy. Drugs aside, his questionable business dealings and chaotic personal life make it difficult to look at Hunter and think: “Yeah, that’s a guy I should take advice from.”)

    Three Hunter Ironies

    The Hunter irony is threefold. First, the president is taking advice from someone whose motive is clearly suspect.

    Second, the President goes around calling Trump a convicted felon.

    The third irony is the New York trial was so flawed conviction is highly likely to be overturned but the Hunter felony will stand.

    A Travesty of Justice

    On May 30, Trump was convicted of a felony. Ironically, no one can precisely say what the felony is.

    I commented Trump Found Guilty – a Travesty of Justice for America

    A misdemeanor, on which the Statute of Limitations had run out, was used to produced 34 felony counts on committing a Federal offense for which he was not charged.

    They will say “No one is above the law”. Indeed. But no one should be beneath the law either.

    Every effort has been made to put Joe Biden, Hunter Biden, and Hillary Clinton above the law. And every effort has been made to put Trump beneath the law, including judicial instructions.

    I am outraged and I don’t even care for Trump. Everyone should be outraged. The trial was unfair because there should not have been a trial at all.

    On Getting Their Wish

    So, here we are. Biden got his wish that nearly all Democrats now regret.

    The DNC went along, greasing the wheels for a renomination and eliminating debate despite (or was it because of) the President’s increasingly obvious senility.

    Judging from a recent cornucopia of posts on the New York Times, Washington Post, the Guardian, etc., Democrats have a new wish, for Biden to step down.

    Sorry, the wish fairy only grants one political wish.

    It’s now up to Jill or Hunter to convince Joe to stand down. That does not look promising now. However, there’s a decent chance the President soon will not be able to walk or say anything coherent even in the newly designated prime hours of 9:00AM to 4:00PM.

    Yet, the longer the delay, the worse it looks. There is not a reasonable person on the planet who believe Biden can last another year, let alone four more years.

    Effectively, the ne battle cry is “Four More Months!”

    Democrats got what they deserve. Unfortunately, it’s not what the nation deserves.

    That’s the final irony in a sorry script fully loaded with ironies.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 07/06/2024 – 18:40

  • Over 60 Foreign Policy Experts Issue Letter Urging NATO Against Advancing Ukraine Membership
    Over 60 Foreign Policy Experts Issue Letter Urging NATO Against Advancing Ukraine Membership

    The United States is hosting this year’s major annual NATO Summit in Washington DC on July 9,10, and 11. Heads of state, foreign ministers, and diplomats from across Europe will be in attendance, as will of course President Joe Biden. 

    A big question that remains is how far the alliance will go in encouraging Ukraine’s ambitions to join. Currently the US is pushing the ambiguous language of offering Kiev a “bridge” to NATO while demanding reforms especially in the area of corruption. Zelensky is not happy, given that not even a timeline for membership appears to be on the table.

    Still, there are enough hawks among Western leaders to present the possibility of launching Ukraine on an ‘irreversible’ path to membership, which many observers fear will only eventually trigger WW3 with Russia. 

    Days ago, and just around the corner from the summit’s start, dozens of foreign policy experts have issued a letter which sounds the alarm on the question of advancing Ukrainian membership. The group is warning that should Kiev ever be admitted, it would trigger NATO’s Article 5, and require Western states to enter a nuclear-armed conflict with Russia.

    “The closer NATO comes to promising that Ukraine will join the alliance once the war ends, the greater the incentive for Russia to keep fighting the war,” the letter, signed by over 60 analysts, reads. “The challenges Russia poses can be managed without bringing Ukraine into NATO.”

    The letter argues that encouraging NATO membership only plays into Putin’s narrative, and in the end ensures “turning Ukraine into the site of a prolonged showdown between the world’s two leading nuclear powers.”

    At one point the group says that advancing Ukraine’s membership presents the risk of the “unraveling of NATO itself”. According to a section from the letter [emphasis ZH]:

    Some claim that the act of bringing Ukraine into NATO would deter Russia from ever invading Ukraine again. That is wishful thinking. Since Russia began invading Ukraine in 2014, NATO Allies have demonstrated through their actions that they do not believe the stakes of the conflict, while significant, justify the price of war.

    If Ukraine were to join NATO, Russia would have reason to doubt the credibility of NATO’s security guarantee — and would gain an opportunity to test and potentially rupture the alliance. The result could be a direct NATO-Russia war or the unraveling of NATO itself.

    Below is the letter in full, followed by the list of signatories, which was first reported and posted online by Politico…

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 07/06/2024 – 18:05

  • "Think About It Very Carefully": Author Don Winslow Posts Curious Message To Mark Warner
    “Think About It Very Carefully”: Author Don Winslow Posts Curious Message To Mark Warner

    Authored by Jonathan Turley,

    Last night, President Joe Biden refused to take a cognitive or neurological test despite widespread concerns over his physical and mental decline. ABC’s George Stephanopoulos pressed the President on his low polling and efforts of Democrats to get him to drop out of the race. He specifically mentioned the effort of Sen. Mark Warner (D., Va.) to organize members to pressure him to end his campaign. Biden took a not-so-subtle dig at Warner. However, it was nothing compared to a curious posting by author and Democratic activist Don Winslow, who appeared to threaten Warner on X (formerly Twitter).

    When the story broke in the Washington Post, Winslow posted a curious and ominous response:

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

    It is not clear what Winslow meant by Warner knowing what he was talking about when asking if he was “sure you want to go down this road?”

    The message has caused a bit of a stir on the Hill. For the denizens of the Beltway, it sounds extortive and threatening. The suggestion is that Winslow has something on Warner.

    While some have asked whether this could be viewed as a threat criminally, it is clearly not sufficient for a charge. Warner is a public figure and this comment could just be a reference to political backlash or the lack of an alternative.

    His asking Warner “Are you sure you want to go down this road?” could be a reference to the political implications of the resulting chaos, including making Kamala Harris the presidential candidate. Harris is even less popular than Biden according to some polls. While some polls show her doing slightly better than Biden against Trump, other polling shows that she would do considerably worse.

    However, it is the follow up of “Think about it very carefully” that has got tongues wagging in D.C.

    Whatever the intended meaning, the posting shows the depth of the division on the issue. Those divisions are only likely to deepen further after the refusal to take a test to put these concerns to rest.

    Notably, Biden has insisted that the public can simply observe him. However, that position stands in contradiction to the frivolous privilege claims made by the Administration to withhold the audiotape from the interview with Special Counsel Robert Hur. That was an interview that the President was prepared for in advance and held in ideal conditions with staff. It is an opportunity for the public to hear him under questioning to reach the very conclusions that Biden suggested in the interview.

    As for Winslow’s posting, it may just be an incautious, poorly worded message rather than extortion or blackmail. We have all made postings that we regretted.

    The real issue for Democrats is how to address this looming issue without tearing the party apart. I have tried to drill down on the legal implications of swapping out the top of the ticket or the entire ticket. It is uncharted territory when it comes to the federal election laws on the use of past contributions as well as some states with restrictive rules on ballot changes.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 07/06/2024 – 17:30

  • Here's Where American Troops Are Stationed Overseas?
    Here’s Where American Troops Are Stationed Overseas?

    With a military budget bigger than most countries’ GDPs, the U.S. military manages to station troops in nearly 170 territories, on every continent in the world.

    But which countries host the most troops? In the chart below, Visual Capitalist’s Pallavi Rao maps the territories where active duty American military personnel are stationed, according to March 2024 figures from the Defense Manpower Data Center (DMDC).

    ℹ️ Reserve troops and civilian personnel are also stationed overseas for support activities. They are not included on this map.

    Ranked: Top 10 Territories Hosting U.S. Troops

    There are nearly 170,000 active duty American troops stationed overseas.

    More than half of that number are in Japan (55,000) and Germany (35,000), a holdover from World War II after the Axis powers surrendered.

    Germany is now also home to the US European Command (EUCOM) headquarters in Stuttgart. It’s a key regional outpost, to help “keep the peace in Europe, parts of the Middle East, and Eurasia,” as stated by the government.

    *Guam is a U.S. territory.

    Meanwhile, the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty revised in 1960 allowed America to establish military bases in the country, in exchange for defending Japan in the event of an attack.

    South Korea also has a significant garrison, nearly 25,000 active duty personnel. This is also a legacy from the Korean War.

    Tellingly, however, six of the top 10 countries hosting U.S. troops are in Europe. For the decades since the Cold War, the American military had been reducing its European footprint. However after Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, the buildup restarted.

    Finally, in the wake of the 2022 Russian invasion and the Israel-Hamas war, the U.S. military has increased the number of troops both in Europe and the Middle East.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 07/06/2024 – 16:55

  • Russia's Majority-Muslim Regions Are Paving The Way By Temporarily Banning The Niqab
    Russia’s Majority-Muslim Regions Are Paving The Way By Temporarily Banning The Niqab

    Authored by Andrew Korybko via substack,

    Russia’s majority-Muslim regions of Dagestan and Karachay-Cherkessia temporarily banned the niqab on security-related pretexts in the aftermath of last month’s terrorist attacks in Dagestan. The temporary nature of this restriction is meant to avoid violating federal law after a government document from the Cabinet seen by Kommersant in late May described a full ban as unconstitutional. That came in response to the head of the Human Rights Council calling for this shortly after late March’s Crocus terrorist attack.

    It’s ironic that Russia’s majority-Orthodox Cabinet considers a full ban to be an unconstitutional violation of its citizens’ freedom of religion while at least two of its majority-Muslim regions thus far consider a temporary one to be a prudent security-related measure. This disconnect is likely due to the first’s fear of offending Russia’s growing Muslim minority, which the Grand Mufti predicted in 2019 will constitute around one-third of the population in the next 15 years, and the second’s on-the-ground reality.

    The Cabinet might be acting nobly, and there’s no doubt that there’s a sizeable segment of this minority that would object to banning the niqab, but those Muslims on the front line of Russia’s domestic War on Terror in the North Caucasus understand the pragmatism behind temporary measures. At the very least, the niqab can be worn by male terrorists to disguise themselves in order to move freely among society while smuggling explosives and/or weapons, thus making this garment a security risk.

    There’s also the fact that the Central Asian Republics from which the vast majority of Russia’s migrant population originates have banned the niqab to varying degrees for similar security-related reasons as well as concerns that this foreign (Arab) tradition contributes to radicalizing members of society. By letting their citizens wear it during their stay in Russia, the federal government is inadvertently undermining their policies, which in turn risks destabilizing those countries once those citizens return.

    “Putin & The Patriarch Reminded Russians That Ethno-Religious Hate Speech Is Unacceptable” as part of their national unity efforts after the Crocus terrorist attack, but publicly discussing the socio-security benefits of banning the niqab doesn’t constitute such. It’s only controversial if someone associates terrorism with Islam like the Head of the Russian Investigative Committee Alexander Bastrykin recently did while lobbying for this policy and accidentally upset Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov as a result.

    The latter’s region already informally banned the niqab long ago, with this being the case beyond any doubt after a group of women were scolded on local TV in late 2020 for wearing this garment in public and then forced to remove it. Chechnya, much more than any other region in Russia, understands the socio-security risks of applying a laissez-faire approach towards foreign religious traditions even if this is for well-intentioned reasons related to upholding citizens’ human rights and whatnot.

    While the federal government might remain fearful of reversing its position on the alleged unconstitutionality of officially banning the niqab, Russia’s majority-Muslim regions of Chechnya, Dagestan, and Karachay-Cherkessia are paving the way through their informal and temporary bans. More regions could foreseeably follow their lead and couldn’t be accused of ethno-religious hate speech since it’s Russian Muslims themselves that are pioneering this pragmatic solution to such a sensitive issue.  

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 07/06/2024 – 16:20

  • 7 In 10 Voters Think Biden Is Too Old To Be President
    7 In 10 Voters Think Biden Is Too Old To Be President

    Considering that Joe Biden, who is already the oldest sitting president ever in the United States, will turn 82 in November and his designated challenger Donald Trump just turned 78, age was always going to be an issue in the run-up to the 2024 presidential election.

    After last week’s debate, however, during which President Biden looked every bit his age, the discussion over Biden’s fitness to run a successful re-election campaign, let alone serve another four-year term has taken on a new dynamic.

    As Statista’s Felix Richter reports, even among rank-and-file democrats, anxiety over Biden’s health and his re-election prospects is growing, even though the party’s leadership is trying to present a united front in support of the president.

    A new poll by The New York Times and Siena College reveals how big the concerns about Biden’s age really are, showing that 74 percent of registered voters believe that he is “just too old to be an effective president”, compared to 43 percent who think the same about Donald Trump.

    Infographic: 7 in 10 Voters Think Biden Is Too Old to Be President | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    Even more strikingly, 62 percent of those who voted for Biden in 2020 believe he is now too old, along with 59 percent of those who identified as supporters of the Democratic Party.

    That doesn’t necessarily mean people won’t vote for him though, as even 58 percent of those who would vote for Biden in 2024 tend to agree that he is too old to be an effective president, as they have similar (and other) concerns about Trump.

    As Statista’s chart shows, registered voters are significantly more concerned about Biden’s age than they are about Trump’s with more than 50 percent of all respondents strongly agreeing that Biden is too old to be an effective president and another 21 percent somewhat agreeing.

    When it comes to Trump’s age, just 22 percent of registered voters strongly agree that he’s too old to be a good president with another 21 percent somewhat agreeing.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 07/06/2024 – 15:45

  • Spot Bitcoin ETFS See Record Inflows Post-July-4th-Dip
    Spot Bitcoin ETFS See Record Inflows Post-July-4th-Dip

    Authored by Amaka Nwaokocha via CoinTelegraph.com,

    Spot Bitcoin ETFs experienced a surge in inflows on July 6, following the recent U.S. Independence Day, during which Bitcoin’s price dropped below $54,000.

    According to Farside monitoring, this is their largest net inflow in a month, with a remarkable $143.1 million flowing into these financial products.

    Strong inflows

    The Fidelity Bitcoin ETF (FBTC) led the inflows with an impressive $117 million, highlighting strong investor confidence in the fund. Following FBTC, the Bitwise Bitcoin ETF (BITB) recorded a net inflow of $30.2 million, while the ARKB and HODL ETFs saw inflows of $11.3 million and $12.8 million, respectively.

    Conversely, the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) experienced a net outflow of $28.6 million, starkly contrasting the positive trend across other spot Bitcoin ETFs.

    Spot Bitcoin ETFs bounced back strongly.    Source: Farside Investors

    Despite the recent market turbulence, the substantial inflows into these ETFs suggest that institutional investors and large-scale buyers are taking advantage of the dip to accumulate Bitcoin at lower prices.

    Prime opportunity to buy Bitcoin

    Hunter Horsley, CEO of Bitwise Asset Management, highlighted in a post on X social platform his team’s efficiency in acquiring Bitcoin, managing to do so at a cost of less than half a basis point.

    Horsley also emphasized the strong outlook for Bitcoin, suggesting that the current market conditions present a valuable buying opportunity for both new and existing investors.

    “The outlook for Bitcoin has never been stronger. For many who don’t yet have exposure, this week is a chance to buy the dip,” he stated.

    During the first week of July, BITB registered inflows exceeding $66 million, increasing its total Bitcoin holdings to over 38,000. Despite short-term volatility, this growth shows continued confidence in Bitcoin’s long-term potential.

    Renowned Bitcoin critic Peter Schiff also offered his perspective on the resilience of Bitcoin ETF investors. Despite recent market fluctuations, Schiff observed that these investors remain committed to holding their assets, showing no signs of panic.

    “So far, there’s no sign of panic. It will likely take a much larger drop in Bitcoin before they finally capitulate,” Schiff commented.

    He further predicted that a significant sell-off could occur soon, potentially leading to a capitulation among Bitcoin holders.

    Bitcoin fell to $55,200 on Coinbase after the collapsed Japanese crypto exchange Mt. Gox transferred 47,229 Bitcoin – worth $2.71 billion at current prices – to a new wallet address in its first major transaction since May.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 07/06/2024 – 15:10

  • Iran Elects Reformist President Amid Low Turnout, Young People Celebrate In Streets
    Iran Elects Reformist President Amid Low Turnout, Young People Celebrate In Streets

    The reformist and ‘moderate’ Masoud Pezeshkian has been elected as Iran’s new president, defeating his hardline conservative rival Saeed Jalili, after gaining 53.3% of the 30+ million votes counted.

    While Jalili was seen as the status quo candidate, by and large expected to continue his predecessor’s policies, Pezeshkian, a heart surgeon and member of the Iranian parliament, has vowed to seek an end to the Islamic Republic’s global isolation.

    Via Reuters: Masoud Pezeshkian wins election

    As part of this push, the 71-year old has called for “constructive negotiations” with the West on Iran’s nuclear program, in hopes getting US-led sanctions removed or at least softened. Iran has on a monthly basis been expanding its Uranium enrichment and purity, bringing it closer to the ability to produce a nuclear weapon if it decides to do so. Israel has meanwhile threatened preemptive attack if this happens.

    After years of intermittent anti-government protests, including the months-long ‘hijab protests’ which were triggered by a young woman’s death at the hands of the morality police, Dr. Pezeshkian is promising “unity and cohesion” between the government and population.

    He has personally long been critical of the morality police, which boosted his popularity among younger and professional young family circles. Already young people have been seen celebrating in the streets of major cities, in hopes of a new era for Iran.

    Pezeshkian’s victory is the result of a run-off after the June 28 first round election failed to result in a clear majority for either candidate. June 28 saw a historically low voter turnout of just 40% – and was a little over a month after the late President Ebrahim Raisi’s helicopter crashed in northern Iran near the border with Azerbaijan. Raisi and his Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian were killed, along with other top officials.

    According to the numbers from the run-off which secured Pezeshkian’s victory:

    With all ballots counted, Pezeshkian secured 16.4 million votes, while Jalili received 13.5 million votes, Press TV reports. Turnout was 30.5 million, or 49.8% of the 61 million eligible voters, according to a final update at 6:45 am local time (3:15 GMT).

    Iran’s Foreign Minister announced Saturday, “The great nation of Iran once again stood proud in the test of loyalty to the holy system of the Islamic Republic and protection of our beloved Iran. Now is the season of empathy, unity and national cohesion for progress and ever-increasing authority of the Islamic Republic of Iran.” Very quickly on the news, the leaders of China, India and Russia were among the first to congratulate Pezeshkian on his victory.

    Upon the first round of voting, it became increasingly apparent that regions were choosing their candidate largely along ethnic lines…

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    Below is a brief partial backgrounder on the newly elected Iranian president via Anadolu Agency…

    * * *

    A relatively low-profile political figure, Pezeshkian served as health minister in the government of Mohammad Khatami (2001-2005) and has represented the northwestern city of Tabriz in the Iranian parliament since 2008. A cardiologist by practice, Pezeshkian previously headed the Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, one of the leading medical institutions in northern Iran.

    His two previous unsuccessful bids for the presidency came in 2013 and 2021, respectively. In 2013, he withdrew from the presidential race in the later stages in favor of former President Hashemi Rafsanjani; in 2021, his candidacy was rejected by the Guardian Council, the country’s top vetting body.

    As the only reformist candidate in the race this time around, backed by the country’s leading reformist coalition, Pezeshkian engaged in hectic campaigning in recent weeks. His campaign was bolstered by the presence of former reformist politicians and ministers, including Javad Zarif, who served as foreign minister for two terms under former President Hassan Rouhani.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 07/06/2024 – 14:35

  • US Mainstream Media Await New Orders Now Their Big Lie About Biden Is Rumbled
    US Mainstream Media Await New Orders Now Their Big Lie About Biden Is Rumbled

    Authored by Tony Morrison via DailySceptic.org,

    The debacle that was President Biden’s performance at last Thursday’s Presidential debate divided America. Half were astonished to see someone with a crypt-keeper vibe who was obviously dazed and confused and whose language consisted mainly of mumbling nonsense that often trailed off into sheer incomprehensibility. The other half merely saw business as usual from Biden. Political pundits refer to this phenomenon as, in the words of Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams, “one screen, two movies”.

    Much of the blame for this societal dissonance lies in the unhealthy alliance of our MSM (mainstream media composed of broadcast networks and major newspapers) and the Democrat Party. Since at least the 1990s the MSM have been operating as a propaganda arm for the Democrat Party as opposed to providing “truth to power”. The MSM are gradually losing the battle for relevance in the huge flourishing of, first, cable networks and now internet-based sites, podcasts and assorted social media, but they are still powerful in their waning days. They trashed Trump merrily during his Presidency, pushed Biden over the finish line in 2020, and have carried Biden’s water since then.

    And since 2020 the MSM have been carrying more water for Biden than the Ganges in monsoon season. Biden’s deterioration has been evident for some years and it became an issue in the 2020 election. Brit Hume, one of journalism’s grey eminences, posed that Biden was senile based on his manner, behaviour and actions. MSM “fact-checkers” protected the precious candidate. But Biden and his handlers took notice that they had been rumbled and used the excuse of Covid from early 2020 on to hide Biden away campaigning from his basement. MSM ignored his concerning demeanor completely and supported him for President in words that would have embarrassed George Washington.

    After a most unusual election came a most unusual Presidency, where the hiding away of the most powerful man in the world continued. Appearances were controlled, press conferences limited and interviews permitted only in controlled scripted environments such as with celebrities or on late night talk shows. Biden’s deteriorating physical condition, as well as his mental decline, were covered up by his handlers in a number of ways.   

    This year, two events began to poke serious holes in the view that Biden is just old. Last year a Special Counsel, Robert Hur, was appointed to conduct an investigation into the finding of classified documents at Biden’s residences. He reported his findings in January. The report was not kind to Biden to say the least. He stated that Biden should not be prosecuted for the documents because a jury would not find him guilty as they would be sympathetic to the fact he was a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory”. NBC News dutifully provided covering fire for this by rolling out Democrat operatives to trash both Hur and the report.

    Then there were the recent international events such as D-Day and the G7 meetings, where Biden was caught on camera spacing out and wandering off. The videos were shown on Fox News and went viral. The Associated Press stepped up for the covering fire and called them “cheap fakes”, following on from the White House reaction.  A bemused Fox News said the videos “have not been cropped, they have not been sped up or slowed down or edited in any way”.

    And then came the debate. Biden had slipped in the polls against Trump due to the response from voters to seeing a candidate pursue the Kafka-esque strategy of putting an opponent on trial. And so Biden and his handlers came up with a cunning plan – to challenge Trump to a debate in an environment they believed they could control. They set the rules, selected the moderators (CNN, who had earlier supplied the questions in advance to Hillary Clinton in a 2016 debate), had no audience that would cause Biden to lose focus, and banned any cross-talk to limit Trump’s quick repartee. Biden spent seven days at Camp David prepping for the debate as if there was nothing else going on that required his attention. It was a brilliant strategy and only one thing could ruin it – the senility of the candidate. It did.

    The reaction was immediate from folks believing in Biden. Democrats and Never-Trumpers were gob-smacked. But it is fascinating how their surprise was akin to reading the last few pages of an Agatha Christie novel. Massive surprise at the unveiling of the murderer is followed by an “oh yeah” as folks think back on the clues that were there all along. These reactions showed up in polls taken over the last few days. A CBS News poll two days after the debate showed 72% of folks now believe Biden’s cognitive issues prohibit him from being President, and this includes 42% of Democrat voters.

    The immediate reactions of the MSM were different. At 10:30 that night the panicked howls of the MSNBC political pundits and “experts” mourned the death of their favoured campaign, while CNN threw ashes on the coffin. The New York Times suffered a dark night of the soul, and as the dawn broke published an editorial claiming Biden should step down. These are the guys who in March this year were taking a victory lap comparing Biden to Beethoven, Wagner and Martin Scorsese after Biden angrily shouted his way through a teleprompter speech to Congress.

    The assorted Democrat Party apparatchiks and elected representatives were even more on fire. The donors did not like seeing their investment go down the drain. Many wanted their money back. Incumbent Democrats facing election in November were all over the place, with the mood varying from total support to calls to step down. In a Presidential election year Biden is at the top of the ticket and so has the capability of dragging these guys over the finish line, as party regulars tend to vote the entire line. Or not, as the case may be.

    The White House gamely tried damage control, saying Biden was ill with a cold or suffering from jet lag after two back-to-back trips to Europe two weeks before the debate. The usually obedient White House Press Corps did not buy it.

    No word as yet from White House doctor Dr. Kevin O’Connor, who gave Biden his annual physical this year and claimed he was “fit for duty“.

    As for the Biden campaign, its response came four days later on Monday night when he addressed the nation on TV. The Supreme Court had issued a ruling on Presidential immunity when carrying out constitutional duties that essentially destroyed the strategy to tie Trump up in court for bogus charges. All Biden had to do was give a stirring speech on TV about the evil Supreme Court as a dramatic riposte to the debate nightmare. Unfortunately, Biden stank up the joint once again. His speech was only four minutes long, delivered in the trademark Biden mumble. He read both his speech and his instructions (“end of quote”) off the teleprompter. And it did not help that Biden’s face was painted with orange make-up in a vain effort to look as vibrant as his opponent.

    This story is going to take a while to play out as the Democrat Party is on the horns of a dilemma. Biden is still planning on running and if he (or those around him) want him to, he will. His delegates (over 90%) have to vote for him on a first ballot at the Democratic Convention in August, which makes him the Democrat nominee. Only pressure from Democrats, anxious about a thrashing in November if he heads the ticket, can change this. But try that with a cranky, senile, elderly man. Also, the $100 million campaign war chest he has raised so far can only be transferred to his VP, Kamala Harris. And Democrats, apart from those who want the first POC woman as President, do not want her as she is, unbelievably, more unpopular than Biden with the public. Raising that kind of money and formulating a nationwide campaign is unrealistic with just four months left. Whatever strategy is followed, one thing is clear – the MSM will support whatever path is chosen by the Democrat Party.

    Left out of all this is the state of the country. The focus at the moment is on Biden the candidate, but it is Biden as President for the next six months that is far more worrying. The MSM and Democrat Party, however, cannot waste too much time on something as trivial as the state of the nation. Not when there is an election to win.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 07/06/2024 – 14:00

  • 150 Million Americans Under Weather Alerts As "Potentially Historic Heatwave" Tests Major Power Grids
    150 Million Americans Under Weather Alerts As “Potentially Historic Heatwave” Tests Major Power Grids

    Let’s start with the good news: The Lower 48 has reached peak summer, backed by 30 years of seasonal temperature trend data from Bloomberg. 

    Now for the bad news: A heat wave continues to set records across the Lower 48, with 150 million Americans under weather alert this holiday weekend. 

    Axios outlines the areas where the heat dome will impact the most: 

    • Nearly half the U.S. population is under some type of extreme heat warning or advisory on Friday. The extreme heat in the Southeast to Mid-Atlantic is oppressive, with a strong upper-level high-pressure area, or heat dome, leading to hot and humid conditions.

    • Heat advisories and other alerts extend from New Orleans to New York City on Friday.

    • In the West, though, a near-record-strong heat dome is yielding scorchingly hot and dry conditions, and raising wildfire risks.

    • Excessive heat warnings along the West Coast stretch from Nevada and Arizona through California and northward into Oregon and Washington State.

    National Weather Service meteorologist Jenn Varian told Bloomberg that Las Vegas is forecasted to hit a scorching 117F on Sunday into early next week, potentially tying the metro area’s all-time high recorded in 2005 and again in 2017.

    “Confidence is increasing that this potentially historic heatwave will last several days,” the National Weather Service’s office in Portland, Oregon, wrote on X, adding temperatures will rise “into the 100s and 110s over much of California and southern Oregon.” 

    Here are more forecasted highs this weekend (list courtesy of Axios):

    • 118°F: Forecast high in Redding, Calif., on Saturday, tying the city’s all-time high.
    • 128°F: Forecast high in Death Valley, Calif., just 2-degrees shy of the hottest reliably measured temperature on Earth.
    • 100°F: Forecast high on Friday in Portland, Ore., with temperatures at or above this level from Friday through Tuesday in this typically cooler city.

    This all means that power grids will be under stress this weekend as high temperatures boost air conditioning demand. Bloomberg says that grids in California and Texas should be closely monitored for an elevated blackout risks.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 07/06/2024 – 13:25

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Jul 06

Today’s News 6th July 2024

  • The Hidden History Of Robert Mueller's Right-Wing Terror Factory, Part 2
    The Hidden History Of Robert Mueller’s Right-Wing Terror Factory, Part 2

    Authored by Ken Silva via Headline USA,

    The first article of this series chronicled the FBI’s mid-2000s program to stage neo-Nazi rallies around the country as a means to conduct surveillance and recruit potential informants.

    FBI motorcycle group. PHOTO: ChatGPT

    Those rallies were just the beginning of a sweeping multi-state investigation, Headline USA can reveal.

    Indeed, after an FBI informant was exposed in 2007 for organizing a Nazi rally in Orlando the year before, the bureau launched another operation in the same area. Dubbed “Primitive Affliction,” the FBI set up a neo-Nazi motorcycle front group to infiltrate Florida’s right-wing underground.

    Federal agencies are known to have used motorcycle front groups cases against targets such as the Hells Angels for drug- and gun-trafficking investigations. However, Headline USA is unaware of such a tactic being employed in a politically charged domestic terrorism case until Primitive Affliction.

    This publication has also found that then-FBI Director Robert Mueller had a personal interest in Primitive Affliction, which ran from about 2007 to 2012. Indeed, Mueller was briefed daily on the operation during its final stages, according to a newly unearthed performance review of one undercover cop on the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force.

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    Because Primitive Affliction collapsed with no terrorism convictions, the case never grabbed the national spotlight. However, a deeper look at the case reveals infiltration and entrapment techniques used by the FBI in 1990s investigations against the Aryan Nations, as well as more recent cases such as the 2020 militia conspiracy to kidnap Michigan’s governor.

    Mueller did not respond to an email about Primitive Affliction. The FBI declined to comment.

    Reviving the Aryan Nations

    In the 1980s and 90s, the Aryan Nations rivaled the Ku Klux Klan as the face of “white hate” in America—and for good reason, having been linked to numerous bank robberies, the assassination of a Jewish radio host and the Oklahoma City bombing, along with other crimes.

    But by the mid-2000s, the Aryan Nations was largely decimated by numerous arrests and civil litigation. The group had splintered into various factions around the country. One of its remaining leaders, August Kreis, was desperate to consolidate power.

    Working out of a South Carolina mobile home with a man named Joshua Caleb Sutter—who was a known FBI informant since 2003—Kreis attempted several publicity stunts to put his name on the map.

    For example, at one point Kreis pledged allegiance to Osama bin Laden and claimed to seek an alliance with Muslim jihadists. Sutter, who was Kreis’s “minister for Islamic liaison,”  also reportedly posted a “message of solidarity and support” to Saddam Hussein on the Aryan Nations Web site. (If Sutter’s name sounds familiar, it’s because he made headlines in 2021, when it was revealed that he earned more than $100,000 from the FBI while running a Satanic publishing house.)

    When that didn’t work in attracting new members or donations, Kreis began plotting with another Aryan Nations member, Robert Killian. Like Sutter, Killian turned out to be undercover law enforcement—Killian an undercover cop on the FBI’s JTTF.

    An avid motorcyclist living in Orlando, Killian had been hanging out at a local Outlaw biker bar while posing online as a member of the Aryan Nations. Using the name “Doc,” by 2007 he had risen to become the Aryan Nations Florida state administrator—which, ironically, gave him power to vet applicants. The Orlando Sentinel later described Killian as the Aryan Nations’ “top recruiter.”

    Apparently, someone in the FBI had the idea of merging a domestic terrorism case with a biker case. Killian planted the idea in Kreis’s head to start a neo-Nazi motorcycle club, the 1st SS Kavallerie Brigade Motorcycle Division—named after a horse-mounted unit of Nazi Germany’s Waffen-SS.

    For Kreis, a biker gang posed the opportunity to attract publicity, gain members and increase revenue for the Aryan Nations.

    But first, they needed bikers. To that end, Killian convinced an Outlaw biker named Brian Klose to become the leader of the 1st SS Kavallerie. According to people familiar with the matter, Killian was able to convince Klose to leave the Outlaws by playing to his ego. Keeping with the neo-Nazi theme, Klose was named “Fuhrer” of the new group.

    Klose would come to regret his decision to leave the Outlaws for what turned out to be an FBI front group.

    With Klose surrounded by a gaggle of informants and undercover cops, the 1st SS Kavallerie clubhouse was open for business. According to internal law enforcement records, there were at least four undercover employees and an untold number of informants who infiltrated the group, along with numerous wiretaps and other “sophisticated techniques.”

    Kelly Boaz a.k.a. ‘Kevin Post’

    One of the key undercover agents from Primitive Affliction was Kelly Boaz, a local Orange County cop who, like Killian, had earned a spot on the FBI’s JTTF—receiving specialized training from the ADL and SPLC, according to their personnel records.

    Boaz earned a JTTF assignment despite a scandal-plagued career with the Orange County Sheriff’s Office, where he was the subject of more than a dozen internal investigations since joining in 1989, several involving allegations of excessive force.

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    In December 1999, for example, Boaz was involved in a predawn raid where another officer shot a suspect. Months later in August 2000, Boaz was at the center of another controversy when he shot and killed an unarmed thief at a shopping center.

    He was cleared of wrongdoing in both incidents, but his supervisor was reportedly demoted and his racketeering squad was disbanded. A civil lawsuit was filed against him and the Orange County Sheriff’s Office over the December 1999 incident, but the case was eventually dismissed.

    Despite Boaz’s controversial past, the FBI relied on him to build a complex case against a supposed network of white supremacist terrorists.

    Boaz, who declined an interview request, entered Florida’s neo-Nazi scene sometime after the Orlando neo-Nazi rally organizer, FBI undercover operative David Gletty, had his cover blown in the media—as detailed in Part 1 of this series.

    According to court records, Boaz was introduced to the Outlaw bikers and the 1st SS Kavallerie in 2009 by his colleague, Killian. By then, Boaz had already infiltrated the Black Pistons biker gang and was posing as one of its members, a renegade bomb maker named “Kevin Post.”

    For nearly the next three years, Boaz and the FBI built their case.

    During his investigation, one of his informants purportedly learned about another right-wing group in the area called the American Front. Operation Primitive Affliction eventually expanded to the Russia-linked American Front, which will be the subject of Part 3 of this series.

    In both cases, Boaz made extravagant claims of the drug deals and terroristic plots he witnessed in his roughly three years as an undercover biker/bomber. He also claimed that his life was threatened when an Outlaw biker put a firearm to his head and accused him of being law enforcement.

    Mueller likely heard similar reports. A glowing performance review for Boaz said the case “was briefed to the FBI Director daily during the executions of the disruptions.”

    But a deeper look at the evidence produced in court casts doubt on Boaz’s claims, as well as the FBI’s entire case.
    Kavallerie Collapse

    “Biker Gangsters Busted after Three-Year Probe,” the Orlando Sentinel reported on March 31, 2012.

    Two nights earlier, Boaz and the FBI had rounded up the targets of Primitive Affliction. One of those arrested was a woman named Deborah Plowman, who was at her home near Chicago when more than a dozen armed agents swarmed her on March 29, 2012. According to Boaz, he saw Plowman take pills at an Outlaw bikers party several years earlier.

    After spending the night in jail, Plowman was told she needed to travel to Florida to face drug-trafficking charges—or else, she’d face extradition. Baffled, Plowman professed her innocence.

    She was telling the truth.

    On April 19, 2012, Plowman turned herself into law enforcement in Florida to be interviewed by Boaz. It didn’t take long before Boaz realized that he had the wrong person arrested.

    “Boaz asked [Plowman] if she has ever used the nickname or has ever been called ‘Sin,’ to which she replied with a ‘no,’” Plowman said in a lawsuit she filed later over the wrongful arrest.

    “Defendant Boaz immediately began to break out into a sweat upon viewing and questioning [Plowman], realizing he caused the wrong person, [Plowman], to be arrested in his undercover operation, instead of ‘Sin’ [Kristy Pryzbylla].”

    It turned out, Plowman was married to someone Boaz had been investigating, and the undercover agent somehow confused her with Pryzbylla. Plowman quickly hired a lawyer, who blasted Boaz in the Orlando Sentinel for his carelessness.

    “Had Boaz pulled her drivers license, he would have known it wasn’t her, and he’d made a huge mistake,” Plowman’s then-attorney, Jerry Theophilopoulos, said at the time. “In all my 20 years of practice, I’ve never seen anything like what they did to Deborah Plowman.”

    Plowman had her charges dropped in May 2012, and she eventually won $30,000 from Boaz in a civil lawsuit.

    Boaz’s sloppy police work would continue to rear its ugly head as the fruits of Primitive Affliction moved through the courts.

    The other defendants—including the “Fuehrer” Klose, Ronald Cusack, Carlos Eugene Dubose and Harold Johnson Kinlaw—were initially charged with violent crimes, such as bomb-making and soliciting murder. However, prosecutors later dropped most of the charges related to violence, instead reaching deals with the defendants to plead guilty to drug charges.

    Assistant State Attorney Steven Foster reportedly said at the time that prosecutors were willing to strike plea deals with alleged white supremacist extremists because they were following the “Al Capone theory of prosecution”—referencing how federal authorities jailed the notorious mobster for tax evasion instead of his countless violent crimes.

    “We decided to strike against the Kavallerie Brigade by bringing these heavy-duty drug charges to shut the active members down,” Foster reportedly said, bragging about shutting down an FBI front group.

    However, one of the Outlaw biker defendants, Dubose, fought his charges.

    It was a good thing he did.

    A retired U.S. Marine, Dubose’s crime stemmed from when he cracked his skull in a motorcycle accident. Down and out on his luck and looking for cash, Dubose took another blow in life when an FBI informant arranged for him to sell his prescription painkillers to an undercover officer.

    Outlaw biker Carlos Dubose was originally charged with trafficking enough pills to land him in prison for the rest of his life, but an FBI 302 shows he only sold a misdemeanor amount. Had Dubose not noticed this, he might still be in prison.

    Initially charged with selling more than 28 grams of Oxycodone pills, Dubose could have spent the rest of his life in prison. But when he started receiving pre-trial discovery, he noticed something: An FBI report showed he only gave the undercover officer 9 grams of pills—a crime that carried the far lesser max sentence of seven years imprisonment.

    After successfully diminishing the severity of his drug charge, Dubose decided to plead guilty to that lone count. But he continued to vociferously deny any involvement in a bomb plot—a charge that stemmed from a conversation he had with Boaz, aka renegade bomb maker “Kevin Post,” nearly three years earlier in 2009.

    To Dubose’s point, the Feb. 27, 2009, conversation he had with Boaz/Post never developed any further over the next three years. And a transcript of the conversation shows Dubose choosing his words carefully when talking about “hypothetically” building a pipe bomb: “We’re not lookin’ to do anything. It’s just a matter if we start to go to war with somebody,” Dubose told Post/Boaz at the end of the discussion.

    Florida prosecutors admitted that Boaz’s one recorded conversation didn’t contain smoking-gun evidence of bomb plots, but they claimed there were other discussions where Dubose made such plans.

    Even though there were no recordings of those other purported conversations—and even though Dubose never possessed or attempt to build a bomb—the judge accepted the narrative of Boaz and the government. He tossed the motion to dismiss, and Dubose took a plea deal soon thereafter.

    Gun to the Head?

    Boaz’s credibility would be challenged once more at Dubose’s April 21, 2014, sentencing hearing, where the undercover agent claimed to have had a weapon pointed at his head.

    During the hearing, defense attorney Harold Uhrig asked Boaz the obvious question: If Dubose pointed a gun at him, why didn’t the government mention that before?

    “I’ve gone through about 600 pages of transcripts, reports, supplemental reports, I don’t find it anywhere mentioned in there. Are you telling me that there’s some information that y’all did not disclose to us?” Uhrig asked Boaz.

    Boaz insisted that he did report the gun-pointing incident to the FBI for “intelligence gathering,” but he didn’t tell the Orange County Sheriff’s Office. Boaz also admitted that he didn’t have any documentation proving that he reported the alleged incident to the FBI.

    After Boaz’s dubious testimony, the judge still sentenced Dubose to five years imprisonment for both the drug trafficking and bomb solicitation charges.

    The judge did admit that the available evidence “somewhat” supported Dubose’s version of events.

    However, the judge noted that Dubose did talk about having a bomb “in the event of a war.” Therefore, “the Court finds, viewing the evidence in its totality, that [Dubose intended] to obtain a destructive device for the purpose of injuring or causing damage to persons or property,” the judge said, allowing the government to somewhat save face after a disastrous case.

    The judge sentenced Dubose to five-year concurrent sentences for the drug and bomb charges.

    While prosecutors were able to secure some convictions from the 1st SS Kavallerie investigation—Klose is still in prison on felony drug trafficking charges—they fared even worse in the American Front case, thanks in part to more Boaz blunders.

    Bizarre developments would continue to occur outside the courtroom, too. As they prepped for trial around 2013, Boaz and several other government officials would begin receiving strange threats, purportedly from a neo-Nazi fugitive on the run in Mexico—the subject of Part 3 of this series.

    Stay tuned…

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

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 07/05/2024 – 23:10

  • Visualizing The Growth Of (Legal) US Sports Betting
    Visualizing The Growth Of (Legal) US Sports Betting

    The global sports betting industry has grown exponentially over the last few years, with a significant share of that growth coming from the United States.

    This graphic, via Visual Capitalist’s Marcus Lu, shows annual gross gaming revenue (GGR) from sports betting in the U.S., with data coming from the American Gaming Association.

    What is GGR?

    GGR is the total amount of money wagered minus winnings. For example, if a player wagers $1,000,000 at a casino and wins $900,000, GGR would be $100,000.

    Sports Betting Still a Young Industry

    Sports betting in the U.S. was first legalized in May 2018, after the Supreme Court struck down the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA) of 1992. PASPA had effectively outlawed sports betting nationwide.

    Since 2018, gross gaming revenue has jumped from $400 million to $11 billion in 2023.

    Betting is particularly big in Nevada, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania due to early legalization, robust regulatory frameworks, and strong sports cultures.

    Nevada, boosted by Las Vegas, generated over $5 billion in commercial gaming revenue (including other casino revenue streams) over the first four months of 2024, while New Jersey and Pennsylvania each generated over $2 billion.

    According to the American Gaming Association, 38 states (and DC) have legalized sports betting to date.

    If you enjoyed this post, be sure to check out this graphic, which shows the top NFL teams by revenue.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 07/05/2024 – 22:45

  • HuffPo Encourages Biden Campaign To Openly Push Disinformation Using AI
    HuffPo Encourages Biden Campaign To Openly Push Disinformation Using AI

    Authored by Jacob Bruns via Headline USA,

    In a bizarre op-ed, Huffington Post writer Kaivan Shroff suggested that the President Joe Biden and his campaign should consider using artificial intelligence to dupe the American people into voting for him.

    Joe Biden does his daily workout. / IMAGE: Fotor AI (Editor’s note: this photo has been generated using artificial intelligence and is not actually Joe Biden.)

    Shroff began by noting that “the stakes” of the election “cannot be overstated” because the future of democracy “hangs in the balance,” rhetoric which, he assured the reader, “is not hyperbolic.”

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    It is “the greatest moral and ethical imperative for those who care about American democracy” to defeat former President Donald Trump, he opined.

    As a result, the ends justified the means, even if that entailed continuing the campaign’s ongoing efforts to gaslight low-information voters into thinking Biden is fitter and healthier than he is, but with additional assistance from AI to more “effectively reach the voting public.”

    It is not entirely clear that the campaign hasn’t already been relying on this tactic in what have appeared to be the president’s more lucid moments on camera.

    While admitting that using AI to present a smoother, more well-spoken Biden could be deceptive, Shroff ultimately concluded that such deception would be worthwhile if it led to a Biden victory.

    “We must ask the question, are augmented AI videos that present Biden in his best form―while sharing honest and accurate information―really more socially damaging than our information ecosystem’s current realities?” Shroff wrote. “I think not.”

    Such conversations seem to be inevitable for the left after Biden’s disastrous debate performance last month, for which his defenders have thrown out every excuse in the book as Trump surges in swing state polls.

    On Wednesday, for instance, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre blamed Biden’s jet lag from a flight weeks before the debate, along with a cold that he allegedly had.

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    “It’s the jet lag and also the cold–it is the two things that occurred,” Jean-Pierre told reporters at a Tuesday press conference.

    Biden cronies have also used AI as an excuse in the past—but for the opposite end, to accuse Republicans of the threat of spreading disinformation by altering the audio in Biden’s special counsel interview with Robert Hur.

    It was the basis of that interview that prompted Hur not to pursue charges, concluding Biden was unfit to stand trial for the felonies.

    However, Attorney General Merrick Garland cited executive privilege in insisting that he was under no obligation to release the audio file. House Republicans held him in contempt of Congress and subsequently filed a lawsuit that could result in legal consequences for Garland under the next administration.

    Leftists afflicted with Trump Derangement Syndrome have become increasingly unhinged when faced with the prospect of a Biden candidacy, proposing ever more drastic, dangerous and anti-democratic courses of action to counter the will of the people.

    A Pennsylvania lawmaker named Matthew Croyle went viral for all the wrong reasons on Wednesday after authoring a post on X that suggested leftists with Trump-supporting relatives kill them now before they have the chance to strike first.

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    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 07/05/2024 – 22:20

  • "Self-Created Hole": Education Reforms Push Maryland Toward Financial Cliff
    “Self-Created Hole”: Education Reforms Push Maryland Toward Financial Cliff

    Fitch, Moody’s Ratings, and S&P Global Ratings recently reaffirmed Maryland’s coveted triple-A credit rating. However, Moody’s downgraded the state’s outlook from stable to “negative,” citing significant concerns about looming structural deficits due to Annapolis’ out-of-control education spending. And while education spending soars, test scores are going in the wrong direction.

    “The negative outlook incorporates difficulties Maryland will face to achieve balanced financial operations in coming years without sacrificing service delivery goals or adding to the weight of the state government’s burden on individual and corporate taxpayers,” Moody’s wrote in the report last month. This is the first time the credit rating agency has issued a negative outlook for the state since 2011, several years after the GFC meltdown. 

    A looming fiscal cliff is primarily driven by edu programs, including the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future education reforms. When the reform was passed, the genius progressive lawmakers in Annapolis did not pass a funding mechanism. 

    “It’s a self-created hole,” Republican State Senator Justin Ready told investigative journalist Chris Papst of Fox45 News’ Project Baltimore late last month, adding, “I’m disappointed but not surprised that we were downgraded to negative.”

    Senator Ready’s district includes Carroll and Frederick Counties, located west of Baltimore. Several years ago, he attempted to warn leftist lawmakers in Annapolis that education spending would spark fiscal turmoil. However, his warnings were ignored while progressives were more focused on pushing woke policies. 

    “We have a very high-taxed state and local governments, and so we were concerned. We saw this as being unsustainable, an unsustainable increase,” said Ready.

    He continued, “Education spending was always increasing. This is just putting a rocket ship on it without the kind of accountability that’s needed.” 

    Maryland’s fiscal projections show an expected $1 billion budget deficit by 2025, $1.3 by 2027, and more than $3 billion by 2028. Soaring deficits are a function of the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future, also called the Kirwan Plan, which pumps $30 billion in taxpayer funds into public education over ten years and then adds $4 billion per year after that.

    Papst offers some very troubling news for residents:

    “In order to pay for it, according to those statistics, the state would have to either increase the personal income tax rate by 39% or raise the sales tax by 89% or increase property taxes by 535%.” 

    For years, Democrats in the state have advocated for increased education spending but rarely address test score performances that are heading in the wrong direction, an issue even the Washington Post could no longer ignore: 

    Over the years, Papst’s team has led an effort to uncover fraud and corruption in the state’s public school systems. 

    Fox News picked up on Papst’s reporting last year.

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    Some folks on X have called soaring education expenses a grift by the Democratic Party that loots taxpayers and enriches teachers’ unions that only fund progressive causes.

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    Why more Marylanders aren’t demanding accountability from progressives in Annapolis transforming the state into what could soon be the next Illinois is troubling. 

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 07/05/2024 – 21:55

  • Philippines Says US Will Pull Out Controversial Mid-Range Missile System
    Philippines Says US Will Pull Out Controversial Mid-Range Missile System

    Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

    On Thursday, the Philippines said the US was pulling out a new missile system it deployed to the Southeast Asian country for annual military exercises.

    The US sent the Typhon missile system for the Balikatan exercises, which were held in April and May. The Typhon is a controversial launcher since it would have been banned by the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, a treaty between the US and Russia that the Trump administration withdrew from in 2019.

    Image: US Army

    The INF prohibited land-based missile systems with a range between 310 and 3,400 miles. The Typhon can launch nuclear-capable Tomahawk missiles, which have a range of about 1,000 miles. It can also fire SM-6 missiles, which can hit targets up to 290 miles away.

    Philippine Col. Louie Dema-ala told AFP that the US planned to withdraw the Typhon from the Philippines following the military exercises.

    “As per plan… it will be shipped out of the country in September or even earlier,” he said. “The US Army is currently shipping out their equipment that we used during Balikatan and Salaknib (exercises).”

    China strongly condemned the deployment of the Typhon system, which US officials have acknowledged was developed to prepare for a future conflict with Beijing over Taiwan or the South China Sea.

    Russian President Vladimir Putin also recently mentioned the deployment. He made the comments when calling for Moscow to follow the US and develop missile systems previously banned by the INF.

    “We need to start production of these strike systems and then, based on the actual situation, make decisions about where — if necessary to ensure our safety — to place them,” Putin said last week.

    “Today it is known that the United States not only produces these missile systems, but has already brought them to Europe for exercises, to Denmark. Quite recently it was announced that they are in the Philippines,” the Russian leader added.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 07/05/2024 – 21:30

  • Rivian's Amazon Delivery Vans Keep Mysteriously Catching Fire
    Rivian’s Amazon Delivery Vans Keep Mysteriously Catching Fire

    Amazon delivery vans, manufactured by Rivian, keep catching fire.

    That was the topic of a new report from Quartz.com this week which highlighted that the blue Prime vans seen all over the country keep catching fire at Amazon distribution centers.

    “One starts to wonder why,” QZ.com asked. 

    The report notes that footage from Third Coast Drone reveals Rivian vans ablaze outside an Amazon facility in Houston.

    While the video doesn’t show how the fire started, it captures firefighters working to control the flames. Importantly, the footage also reveals that each van was parked at a charging station.

    This isn’t the first time Rivian vans have caught fire at an Amazon location, the report notes.

    Last August, a similar incident occurred in Salt Lake City, where vans burned in a distribution center parking lot. Posts in Amazon worker subreddits revealed that drivers have reported issues with the vans charging in high heat and suspected the chargers as the cause of the blaze.

    Chargers have been blamed for fires before, either due to improper home wiring or inadequate cooling.

    What’s still unclear is whether professionally-installed chargers, like these Rivian units, are prone to the same issues as Level 2 chargers plugged into home dryer outlets.

    Heat-related issues with electric vehicles are likely to become more common as global temperatures rise.

    The transition to EVs still remains worthwhile according to QZ—just, maybe consider charging in the shade until these issues are resolved.

    Sure thing. We’ll be back to diesel powered delivery trucks in no time!

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 07/05/2024 – 21:05

  • Sex, Lies, & Racial Hysteria: The Quiet J6 Killing Of Rosanne Boyland
    Sex, Lies, & Racial Hysteria: The Quiet J6 Killing Of Rosanne Boyland

    Authored by Jack Kashill via American Greatness,

    One wonders what thoughts passed through the fevered mind of Officer Lila Morris as she struck the seemingly lifeless Rosanne Boyland over the head with a branch, then struck her again, and then struck her a third time so hard that the branch snapped in half.

    If Morris thought Boyland a hateful white supremacist who deserved her fate, one could, if not forgive her, at least understand how she came to think that way. For the last two years, Morris had heard little else about these MAGA minions and the monster who led them.

    President-elect Joe Biden had set the tone when he launched his presidential campaign in April 2019, implying President Donald Trump had called the neo-Nazis involved in the Charlottesville dust-up “very fine people.” No major candidate has ever begun a presidential campaign with a more divisive and slanderous opening gambit (one that Snopes conceded was false just this past week).

    Biden continued the slander throughout the campaign. Just four weeks before the 2020 election, he weighed in on the well-timed bust of an FBI-massaged plot to kidnap Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer. “There is a through line from President Trump’s dog whistles and tolerance of hate, vengeance, and lawlessness to plots such as this one,” fumed Biden. “He is giving oxygen to the bigotry and hate we see on the march in our country.”

    If Morris feared the depredations of these Hun-like hordes, she was in good company.

    “Just remember, we’re on the right side of history,” Rep. Val Demings told a colleague as they huddled fearfully in the House gallery on January 6.

    “If we all die today, another group will come in and certify those ballots.”

    “White supremacy and patriarchy are very linked in a lot of ways,” congressional drama queen Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told CNN’s Dana Bash.

    “There’s a lot of sexualizing of that violence. And I didn’t think that I was just going to be killed. I thought other things were going to happen to me as well.”

    When Bash asked AOC if she thought she was going to be raped, AOC answered, “Yeah, yeah. I thought I was.”

    The left has been feeding its base a steady diet of racial fear and loathing for generations.

    Ocasio-Cortez is Puerto Rican. Demings and Morris black. Also black is Michael Byrd, the Capitol Police lieutenant (now captain) who shot and killed January 6 protestor and Air Force veteran Ashli Babbitt.

    Babbitt and Boyland were both white.

    The phrase “had the races been reversed” is such a manifest truism that pundits on the right no longer bother to complete the thought

    If the shooting death of the attractive 35-year-old Babbitt was too public to ignore, the death of the obscure 34-year-old Boyland was not.

    Biden’s incoming Department of Justice preferred to keep it that way. The nature of that death raised troubling questions not only about race but also about sex.

    In the cause of equity, the DC Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) saw fit to put a small, slight woman at the front of a contested police line. In the DEI-drenched precincts of Washington, no one dared protest this madness either before January 6 or after.

    In the days following Morris’s meltdown, all parties fell in line to preserve both the myth of heroic police resistance and the imagined role women played in that resistance. Consider this tweet from WUSA news anchor Lesli Foster on February 7, 2021:

    “You MUST hear about Ofc. Lila Morris. MPD Acting Chief Contee says Morris ‘fought like hell’ in the tunnel of death…. Morris was injured, then got back in the melee. Women, too, fought hard to reclaim the #Capitol.”

    Foster’s tweet included a photo of Morris being feted for her heroism at the Super Bowl, one of just three officers so honored.

    A high percentage of the selected video footage that entertained Democrats for the last three years was shot in and around this “tunnel of death.” While protestors were freely walking into the Capitol through multiple other entrances, the police defended the tunnel as though it were the Alamo.

    Caught in a scrum, Boyland found herself unwillingly pushed to the tunnel entrance. At this point, the MPD, now in riot gear, made a concerted surge to drive back the scrum. The chemical irritant sprayed by the MPD displaced the oxygen in the tunnel, causing people to feel faint. Rosanne collapsed, and as many as 30 people were shoved on top of her.

    Once the others were pulled off, Rosanne lay momentarily lifeless and exposed at the tunnel entrance. That’s when Morris went after her. “I was horrified,” said use-of-force expert Stan Kephart upon seeing the video. “We don’t train officers to hit people in the head with a blunt object.” Added Kephart, “It was definitely a crime.”

    To protect Rosanne from both the crowd and the police, Texan protestor Luke Coffee stood over the dying woman, holding a crutch horizontally above his head. For his efforts to save Rosanne, he was charged with a felony for striking Morris. Not until Coffee’s January 2024 trial was Morris forced to testify about January 6.

    Under oath, Morris conceded that Coffee never hit her. She also admitted that a baton or stick, was only to be used with a hand on either end as a way to push crowds back. “Are you ever trained to hold it like a bat and strike over somebody’s head?” asked Coffee’s attorney, Carol Stewart. “No,” said Morris.

    To preserve the narrative of heroic police resistance, the DC medical examiner’s office sat on Boyland’s autopsy report for the maximum 90 days and then attributed her death to “acute amphetamine intoxication.” Amphetamine was the active ingredient in the Adderall that Boyland had been taking by prescription for ten years to deal with her ADHD.

    The Boyland family was stunned. Boyland’s brother-in-law Justin Cave had reached out to childhood friend and MSNBC anchor Ayman Mohyeldin to help the family get to the bottom of Boyland’s death, but Mohyeldin was stonewalled by the medical examiner at every turn. “All our requests were denied,” admitted the surprised MSNBC anchor. “The trampling, the riot, the video evidence, none of this was even mentioned in the official autopsy report.”

    Morris remained an unquestioned hero until September 2021, when that damning video surfaced of her striking Rosanne. Disturbed by what he saw, J6 video expert Gary McBride filed a police brutality complaint with the DC Metropolitan Police Department. McBride believes Rosanne was still alive when Morris struck her. “When she takes that second hit to the head, watch her left arm, her left arm straightens up and lifts off the ground,” he told the Epoch Times.

    Morris need not have worried. Two months after McBride filed his complaint, he was informed via email, “The use of force within this investigation was determined to be objectively reasonable.” Morris would remain on the force and would face no criminal charges. The DOJ never investigated.

    If the Boyland family had any hope of clearing Rosanne’s name, that hope lay with the House Select Committee. Before finishing its work, the committee would interview more than a thousand witnesses but none who witnessed Boyland’s death, not even Lila Morris. The eight-hundred-page final report, released in December 2022, goes into great detail about the two-hour battle at the “tunnel of death” but does not mention the name of the woman who died there, not even in the footnotes.

    *  *  *

    Jack Cashill’s new book, Ashli: The Untold Story of the Women of January 6, is now available in all formats.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 07/05/2024 – 20:40

  • Disney World Stealthily Reduces July 4 Flags As Theme Park Attendance Remains Low
    Disney World Stealthily Reduces July 4 Flags As Theme Park Attendance Remains Low

    The Walt Disney Company has become one of America’s wokest companies, injecting left-wing diversity, equity and inclusion or DEI agenda into nearly every aspect of its business, from theme parks to video content. Consequently, Disney is no longer the babysitter for American parents, with families increasingly avoiding theme parks and movies. Bob Iger’s recent return as CEO sent wokeism into warp speed. 

    The website blogmickey shares an interesting account of Walt Disney World Resort, located about 20 miles southwest of Orlando, Florida, on July 4, indicating that “Disney may have forecasted as much—shortening typical holiday period park hours and not decorating as much as they have in the past.” 

    Blogmickey previously “covered some of the cutbacks in hours” at the theme park but also “noticed that Disney has scaled back on some of the patriotic decors.” 

    Let’s take a view of what Main Street USA looked like on the Fourth of July in 2023 versus this Thursday: 

    Source: Blogmickey

    Notice how Disney stealthily removed patriotic flags. 

    Source: Blogmickey

    Source: Blogmickey

    Source: Blogmickey

    “This year, it is only installed in Town Square. Not groundbreaking by any means, but when details matter, details should matter,” Blogmickey said. Considering DEI is rooted in Marxism, as per Real Clear Education’s findings, it should make sense why US flags are being scaled down at the theme park during the holiday. Clearly, Disney has not received the memo like the rest of corporate America (read: “Backlash Is Real”: DEI Exodus Gains Steam Across Corporate America)… 

    A 1989 video shows that on July 4, there was a lot of ‘America’ throughout the theme park.

    Let’s not forget that wait time ride tracking website Thrill Data shows that this year’s July 4 recorded wait time averages at Walt Disney World to be underwhelming, with some of the lowest times over the past decade.

    Putting woke ideology ahead of entertainment has destroyed an American institution. Iger’s long list of failures is piling up. 

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 07/05/2024 – 20:15

  • The Absurdity Of "Open Borders"
    The Absurdity Of “Open Borders”

    Authored by Llewellyn Rockwell via The Mises Institute,

    Some libertarians argue that libertarianism requires support for “open borders,” but this is a mistake. “Open borders” is the view in the existing world of states, the state ought to admit as many people who want to come to the United States as possible. Of course, you don’t have the right to occupy property that is privately owned. But much of the property in the United States is “public,” which means that it is up to those who run the state to decide what to do with it. Of course, this is an unsatisfactory situation and we should do what we can to bring about a world with no “public” property and no state, but for now the question is what to do: open borders or not?

    The answer is quite clear. “Open borders” would be a. disastrous mistake. The policy would subject the United States to hordes of people with alien ideologies and cultures. As the great Ludwig von Mises pointed out, it would have made no sense to allow immigration from Germany and Japan during World War II. “Neither does it mean that there can be any question of appeasing aggressors by removing migration barriers. As conditions are today, the Americas and Australia in admitting German, Italian, and Japanese immigrants merely open their doors to the vanguards of hostile armies.” We face exactly the same situation today. We have a hard enough problem coping with the alien ideologies and cultures that are already here. Why compound our problem?

    The situation is even worse than we have so far portrayed. Because of the “woke” control that now prevails, members of “protected” groups such as racial minorities are immediately eligible for reparations, “set-asides,” affirmative action, and other schemes to mulct the American people. Why should our hard-earned tax money go to support people who have no ties to our country? As I said in 2015, “In other words, it’s bad enough we have to be looted, spied on, and kicked around by the state. Should we also have to pay for the privilege of cultural destructionism, an outcome the vast majority of the state’s taxpaying subjects do not want and would actively prevent if they lived in a free society and were allowed to do so?”

    Aside from the “woke” problem, there is something else. Those who come here because of “open borders” can immediately benefit from the welfare state. A massive number of people could come here just to live from welfare payments. Why bankrupt our economy? The well-known free market economist Milton Friedman, hardly an extremist, said, “You cannot simultaneously have a free market and a welfare state.”

    You might counter this by pointing out that welfare benefits aren’t very lavish. But this is true only if you are thinking of the standards of living of the American upper and middle classes. (Actually, though, these benefits are quite substantial and give the lie to claims that America has been marked by rising “inequality” in recent decades.) Because America is much more prosperous than the places the immigrants are coming from, living from American welfare payments would be a good deal for millions of potential immigrants.

    Some fanatical libertarian supporters of “open borders” have come up with a response to this point that has to be characterized as one of the worst arguments in the past few decades.

    Robert Rector mentions this argument here:

    “The grant of citizenship is a transfer of political power. Access to the U.S. ballot box also provides access to the American taxpayer’s bank account. This is particularly problematic with regard to low-skill immigrants. Within an active redistributionist state, as Friedman understood, unlimited immigration can threaten limited government.

    “Many libertarians respond to this dilemma by asserting that the real problem is not open borders but the welfare state itself. The answer: dismantle the welfare state. The libertarian Cato Institute pursues a variant of this policy under the slogan, ‘build a wall around the welfare state, not around the nation.’. . . Borders should be open, but immigrants should be barred from accessing welfare and other benefits. , , . In a recent debate with Dan Griswold of the Cato Institute, I pointed out this paradox. Griswold replied that the key was to grant amnesty and open borders now and work on ‘building a wall around welfare’ at some point in the future.”

    See this.

    It has to be said that this is utterly stupid. It would be like saying that you need to take two medications. If you take only one, you’ll die. Therefore, you should take one of them and worry about getting the other one later.

    There is yet another problem with “open borders,” that gets to the root of why we support the free market. As Mises again and again pointed out, the free market replaces the Darwinian struggle of the natural world, in which some animals survive at the expense of others. In the free market, people can benefit without harming others. There is a harmony of long term interests among people.

    But with open borders this is no longer true.

    Immigrants will take jobs by undercutting American workers, because even very low paying American jobs are better than what they are getting in their home countries. This process will take place until wages reach a common level, and given the vast number of potential immigrants compared with American workers, the wage that results will be close to the immigrants’ standard.

    American workers could rightly say, “What about us? Your “free market” makes our condition worse.” But of course it isn’t the “free market” that does this. It’s “open borders,” which is an anti-market principle, that does this. Insisting that “open borders” makes everybody better off makes libertarianism seem ridiculous, because a great many people are hurt by the policy.

    Some “left libertarians” will object that the free market does indeed mandate “open borders”. But it doesn’t.

    The libertarian non-aggression principle leaves it up to us to determine what to do in a society with so-called “public” property.

    We need to confront another objection.

    Wouldn’t an attempt to close the border require that we lock up illegal immigrants in concentration camps? Wouldn’t this be a drastic infringement on their liberty? But a closed border doesn’t require this. All that we need to do is to build a wall and prevent immigrants from entering. We don’t have to jail them. All we need to do is to turn them away.

    Also, building a wall would be easier if states can build walls around their own territory. This greatly reduces the cost of building a wall. Closing the border gives the people in each state or local community a choice about accepting immigrants. Closed borders and secession go hand-in hand

    Let’s do everything we can to end the hoax of “open borders.” Doing so is a step in the preservation of Western civilization and the American heritage.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 07/05/2024 – 19:50

  • These Are The 10 Highest Paid CEOs In America
    These Are The 10 Highest Paid CEOs In America

    The median pay for S&P 500 CEOs soared to an all-time high of $15.7 million in 2023, as a strong stock market boosted executive compensation.

    Some of the highest paid CEOs in America earned nine-figure pay packages, with the vast majority of CEO compensation tied to stock awards. Overall, executives in the index earned on average 196 times more than the median S&P 500 employee, up from 185 in 2022.

    This graphic, via Visual Capitalist, shows the top 10 highest paid CEOs of S&P 500 companies, based on analysis from The Wall Street Journal and MyLogIQ.

    The Highest-Earning S&P 500 CEOs in 2023

    Here are the S&P 500 chief executives who received the highest compensation packages last year:

    Total pay includes equity awards and cash pay.

    Hock Tan, CEO of chipmaker Broadcom, tops the list, with an annual compensation of $161.8 million in 2023.

    Like Nvidia, the company has benefited from surging demand for AI technologies. Broadcom supplies the networking chips used in data centers for big tech companies, including Microsoft. Between 2022 and 2023, Tan’s salary doubled, earning 510 times the median pay of employees.

    Ranking in third is Stephen Schwarzman, who runs the biggest private equity firm in the world, Blackstone. The executive’s $119.8 million pay package was bolstered by a 83% rise in its share price last year. The firm is the world’s largest owner of commercial property, with approximately 12,500 real estate assets overall.

    Meanwhile, Apple CEO Tim Cook received $63.2 million in 2023—a sharp decline from the $99.4 million earned in the prior year. This rare pay cut was the result of shareholder pushback and requests from Cook himself.

    Overall, four of the top 10 highest paid CEOs in America are in the tech sector, with each experiencing double-digit share price gains over 2023.

    CEO Pay Has Doubled Over the Last Decade

    Below, we show the increasing magnitude of executive earnings since 2013:

    Total pay includes equity awards and cash pay.

    As we can see, the median total compensation of S&P 500 CEOs jumped over 8% between 2022 and 2023.

    Going further, this figure has grown by twofold over the last 10 years as the U.S. stock market surged during a period of low interest rates. Overall, CEO pay is rising faster than median employee pay and this gap between CEOs and workers has continued to widen over many years. For perspective, the median pay of S&P 500 employees stood at $81,476 in 2023.

    Often, CEO compensation is linked to the company’s financial performance, which is measured through share price movements and dividend payouts. In addition, the rise in CEO pay can be largely driven by stock awards granted to CEOs.

    A separate analysis from Equilar found that on average, 70% of S&P 500 CEO compensation stemmed from stock awards, averaging a striking $9.4 million in 2023.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 07/05/2024 – 19:25

  • Pfizer Infringed On Moderna Patent With COVID-19 Vaccine: Court
    Pfizer Infringed On Moderna Patent With COVID-19 Vaccine: Court

    Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,

    Pfizer and BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine infringed on a patent held by rival Moderna, the High Court in London, England, found in a decision released on July 2.

    The Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines both utilize messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) technology.

    Moderna patented mRNA processes that replace the nucleoside uridine with N1-methylpseudouridine, a modified RNA. The patent is titled, “ribonucleic acids containing n1-methyl-pseudouracils and uses thereof.”

    The patent “is valid,” the court stated, adding that it was infringed “given that Pfizer/BioNTech conceded that it would be infringed if valid.”

    The court rejected arguments made by Pfizer and BioNTech, including the argument that Moderna’s patent was not novel. It said parts of the patent were novel, from a method developed by the University of Pennsylvania.

    The District Court of the Hague in 2023 found the patent to be invalid due to lack of novelty versus the method, but the London court said it weighed other evidence and found some factors persuasive that the Hague did not.

    Moderna in 2020 said it would not enforce patents related to COVID-19 against rival manufacturers. However, in 2022, it revoked the declaration, meaning Pfizer and BioNTech came into violation of the patent, the high court said in a related decision.

    Justice Jonathan Richards wrote in the ruling, that “Even if the pledge was an express waiver of rights, it was validly retracted by the March 2022 statement since Pfizer/BioNTech had not by that date materially changed its position in reliance on the pledge.”

    The court also ruled that a second patent held by Moderna was invalid.

    Possible Appeals

    All three companies said they disagreed with the parts of the court’s decision on which they lost, and it is expected that all parties will seek permission to appeal.

    Pfizer and BioNTech said in a statement:

    “These proceedings have no bearing on the safety and efficacy profile of our vaccine, as established by regulators worldwide.

    “Irrespective of the outcome of this legal matter, we will continue to manufacture and supply the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine in line with our agreements and established supply schedules.”

    A spokesperson for Moderna said the company was pleased the court “recognized the innovation of Moderna scientists by confirming the validity and infringement” of one of its patents.

    Pfizer, BioNTech, and Moderna are also involved in parallel proceedings in Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, and the United States, much of which has been put on hold, as well as at the European Patent Office.

    The London ruling comes at a time of financial strain for Moderna, whose shares have plummeted by more than 70 percent since the peak of the pandemic as demand and sales for Spikevax have fallen. Shares of Pfizer, meanwhile, are down about 29 percent since mid-2021.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 07/05/2024 – 19:00

  • Texas Beach Terrorized By Shark: 4 People Attacked Within Two-Hour Span
    Texas Beach Terrorized By Shark: 4 People Attacked Within Two-Hour Span

    It’s a nightmarish scenario which seems straight out of Jaws and which has never happened before at a Texas beach: four people were attacked by a shark within a mere two hour period in waters off South Padre Island.

    South Padre is a hugely popular vacation destination in south Texas, and it happened as beaches were packed for the Independence Day holiday. A horrific video showed people screaming and bawling as one woman is pulled from the ocean with a large gash in her leg, and apparently in a state of shock, and with blood filling the water…

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    “Details at this time indicate that two people were bitten and two people encountered the shark but were not seriously injured,” the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department said in a statement. Two victims were taken to Valley Regional Medical Center in Brownsville, with one being in more serious condition.

    A third victim was injured, but not seriously, while trying to save another victim. A fourth person reportedly fought off a potential attack by kicking and punching the shark. “One [victim] was grazed and another injured fending off the shark,” according to local news station KRGV.

    One eyewitness said, “We never saw the shark ‘til he was right there with them” and described that “It wasn’t choppy water, and the seas were calm. He showed up out of nowhere.”

    “How is this actually happening right now? It was very surreal,” another said. One person was actually pulled under by the shark but survived the ordeal:

    Rayner Cardenas told KRGV his son-in-law was pulled underwater by the shark.

    “Started swimming towards him, and he jumped out of the water and started saying, ‘Shark! Shark!’ And that’s when adrenaline kicked in, and I went right after him.”

    The bite to the man’s leg was described as “severe”. Texas Game Warden Captain Chris Dowdy said that authorities at this point believe all of the attacks were the result of the same shark, which lingered in the area of the last attack for some 20 to 30 minutes, and was caught on film. The woman in the above footage also appears to have suffered extensive injuries to her leg.

    One account was particularly harrowing:

    Nereyda Bazaldua told CNN her daughter was one of those bitten Thursday. Bazaldua said her two teenage daughters were in shallow, knee-deep water near the shore playing on boogie boards when they began screaming, “Shark!”

    When her 18-year-old daughter Victoria came out of the water, Bazaldua said she “could see some blood coming down her leg,” Bazaldua said. Thankfully, she said, Victoria’s injuries were minor.

    “The shark pushed into her, five to six of his teeth scratched her leg,” Bazaldua said. “The wounds aren’t deep.” She said the shark lingered in the water for 20 to 30 minutes before moving along.

    Swimmers had been evacuated from the ocean, with DPS buzzing the waters with helicopters and providing a lookout, until the shark was reportedly observed swimming out to deeper waters.

    Footage of the shark believed to have been behind the July 4th attacks:

    “Local game wardens and members of the Texas Game Warden Marine Tactical Operations Group assisted in patrolling the beach by boat and land patrol while DPS patrolled the area by helicopter and SPI PD and Cameron County rangers assisted with crowd control on the beach,” a statement said.

    “Shark encounters of this nature are not a common occurrence in Texas,” Texas officials said in a statement. “When bites from sharks do occur, they are usually a case of mistaken identity by sharks looking for food.”

    This incident is unprecedented and ultra-rare, given that in all of recorded history fewer than 50 total documented shark attacks have occurred in Texas since 1911.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 07/05/2024 – 18:40

  • World's Largest Fusion Reactor Is Finally Completed, But…
    World’s Largest Fusion Reactor Is Finally Completed, But…

    Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

    Scientists have done some amazing things but not all of them have practical application, at least yet. Fusion is a great example.

    Live Science reports the World’s Largest Nuclear Fusion Reactor is Finally Completed.

    The International Fusion Energy Project (ITER) fusion reactor, consisting of 19 massive coils looped into multiple toroidal magnets, was originally slated to begin its first full test in 2020. Now scientists say it will fire in 2039 at the earliest.

    ITER contains the world’s most powerful magnet, making it capable of producing a magnetic field 280,000 times as strong as the one shielding Earth.

    The reactor’s impressive design comes with an equally hefty price-tag. Originally slated to cost around $5 billion and fire up in 2020, it has now suffered multiple delays and its budget swelled beyond $22 billion, with an additional $5 billion proposed to cover additional costs. These unforeseen expenses and delays are behind the most recent, 15-year delay.

    Scientists have been trying to harness the power of nuclear fusion — the process by which stars burn — for more than 70 years. By fusing hydrogen atoms to make helium under extremely high pressures and temperatures, main-sequence stars convert matter into light and heat, generating enormous amounts of energy without producing greenhouse gases or long-lasting radioactive waste.

    But replicating the conditions found inside the hearts of stars is no simple task. The most common design for fusion reactors, the tokamak, works by superheating plasma (one of the four states of matter, consisting of positive ions and negatively charged free electrons) before trapping it inside a donut-shaped reactor chamber with powerful magnetic fields.

    Impressive But …

    Assuming the reactor originally scheduled for 2020 is finally operable by 2039, I will be impressed.

    Heck, I am impressed at what we have already scientifically achieved. But I wonder what is the practical application of this.

    Keeping the turbulent and superheated coils of plasma in place long enough for nuclear fusion to happen, however, has been challenging. Soviet scientist Natan Yavlinsky designed the first tokamak in 1958, but no one has since managed to create a reactor that is able to put out more energy than it takes in.

    One of the main stumbling blocks is handling a plasma that’s hot enough to fuse. Fusion reactors require very high temperatures (many times hotter than the sun) because they have to operate at much lower pressures than is found inside the cores of stars.

    The core of the actual sun, for example, reaches temperatures of around 27 million Fahrenheit (15 million Celsius) but has pressures roughly equal to 340 billion times the air pressure at sea level on Earth.

    Cooking plasma to these temperatures is the relatively easy part, but finding a way to corral it so that it doesn’t burn through the reactor or derail the fusion reaction is technically tricky. This is usually done either with lasers or magnetic fields.

    Question and Answer on Temperatures

    How a reactor could produce temperatures of 27 million degrees without the operation melting is likely a puzzle to anyone who has been thinking clearly.

    The article provides an answer. But what is the cost and how long can the reaction be sustained without a meltdown? Are there any other issues?

    For those questions, let’s turn to a 2022 article. also from Live Science.

    A Step Closer to a New Source of Power

    Please consider A Step Closer to a New Source of Power

    In the new experiments, the Joint European Torus (JET) in Culham near Oxford, England, produced blazingly hot plasmas that released a record-setting 59 megajoules of energy — about the same amount of energy unleashed by the explosion of 31 pounds (14 kilograms) of TNT.

    Nuclear fusion — the same reaction that occurs in the heart of stars — merges atomic nuclei to form heavier nuclei. Nuclear physicists have long sought to produce nuclear fusion in reactors on Earth because it generates far more energy than burning fossil fuels does. For example, a pineapple-size amount of hydrogen atoms offers as much energy as 10,000 tons (9,000 metric tons) of coal, according to a statement from the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project.

    “It took us years to prepare these experiments. And in the end we have managed to confirm our predictions and models,” Athina Kappatou, a physicist at the Max Planck Institute of Plasma Physics in Garching near Munich, Germany, told Live Science. “That’s good news on the way to ITER.”

    JET, which began operating in 1983, now uses the hydrogen isotopes deuterium and tritium as fuel. Whereas a normal hydrogen atom has no neutrons in its core, a deuterium atom has one neutron and a tritium atom has two. Currently, it is the only power plant in the world capable of operating with deuterium-tritium fuel — although ITER will also use it when it comes online.

    However, deuterium-tritium fusion poses a number of challenges. For example, deuterium-tritium fusion can generate dangerous amounts of high-energy neutrons, each moving at about 116 million mph (187 million km/h), or 17.3% the speed of light — so fast they could reach the moon in under 8 seconds. As such, special shielding is needed in these experiments.

    For the new experiments, the previous carbon lining in the JET reactor was replaced between 2009 and 2011 with a mixture of beryllium and tungsten, which will also be installed in ITER. This new metallic wall is more resistant to the stresses of nuclear fusion than carbon, and also clings onto less hydrogen than carbon does, explained Kappatou, who prepared, coordinated and led key parts of the recent experiments at JET.

    Another challenge with deuterium-tritium fusion experiments is the fact that tritium is radioactive, and so it requires special handling. However, JET was capable of handling tritium back in 1997, Kappatou noted.

    Also, whereas deuterium is abundantly available in seawater, tritium is extremely rare. For now, tritium is produced in nuclear fission reactors, although future fusion power plants will be able to emit neutrons to generate their own tritium fuel.

    In January, scientists at the National Ignition Facility in California revealed that their laser-powered nuclear fusion experiment generated 1.3 megajoules of energy for 100 trillionths of a second — a sign the fusion reaction generated more energy from nuclear activity than went into it from the outside.

    The copper electromagnets that JET used could only operate for about 5 seconds due to the heat from the experiments. “JET simply wasn’t designed to deliver more,” Kappatou said. In contrast, ITER will use cryogenically cooled superconducting magnets that are designed to operate indefinitely, the researchers noted.

    Questions Beget Questions

    These are amazing achievements. But we must do much better than sustain a reaction for a world-breaking 100 trillionths of a second.

    Something in this story is missing, like why does it take at least 15 years to do a test of something that is already built?

    Also, the proposed process seems so much like a perpetual motion machine.

    The reactor will use fusion to produce the deuterium-tritium that it needs to produce the fusion and also the energy to cryogenically cool the magnets the system needs to protect itself from itself, otherwise the whole thing melts down at 27 million degrees Fahrenheit.

    It that’s not the basic proposal, then someone please explain the proposal to me. If that is the proposal, additional questions surface.

    Assuming the theory works to perfection, how long can the process be sustained? How much of the energy produced is needed to protect the system from the heat produced?

    Tests of ITER were scheduled for 2020 but have been rescheduled for 2039 with no explanation why.

    However, I am pleased to report we have made progress on target dates. By that I mean targets that forever always seemed just a few years away are now a more reasonable 15 years minimum away, and that’s only for a test.

    Fusion will not save the planet anytime soon, if ever.

    A Rebuttal

    One person commented that I don’t understanding how science works. False. I know full well how science works.

    Do I expect useful ideas out of this whether or not it solves our alleged existential threat?

    Yes I do. But that has little to do with the point I was making.

    We have a test in 2039 and alleged existential threat underway that supposedly is too late to fix by 2050.

    Today, we have practical, believable, information that fusion will not be the holy grail that many hoped for. That fact does not imply I think nothing useful will come out of this.

    The Futility of Wind and Solar Power in One Easy to Understand Picture

    Meanwhile, let’s discuss where we are staring with The Futility of Wind and Solar Power in One Easy to Understand Picture

    Morocco is the ideal place for both wind power and solar power. It is sunny and windy. But how do we get energy from Morocco to where it’s needed? At what cost?

    Net Zero Is a Very Unlikely Outcome

    More importantly, please consider Sorry Green Energy Fans, Net Zero Is a Very Unlikely Outcome

    Let’s discuss the Kyoto Protocol climate objectives and dozens of reasons why a net zero by the 2050 target has virtually no chance.

    If you disagree, or even if you don’t, please read the above article and tell me what we are supposed to do, how we are going to do it, and who will bear the costs.

    Realistically, what should we expect other than total failure of existing goals?

    I suggest we are better off pursuing that line of thought than focusing on the mythical unobtanium.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 07/05/2024 – 18:20

  • New York Beats California In List Of 50 Most Affluent U.S. Suburbs
    New York Beats California In List Of 50 Most Affluent U.S. Suburbs

    A new study from GoBankingRates.com revealed the most affluent suburbs in the United States for June 2024.

    The key finding was that New York suburbs beat out California. The No. 1 and No. 2 wealthiest suburbs in America are both just outside New York City: Scarsdale, NY (average income of $569K) and Rye, NY (average income of $405K).

    Additionally, the study found:

    • Outside of NYC, just one northeastern suburb cracks the top 10. Wellesley, MA ranked No. 10 overall with an average household income of approximately $368,000.
    • Texas ranks higher than Florida. Two Texas suburbs ranked among the 10 wealthiest in America (West University Place and University Park), while the highest ranking Florida suburb was Palm Beach, at No. 11.

    The study’s methodology included GOBankingRates looking at all cities with 5,000 households or more. They then isolated the 50 cities with the highest average household income as sourced from the 2022 American Community Survey. ‘

    Then, they were able to find which metro area they were a suburb of as well as the 2024 typical home value for the city as sourced from Zillow. All data was collected and is up to date as of June 18, 2024.

    Moving to the southern regions, West University Place in Texas, a suburb of Houston, stands out with an average household income of $403,845 and home values around $1.6 million. This area exemplifies the economic growth and the appeal of Texan suburbs, blending high-income living with relatively more affordable housing compared to some northeastern counterparts.

    Similarly, University Park in the Dallas-Fort Worth area shows the economic dynamism of Texas, with average incomes of $381,235 and home values of $2.3 million, highlighting the state’s burgeoning affluence.

    On the West Coast, Los Altos, California, within the San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara region, showcases extreme wealth with average household incomes at $400,817 and home values reaching a staggering $4.5 million, the report says. The Silicon Valley effect is palpable here, as tech-driven prosperity pushes real estate prices to astronomical heights.

    Another Californian suburb, Paradise Valley in Arizona, part of the Phoenix metropolitan area, combines high incomes averaging $385,643 with home values of $3.4 million, marking it as a premier destination for the wealthy seeking luxurious living with scenic desert landscapes.

    The suburbs around the nation’s capital also feature prominently on this list. Great Falls and McLean in Virginia, part of the Washington-Arlington-Alexandria metro area, both boast average household incomes well above $360,000, with home values hovering around $1.5 million.

    These suburbs are notable for their proximity to the political power center of Washington D.C., providing a residential haven for high-income professionals and government officials.

    From the Midwest to the Southeast, affluent suburbs like Hinsdale, Illinois, and Palm Beach, Florida, also make the list. Hinsdale, part of the Chicago metro area, reflects the blend of historical charm and modern wealth, with average incomes of $380,479 and home values over $1 million.

    Palm Beach, a renowned enclave within the Miami metropolitan area, tops the charts with home values averaging an astonishing $11.5 million, fueled by its status as a playground for the ultra-rich. This diversity in geographic locations among the wealthiest suburbs illustrates the widespread nature of wealth across different regions of the United States.

    The full study and full list of top 50 suburbs from GoBankingRates can be found here.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 07/05/2024 – 18:00

  • The Paradigm Shift Of The New Populism
    The Paradigm Shift Of The New Populism

    Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Epoch Times,

    The Supreme Court last week reversed a decision from 1984 that was responsible for a dramatic turn in American life. The precedent was called Chevron deference. It said that judges should allow executive-department agencies to make rules that affect commercial and civil life, effectively giving them broad discretionary authority that displaced Congressional and judicial oversight.

    The previous rule was designed to unclog the courts from endless litigation over legislative interpretations that was making life difficult for business. The unintended consequence of the shift in 1984 was to increase interventions but not from Congress or judges but from agencies, which blew up in size and authority over the course of 40 years. This was ripe for a hard challenge, and the Supreme Court certainly stepped up.

    The new rule (from Loper Bright v. Secretary of Commerce) is that agencies cannot interpret laws as they wish but rather are restrained by the words of legislation from the people’s representatives.

    The implications are profound.

    Above all else, it means transferring responsibility back to the people and their representatives. It is part of a new form of populism that has come about in response to obvious calamities.

    Think back to four years ago when agency deference was riding high, imposing an astonishing number of instant laws about medical matters, social distancing, business closures, masking, and even mail-in voting. It was all pushed through by agency authority having nothing to do with Congressional mandate.

    Americans suddenly found themselves ruled by a system of government they did not know they had. Consider the declaration that essential workers could work but nonessential workers would need to stay home. Was that a law? Not really. It was more like an edict. No one knew who would enforce it or what the penalties were for noncompliance.

    We know now that the declaration came from the Cybersecurity and Information Security Agency, a division within the Department of Homeland Security created in 2018. Its declaration was even more powerful and decisive over national life than the Department of Labor, which was never even consulted.

    Again, this was not law and not legislation. It was edict and no one really knew how it came to be that this agency, about which no one knew anything, possessed this kind of power. The offending legal basis was precisely this Chevron deference, which tempted every agency just to go rogue and test out its powers whenever it wanted to.

    In those months and years, we came to be ruled by credentialed experts, not all and not even most but those experts who had close access to powerful agencies. They overrode scientific consensus, popular will, and even settled law. It all happened so suddenly. The goal of crushing the virus through force was never plausible and neither was the notion that we could vaccinate our way out of a fast-moving respiratory infection.

    For those still suffering from those days, and that includes nearly everyone, the Supreme Court’s decision in Loper (reversing Chevron) should provide some sense of relief. It will take time for the court decision to have a practical impact but the reality is that if the new rule had been in force four years ago, the nation would have been spared the pain of lockdowns and closures, and probably even the forced vaccination campaign.

    The new rule is also consistent with a new governing ethos that is sweeping the world today, against arbitrary rule by powerful elites and toward more democratic accountability. That one idea is now unsettling political systems in the United States, UK, and EU, and beyond. It provides no light to describe this movement as “far-right,” as the New York Times says daily. It is something different.

    We might call the ethos the new populism. It is neither left nor right, but it borrows themes from both in the past. From the so-called “right,” it derives the confidence that people in their own lives and communities have a better capacity for wise decision-making than trusting the authorities at the top. From the old left, the new populism takes the demand for free speech, fundamental rights, and deep suspicion of corporate and government power.

    The theme of being skeptical of empowered and entrenched elites is the salient point. This applies across the board. It is not only about politics. It hits media, medicine, courts, academia, and every other high-end sector. And this is in every country.

    This really does amount to a paradigmatic shift. It seems not temporary but substantial and likely lasting. What happened over four years unleashed this mass wave of incredulity that had been building for decades before. The final straw was the coercive pandemic response in which governments in the world issued stay-at-home orders, closed small businesses, restricted travel, forced masks on the population, and then mandated shots of an experimental technology.

    All of this was generally celebrated by most large media outlets, endorsed by academia, and cheered by all respectable opinion. But this was not actually “common-sense public health.” It was radical and far-reaching, and there never was a clear statement of the end goal. Many jurisdictions locked us down until vaccination became available, and then made an effort to innoculate most everyone in the population.

    That’s a big plan and it all turned on one key assumption, namely that the shot would work to end the pandemic. It did not work particularly well. It stopped neither infection nor transmission. Nor did the experts anticipate the levels of injury that would result from repeated uses of the same shot, even though the existing literature warned against that exact strategy.

    Here’s the problem with blaming all experts for this fiasco. Many people with high credentials were warning against this approach the entire time. They were shouted down and censored. Many others believed that this was the wrong approach but they were prevented for career reasons from telling the truth.

    This is the reason why the new populism is strongly committed to free speech. Without the opportunity to discuss and consider the evidence, we miss important truths and find ourselves blindly following the opinions of the most powerful.

    To be sure, the word populism has something of a sordid history in the 20th century, mostly due to the political upheavals in the interwar period that profoundly affected industrialized economies. FDR spoke like a populist but so did emergent leaders in fascist Europe. This form of populism was very different from that in our own time. It rallied around the ability of experts to plan the economy and manage the culture.

    For example, FDR’s first inaugural address struck populist notes by denouncing “the rulers of the exchange of mankind’s goods” and “the unscrupulous money changers” who “stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men.” In practice, he drew on credentialed expertise and agency power to remake many features of the U.S. economy, imposing price controls, industrial subsidies, tight rules on all commercial transactions, all with the goal of lifting prices under the mistaken belief that low prices were causing the depression.

    The grand theory that drove the response to the Great Depression was rooted in the emergent thoughts of John Maynard Keynes, who flipped many features of classical economics on their head. In essence, his theory was that government itself should be empowered to manage the whole through careful manipulation of aggregate supply and demand, a dream that was never realizable or desirable.

    In many ways, the New Deal ended up not as a populist effort but one that empowered an elite class of social and economic managers. The pattern grew worse and worse through the decades. The Chevron decision of 1984 codified it into law. But we saw the same patterns in the UK and in European countries. The movements were called populist but they all drew on scientistic schemes for improved economic and social management by imposition from the top.

    We’ve been told to “trust the science” for the better part of a century. The push back against that paradigm had to wait until the apotheosis of central planning with the pandemic lockdowns, which were followed very quickly by efforts to use government power to control the climate. Together with that, and all over the world, the mass migration crisis unfolded as governments shifted from their core duties to aspirations of virus and climate control.

    Now we find ourselves in the midst of a dramatic paradigm shift, a new populism that rejects the idea that a powerful elite knows what is better for societies than the people themselves. In this view, the new populism is not a return to the interwar variety but something much earlier.

    What comes to mind in the American context is the movement by President Andrew Jackson in the 1830s. He stood against the National Bank, fought for the rights of the states against the federal government (except on the tariff), and generally sided with the people over elites. In other words, he embraced the original idea of democracy. If you want to understand what’s happening in the world today in light of American history, that’s a great place to begin.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 07/05/2024 – 17:40

  • Netanyahu, Biden 'Likely' To Meet As Progressives Plan Boycott Of Congressional Speech
    Netanyahu, Biden ‘Likely’ To Meet As Progressives Plan Boycott Of Congressional Speech

    The White House has announced that President Joe Biden will ‘likely’ meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu later this month, when he’ll be in Washington to address a joint session of Congress on July 24.

    His invitation to address Congress by Republicans has already proven divisive, given a number of Democrats have declared they intend to boycott it. Likely dozens will not be in attendance, similar to what happened when the Israeli premier addressed Congress nearly a decade ago.

    Flash90/Reuters

    On Wednesday a White House official told The Times of Israel that “The president has known Prime Minister Netanyahu for three decades. They will likely see each other when the prime minister is here over the course of that week, but we have nothing to announce at this time.”

    But tensions have been soaring, given just last month the White House canceled a meeting with an Israeli national security delegation after Netanyahu issued a video chastising the US for withholding some weapons shipments. The White House was left furious.

    At the time, Biden press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre called into question the Israeli leader’s narrative. “We genuinely do not know what he’s talking about. We just don’t,“ she told reporters.

    She had noted 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.”

    Biden has over the last months on various occasions gone negative against the ‘far right’ Netanyahu government, despite Israel having long been a very close US ally, over human rights abuses and mass killings in Gaza.

    The US administration has on the one hand continued to approve of major weapons and aid packages to Israel, but on the other has highlighted the soaring civilian death toll due to the IDF offensive. Progressive Democrats have made their anger known, with many vowing to not vote for Biden in November.

    Newsweek has recently highlighted Congressional Democrat discontent with Biden’s Gaza policy in the following: 

    The AP reported that interviews with more than a dozen Democrats revealed the discontent over Netanyahu’s upcoming speech, and how some feel it is a Republican ploy to divide Democrats.

    Some Democrats have said they will attend Netanyahu’s speech to show support for Israel, but others are clear that they won’t be attending.

    Rep. Lloyd Doggett, a deputy whip for the Congressional Progressive Caucus, has stated that Netanyahu “needs to be staying in Israel and working for the peace that he has been unwilling to support in the past.”

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    The “indiscriminate bombing that he has encouraged… has led to loss of lives that should never have happened. He has not prioritized the hostages; he ought to be doing that instead of coming here,” he told The Hill days ago.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 07/05/2024 – 17:20

  • Nashville Trans Shooter Left Over 100 GB Of Evidence, All To Be Kept Secret
    Nashville Trans Shooter Left Over 100 GB Of Evidence, All To Be Kept Secret

    Authored by Ken Silva via Headline USA,

    Nashville Judge I’Ashea Myles has decided that none of Nashville school shooter Audrey Hale’s writings should be made public, accepting the dubious argument that Hale’s victims have copyrights to the material—even though the victims haven’t registered with the federal copyright office.

    “The materials created by Hale are exempted from disclosure based on the federal Copyright Act,” Myles said.

    “Whether or not an original work of authorship has been registered with the federal copyright office is germane to the amount of recoverable damages in a copyright infringement action, but it has no bearing on whether or not this state law is preempted by federal copyright law,” she said.

    The judge also ruled that disclosing Hale’s writings could inspire copycat killers, disregarding the testimony of an expert psychologist who said that there’s no evidence to support that copycat theory.

    Myles is the same judge to trample on the First Amendment by threatening a newspaper that’s already published some of Hale’s writings. According to Myles’s Thursday ruling, the evidence held by law enforcement includes more than 100 gigabytes of data.

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

    Police have said the writings that they collected as part of their investigation into the March 27, 2023, shooting at the Covenant School that killed three 9-year-old children and three adult staff members are public records. However, they have said they cannot be released until their investigation is concluded.

    Despite law enforcement’s attempts to keep the manifesto secret, the first three pages the purported manifesto were leaked to conservative broadcaster Steven Crowder last November. The Nashville Police Department reportedly suspended seven detectives over the leak.

    The portion of the manifesto that was leaked purportedly revealed Hale, who identified a transgender, had been planning the school shooting for years, and that she deliberately targeted “white privileged” “cr*****s” and “f****ts.”

    “Can’t believe I’m doing this but I’m ready… I hope my victims aren’t,” Hale wrote. “My only fear is if anything goes wrong. I’ll do my best to prevent any of the sort. God let my wrath take over my anxiety. It might be 10 minutes tops. It might be 3-7. It’s gonna go quick. I hope I have a high death count. Ready to die.”

    The more recent excerpts published by The Star reveal Hale’s transgender ideation.

    “2007 was the birth of puberty blockers and a newfound discovery for treatment of non-conforming transgender children,” Hale reportedly wrote. “I’d kill to have those resources.”

    It appears that the vast majority of Hale’s writings have yet to be released.

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

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 07/05/2024 – 17:00

  • US Bank Deposits Fell Ahead Of Stress Tests; Fed Bailout Facility Stuck At Massive $107BN
    US Bank Deposits Fell Ahead Of Stress Tests; Fed Bailout Facility Stuck At Massive $107BN

    Heading into the bank stress tests, money-market fund total assets rose by a de minimus $5BN while seasonally-adjusted bank deposits fell $18BN to $17.594 TN…

    Source: Bloomberg

    And, on a non-seasonally-adjusted basis, deposits also fell (for the second straight week) by $14.8BN

    Source: Bloomberg

    Excluding foreign deposits, total domestic deposits fell on both an SA and NSA basis (-$15BN and -$5BN respectively)…

    Source: Bloomberg

    Small banks and Large banks both saw $7.5BN outflows (SA) each, while on an NSA basis, Small banks saw $5.9BN outflows as Large banks saw around $1BN of deposits inflows.

    Usage of The Fed’s bank bailout facility shrank a tiny amount – but still remains at an extremely high $107BN that the banks do not want to repay any time soon…

    Source: Bloomberg

    On the other side of the ledger, loan volumes shrank overall with a $630MN increase at large banks offset by a $3.7BN loan volume shrink at small banks…

    Source: Bloomberg

    Finally, US equity market capitalization remains drastically decoupled from its historically tight relationship with bank reserves at The Fed…

    Source: Bloomberg

    But globally, central bank balance sheet shrinkage continues as stocks soar…

    Source: Bloomberg

    Now that would be quite recoupling…

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 07/05/2024 – 16:40

  • Who Turned Off The Gaslight?
    Who Turned Off The Gaslight?

    Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com,

    “Things were bad, and they knew things were bad, and they knew others must also know things were bad, and yet they would need to pretend, outwardly, that things were fine. The president was fine. The election would be fine.”

    – Olivia Nuzzi, NY Magazine

    There’s a reason that the fable of The Emperor’s New Clothes is so potent: it describes a mentally ill society that retreats into abject unreality, to avoid contending with truth.

    Alas, this archetypal human quandary shoves such a society towards nemesis: downfall and punishment.

    And that is exactly the consequence of our news media’s craven, dishonorable, degenerate behavior the past decade.

    They have disordered our nation’s consensus about reality with peremptory lying about everything, in service to a political party that lies to its citizens about everything. The big question is: who or what recruited them into serving the Party of Chaos, and why did they go along?

    You can explain the media’s initial repugnance to Donald Trump going back to his 2015 debut in politics. Much about him had a low-class odor, despite all the gold-plating — his origins in tawdry Queens, his career as a builder in Manhattan where the trades are mob-controlled, the Atlantic City casino debacle, bankruptcy, ditching Ivana and his mid-life playboy reputation, the tacky TV show, the increasingly mystifying hair-doo, his rough, jumbly manner of speech. Everything about him repelled the Ivy Leaguers who increasingly filled the ranks of national-level journalism.

    Despite all that, Mr. Trump raised five kids successfully. The grown ones had careers and they all visibly loved him. With that and his overt masculinity, he assumed the lineaments of the archetypal Daddy, which enflamed the enormous cohort of feminists who had taken over the Democratic Party behind their avatar Hillary Clinton. And when he squeaked out an electoral victory over her in 2016, they were sure it was a cheat. The menace of Daddy in da (White) house pushed them over the edge psychologically.

    Daddy was all about setting boundaries, which was the antithesis to the “progressive” (and transgressive) agenda of the Dems, and was probably the reason that his talk of “building the wall” along the Mexican border drove them nuts. It signaled patriarchal control of a whole lot of other things, too. Boundaries galore!

    Now, it happened that the Democratic Party was also the favored party of the DC permanent bureaucracy, which had been growing and growing for decades and had become overtly politicized during the eight years of Barack Obama. Mr. Trump threatened to downsize this leviathan government, meaning many patronage jobs might be lost. (Boundaries would be imposed!) The warrior branch of this Deep State was the Intel community. The FBI, the DOJ, the CIA, the State Dept, and elements of the military were commissioned by the Democratic Party to destroy Mr. Trump.

    They used the machinery of the law to lay one trip after another on the president and effectively hog-tied him — RussiaGate, the Ukraine phone call impeachment, the George Floyd anarchy — and when those operations failed to oust him, they ran the Covid-19 caper (with enormous collateral damage to the people and their economy), which enabled rigging the 2020 election with mail-in ballots. Once Mr. Trump was squeezed out-of-office, the FBI turned the J-6 protest at the Capitol into a riot, which Nancy Pelosi then converted into an “insurrection” using the House J-6 committee. The J-6 incident, they dearly hoped, would rid them of Mr. Trump once and for all.

    The news media went along with every bit of that, year after year, converting each mendacious act of the party and the bureaucracy into consumable narrative, and lying either overtly about all the ops, or just omitting to report on the dark truth behind it all. Any reality-based thread that happened to leak into public view from independent alt-news reporters was branded by CNN, The New York Times, the WashPo, and many others as “misinformation” — a newish concept produced by a cadre of language Stasi skilled at inverting the meaning of anything to bamboozle the public. It appears that the news media became so invested psychologically in its own dishonest product that it began to believe its own bullshit.

    Or, at least, they wanted to pretend to believe it. One of the big problems was that absolutely everything they labeled “misinformation” or “conspiracy theory” turned out to be truthful, and that was becoming an inescapable embarrassment. And then the biggest blunder they made was going along with the Deep State’s selection of “Joe Biden” in the very sketchy Super Tuesday primary of 2020. The old grifter had next-to-zero support in all the preceding preliminaries and somehow (abracadabra !) he swept the field.

    By then, the Democratic Party, and its public relations arm in the mainstream media, had descended into florid mental illness. Everything they stood for post-World War Two flipped to its opposite. Suddenly, they were against free speech. They weren’t coy about it. They just made-up some new bullshit about free speech being “hate speech.” Similarly, they were against a free press. They went along with all the misinfo / disinfo bullshit the government cooked up and supported its role in suppressing the news. They were no longer anti-war, the party-of-peace. They were now pro-segregation and pro-discrimination (white people need not apply) according to Critical Race Theory (a childishly sketchy doctrine). Most of all, they were no longer skeptical of anything that the leviathan establishment wanted to do, including abridging the liberties of American citizens.

    Then there was the campaign to use the most powerful human instinct, sexuality, as a weapon to disorder the minds of American children, leading even to the mutilation of their bodies — a program that unmistakably tipped toward genuine evil, suggesting that actual psychosis lay behind the Cluster-B crypto-Marxism used to justify it.

    “Joe Biden” was fine with all of that, and the news media was fine with “Joe Biden” and whoever was using him as a front. Of course, it was evident during the 2020 campaign that “Joe Biden” was not up to a job as demanding as Chief Executive of the US government — and that was even apart from the dense criminal web of influence peddling discovered around him and his family, which the news media ignominiously ignored. But now the years have gone by and there’s no hiding “Joe Biden’s” rather gravely diminished mental abilities.

    Last week’s debate gave away the game. It had the effect of finally turning off the gaslight that the news media has been shining over the republic lo these many years.

    They can no longer pretend that this president is anything close to okay in body and mind. They can’t annul the gaslighted public’s delayed realization that they’ve been subject to a concerted program of deliberate lying for a long long time.

    So now, inveterate pretenders and liars, such as Jake Tapper of CNN and Maggie Haberman of The New York Times — and many others — have to pretend that they were innocently duped into supporting all the turpitudes of the Democratic Party / Deep State axis-of-evil. It is really hard to imagine that they can successfully rehabilitate their reputations. They have done immense harm to our country. It’s hard to see how the Democratic Party might survive, too, no matter who they finally put up for election this year. Of course, there’s still plenty of time left for them to destroy the country altogether. Just keep giving American missiles to Ukraine to fire into Russia and see what happens.

    *  *  *

    Support his blog by visiting Jim’s Patreon Page or Substack

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 07/05/2024 – 16:20

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Jul 05

Today’s News 5th July 2024

  • NATO Expected To Tell Ukraine It's Too Corrupt To Join
    NATO Expected To Tell Ukraine It’s Too Corrupt To Join

    Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

    Ukraine will be told that it is too corrupt to join NATO at the alliance’s summit in Washington next week, The Telegraph reported on Tuesday.

    The report cited a US State Department official who said Ukraine needed to take “additional steps” before talks on its NATO membership could progress. “We have to step back and applaud everything that Ukraine has done in the name of reforms over the last two-plus years,” the official said.

    Source: NY Times

    “As they continue to make those reforms, we want to commend them, we want to talk about additional steps that need to be taken, particularly in the area of anti-corruption. It is a priority for many of us around the table,” the official added.

    President Biden has frequently cited corruption as a reason for not admitting Ukraine into NATO, but that has not stopped him from spending over $100 billion on military and economic aid for the Ukrainian government with virtually no oversight.

    The position is expected to be outlined in a NATO communique issued during the summit. During last year’s NATO summit, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was looking for a clear roadmap to membership, but the alliance’s communique only offered a vague statement that it would invite Ukraine to join “when Allies agree and conditions are met.”

    NATO is poised to make some gestures to show support for Ukraine, including the stationing of a senior civilian official in Kyiv, according to The Wall Street Journal. The idea is to show support for future Ukrainian NATO membership without actually offering an invitation.

    The Journal also reported that the alliance will announce the establishment of a new command in Wiesbaden, Germany, to oversee military aid and training for the Ukrainian military. The idea is to have the alliance take over duties currently overseen by the US so they could continue in the event that a future US president wants to reduce US involvement in the proxy war.

    The report said the steps to “Trump proof” the Ukraine proxy war have taken on a new urgency after President Biden’s poor performance in the first presidential debate. Former President Donald Trump has expressed skepticism about the war and said he would work out a deal to end it but hasn’t articulated a plan. He also backed House Speaker Mike Johnson as he moved forward an additional $61 billion in spending on the proxy war.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 07/05/2024 – 02:00

  • Some Thoughts On America For Her 248th Birthday
    Some Thoughts On America For Her 248th Birthday

    Authored by James Hickman via SchiffSovereign.com,

    When the 56 delegates to the Second Continental Congress ratified the Declaration of Independence 248 years ago tomorrow, they were creating much more than a nation. They were giving birth to an idea.

    America, at its core, is an idea.

    And it’s one that ranks as one of the greatest innovations in the history of human civilization, right up there with the wheel, the steam engine, the printing press, and the Internet.

    The idea of America wasn’t born in 1776, however. By then it had already evolved over thousands of years.

    The ancient Greeks embraced individual liberty, direct democracy, and a respect for the rule of law.

    The Roman republic further refined Greek democracy and developed a more professional legal code. The early Roman Empire embodied peace through strength, ushering in nearly two centuries of geopolitical stability and economic prosperity under the Pax Romana.

    The later Byzantine Empire fused Greek and Roman ideas with Judeo-Christian values. And by 1000 AD, the Republic of Venice– borrowing from Rome’s republican form of government– infused an early form of capitalism to this model.

    The Dutch republic of the 1600s refined the concept of a powerful, free, capitalist society even further, as did philosophers like Rousseau, Montesquieu, John Locke, and Adam Smith.

    So, when the Founding Fathers wrote the Declaration of Independence (and subsequently the US Constitution), they didn’t have to start from scratch; they drew from a rich, 2,000-year intellectual heritage of the giants who came before them.

    This means that America is ultimately a composite of the very best ideas that human civilization ever had to offer – and the combined concept was then elevated to unprecedented heights.

    Nothing is perfect, and America wasn’t either.

    But based on this idea, the United States became the world’s largest economy in less than a century and the dominant global superpower about 80 years later. That is an unparalleled achievement which no other superpower in human history has come close to matching.

    It’s also worth pointing out that the majority of the world’s most important innovations, from airplanes and air conditioning to cell phones and chocolate chip cookies, were either born or perfected in America.

    Again, none of this is an accident. America’s success is the deliberate outcome from combining the best ideas from 2,000+ years of human civilization… plus some disciplined execution and a little bit of luck.

    Obviously, America has weathered challenges as well. The Civil War. The Great Depression. The turmoil of the 1960s.

    But its foundation of economic potential, plus a baseline of social cohesion and shared values, have always allowed the nation to overcome… and for the idea of America to persist.

    The country is now at an undeniable crossroads, and it’s not just about a single election.

    There are obvious signs of national decline: rising inflation, mounting debt, diminished global standing, a loss of government dignity, and stinging embarrassments like the shameful withdrawal from Afghanistan.

    Even the idea of America itself is on the ropes; there are powerful forces within government, media, and the education system who seek to redefine America’s core principles.

    Capitalism has been demonized and reinvented. Individual liberty has given way to a radical woke ideology. And the concept of limited government is almost a punchline at this point.

    Still, there is a plausible scenario in which America’s best days are ahead.

    If politicians embrace the principles that originally fueled the country’s prosperity—such as capitalism and laissez-faire productivity—America could experience an economic boom not seen since the Industrial Revolution.

    By cutting taxes, slashing anti-capitalist regulation, and embracing the free market, the increase in productivity could be staggering.

    This boom would lead to increased tax revenue, i.e. funds which could rebuild the military, secure the southern border, save Social Security, curb inflation, balance the budget, and chip away at the national debt.

    As China buckles under the consequences of its central planning and upside-down demographic pyramid (brought on by its idiotic “One Child policy”), the United States could easily reassert its global primacy.

    The dollar’s status as the global reserve currency would be unquestioned, and the world could see a new era of global peace and prosperity.

    This is not a pipe dream. It’s a genuine possibility.

    The other possibility is that the government does nothing to arrest America’s decline.

    The debt continues to spiral further out of control. Rising deficits trigger painful inflation. Excessive regulation stifles economic growth, leaving the economy stagnant and performing far below its full potential.

    Individuals are constrained by politicians’ incessant and debilitating rules about how to live, what to buy, and what to drive. The social fabric continues to tear apart with idiotic mandates, censorship, wokeness, gaslighting, and a hatred for capitalism.

    Unfortunately, that is the road the country is presently on. Yes, it can be fixed. They can change directions. And we certainly hope that happens.

    But as we used to say in the military, hope is not a course of action. That’s why we have a Plan B.

    Having a Plan B is not being negative or pessimistic. It’s certainly not irrational. And it’s not unpatriotic.

    The fierce individuality to NOT bow down to circumstances is exactly what has allowed America to persevere so many times before.

    And taking sensible steps to preserve, protect, and defend what you have worked so hard to achieve in life is about as core of an American value as it gets.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 07/04/2024 – 23:00

  • June Payrolls Preview: Another Big Drop
    June Payrolls Preview: Another Big Drop

    US payrolls is expected to once again in June to 190k from 272k in May and after a cycle low 165K in April. Most economic indicators in the past month indicated labor market deterioration: jobless claims that corresponded with the BLS’ survey window for the jobs report worsened. ADP’s gauge of payrolls came in blow consensus, as wage metrics fell and analysts noted that forward looking gauges of pay compensation suggest wage growth will slow even more ahead. Challenger job cuts jumped in June YoY relative to a decline in May. Business surveys were also downbeat, with the ISM manufacturing report seeing its employment sub-index fall back into contractionary territory, while the ISM services employment component dipped further into contractionary territory.

    The June jobs report will help shape expectations for near-term Fed rate cuts; currently, markets see a decent chance of two rate cuts this year (in contrast to the Fed’s median forecast for just one reduction in 2024), with the first fully discounted cut seen at the November meeting, and around a 80% chance that the cut could be seen in September – the June report may help to define that pricing. A huge miss tomorrow and the odds of a July rate cut or a double rate cut in September will spike.

    EXPECTATIONS:

    • The rate of headline payrolls growth is expected to cool to +190k in June, down from +272k in May, and down from a 3 month average 249k, 6 month average 255k, and 12 month average 230k. Wall Street estimates range from a high of 237K at RBC Capital Markets, all the way down to 140K at Goldman Sachs, which for once has lost its Panglossian optimism and expects a downright ugly number.

    • To justify its bearish outlier estimate, Goldman expects payrolls to rise only 140k in June, as “Big Data measures continue to indicate a below-normal pace of job creation during the spring hiring season, and our layoff tracker  continues to edge higher from low levels. We also assume a 50k drag from payback effects, because we believe the longer-than-usual survey window in last month’s report pulled forward reported job growth from June into May. While the seasonal factors in principle adjust for these effects, it appears they may have been distorted by the weak payrolls reading in May 2019, which was also 5 weeks long.”
    • The unemployment rate is expected to be unchanged at 4.0% (NOTE: the Fed’s June SEP has pencilled in a rate of 4.0% for this year, rising to 4.2% next year).
    • The rate of average hourly earnings growth is seen paring to +0.3% M/M (vs +0.4% in May), while the annual rate is likely to ease to 3.9% Y/Y from 4.1%.

    MAY’S DATA:

    The May jobs data surprised to the upside, with the headline and wage metrics rising above expectations (as we reported, it was the “most ridiculous jobs report in years“). Other analysts also noted that this strong number seemed at odds with other labor market indicators, like initial jobless claims and Challenger layoffs data. Some of the upside has been chalked up to stronger government payrolls, but Capital Economics said that “with balanced budget requirements forcing state and local governments to rein in spending and hiring to eliminate growing deficits, there is scope for a smaller gain, or even outright decline, in government payrolls in June,” and “given the widespread announcements of education sector layoffs, we are worried that will become a drag.” It adds, however, that most of the impact of this will likely be seen in the July data. May’s JOLTs data (a key barometer monitored by Fed officials, and was released after the May BLS jobs data), saw headline job openings rise to 8.14mln (exp. 7.91mln) from a revised down 7.92mln April reading – driven entirely by an increase in government job openings…

    …   with the vacancy rate ticking up to 4.9% from 4.8%; some Fed officials see the vacancy rate as one of the best representations of excess labor demand; Fed Governor Waller has said that if the vacancy rate continued to fall below 4.5%, it would likely suggest that excess labour demand has been worked off, and the unemployment rate could start to rise. The May JOLTs data also saw the Quits Rate unchanged at 2.2% for the 7th consecutive month; Oxford Economics notes that it stands a little below pre-pandemic levels, and is consistent with ongoing moderation in wage growth, but it is not sending any signals about significant weakness in the labor market. Note, at the June 12th FOMC, Fed Chair Powell was quizzed about the different pictures the household and establishment surveys are showing within the BLS report. Powell acknowledged that sometimes you can’t reconcile the differences, but that is why it makes sense to look at the 3, 6 and 12-months series, rather than just one report. But nonetheless, the overall picture is one of a strong and gradually cooling-gradually rebalancing labor market.

    JOBLESS CLAIMS:

    In the week that corresponds to the BLS survey window for the June jobs report, weekly initial jobless claims data were at 239k vs 216k heading into the May jobs report, while continuing claims were up at 1.839mln vs 1.79mln going into the prior jobs report. Oxford Economics said that “initial claims suggest that the gain in non-farm employment in May won’t be duplicated in June, and the risks to the labour market should be garnering attention by the Fed.” It points out that the softening in the job growth has been primarily driven by a deceleration in hiring via reduced labour demand, with the job openings rate having declined noticeably, but that still has not translated into a significant rise in the unemployment rate. On continuing claims, it notes that in the week that coincides with the BLS jobs report survey window, it rose to the highest since late 2021; “the rise in continued claims on the surface points to a moderation in job growth,” but adds that “increases in claims in California and Minnesota – which accounted for more than half the total rise in continued claims – are likely due more to noise than any underlying softening in the labour market.”

    ADP EMPLOYMENT & WAGES:

    While analysts offer their usual caveats about how the data series offers low predictive power for the more widely followed BLS jobs report, ADP’s gauge of national employment printed 150k in June (exp. 160k, prior 157k). The median change in annual pay for job-stayers fell to the slowest since August 2021 at 4.9% Y/Y (prev. 5.0%), and it eased to 7.7% Y/Y (prev. 7.8%) for job-changers. The payrolls provider said that while job growth has been solid, it was not broad based, adding that had it not been for a rebound in hiring in leisure and hospitality, June would have been a downbeat month. Despite Average Hourly Earnings moving higher in May, Capital Economics notes that forward-looking indicators, like job quit rates, still point to wage growth declining to nearer 3.5% Y/Y. CapEco is below consensus, expecting average hourly earnings to rise +0.2% M/M (consensus looks for +0.3%), owing to favourable base effects; that may be enough to bring the annual rate of AHE down to 3.8% Y/Y (consensus: 3.9%).

    BUSINESS SURVEYS:

    Within ISM’s manufacturing PMI for June, the employment index fell to 49.3 from 51.1 in May, beneath the 50.0 mark that separates expansion and contraction. The report said that many respondents’ are continuing to reduce headcounts through layoffs, attrition and hiring freezes, though commentary in June indicated a marginal decline in staff reductions vs May, supported by the approximately 1.3-to-1 ratio of hiring versus head-count reduction comments. The ISM Services PMI saw the employment component dip further into contractionary territory at 46.1 from 47.1 in May. Elsewhere, Challenger reported US job cuts were -19.8% Y/Y at 48,786 in June (vs 63,816 in May). So far this year, 434,645 job cuts have been announced (-5.1% vs the 458,209 in H1 of 2023). Most job cuts were seen in consumer products manufacturers, followed by technology, and then construction. Challenger said “June is typically a low month for job cut announcements, as most companies are midyear or at the end of their fiscal years,” and that “the months following fiscal year ends tend to have a spike in cuts, as those plans are implemented.”

    CONSUMER CONFIDENCE:

    The Conference Board’s data showed consumers’ assessment of current business and labor market conditions increased to 141.5 (prev. 140.8), while the expectations on consumers’ short-term outlook for income, business, and the labor market fell to 73.0 (prev. 74.9); the CB notes that the Expectations Index has been below 80, a threshold which usually signals a recession ahead, for five consecutive months. That said, the appraisal of the labor market improved in June, with 38.1 saying that jobs were “plentiful” (prev. 37.0 in May), while 14.1 said jobs were “hard to get” (prev. 14.3%). The short-term outlook was also less negative in the month, with 12.6 expecting more jobs to be available (down from 13.1 in May), while 17.3% anticipated fewer jobs ahead (vs prev. 18.8). The CB’s economists said “confidence pulled back in June, but remained within the same narrow range that’s held throughout the past two years, as strength in current labour market views continued to outweigh concerns about the future,” but warned that if material weaknesses in the labour market were to appear, confidence could weaken ahead. The report also said that consumers’ feelings were mixed; their view of the present situation improved slightly overall, driven by an uptick in sentiment about the current labour market, but their assessment of current business conditions cooled. And for a second consecutive month, consumers were slightly less pessimistic about future labour market conditions despite  expectations for both future income and business conditions weakening.

    ARGUING FOR A WEAKER-THAN-EXPECTED REPORT

    • Big Data. Alternative measures of employment growth generally indicate a softer pace of hiring in June, with a median pace of +150k across the five indicators Goldman tracks (vs. +150k in May and compared to reported May job growth of +272k). An even slower pace of job gains is implied by the Homebase employer panel (+100k). Withheld income and employment taxes also decelerated further (-1% yoy in June compared to +2% in May and +6% on average in January-April, nominal basis).

    • Payback from the long May payroll month. Goldman assumes a 50k drag from a pull-forward of reported jobs into May related to a longer BLS survey window—5 weeks from the April survey week to the May survey week, compared to 4 weeks in a typical May. Additionally, the seasonal factor for last month’s report was unusually favorable, providing a 12k boost to monthly payroll gains relative to May 2019 and a 64k boost relative to May 2014, the last two Mays that also had five weeks. While the seasonal factors in principle adjust for the 5-week effect, it appears they may have been distorted by a weak payrolls reading in May 2019, which was also 5 weeks long.

    ARGUING FOR A STRONGER-THAN-EXPECTED REPORT

    • Job availability. JOLTS job openings rebounded 0.2mn to 8.1mn in May, but online measures have trended lower. While labor demand has fallen meaningfully over the last year, it remains elevated by 1mn relative to 2019 and represents a positive factor for job growth. The Conference Board labor differential—the difference between the percent of respondents saying jobs are plentiful and those saying jobs are hard to get—edged up by 1.3pt to +24.0 in June but remains below the +30.4 average level of Q1.

    NEUTRAL/MIXED FACTORS

    • Immigration. Elevated illegal immigration boosted labor supply growth by roughly 80k per month last year, relative to normal, and Goldman expects a continued tailwind averaging 50k per month this year. While the pace of immigration has slowed sharply in 2024 and foreign-born unemployment pulled back in May, the absolute number of jobseekers in that labor supply segment still remained roughly 200k above 2022-23 levels to start the June payroll month.

    • Layoffs. Layoff activity increased from low levels in June, with the GS layoff tracker edging up to to 1.24mn from 1.20mn in May and compared to the recent low of 1.1mn in December and January. Initial jobless claims also increased, to an average of 233k in the June payroll month from 218k in May and above the 223k average of 2023 (though some of the increase reflects expanded eligibility). The JOLTS layoff rate was unchanged at 1.0% in May. Announced layoffs reported by Challenger, Gray & Christmas decreased by 6k in June to 50k (SA by GS), compared to 54k on average in the second half of 2023.

    • Employer surveys. The employment components of business surveys increased but remained at contractionary levels in June. The employment component of the GS manufacturing survey tracker increased 0.2pt to 48.4 while the employment component of the GS services survey tracker decreased 1.8pt to 49.8. However, the signal from soft data has been less useful—and at times misleading—during the post-pandemic period.

    POLICY IMPLICATIONS:

    Fed officials generally agree that inflation would need to continue cooling, and the labor market would need to continue its gradual rebalancing for rate cut conditions to be met. That said, as Newsquawk notes, their policy reaction could be tilted back towards ‘higher for longer’ if inflation were to misbehave again; although the plan to cut rates could be accelerated if there were unexpected weakness in the labor market. Speaking this week, Fed Chair Powell said that while the labor market was cooling-off, it was still strong. This has also been a theme among other policymakers too. Officials have generally been arguing that they are trying to tame inflation without causing any stress in the labor market; Powell did repeat however that any unexpected weakness in the jobs market could trigger the Fed to react with looser policy. Previously, however, he has indicated that a small movement in the unemployment rate, of a couple of tenths, would not constitute this unexpected weakness.

    For reference, and perhaps providing some context to Powell’s caveats, the Fed’s latest economic projections see the jobless rate at 4.0% at the end of this year, where it currently stands (the Fed’s broad range of forecasts for 2024 is between 3.8-4.5%); it is then seen picking up to 4.1% next year (broad range: 3.7-4.3%), and at 4.1% in the long-run (long-run range of forecasts is between 3.8–4.3%). Fed Governor Cook recently said that it would take monthly job gains of around 200k to keep the unemployment rate steady. In aggregate, the deceleration in inflation, combined with the decent labor market conditions gives the Fed scope to be patient before acting on rates, analysts at Oxford Economics argue; that way they can ensure inflation is on its way to target in a sustainable manner.

    More in the full preview folder available to pro subscribers.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 07/04/2024 – 22:26

  • Labour Set For Crushing 170 Seat Majority In UK General Election, As Conservative Party Suffers Worst Result In Its History
    Labour Set For Crushing 170 Seat Majority In UK General Election, As Conservative Party Suffers Worst Result In Its History

    The year of record elections continues to serve up dramatic results, and on Thursday, a national exit poll in the UK general election indicated that Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives will crash out of office after 14 years after Keir Starmer’s Labour party was heading for a massive majority of about 170 seats. The poll on Thursday night suggested Starmer will become prime minister with 410 seats out of 650 in the House of Commons, while Sunak’s party is facing the worst result in its history, with just 131 seats.

    The result, according to the FT, is “momentous for Britain and will resonate around the world” because at a time when right-wing populists are advancing in many countries, political power in the UK has swung back to a liberal, internationalist, centre-left party. 

    But Labour’s victory was projected to be delivered on a smaller share of the vote than the 40% secured by leftwing Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn in his 2017 general election defeat — suggesting the public remains sceptical.

    Labour’s shadow foreign secretary David Lammy warned: “If we do not deliver for working people, we will be out and nationalists will be on our tails.” He added: “That’s the lesson we have seen around the world.” Meanwhile, Nigel Farage’s Reform UK was projected to do better than expected with 13 seats, a result that would be a big breakthrough for his right-wing populist party.

    The first two constituencies to report results on Thursday evening, both in the north of England, showed Labour wins with Reform in second place.

    Labour’s victory is a personal triumph for Starmer, who took over the party’s leadership in 2020 after the party’s worst election defeat in almost a century. His projected victory is similar in scale to Sir Tony Blair’s 1997 Labour landslide.

    That said, while the Ipsos exit poll is usually a reliable predictor of overall results, the final result may still differ. Vote counts from individual constituencies will trickle in through the night, with Labour, if the polls are correct, likely to have a clear majority by 5am.

    According to the exit survey, the centrist Liberal Democrats was on course to win 61 seats, close to the 62-seat record set by the party in 2005. The Lib Dems are forecast to make big gains in the Tory “blue wall” of rich constituencies in the south of England. The Scottish National party was set to come behind Labour in Scotland with just 10 seats, according to the exit poll, putting a serious dent in the party’s dream of securing independence.

    The survey exposed the overwhelming sentiment reported by candidates from all parties that Britain wanted “change”, with many senior Tories admitting during the campaign that the party looked exhausted. The UK has been under Conservative rule for 14 years, during which time there have been five prime ministers, with a near catastrophic banking and bond market crisis erupting during the brief reign of Liz Truss. The period was marked by economic austerity, Brexit, the coronavirus pandemic and an energy price shock.

    Former Tory minister Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg said it was “clearly a terrible night” and added that the Conservatives had taken votes for granted.

    Starmer is set to become only the seventh Labour prime minister in the party’s history, and his victory is the first since 2005 for the center-left party. Labour last ousted the Tories from power in 1997, when Tony Blair became prime minister in a crushing victory over John Major’s Tories. He will move into 10 Downing Street on Friday and immediately form his cabinet, with an instruction to ministers to quickly deliver policies to jolt Britain out of its low-growth torpor.

    The exit poll indicated that Starmer’s avowedly pro-growth, pro-business agenda has paid off, as Labour bucked international political trends. Far-right parties have performed strongly in recent elections for the European and French parliaments, while in the US, Donald Trump is leading in polls for the presidential race.

    Labour’s chancellor-in-waiting Rachel Reeves has said she hopes investors will now see the UK as a “safe haven” although once the UK unleashes the next spending spree to fund all the various welfare projects, we fully expect another quick funding crisis and even more QE. 

    Starmer has promised to work with business to stimulate growth, with an agenda that includes planning reform and state investment in green technology. Labour will also pursue a traditional agenda of reforms to worker rights.

    As for outgoing PM Sunak, the result is a personal disaster. He chose to hold an early election on July 4 — against the advice of his campaign chief Isaac Levido — and ran an error-strewn six-week attempt to turn around his party’s fortunes.

    The party’s projected total of 131 seats is lower than the party’s worst-ever result of 156 in 1906. Starmer’s expected seat haul is close to the 418 seats won by Tony Blair in his 1997 landslide victory.

    A number of senior Tory figures are expected to lose their seats on a night of devastation, reducing the cast list of potential contenders for the party leadership if, as expected, Sunak stands down. Among the cabinet ministers deemed to be at risk by the exit poll are Penny Mordaunt, Jeremy Hunt, James Cleverly, Kemi Badenoch and Grant Shapps, with results due in their seats in the early hours.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 07/04/2024 – 21:42

  • Americans Warned To Stop Shopping Via Chinese App Temu
    Americans Warned To Stop Shopping Via Chinese App Temu

    Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    The top prosecutor in Arkansas warned on July 2 that Americans should be wary of using the Temu marketplace app because it’s effectively a “data theft business.”

    “The threat from China is not new, and it is real,” Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin told Fox Business on July 2, a week after his office filed a lawsuit against the company. “Temu is not an online marketplace like Amazon or Walmart. It’s a data theft business that sells goods as a means to an end.”

    He said that it’s “common for an online marketplace like Amazon, like Walmart, to collect certain consumer data as part of the normal course of business. I think we all know that that’s not what’s going on here.”

    The Temu logo is displayed on a laptop in San Anselmo, Calif., on Feb. 26, 2024. (Illustration by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

    Instead, the company is using malware and spyware to “get into your phone, your device, and to collect your data,” Mr. Griffin told the outlet.

    “Not just traditional consumer data, but using malware, spyware to have complete access to your information. And [taking it] one step further, their code is written in such a way to evade detection,” he said.

    Temu is operated by Shanghai, China-based parent company Pinduoduo Inc., which includes “former Chinese communist officials” in its ranks, Mr. Griffin said.

    The lawsuit, filed against the firm’s parent company, is seeking a jury trial as well as a permanent block against Temu’s data-collection activities. It also seeks a $10,000 fine for each violation of an Arkansas state law known as the Deceptive Practices Act.

    The suit primarily cites research from Grizzly Research, which analyzes publicly traded firms, and alleges that Temu can “purposely … gain unrestricted access to a user’s phone operating system, including, but not limited to, a user’s camera, specific location, contacts, text messages, documents, and other applications.”

    In its report, Grizzly Research said that it suspects that Temu is “already, or intends to, illegally sell stolen data from Western country customers to sustain a business model that is otherwise doomed for failure.”

    “Temu is estimated to be losing $30 per order. Its ad spending and shipping costs (1 to 2 weeks from China, expedited to U.S. delivery) are astronomical,” the report states.

    “One is left wondering how this business could ever be profitable. Temu is a notoriously bad actor in its industry. We see rampant user manipulation, chain-letter-like affinity scams to drive signups, and overall, the most aggressive and questionable techniques to manipulate large numbers of people to install the app.”

    In a statement to The Epoch Times on Tuesday evening, a Temu spokesperson that it was “disappointed” and said the Arkansas lawsuit doesn’t cite “any independent fact-finding.”

    “The allegations in the lawsuit are based on misinformation circulated online, primarily from a short-seller, and are totally unfounded. We categorically deny the allegations and will vigorously defend ourselves,” the firm stated. “We understand that as a new company with an innovative supply chain model, some may misunderstand us at first glance and not welcome us.”

    The spokesperson continued, “We are committed to the long-term and believe that scrutiny will ultimately benefit our development. We are confident that our actions and contributions to the community will speak for themselves over time.”

    According to analytics website Backlinko, Temu was the most downloaded shopping app around the world in 2023, with more than 330 million downloads—about 1.8 times more than the Amazon Shopping app.

    On July 1, the Texas Public Policy Foundation issued a similar warning about the app, saying that it “can access almost anything on your phone,” which means that Chinese Communist Party officials “could theoretically install applications and spyware files on an individual’s smart device to use for complete surveillance of all user activity on a phone.

    “This would allow China to monitor keystrokes and logs to have direct insight into login credentials for other social media, emails, and bank accounts,” the foundation warned.

    Temu officials didn’t respond by press time to a request by The Epoch Times for comment.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 07/04/2024 – 21:30

  • Big Mexican Cartels Ramp Up Operations In Hawaii As America's Fentanyl Crisis Broadens
    Big Mexican Cartels Ramp Up Operations In Hawaii As America’s Fentanyl Crisis Broadens

    Mexican drug cartels, including Sinaloa and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), are aggressively expanding into Hawaii, flooding the islands with methamphetamines and fentanyl. 

    Local authorities told media outlet KHON2 that Sinaloa and CJNG are expanding business in the island state by sending drugs via passengers’ luggage, mailed packages, and body carriers flying into Honolulu International Airport. 

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    “Violent cartels, primarily the Sinaloa cartel and the Jalisco New Generation cartels, and they’re killing each other,” explained Gary Yabuta, executive director of the Hawaii High-Density Drug Trafficking Area. 

    Yabuta said, “They’re competing for territory and turf to make sure that their drugs get across the border and sent throughout the nation, including Hawaii.”

    US Attorney Clare Connors told the local media outlet that Sinaloa and CJNG are primarily behind the new push in flooding Hawaii with drugs. 

    “Largely, however, it is cartel interaction with local drug trafficking organizations,” Connors said. 

    Yabuta said, “Methamphetamine is still our greatest drug threat here in Hawaii, and that has risen, too throughout the years, including 2023 drug-related deaths,” adding, “However, fentanyl drug-related deaths are catching up. It’s rising at a faster rate.”

    One of the main reasons cartels expand across the islands is the lack of competition and law enforcement. 

    NewsNation noted, “An oxycodone pill selling for $2 in Los Angeles can fetch $16 or more in Hawaii.” 

    According to Families Against Fentanyl, the surge in fentanyl overdose deaths placed Hawaii number seven nationally on a list with a 27% increase in fentanyl-related deaths in 2023. 

    Meanwhile, these same cartels are fueling the fentanyl epidemic across the Lower 48, resulting in a US drug death catastrophe that eclipses the Vietnam War every six months.

    Last week, a new report from the Financial Times revealed details about a dark Chinese money-laundering network partnering with Mexican drug cartels. 

    In mid-April, the House Select Committee on China revealed that the Chinese Communist Party used tax rebates to subsidize the manufacturing and exporting of fentanyl chemicals to overseas customers. 

    “The West Coast Coalition is comprised of law enforcement agencies from California, Oregon, Washington, Hawaii, and Alaska,” Peace Officers Research Assoc. of CA recently wrote on X.

    They continued, “We can’t sit here and continue to let our communities suffer.” 

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    The biggest mystery here is why the Biden administration hasn’t taken a tougher stance on China while America’s fentanyl epidemic is killing a generation of youth. This should be a national security threat, yet elderly Joe Biden is likely too busy eating ice cream. 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 07/04/2024 – 20:45

  • 16 Things Individuals Can Do To Help Bring America Together
    16 Things Individuals Can Do To Help Bring America Together

    Authored by Lawrence Reed via The Foundation for Economic Education,

    Americans are angry and divided – perhaps more than at any time since the Civil War.

    Holding strong opinions, especially in defense of truth, is no vice.

    But failing to bridge our differences and resolve them peacefully is no virtue, either.

    Here’s my “to do” list if you want to be part of the solution instead of the problem.

    1. Choose someone you disagree with and start a dialogue. Make friends, even if neither of you changes your mind.

    2. Find common ground, avoid epithets, and presume goodwill on the part of others unless and until their actions suggest otherwise.

    3. Embrace America as an imperfect, unfinished product—and one whose future depends on a respect for those principles that made it largely free and exceptional in the first place. No country is without flaws, and few countries in world history have accomplished as much for life and liberty as America.

    4. Think twice before using political connections and influence to get something you can’t secure voluntarily from others in the marketplace. Cronyism diminishes respect for both you and for the free enterprise system it corrupts.

    5. Judge every individual by “the content of his character” and the merit of his actions, not by the group to which he was assigned by birth, origin, faith, color, or politics.

    6. Elevate the importance of personal character in your life. No society can flourish if it denigrates virtues such as honesty, humility, patience, responsibility, tolerance, courage, gratitude, self-discipline, and respect for the lives, rights, property, and choices of others.

    7. Choose liberty over power and persuasion over force. Find ways in which you can leave the world not only a better place, but a freer one as well, for life without liberty is both unthinkable and unlivable.

    8. Live your life as though politics is but a corner of it, not consumed by it. Recognize the incalculable value of intact families, vibrant and voluntary associations, community engagement, loving relationships, and institutions created and sustained outside the divisive realm of politics.

    9. Ask yourself every day, “Am I good enough for liberty?” Then dedicate yourself to self-improvement if you can’t honestly answer “yes.” Reforming the world starts with reforming oneself.

    10. Defend the free speech of all people. If you catch yourself attempting to intimidate, shut down, or frighten others into submission, shake it off before the impulse turns you into an antisocial monster. “Cancel” nobody except those who insist on canceling others.

    11. Revere truth and the honest search for it. Never let truth be obscured or destroyed by claims that it doesn’t matter or that it is nothing more than a subjective whim of the moment. There is no such thing as “his truth” or “her truth,” only “the truth.”

    12. Seek diversity of opinion. Minds that try to stigmatize or close the minds of others or that pretend that color, sex, and religion are all that matter are enemies of the “diversity” that matters most.

    13. Love peace more than you love force, conflict, compulsion, and intolerance. Work toward a society in which individuals choose to do right because they want to, not because they’re forced to.

    14. Reject nihilism, cynicism, and pessimism. People of goodwill and character can shape the future for the better. It’s never too soon or too late to start.

    15. Learn from history; don’t rewrite it. Lessons from the past can make us better people in the future. Don’t twist your underwear into a knot over an old statue. Never allow the poison of “presentism” to corrupt your perspective.

    16. Celebrate the “uncommon.” It is the uncommon to whom we owe the greatest debt—those who speak truth to power, invent and innovate, turn failure into success, and add value to society. No one should encourage a child, for example, to aspire to nothing more than “commonness.” Respect and encourage the exceptional.

    Former U.S. Sen. George Mitchell (D-Maine) once said:

    “I believe there’s no such thing as a conflict that can’t be ended. They’re created and sustained by human beings. They can be ended by human beings. No matter how ancient the conflict, no matter how hateful, no matter how hurtful, peace can prevail.”

    I hope he’s right. But in any event, no peace of any kind can prevail so long as we nurture conflict within and between ourselves. No peace of any kind can long be imposed from the outside in. It must begin on the inside, as a matter of conscience, one conscientious individual at a time, and then grow outward into a course of action.

    These 16 suggestions constitute a course of action for each reader to consider.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 07/04/2024 – 20:00

  • Dior, Armani Under Investigation For "Made In Italy" Handbags Produced By Migrants
    Dior, Armani Under Investigation For “Made In Italy” Handbags Produced By Migrants

    Italian prosecutors investigated the local supply chains of two major Italian fashion houses. Their investigation found that some designer handbags are manufactured by exploited foreign labor. This revelation, while shocking to some, comes as no surprise to readers who already understand the agenda of the Western elites: flood Europe and the US with illegal aliens to capitalize off cheap labor (also votes). 

    The Wall Street Journal cited court documents showing LVMH subsidiary Dior paid a supplier about $57 to assemble luxury handbags that sell for $2,780 in brick-and-mortar retail shops. Meanwhile, Giorgio Armani bags were sold to local suppliers for around $100, then resold to Armani for $270, and ultimately placed on retail store shelves for $1945 or more.

    WSJ noted, “The cost prices don’t include leather or other raw materials. The companies separately cover the costs of design, distribution, and marketing.” 

    “Why does it cost so little to manufacture the product?” said Fabio Roia, president of Milan’s court system, adding, “The brands need to ask themselves this question.”

    Prosecutors allege that some of the luxury handbags made by the fashion houses’ suppliers with the “Made in Italy” stamp are actually made in sweatshops within the European country, employing low-cost Chinese labor. They say many of the sweatshops fall extremely short of legal workshop codes.

    As a result of the Italian investigation, judges in June placed Manufactures Dior SRL—a unit of Dior—under so-called court administration after ruling that its supply chain included Chinese-owned firms in Italy that mistreated migrant workers. The same measure was taken against Armani in April and Alviero Martini, known for its map-print bags and other items, in January. -WSJ

    In a 34-page court order, the court wrote that Italian police in March and April found migrant workers in “hygiene and health conditions that are below the minimum required by an ethical approach” at Milan-area companies in Dior’s supply chain. 

    Investigators interviewed workers from one of Armani’s subsidiaries, GA Operations, which hired a number of Chinese-owned subcontractors across Italy. These subcontractors paid migrant workers a few euros per hour.

    A partially redacted photo from Italy’s Carabinieri police shows a workshop in northern Italy where Armani products were made. Source: WSJ

    “The main problem is obviously people being mistreated: applying labor laws, so health and safety, hours, pay,” Roia told Reuters earlier this year.

    A partially redacted photo from Italy’s Carabinieri police shows a bedroom at a workshop near Milan that supplied Armani. Source: WSJ

    Customers who expect the highest quality from the “Made in Italy” label are just now discovering that some of these luxury products are tainted with exploited migrant labor. The grim reality of open borders is revealed: it’s about diluting domestic workers for cheap migrants. For this, we can thank the Western elites. 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 07/04/2024 – 19:15

  • 5 Things You May Not Know About Independence Day
    5 Things You May Not Know About Independence Day

    Authored by Joseph Lord via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    On July 4, Americans will observe the 248th birthday of the United States.

    The U.S. Declaration of Independence is on display at Sotheby’s in New York City, N.Y., on June 25, 2024. (Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images)

    In 1776, members of the Second Continental Congress gathered in Philadelphia had already made a decision the impact of which would be felt around the world for centuries to come: the collective colonies agreed to declare their independence from Great Britain, at the time the most powerful nation on the planet.

    Many people know what happened next.

    The document, written by a young and upstart Thomas Jefferson, was officially approved by the Continental Congress.

    News of its adoption traveled the breadth of the eastern seaboard, the news slowly and painstakingly making its way to the frontiers.

    It reignited the political tensions felt everywhere at the time between loyalists and the patriots clamoring for independence.

    Fewer people know about the personal intrigues, motives, and political aspirations of the 56 men who ultimately affixed their name to the document, pledging: “Our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor” to a cause that, at the time, may have seemed nearly hopeless.

    July 4, 1776, changed the trajectory of world history forever.

    On that day the Continental Congress voted to adopt Jefferson’s draft of the Declaration of Independence.

    But at the time, it was far from obvious that July 4 would become Independence Day.

    July 2 seemed the obvious day for celebration to John Adams.

    On that day, the Continental Congress adopted Virginian Richard Henry Lee’s motion officially declaring that the colonies “are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states.”

    Writing to his wife, Abigail Adams, Adams famously declared that July 2: “Will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival.

    “It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other.”

    Of course, it was ultimately the adoption of the Declaration on July 4, and not the July 2 adoption of the resolution that paved its way, that became the United States’ formal Independence Day.

    When people think about the Declaration of Independence, they may think of a room of elder statesmen, as depicted in the famous work of artist John Trumbull.

    John Trumbull painted “Declaration of Independence” in 1819, and it depicts a crucial moment in the American quest for independence. (Public Domain)

    In point of fact, the 56 delegates gathered in Philadelphia in 1776 were younger than this image may suggest, on average clocking in at just 44 years old.

    That included a broad range of ages, from 20-somethings to a septuagenarian.

    The youngest signatory of the document was South Carolina’s Edward Rutledge, who was just 26 years and 8 months old.

    Another South Carolina signatory, Thomas Lynch Jr., was three days shy of his 27th birthday.

    A plurality of the signatories, meanwhile, were in their 30s with many others in their early 40s.

    Only seven of them, including 70-year-old Benjamin Franklin, the oldest signatory of the declaration, were 60 years of age or older.

    While independence may seem in retrospect to be a foregone conclusion, that wasn’t necessarily the case.

    Several members of the Continental Congress were skeptical of independence.

    Many founders initially took a more moderate stance toward grievances with the home island.

    That’s not to say that nobody was thinking about it—the idea was already stirring in coffeehouses and taverns across the colonies, and revolutionary leaders like Adams were outspoken in favor of independence as early as 1774.

    By 1775, particularly following the Battles of Lexington and Concord, the idea had been adopted by most congressional leaders.

    But some moderates—led by John Dickinson, famous for his “Letters From a Pennsylvania Farmer”—remained skeptical about independence until the eleventh hour.

    These included Robert Livingston, one of the most powerful and renowned names in New York who later served a variety of diplomatic roles for the fledgling U.S. government, and John Jay, who later became the first chief justice of the Supreme Court.

    The divides were even more pronounced among the people: After the war, Mr. Adams was famously quoted as saying: “One-third of the [American] people were for the Revolution, one-third were against it, and one-third were neutral.”

    Of all the signatures attached to the Declaration of Independence, John Hancock’s is perhaps the most famous.

    Mr. Hancock was famously unfazed by the risk of being hanged for treason, affixed his name—now the most recognizable signature in American political history—in large characters to the bottom of the Declaration.

    A copy of the Declaration of Independence. (Public Domain)

    What fewer people know are the personal motives that may have influenced this decision.

    Prior to the Revolutionary War, Mr. Hancock was one of the most successful smugglers in North America.

    His business flourished, in large part, thanks to the phenomenon of “salutary neglect,” during which British agents were lax in their enforcement of customs laws.

    But after the end of the French and Indian War in 1763, British coffers were empty.

    To refill them, Britain ended the unofficial policy of salutary neglect, coming down hard on smugglers and others trying to evade British customs laws.

    Mr. Hancock, as the most successful smuggler in North America, was especially adversely affected by this crackdown, even having his ship—the Liberty—seized by British officials for legal violations.

    Thus, for Mr. Hancock, the Revolution represented not only an ideological imperative but a financial one as well.

    The Declaration of Independence is today viewed by Americans as a near-sacrosanct document, a founding justification of the core ideals of the new nation founded in 1776.

    Today, its words—with their message of “inalienable rights” and “self-evident” truths—are deeply entangled in Americans’ political sense of self and are regularly repeated from presidential stump speeches to the halls of Capitol Hill.

    But for all that, it took time for the declaration to become such an important fixture of American life and history.

    At the time, it simply made official a revolt against the Crown that was already effectively underway.

    After the last signature was affixed in August 1776, the document itself remained in the custody of Congress in Philadelphia, only one of several important documents at the time.

    It wasn’t until Jefferson became President Jefferson in 1800—the “Revolution of 1800”—that the document, written by him, began to take pride of place in Americans’ hearts and minds.

    That year, the document was moved to the new seat of government in Washington.

    Until 1952, it was moved often within the capital, sometimes being held in the Library of Congress, sometimes in the State Department; it was moved twice, during the War of 1812 and again during World War II, for safekeeping.

    But since 1952, the document has been prominently displayed in the National Archives, where it remains one of the capital’s most famous attractions.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 07/04/2024 – 18:30

  • Orwell Hits The Highway: Starting This Month Cars In Britain Will Have "Speed Limiters"
    Orwell Hits The Highway: Starting This Month Cars In Britain Will Have “Speed Limiters”

    t’s bad enough cars are all basically equipped with GPS homing devices – and some now even with driver-facing cameras that can monitor you while you drive – but now some vehicles in Britain are being equipped with “speed limiters”. 

    Starting Sunday, July 7, 2024, all new vehicles in the EU must be equipped with Intelligent Speed Assistance (ISA) systems due to a new safety regulation, according to the Daily Mail. 

    Although this law doesn’t apply in Britain, most vehicles sold in the UK will still have the speed-limiting technology installed by manufacturers.

    As the Daily Mail explains, Intelligent Speed Assistance (ISA) technology can automatically restrict a vehicle’s speed using GPS, satellite navigation, and speed-sign recognition cameras. If the vehicle exceeds the speed limit, ISA reduces engine power to comply with the legal limit. For example, on the M1, ISA can limit the car to 70 mph.

    Before ISA reduces a car’s speed, it warns drivers through visual, audible, or haptic alerts, such as vibrations in the steering wheel. If ignored, the system restricts engine power to slow the car but never applies the brakes. Manufacturers may use any or all of these warning methods.

    And of course chalk this brilliant idea up to big government.

    In 2019, the European Parliament mandated ISA technology to reduce traffic collisions and injuries. Recommended by the European Transport Safety Council, ISA aims to cut collisions by 30% and casualties by 20%, contributing to a goal of zero road deaths by 2050.

    The Daily Mail states that since July 6, 2022, all new models must have ISA, and from July 7, 2024, it must be retrofitted to all new vehicles in showrooms, including older models like the VW Touran.

    Although ISA isn’t required for UK models, many new cars sold there will likely have it. Volvo has included speed limiters since 2020, capping speeds at 112 mph. Since 2022, Renault and Dacia have also implemented ISA, and brands like Citroen, Ford, and Jaguar are following suit.

    The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) states that fitting ISA in UK cars is up to individual manufacturers. However, experts like the AA’s Jack Cousens and RAC’s Rod Dennis expect many new cars in the UK to come equipped with ISA. Safety advocates urge the UK government to adopt EU safety regulations to avoid confusion and provide certainty for car makers.

    ISA can be overridden temporarily by pressing the accelerator hard or turned off before each journey, though it reactivates each time the engine starts. Benefits include fewer crashes, reduced traffic jams, and better fuel efficiency. However, there are concerns about driver reliance on ISA, the accuracy of traffic sign recognition, and potential issues in areas with poor GPS signals. 

    Isn’t the government running out of things in our lives they can assert control over?

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 07/04/2024 – 17:45

  • Alaska's Strategic Importance To U.S. Security
    Alaska’s Strategic Importance To U.S. Security

    Authored by Seth Cropsey via RealClearDefense,

    From grave deficiencies in strategic lift and defense industrial base to submarine repair inadequacies, Yorktown Institute continues to highlight shortfalls in the enabling elements on which the continued global supremacy of the U.S. military depends. This article is another in that series.

    China’s pressure on Taiwan and Russia’s assault on Ukraine demonstrate the deterioration of the Eurasian security. In turn, Congress and the military have at least recognized the implications of the threats the U.S. faces. But budgetary constraints, Congressional gridlock, and a poor sense of precise threat have limited America’s ability to build up its military forces and confront its enemies. It is thus crucial to invest in the long-term enabling capabilities that ensure U.S. strategic superiority. A real Alaskan communications network that circumvallated the state and connected to its outlying islands in the Bering Strait and Northern Pacific, would enhance deterrence in the long run at only limited cost.

    Despite over two years of war in Ukraine, the threat from Russia has not diminished. In some respects, it has grown, particularly in the Indo-Pacific. The Russian Army may have been savaged in Ukraine and will be largely incapable of matching NATO forces for the coming half-decade at least, if not longer. But the Russian air force and navy maintain robust conventional and nuclear strike capabilities. Of notable relevance – as American strategists understood in the Cold War – is Russia’s nuclear submarine bastion in the northern Pacific’s Sea of Okhotsk. Russian submarines secure Moscow’s second-strike from here, supported by heavy bombers. Russia has also conducted several naval exercises in the Arctic and Bering Strait, including last autumn, when Russian warships conducted missile tests near the U.S.-Russia maritime boundary line. With a new European Cold War threatening to turn hot, Alaskan territorial defense is now more critical than at any time since the 1980s.

    The China challenge, moreover, increases the strategic importance of Alaska to U.S. policy. While Beijing is unlikely to assault Taiwan soon, owing to a combination of military unpreparedness, economic disruption, and a broader pressure strategy against the island-republic, a confrontation between China and the U.S. over the Indo-Pacific’s future is nearly guaranteed in the next decade. China may prefer to absorb Taiwan absent a full-scale war with the U.S., but if it begins to apply pressure to Taiwan, it will be willing to climb the escalation ladder to major combat, particularly since – unlike the Soviets in 1962 – China has a chance to win a war with the U.S..  In turn, during any major conflict, critical U.S. bases will be on the Chinese target list, namely Okinawa, Yokosuka, and Guam, and perhaps even Pearl Harbor. By destroying U.S. regional logistical infrastructure, China can buy the time it needs to overwhelm Taiwan, and even pressure Japan and the Philippines into submission.

    The only other way to sustain U.S. forces in the Indo-Pacific is through Alaskan bases and depots. They were crucial during the Second World War’s early days, when Imperial Japan captured part of the Aleutian Islands to secure the Japanese Navy’s northern flank, delay U.S. counterattacks, and prevent an expected U.S.-Soviet joint attack from the Kuril Islands. Since this point, the U.S. has maintained significant Alaskan military infrastructure, including Elmendorf and Eielson Air Force Bases. Historically speaking, the U.S. Navy maintained air bases in the Aleutians, most critically Dutch Harbor, which could be used for patrol and reconnaissance during wartime.

    U.S. policy has a nominal focus on the High North – including the White House’s National Arctic Strategy, the Pentagon’s Arctic Policy, the Navy’s Strategic Outlook for the Arctic, the Army’s Arctic Strategy, and the Air Force’s Arctic Strategy. Indeed, this focus has existed since the Trump administration, and has continued in the Biden administration despite their obvious strategic distinctions. In turn, the Department of Homeland Security and multiple members of the intelligence community have an obvious interest in the High North. Because Alaska is the only part of the United States with physical territory in the High North, robust infrastructure in Alaska should be a clear policy priority.

    There has been some movement on actual material improvements to the U.S.’ strategic position in Alaska. As of early 2024, all services have adopted some form of “Arctic Pay,” covering equipment purchases and often increasing salaries given the harsh conditions of the Alaskan environment. The U.S. military has begun to prepare to expand the Port of Nome – the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has a nearly $550 million budget for the project. Late last year, Congress also approved $200 million of funding for military installations in Alaska.

    However, none of these cover the basic connectivity and communications improvements that are needed to establish situational awareness and leverage Alaska’s geography for strategic benefit. A large-scale communications system that connects Alaska’s outlying islands and locations along the coast together could immediately be leveraged to create a variety of surveillance sites—including much needed acoustic sensing capacity for the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard—that can be expanded in wartime.

    The Pentagon and Services are largely unwilling to fund these, seeing them as a civilian responsibility, despite the fact that locations like St Lawrence Island, under 100 kilometres from Russia’s Chukchi Peninsula, are obvious areas for military forward deployment. However, the scale of a simple communications cable project – which would cost around $50 million – is beyond that of the State government and other relevant Federal agencies, both because of the cost involved and the need to coordinate development across multiple departments. Additionally, the Pentagon shies away from concluding contracts directly with individual medium-sized vendors that could actually do the job of communications infrastructure development.

    The solution is for Congress to mandate in the next NDAA a major communications infrastructure project with a short timeline – ideally completed within two years – and absent spools of red tape. Combined with short-term federal investment in civilian networks that could be installed in such locations as St. Lawrence Island, DoD could leverage its increased connectivity the better to patrol the Arctic and protect the U.S. homeland. The only way to ensure the U.S. military has a competitive advantage in the High North, and leverages Alaska properly, is through construction of these enablers.

    Seth Cropsey is president of Yorktown Institute. He served as a naval officer and as deputy Undersecretary of the Navy and is the author of “Mayday” and “Seablindness“.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 07/04/2024 – 17:00

  • Inflation Hits The Grill: The Price Of A July 4th Cookout Keeps Soaring Under Biden
    Inflation Hits The Grill: The Price Of A July 4th Cookout Keeps Soaring Under Biden

    As memories of COVID restrictions are quickly fading, Americans are looking forward to proper, carefree Fourth of July celebrations this year.

    According to AAA, more than 70 million Americans will travel at least 50 miles this Independence Day week in order to celebrate with their friends and families – a new record.

    Aside from the obligatory fireworks, a proper cookout is the key ingredient for a real Independence Day celebration in many households. Speaking of ingredients: how much will a typical Fourth of July menu set you back these days?

    Well, there’s the catch: Bidenflation makes no exception for national holidays, so expect your feast to be more expensive than ever this year.

    Infographic: Inflation Hits the Grill: The Price of a July 4th Cookout | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    According to the American Farm Bureau’s annual Fourth of July market basket survey, a 10-person cookout involving cheeseburgers, chicken breasts, pork chops and several sides and dessert options will cost $71.22 this year.

    That’s up “just” 5 percent from last, but 30 percent from 2019.

    “No matter which state or city you call home, Americans everywhere are still feeling the heat at the grocery checkout,” Datasembly said in a statement to Axios.

    “Consumers will see — once again — that prices are still climbing compared to pre-pandemic times,” the company told Axios.

    Which is odd since Biden and his lackeys keep telling us that ‘inflation is coming down’, in an attempt to gaslight Americans into believing that prices are coming down… they’re not!

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 07/04/2024 – 16:15

  • Reporters Blame "Right-Wing Media" For Their Failure To Disclose Biden's Infirmity
    Reporters Blame “Right-Wing Media” For Their Failure To Disclose Biden’s Infirmity

    Authored by Jonathan Turley,

    The media is sorry . . . sort of. After the shocking appearance of President Joe Biden in the presidential debate, the public has turned its attention to the press which has, again, buried a major scandal for years. According to CNN, the reporters at the White House are really, really sorry but explained that it was the “right-wing media” that prompted them to avoid the story. It is a telling admission that, yet again, reporters chose not to report on a story because they wanted to frame the news for political purposes. It is precisely the pattern that I discuss in my new book The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage where the media now rejects objectivity and neutrality as core values in journalism.

    For years, there have been questions about President Joe Biden’s mental and physical decline. Those concerns reached their apex when Special Counsel Robert Hur issued his report. While finding that Biden had unlawfully retained and mishandled classified material for decades, he concluded that prosecution would be difficult because a jury would be swayed by the appearance of an elderly man with declining memory.

    The media pounced and attacked Hur while media figures attested to the President’s acuity and ability. Then, as videos repeatedly surfaced showing the President confused and fragile, the media declared them “cheap fakes” and attacked Fox News and other outlets for airing them even though Fox noted that the clips were unedited. (For full disclosure, I am a Fox News analyst). Virtually every news outlet aired the attack with politicians, pundits, and celebrities attesting that the President was sharp and engaged.

    On MSNBC, Joe Scarborough stated

    “start your tape right now because I’m about to tell you the truth. And F— you if you can’t handle the truth. This version of Biden intellectually, analytically, is the best Biden ever. Not a close second. And I have known him for years…If it weren’t the truth I wouldn’t say it.”

    Then the presidential debate happened and, after years of being protected by staff, tens of millions of people watched the president struggle to stay focused and responsive.

    So, as an embarrassed press struggled to explain the most recent belated disclosure, the reason is the “right-wing press” and the need to counter their narratives.

    While saying that reporters “are now expressing regret,” CNN explains that “some members of the White House press corps who have regular exposure to President Biden are now admitting they were “turned off” from exposing his mental decline before last week’s debate in part because of the attention it has got from ‘right-wing media.’”

    It was just part of shaping the news, which is now the priority in journalism.

    A recent series of interviews with over 75 media leaders by Leonard Downie Jr., former Washington Post executive editor, and Andrew Heyward, former CBS News president, reaffirmed this shift. As Emilio Garcia-Ruiz, editor-in-chief at the San Francisco Chronicle, stated: “Objectivity has got to go.”

    But that objectivity seems to depend heavily upon what ideology you are advocating.

    We have been discussing the rise of advocacy journalism and the rejection of objectivity in journalism schools. Writers, editors, commentators, and academics have embraced rising calls for censorship and speech controls, including President-elect Joe Biden and his key advisers. This movement includes academics rejecting the very concept of objectivity in journalism in favor of open advocacy.

    In an interview with The Stanford Daily, Stanford journalism professor, Ted Glasser, insisted that journalism needed to “free itself from this notion of objectivity to develop a sense of social justice.” He rejected the notion that journalism is based on objectivity and said that he views “journalists as activists because journalism at its best — and indeed history at its best — is all about morality.”  Thus, “Journalists need to be overt and candid advocates for social justice, and it’s hard to do that under the constraints of objectivity.”

    Lauren Wolfe, the fired freelance editor for the New York Times, has not only gone public to defend her pro-Biden tweet but published a piece titled “I’m a Biased Journalist and I’m Okay With That.” 

    Former New York Times writer (and now Howard University Journalism Professor) Nikole Hannah-Jones is a leading voice for advocacy journalism.

    Indeed, Hannah-Jones has declared “all journalism is activism.”

    The problem comes with these little embarrassing moments when the public suddenly sees that prior coverage was false. Whether it is the Russian collusion story (for which reporters received Pulitzer Prizes) or the Hunter Biden laptop or the Lafayette Park photo shoot or the migrant whipping controversy, there is an inescapable pattern of omission and misdirection. This is why media outlets are collapsing as the public seeks other sources for information.

    As I previously wrote, the mantra “Let’s Go Brandon!” was embraced by millions as a criticism as much of the media as President Biden.  It derives from an Oct. 2 interview with race-car driver Brandon Brown after he won his first NASCAR Xfinity Series race. During the interview, NBC reporter Kelli Stavast’s questions were drowned out by loud-and-clear chants of “F*** Joe Biden.” Stavast quickly and inexplicably declared, “You can hear the chants from the crowd, ‘Let’s go, Brandon!’”

    So, in expressing guilt for not pursuing the President’s mental and physical decline, the media is left with explaining that they are just doing what they are trained to do in the new J Schools. They were countering conservatives and framing the news.

    This is why Washington Post publisher and CEO William Lewis is under attack for dropping a truth bomb on the staff of the Post when he told them:

    “We are going to turn this thing around, but let’s not sugarcoat it. It needs turning around,” Lewis said.

    “We are losing large amounts of money. Your audience has halved in recent years. People are not reading your stuff. Right. I can’t sugarcoat it anymore.”

    Staff is now trying to get him fired.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 07/04/2024 – 15:30

  • Putin & Erdogan Discuss Syria Rapprochement To Squeeze Out Pentagon Occupation
    Putin & Erdogan Discuss Syria Rapprochement To Squeeze Out Pentagon Occupation

    During the ongoing Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) annual summit which is being held in Kazakhstan’s capital of Astana, Russia’s Putin and Turkey’s Erdogan publicly broached the subject of a potential Turkey rapprochement with the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad.

    The two have been in a de facto state of war for over a decade, with Turkish troops still occupying parts of northern Syrian territory, and after relations were cut in 2011 upon the start of the war. Turkey was foremost among NATO allies pushing regime change in Damascus, which involved covert support to ISIS, al-Qaeda, and other jihadist insurgents.

    AP photo of Presidents Assad and Erdogan meeting in Syria in 2010, just one year before the war began.

    But more recently Ankara’s priorities have shifted as it seeks to root out Syrian Kurdish paramilitary groups in north Syria, as well as squeeze out the US troop presence there. The Pentagon has long backed the Kurds and their aspirations for an autonomous region, but both Assad and Erdogan agree that the US occupation must end immediately.

    “We couldn’t meet with my dear friend for a long time,” Erdogan had told Putin at the SCO during introductory remarks. And the Russian leader in turn told a press briefing, “We continue to work actively on a number of the most important lines of international policy. We are in constant contact with you. Our ministries and agencies are constantly exchanging information and coordinating positions on key areas.”

    Regarding Syria, a Turkish readout of the Putin-Erdogan meeting said, “He [Erdogan] stressed the importance of taking concrete steps to end the instabilities that create fertile ground for terrorist organizations, especially in the Syrian civil war… Turkey is ready to cooperate for a solution.”

    This comes one week after Erdogan shocked his own population and officials by saying there’s currently no obstacle which would prevent the restoration of official ties with Syria. According to the Associated Press:

    His comments came just days after Syrian President Bashar Assad made similar remarks, indicating a willingness among the two neighboring countries to end tensions and normalize relations.

    “There is no reason why (diplomatic ties) should not be established,” Erdogan told reporters.

    “In the same way that we kept our relations with Syria alive in the past — we had these meetings with Mr Assad that included family meetings — we cannot say that it will not happen again,” Erdogan said. He was referring to a vacation that the Erdogan and Assad families took in southern Turkey in 2008, before their relationship soured.

    Currently, there’s talk of a future meeting between Syrian and Turkish delegations in Baghdad, but the date has yet to be announced.

    At the SCO meeting Putin and Erdogan also discussed the possibility of peaceful settlement in Ukraine…

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    Major issues which remain, however, is Turkey’s ongoing support for proxies in Syria, including the “Syrian National Army” (SNA) and Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). The latter still controls Idlib and is Syrian al-Qaeda.

    If a final deal and restoration of relations is eventually achieved between Assad and Erdogan, it could be the death knell for the Pentagon occupation of northeast Syria. This has long been openly stated as a goal of Erdogan, amid increased tensions with Washington, despite both being in the NATO alliance. Putin certainly wants to see that happen too.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 07/04/2024 – 14:45

  • Americans Share What Patriotism Means To Them
    Americans Share What Patriotism Means To Them

    Authored by Lawrence Wilson, Dan M. Berger, Janice Hisle, Natasha Holt, Jackson Richman, Jacob Burg via The Epoch Times,

    Independence Day is the nation’s most patriotic holiday, and Americans celebrate it with abandon.

    (Illustration by The Epoch Times, Shutterstock, Public Domain)

    On this day of parades, baseball games, hot dogs, and sparklers, even the stodgiest old uncle may arrive at the family cookout wearing a red-white-and-blue top hat and suspenders.

    By day’s end, some 260 million pounds of commercial fireworks will be lit, filling city skies with splendor and leaving the air in suburban neighborhoods thick with the smell of smoke and sulfur.

    Americans love to display their patriotism.

    Yet there is little agreement on what that means. The majority—some 55 percent—of Americans think the United States has become a less patriotic nation in recent years, according to a Marist poll released on July 1. Only 14 percent think Americans have become more patriotic.

    That could be because Americans display patriotism in a variety of ways and may not recognize it in others, says Ken Kollman, director of the Center for Political Studies at the University of Michigan.

    “Definitions of patriotism, and behavioral standards for what counts as patriotic, are both folded into our current political divisions and reflect them,” Mr. Kollman told The Epoch Times. “Who counts as a patriot and what counts as patriotism are in the eyes of the beholders.”

    Just ahead of the 248th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, The Epoch Times asked Americans to define patriotism.

    “What does patriotism mean to you?” we wanted to know, “And how do you display it?”

    Most answers were rooted in a deep appreciation for sacrifices that were made to create and defend the country, and a desire to continue to do the same. That desire manifests itself in different ways.

    Honoring the Symbols

    Pride in America and its symbols was the most common way people said they expressed patriotism. We heard frequent references to standing for the national anthem, reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, and wearing star-spangled clothing. Voting was mentioned often.

    These simple expressions of national pride can also be used by some—though not by everyone—to emphasize divisions within the country, according to John Bodnar, an emeritus professor of history at Indiana University.

    Locals take part in the annual Fourth of July Bicycle Cruise in Huntington Beach, Calif., on July 1, 2023. A majority of Americans (55 percent) think the United States has become a less patriotic nation than a few years ago. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

    “Some people express their patriotic loyalty to show they are superior to other citizens within the nation,” Mr. Bodnar told The Epoch Times. “On the other hand, some patriots see in the flag or in the nation they love the promise of equal rights for all, regardless of one’s political views or race or religion.”

    The latter seemed to describe most of the people we encountered.

    Bailey, 31, of Las Vegas, said that standing for the national anthem is one way he shows patriotism. Another was his recent visit to the nation’s capital. He believes that a patriot should respect the office of the president regardless of which party is in power.

    “You love America? You’ve got to love who’s running it,” he said.

    Healing Divisions

    Brothers Peter and Rory Corrigan, whose parents met while serving their country during World War II, are driven both to honor the past and to ensure that America lives up to its promise.

    Their father, a lieutenant in the Marine Corps SeaBees Battalion, met their mother on Guam, where she served with the Red Cross.

    “[Our father] rarely talked about the war. Both parents had acquaintances who were killed or seriously wounded in the Pacific,” Peter Corrigan, 76, of Delmar, New York, told The Epoch Times.

    Yet the war symbolized something more than bloodshed to the elder Corrigan.

    “One night in the mid-1950s, while tucking me into bed, I was probably 7 or 8, [my father] asked if I could think of one good thing about the war,” Peter Corrigan recalled. “I tried, but I couldn’t.”

    What his father said next made a lasting impression on the boy.

    “It’s where I met your mother,” he said simply.

    Peter Corrigan now honors the sacrifices of the Greatest Generation by wearing a SeaBees cap and holding an American flag as veterans pass by in the Memorial Day parade.

    “And I think how grateful I am to live in this country,” he said.

    Brother Rory Corrigan, 74, of Richmond Hill, Georgia, said his sense of patriotism took on a more profound meaning after the 9/11 attacks.

    “I lost 37 friends that day,” Rory Corrigan said. “My sense of America’s unique promise and necessary leadership was deepened as the face of evil confronted me in a new and profound manner.

    “I have never been prouder of our country than in the period closely following those attacks,“ he said, citing pride in the nation’s struggles ”to overcome our demanding history and divisions.”

    A parachutist brings in the U.S. flag before the start of the 101st annual Black Hills Roundup rodeo in Belle Fourche, S.D., on July 4, 2020. The town celebrated Independence Day with the rodeo, a parade, a street dance and a carnival.

    Connecting America to the World

    Peter McCormick, 69, of Dunedin, Florida, found a sense of patriotism as a foreign correspondent in Central America during the 1980s.

    “It was our backyard, and as a reporter I realized U.S. readers needed, as citizens, to know what was going on,” he told The Epoch Times. His reporting on Marxist versus right-wing factions shattered preconceived notions held by friends on both the left and the right, he said.

    Mr. McCormick later worked as a USAID contractor in Rwanda, where he wrote checks to charities that supplied wells, food, and medical attention to that war-stricken nation. He considered it an expression of patriotism.

    “The operation was an example of American largesse being put to efficient use,” he said.

    Political Activism

    Shelley Freeman, 58, of Clements, California, is part of a four-generation military family and has a son now on deployment with the Army. She has served her country as a civilian by sitting on local government committees, volunteering for Senate and presidential campaigns, and hosting political discussions on social media.

    She sees political discourse as unifying rather than divisive.

    Ms. Freeman recalled a discussion she had about presidential candidates that provoked strong disagreement from another woman. Though the debate was intense, it ended with a hug.

    “It’s OK. We’re going to get through this, and we’re all going to be alright,” Ms. Freeman said she told the debater.

    “Our Constitution gives us our First Amendment right, and to have our own opinions,” she said. “That’s why it’s important to agree to disagree … no matter who you are.”

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 07/04/2024 – 14:00

  • New Fires Erupt In Israel After Hezbollah Sends 200 Rockets, Drone Swarms
    New Fires Erupt In Israel After Hezbollah Sends 200 Rockets, Drone Swarms

    Large wildfires are once again raging in northern Israel’s Galilee region after on Thursday Hezbollah launched a particularly intense barrage of 200 rockets as well as drone swarms.

    Some of the fires are believed the result of burning fragments from interceptor shrapnel which fell as anti-air defenses are heavily at work. Soon after, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) sent a stern warning and message to all of Lebanon, sending jets over Beirut which broke the sound barrier. This happened in other parts of the country as well.

    Emergency crews work to extinguish fires in Israel, Flash90/TOI

    The IDF further said the Air Force “struck Hezbollah military structures” in south Lebanon’s Ramyeh and Houla areas. Casualties – whether among militants or civilians – were not immediately known.

    Throughout Thursday fires have raged in at least ten locations in the Galilee and Golan Heights areas due to the ramped up Hezbollah attacks.

    Israeli emergency and civic services have reported that at least one highway in the area has been blocked as a result of the fast encroaching fires.

    Just the day prior, on Wednesday, Israel killed a top Hezbollah commander in southern Lebanon, Muhammad Nimah Nasser, and Thursday’s huge rocket barrage is seen as retaliation for that.

    Via Reuters

    Senior Hezbollah official Hashem Safieddine warned while speaking at Nasser’s funeral, “The series of responses continues in succession, and this series will continue to target new sites that the enemy did not imagine would be hit.”

    These ‘new sites’ could include strikes as deep into Israel as Haifa, which would mark a much bigger escalation in attacks. Last month Hezbollah published drone surveillance footage taken over Israel’s port city of Haifa in an effort to spook Tel Aviv leaders.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 07/04/2024 – 13:15

  • Watch: Leaked Video Shows Trump Call Biden "Broken Down Pile Of Crap", Kamala Is "So F**king Bad"
    Watch: Leaked Video Shows Trump Call Biden “Broken Down Pile Of Crap”, Kamala Is “So F**king Bad”

    Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Modernity.news,

    A leaked video features Donald Trump calling Joe Biden a “broken-down pile of crap” who is “quitting the race,” with Trump predicting he’ll now face off against Kamala Harris, who is “so fucking bad.”

    It’s unknown when the exchange happened, but it was some time after last week’s debate.

    Sitting in a golf cart, Trump responds to one of his supporters who told him he did “fantastic” during the debate.

    “Look at that old, broken down pile of crap,” Trump says, referring to Biden, adding, “He’s a bad guy, he just quit you know, he’s quitting the race…and that means we have Kamala.”

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

    “I think she’s gonna be better, she’s so bad, she’s so pathetic, she’s so fucking bad,” he says of Harris.

    Switching back to Biden, Trump asserts, “Can you imagine that guy dealing with Putin? And the president of China – who’s a fierce person. He’s a fierce man, very tough guy. And they see him.”

    “They just announced he’s probably quitting,” Trump concludes before driving away and saying, “Keep knocking ’em out, right?”

    As we highlighted yesterday, Biden took part in a closed doors meeting with Democratic governors last night in an effort to convince them that he is capable of continuing as the Party nominee.

    A report by Reuters also claimed that 25 House Democrats are preparing to band together and call for Joe Biden to step down.

    A report published by Axios citing insiders with the Biden campaign also explained how Biden’s top aides are telling everyone to carry on as normal, despite the fact that “everyone is freaking the fuck out over his mental decline.”

    The Biden campaign, after claiming his dreadful debate performance was due to a “cold,” later pivoted to Biden’s personal explanation that he was tired from jet lag, despite Biden having been in the United States for nearly two weeks before the debate.

    *  *  *

    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
    Thu, 07/04/2024 – 12:30

  • 'Sharp And Focused But Sometimes Confused': AP Gaslights With New 'Fiery But Mostly Peaceful' Propaganda
    ‘Sharp And Focused But Sometimes Confused’: AP Gaslights With New ‘Fiery But Mostly Peaceful’ Propaganda

    While Democrats scramble to perform triage on the Joe Biden situation following last week’s disastrous debate against Donald Trump, which has included multiple calls for him to exit the race from his own party – and the editorial boards of several major newspapers, the Associated Press just dropped the most propagandistic damage control headline since CNN‘s ‘fiery but mostly peaceful‘ khyron during a 2020 BLM riot over a police shooting.

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

    This is the same outlet that laundered a Biden State Department hit-piece against ZeroHedge, accusing us of ‘spreading Russian propaganda’ in early 2022.

    Remember when Biden was sharp and focused as he bit his wife Jill’s finger during a 2019 campaign event?

    The headline, an IQ test for idiots, was rightly mocked:

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    This comes on the heels of Axios reporting that Biden ‘maintains a schedule that tires younger aides.‘

    As much as you hate corporate media, it’s truly not enough. 

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

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 07/04/2024 – 11:45

  • The Sociology And Psychology Of The Backyard Grill
    The Sociology And Psychology Of The Backyard Grill

    Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Epoch Times,

    Across America, the backyard grills are out and fired up, along with the rich and complicated culture they unleash. Watching this unfold, I’ve come to the conclusion that it is this feature of the experience more than the culinary results that provides the main attraction to grilling.

    I’ll put the most provocative point up front so you don’t have to dig through and find it. The backyard grill allows men a space of control in a society and culture in which such settings have otherwise dwindled to nearly none. Before you get angry and cite a thousand exceptions and qualifications, and I’m sure they are all valid, hear me out.

    When I was growing up in Texas, my grandmother did all the cooking and the kitchen was her domain, no question. There was a sense that the men weren’t even allowed in there. I never once saw my grandfather open a cabinet or the refrigerator. His job was to provide the material blessings of the house for his wonderful wife and children to enjoy. And enjoy them they did.

    She was a kind and generous cook. As I was very interested in the kitchen goings-on, she took me in as her protege, teaching me baking and so on. I love it but that was unusual. My cousins were never part of that experience.

    And yet once a year, around the fourth of July, that house hosted an extended family event in which the barbecue came out. My grandfather donned a chef’s coat and hat, and held high his huge cooking tools. The fire was built and the smoke from the cooking meat, wood, and coals lifted high in the air and drifted to all the neighbors.

    Despite all the theater, he was only making burgers and hot dogs but that didn’t stop the waves of adulation he would receive for his fine skills. There was always a round of applause after and he took bows.

    As a kid, I wondered at the time how that made my grandmother feel, who cooked 1,000 meals for his one. And yet the embedded ethos of the table in those days was always to praise her mastery at every meal without exception. Looking back, she must have felt great pride that her beloved husband had one day to bask in the warmth of a grateful clan that had been fed by the work of his own hands.

    It’s obvious that the sheer physicality of the grilling experience taps into a primordial longing in the human personality in general but it seems particularly appealing to men.

    The clinical and anodyne experience of modern kitchens, particularly with electric this and that, does not satisfy that evolved desire to build a real fire and sear meat on it.

    It’s there in all of us, just waiting for the right season and setting.

    Men are never more in their element than when poking around on a fire in the backyard and hurling large pieces of meat this way and that. It’s beautiful to watch. The experience is undeniably gendered too. Even when I was young, the women would be in the kitchen preparing the rolls and salads, while the men would be in the backyard building the fire for the grill.

    The conversations were different too: Men spoke of practical and even gritty things as the women spoke of impractical and idealistic dreams. The men would speak in sharper, less decorous, and blunter ways than they would otherwise talk in mixed company, and the women (I’m told) would be more revealing of thoughts and speculations they would not otherwise share with men present.

    To be clear, this separation was not about “power,” as the post-structuralists would have it; it was never about force or exclusion. It was to the advantage of both, each group with its own space, however temporary, so that when the two came to dinner as the meal was served, they could meet on common ground, each group shaving off the gendered eccentricities in deference to the other.

    The outdoor grill enables this in ways that cooking indoors simply does not. Consistent with my childhood experience, and probably with experience dating back to prehistoric times, the kitchen space was always the primary domain of the women in the household, probably because in prehistoric times the division of labor meant that men would hunt and women would prepare the food.

    But with hunting (mostly) gone and the experience of food acquisition itself now nothing more than a shopping experience, men have lost their usefulness. The outdoor grill offers something of an outlet.

    All that aside, the outdoor grill offers a respite from the tedium of kitchen duty and the luxury of restaurants. It’s something we can do ourselves, close to the roots of our species.

    If you are reading this as an apartment dweller, you might be feeling a bit of pain right now. For the most part, you cannot grill. There is either no space or your lease does not allow it. Perhaps you can get by with an electric grill on your tiny porch but, honestly, is there any point to that overcooking in the kitchen? Not really. Not much, in my view.

    The choice between owning and renting is a financial one but there are practical implications, among which is this one. Your home and backyard enable the grill. Maybe you use it just a few weeks a year or maybe for months but most apartment dwellers never have that option. In other words, people could be paying tens of thousands of dollars a year for the grill, but for many this is entirely worth it.

    Again, I long ago concluded that nearly every seeming advantage of outdoor grilling can be recreated with the skilled use of ovens and stoves in the kitchen. Even the smoke flavor has an authentic answer with liquid smoke that can be added to iron skillets and dutch ovens. In any case, the culinary advantages of grilling are not the primary point. The point is to build a real fire and recreate in a safe way the days of yore as a means of working out something deep within us.

    The choice of grill itself is a fascinating one. They range from the most primitive to the most elaborate. I recently witnessed two neighbors grilling at the same time. One had a small/medium aluminum circle cut in half with a top and bottom filled with coals and wood, with no controls, switches, dials, hoses, starters, hooks or cabinets or anything else. It was probably $40.

    The other neighbor had an apparatus that was likely fancier and with more technological sophistication than existed inside. Its stainless steel exterior gleamed like a fine treasure. It was a marvel and it probably costs up to $4,000 (I’m seeing online prices for these up to $15,000).

    But which one does a better job? Which one speaks most to the primal need? I don’t need to give you my answer. It seems obvious to me that the closer you get to the essence of the thing, the better off you are, so I would certainly go for the simple model, with no propane and only the coals. The more technology you add, the less it seems to achieve the goal, unless the main point is a Veblenian one of creating an ostentatious display for others.

    There are other advantages to a simple round grill (called a Weber). People can stand around it instead of only in front of it. That provides a better and more adaptable social environment.

    There are other options at some public parks, which provide grills for the public to use. Bring your own coals, tools, and meat and you have all you need. Of course that doesn’t quite achieve that sense of having a “cave of one’s own” but it’s something in any case.

    The reason we drag all these out at this time of the year is not just that the weather is nice and everything is green and pretty in the United States. It’s also about recalling our past: the Revolutionary War, the Founding era, and generally remembering who we are and what kinds of things we did before all the innovations, good and bad, interrupted our sense of rooted meaning and memory.

    The outdoor grill offers the hope that we can find our way back to fundamentals again.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 07/04/2024 – 11:00

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Jul 04

Today’s News 4th July 2024

  • Gingrich: The Key 'Lessons In Liberty'
    Gingrich: The Key ‘Lessons In Liberty’

    Authored by Newt Gingrich via RealClearPolicy,

    Historic leaders often share something important in common. They are not born great. Their greatness is a result of a lifetime of difficulty and consequential choices.

    As Jeremy S. Adams discussed in his book, “Lessons in Liberty,” this is especially true for remarkable Americans. In the book, Adams details the inspiring lives of extraordinary Americans and what we can learn from them today.

    George Washington, for example, struggled his entire life to keep his temper under control. This lifelong effort made him a model for discipline and restraint. Clara Barton nursed her badly injured brother back to health when she was only 11 years old. This harrowing experience later equipped her with the skills and bravery to serve as a nurse in the Civil War. U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye was a 17-year-old Japanese American who lived in Hawaii when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. The sneak attack angered him so much he joined the U.S. Army to fight in World War II.  Despite discrimination and hardship from the U.S. government, Inouye became a highly decorated soldier and longtime U.S. Senator.

    I spoke with Adams about his book on a recent episode of Newt’s World. He is a serious scholar and educator. He teaches social studies and political science to highschoolers and students at the University of California at Bakersfield. He was the Daughters of the American Revolution 2014 California Teacher of the Year and a finalist for the Carlston Family Foundation Outstanding Teachers of America Award.

    We talked about the personal wisdom of Washington, Barton, Inouye, and other extraordinary Americans. Adams said in his book that Americans need to “honor what is honorable, praise what is praiseworthy, and most of all, emulate which is highest and best, so we can take advantage of the miracle of human freedom.” While no historic figure is perfect, their fallibility makes them so worthy of our study.

    Unfortunately, many young students in America are not learning about our great historical figures. Forty percent of Gen-Z members characterize the founding fathers as villains. Fifty percent of high schoolers say that their lives have little to no meaning, and only 52 percent of Americans would be willing to fight to defend the country.

    Something disturbing is happening in classrooms across our country. Our nation’s young people are being influenced by viewpoints, values, and behaviors of people who hate America and the principles on which it was founded. As President Ronald Reagan said, “freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.” Each generation has a duty to renew and protect America and its values.

    As we discussed on the podcast, America is also bigger than a singular party. It is bigger than any ideology. We are more than just Republicans or Democrats. We were more than federalists or anti-federalists. We are all Americans. The 10 men and women Adams discussed in his book were from different time periods and backgrounds. Some were liberal and some were conservative. But they all worked to make America great.

    Importantly, none of them were personally born great. Their greatness was a choice. That is the key lesson of liberty.

    For more commentary from Newt Gingrich, visit Gingrich360.com. Also, subscribe to the Newt’s World podcast.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 07/03/2024 – 23:25

  • Inside The Chinese Money-Laundering Network Fueling America's Fentanyl Crisis
    Inside The Chinese Money-Laundering Network Fueling America’s Fentanyl Crisis

    It’s worth noting that 100,000 Americans die in drug-related deaths per year, the vast majority from pills cooked with fentanyl, an opioid analog 50 times more potent than heroin. Every six months, the US drug death catastrophe eclipses the Vietnam War.

    Fueling the fentanyl epidemic across the US are Chinese money launderers helping international drug traffickers, like Mexican cartels. Capital flight from China is not a new phenomenon, but in recent years, the scale of these transfers, washed through the drug trade, has become very alarming.

    Paul Murphy from the Financial Times has provided the most straightforward explanation yet of the new Chinese money laundering network fueling America’s fentanyl crisis: 

    First, understand that Chinese nationals are barred from transferring more than $50,000 out of China each year. And yet, as you are surely aware, there are many many Chinese nationals living very comfortable lives in the west, as students perhaps, or tourists, or simply not working.

    Now understand that Mexican drug cartels are harvesting untold billions of dollars, in cash, selling drugs in North America — and that the pill of the moment is fentanyl, which kills about 70,000 people a year in the US.

    The chemicals to make fentanyl come from China. These are shipped to Mexico by otherwise legit Chinese chemical manufacturers.

    In Mexico, the cartels turn the chemicals into pills and smuggle these north across the border, where they are sold for cash — dollar bills that then need to be cleaned.

    Murphy continued:

    Meanwhile, in New York for instance, there will be a Chinese student attending an educational establishment, where the fees will be circa $66,000 a year, books and extras another $10,000, food and lodging costs of maybe $5,000 a month, or a lot more.

    The $50,000 Chinese transfer cap doesn’t cover these things, so she will go on WeChat and broadcast a message to her network of friends saying: “I need dollars in New York to meet my outgoings. Can anyone help?”

    In due course, someone associated with what is a very efficient Chinese underground banking system will get in touch and tell the student to meet a courier at a preordained time and place, typically a park in Brooklyn. There, the student will be handed a bundle of cash.

    Back in China, the parents of the student will then be asked to transfer the same amount of money (plus commission) to an account that will eventually make its way to the chemical company that produced the precursor ingredients for fentanyl, settling the outstanding bill for the Mexican drug cartel.

    Murphy explained, “Drug addicts in the US are facilitating the Western education of Chinese youth, as well as helping to fund the lifestyles of other Chinese nations living outside China.” 

    He provided a flow chart showing how the complex laundering system works. 

    Source: FT 

    In a separate report last week, FT’s Joe Miller and James Kynge published an in-depth analysis of the Chinese-Mexican laundering network in a report titled “The new money laundering network fuelling the fentanyl crisis.”

    The report sheds light on the less understood part of the money laundering operation — the demand for dollars from wealthy Chinese individuals. While capital flight from China is not new, the methods have become increasingly creative, involving chemical companies that, in turn, have fueled America’s opioid epidemic.

    “The levels of capital flight in the past three years have been quite alarming,” one senior Chinese official told FT, adding, “Some wealthy private entrepreneurs are losing confidence in China’s future. They feel unsafe, so they find ways to get their money out.”

    Brad Setser, a former US Treasury official and an expert on global capital flows at the Council on Foreign Relations, estimated that capital flight from China is running at an annualized rate of about $516 billion as of 1Q24. This figure was even higher in the 3Q22, reaching almost $738 billion. 

    “The whole system of drug trafficking is being sustained by a network of clandestine [Chinese] money brokers,” said Giovanni Melillo, the chief prosecutor for Italy’s National Anti-Mafia and Terrorism Directorate. His office has been coordinating laundering probes across Italy this past year.  

    Previous cases of money laundering in the US involving Chinese nationals have raised serious questions about how much Beijing knows about these dark laundering networks. For instance, a recent Wall Street Journal report revealed that Chinese crime groups and drug traffickers used the Toronto-Dominion Bank to launder money from US fentanyl sales. 

    In mid-April, the House Select Committee on China revealed that the Chinese Communist Party used tax rebates to subsidize the manufacturing and exporting of fentanyl chemicals to overseas customers. 

    The biggest mystery here is why the Biden administration hasn’t taken a tougher stance on China while America’s fentanyl epidemic kills as many citizens each year as two Vietnam Wars.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 07/03/2024 – 22:50

  • Crime Trends Have Been Tough To Track. Breaking Down The 10 Biggest Cities
    Crime Trends Have Been Tough To Track. Breaking Down The 10 Biggest Cities

    Authored by Petr Svab via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Is crime rising or falling across the United States? National crime trends have been difficult to track in recent years because of changes in the way that police departments report their statistics to the FBI.

    (Illustration by The Epoch Times, Shutterstock)

    But by examining crime data from large police departments individually, a clearer pattern emerges.

    The Epoch Times’ analysis of data going back several years shows that while the major crime spike that plagued the United States’ largest cities has ebbed, crime rates are still exceeding numbers from before the 2020 summer of protests and riots.

    Car theft, in particular, has remained high. Robbery, on the other hand, has declined significantly in some large cities.

    The analysis has focused on the top 10 most populous cities and the four offenses of murder, robbery, aggravated assault, and car theft, which tend to be the most reliably reported to the police, according to the National Crime Victimization Survey conducted by the Census Bureau.

    New York City, Pop. 8.2 Million

    The country’s largest city suffered a surge in violence starting in mid-2020 as a wave of protests and riots hit the country following the death of George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis.

    Shootings doubled that year, with more than 1,850 wounded or killed. Car theft, after dwindling for decades, shot up by 66 percent, NYPD data show.

    Crime continued to rise in 2021, with 488 people murdered—the most in a decade.

    In 2022, murder declined by about 10 percent, but instances of other serious crimes kept increasing. Car theft was up by more than 150 percent from 2019. Major theft (of items worth more than $1,000 in value) and felony assaults reached numbers unseen since the 1990s.

    Violent crime subsided a step further in 2023. Murder dropped by another 11 percent but was still more than 20 percent above the pre-2020 numbers. Meanwhile, car thefts and felony assaults went up again.

    This year, so far, murder appears to be further receding, though still holding stubbornly 20 percent above 2019 numbers for the same period. Robberies and felony assaults, however, are both up from last year and more than 40 percent above 2019 levels. Car theft has eased up, yet the rate is still double that of 2019.

    Los Angeles, Pop. 3.8 Million

    Los Angeles is following a similar trajectory to New York City. Crime surged in 2020 and continued to rise until 2022, aside from murder, which peaked in 2021 with 401 fatalities—the worst since 2006.

    Based on incomplete data, crime seems to have declined a bit in 2023, although murder is still 30 percent above the 2019 level, felony assault is up by about 17 percent, and car theft is up by more than 70 percent.

    Officials stand next to a barrel where a body was discovered in Malibu Lagoon State Beach, Calif., on July 31, 2023. (Robyn Beck/AFP via Getty Images)

    This year, it appears that the LAPD hasn’t been releasing its weekly crime reports. A spokesman reached by phone said the department is switching to a new system so the reports aren’t available.

    The department provided some figures for this year up to June 22: Violent crime had been up by 3.5 percent from the same period in 2023, and so was murder. Robberies were up by 18.5 percent, and burglaries up by 4.2 percent. Property crime dropped by 3.1 percent.

    Chicago, Pop. 2.7 Million

    Chicago experienced a giant spike in murder in 2016. But by 2019, it had just about managed to get it under control. Then 2020 hit and, just as with other cities, violence exploded anew and continued upward in 2021, which resulted in 811 murders—the most since 1995.

    Since 2022, murders have decreased, but other crime has continued to rise. So far this year, murder is up by 20 percent compared with the same period in 2019, robbery is up by 40 percent, aggravated battery is up by 4 percent, and car theft is up by 150 percent. Last year, nearly 30,000 cars were stolen in Chicago—the most since at least the year 2000.

    Houston, Pop. 2.3 Million

    Houston was still trying to contain a wave of violence that started in 2015 when another wave hit in 2020. The following year, in 2021, the city recorded 471 murders, making for its highest homicide rate since 1994.

    The violence has eased since then, but last year’s murders still outpaced 2019 by more than 20 percent.

    In the first four months of this year, murders seem to have further abated, although aggravated assaults are still nearly 20 percent above the same period in 2019 and car theft is almost 50 percent higher.

    Robberies, on the other hand, have been on a steady decline since 2019—down by 25 percent in 2023.

    Police line up on Vermont Avenue as people protest over the death of George Floyd, in Washington on June 23, 2020. (Brendan Smialowski /AFP via Getty Images)

    Phoenix, Pop. 1.6 Million

    Phoenix followed much the same trajectory, with a spike in violence in 2016, another increase in 2020, and a peak in 2022 when 217 people were killed, making for the city’s highest murder rate since 2007.

    In 2023, violence somewhat declined, but car theft jumped by 22 percent.

    In the first quarter of this year, the city managed another reduction in murders because of a particularly calm March, with five murders. Car thefts and aggravated assaults barely budged, though, and robberies are up by 17 percent compared with the first quarter of 2023.

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 07/03/2024 – 22:15

  • Bidenomics: Man Sparks Internet Outrage After Paying $9.35 For A Diet Coke At Six Flags
    Bidenomics: Man Sparks Internet Outrage After Paying $9.35 For A Diet Coke At Six Flags

    Just when you’ve thought you’ve seen the worst, most egregious examples of inflation rearing its head, we give you: Six Flags.

    The theme park was in the news this week after a customer went viral for spending $9 for a single Diet Coke at the park’s concessions, as was reported by DailyDot. 

    Guyset (@theguyset) posted a viral video on TikTok expressing shock over paying $9.35 for a Diet Coke at Six Flags, showing his receipt as proof. Despite the high price, he bought it. He noted in the caption that both he and the cashier were stunned by the cost.

    Other TikTokers shared similar experiences of high prices at amusement parks, concerts, and airports. One user recalled paying $12 for M&Ms at a concert, while another mentioned spending $15 on a small bag of jerky at an airport.

    Many users shared their outrage over Six Flags’ prices. One mentioned paying $10 for a bottle of water, while another noted that at Kings Dominion, a slice of pizza and a breadstick cost $17.

    A TikToker highlighted similar issues at other parks, citing an $85 bill for 2 hotdogs, 2 slices of pizza, and 3 drinks at Sesame Place for a family of four.

    To emphasize the price difference, one user pointed out spending just $4.48 for three 2-liter bottles at a grocery store. Another suggested a hack for staying hydrated at theme parks: buy refillable cups or get a membership that includes refills.

    In the comments section, people also lamented the price of items at places like airports. Recall last week we just wrote that Philadelphia’s airport had caused an “outrage” after slapping a hidden 3% surcharge on all concession items. 

    According to the report the surcharge is  “to offset the employee wages and benefits” that must be paid to airport workers, but none of the money actually goes to employees. 

    View From The Wing then asks the astute question: “You might ask, why allow vendors to charge people more than the marked prices, instead of just raising prices?”

    And you already know the answer, right? It’s because the airport doesn’t let them raise prices, stating that “operators are only permitted to charge up to 15% more than a comparable street-side unit”.

    What’s Six Flags’ excuse?

     

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 07/03/2024 – 21:40

  • From Milk-Runs To MAD To Madness
    From Milk-Runs To MAD To Madness

    Authored by George Ford Smith via The Mises Institute,

    There are no secrets about the world of nature. There are secrets about the thoughts and intentions of men.

    – J. Robert Oppenheimer

    No big deal, it was just “a milk run.”

    So remarked Paul Tibbets Jr., pilot of the Enola Gay, a United States B-29 Superfortress, describing his trip to Hiroshima, Japan, on August 6, 1945. His cargo that early morning was an atomic bomb called “Little Boy,” which bombardier Major Thomas Ferebee released when the plane was directly over the city. Forty-three seconds later and with pilot and crew watching, “Little Boy” exploded above ground. Their job finished, the Enola Gay returned to base on Tinian Island.

    Yes, just a milk run.

    Others saw it differently. War correspondent John Hersey published a long article in the New Yorker on August 23, 1946, detailing the experience of those far enough from the center of the explosion to have recollections. No milk runs here:

    As Mrs. Nakamura stood watching her neighbor, everything flashed whiter than any white she had ever seen. She did not notice what happened to the man next door; the reflex of a mother set her in motion toward her children. She had taken a single step (the house was 1,350 yards, or three-quarters of a mile, from the center of the explosion) when something picked her up and she seemed to fly into the next room over the raised sleeping platform, pursued by parts of her house.

    In case you’re a visitor from another galaxy and find this disturbing, most earth dwellers believe the “Little Boy” mission was an act of mercy. According to the accepted math, the instantaneous mass murder saved lives. So strong was this belief that the plutonium “Fat Man” bomb followed up on August 9 in Nagasaki, marking the last time a nuclear weapon was used in war. Meanwhile, on August 8, the Soviet Union had declared war on Japan, storming Japanese-held Manchuria with 1.6 million troops.

    The Japanese fight-to-the-death attitude weakened. Emperor Hirohito announced Japan’s surrender on August 15, followed by the formal surrender aboard the USS Missouri on September 2.

    As the first to inaugurate nuclear war, the Enola Gay crew had done their job—as ordered. Most of them agreed they were saving lives, but incinerating a city full of people as a life-saving exercise desperately needed context. Galactic visitors would be confused, but here on earth it was plainly necessary to put a quick end to a bloody engagement humans call war. Radar operator Joe Stiborik recalled the stunned silence on the flight back to Tinian, pierced by one outburst: “My God, what have we done!”

    If you have a superweapon, it does you no good if you lack the nerve to use it. And the US was driven to develop one out of fear Germany might already be working on one of its own.

    How it should be used varied among those at the top of the food chain. As Ralph Raico has written, “The bombings were condemned as barbaric and unnecessary by high American military officers, including Eisenhower and MacArthur.”

    Dwight D. Eisenhower, in fact, believed “Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary. . . . Japan was, at that very moment [prior to Hiroshima], seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of ‘face.’” But Truman ruled. It was his call. A half million or more American lives would be spared if a planned US invasion could be avoided. Yet, as Raico points out, that estimate was “nearly twice the total of US dead in all theaters in the Second World War.” Who was checking the math?

    Attempts to Avoid a Nuclear Strike

    At the Potsdam Conference in Germany (July 17 to August 2, 1945), Truman issued a Declaration, supported by Great Britain and China, demanding the Japanese surrender unconditionally or else he would order the “prompt and utter devastation” of their homeland. But he didn’t mention the horrific twenty-one kiloton Trinity Test on July 16 or the Soviet Union’s plans to invade Manchuria. Nor did he tell the Japanese their emperor would be safe from prosecution as a war criminal. Full disclosure might well have prompted Japan to surrender without an American invasion and without dropping the bombs.

    The scientists who worked on the Manhattan Project varied sharply in their views about attacking Japan. The Franck Committee, headed by Nobel Prize–winning physicist James Franck, opposed a surprise attack on Japan and recommended instead a demonstration in an uninhabited area. They also raised the issue of trust. How does the benevolent ethics of the West align with nuclear mass murder? Was it possible the US would get the “reputation of outdoing Hitler in atrocities,” as Secretary of War Henry Stimson asked Truman.

    Director of the Manhattan Project’s Los Alamos Laboratory J. Robert Oppenheimer and his team agreed that regarding the bomb, “We see no acceptable alternative to direct military use.”

    But Oppenheimer’s feelings of elation following Trinity and the bombing of Hiroshima three weeks later changed after the bombing of Nagasaki, which he found unnecessary from a military perspective. On the contrary, he was a “nervous wreck” after the second attack on August 9, 1945, and distressed by the growing reports of casualties.

    On the morning of October 25, 1945, the “father of the atomic bomb” met with President Harry Truman in the Oval Office. “Mr. President, I have blood on my hands,” Oppenheimer blurted, to which Truman in one version of the story (and in the 2023 movie) mockingly offered him a handkerchief.

    Oppenheimer, who admitted to being a fellow traveler with the Communist Party and was often accused of being a member, saw a future dominated by superweapons a thousand times more powerful than the atomic bomb. Above all, he wanted to control nuclear weapons’ development and avoid an arms race with the Soviets.

    But the race was already well underway. “After scientists in Germany experimentally split the uranium atom in 1938, [Hungarian-German physicist Leo] Szilard became deeply concerned about idea of Hitler obtaining an atomic bomb first and began raising alarm bells among his personal connections.”

    Szilard and Albert Einstein both became so disturbed that they composed a letter to Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1939, urging him to start a program in the US among physicists working on chain reactions. Szilard, according to his biographer, had “worked frantically to start the very arms race he had feared.”

    But with states, an arms race is one of their most conspicuous features.

    Truman had never heard of the Manhattan Project until he was sworn into office and thought the Soviets would never catch up. Stalin, though, with his Manhattan Project spies, was far ahead of him.

    At Potsdam, after hearing of the success of Trinity, Truman sauntered over to Stalin after a meeting and said, the “United States had a new weapon of unusual destructive force.” Stalin kept a poker face and replied, in effect, good for you. According to Truman’s Russian interpreter Charles E. Bohlen, “Years later, [Soviet] Marshal Georgi K. Zhukov, in his memoirs, disclosed that that night Stalin ordered a telegram sent to those working on the atomic bomb in Russia to hurry with the job.”

    The Reign of Absolute Madness

    How much destructive force the superpowers need to maintain deterrence has varied over the decades, though according to a 2012 study by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, “Just 100 nuclear detonations of the size that struck Hiroshima and Nagasaki would usher in a planetary nuclear winter, which would drop temperatures lower than they were in the Little Ice Age (1300–1850).” The Little Ice Age was characterized by widespread famine.

    According to the Nuclear Notebook of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the Department of Defense in 2023 had 3,708 nuclear warheads, whereas Russia, as of early 2022, had 4,477 nuclear warheads.

    Today’s doomsday weapons far out-annihilate “Little Boy” that killed an estimated seventy thousand people, most of them civilians. The world has lived with increasingly powerful nuclear weapons for so long they no longer arouse the attention they deserve. A handful of state overlords of questionable conscience will decide whether you will be alive in the next second or drift away like chimney soot.

    During an informal gathering in 1950, Enrico Fermi, a leading physicist and member of the Manhattan Project in Chicago, posed a question that puzzled his fellow scientists: Where is everybody?

    He was referring to the “contradiction between the seemingly high likelihood for the emergence of extraterrestrial intelligence and the lack of evidence for its existence.” Specifically, “Given that our solar system is quite young compared to the rest of the universe—roughly 4.5 billion years old, compared to 13.8 billion—and that interstellar travel might be fairly easy to achieve given enough time, Earth should have been visited by aliens already.”

    Since then, almost everyone has kicked in a reply. One I find chilling is this: Given enough time, intelligent life self-destructs.

    It’s a hypothesis that by its nature precludes validation.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 07/03/2024 – 21:05

  • Watch: Dramatic Video Shows Russia Repelling Drone Boat Attack On Key Port
    Watch: Dramatic Video Shows Russia Repelling Drone Boat Attack On Key Port

    Russia’s defense ministry (MoD) on Wednesday published some rare and intense footage of a Ukrainian naval suicide drones which got close to the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk.

    The speedboat-type drones were approaching the coast in the darkness of the early morning hours when Russian Navy assets opened up heavy machine gun and rocket fire on the vessels. Watch the footage released by the MoD:

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

    “Two unmanned boats travelling in the direction of Novorossiysk were destroyed in the waters of the Black Sea,” the defense ministry stated on Telegram.

    The inbound drones didn’t cause any damage to the port or naval assets docked there, the statement confirmed, and at least one suffered direct hit from the hail of Russian fire, having caught fire and exploded, according to the released footage.

    The return automatic weapons fire from the military port was so intense that it may have damaged buildings in the area, as Russian media notes that—

    “City officials closed the area close to the embankment in response to the incident. Mayor Andrey Kravchenko reported in the morning that minor damage was caused to an apartment and two commercial properties, but nobody was hurt in the incident.”

    This isn’t the first time Novorossiysk has been targeted, as it came under major drone attack also in May.

    It is likely a focal point for Ukraine’s military given its role as a major export route for Russian oil, as well as coal, fertilizer, grain, and timber.

    The oil harbour in Novorossiysk, via AFP

    Ukraine has been ramping up cross-border drone attacks on Russian energy infrastructure as conflict spillover risks soar. Kiev and its Western backers aim to paralyze one of Russia’s most important industries: oil refining.

    Last month, Ukrainian drone attacks damaged several oil storage facilities. Shortly before that in May, two other refineries in southern Russia, including Rosneft’s large Tuapse facility on the Black Sea, were targeted.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 07/03/2024 – 20:30

  • Anti-Slavery California Ballot Measure Would Ban Forced Prison Labor
    Anti-Slavery California Ballot Measure Would Ban Forced Prison Labor

    Authored by Summer Lane via The Epoch Times,

    A measure seeking to ban forced prison labor and formally prohibit slavery in California will be on the November ballot.

    Assembly Constitutional Amendment No. 8 would change the California Constitution to prohibit the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation from disciplining any incarcerated person for refusing a work assignment. It would also prohibit “slavery in any form.”

    “Forced labor has no redeeming qualities and is inconsistent with California’s respect for human dignity,” the amendment reads.

    The measure was introduced by Democratic Assemblymember Lori Wilson in February 2023. It passed June 27 in the Senate with only three opposition votes from Republican Sens. Brian Dahle, Roger Niello, and Kelly Seyarto.

    Their offices were not available for comment.

    The measure passed the same day 68–0 in the Assembly.

    “This historic measure will now be presented to the voters of California, giving them the power to decide on ending slavery and involuntary servitude in our state Constitution,” Ms. Wilson said in a statement Thursday after the two votes.

    ACLU California Action argued in a position statement, in favor of the amendment, that the 13th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution failed in abolishing slavery.

    “Hundreds of thousands of people are still living in involuntary servitude due to an ‘exception clause’ that allows free labor for punishment of a crime,” they wrote.

    The possible amendment of the California Constitution is part of the “Reparations Priority Bill Package” introduced by the California Legislative Black Caucus in January.

    The package includes 14 bills centered on civil rights, criminal justice reform, and health and business matters for black Californians written in response to a 2023 report from the state’s Reparations Task Force, tasked by the Legislature to survey “ongoing and compounding harms experienced by African Americans as a result of slavery.”

    The report offered statewide reparations recommendations.

    Legal Services for Prisoners with Children, an advocacy group working to end what it calls structural racism in the justice system, has also supported ACA 8.

    “For the first time in California’s tarnished history around slavery, Black Americans and Indigenous people will be able to vote against slavery,” the organization wrote in a statement.

    Although the bill had broad support among lawmakers, there are some criticisms.

    Brian James, a former California state prison inmate who spent 29 years behind bars after being convicted of second-degree murder, said he disagrees with the measure.

    “I believe work should be enforced,” he told The Epoch Times July 2.

    Released in 2022, Mr. James, who also recently appeared on EpochTV’s “California Insider” on the topic of prison life, said working was an integral part of being incarcerated and said inmates are needed to do tasks like yard maintenance, plumbing work, electrical work, and cooking.

    “Inmates run the entire facility,” he said.

    Most convicted persons enter prison and are assigned jobs based on their education and experience, he said.

    “If you don’t have a high school diploma, they will put you in school,” he said.

    He described prison labor as “a point of dignity” rather than slavery. He also highlighted the “value of work” and said prisoners were “supposed to [be] gaining the skills to go back into society.”

    The ballot measure needs more than a 50 percent yes vote to pass.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 07/03/2024 – 19:55

  • Egypt Teeters On Brink Of Economic Ruin As Public Debt Mounts, Poverty Rate Soars
    Egypt Teeters On Brink Of Economic Ruin As Public Debt Mounts, Poverty Rate Soars

    Via Middle East Eye

    Last autumn, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi gave a speech in the New Administrative Capital in Cairo, the $300bn project that will ultimately define his presidency. 

    He said hunger was a small price to pay for progress: “If progress, prosperity and development come at the price of hunger and deprivation, Egyptians, do not shy away from progress! Don’t dare say: ‘It is better to eat.'” This horrifying vision of hunger and deprivation is what awaits millions of Egyptians in the coming years. 

    Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi attends a summit in Jeddah in May 2023, SPA/AFP

    A decade after ascending to the presidency, Sisi has pushed the economy to the brink of collapse. The symptoms are everywhere. A severe debt crisis is strangling the state budget, the economy is heavily militarized, billions have been invested in white elephants with dubious economic benefits, and the crown jewels of the Egyptian public sector are up for sale to meet mounting debt obligations. 

    This all stems from the military’s desire to consolidate power and wealth in its own hands at any cost. This will have dire consequences that will be felt for generations – and recovery will take a mammoth effort.

    Millions more people have been pushed into poverty in recent years, a trend that is expected to continue for the foreseeable future. In 2022, the poverty rate reached 33 percent, up from 26 percent in 2012/13, as the regime continues its policy of shifting the costs of the debt crisis onto the poor and middle classes. 

    The most obvious manifestation of this is the regime’s austerity measures – most crucially, the 300 percent increase in the price of subsided bread, the staple food for the most vulnerable people, which was announced in May. 

    Transferring wealth

    This comes on the heels of price hikes for basic commodities, announced by the government in January. These measures are part of a comprehensive policy designed to transfer wealth from the poor and middle classes to the regime elites and their creditors. 

    The logic is simple: increased spending on mega-projects, financed by high-interest debt, has allowed the military to rapidly expand its economic footprint, while the repayment of debt is financed through the appropriation of public resources, which is in turn financed by a regressive taxation system. 

    This creates a diabolical cycle of structural poverty that is very difficult to escape. A cursory look at the current budget highlights this trend, with the main source of tax revenue deriving from a regressive consumption tax, yielding 828 billion Egyptian pounds ($17bn); in second position comes the tax collected from corporate profits, standing at a mere 239 billion pounds ($5bn). It is worth noting that 62 percent of budgetary expenditures will be consumed by debt obligations.

    The increase in poverty will be accompanied by another structural transformation, namely the increased peripheralization of the Egyptian economy, which will become even more vulnerable to external shocks and to the goodwill of the regime’s allies. 

    The figures from the past decade are a testament to this. Despite a spending spree that has consumed hundreds of billions of dollars, the competitiveness of the Egyptian economy has not improved, nor has its industrial base. The contribution of the industrial sector to the GDP fell from around 40 percent in 2013 to 33 percent in 2022, a dramatic drop. 

    In terms of export performance, Egypt’s current account balance remains firmly in negative territory, deteriorating from minus two percent in 2013, to an expected minus six percent in 2024, based on data from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). This negative trend is expected to continue until at least 2029, based on the IMF’s available forecast. 

    Financing gap

    This means that in the medium term, pressure will continue on the country’s foreign reserves, which in turn will apply pressure on the deteriorating value of the pound. The situation is compounded by the debt crisis, which is consuming much of the state budget, making public investments to increase economic competitiveness very unlikely. 

    Indeed, the debt burden is so large that even after receiving more than $50bn in recent loans and investment, the financing gap is still estimated to stand at $28.5bn. This means that in the foreseeable future, the Egyptian economy will require continued external support, in the form of loans and investments, in order to maintain a semblance of stability. 

    The national debt in Egypt was forecast to continuously increase between 2024 and 2029.

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    The most notable example is the $35bn investment by the UAE, announced in February, which was critical for avoiding a possible default or debt restructuring – that is, assuming the regime will be able to rein in public spending and put the brakes on its cronyism. Unfortunately, there are signs that this is not the case. 

    In May, the Egyptian army’s Engineering Authority announced its intention to continue with the third phase of the South Valley development project, which aims to reclaim around 40,000 to 60,000 acres by 2025. It is worth noting that in spite of several large reclamation projects of this kind, the contribution of agriculture to the country’s GDP dropped from around 11.3 percent in 2013 to 11 percent in 2022.  

    Thus, in all likelihood, the Egyptian economy’s dependence on external capital flows is set to deepen, leaving it susceptible to external shocks, the fickleness of regional politics, and the whims of international financial markets.

    Grave consequences

    The increased influence of Gulf capital in the Egyptian economy comes with grave economic consequences. Last September, an Emirati firm acquired a 30 percent stake in the government-owned Eastern Company, which controls 70 percent of the country’s tobacco market. The deal was valued $625m. The UAE has also financed the sale of a number of historic hotels for $800m. 

    This trend will only deepen the structural dependence of the Egyptian economy by depriving the government of important sources of pubic revenue, further straining public finances. This will continue to erode living standards, weaken the pound and send inflation soaring, while also strengthening the political alliance between the regime and its Gulf backers, creating further obstacles for the prospects of democratisation or improvements to workers’ rights.

    The future of the Egyptian economy seems grim. Even if the prospect of debt default has subsided for now, the consequences of a decade of foolish economic policy have not. 

    The ongoing process of peripheralization will enrich a number of local elites, who will align themselves with these new realities. This is not limited to military elites, who will continue to benefit from the inflow of loans and capital, but it will also include civilian elites – the most notable example being Hisham Talaat Moustafa, an Egyptian real-estate tycoon and convicted murderer with close connections to the UAE. A partner in the historic hotels deals, his company’s profits reportedly jumped in the first quarter of 2024 by 220 percent.  

    Egypt is now undergoing a mass structural transformation, with millions of people plunged into poverty and wealth accumulating in the hands of a few, namely the military elites and their cronies. This transformation will have long-term consequences that are extremely difficult to predict. What is clear, however, is that the economic damage done by the regime goes beyond the debt crisis – and it will take years to reverse.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 07/03/2024 – 19:20

  • Explosion Rocks General Dynamics' Hellfire & Javelin Missile Factory In Arkansas
    Explosion Rocks General Dynamics’ Hellfire & Javelin Missile Factory In Arkansas

    An early Wednesday morning explosion rocked the General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems facility in Camden, Arkansas, injuring at least two people and leaving one person missing.

    Local media outlet Camden News quoted General Dynamics in a statement as saying: 

    “Today at 8:15 am CDT, an incident involving pyrotechnics occurred at the General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems facility in Camden, Arkansas. At this time, we are working with first responders and can confirm the incident resulted in at least two injuries and one missing individual.”

    The 880,000-square-foot weapons factory, located about 86 miles south of Little Rock, is a “leader in the high-rate production” of weapons, including “Hydra-70 2.75-inch rocket, Hellfire and Javelin missiles, the Modular Artillery Charge System and various mortar munitions,” according to the defense firm’s website. 

    Berkley Whaley, General Dynamics’ spokesperson, told local media outlet Arkansas Democrat-Gazette that the incident was related to “pyrotechnics” and clarified that it indicated explosives.

    Alleged video of the incident surfaced on X this afternoon. 

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    Whaley declined to answer questions about whether the facility had been damaged, citing an ongoing investigation. 

    Meanwhile, US defense companies have been ramping up weapons production (read: here) to arm Ukraine and Israel and replenish depleted Pentagon stocks. There is no word yet on how the disruption in Camden will affect overall US supplies of Hellfire and Javelin missiles. 

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 07/03/2024 – 18:45

  • Putin & Xi Meet Again, Plot Countering US, While White House Consumed With Crisis Of Biden's Decline
    Putin & Xi Meet Again, Plot Countering US, While White House Consumed With Crisis Of Biden’s Decline

    In their second face-to-face meeting in as many months, Russian President Vladimir Putin told his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping that “Russian-Chinese relations of comprehensive partnership and strategic cooperation are in the best period of their history.” Russian state media subsequently likened it to a golden age in relations.

    The two are meeting once again at the annual session of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which runs Wednesday through Thursday in the Kazakh capital of Astana. “Russia-China relations are on the highest level in history, and they are not aimed against anyone, we do not create blocs or unions, we just act in the interests of our nations,” Putin stressed.

    Via Reuters

    And Xi told Putin in brief opening remarks, “In the face of the turbulent international situation and external environment, the two sides should continue to uphold the original aspiration of friendship for generations to come.”

    Still, the reality is that the two are coming closer based ultimately on countering the US, while also vying for influence among other Central Asian SCO bloc countries, which includes the ex-Soviet republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Those are among the founding members alongside Russian and China, while India and Pakistan joined in 2017, and Iran was welcomed as the newest member last year.

    Collectively the SCO countries account for some 20% of global GDP, and importantly many of them have remained uncooperative with US-led sanctions related to punishing Moscow over the war in Ukraine.

    “I would like to recall that our countries were behind the creation of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization,” Putin continued in his remarks to Xi. He said the SCO has “strengthened its role as one of the key pillars of a fair multipolar world order.”

    The bloc is looking to expand in the coming years and decades, as currently over a dozen countries hold SCO dialogue-partner status, allowing them also to be observers at the summit. Belarus is a notable close ally of Russia’s which is soon set to join. It too is under US and EU sanctions related to the war in Ukraine, given its close defense cooperation with Moscow.

    Some social media commenters have underscored that the world is laughing at the US amid the chaos and controversy over Biden’s physical and mental capabilities…

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    Meanwhile there are reports that Xi told the conference that China is on the “right side of history” in Ukraine. This is not the first time he’s said this phrase (for example, he also said it back in March of 2023), but it comes at a moment Ukraine’s President Zelensky has been urging that China take a lead role in achieving ceasefire and peace.

    Zelensky’s office has reiterated this week, however, that the “value of any plan lies in the nuances and in taking into account the real state of affairs on the ground.” China has long had its own Ukraine peace formula published, yet it has maintained that any legitimate international peace summit must include Russian representation to be impactful (the recent Swiss-hosted summit did not).

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 07/03/2024 – 18:10

  • From Big Cities To Small Town Main Streets, America To Celebrate July 4 In Record Style
    From Big Cities To Small Town Main Streets, America To Celebrate July 4 In Record Style

    Authored by John Haughey via The Epoch Times,

    Americans are projected to travel in record numbers, spend more than ever, and endure searing temperatures and violent thunderstorms in many areas when they commemorate the nation’s 248th Independence Day on Thursday.

    Heat and storms aside, they will, nevertheless, celebrate.

    From Boston’s Harborfest to San Diego’s Big Bay Boom, from Seattle’s Seafair to Miami’s Celebration in Peacock Park, on small town Main Streets and in neighborhood backyards between, there will be patriots on parade, grills blazing, music in the air, and fire in the sky on July 4.

    The red, white, and blue festivities will range from the traditional, such as Philadelphia’s Fourth of July Jam—“the largest free concert in America”—to the quirky, including “Best Tail Wag” in Bryson Creek, North Carolina.

    There will be rodeos—the Cody (Wyoming) Stampede—muskets and cannon in historic reenactments in places like Put-In-Bay, Ohio, a full slate of Major League Baseball games on tap, and, of course barbecues where, according to the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council, more than 150 million hot dogs nationwide will be consumed.

    But Joey Chestnut won’t be eating any, at least not competitively. For the first time in 19 years, the 16-time champion won’t be woofing down dogs—he ate 62 in 10 minutes in 2023—in the annual July 4 Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest at Coney Island in Brooklyn, New York.

    Mr. Chestnut was banned from defending his title after signing a sponsorship deal with Impossible Foods, a rival brand that sells plant-based hot dogs.

    There should be no such controversy to digest, however, at the July 4 World Famous Key Lime Pie Eating World Championship in Key West, Florida.

    WalletHub’s annual ranking of “best and worst places for 4th of July celebrations” cites Los Angeles, New York City, Seattle, Las Vegas, and Minneapolis, Minnesota, as the top five places to enjoy July 4 festivities.

    But for a less urban, more Main Street USA perspective, American Flags, Inc., based in West Bay Shore, New York, offers the 20 Best Small Town Fourth of July Celebrations where “quaint and quirky” festivities in Flagstaff, Arizona; Lambertville, New Jersey; Homer, Alaska; Virginia City, Nevada; Bristol, Rhode Island; and Washington, Georgia, are among those highlighted.

    More than 11,000 people will officially become Americans on July 4 in 195 naturalization ceremonies between June 28 and July 5 with many symbolically scheduled for July 4, according to the United States Citizenship & Immigration Service.

    Citizens will take the oath on July 4 from Misawa Air Base, Japan, to Mesa, Arizona, to Des Moines, Iowa, to Sturbridge, Massachusetts, to Apopka, Florida.

    Fireworks shoot from the Hatch Shell during rehearsal for the annual Boston Pops Fireworks Spectacular on the Esplanade in Boston on July 3, 2016. (Michael Dwyer/AP Photo)

    Record Hitting The Road

    According to the National Retail Federation’s (NRF) Independence Day Data Center, 87 percent of American consumers plan to celebrate the Fourth of July in 2024 and will spend an average of $90.42 each on food items.

    NRF estimates Americans will spend a record $9.4 billion just on food to be eaten on July 4, with 66 percent eating in barbecues and cookouts, 44 percent saying they plan to attend fireworks/community celebrations, 13 percent going to parades, and 12 percent looking forward to getting away from it all for a four-day weekend vacation.

    Another 31 percent of NRF respondents said they would buy “patriotic items” to decorate homes or wear on July 4.

    The American Pyrotechnics Association projected in late June that Americans would spend $2.4 billion during “fireworks season,” which peaks in the days before July 4, nearly $100 million more than last year.

    The average cost of fireworks is down between 5 and 10 percent this year compared to last year, the association said, attributing the decline to lower ocean shipping rates.

    According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, only Massachusetts bans all fireworks use by private citizens, meaning the only legal public fireworks displays must be sanctioned and supervised by state or local officials.

    The American Automobile Association (AAA) estimates “more people than ever will be taking to the highways” this July 4th weekend, with 60.6 million traveling by car and 5.74 million flying to destinations.

    That’s up from 57.8 million who traveled by car in 2023 and above the pre-pandemic 55.3 million who traveled via car over the July 4th holiday period in 2019, AAA estimates.

    “With summer vacations in full swing and the flexibility of remote work, more Americans are taking extended trips around Independence Day,” AAA Senior Vice President Paula Twidale said in a statement. “We anticipate this July 4th week will be the busiest ever.”

    The AAA notes that gas prices are slightly lower nationwide this year than last, when the national average was $3.56 a gallon. That average this year was $3,50 a gallon as of June 27, it said.

    AccuWeather forecasts“storms for some, hot as a firecracker for others” across much of the Lower 48 states on July 4.

    California’s Central Valley will see highs between 100 and 110 degrees. Sacramento, California, projects it could top its July 4 record of 107 degrees.

    Southern California, Nevada, and Arizona desert high temperatures could top 115 degrees. Las Vegas could come within a couple degrees of its hottest-ever Independence Day, with temps topping 112 degrees.

    AccuWeather also forecasts the South will “bake,” with parts of Texas and Oklahoma set to reach into the low 100s and temperatures in Atlanta expected to reach the mid-90s.

    Thunderstorms bulling up the Mississippi and Ohio river valleys could bring late-afternoon and evening relief—but potentially spawn tornadoes—in Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas, it warns, while storms could disrupt fireworks displays in Washington, DC, Philadelphia, and New York City that evening.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 07/03/2024 – 17:35

  • Houthi Attacks On Ships Soar Most This Year In June As Critical Maritime Chokepoint Ablaze In Conflict
    Houthi Attacks On Ships Soar Most This Year In June As Critical Maritime Chokepoint Ablaze In Conflict

    About eight months after Iran-backed Houthi rebels began seriously disrupting maritime traffic in the southern Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, June recorded the highest number of missile and drone attacks on commercial vessels this year and the second-largest since December. As instability in the Middle East intensifies, Houthi rebels have sunk one commercial vessel in recent weeks and have introduced kamikaze drone boats to their arsenal. 

    Despite efforts of the US, British, and European navies sailing in the critical maritime chokepoint, attempting to ensure freedom of navigation, the Houthis managed to conduct 16 confirmed attacks on commercial vessels in June, according to Bloomberg, citing new data from naval forces operating in the Middle East.

    The surge in attacks is alarming, considering President Biden’s Operation Prosperity Guardian, launched at the start of this year to ensure freedom of navigation, has been without success in neutralizing threats and restoring security for commercial shipping. Instead, the consequence of failure has been emerging supply chain snarls and supply shocks, resulting in soaring containerized shipping rates. 

    “The Houthis have proven to be quite the formidable force. This is a nonstate actor that fields a larger arsenal and is really able to give a headache to the Western coalition,” said Sebastian Bruns, a naval expert at the Center for Maritime Strategy and Security and the Institute for Security Policy at Kiel University in Germany, who was quoted by Foreign Policy. 

    Bruns said, “This is as high-end as it gets for now, and when navies are having a problem with sustainment at this level, it is really worrisome.”

    So, eight months on, the disruption to the critical shipping lane is getting a lot worse as rebels have expanded their use of uncrewed service vessels to attack commercial vessels. These are much harder to track than anti-ship missiles. 

    And the Houthis aren’t the only problem.

    A European naval commander told Bloomberg that criminal groups have reinvigorated piracy networks off the Somalia coast.

    Pirates “think there is a window of opportunity due to the Houthis’ presence,” with increased maritime traffic along Somalia’s coast due to commercial vessels re-reouting from the Red Sea to Cape of Good Hope, said Vice Admiral Ignacio Villanueva, who commands a European Union operation tasked with curbing piracy, adding, “They are really trying to stretch the Western, international operations’ limits and capabilities.”

    The world is dangerously ablaze as Biden’s foreign policy decisions backfire. Even before Biden, the world was fracturing into a multipolar state, one full of conflict. Now, Biden faces calls from within his own party to step down amidst speculation over his cognitive decline. This is not a great look for America. 

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 07/03/2024 – 17:00

  • The Green New Scam Is Dying
    The Green New Scam Is Dying

    Authored by James Rickards via DailyReckoning.com,

    It’s no secret that the vast majority of the so-called elites are advocates of climate alarmism and are taken in by the Green New Scam.

    Whether this preference is based on ignorance of the science, ideological zeal, a willful desire to hurt American growth or simple greed because of their investments in Green New Scam infrastructure varies case by case.

    The typical upper-income supporter of the climate cult including academics, media figures and celebrities is probably ignorant of the fact that there is no evidence that CO2 emissions cause climate change and that the real causes are solar cycles, volcanoes, ocean currents and atmospheric moisture not caused by humans.

    Climate Alarmists Have It Backward

    The historical record actually demonstrates that warming periods produce higher CO2 levels — not the other way around. CO2 doesn’t cause warming. It’s caused by natural warming.

    In other words, climate alarmists have causation completely backward.

    Climate alarmism is based almost entirely on computer models, which depend on the inputs the modelers themselves build into them. A model is only as good as the inputs and assumptions programmed into it.

    Virtually every one of these models has overestimated warming, sometimes by orders of magnitude, because it’s based on faulty assumptions that overestimate the impact of CO2 on climate.

    In other words, it’s junk science. But they keep relying on these models because their political agenda requires it.

    Climate: The New Communism

    There’s no doubt that a fair number of neo-Marxists embrace the climate scam because they know it damages U.S. industry, raises costs to U.S. consumers and helps to undermine the U.S. economy.

    Following the end of the Cold War and the collapse of communism, anti-capitalistic collectivists admitted that they needed to promote the climate agenda because the only way to combat global warming is through collective action. It requires a coordinated global effort that limits national sovereignty.

    The neo-Marxists are impervious to evidence; they just want to hurt America and wasting money on windmills instead of building new refineries is a good way to do it. That leaves the greed crowd.

    The Real “Green” in the Green Agenda

    They’re early investors in windmills, solar modules, lithium car batteries, EVs, charging stations, carbon credits and other infrastructure of the climate scam. They stand to make billions of dollars off the narrative with help from extravagant government subsidies.

    They don’t really care if it all collapses in the end (which it will) as long as they get rich at taxpayer expense in the meantime. All of this behavior is clear as far as it goes. What is not clear is the extent to which the Green New Scammers are doing this with your money.

    The best example is multibillionaire Larry Fink, who runs the giant BlackRock investment fund. Fink has been aggressive in promoting the climate scam along with racial quotas, DEI and defunding police.

    He’s entitled to his opinions. But is he entitled to pursue his radical agenda with pension fund money from conservative states and institutions? Fortunately, a backlash has begun against Fink and his fellow wokesters.

    More state pension fund managers are beginning to pull their funds from BlackRock and other investment managers that pursue far-left policies not in the best interests of their beneficiaries. This backlash may not change Larry Fink’s lifestyle. But over time, it might change the world for the better.

    The EV Sham

    A major part of the climate agenda includes electric vehicles (EVs). I’ve been warning for years that EVs aren’t feasible as a transportation solution for more than relatively few Americans and that they are little more than glorified golf carts despite the $70,000-and-up price tags.

    In the first place, EVs don’t cut carbon emissions. The car itself does not have emissions, but it’s charged with electricity from power plants that do.

    The batteries are made with poisonous chemicals and metals including lithium, cobalt, copper and nickel that come from mining operations that use enormous amounts of water and electricity to extract the needed materials.

    It takes thousands of tons of ore to extract enough critical minerals to make one battery. EVs don’t take a charge in extreme cold, and the batteries can’t hold a charge. Travel range is grossly overstated for many reasons, including the fact that EV car heaters drain the batteries (with internal-combustion engines, ICEs, the engine makes heat which can easily be directed into the car to keep passengers comfortable with no additional energy required).

    Resale values of EVs are close to zero because buyers of used EVs have to shell out $25,000 or more for new batteries after the vehicle is about seven years old. The list of drawbacks goes on.

    Most Americans have resisted EVs because they understand the disadvantages. But many Americans were drawn to the false promise of emission-free transportation and other ridiculous claims by the Green New Scammers. Now even the most committed EV buyers are waking up.

    I Want My ICE Car Back

    A new survey by consulting firm McKinsey and Co. shows that 29% of EV owners in nine major economies want to return to ICE vehicles. When the sample is narrowed to just the U.S., 46% of those surveyed want to return to ICEs.

    The McKinsey officials who conducted the survey claim to be “surprised” by those results. That probably says something about the fact that McKinsey experts are just as deluded about EVs as the buyers surveyed.

    When breaking down the results, 45% say EVs are too expensive, 33% say they have charging concerns and 29% are concerned about the limited driving range.

    The truth is that the EV was invented in 1837 and reached the peak of its popularity in 1910 just before the mass production of internal-combustion cars by Henry Ford. The American public got it right when they flocked to the Model T.

    It sounds like they’re getting it right again after a brief infatuation with the false promise of the EV. The bottom line is that the Green New Scam is falling apart.

    It can’t happen soon enough.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 07/03/2024 – 16:30

  • Cat 4 Hurricane Beryl Heads Towards Texas, Threatening Major Oil Refineries 
    Cat 4 Hurricane Beryl Heads Towards Texas, Threatening Major Oil Refineries 

    The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) National Hurricane Center (NHC) downgraded Hurricane Beryl to a Category 4 storm from a Category 5 on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale on Wednesday morning. Beryl is the earliest hurricane on record to strengthen into a Category 5 as it churns across the southeastern Caribbean Sea. It is forecasted to hit the Yucatán Peninsula on Friday and afterward poses a threat to US oil and energy critical infrastructure on the Gulf Coast.

    NHC said Beryl’s winds peaked at about 157 mph before weakening to 145 mph on Wednesday morning. Government weather forecasters expect “some weakening” of the storm over the “next day or two,” however, it will still be a “major hurricane” as it impacts “Jamaica on Wednesday and the Cayman Islands.”

    On Wednesday, Mexico’s Meteorological Service posted a hurricane warning for the coast of the Yucatán peninsula from Puerto Costa Maya to Cancún, with forecasted landfall on Friday. 

    After the Yucatán Peninsula, Beryl’s forecasted path heads directly to the Texas coast and is expected to move up towards Louisiana. This area is home to major US oil and gas refineries.

    Ahead of the storm, Shell announced Wednesday that it paused some drilling operations in the Gulf of Mexico. Here’s more from Bloomberg:

    • Company also began evacuating non-essential personnel as precautionary measure

    • Shell is also evacuating non-essential staff from the Whale asset, which is not scheduled to begin operations until later this year

    • Production from the Shell-operated Perdido platform feeds into the HOOPS Blend, a medium sour oil with 29.2 API and 1.55% sulfur

    • Oil from Perdido is delivered by the Hoover Offshore Oil Pipeline System (HOOPS) to the Quintana terminal, south of Freeport, Texas; from Quintana oil flows into the Houston refining hub but mainly to the Texas City area

    “There remains uncertainty in the track and intensity forecast of Beryl over the western Gulf of Mexico this weekend. Interests in the western Gulf of Mexico, including southern Texas, should monitor the progress of Beryl,” NHC wrote in the most recent update. 

    Computer models show the storm’s future path along the Texas coast, which is home to 32 oil refineries. Refineries are critical for processing crude into products such as gasoline and diesel.  

    “We have to wait and see where it lands,” Mark Schieldrop, a spokesperson for the travel club AAA Northeast, told newspaper The Record. 

    Schieldrop said, “But if the storm makes a direct hit to oil and gas infrastructure, it could cause prices to go up here if refineries down there are knocked offline for more than a few days.” 

    At the start of hurricane season, we penned a note titled “La Nina Will Complicate Things For Biden Ahead Of Elections As Hurricanes Threaten Oil Refineries,” and that’s exactly what could happen next week. 

    All it takes is one major hurricane to disrupt major US Gulf Coast refineries, which could drive average gasoline prices at the pump to the politically sensitive level of $4 a gallon. 

    Currently, AAA average prices of gas at the pump stand at… 

    If Beryl causes refinery closures on the US Gulf Coast, the Biden team will have a whole lot more issues to deal with (currently, it’s just chaos in Washington: “”No One Is Pushing Me Out” Biden Tells Staff As New NYT Poll Shows Trump Lead Widening”).

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 07/03/2024 – 16:00

  • How Much Are State And Local Government Workers Overpaid?
    How Much Are State And Local Government Workers Overpaid?

    Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

    Let’s discuss the latest BLS report on employer costs with a special focus on teachers.

    Employer costs from the BLS, chart by Mish

    Employer Cost Synopsis

    • Government Wages Plus Benefits: $61.27

    • Private Wages and Benefits: $43.78

    • Government Wages: $37.90

    • Private Wages: $30.76

    Government hourly wages are 23.2 percent more than private workers on average.

    Benefits are the real killer.

    Government total compensation is 39.9 percent more than private workers.

    What About Teachers?

    Employer costs from the BLS, chart by Mish

    Teachers make $37.90 per hour in direct wages. But they make a whopping $79.38 per hour in total benefits.

    Benefits for teachers are a mere 109 percent of wages.

    Economic Fairness

    Education Week reports Biden Calls for Teacher Pay Raises, Expanded Pre-K in State of the Union

    Biden called on lawmakers Thursday to “give every child a good start by providing access to pre-school for 3- and 4-year-olds,” but he did not detail a specific plan to pay for universal pre-kindergarten, which he has called for in the past and included in his Build Back Better proposal that never passed the Senate.

    Biden’s call for giving public school teachers a raise also included no specifics. It was included in a portion of the address focused on economic fairness, which included a push to raise taxes on the highest income earners to help cover the costs of domestic policy priorities.

    There’s no better place to start when it comes to deserving teachers than the city of Chicago.

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    And Who Will Pay?

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    Chicago Teachers’ Union Seeks $50 Billion Despite $700 Million City Deficit

    On March 13, I commented Chicago Teachers’ Union Seeks $50 Billion Despite $700 Million City Deficit

    “Stop asking that question,” she said. “Ask another question.”

    This is in a city, mind you, that already spends an astonishing $29,000 per student, including all sources and money for the capital budget. And Chicago Public Schools already faces a $391 million deficit for next and nearly $700 million for the following year when “Covid relief” money will have run out.

    The only way to stop this behavior is to eliminate the public unions, totally.

    Unfortunately, a corrupt Chicago mayor is in bed with the corrupt CTU. And the state is the most gerrymandered state in the nation. Springfield is in on the act.

    What Are the Odds Police Show Up?

    On July 2, I noted In Chicago There’s Under a 50 Percent Chance Police Show Up If You are Shot

    Good luck in Chicago getting the police to show up if you are shot, stabbed, a victim of domestic violence, or any number of other serious crimes.

    Don’t worry. Chicago mayor Brandon Johnson will fix the problem by hiking property taxes to give money to the Teachers’ Union.

    And instead of going anything about crime, Johnson Seeks Slave Reparations.

    Public Unions Have No Business Existing: Even FDR Admitted That

    To understand why public unions should never exist, please see Public Unions Have No Business Existing: Even FDR Admitted That

    Chicago has an amazing propensity to keep electing mayors worse than the last one. Brandon Johnson is the worst Chicago mayor ever.

    In Illinois, as in California, there is really only one thing sensible you can do about this setup. Leave.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 07/03/2024 – 15:30

  • Israel Takes Out 2nd Senior Hezbollah Commander In Less Than Two Weeks
    Israel Takes Out 2nd Senior Hezbollah Commander In Less Than Two Weeks

    Another senior Hezbollah commander has been killed in an Israeli airstrike in southern Lebanon on Wednesday. He was killed in a daytime strike on the coastal city of Tyre, in what appears a neighborhood or city area (according to widely circulating video).

    Hezbollah in a statement confirmed the death Muhammad Nimah Nasser, also known as Abu Nimah. Regional reports say that he commanded Hezbollah’s Aziz regional division in southern Lebanon (one of three divisions operating there).

    Hezbollah senior official Muhammad Nimah Nasser, who was killed on July 3, 2024. via TOI

    His high rank within the organization is confirmed in the fact that the Hezbollah statement referred to him as a “commander” – which it reserves for only the most senior level operatives.

    With the situation already on edge, given both sides are warning that ‘all-out war’ could be imminent, the marks the second high commander that Israeli has killed in less than two weeks.

    Last month a commander named Taleb Abdulla, who headed the Nasr regional division, was taken out in an Israeli strike. Before that, in January the deputy head of the elite Radwan unit Wissam al-Tawil was killed.

    The Associated Press reports that “In a video circulated by local media, residents rushed toward a charred vehicle with a large plume of smoke. Civil Defense said its first responders transported an unnamed wounded person to a hospital.”

    Meanwhile, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has told troops during a visit Gaza border that tanks currently completing their tasks in Rafah and now being pulled from the theater can be deployed in the north where they “can reach as far as the Litani” river. The Lebanon river lies 10 miles north of Israel’s border. 

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

    “We are striking Hezbollah very hard every day and we will also reach a state of full readiness to take any action required in Lebanon, or to reach an arrangement from a position of strength,” Gallant said.

    “We prefer an arrangement, but if reality forces us we will know how to fight,” the IDF chief continued. Israeli leaders have been under immense pressure to act more decisively against Hezbollah, given its daily rocket and drone attacks have meant some 80,000 to 100,000 Israeli residents of the north have been forced out of their homes for months, since near the beginning of the war last October.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 07/03/2024 – 15:05

  • Fact-Checking The 'Fact-Checking' New York Times
    Fact-Checking The ‘Fact-Checking’ New York Times

    Authored by Daniel Oliver via American Greatness,

    “They” just can’t let Donald Trump go. For them, Donald Trump is Evil personified.

    But not for the rest of the world.

    Here are some of the New York Times’s fact-check charges against Trump; here is why people no longer trust the New York Times.

    Social Security

    Trump said: “But Social Security, he’s [Biden’s] destroying it because millions of people are pouring into our country and they are putting them onto Social Security.”

    The Times: “Mr. Trump has this backward. Undocumented workers often pay taxes that help fund Social Security. But, as the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office once noted, ‘Most unauthorized immigrants are prohibited from receiving many of the benefits that the federal government provides through Social Security and such need-based programs as food stamps, Medicaid (other than emergency services) and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families.’

    The facts: Biden has repeatedly pushed for giving illegal immigrants pathways to citizenship, including a plan and proposed legislation to provide up to 11 million illegal immigrants with U.S. citizenship and an executive order providing a pathway to citizenship for more than half a million undocumented spouses of U.S. citizens. Biden has specifically claimed that illegal immigrants have “increased the life span of Social Security because they have a job, they’re paying a Social Security tax.”

    According to the Center for Immigration Studies, “Illegal immigration unambiguously benefits the Social Security and Medicare trust funds. However, amnesty (legalization) would reverse those gains and add extra costs.”

    They note that “illegal immigrants tend to earn less and work fewer years in the U.S. than the average participant” and “if 10 million illegal immigrants receive amnesty, the total cost to Social Security and Medicare would be roughly $1.3 trillion, equivalent to a one-time transfer of 6 percent of GDP.”

    In addition, a November 2023 report from the House Committee on Homeland Security found that “the annual cost just to care for and house the known gotaways and illegal aliens who have been released into the country under Mayorkas’ leadership could cost as much as an astounding $451 billion.”

    How should Trump be graded on his assertion? Surely a B-, perhaps even a B. He raised the obvious issue, which is that the Biden administration, or any successor Democrat administration, will surely grant citizenship to all the illegals if it has the votes. The cost will be huge.

    Nancy Pelosi’s responsibility for January 6

    Trump: “Nancy Pelosi, if you just watched the news from two days ago on tape to her daughter, who’s a documentary filmmaker, or they say—what she’s saying, ‘Oh, no, it’s my responsibility. I was responsible for this.’ Because I offered her 10,000 soldiers who are National Guard. And she turned them down.”

    The Times: “Mr. Trump is distorting what Representative Nancy Pelosi, then the House speaker, said. Ms. Pelosi did not admit to turning down National Guard troops. She does not have such authority.”

    The facts: In a video filmed by Pelosi’s daughter, Pelosi, responding to someone who said “they (the Capitol Police) thought they had sufficient resources,” says, “They clearly didn’t know, and I take responsibility for not having them prepare for me, because it’s stupid because we’re in a situation like this.”

    The former Republican Speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy, has claimed that Pelosi was influential in rejecting a proposal to send National Guardsmen to the Capitol. And what evidence there is suggests that Pelosi seems to hold herself responsible for the National Guard’s not being present to deal with the rioters sooner.

    What grade should Trump receive? At least a B. Perhaps even an A.

    The Paris Climate Accord

    Trump: “The Paris Accord was going to cost us $1 trillion, and China nothing, and Russia nothing, and India nothing.”

    The Times: “This is misleading. . . . Under President Biden, the United States has pledged $11.4 billion annually by 2024 to assist vulnerable countries in developing clean energy and preparing for the consequences of climate change.”

    The facts: The Heritage Foundation has estimated that staying in the Paris agreement would cost the U.S. over $2.5 trillion in aggregate GDP loss by 2035.

    An analysis by McKinsey looking into the cost of reaching “net zero” emissions found that global spending by governments, businesses, and individuals would need to rise by $3.5 trillion a year, every year, in order to get to net zero by 2050.

    China is no longer accepting international pressure through the Paris Climate Accord with respect to its own carbon emissions. And Putin has joked that 2 to 3 degrees of global warming would be “not so bad in such a cold country as ours.”

    Trump’s grade? Obviously, a B. His basic point is correct: the costs are staggering, whether that cost is a trillion dollars or only half a trillion (and of course it depends on the length of time under discussion). He was also obviously correct about China and Russia—the point being that in the end, it would be the U.S. sacrificing economic progress to benefit the rest of the world, which has no plans whatsoever to sacrifice a penny of progress to appease the climate lobby’s dire predictions.

    Iran

    Trump: “Iran was broke with me. I wouldn’t let anybody do business with them. They ran out of money. They were broke, they had no money for Hamas. They had no money for anything, no money for terror.”

    The Times: “Even under sanctions that were imposed by the Trump administration, Iran’s economy plugged along. It wasn’t strong, but it wasn’t broke, and it kept trading with many nations. Mr. Trump made no mention of the fact that his withdrawal from an Obama-era nuclear deal freed Iran to resume nuclear production.”

    The facts: Trump is obviously exaggerating slightly here, but it is entirely factual that his actions to leave the Iranian nuclear deal and reimpose sanctions crippled the Iranian economy. Iran’s GDP contracted sharply in 2018 and 2019 (after Trump reimposed sanctions). Iranian oil exports dropped from 3.8 million barrels per day (early 2018) to 2.1 million barrels per day (October 2019). The Iranian currency, the rial, lost 50 percent of its value between early 2018 and December 2019. And inflation rose to an estimated 30.5 percent in Iran in 2018.

    Trump’s grade. Probably a B. Definitely better than the grade of Iran’s economy.

    Inflation

    Trump: “He [Biden] caused this inflation.” (Fact: For 42 consecutive months of Biden’s presidency, inflation has remained above the Federal Reserve’s target rate of 2 percent.)

    The Times: “This is misleading. Independent economic research has found that government stimulus spending approved by both Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden contributed to the soaring inflation the nation experienced in the first two years of Mr. Biden’s presidency. But no evidence blames government spending, by Mr. Biden or Mr. Trump, for the majority of the inflation the country experienced.”

    The Facts: Even Democrat-friendly economists blasted Biden’s “American Rescue Plan” before he signed it. Jason Furman (chair of President Barack Obama’s Council of Economic Advisors) said: “It’s definitely too big for the moment. I don’t know any economist that was recommending something the size of what was done.”

    Larry Summers, Obama’s National Economic Council director, said: “We’re taking very substantial risks on the inflation side. . . . We are printing money, we are creating government bonds, we are borrowing on unprecedented scales. Those are things that surely create more of a risk of a sharp dollar decline than we had before. And sharp dollar declines are much more likely to translate themselves into inflation than they were historically.”

    Reading Trump’s blue book as a whole, we’d have to give him a grade of B. That’s about as good as it gets for a campaigning politician. Scored on a curve for politicking, he probably gets an A.

    Be embarrassed New York Times. You flunked. If you were working for Trump, you’d be fired!

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 07/03/2024 – 14:30

  • FOMC Minutes Show "Vast Majority" Expect Economy To Cool, See Deflationary Effects Of AI
    FOMC Minutes Show “Vast Majority” Expect Economy To Cool, See Deflationary Effects Of AI

    Since the last FOMC statement on June 12, oil, gold, stocks, the dollar, and even some of the bond market are higher (in price)…

    Source: Bloomberg

    The shorter-end of the curve is now lower in yield since the last FOMC, but the long-end still higher (even with today’s yield tumble)…

    Source: Bloomberg

    The US macro picture has deteriorated even more significantly relative to expectations, now at its weakest since Dec 2015…

    Source: Bloomberg

    And thanks to today’s macro weakness, rate-cut expectations have risen back to the same levels they were immediately after Powell’s press conference…

    Source: Bloomberg

    So, given the hawkish shift in the DOTS, what does The Fed want us to know from today’s Minutes.

    Here are the key takeaways from minutes of the Federal Reserve’s June 11-12 meeting, released Wednesday (via Bloomberg):

    Willing to wait…

    Officials did not expect it would appropriate to lower borrowing costs until “additional information had emerged to give them greater confidence” that inflation was moving toward their 2% goal

    Economic expectations…

    The “vast majority” of Fed officials assessed that economic growth “appeared to be gradually cooling…

    …and most participants remarked that they viewed the current policy stance as restrictive”

    Officials said inflation progress was evident in smaller monthly gains in the core personal consumption expenditures price index and supported by May consumer price data that were released hours before the rate decision

    They appear set of the narrative that AI will save the world too (through deflation)…

    Participants highlighted a variety of factors that were likely to help contribute to continued disinflation in the period ahead. The factors included continued easing of demand–supply pressures in product and labor markets, lagged effects on wages and prices of past monetary policy tightening, the delayed response of measured shelter prices to rental market developments, or the prospect of additional supply-side improvements.

    The latter prospect included the possibility of a boost to productivity associated with businesses’ deployment of artificial intelligence–related technology. Participants observed that longer-term inflation expectations had remained well anchored and viewed this anchoring as underpinning the disinflation process. Participants affirmed that additional favorable data were required to give them greater confidence that inflation was moving sustainably toward 2 percent

    But The Fed seems divided on how to ‘react’ to data (markets or macro)…

    Some officials emphasized the need for patience in allowing high rates to continue to restrain demand…

    …while others noted that if inflation were to remain elevated or increase further, rates “might need to be raised”

    A “number” of officials said the Fed needs to stand ready to respond to unexpected weakness, and several flagged that a further drop in demand may push up unemployment rather than just reduce job openings

    WSJ Fed-Watcher Nick Timiraos chimes in to confirm the more dovish bias of the Minutes…

    Read the full Minutes below:

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 07/03/2024 – 14:09

  • "I Almost Fell Asleep Onstage" – Biden Blames Debate-Debacle On Jet-Lag, But…
    “I Almost Fell Asleep Onstage” – Biden Blames Debate-Debacle On Jet-Lag, But…

    Desperately trying to outrace a growing wave of pleas to abandon his reelection campaign, President Biden on Tuesday dubiously blamed his terrible debate performance on exhaustion from a busy June travel schedule. However, as he was speaking, the New York Times was firing yet another torpedo at his presidency, publishing an article in which various US and foreign officials said his mental lapses have grown more frequent and pronounced in recent months.    

    Speaking at a campaign fundraiser in McLean, Virginia, Biden struck an apologetic tone as he acknowledged widespread Democratic disappointment in his Thursday debate with Donald Trump. He also tried to blame his performance — characterized by long pauses, garbled answers, a weak, raspy voice and slack-jawed staring when it wasn’t his turn to speak — on his June travel schedule. 

    “I decided to travel around the world a couple of times…shortly before the debate. I didn’t listen to my staff … and then I almost fell asleep onstage. It’s not an excuse but an explanation.”

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    However, the timing of Biden’s international travel undermines his claim. He traveled to France for D-Day commemoration festivities from June 5 to 9. After returning to the United States, he went to Italy for a G-7 Summit on June 13 and 14. From there, he headed directly to a Los Angeles fundraiser on June 15. That was the end of it — the debate was 12 days after the travel whirlwind ended.  

    Keep in mind, too, it’s not like Biden was schlepping a roller-bag through airports. It’s hard to imagine a more luxurious and rest-accommodating mode of international travel than what a US president experiences on Air Force One, to say nothing of the traffic-clearing motorcades that whisk him from point to point upon his arrival.

    On top of that, Biden capped his travel with a restful stay at his Rehoboth Beach, Delaware home before spending the next week at Camp David preparing for the debate. There, his daily schedule reportedly started at 11 am with time allocated for daily afternoon naps. The travel excuse is all so implausible, even the fellow travelers at CNN can’t bring themselves to endorse it: 

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

    Around the same time Biden was trying to convince donors that his obvious dementia is really jet lag, the Times delivered another broadside to the 81-year-old’s campaign, relating damning accounts from several US and foreign officials and others who say they’ve observed Biden in private and have seen a notable decline in recent months.

    Here’s just a sampling from the lengthy Times report:  

    • “People in the room with him more recently said that the lapses seemed to be growing more frequent, more pronounced and more worrisome.”
    • “The recent moments of disorientation generated concern among advisers and allies alike. He seemed confused at points during a D-Day anniversary ceremony in France on June 6. The next day, he misstated the purpose of a new tranche of military aid to Ukraine when meeting with its president.”
    • “On June 10, he appeared to freeze up at an early celebration of the Juneteenth holiday.”
    • “On June 18, his soft-spoken tone and brief struggle to summon the name of his homeland security secretary at an immigration event unnerved some of his allies at the event, who traded alarmed looks and later described themselves as ‘shaken up‘.”
    • “By many accounts, as evidenced by video footage, observation and interviews, Mr. Biden is not the same today as he was even when he took office 3½ years ago. The White House regularly releases corrected transcripts of his remarks, in which he frequently mixes up places, people or dates.“
    • “He often confuses names and details and makes statements that are incoherent.”
    • “During a meeting…with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, Mr. Biden spoke so softly it was almost impossible to hear.”
    • “[Italian Prime Minister] Meloni and the other leaders were acutely sensitive to Mr. Biden’s physical condition, discussing it privately among themselves.”
    • “Asked if one could imagine putting Mr. Biden into the same room with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia today, a former U.S. official who had helped prepare for the trip went silent for a while, then said, ‘I just don’t know.‘ A former senior European official answered the same question by saying flatly, ‘No’.”

    As we’ve seen in recent days, others in Biden’s circle stepped forward to avow that he’s sharp and energetic behind closed doors. However, having seen Biden’s debate performance for themselves — and as more and more officials provide disturbing accounts of his decline — only the most self-deluding Democrats are willing to credit these reassuring accounts, or Biden’s jet lag excuse:   

    Look for the Times report to accelerate the pace of demands for Biden to withdraw from the 2024 race. We’ve already seen the editorial board of the Times urge him to call it quits, along with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and a variety of columnists and pundits. In a major milestone, the first federal elected official joined the growing chorus on Tuesday: Texas Democratic Congressman Lloyd Doggett issued a statement saying “I am hopeful that he will make the painful and difficult decision to withdraw.” 

    Other Democratic officeholders, while stopping just short of urging Biden to quit, are striking him with daggers of their own. In an op-ed, Maine Rep. Jared Golden wrote, “While I don’t plan to vote for him, Donald Trump is going to win.” Similarly, Washington Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez told KATU, “We all saw what we saw. You can’t undo that, and the truth, I think, is that Biden is going to lose to Trump…the damage has been done.” 

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 07/03/2024 – 13:50

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Jul 03

Today’s News 3rd July 2024

  • Nine Ukrainian Jets Destroyed In 24 Hours, Russia's Military Says
    Nine Ukrainian Jets Destroyed In 24 Hours, Russia’s Military Says

    The Kremlin has continued to signal to the West that the dozens of US F-16 fighter jets currently being prepped to transfer to Ukraine are as good as dead on arrival. Past weeks of media reports have indicated that a handful of European countries will begin sending F-16s by some point this summer, when Ukrainian pilots complete their training on the advanced fighter.

    Russia’s Defense Ministry said Tuesday it launched a major attack on an airfield in central Ukraine, which destroyed and damaged seven Ukrainian fighter jets. The location was identified as the Myrhorod airbase in the country’s Poltava region. Two more were reported shot down in a separate operation.

    Illustrative image of prior jet shootdown.

    “As a result of the Russian army’s strike, five active Su-27 multi-purpose fighters were destroyed and two under repair were damaged,” the military announced on Telegram.

    The statement was accompanied by aerial footage, and the whole attack was also confirmed by a Ukrainian official who described that the strike happened, but the extent of destruction was exaggerated by the Russian side.

    “There are losses, but not at all like the enemy claims because they always do this since the beginning of the invasion,” Ukraine’s former Air Force speaker Yuriy Ihnat stated.

    He additionally said to Reuters that Russian reconnaissance drones provided a key role in the attack on Myrhorod and present a “very serious threat” – as they were able to spot the Ukrainian aircraft parked on the ground. “It flies and reports everything in real-time, and then Iskander arrives in a couple of minutes. It is obvious,” Ihnat explained.

    In total Russia’s defense ministry (MoD) said its forces had taken out nine Ukrainian fighter jets on Tuesday over a 24 hour period, as two had reportedly been shot down while in flight. According to statements in TASS: 

    Russian forces struck nine Ukrainian Su-27 and MiG-29 fighter jets over the past day in the special military operation in Ukraine, Russia’s Defense Ministry reported on Tuesday.

    “Also, nine Ukrainian Air Force aircraft were hit over the past 24 hours. A combined strike by precision weapons against an airfield destroyed five and damaged two Su-27 planes of the enemy’s Air Force. Another two Ukrainian MiG-29 and Su-27 aircraft were shot down by Russian air defenses,” the ministry said in a statement.

    Last Thursday the Russian military had announced that it struck airbases in Ukraine which were set up to eventually house Western-supplied jets.

    Below is a reconnaissance clip of Myrhorod airfield featured by state media:

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

    The MoD said it used long-range sea-based weapons to attack “airfield infrastructure of Ukraine, planned to accommodate aircraft from Western countries,” according to state media. This included the use of Kinzhal hypersonic missiles alongside drones, the statement indicated.

    TASS has also issued the following battlefield data on Tuesday: “In all, the Russian Armed Forces have destroyed 625 Ukrainian warplanes, 276 helicopters, 27,121 unmanned aerial vehicles, 535 surface-to-air missile systems, 16,478 tanks and other armored combat vehicles, 1,362 multiple rocket launchers, 11,215 field artillery guns and mortars and 23,238 special military motor vehicles since the start of the special military operation, the ministry reported.” These huge losses on the Ukrainian side have resulted in Ukrainian officials essentially begging for more arms and equipment from NATO countries at a faster rate.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 07/03/2024 – 02:45

  • Macron's Loss Isn't An End, It's A Beginning
    Macron’s Loss Isn’t An End, It’s A Beginning

    Authored by Tom Luongo via Gold, Goats, ‘n Guns blog,

    To say that I’ve been waiting on pins and needles for the past year or so is putting it mildly. I’m sure I’m not the only one.

    This fake World Davos Made in which fat is beautiful, sloth is a virtue, and pedophilia the pinnacle of human love, should have you just a teensy bit anxious.

    When we look up and see everything beautiful being systematically subverted, cheapened, or just plain vandalized it’s hard to maintain your compassion, even if it was warranted…. which it isn’t.

    Today I come back to write my first public essay in more than a month and we’re a couple of days away from arch-Globalist Emmanuel Macron of France getting trounced by both Marine Le Pen and a fractious left-wing coalition.

    Heading into this weekend’s run-offs it’s pretty obvious that Macron’s party, En Marche, will be relegated to the ashbin of history. Macron was a fake populist sold to us by Davos nearly a decade ago to blunt the rise of Le Pen then.

    And it really doesn’t matter this time what political ring-fencing the various commies in France do to freeze out a National Front majority in the French Parliament. The tide has turned against them.

    It’s not coming back. Just like it has in the UK, the US, the Netherlands, Italy and the rest of the so-called post-Enlightenment West.

    That idea right there, “post-Enlightenment,” where we began to reject God for modernity and the supremacy of human reason over the vastness of our ignorance about how the Universe worked, is the key to what’s happening.

    And the minute I began writing about Macron I was hit with the memory of Notre Dame burning.

    The library was on fire. And the jackals brayed about how great it was.

    This happened on Macron’s watch. And he cried crocodile tears for it, as all true Marxist scumbags like him do.

    Because they can only have the facsimile of emotions since we all live in a simulation anyway.

    At the time I called it a “Symbol of Failing Culture.” But it’s far more than that. Notre Dame’s burning, deliberate or otherwise, was emblematic of how careless our caretakers were about preserving our past.

    So obsessed with their pathetic modernity they expropriated nearly all the wealth of France for decades to elevate sloth and neglect beauty while becoming openly hostile to their own history. Their contempt for history was on full display as their rage at religion overwhelmed their basic humanity.

    What’s worse to me is descendants of those that built Notre Dame cheering this event because they’ve been inculcated to hate religion of all forms by their Marxist education.

    They’ve been effectively immunized against feeling anything but contempt for themselves and their history.

    History is history. It doesn’t have an agenda. It exists, for better or worse, to remind us that who we are today is the sum total of who we were then.

    Marxists fundamentally believe in creating a man without a history, without connection to his past to mold him into the New Soviet Man.

    Argue with me about this all you want Bernie Bros, Corbynites and Richard Wolff acolytes, this is the point of this French post-modernist “life is an absurd simulation” nonsense. It’s simply an excuse to justify the inherent envy at the core of all Marxist thought.

    It meant something to millions of people, if not billions.

    Its burning was truly a moment of them destroying something beautiful even if the fire was an accident.

    Notre Dame was a thing to be envied, for sure. A place of stunning beauty and achievement. A thing worth preserving through the centuries. Of course it had to be destroyed.

    The contempt of Macron and his history-challenged fellow travelers at anyone not down with the Commintern was on full display back then.

    While they think we shouldn’t have histories, they forget that we have memories.

    So, there should be zero surprise today about what has happened at the French ballot box.

    Macron and Davos will do everything they can to extend and pretend that they are still in control in France. They may even succeed in saving Macron. In doing so they may even destroy what’s left of France, sacrificing it on the altar of the European Union, but for what?

    A meta-stable alliance held together by the scolding of a bloodless German vampire like Ursula Von der Leyen? How long do you think the French go from Yellow Vests to the guillotine?

    Because, last I checked, that’s a part of their history Macron is also trying to deny.

    *  *  *

    Join my Patreon if you are long hemp farmers

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 07/03/2024 – 02:00

  • How Financial Surveillance Threatens Our Democracies: Part 1
    How Financial Surveillance Threatens Our Democracies: Part 1

    Authored by Alexandre Stachtchenko via Bitcoin Magazine,

    When they descended into coal mines, miners would take a caged canary with them.

    The toxic gasses, notably carbon monoxide, that accumulate in these places and pose a deadly risk to miners, would kill the canaries before the miners.

    This information made them aware of the danger, enabling them to evacuate before it was too late.

    On May 14, 2024, Alexey Pertsev, a software developer who built an open-source tool to preserve online privacy, was found guilty of money laundering and sentenced to more than 5 years in prison by a Dutch court.

    In the court’s decision, the following can be read:

    “The tool developed by the suspect and his co-authors combines maximum anonymity and optimal concealment techniques with a serious lack of identification functionalities. Therefore, the tool cannot be characterized as a legitimate tool that has been inadvertently used by criminals. By its nature and operation, the tool is specifically intended for criminals.”

    Seeking to preserve one’s privacy is thus at worst proof of criminality, at best complicity in a crime. A threshold has been crossed.

    Unfortunately, it is likely that this case will generate little empathy and interest, as the person involved worked in the crypto industry, and the tool developed, Tornado Cash, was intended to preserve transaction confidentiality.

    However, it would be a grave mistake to consider this an isolated incident limited to a fledgling industry for which the public has little affection.

    This is our canary in the coal mine.

    It has stopped singing and is dying. If we do not react, all the miners will perish. Cryptos are an early and glaring revealer of an insidious phenomenon that has been eroding our liberal democracies for about thirty years and is reaching a point of no return.

    Despite the lack of evidence of their effectiveness, financial surveillance measures continue to be regularly reinforced, defying all democratic rules and requirements: the primacy of secrecy, freedom as a norm, the principle of proportionality of rights limitations, technological neutrality, presumption of innocence… Preemptive control prior to any offense becomes the norm, the enforcement of law becomes selective and arbitrary, bank account closures take on the appearance of censorship and financial suffocation, and property rights are reduced to a mere shadow.

    The fight against money laundering and terrorist financing has degenerated into collective hysteria worthy of authoritarian or even totalitarian regimes, to the point of criminalizing a fundamental and constitutional right: privacy. The famous American computer engineer Phil Zimmermann warned us in 1991: “if privacy is outlawed, only outlaws will have privacy.”

    Far from being a “crypto” issue, this shift away from liberal democracy concerns everyone. There are numerous examples in regimes known for their democracy, spanning from India to the United Kingdom, and from Canada to France.

    Note: If the crypto part does not interest you, you can proceed directly to part II.

    I. LESSONS FROM THE CANARY

    1. THE UNITED STATES INVOLVES ITSELF

    Less than a year ago, the arrest of the Tornado Cash developers had already legitimately caused quite a stir. But the scope of the case, limited to the crypto world, perceived as a den of terrorists and money launderers, had quickly confined the indignation to a small group of insiders.

    In April 2024, American and European public authorities, emboldened by this success, continued to move forward in a worrying direction.

    Several events occurred almost simultaneously. The arrest of the developers of the Bitcoin wallet developers of Samourai Wallet, by the FBI in cooperation with the IRS (the American tax authority), with the guilty cooperation of European authorities, kicked things off. Their crime would be to have “conspired to launder money” and to have “operated an unlicensed money transfer business”. They face 20 years’ imprisonment for the first charge and 5 years for the second. By comparison, the maximum irreducible life sentence in France is 30 years.

    Following this was an FBI notice urging all Americans not to use “money transmitting businesses” that do not collect their identity and are not registered. And the Federal Bureau continued by threatening to freeze all funds that had been mixed with funds obtained through illegal means.

    To better understand the absurdity of such an announcement by the FBI, let us transpose the reasoning into the physical world, and highlight two major issues.

    The first concerns the accusation of operating an unlicensed money transfer business.

    Samourai Wallet is a company that provides Bitcoin wallets with enhanced transaction privacy. It does not operate transactions on behalf of its clients; it provides the wallet software. In the physical world, their equivalent would be a leather craftsman who crafts leather wallets enabling their users to store cash. He facilitates cash management but has no say in how the wallet owners spend their cash.

    Here, the U.S. federal services conflate and lump together a large bank that operates transactions on behalf of its clients and a leather craftsman, holding the latter responsible for how his clients use their cash.

    How far can we go with this line of reasoning? To ATMs? To the people at the Central Bank who print these bills? To the lumberjacks who produce the wood used for the paper of the bills?

    Similarly, should we hold a carpenter responsible for what his clients decide to put in the furniture they make? Or an architect if the house they build ends up being used for drug trafficking?

    It quickly becomes apparent that this conflation is completely absurd. A wallet creator is not responsible for what the wallet owner decides to do with the money stored in it. Being part of the cash or cash storage value chain should in no way imply responsibility for its final use, as there is no limit to this reasoning.

    This question was actually raised 20 years ago regarding peer-to-peer exchanges, which allow multiple people to exchange information directly in a decentralized manner. This communication protocol and the software that enable it are sometimes used to commit offenses, particularly against intellectual property rights. However, despite attempts to criminalize the tool itself4, European5 and American6 courts have ruled in favor of technological neutrality, stating that the software in question allows both legal and illegal exchanges and that their providers are not responsible for the use made by third parties. The case law then focused on the responsibility of each individual involved in a potentially illegal activity, acquitting some individuals due to lack of evidence of their criminal intent7. These judicial solutions are obviously in line with the normal exercise of fundamental rights.

    The second issue lies in the threat of fund blocking.

    Freezing any money mixed with funds obtained through illegal means would be equivalent to arresting anyone whose bills, whether in their leather wallet or pocket, have passed through the wrong hands.

    In 2009, a university study covered by CNN showed that 90% of American dollar bills carry traces of cocaine, and up to 100% in some major cities. This helps us better understand the absurdity of the FBI’s threat: almost all the cash in the world has already passed through the wrong hands. Should all cash holders be imprisoned? Of course not.

    Following these absurd coercive actions, on 26 April 2024, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York published the government’s rationale against Roman Storm, the lead developer of the privacy software Tornado Cash. The author insists, considering Tornado Cash as a “money transmitting business.”

    According to this argument, “the definition of “money transmitting” in Section 1960 does not require the money transmitter to have ‘control’ of the funds being transferred. […] For instance, a USB cable transfers data from one device to another […].”

    A very broad definition of a “money transmitting business” that would even include USB cables, according to their own admission. At this rate, the question will soon become “who is not a money transmitter?”

    Here, the DOJ (Department of Justice) is so ambitious that it goes against the guidelines provided by FinCen (Financial Crime Enforcement Network, a bureau of the U.S. Treasury Department). In other words, the U.S. government does not agree with itself, which indicates a certain uneasiness.

    In 2013, FinCen explained that software developers were not “money transmitters” (“The production and distribution of software, in and of itself, does not constitute acceptance and transmission of value, even if the purpose of the software is to facilitate the sale of virtual currency.”).

    In 2019, following an inquiry regarding certain programmable features on Bitcoin (Time-locked and multi-signature), FinCen reiterated that the partial control that could be exercised by wallet developers was not sufficient to qualify them as “money transmitters” (“the person participating in the transaction to provide additional validation at the request of the owner does not have totally independent control over the value.”).

    2. EUROPE AT THE FOREFRONT OF AN ILLIBERAL SHIFT

    Beyond the opportunistic qualifications of various parties and to return more simply to the way the law should be applied in a liberal democracy, let’s recall that cryptocurrency transfers are transfers of electronic communications according to the definition provided by European Union law.

    Moreover, cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin or Ethereum allow for the exchange of communications that can be qualified as correspondences (the possibilities of exchange are not limited to monetary units). Electronic communications are protected by the right to privacy and personal data protection, and a limitation such as lifting confidentiality or blocking can only be justified if it is necessary for the effective pursuit of a defined objective, in a strictly proportionate manner, particularly in the case of a proven offense and personally committed by the individual whose communication is limited.

    The Court of Justice of the European Union has also ruled in this sense, considering that the systematic analysis of communications, even when possible, infringes on the fundamental right to the protection of users’ personal data, in violation of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. The Court specifies that an injunction to block communications that does not distinguish “between illegal and legal content […] could result in the blocking of communications with legal content” and thus infringe on the freedom of expression and communication. Regarding cryptocurrency transfers, we can also invoke an infringement on the right to property.

    It is therefore inconceivable, in a liberal democracy, to ask a private actor to block transactions or other types of communications without being certain of their illegality.

    We can note another convenient schizophrenia on the part of the American authorities, which Lyn Alden aptly summarizes by referring to “Schrödinger’s Currency”: Bitcoin is considered as a currency only when it allows for the prosecution of individuals. The rest of the time, it is a speculative tool to which this qualification is denied. Indeed, to apply the definition of “money transmitter,” it is necessary to consider that what is being transmitted (bitcoins) is indeed money. To the point that the government argues that “Bitcoin clearly qualifies as money” in order to prosecute Roman Storm.

    Europe regularly engages in this distortion as well, as I had already shown in the justification invoked to include “crypto-assets” in the TFR regulation. Cryptos have indeed appeared in a text that previously targeted exclusively “banknotes and coins, scriptural money, and electronic money.” But to say that Bitcoin is a currency…

    Moreover, in Europe, coincidentally, a new regulation was voted on April 25 imposing new financial constraints, still with the laudable objective of combating money laundering.

    Among the constraints, we can particularly note a €10,000 cash payment limit across Europe, but also the requirement for digital asset service providers (DASPs) to collect even more information about their clients, including for transactions under €1,000, and for personal wallets, known as “self-custodial,” “self-hosted,” or “un-hosted,” i.e., not managed by a financial intermediary on behalf of third parties. The leather wallets of the digital world.

    A small digression into Newspeak here: by imposing the terminology “self-hosted” or “un-hosted,” regulators and legislators are trying to enforce the view that third-party custody is the norm, and self-custody is the exception. This is obviously a dangerous and insidious view, suggesting that wanting to keep one’s own money is suspicious, even though it is part of the normal exercise of freedoms. There are no “un-hosted” or “self-hosted” wallets. There are just wallets, period. And there are third parties who hold wallets on behalf of others.

    Returning to the text, let’s casually note that it is particularly precise and imposes know-your-customer (KYC) requirements for transactions under €1,000 only on DASPs, exempting banks and other financial institutions, which handle far larger volumes than DASPs. The proportionality of this amount and this discrimination is not justified.

    In addition, there is a ban on supporting enhanced privacy cryptocurrencies. Let us recall here that historical commodity monies (gold, silver, copper, bones, etc.) are anonymous, as is still cash today. The ban is therefore inequitable and strikes under the pretext of its electronic nature. It is again unjustified, although it unacceptably hinders the normal exercise of a freedom since we are talking about its outright extinction (such a disproportion is not admitted by the European Court of Human Rights).

    As previously mentioned, all these actions are extremely problematic in several respects.

    First, because these constraints are based on no rational reasoning or relevant justification and are simply the result of paranoia related to cryptos, coupled with a KYC model (Know Your Customer, the customer identification processes imposed on financial institutions) that has been elevated to a religion despite the lack of convincing results over several decades. Second, because they disregard the requirements for the protection of fundamental freedoms on which the European Union was built and to which it is subject. Third, because they are counterproductive, meaning they create new threats, the consequences of which are increasingly severe.

    3. AN UNFOUNDED PARANOIA

    Nearly all texts dealing with the “necessary” regulation of “crypto-assets” have abandoned scientific and legal rigor to the point of never proving the initial assertion from which their reasoning starts: “cryptos are a good means to facilitate money laundering.”

    To appreciate this, one only needs to analyze all the texts on the subject issued in recent years. This is an exercise I have already done for the TFR text. Indeed, in the “proportionality” paragraph of the proposed amendment to the regulation, there is a small phrase indicating that, according to the opinion of EU surveillance authorities, “specific” risk-increasing factors have been identified concerning cryptos.

    Why is proportionality an extremely important principle in a state governed by the rule of law?

    Because the adequacy of a legislative standard or instrument to the pursued objective, i.e., the balance between the infringement on a right and the general interest, is absolutely crucial to avoid authoritarian and liberty-infringing drifts. One cannot hide behind an objective, however commendable, to impose disproportionate restrictions on rights.

    For example, one might think that by installing a policeman in everyone’s home, crime would be reduced. The objective may be considered laudable, but the individual rights that would be compromised in the process represent an unacceptable reduction in freedoms. Thus, society decides to tolerate potentially higher crime rates (subject to the risks to freedoms generated by surveillance itself) in order to preserve the rule of law and fundamental freedoms, without which democracy cannot exist.

    Conversely, the prohibition of alcohol while driving is a restriction that can be considered proportionate: alcohol consumption is not prohibited, but it is prohibited in situations where its consumption is systematically dangerous for oneself and others. The impacts of such legislation can be monitored by observing the number of accidents, for example. A right has been restricted, certainly, but the general interest prevails since the effectiveness of the measure in relation to an important objective (the preservation of life) can be demonstrated, and the infringement on rights is minimized by limiting the restrictions as much as possible.

    In a liberal democracy, freedom is the norm and constraints the exception. It is up to the state, when it wishes to restrict a freedom, to demonstrate that it does not go further than necessary to achieve its objective and that this objective is effectively achieved. Furthermore, the state is obliged to adopt norms to ensure that all persons and institutions, both public and private, respect this rule.

    In the case at hand (money laundering and terrorist financing), and despite the assertion that “supervisory authorities have identified specific risk factors,” when one plays the detective wishing to trace back to the source, one realizes that the opinion in question, dating from 2019, itself admits that the so-called “competent authorities” do not have the “knowledge and understanding of these products and assets, which prevents them from carrying out a proper impact assessment.”

    It also deflects by referring to another opinion (sic) from the European Banking Authority, which dates back to… 2014. In this “original” opinion, we find a rather laconic analysis: “the phenomenon of Virtual Currencies being assessed has not existed for a sufficient amount of time for there to be quantitative evidence available of the existing risks, nor is this of the quality required for a robust ranking.”

    In other words, the TFR regulation, imposing monitoring of all crypto transfers from one provider to another, was built on the basis of two reports. One report stated that there was no evidence to qualify or quantify the risks, while the other admitted that competent authorities lacked the knowledge and understanding to conduct an analysis.

    Therefore, concluding the paragraph on the “proportionality” of the TFR regulation by stating that “In accordance with the principle of Proportionality as set out in Article 5 of the Treaty on European Union (TEU), this regulation does not exceed what is necessary to achieve its objectives” is questionable at best. Since the risks are not assessed, it seems difficult to characterize the restriction of rights as “proportionate.”

    In his fight against FINMA, Alexis Roussel made the same observation for Switzerland. The Swiss National Risk Assessment (NRA) of 201822 regarding money laundering risks in crypto indicates, from its very first sentence, that no cases of terrorism financing related to crypto have been identified, and only rare cases of money laundering. However, the subsequent statement recommends classifying these assets as “high-risk” by their very nature. Specifically, this means that a crypto transaction, even of €10, carries the same level of risk as a €100,000 transfer to an account in Russia. This equivalence is established without democratic processes in Switzerland and without any evidence.

    The 2024 NRA23 does not seem to have made much progress and still admits to lacking data to assess risks.

    We can clearly see a pattern emerge: anti-money laundering regulations and increasingly stringent data collection requirements are imposed without legitimate basis or factual data to justify their implementation.

    A more comprehensive overview has been provided by L0la L33tz in Bitcoin Magazine24, allowing us to supplement this inventory of breaches of the most basic rigor in Europe, as well as by sister institutions of Bretton-Woods, the IMF, and the World Bank, which are true compasses for global decision-makers.

    For example, in 2023, the annual report for 2021 from the European Union’s FSRB (the European branch of the Financial Action Task Force, FATF)25, an intergovernmental group established in 1989 to combat money laundering and terrorism financing, was released.

    The report begins with the following quote: “It is well known that money launderers have abused cryptocurrencies, initially to transfer and conceal profits generated from drug trafficking. Nowadays, their methods are becoming increasingly sophisticated and on a larger scale.”

    Unfortunately, starting an argument with “it is well known” reads the same as an essay that begins with “Throughout history, mankind”: it does not exude the rigor of thorough research.

    The report itself admits that a study will be dedicated in 2022 to analyzing money laundering trends in cryptocurrencies, suggesting that it did not exist at the time of writing the report, asserting as an obvious truth what had never been studied.

    This report dedicated to the study of money laundering trends in cryptocurrencies has indeed been published26, but it focuses not on the phenomenon itself but rather on the analysis of the implementation of regulations. Regulations that, it is worth noting, are based on unproven money laundering.

    Regarding the study of facts and the field, the report interestingly notes that the risk assessment “lacks depth.” It also observes that the majority of regulators lack the tools and expertise necessary to effectively analyze and investigate cases of money laundering and terrorism financing related to “virtual assets.”

    The study also takes the same shortcut as the aforementioned Swiss analysis: finding very few cases of money laundering involving virtual assets, it prefers to conclude that it is because more regulation is needed, rather than considering that money laundering is not overrepresented in these assets.

    As for the IMF, it’s no better: the latest report on public policies related to crypto-assets (September 2023)27 points out the lack of data on money laundering and terrorism financing risks, stating that “such impacts have not been specifically studied in relation to crypto-assets.”

    The IMF’s Global Financial Stability Report for 202428 relies on Chainalysis figures and proposes the figure of $1.1 billion received in cryptocurrencies for ransomware globally, which is less than 0.07% of the crypto market capitalization.

    The IMF’s twin institution, the World Bank, does not significantly differ from the aforementioned views. In a 2023 report the institution indicates that the issue of “Virtual Assets” was not addressed in the Risk Assessment and calls on public authorities and companies to provide more data regarding these assets.

    In its money laundering-related publications for 2020 and 2022 the World Bank simply makes no mention of cryptocurrencies. In its articles  on crypto adoption, the World Bank merely sidesteps the issue by redirecting to FATF papers.

    We have come full circle: reports cite each other, asking for more clarity on the figures, but nobody ever conducts the study itself. We rely on FATF, an unelected body, not subject to the rules of a respectable democracy, especially regarding proportionality, as I mentioned earlier.

    The objective is no longer to allow a proportionate fight against money laundering but to raise the standards of controls every year, forgetting the reason why these controls were implemented in the first place.

    Moreover, financial institutions use the term “compliance” to emphasize the fact that they comply with the expected control standards. The objectives of efficiency and proportionality are no longer at stake. There is no doubt that if FATF recommended putting a policeman behind every computer, legislators would rush to transpose this “best practice” into law…

    It’s not even hidden. In the regulation voted on April 24 by the European Union34, the justification for imposing new standards on crypto companies is absolutely not focused on combating money laundering and its effectiveness. Indeed, since MiCA has not even entered into force yet, and the adaptation of the TFR text to cryptos is very recent, how could we conduct a posteriori analysis of the effectiveness of measures that have not yet had an effect and possibly judge that they need to be strengthened?

    The reasoning behind the strengthening of controls is in fact much simpler: “Due to rapid technological developments and the advancement in FATF standards, it is necessary to review that approach.”

    It is not the evolution of the threat, its assessment, the means used by criminals, or the results of a study, etc., but rather the advancement in FATF standards that leads Europe to align itself.

    And the next steps are already laid out: “At the same time, advances in innovation, such as the development of the metaverse, provide new avenues for the perpetration of crimes and for the laundering of their proceeds.”

    While the most popular metaverses are still in the experimental stage and barely see a few hundred people connecting simultaneously, and as the hype subsides, they are already being talked about as nothing less than “avenues” for money laundering.

    If you’re looking for numbers and analyses, look elsewhere. The imposition of additional surveillance standards relies more on beliefs and perceptions than on facts because no one dares to oppose as a policymaker, risking being equated with a supporter of terrorism or money laundering. It’s therefore a genuine religion, one that becomes almost impossible to question at its core.

    The digital transition has been greatly beneficial for states: with the need to be banked to take advantage of financial globalization, leading to the omnipresence of banks, the number of potential targets to monitor has drastically diminished, until it ended up concerning only a handful of banks. The transition from a world in which everyone held their cash at home to one where, at least in the OECD, banking is the norm, entails an inevitable financial intermediation.

    In this regard, Bitcoin was a huge wake-up call because it signifies that the entire financial regulation of the past 30 years is obsolete, as it is based on an assumption that is no longer valid, namely the need for a financial intermediary to conduct transactions in the digital world.

    In tomorrow’s world where companies will make wallet-to-wallet payments, who will perform KYC? Will we only realize the absurdity of the model when half the planet is working to monitor the other half?

    Bitcoin shakes the very foundations of anti-money laundering efforts. And rather than questioning the regulation and its relevance, both in terms of effectiveness and in terms of respect for fundamental freedoms, we prefer the path of blindness, which leads to restricting the use of a technologically neutral tool by arbitrarily impeding innovation, the right to property, and the protection of exchange confidentiality, the importance of which for democracy, notably through encryption of exchanges, has recently been reaffirmed by the European Court of Human Rights35.

    Bitcoin is a canary in the mine. A signal that something is slipping away from us, not concerning cryptocurrencies, but concerning the fundamental freedoms of all citizens, threatened by financial surveillance.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 07/02/2024 – 23:00

  • Black Americans Still Feel Systematically Held Back
    Black Americans Still Feel Systematically Held Back

    On July 2, 1964, Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act into law.

    To this day, the landmark bill is considered one of the most significant legislative achievements in American history, marking a key milestone in the country’s pursuit of racial equality. The bill outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin and mandated the end of racial segregation and discrimination in public accommodations, education and employment.

    “We have talked long enough in this country about equal rights. We have talked for one hundred years or more. It is time now to write the next chapter, and to write it in the books of law,” President Lyndon B. Johnson said to members of Congress at the time, urging them to take action and pass the civil rights bill proposed by his predecessor John F. Kennedy, who had been assassinated the year before.

    60 years later, Black Americans face a situation that is vastly improved compared to the systematic discrimination of the past, and yet, many racial disparities persist to this day.

    As Statista’s Felix Richter reports, whether it’s in terms of income, wealth, education, imprisonment or health outcomes – statistically, Black Americans fare significantly worse than Americans of other races and ethnicities. And while a recent Pew Research survey showed that 52 percent of U.S. adults think that the country has made a great deal or a fair amount of progress in ensuring equal rights for all people over the past 60 years, an equally high share of Americans agree that these efforts haven’t gone far enough.

    Infographic: Black Americans Still Feel Systematically Held Back | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    Among Black Americans, the view on progress is much more negative with just 30 percent of respondents saying that significant progress has been made and 83 percent thinking that efforts to ensure equal rights have been insufficient.

    Further highlighting the degree to which Black Americans feel discriminated against until this day, another Pew survey shows that the majority of Black adults don’t just feel treated unfairly out of negligence, they feel held back systematically across various U.S. institutions.

    According to the September 2023 survey of 4,736 Black U.S. adults, 74 percent of respondents think that the U.S. prison system was designed to hold Black people back.

    70 percent of respondents think the same of U.S. courts and the judicial system, while more than 60 percent think that policing, the political system and the economic system were designed to disadvantage Black Americans.

    “Black Americans’ mistrust of U.S. institutions is informed by history, from slavery to the implementation of Jim Crow laws in the South, to the rise of mass incarceration and more,” the Pew Research Center writes, but it is also informed by personal experience. 75 percent of Black adults say that they’ve personally experienced discrimination or unfair treatment because of their race or ethnicity, and among the victims of discrimination 73 percent say that it made them feel like the system was designed to keep them down.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 07/02/2024 – 22:40

  • US Marshals Find 200 Missing Children In Nationwide Operation
    US Marshals Find 200 Missing Children In Nationwide Operation

    Authored by Mary Lou Lang via The Epoch Times,

    The U.S. Marshals Service (USMS) found 200 missing children, including sex trafficking victims, abused children and runaways in a six-week nationwide operation, the Department of Justice announced July 1.

    “One of the most sacred missions of U.S. Marshals Service is locating and recovering our nation’s critically missing children,” said USMS Director Ronald Davis.

    “This is one of our top priorities as there remain thousands of children still missing and at risk.”

    Of the children found, 173 were endangered runaways, one was a family abduction, another was a non-family abduction and 25 were considered otherwise missing. The youngest was a 5-month-old baby.

    The USMS carried out Operation We Will Find You 2 along with federal, state and local agencies from May 20 to June 24.

    The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) offered technical assistance in the operation.

    Operation We Will Find You 2, the second such nationwide missing child operation, focused on geographical areas with large clusters of critically missing children, according to the DOJ.

    It was conducted in the District of Arizona, the Eastern District of California, the Southern District of Florida, the Western District of Michigan, the Eastern District of North Carolina, the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York, and the District of Oregon.

    One case in the Eastern District of North Carolina involved a one-year-old who was reported missing in Raleigh after the child’s mother failed to surrender her to the Department of Social Services, according to the release. The mother, who had been convicted of strangling her four-year-old son to death, was arrested and U.S. Marshals safely recovered the child.

    Another case involved a 12-year-old girl who went missing from her family home in Portland, Oregon, on May 21 after she reported being sexually abused by family members.

    Police officers contacted the child on her cell phone and she agreed to meet them at a grocery store. The child and a friend then called the police back, telling them her father was trying to force her into his car. USMC was able to intervene.

    The child told law enforcement she had been raped by two males and that her father had touched her inappropriately. She was placed in a foster home then in a state-run shelter after the foster home placement did not work out.

    Another case involved a 16-year-old girl reported missing after she ran away from a group home in Phoenix. The girl had been a victim of sex trafficking.

    An investigation showed the child was possibly being sex trafficked in Los Angeles, and her suspected trafficker was murdered on May 25. The girl had told a family member she was going on vacation to Miami, and when she arrived a new sex trafficker took her to the beach and told her to make money.

    Marshals found the girl in Flint, Michigan, on June 11, and she was taken into custody for a probation violation. A man she was found with was arrested for driving without a license and insurance. The Homeland Security Investigations is investigating the suspected trafficking case.

    In New York, a 16-year-old girl who was a prior victim of human trafficking was reported missing in November of last year. The NYC Police Department’s Missing Persons Unit requested the USMS’s assistance in the case.

    Two arrest warrants were executed for a 27-year-old man who was the prime subject in the case. On June 3, the girl was found in the man’s bedroom and evidence of sexual exploitation was discovered. The girl was placed in the care of the Administration for Children’s Services.

    “Operation We Will Find You is a shining example of the results we can achieve when we unite in our mission to find missing children,” said President and CEO Michelle DeLaune of NCMEC in a press release.

    “We are grateful that vulnerable children have been recovered as part of this operation, and we commend the U.S. Marshals Service and all the agencies involved for their commitment to protect youth and ensure these children are not forgotten.

    “Behind every statistic, there is a child who deserves to grow up safe from harm.”

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 07/02/2024 – 22:20

  • When Bitcoin $100,000? It Depends On Biden's Next Move
    When Bitcoin $100,000? It Depends On Biden’s Next Move

    For much of the past year, Standard Chartered’s Geoffrey Kendrick has had a nice, round number in mind for his 2024 year-end price target: after (somewhat accurately) predicting in late 2022 that Bitcoin could tumble as low as $5000 in the aftermath of the FTX collapse, Kendrick flipped in mid-2023 at which point – and ever since – he has argued that due to the “seismic changes in the institutional approach to Bitcoin in the United States”, the cryptocurrency would hit all time highs in 2024 (it did) and rise as high as $100,000 (it has yet to do that).

    Then, at the start of 2024 and after the SEC approved bitcoin ETFs, Kendrick doubled down on the nice round numbers, and said that based on his ETF inflow assumptions, while he still thinks that an end-2024 Bitcoin price target of $100,000 is realistic, looking further out, the Standard Chartered strategist predicted that an end-2025 level closer to $200,000 is possible. This assumes that between 437,000 and 1.32 million new bitcoins will be held in spot US ETFs by end-2024. In USD terms, this should be roughly USD 50-100Bn.

    Then, at the start of May, once it became increasingly realistic that not only did Trump have a fighting chance of defeating Biden but that Gary Gensler’s days are likely numbered – with the SEC’s relentless pushback against Ethereum ETFs unexpectedly collapsing – Kendrick made a follow up observation in which he once again returned to his nice, round number prediction, forecasting that bitcoin will surge above $100,000 “when we get closer to Trump election victory we can rally hard from say Sept. to year-end.”

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

    So here we are, two months later and not only is bitcoin not anywhere closer to the nice, round number but it has in fact dropped somewhat notably from where it traded in late May.

    What gives?

    As Kendrick explains in his latest note published this morning, “frustrated BTC bulls have come up with a number of theories as to why we are stuck in a range. The most popular (the one I have heard the most which also makes sense) is that longer term holders continue to sell to nearer term buyers. Hence rallies are sold into and dips are bought.”

    The question then is what macro driver will be enough to make this stop? Kendrick thinks there will be a combination of Treasury yield movement which coalesces with a constructive US political backdrop, both of which he believes “will happen soon.”

    Starting with the first, on Treasury yields the strategist previously identified 3 drivers that should be constructive BTC in the attached note:

    • A steeper nominal 2Y/10Y curve
    • A greater increase in breakevens than real yields
    • An increase in term premium

    And while far from perfect, Kendrick believes that there is a “reasonable correlation” between each of these and BTC prices, shown here as 3 month changes. Interestingly, in recent weeks the UST movements have started to improve for BTC direction (or have at least started to go sideways) whereas BTC prices have been weak, which suggests that there is something else holding back the prices.

    But if the increasingly favorable moves in rates are not having an impact on bitcoin prices, then what is it: “why have BTC prices been weaker than the UST drivers would suggest?”

    Here, Kendrick thinks it has to do with the current state of the US Presidential election.

    Recall the previously discussed positive relationship between Trump’s electoral odds (shown here as the % probability of victory as reflected in betting markets) and BTC prices. The logic here is that both regulation and mining would be looked at more favorably under Trump:

    Looking at the above chart, it is safe to say that BTC prices got ahead of Trump probabilities on ETF inflows, but BTC prices are now lagging. Why the lag?

    Kendrick believes that this time BTC prices are lagging Trump probabilities because the probability of Biden stepping down/being replaced has been increasing. Specifically, the combined odds of Trump and Biden have now fallen to as low as 90% this week, the lowest level since March. That is, betting markets are saying there is a 10% chance someone other that Trump or Biden will win the Whitehouse.

    Indeed, today’s story sources by the CIA’s favorite mouthpiece that Democrats are now in disarray and that Hunter Biden is effectively in charge of the country…

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

    … has sent Kamala Harris’ odds of becoming the Democrat nominee soaring.

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

    In a probability sense, this means the market is now saying Trump is most likely to win (BTC positive), followed by Biden (BTC negative) but with a reasonable non-zero chance Biden is replaced and someone else – Michelle Obama, Kamala Harris or Gavin Newsom – wins (BTC negative). From a bell-curve perspective this is the equivalent of a fat left tail event.

    From here Kendrick sees 2 possible outcomes:

    1. Biden stays in the race and, given market pricing, will be expected to lose to Trump (BTC positive)
    2. Biden exits the race and the newcomer will be perceived to have more chance to beat Trump than Biden had (BTC negative)

    The good news is that we won’t have long to wait to find out the answer: the key date is 4 August, that’s when Ohio law requires Presidential candidates to be registered. So, if Biden is still the Democratic nominee on 4 August he will still be so in the first week of November.

    Going forward what the Standard Chartered analysts expects to see is the following:

    1. Most likely (90%) – in late July we conclude that Biden will run, Trump probabilities increase further, the fat left tail is removed. BTC moves higher, vol and skew moves higher. A fresh all-time in August is likely, then $100k by US election day
    2. Least likely (10%) – in late July Biden steps aside, BTC prices dip to $50-55k. If the new Democratic candidate is very credible (Michelle Obama) BTC prices stay soft. If not, it is a fantastic buying opportunity. BTC prices bounce back to $100k by US election day

    Watch this space for early moves in BTC vol and skew.

    More in the full note from Kendrick available to pro subscribers.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 07/02/2024 – 22:03

  • US Completes Hypersonic Missile Flight Test In Bid To Keep Up With China
    US Completes Hypersonic Missile Flight Test In Bid To Keep Up With China

    Authored by Aldgra Fredly via The Epoch Times,

    The U.S. Army and Navy have recently completed a flight test of a hypersonic missile as the United States seeks to keep pace with its geopolitical rivals—China and Russia—in developing hypersonic capabilities.

    The military performed the flight test from the Pacific Missile Range Facility in Kauai, Hawaii, to gather data on the overall performance of the long-range hypersonic weapon (LRHW), the Pentagon said on June 28.

    The LRHW is equipped with the Navy’s Conventional Prompt Strike (CPS) All-Up-Round missile—which consists of a two-stage solid rocket motor booster and a hypersonic glide body—and the Army’s canister.

    CPS is a hypersonic missile development and test program that “provides longer range, shorter flight times, and high survivability against enemy defenses,” according to Lockheed Martin.

    Lt. Gen. Robert Rasch Jr., director of the U.S. Army’s Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office, said that the missile development was intended to help the U.S. military “maintain superiority over any potential adversaries.”

    The Pentagon did not elaborate on the data obtained from the flight test or provide additional details about the hypersonic missile.

    The test comes about a month after the U.S. Army awarded Lockheed Martin a $756 million contract to supply the additional equipment and support for the nation’s ground-based hypersonic weapon system, the LRHW.

    Under the contract, the aerospace and defense company will provide the U.S. Army with LRHW battery equipment, systems, and software engineering support, as well as logistics solutions.

    Dark Eagle

    A recent report by the Congressional Research Service stated that the U.S. Army’s LRHW, dubbed the Dark Eagle, can travel at more than 3,800 miles per hour and is capable of reaching “the top of the Earth’s atmosphere.”

    The weapon system can maintain a position “just beyond the range of air and missile defense systems” until it is ready to strike, according to the report.

    It provides the U.S. Army with a weapon system for strategic attacks to counter anti-access/area denial capabilities—weapons used to keep an enemy out of a certain area— suppress adversary long-range fire, and engage other important targets.

    Lockheed Martin delivered the first LRHW battery to the U.S. military in 2021. The U.S. Army has been collaborating with the U.S. Navy to develop the weapon system, according to the report.

    The United States has been testing its hypersonic missile capabilities amid growing concern that Russia and China have been more successful in developing such weapons.

    Rick Fisher, a senior fellow at the International Assessment and Strategy Center, a security-focused think tank, said last year that the United States trails China in the development of hypersonic weapons.

    “China has effectively taken the lead in the hypersonic weapons race due to the breadth and depth of its technology investments,” Mr. Fisher said.

    “We are only seeing the beginning of their weapons developments in this field.”

    The Pentagon, in its annual report to Congress last year, warned that China already “has the world’s leading hypersonic arsenal,” which includes the DF-17 medium-range ballistic missiles that can be armed with hypersonic glide vehicles (HGVs). An HGV, fitted to a ballistic missile, enables it to maneuver and glide at hypersonic speeds and alter trajectories after launch.

    According to the report, the DF-17 HGV-armed medium-range ballistic missile system is “possibly intended to replace some older SRBM [short-range ballistic missile] units and is intended to strike foreign military bases and fleets in the Western Pacific, according to a PRC-based military expert.” PRC is the acronym for China’s official name, the People’s Republic of China.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 07/02/2024 – 21:40

  • These Are The Most Expensive States To Maintain A Home
    These Are The Most Expensive States To Maintain A Home

    Buying a house is the American dream, but maintaining that property in good shape can be challenging for homeowners.

    This map, via Visual Capitalist, shows the 15 most expensive states in the U.S. to maintain a single-family home.

    Methodology: Bankrate aggregated the average costs of property taxes, homeowners insurance, and home maintenance costs (estimated at 2% per year of the value of a single-family home). Calculations also included energy, internet, and cable bills. All figures adjusted for inflation as of June 2024.

    Hawaii is the Most Expensive State to Maintain a Home

    The average annual cost of owning and maintaining a single-family home in the U.S. is more than $18,000 yearly, a 26% increase compared to 2020.

    With an average annual cost of $29,015, Hawaii is the most expensive state to maintain a home.

    California comes in second with an average annual ownership cost of $28,790, followed by Massachusetts with $26,313.

    Property taxes in New Jersey average $10,026 annually, the highest in the nation.

    States with the Least Expensive Homeownership Costs

    Kentucky is the least expensive place to own a home, with an average annual cost of $11,559, followed by Arkansas ($11,692) and Mississippi ($11,881).

    If you enjoyed this post, be sure to check out this graphic, which shows what you need to earn to own a home in 50 American cities.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 07/02/2024 – 21:20

  • Jury Awards $687,000 To BlueCross BlueShield Scientist Fired For Refusing COVID-19 Vaccine
    Jury Awards $687,000 To BlueCross BlueShield Scientist Fired For Refusing COVID-19 Vaccine

    Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,

    A federal jury has awarded $687,000 to a research scientist who was fired from BlueCross BlueShield in Tennessee for refusing to comply with the company’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate.

    Tanja Benton, who had worked 16 years at the firm when she was fired, was awarded $177,240 in back pay, $10,000 in compensation, and $500,000 in punitive damages, according to a document made public by the federal court in eastern Tennessee on June 30.

    Company officials told Ms. Benton in August of 2021 that she would need to be “fully vaccinated” to keep her position, according to her lawsuit. Ms. Benton refused, saying aborted fetal cell lines were involved in the development of the COVID-19 vaccines and she could not “in good conscience consume the vaccine, which would not only defile her body but also anger and dishonor God.”

    BlueCross BlueShield said her position involved “regular external public-facing interactions” so she couldn’t keep it. Ms. Benton said her position became fully remote in 2020 but BlueCross BlueShield said it would have involved some in-person interaction with clients.

    Ms. Benton was told to pursue other positions within the company and applied for two. But she was fired on Nov. 4, 2021, and told five days later that, “Unfortunately, all positions require the vax now,” according to an email entered in the case.

    Her lawsuit charged that BlueCross BlueShield violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which says an employer may not “discharge any individual, or otherwise discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment” because of that person’s religion. Employers can disregard religious exemption requests if they can prove accommodating them would create undue hardship.

    BlueCross BlueShield “cannot prove that allowing Plaintiff to continue her employment as a Bio Statistical Research Scientist without being vaccinated for COVID-19 constitutes an undue hardship,” the suit stated. The company “also cannot show that it made any good-faith efforts to accommodate plaintiff’s sincerely held religious beliefs.”

    BlueCross BlueShield was also accused of violating the Tennessee Human Rights Act, which bars discrimination by employers at the state level.

    “We’re disappointed by the decision,” Dalya Qualls White, chief communications officer for BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee, told The Epoch Times in an email.

    “We believe our vaccine requirement was the best decision for our employees and members, and we believe our accommodation to the requirement complied with the law. We appreciate our former employees’ service to our members and communities throughout their time with our company.”

    A lawyer representing Ms. Benton did not respond to a request for comment.

    The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, presented with the case, cleared Ms. Benton to sue her former employer.

    Company lawyers had argued the firm would be unduly burdened by providing Ms. Benton an indefinite exception despite her role as a “public-facing employee.” The lawyers said she could not have continued working remotely indefinitely.

    The company also asserted that Ms. Benton did not hold a sincerely held religious belief and “denies that the COVID-19 vaccine was derived from aborted fetus cell lines, which is verifiably false,” according to the company’s filing.

    Johnson & Johnson used cells derived from an aborted fetus in the design, production, and testing of its COVID-19 vaccine. The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines also utilized the cells in early testing. The companies have said the final products do not contain aborted fetal cells.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 07/02/2024 – 21:00

  • US Airports Are Busier Than Ever This Year
    US Airports Are Busier Than Ever This Year

    As the summer holiday travel season is in full swing, U.S. airports are getting quite busy these days.

    In fact, as Statista’s Felix Richter reports, according to figures released by the Transport Security Administration (TSA), they’re busier than ever.

    Sunday, June 23 even broke the all-time record for most people screened at U.S. airports, with 2.99 million people passing through TSA safety checks. That’s only the tip of the iceberg, tough. According the TSA, 8 of the 10 busiest travel days ever at U.S. airports have occurred in the past month and more records are expected for the Independence Day travel period.

    “We expect this summer to be our busiest ever and summer travel usually peaks over the Independence Day holiday,” TSA administrator David Pekoske said in a statement.

    As Felix shows in the chart below, daily passenger throughput at U.S. airports has consistently exceeded pre-pandemic levels this year after roughly matching 2019 traffic in 2023. With an average of 2.73 million passengers per day passing through TSA checkpoints, June 2024 was the busiest month ever at U.S. airports and there are no signs of Americans’ appetite for air travel waning in July.

    Infographic: U.S. Airports Are Busier Than Ever This Year | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    Following an abysmal 2020, when airport throughput fell below one million passengers per day, flight traffic picked up noticeably in the second quarter of 2021, as the vaccine rollout proceeded rapidly.

    Passenger throughput started climbing steadily, with TSA safety checks exceeding two million in a single day for the first time in the Covid era on June 11, 2021. Throughout the busy summer season, the daily average hovered around the two million mark, trailing 2019 passenger numbers by roughly 500,000 a day on average. By the end of 2021, the gap had narrowed to 350,000-400,000 before gradually climbing closer to pre-pandemic levels throughout 2022.

    Prior to the pandemic, daily passenger volumes of 2+ million were the norm rather than the exception. At the onset of the pandemic, daily passenger throughput fell as low as 100,000 in April 2020, before slowly climbing back to its current level. In 2023, the TSA performed an average of 2.35 million safety checks per day, compared to 925,000 in 2020 and 2.32 million in 2019. Through June 29 of this year, average daily passenger traffic stands at 2.43 million for this year.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 07/02/2024 – 20:40

  • Biden Announces Five Actions To Address Extreme Weather In US
    Biden Announces Five Actions To Address Extreme Weather In US

    Authored by T J Muscaro via The Epoch Times,

    President Joe Biden spoke to the nation from the Emergency Operations Center in Washington, on July 2, and announced five new actions to “address extreme weather, including heat and other hazards.”

    “Extreme weather events don’t just affect people’s lives, they also cost money,” he said. “They hurt the economy, and they have a significant negative psychological effect on people.

    “Last year, the largest weather related disasters cost over—get this—$90 billion in damages in America.”

    Calling attention to the “nearly 2.5 million people” displaced in 2023 due to weather-related disasters, the president emphasized the threat extreme weather poses to transportation systems, power grids, farms, fisheries, and forests.

    Extreme Heat

    President Biden said the Department of Labor is proposing a new rule that, once finalized, will “establish the nation’s first-ever federal safety standard for excessive heat in the workplace.”

    He said it would reduce heat injuries, illnesses, and deaths for more than 36 million in the workforce, including workers in the construction, postal, and manufacturing sectors.

    The proposed rule would require employers to identify heat hazards, develop emergency response plans related to conditions affecting the head, and provide training to employees and supervisors on the signs and symptoms of heat-related illnesses. Employers would also be required to create rest breaks, provide shade and water, and allow new workers to acclimatize themselves to the heat.

    According to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), “serious occupational heat-related illnesses and injuries become more frequent, especially in workplaces where unacclimatized workers are performing strenuous work” when the heat index is as low as 80°F. According to the NWS heat index calculator, that heat index could be when the air temperature is as low as 78.6°F with 60 percent relative humidity.

    The Department of Health and Human Services and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention reported that approximately 2,302 heat-related deaths occurred in the United States in 2023.

    “Already, tens of millions of Americans are under heat warnings from record shattering temperatures,” President Biden said.

    “Last month here in DC, the temperature went to 100 degrees; In Phoenix, Arizona, 112 degrees; In Las Vegas, 111 degrees. Above normal temperatures also are expected for much of the country in July, especially in central and eastern United States.”

    He said his administration would convene the first ever “White House Summer on extreme heat” to bring together state, local, tribal, and territorial leaders, as well as international partners in an effort to protect communities and workers from extreme weather.

    New FEMA, EPA Actions

    Aside from the heat, the president called out other types of extreme weather, such as Hurricane Beryl, currently in the southern Caribbean, saying it was “the earliest time ever a dangerous category five hurricane has been recorded in American history.”

    He announced two new actions involving FEMA.

    Once finalized, a new rule will require FEMA to factor the effects of future flooding into every federally funded construction project.

    FEMA is also announcing nearly $1 billion in grants for more than 650 projects nationwide intended to help communities protect against natural disasters such as extreme heat, storms, and flooding.

    President Biden emphasized these grants would advance his “Justice 40 Initiative,” which aims to deliver 40 percent of overall benefits, such as clean transit, clean energy, and climate investments, to “the poor communities always left behind.”

    In addition, he announced that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) would be releasing a new report showing continued impacts of climate change on the environment and the health of the American people.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 07/02/2024 – 20:20

  • Apple's 'Sell-Through' Market Share Erodes, UBS says
    Apple’s ‘Sell-Through’ Market Share Erodes, UBS says

    The world’s most valuable company saw its smartphone market share in China shrink in May, even after “deep” discounting, according to UBS analysts citing Counterpoint Research. Apple is also struggling in the US market. 

    UBS analyst David Vogt wrote that Apple’s iPhone sales have lost market share despite heavy discounting in China. In May, iPhone “sell-through” declined by 2% year-over-year (YoY), marking the fifth consecutive monthly decline.

    The sell-through market share in China fell to 15.3% from 16.9% YoY.

    The sell-through market share in the US also fell. 

    Europe was unchanged. 

    “Importantly, heavy discounting by Apple in China tied to the “618” e-commerce festival was not enough to mitigate share loss in the region,” Vogt said. 

    He estimated that “iPhone sell-through in China was largely flat YoY during May-24 in a market that grew 11% YoY.”

    “While Apple bulls may note the data is backward-looking and is not likely indicative of Apple’s AI smartphone opportunity next year, we note that iPhone share loss to Huawei and other Chinese OEMs acts as a material governor on iPhone unit growth,” the analyst continued. 

    Vogt warned: “Given Huawei’s refreshed product line-up, this tailwind for Apple is unlikely going forward.” 

    What’s troubling for Apple is that iPhone market share across major markets is sliding, except for India.  

    Vogt noted that he had a Neutral rating and a $190 price target on Apple:

    Our Apple $190 price target is 27x our CY25/CY26e EPS reflecting a challenging growth backdrop, higher rates, and undefined AI strategy. At 27x, Apple would be trading at a 30% premium to the market, roughly in-line with the trailing 5 year average.

    In the markets, Apple shares soared to new highs of $220 per share, pushing its market cap to nearly $3.34 trillion, making it the most valuable company in the world, surpassing even Nvidia. Stock buybacks have played a significant role in driving equity prices to these new heights. 

    Meanwhile, Jefferies analysts said iPhone discounts have helped the company reverse its underperformance in the Chinese smartphone market. The bank, which raised its price target to $215 from $200, said that Apple recorded robust numbers during 618.

    Apple shares trade at a slight premium to the 12-month average price target of Wall Street analysts tracked by Bloomberg.

    Apple’s recent introduction of Apple Intelligence “will position the company as the leader in the consumer AI experience,” Oppenheimer analyst Martin Yang wrote in a note.

    However, Goldman’s chief equity strategist David Kostin warned in a note this week that AI companies face a brutal earnings day of reckoning in this upcoming earnings season.  

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 07/02/2024 – 20:00

  • Robert Reich's Blind Spots: The Elephant In The Progressive Left's Room
    Robert Reich’s Blind Spots: The Elephant In The Progressive Left’s Room

    Authored by Jonathan Newman via The Mises Institute,

    Robert Reich is on his fifth myth, but so far, he has just been recycling the same progressive talking points in each one. The overall message is that big corporations and the super wealthy wield too much political power and that they shape the law in their own favor, contributing to terrible economic inequality. For Reich, the U.S. economy is a zero-sum game and the people at the top have rigged it so they win and everybody else loses.

    His solution is strong labor unions, high taxes on the rich, a high minimum wage, more trust-busting, and government wealth redistribution. He sees the economy through the lens of political power, and so the only solutions he can think of are ones that exploit the power of government to channel more of the fixed pie of wealth to a different group of people. Of course, many of his policy proposals would not even do that but would instead backfire and have unintended consequences that outweigh and confound the intended consequences.

    Instead of going through all that, I just want to point out two blind spots.

    Reich, along with other progressives like Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, never address the root cause of what they correctly diagnose as excessive corporate power over politics. They also don’t see the elephant in the room: the Federal Reserve.

    As I mentioned in my response to his second myth, the only reason big businesses reach for state power is because they know that state power can help them. If the government were constrained in such a way that no economic benefit could be gained by some special interest, then businesses wouldn’t seek it. The fact that businesses put millions of dollars into political candidates’ campaigns and into lobbying is explained by the fact that there are billions of dollars to be gained by having a politician in your pocket and laws crafted in your favor.

    In Economic Policy: Thoughts for Today and Tomorrow, Ludwig von Mises explained what these “pressure groups” seek:

    A pressure group is a group of people who want to attain for themselves a special privilege at the expense of the rest of the nation. This privilege may consist in a tariff on competing imports, it may consist in a subsidy, it may consist in laws that prevent other people from competing with the members of the pressure group. At any rate, it gives to the members of the pressure group a special position.

    According to Mises, what gave rise to these special interest groups and their successes was interventionism. Interventionism is the idea that the government can and should control the market economy. It is the rejection of liberty and limited government.

    Even without special interests, interventionism spirals into ever larger governments. For example, one price control is implemented, and not only does it not accomplish the intended goal, but it also brings about many unintended consequences. The government, acting under the framework of interventionism, then seeks to regulate and control those side effects. Those measures similarly fail, and before long the government has committed itself to a host of interventions and all the bureaucratic mess required to enforce them.

    When interventionism is combined with pressure group politics, it inevitably leads to inflationism. Special interests vie for ever increasing government expenditures, but they also understand the unpopularity of taxation:

    This system leads also to a constant increase of public expenditures, on the one hand, and makes it more difficult, on the other, to levy taxes. These pressure group representatives want many special privileges for their pressure groups, but they do not want to burden their supporters with a too-heavy tax load. … 

    Pressure group politics explains why it is almost impossible for all governments to stop inflation. (Mises, Economic Policy: Thoughts for Today and Tomorrow)

    Enter the Federal Reserve. The government cannot fund all the special projects with taxes alone, but inflation is a subtle way to spread the costs around.

    The unevenness of the effects of monetary expansion (called “Cantillon effects”) explains why it is such a successful tool for a system based on interventionism and pressure group politics. Newly created dollars are spent on some special interest program, and this pulls resources away from where they would have been used in an undistorted market economy. The new money ripples out from its origin, from buyer to seller, causing prices to rise with each step. This process results in a permanent change in wealth and incomes, rewarding those closest to the money spigot.

    Thus, instead of getting a tax bill for all the things special interest groups acquire from the government, ordinary citizens just see higher prices at the grocery store, the gas pump, and everywhere else. As we have seen, it’s easy for politicians to blame “corporate greed” or supply-chain factors for these higher prices. Not only does the blame-shifting parry citizens’ anger, but it also lays a foundation for future government interventions to address those “problems.”

    The Fed, then, is a progressive blind spot for two reasons:

    (1) it enables the government to give big corporations what they want, and

    (2) it exacerbates the very economic inequality progressives claim they hate.

    If the progressive left really wanted to curtail corporate influence over politics, ending the Fed would starve the corporate lobbyists out.

    No corporation would spend millions of dollars lobbying for a subsidy or government contract that the government couldn’t afford. If you don’t like evil corporations eating at the government trough, then take away the trough.

    And if the progressive left really wanted to moderate income and wealth inequality, the answer is the same: end the Fed.

    The Cantillon effects of inflation may be summarized in progressive terms as “the rich get richer while the poor get poorer.”

    The fact that progressives turn a blind eye to the Fed reveals either economic ignorance or political deceit. Maybe they don’t understand the economic effects of inflation.

    If they do, then their whole program is an evil scheme to help themselves and their cronies get rich at the expense of the classes they purport to champion.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 07/02/2024 – 19:40

  • "Major Victory For American Energy": Judge Blocks Biden's Pause On LNG Export Licenses
    “Major Victory For American Energy”: Judge Blocks Biden’s Pause On LNG Export Licenses

    A federal court halted President Biden’s war on America’s energy independence by reversing a temporary moratorium on permitting new licenses for liquified natural gas (LNG) exports. This is a major blow to radical climate warriors in the White House ahead of the November presidential elections. 

    Late Monday, US District Judge James D. Cain Jr. in Louisiana ruled in favor of Louisiana and 15 other red states that had challenged the “temporary pause” on new LNG export licenses. Donald Trump appointed Judge Cain, who wrote that the pause “is completely without reason or logic and is perhaps the epiphany of ideocracy.” 

    The White House announced in January that the Energy Department would temporarily stop approving new LNG export licenses to assess the impact of shipments on global warming.  

    Patrick Morrisey, the attorney general of West Virginia, called Cain’s ruling “a big win for the country’s energy industry and the millions of jobs it supports.”

    Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill said the DoE’s halt on new licenses sparked a lot of uncertainty in her state, with tens of billions of dollars in infrastructure in question. She called yesterday’s decision “a major victory for American energy.”

    The ruling means DoE must restart its permit approval process soon. However, it’s unclear when this will happen.

    In a note in early February, Matt Egan and Brent Bennett of RealClear Wire wrote that the president’s politically motivated actions mainly targeted “Texas and Louisiana, red states that account for the bulk of US LNG exports.” Some have speculated that Biden’s action could have been a move to retaliate against red states that opposed open southern borders. 

    A separate report from the Washington Free Beacon said Biden’s Climate Czar, John Podesta, ultimately pushed the decision. 

    Here’s more from RealClear Wire’s Larry Behrens about Podesta’s LNG attack:

    As a well-known climate warrior, it makes sense Podesta would be pushing for policies against American energy interests. Yet at the same time, Podesta’s brother, Tony, one of DC’s most well-connected mega lobbyists, has financial connections to foreign LNG companies, including one with links to a Russian oligarch. It is concerning to see the Podesta family standing to profit from a policy priority of the White House who employs another Podesta. Foreign companies, including Russia, are clear beneficiaries Biden’s LNG attack. It should be raising questions about potential conflicts of interest and profit motives at the White House.

    Meanwhile, Angelo Fernández Hernández, a White House spokesman, told the Washington Post, “We are disappointed in today’s ruling. We remain committed to informing our decisions with the best available economic and environmental analysis, underpinned by sound science.”

    The move by radical climate warriors in the White House to dent America’s energy independence comes as US LNG exports have doubled over the last four years.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 07/02/2024 – 19:20

  • Scammers Are Impersonating Water, Electric, And Gas Companies; BBB Warns
    Scammers Are Impersonating Water, Electric, And Gas Companies; BBB Warns

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

    Scammers are impersonating utility company representatives to defraud people by threatening the deactivation of service, the nonprofit Better Business Bureau (BBB) is warning.

    Utility workers make repairs to electrical wires in Guerneville, Calif., on Jan. 9, 2023. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

    In utility scams, the criminals “may impersonate water, electric, and gas company representatives, threatening residents and business owners with deactivation of service if they don’t pay up immediately,” an alert issued on June 20 reads.

    Typically, the scammers create an environment of false urgency by claiming that customers need to make an overdue payment within the hour or risk having their essential utilities shut down. The frequency of scams increases during certain times of the year, however, according to the nonprofit.

    “Utility scams happen any time of year, but will typically pop up during extreme cold or heat events when many people are more likely to need their heat or air conditioning,” the BBB website states.

    In some instances, a fake representative may visit a home wearing a lookalike uniform and claim that the electric meter isn’t working properly and should immediately be replaced, according to the BBB’s alert.

    Scammers seek entry to homes to perform repairs or energy audits, but with the intent to steal valuables and siphon off “personally identifiable information that just happens to be out in plain sight,” according to the website.

    Offering energy discounts is another tactic.

    In certain cases, the criminals may attempt to access the homeowner’s electricity account information to switch the service to another utility provider without consent in an illegal practice called “slamming.”

    The BBB report detailed an incident in the report: “A lady claimed to be from [company name redacted] and told us our power would be shut off in 45 minutes and we were to call the billing department. [My] husband called the number and they asked for a credit card. He didn’t feel right about it and called [company name redacted] and they said it was a scam.”

    The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) advises people who have been defrauded in a utility scam to report the matter to the utility company, the state attorney general, and the agency via reportfraud.ftc.gov.

    Red Flags and Recovery

    If a person has already made payments to the scammer through a debit or credit card, they can contact the card-issuing company, notify it of the fraudulent charge, and request a payment reversal, according to the FTC.

    The same process can be repeated in the case of a bank transfer, wire transfer, or money transfer; contact the relevant firm and seek a reversal of the transaction.

    If the customer paid via cash, the individual must get in touch with the U.S. Postal Inspection Service at 877-876-2455 to have the package intercepted.

    Any payments made via cryptocurrency are irreversible, the FTC warns.

    “Once you pay with cryptocurrency, you can only get your money back if the person you paid sends it back. But contact the company you used to send the money and tell them it was a fraudulent transaction. Ask them to reverse the transaction, if possible.”

    Fraudsters can conduct the utility scam in person, via text, or through a call. The BBB warned that if a caller specifically asks someone to make payment via a prepaid debit card, gift card, wire transfer, or a digital wallet app, this is considered a “huge warning sign.” Legitimate utility firms typically accept a check or a credit card, it said.

    Another red flag is if the so-called utility representative puts pressure to make immediate payments, typically within the hour, and engages in intimidation tactics to gain personal and banking information.

    In March, Monica Martinez, executive director of Utilities United Against Scams, warned about a new scam trend targeting customers.

    “A more recent scam uses fraudulent websites that are identical to a utility payment page and that are promoted on search engines to trick customers into clicking the page and making a payment,” she said.

    In April, the FTC charged bill payment company Doxo for allegedly impersonating billers such as utility companies and misleading consumers, while collecting millions of dollars in junk fees.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 07/02/2024 – 19:00

  • Major Brands Push 'Upflation' Gimmick To Drive Up Sales 
    Major Brands Push ‘Upflation’ Gimmick To Drive Up Sales 

    US consumers have been well aware of the ‘shrinkflation’ phenomenon in recent years, but now there’s a new emerging trend: Some of the world’s largest packaged goods makers are getting very creative by rebranding existing products for expanding uses, then marked up substantially, and marketed in a way to trick consumers about some new blockbuster innovation. This is happening at a time when consumers are pulling back spending, and the goal of the new sales tactic is to drive more revenue with less. 

    Bloomberg’s Leslie Patton and Deena Shanker penned a note explaining how packaged goods giants are quickly adopting a new strategy after years of ‘shrinkflation’ – called ‘upflation’ – an attempt to create new applications with existing products. 

    What’s clear is that while the consumer in aggregate appears healthy, under the surface, low/mid-tier consumers are struggling and have entered an ultra-thrift phase. This means working poor consumers are pulling back on essential items that P&G, Unilever, and Edgewell sell. These companies have recorded declining sales volumes in recent quarters. 

    Source: Bloomberg

    In many cases, consumers are trading down products for more affordable private-label brands. Even more wealthy consumers are trading down high-end retailers for Walmart. Now, top brands are attempting to convince consumers to ditch private-label brands for their new innovative products. 

    Companies have pointed out that upflation is working, and these existing products with expanded use are performing much better than previous forecasts. 

    “P&G’s most recent earnings report highlighted an almost two-year trend where revenue growth came from people buying fewer things at higher prices. The consumer-goods giant did, however, post higher than expected sales in its grooming division, which it partly attributed to its total body shaving and intimate hair removal products. In an interview, the company said the total body deodorants are growing, too,” the journalists noted. 

    However, not everyone is convinced about upflation. 

    Maia James, who runs a product review site Gimme the Good Stuff, told Bloomberg, “Is this really something new or are they just marketing this as something different?”

    One example of upflation is grooming startup Manscaped, which describes its shavers like a toothbrush: “Everyone needs it, no one wants to share it.” 

    Another is all-over-body deodorants, who Aleta Simmons, a dermatologist in Nashville, said,  “I don’t think most people need them.” She added that anyone with severe body odor should seek a doctor. 

    With expanded use and new marketing, these all-over-body deodorants are sold for double the price by major brands. 

    Source: Bloomberg

    The emergence of upflation appears to be only a North American phenomenon at the moment. It comes as companies attempt to boost sliding sales.

    “I think a lot of people are craving simplicity,” said Kathryn Kellogg, who runs a lifestyle brand called Going Zero Waste. She said more consumers are shifting towards a low-consumption lifestyle. 

    And we wonder why…

    Andrea Wilkerson, vice president of P&G’s skin and personal care analytics and insights, said consumers are willing to pay for innovation. 

    The question remains whether upflation—or essentially just rebranding an existing item for new applications—is enough to spur consumer demand for top brands amid sliding sales. 

    A slew of companies have warned about a challenging macroeconomic backdrop, including General Mills Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Jeff Harmening last week, who said the current operating environment is becoming more complex.

    Godman told clients in recent weeks that it’s time to short the ‘middle-income consumer‘… 

    Earlier this year, “volume” cast a dark cloud over the annual Consumer Analyst Group of New York conference, where the major packaged food makers gathered to discuss industry trends. 

    According to General Mills CEO Harmening, ice cream isn’t just a dessert anymore—it’s a snack for between meals with Haagen-Dazs Bites. Food companies are also getting creative to take old products and excite consumers about new applications. 

    However, the outlook for upflation in the medium term remains uncertain, as consumers are grappling with elevated inflation, depleted personal savings, and insurmountable credit card debt. People will likely see through the upflation gimmick, opting instead to purchase cheaper private label brands and use them for multiple purposes.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 07/02/2024 – 18:40

  • Biden Admin Deliberately Flying Previously-Deported Illegal Aliens Back Into The US
    Biden Admin Deliberately Flying Previously-Deported Illegal Aliens Back Into The US

    Authored by Eric Lundrum via American Greatness,

    A new report claims that the Biden Administration has deliberately been flying illegal aliens into the United States after they had already been deported during the Trump Administration.

    According to the Washington Free Beacon, internal memos and interviews with staff at Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) suggest that the Biden Administration has been running a secret program to fly previously-deported Cameroonians back into the country, after their asylum claims were previously denied.

    The Cameroonian program was initiated in response to a report by Human Rights Watch in February of 2022, complaining about roughly 80 to 90 Cameroonians who had been deported between 2019 and 2021, when Donald Trump was President.

    Despite their asylum claims all being rejected as invalid, many of them have since been transported back into the country in an unprecedented effort to purposefully bring more illegals onto American soil.

    “Gutting deportations isn’t enough for the Biden administration, so now they’re apparently bringing back previously deported illegal aliens,” said Jon Feere, a former ICE official and director of investigations at the Center for Immigration Studies.

    “These are people who have already had their cases closed, one way or another, and they’ve been returned home.”

    The agency memos reveal that ICE officials have been working with nonprofit organizations to locate the deported Cameroonians so they can be brought back to the U.S. One example includes an email correspondence from Fatma Marouf, director of the Immigrant Rights Clinic at Texas A&M University, who informed ICE officials of the impending arrival of one such illegal, who flew into Dulles Airport in Virginia, near Washington D.C

    “These individuals were deported by the order of a court after they were afforded all due process rights,” said Tom Blank, former chief of staff for ICE.

    “For DHS to arbitrarily reverse court orders to satisfy complaints from an activist group makes a joke out of the entire legal immigration process. It looks like outside activist groups now run the DHS immigration process instead of the courts.”

    These revelations further prove the extent to which the Biden Administration is willing to go in order to completely reverse the immigration policies of the Trump Administration. From his first day in office, Biden rescinded numerous immigration policies that secured the border, including a halt to construction of the border wall and ending Title 42 and the “Remain in Mexico” policy. Biden pledged on the campaign trail in 2020 that he would open the border and give free, taxpayer-funded benefits to illegals, including health care, housing, and education. New concerns have arisen over illegals being registered to vote shortly after arriving, which will most likely lead to an increase in voter fraud in key swing states in the upcoming presidential election.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 07/02/2024 – 18:20

  • Post-Roe V. Wade: Where Americans Stand On Abortion
    Post-Roe V. Wade: Where Americans Stand On Abortion

    Last week saw the second anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, ending the constitutional right to abortion that had been established by the original ruling in 1973.

    Having always been a controversial topic, the reversal of Roe v. Wade has reignited and intensified the debate around abortion in the United States, as it shifted the battleground to the state level, highlighting stark contrasts in public opinion across different regions.

    As Statista’s Katharina Buchholz shows in the map below, the abortion access map has been dramatically redrawn since the landmark decision was announced on June 24, 2022, creating a patchwork of different rules across the United States.

    Infographic: State-by-State Abortion Laws in the U.S. | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    While many view abortion as a fundamental issue of women’s rights and bodily autonomy, others consider it moral issue concerning the sanctity of life.

    This clash of seemingly irreconcilable values has made abortion a contentious and polarizing issue for decades but even more so in today’s political landscape.

    Statista’s Felix Richter highlights this division in the chart below, based on a June 2024 survey conducted by YouGov on behalf of The Economist.

    Infographic: Post-Roe v. Wade: Where Americans Stand on Abortion | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    While 59 percent of respondents think that abortion should be legal, either with or without restrictions on gestational age, 31 percent of respondents think it should only be legal in special circumstances, for example when the life of the mother is in danger.

    Another 10 percent even oppose such exceptions, saying that abortions should never be allowed.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 07/02/2024 – 18:00

  • What In The World Happened In 1971?
    What In The World Happened In 1971?

    Authored by Mike Maharrey via Money Metals,

    A colleague recently discovered a website called “WTF Happened in 1971?”

    The entire main page is filled with charts and graphs. All of them show some kind of significant shift beginning in 1971. There are over 75 of them!

    Here are just a few examples:

    Here is some more data from graphs on the website:

    • African-American incomes virtually stopped catching up to white incomes in 1971.
    • Median male income has flatlined compared to real GDP per capita since 1971.
    • The number of 2-income families has surged since 1971.
    • Price inflation has surged since 1971.
    • A can of Campbell’s tomato soup has undergone significant shrinkflation since 1971. 
    • Housing prices have skyrocketed since 1971.

    What in the World Happened in 1971?

    Clearly, something significant happened in 1971 causing a tremendous economic shift. 

    What was it?

    President Richard Nixon severed the dollar’s last connection with the gold standard, making it a purely free-floating fiat currency.

    Nixon ordered Treasury Secretary John Connally to uncouple gold from its fixed $35 price and suspended the ability of foreign banks to directly exchange dollars for gold. During a national television address, Nixon promised the action would be temporary to “defend the dollar against the speculators.”

    Nixon’s order was the end of a path off the gold standard that started during President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration. June 5, 1933, marked the beginning of a slow death of the dollar when Congress enacted a joint resolution erasing the right of private creditors in the United States to demand payment in gold. The move was the culmination of other actions taken by Roosevelt that year, including his infamous “gold confiscation” order.

    While American citizens were legally prohibited from redeeming dollars for gold after Roosevelt’s policy changes, foreign governments maintained that privilege. In the 1960s, the Federal Reserve initiated an inflationary monetary policy to help monetize massive government spending for the Vietnam War and Pres. Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society.” With the dollar losing value due to these inflationary policies, foreign governments began to redeem dollars for gold.

    This is exactly how a gold standard is supposed to work. It puts limits on the amount the money supply can grow and constrains the government’s ability to spend. If the government “prints” too much money, other countries will begin to redeem the devaluing currency for gold. This is what was happening in the 1960s. As gold flowed out of the U.S. Treasury, concern grew that the country’s gold holdings could be completely depleted.

    Instead of insisting on fiscal and monetary discipline, Nixon simply severed the dollar from its last ties to gold, allowing the central bank to inflate the money supply without restraint.

    When he announced the closing of the gold window, Nixon said, “Let me lay to rest the bugaboo of what is called devaluation,” and promised, “Your dollar will be worth just as much as it is today.”

    This was clearly a lie. That’s what all the charts on WTF Happened in 1971 reveal. 

    According to the Consumer Price Index data released by the Bureau Labor of Statistics, the dollar has lost well over 80 percent of its value since Nixon’s fateful decision. Meanwhile, the dollar value of gold has gone from $35 an ounce to about $2,300.

    And it decimated the middle class, creating significant socio-economic shifts.

    You’ll only find one blurb of text on the WTF Happened in 1971 website. It’s a quote by economist F.A. Hayek.

    “I don’t believe we shall ever have a good money again before we take the thing out of the hands of government, that is, we can’t take it violently out of the hands of government, all we can do is by some sly roundabout way introduce something that they can’t stop.”

    Check out the work of the Sound Money Defense League to see what’s happening at the state level to do just that.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 07/02/2024 – 17:40

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Jul 02

Today’s News 2nd July 2024

  • Hungary's Orbán Announces New 'Patriots For Europe' Alliance With Austrian & Czech Nationalists
    Hungary’s Orbán Announces New ‘Patriots For Europe’ Alliance With Austrian & Czech Nationalists

    Authored by Dénes Albert via rmx.news,

    Austria’s Freedom Party (FPÖ), Czechia’s ANO, and Hungary’s Fidesz have formed a new right-wing coalition, the parties’ respective leaders announced at a joint press conference in Vienna on Sunday.

    Herbert Kickl (FPÖ), Andrej Babis (ANO) and Viktor Orbán (Fidesz) announce new right-wing coalition in Vienna. (Facebook)

    Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, former Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš, and Austrian opposition leader Herbert Kickl said the new alliance would hopefully entice others to join and become the largest nationalist political group in the European Parliament.

    “Today we are creating a political formation that will ‘forge ahead’ and very quickly become the strongest grouping and largest faction of the European right,” Orbán said.

    The Hungarian prime minister expects this to happen within days, and then the “sky will be the limit.”

    Orbán pointed out that the situation in Europe is clear, that European politics must change and change is needed in Europe.

    He underlined that in 20 of the 27 EU member states, parties that promised change to the citizens won the European Parliament elections.

    The Hungarian leader revealed the parties had adopted the Patriots’ manifesto, which summarizes the ideals and goals around which they are organizing their work.

    According to Orbán, the European economy is in crisis, its weight is diminishing and the threat of terrorism and migration is constant. He warned of the ongoing war in Europe’s backyard that the European liberal elite had not been able to prevent from breaking out or from stopping.

    “Today is a historic day, as we will present the group of three parties and their representatives, which aims to bring about a political change in Europe at the inaugural session of the European Parliament in Strasbourg on July 16. It will be an era of freedom, sovereignty, peace, prosperity, and values,” said Herbert Kickl.

    “We will not stand idly by and watch the emergence of a European superstate in which the parliaments of the member states degenerate into a kind of folklore, where sovereignty and the self-determination of individual states are empty phrases. We want a Europe that once again shows itself and develops with pride, values, traditions, and diversity,” said the FPÖ President. He added that “Europe does not want to be left to Macron, Von der Leyen or some left-wing experiment.”

    At the press conference, Andrej Babiš stressed that EU environmental policy should take more account of economic development in order not to jeopardize the competitiveness of the Community. Technically sound, economically viable, and socially just solutions must be found.

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 07/02/2024 – 02:00

  • The Long Sordid Career Of Creepy Joe Biden
    The Long Sordid Career Of Creepy Joe Biden

    Authored by Donald Jeffries via substack,

    I get complaints from people that I concentrate too much on Donald Trump. Basically, the message is, “But what about Biden?” I do write more about Trump, because he’s the face of the perceived opposition. The only Emmanuel Goldstein in town. I assume everyone reading me understands just who and what Joe Biden is.

    But people might not remember quite everything about Joe Biden’s lengthy career as a beloved resident of the Washington, D.C. swamp that Trump promised to drain. Biden was first elected as a U.S. Senator from Delaware in 1973. Even I was very young then. In 1981, the great “liberal” senator strongly supported the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, passed in the wake of CIA whistleblower Philip Agee’s disclosures about the Agency is his best-selling book Inside the Company. Biden declared that “I do not think anybody has any doubt about Mr. Agee. We should lock him away in my opinion.” The good senator really liked locking people up, it seems. As a strong supporter of the 1986 Anti-Drug Abuse Act, he took credit for a draconian provision that mandated a five year sentence for possessing small amounts of crack cocaine.

    Little did Biden know that, decades later his own troubled son Hunter would be caught with enough crack cocaine to garner a long prison sentence under the original 1986 Act, which was softened a bit in 2010. With every ounce of “liberal” ardor that he could muster, Biden bragged at the time, “If you have a piece of crack cocaine no bigger than this quarter that I’m holding in my hand, one quarter of one dollar, we passed a law — with leadership of Sen. Thurmond and myself and others — a law that says: you’re caught with that, you go to jail for five years. You get no probation, you get nothing, other than five years in jail. Judge doesn’t have a choice.” Senator Biden also authored the horrendous 1994 crime bill which featured “three strike you’re out” and mandatory sentencing, significantly increasing the prison population.

    A JFK assassination researcher attended a Joe Biden seminar in 2005. He was able to briefly question Biden about the assassination. As recounted on a discussion forum, this was the short conversation: “Senator Biden, do you believe JFK was killed as a result of a conspiracy?” Answer:  “No.” “So do you believe that Lee Harvey Oswald, alone and unaided, killed President Kennedy?” Answer:  “Yes.” This is hardly surprising, of course, but reflects Biden’s ironclad establishment mindset. In 2019, the American Prospect published a piece headlined, “Joe Biden’s Love Affair With the CIA.” Biden was very helpful to Reagan’s CIA Director William Casey, who praised him in a classified early 1980s memo to his intelligence staff. Biden would state, in a speech at Stanford, that the intelligence community had been compromised by leaks.

    So Joe Biden was never one of the Democratic Party politicians I admired back in my misguided youth. He wasn’t going to expose the abuses of the intelligence agencies, like a Frank Church. He wasn’t interested in any “sunshine” laws that would make it easier for the People to be informed about their government. His concern then about “leaks” would evolve into concern over whistleblowers like Edward Snowden and Julian Assange. In a January, 2023 tweet, Snowden would comment on Biden’s classified documents scandal, accusing the Department of Justice of suppressing the story until after the election, and declared, “Worth noting that the President seems to have absconded with more classified documents than many whistleblowers.” Biden is on the record as saying that Snowden should “face the consequences of his actions.”

    Following Julian Assange’s release from exile last week, some assumed that the Biden administration had been responsible for it, given Biden’s recent statements that he was “considering” dropping the charges against the Wikileaks founder. However, the White House would issue a statement maintaining that they had not played a role in Assange’s plea deal. A deal which, incidentally, made the disappearance of all those troubling DNC emails a prerequisite for his release. So if you’re tempted to think that perhaps, after over fifty years of serving the interests of the corrupt Deep State, Joe Biden finally did something good, you’d be wrong. Why spoil a perfect record? Even Barack Obama commuted Bradley/Chelsea Manning’s sentence.

    So we get to the Joe Biden we’ve come to know and love.

    Apparently beset with relatively early dementia, he has bumbled, mumbled, and stumbled his way through an embarrassing series of verbal and physical gaffes. He has also avoided being held accountable for some pretty blatant criminality. As far back as when Hunter and his late brother Beau were little boys, Daddy Joe had a disturbing habit of “crashing” into vacant mansions that were on the market. They literally sometimes entered through unlocked windows. As a long time realtor, I can tell you that it’s pretty simple to make a call and schedule an appointment to see a property, especially a vacant one. It is unknown why the then United States Senator engaged in such bizarre behavior, but it speaks to some kind of odd personality flaw.

    Hunter wasn’t the only Biden offspring to become addicted to the drugs the young senator wanted to crack down on (pun intended). Biden’s daughter Ashley wrote openly about the “inappropriate” showers her father took with her when she was a young girl in her journal. This triggered an unfortunate promiscuity in her, as well as an addiction to illegal drugs. We only know about this journal, because Ashley left it behind at a drug rehab center, and the woman who found it sold it to Truth Veritas. Being as we are living in America 2.0, and not some vaunted “democracy,” the woman was prosecuted and served thirty days in jail. Joe Biden remains unscathed by what should be a very serious scandal. It’s not like he bounced his daughter on his knee, like Donald Trump and every other father has.

    Left free to his own devices, Creepy Joe resumed his long history of inappropriately touching little girls, much of it documented on videotape. Our beloved president has a rarely known perverse kink for sniffing their hair. Again, this is all clearly shown on film. If only the Washington Generals were an actual opposition party, they might want to use those damning film clips in their campaign ads. I don’t know what kind of evidence existed against any pedophiles who were given long prison sentences, but how much more incriminating can you get than an adult grabbing the undeveloped chests of minor girls, while their facial expressions register their discomfort? Sure, there is supposedly the filmed rape of a ten year old girl by Hunter Biden on his laptop, but that’s been sent down the memory hole along with those DNC emails.

    Men have been prosecuted and given lengthy prison sentences for less clear evidence of child abuse than what can be seen freely online, in numerous past instances, from our current president. Either this is the heinous crime most of us think it is, or it’s no big deal. So release all the pedophiles. Unless you have video of them actually raping children. Like the alleged rape of a child on Hunter Biden’s laptop. Or the still never seen videos of our glorious troops raping Iraqi boys while their mothers scream. Seymour Hersh claims to have seen them. Some pedophiles are more equal than others. Just keep repeating, “grab ‘em by the pussy” and click your heels three times. Creepy Joe’s rather sensual kissing of his own granddaughter was also notable. Maybe he forgot it was his granddaughter. Or he was hoping to shower with her.

    Biden was caught, again, on videotape, boasting about getting a Ukrainian prosecutor fired. Who was looking into his son’s (and his) financial improprieties in that wonderful democracy presided over by a former actor, who has a legendary proficiency for penis piano playing. That’s pretty damning evidence. But no, it was Donald Trump instead, who was impeached because of a “perfect” telephone conversation to the very same crisis actor/comedian Volodymyr Zelenskyy. For asking the astute pianist to look into any possible corruption by the Bidens. I think there’s an obvious message there. But that’s what happens when you play for the Washington Generals. It’s a Harlem Globetrotters thing, you wouldn’t understand.

    I have written many articles over the years for the American Free Press, detailing Hunter Biden’s financial shenanigans in Ukraine. They are intermingled with the “Big Guy,” the same timeless statesman who has sniffed more girlish hair than any other political leader in the history of the formerly free world. Hunter Biden’s emails reveal that the “Big Guy”- his loving father- always got a cut of the booty, no matter what. Just like court historian hero William Sherman, who always got a cut of all the personal property his Union troops stole from southern civilians. As my new book American Memory Hole will show, this theft is a grand American tradition going back at least to the Mexican-American War. The Bidens obviously know their history.

    Joe Biden, when he has been comprehensible, has said some remarkable things during his terrifying presidency. How many times has he claimed that “White Supremacy” represents “the greatest danger to democracy?” Now, keep in mind this is the corrupt elite’s definition of democracy, not any form of government the ancient Greeks would recognize. That speech he made, with the bright red backdrop and sinister lighting, was perhaps the worst speech any U.S. president has ever made, when factoring in the background. All that was missing was the hammer and sickle, or a Lenin-style goatee on Creepy Joe’s chin. The Stupid Party objected a bit to that speech, in their weak, customary manner, but it should have offended every American. If only the sane remaining among us were allowed to be offended in America 2.0.

    On occasion, Creepy Joe’s attention is distracted from the hair and undeveloped chests of little girls, onto adult women. Dr. Jill was an adult (I think) after all, when she started babysitting the Biden children. Maybe he loved her shampoo. But then there was Tara Reade. Reade accused then Senator Biden of doing something remarkably similar to what E. Jean Carroll would accuse Donald Trump of. Only Tara could recall the year it happened, unlike Carroll. And she has never been videotaped writhing around on the floor like a lunatic, unlike Carroll. I seriously doubt she has a dog named Tits or paints her trees blue, like Carroll does. Reade was ridiculed by the same state controlled press and feminists who believed Carroll. A ridiculous jury awarded Carroll millions of dollars. Reade fled to Russia for her own safety.

    Hollywood and the kept media make fun of Trump’s sons. There are inferences about Eric being “special.” Riding the short bus. Those distasteful remarks are just fine, as long as they’re made against the “right” people. They are free to joke all they want about young Barron Trump, for instance, regarding whether he’s on the autistic spectrum. You know, the spectrum that didn’t exist until about thirty years ago. You’ll lose your medical license if you suggest there’s a connection there to all the massive increases in vaccines doled out to our children. But no comedian jokes about Ashley Biden’s numerous brushes with the law. Or the unmentioned Biden, Creepy Joe’s brother Frank, who has a crime record the sainted George Floyd would have envied. The “Big Guy” has a niece, Caroline, who also has had several run-ins with the law.

    Have you heard anyone, including Fox News, Breitbart, or other conservative outlets, talk about the Biden crime family? Remember poor Billy Carter? He was ridiculed and considered a real embarrassment to the still living former peanut farmer. He never wracked up all the DUIs that Frank Biden has. But Billy Beer was pretty putrid, for those of you old enough to remember it. Even young Amy Carter and young Chelsea Clinton had their looks cruelly mocked by comedians. No comedian is about to mock Hunter Biden, famously photographed asleep with a crack pipe in his mouth, let alone Ashley Biden. Can you imagine what the hysterical shrews on The View would say if Ivanka Trump had written about inappropriate showers with her father?

    Now, all Biden’s greatest crimes appear to have been committed before he developed dementia, Alzheimer’s, or whatever it is that he has. I doubt if Hunter or anyone else is even giving him his ten percent cut nowadays. Over the course of his presidency, Biden has been caught on film uttering inanities that often sound alien in nature. Maybe it’s the Reptile in him coming out. How many times have we seen him wandering off, like a misguided toddler. He did this recently at an international gathering, and despite the fact that the president of Italy was captured on film grabbing him by the arm, and leading him back to safety, Biden’s ridiculous DEI press secretary insisted that the video had been altered. His doddering was termed a “cheap fake,” or “deep fake,” depending on the source. Who can argue with that?

    Joe Biden, in fact, has been so absurd in his role as president that many suggest he is a cheap or deep fake. Some say the real Biden died a while back, and has been replaced by a clone or robot. Boy, you’d think they could make a more realistic and competent clone or robot than that. It makes one cringe to watch him try to express himself. He reminds me very much of the Peter Sellers character in the film Being There. Although Biden is not known to have been mentally challenged during his life, and nothing he’s said as president could ever be mistaken for profundity, as was the case with the Sellers’ character. He is also prone to making his key points in a menacing whisper. No, his stutter isn’t a lifelong thing, as his old filmed speeches demonstrate. It is unknown at what age he began inappropriately touching little girls.

    Biden has issued more racist comments than Donald Trump could ever dream up. He has stated that those Blacks who don’t vote for him are not really Black. He called inner city schools “jungles.” He compared poor students to White students. Senator Joe Biden helped put untold numbers of nonviolent Black crack cocaine addicts in prison. He simply makes up stories about his past, depending on his audience. He obviously didn’t go to a historically Black college, as he told a Black audience. He wasn’t practically raised in a synagogue, as he bragged to a Jewish audience. At least the “Corn Pop was a bad dude” story was funny. Fictional, but funny. Funnier than the millions of illegals he has opened the border to, flown around the country, and deposited in five star hotels. While our own homeless citizens crap in the streets.

    Joe Biden’s “performance” in the presidential debate the other night exposed the serious problems he has with his faculties at this point. He was filmed after the debate, struggling, with the help of someone on each side, to navigate one step down off the stage. Dr. Jill, who is essentially his handler, was recorded congratulating him for “answering all the questions,” in the manner a mother would praise a preschooler for using the potty by himself. It is unclear if Joe Biden is potty trained now. Rumors persist that he has publicly pooped his pants, with the latest incident being at a Normandy commemoration ceremony. Those with TDS insist that Trump has done this as well, and wears adult diapers. Maybe neither of them is potty trained. No one can say that the American people aren’t offered the best and the brightest choices.

    Exactly what record would Joe Biden run on? The billions given to Ukraine? Anyone who buys gas or shops at a grocery store knows that inflation is now worse than it has ever been in our lives. And yet Creepy Joe just cites phony statistics to claim otherwise. His administration is peopled with politically correct, sideshow circus freaks. While there is no known sword swallower, there was the bald, red dressed high ranking official who kept stealing women’s luggage at airports. And then there is our health czar Rachel Levine, who I suppose somehow “identifies” as a healthy person. The other day, the Queer Eye for the Straight Guy gender fluids visited the White House. Vice presidential cackler Kamala Harris actually answered the door. You know George Washington and Thomas Jefferson would be proud.

    I don’t know what they’re planning to do with Biden.

    The day after the debate, he sounded suspiciously more lucid. He’s done that before. Dementia doesn’t usually work that way. Maybe presidential dementia is different.

    Perhaps we’ll get Gruesome Newsom. Or Hillary could stage a Brett Favre-like comeback. The sensational rumors about Michelle Obama actually being Big Mike, would cover all the DEI bases. It would represent a national “Woke” orgasm. They could have the “big reveal” in the Rose Garden. Or they could just opt to install Biden again. It’s not like he could be much less capable of the job than he’s been since his initial selection. He’ll have all the fawning press coverage he needs. His absurd persona will be off-limits to the late night comedians. No one better epitomizes the America 2.0 version of “democracy.”

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 07/01/2024 – 23:40

  • Cruise Ship Stocks Slide As Powerful Hurricane Beryl Churns In Caribbean
    Cruise Ship Stocks Slide As Powerful Hurricane Beryl Churns In Caribbean

    Shares of Carnival Corp, Royal Caribbean, and Norwegian Cruise Line fell in New York on Monday after reports of a record-breaking hurricane sweeping through the Caribbean.

    Earlier, Hurricane Beryl made landfall on Carriacou Island, a Caribbean island part of Grenada. The powerful Category 4 storm was just seven mph below the threshold for becoming a Category 5 (157 mph) on the Saffir-Simpson scale. 

    “Residents in Grenada, the Grenadine Islands, and Carriacou Island should not leave their shelter as winds will rapidly increase within the eyewall of Beryl,” Brad Reinhart, a senior hurricane specialist at the National Hurricane Center, wrote in a note.

    Reinhart said, “Remain in place through the passage of these life-threatening conditions and do not venture out in the eye of the storm.”

    The Caribbean is heavily trafficked by cruise ships, resulting in traders selling Carnival Corp. (-5%), Royal Caribbean Cruises (-2.3%), and Norwegian Cruises (-6%). 

    According to Philip Klotzbach, a Colorado State University hurricane researcher, Beryl strengthened into a Category 3 hurricane Sunday morning. It became the first major hurricane east of the Lesser Antilles on record for June. The reason is due to the extremely warm water in the Atlantic Basin. 

    “Beryl is an extremely dangerous and rare hurricane for this time of year in this area,” hurricane specialist and storm surge expert Michael Lowry told CBS News. 

    Looking ahead, Beryl has set its crosshairs for the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica, Mexico, Belize, and Honduras. The storm could make landfall in Mexico or Belize on Friday. 

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 07/01/2024 – 23:20

  • Federal Government To Pause Student Loan Payments, Interest For 3 Million Borrowers
    Federal Government To Pause Student Loan Payments, Interest For 3 Million Borrowers

    Authored by Bill Pan via The Epoch Times,

    In response to court rulings blocking key elements of the federal government’s new student loan repayment program, the Biden administration will be giving about 3 million borrowers a reprieve from their monthly payments.

    The 3 million borrowers eligible for the pause are enrolled in the income-driven repayment program dubbed SAVE and have a monthly payment that is more than zero, according to the U.S. Department of Education. About 4.5 million SAVE enrollees who qualify for zero-dollar payments because of low incomes will not be included in the pause.

    The payment pause is similar to the COVID-19 student loan relief that lasted for 3 1/2 years, from March 2020 through September 2023, during which borrowers didn’t have to pay monthly bills and interest didn’t accrue.

    Borrowers who are eligible for the new pause will be informed directly in the coming days, a spokesperson for the Education Department told The Epoch Times.

    The announcement was made days after a federal judge in Kansas, siding with attorneys general of three Republican-led states, blocked the implementation of the final segment of the SAVE plan but declined to unwind the portions of it that are already in place.

    The blocked segment is a calculation formula update scheduled to take effect on July 1. It would have allowed borrowers with undergraduate loans to have their monthly payments capped at 5 percent of their discretionary income, down from the current 10 percent limit.

    Borrowers with undergraduate and graduate school loans would also have seen a reduction in repayments, with the amount depending on the proportion of their graduate and undergraduate loan debt.

    A separate ruling by a federal court in Missouri put SAVE’s debt discharge provisions on hold while litigation challenging the program moves forward. The SAVE plan offered debt cancellations for those who originally took out $12,000 or less in loans and have made at least 10 years of monthly payments.

    Both of the judges presiding over the twin cases agreed that the SAVE plan, which uses the Higher Education Act to forgive hundreds of billions of dollars in loan debt, goes beyond what the statute authorizes.

    In his opinion, Judge John Ross of the Eastern District of Missouri said Congress did not intend to make debt forgiveness under the law as economically far-reaching as President Biden’s program.

    “The court is not free to replace the language of the statute with unenacted legislative intent,” Judge Ross wrote.

    “Congress has made it clear under what circumstances loan forgiveness is permitted, and the [income-contingent repayment] plan is not one of those circumstances.”

    A Congressional Budget Office estimate said SAVE could cost $230 billion over the next decade, while researchers at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania placed the price tag at $475 billion over the same 10-year period.

    The pair of rulings prompted some Democrat lawmakers to urge the Education Department to place affected borrowers on forbearance, citing the confusion that could result from the injunctions.

    “This damning and harmful lawsuit will only throw struggling borrowers further into chaos, deny them the student debt cancellation they demand and deserve, and prevent them from purchasing homes, growing their families, and so much more,” Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) said in a statement.

    “The Biden Administration must continue to take immediate action to ensure borrowers receive the student debt cancellation they were promised.”

    The federal government has promised a continued push for student loan forgiveness.

    “President Biden, Vice President [Kamala] Harris, and Secretary [Miguel] Cardona remain committed to fixing a broken student loan system and making college more affordable for more Americans,” an Education Department spokesperson said in a statement to The Epoch Times.

    “They will not stop vigorously defending the SAVE Plan, the most affordable repayment plan in history, and will continue to fight for this long-overdue relief.”

    Some 414,000 borrowers have had their federal student loan debts erased under SAVE, according to the department.

    The injunctions will not affect any forgiveness that has already been granted.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 07/01/2024 – 23:00

  • Tennessee Law Allowing Death Penalty For Pedophiles Goes Into Effect – Only Democrats Oppose It
    Tennessee Law Allowing Death Penalty For Pedophiles Goes Into Effect – Only Democrats Oppose It

    Tennessee has joined states like Florida, Arizona, Idaho, Oklahoma and South Carolina in making the death penalty a possibility for criminals convicted of child sex abuse. 

    The law went into effect this week with Governor Bill Lee’s approval and with the approval of all Republican legislators. 

    Strangely, only Democrats and progressive activists have opposed the decision.

    Democrats have a number of arguments against the death penalty for pedophiles, including claims that seeking the punishment is “more expensive” than keeping prisoners locked up, and claims that victims would be “traumatized” by multiple appeals “drudging up memories of assault.” 

    However, as Republicans note, it doesn’t matter what it costs, the punishment should fit the crime.  And, there is no reason why child victims need to be dragged back into appeals court to relive their trauma unless new evidence directly concerning the victim comes to light.

    In other words, these excuses don’t hold water.  All 19 Tennessee legislators who opposed the law are Democrats.  The consistent leftist opposition to stricter prosecution and punishment for child sex abuse is concerning as it leads to questions over what is truly motivating their resolve.  Blue states like California have been pushing for less punishment for similar crimes; Democrat lawmakers thwarted multiple attempts last year to increase penalties for child sex trafficking.

    Leftist activists have consistently asserted that the death penalty as a punishment for pedophiles is a threat to the LGBT community and the Trans community in particular.  But why?  

    Perhaps they are worried about the growing trend of trans indoctrination taking place against children in American public schools, largely supported by Democrat groups?  Often referred to as “grooming”, trans propaganda invariably wanders into the realm of sexualization and even pedophilia.  One cannot discuss LGBT activism with children without also broaching topics of fetish and sex.  This form of indoctrination is tailor made for luring minors into abusive environments where they can be taken advantage of.  The lesser the penalty, the more emboldened such predators will be.    

    The solution is an easy one to figure out:  Stay away from the kids and everything will be alright.  Unfortunately, Democrats refuse to get the message. 

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 07/01/2024 – 22:40

  • China Stops Reporting Renewable Energy Utilization Data
    China Stops Reporting Renewable Energy Utilization Data

    By Tsvetana Paraskova of OilPrice.com

    China didn’t include figures on utilization rates at power plants by source in its May monthly data series, following the previous month’s data that showed utilization at renewable energy generators had dropped, Reuters reported on Monday, citing China’s latest data release.

    In the data series through April 2024, China had given a breakdown of utilization rates at thermal, hydro, nuclear, solar, and wind power plants.

    The last such data has found that the average operating hours of wind and solar power generators fell, while utilization rates at hydropower and thermal coal-fired power plants increased, according to the January-April data.

    Now the latest data for January to May doesn’t give separate utilization rates at plants by power source, Reuters notes, adding that the publisher of the data series, China’s energy administration, didn’t give any explanation about what has prompted the change in the way the country reports power plant operations.

    Before May, China had a limit on curtailment of renewable energy at 5%, referring to the curtailment issue when excess clean energy has to be curtailed to balance the grid between supply and demand.

    But at the end of May, the Chinese authorities raised that limit of curtailment of renewable energy to 10% from 5%, a change that was bound to further lower utilization rates at renewable power plants.

    Analysts expect the higher limit on curtailment to lead to more renewable energy installations, but solar and wind plants operating at lower utilization, according to Reuters.

    Earlier this year, Fitch Ratings said that while China is set to reach its 2030 wind and solar capacity target of 1.2 terawatts (TW) six years early, this could bring challenges to utilization and the grid’s ability to maintain stable power supply.

    “Grid construction takes time and power storage capacity as a percentage of renewable capacity remains low,” Fitch said in a report in February.

    “This means that thermal power will play an important role in stabilising the power system in the transition period.”

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 07/01/2024 – 22:20

  • Democrats Hint At Assassination In Response To Supreme Court Immunity Decision
    Democrats Hint At Assassination In Response To Supreme Court Immunity Decision

    Nobody likes to lose but leftists take indignant defeat to a whole new level.  Though they claim to “defend democracy” in their spare time, Democrats also have a tendency to abandon the democratic process when that process interferes with their intentions to remain in power.  

    Case in point: The Supreme Court’s recent decision to give immunity from prosecution to Donald Trump in the case of “some official acts” taken during his tenure in office.  Leftists have responded with outrage at the 6-3 decision with much of their political hopes resting on the strategy of burying Trump in as many legal battles as possible to keep him from running for president again.  Democrats are now flooding social media and the news feeds with suggestions that the SC decision makes it possible for Joe Biden as president to eliminate the conservative competition “as a part of his official duties.”

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    The tools for legally punishing presidents already exist, including impeachment and charges of treason.  And, keep in mind, if Trump does not have immunity for previous actions as president, then neither does any other president.  How many skeletons are in the closets of men like Bill Clinton, George W. Bush or Barack Obama?

    Beyond this, assassination of a political opponent or the conservative members of the Supreme Court is not recognized as an official duty of the presidency.  Democrats, as usual, take their conclusions to the dramatic extreme in order to provoke public fear through emotionally energized disinformation.  Leftists have been fantasizing publicly about murdering Trump for some time now.  However, these “theories” on how Biden could respond to the Supreme Court are not simple hypotheticals for the sake of argument, there is an element of desperation and bloodlust. 

      

    What they are really upset about is the fact that Trump is free and clear to finish his election race against a mentally deficient Joe Biden.  They’re also terrified that Trump might return the favor and seek revenge if he goes back to the Oval Office.

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    Three out of the four criminal cases brought against Trump last year will now become irrelevant, likely preventing a trial in the federal election subversion case before November.  The fourth case, the hush money trial which led to his conviction this year, is considered the weakest of the efforts because it sought to turn misdemeanor charges into felony charges using an obscure statute.  

    It should be noted that Presidents already have immunity from civil liability while in office and must be impeached for a violation before lawsuits can proceed.  The Supreme Court has simply extended that immunity to cover criminal prosecution.

    Regardless of how you might feel about Donald Trump it’s clear that Democrats have been engaging in a strategy of “lawfare” – The weaponization of the courts as a means to destroy a political opponent instead of facing him head-on in the election arena.  The majority of charges made against Trump have been farcical at best, with little to no evidence to support the commission of an actual crime. 

    The SC is likely responding to this lawfare by limiting it to criminal cases outside of presidential acts, of which there are none.  Otherwise, the chicanery on the part of Democrats would cripple the presidency for years to come and every party and president from now on would have to engage in the same lawfare in order to compete.   

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 07/01/2024 – 22:00

  • House Republicans Sue Garland For Tapes Of Hur Interview With Biden
    House Republicans Sue Garland For Tapes Of Hur Interview With Biden

    Authored by Jackson Richman via The Epoch Times,

    House Republicans filed a lawsuit on July 1 against Attorney General Merrick Garland, seeking to force the Department of Justice (DOJ) to release the audiotapes of special counsel Robert Hur’s interview with President Joe Biden in his classified documents probe.

    The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, also asks the court to require the DOJ to hand over the audio of Mr. Hur’s interview with President Biden’s ghostwriter, Mark Zwonitzer, who wrote two memoirs for him.

    The legal action came after the House Republicans last month voted to hold Mr. Garland in contempt for failing to comply with a subpoena for tapes of Mr. Hur’s interview with the president. The White House has asserted executive privilege.

    The Justice Department declined to prosecute the attorney general, citing the department’s “longstanding position” not to pursue criminal action against those who refuse to comply with subpoenas over which executive privilege has been claimed.

    House Republicans sought material relating to Mr. Hur’s investigation into the president’s handling of classified material after the special counsel declined to recommend charges against President Biden.

    Mr. Hur’s report, in reaching its conclusion not to go forward with charges, cited an assessment that President Biden would present to a jury as a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”

    The Justice Department has handed over transcripts and notes on the interview and argues that it is not necessary to provide the tapes. Doing so would deter future presidents from cooperating with similar investigations, the DOJ said.

    House Republicans have insisted that they need the tapes to verify the transcript’s accuracy and to confirm that Mr. Hur’s observation was justified.

    The Justice Department and Democrats pushed back, contending that Republicans wanted the tapes solely for partisan reasons.

    “The absence of a legitimate need for the audio recordings lays bare your likely goal—to chop them up, distort them, and use them for partisan political purposes,” Ed Siskel, President Biden’s counsel, wrote to House Oversight Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) and House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) in a May letter.

    In its 56-page suit, the GOP-led House Judiciary Committee contends that the Biden administration’s executive privilege claim is “frivolous.” The committee also argues that the president had waived privilege when it released a transcript of the interview to Congress.

    The Epoch Times has reached out to the Justice Department for Mr. Garland’s response to the lawsuit.

    Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) this past week said that she would force a vote on an obscure measure, known as an inherent contempt resolution, which would direct the House sergeant at arms to arrest Mr. Garland for failing to comply with the subpoena.

    The resolution is privileged, so the House will be forced to vote on it within two legislative days once she brings it to the floor. Ms. Luna had said she would bring it to the floor on June 28 but did not.

    The Epoch Times has reached out to Ms. Luna’s office to ask when she will put it on the floor and why she did not do so on June 28.

    According to Mr. Hur’s report, classified materials from 2009 about the war in Afghanistan were found at a Virginia home that President Biden rented and where he met with Mr. Zwonitzer to work on the two books.

    The classified documents were eventually sent to Delaware.

    The Epoch Times has reached out to Mr. Zwonitzer’s attorney, Louis Freeman, for comment.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 07/01/2024 – 21:40

  • These Were The Best And Worst Performing Assets Of June, Q2 And The First Half
    These Were The Best And Worst Performing Assets Of June, Q2 And The First Half

    Today was the start of the second half of the year, and Deutsche Bank’s thematic research team published its usual monthly performance review with this one covering June, Q2, and H1. We will go present the full version below, but first let’s take a look at some brief highlights (all USD) and additional comments:

    • It may surprise some that silver led the way (+22.5%) in the first half, with other metals like gold (+12.8%) and copper (+12.9%) also high up the list. WTI oil (+13.8%) ensured that hard commodities packed out the top end of the sample in H1.

    • The NASDAQ (+18.6% total return) and S&P 500 (+15.3%) had very good H1s powered by a +37.0% advance for the Mag-7 and a stunning +149.5% return for Nvidia. But the small-cap Russell 2000 only returned +1.7% in H1, and was down -3.3% in Q2.

    • French assets slumped in Q2 following the snap election announcement. For instance, the Franco-German 10yr spread widened by +29bps over Q2, the biggest quarterly jump since Q4 2011 during the sovereign debt crisis. OATs were the worst performer in H1 in this sample (-6.8% in USD terms). French spreads have tightened a handful of basis points this morning though, as the chance of an overall majority for Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National have been reduced (according to markets) by a slight under-performance vs. polls, and news that other candidates may drop out in areas where they can help keep the RN out. The slight under-performance for the RN might be skewed by record turnout in urban areas which are traditionally liberal bastions. Additionally, the probability of an RN government has slightly increased after yesterday which is contrary to the current market narrative.

    • As an interesting snippet on global inflation, agricultural commodities are continuing to fall back. Corn (-10.1%) was down for a 6th consecutive quarter in Q2, alongside declines for soybeans (-3.4%) and wheat (-1.2%). So potentially some relief on food prices ahead after a big increase over recent years.

    • The weakness in the Japanese Yen showed no sign of letting up, and it’s now been the worst-performing G10 currency in both Q1 and Q2.

    With the summary out of the way, here is a more extended look into the best and worst performing assets of the month, quarter and half.

    Quarter in Review – The high-level macro overview

    Markets got Q2 off to a pretty weak start. In April, there was growing concern about inflation, particularly after the US CPI report showed that core CPI was still running at +0.4% in March. That marked a third consecutive month when core CPI had been at +0.4%, raising fears that inflation was proving persistent. Moreover, geopolitical tensions were also heightened in the Middle East, and Iran launched a drone and missile attack on Israel on April 13, marking the first time there’d been a direct attack on Israel from Iran. Reports about a potential attack had already led to a selloff beforehand and on April 12, Brent crude oil prices peaked at their highs for the year above $92/bbl intraday. But as tensions eased and a further escalation didn’t occur, oil prices fell back again.

    In May, markets put in a stronger performance, and the S&P 500 and the STOXX 600 both climbed to new records. That was supported by comments from Fed Chair Powell, who said that “I think it’s unlikely that the next policy rate move will be a hike.” So that eased concerns that monetary policy could be tightened further. US inflation also showed signs of easing, with core CPI slowing to +0.3% in the April data that was released in May. Alongside that, the geopolitical situation became calmer, and Brent crude oil prices fell back in May, after gains in the first four months of the year.

    By June, rate cuts were increasingly in focus, and the ECB delivered their first rate cut since the pandemic, lowering their deposit rate by 25bps to 3.75%. The Bank of Canada also delivered their first rate cut of this cycle, meaning that 4 of the central banks with a G10 currency have now cut rates this year. Meanwhile in the US, the Fed didn’t cut rates in Q2, but the CPI release for May that was released in June showed the slowest monthly core CPI since August 2021. That helped to cement expectations that rate cuts were still on the horizon from the Federal Reserve, and at the June FOMC meeting, the median dot still pointed to one rate cut by the end of the year.

    But despite the growing move towards rate cuts, sovereign bonds still struggled over Q2 as a whole, in part because investors were pricing in a more gradual cycle of rate cuts. For instance, at the end of Q1, 67bps of cuts were priced in by the Fed’s December meeting. But that was down to 44bps by the end of Q2. So sovereign bonds struggled to get much momentum, and the 10yr Treasury yield was up +20bps over the quarter to 4.40%.

    Political developments were also back in focus from June, as the European Parliamentary elections took place at the start of the month. Significantly for markets, that then saw French President Macron announce that there would be a snap legislative election, with the first round taking place on June 30. That led to a notable selloff among French assets, and the Franco-German 10yr spread widened by +29bps in the week after the election announcement. That was the biggest weekly widening in the spread since the sovereign debt crisis in 2011. Moreover, the CAC 40 saw its worst weekly performance since March 2022. Over Q2 as a whole, the CAC 40 (-6.6%) saw its worst quarterly performance in two years, and the Franco-German 10yr spread widened by +29bps to 80bps. That is the biggest quarterly widening in the Franco-German 10yr spread since Q4 2011, when the Euro sovereign crisis was still ongoing.

    Another theme of the quarter was the ongoing divergence between megacap stocks and the rest. For example, the Magnificent 7 was up by another +16.9% in Q2, which helped the S&P 500 to post a third consecutive quarterly gain of +4.3%. But there was weakness elsewhere, as the equal-weighted S&P 500 fell by -2.6%, and the small-cap Russell 2000 was down -3.3%. Meanwhile in Europe, the STOXX 600 was only up +1.6%, and in Japan, the Nikkei was also down -1.9%, after a very strong +21.6% gain in Q1.

    Which assets saw the biggest gains in Q2?

    • The Magnificent 7 : It was a very strong quarter for the Magnificent 7, which rose +16.9% in total return terms. Nvidia (+36.7%) advanced for a 7th consecutive quarter.

    • Metals : It was generally a positive quarter for metals, with silver (+16.7%), platinum (+9.3%) and copper (+9.6%) all having their best performance in 6 quarters. Gold was also up +4.3% in its third consecutive quarterly gain.

    Which assets saw the biggest losses in Q2?

    • French assets : The announcement of a snap election by Emmanuel Macron led to a selloff for French assets. For example, the CAC 40 fell -6.6% in total return terms, while French OATs fell -2.6%.

    • European sovereign bonds : Even though the ECB cut rates in June, investors moved to price in a more gradual pace of rate cuts over the months ahead, and sovereign bonds lost ground, including German bunds (-0.7%) and Italian BTPs (-1.5%).

    • Japanese Yen : The Japanese Yen was the worst-performing G10 currency in Q2, which was the second consecutive quarter that’s happened. It weakened by -5.9% to 161 per US Dollar.

    • Agricultural Commodities : The prices of several agricultural commodities continued to decline in Q2. That included corn (-10.1%), which fell for a 6th consecutive quarter, along with soybeans (-3.4%) and wheat (-1.2%).

    Finally hereare the best and worst performing assets in local currency and USD terms, in June…

    … in Q2…

    … and in the first half.

    Source: DB, full note available to professional subscribers.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 07/01/2024 – 21:20

  • Even Nigeria Plans To Bring Gold Reserves Home To Minimize Risk
    Even Nigeria Plans To Bring Gold Reserves Home To Minimize Risk

    Authored by Mike Maharrey via Money Metals Exchange,

    Nigeria is bringing its gold reserves home to keep it safe.

    According to a report by The Star, Nigerian officials decided to repatriate the country’s gold in April “to mitigate risks associated with the weakening U.S. economy.”

    “Economic indicators such as rising inflation, escalating debt levels, and geopolitical tensions have raised apprehensions among Nigerian policymakers about the stability of the U.S. financial system.”

    Nigeria holds about 21 tons of gold in its reserves.

    Economist Fatima Abubakar called the gold repatriation plan “a strategic decision,” and that the country was taking “proactive measures to safeguard its wealth and strengthen its financial resilience.”

    Nigerian officials also said bringing gold home would reflect the country’s self-reliance.

    “By bringing its gold reserves back within its borders, Nigeria not only asserts greater control over its financial assets but also demonstrates prudence in managing economic risks amidst global uncertainties.”

    Nigeria isn’t alone in wanting to control its gold reserves and bring them home. India recently repatriated 100 tons of gold from vaults in the U.K.

    Many countries have expressed concern about the U.S. and Western powers using gold and dollar reserves as a foreign policy weapon.

    According to a World Gold Council survey in 2023, a “substantial share” of central banks expressed concern about potential sanctions after the U.S. and other Western countries froze almost half of Russia’s $650 billion gold and forex reserves in the wake of its invasion of Ukraine. According to the WGC, 68 percent of the banks surveyed said they plan to keep their gold reserves within their country’s borders. That was up from 50 percent in 2020.

    One anonymously quoted central bank official told Reuters, “We did have it [gold] held in London… but now we’ve transferred it back to our country to hold as a safe haven asset and to keep it safe.”

    Invesco head of official institutions Rod Ringrow told Reuters this reflects a widely held view.

    “‘If it’s my gold then I want it in my country,’ has been the mantra we have seen in the last year or so.”

    There has been speculation that countries have been moving gold and other assets out of the U.S. in the wake of economic sanctions on Russia, but it has been difficult to confirm because the Federal Reserve refuses to release information about the amount of gold in its vaults.

    In March, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell dodged Rep. Alex Mooney’s (R-W.Va) questions about the central bank’s foreign gold holdings. Fed officials also refused to comply with a Freedom of Information Act request for records about such holdings.

    As investigative reporter Ken Silva wrote, Headline USA filed a FOIA request with the Fed for records reflecting how much gold the Federal Reserve Bank of New York currently holds in its vault, as well as records reflecting the ownership stake that each of FRBNY’s central bank/government clients have in that gold following Powell’s evasive response. The FOIA request also sought records about the Fed’s gold holdings prior to Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

    The Fed denied the request.

    The gold repatriation trend started long before the West slapped sanctions on Russia. In 2019, Poland brought home 100 tons of gold. Hungary and Romania also repatriated some of their gold reserves around that same time. In the summer of 2017, Germany completed a project returning roughly half of its gold reserves back inside its borders. In 2015, Australia launched efforts to bring half of its reserves home. The Netherlands and Belgium have also initiated repatriation programs.

    This gold repatriation trend underscores the importance of holding physical gold free from counterparty risk.

    If you store your gold and silver with a third party, you could lose your metal through theft, fraud, or an act of God. Of course, you could lose silver and gold stored in your home the same way (except for fraud), so you have to weigh the risk of using third-party storage and keeping large amounts of silver and gold at home.

    If you opt for third-party vaulting, it is important to choose a trusted company.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 07/01/2024 – 21:00

  • These Are The Countries Sending The Most Remittances Abroad
    These Are The Countries Sending The Most Remittances Abroad

    Visual Capitalist’s Pallavi Rao charts the top 10 countries by the most remittances sent, in current U.S. dollars, based on 2022 data from Knomad.

    Specifically, these transfer totals shown represent personal remittances, or money sent between residents in one country to another, including personal transfers and compensation for work done abroad. It does not include, and is separate from, foreign investment.

    Top 10 Countries by Personal Remittances Sent (2000-2022)

    The U.S. has consistently been home to the world’s largest immigrant population (45 million people in 2022), a key reason for topping the ranks of sending money abroad over the last two decades.

    As a result, countries with largest diasporas in the U.S. – including Indian, the Philippines, and Mexico – tend to be the biggest recipients of these flows.

    Note: Figures rounded.

    Similarly, immigrants make up nearly 80% of the population in the UAE (ranked #2 with $80 billion sent), the highest proportion of any country in the world.

    Setting the countries sending the most money abroad side-by-side with those receiving money from abroad, reveals broad geographic patterns. Advanced economies (in North America and Europe) are the biggest senders to developing economies in Asia and Africa.

    Finally, Switzerland, Netherlands, and Luxembourg are considered offshore financial centers and can be used as intermediary stops in the movement of money through the world.

    Why are personal remittances important anyway? To start, a staggering one billion people (roughly one out of eight people in the world) depend on money sent back home. In 2022, 200 million migrant workers sent $800 billion to their families in home countries. Three-quarters of the money received is spent on basic necessities like food, medical, and housing expenses.

    Thus, personal remittances represent, perhaps, one of the biggest informal engines of social transformation.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 07/01/2024 – 20:40

  • US Energy Production Chalks Up Another Record
    US Energy Production Chalks Up Another Record

    Authored by Alex Kimani via OilPrice.com,

    • EIA: U.S. Energy production rose 4% to nearly 103 quadrillion British thermal units (quads) in 2023.

    • Dry natural gas production increased 4% in 2023 and 58% since 2013 while crude oil production has grown 9% since 2022 and 69% since 2013.

    • On the flip side, U.S. energy consumption fell 1% largely driven by a 17% decline in coal consumption.

    For decades, the United States has been a net consumer of energy, using up more energy than it produces. However, a sharp increase in oil and gas production following the shale boom as well as the ongoing renewable energy revolution has helped change the energy trajectory over the past 15 years. And now the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) has reported that U.S. energy production exceeded consumption by record amounts in 2023. 

    According to the EIA, U.S. Energy production rose 4% to nearly 103 quadrillion British thermal units (quads) in 2023, a record for the country. On the other hand, energy consumption fell 1% to 94 quads during the same period, implying production exceeded consumption by 9 quads, the widest margin since 1949.  

    Dry natural gas production increased 4% in 2023 and 58% since 2013 while crude oil production has grown 9% since 2022 and 69% since 2013. Meanwhile, renewable energy production rose 1% compared to the previous year and a 28% increase since 2013, hitting eight quads of energy. Solar energy production recorded an impressive 15% Y/Y growth in 2023 while wind production fell 2%.

    On the flip side, U.S. energy consumption fell 1% largely driven by a 17% decline in coal consumption. Coal demand has been on a tailspin for years to its lowest level in more than a century thanks in large part to its shrinking role in electricity generation due to a high carbon footprint.

    “Natural gas production has continued to increase despite lower prices because natural gas is produced as a byproduct of crude oil production. That’s especially true in the Permian Basin, which accounts for almost half of U.S. crude oil production,” said Chris Higginbotham, an EIA spokesperson.

    Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration

    Oil Price Rally Resumes

    The oil price rally that had reversed course in recent weeks on demand concerns is now back on track. Brent crude price has increased to $86.60 per barrel at today’s close from $77.52 on June 4 while WTI has increased from $73.25 per barrel to $83.41 with oil demand exceeding expectations.

    According to commodity analysts at Standard Chartered, global oil demand in April averaged 101.77 million barrels per day (mb/d), 470 thousand barrels per day (kb/d) higher than earlier forecasts. StanChart has reiterated its forecast that oil demand will hit an all-time high in June, with May demand projection revised 0.2 mb/d higher to 103.3 mb/d while the June projection has been revised 0.3 mb/d higher to 104.1 mb/d. 

    Meanwhile, the big natural gas rally that kicked off in late April has now taken a breather. 

    European natural gas futures have been trading in a narrow range around €35 per megawatt-hour as traders weigh ample storage levels against supply concerns. The long run of sub-par EU gas inventory builds continues, with inventories having lost ground relative to the five-year average on 57 of the past 62 days. According to the latest Gas Infrastructure Europe (GIE) data, inventories stood at 85.25 billion cubic meters (bcm) on 16 June, a y/y decrease of 0.06 bcm and 12.93 bcm above the five-year average. The w/w build was 1.75 bcm, which is 1 bcm less than the five-year average. The move away from extreme surplus has combined with concerns over the viability of the remaining Russian flows into the EU to help support front-month Dutch Title Transfer Facility (TTF) prices. Europe’s gas prices have settled in the EUR 33-36 per megawatt hour (MWh) range on 19 of the past 20 trading days. 

     U.S. natural gas futures fell below $2.61/MMBtu in Friday’s intraday session after the EIA’s storage build report. According to the report,  U.S. utilities injected 52 billion cubic feet of natural gas into storage last week, slightly below the expected 53 bcf build. U.S. gas inventories are now 20.6% above the seasonal norm. Natural gas prices are headed for a third consecutive week of declines due to increased output, as higher prices in recent weeks encouraged producers like EQT Corp. (NYSE:EQT) and Chesapeake Energy (NASDAQ:CHK) to resume drilling. Gas output in the Lower 48 states averaged 98.6 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) in June, up from a 25-month low of 98.1 bcfd in May. On the demand side, hotter-than-normal weather is projected through at least July 12, maintaining high gas consumption for cooling purposes.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 07/01/2024 – 20:20

  • "The American People Should Dissent, I Dissent" – President Biden Blasts Supreme Court's "Dangerous Precedent"
    “The American People Should Dissent, I Dissent” – President Biden Blasts Supreme Court’s “Dangerous Precedent”

    Update (2000ET): Despite the Supreme Court’s direct ruling that “the President is not above the law”, President Biden delivered lying remarks to the American people this evening about the “terrible disservice to the people of this nation” that SCOTUS delivered today.

    President Biden directly attacked SCOTUS (and the ‘far-right’ justices that Trump appointed) for “gutting voting rights and civil rights, taking away a woman’s right to choose, and today’s decision that undermines the rule of law of this nation.”

    Then he lied some more, telling Americans that “my predecessor sent a violent mob to the US Capitol to stop the peaceful transfer of power…”

    Biden quoted directly from Justice Sotomayor’s dissent (which was remarkably political and perfectly bite-sized for today’s social media-consuming listener) where she said, “…with fear for our democracy, I dissent”, to which Biden added “so should the American people dissent, I dissent.”

    As Mollie further noted on X:

    “Biden was only able to speak for 3-4 minutes and refused questions from even his most reliably allies in the press, as per usual. He is apparently unwilling or unable to speak without the teleprompter.”

    This is what the leader of the free world has been reduced to…

    We strongly suggest putting down all sharp objects and emptying your mouth of food before watching…

    * * *

    The Supreme Court on Monday ruled in a 6-3 vote that former presidents, including Trump, enjoy immunity from criminal prosecution for conduct involving official acts during tenure in office, but he’s not immune from unofficial acts.

    As Bloomberg notes, the decision – which kicks the ball back to the lower court –  ‘all but ensures’ that a trial won’t happen in Trump’s classified documents case before the November election.

    The justices, voting 6-3 along ideological lines, said a federal appeals court was too categorical in rejecting Trump’s immunity arguments, ruling for the first time that former presidents are shielded from prosecution for some official acts taken while in office. The majority ordered the lower courts to revisit the case to decide the extent of the allegations that are off limits to prosecution.

    “Just as former presidents have immunity from civil liability for official acts, they have immunity from criminal prosecution unless they are impeached and removed from office for the crime alleged. This decision is supported by the writings of the framers of the Constitution, the text of the Constitution and Supreme Court precedent,” wrote X user Martin Harry.

    As constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley notes, now “the issue is whether what constitutes official acts,” adding that the ruling will “further delay the lower court proceedings, but Trump will have to argue that his actions fall within these navigational beacons.”

    “The lower court judge has been highly favorable for Jack Smith in the past.  Yet the court is arguing that there is a presumption of immunity for their official acts beyond the absolute immunity on core constitutional powers.”

    Meanwhile, Justice Thomas called into question the legality of Smith’s office:

    In a blistering dissent, Justice Sotomayor writes that the ruling “makes a mockery of the principle, foundational to our constitution and system of government, that no man is above the law.”

    “Relying on little more than its own misguided wisdom… the court gives former President trump all the immunity he asked for and more.“

    Special counsel Jack Smith is leading two federal probes against Trump, both of which led to criminal charges. In Washington, Trump has been targeted over alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election, while a Florida case revolves around the mishandling of classified documents – for which Trump has claimed presidential immunity.

    In response to the ruling, Trump said on Truth Social that it was a “”BIG WIN FOR OUR CONSTITUTION AND DEMOCRACY.”

     

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 07/01/2024 – 20:20

  • DNC Weighs Early Nomination For Biden To Quash Internal Party Dissent
    DNC Weighs Early Nomination For Biden To Quash Internal Party Dissent

    Update (1615ET): Democrat strategists are throwing many things against walls and hoping some stick as the gaslighting continues.

    Bloomberg reports that the Democratic National Committee is considering formally nominating Joe Biden as early as mid-July to ensure that the president is on November ballots, while helping to stamp out intra-party chatter of replacing him after last week’s poor debate performance.

    Democrats had already planned to nominate Biden, 81, before the convention in order to ensure he appears on the ballot in Ohio, which had an Aug. 7 deadline for candidates to be certified.

    A potential date for Biden’s nomination is July 21, when the Democratic convention’s credentials committee meets virtually, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity.

    The panel is meeting to finalize procedures before the party’s convention in Chicago starts on Aug. 19.

    Interestingly, former President Trump’s sentencing hearing is set for July 11th, so he may well be in prison by then given the amount of pressure we assume is being placed on Judge Merchan’s shoulders to “lock him up”.

    Additionally, July 21 is just three days after Trump is scheduled to accept his party’s nomination at the Republican convention in Milwaukee.

    The desperate attempted message from all this narrative-shaping is simple – …nothing to see here, move along.

    Except we all saw the fireworks factory exploding with our own eyes.

    *  *  *

    At a Camp David gathering on Sunday, President Biden’s extended family urged him to ignore the growing number of voices asking him to quit the race — and many of his loved ones blamed his disastrous debate on his advisors. According to Politico, the two who most forcefully encouraged the 81-year-old Biden to continue were his wife Jill and his son Hunter — the two people whose opinion he reportedly values most.

    En route to Camp David from the Hamptons, Joe and Jill Biden exit Marine One on Saturday with granddaughters Natalie (19) and Finnegan (23)  

    The reports will strengthen a growing sense that Jill Biden is putting her own interests above that of her humiliated and failing husband. As one Democratic advisor told the New York Post over the weekend, “Jill Biden likes being First Lady…she doesn’t want to give that up.”

    Meanwhile, Hunter, who doesn’t exactly have strong reputation for sound judgment, is said to long for Americans to see a version of his father that — as paraphrased by the Times — is “scrappy and in command of the facts.” Much as he once was in denial about his drug problem, Hunter now seems incapable of admitting that that version of his father is gone forever: 

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    Biden family members are said to have blamed the debate debacle on three advisors: Anita Dunn, her husband Bob Bauer — who played the role of Trump in practice sessions — and Biden’s former chief of staff Ron Klain, who was in charge of the debate training. Aides to Biden denied these reports from multiple outlets. 

    With Biden having spent a full week at Camp David gearing up for the debate, his family members and others are claiming the team worked the 81-year-old too hard, and tried to pack him full of too many statistics. They even fault advisors for a debate-night makeup job that transformed his summer-tanned face to one that was pale and unhealthy-looking. Relatives also blamed debate-host CNN for not “fact-checking” Donald Trump and not telling Biden which camera would be on him as he blankly stared a thousand miles into space with his mouth agape.   

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    John Morgan, a top donor and friend of Biden’s brother Frank, was not at the family meeting, but joined the delusional pile-up on Biden’s advisers, telling the Times that the week-long debate prep — which involved rehearsals at various times of the day — was excessive:

    “It would be like if you took a prizefighter who was going to have a title fight and put him in a sauna for 15 hours then said, ‘Go fight.’ I believe that the debate is solely on Ron Klain, Bob Bauer and Anita Dunn.”

    Unlike his family, the president is said to still hold confidence in the trio. Klain assured the Times that Biden will see the race through, saying, “He is the choice of the Democratic voters…We had a bad debate night. But you win campaigns by fighting — not quitting — in the face of adversity.” 

    Husband-and-wife Biden adviser team Anita Dunn and Bob Bauer (via ABC News)

    Of course, Biden is “the choice of Democratic voters” largely because the Democratic National Committee made sure he was the only choice available. A post-debate CBS News poll found that just 54% of registered Democrats think Biden should be in the race. The poll found 41% of Democrats think Biden lacks has the requisite mental and cognitive health. More importantly, 72% of all voters give him a failing grade on mental health.   

    The family gathering at Camp David was reportedly scheduled before the debate, with the expectation that it would be a celebration of his performance and an opportunity for the extended Biden family — including his children and grandchildren — to be photographed by famed celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz. 

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    In the wake of a historically-horrendous performance that’s prompted many liberal pundits and the New York Times and Atlanta Journal-Constitution editorial boards to urge Biden to quit, the gathering morphed into a summit meeting in which Biden and his family discussed the future of his campaign.  

    In one of the more pathetic vignettes illustrating the Biden family’s failure to grasp the depth of Biden’s political woes, the Times reports that “at least one of the president’s grandchildren has expressed interest in getting more involved with the campaign, perhaps by talking with influencers on social media.” 

    That should do it! 

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 07/01/2024 – 20:10

  • Americans Set To Travel In Record Numbers For July 4th
    Americans Set To Travel In Record Numbers For July 4th

    Fourth of July holiday travel is expected to reach a new record high in 2024, as more than 70 million Americans are forecast to hit the road or the skies to travel more than 50 miles for this year’s celebrations.

    That’s according to projections from AAA who are predicting that 60.6 million Americans will take to the nation’s roads, while 5.7 million will take a plane and 4.6 million will travel by train or other means for Independence Day.

    Infographic: Americans Set to Travel in Record Numbers for July 4th | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    As Statista’s Felix Richter notes, that represents an increase of 5 percent from last year and 8 percent from 2019, as low air fares and gas prices are fueling Americans’ appetite for travel.

    “With summer vacations in full swing and the flexibility of remote work, more Americans are taking extended trips around Independence Day,” Paula Twidale, Senior Vice President of AAA Travel said in a statement.

    “We anticipate this July 4th week will be the busiest ever with an additional 5.7 million people traveling compared to 2019.”

    All modes of transport are set to see a noticeable increase this year and road trips will continue to dominate Fourth of July travel.

    85 percent of travelers are expected to drive to their holiday destination as gas prices have eased from the historic highs of the past two years.

    Even though air travel is far less common for Independence Day celebrations, airports are expected to be busier than ever these days.

    In the weeks leading up to July 4, the TSA reported several new records for performed safety checks at U.S. airports.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 07/01/2024 – 20:00

  • The Modern Myth Of "Wage Slavery"
    The Modern Myth Of “Wage Slavery”

    Via SchiffGold.com,

    The idea of ‘wage slavery’ unfairly compares today’s suffering job market to historical chattel slavery, using outdated 19th-century arguments to criticize modern work. This oversimplification overlooks the significant improvements in workers’ freedom and their right to work.  Some will choose to work at a lower wage than accept a worse alternative.

    The following article was originally published by the Mises Institute. The opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of Peter Schiff or SchiffGold.

    Unless you work for a bank or the government, you may not have noticed that June 19th was a federal holiday – Juneteenth – commemorating the end of slavery in the United States.

    This is a perfectly good thing to celebrate, of course, but alas, as Connor O’Keeffe has recently noted, since the day was declared a federal holiday in 2021, it has largely been used by leftwing groups to push ever larger amounts of government intervention in favor of the Left’s favorite interest groups.

    For example, among the “property is theft” crowd, the end of chattel slavery is framed as merely a small part of the larger “ongoing struggle“ to abolish so-called “wage slavery.”

    The Origins of “Wage Slavery”

    The idea that wage earners are “slaves” of one sort or another is certainly not new. Consider, for example, this paragraph from communist Mikhail Bakunin, writing in the late 1860s:

    Slavery can change its form and its name—its basis remains the same. This basis is expressed by the words: being a slave is being forced to work for other people—as being a master is to live on the labour of other people. In ancient times, as to-day in Asia and Africa, slaves were simply called slaves. … to-day they are called “wage-earners”. The position of these latter is much more honourable and less hard than that of slaves, but they are none the less forced by hunger as well as by the political and social institutions, to maintain by very hard work the absolute or relative idleness of others. Consequently, they are slaves.

    When Bakunin wrote these words, however, the concept of the “wage slave” was already decades old. It is likely that the first anti-capitalists to use the term were conservatives, and not socialists like Bakunin.

    This was true in both Britain and in the United States.

    When it came to wage labor, many British conservatives aggressively opposed the rise of the industrial workforce, condemning factory work as a form of slavery and tying the industrialists to the supporters of chattel slavery in the West Indies and the American South where slavery remained legal. In efforts to make these comparisons stick, conservative critics of industrialization invented new terms like “wage slavery,” “factory slaves,” and “white slavery.” Much of the conservatives’ terminology and their arguments would later be adopted by socialists. These terms were valuable in that time period because at the time opposition to chattel slavery within the British public had enjoyed considerable success, culminating with the 1834 Slavery Abolition Act.

    In the antebellum United States, slave-owning conservatives used similar tactics in an effort to portray chattel slavery as a system that was more moral than free labor. Although advocates for slavery often fancied themselves the defenders of civilization against “socialists, communists, red republicans, [and] Jacobins“ they often agreed with Marxists and other socialists when it came to critiquing the capitalist wage system. While slavery advocates naturally rejected the supposed egalitarian aspects of various groups of socialists and communists, all could agree that capitalist employers exploited their workers and reduced them to a pitiable state of scratching out a subsistence while the employer pocketed all the surplus.

    On both sides of the Atlantic, conservatives argued—without any factual basis—that wages are repeatedly pushed down to subsistence levels by conspiracies among employers. The conservatives also often repeated the old canard that workers are never really free to leave their jobs because the choice workers face is between doing anything and everything employers demand on the one hand, and starvation on the other hand.

    Why Wage Slaves Don’t Exist

    The conservative ideologies of old, of course, are now politically irrelevant, and the modern threat to markets comes from the Left. In terms of theory, however, remarkably little has changed since the days of Bakunin, even if the standard of living of workers has obviously grown far beyond what nineteenth-century critics could possibly comprehend.

    At the core of the claim, whether made by slavedrivers or communists, is the idea that workers are “forced by hunger” to work ceaselessly without an opportunity to bid up wages.

    Or, as Mises summarizes the argument in Human Action:

    It has been asserted that a job-seeker must sell his labor at any price, however low, as he depends exclusively on his capacity to work and has no other source of income. He cannot wait [because he faces starvation if there is any delay in employment] and is forced to content himself with any reward the employers are kind enough to offer him. This inherent weakness makes it easy for the concerted action of the masters to lower wage rates. They can, if need be, wait longer, as their demand for labor is not so urgent as the worker’s demand for subsistence.

    Mises goes on to explain a variety of problems with this claim, including this:

    It has been shown that it is not true that the job-seekers cannot wait and are therefore under the necessity of accepting any wage rates, however low, offered to them by the employers. It is not true that every unemployed worker is faced with starvation; the workers too have reserves and can wait; the proof is that they really do wait. On the other hand waiting can be financially ruinous to the entrepreneurs and capitalists too. If they cannot employ their capital, they suffer losses. Thus all the disquisitions about an alleged “employers’ advantage” and “workers’ disadvantage” in bargaining are without substance.

    That latter point is certainly key. It is not the case that employers are able to casually “outwait” workers. Rather, there is great pressure on employers to employ their capital—which requires workers—quickly.

    When Mises notes that “it has not been shown” that workers will always take whatever wages are offered—this is not wishful thinking on Mises’s part. Were it true that employers could constantly force down wages, then we would not find that workers’ real wages have increased immensely since the eighteenth century. Economic historians have shown this again and again. The “immiseration of the workers” thesis is simply wrong.

    We can further demonstrate Mises’s claim with the fact that so many American workers choose to simply not work at all. Recent research estimates that as many as seven million men of prime age (i.e, 25-54 years old) have left the workforce altogether. How can they afford to live? While it’s true that some are on government benefits, the vast majority do not collect benefits in amounts that could even come close to rivaling the income that could be had from ordinary employment. Nor are such amounts sufficient to maintain even a lower-middle-class lifestyle. The fact is these potential workers chose to not work at all and instead primarily live off the incomes of parents, spouses and girlfriends. Yet, if all workers were on the edge of starvation and subsistence living, it would not be possible for them to also support do-nothing male housemates. The workers themselves would barely be making enough to feed themselves, and these male non-workers would be living in a constant state of near-starvation. This clearly is not the case.

    If it were impossible for workers to miss even a few days of employment, lest they face starvation, there would be virtually zero openings in minimum-wage jobs. Even casual observation, however, shows that the local burger joint often has open positions.

    Another reason the wage-slave argument fails is the fact that—assuming there is even a moderate amount of market competition among firms—employers are motivated to expand production so as to increase market share. Employers are thus incentivized to increase worker productivity. To increase productivity, workers then seek the best workers and “poach” them from other businesses. This process bids up wages.

    Historical experience points to many examples. In The Rise and Fall of American Growth, historian Robert Gordon writes:

    By 1914 [compared to 1906] the average nominal manufacturing wage had increased by 30 percent from seventeen cents per hour to twenty-two cents per hour, which translated to $2.04 per day. Consider the sensation created when Henry Ford announced early in 1914 that henceforth the base wage in his Highland Park factory would be $5 per day. His ulterior motive was to reduce labor turnover combined with a bit of altruism. Labor turnover was an endemic problem at the time, due in part to the reliance of manufacturing plants on immigration workers who were not yet married and planned to move on to another town whenever news came of better wages of working conditions. For instance, the superintendent of a mine in western Pennsylvania alleged that he had hired 5,000 workers in a single year to sustain his desired work force of 1,000. The fact that unskilled work in manufacturing plants required little or no training made it easy for immigrant workers who were dissatisfied with one type of work to quit and move to another town and try something different.

    Clearly, workers are not “forced” to remain with any particular employer or face starvation. Wage workers have options. Free labor—unlike slaves—is free to employ their freedom-to-leave in ways designed to reduce their reliance on any single source of income. Workers are free to start their own businesses—and many do. Although many point to the decline of “mom and pop” retail outlets as evidence of a lack of entrepreneurial activities, the fact is that self-employment in the service economy is very robust. There is no lack of small-time service-oriented businesses in industries ranging from accounting to auto repair to construction, and beyond.

    Moreover, workers are free to pool their resources to cope with rising costs of living. Workers are free to create communes or simply live in multi-generation households—thus reducing per-capita rent costs—as many of our ancestors did before the twentieth century. Actual slaves are not free to do any of these things.

    Another key point is an obvious moral distinction. The true reality of actual slavery is suggested by the fact that it has always been morally permissible for a chattel slave to kill his own master at any time. Given that chattel slavery is a form of kidnapping and false imprisonment, it is simply an act of self-defense when a slave responds with deadly force against his kidnappers. (Whether or not it is prudent to kill one’s master in a place where slavery is protected by law is another matter.)

    It should strike us as absurd, on the other hand, to claim that the owner of the local Taco Bell has “kidnapped” the workers who staff the drive-thru. Moreover, it is clear that countless workers who have worked in these minimum wage jobs at one time or another have moved on to other jobs with much, much higher wages. Are these former fast-food workers runaway slaves? Clearly not.

    Now, one might point out that we everywhere find a variety of laws and regulations that hamper the ability of workers to start their own businesses, reduce their cost of living, and otherwise assert independence from existing employers. In such cases, however, one cannot say that it is the market that has produced such handicaps for workers. Rather, it is the state that imposed these limitations on workers. If the realities of wage work under this interventionist system produce some sort of “slavery” at all, then we can only accurately describe the victims as something akin to “regime slaves” quite separate from any concept of wage slavery.

    And yet, the idea of the “wage slave” persists as the perennial refrain of the anti-capitalist.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 07/01/2024 – 19:40

  • Seattle Woman Charged After Trying To Bribe Juror With $120,000 Cash To "Inject Racism" For Non-Guilty Verdict
    Seattle Woman Charged After Trying To Bribe Juror With $120,000 Cash To “Inject Racism” For Non-Guilty Verdict

    A woman from Seattle has now officially been charged with trying to influence the outcome of a Federal trial by dropping off $120,000 in cash at the home of a juror. 

    31 year old Ladan Mohamed Ali left the cash along with instructions to convince others to acquit the defendants, according to a report from KOMO.

    KOMO reported that “the bribe also included a set of instructions to the juror to ‘inject racism into the case’ and to use the Feeding Our Future defendants’ status as immigrants to gain sympathy from other jurors.”

    Now, she, along with her co-conspirators Abdiaziz Shafii Farah, 35, Abdimajid Mohamed Nur, 23, Said Shafii Farah, 42, and 24-year-old Abdulkarim Shafii Farah, will be defendants themselves.

    U.S. Attorney for the District of Minnesota Andrew M. Luger commented: “These defendants engaged in a chilling attack on our justice system. They sought to buy a juror and use her to infiltrate the jury with their own false arguments – arguments that had nothing to do with the evidence or the law.”

    Prosecutors added: “As part of the scheme, the conspirators decided to target Juror 52 because she was the youngest juror and they believed her to be the only juror of color. The conspirators conducted online research to obtain Juror 52’s personal information, including her home address and information about her background and family members.” 

    “They conducted surveillance of Juror 52 to confirm her home address and obtain information about Juror 52’s daily habits,” they said.

    The indictment read: “Ladan Ali handed the gift bag to a relative of juror 52 and explained there would be more money if juror 52 voted to acquit the defendants.”

    “Fortunately for all of us, juror 52 could not be bought and she terminated their scheme. It is an obvious and blatant attempt to enflame the jury so they disregard their duty to render justice based on the evidence. Through this blueprint for acquittal, the defendants made it clear they wanted to infiltrate the jury not only with a bribe, but with a well-thought out plan to corrupt our system and undermine the rule of law.”

    On June 2, the night before closing arguments in the trial, Ali and Farah drove to a juror’s house with bribe money in gift bags, according to the indictment.

    The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Minnesota told KOMO News that Ladan Ali is not in custody and is expected to self-surrender for an initial federal court appearance later this week.

    ABC News reported that this trial was the first in the Feeding Our Future fraud case, where dozens are accused of misusing federal child nutrition funds during the COVID-19 pandemic to buy luxury items.

    The DOJ has charged 47 defendants in the $250-million fraud scheme involving misappropriated and laundered funds from the Federal Child Nutrition Program.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 07/01/2024 – 19:20

  • VDH: The Lies We Have Lived Through
    VDH: The Lies We Have Lived Through

    Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via American Greatness,

    “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.” 

    – Often attributed to Abraham Lincoln

    After last Thursday’s debate, Biden himself laid to rest the Democratic lie that he was robust and in control of his faculties. In truth, he demonstrated to the nation that he is a sad, failing octogenarian who could not perform any job in America other than apparently the easy task of President of the United States and Commander-in-Chief in charge of our nuclear codes.

    In 2019, Democratic primary candidates often hit rival Joe Biden for his apparent senior moments and incoherence.

    During the 2020 campaign, Biden often became in bizarre fashion animated and nasty (“you ain’t black”/“fat”/“lying dog-faced pony soldier”/“junkie”).

    His “corn pop” stories were grotesque and had a senile accentuation of his earlier “super-predator” and “clean” black riffs.

    As president, his mental decline progressed geometrically, in the sense that every three months, Biden became far, far worse than during the prior 90 days. His handlers long ago had determined that masking his feebleness at the expense of the security and safety of the nation was a small price to pay to retain power.

    What followed was the most comprehensive deceit in presidential history, analogous to insisting that frail and dying FDR in 1944 was just fine as the November election approached or that Woodrow Wilson was expertly running the country as he lay bedridden and near comatose.

    Any who questioned the vigorous Biden narrative was trashed as “ageist.”

    Special counsel Robert Hur was dubbed a “hack” for accurately describing Biden as so amnesiac he would win nullification acquittal from a sympathetic jury.

    An array of court sycophants periodically gave interviews, insisting that the robust Biden was smarter and wiser than ever. His press secretary, Karin Jean-Pierre, helped coin a new slur, “cheap fake,” for any who collated video and audio clips demonstrating that Biden was obviously non compos mentis. Would she say the same today after the about-face CNN panelists reviewed Biden’s serial debate lapses to support their now-opportune advocacy that he not run for reelection? Would she wish to be a passenger in a car driven by Biden?

    In sum, the “dynamic Biden” farce was finally laid to rest by a debate, but not before it had served the original leftist Faustian bargain. Under the guise of COVID, an enfeebled and stationary Biden outsourced his entire 2020 campaign to toady journalists and surrogate politicians.

    His task was to pose from his basement as the uniter, ‘good ol’ Joe from Scranton,’ serving as the pseudo-moderate veneer for the most far left agenda in recent history. In the bargain, Joe and Jill enjoyed the privileges of power and status, while they farmed out the presidency to an array of former Obama subordinates and the hard left of what is left of the old Democratic Party.

    The useful lie continued throughout his presidency, escalating in direct proportion to Joe’s mounting stumbles, brain freezes, rambling, and incomprehensible speech. When our president said something either outrageous or unfathomable, the public was to assume that it was intemperate to attribute his failures to senility.

    So, the nation became acculturated to deciphering about 60 percent of what he said and writing off the rest to his never-to-be-spoken-of disability. It was the cognitive bookend to the ruse that FDR was able to stand and walk—although far worse because being wheel-chair bound is not a limitation for a president, whereas cognitive incapacity of Biden’s magnitude most certainly is.

    The Biden lie was the crown jewel of a number of other left-wing/media fabrications. The more they spread, the more they seemed absurd, and the more they were refuted—so all the more others took their place and the more their promulgators never apologized but simply moved on to their next one. The common denominator was that all the lies, during their existence, were useful to the progressive project.

    The Russian collusion hoax helped lose Trump the 2016 popular vote. Its resumption during his presidency ate up 22 months of his administration during the Special Counsel Robert Mueller farce.

    The October surprise laptop disinformation lie may have cost Trump the 2020 election. But it was concocted so that Joe Biden could stare at the debate camera and swear to the American people that Trump was a liar, citing “51 intelligence authorities” who insisted Hunter Biden’s laptop was a likely hallmark of Russian disinformation.

    We were asked to believe that clever Russian disinformationists fabricated all the sick photos and selfies of poor Hunter, knew the Biden family’s intimate tensions and fault lines as evidenced in the computer’s texts and emails, and were able to package and deposit the computer to either a Russian operative masquerading as a computer repairment or have it delivered to the supposedly useful idiot. The truth was, the FBI had the laptop during the debate and had long verified its authenticity—and thus kept mum as its brethren intelligence apparatchiks lied to the nation.

    What the untruth did not fully reveal was that Biden’s campaign foreign policy guru, Anthony Blinken (the current Secretary of State), cooked up the entire ruse. He enlisted former CIA grandee Mike Morell, who then rounded up on spec the confessed lying duo of John Brennan and James Clapper, who in turn drafted still more deceivers, among them the once esteemed Leon Panetta.

    And the lie worked perfectly as envisioned, far better than even Russian “collusion.” The nation was deceived into believing that the “asset” Trump was reduced once again to colluding with Putin to enlist his former KGB soldiers to smear the upright Biden family and thus warp yet another election.

    Note that all these lies were never retracted. No one ever apologizes. No one is ever punished, even when the lie is given under oath. No one ever has any regrets. And no one ever has any hesitation to lie again, given the utility of the prior untruth.

    We were told by the deceitful Alejandro Mayorkas that the border was “secure” as he deliberately destroyed it and welcomed in over 10 million illegal aliens. That lie survived even the absurdity of years of nightly news clips (“cheap fakes?”) of thousands swarming an open border. And it died only when the 2024 election approached and the Biden administration read polls showing that a vast majority wanted the border closed and illegal entrants deported. Then suddenly, the lie that the border was secure transmogrified into the back-up lie that “Republicans would not help us close the now-insecure border.” Translated into Orwellian terms, the border that was crossed by 10 million was always secure but could have been made even more secure had Republicans joined Democrats to secure what was already “secure.”

    We live in an era of lies. Sometimes they are purely political, like the Charlottesville “both sides” yarn. And sometimes they change history, like the fabrications that bats and pangolins, not the communist Chinese Wuhan virology lab, birthed the COVID-19 virus, or the Anthony Fauci contortion that his offices did not fund and help out, stealthily and in circumvention of U.S. law, deadly gain-of-function virology research in communist China.

    Yet another lie was institutionalized: the January 6 riot was a full-fledged, carefully planned armed insurrection to overthrow the government. In contrast, the four months in 2020 of killing, assault, arson, and looting that saw over 35 dead, 1,500 injured law enforcement officers, $2 billion in damage, and a federal courthouse, a police precinct and a historic church torched were “cries of the heart” from the oppressed and victimized.

    Those untruths ensured that hundreds of mostly naïve protestors who showed up in the capitol soon became convicted felons serving long sentences, while the 14,000 arrested for the 2020 mayhem were mostly released as overzealous but otherwise sympathetic activists.

    These lies changed the course of the nation. They are birthed by the incestuous marriage of a Washington-New York political culture and a corrupt media.

    The purveyors are Juvenal’s “who will police the police.” They are the administrative overseers in the FBI, CIA, DOJ, and the various cabinets and agencies. They feel they are exempt from any consequences for the damage they do, given that in their day jobs they operate as judges, jury and executioners.

    Finally, while all governments lie, the left is far more adroit at it because, in their any-means-necessary/the-ends-justify-the-means credo, they spread supposedly good “lies” that stop the Hitlerian Trump, neuter the creepy deplorables/irredeemables/chumps/clingers or save the good people from the MAGA anti-vaxers and assorted yahoos.

    Will the lies continue?

    Indeed, they will thrive until the people slash the administrative state of its unaccountable and unelected “experts”; until they indict those in the future like Andrew McCabe, James Clapper, John Brennan and their brethren who lie under oath or to federal investigators; until they ostracize and utterly discredit those like Mayorkas, Fauci, and the Bidens whose deceptions took hostage an entire nation; and until they tune out a bankrupt media, the power cord of the entire Pravda enterprise.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 07/01/2024 – 19:00

  • Visualizing US Wealth By Generation
    Visualizing US Wealth By Generation

    In 2023, American Baby Boomers owned 52% of the country’s net wealth despite comprising only 20% of the population.

    Based on Federal Reserve data, this graphic, via Visual Capitalist’s Bruno Venditti, illustrates the distribution of wealth in the United States from 1990 to 2023 by generation.

    Generations are defined by birth year:

    • Silent Generation (born before 1946)

    • Baby Boomers (born 1946-1964)

    • Gen Xers (born 1965-1980)

    • Millennials (born 1981-1996)

    Baby Boomers Own Over Half of the Wealth

    Baby Boomers are often considered one of the luckier generations in terms of timing.

    Most did not experience wars and benefited from strong economic growth driven by falling interest rates, a roaring stock market, global monetary expansion, and high earnings. Consequently, this group’s wealth grew from $4.5 trillion in 1990 to $76.2 trillion in 2023.

    Meanwhile, Gen X’s share of American wealth rose from 15% in 2013 to 26% in 2023. In contrast, with most of the cohort over 80 years old, the Silent Generation saw its share of the national wealth total drop from 79% in 1990 to 13% in 2024.

    Contrary to their ‘broke generation’ label, millennials have defied expectations. They saw their wealth reach historic highs after the COVID-19 pandemic, amassing more wealth by their 40s than previous generations. In a significant leap, millennials’ share of wealth in America increased from a modest 1.4% to a promising 9.2% between 1990 and 2023.

    If you enjoyed this post, be sure to check out this graphic, which shows the retirement savings that Americans currently hold.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 07/01/2024 – 18:40

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